The Black Mile (27 page)

“She’s made a statement. The boy
who found her, he’s made one too. He saw you run off. Obvious what happened:
you came up behind her, started to strangle her, but then the boy disturbed you
before you could finish her off and you made a run for it. Only this time you
panicked and left your gas mask behind. Sound about right?”

“No, I––”

“They both got a good look at
you,” he lied. “Confident they won’t pick you out of an identity parade?”

“I was at home yesterday, with
Reginald. Ask––” He didn’t finish the sentence: no-one could ask Reginald
Dudley anything, no-one would ask him anything again––a .38 slug had splattered
Reginald Dudley’s head all over the walls. “Ask the girl. She’ll tell you.”

Charlie shook his head. “You
want the girl you raped to alibi you? You’ve got some balls, Duncan, I’ll give
you that. You’ve got some neck.” Johnson started to say something––Charlie
raised his hand. “Don’t bother, it won’t make any difference what she says.
You’re in this up to your neck. Too deep for that. Give it some thought for a
minute––I’ll be back.”

Charlie got up and went outside.

He had a bigger audience: his
father, McCartney, Dickie Farr, Bob Peters, Percy Timms, Albert Regan, Malcolm
Slater, Jimmy Lucas and half a dozen men on the early turn were gathered around
the two-way to watch the show. Frank was at the back.

“I said he’d be difficult,”
McCartney said.

“I’m not getting very far.”

“You’re doing fine,” his father
said.

He felt sweat in the small of
his back. “I’m not sure.”

“He’s a fine actor but he’s
frightened. Don’t let him fool you.”

“I’m just not sure––”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Frank
exclaimed, “Get him out of there––he’s completely out of his depth.”

“No, Francis––he’s doing fine.”

“Let me do it. I’ll have him
singing in five minutes.”

“Really?” Charlie spat. “How
would you do that? Beat him black and blue until he says what you want him to
say?” 

“You don’t think that’s what he
deserves?”

“That’s not the point.”

“You feel sorry for him?”

“No––this gets done properly so
his confession isn’t ruled inadmissible when he says it was beaten out of him
by a copper with form for that kind of thing. But I wouldn’t expect a
neanderthal like you to understand what that means.”

Frank surged forward and his
fist flashed, too quick for Charlie to get his hands up. The blow caught him
flush on the jaw.

He staggered.

Their father stepped between
them. “Frank! Jesus! You’re on the same side, remember?” 

Charlie spat out blood and
managed to hold his glare; Frank shook his head derisively. He kicked open the
door and went through it.

Charlie could feel the side of
his face swelling.

“Are you alright?

His head throbbed. “Just give me
a minute, father.”

“We don’t have a minute, son.
Can you go back in?”

Charlie ignored the throbbing.
“I’ll be fine.”

“You need to pay attention.
Something’s turned up.”

Alf McCartney held up two clear
evidence bags.

Charlie took them: inside, two
ration books.

He read the names on the front
covers:

Constance Worthing.

Annie Stokes.

Blood-stains on them both; blue
aluminium powder revealing fingerprints.

“Where did these come from?”

“Dudley’s house,” Regan said.
“In the bedroom.”

Bob Peters stepped in. “We’ve
got him, Charlie. Between these and the gas mask, he’s finished.”

“What about the mask––he said
his was in the house.”

“Couldn’t find one.”

“He was bluffing,” his father
said. “There’s no way out for him now. But he needs to put his hands up and
admit he did it. It’d be best for everyone if we can avoid a trial. We don’t
need the distraction of preparing for that, not at the moment. Bloody hell,
London doesn’t need the distraction. Whatever it takes––break him. You’re
nearly there, son. Make him confess. Get him to plead guilty and he’ll be
scragged and out of mind in two months.”

Charlie took a moment to compose
himself.

He went back inside.

“You have anything to say to
me?”

“This is a fit-up. I was nowhere
near the West End. Someone must have planted a gas mask there and said it was
mine.”

“You’re wasting my time,
Duncan.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“There was no mask at the house.
What do you have to say about that?”

“It’s in the cupboard, in the
kitchen. I know exactly where it is.”

“So you say.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“No?” Charlie tossed the
evidence bags on the table. “Remember these?”

Johnson looked at them. “Ration
books.”

“Look at the names.”

His face was pale and went even
paler.

“I’ve never seen them before.”

“Funny. We found them at the
house. You took them from the Worthing and Stokes after you killed them, didn’t
you? Souvenirs. Something to remember them by?”

“I didn’t.”

“For Christ’s sake, Duncan! You
can see how bad this looks for you. Very, very bad. You and a mate get caught
with a poor young thing you’ve abducted and done God knows what to. Personal
items belonging to two dead prostitutes are found in your possession. Your gas
mask turns up at the scene of an assault bearing all the hallmarks of the man
we’re looking for.”

He tried to speak firmly but his
shaking hands gave the game away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve
never seen those books and I’ve got nothing to do with those women.”

“Duncan––calm down and think
about it. You’re bang-to-rights. Do yourself a favour, tell me what happened.
I’ll make it as easy and painless as I can. You’ve just got to put your hands
up, that’s all.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Duncan––look at me. I’m your
only friend now. I’ll help you.”

“This is a fit-up.”

“Tell me you killed the
brasses.”

“I didn’t.”

Charlie banged the table. “Last
chance. Tell me!”

Johnson closed his eyes. “I
didn’t do it.”

“
Confess!
”

“Lawyer,” he croaked. “Get me a
lawyer.”

 
49

FRANK WOKE UP. He was lying on top of his bed,
dressed, a half pint bottle of Black & White on the floor, half a packet of
cigarettes spilt across the bed, the rest smoked and screwed into an ashtray.
The room smelt ripe: stale smoke, sweat, unwashed clothes. He rolled over and
reached for his watch: six. He got up and pulled back the black-out; the sky
was beginning to darken, dusk settling over the West End. Six in the evening.
He must’ve slept all day.

He remembered: he’d been
drinking since he left the nick. He hadn’t touched a drop since Eve
disappeared. He hadn’t dared––he’d needed a clear head to find her again. With
the Ripper off the street, it didn’t seem so bad. One night wouldn’t hurt.
Things weren’t as dangerous as they had been. Dickie Farr and a couple of the
lads had persuaded Joe Franks to open his place, a few early morning jars to
celebrate a job well done. He remembered stumbling up from the basement into
bright morning sunshine and waiting for the operator to place a call to Julia,
struggling to explain that Duncan Johnson was done for, off the streets, finished,
done––he wasn’t sure how much sense he’d made because she kept telling him he’d
been drinking and asking him to repeat himself.

 
There was a
knock on the door.

 
Frank opened
up: his father was standing outside. He looked over Frank’s shoulder into the
room: “Jesus, Frank.”

 
“What?”

 
“Good God,
son. How do you live like this?”

 
“It’s
temporary. Moving back in soon. Just temporary, this is, until then.”

 
“You’ve been
drinking.”

 
“Is it
obvious?”

 
“You reek of
it. I thought you’d stopped? After––”

 
“I have.
It’s just a one-off.”

 
He didn’t
come in. “Are you alright?”

 
“I’m fine.”

 
“Are you
sure? Yesterday, you and Charlie––you were out of order, Francis.”

 
His hand
stung. Bruised knuckles helped him remember.

 
“I know.”

 
“You need to
sort it out. It’s gone on long enough.”

 
“I will.
I––I’ll apologise.”

 
“I think you
might find Charlie is ready for that, too. I spoke to him about his testimony.
He knows he was in the wrong. I think he’s regretting it.” His father took off
his hat. “But I’m not here about that. I wish I was. I’m afraid I’m the bearer
of ill tidings. Georgina Howard jumped out of the hospital window this
afternoon.”

 
A shot to
the guts and a memory: last night, the girl’s dead, empty eyes staring at him
through the slats. “Christ.”

 
“The parents
visited until midday, didn’t get anything out of her, she was given a sedative
but she never took it; the nurse found pills on the floor and her bed empty. A
pedestrian found her in the street just after four. It was a five-storey drop.
She never stood a chance.”

 
“Did she––”

 
“Not a word.
Whatever they did to her, she took it to her grave.”

 
Frank sat
down and put his head in his hands.

 
“It’s
another reason to get Johnson weighed off. And there’s something else about
that. Might help you feel better. Charlie got into him again this morning;
Georgina Howard aside, which he can’t deny, he still says he had nothing to do
with the dead brasses. He’s got a brief now. Charlie’s taken this as far as he
can––he’s asking the same questions and Johnson is just denying them.
Stalemate. He’s bang to rights with the evidence we found, but I want him
pleading to it. The Commissioner does not want this going to full trial. It’s
time for a different approach. Johnson’s got this afternoon with his brief and
then we’re going to charge him and remand him to Brixton. I thought you might
like to ride in the back of the Black Maria. Escort him. No lawyer, just you
and him, a detour south of the river for a while, no-one else, a prime chance
for you to demonstrate why it’s in everyone’s best interests for him to plead
on the murders. Are you game for that, son?”

 
Images:
Johnson and Dudley with the girl.

 
The girl
falling, bouncing off the pavement.

 
Eve taking
her place.

 
“Yes.”

 
“Good. Get
tidied up and get to the nick. We’ll move him at eight.”

 
50

THE BOMBS HAD FALLEN HEAVILY FOR AN HOUR. Charlie
Murphy and Alf McCartney waited outside West End Central, listening to them
whistling down, the muffled crumps when they hit: a stick of three rumbled from
somewhere to the south, another threw silver across the rooftops like the
popping of a camera’s flash. The black-out had been in force for an hour, and
the street was a mixture of blacks and greys, nothing distinct. Searchlights
sought the bombers out, the long silver beams catching bright against the edges
of barrage balloons, silhouetting the edges of buildings, suffusing the clouds.
The planes sounded lower tonight, he thought. Maybe it was just his ears
playing tricks.

 
McCartney
tamped tobacco into the bowl of the pipe and lit it. “Dear old Göring is giving
us both barrels today, eh? Be nice if we could say it kept chummy off the
streets, too, but it doesn’t. Biggest opportunity for naughtiness since God
knows when.”

 
A dozen
police––uniform and plainclothes––were gathered around the porch. The word had
gone out: Johnson was being moved. Ghouls, rubberneckers and vengeful men, all
of them wanting to see their celebrity prisoner.

 
A Black
Maria pulled up alongside the station. Charlie watched as the driver killed the
engine and went around to open the doors at the back.

 
He was
tired. He’d spent the better part of three hours with Johnson this morning. The
time had started to drag after the first twenty no comments, Johnson keeping it
zipped on the advice of his brief. He fired question after question after
question at him––the murders, the rape––and gritted his teeth as the bastard
played a straight bat to every one. He was going to make them prove the charges
in front of a jury. He didn’t flinch, not when they told him that Georgina
Howard was dead, not when they charged him for her abduction and rape. The
panic from yesterday was gone; his eyes were steely, determined. He’d made up
his mind to fight.

 
The doors
opened and a woodentop with a shotgun pushed Johnson outside.

 
One bobby
spat at his feet; another drew an imaginary noose around his neck and yanked
it, his tongue lolling out.

 
“Murderer.”

 
“Won’t last
five minutes in stir.”

 
“Kiddie
raper.”

 
“Miracle if
you get to trial before you get shanked.”

 
Johnson saw
Charlie and stopped.

 
“I didn’t do
it. Those dead brasses. Wasn’t me.”

 
“So you
say.”

 
“Your boss
would love me to confess, wouldn’t he? Save all the bother.”

 
The bobby
prodded him with the barrel of the shotgun.

 
“You can
whistle for it. This is a set-up. The things they found, they planted the lot
of it. I’ll be verballed good and proper and strung up like a kipper, but I
didn’t do it. They’ll hang me for it.”

 
They started
down the steps.

 
“You’ll have
that on your conscience!”

 
He reached
the pavement; the bobby shoved him towards the van.

 
The
passenger-side door opened and Frank stepped down.

 
Charlie
gaped. “What’s he doing there, guv?”

 
“Frank’s
escorting our friend to Brixton.”

 
“Why him?”

 
“Your father
insisted. Not taking any chances.”

 
Frank was
talking to the driver, playing with something in his hand; a distant explosion
flashed the horizon and Charlie caught a glimpse of something metallic: brass
knucks.

 
Charlie
realised why Frank was going on the trip.

 
They’d given
him his chance to break Johnson.

 
He’d failed.

 
Now they
would play it Frank’s way.

 
Alf looked
up into the sky. “What’s that?”

 
Charlie
heard an unusual swishing noise, the kind of noise a plane would make if it
dived without its engine, or like a gigantic fuse burning. He looked up: a
black canopy folding in on itself, falling slowly. He heard the hollow thud as
something heavy and metallic struck the cobbles.

 
A blurred
image in the half-light, a metal canister, half as big as the Black Maria.

 
He realised
what it was, tried to shout out a warning, tried to throw himself to the
ground; too late, far too late. The mine detonated and Charlie had a glimpse of
a house-sized ball of white, wild light that flash-burned his retinas. He saw
two concentric rings of colour––the inner lavender, the outer violet––before he
threw his arms up to shield his head. He was picked up and thrown backwards,
slamming against the station doors and finishing up beneath the porch,
something hard flattening his nose and a wave of pressure squeezing the air
from his lungs. He folded his arms across the back of his head and pulled in his
knees. It sounded like an avalanche, bricks and rubble falling into the street.
Soot swept over him, filling his mouth and nose and lungs.

o         
o          o

PERFECT SILENCE. Either that, or the blast had
deafened him. He opened his eyes. It was completely dark. Soot and dust drifted
slowly towards the ground, blocking the murky twilight. Dense plums of smoke
puffed outwards, racing like tornadoes on their sides. His eyes burned. He
reached up and scrubbed them. Fires became visible, dancing on paper and wood,
jetting from broken gas mains, flames crackling.

 
He didn’t
recognise where he was. It took a moment to remember. Savile Row, although it
was completely unrecognisable now. West End Central had been hit full-on.
Debris blocked the street: rubble, joists, steel girders, slates from the roof.
A filing cabinet was in the middle of the road, stood upright. Hundreds of
pieces of paper flapped silently down from gutted rooms. A desk slipped down a
newly sloping floor and out of a huge hole in the wall, slamming into the
street with a crunch. The Black Maria had been crushed, the roof flattened and
the vehicle flipped over onto its side. 

 
The air
rained white ash and powder dust. Charlie held up his arms, looked down at his
legs: he was coated head-to-foot, as white as a ghost.

 
A noise: a
whimpering. Charlie staggered towards the sound and tripped over the uniform
with the shotgun. His clothing was gone, all that was left just blood and rags.
His shotgun was in the street. Charlie knelt and prodded him; the man didn’t
respond. Dead.

 
He stood.
Something snagged his ankle.

 
He looked
down: a man’s fingers on the hem of his trousers, metal wrapped around the
knuckles. He was on the ground, his leg bent around at an unnatural angle, bone
spurs a shocking white, a compound fracture right through the skin. Debris
half-covered him: laths and bricks and smashed bits of furniture.

 
“Frank.”

 
His brother
groaned.

 
“God, Frank,
Jesus.”

 
“No––”

 
“I’ll get
help.”

 
“Johnson.”
Frank pointed.

 
Duncan
Johnson was twenty yards ahead, staggering away.

 
He had a
pistol in his hand.

 
“I can’t.”

 
“Johnson.”

 
“You need
help.”

 
“
Go
.”

 
He looked
down and his stomach flipped. “Your leg––”

 
It was
buckled horribly.

 
Frank held
his wrist. “I’ll live.”

 
Charlie
picked up the shotgun.

 
“
Go!
”

 
He got up.

 
He went
after Johnson.

 
Everything
at half-speed. 

 
Like walking
through glue.

 
The pistol
shot was a muffled pop, flat and small and tiny in between the crumbling
explosions. Charlie caught the muzzle flash of the second shot, a flare like a
painted stripe across his white-streaked vision. He didn’t feel a thing. The
bullet punched through his shoulder and blood started running down his upper
arm. The muzzle flashed again and he felt stinging pain in his thigh.

 
Johnson
turned and stumbled ahead.

 
Charlie
loped wincing along the kerb.

 
Johnson
turned and shuffled backwards.

 
Charlie saw
himself in a shop window that had somehow not been shattered by the blast. His
right arm hung loosely at his side and he was limping like a cripple.

 
Muzzleflash.
The plate glass fell out of the window. Shards shattered, fell like music.

 
He dropped
to the floor.

 
Get up, he
told himself. Get up. He’s not escaping. There’s no way.

 
His arm
flared white-hot with pain.

 
Ignore it.

 
Get up.

 
Charlie
pushed himself to his feet.

 
He crossed
Savile Row with blood sloshing in his shoes.

 
Johnson went
across Clifford Street.

 
“Stop!”

 
His right
hand ran with hot blood. He moved the shotgun across his body so he could
cradle it with his left.

 
“
Stop!
”

 
Johnson
tripped on a pile of debris.

 
Fell.

 
Charlie
closed.

 
Johnson
scrambled for footing.

 
Charlie
brought up the shotgun. Johnson fired, missed. Charlie thumbed back the hammer
and triggered a wide spread: buckshot sprayed. Johnson flew backwards. The
pistol jumped out of his hand as if it had been kicked. He reached for his
stomach. He skidded into the gutter, his hands clutching at his midriff, blood
between his fingers, holding it in.

 
He brought
himself around, on hands and knees. “No,” Johnson said. His voice swam and
distorted; Charlie fought against fainting. “Please.”

 
“Don’t
move!” He could only hear it in his own head. “Don’t bloody move!”

 
“Please.”

 
“Hands where
I can see them.”

 
“Please. I
didn’t do it. I didn’t kill those girls.” His hand scrabbled for the pistol. “I
swear to God I didn’t. Don’t shoot me.”

 
Charlie was
woozy with pain. “Put your hands up.”

 
Johnson’s
fingers crabbed towards the revolver.

 
Charlie
shook; the faints grew stronger; the shotgun wavered, the barrel dipped.

 
Johnson’s
fingers brushed the handle of the gun, fixed around it, seemed to struggle with
the weight.

 
Managed to
swing it up.

 
Aim it.

 
Charlie
fired again.

 
Close range,
no more than ten feet: lead shot peppered him, spun him around like a top. He
collapsed in the gutter. There was the rich tang of gunpowder in the cool
morning air. Like the smell of fireworks. Bonfire night.

 
It was quiet
except for the sound of burning houses and Johnson’s mewling.

 
Charlie
dropped the shotgun and fell to his knees. More engines passed overhead,
bombers, and he thought he heard the high-notes of police sirens. He turned
himself around and sat down against the curb, his back propped against a
lamp-post.

 
He closed
his eyes and waited for help.