'We all knew it, Roy.'
'I hope he fuckin' dies.'
'Your father-in-law? No, you don't.'
He took a deep breath. 'No. I don't. But sometimes I think I was happier in nick.'
'Don't say that.'
'Well, you know, in one way it's a lot less aggro. Just do your time. Out here, fuck, it's a battle, isn't it? Every day a battle. I saw Buster the other week on his flower stall. Says the same. Gets him down.'
'Buster always had a black streak,' I said carefully. 'You know that. Things just look bad now. Nobody's died. It's a bit of a domestic that got out of hand, that's all. I think we should go outside, Roy.'
'Why?'
'Before they come inside.'
He suddenly looked up at me, his eyes suspicious. 'Why did you say yes?'
'To coming here?'
'No. That day I came to the showroom and asked you to drive for us on the train job. Why did you say yes?'
It had been April, winter easing its terrible, almost malevolent grip at last. Nobody who lived through those months would ever forget it. Britain was thrust back to the Middle Ages – cold enough for Frost Fairs, almost. I had said yes for the same reason they all had: the money. I had no ready cash, too many cars nobody wanted to buy – the only people doing well in the motor business were the makers of anti-freeze and snow chains – and a wife who was pregnant. A wife who suddenly wanted a bigger house and things for the baby. Nice things. Expensive things.
Roy had come asking for two more Jags and I'd said no, not with the Chalk Farm boys looking my way. So he had asked whether, if they sourced the cars from elsewhere, I would take the second wheel. For good money. Buy-you-a- nice-flat kind of cash. Yes, I'd said, even though I knew what had happened to Mickey Ball. Five years.
I told myself I wouldn't ever make that kind of mistake.
Yeah, right.
Twenty-six
London, May 1963
Billy Naughton thought the girl would pull away as he came, but she kept her mouth clamped over the end of his cock until the last spasm had passed through it. When he had finished, she stood up and crossed the dingy room to the sink where she spat loudly while the detective buttoned himself up.
They were in a grey cubicle above the Hat Trick on Berwick Street. It was one of those come-on places with a hawker at the door who promised punters no end of delights but, in the end, sent them to a grim basement in Rupert Court where they were fleeced all over again. Its real business happened in the warren of tawdry rooms above it: a bed with a mattress that didn't bear thinking about, a dresser, a sink and a sharp smell that a gallon of Dettol couldn't hide.
The girl rinsed her mouth and looked at him with a disarmingly direct gaze. Billy felt himself blush. She was barely in her twenties, skinny, with a black Helen Shapiro semi-beehive that was in need of fresh backcombing. She spoke with an accent he couldn't place, apart from it originating north of the Watford Gap. 'You been eating spicy food, have you?' she asked, smacking her lips.
Buckling his belt, he checked the front of his trousers for stains. He recalled that the team had been for a curry at some place off Regent Street the night before. When he admitted he had never had an Indian before, Len had made him order vindaloo. Bastard. 'You can tell that?'
She gave a grin that dimpled her cheeks, softening the hard lines around her mouth. 'Look, love, after two years of this I can tell whether the customers prefer fruit gums or fruit pastilles.'
Two years? He thought briefly of all the cocks she had sucked in that time and shuddered. She had offered more, but now he was glad he just went for the oral.
There was a banging on the door and he heard Duke's voice through the thin chipboard and ply. 'You finished, lover boy? Come on, wipe your dick on the curtains and let's be havin' you.'
Billy gave a shrug and reached into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled pound note. The girl arched an eyebrow. 'Blimey, a copper who leaves a tip. Is that a pig with wings I can see?'
He threw it onto the lurid shiny bedspread, then felt he had to say something as he put on his jacket. 'Look, Paulette, wasn't it?'
She nodded. 'Well, Pauline as was. But the punters like a French name. Among other things.'
'I don't normally do that… you know.'
'Do what?' She was teasing.
'Take advantage.' It wasn't strictly true. Len Haslam had nobbled him out for a similar 'treat' to drown their sorrows at Gordon Goody slipping through their fingers. It was a 'stag do' after a lock-in at a pub in Bermondsey. There had been blue films and a couple of willing girls high on, appropriately enough, blueys.
"Course not,' she sneered as she sat on the bed. Its overworked springs gave a tired groan. He went to continue but she held up a hand to silence him. 'Look, darling, one of your lot comes round for a free gobble every week or so. Happy to oblige. GTP, eh?'
It stood for Good To Police and described anywhere that gave discounts or free samples to the Force. 'But I don't want to listen to any speeches. Some of you coppers, the fresh ones like you, get sucked off and turn into Sir Galahad. Start suggesting I'm special, tell me how they'd like to help. But you are no different from the bastards that run this place, sonny. Or the punters. At least they pay decent.' She picked up the note and tossed it back at him. He let it flutter to the floor. 'Go on, fuck off, there's probably someone with real cash downstairs waiting for a good time. Types like you ruin the business, you do.'
He opened the door. She had folded her arms across her bony chest. He stepped out into the narrow corridor, leaving the pound note where it had fallen onto the greasy carpet.
Despite the occasional visit to the working girls, Soho wasn't their patch, not really. The Flying Squad left it to Vice and West End Central, who had it carved up like a very fat, filling meat pie. But Duke had a few contacts he liked to keep sweet, ones he had known before they had gravitated like bluebottles to the shit-heap of Old Compton Street and environs. And besides, as he was fond of saying, a free quickie never did anyone any harm. A perk of the job.
In the division of spoils at the Big House they had caught
two cases, one a jewellery lift in Hatton Garden, the other a vicious Post Office raid in Islington, and spent the rest of the day flitting between the two locales, achieving very little that Billy could see, except winding up the local coppers and sinking a few pints.
They finished their shift at the Lamb and Flag, where Billy felt a cloud of gloom descend around him as he lit what would be the first of many fags. Duke sensed his mood at once. 'You think we've been wasting our fuckin' time, don't you?'
'Nooo…' Billy said, drawing out the word to breaking- point.
'Look, get over the idea that we have to be Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Whatsit,' said Duke, supping his eighth beer of the day. 'Sooner or later it'll fall in our lap, just like that tom of yours earlier.'
Billy smirked along with him, but there was no humour in it. His dick had been itching for the last couple of hours, even though he'd washed it in various scabrous Gents' sinks since the encounter. He was beginning to wonder if you could catch the clap from blowjobs.
'The thing you have to remember about villains is they are either stupid or overconfident or both. Some of them have intelligence, or rather rat-like cunning. A few have imagination, but not many. Which is why they stick to their patches. Territorial, see, like any animals. Yet we think of them as some kind of Raffles. You know, gentlemen thieves backed by a criminal mastermind. Now there's a fuckin' contradiction in terms. Criminal bleedin' masterminds. I tell you, if they were so mastermindy, you think they'd do the same thing over and over again? Do you? Does the team think, eh? I don't fuckin' think so.'
He was shouting now, and Billy looked around. The pub was almost empty, just a few woozy stragglers, and they weren't paying much attention. A buzzer went for last orders, but it didn't register with Duke. Billy knew that coppers were conditioned to ignore such sounds, like the opposite of Pavlov's dogs. At the sound of the bell, act like fuck-all has happened and it's got nothing to do with you. Which, with a flash of a warrant card, it rarely did.