That Old Black Magic

by Cathi Unsworth

  “Aye, well, it’s me who has an interest for the folk songs,” Spooner improvised. “I’ve been trying to persuade Norrie there’s an audience for it.”

  “Course, I s’pose you would do, coming from Scotland,” Bertie considered, scratching his blue, bristly chin. “The land of fings what go bump in the night. Well, I tell you what, son, you might be onto something. They went down well here. And they was both lookers, as I recall. The blonde one, especially…”

  “Did you keep a number for them?” Spooner thought it best to cut this train of thought off before it had further time to develop. “Or do they have an agent?”

  “Ah, yerse,” Bertie looked back down at his book and the smile fell away from his face. “Ah, no. No agent listed. Just this number and an address in West Brom – most probably their digs. D’you want to take that down anyway?”

  “Thanks,” Spooner copied out the first new entry in his address book. “So they are local.”

  Bertie removed his cigar from his mouth, stuck out his lower lip and shrugged. “They was,” he corrected. “But the last booking I took for ’em was back in November. You might not find ’em at the same place now. Might not even be standing if the bleedin’ Boche had anyfink to do with it. But, you like that sort of fing, then I can make you plenty more recommendations…”

  By the time Spooner was bumping his car back down John Bright Street, he was praying that this wasn’t going to be the time he had to suddenly introduce himself to any of the local constabulary. The remaining half of Bertie’s bottle of Scotch had all gone south in a stream of anecdote before they had left to watch the show. As a result, Spooner’s driving was even more erratic and his address book was bulging with useless contacts for Midlands-based folk singers.

  But none of that mattered compared to the one address and phone number that did. The proof that Clara really did exist and had been here in Birmingham – and the added twist that she had invented an entirely different act here from the one she could have been expected to replicate from her life on the continent.

  “A lot of ginger old songs about ghosts and witches.” Remembering Bertie’s words caused the hairs to rise up on Spooner’s neck the way they had done when he’d first heard them. Clearly, it was an act that reflected her interests and, presumably, those of her musical partner too. Anna Hartley was not a name that had come up on any of Spooner’s Triple-U files, but the Chief had an even more comprehensive ledger even than Bertie’s to go through. As he eased the Rover back into the High View car park, he shook his head at the thought of the man’s prescience. If he could find this duo, then he could easily convince them of his love for their kind of music. Especially songs about ghosts and witches.

  “D’you have your own crystal ball, Chief?” he mused aloud, turning the engine off.

  Though it was tempting, he dismissed the idea of calling his boss now. They had prearranged twice daily when Spooner should call with reports for Norrie that would really be answered by the Chief. The first one was due after breakfast tomorrow. He had been given another number for use in an emergency, but this wasn’t one. Neither did he think it worthwhile to try the number he had got for Clara and Anna. Everyone in their profession would already be out, either performing or carousing at this hour of the night. Better to try them first thing in the morning, when he’d be more likely to catch them bleary and unawares. Besides, he had another engagement to keep.

  Taking his torch from his pocket, Spooner turned down the pavement towards the Victoria public house, wondering if Bob would have unearthed any promising leads by now. He could hear the raucous sounds of a piano being played and songs being sung long before he reached the front doors, which were entwined with elaborate ironwork foliage, like the gates to a fairy-tale castle.

  Inside was every bit as ornate – dark wood panelling, corniced ceilings with plaster roses painted in shades of forest green, blood-red and gold. A long mahogany bar with a copper top dominated, facing into all of the rooms built around it: the saloon, public bar and snug. Rows of bottles glittered down from the top of its carved shelves, while the bevelled glass back panels reflected a scene of Hogarthian revelry. Friday night was in full swing.

  Making his way through the throng to the bar, Spooner took mental snapshots of certain customers. A little man in a yellow suit who might have been a Munchkin escaped from Oz. An old fellow with a long white beard, holding a walking stick and nodding his head in time to the music while staring into the middle distance with the milky white eyes of the blind. A fat man with a round red face who looked like he’d had a good day at the races; his equally rotund female companion swathed in mink, her laugh like a donkey’s bray. From the corner by the fireplace, a man with black hair as glossy as a raven’s wing, a pencil moustache and a chalk-striped grey suit with shoulder pads shot him a searing glance.

  Impressive though his flock was, the landlord was another spectacle entirely. Norman Johnson was an enormous great man, with a torso that resembled one of his beer barrels and a shining bald head. His skin was the colour of milky coffee and he was dressed in black from top to toe, shirt sleeves rolled up over biceps the size of hams. He had formerly been an all-in wrestler, who ruled the ring in the thirties under the moniker ‘The Black Butcher’ and his image, dressed in an apron splashed with theatrical blood, leered down from old fight posters on the walls. Yet despite his fearsome appearance, Norman greeted Spooner with an amiable nod.

  “You must be Ross,” he said. “Bob said I should look out for you.”

  Spooner was pleased. His change of image had at last rendered him memorable.

  “Sounds like he’s going great guns,” he nodded to where the landlord was thundering through a rousing version of “Bye Bye Blackbird”, assisted by a howl of enthusiastic singers all competing for a common key as they clustered around an old upright piano.

  “Lucky for you, you’ve missed most of it,” said Norman. “But show us that photo you got. I think I might know your mystery woman, even if he don’t.”

  The pint looked small and fragile in the former Black Butcher’s great paw.

  “That’s right,” he said, nodding, “it is her. I thought it would be.” He looked back at Spooner. “She’s not one of me regulars, but she did come in here once and give us a song. Last November, it was – I recall it quite distinctly, ’cos it was the same night the BSA factory went up. She had another girl with her, a little blonde one, played the violin. They were bloody good and all…”

  The scene unspooled before the landlord’s mind’s eye: the usual crowd clustered around the piano all flushed with booze and merriment; the red-haired woman’s fingers dancing up the keyboard while her little companion twirled across the copper top like some kind of fairy fiddler. The red-haired woman’s voice cutting across the smoke and the laughter, deep and raucous. Singing such a strange song, happy and sad at the same time…

  Then someone called his name, breaking his reverie. Norman handed the pint back to Spooner, admonishing the thirsty punter to wait his turn. “Sorry about that,” he said. “But you know what it’s like Friday night. What can I get you, anyway?”

  Spooner’s eyes ran across the taps. Beer would be a safer option. “A pint of mild, please,” he said, “and have one yourself.”

  Norman nodded. “Bob said you was a gent. So what else can I tell you?” he wondered. “Oh yes, them girls. Spellbound they said their name was. I would have had them back here again in a flash, but I don’t think their boyfriends approved of the place.”

  He placed the pint on the counter.

  “Boyfriends?” echoed Spooner.

  “They was with a couple of fellas – hoity-toity types, the pair of them. One of them looked military. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but I’ll bet you he was RAF. That lot always think themselves better than the rest.”

  Spooner didn’t lift his pint in case a shaking hand gave him away. “Aye,” he said, rummaging in his pocket for change instead. “That’s right.”

&nb
sp; “Yeah, well, he didn’t look too happy about it,” Norman recalled. “He dragged her off after the one song. Probably didn’t like other men looking at his girl, you know what I mean? Shame, that was, I would have let them play all night if they wanted to, they was like nothing else you’d ever heard before. I tell you what, if you manage to get hold of them, tell them they’ve got a booking here if they want it,” he winked, nodded back towards Bob. “Anything’s got to be better than that bloody racket, right?”

  5

  THERE ARE SUCH THINGS

  Sunday, 16 February 1941

  Karl’s dream had changed since they moved him to the hospital. Now, each time he closed his eyes, he was back in the snow-covered fields of the fens. Only, he had made a successful jump, landing with no bones broken. In this white world, he was blissfully free from pain and couldn’t even feel the cold. The sun was just coming up above the horizon, a red eye blinking at him, indicating the path he should take towards a copse of elms. His progress was easy, his feet gliding inches above the snow. What he had to do next was clear in his mind.

  He selected the tallest tree and laid his attaché case out at the bottom of it. Though he had only been taught how to do this task three weeks previously, he remembered the drill clearly. He plugged his aerial into the back of the wireless set and then threw it high up into the branches. The tree obligingly caught it first time.

  He selected the 6180 KC crystal that should provide adequate range and placed it vertically into the holes in the socket on the right-hand corner of the set. He turned the transmitter switch upright to the 5-8 position, the coupling switch to 1 and the transmitter receiver switch on. He breathed a sigh of relief as the set made a high-pitched whine and a small light bulb went on over the resonance switch, the needle on the RF meter starting to turn to the right. He had judged his requirements correctly.

  “Alles klar,” he said to himself, waiting for the bulb to become really bright before he adjusted the tuning knob to dim it sufficiently to begin his transmission.

  Karl took his codebook from the inside pocket of his jacket, and laid it inside the lid of the attaché case. He unhooked the headphones, plugged them into the socket in his set and put them on. Finally, he began pressing down upon the key, tapping out his call sign in morse: ABRAXAS TO BELLADONNA. The bulb flashed alongside each movement. The set was working perfectly. Once he had relayed his call sign, he turned the transmitter switch over to receive. It was then he heard a strange swishing sound. He looked up to see the branches of the tree had begun to stir. He frowned. He could feel no wind. What could be causing this to happen?

  Karl looked up at the tree. The branches whirled above him, a maniacal dervish, sending dried-up leaves, moss and twigs raining down on his head. The light flashed on his wireless set, a message incoming:

  HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME

  Karl woke up screaming.

  The ringing in Spooner’s ears jolted him upright. For a second, lost in dreams of burning factories and Stuka bombers dropping flaming trails of incendiaries, he thought he was in the middle of an air raid. His hands reached out in the darkness and landed on the alarm clock that was telling him it was six-thirty and time to get up. He fell back, head swirling, trying to separate his memories of what had really gone on the night before from the nightmare images that had twisted their way around them as he slept.

  Then he sat back up. Despite being turned off, another was still ringing loudly in Spooner’s head. Clara had been seen with someone from the British military. It was enough to propel him out of bed.

  Luckily, the new Spooner didn’t have to spend half as much time on his toilette as his fastidious former self. A quick wash over the basin and he was back into his velvet and tweeds and following his nose down to the dining room, in pursuit of an aroma that caused his stomach to growl noisily. Frying bacon. He could almost hear it sizzling away in the pan, along with the distant sounds of the news being read on the radio.

  He hovered near a seat on a table that had been set for one with a checked placemat and another tiny vase, this one bearing snowdrops. Another memory surfaced, of himself and Bob coming home from the pub, the older man’s hand on his arm, though who was steadying whom was a moot point. He remembered thinking that Bob had a sailor’s walk, which must have come in handy for times like this when the earth was tilting sideways. He wondered how Bob’s head was this morning. His own felt as if it was being used as a foundry.

  “Ah, there you are!” Janet appeared through the kitchen door, bearing a tray full of pots, cups and saucers. “Can I tempt you with some of that bacon our Bob managed to scrounge for me yesterday?”

  Spooner bounced from one foot to the other, his stomach, head and nerves all vying for the upper hand. “Aye,” he said. “I’d love some.” He had wanted to ask her about using the telephone, but this intention dissolved into the aroma wafting from the kitchen. He sat down, telling himself that he would think more clearly once he had eaten.

  Janet regarded his pallor and uncomfortable expression and made her own deduction.

  “Now, dear,” she said, putting her tray down on another table and a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I do know what our Bob’s like. I dare say he was leading you astray last night when you were supposed to be working. Shall I make you an Alka Seltzer?”

  Spooner nodded with gratitude.

  She brought for him, along with a pot of coffee, a doorstop bacon sandwich and a copy of the Birmingham Post. Before he got stuck in, Spooner said a silent prayer of thanks to Norrie for providing him with such a surrogate mother and made a plea for the wisdom not to let any of them down.

  Two hours later, he had managed to find his way to West Bromwich. Before he left High View and after he had made his report to the Chief, he tried the number Bertie had provided. But the operator wasn’t able to put him through. Now he knew why. What his map was telling him should be there had become a scene of utter desolation.

  A blackened spire reaching up against the cloud-heavy sky and half its supporting wall were all that remained of the church that had once sat on the corner of two residential streets. There would be no more Sunday worship here. One of the piles of rubble that lay in the wasteland behind it contained the address that went along with Anna Hartley’s number. Rain slanted across the windscreen as he turned the engine off. He decided he would have to make the rest of the journey on foot.

  It was hard going, picking through broken bricks and splintered glass to the other side of the church. Spooner’s eyes travelled three hundred and sixty degrees around the shattered landscape. Half of the road was a mess of tangled metal and charred beams, bricks turned to charcoal by the intensity of the heat they had endured. The other half just wasn’t there any longer. A huge, muddy crater had taken its place into which a raw north-easterly wind threw a spiteful barrage of rain.

  As he rounded the back of the church there was a shrill whoop and a small figure slipped out from under some floorboards that were still protruding from the wall. He was a child of no more than eight, with a raven’s feather stuck to a bit of ribbon tied around his head, muddy and red in the face from his morning’s play. But in his mind he was Chief Crazy Horse, on the lookout for General Custer. “Who goes there?” he demanded in a high-pitched voice.

  Spooner stopped and regarded the little tyke. Beyond him, he could see a couple more pairs of eyes blinking out of the gloom from under the repositioned floorboards. There was probably a whole tribe in the ruined church.

  “Good day to you,” he said, doffing his trilby. “Mr Ross Spooner, at your service. To whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

  “Me Big Chief,” the child announced. His braves drew nearer, picking their way into the daylight. “Crazy Horse. This Sioux territory.”

  “Ah, I see,” Spooner joined in with the game. “These are all your lands. Whereabouts are your wigwams?”

  The boy nodded. “Over there.” He pointed in the direction of the still-standing terrace on the other s
ide of the church, where smoke was rising from the chimney pots.

  Spooner looked back at him. “And what happened to cause all this mess?”

  “An air raid, of course,” he was informed, Crazy Horse slipping back into his real native accent. “We was all in our shelter when it happened. We’ve got a big shelter, we have, right in the middle of our garden. Can get our neighbours on both sides into it. Heard the bombs going down all night. It was bloomin’ scary.” He looked back at Spooner, fixing him with a beady eye. “You’re not from round here, are you?”

  “No,” Spooner agreed. “I’m from a very long way away. But I’m looking for someone who used to live on this street, a friend of mine who was staying here.”

  “You’re a bit late, aren’t you?” another brave enquired.

  “Why, when did it happen?” Spooner asked.

  “Nineteenth of November,” he was told.

  “Ach,” Spooner consulted his mental filing cabinet. That was the same night as Norman’s last sighting of Clara and the raid on the BSA factory. “I’ve been away too long. Do you know what happened to all the people who were living here? I bet they’d no’ got a shelter as big as yours, eh?”

  Crazy Horse shook his head. “Most of them got killed,” he said. “I heard the warden telling our dad about it. Twenty-eight of them, he said; or something like that.” His expression softened. “I hope your friend wasn’t one of them.”

  Spooner shook his head. Was this why Clara had been unable to reply to her signals? Why no one had seen her since the previous November? Had the Luftwaffe she had served so well wiped her out in return for her favours?