by Laura Wilson
Vicky nodded.
‘Fair enough,’ said Stratton, making notes. ‘Where do you live?’ he asked Marion.
‘45 Powis Square.’
Remembering the streets that Jellicoe had mentioned, Stratton asked, ‘Who’s your landlord?’
‘Mr Perlmann.’
‘Do you work from home?’
Marion shook her head.
‘Where, then?’
‘In the park sometimes, cars …’
Seeing her hesitate, Stratton asked, ‘Anywhere else? Don’t bugger me about, love. I can easily find out if you’re pulling a fast one, and I won’t be happy.’
‘Hustling gaff in Chepstow Road. This end.’
‘Very convenient.’ Clearly Marion, unlike Vicky, lived with a boyfriend at least part of the time – the rules being that a man who lived with a prostitute in the place where she actually worked could be prosecuted for living off immoral earnings.
‘Does that flat belong to Mr Perlmann too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has he ever made any threats to either of you?’
Vicky looked baffled. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Do you know about the rent tribunal?’
‘What?’
‘Mr Hampton didn’t explain it to you?’
‘Explain what?’ Stratton looked at Marion and saw that she was as confused as Vicky.
‘That you could go to the tribunal and apply to get your rent lowered.’
Vicky stared at him, incredulous. ‘Us? You must be joking.’
‘So you don’t know anything about it.’
‘No, I told you. Anyway, Mr Perlmann’s all right. Not stuck-up, like some – takes people as he finds them. Gives you advice, and that. Told me I should get some pictures taken – schoolgirl, French maid, that sort of thing.’
Stratton raised an eyebrow. ‘And did you?’
‘I might.’
‘He likes us,’ said Marion. ‘And he’s cheery – always gives you a wave. I wouldn’t say no to a ride in that flash car of his, either.’
CHAPTER SIX
As he made his way back down Queensway, Stratton wondered if Hampton had neglected to tell Vicky about the rent tribunal because he disapproved of what she did for a living, or because he thought they wouldn’t listen to someone who was obviously on the game. He thought, too, about Perlmann advising the whores on how to improve their business. He imagined that most of them, here as in the West End, were too lazy or dopey to take the advice, too given to being stupid over ‘boyfriends’ who took all their money and beat them up into the bargain. Did it just come down to a willingness to pass on tricks learnt for survival, or was it because he got his kicks from dirty talk with the girls?
He pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his face. The combination of the heat and the general grubbiness of the subject matter made him long for a pint and a cool bath. It was a quarter to six – he’d lingered in the cafe for longer than he’d realised. As Matheson said he’d be around until eight o’clock, he decided to go back to the station via Colville Terrace and see if Royce and MacDonald – who he saw from his notes worked in, respectively, a laundry and a food processing plant – were home from work.
His visit was almost a replay of what had happened when he’d asked Horace Conroy if he’d been threatened over the business of the rent tribunal. Ernest MacDonald wasn’t there, but Jeffrey Royce answered the door with a degree of caution that suggested he had every reason to suspect the worst. Instantly alarmed when Stratton introduced himself, he became even more so when asked about a visit from the men with the dog. He kept reiterating that he and MacDonald paid their rent and didn’t want any trouble, as if he thought Stratton might be reporting back to Perlmann rather than the police station.
‘What type of dog was it?’ asked Stratton.
‘I don’t know about dogs,’ said Royce.
‘Big? Small?’
‘Big. It was a big one.’
‘Long hair or short hair?’
‘Look man, I don’t know.’ Royce backed away from him, shaking his head, looking desperate for Stratton to leave.
‘Fierce?’
‘No – just a dog, you know?’ The man was obviously making an effort to keep his voice calm, but his body language – and certainly his eyes – told a different story. Hands before him in a gesture of supplication, he backed away even further. ‘Please, man. Please.’
‘I’m trying to help you, Mr Royce.’
Royce said nothing, but continued shaking his head, looking as if he’d like to tell him to pull the other one because it had bells on. He was, Stratton noticed, of a similar height to himself – and therefore to Conroy – but definitely a couple of shades darker than the man upstairs, being more molasses than burnt umber. ‘I’ll leave you in peace,’ he said. ‘But if you have any trouble – if anyone here has any trouble – telephone the police station and ask for me.’ Tearing a page out of his notebook, he scribbled down his name and the number. Royce stared at it, still with an expression of disbelief, thanked him, and, evidently relieved the ordeal was over, closed the door smartly in his face.
*
Walking back towards Harrow Road, Stratton saw that the pubs had opened their doors and that already the smoke hung in slow, suspended skeins above the drinkers’ heads. The people on the doorsteps had gone inside now, and the few children left playing were being called in for tea. He heard a jazzy sort of music and discovered, rounding a corner, that it was issuing from a basement. Peering through the railings and into the area below, he saw through the window that the room had kitchen chairs and tables dotted about and crude murals of palm trees on the walls. As he watched, a coloured man appeared, stepping as lightly as if he were lifted aloft by the beat. The door, which was situated beneath the front steps of the house, was open, and he could smell something pungent which he was fairly sure was marijuana smoke. This, clearly, wasn’t the time to investigate, but, thinking that he might have a word with someone back at the station, he made a note of the address.
He’d been walking for about fifteen minutes and was just about to turn into the Harrow Road, when something else occurred to him. In the time he’d been walking, the streets had well-nigh emptied. Besides no children, there weren’t any adults in evidence, either. The only people around in any numbers were young men in groups: some all white, some all black, but never mixed. Several had jostled past him, walking as if they owned the place. Which, seeing that there appeared to be some sort of unofficial curfew in operation, Stratton supposed they did. Both groups had a swagger to them, but there was an aggression, too, among the whites, a predatory atmosphere that told you they weren’t just out for a lark. The coloured groups looked purposeful too, but wary. Presumably, Stratton thought, they were travelling together for safety, but also, by being in the streets, making the point that they weren’t going to be bullied into staying at home. Stratton thought of the coloured man wiping spittle from his face as he carried on walking down Colville Terrace, and of Horace Conroy watching from the window and lifting his hand to his cheek. Then he remembered what Mr Russell had said and thought, I’m not sure I want to be around to see it, either, because the old man was right. Something was going to happen – and it was a matter not of if, but when.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘I always thought,’ said Matheson, swirling the whisky in his glass, ‘that Norman Backhouse looked like the type of chap who went around sniffing girls’ bicycle saddles when no one was looking.’
This was so unexpected that Stratton, caught in mid-swallow, felt Scotch burning his nasal passages as he choked back a yelp of laughter.
They’d been talking about Stratton’s past cases – seriously, up to now, because the Backhouse case, in which the killer’s innocent neighbour, Davies, had been wrongfully convicted and hanged, was no laughing matter. ‘Of all the murderers I’ve come into contact with,’ Stratton recovered himself swiftly, ‘he was the one who really made my skin crawl.’
&nb
sp; ‘I’m not surprised.’ Matheson leant back in his chair and put his head on one side. ‘And of course you did some work with MI5 during the war, didn’t you?’
Stratton opened his mouth, then closed it again. When Matheson had interviewed him, there’d been no mention of what had happened in 1940 and Stratton was officially forbidden to speak about it. Now, seeing his evident alarm, Matheson said, ‘It’s all right. Chap I know told me. Jock Anderson.’
‘Anderson?’ Stratton had no idea who he was talking about.
‘Colleague of Charles Forbes-James.’
‘Ah.’ Forbes-James had committed suicide in 1950, in circumstances which Stratton guessed – but didn’t actually know – were to do with his homosexuality. He was sure that Diana, who’d worked for the man, knew more about it than he did, but he’d never asked for information and she’d never volunteered anything. Now Stratton had the sensation of putting his whole mental weight against a door that he wanted to remain firmly closed.
Perhaps Matheson observed something of this, because he said blandly, ‘I gather your superiors were most impressed.’ As there wasn’t much he could say to this without sounding like a self-satisfied twerp, Stratton simply nodded. ‘In fact, talking to DS Lamb and some other people, I soon formed the impression that you get on with things, which is what is needed here. I need someone I can trust – your predecessor was rather less use than a wet paper bag in that respect.’
Stratton actually clenched his jaw to keep his mouth from dropping open. The way Lamb had always carried on, Stratton didn’t think he’d ever trusted him to sit the right way round on a lavatory, never mind anything else. ‘That,’ continued Matheson, ‘is why I was so keen to snap you up, as it were – you’re going to be working on your own for a lot of the time in the next few months. I need someone I can trust to get on with it. The trouble is that the powers-that-be are proving rather difficult when it comes to allocating more manpower to this division. It is, I fear, part of a grand plan to stick their heads in the sand about the race problem. They seem to believe that – despite all evidence to the contrary – if they keep denying it exists, it’ll somehow go away. It won’t, of course, but there you are.’
Stratton’s surprise must have shown, because Matheson took another sip of his drink and continued, ‘I don’t see any point in being disingenuous about it. We’ve let them in and now they’re here we’ve got to deal with the consequences, and of course they’re entitled to go about their business without being molested, just as much as the next man. A cafe owned by a Jamaican chap was attacked last week – every stick of furniture and every piece of crockery smashed to pieces.’
‘Yes,’ said Stratton, ‘I read about it in the local paper.’
‘Then you probably saw the other news too – a coloured man leaving a party with a white girl attacked and beaten about the head so that he needed stitches, and another man tripped up and beaten – he had to have stitches to his leg and suffered severe bruising to his face, apparently inflicted by a youth wielding a lump of wood. Those aren’t the only ones, by any means – and in every case, the assailants have made it very clear that they attacked these people solely because of their skin colour. However,’ Matheson leant forward to emphasise the importance of what he was about to say, ‘I have been told – not in so many words, you understand, but message received and understood – to deny that there is any element of racial conflict in these attacks.’
‘But surely,’ Stratton began, ‘if—’
Matheson held up his hand, palm forward, and continued, ‘I see no point in concealing this. I’m sure you’ve gathered for yourself that there’s a very definite atmosphere of racial conflict in this area. Some of it, I grant you, is straightforward hooliganism – young men taking the chance to make a nuisance of themselves. Some of it is caused by ignorance on both sides and some by fighting over women – because a lot of the immigrants are single men – and over resources such as housing. You’ve noticed the overcrowding, no doubt.’
Stratton nodded. ‘Pretty grim.’
‘It is,’ agreed Matheson, ‘although, if you look at the houses, the majority of them are well-built – not like all those Victorian warrens in the East End. Most of them would be decent homes if anyone had the money or sense to take care of them. And of course the area wasn’t bombed, so it’s low down on the list when it comes to rebuilding … The landlords are up to all sorts of tricks, and we’ve had instances of West Indians who’ve bought up houses and illegally evicted the white tenants. Then there’s the fact that when one of them gets a room, all his friends and relations come to stay. You get cases where one’s working nights and one’s on days and they’re sharing the bed. Also, there’s the fact that – in Notting Dale at least – you’ve got families who’ve lived in the same place for generation after generation and they’re all related by blood or marriage – kick one and they all limp. They don’t like white strangers from Acton, never mind black ones from God knows how many thousands of miles away.’
‘Urban peasants,’ said Stratton. ‘They don’t like outsiders any more than the rural ones.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Matheson. ‘You grew up in … Devon, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It’s a lovely part of the world.’ Matheson sipped his drink and continued, ‘As to what we were saying, it’s the younger ones who cause the trouble, but it’s tacitly condoned by many of their elders. A great deal of the animosity is due to the fact that a lot of black men live off white prostitutes, and a lot of white men would like to do just that. Nevertheless, there is, shall we say, an “official line”, and, for the time being at least, we must stick to it.’
‘Isn’t that going to be a bit difficult, what with Union Movement meetings and so on? I saw the advertisements.’
‘ “And so on” is correct – Mosley addressing a meeting is nothing to the White Defence League. Ah, I can see you haven’t yet had the pleasure. It’s based in Princedale Road and run by a chap called Gleeson. Left the League of Empire Loyalists because it wasn’t right-wing enough for him, and thinks Mosley’s a kosher fascist and the Jews are behind West Indian immigration. Very keen on Nazi regalia and the like, been holding a lot of rallies recently. But, getting back to the matter in hand, your impressions this afternoon were …?’
Stratton gave him a rundown of what he’d seen and heard, raising the problem of the lack of any formal statement from Perlmann, and his donation to the police fund.
Matheson looked nonplussed. ‘I knew about the donation, of course – quite a sizeable one, I believe. Perlmann seems particularly keen to get on the right side of the right people … You’ll rectify the business about the statement as soon as possible, of course, but in the absence of any clear evidence that he was involved with Hampton’s death, I’m not sure that there’s much we can do.’
‘It’s entirely possible,’ said Stratton, ‘that it’s nothing to do with him. I mean, if the coloured tenants could be dissuaded from going to the rent tribunal by threats, why kill Hampton to prove a point?’
‘Why indeed?’
‘It could be,’ said Stratton, ‘that there’s a lot of other stuff going on that I’m not yet aware of … I’d like some more information about known local troublemakers, for example—’
‘Half an hour with PC Jellicoe should sort that out, but if you need to borrow one of the others, have a word with the station sergeant. I’m sure he can reorganise things – provided you don’t do it too often, of course.’
‘I had an encounter with one of Jellicoe’s rock buns earlier on,’ said Stratton ruefully.
‘Yes, I understand he’s not to be trusted with comestibles. However, if you want any information, he’s your man – been here so long he’s practically part of the fixtures. It’ll also be handy for you to meet the LCC councillor for North Kensington – he’s a Labour man – and the youth-welfare officers and people from the Moral Welfare Society and the school care committees, and so on. There’s a recepti
on tomorrow evening – just a get-together, really, but I can introduce you to some people who’ve been trying to do something about the housing problem and generally stop the rot – and I think I can safely promise that rock buns won’t be on offer.’
This, thought Stratton, sounded as if it might be worthwhile, although he suspected that the Moral Welfare lot and their ilk were probably the ‘bunch of do-gooding women’ that Mr Russell feared would treat him ‘like a mentally-deficient toddler’. He felt fairly sure that the old chap’s anxiety was justified. In his experience, the bank managers’ widows and the like who sat on these sorts of voluntary committees were undoubtedly good-hearted but also firmly convinced, despite the narrow confines of their own experience, that they knew exactly what was best for others.
He must have looked a bit dubious because Matheson chuckled. ‘I can guess what you’re thinking: a bunch of clueless, middle-aged types who’ve just woken up to the fact that they have rather easy lives and are feeling guilty about it – but they’re not all bad, you know. And they do have the right ideas about improving the housing situation and generally—’ He broke off in response to a knock on the door. ‘Come!’
A flustered-looking young constable stood there, Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively. ‘What is it, man?’
‘A stabbing, sir. Coloured man in Golborne Road, near the railway line. Died in the ambulance on the way to Saint Charles’s.’
‘Anyone down there?’
‘No, sir. Sorry. Sergeant Matthews says to tell you that he’s telephoned the police mortuary and sent Brodie and Dunning down to Golborne Road, but DI Peacock’s off sick and he doesn’t know—’
Stratton stood up. ‘I’ll go. Thanks very much for the drink, sir.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Stratton thought he could picture the part of Golborne Road where the attack had taken place – rotting houses that shook every time a train came past, with the gasworks looming behind them. The young constable had said that so far they had no idea of the dead man’s name, and that there were no witnesses except for the woman who’d telephoned half an hour earlier. That would have been – Stratton glanced at his watch – around half past eight, so surely there’d have been a few people about, even in that godforsaken area? There were a couple of pubs down there, after all.
