Snow Hill

by Mark Sanderson

  Lizzie, much to the annoyance of her long-suffering parents, was an independent woman who knew her own mind. They thought their one and only daughter had married beneath her—Matt was a good chap, salt of the earth, but indisputably working class. What’s more, they seemed to think she’d done it just to spite them. Johnny knew better.

  She had once told him that it had been love at first sight: He seemed so comfortable in his own skin. She knew instinctively that Matt was a man who could look after her and who would be a wonderful father to the children he gave her. His good looks were almost an irrelevance—but not quite. She still got a thrill each time she set eyes on him. As for Matt, it had never occurred to him that she might be out of his league. He had the confidence of a natural athlete, one who was used to setting goals and achieving them.

  Johnny recalled only too well the moment he had grasped how true and deep their love was. The realisation had crushed him.

  It had taken Lizzie ages to persuade her father, a surgeon, to give his consent to the morganatic marriage—let alone allow her to get a job. Her mother, a raging snob, still disapproved of both. They were the sort of people who took a hotel room to afford themselves an excellent view of the Jarrow marchers as the “agitators” had reached the end of their 291-mile journey. Lizzie was outraged that the public had only donated £680 to the demonstrators and thought it obscene that people should sip champagne while unemployed men fought for an opportunity to put food on their families’ tables.

  Lizzie’s mother had relaxed a bit when her daughter’s employer—Gamages, the “People’s Popular Emporium”—had promoted her from kitting out middle-class brats in Boy Scout uniforms to the more genteel cosmetics department, where her high cheekbones, straight nose and fashionably short, black hair could be shown off to commercial advantage. Although secretly impressed, she could still not understand why her daughter had decided against becoming a secretary to a chief executive and opted to stoop to common shopwork. She was blind to the fact that the lowliness of the position was precisely the point. Lizzie, indignant that British women had only won the right to vote eight years previously, was showing solidarity with her sisters. She wanted to prove herself, succeed according to her abilities rather than her social connections, though she would have been the first to acknowledge that she was fortunate enough to have the luxury of choice. Matt had been only too glad to take advantage of the fact that his father had been a policeman.

  “I do want it, I think.” She sighed. “It’s just happened sooner than expected—and, well, look what happened last time.”

  The Turners had lost their first child the year before in a miscarriage that the doctor had put down, in part at least, to stress. Lizzie was highly strung by nature, but Matt, bitterly disappointed, had blamed the loss on her refusal to give up her job immediately the good tidings were announced. Neither her family nor his had said anything to contradict this opinion. She was bound to be fearful of a second tragedy.

  “Promise me you won’t tell Matt. He’s got enough on his plate at the moment.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “He’s been sleeping awfully badly of late. He has the most terrible nightmares. Wakes up shouting and crying. The sheets are positively sopping with sweat. He won’t tell me what’s the matter and gets cross when I try and find out. I want to help the silly billy, but he won’t let me.”

  Johnny couldn’t imagine Matt crying. In all the years they’d known each other he had never seen him shed a tear. Matt had been the calm, even-tempered one—unlike Johnny, whose quick tongue often landed him in trouble with bigger lads who didn’t like being made fools of by a short-arse. Back in their schooldays, Johnny had shed many a tear, but invariably they were tears of fury and frustration at his opponents’ refusal to stay down when he finally succeeded in landing a punch. All too often they’d just pick themselves up and knock him down. It was only when Matt intervened that they’d give up the fight. He was a year older than Johnny and had three elder brothers who’d taught him how to look after himself. A talented southpaw, he’d amassed quite a collection of silverware over the years, first at schoolboy level and then representing his station in the amateur league. He seemed to soak up the punishment, showing no sign of emotion even when a vicious warhorse, anxious to prove he was not quite past it, almost beat his brains out; somehow Matt just hung in there, patiently waiting for the opening that would allow him to land the knockout blow.

  To Matt, Johnny was the kid brother he’d always longed for—he hated being the baby of the family. He’d been only too happy to pass on the lessons he’d learned from his brothers: teaching Johnny how to turn and throw his weight from the hip, not the shoulder. As his confidence grew, Johnny learned an even more effective form of defence: making people laugh. Where once his big mouth had landed him in trouble, he began to rely on his wits, an engaging smile and a clever way with words to get him out of sticky situations. And when Matt began turning to him for advice he realised that he was no longer the junior partner in their friendship but an equal, their different talents complementing each other and making them a winning combination. It had been a highlight of both their careers when Matt arrested the crooked pharmacist exposed by Johnny’s investigation.

  “Is everything else all right?” said Johnny. He was flattered that Lizzie had chosen to confide in him, but uneasy about being asked to keep a secret from Matt. They told each other everything. Lizzie looked up sharply.

  “Perfectly, thank you.”

  “I was only asking. Look, I’m seeing Matt tomorrow night so I’ll try and find out then what’s troubling him. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything about the baby—but you should tell him soon. He’ll be over the moon.”

  He wished it were his.

  The kettle started to rattle on the stove and he busied himself pouring water into the teapot, conscious of Lizzie watching his back. It was so hard to keep up the pretence, constantly trying to hide the way he felt towards her. In those dark days following his mother’s death, she more than anyone had pulled him through. She was the one who’d got him out of the house, made him forget his troubles, taught him to laugh again. It was ironic that one of the things that united them was their love for Matt. He was the one who needed help now.

  “Don’t bother.” The bentwood chair scraped on the bare floor as she got to her feet. “I’d better be heading off—Matt finishes at ten.”

  “I thought he was on six till two.”

  “He’s doing a double shift. They’re short-handed because of the ’flu. Everyone seems to have it. Mrs Kennedy popped her clogs this morning.”

  “The old dear who lived at the end of Rheidol Terrace? Always sucking a humbug? She looked after me a few times when I was a kid. Here, it won’t be too long before you’ll be needing a babysitter.”

  “I’m sure Bexley’s full of them.”

  Johnny’s heart sank. It was as if she couldn’t wait to increase the distance between them.

  “So you’re definitely moving then?”

  “The house is supposed to be ready by March. It’s a lovely semi—exactly what we were after.”

  “Just like the ones in the posters on the Tube.” He could see them now: chessboards with model homes instead of pieces. “How does their slogan go? ‘Your next Move and your best is on to the Underground. Houses to suit all classes.’”

  “There’s no call to be sarcastic. Islington’s no place to bring up children. The air’s much better in Bexley.”

  “It didn’t do me and Matt any harm.”

  “That’s what you think!” She put her gloves on. “I’ll see myself out. Do let me know how you get on tomorrow night.” She was already halfway down the hall.

  “Hey! Don’t I get a goodbye kiss?”

  Of course not. He never got what he wanted.

  The door slammed shut. And it was then the full force of her two bombshells finally hit him.

  FOUR

  Tuesday, 8th December, 6.45 p.m.


  The last edition had gone to press. The familiar scramble was over—until tomorrow. Johnny grabbed his coat. Those starting on the night shift chatted to their daytime counterparts. The cracked leather of the seats they traded did not even have a chance to cool down. The search for stories, the proprietor’s pursuit of sales and money, never stopped.

  “Coming for a livener?” said Bill, licking his lips. “I’m spitting feathers.”

  “I’d like to…Thing is, I’ve got a date,” said Johnny. It was not a lie…exactly. He did have a date with Daisy for tonight—until he broke it off. He just needed some pretext to ensure that his mentor would not want to tag along.

  “Just one, old boy, I promise.” Bill’s bloodshot eyes took on a pleading expression.

  Johnny felt guilty. Bill had gone to the trouble of calling round his contacts, all of whom assured him everyone was present and accounted for at Snow Hill. He owed the guy a drink, at the very least. But he knew from experience that there was no such thing as “just one” drink where Bill was concerned; invariably their sessions would expand into full-blown binges and another evening would be lost before he knew it.

  “Let’s make it Thursday instead, eh?”

  “Right you are.” Bill rubbed his hands together. “Happy spooning.”

  Wasting no time, Johnny legged it along Fleet Street before any other colleagues tried to waylay him. He headed up Shoe Lane, past the cacophonous printing works, and under Holborn Viaduct. As he ran across Farringdon Road, skirting the western end of Smithfield Market, he glanced up Snow Hill, wondering whether he’d see Matt leaving the police station. The steep, winding road was deserted. Back before the Viaduct was built, all traffic from the City to the West End had been forced to negotiate Snow Hill. Nowadays it was something of a backwater. The police station was one of the few places showing any sign of life: its reassuring blue light was a beacon in the dark.

  Built just over a decade ago, the station was an odd, bow-fronted building in the middle of a curving terrace. Five-storeys tall, narrow and gabled, it was reminiscent of a uniformed constable standing to attention. The compact façade was deceptive: Snow Hill station-house extended all the way back to Cock Lane at the rear, so there was plenty of room inside for the whole of B Division. A blue plaque informed passers-by that it stood on the site of the Saracen’s Head Inn. Matt, who often had to endure the protracted company of Philip Dwyer, a desk sergeant who fancied himself something of a local historian, would occasionally regurgitate the fascinating facts—especially concerning murders and executions—with which he had been forcibly fed. Johnny knew a few additional facts of his own: it was in the Saracen’s Head that Nicholas Nickleby had met the one-eyed Wackford Squeers.

  Dickens, who’d started out as a newspaperman, was Johnny’s idol. He had been introduced to him at school by Mr Stanley, otherwise known as Moggy. The English teacher had returned from the Great War with an artificial leg which his pupils took to be mahogany. As Silas Wegg in Our Mutual Friend would have said, he was “a literary man—with a wooden leg.” Moggy’s lessons became the highlight of the week. Dickens’ stories were funny and scary and he was writing about the place where they lived. He had walked the same streets, passed the same buildings, seen the same things. He made Johnny want to be a journalist. Even today, a part of him still could not believe he was writing for the newspaper that Dickens had once edited.

  His most treasured possession was a mildewed set of Dickens’ novels that he’d found one Saturday afternoon on a second-hand bookstall in Farringdon Road. He’d paid for it with the money he had made hanging around Collins’ Music Hall on Islington Green with Matt, collecting discarded programmes and selling them on at bargain prices to the punters going in for the next show: the better the clothes, the lower the discount. He’d continued faithfully working his way through the set all the way through school and college.

  Dickens’ work provided a living map of the capital. He did not care if it was out of date; the characters lived on in his mind and the echoes reverberated each time he visited a location which had featured in one of the novels. The Old Bailey, for example, had been built on the site of Newgate prison; in the confines of its stuffy courtrooms, whiling away the hours as lawyers argued and judges jawed, Johnny could not help but recall Dickens’ “horrible fascination” with the gaol which featured in Barnaby Rudge; in whose condemned hold Fagin awaited his end; and where, in Great Expectations, Pip viewed the Debtors’ Door through which doomed culprits were led to be hanged.

  It was inconceivable to Johnny that anyone could be bored by Dickens; but Matt—lulled by Moggy’s droning and the hissing of the gas-lamps—would invariably drift off to sleep. The English master took a sadistic pleasure in twisting Matt’s ear as slowly as he could, seeing how far he could go without waking him, and then, having fully regained his attention, dragging him to his feet and rapping him on the knuckles with the edge of the ruler, all the while continuing to read. Moggy never lost his place; Matt never made a sound.

  By now, Johnny was drawing near to the Rolling Barrel—a favourite watering hole for many of Matt’s colleagues. The pub was said to have derived its name from a local legend: the site was apparently notorious for a gang of tearaways who used to snatch unsuspecting little old ladies off the street, stuff them in a barrel and roll them down the hill.

  Finally he reached St Sepulchre’s churchyard and the Viaduct Tavern came into view, just across the road on the corner of Giltspur Street and Newgate Street.

  A Victorian gin palace glittering with cut glass, painted mirrors and plush seats, its regulars were mostly off-duty postmen from the General Post Office in King Edward Street. The ornate clock behind the bar told Johnny he was five minutes early.

  It was only when he had been served and wriggled his way through the crowd—without spilling more than a few drops of Ind Coope Burton—that he saw Matt sitting alone at one of the small, round tables at the back. His friend was staring morosely into the empty glass in front of him.

  “Penny for them.”

  Matt looked up. His handsome face, white with exhaustion, did not bother to smile. The liver-coloured welts under his eyes seemed to have deepened.

  “Evening. One of those for me?”

  “Who else?”

  Johnny handed him a pint. He downed half of it in three gulps.

  “That’s better.”

  “Bitter, actually.”

  “Jack the Quipper strikes again.” Matt drained his glass. “Refill?”

  “Hold your horses—what’s the rush?”

  “D’you want another or not?”

  “Go on then.”

  Johnny watched, concerned, as his friend lurched off towards the bar, the mass of bodies miraculously parting before him like the Red Sea. Matt was too big to argue with. It looked as though he’d downed a few while he was waiting.

  With Lizzie’s words of the previous evening running through his mind, Johnny lit a cigarette and leaned back on the banquette, watching the smoke spiral towards the high, intricately patterned ceiling. Its once white mouldings were now stained the yellow of bad teeth.

  “Here we are.” Matt suddenly reappeared with two glasses, took a slurp from one and smacked his lips. “I needed that.” He flashed a grin that was half-grimace. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Likewise.” Impatient as ever, Johnny cut to the chase: “So, what have you got to tell me?”

  “Nothing about a cop dying, if that’s what you mean. I checked the Occurrence Book.”

  “Oh.” Johnny could not keep the disappointment out of his voice.

  “I told you yesterday, I haven’t heard anything.”

  It wasn’t like Matt to clam up this way. One of the things he loved about police work was the range of characters it brought him into contact with—the suspected burglar who turned out to be a doctor on his way to deliver a child at three in the morning; the incontinent woman who wandered the streets in a coat made from the pelts of her pet cats; the boy w
ho thought he was a Number 15 bus. Usually he couldn’t wait to describe his latest odd encounter to Johnny—but not tonight. Clearly there was something else that he needed to say, something he could not say to anyone else.

  Whenever Matt needed advice, Johnny was invariably his first port of call. He’d always been clever, and since he’d gone into journalism he’d begun to build up an impressive network of informants and experts and people who owed him favours. His contacts book, scrupulously maintained and augmented throughout his career, was one of his most prized possessions.

  Resisting the urge to fire questions at his friend, Johnny took a pull on his drink and waited. But it seemed Matt still wasn’t ready to get to the point:

  “On the other hand, there’s been quite a bit of talk about your friend Mr Simkins,” he stalled.

  “Go on,” coaxed Johnny.

  “Mrs Shaw—the murderer’s wife—killed herself last night. They found her this morning. It looks as though she drank a bottle of bleach.”

  Johnny put down his glass. He couldn’t imagine a more agonising death; her vital organs dissolving bit by bit in the chlorine. As if she had not been in enough pain already, what with her husband confessing to the murder of Margaret Murray. Murder rarely involved just one victim.

  “I feel sick,” he said.

  “Me too,” said Matt. “Back in a tick.”

  He certainly looked queasy as he picked his way through the crowd, making a beeline for the gents. Matt was not squeamish—in his job he could not afford to be—and could hold his liquor better than most.

  A few moments later, Matt returned, negotiating the packed bar with uncharacteristic caution. His slightly exaggerated air of being in control could not disguise the fact that he was well on the way to being blotto.

  “Come on, Matt—tell me what’s up.”

  Turner shook his head in confusion. Advice was one thing, but he’d never found it easy to ask for help: to him, it was an admission of weakness. Johnny was the one person he trusted enough to turn to. When they lost the baby, Matt had been desperate not to add to Lizzie’s pain by burdening her with his grief; he’d tried drowning his sorrows and venting his fury on a punch-bag or some over-confident sucker at the gym. It was only when all else had failed that he turned to Johnny. It helped that his friend had experienced loss himself and knew that words, however well meant, changed nothing.