The Soho Noir Series Page 5

  “What?”

  “Just until we get to the bottom of this.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Chattaway went around the desk and opened the door for him. “Thank you, Henry.”

  “Edward, please—I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I hope not.”

  CHAPTER 12

  THURSDAY, 11th JULY 1940

  SCOTLAND YARD. The room was loud with an angry hubbub, the aftermath of the verdict. Charlie closed the door behind him, muffling the din. He had been sitting at the back and he was keen to make a discreet exit. The result had been inevitable, so he couldn’t say he was much surprised. ‘Guilty of acting in a manner likely to bring discredit on the reputation of the Force, by behaving in a disorderly manner, with reference to disciplinary code one.’ Four of the men had been sacked, just like that, their files been sent to the DPP with the recommendation that proceedings be brought against them for assault.

  Fred Austin.

  John Blatch.

  Peter Myers.

  Harry Sparks.

  Charlie didn’t feel guilt. No remorse. They’d acted like animals. Like drunken thugs. No place for men like that in the Metropolitan Police.

  He hadn’t done anything wrong.

  He needed to use the toilet. He went through into the gents. Frank was washing his face. He saw him in the mirror, said nothing, and looked back down at his hands.

  Charlie shuffled awkwardly.

  His brother rinsed his hands and dried them off with the towel. He glared at him in the mirror. “New duds? Hair cut, too. Told to look your best, were you?”

  Charlie said nothing.

  “Happy?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “You didn’t mean to ruin my career?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Stop being naïve.”

  “I only agreed to do it if they left you out.”

  “Are you being deliberately stupid? Jesus, Charlie. Jesus! What, you think it doesn’t affect me? You support allegations against my boys, where’s that going to fall?”

  “I thought about that. I don’t—”

  “You thought how it makes me look?”

  “I—”

  “It looks like I lost control of the nick. It makes me look very bloody bad indeed.”

  “They said—”

  “I was supervising officer. It was always going to end at my door. They’ve docked my pay by ten shillings a week for twenty-six weeks. No promotion for two years. Probably already got their fingers crossed I get sick of it and sod off. Maybe I will.”

  “I—”

  “Your new mate must be very happy. Eh?”

  “What?”

  “McCartney.”

  “He’s been understanding.”

  “I bet. What are you getting for this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your pay-off. What’s he promised?”

  “I’m just doing my duty.”

  “Please. Change the bloody record. You wouldn’t put your neck out like this without getting something in return. You’re too clever for that. What is it? A transfer? Promotion?”

  “The Flying Squad.”

  Frank laughed bitterly.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Maybe you’re not that clever. Did you think about what’ll happen when you get there? The Squad’s traditional and the Met’s a small world. The chaps will know the blokes you’ve grassed. You’ll have your teeth put down your throat. They won’t want anything to do with you.”

  “That’s not what Alf thinks.”

  “Listen to yourself! McCartney is an ambitious man. How do you think he made Super so bloody quick? If he thinks you can help him, he’ll make you the centre of the world. He’ll promise anything to get what he wants. But once you’ve served your purpose, he’ll drop you like a stone. You wait.”

  “Piss off, Frank. Same as always, isn’t it? Frank knows best. You’ve never looked at things from my point of view. Father, too. Not once. Did you ever think about how it was for me, stuck in a bloody nick where everyone hates my guts? Every day is torture. You both knew I was wasted there. I’ve tried to talk to him but he won’t have it. I knew there was no point asking you.”

  “You never—”

  “It’s always about you. You, you, you. You and the Army. The war hero. You and the police. Father couldn’t be happier, you and your bloody career. Do you know how hard it is to be your brother? I’m just an afterthought. It’s all about you, Frank, always has been. I’ve had enough of it.”

  An awkward silence fell; Charlie knew that things had changed between them, that the shifting tensions and stresses in their relationship had solidified into something more permanent. Something that might be malignant. He washed his hands and dried them off. “I did what I had to do. I’m sorry that it’s not good for you but that’s not my fault. I shan’t apologise. I’ve done nothing wrong. I did my job. And I’d do it again.”

  Frank coloured with anger. “I don’t want you to apologise.” He stepped closer, right up in his face. “But what I do want is for you to stand there and show me some respect. I haven’t dismissed you yet, Constable, and unless I’m mistaken I’m still your bloody superior officer.”

  There it was again. The arrogance. The talking down to him. The big brother. In light of everything that had happened, he still hadn’t changed. He never would. “Not for long,” Charlie said, stepping around him. “Sir.”

  o o o

  MEETINGS OF THE LODGE OF FORTITUTDE, NUMBER 6, were held in rooms above Miles Coffee House in Gerrard Street. It was the nearest Temple to West End Central and the membership was exclusively Old Bill. Charlie had never been so nervous; his guts felt empty, he’d been pacing the pavement, up and down, for half an hour. He took a step towards the Coffee House, stopped, turned back. He needed a moment, and used it to examine his reflection in the window of a snouter, adjusting the knot of his tie and the fit of his jacket across his shoulders. Important to look smart. Give off the right image. A lot of the brothers, he’d heard, they insisted the rules and conventions be followed to the letter, wouldn’t let you in if you didn’t make the effort.

  Right. No sense in waiting outside like a prize fool. He crossed the road and went inside. A man came up to him: big, thirtyish, wearing a sober suit.

  “George Grimes.”

  They shook hands. Charlie knew the roles, the procedure: Grimes was Junior Steward. It was his job to get him ready. “Charlie Murphy.”

  “You were uniform at Savile Row, weren’t you? Just moved to the Yard?”

  “I’m C1 now. Been there a couple of weeks.”

  “I’m Savile Row CID. You’re in good company here.”

  Grimes must’ve known about him giving evidence, but he didn’t say anything. That made him feel a little better.

  “Alf’s proposing you?”

  “That’s right. You, too?”

  Grimes nodded. “I’d only been at the nick a month before he got his hooks in. Everyone knows what he’s like—he loves this stuff.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Not saying that. I’m—well, look, just don’t expect it to solve all your problems.”

  They opened a door and followed a passage.

  They reached a small anteroom. Charlie swallowed, fought the shakes. Grimes put on a plain white apron and fastened it around his waist. “Nervous?”

  “Bit.”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. Just do as you’re told and you’ll be fine. Memorised your lines?”

  “Think so.”

  “Good show. Let’s get you ready.”

  Grimes helped him off with his jacket. He unbuttoned his shirt, rolled his right sleeve up to the elbow, removed his right shoe and put on some sort of slipper. He rolled up his right trouser leg, opened a small box and produced a rope, knotted into a noose. “The cable-tie. The cord of life. Don’t worry—it’s just ceremonial. Not going to s
tring you up.” Grimes placed the noose around his neck and tightened the knot until it was snug. He covered his eyes with a strip of black cloth: the hoodwink. He knotted it behind his head and led him forwards. “Right, you’re at the door to the Temple. You know what happens now?”

  “I wait here for the Senior Deacon.”

  “Be about ten minutes for us to get to your bit. Good luck, pal.”

  A door opened and closed and Charlie was alone. The hoodwink itched against his forehead; he couldn’t see anything. Words and phrases ran through his mind. He’d been up until four, a dozen cups of coffee to keep him awake, reading and remembering what was about to happen. “The Ritual of the Entered Apprentice,” it was called. It had been a mess of superstition and mumbo jumbo last night.

  Didn’t seem so ridiculous now.

  Muffled conversation came from behind the door.

  It opened. Charlie took a deep breath. A hand took him by the elbow and drew him forwards.

  PART TWO

  “HE’S COMING”

  — September 1940 —

  CALENDAR

  — 1940 —

  Sunday Pictorial, 16th July:

  DISGRACED POLICE OFFICERS ARRESTED

  The six officers dismissed from the Metropolitan Police in the aftermath of the disturbances during the internment of Italian immigrants in Soho in June now face criminal proceedings after they were arrested by detectives from New Scotland Yard. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Gerard Smith, indicated that the men had been charged with assault and battery arising out of the fracas at Savile Row police station and would be brought to trial by the end of the month. “The public can be sure that this office treats the abuse of power by men in authority extremely seriously,” Mr Smith said. “The full weight of the law will now be brought to bear against them.”

  The Mirror, 17th July:

  NEWSPAPERMAN ACCUSED

  ALLEGATIONS OF FABRICATED STORIES

  A newspaper columnist was yesterday accused of fabricating stories in the Daily Star. A source at the Star said that routine fact-checking revealed ‘inconsistencies’ in Mr Drake’s stories. That paper has promised no further comment until its internal investigation has been concluded. Mr. Drake was also unwilling to make comment.

  The Mirror, 30th August:

  “ANTI-ITALIAN” POLICEMEN IMPRISONED

  Two policemen have been convicted of assault following their behaviour during the internment of Italian immigrants in Soho earlier this year. Mr Stanley Huff and Mr Harry Sparks, both 40, were dismissed from the Metropolitan Police in July following an internal enquiry. The jury found the two men guilty on all counts and sentenced them to three years imprisonment. Mr Justice Wilson said that the defendants had abused their position as police officers and were guilty of “quite heinous acts of violence.” Four other officers were convicted of lesser offences and received fines. The Commissioner of the Police, Sir Phillip Game, said that sentences would bring an end to an appalling situation. Apologising once again to the men who were assaulted by the officers, the Commissioner promised that internal changes had been made following an extensive internal enquiry and it was now “impossible” that such an event could be repeated.

  PROBATIONARY REPORT

  Detective Constable Charles Murphy

  C Department

  Det. Sgt. Murphy has been something of a curate’s egg since his transfer to Central. In the two months that he has worked under me, he has consistently proven himself to be a first-rate detective. A good detective must be intelligent; tenacious; thorough; determined. Murphy excels in every area. Speaking purely as his D.C.I., his relentless dedication to duty has been a significant asset to this Department—he averages six arrests per month and has already made several significant cases despite no investigatory experience. He has been commended by the court on two occasions on the strength of his work—quite unprecedented for this Department.

  Unfortunately, he is unpopular with the other detectives. His vigour in pursuing fellow men has marked him out as unusual—most men resent this work. He is possessed of a particularly awkward nature, and shows no interests in anything other than his policework. His demeanour does not sit comfortably with the usual practice of a drink after going off turn, and has denied him the chance to mix socially with his fellows (not that I think this is something that he would relish). I’m quite sure that the antipathy he arouses is caused in at least small proportion by jealousy—it is obvious that he is the best D.S. here by some distance—but one must also ascribe much of the blame for this state of affairs to the officer himself. He has done nothing to ingratiate himself with his fellows and, indeed, sometimes seems to actively shun their company. I have delicately mentioned this to him on more than one occasion but it has had no discernible effect.

  I hereby recommend he be approved following the expiry of his probationary period, but I will continue to press him to make more of an effort with his peers.

  Det. Ch. Insp. Stanley Sinclair

  CHAPTER 13

  SUNDAY, 1ST SEPTEMBER 1940

  AT LEAST HE WAS WRITING. Better than nothing. That’s what he told himself, although it never felt like it. Henry Drake dragged down on the cigarette, screwed it into the ashtray, knocked a fresh Players out of the box, lit it, rolled a new piece of paper into the typewriter. Horoscopes. He tapped out his heading—ARIES—his fingers hesitating as he searched for an opening sentence. Chattaway liked the horoscopes to be “upbeat” and “optimistic,” given the times. Difficult, since optimism was something Henry couldn’t remember feeling. After a moment struggling he started typing: Arian readers could expect their ambitions to be fulfilled; it was a favourable week for signing documents; leave from the services would come as a pleasant surprise. Bloody rubbish. He drummed his fingers against the typewriter keys, unspooled the sheet of paper, rolled his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and fought the urge to screw the paper up and toss it in the bin.

  Good lord.

  It had come to this.

  The newsroom was frantic, final touches being put to pages before they went down to the blockmaker. A photograph of Churchill gazing at France through a pair of binoculars was being captioned; “I’ve Got My Eye on Hitler” was the current favourite. David Lloyd George’s article on “How Hitler Will Try to Invade Us” was being proofed, ‘The Man Who Won The War’ saying the invasion would materialise within the next few days and that, if the Führer grasped the nettle, it’d be the most dangerous endeavour he’d ever undertaken. London, Lloyd George opined, might be for Hitler what Moscow was for Napoleon.

  He took out the bottle of pills and tipped two into his palm. He washed them down with whiskey.

  Chattaway’s investigation would be over soon. His stories wouldn’t stand scrutiny. He hadn’t thought about it at the time, but part of him always expected to be caught. He’d made up too much: people, visits, conversations. It wasn’t wrong. He took stories he heard, drunken gossip and tittle-tattle, and wove them together to make something compelling. It was alchemy. He’d wondered about the propriety of it, at the start. But Chattaway had loved it. He rationalised: he was providing entertainment. There was a skill in making the stories credible and not everyone could do that. Justification came easily. Blending fact with fiction and creating something completely original. It was alchemy. No-one else was doing anything remotely like it.

  Chattaway wouldn’t see it that way.

  The paper wouldn’t.

  He was going to get slung.

  He knew what that meant: no-one would ever employ him again.

  The pills started to buzz.

  He had to make it impossible to fire him.

  He had to find a story so special that it made him indispensable.

  He rolled up the sheet of paper, pushed it into the metal tube. “Copy!” One of the boys scurried over, collected the tube, dropped it down the ten-inch hole in the centre of his desk. A steel pipe slid down through the floor of the building, ending in the composing ro
om and the in-basket of the head printer. The horoscopes would be composed and set and added to the metal frame for the page, ready for printing. The process had enthralled him once: his words multiplied a million times. That thrill was dead; shit was still shit, no matter how many times you printed it.

  School.

  His apprenticeship.

  The long slog to Fleet Street.

  All for this.

  He needed dynamite.

  CHAPTER 14

  FRANK MURPHY reached an arm across to the bedside table, knocking over an empty bottle and a candle. He found the alarm and switched it off. Eight o’clock. He stared up at the ceiling, at the spot where the leak from the room above had rotted the plaster and left the laths exposed.

  He struggled out of bed and pulled the black-out aside. A seventh-floor view from the police Section House at 42, Beak Street: London basking under a bright, hot sky.

  He’d done the rounds again last night. None of the girls could be persuaded to get off the street. The Ripper had been quiet for nearly three months and they reckoned he was finished. He was dead, they said, or called up, or sated. That mad frenzy of violence and then, what?—nothing? Frank listened to them over cups of tea and coffee in twenty-four hour cafés and wished he shared their optimism. He didn’t know where the Ripper was either, but he didn’t think he was done. He was waiting for the call to tell him that another body had been found. It wouldn’t be a surprise at all. Impossible that he would just stop. It didn’t happen like that.

  He bought them their drinks and, when they had finished talking about the Ripper, he asked them about Eve. None of them had seen her and so, eventually, he called it a night. He had come back to the Section House, brewed a pot of strong black coffee, and spread the Ripper files out across the room. Hoping, maybe, that staring at the pages would reveal a connection he had missed. It hadn’t. He’d fallen asleep, the pot of coffee on the floor and papers scattered over the bed. The files brought him nightmares instead.