Impartiality Against the Mob Page 6

  “That’s what I’m here to try to do.”

  “Two-thirds for the bosses, a third for us, highly coloured – is that it?” Murdoch raised his glass. “Cheers.” He drank.

  “Cheers.” Brill sipped, but didn’t drink much. “Is that how the newspaper reports seem to you?”

  “Yes,” Murdoch answered.

  “Crooked all the way,” put in a man from behind him.

  “Paid by the bosses if you ask me,” accused a third.

  “There’s only one way to put our case, and that’s to do it ourselves,” declared another. “Old Homer over there, he was born one of us, he’s been around as long as I have, but do you think he can do a piece of good honest reporting?” The speaker was in his middle-thirties, wearing a waisted jacket of pale green suede, and a frilled pink shirt. He had curly hair, a shade overlong.

  “I’ve been here five minutes,” Brill countered. “I came to try to get an objective story. So far, you’ve done little but make me anti- docker. One man threatened to bash my face in, and if it wasn’t for Mr. Murdoch, maybe he would have tried. The next thing, all you seem interested in is attacking newspapers. What do you expect as a result? Me to go out of here and write a piece about our wonderful dockers?”

  Silence fell, while Murdoch looked down on him, the Irishman formed words but did not utter them, and while Brill realised that the horn-rimmed glasses concealed the man known as Old Homer. Then someone laughed.

  “Straight from the shoulder,” he said, “you’ve got to admit that.”

  “Hear, hear,” chimed in another. “He’s got guts.”

  “Words can be twisted, that’s what I say,” muttered the Irishman.

  “All right, Mr. Brill,” said Murdoch, finishing his beer, “you ask the questions and we’ll answer them, and when this piece of yours appears we’ll find whether you’ve been objective or not.”

  As he finished there was a roar of approval, some laughter, only a few scowls. Brill felt enormous relief and some hope that these men would really talk freely. Before the night was out he would like to go into the homes of a few of them, see and talk to wives and children, to the older people who had been associated with the docks all their lives. He would need to see some of the ships being worked, hear and see the cranes, watch the men doing their job. There could be a very good piece in this, a good, well-rounded article which might be of some help in the crisis. He did not think he would learn anything about the lumpy objects covered by thick sweaters or what was in those baggy, sagging pockets, and he mustn’t enquire.

  But he wanted above all things to find out . . .

  That was the first time since he had left Mesurier’s office, three hours or so before, that he completely forgot Rose.

  At the time Malcolm was entering The Docker, Rose was sitting in front of the dressing-table, wearing only bra and pants and sheer nylons. The bra was a support-from-under kind, very revealing, and usually she wore it with her one cocktail dress which was over-daring; she knew that Malcolm didn’t like it but relished the glances that it drew; quick interest from the men, disapproval from their wives.

  She had one long dress which she could wear this with, too; the dress was more concealing but it was gathered at the neck with two velvet bows which, if they were not too tight, at least hinted; or promised. The trouble with that dress was that she could not zip it up at the back herself; Malcolm always did that, and once or twice Roger had managed.

  But it was the dress for this occasion.

  She wanted to be ready when Jack Ledden called but on the other hand, was determined to be at her absolutely best. And, except for the dress, she was. Make-up was done, perfume was on, everything was ready. Her dark hair had a natural wave and provided it was well-cut, always looked nice. The tiny diamond earrings drew just enough attention to her small ears, and perhaps because of her excitement her eyes were beautiful.

  She had to make up her mind. She couldn’t wait—

  The front door bell gave its sharp, jarring ring, and now she had no choice; of course she had dallied and dithered until that was inevitable. She slipped into a silk dressing gown, ample in size, and went downstairs, her heart beating very fast. In a moment she would know whether Jack Ledden was really the man she remembered – tall, young, good-looking.

  She opened the door, and there he was; and he held a corsage in his hands, of pink and red orchids. He was every bit as good-looking and as tall, and even more distinguished than she had recalled.

  “Hal-lo!” His voice was deep and reflected the admiration in his blue eyes and the boldness of his nature. “You’re just as lovely as I remembered!”

  “Flattery, sir, will get you nowhere,” she retorted, standing aside. “I’m much nearer ready than I look. Will you come in for a moment?”

  “May I?”

  It was all a little stilted, a little false; she needed no telling that he had the same brittle feeling as she. She opened the door of the front room where Dorothy had been that afternoon, making no comment about the orchids; the moment for that was not yet. “I won’t be two jiffs,” she said and hurried upstairs. Now her heart really was thumping, but she knew exactly what to do. Put on shoes: done! Slip off dressing gown: done! Step into dress so as not to disarrange her hair, slowly, slowly, loving the sensuous feel of the black velvet. The long skirt fitted snugly at the waist but not tightly, she hadn’t put on an inch in five years! Arms into the sleeves which were loose-fitting and wrist length, hoist the dress over her shoulders – there! She looked at herself in the mirror, and she positively glowed. She put her hands behind her and pulled the zip up by a few inches, at least to show that she’d tried.

  Now!

  She could call him up, or go down.

  The dress was a shade long, until it was fastened all the way up to the neck she could trip over the hem. She hesitated for a moment in delicious uncertainty, then decided that it would be asking for trouble to bring him up here yet. She would go down and get him to fasten the zip and pop back upstairs for her wrap and bag and gloves.

  She moved towards the landing and the stairs.

  Jack Ledden was standing at the bottom.

  It was almost as if he had been teased by the same temptation; what would she have done if he had come up without being invited? She did not dwell on the question but beckoned and called: “Come and do me up, will you?”

  “Glad to!” He came lightly up the narrow stairs, and from this view in particular he was most striking to look at. She hadn’t realised before how far his hair grew back at his forehead leaving a very pronounced widow’s peak. She drew back. It was shadowy on the landing but bright in the children’s bedroom, so she went in there and stood facing him. The gown had dropped off her shoulders; her bosom, lifted by the bra, could not fail to catch his eye. She saw his gaze drop, as she said: “You can see to fasten the zip better from here.” She raised the gown to her shoulders and Ledden slipped behind her. For a moment his fingers fumbled but suddenly became firm. He zipped up in a single sweep, and asked: “Isn’t there a hook or something?”

  “A hook and eye. You’ve done this before!”

  “I have a horde of sisters and a very attractive mother,” he told her. His fingers were cool, not cold, on the back of her neck. “There – that’s it.”

  “Thank you.” She led the way back on to the landing, adding: “I’ll just get my wrap.” She went into the bedroom and he went quickly down the stairs. When she followed, only a few moments later, he was out of sight. She held bag, gloves, and wore a lightweight stole of the same velvet as her dress but lined with scarlet satin over her shoulders. Ledden appeared from the front room, carrying the orchids.

  “May I pin these on?”

  “Do, please,” she said.

  “Have you any particular place you like to wear flowers?”

  “Put
them wherever you like,” she replied.

  He selected her waist, on the right side just below the breast, and she felt the pressure of his hands for a moment in rare familiarity. But he was deft and quick. Finished, he stood back and studied her, his appraisal much longer than any she had known for a long, long time. At last he spoke in a husky voice, saying simply: “You are very beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice also a little husky.

  He half-turned, opened the door, and went on in the same tone: “I thought so the first moment I saw you – half-a-year ago.”

  In a few moments she was sitting beside him in the back of a chauffeur-driven car. He made no further comment, and she sat in a glow of silence, her heart beating very fast. Then suddenly he took and squeezed her hand, and said laughingly: “I don’t want to fool you, Rose – I hired the car for the occasion, I don’t usually run to a chauffeur. In fact you could put my M.G. in the boot of this one! I wanted to use every moment we had without being heart-in-mouth for a taxi, or driving in circles finding a place to park. We’re going to the Savoy Grill for dinner. Do you know it?”

  “I’ve been there once or twice,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Jack, aren’t you being too extravagant?”

  He squeezed her hand again and said lightly: “I want this to be a night to remember! Besides, I didn’t have to pay for the tickets.”

  “That’s true,” she agreed, and laughed on a rather nervous note.

  That was the first time she had given more than a passing thought to Malcolm since he had left the house and she had realised who was to take her out. Strangely enough, it was from that moment on that she settled down to full enjoyment of the evening. Before then there had been something clandestine about it, but Malcolm not only knew, he had arranged this. There was nothing at all to prevent her from having a wonderful time.

  She put her hand in Jack’s, and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  Chapter 7

  VICIOUS CIRCLE

  At the crowded theatre there were at least twenty policemen in plainclothes – there were two dock employers with their wives, three trades Union officials and their wives among a host of more than usually distinguished guests. Three Press barons were present with their parties, as well as critics from all the London and the major provincial newspapers. Among the policemen was Deputy Commander Alec Hobbs, Gideon’s deputy – and but for her engagement in Edinburgh, Gideon’s youngest daughter would have been with him. As it was, Hobbs was with the editor of a woman’s magazine, who had been a close friend of his wife. For Hobbs, a man who felt a great deal but did not talk much, it was a strange, compelling and in some ways nostalgic evening. He had not seen any of his wife’s friends, except on brief social occasions, since his wife had died.

  Now, quite immaculate, he sat watching and listening to Swan Lake. He had never seen Natasha before, and the last time he had seen the Bolshoi had been here, with his wife. The woman by his side, Norah Lofting, was tall, beautifully made-up and wearing a short evening dress by Hartnell. Now and again she glanced at Hobbs, but he was never looking at her.

  Up in the ‘Gods’ at the very top, sat a man named Entwhistle, his knees squeezed against the balcony in front of him, his eleven- year-old daughter by his side. Both were enthralled. Now and again Entwhistle stole a glance at the child but she was never looking his way; she was radiant. At other times he would look about him; right and left and over the top to the circle below. To this man, everything had a sense of unreality and at moments he had to pinch himself to realise it was true.

  A dozen times, tears stung his eyes.

  The tears he fought back were not of hurt or grief, although both were remembered. They were in wonder and born out of weakness. A few months ago, he had been in Dartmoor prison, serving ‘life’ for the murder of his wife, this child’s mother. He had been in the very depths of despair and had virtually given up hope, until this child had ventured, by herself, to find her way to Dartmoor.

  God! He had nearly lost her!

  She had come close to dying on those moors.

  But here they were, and here he was, free, ‘pardoned’ and with compensation to come, enough to help him start another life. Very soon they would be on the way to Australia, with his two sons. But for the moment this was all he wanted. For before her death the child’s mother had promised that he would take her to see ballet ‘in a real live theatre’. And she had written to him in a remote part of Africa where he had been helping to build a bridge between two once-warring, now peaceful nations.

  All of this was real.

  He was free; he was alive again.

  His children still lived with their uncle and aunt, virtually their foster parents. There was so much to do, so many adjustments to make, so many wounds to heal and fears to lull, but tonight here he was, sitting almost directly above Alec Hobbs, who was George Gideon’s deputy. And it was Gideon, a hallowed name in Entwhistle’s mind, who had given the word to re-open enquiries into the old murder with its closed file.

  Gideon was at his home, waiting for Honiwell, the man who had actually carried out the enquiries which had led to the arrest and confession of the murderer, who was even now awaiting trial. For years the two detectives had been little more than casual friends. In the past two years, however, the work at the Yard had drawn them together again in a series of cases in which Gideon had watched the other at work, and realised that he had become a man of deep human understanding and compassion. Before the Entwhistle case, Honiwell had been in charge of two major searches for lost children; each a little girl. Each had been found eventually, murdered. Since that case he had been working exclusively on one of a very different kind: illegal immigration, particularly of Indians and Pakistanis, into Britain.

  This had begun when a row of houses, not fit for human habitation, had collapsed in Notting Hill. That and the investigation which followed, had revealed a state of affairs which had shocked the most hardened police and social workers; overcrowding of the illegal immigrants and often their families in conditions of sickening poverty, dangerous insanitation, appalling ghetto conditions. The house where the victims lived had been condemned out of hand but there were many others on the borderline. The police had to find out:

  Who owned the houses?

  How much rent was charged?

  How many local bye-laws and national laws were not simply broken but ignored as if they did not exist?

  Who brought the helpless people into the country, and where?

  Who brought them to the ghettos?

  And who, in the beginning, organised their departure from their homelands, and organised the shipment of human cargoes and smuggled those cargoes into Britain?

  This enquiry had begun on a great wave of emotional anger about the disaster, when dozens had died and hundreds been injured, and had shocked the public conscience. The public conscience, however, could prove very fickle unless someone or something was constantly jogging its memory. This particular cause of anger and series of crimes had, of course, strong political overtones, and there had been some hushing up, particularly in the past few months. Now and again it was revived when a shipload of people from India or Pakistan was intercepted within the three mile limit, or when they had just been landed. The most notorious instance was when over sixty men had been found crammed into a cellar and kept there for forty-eight hours without food or water because the organisers had believed that the house was being watched by the police. Finally one of the men involved in the smuggling had made an anonymous telephone call to the police.

  That had been at a town on the Norfolk coast.Honiwell, with another senior Superintendent, had the task of investigating not just that single incident but the situation throughout the land. This was the first time he had asked to discuss it with Gideon. He himself had been held up and unable to get to the Yard by a reasonable hour, an
d Gideon had eaten at the Yard’s canteen then come here at about eight o’clock. Honiwell was due at half-past.

  Gideon went into the small front garden, but Kate had left the hedge and grass trimmed and the narrow flower beds turned and weeded, and geraniums planted; in a small garden, she liked to have only one flower each season and different flowers one year from the next. These were red and pale pinks, not yet in full bloom. He stooped down and picked up two pieces of paper from a chocolate bar and pulled half-a-dozen weeds so tiny that they were hardly worth worrying about. It was pleasantly warm, and he stood at the wrought iron gate looking at the front of the house in its new paint and seeing that Kate had put a small concrete bowl just inside the porch, holding two or three geraniums. Where there was a spare corner, she put a flower! Green-fingered Kate. Two neighbours passed, each saying: “Good evening, Mr. Gideon,” but neither lingered. A boy and a girl walked, arms linked, bodies close. Gideon watched them for a moment, recognised the boy who had once delivered the newspapers here, and switched thoughts suddenly to his exasperation that morning and the reason for it.

  Was Mesurier’s man already at work?

  Was Percy Lawless right about the threatened trouble between the dockers and the Strike Breakers?

  Certainly Sir Giles Rook had been convinced, and for that matter, so had Gideon, but there was an air of unreality about it all. The need for secrecy troubled him in one way but it seemed right in another. The fact was that he, Gideon, had joined a conspiracy to evade the normal channels; goodness knew what Yew-Yew Upway would say if he ever found out! But these things were not, of themselves and at this moment, of major importance.

  Two things were; not related yet remarkably alike in some ways.

  If there were an organisation of fascists and right-wing extremists called the Strike Breakers, it was one he had never heard of, and for anything of that kind to exist without at least a rumour reaching his ears was quite remarkable. The secret had been remarkably well kept.