by Joe Thomas
*
‘Don’t hit me.’
Challenor grins. ‘I ain’t going to hit you, my darling. I don’t think there's any need. I think this is open and shut, my old son.’
Oliva glares. ‘Where are my birds?’ he says. ‘What have you done with them?’
‘Your birds? They’re with matron, your birds are. I wouldn’t go calling them your birds for a bit, though. I suspect they know which side their bread is buttered, if you understand the expression, in this case.’
‘Yeah, I get it, Uncle Harry. You’re an iffy badge, a wrong ‘un, a short eyes, and you’ll see to it they’ll sign whatever it is you want them to. That about right, is it?’
Challenor nods. ‘I’d say so, yes, love. That. Is. About. Right.’
Oliva nods. ‘Well, you know what I’ll say.’
‘Do I?’
‘Course you do, detective. You’ve framed me with that bottle and you and your cronies know it. Do me a favour, Uncle Harry,’ he says, ‘it's clear as a bell you’ve got the needle to us.’
Challenor sniffs and clears his throat. ‘What's that cologne? Eau de Ponce?’
Oliva ignores Challenor, goes on. ‘You get my brief and we can get this sorted.’ Now, he smiles. Challenor sees him smile. And this sparks something in Challenor. He waits. Oliva says, ‘It ain’t a problem, Harry. I won’t bring anything against you, a complaint, charges or whatnot. We’ll just pretend this never happened.’ He takes a step closer to Challenor. ‘No reason we can’t work together, in my mind. Sai cosa intendo?
‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Ma che sei grullo, young man.’
Oliva raises his eyebrows at that one, Challenor notices. He learned that from a lad in Italy: you must be joking, was the basic translation. Having a laugh.
‘You don’t like us wops, do you, Harry?’
Challenor glares, now. He is not having that. He is not having any of that. He is not going to mess about anymore, Challenor. ‘Maria Pedrini's a nice bird,’ he says. ‘She one of yours?’
‘Now why you got to mention Maria, eh?’
‘Answer the question.’
‘Well, it depends, dunnit. Depends on the day, on the circumstances, you know, on the situation.’
‘She’ll turn, you know,’ Challenor says. ‘She's about two thirds there already, I reckon.’ He pauses. ‘Least she was when I last saw her.’ He makes a salacious face, a vulgar face, a very unambiguous kind of face. ‘Very private, that little church of yours, innit? Comfortable little crypt, eh?’
Oliva has balled his fists. ‘You shut your mouth.’
‘Yeah, she's fiery, young Maria. It wasn’t easy.’ Challenor points at his neck: there is a reddening scratch and soft-looking bruise. Self-inflicted, not ten minutes before he paid Oliva this visit, but who's to know. ‘See that? Smarts, it does.’
‘You fucking — ‘
‘She’ll turn on the lot of you now. Riccardo too. All I got to do is put the word out she's tainted goods. Sai cosa intendo?
Oliva grunts and turns and picks up the chair in the cell. ‘You’re not going to hit me, Uncle fucking Harry,’ he yells, ‘as I’ve eaten bigger blokes than you!’
He comes at Challenor, the chair above his head. Challenor moves, deftly, to the side, pivots on his right foot, swings his shoulders round to avoid Olivas charge, and brings his hand down hard in a chop on Oliva's neck, his windpipe.
Oliva is knocked back, drops the chair.
Challenor takes one step, and plants his boot in Oliva's stomach. Oliva gasps and rolls into the foetal position, clutching himself.
Challenor takes off his jacket. Challenor leans over him.
Challenor spits in his ear. ‘I’m going to enjoy this, sunshine. Bel ragazzo.’
Later, Challenor thinks about Mamma Eliseio, how he owes her his life, when it comes down to it. And bloody hell if she and hers weren’t brave! They’d have done anything for Tanky and Tojo, and anyone else sticking it to the Krauts, Challenor reckons. And lucky too. Snouts everywhere, there were, bleating sheep, any number of possible grasses — you got in with the Krauts and they made it worth your while.
They certainly didn’t mess about when it came to reprisals.
Challenor remembers what happened on March 23rd, 1944.
The Italian partisans in Rome went and lobbed a homemade bomb at an SS unit, and thirty-three of the Germans bought it. The Krauts did not like that one bit. The next day, they rounded up three hundred and thirty-five Italian civilians and took them down to a spot in the Ardeatine caves. It was quiet down there, Challenor heard, a murky spot for a murky business. The Krauts only went and executed the lot, massacred the poor sods, shot dead as a simple act of revenge. Thirty-three SS; we’ll have ten times your lot, was the thinking. Crummy bastards.
Thank God for Mamma Eliseio and her family.
Thank God for the good fortune and the good Italians that kept Challenor alive.
*
Christmas Eve itself is a grand old smash-up, crikey, they know how to hold a village celebration, they do —
Not the war, not the freezing weather, nothing is going to get in the way of the traditional festivities, as neighbour calls upon neighbour, thrusting their wine like weapons, and drinking their way through the village.
And you’re getting drunker and drunker, you are, reeling from the whole affair, you are, really tucking in, really biting into this good wine. And you’re feeling bold in your Italian suit, and you don’t half look good, that's for sure, in this new Italian suit, this slicked-back dark hair you’re sporting, and the nice smell you’ve got on, that nice drop of cologne. And young Anita, Mammas nineteen-year-old daughter, is almost certainly giving you the eye, and you reckon she might want seeing to, but you cant, you really cant bring yourself to give her one, not now, you cant step up now, not after everything the family's done for you, it wouldn’t be right, wouldn’t be polite, to give her one, not now, even if she is, quite clearly, quite clearly giving you the eye.
You decide that the best course of action here is to resolutely pour your attention all over the red wine and to drink yourself into such an almighty stupor that any eye-giving is rendered futile. Get so drunk, in fact, that if she does continue to give you the eye, in your eyes, you’ll be seeing about a half dozen of hers.
Tojo is also applying himself and is trying out his own Italian on anyone who’ll listen, and the party winds its way through the village and then you’re propelled towards a large wooden door, and you’re pouring yourself into the village church for Midnight Mass.
OK, then, why not? You can’t make out a word of the little service book you’re given, but why not?
‘When in Rome, eh, sir?’ you say to Tojo and this is so funny, so gloriously funny, so epically amusing, so classically brilliant in its wit, so English in its classical wit, that you laugh very, very loudly indeed.
Heads turn. Your village friends take up the laughter, very, very loudly, and you are deeply confused. Why do they think it's so funny?
The laughter continues, there are cheers, wine is poured down necks —
Then it settles and a couple of your village chums nod, reassuringly.
The singing starts. You look across the aisle and your blood freezes —
Rows of field-grey uniforms. Rows of field-grey uniforms who are now ignoring you. Rows of field-grey uniforms stiffly chorusing the Christmas hymns.
You sit tight. You wear your civvy suit and you sit tight.
You wish for sobriety —
And a simple army-issue knife.
And after the service the rows of field-grey uniforms are pelting each other with snowballs. Villagers join in. You grope in the snow for a rock, a rock you can wrap in snow. You bend down, and you fall over and there is laughter.
Lying in the snow you yell, ‘God didn’t hear you, you bastards!’
Then Tojo is pulling you up and pulling you away and you’re poured onto the hay in your barn and then —
*
And Challenor is on his way down.
Fraser the Razor, he's thinking, the last one, the final link. Then we can put this ugly, sordid little mess to bed.
Initial report states that Police Constables Gibson and Edwards were keeping observation at the Phoenix club when Fraser approached. As he approached, Wilf Gardiner pointed him out to the policemen. Fraser, the report states, was holding something in his pocket and, as he approached Gardiner, he said, ‘I’ve been looking for you, you bastard.’
Constable Gibson promptly stopped and searched Fraser, finding on his person, in his pocket, a cut-throat razor. Of course he did, Challenor thinks. Fraser is then reported to have said, ‘I suppose he put you on to rue, then?’ Meaning Gardiner. ‘He doesn’t know what's coming to him. He’ll have to get more than you lot to look after him. His days are numbered.’
Challenor decides to make this snappy. He bullies his way into the charge room and dismisses Police Constable Donald Francis Gibson and Police Constable Michael Margrave Trowbridge Edwards.
‘Let's make this snappy, my old darling.’ He points at the razor. ‘This is yours.’
Fraser nods. ‘It is mine, yes. It's for cutting banana stalks and twine. Know where I work?’
‘No, I do not.’
‘Covent Garden, guv. I need this razor for my job, like I says, cutting banana stalks and twine.’
‘Fair enough,’ Challenor says. ‘Well, either way, it's going to look good when placed alongside your previous, that little pistol you had with no firearms certificate.’
Fraser reflects on this.
‘And let's not forget your little nickname, my old son. No smoke and all that, you know what I mean?’
‘What exactly do you want?’ Fraser says.
‘Have a seat, son,’ Challenor says. Fraser sits down. Challenor takes a couple of paces around the room, then leans in very close, very close to Fraser's face, Fraser's very close-shaven face. ‘I want you and your pals on racketeering, on protection charges, on demanding money with menaces and on possession of a fair few offensive weapons. That, my love, will do me. That is what I want and that is what I’m going to get.’
‘Fair enough,’ says Fraser. He nods. ‘I guess it's game on, then? You’ll have to get up very early to catch us out, Uncle Harry.’
Challenor smiles. Challenor quite likes the cut — excuse the pun - of Fraser the Razor's jib, quite likes his style. ‘I guess it is. You know where you are, you’ll get your brief - and I’ll get the lot of you. I know exactly where you’re putting the bite on.’ Challenor whistles and Constable Gibson pokes his head round the door. ‘Take this one to his lodgings will you, Gibson, please?’
‘Certainly, sir.’
Challenor looks at Fraser. ‘You’ve got a decision to make, son. You let me know when you’ve made it, OK?’
Fraser nods. Fraser leaves quietly.
Challenor grins.
*
Next day, Christmas Day, and your head is —
You know the drill. Your head is drilling. Your head is absolutely drilling. It's absolutely, positively drilling —
It's drilling into your head, your head is.
Your brain and mind —
They’re being drilled by your head, they are.
And yet you can hear a lot of movement, a lot of shouting and some gunfire and you know those field-grey uniforms are out and about and you know what that means.
You and Tojo have a war council. It all feels a bit close, suddenly, after the night before, it all feels a bit bloody close, a bit edgy, really, there is a lot of edge about, you think, some serious edge, and it's not just the shaking violence of your hangover.
You need to take the edge off, somehow.
Tojo knows:
You need to move and you need to split up. Tojo will go with a woman called Filomena to a hideout at her gaff. You will go to one of the little rat-infested grottos in the outer ring of the farm.
Job done. Cheers, Tojo, good luck and see you on the other side.
The lines — see you on the other side of the lines.
Tojo smiles, grimly. ‘Good luck, Tanky,’ he says. ‘Well done.’
And that's that.
Your grotto is lined with hay. You settle in and practise your burgeoning Italian and busy yourself with not being nibbled at by the rats.
Anita brings you food, once a day. It is a glorious twenty minutes when she sits with you and you wolf pasta and wine and she prattles on in Italian, Italian which you are beginning to understand, you reckon. And when you’ve stuffed your gob with her pasta, you engage in a little conversation and you’re definitely getting a little better at this lark.
The routine lasts three days.
December 28th: Anita brings news —
Tojo has been discovered and taken. Filomena, the poor cow, has been executed for hiding him. Silly, silly slag, she is: what did she go and do that for, offering to hide him, getting herself executed. You nod, grimly. You force back a tear. You cannot afford to think about this beyond what it is: a practicality.
You tell Anita that now you must go —
She nods. She knows. She has a message from Mamma. She relates it:
Go with Anita until the Popoli road. Then go —
Godspeed.
Fair enough. It changes quickly, war. It changes that quickly.
You’re alone, now. You’re all alone.
*
December 1962.
Challenor sits in his office. Radio's playing ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ by Frankie Valli and his mob. They’re back at number one, Challenor notes. He listens to old Frankie crooning away about how it's got nothing to do with you, and how he hopes the old girl knows this.
Except right now it feels like everything's to do with Challenor.
The Old Bailey the fucking Old Bailey, no less, is currently hosting, is currently in the middle of, the trial of a certain Soho gang, a gang that is comprised primarily of Oliva and Pedrini and Ford and Cheeseman and Fraser.
Challenor's on edge, he's a touch edgy, he is. And he is controlling this edge with regular doses of Guinness, and regular pills, regular pills as prescribed by the police doctor to help him with his anxiety and stress, anxiety and stress initially caused by traumatic experiences behind enemy lines during the Second World War. Battle Fatigue, or, sometimes, Combat Stress Reaction, is what they call it now, he thinks.
And it's this condition of his that is keeping him from the trial. Challenor will not give evidence in person. His statements have been made, documented, signed and corroborated.
And it's in the Crown's best interest that Challenor steers clear.
Challenor does not like this. He does not.
When things get hot, get going, Challenor likes to do, to act. He is twitching, now, Challenor, waiting to see what happens.
He does not like it one bit, when things are out of his control.
*
You’re alone and walking towards Chieti, towards the Adriatic, and bombs are shrieking down all around you. RAF raid, which at once warms and alarms you —
After all this, you think, I do not want, I absolutely do not want, after all this, to be flattened by one of my own bombs! What an absolute slag, you think, to be killed by one of your own. You refuse, you wholeheartedly refuse to be squashed by one of your own, made-in-Blighty bombs that are screaming from the sky and falling all around you, pulling and tearing the ground all about the place and making buildings shudder, making them tremble then collapse, like the knockout punch you land on your opponent and you watch as his knees wobble, his knees go, and he topples, slowly, wobbly-kneed, over and out. The knees of a lot of buildings are going right now, you think. There's a lot of wobbling and toppling going on. They haven’t got the legs, these buildings.
And you’re shaking and shiverin
g with the malaria, and it's raining, and there are German staff cars tearing down the roads, and you’re spending more and more time in ditches and under bushes, wet, cold rain dripping down your back.
You crawl into an abandoned house, half of it simply not there, taken by one of these bombs you’re avoiding. You’re very busy avoiding these bombs. You find a fireplace. You find an old chair. You break the chair into pieces. You tear up bits of the skirting board. You light afire. You lie next to it. You shiver. You sweat —
You sleep.
You sleep like a milk-drunk pup. You can actually feel yourself falling asleep — you fall asleep, fall into a deep, deep sleep —
And then you wake — sharp.
You wake with a stinging, hot pain in your back, a sharp, stinging, hot pain, a pain like the stab of red-hot needles.
You wake to the smell of burning cloth.
It takes a moment to put the two sensations — the pain, the awful pain; the smell, the awful smell — together, to understand that your coat is on fire.
Your coat, you understand, is on fire.
You tear it off, tear at it, shake it off you and beat down the flames.
There is a large hole in the back.
There is no more wood.
It is almost midnight.
You review your situation. It does not look good, you decide. Some might say, you think, that it looks decidedly hopeless, your situation.
If you stay, you will die, of frostbite or of malaria.
You have a coat with a hole in it. You have no food. You have no water. You’re alone in a village crawling with Germans, a whole gang of field-grey uniforms crawling all about the place.
It's not much of a dilemma.
You’re going to try and make it— now, right now — to Chieti.
*
December 18th, 1962.
Oliva and Pedrini and Ford and Cheeseman and Fraser:
Guilty.
For conspiracy to demand money with menaces, demanding money with menaces, and possessing offensive weapons:
Pedrini is sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. Cheeseman is sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.
