Second Violin (55 page)

‘Spit it out! You cheeky little sod. Spit it out. I’ll chew you up and fuckin’ spit you out. You’re going round London askin’ questions where you shouldn’t
be!’

OK, thought Troy, that was moderate progress, but there remained a vital question.

‘Questions about whom?’

Troy could hear the force with which Steerforth held in the explosion. If they were in the same room the man would surely be trying to throttle Troy.

‘Redburn, you little bugger! Redburn! Sir Michael Redburn! You’ve been round to his house. I know you have, so don’t fuckin’ deny it.’

‘I don’t deny it. But I didn’t get past the door.’

‘And you won’t.’

‘Then what’s the problem?’ ‘The problem is that I’ve got the bastard in custody. I’ve had him banged up for weeks. Who do you think I was on to that day at
the Tea Rooms?’

OK, time to state the obvious.

‘Redburn?’

‘Right, smartarse. Redburn. You nearly fucked that up. Don’t fuck it up again. Don’t go near the house, don’t go near his family until the trial’s over.’

‘What trial?’

Troy sensed a dropped brick, one Steerforth would have a little difficulty picking up.

‘He’s on trial for treason. You won’t be reading about it in the papers, and maybe you never will. It’s what they call in
camera
. Classified. A secret.’

‘Then I’m glad you haven’t told me.’

The explosion forced Troy to hold the receiver away from his ear. Troy was not wholly certain what he was saying, but ‘little gobshite’, and ‘busted back to walking the
fuckin’ beat’ seemed to be prevalent. When he’d stopped Troy said, ‘I’ve an ongoing murder investigation, sir. If you’ve had Redburn in custody since that day at
the Tea Rooms, then he’s of no further interest to me, but while you’re on the line perhaps you could tell me whether you have any interest in Lord Carsington . . .’

‘Stay away from him!’

‘. . . Geoffrey Trench . . .’

‘Aaaaaaaghhh!’

‘. . . Or Charles Lockett?’

Steerforth slammed the phone down.

Troy had got home. Rummaged in the dark place under the sink for a bottle of his dad’s vintage claret. It had been a shitty day. It was about to get shittier. The
telephone rang. He picked it up, held the bottle in his right hand, corkscrew still in cork, and hoped to get rid of whoever it was quickly.

‘I have a long-distance call for you from Burnham-on-Crouch, person to person, Frederick Troy.’

‘That’s me,’ said Troy, expecting his old pal Charlie.

But it wasn’t.

‘Go ahead, caller.’

‘It’s me, Walter Stilton.’

‘Hello, Walter.’

‘I got the bollocking of a lifetime today.’

Troy set the bottle down, and prepared to wait.

‘Steerforth?’

‘Aye. Steerforth.’

‘I’m sorry, Walter. It couldn’t be helped. It’s Murder Squad business now – official. It’s out of Steerforth’s hands, but I’d no idea he’d
take it out on you.’

‘I’m used to it.’

Troy waited for the but.

‘But . . . it won’t stop there. I was thinkin’ . . . put a bit of space between yourself and our Kitty.’

‘Walter, do you really think that’s necessary?’

‘He’s a malicious little sod. If you weren’t trespassing on his turf at the Russian caff you are now. He’s capable of having you watched. If he gets the bit between his
teeth, he’ll find the manpower and he’ll do it.’

‘Does he have someone watching Chesham Place?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because I intend to ask Onions to put someone there in the morning. It would be a farce if we doubled up. Two coppers watching each other.’

‘Like I say, I don’t know, and I won’t ask. But if any of his blokes see you and Kitty together and Steerforth adds her to his list of coppers he wants vetted . . . need I say
more?’

‘But will she listen to me?’

‘I’m her father . . . she sure as hell won’t listen to me. Hold her at arm’s length for a bit. I’m not sayin’ dump her – she’d hate that
–just find a convenient lie that stops you seeing her till this is over.’

It suited too well. A convenient lie. It was as though some guiding hand was slotting pieces into place for him. Zette and Kitty and a revolving door. Part of him did not wish to do it, just as
much of him could not quite believe his luck.

Onions had appeared in Troy’s office again, puffing on a Woodbine.

‘I’m hearing nowt.’

‘There’s not a lot to tell you.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

Onions parked himself by the fireplace, flicking ash into the grate. Troy told him, omitting the chance encounter with Carsington.

‘D’ye mean to see ’em again. Up the ante next time?’

‘I’d rather just put a watch on them. I took Lockett by surprise and for some reason Trench was mildly entertained by the whole thing. Next time they’ll want their brief in the
room. No, I’ll stay clear of them, but I want them watched. Anyone could move around like a wraith in an air-raid. It’s the perfect cover. The only way to approach this is to put a man
on each of their houses.’

Onions pinched the end of his cigarette, dropped it back in the packet for later.

‘I can’t spare the men for what you’re asking. Three watches at once? And on nothing more than a hunch?’

‘It’s one of them. I know it.’

Onions wasn’t having this.

‘Like I said – a hunch. It could be any one of them or none of them.’

‘I’d plump for Carsington.’

Onions wasn’t having this either.

‘Only ’cos you’ve crossed swords with him before. You said yourself . . . Lockett might be playing the fool just for you, and Trench is as smooth as they come. Birds off the
trees and all that malarkey. He could have got back to London from his constituency in the middle of the night for the June and August dates. Lockett doesn’t know where he was on either date.
And they’ve neither of them got anything I’d call a shred of an alibi for the one night we know for certain it’s murder.’

‘Perhaps Carsington hasn’t either?’

‘Mebbe, mebbe not.’

‘Let me talk to him.’

‘No.’

‘Then give me Thomson and Gutteridge to watch the houses.’

‘I can’t do it. I can’t justify the resources. Not the pickle we’re in now. Every suspicious body the ARP call us out. Like you said an air-raid is perfect cover. Bound
to be a few old scores settled. And there’s bodies turning up all over the place.’

‘Stan . . . it’s usually me who turns out for them. I’m handling two or three a day right now.’

‘Then you’ve got your hands full, haven’t you?’

It was raining. After another imperious summons to Stanhope Place, mercifully spared sex-in-the-park – ‘rain stopped play’, as he thought of it –
another raid banging down around them, the blackout tightly drawn – Troy sat up in bed with a pencil and paper by the light of a reading lamp.

Zette woke.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking a leaf out of your book. I’m trying to perceive a pattern in the numbers.’

‘What numbers?’

‘The dates of the killings.’

‘And can you?’

‘No. 29, 19, 7 and 7. Meaningless to me.’

Zette stretched out an arm languidly and took the sheet from him. Yawned. Rubbed with a fist at one eye and read with the other.

‘There’s a pattern alright. As for meaning . . .’

‘A pattern?’

‘School Matric Maths, Troy!’

‘I was more of a Latin scholar.’

‘God, this is so elementary. They’re all prime numbers. They cannot be divided by any other number but themselves and one.’

‘They can’t?’

‘Try it. Find something that goes into 29 without leaving a few over. 21, on the other hand, is divisible by 7 and 3; 25 by . . . do you see?’

‘Yes. I can see it now. But why do you say it’s meaningless.’

‘For God’s sake Troy . . . if I thought numbers meant something
per se
I’d have signed up for my father’s gobbledegook classes years ago. “Three, five,
seven, a quickstep into heaven.” It’s a pattern. Possibly a random one. Any meaning is a matter of our own interpretation . . . our own projection.’

‘Then let me project this. According to you there is something . . . perfect – I can think of no other word – something “perfect” about a prime number. Something
imperfect about fractions. Supposing this chap only goes out to kill on nights that are prime numbers? Supposing only prime numbers meet his sense of perfection?’

‘Supposing he only goes out wearing odd sock? It doesn’t mean anything except to him. Maybe he’s just a nutter?’

‘Oh,’ said Troy. ‘He’s that alright, I’m quite sure he’s that.’

They sat at the same oilclothed table in the back room of Nader’s house, drinking tea again.

Nader said, ‘It’s been over a fortnight now. The Luftwaffe haven’t missed a night. How long before Eastenders accept being bombed as a way of life?’

‘Do you think they’re that sanguine?’

‘No, but they’ll say they are. “England can take it.” But how much death can any community take? I attend a funeral every day now.’

‘I look at bodies every day.’

‘You could say that was inherent in the nature of both our occupations. You and I deal in death, in mortality and immortality.’

Troy could not agree with the last part of this. In his experience the dead stayed dead, but he was delighted that Nader had given him the introduction to the pitch he wanted to make –
common ground between them was a godsend.

‘Do you not think we might be alike in other ways?’

‘Such as?’

‘We’re roughly the same height. Your hair and eyes are the same colour.’

‘But,’ said Nader, running a finger raspily down the side of his face, ‘I have a beard and you don’t.’

Troy placed a small paper parcel on the table and unwrapped it. He took the contents in his fingers and held it to his chin, fingertips pressed to his cheekbones, just below the ears. Nader
laughed out loud.

‘A false beard, Mr Troy? Where did you get that? In a joke shop?’

‘As a matter of fact, I did. The one in Holborn. I bought the spirit gum at the same time.’

‘You mean you intend to masquerade as me?’

‘Lend me your hat and jacket and we’ll see. I have an idea of when our man might strike again. I’ve been able to come up with a set of likely dates. I can’t be certain of
any of them, of course – but I am certain the next victim will be a rabbi and that you are next on the list.’

‘You don’t think your “man”, as you put it, will know my father is in hospital?’

‘Unlikely. Or are you saying I should dress as him rather than you?’

‘We couldn’t pad you enough, Mr Troy. You’d have to gain four stones. And I haven’t yet said I’ll let you play me. That is what you intend, isn’t it? To dress
as me, and lie in wait?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Such a risk. This man has killed four men.’

‘So far the worst attack has been with a kitchen knife. I think I can handle that, and of course I’ll be expecting him. None of the others were.’

Nader was thinking. Troy did not want Nader to think. He wanted him simply to agree.

‘I can’t help thinking that it’s like trading your life for mine. I couldn’t agree to that.’

‘It would only be that if I died. I’ve no intention of dying.’

‘Suppose I am, suppose I remain, the bait, and you watch over me?’

‘I couldn’t agree to that.’

Nader thought again.

‘Tell me.’

‘We meet here, early evening tomorrow. Discreetly. I won’t leave my car outside. I’ll come in the back, and you should leave by the back. You have somewhere you could go, I
take it?’

‘I should think I’m related to half Stepney. I have more aunts than I have fingers to count them.’

‘When the raid starts, and that’s
when
not
if,
I think, I’ll go over to the synagogue and pretend to be clearing up. If I’m right . . . something will
happen before midnight. If nothing happens by the time of the all-clear, I’ll come back here, put my feet up and see you at breakfast.’

‘And then?’

‘We try again. As I said, I can’t really be sure when – but I do know it’s you next.’

‘You know, I think I just felt someone walk over my grave. Very well. Tomorrow. The 23 rd. And after that?’

‘The 29th.’

‘And the significance?’

Troy didn’t want to explain – it felt, for all his confidence in his theory, just a bit silly – so he didn’t.

Nader pulled open the drawer in the kitchen table.

‘You forgot one thing . . . hair, eyes, height, beard . . . glasses. Take my spares.’

Troy opened the case, slipped them on. Little wire-rimmed spectacles with thick lenses. The world swam. He felt what it must be like to be a goldfish.

‘As you are clearly not short-sighted, Mr Troy, I suggest you pull them down to the end of your nose and peer over them. There’s not much else you can do. But you’ll never pass
for me or my father without them.’

On the morning of the 24th Nader nudged Troy awake with a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge.

‘If you were expecting bacon and eggs you’ve come to the wrong hotel. What happened?’

Troy sipped at the tea and said, ‘Nothing. Not a sausage.’

‘You won’t get those here either.’

‘You are an odd mixture, Billy. You profess to be a gut Tory, yet you never applied to be British and hence never received the right to vote as a gut Tory. You are a
pillar of the East End Tailors . . . yet you admit to throwing bricks at policemen and you boast of cheating the taxman at every turn. All in all, I do not know what to believe . . . except to ask
. . . who are you, Billy Jacks? Do
you
know?’

‘Maxie, you can blather all you want, you ain’t gonna make me British – been there, done that – and you ain’t gonna make me no pinko neither.’

‘Billy – am I right in summing up your philosphy as “look after number one”?’

‘You should know, you used it to take the piss out of me often enough.’

‘And mine can be summed up in much the same words . . .’