The Lighterman: The Kray Twins are out for revenge... (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 3)

by Simon Michael

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Merlin,’ says Charlie, also with a smile.

  He takes the outstretched hand and grips it firmly, and a lifetime’s friendship is thereby cemented.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1964

  Charles is not permitted to follow Merlin and his gaoler through the dock and down the steps into the cells. He excuses himself to the judge, walks back through the court and descends via the main hallway to the basement. The five or six minutes it takes him to reach the conference rooms in the cells allow him a few moments to gather his thoughts.

  For almost two years during the war Charlie and Merlin were inseparable, often in one another’s company twenty-four hours a day. They worked, under different Masters, for the same lighterage firm from dawn till dusk on the river, spending their wages up West together in the same dance halls and bars, and returning home to share Merlin’s freezing bedroom in the roof of the house on Juniper Street.

  When, in 1942, Charles’s father turned up unannounced on the Shadwell doorstep and grabbed his son by the ear, dragging him back to the Horowitz family’s new digs in Burdett Road to resume his education, the two cousins remained firm friends.

  From the day Charlie joined the RAF in 1944 he wrote two letters every week, one to David and his parents and the other to his adopted family in Shadwell. Aunt Bea would read Charlie’s letters out loud round the kitchen table after the Conway family finished tea and before the Marconi was warmed up for the BBC Forces Programme and Aunt Bea’s favourite, “Ack-Ack, Beer-Beer”. The letters to Shadwell, even when censored, were longer and funnier than any of those sent to his close family.

  Charlie was happier and more at ease with his aunt’s family than ever he was in his parents’ home. The Conway household was chaotic and, compared to that of the Horowitzes, untidy and grubby; but his aunt, uncles and cousins seemed to give him permission to be less anxious, lighter of heart and more generous of spirit than did his own parents. For two short years, Charlie became the young man he might’ve been, but for his relationship with his parents and the events which shaped his later life.

  It was the entry of Henrietta into Charles’s life in 1948, his second year at Cambridge, that marked the beginning of the cousins’ drift apart. Charles’s romance with Henrietta was unexpected, intense and exclusive, and caused his life suddenly to veer off in a new and unanticipated direction. Realising that success as a barrister was going to be elusive enough even without an obviously Jewish surname, Charlie Horowitz had become Charles Holborne shortly before meeting Henrietta. Always a superb mimic, he swiftly shed the clipped cockney accent and adopted the languorous speech patterns and argot of the profession and class to which he aspired.

  As he and Henrietta became closer, they each revealed more of their past and found commonality in their strained relationships with their respective parents. Yet, for some reason, Charles omitted from his history the two years he spent on the Thames as a lighterman, his criminality and his close bond with Merlin and his family in Shadwell. A tough East End Jewboy made good — top of his school, RAF hero, scholarship to Cambridge — well, that was one thing; a tough East End Jewboy with a criminal past, including some moments of uncontrolled violence which he still did not fully understand? Something else altogether.

  Thus did Charles absolve himself on those increasingly rare occasions when he took the events out of the memory box where he buried them, and turned them over in his hands momentarily before closing the lid firmly again. He convinced himself that Henrietta would never have understood that happy interlude in Shadwell and all that went with it. In that, as in so much of his understanding of his late wife, he was wrong.

  Although the daughter of a Viscount, the Hon Henrietta Lloyd-Williams was never a snob nor a racist. Indeed, it had been Charles’s air of dangerous bellicosity, his tendency to take risks and the very exoticism of his Levantine heritage that so attracted her. As she was wont to point out, she’d known he was a Jew before falling in love with, and then marrying, him. Charles heard this oft-repeated reassurance; he never actually listened to it.

  So, over the space of one short Michaelmas term, Charles’s contact with the house in Shadwell came to an end. Aunt Bea and Merlin continued to follow his exploits. They read the notice in The Times when he was called to the Bar and were immensely proud of him, the first family member to join the legal profession. They saw too the belated and cursory announcement of his wedding to Henrietta and took the cutting to their local, the “Prospect of Whitby”, to show their friends. They were heard to say that, of course, his life had changed and he could hardly be expected to bring the daughter of a Viscount to their little home in Shadwell! If they were hurt at having been discarded so completely, it was never mentioned.

  It is accordingly with mixed feelings and some foreboding that Charles waits for the gaoler to open the solid steel door and admit him to the cells.

  The door is eventually opened by a new face, one unknown to Charles, and he takes Charles through the formalities strictly by the book. Charles gives the process only half his attention, noticing, as his details are being recorded, that his heart is beating slightly faster than normal. He is shown into one of the tiny cells converted into a conference room and, on the other side of the table, waits Merlin.

  The lighterman rises as Charles enters and pushes back his flat cap so it perches on the back of his head. Charles stands on the threshold for a moment and the gaoler remains behind him. Realising the gaoler is still there, Charles glances over his shoulder.

  ‘Thank you. I need to speak to my client alone.’

  Charles takes a further step into the room and the door shuts behind him.

  The cousins regard one another steadily for a moment. Merlin’s face is contorted with multiple conflicting emotions which, for an instant, confuse Charles. He expected bitterness at the prolonged estrangement, probably anxiety and, perhaps, desperation. Instead Merlin evinces genuine joy at seeing Charles, love even, and something Charles interprets as relief. But there is something else, a hesitation about Merlin’s eyes that Charles cannot identify.

  At that second, however, Charles is so pleased to see his cousin again and so full of empathy for Merlin’s plight that he dismisses the discordant note and launches himself at the handsome lighterman, wrapping his arms about him in a great bear-hug. Merlin reciprocates, and they hold each other for several seconds.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s actually you!’ breathes Merlin into Charles’s ear, his voice breaking in his throat. ‘I’ll tell you, I’m right up against it here, and of all the people in the entire world I wanted to see, it was you! And here you are, Jonjo!’

  Charles hasn’t been called “Jonjo” in over twenty years. It’s the tradition on the river for nicknames to be passed down the generations. Izzy’s father and grandfather had the nickname “Merlin” and so when Izzy started his apprenticeship he became “Merlin” too. Charles’s father, Harry, was neither a waterman nor a lighterman, but once apprenticed to John Joseph Milstein, known all his life on the river as “Jonjo”, Charles became “Jonjo” as well. The name brings to Charles’s mind impossibly hard work in all weathers, the constant risk of death from above and below and long, lazy days of summer aboard the barges being towed up and down the Thames. The best time of his life.

  Charles releases Merlin and gestures to the chair opposite. ‘We haven’t long,’ explains Charles. ‘I need to know the whole story, and quickly.’

  The cousins each take a chair and Charles gets out his blue counsel’s notebook and pen.

  ‘You ain’t changed a jot,’ says Merlin, evaluating his cousin across the table. ‘How long’s it been? Fifteen years?’

  Charles answers immediately, having already been thinking about it. ‘Yes. Your dad’s funeral.’

  Merlin nods. ‘Yeah, must be right.’

  ‘How’s everyone else?’ asks Charles.

  ‘Grandad, Jonjo Milstein, died a coupla years back, in 1960. Heart failure they sai
d. Still, he was seventy-five, so a fair innings. I never hear from me kid brother from one end of the year to the next, but ’e seems to be doing OK over there.’

  ‘Yes, I heard from my Dad that he’d emigrated. And your mum?’

  ‘Not too clever, I’m afraid. She’s got emphysema. Can’t breathe properly. Coughs ’er guts up every time she moves. I’m still at home, so I do what I can for her. She often talks about you.’

  Charles, perhaps oversensitive to it, thinks he detects gentle chiding in his cousin’s voice. He changes the subject abruptly. ‘We better get on with this; we can catch up later. So: murder?’ he asks, busily unscrewing the top of his fountain pen and checking it’s full of ink.

  Merlin nods again.

  ‘But why haven’t you got a solicitor?’ asks Charles. ‘I haven’t heard of a dock brief on a capital charge since the 1940s. Weren’t you offered legal aid at the magistrates’ court?’

  ‘I wasn’t really with it in front of the beaks,’ explains Merlin. He turns his back to Charles and points to the back of his scalp. ‘Vermeulen gave me that.’

  Charles half stands and extends his hand towards the back of Merlin’s head. His fingertips encounter a golf-ball sized lump under the wavy hair. He explores it gently and Merlin winces. It’s soft and soggy. ‘Who’s Vermeulen?’ asks Charles, sitting down again.

  ‘A waterguard, a PO. He was in the police wagon when I was being escorted to the Mags. I didn’t see it coming.’

  ‘I think you’d better start at the beginning, Izzy. First: where are the prosecution depositions?’

  ‘I left them in the cell at Brixton. I didn’t think I’d need ’em today.’

  Charles’s heart sinks, but he’s careful not to let it show in his expression. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘I’ll apply to the judge for an emergency legal visit and go through them at the prison. How thick are they?’

  ‘You what?’

  The question would be familiar to any advocate. The thickness of the papers gives a clue as to the number of witnesses and therefore the complexity of the case. Without instructions from a solicitor, prosecution depositions, defence witness statements or even the indictment to reveal what charges are faced by his new client, a barrister instructed on a docker is fighting with both hands tied behind his back. Some barristers enjoy the challenge; without instructions and no affirmative case to put on behalf of their client, it can be fun to be more “creative” with the defence than if trammelled by precise instructions as to what the accused says actually occurred. In this case, however, if convicted, Merlin almost certainly faces the hangman; this is not a case where he’s going to busk it, less still have fun.

  Merlin holds up his right hand, his forefinger and thumb about half an inch apart. ‘Not that much,’ he says. ‘As you know, my reading’s a bit iffy, but I got through ’em in an hour or so.’

  ‘Good,’ replies Charles. ‘I might just be able to get my hands on one of those new xerographic machines and makes copies,’ he adds quietly, almost to himself.

  ‘You can have mine,’ offers Merlin. ‘I ain’t gonna need them.’

  ‘You are. I need you to read them tonight and write your comments on them, line by line, word by word. Where you agree, where you don’t and your responses in the margins. Understand?’ Merlin shakes his shaggy head. ‘You’ve never heard of a dock brief, then?’ asks Charles.

  ‘A stevedore’s solicitor?’ jokes Merlin, laughter in his brown eyes.

  Charles ignores the poor attempt at humour. ‘Izzy: focus on this please; it’s really important. A dock brief means I have to work without a solicitor, which makes preparing your defence difficult. And instead of weeks or months, we have tonight, just tonight. Maybe the weekend if we’re really lucky. We’re both going have to work bloody hard.’

  Merlin whistles softly. ‘Blimey,’ he says, but almost immediately his countenance clears and his familiar smile reappears. ‘But I’ve got you ain’t I, Jonjo? I see your name in the papers all the time, Charles Holborne wins this case, Charles Holborne wins that case. If anyone can get me off, it’s gotta be you, right?’

  Charles fixes his eyes on Merlin’s and speaks intently. ‘I’ll do everything I can, you know that. But…’ Charles shakes his head to himself, deciding not to worry Merlin any further by telling him anything about Mr Justice Fletcher. ‘Let’s just get on with it. Start at the beginning: what happened?’

  Merlin draws a deep breath. ‘OK. Some years ago I was rummaged by an APO called John Evans. It was just before I got me ticket, while I was still with Union Jack. Remember him? The ganzer macher up the Pie Shop?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ replies Charles.

  Union Jack: barrel-shaped, almost as wide as he was tall, ruddy red cheeks and a monk’s fringe of thinning hair bleached almost white by the sun; a pipe permanently clenched between stained teeth; and an enormous booming laugh which could be heard from one bank of the river to the other. Everyone on the Thames was familiar with Union Jack and his laugh.

  Union Jack Carver came from a family of lightermen and tugboatmen who’d worked the Thames for generations, as far back as the sixteenth century according to Thames legend. He’d spent his life on the river and he knew every wharf, jetty and landing place from Teddington Lock to the Thames Estuary. He was indeed the ganzer macher — Yiddish for “bigshot” — at the “Pie Shop”, the rivermen’s familiar name for Watermans Hall, the ancient institution which hosted the Courts of the Company of Watermen, Lightermen, Tugmen and Bargemen of the River Thames. His working name was Jack and he was a ganzer macher in the union; so, of course, he became known as “Union Jack”.

  ‘I was apprenticed to him when Dad got hisself injured,’ says Merlin.

  ‘Yes, I remember. Your dad almost lost his hand.’

  ‘Right.’

  Charles smiles in recollection, and nods. ‘Is Jack still alive?’

  ‘No. I’m coming to that.’

  ‘OK, carry on then,’ says Charles.

  ‘Well, this was after your dad took you off the boats and back to school. Although I hadn’t got me ticket, I was all but qualified and Jack would leave me to it for much of the time. We’d towed up on the tide and delivered a load of copper from Tilbury to the Royal Albert Docks. We were six barges, three abreast, and he left me there while he took two up to Isleworth. So I was moored up by some buoys waiting for the tide. I was knackered, I’d done twenty-six hours straight. You remember what it was like.’

  Charles remembers it well. The Thames is the “Larder of London”, with wharves from Waterloo all the way down to Greenhithe. Even in the early 1940s when he was working with Izzy, and despite the depredations of the U-boats and the loss of merchant marine vessels, there were almost one hundred lighterage companies on the River employing over three thousand lightermen. There was a constant stream of huge boats in the docks from all over the world waiting to be loaded or unloaded, and the lightermen were so busy they would frequently work twenty-four or even thirty hours straight even when there were no German bombers anticipated.

  When another air raid was expected the activity was frenetic. They received double rations due to the long hours of strenuous work which, for an ever-hungry teenager like Charles, was very welcome, and there was so much overtime available that the lightermen became known as “The Weekend Millionaires.” With most able-bodied men in the forces and so much money in their pockets they became very popular with the young women at the dance halls. Despite being in his mid-teens, Charles was a big strong lad who’d been shaving for over a year when the Blitz started and he could easily pass for eighteen, which he did, taking full advantage of the pleasures afforded thereby.

  ‘So,’ continues Merlin, ‘I’m asleep, when the next thing I hear is footsteps above me ’ead. Thought for a moment that it was Union Jack coming back; lost me sense of time, right? But, next thing, some other bloke’s legs appear down the hatch. Legs in uniform. He was bloody surprised to see me, but ’e says he’s an APO out of Harpy Waterguard St
ation.’

  ‘Didn’t you think that a bit odd?’ asks Charles. ‘Don’t the Waterguard usually come on board on the Upper Coast, or has it all changed?’

  ‘Nah, you’re right, it was odd, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Anyway, he says he’s going to rummage me and I thought “Fair enough.” I weren’t concerned. It weren’t a custom barge with booze or nothing, just an ordinary hatch barge, and we was empty. I thought I might get back to sleep, so I left ’im to it. So, he comes down, looks around for a few seconds, and then the bastard claims he’s found a hollowed-out bulkhead with bottles of brandy. He’s staring at me with one in each hand. I swear, Jonjo, I knew nothing about them.’

  Charles can’t quite suppress a grin, despite the seriousness of Merlin’s situation. The Preventive Officers’ job was to prevent smuggling, and their rummage officers, usually based on a station moored in the River called Harpy Waterguard Station, were specialists, trained in the design of ships and every nook and cranny available for hiding contraband. They circulated amongst themselves detailed descriptions of vessels involved in smuggling, together with “copycat drawings” which illustrated where contraband was likely to be concealed. The drawings showed every hollowed-out bulkhead, hidden engine room compartment and accessible instrument panel on every type of small vessel plying its trade between the oceangoing ships in port and the wharves where they discharged.

  Charles smiles because, even if Merlin might’ve been innocent on this occasion, every now and then he and Charles did help themselves to booze destined for bonded warehouses, just to make the return journeys and the long periods of waiting between tides more agreeable. The life of a lighterman is characterised by intense, physical and very dangerous work in all weathers, twenty-four hours a day, interspersed with prolonged periods of boredom, waiting for the tide, for others in front of them to load or unload or for a tally man to give them the go.