by Roberta Kray
Judith loosened her hold on the bag, but not by much. ‘Aren’t you going to buy one?’
‘Oh, I can’t decide. I’ll think about it over lunch.’
They walked to the Lyons’ Corner House, the only place Judith was familiar with, bought soup and sandwiches and settled into a booth. The place was crowded and noisy, filled with shop girls and shoppers. The smell of damp coats, perfume and cigarettes hung in the air. Snippets of talk drifted over as they ate: He said … She said … So I told him I wasn’t born yesterday …
Judith kept the handbag between her left hip and the wall, terrified of it getting stolen. She took a spoonful of soup, glanced down at the bag, took another spoonful. What if the damn gun went off? With no idea as to whether it was safe or not, she eased herself along the seat a little.
Annie watched from across the table. ‘Why don’t you just put it in the bin?’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can, you just won’t.’
‘I don’t know what to do for the best. I don’t even know what the best is.’
‘Nell’s not your responsibility,’ Annie said. ‘And if she did … well, you know … do what you think she did, then it should be the police who deal with it.’
‘Even if it means …’ Judith lowered her voice. ‘It’s going to have her prints on it. And they’ll probably be able to tell if it was the gun that killed Lennie Hull. They will, won’t they?’
‘And what if it was him? What if it was Dan?’
Judith sighed into her soup. ‘I need more time to think.’
The afternoon was spent sightseeing: Buckingham Palace, the Mall, the Houses of Parliament, and finally Westminster Abbey. The latter had been lucky to survive the Blitz. In May 1941, a cluster of firebombs had landed on the roof, one burning through the lead and getting lodged in a beam. As they wandered around, Judith raised her gaze to the altar. Although she had never been especially religious, divine intervention felt like her only hope. A sign would have been useful, an indication of what to do about the gun, but God seemed uninterested in her dilemma.
It was getting on for five by the time they left the Abbey. Although it was too early for the meeting with Saul, they began to meander back towards Soho. Annie, enthralled by everything, was in her element. She loved the crowds, the shops, the hustle and bustle of London. Linking arms with Judith, she dragged her along on a wave of enthusiasm, stopping every few yards to stare at this or that with wide, excited eyes.
Judith, who knew Soho moderately well by now, was able to guide them through the busy streets, past the theatres and cinemas, the bars and restaurants and sleazy clubs. Although Saturday night hadn’t properly begun, the area was already teeming, the air buzzing, the atmosphere rich in anticipation.
‘Watch your bag,’ she advised, clutching her own even tighter. ‘This place is full of pickpockets.’
They were halfway along Beak Street when Judith noticed a coffee bar called Carlo’s. For some reason it rang a bell, although she couldn’t remember exactly why. They had gone a few feet past when a voice rang out behind them.
‘Red! Hey, Red!’
Instantly it came back to her, and as she turned, she saw the Yank hurrying towards them with a wide grin on his face. Oh, no.
‘How are you doing, babe?’ he asked as he drew alongside.
‘Quite well, thank you,’ she said coolly, not wanting to encourage him.
‘Great to see you again. Small world, huh? You ever find your guy?’
Judith nodded, edging away as she did so. ‘I did.’ He was one of those people it was hard to get rid of, and she didn’t want to encourage him. Annie, however, had other ideas.
‘You going to introduce us, then?’
Judith, left with no other alternative, said quickly, ‘Annie, this is Pete. Pete, Annie.’
‘Good to meet you, Annie.’ He put out his hand and shook hers vigorously. ‘Now you two ladies are going to join me for a coffee, yeah? I’m not going to take no for an answer. I’m a lonely Yank in London without a soul to talk to.’
Judith sorely doubted this – the man must spend at least half the day trying to pick up random women – but before she could decline the invitation, Annie jumped in.
‘Well, we can’t have that. We’re not in a hurry; we’ve got nowhere to be until seven.’
Judith shot her a glance, but Annie ignored it.
Pete slid in between the two of them, took an elbow in each hand and propelled them back towards Carlo’s. ‘That’s settled, then. Coffee all round.’
‘Where are you from?’ Annie asked. ‘New York?’
‘Hell, no. I’m a Texas boy, born and bred.’
The café was warm and smoky, with bright lemon-coloured walls. There was music playing – something jazzy – which battled to be heard above the noisy chatter and the screeching hiss of the coffee machine. They squeezed through the crowd until they found an empty table at the back. Pete went off to the counter, and Judith looked at Annie, raising her eyebrows.
Annie laughed. ‘He’s all right. Why not? It’s just a bit of fun.’
Judith sat back in her chair and eased off her shoes, glad to be sitting down at least. She wasn’t sure if she could remember what fun was. The last few weeks had been relentlessly dark and miserable. Glancing around, she saw that the clientele was mainly young, under thirty, a mix of men and women, casually dressed.
‘I wish we had somewhere like this in Westport,’ Annie said, peering around the other customers to try and catch a glimpse of Pete. And then, as if the mention of Westport had reminded her, she dug into her handbag and said, ‘Oh, I almost forgot. There was a letter for you. I think it’s your reference from Gillespie and Tate.’
Judith took it from her and put it into her own bag, taking care not to disturb the gun. ‘Thanks. I’m going to have to look for a job when I get back.’
‘You could always get one in London. I bet there’s tons of jobs going here, good ones, too.’
‘I’ve had enough of London, thank you very much.’
Annie pulled a face. ‘Sorry, of course you have. Listen to me going on. What an idiot! Are you all right? We can go if you’d rather. We don’t have to stay.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m sure he’s harmless enough, and I’m glad of the sit-down. You can do the talking, though, seeing as you accepted the invite.’
In the event, there was no problem when it came to conversation. Pete was a prize talker, as was Annie, and between them there wasn’t so much as an awkward pause. Judith left them to get on with it. She welcomed the thinking time, the opportunity to weigh up the options when it came to the gun. Was she going to give it to Saul or not? What she didn’t want was to end up taking it back to Westport with her.
By the time they came to leave, only one thing had been decided for sure – Pete was coming with them to the Fitzroy Tavern.
‘Well, I don’t want to be a wallflower,’ Annie said as though Judith and Saul were an item. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
Judith didn’t mind. She wasn’t sure how Saul would feel about it, though.
52
What Saul Hannah felt when Judith arrived at the Fitzroy with two companions in tow was a stab of disappointment. He’d been hoping, although he’d barely admitted this to himself, to spend the evening alone with her. Perhaps some sign of dismay showed on his face, because she apologised and gave a hurried explanation as to how Annie had turned up out of the blue this morning. Pete was, she said, a friend of Annie’s.
‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ Pete asked as the introductions were made. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you around.’
Saul shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yeah, you look real familiar.’
Drinks were bought and small talk made. Saul thought Judith was nervous, on edge, but perhaps she’d just had a tough week. Annie, on the other hand, seemed completely relaxed. He could feel her eyes on him from time to time, as though she was weighing him up. She was th
e friendly sort, flirtatious, and most of her attention was focused on the American. Pete was one of those loud, brash Yanks who might have been a deserter – there were swarms of them still in London – or maybe just a GI who hadn’t returned home. He claimed to be a mechanic, but the pristine state of his fingernails somewhat belied the story.
Judith leaned in towards him and asked softly, ‘Have you heard anything? Is there any news about Elsa?’
Saul shook his head. ‘You?’
He thought she hesitated a touch too long. ‘No, nothing.’
‘And Hull’s left you alone?’
Again that pause. ‘He turned up at the boarding house – well, outside it – but Doyle was there, so—’
‘Doyle was there? What did he want?’
Judith gave a wry smile. ‘What he always wants,’ she said. ‘To get rid of me.’
But there was more to it, he thought, something she wasn’t telling him. This made him curious. He watched her hands fiddle with her handbag, putting it on her lap, on the table and then back on her lap again. She looked tired and distracted.
‘And that’s all?’ he asked.
‘That’s enough, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose it is.’
Annie wanted to go dancing, and Saul quickly suggested the Montevideo. ‘We can eat there, too. It’s only down the road. Five minutes away.’ He had a particular reason for wanting to be there. It was Alf Tombs’s birthday and he’d heard there was going to be a gathering at the club. Checking out who was and wasn’t in the gangster’s inner circle at the moment could be useful.
‘Is it nice there?’ Annie asked.
‘As nice as anywhere else.’
Judith shot him a look, but didn’t raise any objections. Ten minutes later, they were on their way.
53
The Montevideo was much busier than the last time they’d been here, with most of the tables taken and the dance floor rapidly filling up. Judith hadn’t really wanted to come, but hadn’t wanted to disappoint Annie either. Out of all the possible clubs in the area – and she imagined there were plenty – she wondered why Saul had chosen this one.
She scanned the room as they sat down, but there was no sign of the gangster. Or maybe it wasn’t Tombs she was really searching for. Every time her gaze caught a flash of blond hair, her heart skipped a beat. She had no desire to see Doyle, didn’t even want to think about him, and yet her eyes still sought him out.
Wine was ordered – two bottles of white – and they ate a light meal with it, meat in a sauce which the menu claimed was chicken but which didn’t taste like it. Judith, wanting to keep a clear head, went easy on the alcohol. After the meal was finished, Pete and Annie took to the dance floor, giving her a chance to talk to Saul. She wanted to tell him about the gun, wanted to hand it over, to be rid of it, but something held her back: perhaps it was simply the consequences.
He lit a cigarette and looked at her. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘Nothing. Everything. I’m not sure.’
‘Sounds confusing.’
‘Elsa, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I didn’t really know her, did I?’
‘No one knew Elsa. If you’re looking for answers as to why she did what she did – whatever that might have been – you’re not going to get them.’
‘What if they never find out who killed her?’
Saul rubbed at his face. ‘Someone, somewhere knows who did. Eventually they’ll talk.’
Judith, aware that the information she was withholding could be crucial, was on the verge of coming clean when she glanced across the room and saw Alf Tombs taking a seat at the centre table. He had a middle-aged woman with him, wearing a black dress and pearls. His wife, perhaps. But it was neither of these two who made the breath catch in the back of her throat. Directly behind them was another couple: Ivor Doyle and Nell.
She turned to Saul accusingly. ‘Did you know they were going to be here?’
‘No, of course not. How could I?’
She frowned, not entirely believing him. But she had a bigger problem to deal with. Quickly she looked over at the dance floor. Fortunately Annie only had eyes for Pete at the moment, her arms draped around his neck, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. But how long was that going to last? There was no saying what she might do when she spotted the man who had once been Dan Jonson: scream, shout, make a scene. Annie could be a loose cannon, especially when she had a few drinks inside her.
Judith was still pondering on the horror of this as she looked back at the centre table. More people had joined Tombs, and there were now twelve in all. Enough for a jury, she thought irrelevantly. Doyle must have felt her gaze on him, because he suddenly shifted his gaze, his eyes meeting hers. She could have sworn he flinched.
Her first instinct was to get up and leave, but that was easier said than done. She could hardly abandon Annie, and other than dragging her off the dance floor, she couldn’t see what else to do. There was also a part of her that didn’t want Doyle to think he had the power to drive her away. She had as much right to be here as he did.
‘Ignore him,’ Saul said.
She wished she could. She gulped down some wine, revising her earlier decision to go easy. Now wasn’t the time for sobriety. She needed some Dutch courage.
A smile played around Saul’s lips. ‘Just let them get on with it. I suspect this might be the last party Tombs will be enjoying for a while.’
Judith wondered if Doyle had taken heed of her warning. ‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Just a hunch,’ he said smugly.
She watched the table whilst pretending not to, casting fleeting glances that took in Ivor Doyle, Nell and Tombs. There was something strained, she thought, in the way they were behaving towards each other. Or perhaps she was just transferring her own awkwardness onto them.
Nell seemed jittery, unable to keep still. Everything about her was fretful, tense, strung out. Her smile was false and her laughter too high. About ten minutes after she’d arrived, she got up again and left, presumably heading for the ladies’. On impulse, Judith decided to follow her.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘I just need to … I won’t be long.’
The toilets were outside the main room, off the foyer. Judith wasn’t sure why she wanted to talk to Nell again: maybe simply to get things straight in her head, to be certain she was making the right decision. Once she handed over the gun to her, there could be no going back. She was almost there when she felt a restraining hand on her shoulder and spun round to see Doyle.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘What do you think?’ she said, glancing towards the ladies’.
His eyes darkened. ‘Why can’t you leave her alone? You said you were going home, for Christ’s sake.’
‘And I am – when I’m ready.’
‘Don’t do this, Judith. You hate me. I understand that. You’ve got every reason. But please don’t take it out on Nell.’
In that moment, Judith almost changed her mind about what she was going to do. Anger and resentment flared back into life. She wondered how it was that this man she had once loved so much knew so little about her. Her voice, when she spoke, was tight and brittle. ‘Is that really what you think of me? Is it?’
It was then that something suddenly altered. His mouth turned down, his shoulders slumped, and all she could see in his eyes was despair and defeat. ‘Fine. Go ahead. Do whatever you want.’
Judith looked away, unable to hold his gaze. There was a time when all she’d desired was to see him as broken as her, to have power over him, to know that she could bring his world crashing down around his ears. She only had to hand over that gun to the police and … But she knew she couldn’t do it. ‘Swear to me you didn’t kill Elsa.’
‘Of course I didn’t. I never even knew the woman.’
‘Swear to me.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I swear. Happy now?’
Judith wrinkled her nose,
happiness being about as far away from her at the moment as Morocco. She wanted to believe him, had to believe him if she was going to go ahead.
‘We need to talk. Is there somewhere private we can go?’
Doyle shook his head. ‘What is there left to say? I can’t apologise anymore.’
‘It’s important. It affects Nell.’
He shrugged, looked across the foyer and settled on a dimly lit corner away from the ladies’ and shielded by a pillar. There was a plush blue sofa here, although Judith wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was for people waiting for taxis. Or for those too drunk to make it out of the door. She sat down with her bag on her knee.
Doyle sat down too, keeping as much distance as the sofa allowed. ‘So?’
‘I found something,’ she said, ‘something that Elsa had hidden. I think it might be …’ She quickly peered around the pillar, making sure no one was watching them. ‘It was in her locker at work.’
‘What was in her locker?’
Judith took the cloth-wrapped bundle out of her bag and handed it to him. ‘It’s a gun,’ she said softly.
‘What?’
‘Take a look if you don’t believe me.’
Doyle raised his eyebrows, carefully unfolding the grey cloth with what could only be described as scepticism. But his expression instantly changed. ‘Shit,’ he murmured. Quickly he covered up the gun again and put it in his pocket. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Before Judith could respond one way or another, he was on his feet and striding out of the club. She followed in his wake, walking as fast as she could in her heels, struggling to catch up. By the time she got outside, he was already sitting in a car parked ten yards up the street. The engine was running as she opened the passenger door and climbed in.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Not far.’
He was true to his word, only travelling a short distance before pulling onto the forecourt of a shop that was closed for the night. He stopped under the ‘Customers Only’ sign, flicked on the overhead light, took the cloth package out of his pocket, unwrapped it and stared down at the gun.
