No Hearts, No Roses

by Colin Murray

  I’d forgotten just how much noise a Webley made in a confined space, and the roar of this one deafened me slightly. Which was just as well, as it meant I couldn’t really hear the driver’s squeals as he fell over, clutching at his left boot. Even through my deafness, he sounded like a stuck pig. The recoil was a bit more than I’d remembered as well.

  The ringing in my ears, the sharp stink of gunpowder, the slight pain in my right wrist from the recoil and all the other sensations associated with shooting someone – in this case, the guilt, remorse, the fear of reprisals and consequences – meant that I was distracted, and Alfred was on me before I could react.

  He bundled me to the floor and pressed my face against the mouldy-smelling, dusty boards. Then I was aware of his warm breath on the back of my neck, camphor from the mothballs his suit had been locked up with, stale cigarette smoke, sweat, the hard weight of him sprawled across my back and his strong hand gripping my wrist, and I relaxed. Futile struggling wasn’t going to get me anything, except hit very hard in the kidneys.

  ‘Drop the gun,’ he said, just like in all the best Westerns.

  He let go of my wrist to reach for it, and I heaved up as hard as I could and smacked my elbow into his throat. He gave a very satisfying gurgle and fell backwards.

  And I might have got away with it if Jan the Belgian hadn’t chosen that moment to kick me painfully in the shoulder and then again in the ribs. I didn’t think he’d broken anything, but I was seriously winded and collapsed back to the floor, dragging air into my lungs in ragged gulps. He kicked me again, but his heart wasn’t in it and he didn’t do any more than add to the bruise he’d already given me. Alfred, though, had recovered enough to pick up the gun, and he lashed out at the back of my head with it and that did sting.

  As I sank into semi-consciousness, it crossed my mind that I’d managed to get through his mask of wry amusement.

  I lay there panting, my head throbbing alarmingly. Ah, well, I’d given it my best shot, and I’d hurt one of them. Pity it hadn’t been Jan or Alfred.

  I was aware of Alfred getting to his feet and then of someone grabbing the collar of my jacket and hauling me upright. Then I heard a voice I hadn’t heard for some time.

  ‘Anthony, forgive me for disturbing you, but I just wondered where you keep your coffee. I can’t seem to find any in your kitchen.’ There was a pause. ‘And it looks as though you are involved in an altercation. I had hoped to find that you had changed your ways after all these years.’ There was a sigh and a cloud of pungent cigarette smoke.

  Only, of course, he didn’t say exactly that, because he was speaking French.

  SIXTEEN

  Robert Rieux has always made me feel uncomfortable. It is, I suppose, a combination of his dangerous ideological certainty, his glib and cruel tongue, his sheer ruthlessness and the fact that he has never even tried to conceal his contempt for me and my wishy-washy politics. He has always managed to keep me off balance as well because he is frighteningly, sometimes whimsically, unpredictable. The word capricious could have been invented to describe him. Consequently, there have been few occasions when I’ve been happy to see him, but this was one of those rare moments.

  It wasn’t an unmitigated pleasure, of course, because I knew why he was there. Nevertheless, the sight of him and his three companions crowding into my already packed office was a temporarily uplifting one.

  For a few seconds the only sounds were the shuffling feet of the Frenchmen and the soft sobs of the wounded driver. He had quietened considerably, but he wasn’t demonstrating any Spartan spirit in his response to pain. I was starting to feel real guilt.

  Robert looked at me, smiled and then spoke in Spanish. ‘What’s going on, man?’ he asked. He had fought in Catalonia as a young man, and it was a phrase he had often used as a greeting. This time he really wanted an answer.

  ‘I think,’ I said carefully, in French, ‘that these men are planning to kill me.’

  He smiled again. The years had been as kind to him as they had been to Ghislaine. A little too much soft living had added some bulk, but he still looked fit and sleek. He was certainly expensively dressed in a dark, double-breasted suit, blue shirt and blue tie. He was carrying a black fedora, not unlike Jerry’s, which he placed on the old kitchen table.

  ‘I can’t allow that, can I?’ he said. ‘You’re an old comrade in arms.’ He paused and looked thoughtful. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘I may want to reserve that pleasure for myself.’ He paused again and looked at the driver. ‘And that man there?’ he said.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ I said, ‘he placed his foot in the way of a bullet that was intended for the floor.’

  Robert raised his eyebrows.

  ‘It was a bullet of warning,’ I explained. ‘Not one of lethal intent.’

  Robert nodded and pursed his lips, then straightened up and looked around. He rattled something off to the young man standing to his right. I didn’t catch what he said, but Jan did and his hand dropped to his coat pocket. However, Robert’s companions already had guns in their hands, and Jan sensibly froze and didn’t reach further.

  I recognized the compact, durable, black Mle 1935s as the young man moved towards Alfred and took the Webley from him. The Mle 1935s wasn’t the most powerful of weapons, but it would be very effective from four feet and Alfred was wise not to make a fuss.

  An older man, a fat, damp, yellow cigarette dangling from his lips, nonchalantly relieved Jan of his revolver.

  ‘OK,’ Robert said briskly, switching to heavily accented English, ‘we must now negotiate a peace.’ He beamed and looked around. ‘What is the – as our American friends say – the beef here?’

  Jan and Alfred both glanced towards Jenkins, who looked uncomfortable and cleared his throat loudly. Robert smiled at him and, with a little open-handed gesture, invited him to speak.

  ‘This gentleman,’ Jenkins finally said, ‘your friend, has something of mine.’ The ironic emphasis he put on ‘friend’ suggested that he was sceptical about our relationship. He didn’t know how right he was.

  ‘Well then, Antoine, you must return this man’s something, his property,’ Robert said. He was enjoying himself.

  ‘But I don’t have it,’ I said.

  ‘There you are, then,’ Robert said, turning back to Jenkins. ‘An honest mistake.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Jenkins started, but Robert cut him off sharply.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it is you who does not understand. This is finished. Over. My friend says that he does not have your property, and I know him to be an honourable man. Therefore it is so. You must look elsewhere for your thing.’

  There was a long silence broken only by the mechanical weeping of the driver who was hunched over now, clutching his foot, evidently in a great deal of pain. A certain amount of blood was seeping out from his sodden boot on to the floor. Jerry was going to have an unsightly stain on the shop’s ceiling in the morning. Ah, well, it was nothing a few coats of paint wouldn’t deal with. Although there might be something of a hole as well. The driver might not be so easily sorted out, depending on what tissue the heavy bullet had smacked into on its way down into Jerry’s record emporium. As I looked at him, it occurred to me that, with the right shoes, suit, hat and raincoat, Roger the barman could have taken him for Special Branch. Maybe he had been.

  ‘But I am facing a very substantial loss.’ Jenkins was blustering now and standing on his dignity. He was losing face.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Robert said, ‘but I think you are an affluent man. I also think that you are a robber. That man –’ he pointed at Jan – ‘is known to me. He is older now, but I do not forget faces.’ Jan looked shifty. ‘Leave now and talk to him. He will explain why you would be advised to forget all about this. My friend Antoine is very dear to me.’

  ‘But—’ Jenkins said.

  Robert cut across him and addressed his young lieutenant in French. ‘Emile, it seems that Voltaire was right and that the English need to be “
encouraged” from time to time.’ He looked at Jan and then at Jenkins. ‘As there is no admiral available, shoot that one –’ he indicated Alfred – ‘in the arm.’

  The young man, whose handsome, broken-nosed profile made him look quite like a gangster from a thirties film, nodded. The little Mle 1935s whispered in comparison to the big Webley, but it still gave a substantial bark and the bullet tore an impressive path across Alfred’s biceps before embedding itself in the wall. Either Emile was a great shot who had intended to do Alfred only minimal damage or he couldn’t shoot for toffee. Either way, it was only a superficial wound – a graze, really – and probably no more than had been inflicted on Charlie’s friend Herbert, but it had the desired effect. Alfred grimaced and clutched his arm, but made no sound. It must have hurt, but there was more of the little Spartan boy my teacher Mrs Wilson had been so fond of about Alfred than there was about the driver.

  Jenkins looked a little shocked, but he hid it well. ‘I thought we were talking,’ he said. His voice was firm and calm, but a glistening snail trail ran from his hairline to his jaw, showing the path of a translucent bead of sweat that hung to his chin for a second before falling gently on to his tie.

  ‘That was before,’ Robert said. ‘Then we were negotiating the peace. Now I am enforcing it.’

  There was a long, tense pause, but Robert knew he had made his point. Jenkins would leave. Apart from anything else, Robert’s men held all the guns. It was time for some magnanimity, even some compassion.

  ‘I think you must go,’ Robert said. ‘Two of your men have need of medical attention. For this one here –’ he indicated the driver – ‘I think it is a matter of urgency. He is in considerable discomfort. I think you must know a doctor who will show discretion. And, please, do speak with this gentleman here –’ he clicked his fingers impatiently – ‘Jean, Jean, yes, Rotfus. You see, I have remembered his name.’ Jan the Belgian looked even shiftier than he had before. Jenkins’ eyebrows moved slightly closer together as his forehead furrowed briefly in a little frown. This was news to him. ‘And consider what he has to say carefully before you make a decision about how to pursue this matter.’

  ‘But how can I leave? I have no driver,’ Jenkins said.

  ‘I can drive. I’m all right. I’ve had worse,’ Alfred said, moving towards the door, his left hand pressed against the ragged tear in his right sleeve. His back teeth were grinding together. ‘You,’ he growled at me, ‘owe me a suit. I’ll be back to collect.’

  I thought ruefully about my own ruined trousers.

  Jenkins turned to Jan and indicated the driver before marching out. Jan glanced at Alfred, who winced and shrugged, and then the pair of them helped the man up and supported him as he hopped slowly out, dribbling blood all the way. There were thirteen heavy muffled explosions as he was helped slowly down the stairs.

  I felt bad about him, I really did.

  I stood by the window and watched the car pull slowly away from the kerb – the big tyres whispering quietly against the damp, black road – and vanish into the night.

  I wondered when Alfred would be back. Sooner rather than later, I imagined.

  I turned back to face Robert. ‘Would you,’ I said, ‘let me have the big handgun back? I may need to defend myself in the future.’ My French was flowing surprisingly well, particularly when I considered that, Ghislaine apart, I hadn’t used it all that much in nearly ten years.

  Robert laughed. ‘I think you will,’ he said. ‘And perhaps I will let you have the gun.’ He sat down behind my desk. ‘We have one or two things to discuss first. And, by the way, I was serious about the coffee. Do you have any?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘A pity,’ he said, ‘but I will survive. A little cognac, perhaps?’

  I shook my head again.

  He sighed. I was living down to his expectations. ‘Well then, perhaps you could offer me a wife?’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ I said. ‘She’s out. With Maurice Chevalier.’

  One of his men coughed loudly. I glanced at him, and he coughed again. He was a large man in a dark-brown suit. His face had a number of old shiny scars around the eyes. I realized that he was coughing to disguise the fact that he was laughing. Ghislaine and Maurice Chevalier seemed to amuse him.

  ‘With Maurice Chevalier?’ Robert said.

  ‘Not exactly “with”,’ I said, ‘but they are in the same building. He’s performing tonight.’ I paused. ‘How did you know she was here?’ I asked.

  ‘An English comrade saw her with you,’ he said.

  Perfidious Cambridge, of course. It had to be Jameson.

  ‘And the Belgian, Jan, how do you know him?’ I asked. I wasn’t really playing for time. There was no point. I was genuinely interested.

  Robert shrugged and laughed. ‘Is that what he’s calling himself now?’ he said. ‘I don’t recall all the details, but it was in Paris just after the liberation. You remember? We all travelled there together.’

  I remembered. How could I forget one of the most exhilarating weeks of my life?

  ‘It was after we lost contact with you. He was a cheap crook I came across. From down south somewhere – Marseilles, probably. Anyway, he’d been running contraband and stealing from the proletariat. We chastised him a little, and some of his gang – there may have been a broken bone or two, but it was no more than parasites and collabos deserved. Maybe I should have killed him when I had the chance.’ Robert looked a little rueful. ‘Sometimes I am too tender-hearted.’

  The large ex-boxer (I’d decided he must have been in the ring) started to cough uncontrollably.

  ‘Henri,’ Robert said sharply, ‘that’s enough.’

  The man straightened up.

  Robert ran his tongue along his top lip and then sucked his teeth. ‘I really never do forget a face. My memory has served me well over the years.’ He sounded reflective for a moment, but then he was his old brisk, ironic self. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what should I do about you and my wife?’

  ‘Nothing?’ I said.

  Robert smiled and leaned forward. He looked amused, which was worrying. ‘Explain,’ he said and fell back into the chair.

  I cleared my throat and then I told him the truth. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I haven’t seen Ghislaine in nearly ten years. Not since Paris. And then I am in a pub and there she is. She says she is having a little holiday and asks if I can let her stay with me. I can’t turn down an old friend, and she sleeps in there –’ I pointed to the living room – ‘and I sleep here. She sees the sights of London, and I work. There is nothing for you to do about your wife and me because there is nothing to worry about.’

  I couldn’t see any point in telling him that I knew about the bruises and the mistresses. It would only have complicated matters unnecessarily.

  ‘And you just . . . met. Quite by chance,’ he said.

  ‘Well, not by chance on Ghislaine’s part,’ I said. ‘Obviously, she went to the French pub to find me. It was chance on my part that I happened to be there that evening.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said. He sounded sceptical. And I couldn’t blame him. It didn’t sound like the truth. Also, he was French and an accomplished adulterer, and Robert had always lacked a capacity for empathy. He could only judge others by himself. Oddly enough, it was a trait that had served him well in the war. His guesses about the Germans’ reactions and intentions had often been surprisingly accurate.

  He looked thoughtful and then, a little theatrically, he raised his right forefinger and tapped it against his lips. ‘I will think about this for a while,’ he said. ‘I would not wish to, as the English say, jump to a conclusion.’ He had always been proud of his grasp of a few English idioms and, I remembered, had often thrown them in to his conversation, to the consternation of those of his comrades who only spoke French. But, of course, he hadn’t done it for their benefit. It was aimed at me. Just because I was reasonably fluent in French didn’t make me smarter than him.

  I touched the sticky
patch on the back of my head and winced. Still, there wasn’t too much blood.

  I wandered over to the window and looked moodily out. There was a crowd of people leaving the Gaumont, milling about, talking loudly, smoking, waiting for buses or setting off for home. Their footsteps and their voices carried clearly across the road. A couple of young men were bantering with a group of girls and not getting very far.

  I wondered if anyone had heard the shots. It wasn’t all that likely. No one, except Jerry and me, lived in this row of shops, or those opposite, come to that, which had no living accommodation above them because they were part of the cinema. Someone passing might have heard, but they would probably have shrugged them off.

  A feeling of deep weariness threatened to overwhelm me. I hadn’t slept much since Ghislaine had appeared, and the back of my head hurt. I wanted to lie in my own bed and sleep for eight hours. My grazed knee and bruised shoulder both decided to throb in sympathy with my head. I really was tired of all this. Perhaps I should ask Les if he could find something else for me to do. I could help Daphne with the accounts.

  Maybe I should get a job in the Caribonum factory or at the London Electrical Wire Company. Regular, steady work, just a short walk from home, checking invoices, stuffing little brown wage packets with a few pounds and a couple of shillings, week in, week out, with a fortnight every summer in a B&B in Ramsgate or Canvey Island. And maybe I should get myself a proper home. And maybe Mrs Williams could be persuaded to make an honest man of me. And there were so many pigs flying past the window that it looked like they were setting out on a thousand-bomber raid.