Bent

by Joe Thomas

  Challenor imposes his will on the crowd, the mass. Triumph of it, you know, triumph of the will, and all that, he thinks. He's going to get where he needs to go through sheer fucking character. Didn’t work too well with those rubber dinghies though, he remembers. But, you know, as they say, you win some -

  You win some more.

  He's cock of the walk, Challenor. Swaggering like a broad-shouldered, thick-set, bull-necked Prince among thieves.

  No, King. King -

  King Cunt. Own that, my son.

  ‘You still got that banner in your sight, David?’ Challenor asks.

  Oakey nods.

  Either way. Challenor knows exactly where the Lambrakis R.I.P banner is. He's clocked it halfway down Brook Street and he's after it.

  Then: movement -

  Close by.

  Oakey's got some obviously hateful, dago-looking kid by the neck-

  Two uniforms are over, sharpish.

  Oakey's saying to the uniforms: ‘Brick. In his hand. Nick him. Offensive weapon. Take him down the Mad House.’

  Good lad.

  There's the first. Good start to the night's festivities. Challenor pats Police Constable David John Oakey on the shoulder.

  Oakey grins.

  Good lad.

  Challenor grins. And we’re off, he thinks.

  *

  Turns out there are two other lads along with the one Oakey pulled, then Challenor and Oakey head down Brook Street until it reaches Gilbert Street, swerving the thick, seething middle of the crowd, pavement-hopping and moving swiftly, skipping even, at times, hopping, skipping and jumping to nip in and out of this crowd, this mass, this writing, seething mass, this angry mass -

  And they are angry, this mob.

  Eyes peeled.

  ‘What we’re looking for, boy, is more stones,’ Challenor says. ‘Stones, bricks, cement - all that. At some point, these fuckers are going to want to throw something at something, you know what I mean?’

  Oakey nods.

  And the way we’re going to find these stones and rocks and bits of brick and so on, is to find people — men, I suspect, in the main -wearing the type of jacket which has the type of pockets that might accommodate these stones and rocks and bricks.’

  Challenor is firing these words out of the side of his mouth like a volley of machine-gun fire, or a mortar launch or something like that. And Oakey is doing his best to keep up, both with Challenor's feet — which are deceptively quick for such a pugnacious fellow -and Challenor's words, which are, Challenor realises, being fired out of his mouth.

  And that, David, is exactly why I am wearing this jacket.’

  Oakey nods.

  ‘I fit in. We can get closer to them.’ He gestures with his chin, nods to the right-hand side of the street. ‘Here we go,’ he says. ‘Here we fucking go, follow me.’

  And Challenor arrows in on a group of five gentleman dressed in flat caps and work coats, and one of them goes to put his hand in his pocket and -

  Challenor's on him in a flash -

  Two quick steps, then a solid, definitive lunge, a proper tackle —

  With his forearm he's pinned him against the wall. At the same time, he knocks the flat cap from his head and pulls the work coat down over his arms to trap them and hold him in place.

  ‘Stay still, young man. You’re nicked.’

  Challenor puts his face very close to the face of this young man, who snarls back at him, like a dog, afraid, but showing his teeth with it, not shirking this unexpected challenge.

  ‘What for?’ says the snarling, braying young man.

  The crowd has thinned slightly where they are, filtered off with the minor commotion of Challenor's move, his launch, his assault, the crowd ebbing and flowing around them like they were rocks in a river.

  ‘You reached into your pocket for a rock, or brick, or stone, which I have no doubt you intended to throw, though, to be clear, intent to throw or hurl or launch is irrelevant. Possession of an offensive weapon. Possession. Got it?’

  ‘I was reaching into my pocket for my cigarettes.’

  Challenor leans closer still, angles his face right into this young man's face.

  ‘Hold tight. We’ll see.’

  Oakey appears with four uniforms and two other young, angry, snarling men, both handcuffed.

  ‘Take him in,’ Challenor says. ‘He was reaching for this.’

  Challenor hands one of the uniforms a chunky segment of house brick.

  The young man struggles. ‘That's not mine, mate. That's a plant.’ He looks at the uniforms. ‘I ain’t going anywhere with you lot.’

  Challenor laughs. ‘You’ve got no choice, my darling. Stick them all in the meat wagon, lads,’ he says to the uniforms.

  The snarling, braying man is cuffed.

  Challenor smiles at Oakey.

  Oakey nods.

  Challenor says, ‘That's seven nil then, eh?’

  Oakey nods.

  *

  It's been a busy hour. It needs to get busier. Challenor does not mess about. Challenor is not going to mess about with these anarchists and militants and flag-burning types who’ll boo the Queen and have a go at the very people paid to protect them, paid, in fact, by them to protect them, if, you know, these buggers even pay their taxes.

  Time to find that banner.

  Back down Brook Street, up Davies Street, along Davies Mews, down South Molton Lane. Eyes at street level. Nothing to see. Shops closed.

  There.

  Challenor nods at the banner and Oakey quickens his pace.

  There are two flags flanking the banner, two CND flags flanking the Lambrakis R.I.P banner, and this collection of flags and banner make it very clear of the political leanings of this group.

  The CND flags are being carried by two women, young women with short hair, young women with short hair in clipped style held in place by their red berets, two young women who are considerably younger than the man in between them with the banner. Considerably younger. If Challenor didn’t know better, if Challenor weren’t such a man of the world, he might guess that this was a professor at the LSE with two of his most promising students, showing them the significance and consequence of direct action in political life.

  But Challenor does know better, and to Challenor's worldly eye it looks like what it is: a creep with two tarts. No doubt the creep is the leader of some minor political organisation - commie or anarchist, Challenor would bet — and these two considerably younger women are under his spell in some important, coming-of-age, coming-of-political-consciousness way, but still, it's a creep with two tarts. Shamans the world over helping young women find bloody God, or spiritual fervour, or political activism, or whatever — and then helping them find themselves on their backs with a creepy Shaman on top, slobbering all over them.

  Yeah, Challenor doesn’t fancy this banner lad much. Not at all, in fact.

  Challenor raises his hand and Oakey stops.

  The banner and the CND flags drift past them.

  Challenor indicates with his hands that they should follow, but either side.

  They fall in step. The crowd ebbs. Their steps become fewer. They stop.

  Challenor leans across one of the young women and grabs banner lad by the lapel with his right hand.

  He yanks him backwards.

  He grabs his throat with his left hand and squeezes his windpipe.

  He pushes him across South Molton Lane and into a shop doorway.

  He looks back and sees Oakey encouraging the young women to move on, nothing to see and all that.

  Challenor, through half-shut, piercing eyes, with a thin, selfconsciously nasty smile sliced across his face as if with a straight razor, takes a good look at this lad, this older lad, in his scruffy blazer and fisherman's hairy jumper, with his beard and the faint twirl in his moustache, in his corduroy trousers rolled up to show off his working man's boots, with his Lenin cap and glasses, and says,

  ‘You’re fucking nicked, m
y old beauty.’

  *

  Banner lad's name is Donald Rooum.

  He was born in Bradford in 1928. He was an anarchist, then a conscientious objector, then did his National Service, then studied commercial design, then worked as a layout artist, then a typographer, then a cartoonist and lecturer. He has fathered four children.

  He is also a member of the National Council for Civil Liberties.

  Challenor gets all this information while Rooum is detained upstairs.

  Here we fucking go.

  Challenor tears through his office door and jumps the stairs -

  What are you going to do about it?

  Challenor slams open the detention room door, which bounces back off the wall at him, so he kicks at it, grabs at it, wrenches it off its hinges and throws it down on the floor, kicks at it again, clatters it against the far wall.

  Rooum is not bothered much by this show of rage, of wrath, Challenor thinks.

  Here we fucking go then.

  ‘Boo the Queen, would you?’ Challenor asks.

  ‘No, not at all,’ Rooum replies.

  Challenor, with his right palm, hits Rooum's left ear, right on the lug.

  ‘You said “down with the monarchy”. Why?’

  ‘I’d say that was clear, wouldn’t you?’

  Challenor, with his right palm, hits Rooum's left ear again, square on, right on the lug, directly over the old ear hole.

  ‘You don’t like where you live, where you’re from?’

  ‘I believe in democracy and fairness and a system of government that - ’

  Challenor, with his right palm, hits Rooum's left ear again, square on, right on the lug, directly over the old ear hole, and at the same time, with the edge of his left palm, chops down on Rooum's neck.

  Rooum looks dazed.

  ‘What were you doing at the demonstration?’

  ‘I was protesting at a state visit by a representative of a repressive government.’

  ‘And why your antipathy towards the police, boy?’

  ‘They shouldn’t push us around like that.’

  Challenor, this time with his right palm closed around the chunky segment of a house brick that is wrapped in brown paper, hits Rooum's left ear, square on, right on the lug, directly over the old ear hole.

  Rooum staggers. Blood trickles from his ear.

  ‘Right,’ Challenor says. He unwraps the brick from the brown paper. ‘There you are, my old beauty. This is yours. The biggest brick for the biggest boy.’

  He places the chunky segment of brick on the evidence table along with Rooum's other possessions.

  Challenor continues. ‘Carrying an offensive weapon. You can get two years for that. Give those young tarts of yours a bit of time to grow up. Think they’ll visit?’

  Rooum blinks. Rooum gags. Rooum vomits.

  Challenor hesitates -

  The Trial

  June 4th, 1964

  The Old Bailey

  Challenor sits. Challenor sits and waits, sits and waits for the verdict.

  Today's the day.

  It is, for Challenor at least, for Challenor and three other more junior officers, aides, in fact, to CID, Challenor's boys, you might call them, Battes and Goldsmith and Oakey, it is, for them, quite literally, Judgement Day.

  The charge:

  Corruption.

  Mr Justice Lawton is speaking. He is talking about Chief Superintendent John ‘Four day Johnny du Rose, so called for his efficient and effective approach to solving crimes.

  Challenor is listening to what Mr Justice Lawton is saying, but he is not really sure about how it makes him feel.

  ‘...Chief Superintendent du Rose, I would be very grateful if you would bring to the attention of the Commissioner my grave disturbance at the fact that Detective Sergeant Challenor was on duty at all on nth July 1963. On the evidence which I heard from the doctors when he was arraigned, it seems likely that he had been mentally unbalanced for some time, and the evidence which I heard from Superintendent Burdett in the case has worried me a great deal. It seems to me the matter ought to be looked into further.’

  Challenor sits. Challenor waits. Challenor sits and waits and thinks about this idea, this further investigation, of it being ‘looked into’.

  Challenor fingers again the piece of paper he has in his pocket.

  If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies.

  Verdicts are in.

  Verdict One -

  The three junior officers, the three aides, the three boys, Challenor's boys, Battes, Goldsmith and Oakey:

  Guilty

  Battes gets three years. Goldsmith and Oakey four each.

  Challenor's head swims. His head dives. His head sinks.

  Verdict Two -

  Detective Sergeant Harold ‘Uncle Harry ‘Tanky Challenor, on the charge of corruption, relating specifically to events of the evening of July nth, 1963:

  Unfit to Plead

  Bibliography

  This is a work of fiction based on fact. Some of the stories and incidents related are apocryphal; some of them have been passed down my family, in the oral tradition. Below is a list of sources I consulted in the writing of this novel; a list of quoted material follows. The images and text from the ‘blue photo album’ are from my grandfather's personal archive. I visited the Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre in the Holborn Library for a visual impression of the area around Theobalds Road and Bloomsbury in the early 1960s. I have frequented the pubs and clubs referenced in their more recent iterations.

  Non-fiction

  Ackroyd, Peter, London: The Concise Biography, (Vintage, 2012)

  Beevor, Antony, The Second World War, (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2014)

  Challenor, Harold, with Alfred Draper, Tanky Challenor: SAS and the Met, (Leo Cooper, 1990)

  Farran, Roy, Winged Dagger: Adventures on Special Service, (Cassell Military Classics, 1998)

  Gilbert, Martin, The Second World War: A Complete History, (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2009)

  Grigg, Mary, The Challenor Case, (Penguin Books, 1965)

  James, A. E., Report of Inquiry, CMND. 2735, HMSO, 1965

  Kirby, Dick, The Scourge of Soho: The controversial career of SAS hero Detective Sergeant Harry Challenor, (Pen & Sword True Crime, 2013)

  Macintyre, Ben, SAS Rogue Heroes, (Viking, 2016)

  Morton, James, Bent Coppers: A survey of police corruption, (Warner Books, 1994)

  Warner, Philip, The Special Air Service, (edition commissioned by SAS Regimental Association, bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, 1973; originally published by William Kimber & Co, 1971)

  Willetts, Paul, Members Only, (Serpent's Tail, 2010)

  Fiction

  Arnott, Jake, The Long Firm Trilogy, (Sceptre, 2005)

  Toms, Bernard, The Strange Affair, (Panther Books, 1968)

  Unsworth, Cathi, Bad Penny Blues, (Serpent's Tail, 2009)

  Plays

  Butterworth, Jez, Mojo, (Nick Hern Books, 2013)

  Orton, Joe, Loot, (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013)

  Films

  Night and the City, Jules Dassin, 1950

  Peeping Tom, Michael Powell, 1966

  Performance, Donald Cammell & Nicholas Roeg, 1970

  Street of Shadows, Richard Vernon, 1953

  The Long Good Friday, John Mackenzie, 1980

  The Small World of Sammy Lee, Ken Hughes, 1963

  Victim, Basil Dearden, 1961

  Where has poor Mickey gone?, Gerry Levy, 1964

  Radio

  Bent Coppers, Jake Arnott, Archive on 4, BBC Radio 4, 2019

  Journalism

  Interview with Joseph Francis Oliva, first published in the Daily Sketch newspaper, 30 June 1959

  Notes

  Challenor's career was controversial; there were several inquiries held into his conduct. Excerpts from the James Inquiry, 1965, and court proceedings in the trials of Pedrini et al, King etc, have appeared in a nu
mber of non-fiction texts included in my bibliography Here follow instances where I too have used or adapted them, with references to these texts, and other quoted material. Challenor's memoir - Tanky Challenor: SAS and the Met - was especially helpful in the writing of the scenes set in Italy; my grandfather's experiences, too, were invaluable in these sections.

  Page 2

  If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies. From ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling

  Page 7

  ‘A big showdown for power is coming and when it does come it will be a bloody battle.’ Daily Sketch, 30 June 1959; Draper & Challenor (D&C), p. 186; Kirby, p. 65

  Page 10

  ‘and watch every way’ Grigg, p. 32; Kirby, p. 54

  ‘cut you up.’

  ‘cut you up again.’ Grigg, p. 32; Kirby, p. 55

  Page 17

  Article, redacted: JOSEPH FRANCIS OLIVA, aged 19, of 6 Ratcliffe Buildings, Bourne Estate, Clerkenwell, N. says, Daily Sketch, 30 June 1959; D&C, pp. 184-186; Kirby, pp. 63-65

  Page 27

  ‘A big showdown for power is coming and when it does come it will be a bloody battle. ‘Daily Sketch, 30 June 1959; D&C, p. 186; Kirby, p. 65

  Page 31

  ‘That [mad] bastard Challenor!’ D&C, p. 1

  Page 39

  A man who [knows] no fear has nothing to conquer. D&C, p. 39

  Page 41

  ‘You’re going to give us a hundred pounds or what are you going to do.’ D&C, p. 186; Kirby, p. 58

  Page 43

  ‘are you still grassing?’

  ‘when we do up your old man’ Kirby, pp. 56-57

  Page 45

  ‘Watch your drift going down. The stick is to stay as tight as possible. I will remain where I land and you are to walk to me, number six walking on to number five and so on until we pick each other up.’ D&C, p. 49

  Page 60

  ‘With any luck, I’ll soon be killing my first Jerry sentry’ D&C, p. 52

  Page 63

  ‘Lying on my back, smoking a cigarette and stroking her hair, I thought: what a life for a soldier!’ D&C, p. 62