Swirling the amber liquid around in his glass appreciatively, Reggie took another sip. It was good stuff and under other circumstances he would have knocked it back and ordered another but not tonight. The reason for his moderation was because, instead of enjoying a Scotch in the familiar surroundings of the Admiral, he was in the potentially dangerous territory of Vic ‘The Blade’ Bostock, or Mr Bostock Esquire, as he preferred to be known these days.
It was just before midnight on the third Saturday in November and he was sitting at one of the front tables in the Two Queens social club. This damp and dimly lit joint was situated in a basement just off Dean Street in Soho and was accessible only by a narrow passageway.
He wasn’t there by choice, no man in his right mind would be. One of Vic’s heavies had left a message with Rita the day before saying the undisputed boss of Soho’s underworld wanted to have a word, and Reggie wasn’t going to argue. To ignore an invitation from Vic Bostock would earn you a trip to the casualty department to have your face stitched back in place. That was another reason why he was measuring his drinks because whatever Vic wanted to discuss with him, he’d need to keep his wits about him.
The trumpeter in the small orchestra at the side of the stage blared out a fanfare and the fringed red velvet curtains jerked back. The spotlight flashed on, illuminating a young woman standing in the middle of the small space.
She was wearing a golden shimmering cocktail dress, elbow-length white gloves and impossibly high heels. Her red hair was swept up on top of her head and secured with an ostrich feather. She was heavily made-up with black eyeliner and crimson lips to compensate for the glare of the stage lights.
The opening bars of the tune blared out and the young woman wriggled around the stage once before stopping to face the audience. She then gripped the gloved tips of her fingers between her teeth and tugged off first one then the other glove, swinging them in turn before flinging them aside.
Gyrating to the pounding music, the young woman then unhooked the front fastening of her dress. Peeling it off, she dropped it behind her to reveal her scanty red-satin underwear.
Promenading slowly around the minute stage, she returned to the front then, with a teasing smile on her face, the young woman threaded her arms out of her straps. Holding the front of her brassiere in place with one hand she twisted behind with the other to reach the clasp.
With his eyes fixed on the young woman’s lithe body, Reggie raised the glass slowly to his lips.
‘Mr Sweete,’ said a gruff voice behind him.
The young woman spun around to face the back of the stage, dropping the garment at her feet.
‘Er . . .’ said Reggie, as she kicked it away.
‘Mr Bostock will see you now,’ said the voice.
The stripper flung her arms wide and paused.
‘And he doesn’t take kindly to being kept waiting.’
Dragging his eyes from the stage, Reggie looked around to see Black George, Vic’s six-and-a-half-foot-tall half-caste enforcer.
Built like a champion dray horse and with hands the size of dinner plates, George Munday had been born south of the river in the same year the unsinkable Titanic went down. Like any kid with a touch of the tar brush about him, George had had a tough time of it but he’d fought his way up through the bare-knuckle circuit to be recognised champion of London, maintaining his crown for an astounding five years. After dislodging dozens of teeth, breaking umpteen jaws and putting three of his opponents in the graveyard, he’d retired a few years back to work for Vic.
Having actually seen the man looming above him punch someone’s eye out of its socket, Reggie stood up and gave him his full attention.
‘This way,’ said Black George, ushering Reggie towards a door at the back of the club.
Knocking quietly, Black George waited a moment then went in, leaving Reggie outside.
Standing with his hands in front of him like a boy waiting to see the headmaster, Reggie shifted from one foot to the other and, despite the whistling and cat-calling around him, kept his eyes firmly fixed on the door in front of him.
After what seemed like an eternity, Black George stepped back out and pushed the door open fully.
Pulling down the front of his jacket, Reggie walked in.
If you were to imagine that the criminal underworld was populated by ruffians who resembled Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and George Raft, you’d be quite wrong. If Vic Bostock had dressed in a frock coat and gaiters, stuck a dog-collar on and hung a cross around his neck he’d have passed convincingly as a dotty country parson rather than a calculating killer who’d ruled his empire of gambling clubs and prostitution with a combination of brutality and malevolence for the past twenty years.
With rubbery features and a slack mouth, you could be forgiven for thinking he was a tad slow-witted, that was until the razor-sharp glint in his eyes rested on you and then you were in danger of pissing down your leg.
Raised in a slum overlooking Berwick Street Market, Vic had worked his way up through the ranks of criminality from street urchin picking pockets in Park Lane to king of London’s underworld, controlling every trick, racket and pimp in Soho.
Tonight, he was wearing a smartly cut dinner jacket with a blood-red silk cravat anchored to his shirt by a diamond-studded pin, which matched the jewelled cufflinks at his wrists. His thinning sandy-coloured hair was plastered to his head with Grecian oil, and there was a bottle of single malt whisky at his elbow.
He was sitting behind the central table with a heavily made-up blonde curled into his right side and a matching brunette on his left. He had a fruit knife in one hand and something Reggie had almost forgotten existed in his other: a fresh peach.
Vic put down the knife and clicked his fingers.
The girls stood up and after planting a kiss on his cheeks, flounced and wriggled out of the room, their stilettos clicking on the grubby lino as they crossed the floor.
As the door closed, Vic popped a chunk of fruit in his mouth and smiled. ‘Reggie. Nice to see you.’
‘And you, Mr Bostock,’ said Reggie. ‘I hope you’re well.’
‘Can’t complain,’ said Vic. ‘You?’
‘Oh, you know,’ said Reggie. ‘Scraping by like everyone else.’
‘Don’t give me that, Reggie old mate,’ chuckled Vic, his pliant features lifting in a benevolent expression. ‘You know as well as I do business is booming.’
‘Well, I didn’t like to boast, Mr Bostock, but I have to admit I’m shifting stuff hand over fist,’ conceded Reggie. ‘In fact, I’m almost half-inching to order.’
‘It’s called supply and demand,’ said Vic. ‘The punters demand it and we supply it.’
‘At a price,’ said Reggie, basking in Vic’s comradely tones.
Vic laughed. ‘Too true, chum. Too true.’
‘Well, you know yourself, Mr Bostock,’ said Reggie, forcing a light laugh, ‘you have to sink or swim in this world.’
Vic bit the fruit as his unwavering gaze held Reggie’s for what seemed like an eternity and then he smiled.
‘Ain’t it the truth, but,’ he picked up the knife and waggled the blade back and forth, ‘I’ve heard as how you’ve been paddling in places where you oughtn’t. Like in Jack Spot’s manor.’
Sweat prickled out from between Reggie’s shoulder blades.
‘But he’s inside,’ he stammered, ‘and—’
‘Naturally, if you’re stepping into his shoes you’ll be needing a business partner,’ interrupted Vic.
‘Do I?’
With his eyes fixed on Reggie, Vic silently carved another slice of peach.
‘I do,’ corrected Reggie. ‘Course I do.’
‘I reckon twenty per cent top cut—’
‘That’s a bit steep, ain’t it, Mr Bostock?’ gasped Reggie, before he could stop himself.
‘Call it a wartime premium.’ Vic smiled benevolently. ‘Plus a pony a month for my protection of you and your crew. Agreed?’
> ‘Agreed,’ Reggie replied, knowing the alternative was a dunk in the river with a metal bar tied to his ankles.
‘Good,’ said Vic. ‘Now as your new partner I want you to do me a small favour.’
The space between Reggie’s shoulder blades prickled again.
‘Favour?’ he asked in as even a tone as he could muster.
‘Yes, nothing much.’ Discarding the peach, Vic drew a spotless handkerchief from his top pocket and delicately dabbed his mouth with it before tucking it back. ‘Just relocating a safe from Upington and Sons Engineering Company in East Smithfield to my boys waiting in Epping Forest. I want it hit next Thursday, the twenty-eighth, because the safe will have both the weekly and the monthly wage packets in it. Your cut is a ton and you can divvy it up anyway you please,’ Vic went on.
‘Thank you, Mr Bostock,’ said Reggie, only just stopping himself from screaming ‘a hundred quid!’. ‘And you know me, anything to oblige.’
‘What about your Tommy? Is he happy to oblige, too?’ asked Vic, a calculating look creeping into his eyes.
‘Course,’ said Reggie, forcing a jolly laugh.
‘Good,’ said Vic. ‘I hope so, because I heard he’s been kicking up recently.’
Reggie feigned confusion. ‘We’ve had a couple of barneys but that’s just a bit of argy-bargy between bruvers, you know how it is,’ he said, then wished he hadn’t as Vic’s brother had disappeared under mysterious circumstances some years back.
Vic regarded him coolly for a second longer and then dismissed him with a flick of his manicured hand.
Reggie stood up and, with a feeling of release spreading through him, headed for the door.
‘Reggie,’ said Vic.
Reggie turned. ‘Yes, Mr Bostock?’
‘There’ll be a lot of dosh in that safe riding on this,’ said Vic. ‘Understand?’
Swallowing hard, Reggie nodded, thanking Lady Luck for shifting Tommy onto the Green heavy crew as it saved him the trouble of dropping a Mickey Finn in his brother’s cocoa.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Reggie, pulling down the front of his new jacket. ‘I’ll get it done, Mr Bostock.’
In the dim light of the strip joint’s back room, Vic’s eyes narrowed into malevolent slits. ‘For your sake, I hope you do.’
Chapter Eighteen
JO WOUND THE last length of bandage over the old man’s right eye then took the safety pin she was holding between her lips to secure the end. An explosion somewhere to the east of them shook the mobile dressing station, setting the bottle of iodine jingling on the dressing trolley beside her.
It was the third Tuesday in November and somewhere close to three o’clock in the morning. This was her tenth night on duty without a break but she wasn’t complaining. Some of Post 7’s ARP personnel, notably the fire and rescue teams, hadn’t had a day off for double that time. Many were sleeping on the rubber lilos under the tables between shifts.
It was also the seventy-third night of unremitting bombing, despite the annual fogs that shrouded the area from mid-October to March. Although no one in London had had a full night’s sleep in almost three months, after the initial shock of having their neighbourhood systematically obliterated around them, the close-knit dockland communities in East London had summoned up their natural don’t-let-thebuggers-grind-you-down spirit and adapted so that life had taken on a new sort of normal.
Milkmen still left milk on the doorstep each morning even if the door itself had been blown off, and despite every window pane of the house lying shattered on the pavement, housewives still scrubbed white circles around the front door. Everyone was exhausted and, after almost a year of food rationing, some were at least half a stone lighter too. Complaining was regarded as cowardice and unpatriotic so no one did. As always, the people of East London did what they always did in times of trouble: they took the mickey out of those in authority, the enemy and each other, and then they made the best of it.
‘That should do it for now,’ said Jo, sliding the pin carefully through several layers of crêpe. ‘I’ve cleaned all the grit from the wound but it was a deep cut so it still might fester. If you spot any pus go to St Andrew’s and let the emergency doctors look at it.’
‘Ta, Gal.’ The elderly man, who’d been dug out of what was left of his house, touched his bandage and winced. ‘It bloody stings, it do, but I mustn’t grumble, it could have been worse.’
Jo smiled.
It certainly could have. Two inches lower and he’d have lost his eye. Eight inches and the flying glass would have severed his carotid artery.
‘Let me help you,’ said Jo, as her patient struggled to his feet. She offered her hand and he took it.
‘Now you toddle off to the rest centre and get yourself a nice cup of tea while the WVS sort you out,’ said Jo as she helped him down from the back of the horsebox. ‘I’m right off my usual patch, though, so you’ll have to ask the warden at the information desk where it is.’
The driver of Post 7’s other MDS had committed the heinous sin of destroying all four of the vehicle’s tyres three nights before by driving though an oil fire. As the truck was out of commission until the replacement tyres arrived, Jo’s team were now covering the whole area, which was why her MDS was parked up opposite Poplar High Street library in the recreation ground.
‘Thanks, sweetheart,’ he said, taking his cap from his pocket and plopping it on over his bandage.
The low droning of planes overhead lessened as they flew off westwards, leaving a series of explosions around the Royal Docks in their wake.
‘How many more?’ called Eddie, from inside the van.
She and Joan were splinting a woman’s broken leg under the pale light from the hurricane lamp suspended overhead. The woman, who was about Jo’s age, had superficial cuts on her cheeks and was covered from head to foot with brick dust.
Jo popped her head out of the wagon’s door. Outside, sitting on the pavement, were a collection of walking wounded who had been labelled green or orange by the rescue parties who’d found them. Casualties were classified as red, orange or green. Those labelled red were transported straight to hospital. Orange casualties, like the patient Jo had just treated, didn’t have life-threatening injuries but needed urgent treatment. Green bomb victims were those who could be safely left until the others had been dealt with. Of course, Rescue sometimes got it wrong, like the chap who’d nearly died because of an overlooked internal bleed, so Jo and her colleagues always gave new casualties a quick once-over.
There was one further category of bomb injury but those poor souls were taken straight to the mortuary.
‘About a dozen,’ Jo called back. ‘Mostly green.’
‘Thank God,’ said Joan, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘We’re almost out of dressings.’
Jo started to climb back into the van but as she put her foot on the running plate one of the Boy Scouts, who’d been drafted into the war effort as a messenger, shot around the corner.
‘There’s a row of houses gone down behind the school and there are people trapped,’ he shouted, skidding to a halt in front of her.
Jo looked at the team leader, Jim, who was dabbing iodine on a woman’s arm at the other end of the van.
‘We can manage so you go,’ he said. ‘Take care, though. Jerry’s been busy tonight and I don’t want you ending up on the red list.’
‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ said Jo, giving him a cock-eyed salute.
Jumping into the van, she swiped the emergency rucksack from its hook and stepped back into the street.
‘Right,’ she said to the fresh-faced messenger as she hooked her arms through the bag’s straps, ‘lead the way.’
‘Hurry up, Mick, I’m not bloody Atlas, you know,’ shouted Tommy, feeling the edge of the beam braced on his shoulders cutting into his flesh.
‘Nearly done,’ said Mick Riley, the guvnor of Green heavy squad, as he jammed the metal jack under the beam. He grinned, showing a set of lopsided t
eeth. ‘And stop bellyaching. Anyone would think that ceiling joist was ’eavy.’
Tommy and the rest of Green team were in what was left of the end house in a Victorian terrace that backed onto Kersey Street School.
He and Blewitt from White Squad had volunteered to transfer to Green as three of their team had been caught under a collapsing wall the night before and were still in hospital.
To be honest, he was more than glad to join Mick’s team as, although he hadn’t caught him at it again, Tommy knew Reggie and his two sidekicks were still nicking anything they could lay their hands on. It was wrong and he wanted no part of it.
‘That’s the fella-me-lad in place,’ said Mick, kicking the bottom of the metal rod so it was placed vertically under the beam.
Green Squad’s leader was a wiry man in his mid-forties whose head barely reached Tommy’s chin. He was so slight that he looked as if a strong wind could carry him away. However, looks could be deceiving: Tommy had seen him move fragments of buildings men double his size couldn’t shift.
Tommy eased himself out from under the rafter and straightened up.
Unlike most homes in the area, these century-old dwellings had been built for the more affluent members of the Riverside community and, as such, had basements beneath the houses. This meant that instead of having to trudge to the public shelters when the air raid went off, the residents could just go down a few stairs.
When they’d arrived at the scene just ten minutes before, they’d found that most inhabitants had managed to scramble out of their basements with just minor scrapes and bruises, which the wardens at the end of the road were now dealing with. Unfortunately, though, the family in the end terrace was trapped in the basement under the wreckage so while the rest of Green Squad checked through the other dozen or so houses, Tommy and Mick were making a start at shifting the debris.
A Ration Book Christmas Page 23
