No Hearts, No Roses

by Colin Murray

  The three of them climbed into the Morris Oxford and the driver pulled away, smoothly and neatly, and swept towards me.

  I retreated to the safety of the Ford, ducked down and watched as the driver changed his mind about the direction he wanted to go in, turned around laboriously and slowly, wrestling with the heavy steering, and then headed back the way he’d come.

  I was sweating heavily by the time I’d trotted briskly down to the Wolseley.

  Charlie was standing on the pavement, smoking and looking at me like I was a candidate for the loony bin.

  ‘You’ll need a bath before the party,’ he said, ‘haring around in this weather.’

  ‘We have to follow a car,’ I said, pulling open the passenger door and jumping in.

  Infuriatingly, he took another drag on his cigarette before ambling round to the driver’s side.

  I told Charlie what we were looking for and which direction it had taken.

  We turned even more slowly than the Morris and had to wait for a coal lorry to trundle past. The Morris was nowhere in sight when we came to the end of the street.

  ‘Left or right?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Left,’ I said, ‘towards town.’

  My face felt flushed and sweat was running down my back. I wrestled my suit jacket off and opened the window. A mercifully cooling breeze blew in, ruffling my hair and plastering my damp shirt against my arms and chest.

  There wasn’t that much traffic, so we made good speed to Waterloo Bridge, and there, nine or ten cars ahead, at the far end of the bridge, caught up in the chaos of the Strand, was the Morris.

  ‘Well done, Charlie,’ I said, trying not to sound patronizing or unduly ironic. ‘Just follow him now. Without being too obvious about it.’

  He must have taken offence at the idea that he didn’t know how to follow someone unobtrusively. He looked hurt and sulky.

  We turned right at the Strand and followed the car into Kingsway. When it hung another right at High Holborn, I started to have a sneaking suspicion about where we were heading. As the big car nudged and wriggled its way along, amongst the clutter of taxis, buses and delivery vans, past Gray’s Inn Road, that sneaking suspicion turned to a very nasty, sick feeling.

  Bloody Bernie, I thought as I watched the Morris Oxford approach Holborn Circus and bully a taxi, amid squealing brakes and an angry horn, into allowing it to slide into the left-hand lane for a turn into Hatton Garden, why couldn’t he ever do what you asked him to?

  THIRTEEN

  Exasperatingly, we were marooned behind a couple of buses. They lurched slowly – oh, so slowly – forward, and I knew we weren’t going to get to Manny’s shop in time. I wasn’t sure what we’d be in time to do, I just knew we wouldn’t be there in time to do it. And, even with the windows wide open, it was getting hotter in the car. My damp shirt was sticking to the seat. I hoped that the Morris Oxford was similarly trapped between buses and, somewhat malevolently, that the occupants were suffering as much as I was.

  ‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘you got any coppers?’ He nodded. ‘Let me have ’em. I’ve a telephone call to make. Just go around the corner, into Hatton Garden. Wait for me there.’

  He fumbled in his pocket, then handed over a fistful of pennies, and I leapt out.

  There was a telephone box close to Chancery Lane Underground station, and, thankfully, it was unoccupied.

  I didn’t know what kind of security Manny and Bernie had, but I seemed to remember that they had some impressive bolts and shutters. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be much good if they weren’t in use.

  The telephone only rang two or three times, but it seemed like for ever. I was muttering between clenched teeth and my right leg was twitching nervously when, finally, Manny’s calm, slow voice recited the number back at me and I rammed my thumb against the button that dropped the coins into the cash box with a rattle and a clunk.

  ‘Manny,’ I said, ‘say nothing. There isn’t much time. Armed men are on their way to the shop. They’ll be there in minutes. Just lock up and close early.’

  ‘Tony, I can’t just shut up because you think—’

  ‘Manny, I don’t think. I know. Now, don’t argue, please. Just do it. If necessary, call the police. Just lock up. Please, Manny. Trust me.’

  ‘You send armed men to my shop. Why wouldn’t I trust you? What can I say?’

  ‘Just say “yes”, Manny, please.’

  ‘All right already. Yes,’ he said. ‘Happy?’ And he put the receiver down.

  It was oppressively hot in the box, and I reached into my pocket for my handkerchief to wipe sweat from my forehead. Then I remembered the ink and left it where it was.

  The traffic had miraculously cleared, and it was now moving freely. I walked briskly to Holborn Circus and turned into Hatton Garden.

  The Wolseley was pulled up at the side of the road, nearside wheels almost brushing the kerb, just twenty or so yards along.

  I leaned down and spoke through the window. ‘Leave the car, Charlie. We’ll walk from here.’

  He nodded and lumbered out. He waited for a taxi to drive past and then walked behind the car and joined me on the pavement.

  I must have been looking as grim as I felt.

  ‘Trouble, Tone?’ he said, flexing the fingers on his right hand.

  ‘Could be, Charlie,’ I said, grabbing my jacket and putting it on.

  We marched silently up Hatton Garden.

  The brown Morris Oxford was parked outside Manny’s shop, and three men were standing on the pavement, looking unhappy and aimless.

  It was clear that Manny had done exactly as I’d asked and had locked the shop up. He’d even turned out the lights. It looked authentically closed to me.

  Jan the Belgian was peering up at the upper storey of the building, muttering angrily to himself, when I strolled up, and Ray the tough was banging on the door. The big brown bear wasn’t doing much of anything.

  I stood next to Jan and looked up at the sky. ‘Taking in the sights?’ I said.

  He started, looked at me and called me a son of a whore in French.

  I tutted at him and said, ‘Ta gueule,’ which was the most offensive way I could think of of telling him to watch his mouth. My French had never leaned towards the racier slang. Big Luc’s thick Normandy accent had kept most of his more colourful expressions a mystery to me.

  However, Jan the Belgian looked gratifyingly nonplussed.

  ‘I was just going to my favourite café to buy a coffee,’ I said amiably. ‘Can I interest you in a cup?’

  He looked even more confused, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he’d been to the café in Leather Lane and couldn’t believe it was anybody’s favourite or if he just hadn’t understood my English. To be on the safe side I repeated it in French.

  He snarled something that I didn’t quite catch, as it was, I assumed, in some Belgian argot, but I was sure that it compared me to a piece of ordure. He also reached angrily into his jacket pocket. But before he could pull out whatever it was he had in there, Charlie, who had been standing just behind me, took one step forward and clipped him neatly on the jaw.

  If you learn how to hit someone properly, I guess you never forget the secret. It was a classic jab and only travelled about six or seven inches, but it had all of Charlie’s considerable bulk and expertise behind it. Blink and you missed it. It was a punch for the connoisseur. The hard-looking Belgian simply collapsed like a Niger tent with a broken ridge pole. I’d never seen Charlie hit anyone before, and I looked at him in open admiration. He shrugged self-deprecatingly.

  After a second or two of blank confusion, Ray the tough came racing over, but stopped short and took a step back, hands held up in surrender, when Charlie assumed his fighting stance, left arm covering his face, right arm cocked.

  I turned to face the big brown bear, who should have been lumbering over to join the fray. But he wasn’t. In fact, he was laughing.

  ‘Charlie,’ he boomed. ‘Charlie Lomax as I live and
breathe. I’d recognize that right hand anywhere.’

  Charlie looked across. ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘Herbert Longhurst, the Bermondsey Battler. Didn’t see you there, Herbert.’

  I was puzzled by that, as Herbert Longhurst was about as unobtrusive as Mount Everest.

  ‘It’s got to be twenty years,’ Charlie was saying to the Battler as I turned to Ray. If the two of them were going to reminisce about heroics in the ring then I reckoned my problems might be over, for the time being. Certainly, the driver demonstrated no inclination to even get out of the car, Jan the Belgian was out cold and Ray was looking very unsure of himself.

  ‘You,’ I said to Ray, ‘had better have a look at him.’ I indicated the prone Belgian, who was started to groan and move. ‘And then I want a word with you about what you took from the shop last night.’

  He looked the very picture of injured innocence. ‘I never went in no shop,’ he said.

  ‘So you didn’t find a silver cigarette case there?’

  ‘Cigarette case?’ he said. Then he smiled. ‘No, the boy had that.’

  ‘The boy?’ I said.

  ‘No . . . I mean . . . I’d better look after the frog,’ he said, bending down and holding a handkerchief out to the recovering Jan.

  We were attracting some attention now, and a little crowd had grown around us. A middle-aged woman nudged me in the ribs.

  ‘Is he all right?’ she said, pointing at Jan, who was now sitting up and dabbing with Ray’s handkerchief at the blood coming from his mouth.

  ‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘Just an accident. Nasty fall. But no bones broken.’

  And then it all went wrong.

  Instead of staying down as he was supposed to, Jan adjusted his glasses, which had fallen askew, lurched to his feet, shrugged off Ray’s attentions, snarled something in incomprehensible and very ugly French, took a German Luger out of his pocket, pointed it in Charlie’s general direction and, without taking aim, fired.

  The crowd gasped and shouted warnings, one or two of the men ducked and the woman who’d poked me put her hands to her ears and started to sob hysterically. Then, two of the men moved uncertainly towards Jan, but they were too late. I dived at him and smashed my shoulder into his chest.

  He didn’t go down, but I’d knocked the wind out of him and he wasn’t about to fire again in the immediate future. I reached out to grab his gun hand when, unfortunately, Ray decided now was the time to show his stuff, and he hit me hard in the right kidney, and then again in the back of the head.

  I did go down, and I hit the pavement hard. I wasn’t unconscious, just a bit dazed, and I was aware of Ray bundling the gesticulating Jan into the Morris Oxford, which then roared off towards Leather Lane.

  It suddenly occurred to me that twice in the last few days I’d charged at a man who was holding a gun. I’d gone through the entire war without doing it once. That was something only mad majors did. I made a mental note not to make a habit of it. Being acquainted with Jonathan Harrison wasn’t good for my health, or my sanity.

  By the time I’d stumbled to my feet, surrounded by solicitous people asking inane questions, the car had disappeared and Manny and Bernie were standing in front of me.

  ‘Well,’ said Manny, ‘what’s going on?’

  I looked around. ‘Is anyone hurt?’

  ‘Apart from you?’ Bernie said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He got a shot off. At Charlie . . .’ I forced my way through the little knot of well-wishers and there was Charlie. ‘Charlie, are you all right?’

  ‘Sure I am, Tone,’ he said, ‘but Bert here took a hit.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ the big man rumbled. ‘It missed me, really. Just scraped me arm.’

  There was a tear in the left-hand sleeve of his jacket, just about at the biceps. It looked as if he was right and had only been nicked. All the same, he was very pale.

  ‘That frog owes me a new suit,’ he said, rubbing at the rip. A little blood seeped out. ‘I don’t like working with foreigners. Remember that Eyetie heavyweight, Charlie? Dirtiest fighter I ever come across. All black curly hair and smelly breath.’

  I rubbed at the sore spot on the back of my head. My own suit was the worse for wear. I could see the graze on my knee through the ragged cloth. ‘A cup of tea might be a good idea,’ I said. ‘I’m sure Manny can organize it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a sit-down,’ the Bermondsey Battler said. ‘Me legs are feeling a bit weak.’

  We shuffled off, Bert and I giving a good impression of the halt and the lame, into the shop, and the crowd slowly dispersed.

  I wondered how long it would be before someone came back with a policeman. At least one of the onlookers would have gone in pursuit of one. Manny may well have called them. I hadn’t a clue what to say to them. I supposed that the truth was an option.

  The Bermondsey Battler and I sat quietly on the two chairs that were supplied for customers while Manny heaped sugar into the tea – ‘Good for shock,’ We’d managed to wrestle Herbert’s coat off and cut his shirt sleeve away, and we had a shufti at his arm. It was a nasty-looking wound and needed professional attention.

  I heard the clanging of an emergency vehicle’s bell in the distance. It grew louder and stopped. Then the bell started up again and slowly faded back into the distance. That was a relief. The police had, presumably, been sent off after the Morris Oxford. They’d be back to bang on Manny’s door later, but I’d be long gone.

  Charlie and I decided to run the Bermondsey Battler down to Bart’s and see if we could find a doctor to clean his wound and put a decent dressing on it. (Bernie casually told us that Bart’s had been founded in 1123 by one of Henry I’s courtiers. ‘Rahere,’ Manny said. ‘That was his name. He caught malaria on a pilgrimage to Rome, and he had a vision of St Bartholomew.’ Charlie and Herbert attempted, very successfully, not to look impressed. I didn’t have to try.)

  Then I embarked on the difficult task of quietly apologizing to Manny for the trouble. He didn’t ask any questions, just listened as I told him what I knew about the diamonds, which wasn’t very much. When I’d said my piece, he looked at me shrewdly.

  ‘So what made them think the diamonds were here?’ he said.

  ‘You might have to ask Bernie about that,’ I said.

  ‘And what do I tell the police when they come knocking?’ he said.

  ‘That you closed up early – Easter and all that – and that it was just as well?’

  ‘I could tell them that,’ he said. ‘And no doubt they’ll take me for a pious Christian.’ He indicated to Bernie that he wanted a word in the other room.

  After Bernie and Manny left the main shop area, I took the opportunity to ask Herbert, as he gulped down sweet tea, what he’d been doing down in Kennington.

  ‘Minding job,’ he said. ‘Some young boy the boss wanted to lean on. I just had to make sure he stayed put. He’s a bit slippy, you know.’ He paused and glugged some tea. ‘You ain’t got a fag, have you?’

  I shook my head, but Charlie nodded and found a couple. Charlie fumbled with a box of matches, and they both started to smoke.

  ‘So, who’s the boss?’ I said.

  Herbert blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘Mr Jenkins,’ he said. ‘He’s completely legit, but he sometimes has to deal with some dodgy characters and then he calls on me to give ’em a slap or two. Nothing too serious. This lad nicked something, and Mr Jenkins wants it back.’

  I suspected that Herbert Longhurst really was a simple soul who didn’t know very much. His battered, old fighter’s face and misshapen hands suggested that, unlike Charlie, he’d stayed in the ring for a few years longer than had been wise, and now he made a living as best he could. I didn’t think there was much to be gained from questioning him more closely, and I left Charlie to reminisce with his old friend and went into the back room of the shop for a word with Bernie.

  Manny looked up. ‘I’ll go see about some more tea for the others,’ he said and left us to it.

&n
bsp; Bernie was sitting at a desk cluttered with little packages and piles of paper, pretending to peer at a diamond ring through his loupe and write some notes on the back of an old invoice.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘sold those diamonds yet?’

  ‘Course not,’ he said without looking up. ‘You only gave them to me this morning.’

  ‘You put the word out though.’

  He did look up at me now. ‘What makes you think that?’ he said.

  ‘Just the fact that one of the guys who thinks he’s the owner came visiting,’ I said.

  ‘All right,’ Bernie said, ‘so I put the word out. I didn’t know you’d stolen them from some bad guys, did I?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said. ‘But I thought I made it clear I hadn’t come by them entirely legitimately.’ I paused. ‘I also seem to remember that you were just going to hold on to them for me.’

  Bernie shrugged sheepishly. ‘You know me, Tony,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know you, Bernie.’

  The small back room had a very peaceful atmosphere. It was dark and cool, with only one, high, small window. The only light came from the one lamp on Bernie’s desk. It was golden and restful.

  Bernie sniffed and took a brown envelope out of his jacket pocket. He waved it absent-mindedly in front of me for a few seconds. ‘You know, Tony,’ he said, ‘sometimes you’re a real pain in the backside.’

  ‘I imagine that’s why we get on so well, Bernie,’ I said. ‘I’m acute agony in the rectum, you’re a savage wrench to the neck.’

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing the envelope over. ‘You owe me a pint.’

  I looked at the envelope carefully for a few seconds. ‘Hang on to them for me,’ I said, putting it down on the desk.

  ‘You sure you trust me?’ he said.

  ‘No, Bernie,’ I said, ‘but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see make money out of this. I’ll have to tell some fibs to mislead the bad boys, but that can be managed. In the meantime, do me a favour – well, two favours.’

  ‘If I can, Tony,’ he said, slipping the envelope back into his pocket.