‘You’re a dab hand at trying to start up conversations,’ said Miller. ‘Cut it out, and forget about informing on us as soon as we leave. I told you to get on your feet, all of you, so move. Any tricks, and we’ll do what we said, take the girl with us.’ Tommy and his family rose. ‘That’s better,’ said Miller, ‘and it didn’t hurt, did it?’
‘Everything hurts,’ said Vi, Paul beside her and his hand in hers.
‘Well, bloody hard luck,’ said Miller, and opened the door. ‘This way, single file, and follow me.’ He led them out of the room and along to the staircase. Carstairs, falling in behind them, noticed the large ball of cord on the hallstand and picked it up.
What the hell are they up to, thought Tommy, why the hell can’t they just push off and stop frightening my kids? God knows what it’s doing to Vi. Why the hell are they torturing her? But he knew he needn’t have asked himself those kind of questions, because every answer was all too obvious. They intended to make sure, once they did leave, that neither he nor any of his family could inform on them. Not for a while, at least. So he guessed they were going to lock him and Vi and the children in one of the bedrooms. One of the back bedrooms on the second floor, probably. It would be too high for anyone to think of opening the window and climbing down, and too far from the road for any shout for help to be heard. Sod it, thought Tommy, we may have to wait all night for our daily help to arrive in the morning. Fortunately, she’d got her own key. They’d be able to arouse her attention.
‘Come on, come on,’ growled Miller from the first floor landing.
Why was it, thought Vi, that that one alone did the talking? The other hadn’t said a word as far as she knew. She thought about that, and turned her head as she and Paul began to ascend the second flight of stairs. She met Tommy’s eyes.
‘Good on yer, Vi, we’re all here,’ he said quietly.
The phone rang then.
The unexpected sound brought everyone to a dead stop. Miller called down to Tommy.
‘Answer it, but don’t start a long conversation, and mind what you say.’
Tommy went down to the hall, Carstairs following him. He picked up the phone and steeled himself.
‘Hello.’
‘Boots here, Tommy.’
‘How’d you do,’ said Tommy, and something hard dug into his back, something that told him to cut out the wet stuff.
‘Listen,’ said Boots, ‘I’m driving Emily, Chinese Lady and our stepdad to the weddings. Our stepdad’s car is out of action with front axle trouble. You’re driving Vi, of course. Could you take Rosie and Eloise as well?’
‘Pleasure,’ said Tommy, ‘I’ll pick them up.’
‘Thanks,’ said Boots. ‘Love to Vi and the kids.’
‘You’re comin’ over now?’ said Tommy.
‘I’m doing what?’ said Boots.
‘It’s a bit inconvenient,’ said Tommy.
The gun jammed into his back.
‘I’m not with you,’ said Boots.
‘No, sorry, I’m not thinking straight,’ said Tommy. ‘See you some other time, Boots.’ A hand wrenched the receiver from him and replaced it. Miller came down the stairs, leaving Vi and her children on the landing. He rushed at Tommy.
‘Who’s coming over, you bugger?’ he asked.
‘That was my elder brother,’ said Tommy. ‘I put ’im off by telling him it was too inconvenient.’
‘Did it put him off?’ said Miller. ‘How do we know it did? Well, if he does arrive, he’ll wish he’d stayed at home, and you’ll wish you’d made him. Get back to your family.’
Vi gave his hand a squeeze when he rejoined them. She knew, as he knew, that what he had said over the phone would set Boots thinking. Boots had done a fair amount of thinking for the Adams families in his time. Vi felt she wouldn’t be surprised if he rang back in a little while.
Under compulsion, the family went all the way up to the top floor, and the next move fitted everything else that had happened. They were forced into the attic, which had no windows, only a skylight.
The phone rang again.
‘Bloody hell,’ hissed Miller, and grabbed Tommy’s arm. ‘Get down there and answer it, you bleeder.’
Tommy experienced a lunatic desire to smash the man’s face in, but down he went, Miller following. Carstairs pulled the attic door shut and locked it. The key had been hanging from a hook just inside the door.
In the hall, Tommy answered the phone, with Miller at his elbow.
‘Hello?’
‘Tommy,’ said Boots from the other end of the line, ‘why did you say I was coming over this evening and then tell me it was too inconvenient?’
‘I wasn’t thinking straight,’ said Tommy.
‘Why?’ asked Boots.
‘Anyway, don’t come over this evening,’ said Tommy. ‘Can’t stop to talk now, we’ve got visitors. So long, Boots.’ He replaced the phone.
‘Your brother again?’ said Miller.
‘Yes,’ said Tommy.
‘So he’s not coming over?’
‘Not now I’ve definitely put ’im off,’ said Tommy.
‘Just as well, for him and for you,’ said Miller. ‘Listen, what’s a half-baked cockney like you doing in a house like this?’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Tommy.
‘You’re a pain in my backside, d’you know that?’ said Miller.
‘I could say a few things about you,’ said Tommy.
‘Don’t,’ said Miller, ‘I’m sensitive. Get back upstairs, or are you thinking of taking me on?’
‘I’m not a bleedin’ idiot,’ said Tommy, ‘I’m not takin’ either of you on while you’ve got my wife and kids under lock and key.’
‘That’s the first time you’ve talked sense,’ said Miller, and Tommy made his ascent of the handsome mahogany staircase. Miller followed, thinking here was a middle-class cockney, for Christ’s sake. Bloody disgusting. How had the ponce managed it? By being lucky, you bet. But he was no idiot, and the bugger probably knew that he and Carstairs were in disguise even if the prissy woman didn’t. Not that it mattered. None of them would get to see himself or Carstairs as they normally were.
A sour smile touched Miller’s lips.
Chapter Fifteen
LILIAN ANSWERED THE door to her visitor.
‘Good evening, Mrs Hyams,’ said milkman Bill Chambers, looking a stalwart in a double-breasted chalk-striped grey suit and a trilby hat. ‘Consequent on the note I left, I’m here by arrangement.’
‘Not my arrangement,’ said Lilian, looking a lush armful in a cosy cream machine-knitted jumper and a pleated chocolate-brown skirt.
‘Still, I’ll come in if you’ll let me get my feet over your doorstep,’ said Bill. ‘Might I mention you dress well, Lilian?’
‘Come in,’ said Lilian, ‘but let’s be formal in case Rabbi Solomon is listening.’
‘Formal? Never ’eard of it, not in Walworth,’ said Bill, and stepped in. It put him immediately into her living-room. There was not enough space for a passage or a hall in these little flat-fronted houses in King and Queen Street. Lilian closed the door, and Bill, taking his hat off, looked around. ‘Cosy,’ he said, nodding at inviting armchairs.
‘Yes, you mentioned that before,’ said Lilian. ‘Perhaps you’d like to stay long enough for a cup of tea?’
‘Well, I do have something on my mind that might take me off double-quick,’ said Bill.
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ said Lilian, slightly piqued.
‘You’ve ’eard about the bank robbery?’ said Bill.
‘Yes, I heard it over the wireless at work,’ said Lilian.
‘Well, I had a mental flash of lightning just as I was on my way to you,’ said Bill.
‘A flash of lightning?’ said Lilian. ‘About what?’
‘The van the crooks were usin’,’ said Bill. ‘Some crooks. Ruddy dangerous heathens more like, with their flamin’ shooters. Robbery ought to be a kind of risky pastime, not a declaration of wa
r.’
‘Yes, but what about the van?’ asked Lilian.
‘I saw it once,’ said Bill, ‘outside a house in Stead Street. I’ve got an idea it belonged to the lodger, bloke name of Barnes. Not my idea of a friendly geezer, he’s got eyes that look right through you. So I went out of my way a bit on my walk here, and knocked on the door. There was no van outside, of course, and no lodger at home, either. The landlady, Mrs Wetherby, said he’d given up his room this morning, but hadn’t left any forwarding address. It strikes me, Mrs Hyams, if you don’t mind our sociable evening bein’ postponed, that I ought to inform the police.’
‘You should have gone to the police station immediately,’ said Lilian.
‘Well, there was a bit of etiquette to consider,’ said Bill.
‘A bit of what?’ said Lilian.
‘It wouldn’t have been good manners to have gone to the police station without lettin’ you know,’ said Bill, ‘not when you happened to be expecting me. I didn’t want you to be a disappointed victim of me bad manners.’
‘My life, a disappointed victim?’ Lilian laughed. ‘You’re a bit of a card, aren’t you, Mister Milkman?’
‘Call me Bill. Well, I’d better shoot off to the police station now, Mrs Hyams, and save our sociable meetin’ for tomorrow evening.’
‘D’you mind if I come with you?’ said Lilian. ‘I’ve never been in a police station, and what you’ve got to tell the police sounds exciting.’
‘Be a pleasure to have your company, Mrs Hyams,’ said Bill. ‘I suppose you could say that what I’ve got to tell ’em amounts to a short piece of required information. If they want to lock me up for not passing it on earlier, I hope I can get a character reference from you as one of me more imposing customers.’
‘Well, if it does come to that,’ said Lilian, putting her hat and coat on, ‘I’ll do my imposing best for you.’
Their bicycle lamps shining, Cassie and Freddy were pedalling slowly up Denmark Hill. Houses showed lights behind drawn curtains, and some of the larger residences had lamps above their doors.
‘I’ll start lookin’,’ said Freddy, dismounting. ‘You take care of the bikes, Cassie.’
‘D’you mean stand about holding them?’ asked Cassie, peering suspiciously at him. The April evening was now dark.
‘Just while I pop in and out of drives,’ said Freddy. ‘It’s too dark to see from the road.’
‘Excuse me, Freddy Brown,’ said Cassie, ‘but if you think I’m goin’ to stand here holdin’ two bikes while you wander off in the dark, you can think again.’ A lumbering bus with a load of passengers passed them. ‘It’s dangerous, and besides, I’m not goin’ to. You don’t mind I’ve got my own ideas about what I do?’
‘No, I don’t mind, Cassie, you can stand on the pavement,’ said Freddy. ‘Buses don’t come after you on pavements, not unless the driver don’t know where the road is. All right, then, that’s settled, you wait here on the pavement with the bikes, and I’ll start lookin’ for houses with garages.’
‘Freddy love, you don’t want me to kick your legs to bits when you’ve already got a sore head, do you?’ said Cassie.
‘Well, no, I don’t,’ said Freddy, ‘but we don’t want to be here all night talkin’, and I can’t see what’s wrong with you waitin’ ’ere on the pavement.’
‘I didn’t come with you to do waitin’,’ said Cassie. ‘I came to make sure you don’t do anything silly. And when I said dangerous, I meant dangerous for you. So we’ll do the lookin’ together. I like you bein’ protective, but not if it means me standin’ here holdin’ two bikes. You wheel yours and I’ll wheel mine.’
If there was one thing Freddy had learned in thorough and sometimes suffering fashion over the years, it was that Cassie had a mind and a will of her own.
‘All right, me pet, come on,’ he said.
They began a survey of the houses on this side of the hill. A bright half-moon came out of clearing clouds, and that lightened the darkness. Freddy felt this side of the hill offered the best prospects, because the van could have turned in in a split second. He wasn’t quite sure what he expected to see, he had a vague picture of an open gate, a drive and a garage. Supposing a garage showed up? Its doors would be closed, so what could that tell him? Nothing. Unless it had a side window and the moon didn’t mess him about. Still, Denmark Hill was the area immediately beyond Camberwell, the area where people had begun to own cars and where some garages had been built.
He and Cassie kept going, wheeling their bikes and taking a look at the frontages and the drives of the larger houses. There was one with a garage, built against the side of the property. Freddy opened the gate and ventured in, Cassie behind him. The garage’s double doors were open, the garage itself empty.
‘They’re out,’ said Cassie. ‘Gone to Buckingham Palace, probably.’
‘Could be the flicks,’ said Freddy, and back they went to the pavement, continuing their hopeful search. Cassie whispered that if they did pick up clues, Freddy wasn’t to do anything except go at once to the police. Freddy said he’d like a crack first at the unfriendly bleeder who clobbered him.
‘Freddy, your language lately, I don’t know what’s come over you,’ said Cassie, as they took a look down one more drive. ‘You’ve never been brought up to be a common blasphemer like Ron Bargett down our street. What’s that?’
‘It’s a car,’ said Freddy, stopping outside another house, ‘it’s just parked in the drive.’
‘I can’t make out if there’s a garage,’ said Cassie.
‘No, there’s not,’ said Freddy.
‘Freddy, wait a bit,’ said Cassie, ‘this is takin’ an awful long time, and I just remembered we didn’t tell my dad we were goin’ out. I mean, if we ’ave to do this all the way up Denmark Hill, then all the way down again on the other side, then do Herne Hill, we’ll be here till Christmas. Freddy, we can’t be here till Christmas.’
‘Nor even all night,’ said Freddy, ‘or your dad might ask what they call impertinent questions.’
‘It’s pertinent, Freddy, it’s in books.’
‘Well, look,’ said Freddy, ‘let’s just cover Denmark Hill, both sides. I’ve got a feelin’ the van disappeared before it reached Herne Hill because there were people by the Herne Hill shops. The police stopped to ask, but none of them ’ad seen the van.’
‘I suppose we’re not on some wild goose chase, are we?’ said Cassie, beginning to have doubts. ‘It sounded a good idea at first, but do we both still think the van could’ve turned off into someone’s open garage? Only if it did, what about the people who own the house? If they were out at the time in their car, and they’d found their garage shut when they got back, they’d have opened it and seen the van, wouldn’t they?’
‘And then got clobbered,’ said Freddy. ‘But you might be right, Cassie, we might be lookin’ for what we won’t find, but while we’re still ’ere, let’s cover Denmark Hill.’
‘Well, all right,’ said Cassie.
Accordingly, they finished a search of possible places on this side of the hill without finding anything that offered a credible pointer. They crossed the road and began a not very hopeful look at properties on that side of the hill. Eventually they reached a house of very handsome proportions, set well back in a wide frontage. There was a car standing in the drive, and beyond it was space full of shadows thrown by the house. No garage. They were about to go on when Freddy noticed something in the light of the bright half-moon. There was a line of young trees bordering the righthand side of the drive, and one of them showed a cracked lower branch hanging limply. The parked car was well clear of the border. Freddy leaned his bike against a gatepost and said he wondered how the branch got broken. Cassie said the car must have been driven in too close to the trees. Freddy said he might as well take a look. The house was silent, but there were some lights on. Freddy examined the higher bodywork of the car, but couldn’t see any signs of a dent in it. Funny, he thought. If something else had
hit the branch, the owner would either have done a repair job or cut the branch off, not left it looking a mess. Well, that’s what I would have done, thought Freddy.
He noted what a wide space there was at the side of the house, where the black shadows were cast.
‘Cassie, I’ll just take a look down there,’ he whispered.
‘It’s too dark,’ whispered Cassie.
‘But something hit that branch, Cassie, and I don’t think it was the car. Suppose there’s a large shed down there that could take the van? I might as well have a quick look. Won’t be a tick.’
‘I’ll ring my bicycle bell if I see anything happening,’ said Cassie, and kept watch as Freddy went past the car and into the darkness. He disappeared. Cassie surveyed the house and its front door, feeling sure someone would come out. No-one did, and in any case Freddy was back within a minute.
‘Oh, me gawd, Cassie,’ he whispered, ‘we’ve found it.’
‘Oh, my Sunday elastic,’ breathed Cassie, ‘you sure?’
‘Sure,’ said Freddy. ‘But there’s no-one in it.’
‘Shall I take a look?’
‘No, I don’t think so, Cassie, just in case,’ said Freddy, looking at the house with acute interest.
‘Whose place is it?’ asked Cassie.
‘No idea,’ said Freddy, ‘but I noticed it was called “The Manor”. Let’s get fast to the Camberwell police station.’
‘Wait, did you say “The Manor”?’ asked Cassie in horror.
‘Yes, the name’s on the gate,’ said Freddy. The gate was open at right angles to its post. Cassie went close and peered. Yes, there it was, the name plate. ‘The Manor’.
‘Oh, Lord,’ she breathed.
‘What’s the name matter?’ asked Freddy. ‘It’s the van that’s important. It’s parked at the back of the house.’
‘Freddy, “The Manor” is where Tommy and Vi Adams live, with their fam’ly,’ breathed Cassie.
‘What?’ said Freddy.
‘Yes, you know Tommy and Vi Adams, we’ve both met them at Boots’s house, and you must’ve met them at Sammy’s weddin’ to Susie,’ said Cassie. ‘I know their address, because I send Christmas cards. Freddy, you’re positive those men aren’t in the van?’
The Camberwell Raid Page 20
