“I'm probably being paranoid,” he said, bringing the cups to the table and settling himself down. “But you never know if walls have ears around here and I've been working on something that's pretty sensitive.”
“Oh?” My spoon of sugar paused over my cup.
“Yes,” he said, leaning across the table. “I've been working for the National Council For Civil Liberties for the past eight months.”
“What's that?” I asked, stirring the sugar into my drink.
“We attempt to get justice for people who've been wrongfully convicted.” Chris's eyes danced the way they had always done when he had something exciting to tell you. “People the police have framed for things they didn't do.”
“Really?” I was showing my ignorance now. “The police actually do such things?”
Chris shook his head. “You'd be surprised. I've been talking to people who've had long sentences handed down and yet they've done nothing, have no previous convictions, just the word of a policeman against them. At the moment, the Home Secretary won't even take a look at their cases, so we have to build up more evidence. But without us, these people would have no hope at all, that's why this work really matters.”
“My word,” I said. I had always known Chris was a bit of an activist – and the terrifying events in Cuba last October had certainly been enough to get him and several thousand others back into supporting CND – but this was a major commitment.
“It started off voluntary,” he went on, “then a permanent position came up and I was in too deep to turn it down. I've been doing a lot of interviews and I think soon we'll have enough to challenge the court. It's quite incredible, but a number of people – and I mean a large number, the last chap I spoke to just now was the eleventh person we've heard about – seem to have been put away by one detective over the past year, all on fabricated evidence.”
I was stunned. Not just by what Chris was telling me, though I found that shocking enough. But also because he was unwittingly connecting with the thoughts that had been disturbing me all evening, ever since that journalist opened her mouth. Had my life gone in the right direction since we left college? Or had I missed something along the way?
“Thing is,” Chris continued, “the officer in question works out of West End Central so that's why I've got to be careful of what I say and how loud I say it.”
“Of course,” I nodded. “Gosh, Chris. You are doing something more important than the art struggle aren't you? It makes what I'm doing all seem rather superficial.”
“Not at all.” He shook his head. “We've all got to play to our strengths. The thing is, I actually like doing this more than trying to be an artist. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun with David and I think we did achieve something, but it does all pale compared to people's lives and liberty. I can do something about it, so I do. But it must be a similar thing for you, Stella?” He smiled encouragingly. “I mean, you started out wanting to do fine art and here you are, about to open a clothes shop, you must be doing what you enjoy the most, too?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling little pricks behind my eyelids again. “Yeah, you're right. It's funny how we all get swept along doing different things, isn't it?”
As I spoke, a song came on the jukebox. It was James's latest protégé, a boy with bleached hair, singing a song about Eddie Cochran – another tragic rocker, taken before his time. James must have been at his ouija board again.
“How is Dave, by the way?” I asked, trying to ignore the reverb-heavy lament. “I haven't seen him for ages.”
Before he could answer there was a screeching commotion from the front of the café. A very stout, unpleasant-looking middle-aged woman in a shabby purple suit with a fox fur collar was having a row with a younger girl, in an even more grubby-looking mustard-coloured dress.
“I told you, you silly tart,” the older woman snarled, revealing a set of yellow teeth smeared in red lipstick. “I ain't got your quid.” She grabbed hold of the girl's chin and sunk her painted talons in as hard as she could – I could see the pain register in her victim's bewildered brown eyes. “And there won't be no bleedin’ quid unless you lay off the gin and get to work. Now go on, get out of it.” With that, she spun the other woman around, stuck a pointed toe up her backside and literally booted her out of the door.
People sitting around the purple woman started to laugh, clapping her on the back as if she had just done something really funny. I was waiting for the owner to sling her out, but he continued mopping the top of the counter with a dishcloth, blind, deaf and dumb to the whole incident.
“Did you see that?” I asked Chris, wondering if my eyes had actually been deceiving me.
He shook his head as if he were more than used to such behaviour.
“It's always fun and games around here isn't it?” he said, and his eyes drifted from the women to the clock above the counter. He must have realised he was running late, as he started stacking all his files together again in a purposeful way. “Anyway, Stella,” he said. “I'm sure I've held you up here long enough. Are you walking to the tube?”
“Yes,” I said, gathering up all my bags and getting to my feet. After that performance, I had no desire to sit around here any longer.
Chris walked me through Soho Square and up to Tottenham Court Road tube. “I'll leave you here if you don't mind,” he said as we approached the entrance.
“Oh?” I frowned. “Don't you live in Vernon Yard any more?”
“Technically, yes,” he said. “But I spend more time at the office these days. I can get a bus from here up to Camden Town. That's where I've got to go.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.
“It was really good to see you Stella. Give my love to Toby, won't you? Oh and David, yes, I forgot to say, he's been working with that old neighbour of yours, James, was it? He's made a record, a very weird thing, but that's what he's into nowadays. Music apparently being more accessible to the masses than art.” He raised his eyebrows. “Anyway, I better dash, I think I can see my bus on the horizon. Bye now Stella, take care of yourself.”
“Bye,” I muttered, watching him weave his way through the traffic towards the bus stop on the opposite corner. I had a strange feeling I had missed an opportunity as Chris disappeared into the crowd, and I wished I could call him back, but what could I say? I couldn't even admit my thoughts properly to myself. With a painful feeling in my chest, I walked down the tube steps, went back to my big, empty house.
13 RING OF FIRE
Pete stopped for a moment to rub his eyes; he was starting to lose focus. The grandfather clock behind him, steadily ticking the night away, began to whirr, the prelude to its quarterly chimes. But quarter past what was it now?
He had begun to type up his report at eight o’clock, after they'd had tea. Some time after that, Joan had kissed him on the forehead and told him she was going to bed. The overflowing ashtray to his left indicated that this had been some hours ago now.
Pete turned in his chair. Quarter past two it was. Still he wasn't through the half of it.
He ran his hands through his hair, tried to get his thoughts in order.
His work in Soho was almost done. The black car had come for him just before the Cooper-Clay fight, to deliver the tickets and more. It was time to get everything together, he was told. The National Council of Civil Liberties had been petitioning the Home Secretary on exactly the same matter that he was investigating.
The first time the black car had come was in May 1962. Pete had been on his way to see the Chief Superintendent, to turn down the offer to transfer to West End Central. He had worked out exactly what he was going to say, how he was flattered but felt he could do more for the community here in Notting Hill, where he had put down roots, where he knew the villains and had an effective system of snouts. He was worried that this might not sound like enough, but he was going to stand firm anyway. It may be dirty work in Ladbroke Grove but at least his fellow officers knew how to handle it. Not like
the gangsters and spivs in Soho. He had no desire to get mixed up in any of that.
He had been on the crest of the hill, five minutes away from the station, when a black Rover parked on the side of the road in Lansdowne Crescent sounded its horn. Pete had looked over to see a man getting out of the driver's seat, beckoning him over. He thought it was going to be somebody lost, asking for directions.
“Peter Bradley?” the man said instead. “Detective Constable?”
Pete frowned. He didn't recognise the man although he didn't have the sort of face that you would remember, he was as sober and purposeful as his grey flannel suit. The car had tinted windows and as the fact registered, he took a step backwards, ready to take flight. A villain could look as sober and purposeful as the next man, all the better for him if he did, and getting revenge on someone who had put you or your associates away only streets from the nick would be the kind of stunt that could make you a legend.
“Don't be alarmed, sir,” said the grey man quickly, fishing into his breast pocket, “here's my warrant card.” He flicked it open before Pete could catch his breath.
DS Paul Rouse, it read. It wasn't a name Pete was familiar with either. He looked up, a question forming in his eyes that the other man answered before he could speak.
“If you don't mind,” DS Rouse said, “there's someone here wants a word with you.” He opened the rear door of the car and there inside was a face Pete hadn't seen for a long time. DI Reginald Bell pointed to the empty seat next to him.
“I won't keep you long,” he said, making a show of studying his wristwatch. “I see you are thirty minutes early for your chat with the Chief Superintendent, that gives us twenty to ourselves. I'll have you back here in good time, I assure you.”
Pete's throat went dry, cold chills running down his spine. Bell and The Bastard. Now he was going to find out.
“I remember you from Chiswick,” said Bell as the door closed behind Pete. “Roberta Clarke.” He fixed him with those grey-green eyes, hard and sharp as flints. “You impressed me then, Bradley. You were much more on the ball than that burnt-out wreck of a sergeant. So I've been keeping an eye on you.”
The motor of the car started up and Pete felt it pull away onto Ladbroke Grove, turning right at the junction.
“I believe you did your National Service with the First Battalion of the Coldstream Guards,” the Detective Inspector went on.
“Yes sir.” Pete hardly knew what to say, so kept it cautious, deferential, assuming it would all be explained to him in Bell's good time.
“That was my regiment during the war,” said Bell. “A small company of men whom God hath made instruments of Great Things.”
“Yes sir.” Pete held eye contact with the other man, wondering if this meant that he had served at Dunkirk, where the regiment had received honours for bravery.
“And though poor, yet honest as ever corrupt Nature produced into the world,” Bell continued, “by the no dishonourable name of Coldstreamers.”
“Thomas Gumble,” Pete dredged back from memory. “1671.”
Pete saw that same sparkle come into Bell's eyes that he had seen on the riverbank in Chiswick.
“That's right, Detective Constable. You joined the Metropolitan Police after your duty was completed, applied to become a Detective as soon as you could, with results we all know about. Your Chief Superintendent says you are a man of integrity, that you have a superb arrest rate and a way of turning a villain's ear. But the most important thing he has to say is that you work best by yourself.”
“I suppose so sir,” said Pete, feeling a little bolder now. “Why, what's this all about?”
“I will explain,” said Bell. “But indulge me in one notion first. I believe you are about to go and tell your Chief Super that you have no desire to transfer to West End Central and work with DS Harold Wesker. This is not because you don't fancy the work, but because you have met Wesker and you don't much fancy working for him.”
Pete felt his stomach flip. He tried not to blink, said: “Yes sir, those are my feelings entirely, although I beg your pardon but I don't see how you can know.”
“You've met the man,” said Bell. “For an honourable Coldstreamer, that is enough.” He raised his hand and pinched the top of his nose, screwed up his eyes for a moment as if he was in pain. “Detective Sergeant Harold Wesker was a very brave man himself, during the war,” he said, looking back at Pete. “He was parachuted into Italy with eight other men from the Special Air Service and he was the only one to survive. He was captured by the enemy, tortured and sentenced to death. But he managed to escape by dressing up as a char lady, joined a group of partisans and fought his way through the country, blowing up as much of the infrastructure as he could on his way. He was awarded the Military Medal here and a Resistance Award for bravery in France. When he came to the police in 1951 his record showed him to be fearless, energetic and inventive and initially he was a superb policeman. However…”
Bell winced again, looked out of the window.
“Something went wrong with him when he transferred to West End Central. It sometimes happens when a man is working too closely within areas of organised crime. I am beginning to develop a theory that it has got something to do with the blasted streets of Soho itself…”
He stopped himself, shook his head and looked back at Pete.
“Bradley,” he said, “what I am going to ask you to do will require more than bravery, it will require the utmost integrity, which may be the only thing you can rely on when you are forced to go behind the backs of your fellow officers and risk everything that comes with that. But I believe you have the qualities I need and I believe you will go in to see your Chief Superintendent, in fifteen minutes’ time, and tell him that you are ready to face the fresh challenge of a transfer.”
Quarter of an hour later, Pete was dropped back on the corner of Lansdowne Crescent, feeling a mixture of elation and ice-cold fear.
“Nulli secundus, Bradley,” the DI said as he closed the car door.
Pete read back through the densely-typed pages, wondering whether those fine qualities Bell had talked about had served him well at all. The trouble was, since he'd been part of West End Central, Wesker's behaviour had become so bizarre that even incidents Pete knew he had witnessed with his own two eyes read back like utter fantasy.
Only at the beginning had any of it made a certain kind of sense.
Wesker had courted a reputation with the press as the man who was cleaning up Soho. He liked the linen drapers and the linens liked him back – he was just the kind of tough guy they wanted to scourge society's sinners; a bona fide war hero with a jocular way with words to spice up their yarns.
The way Wesker told it, the streets that ran between the murky square of Tottenham Court Road, Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and Warren Street were a nest of dire villainy, the product of an organised crimewave as pernicious as Al Capone's Chicago. Only the toughest police officers – himself and Grigson mainly, but with a youthful army of aids for Uncle Harry to train – stood between the honest public and utter anarchy. As part of his act, Wesker naturally had to maintain an intimate relationship with all of the moody gaffs that were run on his patch.
Pete's induction to Wesker's beat had been a heady tour of pool halls, amusement arcades, bookies, speakeasies, spielers, strip clubs, clip joints, jazz dives, late night eateries and public houses that catered for very specific parts of the trade. In some ways it was very similar to Ladbroke Grove, but somehow in these older streets lurked a darker sense of corruption, an historical weight of venality and violence. Generations of criminal families had organised these streets to their own business needs. The more atonal modern jazz plied in basement rooms by some of the best musicians Pete had ever seen was the perfect soundtrack to frenetic, discordant Soho. The goodtime Jamaican ska of the mushroom clubs in Powis Square would have seemed too carefree here.
Pete and Bell had worked on a persona for him to hide behind, a further ma
sk to slip over the face he strove to keep impassive, the disguise within the disguise. It was based on the drill sergeant who had taught Pete how to box in the army and the playing of the part had helped a lot. As had his boxing credentials. Bell already knew Pete had been his regiment's middleweight champion and how that would play in Wesker's macho world; Wesker himself was a former champion amateur boxer. The constant supply of fight tickets, supposedly from one of Pete's snouts in the Grove, but really courtesy of Bell himself, maintained that insider illusion.
Every day, Pete filed away his real feelings into a separate compartment in his head while the logical part of his brain set to work deducing Wesker's angles. It seemed to boil down to a vested interest in a couple of nightspots owned by a certain villain called Sampson Marks.
Marks was an unpleasant-looking man with a face like a hatchet, which he was at pains to detract from with the finest tailored suits, an abundance of gold and diamond jewellery and a cloud of musky cologne. He was a descendent of the firms that ran Soho in the days of Billy Hills and Jack Spot, who had first made good in the East End and then come looking for a whiff of West One glamour. He had even once been involved in an enterprise that included Peter Rachman, a restaurant in Mayfair, but had managed to slide out of that just before Profumo made the name too hot to handle. Now his business was concentrated between a strip club in Old Compton Street and a much more salubrious venture, a supper club that attracted the cream of the entertainment world and was, to all intents and purposes, owned by the ex-boxer Teddy Hills.
Teddy. The World Light Heavyweight Champion of 1949, an amiable bear of a man who had since forged a successful career in light entertainment, unable, like many of his kind, to keep away from the bright lights when his career in the ring dimmed. Teddy who was always out front with the punters while other men made use of his office, in all probability blissfully unaware of what they were really doing there. Or so Pete hoped. Thanks to Wesker, Pete had spent a lot of time in Teddy's club and his liking for the former pugilist went beyond the admiration that lingered from his boyhood into what seemed like a genuine friendship.
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