Bent

by Joe Thomas

  For conspiracy to demand money with menaces, and for demanding money with menaces:

  Ford is sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

  For conspiracy to demand money with menaces, for possessing an offensive weapon, and for receiving a stolen radio:

  Oliva is sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.

  For possessing an offensive weapon:

  Fraser is sentenced to fifteen months’ imprisonment.

  In his office, Challenor punches the air. Challenor grins.

  Challenor reads Judge Maude's statement on passing sentence.

  It is necessary for the protection of the public that blackmail of any kind - particularly in the heart of London - should be sternly dealt with at the earliest possible stage - that is, when persons have only gone as far as agreeing to commit such a detestable crime. In other words, when they conspire to commit blackmail.

  Moreover, the punishment must be of such severity as will show that the courts are of determination to strike fear into the hearts of persons who agree to act as ‘frighteners’ and thieves. Doubtless you thought that with Mr Gardiner's disgraceful past, he would not dare to invoke the law and face the police and jury for the fear in his heart that the past would prevent the acceptance of the truth from his lips.

  Woe betide anyone if anything happens to Mr Gardiner and woe betide anyone who tries to do this sort of thing again in the heart of London. The next time, the sentences will be doubled.

  Challenor likes the touch of mentioning Gardiner like this. It's a nice touch, that. Good old his honourable Judge Maude.

  Challenor is also very pleased with the headline in the Evening Standard:

  ‘Sergeant Harry topples “King Oliva”.’

  Yeah, cheers, Challenor thinks, raising a can of celebratory Guinness to the photo of himself in the paper, in which he is raising a glass of celebratory Guinness.

  Yeah, have that, you flash Italian fucks.

  *

  You cant take more than about five steps at a time before another German vehicle rumbles along the road towards you and you have to dive into the ice-covered ditch.

  You stumble and trip and fall and drag yourself along this road, this endless road bustling with German vehicles —

  And then you walk straight into a torch, straight into a sentry's torch.

  You’re at the edge of a village, a perimeter patrolled by German sentries, a village that you didn’t even notice as you stumbled, exhausted, towards it, cold, exhausted, shaking and shivering from your malaria and you are falling apart, it feels, your malaria and you don’t have the legs, your malarial knees have gone, the malaria, this is, that you cant overcome by willpower alone.

  The German sentry is poking his gun at you, he's shouting, barking at you. You’re shaking your head. He pulls an Italian over from the hut behind him. The Italian speaks at you, fast, this Italian speaks at a hell of a pace, Christ, you cant follow much and the game is almost certainly up.

  You’re exhausted. You shrug. ‘Englander, Englander,’ you hear yourself saying.

  Then: hands all over you, the gun, the silk map.

  You hear: ‘You are armed, equipped with a map and wearing civilian clothes. This is a serious matter.’

  Then: the back of a car and the SS headquarters in Popoli.

  ‘You are not a soldier,’ an officer is saying to you as he leads you across a courtyard stained with blood, a courtyard whose walls are pockmarked with bullet holes. ‘You are a spy and you will be shot if you do not help us. We want to know what you have been doing and where you have been.’

  Then the beatings start.

  *

  Challenor swaggers down the corridors of the Mad House. He saunters, he struts. He's peacocking about the place, lording it. This stroll around the Mad House is a bloody victory parade.

  Challenor is brandishing a copy of the Evening News, brandishing it like a truncheon, like a conductor's baton, thrusting it under his arm like Nelson's telescope.

  It's a bloody victory parade, it is. It's an open-top bus of a stroll.

  Challenor's reciting the newspaper report as he parades around West End Central, accepting the handshakes and the accolades, the backslaps and the grins, the earnest nods and the winks.

  The newspaper's report is favourable, Challenor reckons. Favourable is definitely a good word for this report. It is approving, auspicious. Challenor loves this report, bloody loves it, though of course he wasn’t actually there, wasn’t actually listening.

  Listening to the sentences being passed was forty-one-year-old Det.-Sgt Harry Challenor, who had been assigned to break the protection gangs in the West End.

  Sgt Challenor, holder of the Military Medal, heavyweight boxer and swimmer and an ex-Paratrooper, led a team of detectives. He was helped by his knowledge of Italian learned during the war, in interviewing Soho's cosmopolitan population.

  *

  You’re in Italy, in a cell with a dirty mattress, in the SS headquarters at Popoli, not thirty miles from Allied lines. You’re naked and curled into the foetal position, you’re naked with split and swollen lips, your body one vast ache —

  And two SS goons are beating the living daylights out of you.

  You are being handed a right old leathering.

  Part Two

  TRIUMPH OF THE WILL

  January 1963 – July 1964

  Loon

  ‘You like animals?’ Tanky asks me, the second time I meet him.

  ‘Well,’ I say.

  ‘You should, like animals, I mean. They’re all right, animals.’

  ‘OK.’ I’m not sure what to say next. You’re often not sure what to say next to Tanky.

  ‘You got any pets? Pets are staunch.’

  ‘Yeah, I have.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Cat.’

  ‘Umm,’ says Tanky. He pulls a face that seems to say: not sure about that, son. ‘Bit moody, cats,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a pet. You wanna know what it is?’

  I nod.

  ‘It's a parrot.’

  I laugh. I’m only eleven and the idea of a pet parrot is a hoot.

  ‘What's funny?’ Tanky asks.

  ‘A pet parrot — I don’t know,’ I say.

  ‘He's a good lad, my parrot. He's called Darren.’

  I laugh again. Even louder this time. ‘Darren the parrot! Darren the parrot!’ I yell.

  Tanky smiles. ‘Guess what I feed him?’ he asks. ‘He's got a top diet Darren has.’

  ‘Er,’ I say. ‘Parrots eat - carrots!’

  Tanky laughs. ‘Good one. Try again.’

  ‘Parrots eat - ‘

  My grandad walks in. ‘Polyfilla,’ he says.

  Tanky roars.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ I say.

  ‘Not to worry,’ Tanky says. ‘Anyway, you’ll never guess it. Darren eats fried eggs. And drinks Guinness.’

  I look at my grandad. He smiles, nods.

  ‘Fried eggs and Guinness,’ I say. ‘Crikey.’

  ‘Just like me,’ says Tanky. ‘Fried eggs and Guinness.’

  Five

  ‘As a CID officer, I thought he was great. I had the greatest respect for him. He was nicking the right people at the right time.’

  Maurice Harding, Detective Constable, West End Central

  Challenor sits in his office, high up in his throne.

  The king is dead. Long live the king. King Challenor.

  Challenor thinks of the old line:

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave

  When first we practice to deceive

  Challenor knows there are rumours. There are the minor ones, that this Soho protection gang that Challenor has put away is just a bunch of kid no-hopers, a few chancers and wide boys, not really dealing with anything of any substance, any weight. After all, these rumours are saying, they were into old Wilf for a hundred nicker, loose change, fuck all. So, there's that one.

  The other one is a little punchier. Wilf's doorman, a Mr Berrill,
has been mouthing off, apparently. He's been talking, been running his mouth — he knew all along, he's saying, days in advance, that a knife, a razor and a bottle of turps would be uncovered. What he's been putting about with his quick mouth is that Old Wilf paid a lot of money to make sure these goods were found on the young gentlemen of the Soho protection gang.

  Challenor doesn’t like this rumour.

  Fortunately, the rumour is proving no more popular among Challenor's seniors, or Challenor's colleagues.

  Challenor is Harry the Brave, right now. He's top dog, Challenor.

  He's also still The Stranger at home. This troubles him. Doris has been supportive of his success, he can’t deny that, give her credit, but she seems to now expect that he’ll be calming down a bit, letting some others take the lead, put in the hours, put in a shift.

  It's like she doesn’t know him at all.

  He knows that's not true and he knows she doesn’t really expect him to lessen his work — she just hopes he will. Hope over expectation.

  And it's not like Challenor's chasing skirt or anything like that. He's not done that for a long time, not really since his Watford days. And he's never been one to really chase skirt, as in extra-marital skirt, he thinks. He's wandered along next to one or two, been led down a path once or twice, but he's never really chased. He's always thought it seemed like too much hassle, too much admin, having another bird on the go. That's what he says, to the lads, at least, when it becomes clear that he is not one for the ladies, that he is not a ladies’ man.

  Truth is, he's been in love only once, with Doris, and, at forty-odd years old, he's realised the fundamental truth of that, and with fundamental truth comes a fundamental position: no extracurriculars, no disrespect, no raising of any hands.

  That last one has been true his whole life, Challenor thinks. After watching his old man, Tom Challenor the steelworks Staffordshire bull terrier, laying into his mum or his sister, verbals, in the main, but terrifying, or disciplining young Harry with leather belt and clenched fist, applying low blows, to stomach, to groin, where the pain is worst of all, and where no teacher or neighbour will ever see any injuries.

  He got his beer though, and things weren’t too bad, Challenor reflects. Never any dough, of course, and they’d skipped from house to house to avoid creditors, to start ‘afresh’ and whatnot.

  Doris doesn’t know too much of this, Challenor thinks. He's not one to share too much. Watford childhood, sports — football, athletics and boxing — lather boy in the local barber shop.

  She does know about Challenor's occasionally erratic behaviour though. That's for sure. She's seen enough of his, what they call, delusional moments, when he's not quite sure if things are happening, or are a part of a memory. Not many people know about this - and Challenor likes to keep it that way. Not too many know what he went through in the war, not in Italy, at least. France, sure, that's world famous what he did there, Operation Wallace, but Italy remains dark, cloaked.

  There are rumours, he knows that, but they’re tame enough, they’re not too wild, these rumours, just your basic ex-SAS hard-man type of thing, your basic psycho, but our psycho, a psycho on the right team. Challenor doesn’t mind these rumours too much.

  Fact is though, he's got a new project so Doris is going to have to extend her saintly patience a touch further.

  Challenor's examining a file on a certain Lionel ‘Curly’ King, an ex-con, wrongly imprisoned — served a two stretch before the pardon - and desperate and now working at a bookies.

  And one of his employer's shops was recently blown up. And another — even more recently — was found to have an unexploded bomb in a back room.

  Challenor fancies he can turn this Lionel ‘Curly’ King.

  He needs a new grass, a new snitch — and he's recruiting. And Lionel ‘Curly’ King's got all the credentials, including past business relationships with Wilf Gardiner and Johnnie Ford.

  Challenor fancies this Lionel ‘Curly’ King and reckons he might be the way in to the next level of Soho gang.

  Really clean up the bastards.

  That's the goal, anyway, the aim.

  The Scourge of Soho — he likes the sound of that.

  *

  There is a boot in your side. Thump.

  There is a boot in your back. Crack.

  There is a boot in your middle. Gasp.

  There are fists to your face, to your stomach, to your balls —

  You’re naked and bleeding. You’re curled up and your face is set in grim determination. This cunt is not going to hurt you.

  You hear: get up, Harry, you little shit. Son of mine?

  Thump.

  Call yourself a Challenor?

  Crack.

  You fucking what? You fucking talk, will you?

  You raise your head —

  Smack.

  You see: two black uniforms —

  On the shoulder of one the death head insignia of an officer —

  On the collar of the other, twin lightning flashes.

  You hear: you are not a soldier, you are a spy and you will be shot if you don’t help us.

  You vow: I will never be a prisoner.

  *

  Lionel ‘Curly King has called West End Central as he's heard that the police want to question him about the explosion in the betting shop on Greek Street, where he is currently employed, and about the detonators and other suspicious equipment found in the betting shop on Percy Street, where he is also employed, employed in both instances by old ‘Major’ Collins, a right naughty man, he used to be, this ‘Major’ Collins, Challenor has heard.

  Lionel ‘Curly’ King has been told that he is not under any sort of suspicion, not a suspect, as such, and that he is only wanted for questioning to, you know, what's the phrase, to assist the police with their enquiries —

  That's the official line, at least.

  Thing is, what Mr King doesn’t yet know is that when he reports at West End Central to help the police with their enquiries, he will be directed — directly — to Detective Sergeant Harold Challenor's office to have, as they say, unofficially, a quiet word.

  Challenor's sitting in his office, waiting, sitting with a tasty grin plastered across his mug, sipping a creamy, frankly filthy coffee, a coffee definitely not from his favoured Italian grinders, content in the knowledge that Mr King is at present only a few corridors away and will be with him very shortly indeed.

  Radio's on -

  That intergalactic bleep of a melody by Joe Meek's mob, what's it called? Challenor puzzles. Challenor scratches the old bonce. Telstar, that's it, he thinks, bloody thing's been number one for weeks. Sounds like a vacuum cleaner on the blink, Challenor reckons. Hardly the rhythm and blues future predicted by old Wilf Gardiner. Challenor can’t imagine anyone pissing themselves to this. It's like listening to a fairground ride.

  ‘Sir?’

  Challenor looks up. Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay has popped his head around the door, as Challenor requested he did so, not five minutes ago.

  ‘Peter,’ Challenor says, ‘do come in.’ Challenor grins. He nods at the ceiling. ‘You like this tune, Peter, this ditty?’

  Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay appears confused. ‘Sir?’ he says.

  ‘There's no right answer, Peter,’ Challenor says. Challenor hasn’t told Jay why he is here in Challenor's office, so Challenor understands the young man's confusion, especially considering Challenor's history of somewhat - what's the word? - somewhat erratic behaviour. Challenor's reputation doesn’t half precede him, he knows that.

  ‘Well, I - I suppose I do, yes, sir,’ young Jay says.

  ‘You’re not alone, Peter,’ Challenor says. ‘It's doing rather well, I believe, in the old, you know, what's the badger, the old hit parade.’

  ‘It is, sir, yes. I believe it is.’

  ‘Bloody racket if you ask me,’ Challenor says. ‘Where's the swing, where's the soul, eh? Know what I mean?’

  ‘I suppose
I do, sir.’

  Challenor smiles. ‘Sit down, Peter, over there, if you’d be so.’ He points to a chair in the corner of his office. ‘You’re going to do me a little favour, old son.’

  ‘Anything, sir.’

  ‘Good lad. Now sit down. And take this.’ Challenor hands Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay a notepad and paper. ‘Peter,’ Challenor says, ‘you sit tight, act as a witness, and take plentiful notes while I interview a young hoodlum called Lionel King, “Curly” to his associates, on account, I believe, of his hairstyle. OK?’

  Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay nods.

  ‘They say he's had a perm, this lad King, that's what they say. A perm. What's it coming to, eh, Peter?’

  ‘Not sure, sir, to be honest.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Challenor busies himself. He jerks his chin at the notepad and paper on Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay's lap. ‘You know the drill.’

  Jay nods.

  He's all right, Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay is, Challenor thinks, quite all right.

  He knows the drill.

  *

  You groan. You wake. You moan. You shake.

  You ache.

  You hear voices. You hear questions. You hear your father. You hear words forming questions. You hear voices forming words forming questions. Get up, you hear your father saying, get up, you miserable little fuck, get up —

  You say nothing. You eat nothing. You drink nothing.

  Time passes. You think this thought —

  Time passes. It has never felt so true.

  The beatings are repeated.

  The questions are repeated.

  You ache.

  You ache —

  You grin.

  *

  Challenor's looking at Lionel ‘Curly’ King.

  Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay is looking at his notepad and pen.

  Lionel ‘Curly King is looking at Challenor.

  Challenor's not sure he quite appreciates the cut of Lionel ‘Curly’ King's jib. There's the perm, for a start: a great shrub of hair, a sandy wheatsheaf, a cascade of ringlets, a real bush.

  ‘Know why you’re here, do you, Lionel?’ Challenor says.