A Ration Book Christmas

by Jean Fullerton

  Jo smiled, knowing he did.

  Enjoying the feel of his hair-roughened skin against hers she glanced at the alarm clock beside the bed and seeing it was only just six, she closed her eyes.

  It had been a clear night so the German bombers, who hadn’t been able to pinpoint their targets for the past week because of the dense London fog, had been making up for lost time. The warning had gone off almost as soon as the blackout came into force and she and Tommy along with the rest of Post 7 had been hard at it all night until just after half past four when the all-clear sounded.

  As both Jo’s mobile dressing station and Green heavy squad had been on duty for twelve hours straight, Mattie sent them and two of the axillary ambulances home as soon as their day crews reported for duty.

  They’d arrived at Tommy’s flat some twenty minutes later and fallen into bed and each other’s arms immediately.

  ‘I can hear your heart,’ Jo said, idly running her fingers through Tommy’s chest hair.

  ‘I’m glad about that,’ he replied.

  Kissing the nearest bit of him, Jo rolled to one side. Resting her elbow on the pillow and her head on her hand, she looked down at him for a second then kissed his cheek.

  Although he didn’t open his eyes, a little smile lifted the corner of his mouth and he gave her a squeeze.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you today?’ she asked.

  ‘Positive,’ said Tommy.

  ‘But it’s your mum,’ said Jo.

  Turning, he opened his eyes.

  ‘See, Jo, when you say the word “Mum” you think of someone who kissed it all better when you scraped your knee, gave you bread and jam when you burst in from school starving and sat up nights nursing you when you had a fever and,’ he gave her that quirky smile of his, ‘a clip around the ear when you were cheeky.’

  ‘Not to mention the odd smack across the back of the legs,’ added Jo.

  Tommy laughed and then a sad expression crept into his eyes. ‘But those things aren’t what springs to mind when I think of my mum, in fact I don’t even associate the word “mum” with the woman I’m saying goodbye to later.’

  ‘Oh, Tommy,’ said Jo, her heart aching for him.

  He smiled.

  ‘It’s all right, honest it is.’ He gave her another little squeeze. ‘And after today I can put all that behind me so we can start planning our future. And the first thing I’m going to do is speak to your father. I thought I might catch him at the Catholic Club Sunday lunchtime.’

  ‘When he’s got a couple of pints of Guinness inside him,’ laughed Jo.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Tommy. ‘I doubt he’ll be pleased to hear one of the Sweete brothers is intent on marrying his youngest daughter but I’m hoping I can talk him around, especially when I tell him . . .’

  He paused.

  ‘You’re going to sign on,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I have to,’ he replied.

  She forced a smile. ‘When?’

  ‘Monday, after I’ve spoken to your dad. I don’t suppose I’ll go until the New Year.’ He grinned. ‘If I make a good impression on your father, he might even invite me for Christmas dinner.’

  Jo reached up and lightly ran her finger along the bristly line of his square jaw.

  ‘I do love you, Tommy,’ she said, snuggling a little closer.

  They gazed at each other for a long moment then Tommy stretched across and grabbed the open packet of French letters lying beside the clock.

  ‘Good,’ he said, rolling back and taking her with him. ‘I’ve got one left and as I’m not seeing you for two days—’

  ‘We might as well make use of it now,’ laughed Jo, slipping her arms around his neck.

  *

  Taking another Benson & Hedges from the crumpled pack lying on his desk, Inspector Leonard Tovey clamped it between his lips and lit it from the spent one before stubbing the butt out in the overflowing ashtray.

  He scanned the file sitting in front of him and, drawing in a lungful of nicotine, turned to the next statement.

  The glass in the half-glazed door rattled as Eric, his sergeant, strolled in carrying two mugs.

  ‘You still fretting over that ARP warden’s case, Gov?’ said Flowers, closing the door with his foot and shutting out the noise from the raucous Arbour Square’s CID office.

  ‘I am,’ Leonard replied, as Eric placed his steaming cup of mid-morning coffee in front of him. ‘Especially now I’ve got the coroner’s report back. It says he was killed by a blow to the head.’

  ‘I could have told you that,’ said Eric, the seat alongside the desk creaking as he sat on it. ‘After all, it was me who had to lift that bloody lump of concrete off his bonce.’

  ‘But according to this,’ Leonard tapped the top sheet of paper, ‘the mark on the back of his head shows it was a blow from a long thin metal implement that killed him not the block of rubble that crushed his forehead.’

  ‘Perhaps he fell backwards first,’ said Eric, ‘and then got caught in the blast.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Leonard agreed. ‘But then how is it that he was seen by the fire crew from Bow Common alive and well a full hour after the cardboard factory where he was found was hit. And what was he doing there anyway; it’s two miles off his patch?’

  The detective sergeant took a noisy slurp of coffee. ‘Perhaps he went to help someone.’

  ‘Again, that’s possible,’ Leonard said. ‘And I might go along with the idea but, according to everyone we interviewed at Post 7, this Potter was a bloody stickler for the rules and was forever tearing people off a strip for being off their post, so it’s out of character for him to stray from his patch. I might go along with it if there had been someone trapped in the factory but there weren’t. Plus, it seems that our illustrious chief ARP warden went to meet his maker on the self-same night someone waltzed off with Upington and Sons’ safe and swiped the company’s trophies from their factory in East Smithfield – a factory very much on Mr Potter’s patch.’

  ‘Coincidence?’ asked Eric, scratching his head and dislodging a limp tendril of Brylcreemed hair in the process.

  Leonard blew a stream of smoke towards the bare light fitting dangling above. ‘You know my thoughts on coincidence, don’t you, Eric?’

  ‘There ain’t no such thing?’ the sergeant replied.

  ‘Correct,’ said Leonard. ‘And certainly not when the Sweete brothers and their band of jokers are nearby.’ He took another drag on his cigarette then stubbed it out. ‘If only we could find the silverware.’

  Picking up his coffee, Leonard took a swig then screwed up his face. Thumping it back on the desk he pulled out his bottom drawer and extracted half a bottle of whisky and two glasses. Pouring a generous measure in each he slid one towards his constable.

  ‘Well, we’ve searched Reggie’s yard twice and the Sweetes’ gaff,’ said Eric, taking up his glass. ‘We even took the floorboards up but nothing.’

  ‘Pity.’ He poured himself another drink. ‘I tell you, Eric, after twenty years of chasing tea leaves and conmen, I know in my water that those Sweete boys are connected to Potter’s death.’

  ‘Murder, don’t you mean?’ corrected the sergeant.

  ‘You’d have a job sneaking that one by the judge,’ Leonard said, pressing the cork back in. ‘But they’re bang to rights for manslaughter.’

  He reached for his packet of cigarettes but finding it empty, tossed it in the bin.

  ‘All we have to do,’ said Eric, offering him one of his Senior Service, ‘is find the silver.’

  ‘We do,’ said Leonard, holding the match to his fresh cigarette. ‘So where on God’s earth have they hidden it?’

  Shaking out the flame, he clamped his cigarette between his teeth, and weaving his fingers across his considerable stomach, leaned back in the chair.

  He studied the peeling paint on the opposite wall for a moment then jumped up. Striding across the small office, he tore open the door and looked across the h
eads of the detectives hunched over their desks. He spotted the elderly police officer tucked in the corner, surrounded by maps and mugshots pinned to a cork board.

  ‘Oh, Chalky?’

  PC White, the station’s collator and font of all knowledge regarding H Division’s criminal underworld, looked around.

  ‘The Sweete boys,’ Leonard bellowed. ‘Where does that old drunk mother of theirs live?’

  Tommy tied a knot in the threadbare sheet which contained the last of his mother’s clothes and tossed it on the box containing her half a dozen pairs of scruffy, downtrodden shoes.

  His mother’s mid-morning funeral the day before at the City of London Cemetery had been brief, with no flowers other than a small bunch of winter pansies he’d paid a vendor at the crematory gates an extortionate amount for. He was glad, as the half a dozen blooms sitting on her coffin brightened the otherwise bleak chapel.

  Surprisingly, he hadn’t been the only person sitting in the pews as Dolly Walker from the pie and mash shop plus a couple of his mother’s old friends who obviously remembered her in better times had also attended.

  Having received the handful of mourners’ condolences and thanked them in turn for taking the trouble to come, he’d walked the half-mile to Manor Park Station and caught the train back to Stratford. As the tram lines were down he’d then walked the further mile and a half to get back to the flat in Limehouse. He’d collapsed into the crumpled sheets that still had the comforting smell of Jo wrapped in them and only woken when the siren went off five hours later. After another twelve hours of the Luftwaffe raining down death on them while he and Green Squad had propped up tottering walls and shovelled rubble, the all-clear had gone at five and Tommy had stumbled back into the same dishevelled bed he’d got out of fourteen hours before.

  He’d finally awoken and switched on the wireless just as Melody Hour started at one o’clock and, after shaving and a strip wash, he’d spent the past two hours clearing out his mother’s few possessions, which were now bundled up for the rag man.

  Of course, he still had to tackle the rest of her room. There was the pile of boxes in the corner and god only knew what lurked under the bed but at least he’d made a start.

  He glanced at his watch.

  Although he wasn’t on duty until seven, Jo was off at six so he wanted to get to Post 7 early to make sure he saw her. Each time he saw her all he wanted to do was take her in his arms, but for now they had to pretend they just happened to be having a cup of tea at the same time. Hopefully, once he’d spoken to her father and gained his permission to walk out with Jo, they could drop the charade.

  Going into the bedroom he took his uniform jacket out of the wardrobe and hung it over the door. Hooking his thumbs in his braces, he was just about to slip them off to change into his work boiler suit when someone started hammering on the front door.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he shouted, striding back into the hall. ‘I can hear you.’

  Grabbing the handle, he opened the front door to find Inspector Tovey, Sergeant Flowers and three uniformed officers filling his doorway.

  ‘Inspector Tovey,’ he said. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘Last week, while Hitler’s buggers were flying above, some little toerags,’ the inspector gave him a bald-eyed glare, ‘or should I say gang of little toerags, decided to break into an engineering firm in East Smithfield and make off with something they shouldn’t have. Know anything about it, Sweete?’

  ‘Not a thing, Inspector,’ Tommy replied.

  ‘All right then, let’s do it by the book. I have here a warrant to search these premises.’ He waved a sheet of paper in Tommy’s face. ‘I have reason to believe that stolen items —’

  ‘You’re having a joke, aren’t you, Inspector?’ laughed Tommy.

  ‘In you go, lads,’ barked Tovey. ‘Search the front room. Tear the place apart if you have to but they’re here somewhere and I want ’em found.’

  Barging past Tommy, the three constables marched into the flat and headed for the lounge. Tommy hurried after them and got there just in time to see them rip out the sideboard drawers and spill their contents on the carpet. Tovey and his sidekick followed him in and all three watched as the three constables upended furniture, flung cushions about and spread his mother’s clothes, which he’d spent all afternoon sorting into neat piles, all over the floor.

  Ten minutes later, having demolished that room, one officer marched into the kitchen while the other two turned their attention to the rest of the flat.

  ‘What precisely are you looking for, Inspector?’ asked Tommy, as the sound of crockery shattering started in the kitchen.

  ‘The silver stolen from Upington and Sons’ trophy cabinet last Thursday,’ Tovey replied.

  ‘Well, you’re wasting your time,’ said Tommy, ‘because you won’t find it here.’

  ‘Guv!’ shouted one of the police officers.

  Tovey’s thin lips lifted in a self-satisfied smile.

  ‘Coming,’ he shouted back, his sharp eyes fixed on Tommy.

  With his heart pounding in his chest, Tommy followed the inspector out of the room while Flowers brought up the rear. As they walked into his mother’s room, something akin to an icy hand gripped Tommy’s chest.

  ‘They were under the old girl’s bed,’ said the officer, as Tommy stared incredulously at the pile of shiny tankards, cups, trophies and plates sitting on his mother’s washed-out patchwork counterpane.

  ‘Wasting our time, are we, Sweete?’ sniggered Flowers.

  Tommy opened his mouth to speak but the full horror of what was happening stopped his words.

  The inspector took hold of Tommy’s arm.

  ‘Thomas James Sweete,’ he said, his voice booming around Tommy’s head, ‘I am arresting you for the burglary that took place at Upington and Sons during the night of the twenty-eighth November and for the murder of Mr Cyril Potter—’

  ‘No!’

  Ripping his arm free of Tovey’s grip he sprang forward but three pairs of hands grabbed him and cold metal snapped around his wrists.

  ‘You’re not obliged to say anything,’ continued the inspector as Tommy struggled against his handcuffs, ‘but anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence—’

  ‘Thursday the twenty-eighth?’ said Tommy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tovey. ‘Why?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Tommy, as the image of him and Jo entwined together that first night flashed through his mind.

  ‘Right, get him in the back of the hurry-up waggon,’ said the inspector. ‘Then take him down the station and throw him in the cell with his low-life brother and the rest of the crew.’ He grinned. ‘Perhaps this time we will be able to throw away the key.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘OI, DOLLY-DAYDREAM, DO you want a bun?’ said Joan who was standing next to Jo in the tea queue.

  ‘No, just tea for me,’ said Jo, dragging her eyes from the hall doorway and wondering why Tommy hadn’t arrived yet for his early shift.

  ‘So, who is he?’ asked Joan as they shifted forward.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Jo, trying not to look around at the door again.

  ‘Pull the other one it’s got bells on,’ Joan scoffed. ‘You’ve been walking around like a tit in a trance for days, it must be some fella.’

  ‘I can’t say,’ said Jo.

  Joan looked shocked. ‘He’s not married, is he?’

  ‘No, he’s blooming well not,’ Jo laughed. ‘Well, not yet, anyhow and—’

  Wally Riley, the second-in-command on Red heavy rescue team, barged into the queue in front of them to join two of his mates.

  ‘Hey, you’ll never guess,’ he said to those gathered around him. ‘The cops have arrested the whole of Blue Squad.’

  The chattering stopped in an instant as everyone turned their attention to Wally.

  ‘Straight up,’ he continued. ‘Granger from the Town Hall rang Mrs McCarth
y a few moments ago to tell her.’

  ‘What, all of them?’ asked one of the WVS women manning the tea bar.

  Wally nodded. ‘Yes, both Sweete brothers plus that bunch of villains they hang around with.’

  ‘What they been nicked for?’ asked the man next to him.

  ‘The Upington and Sons’ job two weeks back,’ Wally replied.

  There were mutterings of ‘about time’ and ‘bloody thieving scum’ around them.

  ‘And that’s not all.’ A smirk spread across his long face. ‘They’ve been done for old Potter’s murder, too.’

  The floor seemed to tilt and rush towards Jo for a moment or two before it returned to its usual position under her feet.

  ‘I suppose that means we’ll be working short,’ grumbled someone behind her.

  Wally grinned. ‘Yeah, but at least we won’t swing.’

  There was a ripple of laughter with the odd ‘serves ’em right’ and ‘got what they deserved’ thrown in.

  ‘You all right, Jo?’ asked Joan from what seemed like a long way away.

  Forcing her mind to work, Jo looked around.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Shocked, that’s all.’

  ‘I know, it’s terrible,’ said Gillian. ‘But I’m surprised they nabbed Tommy Sweete too, because Green team were working down East India Dock Road the night Potter was killed so surely he could have got Mick to tell the cops.’

  The blood in Jo’s veins turned to ice and her head swam again.

  She grabbed Joan’s arm.

  ‘I’ve got to go somewhere,’ she said. ‘Can you cover for me until I get back?’

  Her friend glanced at the clock. ‘We’re taking over from A team in half an hour.’

  ‘I know, but it’s only around the corner,’ said Jo. ‘And I promise I’ll be back.’

  Joan raised an eyebrow.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But if the warning goes off you’d better scoot back here on the double or—’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Gripping her bag, Jo dodged between the milling crowd and was just about at the other end of the hall when a familiar voice called her name.

  Taking a deep breath, she turned to see her sister waddling towards her.