by Jack Murray
Mary relayed the food up from the kitchen. Grantham was no longer up to the job of lapping around the house like a miler. The first to come down to breakfast was Mr Rosling. He was dressed in a dark suit. At first he took no notice of Mary apart from requesting a coffee. As she came over to serve him, she felt his hand touch high up in her leg.
‘How are you finding things Miss Tanner?’
In any other circumstances Mary would have enjoyed pouring the hot coffee over the misbehaving man. However, for once, discretion became the better part of temper. She finished pouring and stepped back.
‘Miss Carlisle and the staff are very welcoming sir. Will there be anything else?’
Rosling looked neither abashed nor, seemingly, prepared to acquiesce too soon. Instead he smiled and said, ‘I’m glad to hear it Miss Tanner, please stay a bit longer.’
For the next few minutes, Rosling made conversation with Mary, asking about her background and life before arriving at the house. He did so in a manner that, it seemed to Mary, was highly practiced, wholly disinterested and calculated purely to allow Rosling the chance to gaze at Mary under the protective cloak of an innocent dialogue between master and servant. By the time Mary finally escaped she had formed a deep dislike of Rosling and a great sympathy for his wife.
-
Outside in the street, Kit arrived to take over from Harry Miller who had selflessly volunteered for the night shift. Miller felt stiff from the hours sitting in the car. And cold. It would take a week to heat up again. A warm bath and a long sleep were the order of the day.
‘How was it?’ asked Kit, as he got into the car. He smiled sympathetically as looked at Miller who was clearly in some discomfort, ‘You’d better return to the house. Bath and bed would be my suggestion.’
‘Nothing, much to report sir,’ said Miller. ‘Mr Rosling, the elder, left about ten minutes ago. I haven’t seen any sign of the young man or the lady of the house.’
‘Good,’ said Kit enigmatically. He had some modest plans regarding the young buck.
A few minutes later Miller was in a taxi heading back to the apartment in Belgravia. Kit sat in the car with his terrier, Sam. For the next hour there was little or no life around the house and, disappointingly, no sign of Mary. He guessed she would be cleaning the rooms at that this point.
Around ten in the morning the young American left the house. He began to head in Kit’s direction. Kit got out of the car immediately with Sam on a lead, lowered his hat, and walked towards Rosling. Pretending to be distracted by a noise on the street, he deliberately banged into the unsuspecting Rosling, using his cane to help trip the American. Rosling crashed to the floor, heavily. Restraining an impulse to cheer, Kit offered apologies as profuse as they were insincere. Rosling, however, was unsurprisingly irate and began shouting at Kit. Never one to duck a fight, Sam entered the fray and gave Rosling a piece of his mind, as the American was rising from the ground.
‘And get that goddam dog of yours under control,’ shouted Rosling. This was red rag to the terrier who increased the volume of his discourse and even threatened to bite Rosling the younger. Kit swiftly intervened lest his jape became something more serious.
‘You’re quite right, sir. So sorry. Sixtus, that’s enough,’ admonished Kit, waving his finger at Sam. This caused the little terrier to stop immediately and turn to Kit with a confused tilt of the head. Kit tipped his hat and moved on swiftly before Rosling could say much more. Seconds later they were around the corner and out of sight. Kit risked a peek at how Rosling was. Unhappy certainly but mostly unhurt seemingly. When the coast was clear, Kit returned to the car, at least reassured of Mary’s safety for the time being.
Just before midday Mrs Rosling appeared with a young woman with lank, brown hair badly hidden under a cheap hat. She wore spectacles which made it difficult for Kit to gain a true idea of her features. However, Kit had no doubt he was looking at Caroline Hadleigh. Less than quarter of an hour later, Mary emerged from the basement steps. At street level she looked around and spied Kit. She crossed the road and made her way to the car.
Kit opened the door to her and said in a cockney accent, ‘How much, darling?’
‘You couldn’t afford me,’ replied Mary impassively before adding, ‘But as I’m in a good mood.’ She climbed into the car and proved to be as good as her word. A few minutes later, when Kit came up for air he noticed Sam looking at them both with curiosity.
‘Don’t look boy,’ said Kit to the little dog before turning back to Mary, ‘Where were we?’
-
Sally Ryan gently nudged her husband as he lay in the bed. It was lunchtime, which meant Joe’s breakfast was ready. He looked up at her, smiled and then groaned. She stroked the side of his face with her hand.
‘Rise and shine.’
He pulled her down on top of him which made her giggle.
‘Stop,’ ordered Sally, ‘Uncle Ben’s outside having some lunch with our Ben, he’ll hear us.’
‘Let him,’ replied Ryan but alas Sally was not having any of it. She escaped his clutches and ironed out the wrinkles on her dress. She didn’t seem too indignant, however. A few minutes later Ben was joined by his brother.
‘Hello Ben.’
Ben nodded glumly back to Joe.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s this new case. We’re getting grief from up above. They’ve brought in a couple of other coppers. Hateful people. Thugs.’
‘You all are, sure,’ replied Joe Ryan with a grin.
‘You’re funny,’ replied Ben Ryan sourly. ‘The old man’s livid although he won’t say anything. Another day and we’ll be off the case completely unless we get a break.’
Sensing his uncle was unhappy, little Ben crawled over and attempted to climb up on his uncle’s knee. This put a smile back on all their faces.
‘Time you had one of your own, Ben,’ said Sally knowingly.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Joe Ryan, ‘Am I missing something?’
‘He’s got a sweetheart, hasn’t he?’
Ben Ryan looked up at his sister-in-law and laughed, ‘Last time I tell you anything. you’re a real grass.’
‘About time too, Ben. You’re a good looking lad and smart. Lots of girls would love to be with a bloke like you.’
However, the look on his brother’s face suggested this was not a subject he wanted to elaborate on. A look from Sally confirmed it was best to drop it, for the moment. Instead the conversation turned to the new job although no mention was made of the secondary revenue stream Ben and his work colleague were developing.
After lunch the two men walked towards the bus stop. Joe was heading in a different direction, so he crossed over the road and waved as his brother stepped onto the bus and headed back towards the city. The sun shone down on him, but it was bitterly cold. He shivered involuntarily for a moment. He turned to a man that had joined him at the bus stop and smiled.
‘Brass monkey weather, this.’
The man nodded in agreement but remained silent. A few minutes later, the man reached inside his pocket and took out some cigarettes. He offered one to Ryan shook his head and smiled, pointing to the cigarette box.
‘I work for that company.’
This time the man smiled. It probably wasn’t the best idea. What teeth he had were like dark stumps, and not long for this world.
‘Really? You don’t say.’
Chapter 19
Whatever one may have thought of Johnny Mac and many, to be fair, did not hold him in the highest of esteem, there was no question, he was a hard worker. His values were few and self-serving. However one of these values was a willingness to put a fair shift in.
He took pride in little, he was too honest, oddly, to acknowledge anything other than the fact that he was bad, but he knew he was a hard worker. He accepted what his old pastor had often tried to instil in him with a leather belt: he was going to a hell. Not that he cared much about this. Strangely the prospect of being in the co
mpany of wailing and gnashing teeth proved oddly prophetic for the exuberantly violent Ulsterman. Although, perhaps not in the way the good pastor, as evil a man as had ever walked the earth in Johnny Mac’s expert view, would have had in mind.
Johnny Mac had always been big. By thirteen he was well over six feet, weighing in at thirteen stone and getting bigger. His size, as well as a certain moral flexibility when it came to the use of physical force, soon brought him to the attention of both the police and the Ulster Volunteers, a paramilitary group formed in 1912 dedicated to keeping Ulster out of the clutches of a Catholic-dominated Ireland.
In many other countries, membership of a group whose modus operandi was targeting one section of the local community for violence, might have resulted in imprisonment. Johnny Mac was feted and promoted. Often. His natural predisposition towards brutality allied to an undoubted charisma borne of an evident streak of sadism, saw a rapid rise through the ranks of this quasi-terrorist organisation.
That he avoided jail was a tribute both to an innate street sense developed as well as the fact that, for practical purposes, the Ulster Special Constabulary and the paramilitary Ulster Volunteers were one and the same thing. In fact due to the high overlap in their personnel, never mind objectives, the police and the para-military group made official what everyone knew anyway, by merging in 1919. This was long after Johnny Mac had felt it time to relocate. The War was over and, unlike many of his UVF colleagues who had served, Johnny Mac felt it safe to make a career move.
The decision to uproot had been a difficult one. He loved his country. For him, Ulster was God’s Own Country. He was a Protestant by birth. He accepted what many of his fellow soldiers believed fervently, that Ulster held a special place in the heart of God. However, unknown to those same colleagues, Johnny Mac was surprisingly agnostic for a foot soldier of Protestantism.
Ever honest, it seemed to him a, plainly, ridiculous proposition to reconcile the extreme violence he meted out on a frequent basis to Catholics and faith in God. He noted, with some cynicism, many of his fellow warriors had no such problem. He was fine with this. It meant that he could get on with the real business in hand.
Crime.
The odd thing about crime, he discovered, was its intrinsic pluralism. Johnny Mac’s victims and, sometime, associates came in all sizes, shapes, genders and creeds. By day Johnny Mac might be beating the be-jaysus out of a Catholic who had strayed into the wrong area, by night he might be working with other Catholics, earning money on the black market. Had he thought much about it, the black economy, which linked north and south of the island as well as the two religions in a common purpose, was the one true manifestation of Ireland’s unity.
Although he feared no man, Johnny Mac accepted he was a prominent target. Literally. Being virtually a foot taller than most meant he was unmissable in a crowd. It was inevitable he would become a focus for republicans. As the price on his head began rising at an alarming rate, he decided the time had come to leave his beloved Ulster.
A move to the mainland, he recognised, would offer new opportunities to expand his criminal horizons. As the republican net drew tighter, he hastened to London. Belfast was becoming a no-go area for him as soldiers of both religions, trained in killing returned from the trenches. They were an altogether tougher prospect than the usual assortment of hard men, who had avoided the War.
One final, and relatively lucrative, raid on a village post office provided the pin money to set up, comfortably, in London. He invested his money wisely: principally property and stolen goods. Dabbling in the black market, plus his inability to avoid excessive violence, soon brought him to the attention of those who could deploy this proficiency to best effect. The criminal underworld.
And they liked what they saw: a man with sadistic inclinations, brutally uninhibited by any sense of morality apart from an honest dishonesty and the work ethic of the religion he was borne into. Once again, in a short space of time, Johnny Mac rose through the ranks to assume wide responsibilities in the serious business of crime.
Frank self-appraisal had long since occasioned Johnny Mac to accept that his gifts were better utilised as a senior rather than a leading figure in an organisation. He was happiest giving and carrying out orders within a remit defined elsewhere. The elsewhere, in this case, was one Charles ‘Wag’ MacDonald, the head of the Elephant and Castle Gang, or the ‘Elephant Boys’.
Few people had ever earned Johnny Mac’s full respect. Wag was one. It wasn’t just that he’d actually given up crime to fight in Flanders, the risks in this endeavour surely outweighed the pleasure to be gained from the unhinged violence of war in the Ulsterman’s view. The unnecessary risk to life and limb was also a question mark against him. However, outweighing this was his admiration for the brilliance McDonald had demonstrated in uniting various family factions, reducing gang warfare in the city and exploiting the business potential of nightclubs and, particularly, horse racing. Wag McDonald transformed skirmishing factions into a single, cohesive unit that linked up with Billy Kimber, another criminal kingpin from the midlands.
It was late afternoon and Johnny Mac trooped into Wag’s office, located at the back of the Duke of Wellington, a pub on Waterloo road frequented by McDonald and his brothers. There was no greeting when he arrived, McDonald wasn’t a man for small talk. He walked in and sat down in front of the boss. Wag McDonald was in his thirties but could have been older. Dressed well in a shirt, tie and waistcoat, he looked like a boxer working part time in bank.
‘You wanted to see me Wag?’ asked Johnny Mac after a minute of silence had passed.
More silence followed as McDonald continued to study the notebook in front of him. Then he wrote a paragraph on the book. Finally he looked up, past Johnny Mac to the man stationed at the door. Johnny Mac looked at the notebook with curiosity.
‘You keepin’ a diary, Wag?’
McDonald glowered at the smiling Ulsterman before looking up at the man standing at the door and ordering, ‘Bring him in.’
Johnny Mac turned around and was somewhat surprised to see the new arrival. The initial surprise was that he did not enter under his own steam so much as land on the floor. The second surprise was his face.
Abbott was never the best looking of men, but the vicious beating which had recently been administered made him almost unrecognisable. Both eyes were swollen, with cuts and abrasions around his face and a bloodied mouth which probably sported even fewer teeth now.
Johnny Mac moved reluctantly moved his gaze from the fascinating spectacle that was Abbott back to McDonald for an explanation.
‘He ate something that disagreed with him.’ Johnny Mac waited for the punchline. ‘Wal’s fists,’ laughed McDonald. ‘He tried to sell some snout in the Temple Bar. Snout from your factory.’ He pointed at Johnny Mac for added emphasis.
Johnny Mac laughed mirthlessly and looked down at the pitiful figure of Abbott.
‘That was mistake. Silly boy, what are you?’
Abbott groaned in reply. It seemed he was just about alive.
McDonald looked Johnny Mac in the eye, ‘You knew nothing of this?’
‘No.’
McDonald nodded. He believed the Ulsterman because he saw no good reason why anyone would be stupid enough to go into one of his pubs and try and sell cigarettes to one of his men, inadvertently, unless he was a lone operator, and a stupid one at that.
‘He says there’s someone else. He said this person made him do it.’
‘Who?’
‘Wyan or something. It’s difficult to make someone out when there, mouth is full of teeth.’
‘I’ve found that also. Best to start on the body and work your way up slowly, like,’ suggested Johnny Mac.
‘Good point, you hear that Wal? Listen to this man, he knows what he’s on about. Who’s this Ryan?’
‘They’re both on the packing. Probably where they stole the stuff,’ replied Johnny Mac.
‘It was a rhetorical question, Johnny
. Deal with him. Make a point to the rest of the boys there,’ said McDonald, ‘I mean it.’
‘We have a problem then,’ commented Johnny Mac in a manner that was marginally more casual than the can-do tone his boss was wanting to hear at that moment.
‘I pay you to take away problems, Johnny. D’you hear what I’m saying?’
The Ulsterman held the palm of his hands up.
‘Hear me out. We were aware that Ryan and Abbott were up to something but when we searched them the other night we found nothing.’
McDonald looked unimpressed, but Johnny Mac indicated he was not finished.
‘So I had both of them followed. Abbott went home then afterwards he went to the Temple Bar where he was a naughty boy.’
‘You knew he was selling snout?’ asked McDonald.
‘Yes, I found out earlier. Anyway, I haven’t finished. Ryan went home and didn’t come out again until early afternoon. So he’s not the seller.’
‘I don’t care,’ said McDonald angrily, ‘Get him in here. You don’t seem to get this, Johnny. They know we’re creaming off cigarettes from the factory. Abbott told me he saw the lorry.’
This seemed to stop the Ulsterman in his tracks for a moment. McDonald had the happy inner glow of triumph that a boss feels when he has put a troublesome subordinate back in his box. However, this was to be short-lived.
‘And you’re not listening to me Wag,’ insisted Johnny Mac, ‘Ryan had a visitor. My man recognised him. He’s in the job.’
‘He’s already been to the rozzers?’ exclaimed McDonald angrily.
‘Wag, the copper is his brother. He’s obviously not one of yours.’
McDonald put the heel of his palms to his temple. The situation was spinning out of control and he needed to think.
‘I can still bring him in,’ suggested Johnny Mac finally, ‘Find out what he knows. But then we have to finish it. That’ll bring a lot of problems when his brother gets involved.’
McDonald glared at Johnny Mac. The Ulsterman had a smile on his face. The effect was always somewhat distracting. McDonald never could understand why a man would paint his front teeth black. Bloody Irish, he thought, although never said. This was probably for the best as the Ulsterman would have been deeply offended by the being called Irish.
