The Soho Noir Series

by Mark Dawson

  “Come on,” he grumbled to no-one in particular. “Come on.”

  His thoughts ran to the jungle and the war. He wondered how war did strange things to a man. Every minute you were living in fear. The expectation that the next bullet would be the one that finished you. That’s got to damage you, he thought, hasn’t it? Got to change something about how you are.

  There was no point in dwelling on what had to be done. It was necessary: that was enough. He had learned that lesson in Burma and he had put it into practice with Billy. Some things in life just had to be sorted out. You got on with it as best you could. You did your best not to remember the things that you had seen and done, even though those memories came back to you anyway. He had done things that men who had not served would not have credited, and certainly would not have understood: killed in cold blood, destroyed property, stolen whatever he wanted. Billy could not possibly have comprehended it. None of them would have been able to, not unless they had been there. Joseph was the exception. He had been there, and he knew. He knew that the tasks they were performing this morning were necessary, too.

  He thought of how he had developed a hard shell, like being dipped in lead. He had been scared more than he had ever been scared in his life. He had done things, maybe because he was following orders, but he had done them anyway. After a while he did not even think about them anymore; they became as mundane and routine as cleaning his rifle or changing his socks. He had done them like you might scratch an itch.

  And this?

  Compared to those things, this was a walk in the park.

  He rolled the cigarette between his fingers. He gripped the stock and the barrel of the Sten.

  A private car turned the corner and headed towards him out of the gloom, blooms of sodium yellow light from its headlamps suffusing the rain-smeared glass. He watched as it parked ahead of him, next to the entrance to the warehouse.

  The car’s doors opened.

  He unslotted the magazine of the Sten, tapped it against his knee to clear any blockages, slotted it back home and recocked the weapon. His hands slid to the barrel and stock, closing around the gun, the metal cold against his skin. It was an excellent weapon and he knew precisely how to use it. He tightened his grip.

  Four men got out of the car. They were only a little late. Edward had called Spot’s man, Eric, yesterday night. He was Dick MacCulloch and he explained that he was driving the consignment of whisky down from Scotland this morning. He said that he could deliver it to wherever Spot preferred; the man had swallowed the story without question. There was no reason for him to be suspicious. He had played the conversation out properly, even negotiating the amount that he wanted in exchange for the booze. Eric had driven a hard bargain and Edward had only acceded to his price reluctantly. He had been impressed with his own performance. The price didn’t matter a jot: this wasn’t about money. There was to be no whisky. A payment would be made but it would be by him, and not be the sort that they were expecting.

  The men laughed as they unlocked the warehouse’s broad double doors, the noise of their mirth breaking the lumpen silence. Perhaps they had been out in Soho celebrating? Why not? It had been a good few days for them. The news was promising for Spot and his goons. The Costellos were out of business and the way was clear for them to dominate the West End. That was what they were all saying. London, and all the opportunities it offered, was theirs for the taking.

  Edward tightened his grip around the stock of his Sten gun. He pulled his scarf up around his face, opened the car door and stepped outside. He held the submachine gun vertically, muzzle down, shielding it against his leg and torso. The morning air was cold and fresh. The sun was breaking between the chimney stacks of the hat factory at the end of the street, sparkling through the smoggy drizzle. The men had gone inside. Edward crossed the pavement and followed them. There were no windows, and the only light was the grey murk from the doorway. Boxes and crates were stacked up against the walls. The four of them had their backs to him. They were moaning that MacCulloch was late, that his tardiness risked a clip around the ear. They had things to do. Places to be.

  Edward moved quickly, closing the distance, bringing the Sten gun up, aiming it at waist height.

  They were ten feet away.

  “Lads,” Edward shouted out.

  The four men turned.

  Their good humour drained away, their mouths fell open, fear washed through their faces.

  He fired. The gun rattled and cracked, spitting and bucking in his cradled grip. He sprayed bullets, swivelling at the hip to bring all four men within his arc of fire. Spot’s heavies danced backwards, arms aloft, jerking like marionettes. One tripped and fell backwards against the wall. Another toppled across the bonnet of an old car that had been parked inside the warehouse, bullets thudding as they passed through his body into the sheet metal beneath, the burst windscreen crashing over him like fragments of ice. Another collapsed into a stack of boxes that fell over him, spilling bolts of cotton and silk. Edward fired for twenty seconds until the magazine ran dry and then he paused, breathless, the sudden echoing din replaced by a deep silence.

  He walked back to his car and dropped the Sten gun into the open boot. He got in, started the engine, and pulled away from the kerb. He passed the open door at walking pace: the Spot men were scattered around inside like fallen ninepins, blood pooling on the concrete floor, running down into the drains. The blood ran down onto the copper shell casings, slicking across them.

  Edward pressed the stick into second gear and accelerated away.

  67

  JOSEPH DROVE SOUTH at around about the same time, making good time until Whitehawk where the car was absorbed into a crawling queue, caught between busses that crunched through their gears as they struggled uphill and myriad other vehicles, all of them jammed tight. Impatient drivers pressed their horns and jerked their cars to within inches of their neighbours. Every spare seat was taken: battered pre-war Morrises, sporty Packards, a pair of youngsters hitching a lift on the running boards of a Humber. Queues of racegoers who had been unable to find a seat on a bus plodded alongside the road, heads down. The noise rolled over them: the distant ululation of the crowd, backfiring exhausts, snatches of distant music, babies crying in hot cars.

  He had never been as nervous as this. It had taken Edward a day to persuade him that what they were intending to carry out was necessary. He had reminded him of Tommy Falco and it was that, eventually, that had made the difference. It was not their fault that it had come to this. Spot had been increasing the pressure for weeks.

  Lennie Masters.

  Tommy Falco and the other men at the Regal.

  The violence all across the West End.

  Even Chiara’s bloody dog.

  Edward had explained it colourfully. You don’t pull a tiger by the tail, he said. Joseph could understand that. Spot had boxed them into a corner. He was taunting them, daring them to retaliate, daring them to do something.

  Well, then. Fine. Now they would.

  They would give him exactly what he was asking for.

  The road finally climbed up Race Hill and as he crested it he was rewarded with a view out over the sprawl of Brighton and, beyond, the green and white of the sea. He rolled the car into the car park, locked it and set off for the track. Loud-speakers set onto the roofs of vans advised the racegoers where best to put their money. Children squabbled. A few punters were already drunk, staggering towards the gate to be parted from the rest of their funds. He paid the entrance fee and followed the tunnel under the course and came up again in the ten-shilling enclosure. He slipped through the crowd, treading discarded tickets into the mulch underfoot, crunching over the shards of a glass that someone had dropped. He concentrated on everything around him. He saw the names of the bookies set out on the blackboards propped up behind their stands: Rogerson and Taggart and Mitchell and Tavell. They stood on home-made platforms, crates and boxes, reaching out over the passing heads of their potential cust
omers like the two-bob preachers at Speaker’s Corner. They boomed out the odds, touting for business. They tic-tacked to each other and the odds on the blackboards were rubbed out and changed. Joseph looked beyond the enclosure to where the sun lit the white Tattersall stand across the course, a few horses cantering into position at the start. One of them whinnied, the sound carrying on the breeze.

  He stopped and looked more carefully.

  Where was he?

  The brightening sky.

  The clouds of dust over the course from the thundering of the horses’ hooves.

  The torn betting cards and the short grass towards the dark sea beneath the down.

  Where, where, where?

  And then he saw him. There, standing before Tavell’s stall, was Jack Spot. He was eating a currant bun. Joking with Tavell. Not a care in the world. Joseph pulled his trilby tightly against his head, tugging down the brim so that as much of his face was obscured as possible. The horses from the first race of the day set off, the sound of their shod feet thundering as they came around on the rail. He got closer. A young man with oiled, blond hair stood on a wooden step paying out money.

  Joseph reached into his pocket and felt for the revolver.

  The horses turned onto the straight and accelerated towards them.

  “Jack!” he shouted.

  The big man looked up. Joseph noticed all the small details: the crumbs from the bun that had stuck around Spot’s mouth, the fat knot of his tie, the faces around them that warped from jollity to fear as they saw the glint of the revolver and realised what that must mean. Spot opened his mouth as if to speak, opened and closed, the crumbs dropping from his mouth onto his coat and the floor, and Joseph fired, twice into the body, and Spot fell backwards into the stand. He slid down the blackboard, his coat rubbing off the odds. Joseph followed and stood over him.

  The horses went by with a deafening drumbeat of hooves.

  Spot put up his hands to ward him off.

  “Please,” he mouthed.

  Joseph ignored him, aimed at his face and fired.

  EPILOGUE

  Halewell Close

  June 1946

  THE WEDDING OF Mr. Edward Henry Fabian and Miss Chiara Grace Costello was arranged for the last Saturday in June. It was only three months after Joseph’s wedding and yet if the cost of financing yet more festivities was difficult for the Costellos to absorb, it was not obvious from the scale and grandeur of the occasion. Expensively engraved invitations had been dispatched to six hundred guests, twice as many as had attended the wedding of Joseph and Eve. Once again, the reception would be held in the grounds of Halewell Close, with the marquee––this one much larger––erected over the etiolated markings that were still visible on the grass. The party would go on all day and into the night, the entertainment provided by the best swing band in Soho. It would be lavish and no expense would be spared. That was Violet Costello’s preference and Edward had been delighted to indulge it. After all, there was more money now. And he wanted people to remember the day. He wanted it to be more elaborate, more memorable than Joseph’s.

  After all, in so many ways, the party was his coming out.

  There had been rumours of an upturn in the family’s fortunes. Jack Spot’s humiliation at the racecourse had seen him in full retreat, even before the unsolved death of his four lieutenants. That bloody morning’s work had been dubbed “The Upton Park Massacre” by a wide-eyed press that had become entranced by the casual brutality of the killings. One thing was for sure: it had led to the rebalancing of power in the West End. Those businesses that Spot had taken from the Costellos had been returned to them. The flow of strong-arm money from the shebeens, spielers, pimps and prostitutes that he had diverted now flowed into the Costello’s coffers again. The death of the four men served as a stark reminder of what happened to those who crossed the family’s path, and suggestions to local businesses that it was in their best interests to ‘work’ with the family were now accepted without resistance. For the first time in months, the Costellos started to expand their sphere of influence. And for the first time in years, they were the dominant force on the racecourses once again. People were saying that they were swimming in new money.

  The guests had travelled out of London in the morning and headed west into the Cotswolds. Their bridal gifts were envelopes stuffed with cash, handwritten cards inside each envelope announcing the donor so that Edward and Chiara might know who was responsible. The cards established the measure of the respect each donor felt for Edward and wished him and his beautiful bride the best for a long and happy life together. Others had provided gifts: crates of wine and magnums of champagne; gold and diamond bangles; a diamond encircled watch and wristlet; a gold fob watch; silver-plated Rhodium coated pens; a carved rosewood necklace; a pair of gold and amethyst cufflinks; three gold safety pins; an Italian cameo brooch. A distant aunt gave them a sterling silver letter opener from Aspinal of London and Edward absent-mindedly ran his finger along the edge and up to the sharpened point as they surveyed the heaving table where the gifts had been deposited.

  The motivation for these kindnesses was not unsullied, and Edward knew it. Each guest hoped that he would remember them fondly and, in time, acknowledge their respect with a favour. The men and women were drawn from across Soho and the West End and they had all heard the talk. Edward Fabian had become the most influential person within the family. He taken the place of the incarcerated George Costello at Violet’s side, and it was his counsel that she took. The ceremony binding him to Chiara had simply been the public confirmation of what everybody already knew: Edward was family now. It had been him, with Joseph, who had seen off Jack Spot. It had been him who had overseen the family’s recovery and the expansion of their interests. He was not someone to cross or trifle with and, all agreed, he was destined for big things. There was no harm in trying to gain capital with him now.

  Edward stood with his bride at the entrance to the marquee, shaking the hands of the men and kissing the cheeks of the women. He accepted their compliments with good grace, offered the hope that they would enjoy the evening and moved on to the next in line. He felt superb, perfectly ecstatic. He greeted everyone respectfully, with a kind and personal word to each that was calculated to encourage a sense of familiarity. He wanted his guests to think that he was someone who made an effort. He felt in control and it seemed impossible to him that anything could go wrong. Joseph was next in line and he hugged him, pounding him on the back and welcoming him into the family. Violet followed and he stooped to allow her to kiss him on the cheek. Jimmy Stern, at the wedding as his uncle but under an assumed name, took his nephew’s hand and held it.

  “Look what you’ve done,” he said.

  “Everything’s going to be alright now. We don’t have to worry about anything.”

  “Well done, my boy. I’m proud of you. Your father would be, too.”

  Jimmy squeezed his hand and, as he left him with Chiara, Edward felt moisture in the corner of his eyes.

  “Are you alright?” Chiara asked him gently.

  “Yes,” he said. “Just happy.”

  For he was. Everything about the day had been perfect. He compared it to Joseph’s wedding; everything was simply better. The ceremony at St Mark’s had been more beautiful, the aisles bedecked with armfuls of roses and lilies and a storm of multi-coloured confetti as the couple emerged, blinking, into the sunshine. Chiara’s engagement ring was more elegant: fourteen solitaire diamonds surrounding a twelve-carat oval blue Ceylon sapphire set in eighteen-karat white gold. Edward had commissioned Crown jewellers G Collins & Sons to make it and it had cost him seven hundred pounds. It was elegantly understated and yet very obviously expensive, easily surpassing the gaudy bauble that Joseph had presented to Eve. And his wife, who looked so luminously beautiful in her dress, was superior in every way to Eve.

  He squeezed her hand and leant over to kiss her. He had proposed two days after he had disposed of Billy and then gotten rid of S
pot and his men. The notion had been on his mind since before then, but his decisive action to secure his own future and the family’s position in town made it the obvious next step to take. It was difficult to imagine how his stock could rise any higher, and the union would serve to preserve and deepen it. He would be family, once and for all, and all the silly talk of his leaving and returning to medicine could be finally put to rest. He had demonstrated the benefits he could bring to the business and now he would entwine it more tightly around himself. He would involve himself with every last aspect of it, enmeshing himself in it so completely that he would be impossible to disengage without causing expensive damage. It would be impossible, even when George and the others were released from jail. By that time––and he guessed he had another two years before he had to consider the problem of Georgie the Bull––he would be so deeply submerged that they would not be able to contemplate going back to the way things had been before.

  He looked around. It was a boisterous and good-natured crowd, fuelled by a free bar that had been well-stocked by Ruby Ward. Topics of conversation included the police car that was ostentatiously parked at the gates of Halewell Close and the gimlet-eyed detective who regarded the guests as they turned off the road and set off along the long drive to the house. Some recognised him as detective inspector Charlie Murphy, fresh from his successful prosecution of George Costello and the other men who had been arrested at the army base.

  Mention of the police inevitably led to disgusted observations that Billy Stavropoulos was still missing. This led to the presumption––which had become something more than a presumption––that he had been responsible for what had happened. He was a grass, a snake, and he would, people suggested, be dealt when he was found.