September Song

by Colin Murray

  Bill marched briskly back from a quick recce in the yard. ‘Nothing going on upstairs, Tony,’ he said. ‘I reckon they’ve called it a day for the night.’

  As it were, I thought. White-haired old Mrs Wilson would have loved that back at Church Road School when I was ten. She’d been a great teacher.

  ‘Thanks, Bill,’ I said. ‘That’s good to know.’

  He leaned against the wall next to me. ‘Fancy the Orient for promotion this year?’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘Who knows? Good chance, I suppose, but they flatter to deceive. Here, you’ve got your ear to the ground. What’s young Ricky Mountjoy been up to?’

  ‘Ricky Mountjoy?’

  ‘The boy who ran when you came riding to the rescue tonight,’ I said.

  He looked blank and shook his head.

  ‘Young lad from my neck of the woods. Hangs out at the Frighted Horse. Runs some sort of drug distribution service for one of the big gangs.’

  ‘Oh, him. I don’t know, really. He turned up a month or two back, working for Fitz’s lot. Word is he’s very ambitious and he and his boys have set something up on the side. Don’t know what. You know what the gossip’s like around here. Could be something or nothing.’

  ‘And Fitz knows?’

  Bill rumbled a deep laugh. ‘Tony,’ he said, ‘I ask you, if I’ve heard something, what are the chances that Fitz hasn’t?’

  Not very high. I nodded in a sage sort of way.

  He took out a pack of Woodbines and offered it to me. I shook my head and he took out a cigarette, rasped a match across the abrasive edge of its box and lit up with a deep satisfied breath.

  I smiled at him and went back into the dressing room just as the band came to an abrupt stop to what sounded like thunderous applause. Of course, everyone was well oiled by now and having a great time. Lee and Jeannie Summers passed me on the threshold. They’d obviously decided to wait for Peter in the corridor where Lee could pace to his heart’s content.

  I stepped aside to let them by and then took the two steps that placed me directly in front of Philip Graham. I looked down at him sternly. He looked at the carpet.

  ‘Hashish,’ he said, ‘kif. Ricky met a Moroccan when he was in jail. He came here to avoid all the trouble but got done for something. Anyway, he and his mates have a regular supply from the Rif Mountains. And a lot of the Africans and the other darkies from the West Indies, they like it. They call it ganja. There’s a real demand in some of the clubs and pubs. Ricky wasn’t looking to go in big, but he needed some money to start up. I gave him a hundred quid. He gave it back with another hundred on top within a week and we were up and running.’

  I asked why they’d thought I’d been involved in the attack on the two other boys. He just shrugged and said something about ‘bad blood’. When I asked why they’d come after Lee tonight, he just said that they wanted their ‘goods’ back. When I asked if Malcolm Booth and Mr Fitz’s other boys knew what they were after, he said he didn’t think so, that they just thought it was Mr Fitz’s ‘goods’ they were looking for. And some summary justice. Of course.

  ‘Lee doesn’t have your stuff,’ I said. ‘And I really don’t think he knifed Del and Billy. Do you?’

  He shrugged dismissively. He obviously felt differently. I suppose if he really had seen Lee holding a knife when he and Ricky went past the alley, I couldn’t blame him. And, of course, there was the matter of ‘bad blood’ there as well.

  This time my sigh wasn’t born of exasperation but of deep and unmitigated gloom. I could think of a few people whose toes they’d trodden on. James Fitzgerald probably wasn’t pleased with them. He wouldn’t like his boys going freelance, and he’d definitely want his cut. And the Maltesers who ran some of the seedier streets of Soho, where a few of the black clubs had taken root, could have been cheesed off. But, as a warning, carving up Del and Billy into something suitable for a kosher wedding seemed a bit excessive.

  I wondered if Ricky Mountjoy and Mr Fitz were still upstairs, because after I’d put Les Jackson’s would-be matinee idol in a taxi there were a few questions I needed answers to. And those two just might be able to help.

  I couldn’t for the life of me think of a single good reason why Les Jackson should be forking out serious moolah to keep Philip Graham in a hotel out of harm’s way when the boy didn’t appear to have the sense to take advantage of Les’s generosity and keep a low profile. But then I couldn’t think of a single reason – good or bad – why I was going to do my best to extricate the unpleasant little oik from any brown and sticky substance he was immersed in, but I knew I would.

  TWELVE

  Robert Rieux, Ghislaine’s husband, serial adulterer, heavyweight trades-union leader in France and one-time communist resistance fighter, had certain rhetorical flourishes masquerading as rules for confronting the enemy. The first of which, roughly translated, was: ‘Be swift, be deadly.’

  That was certainly sound advice when dealing with the sentry at a goods yard you were planning to blow up, but it didn’t offer me much for what I had lined up.

  One of Robert’s other maxims is easily translated as: ‘Surprise!’ I guess I had that going for me.

  As I clanged my way up the back stairs to the Acropolis, I was half-hoping that there wouldn’t be anyone home. After all, it was very late. Peter and the band were doing one final sweaty set, otherwise Bill would have been very happy to accompany me, but, he said apologetically, he just couldn’t leave the club in case he was needed. I did think about waiting, but decided I needed to get this sorted and out of the way.

  I braved the puzzled looks of the kitchen staff as I strolled past and pushed my way through the swing doors that led to the dining room, feeling a bit like the mad major I’d seen in 1944 walking straight at a German machine-gun emplacement with nothing but his Webley in his hand. Robert, Big Luc, Ghislaine and I had all watched him with mounting disbelief. If he’d waited, we’d have dealt with it, as we’d dealt with four or five others. But he’d seemed to think that a sneaky attack involving hand grenades was unsporting.

  Still, I’d got a very good Webley out of the action.

  I rather wished I still had it when I saw James Fitzgerald and a few of his men sat at what I assumed was his usual table, but I was (slightly) relieved to see that Malcolm Booth wasn’t there. His bruised – possibly cracked – ankle would have reminded him that he had a genuine grudge. I noted that Ricky Mountjoy wasn’t there either.

  Gratifyingly, Mr Fitz himself looked very surprised to see me. He gave his world-famous impression of a fairground goldfish waiting to be won, mouth opening and closing a few times. Two of his boys, including the one I’d thumped outside St Martin-in-the-Fields, half rose, looking a bit belligerent, if confused.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, extending my hands out, palms towards them in what I hoped was a placatory gesture. ‘I haven’t come to make trouble. I just need to have a few words with his nibs here.’

  All three of the men with him turned to James Fitzgerald. He stopped gulping and actually smiled.

  ‘Tony was kind enough to buy me luncheon earlier today,’ he said. ‘The least I can do is hear him out.’ He looked at one of his bruisers. ‘Find him a chair, Harold,’ he said.

  There was a certain amount of shuffling around the table as room was made for another place. Mr Fitz himself, though, looking like a cross between a boyish and benign Chinese Buddha and an impish Alfred Hitchcock, did not so much as twitch a buttock. Eventually, enough space was found, and Harold rammed a chair into the back of my legs. I didn’t have much choice. I sat. Harold remained standing behind me. I can’t say that I felt entirely comfortable. Especially as I hadn’t really thought through what I was going to say. All the scenarios that had flickered across the silver screen of what I think of as my mind hadn’t got me as far as sitting down. Most had ended in fisticuffs before a word had been spoken.

  I heard Harold light a cigarette behind me. I was reminded of the bad boys sitting behin
d me in the picture house before the war, blowing smoke into my hair so my mother would think I’d taken up smoking. Which, in spite of my protestations and explanations, she did.

  I also remembered a hairy moment in a café in Pontorson when three German soldiers had decided to examine my documents. I should never have been there, but Ghislaine had talked about Mont St Michel and I’d wanted to see it. The moment wasn’t as nasty as some that had followed, but it was tense enough, and one of the soldiers, who was probably even younger than me, had stood behind me, puffing away nervously.

  I never did get to see Mont St Michel.

  James Fitzgerald took a sip from his brandy glass, smacked his lips and smiled at me. ‘I’d offer you a glass,’ he said, ‘but Greek brandy is, like Retsina, an acquired taste, and I didn’t gain the impression over luncheon that the wine altogether met with your approval. Perhaps a light ale or a Mackeson?’

  I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said, ever polite. ‘No, thank you.’

  He put his glass on the table, leaned forward slightly and placed his fingers together in a vaguely ecclesiastical gesture. ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’

  ‘First,’ I said, ‘you can promise me there will be no repetition of what happened half an hour ago.’

  He raised his eyebrows and leaned further forward. ‘What happened half an hour ago?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘Some of these boys, and a few others, came down to lift the piano player from the jazz club. There was a bit of unpleasantness.’ I paused and stared into the mean little eyes that glittered in his bland milk pudding of a face. ‘You must have heard about it.’

  His expression as he fell back against the cushioned wall behind him was all innocent surprise. He looked at the men around the table, who suddenly had a somewhat sheepish appearance.

  ‘Is this true?’ he said. He turned to the man who had followed me only six or seven hours earlier. ‘What do you know of this “unpleasantness”, Stanley?’

  Stanley said nothing, just stared at the tablecloth.

  ‘You could also,’ I said, pointing at Stanley, ‘tell him to stop following me. Apart from anything else, he’s not very good at it.’

  Mr Fitz shook his head sadly, like a man disappointed in those around him. ‘Tony,’ he said, ‘what can I say? I knew nothing of any of this. You and I have broken bread together. We have shared our wartime experiences. Why, we are practically comrades-in-arms. You have my assurance that nothing like this will occur again, if I can possibly stop it.’ He sighed and spread his hands. ‘Of course, even the most experienced and in-touch officers can’t make absolute promises . . .’

  I know when I’m being lied to, and I know when I’m being patronized. But I also know when there’s no point in taking umbrage. I’ve been lied to and patronized by much better men than James Fitzgerald.

  ‘That’s most reassuring . . . James,’ I said.

  He smiled smugly and picked up his brandy glass again. He swirled the dark spirit around, twitched his nostrils over the rim and then drank deeply, emptying the glass.

  ‘I think,’ I said, ‘I know some of what’s been going on, but it doesn’t make much sense.’

  He suddenly looked a bit more interested and alert. ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Do go on.’ He handed his glass to Stanley, who stood up and walked to the little bar that ran along one wall of the restaurant. I watched him pour a stiff measure from a squat bottle on the counter.

  I suddenly realized that there was no one else in the place: no adulterous couples furtively holding hands, lingering over an exotic candlelit dinner; no waiters picking their teeth, waiting to make their weary way home to Turnpike Lane; no proprietor adding up bills. I could hear some clattering coming from the kitchen, but that was it. Apart from me, Mr Fitz and his boys. I started to feel even more uncomfortable. Ah, well, in for a penny and all that.

  ‘I think it’s about the ganja market,’ I said.

  Fitzgerald widened his little eyes a fraction. ‘Drugs?’ he said. ‘Gosh! What makes you think that?’

  I again thought it wiser not to rise to the tone. I can live with someone being sarcastic at my expense. ‘I’m afraid it probably is about drugs, James. Drugs, and an ambitious young man.’ I paused and took a deep breath. ‘I should explain that my only interest is in protecting my client’s interests. He has an asset who has become mixed up in all this. I’d like to be able to reassure him that his asset is safe. If that reassurance is forthcoming, then I’m out of this and you and your –’ I spread my hands to encompass everyone around the table – ‘colleagues won’t see me again.’

  Mr Fitz looked slightly puzzled, and I wondered if this could be genuine. He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that you will have to elucidate.’

  ‘Philip Graham,’ I said, ‘a young actor contracted to Hoxton Films, has inadvertently got involved. My boss would like him out of it.’ I paused. ‘It’s that simple.’

  Mr Fitz nodded slowly. ‘I’m more than happy,’ he said, ‘to assure you, and the estimable Mr Jackson of Hoxton Films, that I have no quarrel at all with that particular rising star of the silver screen.’

  I made to stand, but Harold put big meaty hands on my shoulders and I remained seated. ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I need take up no more of your valuable time.’

  There was what felt like a long silence before Fitzgerald nodded to Harold and spoke. ‘Just one proviso,’ he said. ‘Convince that young man that dabbling in things he wots not of is hardly conducive to a long and peaceful life.’

  ‘Understood,’ I said and stood up after Harold removed his mitts and moved a foot or two back from my chair.

  I stepped away from the table and peered through the gloom at the front door to the restaurant.

  ‘I think,’ Fitzgerald said, ‘that you may have to leave via the kitchen, Tony.’ His small, pale hand indicated the double doors. ‘And just one other thing, before you go.’

  I stood still and looked down at him.

  ‘The other gentleman,’ he said, ‘the musical one. What’s your interest there?’

  ‘None,’ I said. I wasn’t washing my hands of him, or throwing him to the wolves. Smugly, I assumed that Lee was already on his way to Scotland Yard. Or was about to be. And then he’d be off to bonny Scotland, safely out of the way. ‘None at all.’

  Mr Fitz sucked in his cheeks and then flicked the tip of his pink tongue around his lips. There was something dismayingly obscene about the sight. ‘I’m delighted to hear that, Tony,’ he said. ‘Have a pleasant journey home. To Leyton, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, wondering how he knew and if it mattered, ‘that’s right.’

  He nodded and smiled sweetly. It was, of course, a warning. I know where you live.

  I smiled back and pushed my way through the swing doors into the kitchen. The bright light was blinding after the shadowed gloom of the dining room. Two tired-looking middle-aged men in grubby white jackets stopped smoking and stared at me. I nodded at them as I passed and strode out on to the staircase.

  It had been a very long day. I stood on the top step for a moment and looked down at the dingy, cluttered little alley. Something large squirmed past an overflowing bin. The ripe smell of rotting vegetables drifted up on the gritty bitter air. The authentic smell of London: coal smoke and rubbish. A few vehicles rumbled past in the distance, and I could just hear the band downstairs working up a real sweat with ‘Way Down Yonder In New Orleans’. Jerry has a record of the immortal Bix Beiderbecke playing it. I thought of that lovely mellow sound.

  Then I ambled slowly down the stairs, my footsteps ringing out in the night air. I got down to the yard and yawned mightily. I was really looking forward to tumbling into my pit.

  Then an arm reached out from the shadows under the staircase, grabbed my arm and dragged me back there. I just had time to think about Fitzgerald and perfidious Albion before something hit me very hard on the side of the head. I fell to my knees, took ano
ther couple of punches and a kick or two before collapsing completely into semi-consciousness. Thankfully, the two of them (there were definitely two of them) stopped thumping me at that point and moved on. So it wasn’t a punitive beating they were administering. They just wanted me out of the way. Well, for the moment, I was happy to oblige. I stretched out on the cold, damp ground. The ugly black cat – the one that had been rummaging in the bins – swayed cockily past, tail erect. I was so much of a threat it couldn’t even be bothered to hiss at me.

  I heard some muffled yelling in the distance and tried to sit up, but my head didn’t feel quite right about that and I slumped back down just as people emerged from the back entrance to Pete’s Place.

  Two men were dragging another, and a woman – Jeannie Summers – was pulling at them in a vain attempt to stop them. As they came to the foot of the stairs in front of me, one of the men – Ricky Mountjoy – turned and viciously backhanded her. Then he punched her in the stomach. She went down as heavily as I had done and started sobbing.

  I struggled to get up, but this time it was my legs that weren’t having any of it. I did, though, manage to reach out from under the stairs and grab Ricky Mountjoy’s ankle. He completely lost his footing and crashed and slithered back down the four or five steps he had climbed and lay in a heap at the bottom.

  Lee the piano player took his chance. He pulled away from the man holding him, jumped down the stairs, hared off to the back of the yard, clambered up on to a bin, leapt over the wall and was away. I couldn’t help noticing that he was pretty good at this running away stuff. I assumed he’d had a lot of practice.

  Malcolm Booth limped down the stairs and hobbled off in pursuit. I don’t suppose that, even at his best, he was anything like as nimble, and with one ankle out of use it was a bit like watching a tubby, crocked right-back trying to catch Tom Finney.

  Ricky Mountjoy was altogether sprightlier, and after one vicious glance at me and a quick rub of his barked shins he dashed to the rear of the yard. There was the clatter of a falling bin, and he was over the wall. I hoped that Lee had enough of a start.