Snow Hill

by Mark Sanderson

  “You lied to me.”

  “When?”

  “When you said your contacts at Snow Hill had assured you that everyone was accounted for. You said someone was sacked, not transferred or injured. Rotherforth told you to say that, didn’t he?”

  “What makes you think I took orders from him?”

  “I saw you coming out of the Urania Bookshop.”

  “Ah.” Bill took a long swig of beer. “So my little secret is finally out.”

  “Which one? Your collaboration with Rotherforth, or your taste for young men?”

  “One led to the other, actually. It started the usual way: he would give me the odd tip-off and I would occasionally write something favourable for him. He paid good money. How d’you think I could afford to help you with your mother’s medical bills?”

  Johnny put down his pint. The notion that pornography had paid for her treatment was an unpleasant one. Then again, at least some good had come out of the whole dirty business.

  “Look, Johnny, I had no idea what the murdering bastard was up to. He seemed like one of the good guys—war hero, family man, all-round decent cop. He lied to me. When I learned about his involvement in the bookshop it was too late—and seeing its wares stirred something inside me.” He leaned forward to whisper: “What harm is there in looking at books? So what if I like looking at naked men as well as women? You’d be surprised how many people do.”

  “Nothing surprises me any more,” said Johnny. “I owe you a lot, Bill, and you can rely on my discretion. But if you’d told me the truth about Rotherforth, three lives could have been saved. It’s not something I’d like on my conscience.”

  “Who are you to lecture me about conscience! You’ve no right to come on all holier-than-thou. Gogg, Moss and Timney—who, by the way, was a good lad—would all be alive today if you hadn’t been so concerned about boosting your career.”

  “It wasn’t just about that,” said Johnny, shifting uncomfortably. “I was trying to help a friend.”

  “You mean PC Turner? He can look after himself.”

  Johnny hung his head. “You’re right. I always knew that. Perhaps I was using him as a pretext.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, lad. You were doing what I taught you to do: following the truth wherever it led.”

  “One thing I have learned,” said Johnny. “Queers—no disrespect intended—are just like the rest of us. Only having seen them in the dock, I was looking at them from a false perspective. When it comes down to it, there are just good men and bad men—and most of us are a mixture of both. Good and bad, I mean.” He gazed into his glass. “You don’t fancy me, do you?”

  Bill’s laughter dissolved in a fit of coughing. “My dear boy! I adore you—but not in that way. Never have, never will.”

  Johnny was relieved yet at the same time vaguely insulted. The expression on his face made Bill laugh—and cough—all the more.

  “Just three more months, Coppernob, and you’ll be shot of me. They’ll put me out to grass like a purblind pit pony. I shall go into enforced exile like Trotsky—although in my case it’ll be Margate not Mexico.” He raised his glass and winked. “Bottoms up!”

  There it was in black and white—KILLER COP SHOOTS HIMSELF—and in smaller letters underneath: John Steadman Crime Reporter.

  He gathered up three copies, said goodnight to Bill, flicked Louis’ earlobe as he passed, and made his way to the lift. The cries of congratulation, some mixed with envy, were only cut off by the closing doors.

  Lilian Voss was just emerging from the gate by St Bartholomew-the-Little when he arrived. He’d had to dash to get there in time for the end of her shift. She looked taken aback when she saw him, said something to her two colleagues who carried on towards Little Britain, and crossed the road to join him on the recreation ground where, thirteen days earlier, he had first spoken to Harry Gogg.

  He handed her a copy of the Daily News.

  “I wanted to give you this personally. I’m afraid George is dead. He died in Snow Hill. His inspector drugged his cocoa—his intention was to molest George while he was under the influence of the drug, but he miscalculated the dose. George would have known nothing about it: he never woke up. The inspector shot himself last night. The exact circumstances leading up to their deaths are unlikely to be revealed.”

  “I knew he wouldn’t have jilted me.” There were no tears, just a dignified stoicism. Perhaps her job had inured her to untimely death and the viciousness of human nature. She held out her hand. “Thank you.”

  Johnny took her hand in both of his. “I’m so sorry. By all accounts, George was a fine man. I know it’s too soon for you to think of such things, but I don’t believe he would want you to live your life in mourning; he’d want you to be happy, to find another man to love. When that time comes, I’m sure you won’t be short of suitors.”

  “You’re very kind. You may be right, but I’ve always believed that we each have just one soul mate. I’m lucky that I found mine. Nothing and nobody can take away my love for George. I’ll always love him.”

  Johnny handed her a large brown envelope. It contained a copy of the photograph from the Smithfield Sentinel that had been used to illustrate his exclusive. Inspector Rotherforth, Tom Vinson, George Aitken and Matt stood proudly among their colleagues on the steps of the Old Bailey.

  Lilian traced George’s outline with her index finger. She was shaking but she still did not cry. “Thank you. You’re a true gentleman. Goodbye.”

  As soon as she’d got the words out she turned and ran across the road.

  Johnny had one more errand to run before he could go home to get some much needed sleep, but first he needed a drink. On the other side of the recreation ground, he could hear sounds of jollity as shift-workers made their way into the Cock. The place was packed with office workers, porters and postmen determined to make the most of the festive season.

  Stella, helping out behind the bar, did a magnificent double-take when she clocked him.

  “Full of surprises, aren’t we?” Looking genuinely pleased to see him, she placed a Scotch on the bar.

  When she refused to take any payment, he gave her a copy of the newspaper. “I don’t think your father will have any more trouble. This will explain why I had to, er, lie low for a few days.”

  “Thanks. I’ve already heard about your exploits. What are you doing on Christmas Day?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it.” He was lying: he’d been expecting to spend it by himself as usual.

  “Why not come for dinner? About one o’clock? We’ll be closed, but there will be about ten of us. Pa will want to shake your hand when he realises that you’re the man who cleaned out Snow Hill.”

  “He’ll want to shake me by the neck when he realises my plans for you.”

  Her blush gave him a warm feeling inside. It was a long time since he had felt that way.

  The receptionist at the Daily Chronicle looked him up and down with disdain as she tried Simkins’ extension.

  “I’m sorry, sir. There’s no reply.”

  “That’s because I’m here,” said a posh voice. “Come to gloat, Steadman?” He held a copy of the Daily News in his hand. “Congratulations, anyway. You had me fooled. I’m on my way to Trump’s. Fancy coming along?”

  Johnny had several things he wanted to say, but the foyer of a newspaper was not the place to say them—after all, he might want a job there one day—so he reluctantly agreed to endure Simkins’ company a while longer.

  It took less than a minute for his rival to hail a cab. His height and assurance seemed to bend the world to his will.

  “Cheers!” Simkins swirled the brandy in his glass. “Here’s to a brilliant exclusive and a well-deserved promotion. We’re equals now.”

  “Hardly,” said Johnny. “You’re far more experienced in so many ways. It was your gift for accents that tipped me off someone might have impersonated Aitken on the telephone to create the impression he was still alive.
So thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Simkins frowned. “But that wasn’t the only tip-off you had.”

  “No, it was Tom Vinson who started me on the trail.”

  “Ah, yes. Satan’s little helper.”

  “Satan—yes, that was Rotherforth, all right. How much did you know about him?”

  Simkins looked uncomfortable. “I knew about the bookshop and his connection to Zick, but had no idea he was one for the boys.”

  “I suppose you got all that out of your system at school.”

  “Something like that. You?”

  “It wasn’t that kind of school.”

  “No. I suppose not. I saw you go into the bookshop that night. I was the one who called the fire brigade.”

  “Then you must have been following me.”

  “I was actually waiting for Rotherforth. He’d promised me some photographs.”

  Johnny’s blood ran cold. Simkins noted his reaction.

  “Photographs of what?” asked Johnny.

  “Members of Parliament playing with other—how shall I put it…?—members.”

  “And did you get these photographs?”

  “He swore he’d get them to me after Christmas—provided I kept quiet about seeing him leave the bookshop just before it went up in flames.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “What else could I do? It was far too late to rescue anyone. Besides, Rotherforth told me he’d seen someone leaving via the back door and he was certain it was you.”

  “There was no back door.”

  “I wasn’t to know that. When you were listed as one of the dead, I assumed it must have been the arsonist Rotherforth saw slipping out. Had I realised that he was responsible, I would have gone straight to Scotland Yard. At the time, I thought the porn-racket was his only guilty secret. I hoped my silence would persuade him to cough up the photographs—anything to outrage my dear pater and his party.”

  “Did he tell you what to write the day after?”

  “No one tells me what to write—but he did tell me where to find the suicide note. I thought it was a nice little exclusive. How was I to know it was a fake? Anyway, as well as letting Rotherforth off the hook, it lent credence to your cunning little plan. You should thank me.”

  “Thank you? Not only did you leave me to burn, you had no qualms about sending a pregnant woman to Zick’s place. Would you like me to thank you for that too? She—and the baby—could have died.”

  “You mean Mrs Turner? I had no idea she had a bun in the oven, and I didn’t send her anywhere. I simply asked her to quiz her husband. The cops were stonewalling as usual. I knew Gogg worked at Zick’s and I was trying to put the pieces together. I would have exposed Rotherforth eventually.”

  “Only after you’d got your manicured hands on those photographs.”

  “I haven’t given up yet.”

  “As a matter of fact, PC Turner is doing his best to trace James Timney, Rotherforth’s pet shutterbug. But I’d steer well clear of Matt if I were you.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I look forward to further developments. Ha ha!” He nodded at Johnny’s empty glass. “Another?”

  “No thanks.” Johnny stood up. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  “You can count on it. Yuletide felicitations.”

  The next day, Wednesday, 23rd December, Johnny was interviewed at Snow Hill.

  Though his inquisitors were coolly polite rather than hostile, they grilled him on every last detail of his article and admonished him for leaving the scene of a murder.

  He neither expected nor received thanks for ridding the station of a man who had brought their force into gross disrepute.

  Lizzie was released from hospital after a night spent under observation.

  She and the baby were said to be unlikely to suffer any long-term ill effects.

  Matt had already returned to patrolling the streets of the City.

  Beat patrol in the small hours of the night left him with plenty of time to think about recent events.

  He vowed that one day, no matter what pile of dung the scoundrel had crawled under, he would find Cecil Zick and see him brought to justice. He took every opportunity to grill any rent-boy he encountered about the vanished brothel-keeper. His natural good looks, and air of understanding—if only they knew how much he understood!—soon overcame their initial suspicion and reluctance. He persuaded them that not all cops were queer-bashers.

  Johnny arranged for a monumental mason to replace the temporary marker on his erstwhile grave with a headstone bearing the name Charles Timney. Having ascertained his date of birth from the Public Records Office, he ensured Timney’s life-span was recorded too. It was the least he could do. The coroner had been informed, but Timney’s next-of-kin seemed to have fallen off the edge of the world. The family home in Stoke Newington was empty. Former neighbours implied the Timneys had done a midnight flit.

  Having laid some chrysanthemums on his mother’s grave, Johnny stood at the foot of Charles’ last resting place. Apart from that moment when he’d heard the boy’s footsteps on the floor above him, followed by the sound of coughing as the bookshop went up in flames, they’d had no contact. Yet he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was partly to blame for Charles’ death. More troubling still had been the discovery that the boy’s own father had rejected him just for being himself.

  Fathers and sons…There was Matt, determined to outshine his. Simkins, consumed with hatred for his. It was almost enough to make him glad that he had not known his own father. Almost—but not quite.

  Inspector Rotherforth’s funeral was a small, private affair for immediate family only.

  His body was buried in the far corner of a Holloway churchyard, reserved for suicides and tramps, where the nettles grew unchecked.

  On Wednesday, 30th December, the funeral of PC Tom Vinson was held at St Sepulchre’s. He was afforded full police honours, and in his eulogy the priest praised Tom’s bravery and selflessness. Every pew was filled.

  After the service, Johnny and Matt joined the cortège for the slow journey to the City of London cemetery in Manor Park. There they watched Tom’s coffin being lowered into the ground.

  Johnny bit his lip so hard it bled. Only Tom’s mother and sister were crying.

  As they left the graveyard, Johnny handed Matt an envelope. “No prizes for guessing what it is. Returned as promised.”

  Daisy’s vindictive stunt had failed. He had no intention of ever seeing her again.

  “Thank you,” said Matt. “At least this is one secret that did not come out.”

  Johnny remained silent for a few moments, then he asked: “D’you think Tom loved you the way Lizzie does?”

  “What sort of question is that?”

  “A reasonable one.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “He saved your life.”

  “He did a few other things as well.”

  “I know, but we both owe him a great deal.”

  “Drop it, Johnny.”

  “Okay, okay. All I’m saying is, I’m glad you’re still with us. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Matt looked round to see if anyone was watching, then put his arm round Johnny’s neck, pulled him close, and, as if they were back in the playground, ruffled his ginger hair.

  AFTERWORD

  The germ of this story was told to me by the son of a cop stationed at Snow Hill in the 1930s. An inspector took to doping the cocoa of constables in his care so that he could have sex with them. One evening he misjudged the dose with the result that a young man tragically died. The inspector went home and hanged himself. For a while, around Smithfield, Snow Hill became a slang term for limp-wristed.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, despite extensive research, I have been unable to find any evidence to corroborate the story.

  Whatever the truth may be, the rest of this novel is certainly impure make-believe.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Four
books in particular proved invaluable in my research:

  This Small Cloud: A Personal Memoir by Harry Daley (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986)

  Smithfield: Past and Present by Alec Forshaw and Theo Bergström (Robert Hale, 1990)

  The London Encyclopedia edited by Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert (Macmillan, 1993)

  Islington’s Cinemas & Film Studios by Chris Draper

  (Islington Libraries)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to give heartfelt thanks to my agent Jonny Geller and my editors Julia Wisdom and Anne O’Brien—Snow Hill would have been a very different book without them. Roger Appleby kindly showed me round the museum at Wood Street Police Station, London, EC2. Finally, a special thank you to Brian Case who set the snowball rolling.

  About the Author

  Mark Sanderson is a journalist. Since 1999 he has written the Literary Life column in the Sunday Telegraph and he reviews crime fiction for the Evening Standard. His memoir, Wrong Rooms, a moving account of his relationship with his partner who died from skin cancer, was published in 2002 to widespread critical acclaim. Melvyn Bragg described it as ‘one of the most moving I have ever read’.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  By the Same Author

  Wrong Rooms: A Memoir

  Copyright

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it while in some instances based on real historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010