Bent

by Joe Thomas

  It's brewing up, Tojo says, and something's going to go off, resistance are all at it, and you’ve heard the Krauts aren’t taking any bloody chances.

  The partisans are dead men and women.

  And the old fellas asking if you’re parachutists and Tojo has decided to trust him and that means that you’ve decided to trust him too. So Tojo tells him you’re looking for your mob by the church, and that no ones shown and he says hell ask around, subtle like, as there's Germans all about the place, he tells you.

  And then he takes you to one of the barns, one of the barns filled with straw, and it's bloody luxury, it is, and in moments, you’re out like a —

  *

  Challenor's sitting in the Italian delicatessen on Clerkenwell Road, right by the church. Terroni and Sons, established 1878, so the sign says. There's bloody ham hanging everywhere, all about the place, it is. Radio's playing some nonsense about monster mash and a graveyard smash. Gordon Bennett, he's thinking, is this what we’ve come to? Bloody novelty ghoul music? Coffin bangers arrive, he hears. Too bloody right. Coffin for our music scene! Might need a couple, big old hearse, he's thinking -

  ‘Help you?’

  Challenor looks up. ‘What on earth is this nonsense about monster mash and so on?’ he says. He gestures at the room, the sound.

  The young woman laughs. ‘It's a new hit, they say,’ she says. ‘You not heard it? Bobby Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers. Just in time for Halloween, innit?’

  ‘Oh yeah? What a name. What a racket.’

  The woman tosses him a magazine folded open to the news section. ‘Have a look at this if you fancy something less, well, less — ‘

  ‘Less of a racket?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Challenor examines the magazine. It is the New Musical Express. He looks at the cover. September 21, today's date. Well up on the news, then, it must be. His head, well, his head has only gone and cleared, he thinks. His head is running smooth. His head's a bloody Rolls-Royce now.

  ‘Can I help you with anything else?’ the woman asks.

  Challenor's studying the magazine. ‘Just a minute,’ he says, not looking up.

  ‘I’m going nowhere,’ the woman replies.

  Challenor reads. There's a story about two 13-year-old schoolgirls called Sue and Mary who are releasing a record on Decca. Fair enough. More bloody novelty. And then he reads about a Liverpool group called The Beatles who have recorded a song called ‘Love Me Do’ to be released on Parlophone in October.

  ‘You heard of The Rolling Stones?’ Challenor asks the woman.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she says. ‘I was there at their first gig, the Marquee, in fact, not long ago. You know them then?’

  ‘Were you now,’ Challenor says, thinking of old Wilf. ‘I did hear about that gig, in fact, yes. Quite a scene, I’ve heard.’

  ‘I don’t know about scene. Soho, innit?’

  Challenor grins. ‘I know Soho, girl.’

  ‘So,’ the woman asks, and not at all unfriendly, no, absolutely not unfriendly, not at all. ‘Anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘Might be, yes,’ Challenor says. ‘You’re not Maria, are you?’

  The woman smiles. ‘We’ve all got a Maria in us somewhere.’

  Challenor snorts. ‘That's very profound.’

  The woman laughs. ‘No, I mean in our names. Though, yeah, profound — very.’

  ‘I’m after the Maria with the Maria at the beginning of her name, I believe. Young Riccardo's cousin.’

  The woman gives Challenor a look. She nods. She smiles a wry, but rueful smile, yes rueful, Challenor thinks, a rueful smile. But touched with amusement, there's that in it too.

  ‘Maria's in the church next door.’

  ‘Getting some peace and quiet then, is she?’

  ‘Skiving.’

  Challenor laughs. Radio's playing old Sherry again. Frankie Valli is a man after my own heart, Challenor thinks.

  Challenor says, ‘And thanks for the tip.’ He gestures again at the room, the sound. ‘I’ll keep my ears pinned and my eyes peeled.’

  The woman smiles a devilish smile. ‘Sue and Mary's new disc, you mean?’

  ‘All right, settle down, girl,’ Challenor says. He stands. He wriggles into his coat, wraps his scarf. ‘I’m going next door for a pray.’

  *

  ‘There's no sign of any of them at the church. We’ve been back together and separately now three times, over two days.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The farmer has, he's told me, been making some discreet enquiries, and there has been no word of any other parachutists. No sign at all.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I think it's safe to say, Tanky, that we’re extremely unlikely to find our colleagues any time soon.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘We’ve now stayed beyond the time we were instructed by Dudgeon to wait.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And we can’t stay here too much longer, if for no other reason than we’ll endanger the lives of our generous hosts.’

  ‘We will, sir.’

  ‘It's the moment, Tanky, I think, to call it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘We’ve got another set of explosives. We can see the Pontremoli-La Spezia line down there below the farmhouse.’

  ‘We can, sir.’

  ‘And the farmer says there are trains running fairy regularly along it.’

  ‘He does, sir.’

  ‘Well leave at midnight. Lay the charges. Wait for the poor trains whistle, the blast, and we’ll scram. We’ll head south, during the day, high in the mountains, the spine.’

  ‘Goodplan, sir.’

  ‘Head south by the sun, keep to the high ground. Swerve any towns that might be playing host to our German friends.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ You tell yourself: it’ll be a cake walk.

  ‘Then it's agreed.’

  Yes, sir. And you’re pleased —

  You’re itching to get at it again. Growing fat on pasta and booze is all well and good, and a blessed relief for a day or three, but, you know, you’re — what's the word? —you’re hungry. You’re hungry to get at it again.

  Bloody glad you didn’t have to make the decision, mind.

  *

  The Italian church has that Roman Catholic nose to it, that Vatican bouquet; the old incense thurible's been shaken around in here not too long ago, Challenor thinks.

  Confession dust, it is, the smell of sins old and musty. Challenor smiles. Why he doesn’t go to church, on a regular like, on a regular like, basis. But he likes the comfort of the scratchy smell of dust and incense, the hang of it in the air, the cloud of it, taking you back to Italy, prompting thoughts of chanting priests and ominous organ notes, of choristers, of old women dressed in black, cackling some intonation or other.

  Challenor circles the pews — is it pews? he thinks, in a Roman Catholic set-up, a Roman Catholic arena, really - the hard, dark-wooden pews not as comfortable looking as he remembered the opulent seating arrangements in your genuine Italian church, in the churches he popped into in Italy, not all that long ago. They looked a lot easier to park your behind on, those rather more opulent seats, pews, or whatever it is the Pope decrees they should be called.

  He looks up at the ceiling. It curves, broadly, into a bell shape. There are pale blue squares interrupted by religious artworks, angels flying about the place, men in military tunics collapsing, some half-man/half-wild-eyed-hunchbacked-reptilian-mythological-beast seems to be prowling around, all claws and fangs, terrifying naked children, who are clinging to their naked mothers’ breasts. That sort of thing, thinks Challenor. All gold trim and apocalypse and, go on then, son, confess to whatever it is that makes you happy and Bob's your uncle. Just don’t call your priest your uncle, Challenor thinks.

  Challenor runs a hand over the back of a pew. Wooden, hard, he feels its ridges and lines, its history. They’ve all got it in them, this history. Every church and ev
ery pew has got history dripping out of it, pouring out of it, this history is. Challenor wonders about the history of this London Italian church. It's been around the block, after all, hasn’t it? It's been around, it's seen things. It's the centre of a little community, after all, to be fair. This church, the poky social club next door, the little delicatessen next to that -

  The sort of place you’ll find the elder, respectable - or not very respectable, of course — members of this community. And, after all, this centre of the community is not five minutes’ walk from Carlo's restaurant on Theobalds Road, outside which young King Oliva was shot, not too long ago.

  Challenor's heels click as he approaches the front of the church, heads towards the, you know, what's the word, the altar. The front is the point. The spot where your chanting, incense-shaking shaman is doing his thing. Got the look of it that you fancy the odd virgin has been sacrificed here, Challenor thinks. Over the years, got to have been one or two virgins given up in a sacrifice for old God. Challenor smiles. Now he's being silly.

  There's a cough behind him and he turns -

  ‘Help you?’

  A young, dark-haired woman who looks really very like the young, dark-haired woman in the delicatessen is standing about halfway down the, well, aisle. Roman Catholic or any other persuasion, really, it's still an aisle, isn’t it, after all.

  ‘Maria?’ Challenor says.

  ‘Yes, I’m Maria.’ She pauses. ‘One of them, at least.’

  ‘Which one?’ Challenor walks towards her and she's walking towards him, and they are destined to meet a few pews back from the front.

  ‘Of the Pedrini Marias,’ she says, as they stand facing each other now, squarely, her arms crossed, but smiling, his hands in pockets, an appeasing sort of grin, about two or three feet from each other, they are now, in the aisle, a little distance from the front of this historical Italian church.

  ‘I believe I know the clan,’ Challenor says. He grins a little more. He leans against one of the hard, wooden seats, one of the pews, casual like. ‘I think you might be able to help me, cattiva Maria.’

  She raises her eyebrows at that. ‘You what?’ she says, arms more firmly crossed now. This is not a word she hears that often from an English fella, Challenor suspects, especially not from the gob of some middle-aged, bull-like detective.

  ‘You’re friendly with young Joseph Oliva, aren’t you?’

  Challenor's straight to the point. He's got the right Maria, he knows that, and so he thinks, what's the point buggering about, let's get straight to it, straight to the point.

  Maria winces, sneers. ‘Who are you, then, grandad, speaking Italian, asking me questions like that?’ she says. ‘Cattiva?’ she adds. ‘Cheeky sod. I should tell my cousin.’

  ‘Riccardo?’ Challenor smiles.

  Maria looks less than thrilled by all this, Challenor thinks. One more twist, and she's his.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, sulking now. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Oh,’ says Challenor, ‘only that Riccardo and I know each other. Business. We have business. You know what I mean?’

  It's a question. Challenor waits for an answer -

  Maria nods.

  ‘So?’ Challenor says. ‘My other question.’

  Maria nods again. ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘You seeing him tonight?’

  Maria nods.

  ‘Good,’ Challenor says. ‘Good.’ He nods to himself and paces a couple of times, takes a turn in between the two sets of pews. ‘You here for a pray, are you?’ he says.

  This throws young Maria a little, Challenor sees. Challenor sits down. He takes a pew. He gestures for young Maria to do the same. She shakes her head. She wraps her arms a touch more tightly around her chest.

  ‘Well?’ Challenor says.

  ‘I work next door,’ Maria says. ‘Sometimes I help out here with the books.’ She nods towards the back of the church. ‘In the office.’

  ‘Anyone else there?’

  ‘Nah, just me today.’

  ‘Not skiving then?’

  Maria frowns, but there is a hint, Challenor thinks, a hint of a smile behind it. ‘Who you been talking to?’ she says.

  Challenor grins. ‘None of your beeswax, girl.’ He jogs his knees in the cold. They’re always cold, churches, he thinks.

  ‘So,’ Maria asks. ‘You mind telling me who you are?’

  ‘You work for old Wilf Gardiner, I’ve heard.’

  ‘Worked. Past tense. You didn’t answer my question.’

  Challenor pulls his credentials. ‘Detective Sergeant Challenor, West End Central. That's Soho to you, love.’

  Maria is nodding now, she's nodding and she's looking a touch, well, more than a touch, nervous.

  Challenor goes on. ‘So you used to work at Gardiner's place, and now you don’t, and your cousin and your fella and Gardiner have fallen out. That about right?’

  Maria nods.

  Challenor goes on. ‘So you’re going to do me a little favour today, right? What you’re going to do, girl, is you’re going to go and tell your cousin and your fella that Detective Sergeant Challenor came to see you and that he said that if this business with old Wilf Gardiner is not sorted out right now then he's going to bring you in on a solicitation charge. You know what that is?’

  Maria shakes her head.

  Challenor goes on. ‘Well, Maria, you’re well aware of what goes on in old Wilf Gardiner's nightclubs, aren’t you?’ She nods. ‘So you’ll also know that there are ways for his employees — his female employees — to make a little extra money, upstairs, with the customers.’ She nods again. ‘And you’ll also know that for one of these female employees to offer this service is strictly against the law.’ She nods again. ‘Well, love, it's not going to be too hard for me to find someone who will testify that you did just that in your time as a female employee of Wilf Gardiner's cabaret and revue bar, to give it its full name. Capisci?

  Maria nods. ‘I understand,’ she says. ‘Today, right?’

  ‘As soon as, my girl.’

  Maria's nodding. ‘And that's all? I pass on this message, and...’

  ‘And we’re rosy, love. You, my dear, have nothing to worry about.’ Challenor pauses. ‘I’m not interested in you,’ he says.

  Challenor stands. He bows, half to young Maria, half to the church -

  Challenor clicks off up the aisle, through the heavy wooden door, down the steps, two at a time, and into a fresh little early-autumn morning -

  With a fat, mischievous grin plastered right across his mug.

  *

  It's the eighteenth of September, eleven days after you were dropped down, down in the dark, the dark, cool night, noiselessly, floating noise-lessly down through that immense, deep blue-black night, down into — onto — Italy —

  Italy

  You’re full of pasta and wine and coffee and bread and butter and sausage and ham and you’re hungry —

  The farmer's wife has filled a bag for you, filled it with bread and ham and sausage and wine, and you hump the bag onto your back, and you heft this huge bag along with the rest of your kit and you walk away from the farmhouse and head straight down the hill and into the trees so that you don’t have to turn around and wave — again —goodbye to your kind hosts, your benevolent, understanding, courageous hosts.

  Neither of you talk. You’re not normally so quiet on the run-up to a job. You’re not sure what it is. You think it might be the act of leaving, of in your mind, abandoning your colleagues. Of leaving, of abandoning, of leaving Dudgeon, Foster, Shortall, Pinckney and Greville-Bell.

  leaving them behind.

  Tojo, you have to assume, is feeling something similar, something familiar, something worse, you, in fairness, have to assume. As you know bloody well that that was not a decision you wanted to take.

  So you’re saying nothing —

  If Tojo wants to talk, you’ll talk, but until that moment definitively arises, you’re saying nothing.

  The tre
es seem to bend away from you, curve away from you, arch up into the hill and down the other side. White oak, green oak, conifers —your basic Italian trees. That's what Tojo's told you, after he's had a parlay with the farmer and learnt a little more about the lay of the land, and not just about Jerry's whereabouts.

  The Pontremoli-La Spezia line runs between two hills not a half-days trudge from the farmhouse. You clock the entrance to a tunnel from the mouth of which an apparently working railway line sticks out, like a metal tongue, and curves and bends away into the valley and through the Apennine mountains.

  You wait an hour. You wait and watch the tunnel for an hour —

  Then you scramble down using the clusters of basic Italian trees as cover and lay the charges on either side of the single line.

  You have no idea how much time you have before a train so you scarper —

  You scramble back up the hill and pick up your gear, and your bag of ham and sausage and bread and wine, and you’re on your way —

  You only reach the foothills though, and there it is: the whistle of a train.

  You both pause, stop, cock your ears.

  Cock your ears? No need for that:

  An ear-drum shattering explosion rings out, echoes out, rolls out between the hills, throbs and hums down the valley —

  And you’re laughing, both of you are laughing, grinning and laughing, and you calm down and you shake hands and you head south —

  South, south towards the Allied lines —

  You make south by the sun and you keep to the high ground.

  At least that's where you believe they are, these Allied lines.

  South.

  Easy.

  *

  Challenor sits at his desk with his head eased, and his head has really dropped a gear in terms of its engine growl, its gorgeous, low, healthy sounding rattle -

  It's really humming, now, it is, his head. It's opened up its throttle and is cruising, now, it is, his head.

  And nobody seems to be too concerned with his little small-hours visit to the cells, and he's thinking about what to do in terms of the evening ahead, and, specifically, he's looking at a list of names and working out which of this list is going to be keeping an eye on the Phoenix tonight, and he works it out, and he wonders.

  He wonders what to do.