Direct Hit

by Mike Hollow

  He knew he had a choice: he could either tell her now or attempt to keep lying to her for the rest of his life. The second option did not seem viable.

  “I’m sorry, Ann,” he said hesitantly, “that’s not right: it wasn’t an old friend. You see, something’s happened. I didn’t want to worry you, but I’m in trouble and I don’t know what to do.”

  “What is it?” she said. Her voice was impatient, as if she were talking to a naughty child. He looked around their sitting room: a picture of lower-middle-class respectability, everything neatly in its place. Even that made him feel false. A white-collar job meant he wasn’t working class, but he wasn’t sure he qualified for even the lowest ranks of the middle class.

  “I – I don’t think I can tell you everything, and it might be best for you not to know.”

  “Don’t be silly. Tell me.”

  “It’s to do with work. I’ve got mixed up with a man who’s making me do things that are against the rules, illegal things.”

  “Can’t you report him?”

  “He’s not someone I work with. He’s from outside, a criminal. And he’s violent: he’s the one who did this to me.”

  “Let’s take it to the police, then. We have to stand up to people like that.”

  “Oh, Ann, you sound like my father. It’s not as easy as that. He told me to stand up to bullies when I was a boy, so I tried, and all I got was another beating. It doesn’t work with people like that. He’s just vicious.”

  “But you can’t have someone attack you on the street and do nothing about it.”

  “You don’t understand. I’ve taken money from him. If I report him, they’ll find out what I’ve done and send me to prison.”

  Ann could see he was afraid. She had always known Sidney was weak, and the idea that some unscrupulous person had got their claws into him by offering him easy money was no surprise. She thought for a moment, then spoke.

  “Sidney, we need to get help with this.”

  “But I’ve already told you, if I go to the police I’ll end up in more trouble than he does.”

  “I’m not talking about the police. There must be ways of dealing with people like this that don’t involve the police.”

  “But people like us don’t get mixed up in things like that.”

  “No, but if the alternative is you being ruined, we may need to.”

  “So what do you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know, Sidney. This isn’t exactly a situation I’ve dealt with before. But I do know this: you need to tell me exactly what’s been going on, and we have to find some way to get free of this man, or maybe find someone who can do it for us.”

  Sidney was shocked to hear his wife speaking like this. But she had always been the strength in their marriage, the strength that held it, and him, together. If she had decided that action was needed to rescue them from the mess he’d got them into, he had no doubt she would take it.

  Billy let himself into the house with his latch key. He’d walked home from work, pushing his bike instead of riding it, because he knew his mum would be out this evening and the house would probably be empty. The shop had been busy all day, and it had kept his mind off things, but all the way home he’d found himself thinking of his dad. He imagined him on a blazing deck, wild-eyed as the shells landed, his only choice to stay on the ship and burn with it or to leap to certain death in the raging sea. Or even worse, trapped below in the engine room as the torpedo struck, seeing the steel bulkhead breached and the water cascading in, knowing that within minutes it would engulf him, ending his life in a desperate, panic-filled struggle for breath.

  “That you, Billy?”

  He heard the familiar rough voice of his brother calling from the kitchen. He ran down the passage and threw himself at him, his eyes brimming with tears.

  “I need you, Rob. I don’t know what to do.”

  Robert put his arms round him and held him, awkwardly trying to comfort him.

  “Come on, mate, it’ll be all right. Come and sit down. Look, Mum’s left us some grub in the oven.”

  They ate together in subdued silence. The only sound was the comforting bubbling of water and the gentle hiss of steam coming from the kettle on the kitchen range. There wasn’t as much meat in the stew as there would have been before the war started, but it was bulked out with carrots, onions, and cabbage, and it was hot. Billy began to feel better. He was glad Rob was at home.

  The light outside was fading: the sun was going down. They put up the blackout curtains and made a start on washing the dishes. Before the job was half done the air-raid siren cut through the quiet of the evening.

  “Come on, down the shelter,” said Robert. “We’ll finish them later.”

  They picked up the blankets and lantern their mum had got into the habit of leaving by the back door since the bombing started, then made their way across the back yard to the Anderson shelter. They had helped their dad dig the hole for it and assemble the corrugated steel panels last year, when he was on leave. Even half buried in the ground and with a covering of soil over the top it looked flimsy.

  They stepped down into the shelter and made sure the blackout curtain was in place before lighting the lantern. The smell of paraffin mixed with the stale odour of damp that filled their cramped refuge.

  “What a dump,” said Robert. “It smells like old fish down here.”

  “Damp enough for fish too,” said Billy, carefully moving his blanket to avoid the patch of water on the floor.

  “It’s just typical, though, isn’t it?” said Robert. “Round here people think they’re lucky if they’ve got one of these down the end of their garden, and if they haven’t they have to go to one of the public shelters that are probably even worse.”

  “How’s that?” said Billy.

  “Haven’t you heard? That raid we had on Saturday night – when the bombs got close some of those brick ones in the street just fell down.”

  “Blimey,” said Billy, “I didn’t know that.”

  “And some of them surface shelters haven’t even got roofs. What’s the good of that?”

  Robert leaned forward, becoming animated.

  “But then you go up the West End and you’ll find all the rich types in their luxury apartments and hotels have got a lovely shelter in the basement, reinforced, blast-proof, air conditioning and everything. Suppose a few charabanc-loads of people from here turned up and said they wanted to share: what would happen then, eh?”

  Billy laughed. “Yeah, that would be a sight to see.”

  “And that’s just the ones who haven’t moved out to their country mansions for the duration,” Robert continued. “And meanwhile the government won’t even let people like us use the tube stations for shelter. They want us to fight this war for them but they don’t care how many ordinary working people die.”

  “We can’t just give in to Germany, though, can we?”

  “Look, Billy, all I’m saying is it’s not our war. People like you and me didn’t start it, did we? It’s just like the last time: it’s all about kings and empires and money.”

  “I suppose you think we should stay out of it, like Russia.”

  “Yes, I do. It’s different there. They got rid of the toffs, and now it’s the workers that run the country. Everything belongs to the people, so everyone gets a job, a decent place to live, food to eat. They’ve got rid of the people who start wars too. You know what that Churchill’s like: a right warmonger. But Stalin’s not interested in imperialist wars; he wants to build socialism in one country, so then other countries can do it too. I tell you, when the workers are in charge all over the world we’ll all live together in peace.”

  “Sounds nice,” said Billy.

  “It’s time for us to take control,” said Robert. “We’re going to start changing things – you’ll see.”

  “Right,” said Billy, thoughtfully. He looked up. “That reminds me, Rob. Talking of toffs and the like, I’ve been meaning to ask you. When th
ose coppers were round here this morning asking about that dead bloke Villiers that I found, why did you say you didn’t know him?”

  “Cos I don’t, that’s why.”

  “But you –”

  Robert raised a warning finger before Billy’s face.

  “No names, no pack-drill, all right? You take my advice, Billy: never give a copper the time of day. If they want to know something, let them find out for themselves. I’m giving them nothing. Strike breakers and bully boys the lot of them, in the pay of the ruling class. You keep your mouth shut, Billy, and you won’t go far wrong.”

  CHAPTER 13

  At a little after seven thirty on Tuesday morning Jago was in Rita’s café, ordering bacon and eggs and a large mug of tea. There was something very pleasant about having your breakfast cooked for you. It was somehow comforting, and made him feel he could cope with whatever the day might throw at him.

  He usually had breakfast in the police canteen – lunch too if he wasn’t out somewhere on a case. Cooking at home took too much time, so when he was off duty he preferred to eat out as often as possible. He’d never felt guilty about this before the war, but when the government brought in food rationing at the beginning of the year it had made him think twice. The fact that meals in restaurants and cafés weren’t subject to rationing undoubtedly made his life easier, but he knew the trouble most working people had eking out their food ration through the week, especially those with families. And after the recent air raids you only had to walk down the street to see people’s lives bombed into chaos. The best compromise he could make with his conscience was to eat modestly. At least then he knew he wasn’t abusing the privilege of having enough money to eat out.

  This morning, though, he had forsaken the police canteen. He wanted some time alone, to think.

  There were fewer people in the café than there had been on Saturday. Most of them were men, eating alone, probably on their way to work. There wasn’t the background jumble of animated conversation that there’d been on Saturday either, but then that was before the shock of the air raids. Now the atmosphere seemed sombre. A fanciful image floated into his mind, of plump, jolly housewives in aprons serving up a cooked breakfast by the kitchen range to appreciative husbands in working-men’s clothes. Probably something he’d seen in a film, he thought: not likely to be a reality in many homes around East London today.

  He had sometimes envied married colleagues who had wives to look after them. When he came home from the war, so many men had been killed that people were saying there would be a generation of spinsters. Any man who wanted a wife could take his pick. But what was the point of that if you didn’t find someone you could love? You had to meet the right person, and at the right time. Life wasn’t always like that, and it hadn’t been like that for Jago. He’d never set out to be a bachelor, but he’d rather pay to have his shirts washed and ironed and his flat cleaned, and eat his breakfast in a café, than spend his life in a miserable marriage.

  The smell of frying was making him feel hungry. He looked at his watch: no rush yet. He thought of Muriel Villiers and her late husband. That didn’t seem like a marriage made in heaven either. What had been going on between them? It was beginning to look as though the man Jago had seen on the bench at Stratford magistrates’ court dispensing justice to all and sundry had feet of clay. People might have their own reasons for wanting to tarnish his name now he was dead, but the fact remained that so far no one had had a good word to say about him. The more Jago heard about Villiers, the more unsavoury a character he seemed. But unsavoury enough for someone to murder him?

  He thought about Cradock. It wasn’t long since the young lad had transferred into the CID, and in peacetime he’d probably have had to serve longer before he got the chance. Jago had given him a long list of tasks yesterday; it’ll be interesting to see how he’s coped with them, he thought.

  He was interrupted by the arrival of Rita. She set a plate of eggs and bacon before him, with toast, a small dish of jam and a steaming mug of tea.

  “There you are, love: just what the doctor ordered,” she said. “Enjoy your breakfast, but watch the plate: it’s hot.”

  She smiled and turned away to attend to her next order. Jolly and plump, thought Jago, and good at cooking breakfast, but not a woman he could ever imagine being married to. There had to be more to it than that.

  He poured a little HP sauce onto his plate from the bottle on the table and tucked into his food. The thought of Rita brought another and very different woman to his mind: the American.

  Definitely a modern woman, he thought. Certainly not lacking in confidence, although he supposed you didn’t get to be a newspaper reporter in America by being a shrinking violet. A tad too confident for his liking, though. Their meeting yesterday afternoon had felt like a tennis match in which she had taken the first two sets. He needed to fight back and gain the upper hand, but he fancied he’d have his work cut out for him.

  He drained the last of his tea, put on his coat and hat, slung his gas mask over his shoulder and set off for the police station. His destination was a three-storey brick building that stood rather imposingly on the corner of West Ham Lane and Barnby Street, overlooking the green space of the recreation ground. It had been built at the end of the last century and exuded late-Victorian confidence. Jago had always found it quite an attractive building, although he supposed that depended on which side of the law you found yourself.

  He entered the station, and the fresh air of the outside world gave way to the smell of disinfectant that always seemed to pervade its corridors. Tompkins was at his counter.

  “Morning, sir. Mr Soper would like to see you immediately.”

  Jago signalled receipt of the message as he passed and headed for the DDI’s door. This time it was ajar when he reached it. He tapped twice on the polished wood.

  “Come straight in,” said a voice from inside the room. Jago went in.

  “Shan’t keep you a moment, John,” said Soper. “I just want to fill you in a bit. I couldn’t say anything at yesterday’s meeting with that American woman, but I just want you to know what that fellow Mitchell from the MoI said to me after we’d left the room. To put it briefly, he wants you to manage her. Damned if I understand why, but apparently the ministry is happy for foreign reporters like her to see what’s happening and report the truth to the outside world. Of course, she has to operate under the same restrictions as our own reporters, so no straying into military areas or giving away precise details of what’s been bombed and where, that sort of thing, but apart from that she can go where she likes and say what she likes. Not the way I’d run a war, but then I’m not the Ministry of Information.”

  “What does he mean by ‘manage her’, sir?”

  “As far as I can tell, he just means point her in the right direction when you can, and try to chat with her about what she sees, let her know what we think. The way Britain is presented in the American press is of critical significance to the war effort.”

  “But how do I know whether what I think is the same as what ‘we’ think? I don’t necessarily agree with everything the government says or does, nor am I required to.”

  “You’re a policeman, John. Just do your duty. I know I can rely on you.”

  He paced across to the window and looked out.

  “Another bad night last night. You may not have heard yet, but a school was bombed in Canning Town. Agate Street. It was being used as a rest centre. Apparently it was full of people who’d been bombed out and were waiting for transport to evacuate them when it was hit. Very nasty business, by all accounts. You might like to take her down that way. Show her a bit of Silvertown too. It’s had a pasting – not surprising with the docks at the end of the street.”

  He turned back to his desk and reached for a piece of paper.

  “Just one other thing, John. That American woman wants you to call her at her hotel this morning. Here’s the number.” He looked at the paper. “Temple Bar 4343.” />
  Jago took the paper and hurried off to his next meeting, with Cradock.

  “Right, what have you got for me?” he asked.

  “Some interesting information, sir,” said Cradock. “I went back to see the ARP warden who found the van with the body in it. He says he was in Whitwell Road earlier that evening, about a quarter past eight, and saw a van that looked just like that one backing into some small commercial premises. And Whitwell Road’s just round the corner from where we saw the body. He says there were two men in the van. He couldn’t see their faces from that distance; all he could say was the driver looked a good half a head taller than the bloke in the passenger seat.”

  “Right,” said Jago, “you need to find out who those premises belong to.”

  “Already done that, guv’nor,” said Cradock. He looked pleased with himself. “They belong to one Frederick Cooper, known as Fred to his friends.”

  “Can’t say I know him.”

  “No, sir. But I spoke to the PC whose beat that is – where Cooper’s premises are, I mean. He said Cooper doesn’t have any convictions, but he’s reckoned to be a bit of a slippery character locally, probably up to no good on the quiet.”

  “So what was our Mr Villiers doing visiting him, if that’s where he was? And who was with him? Johnson says Villiers didn’t drop him off until about twenty past eight, somewhere over near Greengate Street, and he remembers because it was just before the sirens went off too. He can’t have been in two places at the same time.”

  “Johnson’s got some explaining to do, then.”

  “He certainly has. What else have you got?”

  “I’ve started checking back through Villiers’ cases at the magistrates’ court, but I haven’t come across anything that looks significant yet. I’ll carry on with that. And yesterday evening I went to see that man they found roughed up in the cemetery, the one you asked me to follow up. Definitely something funny going on there. His name’s Hodgson: Sidney Hodgson. Says he got knocked over by a bike in the blackout, but he looked really nervous and obviously didn’t want to talk to me. All on edge, he was. His wife was as cool as a cucumber, mind. Quite a looker too, if you know what I mean.”