He had bought this motor-car which was now speeding him on his way to the dairy a year ago; second-hand but good as new. It was a possession to be proud of, as smart and comfortable as any gentleman’s carriage; and inside its high windowed saloon he was warm and sheltered from the weather on this dark winter morning. He didn’t have to worry either about the moneybag on the cushions next to him. He could do sixty miles an hour if need be in this motor.
Not that he gave a thought to the money. His routine was long-tried and safe. On Wednesday one of the men accompanied him to the bank. They returned to the car with the stout little gladstone bag full of coins and drove to his home, where the coachhouse was built on to the main structure. He ran in, the door was closed behind him by the dairyman who then left; he entered the house through a connecting door and put the money in his safe. The safe was guarded through the night by his dog Gelert (Mr Owen knew his Welsh history). In the morning all he had to do was drive straight from his coachhouse to the dairy.
The books had been brought almost up to date by yesterday evening; but there was still the last round and the evening skimmed-milk round to be reckoned in for commission; it would take a smart morning’s work to have every man’s pay ready by midday.
He forked left out of the main road, slowed in the long side turning and drove slowly in between the wide gateposts of the dairy yard. The floats were already away, but fifty yards in front of him the low line of the sheds was broken by squares of dim lantern-light through open half-doors. A few black human figures moved in and out of the light. He could see the coal fire’s nest of red through the glass facade of his office on the left.
He turned right into the old stable, his headlamps lighting brilliantly the uneven brick floor still thinly littered with rotten straw and the whitewashed wall in front. He stopped the car as its bonnet almost touched the wall. He turned off the headlamps. He opened the door, took up his bag and stepped out of the motor-car. In comparison with the blinded darkness in which he stood beneath the low hayloft floor the darkness of the yard in front of him was a pallor. He stepped towards it, staggered in terror under the sudden slump of weight that bore him down, felt a burst of brilliant pain in the back of his skull and —
Not a sound. Dido threw away the small sandbag with which he had dropped from the loft, brushed straw off his coat with a gloved hand, picked up the gladstone bag, pulled from his pocket a black oilcloth shopping-bag and dropped the other bag into it. He moved towards the door. From just inside the entrance he peered across the yard. The small, distant figures moved about their affairs. In the other direction, the street was empty and silent.
He slipped out, remaining against the wall, and moved along the wall in the angle of thicker darkness formed by the wall of the stable and that of the entrance. He was almost at the gate. Another rapid glance in each direction, then he stepped out, and walked away down the street, a man with a shopping-bag going about his business.
It was daylight when he approached Rabbit Marsh. This suited him. There was no reason why he should be connected with the robbery; and in the last resort no proof. If there were people astir his presence in the street would be normal at this hour, perhaps even unnoticed. His hiding-place was ready; not in the house of course. He still went in the mornings to harness up Tommy Long’s horse for him and he would go to the stable as usual. In the place he had found, the money would be safe as in the Bank of England; until he judged things to be all quiet and, with passages booked, he could just melt away one day with Grace and his baby.
One of the watchers at the window looked round as Inspector Merry came into the room. He noticed that Merry had abandoned his dainty shoes for a pair of massive issue boots. Merry said, “Has he come back yet?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“He never showed up at the wine merchant’s. I thought he might switch his plan. He’s that sort of fellow. But I don’t know where he’s got to now.”
They waited, and after a little while one of the constables said, “There he is.”
He walked into the street, a small figure on the opposite pavement. He was carrying a black shopping bag that bulged at the bottom. They watched in silence. He went past his own house and continued on his way. He turned into the stable archway. Merry stood up and the other two rose with him. “You wait here,” he said. “I’m going to have a look-see.”
One of the constables said, “I wouldn’t tackle that chap one-handed.”
“You wait,” Merry said. “Wait here. Till I blow my whistle.”
The stable yard was empty. Dido stepped into Tommy’s shed and with sure rapid movements shifted a heap of old furniture. In a few moments a crate stood revealed. He moved this aside. In the brick floor where it had been was a manhole. It was a drains inspection manhole covered with the rust of years except round the rims, where Dido had pried it out. It would just take the moneybag, wedged on top of the drainpipe. With the cover back in place, dirt and rust brushed back over the rims, the crate put back and buried once more by the heap of furniture, Dido had no fear for the money.
He lifted the iron cover and pulled the gladstone bag out of the carrier. A voice came to him from the doorway. “Wakey wakey.”
Merry stood there, his lips tucked up in an odd smile. Dido hurled the moneybag at him and dived after it. Merry staggered aside and Dido raced to leap for the back wall. He was not running with any hope or object; it was an animal reflex.
He jumped down into a strange back yard and as he ran for the house he heard Merry’s boots land on the flagstones behind him. The back door was closed but he ran at it like a battering-ram with fists clasped to his head and it crashed open.
As he staggered into the passage of the house there were shouts from the stairs, faces gaping at him over the banisters; and Merry was in, and the two men were swinging punches in the narrow passage. Dido stopped Merry with a right to the belly, and while his adversary was still gasping, half-doubled, swung a full slop-bucket at him by its handle.
Out through the front door into Jenner Street, alongside the railway embankment. The babble of voices followed him. People appeared at other doors. He ran for the wall but his fingers missed the top and he was running again, Merry pounding after him. The railway. The yards. Acres of rails, sidings, sheds, thousands of trucks. There must be somewhere he could hide, gain a minute’s respite.
The wall was lower ahead. He ran for it and his hands grasped the top, but arms clasped his legs, he thumped to the ground on top of Merry. The men rolled upon each other, striving, their faces strained with effort and the rage to kill. Merry on top, hair spiked, face dripping, clothes soaked with slops, panting, blocked Dido’s arms with one elbow and with his free hand clutching Dido’s hair banged Dido’s head on the pavement. A heave that almost tore Dido’s guts and he was half-up, ramming Merry against the wall with all his body’s force. He staggered up, Merry clinging to his coat, pulled free of the coat and ran. Merry flung the coat aside and dived after him. Dido was almost at the steps. These steps rose steeply above the level of the wall, giving access to the bridge; and by another flight of steps to the alley which led to Rabbit Marsh.
Dido dashed up the steps. There was only a wire fence between the platform and the railway, over which he could easily swing. But at the top he turned and waited. The money was gone. He was done for, his gamble for life was lost. There was only his rage left; a rage fed by the restraint of months; the lust to grapple with this man who had become his personal enemy, who personified all the enemies, all the inimical forces that had driven him to the slaughter; for slaughter, in his fury, it must be — one of them or the other.
Merry had thrown away coat and jacket. His shirt was torn and blood from his face stained it. He dodged to and fro as Dido above him moved to smash him down, and after a feint leaped the last steps on to the platform, pinned at once to the fence by Dido’s assault. The two men strained together, thumping short punches into each other, their bodies bending like those of two locked dan
cers. Dido’s weight bent Merry back, back, in a pressure that would either break his spine or throw him down on to the railway lines.
Merry butted head to head and Dido’s grip weakened for a moment, his face a mess of blood beneath glaring eyes and in the moment Merry wrenched free. They lurched to and fro, punching. People from Jenner Street were running towards the foot of the steps to gather, staring, in a clamour of talk. The two men knew nothing of them.
In a scutter of small steps Merry was driven back towards the far edge of the platform. At the last moment he swung aside, put out his left foot and drove a punch to Dido’s face. Dido went over his leg and crashed head down on the steps. Half-stunned he tried to raise himself but Merry was on him and a kick sent him rolling down; and another. He rolled down into the alley like a weighted sack and sprawled on the pavement.
Merry ran down. From both directions footsteps and voices closed in. He had only seconds. He stood over his senseless enemy; the wild beast he had hunted down, for whom locking away was too good, on whom he must inflict his own punishment, who must be made harmless. With all his strength he drove the toe of a police boot into the base of Dido’s spine. Then he stamped hard on the back of each limp hand and brought a heel down upon the instep of each ankle, where the small bones were.
People from Jenner Street were on the platform above, gaping down. In the narrow entrance at the Rabbit Marsh end, more people were crowding. Mr Merry leaned against a wall, breathing hard. Only now did he fumble in the fob pocket of his trousers, bring out a police whistle, put it to his lips and blow three shrill blasts.
Chapter Twenty-nine
At eight o’clock on a Sunday morning in the summer of 1918, a small, bent man rose from a mattress on the floor of one of the hovels in Jaggs Place and put on his creased, stained jacket and trousers. He was Dido Peach.
He had been out of prison on licence for two months. He shared the room with two other derelicts who both still snored on their mattresses.
Even when he stood up his back was bowed. Merry’s kick had damaged his spine. He hobbled because the bones of his feet had not healed straight and for the same reasons his hands were like the crooked claws of an advanced arthritic.
With stealthy speed he took a few trifles from under his mattress and stuffed them into his pockets. He could not trust his room-mates. He was alone in the world.
Soon after he had gone to prison Grace had returned to work at the teashop. Two months later she had slipped out of the house early one morning carrying her baby and a bundle. Roley Blakers, who was out riding his bicycle, saw a young man with glasses help her into a taxicab and heard the young man answer to the name of Sidney.
Terrified by the sudden disappearance of the girl and the child Mrs Peach applied to the only representative of authority she knew, P.C. Gaffney. Some time later the police ascertained that the girl and her baby, in company with the young man, had left the country. Perhaps somewhere in a golden climate Dido’s daughter grew up to be as he had wished — happy, prosperous, educated and respected; for in the human tangle there are some strands of hope and well-being; but he would never know and nor do we.
Chas went to France with the Expeditionary Force and was blown to pieces within a month. Shonny joined up under age and before he was eighteen he was killed at Ypres, his apple cheeks worm-eaten.
Mrs Peach was said by the women in the shops to be mental, with her wandering eyes and puzzled, private mutterings; and Ada took her away. Ada never wished to see or hear of her brother again and Mrs Peach never again saw her son.
Mr Merry stepped out of Blakers’ shop. “Don’t you worry,” he said.
“A wink is as good as a nod,” Blakers said and disappeared inside. After four years of war Stanley Blakers had not been called to the colours and the good offices of Mr Merry had something to do with it. Blakers had not been unwilling to show his appreciation. There were many who would pay large tribute to an influential policeman these days. Merchants avoided the rationing laws. Wealthy foreigners flouted the Aliens Regulations. Publicans and club owners kept late hours in spite of the new Defence of the Realm Act. All were grateful for a blind eye. Mr Merry’s principles had not changed. He was always strict to administer the law — the law as he saw it. But petty regulations did not concern him. He was a man of authority. He could do lordly favours, exercise his lordly discretion. If thank-offerings came his way — well, that was no more than his rights. It had nothing to do with bribe-taking, which was a mean and petty business.
He was a Superintendent, his promotion hastened by his past achievements. He was no longer in the Division but his work at the Yard often brought him down here and indeed he came out of inclination as well as duty, for he still looked upon the district as his fief.
He looked these days a prosperous and worldly man; and he was. His children were doing well at their grammar schools. A substantial house was being built in his mother’s name which in the course of time would come to him. He had put on weight. It showed in the swell of the smooth, rosy skin over his cheekbones and it made his eyes look smaller, more intimidating for all their mildness. It showed in the increased breadth of his smart summer overcoat with its black velvet collar. He still carried an umbrella. It was furled in its case like a rod of black, its spokes enclosed in a band of chased silver. No one had ever seen him open the umbrella. In a drizzle he kept it rolled and in heavier rain he was somehow never about. With the handle of his umbrella he gripped a rolled pair of new tan gloves. His feet were encased in small, shiny shoes.
He crossed the road and surveyed the street as he strolled. It was quieter these days. The war, of course. It had taken the men away. In fact the war in his view had done a bit of good down here. The roughs had turned out to be a patriotic lot, all rushing to join up at the start of it; and by now most of them were heaps of rags on the plains of France. But there was no doubt, there was also more money about. And there were these Lloyd George insurance things. And most of all the licensing hours, which had closed the pubs for most of the day and almost emptied the streets of the drunks who had once abounded. War or no war, it would never be the same again round here. And some of the change was his doing. That gave him great satisfaction.
Mr Merry paused. Dido Peach came limping out of Barsky’s shop. He carried a pair of trestles which he set up in the roadway. While Merry watched he returned to the shop and soon reappeared with the board, posts and tarpaulin cover to set up the stall. He scratched a living doing this and other odd jobs for the traders. Barsky dropped some coins into his claw; he bobbed his hand in acknowledgement and started across the road like a lamed crab towards another shop.
He reached the far pavement near Mr Merry. Merry swung the point of his umbrella up as a sign to Dido, then held it out to keep Dido at its length. He said, “Morning, Dido.”
“Mornin’.”
“How you keeping?”
Dido’s voice was husky. What with those ribs stove in and more than five years in a damp cell, he was a bit bronchial. “Mustn’ grumble.”
Merry lowered the point of his umbrella to the pavement and leaned on it. His faint, approving smile took in Dido from head to foot; and he noted the way the man bore the inspection, patient as a donkey. Merry said, “They treating you all right?”
“Mustn’ grumble.” Dido’s crookback made him look like a menial, his unrevealing gaze level with the buttons of the detective’s coat.
“Well —” Merry spun a shilling into the air. “Behave yourself.”
The coin dropped to the pavement. Dido’s head came up and for a moment his eyes looked directly at Merry, astonishingly alive and clear. Then he stooped and picked up the coin. Afterwards, “Much oblige.”
“Keep your nose clean.”
Dido was silent. Only his eyes answered, looking directly into Merry’s; clear, grey, unfathomably patient. He had lost everything except the only place he knew, the familiar place in which to die. In silence he would endure anything, from this man and fr
om the others, rather than be driven from it.
The detective strode on as if Dido no longer existed. Dido hobbled rapidly into a shop. Mr Merry went away down the street, tranquil of countenance, brisk of step, swinging his umbrella, making the weekly round of his province.
Other books by Alexander Baron
Rosie Hogarth
Introduction by Andrew Whitehead
In the spring of 1949, Jack Agass belatedly returns from the war to the working class street in Islington where he grew up. A proud, supportive community with a pub and a barber shop, and a common love of The Arsenal. But the street has changed. Jack eventually finds his footing but he’s haunted by a yearning for his old childhood friend, Rosie Hogarth, and for the pre-war security and certainties she represents. Rosie has moved out and up — living bohemian-style in Bloomsbury. He thinks she’s selling sex — it turns out her motive is political.
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paperback: 9781905512980
ebook: 9781907869853
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Introduction by Sean Longden
The story of soldiers of the Fifth Battalion, the Wessex Regiment in the run up to and after D-Day. Although fictional, it comes directly out of the author's own experience, and is one of the most accurate and unsentimental portrayals of the ordinary soldier's life anywhere in fiction. The prose is spare and crisp, sometimes chilling but alive to the humour and humanity of soldiers at war.
King Dido Page 34
