by Mark Dawson
They started in the hall, with its long run of polished marble, scuffed near the skirting. Chiara led the way to a closed door and opened it, revealing a gloomy room that, once she pulled back the curtains that covered the window at the far end, was revealed as a modest library. The carpet was threadbare, disfigured by worn stretches that revealed the boards beneath. Ghostly pale markings revealed furniture that had once been there but had since been sold. Chiara had forgotten how tired and jaded the room looked and, for a moment, was a little embarrassed by it. Edward was gentlemanly enough not to comment; instead, he pulled aside the sheet that covered a shelf and took out a book. “Dickens,” he said. “Great Expectations. One of my favourites. This is a lovely room, Chiara.”
“It’s seen better days,” she said. “I remember, when I was a little girl, my father used to spend all of his time in here.” She didn’t mention that her father couldn’t read, but that he just liked to know––and, more importantly, for other people to know––that he owned a room full of books. She closed the curtains again and led the way into the neighbouring room, accessed through an interconnecting door. It was an office, panelled in oak and with ornately carved plasterwork on the ceiling. A large oak desk was set in one corner but it was unused, covered in dust and a confusion of papers that hadn’t been disturbed for months.
“The whole house has seen better days,” she admitted. “There used to be staff here. We’ve still got Wilson, just about, and there’s a woman who cooks for us and her husband keeps an eye on the gardens, as much as he can manage, but I can remember when we had half a dozen staff.”
“What’s happened so that you don’t?”
“Money. I don’t get involved in business but my aunt says that times are difficult. There’s a lot of competition––more than there used to be.”
Chiara didn’t tarry, exiting into the hallway again and leading the way through a curtained arch to a flight of stairs that led down to the basement. She pointed out the fusty-smelling boot-room, a lavatory, the large kitchen with an Aga and rickety wooden dressers.
They returned to the ground floor and Chiara directed them to the vaulted staircase. She pointed out the half dozen portraits that were hung from the wall on the sub-landing.
“Who are they?” Edward asked.
“The owners of the house. The paintings were left behind when my grandfather bought it.” That was a polite way of putting it. The Costellos had acquired the house in their usual aggressive fashion and there had been no opportunity for the seller to retrieve any of his furniture or other possessions. What they liked, they kept. The rest was sold or burnt. These paintings, which had appealed to her grandfather’s sense of history, had been reprieved from the bonfire.
She pointed to the first, a portrait of a severe-looking cleric. “This is the Bishop of Worcester. The house was built for him in the fourteen-hundreds. This one, I think, is Edmund Lawrence, who leased the house from the manor. This one is Robert Fielding, who married Lawrence’s daughter, and he left it to his eldest son, Charles, here. From the Fieldings it passed to the Roberston Family in the late eighteenth-century. Industrialists. My grandfather bought it from the second Robertson to own it.”
“This is him?”
“Yes, that’s grandfather.”
Edward pointed to the next one along. “Your father?”
“Yes.”
“My goodness,” Edward said. “Joseph looks like both of them.”
That much was indisputable. She looked at her father’s portrait and saw, quite clearly, the same thick black hair, cold eyes, the solid lines of the cheekbones and jaw, the same warm complexion. The resemblance was noticeable with their grandfather but it was clear and obvious with their father.
“And these two I recognise.”
“Ah,” Chiara said. “Yes.” The last portrait of the collection was the most recent. George and Violet had been painted together in the library a few months after her father had died and her aunt had moved in. They were sat next to each other, dressed in their Sunday best, both of them presenting stern expressions that came dangerously close to pomposity. The artist was a bit of a hack, despite the price that he had charged, but it wasn’t the lack of skill that was embarrassing. It was the presumption of the thing, the notion that, even after a couple of years, their picture should join the other owners of the house. The whole blessed thing was foolish from start to finish and Chiara hated it. She had forgotten it was there and now she was embarrassed to have drawn attention to it.
“Have you seen the gardens?” she said, eager for a chance to draw Edward away.
“Joseph and I took a stroll last night.”
“But it was dark then. You should have a look now––they’re lovely. Best part of the house if you ask me. Come on, I could do with the fresh air.”
A door at the end of the hall opened onto a set of flying stone steps that led down to a terrace. They stopped at the boot room and took a pair of Wellingtons each, pulling them on over the top of their pyjamas. Chiara led them on, down the steps and onto the south lawn. It was trimmed, bordered with shrubbery and low flowers and studded with croquet hoops. Two large English elms, barely under control, stood at the edge of the grass. To the east, around the corner of the house, was the large gravelled space where the cars had been parked. Beyond that were a collection of outbuildings: a barn, the garage and the stable block.
“It’s big.”
“I know––there are another fifty acres, too. Most of the valley belongs to the house.”
“Why is it called Halewell Close?”
“There’s a spring in the fields at the back of the house. It’s named after that.”
They walked on, Chiara looping her arm through Edward’s. They passed beneath the elms and onwards to a collection of kitchen gardens that were hemmed in by a low redbrick wall. A cinder path cut between neatly planted rows of vegetables: cauliflowers, potatoes, runner beans arrayed against a pine trellis.
“How long have you lived here?” he asked her.
“All my life––I was born here. My grandfather was still alive then.”
“Joseph said he was involved with the racecourses.”
“Is that what he said?” she chuckled. “I suppose that’s one way to describe it.” Edward looked as if he was going to ask her to elaborate, but she didn’t permit him the chance. She had no idea what he knew about the family business, and that was not a conversation that she wanted to have. She pressed on quickly. “My aunt moved in a couple of years ago.”
“And your uncle George?”
“He stays here a lot, but he doesn’t live here. He has an apartment in London. He likes to be right in the middle of things.”
“Well, it’s a wonderful place. I’ve never been anywhere like it before.”
“I know––we’re very lucky.” They walked on. “Do you live in London?”
“Yes,” he said, a little awkwardly. “I rent a flat.”
“What’s it like?”
“Oh, nothing special. But I’m getting some money together for a place of my own. Something nice.”
“Good for you. I’d love to live in London. We come into town a lot, of course, but it’s not the same.”
They reached the terrace again and made their way up the steps to the kitchen. Chiara closed the door and fastened the latch. “Oh, dear,” she said, “I don’t feel very well at all. I think I might go and lie down for another hour.”
“Really? You wouldn’t guess.”
“You’re very sweet, Edward.”
“Thank you for the tour. I enjoyed it.”
She reached across and gently squeezed his arm. “Joseph talks about you a lot, you know. It’s very nice to finally get to see what all the fuss is about.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too.”
She looked at him a little shyly. “Will you promise me something?”
“What?”
“I love my brother, but be careful. I wouldn’t want you to get caught
up in some of the things he does. I know what he’s like––he’s a rascal, like the rest of the family. I’d hate to see you get in a scrape with him.”
Edward started a reply but didn’t know what to say.
Chiara laid a hand on his arm and leaned closer. She kissed him gently on the cheek.
“I’ll see you again, I hope,” she said.
19
THE FIRST HOUSE THEY ROBBED WAS IN MAYFAIR. Rain had started falling at dusk, a gentle sprinkling that strengthened into an angry, drenching deluge. The cold had settled under Edward’s skin and as he ran his fingers through his wet hair, a shiver danced across his shoulders. The house was in terrace of stuccoed four-storey houses, most two bays across, joined together in the classical style. Lights were on here and there, the turrets at the top dark against the moving sky. The houses had basements and attics and faced a small square, a private garden that had somehow managed to preserve its iron railings in the face of the war effort. Skeletal trees cast long shadows that swung to and fro in the wind.
They had only ever spoken about planning but Edward had known that he would come along, too. He wanted to. Accepting Joseph’s offer had immediately brought him into his confidence. That was necessary, but he needed to bind them closer together, and that would not be possible if he stayed away, leaving him to put the plan into action. It was, he knew, like the army. A shared adventure would be a powerful tonic for their friendship. War stories were more evocative when both parties had experienced them.
Joseph looked up and down the street and, satisfied that they were unobserved, mounted the single step from the pavement and stepped beneath the portico. Edward followed him. He was fizzing with adrenaline, his senses amplified and sensitive to everything. The front door was solid and substantial and he didn’t have the first idea how they might open it. Joseph put his hand over the bell for a moment, pretending to ring it, and listened hard. When he was satisfied that all was silent inside, he descended the flight of steps that led down to the basement and the lower entrance. Edward felt as if he had lost the ability to make his own decisions and dumbly followed. The narrow space at the bottom comprised a window and door on one side and a wall beneath the row of railings on the other. His foot crunched against a stray piece of coal and he froze, his heart in his mouth, for what seemed like an age. Joseph cocked his head quizzically, as if he had heard something else, and then pressed them both back against the wall beneath the railings. The sound of slow, deliberate foot-steps approached from the street. They drew closer, so close that Edward felt as if his heart were about to stop, and then a circle of torchlight played over the window before them. It was a policeman, it had to be, and he would surely see their reflection in the glass. But the footsteps resumed, absorbed into the storm with the same deliberate rhythm.
“Bloody hell,” Edward exhaled.
Joseph shushed him with a stern glare and a finger to his lips.
He took a small six-inch jemmy from his inside pocket and inserted it into the jamb, just below the handle. He gave the jemmy a sharp pull and the lock tore through the wood. He gently pushed the door open and disappeared inside. Edward followed. They were in a kitchen. Joseph took out a small electric torch and shone it around, illuminating a large range, cupboards, a rack of pots and pans. Every creak from settling floorboards or tick from cooling pipes was someone waiting for them around the corner. The steady cadence of the clock on the wall oscillated with Edward’s breath and he thought of the jungle, and night-time O.P.s, creeping through the darkness with the morbid certainty that Jap was lying in wait, endlessly patient, a rifle aimed at his heart. He fumbled for his handkerchief and wiped the rain and sweat from his eyes.
Joseph paused to acclimatise himself to the house and then led the way onwards. They passed through the kitchen, along a narrow passageway and up a set of back stairs until they re-emerged in the hallway, the door to the street at one end and, opposite, a wide staircase that was ghostly in the darkness. Joseph flitted silently to a large door and put his ear to it. He turned the handle and the mechanism clicked, the silence of the house seeming to shatter like a bowl of black glass. He opened the door––lifting upwards to take the weight off the hinge––and went through, into what was evidently the sitting-room. Inside was all Regency, with carefully draped curtains and Madame Recamier sofas. They moved through into the drawing-room. As they slipped through the darkened spaces, Edward had the sense of the shadows closing protectively around them and he started to relax a little.
Joseph quietly turned a gilded door knob and led the way into the library. He collected two silver candelabra from the mantelpiece and appraised them, feeling their weight. A nod indicated he was satisfied, and he handed them over. He took a dust sheet from a table and gave it to Edward, too. “Wrap them up,” he whispered, his lips brushing his ear, “and stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Upstairs. I’ll have a look around. If I’m not back in ten minutes, get out. Use the front door––you saw where it is?”
“Yes––back there.”
Joseph nodded. He paused at the open doorway, listening, before stepping out and fading into the shadows. There was the very slightest creak as, Edward fancied, he ascended a stair, but then there was nothing. The silence was so taut that the slightest creak seemed to stretch it to breaking point.
It was pitch black without Joseph’s torch.
Somewhere above, he heard the unmistakeable creak of a floorboard.
Edward felt exposed and vulnerable and yet thrillingly alive. It was a strange combination: fright and a tremendous sense of exhilaration. Here was the adventure that his life had been missing. Cooking dinners and selling cars were for the birds. Edward wanted his life to feel like this.
The door opened again. There was a moment between the handle twisting and the realisation that it was Joseph returning when his heart felt as cold and still as a lump of ice. He was carrying a suitcase. He opened it: jewellery, silver cutlery and plate, a gold watch, some ready money.
“Not bad?” he grinned.
“The suitcase, too?”
“It’s useful. It’s a prop––you’re less likely to get stopped with one.”
Joseph unbolted the front door, closing it quietly once they were outside. The rain was still lashing the street and a peel of thunder rattled the glass in the windows. Edward loosened the umbrella and unfurled it above them. Joseph pressed in tight. “Come on,” he said with a feral grin, and set off across the pavement. They hurried away.
20
EDWARD ENDURED A NIGHT OF INSOMNIA and, when he did manage to sleep, panicked dreams. He stayed in the bedsitter, trying to come up with a way to avoid the interview that Violet had arranged. He couldn’t help it. He was gripped tightly by fear: the fear of having agreed to something that would be irretrievable, the fear of discovery, of capture, of punishment. He gave up the pretence of sleep and stood at the window with the lights turned off, staring across the chimneystacks and rooftops. It was very cold and he had burnt up all the gas. The tap of the fire was up, the broken asbestos elements grey and cold, the air like hot sour cream. Dark clouds swept across the moon and fat drops began to fall. They stroked against the pane to begin with but eventually they strengthened, drumming a relentless beat against the glass. Edward listened to them fall, unable to return to sleep.
* * *
HENRY DRAKE WAS ALREADY WAITING in the Moka coffee bar in Frith Street. Edward paused in the doorway and wondered, yet again, whether there was some neat way that he could extricate himself from this whole sorry mess. But there was not. He had rolled his predicament around and around in his mind but had come up with nothing. He could just flat-out refuse but doing that would have been tantamount to shouting from the rooftops that he had something to hide. He could have cited a desire for privacy, or a tendency towards modesty, but either would have marked him as the kind of shrinking violet that he instinctively knew would repulse the ostentatious Violet. And, more than
everything, she would see his saying no as thumbing his nose at her charity. There was nothing else for it: he would just have to do his best to minimise the damage that the interview might do and get on with it. He would have to be smart and watch his step.
The bar was busy, the proprietor––an amiable Italian named Pino Reservato––passing to and from his customers. A pine bar held the till and a neat pile of mugs and saucers, and behind it steamed one of Gaggia’s clattering machines. A curving, undulating countertop stretched along the side of the room with cushioned stools set into the floor at regular intervals along it. A mural depicting various styles of ship was fixed to the wall, this theme then repeated on the counter-top. A wire cage fashioned into letters from the Chinese alphabet contained two miserable looking macaws. It was busy: office girls chatted happily with their escorts drinking Grenadilla Juice from the half-shells of coconuts; shoppers and tourists rested and took refreshment; businessmen enjoyed a quick meal, open sandwiches in the Swedish style contained continental savouries. The hubbub was convivial but it did nothing to improve Edward’s pensive mood as he made his way to the table.
Drake looked up. “Mr. Fabian?”
“Hello, Mr. Drake.”
“Call me Henry, please. Pleasure to meet you––a real pleasure.”
“Likewise, I’m sure.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you. What will you have?”
“Just a large black, please.”
Drake went to the bar and placed the order. Edward looked him over: he was a plain-looking man in his early middle age, a little shabby around the edges. He wore a stained mackintosh that was fastened with a belt, a battered old trilby and a pair of good-quality trousers that Edward saw had frayed around the cuffs. Nice things that had been allowed to go to seed, not dissimilar to his own things. What did that say about him? Edward had dug into the man’s history in preparation for their encounter, spending several hours reading his press cuttings in the National Library. Drake had been a big noise, once, Fleet Street’s rising star, but a story he had written had been discredited and he had been cast out. It had been a catastrophic error on his part: Drake had been caught lying, and if Edward had been in a better mood he might have appreciated the irony in that. He had made up ground again with a scoop on the psychopath they called the Black Out Ripper who had terrorised the West End during The Blitz but he was still running, still chasing past glories that, by the looks of things, he would never fully recapture.