The Riot

by Laura Wilson

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Stratton. ‘I’m sure they have the best of motives. Have you known Mrs Rutherford long?’

  ‘About a year. We were new girls together, really – although she’d grown up doing charity work, helping her mother.’

  ‘Noblesse oblige,’ said Stratton.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Fenella. A sudden, impish smile lighting up her face, she added, ‘You’ll probably think me awful for saying this, but one of the reasons I feel so uneasy about this wretched party is that I keep remembering something my great aunt told me. She and my grandmother had both been in service, but Grandma had married rather well and didn’t like being reminded … Great Aunt Phoebe never married – she’d started when she was twelve and gone all the way up till she became a housekeeper, and when she retired she came to live with us. One of the stories she used to tell was about the servants’ ball at Christmas, when she’d worked in one of these huge places, about how the countess or whoever she was had to have the first waltz with the butler, and how all the house guests tried to make conversation with the staff and had absolutely no idea what to say to them. Oh, dear. I hope you don’t think I’m being catty, but there’s just, you know …’

  ‘I know you don’t mean it unkindly,’ said Stratton. ‘I take it you haven’t mentioned any of this to Mrs Rutherford.’

  Fenella laughed. ‘If I told her my grandmother and great aunt were in service she’d be terribly embarrassed. But I shouldn’t laugh. My family never did anything for charity, unless you count knitting horrible tea cosies and things to sell at the church bazaar.’

  Stratton imagined a suburban background with tennis courts, laurel hedges and tidy nature. ‘We didn’t do much either,’ he said, ‘apart from the harvest festival and a few shillings for the mission.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Fenella. ‘Farmer Giles.’

  ‘You remembered,’ said Stratton, feeling ridiculously pleased.

  ‘Of course,’ said Fenella lightly. ‘But coming back to this event tonight, I really do hope it succeeds, for Virginia’s sake if nothing else. It’s the way she’s put her heart and soul into it. She’s such a good, decent person.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stratton, remembering what he’d seen at Maxine’s and guessing Fenella had witnessed something similar, ‘but not a very happy one.’

  Fenella stared into her cup for a moment, then said thoughtfully, ‘I don’t think she’s ever been loved. She told me once that her mother had said – when she came out – that at least she had money, so somebody would be bound to marry her. And then she said that nobody had, even for that.’

  ‘Until Rutherford came along,’ said Stratton. ‘I’ve met him.’

  ‘She’s never really talked about him, but when I met him … Well, one could see: he doesn’t take any notice of her, does he?’

  ‘He certainly didn’t seem to. He was behaving like a … As if she wasn’t even in the room. She didn’t appear to be taking any more notice of him than he was of her, but—’

  ‘That doesn’t mean she didn’t mind,’ said Fenella, with sudden vehemence. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t like to think of people laughing at her. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ protested Stratton. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘I know,’ said Fenella. ‘I didn’t think you were laughing at her. It’s just that it’s humiliating, having your husband eyeing every other woman in the room.’ She flushed and started fiddling with her cup again, turning it round and round in the saucer. ‘And I am sorry – I’ve said far too much.’

  Unsure whether she meant she’d said too much about the Hon. Virginia, or about the last bit, which must have been – however unlikely it seemed – an allusion to her own marriage, Stratton couldn’t think of anything to say in response. Feeling in his pocket for cigarettes, his fingers encountered the small jewel case with the bracelet inside. On impulse, he fished it out and slid it across the table. Fenella let go of her cup and stared at it for a moment. When she raised her eyes, they were puzzled and slightly nervous.

  ‘I bought it this morning,’ said Stratton. What the bloody hell am I doing? he thought. She’ll think I’ve gone off my rocker. ‘Have a look.’

  Fenella opened the box, but made no move to touch the bracelet. ‘It’s very pretty,’ she said, ‘but I don’t—’

  ‘Why don’t you try it on?’

  ‘But … Isn’t it for someone?’

  ‘It’s for you, if you’d like it.’

  Now, she was looking actually alarmed. Oh, God, why had he done it? ‘I don’t want anything … in exchange,’ he said. ‘That is, apart from your company, which,’ he continued in a rush, ‘I’m enjoying very much. To be honest, I don’t really know why I bought it. I saw it a few days ago, and when I went past the shop again it was still there, in the window, so … I’m not in the habit of just buying jewellery on a whim – or buying anything, really – but it caught my eye and I just …’ Just what, exactly? The process, step by step, of the thoughts and feelings that had culminated in buying the bracelet were too complex and unwieldy for any neat explanation, but, sitting there in front of Fenella, he knew why he’d bought it, all right: because he was lonely. In essence, it was as simple as that. ‘I’m not explaining this very well, am I?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Fenella. She still hadn’t touched the bracelet.

  ‘I promise I’m not going to try and pounce on you, or anything like that. When I first saw it, sitting in that window, I hadn’t even met you. I just looked at it, and I thought it was a long time since I’d bought a present – for a woman, I mean. Look, I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. I didn’t mean to offend you.’

  ‘I’m not offended.’ For a moment, Stratton couldn’t read the expression on Fenella’s face – and then she smiled. It wasn’t a nervous smile, but the wide, intimate one he’d seen before. Holding out her wrist, she said, ‘Why don’t you put it on and we’ll see how it looks?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Turning the car into the White City Estate, Stratton found himself resting his elbow on the open window, singing ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’ and feeling, for the first time since he’d arrived at Harrow Road, uncomplicatedly happy. Despite – or possibly because of – that daft business with the bracelet, the chance meeting with Fenella had gone off better than he could have hoped. She had not only kept the thing – and left still wearing it – but she’d also agreed to have dinner with him next week and, when they’d parted company outside the cafe, given him a swift and very discreet peck on the cheek.

  Still singing, Stratton pulled up outside Canberra House, ‘At the early age of seventeen, He left his native home; And to Australia’s sunny shores, he was inclined to roam …’ and started up the stairwell. ‘He robbed the rich to feed the poor, He stabbed James MacIlroy; A terror to Australia was the wild— Christ!’ A man charged round the bend in the stairs above him and thundered past in a blur, knocking him with his shoulder and catching him off balance so that he fell hard against the wall. Swearing, he righted himself and, in doing so, saw above him, for just a second before they disappeared from view, a pair of over-made-up eyes and a black bouffant that looked remarkably like Mrs Halliwell’s.

  Realising that she must have been looking out of the window and seen him coming, Stratton raced back downstairs after Thomas Halliwell. Spotting him sprinting across the grass some two hundred yards away, heading for Wormwood Scrubs prison and the enormous stretch of parkland beyond, he gave chase, cursing himself for his inattention.

  A minute later he realised with a shock that Halliwell – being far younger and a hell of a lot fitter – was getting away from him. He forced himself to speed up but, after another minute or so, sweating like a pig with bursting lungs and burning leg muscles, he was about to give up when Halliwell, running past a clump of trees, tripped on a root and sprawled, a tangle of lanky limbs, on the parched grass.

  Clutching the stitch in his side, Stratton managed to get to him just as he was str
uggling to his feet, and brought him down with a violent lunge to the knees (although, as he admitted to himself afterwards, the reason it worked had a lot more to do with his weight than any rugby-playing finesse). Pinning Halliwell to the ground with one knee in the small of his back, Stratton, whose arms felt as if they’d been torn out of their sockets, concentrated on breathing rather than speaking. After a moment he managed, between deep, rasping gulps of air, to get out, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Mind your own business!’ Halliwell began to struggle, catching Stratton a sharp blow in the eye with his elbow.

  ‘Name!’ Stratton gasped. Jesus, his lungs were on fire.

  ‘Take your hands off me, or I’ll have you for assault!’

  ‘I said, name!’ When was the last time he’d chased someone? He couldn’t actually remember. Christ, what had happened to him? He was falling apart.

  ‘Fuck off!’

  Stratton gave him a clip round the ear with his free hand, making him yelp. ‘Listen, son, I’m too old for this, all right?’

  ‘He’s got Tommy.’

  Spotting a pair of grubby plimsolls and grey, baggy socks in front of his face, Stratton looked up sharply to find that he was being stared at by eight pairs of shrewd young eyes. A group of boys aged nine or ten were standing in front of them. Judging from the fact that one was clutching a tennis ball, another, a bat, and a third, what looked like three sawn-off broom handles, they were on their way to, or possibly from, an improvised game of cricket. Wonderful, thought Stratton. As if this wasn’t enough of a shambles already – now he was in a fucking Ealing Comedy.

  ‘What you doing with Tommy, Mister?’ asked the one holding the bat.

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ said Stratton, trying to control his ragged breathing. ‘Now scram.’

  ‘Where’s your uniform, then?’ said the one with the stumps.

  ‘He don’t look like a policeman to me.’ The one with the bat narrowed his eyes. ‘He looks like that bloke what used to—’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Stratton, sensing, with a growing feeling of unreality, that he was about to be compared to some swivel-eyed local pederast. Digging his knee even more firmly into Tommy’s back, and using one hand to pin him down by his scrawny neck – he could feel the vibrations of suppressed laughter through his palm – he used the other hand to feel inside his jacket for his warrant card.

  ‘It can’t be,’ said another, with authority. ‘My dad said he’s in prison.’

  ‘My dad said he should be hanged,’ said someone else.

  ‘My dad said they should cut off his—’

  ‘Here,’ said Stratton, dragging out his warrant card and holding it up. ‘I’m arresting him, and I’ll arrest you lot too if you don’t clear off.’

  The boys goggled at him for a moment and then, as Tommy gave a gurgle of laughter, broke their line and ran, whooping, across the grass.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve got to laugh about, Tommy. Those kids just identified you, and I saw your mum looking over the banisters when you came down the stairs like the Charge of the Light Brigade.’

  ‘What d’you want to ask me for, then?’

  ‘Less of it!’ Stratton would have dearly liked to clobber him again, but, seeing in his mind’s eye an image of himself taking revenge on Halliwell for witnessing his humiliation at the hands of the children, thought better of it. Nevertheless, it was all very well for Matheson to talk about powder kegs and not stirring things up, but he was buggered if he was chasing this bunch of toerags round the manor all on his tod, never mind having to contend with gangs of vigilante brats while he was at it. ‘I’m taking you in.’

  ‘Whaffor?’

  ‘Because I want you for a fucking sunbeam. You know damn well what for because your mummy told you about my visit, didn’t she? Now, for the third time of asking: What. Is. Your. Name?’

  ‘Tom Halliwell.’

  ‘That’s more like it. In case Mummy didn’t pass this on, I am DI Stratton from the Harrow Road nick.’ Stratton took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow.

  ‘Are you arresting me?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m asking you – very nicely – to accompany me. Now, are you going to come quietly? Because if you don’t I shall be forced to conclude that you’re as guilty as sin and before you know it –’ he grabbed a handful of Halliwell’s hair and jerked his head sharply upwards so that he was looking in the direction of Wormwood Scrubs – ‘you’ll find yourself doing time in there with all the other slag.’

  ‘All right. All right! Please, you’re hurting me. If I promise, will you let go? It’s like my mum said, I ain’t done nothing.’

  ‘Fair enough. As long as you understand.’ Stratton took his knee off Halliwell’s back. As the boy scrambled to his feet, he got an impression of a mop of brown hair and the protruding wrists, elbows and knees of one who hadn’t yet filled out – before, quick as a flash and before Stratton could grab him, the lad shoved him hard in the chest and took off in the same direction as the children.

  Stratton, too tired even to attempt to catch him, watched him go. Chastened, the happy feeling of an hour or so before entirely evaporated, he hobbled wearily back to his car, mopping the dirt from his hands with his handkerchief. As he climbed into the driving seat he looked up at the top floor of Canberra House just in time to see Mrs Halliwell disappearing behind a net curtain, her face a hard mask of triumph.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ‘The mother had obviously tipped him off, sir. But we’ve got a witness saying that there was a green van parked near the Earl of Warwick, where the attack on Johnson took place, and a lad who was in the General Smuts with the others says that Halliwell was the driver.’

  ‘Halliwell was with them, was he?’ asked Matheson.

  ‘No, he came to collect them from the pub.’ Stratton, aware of the dishevelled appearance he must present, had wanted to clean up a bit before reporting the debacle to his superior. Unfortunately, Matheson had been at the front desk when he arrived which meant that he was forced to explain himself within earshot of the desk sergeant, Curtis, who wasn’t even bothering to pretend to be occupied with anything else. So far, Matheson’s face hadn’t indicated that he’d seen anything amiss, so perhaps the damage wasn’t as bad as it felt. ‘The witness, Johnny Andrews, says he got into the van with the others but they dropped him off at Silchester Road, so they were going in the direction of the Golborne Road. Andrews said he went to see his fiancée who lives nearby, and the girl’s mother has confirmed that he was there to pick her up at around half past eight. I don’t see any reason to disbelieve her – unlike Halliwell’s mother, who was uncooperative from the start and obviously lying through her teeth. She seems to believe that the police have got it in for her son. I’m not sure why, because according to PC Dobbs there’s no record of him ever being brought in for anything. However, I’d say the fact that he scarpered as soon as he saw me is fairly conclusive – and I don’t see that we can get much further without bringing them all in, sir. If I’m right, and Halliwell was involved, then we need to do that before he warns his pals.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Matheson. Glancing at Stratton’s legs, he added, in a neutral tone, ‘Bit of a struggle, was there?’

  Following his gaze, Stratton saw that not only were there grass stains on his trousers, but that there was an L-shaped tear just below his right knee, with a flap of material, three inches or thereabouts, hanging down loose. ‘Something like that, sir. Not so fast as I used to be, I’m afraid.’ He hoped Matheson wasn’t going to ask any more questions because he was buggered if he was going to mention the business with the children. The desk sergeant had now been joined by PC Illingworth, who was staring at him with unconcealed curiosity – if it ever got round the station that a gang of kids had mistaken him for the neighbourhood pervert, he’d never live it down.

  ‘You’ve got the makings of a nice shiner there,’ observed Matheson. ‘Why don’t you give me a list, and I’ll put things
in motion while you go and sort yourself out?’ Clapping Stratton on the back he added, in a lower voice, ‘These things happen.’

  It was obvious that this was meant kindly, but Stratton couldn’t help feeling that, nevertheless, he’d gone down several notches in his new boss’s estimation.

  *

  The relevant details having been noted down by a smirking Sergeant Curtis, Stratton trudged off to inspect his bruise in the lavatory’s few inches of flyblown mirror. Halliwell’s elbow must have caught him square in the eye, because he looked as though he’d gone three rounds with Freddie Mills. What an idiot he’d been to let go of the lad! After all these years … Barely a week in the place and already he was the object of derision – and it was no one’s fault but his own. Shaking his head, he turned away from the basin and began examining his trouser legs. Beneath the tear was a two-inch gash that had bled copiously down his shin and into his sock. He was looking around for something to mop it up with – his handkerchief was a sodden ball, the hard toilet paper didn’t absorb anything, and he could hardly take down the roller towel – when PC Jellicoe’s head appeared round the door.

  ‘Heard you’d had a bit of bother, sir.’ The tone was cheerfully solicitous. I’ll bet you did, thought Stratton. ‘Deary me,’ Jellicoe clicked his tongue sympathetically at the ripped material. ‘You have been in the wars. I’m sure one of the policewomen could put a few stitches in that, just till you get home.’

  Pushing away a nightmare vision of standing in his underpants in front of a crowd of sniggering coppers while some scornful Amazon sewed up his trousers, Stratton said, ‘Thanks, but I’d rather keep them on.’