The New Eastgate Swing

by Chris Nickson

  A metallic click and, glancing down, he saw a blade extend in the man’s right hand. A flick knife. He’d thought this wasn’t a simple robbery. Now it looked as if it was going to be more than a beating. This looked deadly.

  His mouth was dry. Whoever he was, his opponent was professional. No ducking and weaving, just a slow advance, pace by pace. The knife flashed up and Markham ducked to avoid it. But the man’s other fist was already moving, catching him hard on the cheek and making him stagger back.

  He was off balance as the man pushed, then a punch in the belly sent him crashing on his back into the dirt, all the air forced out of his lungs.

  A kick in the ribs was softened by the heavy overcoat. He saw a foot raised to stamp down on his chest. Markham rolled away before it could land, slashing at the man’s Achilles tendon with the car key and connecting. He heard a cry that seemed to come from far away.

  The man knelt on Markham’s arms, pinning them. Bone dug into muscle. A gloved hand hit his face over and over.

  The police station was only twenty yards away, he thought stupidly. If he shouted, would any copper come running?

  His hands were trapped, unable to reach anything. He bucked, tried to push his opponent off, but he was too heavy.

  The man leaned down, bringing his face close. Sour breath came through the scarf.

  It was the only chance.

  Markham jerked his head up sharply. A headbutt. His forehead slammed against the man’s nose in a quick crack of bone. In a second the weight lifted from him. He scrambled away and heard a clatter as the knife fell to the ground.

  Markham kicked it away.

  The man looked at him for a second, hate in his gaze, and moved off into the night, half-running, half-stumbling, one hand over his face.

  Christ. He leaned against the brick wall and tried to catch his breath. The cigarette packet in his jacket was crushed; it seemed to take an age to pull one out, hands shaking wildly as he tried to light it.

  Very carefully, he felt his face. It was tender everywhere, he was going to have a mass of bruises. His arms hurt where the man had pinned him down. The coat had saved him the worst of it. Soon enough he’d start to feel the pain. He was going to ache in the morning.

  Very slowly, he finished the cigarette, taking pleasure in grinding it out under his feet. Before he went inside he searched for the flick knife amongst the weeds. He might need it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘Dear God,’ Baker asked, ‘what happened to you?’

  ‘Someone jumped me outside the flat.’

  Markham hung up his coat. Each small movement took effort. He’d taken a long bath the night before, and a couple of aspirin before he slept. Two more this morning. But everything still hurt, and his face was badly swollen, covered in deep bruises and cuts.

  He explained what had happened. Baker listened intently, drawing on his pipe.

  ‘Who do you think did it?’ he asked when Markham finished.

  ‘Special Branch.’ He’d thought about it all evening. He hadn’t been able to focus on anything else. It had to be them, and a telephone call from Farren’s that set them on to him.

  ‘Possible,’ Baker agreed with a nod. ‘Sounds like their style, right enough.’

  Markham pulled the knife from his coat and tossed it on the card table.

  ‘He was going to use that.’

  Baker played with the weapon, extending the blade and retracting it.

  ‘Nasty,’ he said slowly. ‘There’s just one problem: the Branch are usually the knuckleduster and heavy boots type.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He turned his head suddenly, feeling the pain as he moved.

  ‘They might do you over or pull you in.’ He dropped the knife, blade out again, glittering in the light. ‘But they don’t use those. Not unless things have changed very recently.’

  ‘Who was it, then?’ He felt a chill running down his back.

  ‘Not the spies, either.’ Baker smoked silently for a few more seconds. ‘Definitely not them. If they wanted you out of the picture they wouldn’t do it in public.’

  ‘So – who?’

  ‘I don’t know. But we must be ruffling a few feathers.’

  ‘Christ,’ Markham said. ‘That doesn’t make me feel any better.’ They were going to have to watch over their shoulders every second. ‘Whoever he is, he’s a pro.’ Then the thought hit him: if it wasn’t Special Branch …

  ‘You won. That’s something,’ Baker continued.

  ‘What if it was the same man who’s been killing the Germans?’

  For a long while Baker stayed silent.

  ‘The Russian?’

  ‘Yes.’ Suddenly Markham felt very cold.

  ‘Why? We’re out of it. You said so yourself. And why would we be important?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he thinks we’re still involved.’ Markham raised his head to display his battered face.

  Baker puffed on his pipe.

  ‘If it was him, he won’t be back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s a professional. We know that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Markham agreed.

  ‘For all he knows, you’ve reported it to the police. He’s not going to risk trying again. He’s not stupid.’

  Baker was right. He knew that. It was the training they gave for everything in military intelligence. You only had one chance to do something. If it didn’t work, you abandoned it. That was the only way to stay alive. But it didn’t make him feel any safer. He sighed.

  ‘Since we’re still in it we’d better find out what’s really going on,’ he said as he lit a cigarette. ‘Maybe it’s time we went on the offensive.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Baker agreed. ‘We’re not going to find anything out by just twiddling our thumbs. Perhaps we can discover a few answers out at Cokely’s. We already know they’re not going to talk to us. But maybe we can get a look in that shadow factory in Yeadon. It’s a good place to keep secrets.’

  ‘How? They’re not likely to hand us a key and say “look around.”.’

  ‘We break in.’

  ‘Break in? You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘I’m deadly serious,’ Baker told him. ‘We can see what they’re up to out there. It has to be something important if they’re bringing in East Germans and someone’s willing to take a knife to you. They might even have your Amanda Fox somewhere.’

  ‘I thought you were sure she’d run off to join her husband in Russia.’

  ‘That was before last night. You know why I became a copper? Because I like the law. All this is going around it like it doesn’t bloody well exist. Or it doesn’t matter. So we find out what’s happening and do something about it ourselves.’

  ‘It might give us a start,’ Markham said quietly. ‘God knows we need something.’

  ‘If we don’t look we’ll never find out, will we?’

  ‘They’ll have guards there,’ Markham warned.

  Baker shook his head. ‘Nothing more than a nightwatchman, unless they want attention or gossip. We’ll go out tonight for a recce. Go in if we have a chance.’

  ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Why not?’ Baker frowned. ‘Meeting someone?’

  ‘I’m not doing it until I can move more easily.’ He was meant to see Georgina that evening. But he didn’t need her questions all evening on top of everything else.

  ‘All right, fair enough, we’ll wait a day or two,’ Baker agreed reluctantly. ‘Oh,’ he added, ‘there’s something on your desk. Came in the post.’

  A small package. A book. He ripped open the brown paper. He hadn’t ordered anything. It was odd. On the Road by someone called Jack Kerouac. He’d never even heard of the man.

  When he turned the front cover a note fell out and he unfolded it. The familiar tiny scrawl. Carla.

  I don’t know if you’ve read this. A friend brought it back from America a couple of months ago, apparently it’s just been published. It’s rather good and the
whole thing is just like jazz, like that Monk fellow you like. I thought you might enjoy it.

  And remember, let me know when you’re ready. If you want to be ready.

  Carla.

  He set the book aside but inside he was smiling.

  ‘Penny for them,’ Baker said quietly.

  ‘You’d get a ha’penny in change.’

  ‘Go home. Get yourself some rest. Read your new book.’

  ‘I want to finish that other fraud.’

  ‘No one’s going to thank you for turning up looking like you’ve gone ten rounds with Sugar Ray Robinson.’

  ‘Does it look that bad?’ Markham managed a weak grin.

  ‘Worse.’

  Baker was right. He’d been reluctant to admit it when he looked in the mirror that morning, but he knew it was true. He struggled back into his overcoat, every muscle complaining.

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ Baker said. ‘You’ll be feeling better by then. We’ll go out to Yeadon. And in the meantime, keep your eyes peeled. Just in case.’

  ***

  He felt numb. They were deep in this. Someone had tried to kill him. Might even have succeeded except for luck. All because of a missing person case.

  Walking along Briggate, people veered away from him with horrified looks, but he scarcely noticed. The pavement was busy but he had a clear path all the way to Boots. Georgina was behind the counter closest to the door, by the cash register. Her mouth opened wide as she spotted him and saw what had become of his face. She finished serving a customer, had a word with the girl next to her and hurried over.

  ‘My God, Dan, what happened to you?’ she whispered. She had fear and concern in her eyes, reaching out and stroking his cheek lightly.

  ‘I lost an argument.’ He tried to keep his tone light. ‘It looks worse than it really is.’

  A white lie. A big one. Her eyes examined his face.

  ‘I hope that’s true.’

  ‘Would you mind if we didn’t do anything tonight? I don’t really want to go out looking like this.’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ she agreed quickly. Then she made a decision. ‘I tell you what, why don’t I come over after I finish here? I can take the bus. Just to talk. I’ll pick up some fish and chips from Nash’s.’

  ***

  At home he checked the locks and bolted the door. The man wouldn’t be back, he told himself. If he said it often enough he might convince himself. Knowing it in his head was one thing. Feeling it in his heart was another. He’d stay very wary and alert. At least this time he wasn’t in it alone. That was one tiny crumb of comfort, for all it was worth.

  Baker was right about that, Markham thought as he settled in the tub. Hot water and bath salts relaxed his muscles. He let himself soak until he began to feel a chill, dried and dressed in his American blue jeans and a heavy jumper and tried to relax with the book.

  At first it confused him. It was unlike anything he’d ever read, a rush of words that seemed to careen around the page. After a little while he began to understand it. The freedom of the road, the freedom of America. It carried him along in the cars and the changing landscapes.

  She was right, it was jazz. Not just the thoughts that came to the narrator at the club in Chicago, but the energy and the wild improvisation. It was bebop on a page, something he’d never imagined before. There was music behind it.

  By the time he looked up it was dark outside, too dark to really read. He’d been so caught up in it that he’d lost track of time and let all the bad things slip out of his mind. A welcome relief. Half past four and only the street lamps through the window to bring some light into the flat

  He put on some Monk, the only music that could fit after the wild ride of words, and tried to come back to Leeds.

  The man looking back at him from the mirror had flesh swollen around his left eye, scrapes on the skin, bruises that were still growing. It would take time for someone familiar to reappear.

  Markham held up his two useless fingers, the permanent reminder of what had happened three years earlier. This was heading in the same desperate direction. He’d had angry husbands throw punches at him in divorce cases before, but few of them had ever connected.

  Fighting back was a start, he realised. But it would only be over if they won.

  And they didn’t even really know who the enemy was. All he’d seen was a pair of dark eyes.

  Did he have Amanda Fox hidden away somewhere in Leeds? Or perhaps she was already dead, her body hidden somewhere.

  He could stare into the mirror as long as he liked. It wasn’t going to tell him the things he needed to know.

  ***

  Georgina left the packet wrapped in newspaper in the kitchen as she held him close, arms wrapped around him. He squeezed her gently then pulled away, putting the food on plates as she buttered slices of bread and filled the kettle.

  ‘You took quite a beating,’ she told him as they ate. Outside the window a procession of headlights passed along Harrogate Road as people made their way home, the working week over. ‘Who did it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered and it was perfectly true.

  ‘But why?’ She looked confused. ‘Was he robbing you?’

  ‘No. It’s to do with a case.’ He wasn’t going to tell her more than that.

  Georgina drew in a breath.

  ‘Bloody hell, Dan. What are you involved with?’

  ‘It’s messy. Soon be over, though.’ Better to leave it at that and change the topic. ‘Are you ready for your gig at Studio 20?’ Just over three weeks now.

  ‘I’m scared.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘The people there are going to know their jazz. It’s not like a club where everyone’s drinking and eating.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. You’re good.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she allowed, then looked at him under her eyelashes. ‘Dan …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After work last Friday I popped over to the Grand Theatre.’

  ‘Did you see anything good?’

  She took a breath and continued.

  ‘I went past that restaurant. Donmar.’ Suddenly a pit seemed to open up in his stomach as she stared into his face. ‘You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?’

  He’d been there with Carla.

  This was the conversation they needed to have.

  ‘I was with a friend. An old girlfriend. She was passing through Leeds.’

  ‘You just happened to run into her, then one of you suggested a meal?’

  ‘She rang me.’

  ‘I see.’ She stood, clearing away the empty plates, then pouring another cup of tea from the pot before lighting a cigarette. A very ordinary, domestic scene.

  ‘So?’ she asked finally. It was a question that asked everything in a single word.

  ‘I knew her back in ’54,’ he began. ‘We were very close for a while, then she moved away. I never heard from her again until she rang a couple of weeks ago. She was on her way home and her train was delayed here.’ Georgina was watching him intently. ‘We had a drink, and that was it. Then last Friday.’

  ‘When she just happened to be passing through again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She snorted disbelievingly.

  ‘It was all innocent,’ he said.

  ‘No, Dan,’ she told him. ‘That’s something it definitely wasn’t.’ Before he could speak, she continued, ‘It’s hardly innocent when you have a meal with an old girlfriend and don’t tell the one you’re supposed to be going out with now.’

  ‘I–’

  ‘You never said a word about it, did you?’ She was angry, but her voice was low and quiet, carefully controlled. ‘Not a single bloody word, like it’s some secret you have to keep.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep with her,’ he said.

  ‘Oh God, that’s not the bloody point! I know we’re not engaged or it’s anything special, but I thought neither of us would go out with anyone else. That’s what really hurt me. I kept waiting for you to say somethin
g.’

  ‘I didn’t know how.’

  ‘Of course you did.’ Georgina slammed her hand down on the table, making the cups jump. ‘All you had to do was come out and say it. For Christ’s sake, Dan, we’re adults.’

  He stayed silent. There was nothing he could give her as an answer. Everything she said was right.

  ‘I saw your eyes when you were talking to her. We’re never going to have anything like that, are we?’ She waited a moment. ‘You’re never going to look at me that way, are you?’

  ‘I didn’t even know until I heard from her again.’

  She stood and paced around the room.

  ‘When were you going to say something? Next week? Christmas? Next year?’ He hung his head, silent. ‘Don’t I deserve something better than that, Dan?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

  Georgina reached for her coat, buttoning it tight around herself. ‘I’m going to walk out of here with my head held high. If I see you somewhere, I’ll be polite enough. But do me one favour.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Please don’t ever come and see me play again. Especially at Studio 20.’

  She didn’t slam the door. The lock clicked quietly behind her and he was alone again, feeling guilty.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘By God, you still look rough’

  ‘You would too if someone had tried to kill you.’ Markham said curtly as he hung up the overcoat. Outside, a chilly drizzle was falling. The aches weren’t too bad. Movement was slightly easier. His face still looked like something from a horror film, but it would heal.

  He’d spent a sleepless night. It didn’t matter what he knew, the fear had coursed through him, all the images of what might happen. The sense of panic and helplessness had kept him awake. At least the feelings had receded in the daylight.

  Georgina had simply been the icing on the cake. Yes, he’d been thoughtless, a bit of a bastard for not saying anything. But at least it was resolved now. Over.

  ‘Will you be able to manage tonight?’ Baker asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘What time?’

  ‘I thought about half past nine. We’ll look like people going home from the pub. I’ll come and pick you up.’