by Mark Dawson
Joseph spoke quietly. “Jack Spot and three of his gypsies turned over the spieler on Manette Street. And then they shot Lennie. He’s dead.”
George’s face flickered from fury to confusion and then back to fury again. “Why? He wants a war with us?” He slammed his fist into the wall. The confusion and the frustration stayed, and for a moment he looked like a baffled toddler. He appealed to his sister, “Violet––what do we do?”
“What did he say?” she asked.
“That we’re finished in Soho. That we should clear out. He says he’s the new guv’nor.”
“And?”
“That’s it. He stole anything worth having and cleared off.”
Violet stared at the unlit cigarette but said nothing. She lit the cigarette slowly and carefully. Edward realised that she was as confused as George, but that she was better skilled at masking it. Joseph, too, did not know how to react. Edward had decided when they made their way into the club that he would keep his own counsel, regardless of what Joseph said. He had ideas but he did not want to speak out of turn in case they thought he was being presumptuous. But, watching them flounder, he realised that, in their own ways, they were all paralysed by confusion and doubt. They needed him. He saw the chance and he took it.
“He doesn’t want a war,” he offered carefully.
“Really?” Violet said acerbically.
“No. He’s weighed this up. It might have looked it, but wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. He thinks that shooting your friend is all it’s going to take to get what he wants. He was going to do that all along, it didn’t matter what he did or didn’t say. He thinks you’re weak. He thinks you’ll give up and step away.”
“Weak?” In a sudden movement, George was onto Edward, taking him by the lapels and shoving him against the whitewashed brick wall. He was prodigiously strong. “You don’t know him and you don’t know us,” he said, his face so close to Edward that he could see the bubbles of spittle forming on his bottom lip. “I’ve had people cut into little pieces for saying less than that to me.”
“Uncle,” Joseph said, his tone calm and even. “He didn’t mean it like that.”
“Let him go, George,” Violet instructed.
George pressed harder for a moment and Edward felt the points of his knuckles burying themselves deeper into the soft flesh beneath his shoulders. He released his grip. “Alright,” he said, taking a step back. “Go on then, explain, but watch what you say.”
Edward did his best not to patronise them. “Rational people don’t want to fight, not if they don’t have to. It’s messy and no-one ever ends up with everything they want. Spot is sending you a message that it’s not in your interests to take him on. There was no need to do what he did––Lennie wasn’t doing anything to provoke him and shooting him was gratuitous. That was the message he wanted to deliver––he’s saying that he’s dangerous and unpredictable, that he’ll do anything to get what he wants and if you want to fight him, you’ll have to fight on the same level. And he doesn’t think you’ll be prepared to do that.”
George folded his huge arms, his porcine eyes staring dead straight at Edward. “He’s wrong,” he said. “What a load of old bollocks.” Edward could see that it was just bluster.
Violet lit her cigarette, put the holder to her lips and drew in a sharp breath. “Fine,” she said, exhaling. “If you think you know what he’s doing, why don’t you tell us what we should do about it?”
“Start to close your Soho businesses down.”
“Shut them down?” George laughed harshly.
“And move out.”
“Run away?”
“Let him think he’s getting what he wants. Persuade him you’ve got no stomach for this, a scrap with someone who’ll shoot one of your men for no reason. Prove him right––make it look like you are weak.”
Because you are, Edward thought. Weak and lazy and ripe for the picking.
“And then?” Violet asked.
“And then you plan your next move. All warfare is based on deception. He needs to think that you can’t or you won’t attack him. You sit down. Plan the correct response. And then carry it out ruthlessly.”
“What a load of old bollocks, Violet,” George said dismissively. “We start to move out and every Tom, Dick and Harry will be onto us. They’re like damn sharks. They smell weakness––real or not––and you’re done for. They’d tear us to shreds. Sorry, Joseph, but your mate ain’t clever. He’s naïve. Wouldn’t last five minutes here.”
He knew that he did not have to persuade George. When it came down to it, he would do as he was told. It was Violet, shrew-like and wily, whom he had to persuade. She did not speak. She drew down again on her cigarette, her eyes on Edward and yet distant, as if calculating or toying with a difficult problem. She exhaled smoke up into the vaulted ceiling.
“Come on,” George said, straightening his jacket. His face was set now, his eyes bulging and the line of his jaw pulsing as he clenched and unclenched. “Best get you somewhere we know is safe. You need to think what we do next. I’ll tell you this, and I’ll tell you for nothing––Jack bloody Spot will rue the day he thought he could pull a stroke like this. I’ll have his eyes before the week is out.”
PART FOUR
September – December 1945
CALENDAR
–– 1945 ––
The Graphic, 25th July:
SCANDAL AS RETURNING SOLDIERS ABANDONED
– NO JOBS, NO ACCOMMODATION, NO MONEY –
By Henry Drake
The leading London hotels are full of well-fed, well-dressed foreign managers, clerks, waiters, porters. In the Piccadilly Hotel I saw only one English employee, a crippled soldier, who ran a lift, and the messenger boys. Yet London is full of disbanded unemployed soldiers. It is pitiful to see hundreds of young Britons, their breasts covered with war medals, turning barrel organs, the organ having an inscription drawing attention to their services and the unfulfilled promises made them. Sometimes they have a wounded mate appealing mutely to the pity of the cruel city; sometimes a wife and children. Others work in parties of crippled men.
That fate nearly befell Lieutenant Edward Fabian, a handsome medical graduate of Cambridge University who served his country with great distinction in the Far East. Lt. Fabian, who is 29, was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery in battle yet, rather than being clasped to the breast of a grateful nation upon his demobilisation two months ago, he found himself without any money or accommodation. Thank goodness, then, for kind-hearted local businesswoman Violet Costello who took pity on Lt. Fabian and offered him a job selling cars in her West London showroom…
The Star, 29th July:
GANG WARFARE IN SOHO
Stern warning was issued to gangland by an Old Bailey judge when he sentenced Patrick Jeremiah Harrigan (25) to 7 years’ penal servitude for razor slashing. “If this is gang warfare then let the rest of the gang take notice,” said the judge grimly. He was told that Kelly, the man slashed, had asked police to let him “fix this mug my own way.”
There was speculation that Harrigan was working for the notorious “Spot Gang”, a criminal organisation rumoured to be in conflict with the Costellos, the Italian family alleged to have been in command of the underworld for many years.
The Star, 21st August:
YARD HUNTS KILLER GANG
Police and detectives in squad cars today scoured London's underworld haunts for three men who took part in the “Chicago-type” murder last night of a West End gambler. London newspapers said police believed the murder was the result of a sudden flare-up in London's gang land warfare.
The gambler, Leonard Masters, 45-years-old, was shot in front of several women. Newspapers said three men strode into an illegal betting club in Soho, central London, and shot Masters in front of other gamblers and ladies who were found there. The killers ran to a car where another man waited with the engine running and escaped.
26
T
HE DAYS FOLLOWING THE MURDER of Lennie Masters passed quietly. Edward had no wish to be with Joseph and the others until the immediate aftermath had settled and so he retreated to his bedsitter with a handful of books he had stolen from Foyles and lost himself in their pages. The atmosphere on the street outside his front door appeared normal, unflustered and unchanged, and yet there were signs of discordance if you knew where to look. There were more uniformed police on patrol and Edward had noticed plainclothes men interviewing the owners of the businesses near to the spieler when he went to buy milk from the Welsh Dairy. The Costellos had reacted by bringing more of their muscle into the area, and it quickly became a common sight to see men straight out of Damon Runyan speaking through mouths full of iron filings on the street corners. If Jack Spot had a plan for following the murder then nothing was apparent but then, Edward reasoned, there was little that he needed to do. He had made his point and he would have seen nothing in the Costello’s reaction to make him suspect that he had been wrong in his assessment of them: weak, rudderless, and ready to be driven out. Edward tried not to think too much about it. The frustration at Violet and George’s inane response––which was hardly a response at all––gnawed at him until it was an almost tangible ache.
Edward received a letter from Joseph on the third day after the murder.
Dear Doc,
I understand that it is necessary given the circumstances but being cooped up like this is driving me mad. To stop me from completely going around the twist, I have arranged an appointment for us both today (Wednesday) in Mayfair. There is a pub on Park Street. I’ll meet you there at 3p.m. Don’t be late. Bring an open mind.
Regards,
Joseph
Edward was beginning to feel claustrophobic and depressed in his awful garret and did not need much persuasion to leave it. He took the tube to Mayfair and met Joseph at the pub. The rendezvous was not for the drink that Edward had expected. Instead, Joseph suggested that they should go for a walk. They set off, Joseph leading the way until they reached a grand red-brick Gothic mansion block on the corner of Green Street and Park Street. Edward asked what they were doing there. Joseph smiled and told him to follow. He led the way to the pillared entrance and went inside. Edward asked again what was going on. Joseph grinned even more broadly and set off up a grand staircase that wound its way directly up the middle of the building. He stepped onto the landing on the fourth floor. Two doors led off it, numbered ten and twelve. Joseph withdrew a key from his pocket and unlocked the door for number twelve.
Inside was a beautiful apartment. The wide sitting room featured polished wood floors, a large fireplace and wide French doors that opened out onto a terrace that offered views over Hyde Park. Joseph led the way into a generously-proportioned bedroom, and then opened the door to a second. The room had a wide bed and a chest of drawers and wardrobe that were already full of Joseph’s lovely clothes. There were several packing crates stacked against the wall and one of them was open, revealing a collection of novels. They were penny-dreadfuls, for the most part, but Edward found them rather surprising. He had assumed that Joseph was a young fellow who was cunning but not particularly intelligent, more likely to be out drinking and womanizing than reading. Perhaps he had misjudged him.
“And the kitchen?”
Joseph showed him through to the spacious kitchen. Edward went back through the rooms again, casting about with hungry eyes.
“What do you think?” Joseph said, beaming proudly.
“It’s fabulous. It must cost a fortune.”
“It ain’t cheap.”
He was bubbling with enthusiasm. Edward did not want to think how much a place like that would cost, but he did not want to spoil his mood. “That’s capital,” he said. He thought about his own place, the malodorous bathroom with the door that did not lock, the grimy attic room that looked like it had been lived in by a thousand different people who had never lifted a hand to clean it, and he felt jealous.
“Big, ain’t it?”
“Huge.”
“Reckon it’s too big just for me. Thought you might like it, too? What do you reckon? Me and you?” For once, Edward did not have to fake his reaction: he spluttered in helpless surprise. Joseph seemed taken aback by his response. “You don’t have to, just… you know, if you like?”
He regained his composure. “How much is it?”
“Twenty-five a week.”
“I can’t afford that,” he said, even as he worked out the sums in his head, and wondered whether, if they turned over a few extra houses now again, perhaps, maybe, he could afford it.
“Forget the money. Do you like it?”
“Of course I do. How could you not like it? It’s beautiful.”
“Perfect spot, too. Right where the action is.”
“Joseph––be serious. It’s too much.”
“You worry too much, Doc. Money’s not a problem. We’re going to be well off.”
“With the nonsense from Jack Spot?”
“That’ll get sorted out.”
He had expected that that would be how Joseph reacted to the threat from Spot. He was an optimist and he usually assumed the best. That was naïve. Edward was pragmatic and he suspected that this particular problem would require careful solving. He had heard the rumours the same as everyone else: Spot was upping his game, becoming more aggressive and more acquisitive. The newspapers had reported a spate of attacks on businesses aligned to the Costellos.
A restaurant with a brick flung through the window.
A gang of gypsy heavies standing outside the Alhambra, scaring away all the passing trade.
The proprietor of a general store with a knife pressed against his throat, threatened with violence: stop paying the Costellos, start paying Spot.
Edward shelved his concerns for the moment and wandered across the parquet floor to the French doors. He opened them and stepped out onto the stone-flagged terrace. The streets of Mayfair spread out below him and then, beyond that, the green of Hyde Park, its broad fields still scarred in places with the fading green-brown slashes of anti-aircraft trenches. Edward stared across the vista, the hubbub of the city below full of the promise of excitement and opportunity.
“Come on, Doc,” Joseph said. “All we went through, the war, getting our arses kicked for the King, and they expect us to live like tramps in dirty bedsitters? That just don’t seem right to me. And it’d be fun here, you and me, wouldn’t it? We’d have a proper laugh––two bachelors, a bit of gelt to spread around, a nice place to call home. Think of the laughs we could have, think of the judies we could bring back, you can get a whole different class of girl if they think you have something about you. What do you say?”
Edward didn’t need much in the way of persuasion. “Alright,” he said. “You’re on.”
Joseph was in boisterous spirits as they emerged onto the busy street. He put his arm around Edward and squeezed. Edward’s mood followed his friend’s, and he returned the gesture, both of them laughing at a shared realisation: they were young men, with money and the prospect of making much, much more. Life had treated them harshly for too long, but now a corner had been turned, and things would be different.
27
CHARLIE MURPHY MADE his way down Northumberland Avenue to the three buildings that comprised Scotland Yard. It was sunny and cool although not cool enough to be called crisp. The Commissioner’s Office and the Receiver’s Office were made from old red and white brick, the third from Portland Stone that was mined by convicts down on Dartmoor. He was a little anxious. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stan Clarke had asked to see him. Urgent, he’d said. Christ. Clarke hadn’t said what the meeting was for but the chances were that it was going to be something that Charlie didn’t like. Of course, he had seen the papers over the last couple of days. He had stewed over them in the pub with Carlyle and White. They had made glum reading. The front pages all led with reports of the shooting of Lennie Masters and the ruckus in the club. They were comparing it w
ith Chicago and Al Capone. Charlie knew that was asinine nonsense, arrant foolishness of the worst order, but he also knew that excited reporting like that would go down very badly with his senior officers.
That fact of it was that they were losing control of the West End. Jack Spot was there every night, seemingly with more men each time. Charlie received the reports very morning and the coloured pins on his large map demonstrated how his malefic influence was spreading throughout the area, all seemingly unchecked. Businesses that had kicked up to the Costellos for years were being persuaded to change their allegiances. Spielers and shebeens were being attacked, the custom driven away. Two street bookies had been slashed across the faces and driven out. The Maltese, who controlled vice west of Regent Street, were being attacked. And, throughout all of this, there was nothing in the way of retaliation from the Costellos. Charlie could only think of two possible explanations for that: either they were a spent force or they were getting into something else.
The D.A.C.’s office was on the second floor. Charlie knocked and went inside. The office was large, with wide windows that looked out over the Embankment and the iron-grey sweep of the Thames beyond. A couple of olive-green navy pontoons were still lashed to their moorings, bobbing sullenly on the rise and fall of the tide. The D.A.C. was behind his desk, papers spread out before him and a pencil in his mouth.
“Morning, Charles,” he said. “Take a seat.” He pointed absent-mindedly at the armchair opposite the desk.
Charlie did as he was told. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
Clarke put the pencil down and tidied the desk. “Cost cutting,” he explained, indicating the sheaf of papers with a gesture of brusque irritation. “Bane of my bloody life.” He settled back in his chair and folded his arms. “Now then, Charles, afraid we have a bit of a problem.”
