The Soho Noir Series

by Mark Dawson

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  Joseph intervened, “No, he’ll have the same.”

  “Joseph…”

  “You can’t wear that thing for another minute more. It’s a monstrosity.” The tailor must have noticed his awful suit too but he was too discrete to mention it. Joseph tapped his breast pocket knowingly. “We can afford it. Treat yourself.”

  “Sir?” the tailor prompted.

  “Go on, then,” Edward said, unable to prevent the self-indulgent grin that broke out across his face. “The same, please.”

  Another tailor appeared from the back and the two fussed around them, taking measurements and flicking through a book of fabric samples. When they were finished, he chose a suit from the rail, added a new shirt, cufflinks and a pair of shoes, and took it all into the changing room to try on. He shut the door and shrugged off his old jacket, catching sight of the top of the envelope in his inside pocket. He tried on the suit. It was a little long in the leg but adjusting it would be simple. He stepped outside and turned before the big, floor-length mirror. Joseph was waiting for him. They stood alongside and regarded themselves in the glass. His suit was single-breasted, cut from a heavy grey flannel with a waistcoat in a similar colour. It was a traditional English cut, with that combination of style, cutting and craftsmanship that flattered the figure and communicated substance. The shirt was brilliant white and thickly-starched. The brogues were polished to such a high sheen that they reflected the face of the tailor as he knelt down to adjust the fall of the trouser. Joseph took a ninepenny handkerchief, folded it into a neat square and slid it into Edward’s breast pocket. He took a grey trilby from a nearby shelf, placed it on Edward’s head and adjusted it carefully.

  “There,” he said. “You look like a new man. What do you reckon? Better?”

  Edward turned side-on and regarded himself. He pulled the brim of the trilby down a touch. He amused himself in the mirror. He had always had a malleable face, one that he seemed able to mould to fit the impression that he was trying to portray. He fancied that he looked like an American gangster, the sort of role James Cagney would play in the pictures. He imagined himself with the suitcase full of money and a pistol in his pocket, not long removed from a heist. He liked the way the clothes and the hat made him look.

  He shot his cuffs and flexed his shoulders. “Much better,” he said.

  They took a taxi to the Ritz. Edward had been once or twice, before the war, and had always loved it. He knew all the stories from the newspapers he had read as a little boy: how the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson had dined in The Palm Court, how Charlie Chaplin had needed a retinue of forty policemen to negotiate a passage past his screaming fans, how Anna Pavlova had danced there and how the Aga Khan had permanent suites. He was relieved to see that little had changed. The doormen, dressed in their spotless uniform and with box hats on their heads, ushered them inside with extravagant good manners. “Good afternoon, Mr. Costello,” one of them said with a deep tip of his head. Joseph smiled broadly at the recognition and Edward was impressed. They passed through into the Ritz Bar, the gloriously art deco room whose beautiful furnishings and glamorous patrons reminded Edward of an entirely different kind of life. The Merano chandelier gave off a soft, golden light that burnished the tortoiseshell walls and picked out the details in the glistening emblems etched into the Lalique glass. The bar was long and narrow, with the tables arranged as if in the dining car of a particularly opulent train; it had always put Edward in mind of the Orient Express. Joseph took the menu from the bar and handed it to Edward. He scanned it, his eyes widening as he remembered the stratospheric prices that were sensible only if money was of no consequence.

  “I don’t know about you,” Joseph said, “but I’m pushing the boat out.”

  Edward reminded himself: money was not of so great a consequence today as it had been yesterday and he could afford to be extravagant.

  Joseph ordered a Negroni. Edward had ordered one himself, many years earlier, although his had been authentically Italian, ordered in the same Caffé Cassoni bar where Count Camillo Negroni had asked his Florentine bartender to strengthen his Americano by adding gin rather than the normal soda water. The memory promised to lead to others that he preferred to recall alone and so he did not mention it and, instead, ordered quickly for himself. He selected the Cesar Ritz, a cocktail made with Courvoisier l’Esprit, Ruinart Blanc de Blancs champagne and Angostura bitters. The bill for both drinks was two pounds and they were delivered to their table by a tail-coated waiter who fawned over them as if they were royalty or Hollywood stars.

  “This is the life,” Joseph said, reclining into the generously padded chair. “Ain’t it?”

  “I’ll say it is,” Edward agreed.

  He looked around at the other patrons. Money was everywhere, almost tangible. The furnishings, the clothes, the exquisite drinks and food, the tiny details that were evocative of the very best quality, he closed his eyes for a moment and allowed himself to sink into it all.

  “Are you alright, Doc?”

  “Never better,” Edward said with a smile. This was what he wanted, he thought. All of it and everything. He wanted it more than anything else in the world.

  23

  THEY HAD PARKED THE CAR a hundred yards away from the entrance to the depot. It was a stolen drag, taken from Islington earlier that day. Jack McVitie had slipped a flexible strip inside the space between the window and the frame until he found the lock and popped it open. Easy. He had picked up Billy Stavropoulos earlier and now both of them sat waiting, their hands gloved and with their balaclavas in their laps. They were in Dalston, parked beneath a gaslight. Billy was staring at his Pools coupon, referring to the newspaper he had spread across the dashboard, “competitors’ hints,” his forehead creased with concentration and indecision. What a mug, McVitie thought. Those things never pay out.

  “Look at this place,” Jack said, glancing out at the desolate streets. “I weren’t born too far away from here. What a bloody awful hole. I couldn’t wait to get out.”

  Billy put the coupon down. “It’s no bloody good. I can’t concentrate.”

  “Still thinking about him?”

  “He’s a liability.”

  Jack chuckled hopelessly.

  “Ain’t funny. Why’s Joseph bringing him out for this?”

  “You can’t deny he’s been better.”

  “You keep defending him!”

  “I’m not, I’m being straight––he’s been better.”

  “Ah, bollocks.”

  “He has. Admit it, Billy, it won’t kill you. I don’t know why you’ve got such a thing for him. He’s hardly a bad chap.”

  Billy grunted. He wasn’t going to admit any such thing. He took off his gloves, took a cigarette from the packet on the dash and lit it.

  “I reckon we were a bit harsh on him,” Jack said. “He’s alright. Can’t argue he’s a bit square. Quiet type. But he’s not a bad bloke.”

  Billy screwed up his nose. “He’s a stuck-up bastard.”

  Jack laughed. “That’s a bit unfair.”

  “He is. That attitude.”

  “He’s just quiet––what you’d call a thinker. You can tell.”

  “He’s a thinker, alright––thinks he’s better than the rest of us. His head’s right up his arse. You know he was at university before the war? University.” Billy mouthed the word as if it were something distasteful. “Makes sense, though, don’t it? He’s got that way about him, the way he looks at people like us like we’re something to be scraped off the bottom of his shoe. All high and mighty and all that.”

  Edward was the first bloke Billy had ever met who’d been to University. Like Jack and Joseph, he’d only stayed in school as long as he absolutely had to and, even then, he’d bunked off more than he was there. Life wasn’t all about books and blackboards and exams, least not his kind of life. He’d given himself a proper education, taught himself the things he needed to know: how to
dip a wallet from a man’s pocket without him knowing; how to hide a razorblade in the peak of your cap, how to use it to slash at a man’s face; how to smash a window without making a sound; the best way to hoist gear from a shop.

  Billy slipped his gloves back on and squeezed the wheel. Fabian. The cowson had been involved in the plotting and planning of this particular job ever since Joseph had suggested it: checking out the route, the best time to go through with it, the fastest way back to the lock-up, mapping it out, working out the traffic lights and the bottlenecks where the traffic might get jammed. Two days solid of sorting everything out. Jack was right: Edward was one of life’s planners. Billy was more like Joseph, more of an impetuous type of fellow, the get-in-and-get-out type, more doing, less thinking. He knew his strengths, he knew his weaknesses and he was happy with where the line was drawn.

  Jack wound down the window and flicked the dog-end into the breeze. “Can’t say I mind him being along. You go on a job with a thinker, you’re less likely to get pinched––simple as.”

  “Don’t mean I got to like him.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Jack sighed. There was no point in arguing. The headlights of a van gleamed off the windscreen. “Speak of the devil.”

  The van parked up the road ahead of them. It flashed its headlights.

  “Alright, then? Let’s get started.”

  The two of them went around to the boot of the car and took out a long pair of boltcutters and two crowbars. They pulled their balaclavas down over their faces and jogged briskly to the depot. It was a small warehouse, set back from the road by a narrow yard, access prevented by a solid pair of padlocked iron gates. Joseph, similarly attired, was waiting for them there. Edward was in the van. There was no need to speak; they had been over the plan and they knew what they each had to do. Jack raised the bolt cutters so that the jaws clasped around the padlock and squeezed the arms together. The lock cleaved in two, dropping to the ground, and Joseph pushed the gates apart as Jack hurried through. The depot had a shuttered door for loading and unloading goods, secured with two padlocks that were fixed to clasps on the ground. They took the crowbars and jammed them into the locks, bracing against them until they popped open.

  Edward started the van and reversed it into the yard so that the rear was lined up with the shuttered doors that were used for loading and unloading goods.

  “Quickly,” Joseph called.

  Jack ran to the doors and took a key from his pocket. They had been given the original by the member of staff at the depot who had proposed the job––in return for a cut of the profits––and had copied it overnight. Jack unlocked the shutters and heaved them up. The depot was storing fur coats and mink stoles. The place was practically full of them. They were brand new, still wrapped in their plastic dust sheaths.

  “Oi!” The shout came from behind them. “What’s your game?”

  A security guard was shining a torch at Jack. He hadn’t seen the others, and so he didn’t notice as Billy stalked behind him and swung his crowbar across the back of his knees. His legs buckled beneath him and he fell backwards.

  “Alright, alright,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.

  Joseph knelt next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re helping ourselves to the gear here. Play nice and we’ll be on our way. Don’t be silly and you’ll be fine. There’s no need for you to get hurt.”

  “I won’t do nothing,” the man said.

  “That’s good. We’ll be as quick as we can.”

  They hurried into action, taking the coats from their rails and tossing them into the back of the van. Twenty, then twenty-five, then thirty. Eventually, there was no more space. Billy shut the doors.

  “Well done,” Joseph said to the guard. “That’s that––we’re finished.”

  The man looked unhappy.

  “What is it?”

  “You can’t leave me like this.”

  “What? You ain’t hardly even been touched.”

  “That’s what I mean––you have to give me a black eye.”

  “You want a black eye?”

  “It can’t look like I co-operated with you, can I? The boss needs to think I put up a scrap. He’ll think I was in on it and he’ll give me my cards. I’ve got a wife and a nipper to feed. I need this job.”

  “You want me to hit you?”

  “Just––you know, just a black eye.”

  “If you say so.” Joseph struck him, quite hard, a left hook that dropped him to his knees. Billy whooped, laughing, and before any of them could stop him he swung a kick into the man’s gut. He fell onto his side, gasping, and Billy kicked him twice more. “How’s that?” he said, “good enough for you?”

  “Whoah!” Jack laughed, surprised.

  Billy kicked him again.

  “Billy!”

  “No names!” Edward shouted.

  “He said he wanted it to be convincing––it’s what he wanted. I’m doing him a favour.” Billy swung a kick into the man’s head and a plume of blood spewed out and splattered across the ground.

  “Enough!” Edward said, grabbing him and pulling him back out of range. “Jesus, man––you’ll bloody well kill him.”

  He squared up to Edward. “Get your filthy hands off me.”

  “Back off,” Joseph called sternly.

  Billy shrugged Edward aside and laughed.

  Edward knelt down by the guard’s side. He was bleeding from the mouth but the blood was from a badly cut lip, and not internal. He was conscious, but woozy.

  “Is he alright?” Joseph asked.

  “He’ll live.” Edward propped him against the side of the building and followed the others back to the road. “You’re a bloody fool!” he called after Billy.

  “Ah, piss off.” He got into the car and Jack slipped in next to him.

  “That was a bit over the top,” Jack said.

  “Don’t you start.”

  “I’m not having a go––I’m just saying.”

  “See what I mean, though? About Fabian? The bloke ain’t got no balls.”

  Jack started the engine. He didn’t reply.

  “Let’s get off,” Billy said. “I feel like a drink.”

  24

  EDWARD WATCHED AS JACK MCVITIE adjusted his trilby. He was trying not to show his excitement as the dealer dealt another queen on the river. McVitie had played his hand slowly, carefully making sure Billy and Edward followed him to the last round of betting. They had, and he pushed half of his chips into the middle of the table.

  Edward paused, making an assessment of the cards and his chances.

  “So––what are you doing, Doc?” Jack said. “In or out?”

  “I’m in.” He pushed the rest of his chips over the line.

  McVitie turned to Billy. “You in or out?”

  Billy made a show of deliberation. “You’re bluffing.”

  “You best call me then, hadn’t you?”

  “Fine. I’m all in.”

  Jack laughed. He pushed the rest of his stack over the line, too.

  They were flush, and they were enjoying themselves. This was a Costello place, several large rooms above a shoe-shop. Part-spieler, part-brothel. It was one of the more established joints in Soho. The dividing wall between two rooms had been knocked down and a baccarat table installed. A roulette wheel was next to that, together with a couple of tables for poker and chemin de feu. A mirrored bar had been fitted at one end of the room, with black market spirits hanging upside-down in optics. The bar was crescent-shaped, lit from beneath, with coloured Venetian glasses stacked on glass shelves. A chandelier hung from the ceiling and the windows were covered with thick, expensive Moroccan drapes. The clientele entered through a side-door on the street where they were met by a suited doorman and ushered up a bare staircase into the room. A door at the other end of the room led to three bedrooms. They were reasonably furnished. That was all that was required; after all, the guests did not stay long.

  Smoke hung hea
vy in the gloom. There were ten around the table: Jack, Billy, Tommy, Joseph and Edward, four local businessmen and Lennie Masters, the perpetually-glowering thug that Edward had met the first time he had visited Halewell Close for Chiara’s birthday.

  Edward settled back into his chair and waited for the last player to fold his hand. He was in an excellent mood. Ruby Ward had visited the lock-up and assessed the coats they had stolen that morning. Edward had discovered that he was much more than the face of the Costello’s automobile business: he was their main fence, using the car showroom as a legitimate front to launder their dirty money and to distribute the booty with which they fed the black market. They already knew that the coats cost forty pounds each in Mayfair, and they had thirty of them. Ruby had offered twenty apiece. He would sell them for thirty, but retailing the goods entailed the biggest risk and so no-one begrudged him his mark-up.

  The adrenaline of the heist receded and, as it did, the four of them had been filled with exhilaration that they had successfully pulled off the job. It was something different from the burglaries. They were diversifying. Edward, too, felt more optimistic for his own prospects than he had for many years. The afternoon at the Ritz had underlined it for him: he was starting a new life. Goodbye to the deprivations of his return, the ignominy of begging the state for aid, the foul garret and his grasping landlord and the shameful prospect of pawning his things so he could afford to eat. He felt as he imagined emigrants felt when they left their problems behind them in some foreign country, discarded their old friends and relatives and past mistakes, setting sail for Australia, or America, and the promise of something better. He had felt this way before but he had been negligent then and, eventually, he had had no choice but to burn that life and exchange it for another unsatisfactory one. Now he would do it again. It was a chance to clean his slate.

  He looked around the table. The five of them looked swell. His ratty old demob suit was a distant memory and now he wore a pale blue silk shirt with a Barrymore roll collar and a burgundy silk tie, the sort worn by Adolphe Menjou, the American actor. His shoes were hand-made from a shop in St. James’ that catered to crowned heads. They were made from wild boar, were bright yellow under the instep and they cost ten guineas. His suit was double-breasted, powder blue and cut in the American style. He looked and felt a million dollars.