Bent

by Joe Thomas

  ‘You are a known associate of Joseph Oliva,’ Challenor says.

  Cheeseman shakes his head.

  Challenor smiles. There is a nasty edge to this smile. He turns the knife about in his hand and thinks about what to do with it.

  ‘You and Pedrini and Oliva and your associates have been demanding money with menaces,’ Challenor says.

  Cheeseman shakes his head.

  Challenor folds the flick knife and pockets it. Then, holding Cheeseman's hair, he drags him across the cell. Well, the cell being a cell, what he really does here is yank Cheeseman two steps over to a chair. He pulls Cheeseman, using his hair as a lever, onto this chair.

  Cheeseman sits and is looking pretty glum, Challenor thinks. His lip is thickening up something nice, and his hair, now that Challenor has let it go, is all over the place.

  ‘That's what happens when you use so much Brylcreem,’ Challenor says.

  ‘What's that then?’ Cheeseman stutters.

  ‘Your mess of a mop, son. It’ll hold its shape, I suspect. You look like a shrub, my young beauty.’

  Cheeseman says nothing to this. Challenor wonders if Cheeseman might cry. He wonders if he should cry, if he should make Cheeseman cry.

  Challenor grabs Cheeseman by the jaw. He squeezes, hard. He twists Cheeseman's head by his jaw, like he's screwing Cheeseman's head onto a spike and he's using the jaw as leverage — first the hair as a lever, now the jaw - using the jaw as a means of really making sure this head is secure on its spike, properly screwed on and secure. There is no way Cheeseman's head is going anywhere.

  ‘Right then,’ Challenor says. ‘You’ve got the gist. You know why you’re here. If you’re in possession of the fact, I suggest you air your knowledge, chum.’

  Challenor releases Cheeseman's jaw. Challenor slaps Cheeseman, open hand, lightly, twice. Challenor ruffles Cheeseman's hair, pinches his cheek.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep, my old darling,’ he says. ‘I’m coming back.’

  *

  You sit down with hot goats milk, bread and figs —

  Italian peasant farmer's breakfast.

  Maria is all smiles. Tojo is quietly shaking his head and smiling. You haven’t felt better in what feels like an age. A soldier's life! You’re thinking —

  Full belly, the love of a good woman, a red wine slumber and a decent breakfast buffet. What more can any man ask for!

  Well, safe passage, that's the next thing Tojo is thinking about —

  The route to safety.

  Maria has brought her brother to breakfast and Tojo's chatting to him about the mountain route, the trek you’re about to continue, and you’re making eyes at Maria and thinking that maybe you could just stay, melt into the background and stay and forget all about this war and these decisions you’ve made that have meant you’ve ended up here, hiding, fleeing now —

  And then Tojo says, ‘Lets go, Tanks. The path's clear for miles.’ He nods at Marias brother. ‘He's been asking around. We need to get a wriggle on while it's safe.’

  You nod. You grunt and you nod and you bid them a fond farewell and hit the track, your boots into that old groove, that march, that stomp, that trudge —

  One foot in front of the other, your hand on your Schmeisser and your eyes peeled—

  Seconds, minutes, hours.

  *

  Challenor storms across the corridor and steams into Pedrini's cell-

  Pedrini's sitting on the chair in the corner of the cell. His jacket is hung neatly on the back of the chair. He is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He is smoking a cigarette. His top button has been opened and his tie loosened. His hair is a hardening oil-slick of grease. It looks like you could snap it, his hair. He is clean-shaven. His shirt is crisp white, recently ironed. The sleeves are rolled up. His shoes are in the Yank style, two-tone brogues, polished right up.

  Challenor takes all this in and thinks to himself that he's going to enjoy this, that young Pedrini here probably needn’t have got so dressed up, that perhaps the lad might think twice next time he rolls in here with quite such a cocky, sneering, superior, jungle-cat disposition.

  ‘Up,’ Challenor says.

  Pedrini smiles. Slowly - slowly - he pushes the chair back and stands. He takes the cigarette from his mouth and drops it theatrically to the floor. He then rolls his shirtsleeves down. He buttons them up. He then does up the top button of his shirt and adjusts his tie. He takes the jacket from the back of the chair and puts it on. He pushes his wrists through to the end and makes sure that his cuffs are lined up as they should be, almost the exact same amount of white peeking from this slick, well-cut, navy blue Italian suit he's wearing.

  All this takes some time. And times stretches in the pressure cooker of a cell when that cell is currently shared with Detective Sergeant Harold Challenor. Which is to say that the short time it takes for Pedrini to go through this little routine is a very long time indeed.

  Challenor applauds, ironically.

  ‘You cut quite a dash,’ Challenor says. ‘You know, for a prisoner.’

  Pedrini says nothing.

  Challenor takes the piece of iron tubing from his inside pocket; the same iron tubing that was not long ago on the table in the charge room.

  ‘This is yours,’ Challenor says.

  Pedrini nods. Challenor raises his eyebrows.

  Pedrini nods and smiles. ‘It's my cigar holder,’ Pedrini says.

  Challenor is nodding now. He tosses it in his right hand. He spins it and catches it.

  He's nodding.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ Challenor says.

  With his left hand he grabs Pedrini's lapel. He yanks him three feet across the cell, hard, so that Pedrini bangs his shoulder against the wall. Challenor, using only his left hand and forearm, muscles Pedrini into a corner of the cell. He takes his hand off Pedrini's lapel and, in quick succession, punches Pedrini, hard, in the stomach, then, as Pedrini doubles over, grabs his head by the hair and pushes it up against the wall. He lifts Pedrini's head as high as Pedrini's neck will allow.

  Pedrini is breathing very heavily.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ Challenor says.

  He takes the piece of iron tubing and fixes the opening at one end over Pedrini's left eye, so that it forms a sort of child's pretend telescope.

  He pushes it over Pedrini's eye very firmly so that it will mark, it will bruise, quite dramatically, Pedrini's eye socket.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ Challenor says. ‘If this is your cigar holder, my darling,’ he grinds the tubing with greater ferocity and blood starts to drip then trickle then fall from the vicinity of Pedrini's left eye, ‘if this is your cigar holder, then,’ he takes it from Pedrini's eye and examines it himself, looks through it, ‘if this is your cigar holder, young man, then where the fuck is your cigar!’

  Challenor takes one final look at the tubing. He spins it in his hand then pokes it very firmly indeed into Pedrini's stomach. Pedrini doubles up again - he gasps and is clearly in considerable pain, Challenor can see that - and Challenor has a firm grip with his left hand around Pedrini's throat.

  ‘You offered Police Constable Alan David Wells a hundred pounds if he’d see you all right,’ Challenor says.

  Pedrini says nothing. Challenor slaps Pedrini's face with his right hand.

  ‘You are a known associate of Joseph Oliva and the two of you, with others, are involved in a protection racket in Soho and parts of Camden.’

  Pedrini says nothing. Challenor slaps Pedrini's face with his right hand.

  ‘Johnnie Ford ran off tonight when you were approached and was then apprehended by Police Constable Alan David Wells and Police Constable John Bryan Legge.’

  Pedrini says nothing. Challenor does nothing.

  ‘Where the fuck's Johnnie Ford?’

  Pedrini says nothing. Challenor slaps Pedrini's face with his right hand.

  ‘Where the fuck's Johnnie Ford?’

  Pedrini says nothing. Challe
nor slaps Pedrini's face with his right hand.

  ‘Where the fuck's Johnnie Ford?’

  Pedrini says nothing. Challenor slaps Pedrini's face with his right hand.

  Challenor pulls Pedrini by the throat across the cell. Pedrini is bleeding quite heavily now, around the left eye, and in and around his puffed-up mouth, his swollen mouth, which, Challenor notes, is not doing much other than bleeding.

  He plonks Pedrini down on the chair. He pulls the chair and Pedrini into the middle of the cell. He takes Pedrini's tie and undoes it. He holds Pedrini's tie in both hands, and turns it a couple of times around each of his palms so that he is now holding it very securely indeed. He moves behind Pedrini and places the tie around his neck.

  He pulls the tie, hard, and tightens it around Pedrini's neck, like a garrotte.

  Pedrini's hands go to his neck. Hopeless.

  He gasps and gags and coughs and hacks and tries to scream out, to shout -

  Challenor holds firm, keeps his grip secure.

  Challenor keeps this up for a short time, but in the cell it feels like a very long time indeed.

  He comes round to face Pedrini, the tie still in his hand. Pedrini is dazed. Pedrini closes his eyes, rolls his head. His neck has gone. He is rolling his head partly because his neck has gone and partly because he is trying to avoid Challenor.

  Challenor grabs Pedrini by the jaw. Pedrini's jaw is already discolouring, Challenor sees.

  He says, meaning the tie, ‘I’ll take this. Suicide watch.’

  Pedrini groans.

  ‘You know where we are now, champ. I’ll see you soon.’

  Challenor raps on the door with his knuckles. Police Constable Alan David Wells opens the cell door. Police Constable Alan David Wells knows better than to look past Challenor and inside the cell. Challenor notes this, pleased.

  He stalks off down the corridor, the corridor lined with empty cells -

  Nearly there, he thinks.

  What are you going to do about it?

  Go on, my son.

  *

  You walk. You keep to the high ground. The sun is high, autumn fresh, air crisp. It's not so different, you think, to parts of Scotland, near Inverness, where you trained not such a long time ago.

  The same but different. The colours are the same but not quite. The trees are the same but not quite. The rocks on the ground, the stones, they’re the same but they’re not. Everything feels slightly off, slightly out of focus, the colours dampened, filtered somehow so that you recognise them, you know what they are, but they are unmistakably Italian and not English, Scottish, British.

  On a sunny day, the light is almost unbearable to look at —

  This is a relief.

  You can pretend you’re not there. If you cant really see where you are, you’re not really there. And the seconds bleed into the minutes bleed into the hours bleed into the days, the days —

  You barely speak. Tojo's feet are swollen. Your feet are swollen. Your rations are running very low. The top boys had no idea you’d be gone this long.

  But the sun is high and the high ground is safe and there are ways, there are always ways for men like you to get what you need.

  And then in what feels like a hallucination, a very old Italian man is pouring olive oil on a bed of frying weeds or grass and you’re eating and it's delicious and the old mans goats are scrawny, but they’re there so there is milk but no wine —

  The old man is very apologetic regarding the lack of wine.

  Tojo peels off some notes, a bundle of lira.

  ‘Time for a drink, Tanky,’ he says.

  *

  ‘Right,’ Challenor says to Police Constable John Bryan Legge and Police Constable Alan David Wells. ‘Your versions, please.’

  The two police constables look at each other. Challenor's got short odds on Legge to talk first.

  Legge says, ‘Well, sir, we located the group under surveillance leaving the Lorraine club in Soho. There was a number of young women with them. At least two of these young women peeled off and did not join the rest of the group on the way to the Phoenix.’

  Challenor smiles. ‘Did anyone keep an eye on these two women?’

  ‘No,’ Legge says. ‘We understood that we were to keep with the group under suspicion.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Challenor says. He is thinking about Josephine Jennings and cousin Maria Pedrini. ‘Do go on.’

  ‘Some others in the group dispersed, but we stuck with Pedrini and Cheeseman and one other man who we believe to be Johnnie Ford.’

  ‘You stuck with those three?’

  ‘They were making for the Phoenix club with considerable purpose, was our interpretation of the situation.’

  ‘You did the right thing. Go on.’

  ‘When they arrived at the door of the Phoenix,’ Legge is saying, ‘the proprietor, Wilf Gardiner, was standing outside with a large man having a cigarette. The two men seemed relaxed, and Gardiner was telling a joke or story, and the large man - an employee, we believe — was laughing politely. The three men we were observing went straight over to Gardiner and began haranguing him. Gardiner's employee stood firm but was given strict instructions by Gardiner not to intervene.’

  ‘OK,’ Challenor says. ‘What was said?’

  Legge continues, ‘We weren’t able to follow every word of the altercation, but a sum of money — a hundred pounds — was certainly referred to, as well as a number of threats. At one point we believe we heard Pedrini say to Ford “come on, let's do him up, let's stripe the bastard. The aggro he's given us”. There was a moment then that the two groups of men came together, briefly, yes, there was a definite physical exchange. It was at this point we made ourselves known.’

  Challenor is smiling. ‘And after you’d made yourselves known?’

  ‘As we crossed the road, Gardiner clocked us and said something like “about bloody time” which spooked the three lads and one of them, Ford, as I said, we believe it was Ford, scarpered. Seeing it was only two of us on the scene, we let him go. We figured we could find him later and do him for resisted as well as anything else.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Challenor says, grinning. He taps the side of his head and looks at his two police constables. ‘Not just a hat rack, eh, lads?’ he says. ‘Do go on.’

  ‘We held the four men, who have by this time calmed down, and waited for the police van which arrived minutes later. As we’re waiting, Gardiner says something like “I’m fucking bleeding here, officers, the fucking wop bastards have nicked me, they’ve cut me” and we can confirm that his ear was bleeding, though the nature of the cut was far from fatal, if you get my drift.’

  Challenor certainly does get Police Constable John Bryan Legge's drift. He grins — wide.

  ‘Good old Wilf,’ Challenor says, the irony rather more obvious than old Wilf's wound. ‘And Gardiner gave a witness statement, and you charged Cheeseman and Pedrini, and now here we all are?’

  Police Constable John Bryan Legge and Police Constable Alan David Wells both nod.

  Challenor nods.

  This is all going exactly according to plan.

  *

  You dig around in your pockets. You throw a few more notes at the old man —

  ‘You better take a barrow,’ you say.

  Tojo laughs and translates.

  You sit and you wait for three long hours. You don’t know this very old man from Adam. But for the previous two nights — like scores of others previous — you have slept in a bush, cuddling together to repel the cold, and the strain of this discomfort, the physical toll it's taken, coupled with the fear of getting caught, of being betrayed or captured, has meant Tojo will take a risk on this very old Italian man.

  You sit stock still, not expending any energy. This is how you were trained. Whenever you get a chance to rest, whenever there is any down time at all, take it, shut down, recharge, try out a bit of the old Italian chit chat with Tojo.

  You take half-hour shifts and get a little sh
ut-eye and rest your legs and your feet. Your feet. Christ. All four of them are blue, peeling, blisters taking hold all over them, your feet more blister than foot, to be fair.

  Tojo's are worse. Quite a lot worse. You say nothing. It's the senior officer's prerogative to comment on, or not comment on, any physical issues he may, or may not, be having. You keep your trap shut, you keep your, what's the word, your counsel.

  The very old Italian man returns with more wine than you can shake a goat herder's staff at. And seeing as the very old man is a goat herder and has a goat herder's staff, you are able to prove this hypothesis, you are able to prove it quite a number of times, and it's especially funny to demonstrate this proof after a good deal of the wine has been sunk.

  Good, solid drinking, you have. It's got a hell of a thump to it, your Italian peasant wine. And with little to eat for days but raw chestnuts, it certainly hefts you along with it, certainly pummels you into quick submission.

  You remember:

  Trying to sing a dirty song under a star-filled sky on the high ground of the Apennines, and directing this song at the sophisticated folks of Florence, who are, you reckon, not too many miles away.

  You remember:

  Not getting much of an audience for this dirty ditty, this drunken chorister's performance, as your very old Italian host is fast asleep with his head on your makeshift table, and lieutenant Wedderburn is occupied with giving the old coot something of a stern lecture on the essentials of mountaineering.

  *

  Challenor's back in the charge room and this time he is with Johnnie Ford.

  It is now 1.30 in the morning. Approximately half an hour earlier, Challenor is told, Police Constables David Leonard Harris and David Paul Stephenson picked up Johnnie Ford. When Johnnie Ford was told that he was being arrested for demanding money with menaces, he is alleged to have said: ‘It's that bastard Gardiner; he's grassed on us. It's a nice club he's got. If he puts the needle to me, he won’t have it for long.’

  On arrival at West End Central, Johnnie Ford was searched but nothing of any consequence was found on his person.

  Challenor and Ford are sitting in the charge room and Challenor is calm. Ford, however, is agitated, perhaps understandably, given his recent arrest. Challenor's calm is intended as a riposte to Ford's agitation, and designed by Challenor to wind Ford up further. Challenor knows that Ford has a temper and that Ford has a history of violent behaviour and Challenor reckons the opposite approach to that which he took with Cheeseman and Pedrini is the way to go.