Without the Moon

by Cathi Unsworth

  Peter Beverley had given him two weeks’ leave, suggested he spent it at the races and forget all about it. He had caught the Blackout Ripper and that’s what he should be proud of. But Greenaway could not be proud of anything. Muldoon’s words on his heroics came back to mock him, as if the Canadian had shared a secret about their true identities. He had let his madness out and now he had blood on his hands.

  Which was what had brought him back here. If Greenaway knew anything about the criminal mind, it was that its greatest weakness was the same as a gambler’s – not to give up when the going was good, but to chance everything gained on one reckless last punt. Muldoon was out there, somewhere in the city, with plenty more victims to choose from. The fact that he had got away with the killing of Margaret McArthur would likely make him think he could pull off the same stroke again. Bring him straight back here. The only thing Greenaway hadn’t worked out was what would happen then. He looked down at his hands, rubbed them together. As he did, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. A thin beam of light from a torch bouncing a trail along the side of the bridge. A figure behind it, coming towards him.

  It was then that realisation dawned.

  There was something he had forgotten, something that should have been at the very forefront of his mind: the date that Bear and Parnell had disappeared was also the date Sammy Lehmann came up for parole.

  “Thought I’d find you here, Greenaway, you mug.”

  – . –

  “All right, here’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Duch, changing the subject for him. “D’you know of a magazine called Two Worlds?”

  “Certainly,” Swaffer replied. “It’s rather a good Spiritualist publication, I’m surprised you haven’t come across it before.”

  “I met a journalist who works for them at Miss Moyes’s a few weeks back. He was writing a story about the séance Mrs Duncan done.”

  “Oh yes,” said Swaffer. “I would have been there myself if it wasn’t for that blasted Bracewell woman and her damned petition. What happened, was she good?”

  Duch cocked her head to one side. “Is she supposed to be?” she asked.

  Swaffer nodded vigorously. “One of the best Materialism Mediums there has ever been. Didn’t she bring about many manifestations at Miss Moyes’s, then?”

  “She certainly did,” said Duch. “That’s what was so funny about it. This geezer was telling me how nervous he was about writing a feature, it was the first time they’d let him do it, he said. Then, as soon as the lights went down, this thing appeared right in front of him and tapped him on the knee. He almost shot through the ceiling! God, it was funny, me and Daph didn’t half laugh about it later. Ever since then, I been meaning to get hold of an issue to read up what he said, only I ain’t sure if I’ve gone and missed the right one. Do you keep any copies of it, Swaff?”

  The journalist nodded. “I’ve probably got the one you need in my pile at home, unread. Now all this is over, I’ll have time to go through them and look it out for you. What did you say this fellow’s name was?” Over Duch’s shoulder, Swaffer saw Ava notice them, pick up her mink and begin threading her way through the tables.

  “Now let me see … He was a Scottish bloke himself,” said Duch. “I got it. Ross, his name was, Ross Spooner.”

  “Duch, me old China, long time no see. What brings you here?” Ava clapped her hand down on his companion’s shoulder just in time for Swaffer to disguise his expression. Without waiting for an answer, she pulled out a chair and plonked herself down beside them. “You heard about my woes, I take it?”

  – . –

  “Don’t look at me like that. For once, you might just be pleased to see me.”

  “Now, why would that be?” Greenaway stepped back a pace. Two years on the inside of Dartmoor Prison didn’t seem to have affected his nemesis in any way. Sammy Lehmann looked as handsome as ever, Brilliantine shining in his abundant black hair, polish on his handmade shoes and nothing but Savile Row in between.

  Registering the expression in Greenaway’s eyes, Sammy smiled. “’Cos the moment I got out, I was thinking only of you. You and your outstanding business, that little matter what you couldn’t take care of yourself. Look …”

  Sammy opened his palm, shined his torch on what he held there.

  – . –

  Swaffer had no desire to hear about Mrs Abraham’s compromised domestic arrangements, especially not now he had the answer to the question he had posed to Greenaway in this same room, back in the previous December. Ross Spooner was pursuing Helen Duncan in his new guise as a hapless amateur journalist. Now he knew for sure the Ministry had the medium in their sights.

  “If you’ll excuse me, ladies,” he said, raising his stovepipe hat. “I must away.”

  “He’s a funny one.” Ava followed his departing figure with her eyes.

  “He’s a good man is Swaff,” Duch considered. “Always looking out for other people. If it weren’t for him knowing all what he does, and who he does, they might not have caught that Blackout Ripper so quickly.”

  Ava turned her face back to Duch’s. “What, you’re saying he done all that bastard Greenaway’s work for him there and all? Don’t surprise me.” She downed the contents of her glass in one gulp, grimaced as she surveyed the empty vessel. “I’d better go easy on this,” she said. “Keep forgetting I got to pay for it myself now.”

  “I’ll get you another,” offered Duch. She hadn’t really noticed before, but Ava Abraham was quite a stunning-looking woman, in a severe kind of way.

  “Oh, thanks, Duch,” said Ava. “Here, what happened to that lovely girl you used to be with? That blonde one, looked like a film star, she did.”

  Duch shrugged. “Me and Lil parted company,” she said. “It’s a long story. But I ain’t half bored without her. Been doing all sorts of silly things lately. Found myself only lately trying to set up one of Swaff ’s higher-class friends with some stranger we met, just to see which way she’d swing.” She shook her head. “I think I need a distraction, get back to some real work. Start making some proper gelt and all.”

  Ava looked at her steadily over the top of her empty glass. “So do I,” she said.

  – . –

  Greenaway picked up the chain from Sammy’s open palm. It was an identity disc, the sort that soldiers wore around their necks to identify themselves, in case the rest of them got blown to pieces on a battlefield.

  MULDOON, JOSEPH, R A POS, HQ43-21-97562, CCH, RC

  He looked up. “What’s this? One of Parnell’s party tricks?”

  Sammy chuckled. “You underestimate the boy. I know what you’re thinking, Greenaway, ’cos I always do, but he’s got a lot more bottle than you give him credit. He brought me this to give you as a peace offering.”

  Greenaway felt the ground shift beneath his feet. “What d’you mean, a peace offering?” he echoed.

  “The reason I knew you’d be here,” said Sammy. “Raymond should have been in court for you like you wanted him today. But he found himself between a rock and a hard place. Without Bluebell, someone had to help the Bear get everything in order for when I come out of the Moor. You put away my best lieutenant, Greenaway, and I will not tell a lie, that didn’t half get me riled. But, on the other hand, I can see your position. What happened here was bang out of order and merited the punishment. Only, I can’t have my dirty washing done in public. Therefore, Raymond owes us both. I had him personally call this one in, in the hope that this will also cancel his debt with you.”

  Sammy tapped the identity disc on Greenaway’s palm, let the weight of his words sink in along with it.

  “Now you’ve seen the proof of it,” he went on, “you have my word, nothing else is traceable. Here,” he closed Greenaway’s hand into a fist and put his own over the top of it. “That’s your insurance against me. Call it a goodwill gesture on my part.”

  Greenaway stared at him. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You nobbled the jury
so that Muldoon would walk. Then you had your boy Parnell dispose of him anyway. Is this really what you’re telling me?”

  Sammy put his hand back in his coat pocket. “I’m just saying, God works in mysterious ways. Ain’t that what they always taught us?” he said.

  Greenaway shook his head. He felt as if it was he who was falling from Waterloo Bridge now, into the swirling waters below. He opened his fist, stared down at the identity disc, trying to clear the rushing noise in his head.

  Sammy gave a little bow and turned his torch back on. “Be seeing you, Greenaway.” Greenaway opened his mouth to call after him, but found no words would come. His hand closed around the identity disc as he watched the torch’s trail, bouncing away over the bridge and into the night. He lifted his shoulder back, ready to hurl his tainted gift into the water, to throw it after Margaret McArthur – her retribution in blood, given by a gangster.

  Then he stopped. This was no justice for Margaret. This was his penance, a reminder of failure that he needed to keep close, of the crooked world around him that he could never stop from operating, no matter how hard he tried to fight against it.

  Because he was a part of it, too. Despite the oath he had sworn when he joined the police, if he could have traded places with Parnell tonight and put Muldoon in the grave for Margaret, he would have done. That was why he came to be standing here. He understood only too well.

  “Insurance,” he said, putting it back in his pocket. “For a better day to come.”

  Greenaway walked back across the bridge.

  EPILOGUE

  Thursday, 25 June 1942

  Weights and measures: that was what mattered to Mr Albert Pierrepoint. In order to do his job properly, he had to know the weight and height of the condemned man, which necessitated a trip to the scales for Gordon Frederick Cummins every day that he remained in his temporary lodgings at Wandsworth Prison. Chipper to the last, Cummins had faced each reminder of time running out with a nonchalant smile, a joke on his lips for the warder taking notes.

  Only yesterday things had been different. Yesterday, Pierrepoint had set eyes on the Blackout Ripper for the first time, mentally applying the ratio of his height and weight to the length of rope he would need and the corresponding drop from the trapdoor. Nothing else concerned him. Nothing else appeared to trouble Cummins either. After the hangman had left, he went on with his game of cards.

  His equipment having arrived from Pentonville, Pierrepoint tested his calculations with a bag of sand. The same piece of rope that would go around Cummins’s neck was tied to the sandbag, which would be left overnight to remove any stretch from it. The rope itself was special – ten foot of Italian silk hemp, smooth but strong, with a chamois leather binding to prevent any chafing. Pierrepoint liked to despatch his duties with the minimum of discomfort, even if his charges had shown little in the way of such consideration along the course of their journey to meet with him.

  At seven in the morning, the rope was coiled and ready.

  Cummins dressed in his cell, the same smart suit he had worn in court, and a freshly laundered white shirt, the same calmness in his demeanour as he fastened his buttons for the last time. Only when the prison doctor came to give him his final checkup and offered him a glass of brandy to steady his nerves did the nervousness show in his face.

  “Best get it over with quickly,” was his summation of forthcoming events, a sentiment with which Pierrepoint would have concurred.

  Just before eight o’clock came the last theatrical flourish: the wardrobe against the wall of Cummins’s cell was slid aside, revealing the entrance to the room of execution right behind it. From therein came Pierrepoint, two warders beside him, ready to take up their positions on either side of the condemned man. Cummins’s hands betrayed a shake as they were placed behind his back and secured with a leather strap.

  In silence, the hangman led the way out of the cell and into the room beyond. Cummins’s warders guided him to the trapdoor, on which a large white “T” had been chalked, indicating the position on which he should stand. Above him hung the noose.

  For the last time, Cummins’s strange, pale eyes looked out upon the world. Then Pierrepoint pulled a white execution hood over his head and placed the noose around his neck, while the warders secured his ankles with another leather strap. Finally, the noose’s brass eyelet was placed below his jaw and secured in place.

  Pierrepoint moved quickly to remove the safety pin from the base of the trapdoor release lever. With a pull of the wooden handle, the floor gave way beneath Cummins’s feet and he was falling, through the door into the cell below, the free length of rope uncoiling for all ten feet until it sprang tight and snapped his neck with an audible click. Cummins’s legs jerked and twisted in a last, violent dance.

  Then the Blackout Ripper was gone.

  Greenaway watched with grim satisfaction. He had been up all night again, thanks to Miss Bracewell and her latest petition, claiming that the man with whom Cummins had switched gas masks was the real killer. He had enjoyed writing the report that thoroughly answered all her charges and was ready to hand it to the coroner once Cummins was taken down, swear his testimony over the dead body of the mass murderer Gordon Frederick Cummins. Call it a job well and thoroughly done.

  The prison doctor approached the dangling man with his stethoscope. He steadied the body and listened for a while and then nodded his affirmation.

  When the orderlies entered the death chamber, an hour later, the body had stopped swinging. One man grabbed his legs, the other climbed up a stepladder to remove the noose from his neck.

  As they did, high above them in the skies, a formation of aircraft amassed. Not Cummins’s former brethren in the RAF, but a squadron of German bombers on their first mission to London since the night of February the seventh – the night before the Blackout Ripper claimed his first victim. His brief reign bookmarked by air raids.

  Cummins’s body dropped from the end of the rope to the mournful wail of sirens.

  GLOSSARY

  Bang to rights – apprehended by the constabulary with positive proof of guilt.

  Beat Bobby – a uniformed police constable, “Bobby” deriving from Sir Robert Peel, British Prime Minister and founder of the Metropolitan Police. See also: Flatfoot.

  Block and tackle – a sledgehammer, used to break the windows of a jewellery shop and initiate high-speed robbery from the seat of a car; and a bag to catch the spoils, collected while standing on the running board. An audacious technique perfected by the Billy Hill gang in London during the early days of WWII.

  Blower, the – telephone. From the 12th-century Old English blaware, horn-blowers.

  Boat – boat race = face. Cockney rhyming slang.

  Bogeys, the – police. In common use in London from the 1930s–1960s, it has its origin in the term the “bogey-man” invoked to frighten children. See also: Lily Law.

  Bottle party – in the instance of clubs in London during WWII, a bottle party was a club that offered legal all-night drinking by way of a loophole in the law. Customers would sign order forms in advance of their arrival which were sent to all-night wine retailers, the drink being bought in the customer’s name and therefore, in theory, never belonging to the club.

  Boychick – affectionate term for a boy or young man. Yiddish.

  Brasses – prostitutes. From the Cockney rhyming slang: brass nail = tail. See also: On the bash, Working girls.

  Bubbala – sweetheart, darling: an affectionate term for someone close. Yiddish.

  Caper – a scheme, a wheeze, a criminal enterprise. See also: Tickle, a.

  Clock, to – to notice. According to Eric Partridge, compiler of the Dictionary of Slang, this is prison parlance dating back to the 1930s. To “clock” someone can also mean to hit them, “clock” itself also meaning “face”.

  Dodgy – dishonest or unreliable, liable to dodge responsibility.

  Drags – cars. Dealers in the second-hand variety of which are liable to
be dodgy.

  Elephant Boys, the – a racecourse gang, originating from the Elephant and Castle area of London in the late Victorian era, whose influence lasted until the 1930s. Their rivals, the Italian Sabini clan from Clerkenwell, were interned during WWII.

  Fag – cigarette, originally especially the butt of a smoked cigarette, common from the late 19th century and deriving from a 15th-century term for a loose piece of fabric, geographically linked to the traditional weaving and clothing industries of London’s East End. In British usage it is not a derogatory term for a homosexual.

  Fence – the middleman in a criminal transaction who sells on the stolen goods. Thieves’ cant from the 17th century onwards, popularised by Charles Dickens’ Fagin.

  Flatfoot – a uniformed Police Constable or Beat Bobby.

  Full-screw – a Corporal in the British Army.

  Gaff – living quarters. In usage since the 19th century.

  Gelt – money. Yiddish.

  Get nicked – be arrested. As opposed to doing the nicking – stealing; or the nick – prison. An expression curious to Britain, it derives from a 1530s term meaning to put a notch into something. The shuttling between sides of the law indicates the irony inherent in British slang.

  Get the scream on – pursue a fleeing villain.

  Gonef – thief. Yiddish.

  Graft, the – the work of thieving. Corruption of “hard graft”, the sentences given to criminals deported from Britain in the 19th century. Eric Partridge believes the word came to be used in the sense of obtaining money corruptly via the penal colonies of Australia and New Zealand.

  Grass or grass up/on – to inform on a fellow criminal to the police. The OED thinks it is derived from 19th-century slang: grasshopper = tell a copper. Also used as a noun. See also: Shop, to.