Bent

by Joe Thomas

  King smiles. ‘I know why I’m here in West End Central, yes.’ He pauses. ‘I don’t know why I’m in your office though, Detective Challenor. I didn’t know this business was a part of your racket.’

  Challenor smiles. No, he thinks, he does not like the cut of Lionel ‘Curly’ King's jib at all. Quite the opposite, in reality, he acknowledges to himself. Fact is, he is quite unimpressed with the cut of Lionel ‘Curly’ King's jib. This young man, he thinks, is a little pleased with himself, a little full of himself. Challenor glances at Jay and sees he is scribbling one or two notes and he guesses that these notes are likely along the same lines as Challenor's thoughts.

  ‘Soho's salubrious and upstanding criminal enterprises of any sort are of interest to me, young man,’ Challenor says. ‘Quite apart from the fact that you’re a known associate of my former friends and sparring partners Joseph Oliva and Johnnie Ford, and some kind of former colleague or, perhaps, employee of that dirty bastard Wilf Gardiner. Quite apart from these two pieces of information, you get out the nick, get a job, and within months, your employer suffers a couple of not insignificant incidents, one of which involves his poor, hardworking bookmakers blowing up. So you can see why I’d want to see you.’

  King nods. King sits up straight, eyes dead ahead. King lights a cigarette. King says, ‘I thought you fancied me as a grass. Uncle Harry.’

  Challenor matches King's stare. ‘You’re a silly, silly boy, my old son, saying something like that, implying something like that, what with a brother officer here taking down all the particulars, acting as a witness.’

  ‘Not true then?’ King asks.

  Challenor grins. ‘Why don’t we start with why you felt you had the right to intervene on July 17th of last year in an altercation between Johnnie Ford and Wilf Gardiner. You got them to shake hands. Why?’

  King says nothing. King shrugs.

  ‘You don’t feel the need to answer this?’

  King shakes his hand. ‘Obvious, innit.’

  Challenor says, ‘Don’t monkey about, matey. I’m not sure that it is. Strikes me that you were using your influence to help along the deal Ford and Oliva were doing with Gardiner, a scam, a spot of intimidation, a little protection money. Strikes me, in fact, that we can stick that mediation on you, fit you right up, in fact, considering the sentences your little friends received. Shouldn’t be too hard, my old darling, to mediate that kind of a deal, at our end at least.’

  King looks unfazed. Challenor's not too keen on this. King says, ‘You heard this little fiction, did you?’

  Challenor leans forward. Challenor narrows his eyes. ‘Witnessed. I know you were blagging, and I know where else you were trying it on. It's in a report. Likely you and your mob didn’t know we had old Wilf's places under surveillance. I suspect,’ and Challenor looks at Jay, ‘I suspect - and correct me if I’m wrong, Peter - that we could have that report sent up in not longer than twenty or so minutes. That right, Peter?’

  ‘I’d say so, guv,’ says Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay.

  Challenor nods, quite vigorously. ‘So you see, young man, you’re in something of a pickle.’

  King says nothing. Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay says nothing. Challenor says nothing.

  The atmosphere in the room, Challenor thinks, is thick. There's a soupy quality to this new atmosphere, in fact, a real fog in here, Challenor notes, a dense cloud of atmosphere.

  Challenor says, ‘I want information, my old son, information that comes from inside the betting shop as to why they were bombed. And you’re going to get me that information.’

  King says nothing.

  ‘Am I not making myself clear, Lionel?’ Challenor says.

  King nods. ‘Crystal, Uncle Harry. Thing is though, I only work there, and I don’t have nothing to do with anything else. You know what? You’re best off talking to my employer, he’d know more than me.’ King pauses. He lights another cigarette. ‘Though hang about, haven’t you already spoken to him?’

  Challenor does not like this answer at all, not one bit.

  Challenor stands and leans over his desk. He brings his fist down onto his desk very hard indeed. He bangs his desk with his fist five times, each time harder than the time before.

  Challenor snorts. Challenor blazes. Challenor throbs. ‘That is not a satisfactory answer, Lionel,’ he says. ‘Not satisfactory at all.’

  Challenor straightens. Challenor moves out from behind his desk and stands behind Lionel ‘Curly’ King. Challenor seethes.

  Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay sits tight. Challenor sees the calm in Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay and is reassured.

  ‘This your natural colour, is it, son?’ Challenor asks King, his hand flicking at King's hair, his hairstyle.

  ‘Don’t see many lads with a barnet like yours, Lionel. What's done it for you, eh? You trying to look like a bird? Or a darkie, eh? That what it's about, a lack of character or something? You weren’t breastfed? That it?’

  King says nothing.

  Challenor continues. Challenor snarls. ‘I do not mess about, young man. I certainly do not mess about. You, my old darling, may think you can play me for a fool, but you certainly cannot, as I do not, I repeat, do not, mess about.’

  Challenor's massaging King's shoulders now ‘You enjoying this, Lionel? You like my hands on you, do you? Well, son, you will feel my hands on you, soon enough, if you don’t do what you’re bloody well told.’

  King's tensed up, Challenor can feel, with his hands on him. And not surprising, Challenor thinks. He's raging, after all, Challenor. He burns.

  ‘Now this case is my case, Mr King, regardless of what you might or might not have been told, this is my fucking case and no one, not you, not any of my colleagues, and certainly not any of your two-bob Soho gangster mates, is going to tell me any different. You got that?’

  King nods. About bloody time, Challenor thinks.

  ‘So you are going to get the information to which I earlier alluded, and you’re going to tell me, and only me, when you’ve found out what I need to know. You’ll just be another snout in Soho. I run more here than there are on Old MacDonald's farm, isn’t that right, Peter?’

  Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay nods. ‘That's right, guv.’

  Challenor goes on. ‘And if you don’t do that, Lionel — and sharpish, mind, I want this pronto, right? — you will find yourself in more than just a pickle, my friend. You will find yourself in an awful lot of trouble indeed.’ Challenor pauses. He moves from behind King and sits back down at his desk. ‘We in agreement, Lionel?’ he asks.

  King nods.

  ‘Say it, Lionel, if you will?’

  ‘We are in agreement, Detective Challenor.’

  Challenor smiles. ‘Off you go, son,’ he says. ‘Do one.’

  Lionel ‘Curly’ King does one. He's out of there in a shot.

  Challenor looks at Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay.

  ‘Thank you, Peter, you were outstanding. Type up your notes for me, please, if you, you know, if you will.’ Challenor winks. ‘Let's get this agreement down on the page, eh?’ he says. ‘At least regarding young Lionel's haircut.’

  Police Constable Peter Warwick Jay nods and grins.

  Challenor roars with laughter at his own joke.

  *

  You’re grinning as your boys in the RAF are paying Popoli another visit —

  Bombs rain down. Bombs whine and fall and crash and wallop into the town, into the roads, into the courtyards, into the buildings around you, into, it feels, the building that you’re in —

  Into the tanks, into the trucks, into the staff cars —

  Into the soldiers, into the officers, into the domestic staff—

  But you’re quite safe in your little cell, it appears.

  You jump up to the window, jump up to the barred window, grab the bars in the window, and stick your mug in between them, stick your grinning mug in between the bars —

  And you don’t half
laugh, laugh at the chaos, laugh at the chaos and the carnage, laugh at the panic, laugh at the damage, the panic and the ugly, ugly damage.

  ‘Go on, my son!’ you shout, as you hear another plane overhead, another bomb on its way down.

  ‘Go on, get stuck in, don’t be shy, get stuck in, son!’ you shout, gleeful and roaring you are, roaring with laughter.

  You’re howling at the moon —

  You’re howling at the moon, urging your boys on, half-mad and happy -

  Then: the skitter of bullets on concrete, on brick —

  And close by. Too bloody close!

  You look down. A ferry officer has spotted you, a sergeant you think, on reflection, has spotted you howling and laughing and roaring and he's having none of it. His Luger's out and he's aiming right at your window, your barred window, right where your gurning face is sticking out —

  You jump back down. You’re still laughing —

  ‘Christ,’ you’re thinking, ‘they’ll have your bloody guts for garters for that!’

  Laughing as bits of their gaff are blown to smithereens, some of their mob blown to smithereens, some of their friends killed in fairly spectacular and highly unpleasant fashion by the bombs of your boys in the RAF, and there you are laughing it up —

  This will not go down at all well, you think.

  But you’re OK. They’ve missed you, your boys.

  Good lads, your boys. Staunch.

  *

  It's been a couple of days since the meeting with Lionel ‘Curly’ King, the walking hairstyle, the perm, and Challenor needs some air.

  If he's not careful, if he doesn’t watch himself, if he doesn’t listen to Doris's wise, wise words, he ends up cooped up, cooped up in the Mad House, stalking the corridors, pounding the corridors, looking for subordinates and other detectives to bother, to pester, to order about. He sees the young police constables who have worked for him, the same lads that did all that surveillance on Dirty Wilf and his two skin joints, and he sees them chatting, he sees them nattering, and it bothers Challenor, this twittering among these young lads, and he's sure that as he approaches the gaggles of young lads in uniform, he's sure that they shut their traps and look the other way, and he's not sure he likes this sense, this ominous and developing weight. He thinks there might be whisperings about the place. He's not sure, he can’t be sure, but he does reckon there might well be some mutterings, some mutterings about him, around these corridors, these corridors he has taken to prowling while he waits for Lionel ‘Curly’ King to appear once again in his orbit.

  He understands it though, to a point:

  Uncle Harry Challenor, King of the Mad House -

  Heavy lies the crown and whatnot.

  And when this sense, this weight, gets a little hard to rationalise, when he feels a touch more bull-headed than he should, Challenor knows it's time for a stroll, for a beat, to, you know, put in a shift, do the old plod.

  Time to let off a bit of steam. Once upon a merry morning, of course, he’d have done that down the boozer, but that won’t work anymore. He's too old for a start. Christ, he thinks, a couple of brown ales at lunchtime and his head is heavier, nodding off in his chair. No, he's got business to attend to, he doesn’t mess about, after all, Challenor. No, sir, he does not mess about.

  Spring is in the air. No, hang about, Challenor thinks, that ain’t right -

  It's bloody January. Late January, but still.

  Feels pretty mild for January, though. And there's a pleasing crispness to the air and a gorgeous, transparent light -

  Transparent? That the word? It’ll do.

  Challenor stretches his legs onto Oxford Street.

  He sets himself a brisk march, a decent, fair pace for a civvy setting, but still something of a clip. He can’t help himself. When you need air, you need the blood to get about you, to, you know, what's the word, to circulate.

  That expression: to clear your head. That quack of his down the river, that doctor who doesn’t fancy him, reckons he's a bit off colour, in the bonce, him. Well, this quack has told Challenor that this expression - to clear your head - comes from the fact that a twenty-minute walk outside actually clears your head. The blood up there drains and changes, re-circulates. Funny business, medicine, funny old game this biology business, he thinks, the old human body, eh, what a palaver it all is.

  There are tourists and shoppers, a light mid-morning throng. Challenor looks ahead from group to group, plots a course; he is, quite literally, he thinks, one step ahead of the rest.

  He weaves and he shuffles, he feints and he bobs, he ducks and he drops a shoulder and he's in the clear, he's streaking away from the circling foreigners who examine maps and gasp as the buses grind and thunder their way down the road, on the wrong side of the road. And he's clear of Regent Street and it's a clear path east and then he pivots and starts right into old Soho, his Soho, down Poland Street and then a left and a right and he's on Berwick Street, and bugger me if he isn’t looking straight at the back of young Lionel ‘Curly’ King's ample perm as young Mr King examines LPs in the window of a record shop -

  ’Allo ‘allo, Challenor thinks and pulls himself back a few steps behind the corner of Broadwick Street.

  Let's see what the Perm is up to, he thinks. Picked him for a music man, Challenor did. He’ll be down the 2i's and the Marquee and all that -

  He's got the locks for it, this rhythm and blues, Challenor thinks.

  Challenor rifles his pockets, his wallet. He pulls a photo of a known Soho villain, a second-division porn operator. That’ll do, he thinks.

  Challenor hangs back as King decides against a purchase, then watches as he arrows down Broadwick -

  Challenor does a right down Berwick, jogging now, then a left onto Peter Street.

  He’ll cut him off on Wardour Street -

  Textbook ambush.

  *

  The morning after the RAF raid, the dust settles, literally settles, you can see it settling in front of your eyes as you stick your face out the window again, between the bars, to have a peer at the dust as it settles.

  Your cell door opens. Here we go, you think, here we bloody go —

  Payback time: for your cheek, your face.

  You turn —

  *

  Challenor turns -

  Lionel ‘Curly’ King turns. Lionel ‘Curly’ King sees Challenor. Lionel ‘Curly’ King turns again, sharp, and much quicker this time, and walks at some speed back the way he came.

  Challenor sets off after him down Wardour Street.

  Challenor is grinning. Thrill of the chase and whatnot.

  Let's have you then, old son, Challenor thinks.

  King slows down. To Challenor's eye it looks like King is reassessing his decision to scarper, to flee, as it were. There's time to reassess, certainly, Challenor will give him that.

  King stops at steps into a doorway next to another record shop and examines a newspaper or periodical of some kind.

  Gotcha, thinks Challenor. But also: clever boy.

  *

  You turn —

  In front of you stands an officer. You can tell the lad's an officer both by his bearing — arrogant, upright, superior, though, you think, aren’t all Krauts? — and by the stripes on his shoulder. SS, you suspect, proper little Aryan, touch of the Heydrich about him, the side-parted blonde hair, the ice in the blue of his eyes —

  ‘Good morning,’ the lad says. Clipped accent, but clear, crisp as a winter morning back home, Challenor thinks.

  ‘Wotcha,’ Challenor replies, and winks.

  He's already up to his neck, he reckons, what with the previous night's japery and his general jovial approach to this torture and interrogation malarkey, so why not, eh, why not wind the buggers up even further? What's to lose, now, eh?

  The officer smiles thinly. ‘You’re now going to tell me more about this SAS. Not the operation you’ve been on, we know all about that.’

  ‘I expect you do. There's a bunch
of derailed trains to testify to it. Yah?’

  The officer gives you another thin smile. That ‘yah’ might have been a mistake, you think. He says, ‘You’re going to tell me all about this SAS, what it is, what is planned for it, where it came from, who is in it. Everything.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is this SAS? News to me, mate.’

  Another thin smile. You think: he must be a cruel little bugger, or good with a blade, because if it comes to a set-to, he's a slender lad. Not a problem at all.

  ‘I’m not wasting any more time, mine or yours. Speak.’

  You shake your head. Nothing to say. And that's everything I know.’

  The officer smiles, this time an actual, bona fide Jerry smile, he looks happy he does, quite pleased with the outcome. Hang about, you think, here we go again —

  ‘OK, very well. This is what I expected, though not as 1 feared, I will be honest. You are of no use to us, you are a spy, and you will now, very shortly, be taken to the prisoner-of-war camp at L’Aquila where you will await execution. Is that clear?’

  You nod. You smile. You grin -

  *

  ‘You recognise this man?’ Challenor asks Lionel ‘Curly King, showing him the photo of the two-bob porn baron. As Challenor does this, he thinks that ‘baron might be too grand a word, really, and he allows himself a smirk, not quite a laugh, but he definitely acknowledges the humour in the whole scene.

  King says, ‘No, I don’t.’

  And King looks Challenor in the eye, but Challenor knows that there is fear in King's look, and Challenor thinks that it's not at all unsurprising given their last meeting.

  Challenor's face is very close to King's face. Challenor can smell the scent on him, his face is that close to King's face. Spot of Old Spice, it is, the scent, though Challenor had King down as a more continental type, sophisticated, something a touch more French, you know, Challenor thinks, to go with the perm.

  Challenor says nothing, but he is grinning like a bugger.

  King's nervousness is exponential.

  King says, ‘My missus is waiting for me, I really should be going if there is nothing else I can help you with, Detective Challenor.’

  Challenor grips King by the hair, by the back of his hair, grabs a fistful of his curly hair, his mane, and says, ‘You don’t start to behave, old son, and she will be waiting an awful lot longer.’ He opens his fist, lets the hair escape, spring naturally back into place. ‘You know what I mean?’ he adds.