The Black Mile (14 page)

 
When she was
quiet he took out his knife.

 
A bomb fell
nearby. A deep booming rumble was followed by the sound of pebbles washing onto
a beach, a building collapsing. More people arrived, cramming inside. Nervous
conversations began. Everyone was frightened. Frank took out a picture of
Molly, lit it with his torch and went through the shelter, person by person,
showing the picture around. Did they recognise her? Had they seen her in the
area last night? He drew blanks.

 
He took out
a picture of Eve.

 
None of them
had seen her, either.

 
Frank left
the shelter and walked down towards Piccadilly Circus. He turned into Great
Windmill Street, passed the Windmill Theatre where you could see Vivian van
Damm’s naked birds, stock-still in case the Attorney General shut them down,
the jimmers clambering down to the front rows to get a better look. The raid
hadn’t completely cleared the streets: a few dolled-up tarts in nylons and
garters were abroad, waiting on street corners or pressed into doorways, pocket
torches shone on faces and then down to show stockinged legs and ankles on high
heels. “Are you a naughty boy, dearie?” Cigarette tips glowed. Smiles and soft
words. Frank knew the drill: a fiver for the night, the opening offer––she’s
having a laugh, she’d accept a quid soon enough––then follow her back to her
place or into the nearest doorway if it’s a wall job, hand over the dough, get
what you’d paid for together with a dose of the clap so bad it’d peel your
jewels right off.

 
He saw a
girl he recognised in an all-night coffee shop on Glasshouse Street. A
bottle-blonde Frenchie who’d come over from Marseilles as a teenager, married a
sailor for the passport, and worked Mayfair for the Malts ever since. He bought
a couple of coffees.

 
“Hello,
Frank,” she said. “Just having a break. You got a smoke?”

 
“Evening,
Yvette.” He gave her one of the coffees and handed her his last fag.

 
“Bless you.”
She gestured outside. “What about all this? What a mess.”

 
“How’s
business?”

 
“Quiet.
Couple of soldiers, that’s all. Everyone’s worried about the bombs.” She held
up the fag.

 
Frank lit it
for her. “What are you doing in Soho? Off your patch, isn’t it?”

 
“Gino’s
moved some of us over here. You’d have to ask him why.”

 
Yvette was a
pro and she knew the ropes. You didn’t arrest the girls unless they were
annoying pedestrians and, even then, they didn’t take it personally. A quick
trip to Marylebone Police Court in the morning, a two quid fine, back on the
beat the same night. Business overheads, that’s what they said. Frank had
nicked Yvette half a dozen times since she’d worked the West End. And he’d
coshed the Johnson who’d slapped her around trying to get her to join his
stable. They had an understanding since then: he looked out for her, she kept
her ear to the ground.

 
“Any sign of
your girl?”

 
Frank shook
his head.

 
“I’ve seen
the pictures. You’re sure she’s in London?”

 
“She’s here
somewhere. Just don’t know where.”

 
“I’ll keep
my eyes open, love.”

 
“Thanks.”

 
She got up
and reached for her coat.

 
“Be careful.
A girl got done in last night.”

 
“I heard.
More worried about old Adolf, to be honest. But thanks. You’re a sweetie.”

 
Frank moved
down to Piccadilly. It looked different in the black-out: lights doused,
windows boarded up and Eros gone, supposedly lying on a mattress in County Hall
if you believed the papers. He walked vaguely, no destination in mind. He
turned into Brewer Street and then back on himself, sharp left into Glasshouse
Street. A girl was leaning against the wall. “Hello, dearie,” she said. “Want
to come home with me?” She turned a torch up at him. “Jesus, your face!”

 
Frank
examined her: prematurely aged, crow’s feet wrinkling her eyes, breath reeking
of booze. He didn’t know her.        “You’d
best get off the street. A girl got topped in Mayfair last night.” She couldn’t
take her eyes off the burns; he gently pushed her arm down. “Did you hear me?
It’s not safe.”

 
“Can’t
afford to be choosy what days I work. I’ve got two little ‘uns back home and
there’s rent and meals to pay.”

 
“Be careful,
then.” He gave her a handful of pennies. “Stay around the Circus––there’s more
bobbies around there.”

 
“Why would I
want to be where the filth go?” She went north towards Old Compton
Street.   

 
Frank turned
onto Wardour Street and walked back down to Shaftesbury Avenue. He leant
against a wall and propped himself up, gathering his strength. He didn’t know
why he still did this, wandering around Soho like a ghost. A month ago there
had been sightings of a girl who might have been Eve, but by the time he’d
arrived she was gone. But he couldn’t stop looking. Especially not now.

Lack of sleep hit like a sledgehammer. He drifted
into the courtyard of St Anne’s and slumped onto a bench. He struggled with
heavy eyelids, the sound of distant explosions carrying him to sleep.

 
28

THE DOOR TO THE TOP HAT WAS STILL OPEN. A barman
was drying pint pots and couple of cheap-looking women were in the booths,
drinking. The place was dead.

 
“Mr. Field
here?” he said to the barman.

 
“Not back
yet.”

 
“Best have a
drink, then.” He took the gin to a booth. Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty:
no sign of Field. Molly Jenkins was having second thoughts; Field was scared.
Frustration bubbled in his gut like an ulcer. The story suddenly looked shaky.

 
There was no
point waiting. Henry asked to the barman to tell Field he’d be back tomorrow
and hurried home. He crossed Waterloo Bridge. Fire appliances, ambulances and
ARP vehicles clattered past, all headed east, sirens wailing. The flames were hundreds
of feet tall, devouring the dockside warehouses on both banks. He thought of
those Movietone newsreels from the Scandinavian countries where they didn’t
always have darkness at night. Perpetual twilight: it was like that. Hard to
take your eyes off it. The sound of aeroplane engines––an up-and-down chugging
like a car struggling up a hill––filled the air. There was no lull––as one
bomber passed overhead, another replaced it. That fat queen Göring must have
put together a queue of Heinkels and Dorniers ten miles long, all of them
waiting for their chance to tip their bombs onto the city, the moon lighting
the way, the burning warehouses the bull’s-eye.

 
He set off
across the Bridge. He had just gained the south bank when a thin man in a trilby
overtook him and them stepped into his path.

 
“Excuse me.”

 
Henry
stopped. The thin light touched the man’s outline: rat-faced, sallow; he caught
a red tie and shiny spring-sided boots. “Excuse me, where’s the nearest
shelter?” Henry saw the second man, the one behind him, a ghostly reflection in
a window. Too late. Strong hands grabbed him from behind, turned him, shoved
him into an alley and held him. The bloke was big, built like a gorilla, scars
on his cheeks. His breath smelt of gin and cigarettes.

 
Rat-face
leaned in: “That chap you met tonight, you stay away from him. Steer clear. Bad
apple, alright? Could get you into a lot of trouble. Dangerous. Understand,
squire?”

 
“I don’t––”

 
The second
man punched him in the gut, hard. He went down, wheezing, gulping air.

 
“I don’t
wanna see you round Soho no more.” He kicked him in the stomach, the air
gasping out. “We won’t be so nice next time.”

MONDAY 9th SEPTEMBER 1940

 
29

FIVE IN THE MORNING. The all-clear sounded as
Charlie finished his breakfast. It’d been a heavy night. A couple of bombs
sounded as if they’d fallen in the area and, after that, it had been difficult
to sleep. He sat at the kitchen table with the radio on, the announcer reading
the news: four hundred people, at least, had lost their lives. Two thousand
seriously injured. London’s docklands on fire, hundreds of East End houses
smashed. Balham and the Elephant and Castle also hit. Hitler lost eighty-six of
his planes. The RAF, twenty-two. The announcer seemed to think that that was a
decent bag for a spot of bombing.

 
Charlie went
out to the car. He turned the corner and there it was, the bomb he’d heard
landing nearby: the Red Lion smashed to pieces by a direct hit. All that was
left was a battered frame, a heap of masonry, floorboards and dirt. Dust still
filled the air, yellow dust, clouds of it. An emergency reservoir had been set
up on the corner of the street. Puddles had gathered on the tarmac and ash
coated the walls of nearby buildings. Muddy tracks led to the doused wreckage
from where the firemen had hauled their hoses. Charlie stopped as an ambulance
pulled out in front of him and stared, open-mouthed at the debris of ruined
lives: a child’s toy, a perambulator blown into a tree, a cooking-stove. A
stairwell had been exposed, together with a patchwork of variously patterned
wall-papers in rooms stripped of their walls. Bewildered survivors milled
around, coloured ochre from head-to-foot. Brickdust––it matted their hair,
discoloured their skins and ruined their clothes. He knew the landlord and his
wife but he didn’t recognise them now. They all looked the same. Wardens and
bobbies co-ordinated the scene, and men from the Heavy Rescue Squad lugged the
debris and looked for survivors. Fat chance. Ghoulish to gawp, he thought, but
he couldn’t help it.

 
He bumped
over the firemen’s plump hoses and drove to Paddington mortuary. He’d called
again last night to try and expedite Grimes’ P.M. but it was no good, not
without the coroner’s say-so. Now the bombs had started to fall he knew bodies
would be coming in thick and fast. Normal timetables would be out of the
window. There was no guarantee that the body would be taken care of before the end
of the week. He parked the car outside the mortuary. Alf was happy to leave
George to Regan and Timms to investigate. And he was probably right. It
probably was a suicide; the poor bloody bastard had plenty of reason to do
himself in. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the telephone call. It had
rattled around his head all night as the bombs kept him up, staring at the
wall.

 
There were
questions that he needed to settle.

 
He took his
murder bag from the boot and walked across the grounds to the door of the
mortuary. Locked. He rapped on the window. The caretaker came over. He held his
Warrant Card up to the glass. The old man squinted at it and, satisfied, opened
up.

 
“Can I help
you, officer?” His breath stank of cheap whiskey.

 
“I need a
few minutes. Need to examine one of the bodies.”

 
The man
clucked his tongue. “You know I can’t do that. Against the rules, innit?”

 
Charlie took
a shilling out of his pocket and held it up. “Just look the other way, chum.
And if anyone asks, I wasn’t here. Is that alright?”

 
The man put
his hand out. “Ten minutes. Which one?”

 
Charlie told
him and followed into the dark mortuary. The smell of death was strong in the
sterile conditions of the room: neither pleasant nor unpleasant, it was a waxy
odour somewhere between furniture polish and old grease that seemed, almost, to
have its own texture and warmth. The caretaker opened the door to the large
walk-in fridge. The space was filled with dead bodies: some were in leather
sheaths, most in large paper bags.

 
The
caretaker checked the tags attached to the feet of the bodies until he found
the one he wanted. He undid the leather clasps and opened the bag. “All yours.”

 
A plastic
bag had been pulled over Grimes’ head to prevent contamination during transit.
Charlie wheeled the gurney into the main room, undid the bag and carefully
tugged it off. He loosened the plastic sheet wrapped around the rest of the
body and made a quick examination. Post mortem lividity was developing, the
darker colours staining the bottom of the trunk and the limbs as the blood
slowly settled. Charlie lifted up one of Grimes’ arms and turned it. He
unfastened the clasps of his bag, took out fingerprint cards and an ink pad. He
held up Grimes’ index finger and rolled it, from nail to nail, across the pad.
Charlie repeated the motion on one of the cards, and then did the same for the
right thumb, and then both thumb and index finger of the left hand. He examined
the prints carefully––all were clear and without smudges––and filed the cards
in his bag.

 
The gunshot
had demolished one side of Grimes’ head, brain and dried blood matted together
inside the wound. Half of his face had been shaved with large patches
untroubled by the razor. He stooped and stared at a strand of fabric that had
been caught in the bristles beneath the nose; he picked up a pair of tweezers,
removed it and examined it with a magnifying glass. It looked like cotton,
fluffy, the kind of material that could be found in a towel or a bathrobe. He
forced Grimes’ half-locked jaws apart, keeping them open with a tongue
depressor while he shone his torch into the mouth. He saw identical fibres
caught in the top and bottom incisors, and another stuck to the roof of the
mouth.

 
Charlie
replaced the sheet and the bag and folded Grimes back in the plastic sheet. He
left the caretaker another shilling on the way out and stepped carefully
through the grounds back to his car. Charlie sat, resting his forehead against
the wheel as he tried to think. Something was wrong. The more he tugged at the
loose threads, the more they unravelled.

 
The
telephone call.

 
The rag in
the bin and the strands in the mouth.

 
The money in
the shelter.

 
Something
was wrong.