The Black Mile Read online

  “I said he’d be difficult,” McCartney said.

  “I’m not getting very far.”

  “You’re doing fine,” his father said.

  He felt sweat in the small of his back. “I’m not sure.”

  “He’s a fine actor but he’s frightened. Don’t let him fool you.”

  “I’m just not sure––”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” Frank exclaimed, “Get him out of there––he’s completely out of his depth.”

  “No, Francis––he’s doing fine.”

  “Let me do it. I’ll have him singing in five minutes.”

  “Really?” Charlie spat. “How would you do that? Beat him black and blue until he says what you want him to say?”

  “You don’t think that’s what he deserves?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “You feel sorry for him?”

  “No––this gets done properly so his confession isn’t ruled inadmissible when he says it was beaten out of him by a copper with form for that kind of thing. But I wouldn’t expect a neanderthal like you to understand what that means.”

  Frank surged forward and his fist flashed, too quick for Charlie to get his hands up. The blow caught him flush on the jaw.

  He staggered.

  Their father stepped between them. “Frank! Jesus! You’re on the same side, remember?”

  Charlie spat out blood and managed to hold his glare; Frank shook his head derisively. He kicked open the door and went through it.

  Charlie could feel the side of his face swelling.

  “Are you alright?

  His head throbbed. “Just give me a minute, father.”

  “We don’t have a minute, son. Can you go back in?”

  Charlie ignored the throbbing. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You need to pay attention. Something’s turned up.”

  Alf McCartney held up two clear evidence bags.

  Charlie took them: inside, two ration books.

  He read the names on the front covers:

  Constance Worthing.

  Annie Stokes.

  Blood-stains on them both; blue aluminium powder revealing fingerprints.

  “Where did these come from?”

  “Dudley’s house,” Regan said. “In the bedroom.”

  Bob Peters stepped in. “We’ve got him, Charlie. Between these and the gas mask, he’s finished.”

  “What about the mask––he said his was in the house.”

  “Couldn’t find one.”

  “He was bluffing,” his father said. “There’s no way out for him now. But he needs to put his hands up and admit he did it. It’d be best for everyone if we can avoid a trial. We don’t need the distraction of preparing for that, not at the moment. Bloody hell, London doesn’t need the distraction. Whatever it takes––break him. You’re nearly there, son. Make him confess. Get him to plead guilty and he’ll be scragged and out of mind in two months.”

  Charlie took a moment to compose himself.

  He went back inside.

  “You have anything to say to me?”

  “This is a fit-up. I was nowhere near the West End. Someone must have planted a gas mask there and said it was mine.”

  “You’re wasting my time, Duncan.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “There was no mask at the house. What do you have to say about that?”

  “It’s in the cupboard, in the kitchen. I know exactly where it is.”

  “So you say.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “No?” Charlie tossed the evidence bags on the table. “Remember these?”

  Johnson looked at them. “Ration books.”

  “Look at the names.”

  His face was pale and went even paler.

  “I’ve never seen them before.”

  “Funny. We found them at the house. You took them from the Worthing and Stokes after you killed them, didn’t you? Souvenirs. Something to remember them by?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Duncan! You can see how bad this looks for you. Very, very bad. You and a mate get caught with a poor young thing you’ve abducted and done God knows what to. Personal items belonging to two dead prostitutes are found in your possession. Your gas mask turns up at the scene of an assault bearing all the hallmarks of the man we’re looking for.”

  He tried to speak firmly but his shaking hands gave the game away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen those books and I’ve got nothing to do with those women.”

  “Duncan––calm down and think about it. You’re bang-to-rights. Do yourself a favour, tell me what happened. I’ll make it as easy and painless as I can. You’ve just got to put your hands up, that’s all.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Duncan––look at me. I’m your only friend now. I’ll help you.”

  “This is a fit-up.”

  “Tell me you killed the brasses.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Charlie banged the table. “Last chance. Tell me!”

  Johnson closed his eyes. “I didn’t do it.”

  “Confess!”

  “Lawyer,” he croaked. “Get me a lawyer.”

  49

  FRANK WOKE UP. He was lying on top of his bed, dressed, a half pint bottle of Black & White on the floor, half a packet of cigarettes spilt across the bed, the rest smoked and screwed into an ashtray. The room smelt ripe: stale smoke, sweat, unwashed clothes. He rolled over and reached for his watch: six. He got up and pulled back the black-out; the sky was beginning to darken, dusk settling over the West End. Six in the evening. He must’ve slept all day.

  He remembered: he’d been drinking since he left the nick. He hadn’t touched a drop since Eve disappeared. He hadn’t dared––he’d needed a clear head to find her again. With the Ripper off the street, it didn’t seem so bad. One night wouldn’t hurt. Things weren’t as dangerous as they had been. Dickie Farr and a couple of the lads had persuaded Joe Franks to open his place, a few early morning jars to celebrate a job well done. He remembered stumbling up from the basement into bright morning sunshine and waiting for the operator to place a call to Julia, struggling to explain that Duncan Johnson was done for, off the streets, finished, done––he wasn’t sure how much sense he’d made because she kept telling him he’d been drinking and asking him to repeat himself.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Frank opened up: his father was standing outside. He looked over Frank’s shoulder into the room: “Jesus, Frank.”

  “What?”

  “Good God, son. How do you live like this?”

  “It’s temporary. Moving back in soon. Just temporary, this is, until then.”

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “Is it obvious?”

  “You reek of it. I thought you’d stopped? After––”

  “I have. It’s just a one-off.”

  He didn’t come in. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? Yesterday, you and Charlie––you were out of order, Francis.”

  His hand stung. Bruised knuckles helped him remember.

  “I know.”

  “You need to sort it out. It’s gone on long enough.”

  “I will. I––I’ll apologise.”

  “I think you might find Charlie is ready for that, too. I spoke to him about his testimony. He knows he was in the wrong. I think he’s regretting it.” His father took off his hat. “But I’m not here about that. I wish I was. I’m afraid I’m the bearer of ill tidings. Georgina Howard jumped out of the hospital window this afternoon.”

  A shot to the guts and a memory: last night, the girl’s dead, empty eyes staring at him through the slats. “Christ.”

  “The parents visited until midday, didn’t get anything out of her, she was given a sedative but she never took it; the nurse found pills on the floor and her bed empty. A pedestrian found her in the
street just after four. It was a five-storey drop. She never stood a chance.”

  “Did she––”

  “Not a word. Whatever they did to her, she took it to her grave.”

  Frank sat down and put his head in his hands.

  “It’s another reason to get Johnson weighed off. And there’s something else about that. Might help you feel better. Charlie got into him again this morning; Georgina Howard aside, which he can’t deny, he still says he had nothing to do with the dead brasses. He’s got a brief now. Charlie’s taken this as far as he can––he’s asking the same questions and Johnson is just denying them. Stalemate. He’s bang to rights with the evidence we found, but I want him pleading to it. The Commissioner does not want this going to full trial. It’s time for a different approach. Johnson’s got this afternoon with his brief and then we’re going to charge him and remand him to Brixton. I thought you might like to ride in the back of the Black Maria. Escort him. No lawyer, just you and him, a detour south of the river for a while, no-one else, a prime chance for you to demonstrate why it’s in everyone’s best interests for him to plead on the murders. Are you game for that, son?”

  Images: Johnson and Dudley with the girl.

  The girl falling, bouncing off the pavement.

  Eve taking her place.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Get tidied up and get to the nick. We’ll move him at eight.”

  50

  THE BOMBS HAD FALLEN HEAVILY FOR AN HOUR. Charlie Murphy and Alf McCartney waited outside West End Central, listening to them whistling down, the muffled crumps when they hit: a stick of three rumbled from somewhere to the south, another threw silver across the rooftops like the popping of a camera’s flash. The black-out had been in force for an hour, and the street was a mixture of blacks and greys, nothing distinct. Searchlights sought the bombers out, the long silver beams catching bright against the edges of barrage balloons, silhouetting the edges of buildings, suffusing the clouds. The planes sounded lower tonight, he thought. Maybe it was just his ears playing tricks.

  McCartney tamped tobacco into the bowl of the pipe and lit it. “Dear old Göring is giving us both barrels today, eh? Be nice if we could say it kept chummy off the streets, too, but it doesn’t. Biggest opportunity for naughtiness since God knows when.”

  A dozen police––uniform and plainclothes––were gathered around the porch. The word had gone out: Johnson was being moved. Ghouls, rubberneckers and vengeful men, all of them wanting to see their celebrity prisoner.

  A Black Maria pulled up alongside the station. Charlie watched as the driver killed the engine and went around to open the doors at the back.

  He was tired. He’d spent the better part of three hours with Johnson this morning. The time had started to drag after the first twenty no comments, Johnson keeping it zipped on the advice of his brief. He fired question after question after question at him––the murders, the rape––and gritted his teeth as the bastard played a straight bat to every one. He was going to make them prove the charges in front of a jury. He didn’t flinch, not when they told him that Georgina Howard was dead, not when they charged him for her abduction and rape. The panic from yesterday was gone; his eyes were steely, determined. He’d made up his mind to fight.

  The doors opened and a woodentop with a shotgun pushed Johnson outside.

  One bobby spat at his feet; another drew an imaginary noose around his neck and yanked it, his tongue lolling out.

  “Murderer.”

  “Won’t last five minutes in stir.”

  “Kiddie raper.”

  “Miracle if you get to trial before you get shanked.”

  Johnson saw Charlie and stopped.

  “I didn’t do it. Those dead brasses. Wasn’t me.”

  “So you say.”

  “Your boss would love me to confess, wouldn’t he? Save all the bother.”

  The bobby prodded him with the barrel of the shotgun.

  “You can whistle for it. This is a set-up. The things they found, they planted the lot of it. I’ll be verballed good and proper and strung up like a kipper, but I didn’t do it. They’ll hang me for it.”

  They started down the steps.

  “You’ll have that on your conscience!”

  He reached the pavement; the bobby shoved him towards the van.

  The passenger-side door opened and Frank stepped down.

  Charlie gaped. “What’s he doing there, guv?”

  “Frank’s escorting our friend to Brixton.”

  “Why him?”

  “Your father insisted. Not taking any chances.”

  Frank was talking to the driver, playing with something in his hand; a distant explosion flashed the horizon and Charlie caught a glimpse of something metallic: brass knucks.

  Charlie realised why Frank was going on the trip.

  They’d given him his chance to break Johnson.

  He’d failed.

  Now they would play it Frank’s way.

  Alf looked up into the sky. “What’s that?”

  Charlie heard an unusual swishing noise, the kind of noise a plane would make if it dived without its engine, or like a gigantic fuse burning. He looked up: a black canopy folding in on itself, falling slowly. He heard the hollow thud as something heavy and metallic struck the cobbles.

  A blurred image in the half-light, a metal canister, half as big as the Black Maria.

  He realised what it was, tried to shout out a warning, tried to throw himself to the ground; too late, far too late. The mine detonated and Charlie had a glimpse of a house-sized ball of white, wild light that flash-burned his retinas. He saw two concentric rings of colour––the inner lavender, the outer violet––before he threw his arms up to shield his head. He was picked up and thrown backwards, slamming against the station doors and finishing up beneath the porch, something hard flattening his nose and a wave of pressure squeezing the air from his lungs. He folded his arms across the back of his head and pulled in his knees. It sounded like an avalanche, bricks and rubble falling into the street. Soot swept over him, filling his mouth and nose and lungs.

  o o o

  PERFECT SILENCE. Either that, or the blast had deafened him. He opened his eyes. It was completely dark. Soot and dust drifted slowly towards the ground, blocking the murky twilight. Dense plums of smoke puffed outwards, racing like tornadoes on their sides. His eyes burned. He reached up and scrubbed them. Fires became visible, dancing on paper and wood, jetting from broken gas mains, flames crackling.

  He didn’t recognise where he was. It took a moment to remember. Savile Row, although it was completely unrecognisable now. West End Central had been hit full-on. Debris blocked the street: rubble, joists, steel girders, slates from the roof. A filing cabinet was in the middle of the road, stood upright. Hundreds of pieces of paper flapped silently down from gutted rooms. A desk slipped down a newly sloping floor and out of a huge hole in the wall, slamming into the street with a crunch. The Black Maria had been crushed, the roof flattened and the vehicle flipped over onto its side.

  The air rained white ash and powder dust. Charlie held up his arms, looked down at his legs: he was coated head-to-foot, as white as a ghost.

  A noise: a whimpering. Charlie staggered towards the sound and tripped over the uniform with the shotgun. His clothing was gone, all that was left just blood and rags. His shotgun was in the street. Charlie knelt and prodded him; the man didn’t respond. Dead.

  He stood. Something snagged his ankle.

  He looked down: a man’s fingers on the hem of his trousers, metal wrapped around the knuckles. He was on the ground, his leg bent around at an unnatural angle, bone spurs a shocking white, a compound fracture right through the skin. Debris half-covered him: laths and bricks and smashed bits of furniture.

  “Frank.”

  His brother groaned.

  “God, Frank, Jesus.”

  “No––”

  “I’ll get help.”

  “Johnson.” Frank po
inted.

  Duncan Johnson was twenty yards ahead, staggering away.

  He had a pistol in his hand.

  “I can’t.”

  “Johnson.”

  “You need help.”

  “Go.”

  He looked down and his stomach flipped. “Your leg––”

  It was buckled horribly.

  Frank held his wrist. “I’ll live.”

  Charlie picked up the shotgun.

  “Go!”

  He got up.

  He went after Johnson.

  Everything at half-speed.

  Like walking through glue.

  The pistol shot was a muffled pop, flat and small and tiny in between the crumbling explosions. Charlie caught the muzzle flash of the second shot, a flare like a painted stripe across his white-streaked vision. He didn’t feel a thing. The bullet punched through his shoulder and blood started running down his upper arm. The muzzle flashed again and he felt stinging pain in his thigh.

  Johnson turned and stumbled ahead.

  Charlie loped wincing along the kerb.

  Johnson turned and shuffled backwards.

  Charlie saw himself in a shop window that had somehow not been shattered by the blast. His right arm hung loosely at his side and he was limping like a cripple.

  Muzzleflash. The plate glass fell out of the window. Shards shattered, fell like music.

  He dropped to the floor.

  Get up, he told himself. Get up. He’s not escaping. There’s no way.

  His arm flared white-hot with pain.

  Ignore it.

  Get up.

  Charlie pushed himself to his feet.

  He crossed Savile Row with blood sloshing in his shoes.

  Johnson went across Clifford Street.

  “Stop!”

  His right hand ran with hot blood. He moved the shotgun across his body so he could cradle it with his left.

  “Stop!”

  Johnson tripped on a pile of debris.

  Fell.

  Charlie closed.

  Johnson scrambled for footing.

  Charlie brought up the shotgun. Johnson fired, missed. Charlie thumbed back the hammer and triggered a wide spread: buckshot sprayed. Johnson flew backwards. The pistol jumped out of his hand as if it had been kicked. He reached for his stomach. He skidded into the gutter, his hands clutching at his midriff, blood between his fingers, holding it in.