2 The Imposter (28 page)

“I don’t think so, detective inspector.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Whatever you prefer.”

Edward worked on recovering his composure. He sipped his gin, the ice cubes bumping against his top lip. The policeman regarded him sharply, his cold eyes articulate with intelligence. Policeman, individually, did not tend to concern Edward. They were typically dull and stupid, unthinking automatons who followed protocol without question. This man did not seem to fit the pattern and Edward was suddenly quite sure that he was on dangerous ground. He had no idea what Murphy was doing here. He had no idea what he knew and what he didn’t know.

“I’m guessing this isn’t a coincidence,” he said, a gentle gambit that he hoped might have him tip his hand a little.

“I don’t believe in coincidences in my business, Edward.”

“And what is your business?”

“Closing down the black market.”

He set the glass down on the table. “How could I possibly help you with that?”

He pointed at the empty chair opposite him. “Do you mind?”

“It’s a free country.”

Murphy sat down. He took out a box of Senior Service and handed it to him. Edward tapped out a cigarette and lit up. He sucked down on it greedily, feeling the nicotine hit his lungs, exhaled and gazed through the fuzzy smoke at Murphy.

“You’re a mysterious one, Edward, I don’t mind admitting it. Let me tell you what I know about you––and don’t worry about stepping in and correcting me if I’ve got any of this wrong. Alright?” He put his cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. “We know you enlisted in 1938. We know you had two tours in Burma and that you have an enviable record: cited for valour six times and then you top that with the Victoria Cross. A bona fide, gold-plated war hero. Very impressive. You’re given your demob papers in 1945, you land at Portsmouth and then it’s up to London where you can’t seem to find employment. You sign on at the Labour Exchange. The next thing we know, you’re turning up with the most notorious mob in London.”

Edward said nothing. He felt a prickly sensation running down between his shoulder blades.

“Not what I would expect from a man with your record. You’re observed in Little Italy, in Soho and at Lennie Master’s funeral. We’re reasonably confident that you were the other man when Joseph was arrested on suspicion of burglary, and that makes us think that you were responsible for straightening out the witness. We know you’ve been to their place in the Cotswolds and we think you’ve been stepping out with Chiara Costello. How am I doing so far?”

“Please––this is fascinating. Go on.”

“You seem to have found your way right to the heart of the family. The problem I have, Edward, is that none of what you’ve being doing fits with what we know about you from before. I like to have as much information on the men I’m looking into as I can. I’ve had detectives going through the records with a fine-tooth comb: we’ve checked the Criminal Records Office at Scotland Yard, and Edward Fabian has never been in trouble––you’ve never so much as stolen a bon-bon from a sweetshop. You studied medicine at Cambridge. You did well and when we asked them your tutors seemed to think you’ll have a fine career as a doctor. Your parents are both dead, but they were both respectable members of the community––Rotary Club, Women’s Institute, et cetera. Getting yourself involved with the Costellos is about as far from what you’d expect for a man like you as it’s possible to get.”

Edward tapped the dead cigarette into the ashtray, trying to hide his nervousness. The knowledge that the police had been looking into his background made him tense. He had no idea that Edward Fabian’s parents were dead. That was a lucky break; what if they had been alive? What if the police spoke to friends that they might track down? They would tell them that they hadn’t seen him since the start of the Blitz, and that would have raised more questions than he would have been able to answer.

“I’m really nothing special, inspector,” he said off-handedly. “I doubt there’s very much to find. Give me another, would you?” Murphy offered the packet and Edward tapped a cigarette out. He put it to his lips and allowed Murphy to light it for him. “The attention is all very flattering but I don’t see how any of it is relevant and I’m afraid I am rather hungry.”

Murphy grinned. “Not relevant?”

The waiter paused at the table and Edward held his tongue. The man smiled at them both with an attitude of perfect servility. “Will you be dining with us tonight, sir?”

“No,” Edward said before Murphy could answer. “My friend is just leaving.”

“Very good, sir.”

Edward waited until the waiter moved away and then said, “No, it’s not relevant. None of what you are saying makes any sense. I met Joseph Costello while I was in Burma. We saw action together and we became good friends––but that’s as far as it goes. Really, inspector, I’d like to eat and none of this has anything to do with me. It’s a flight of fantasy, at best, and outright harassment at worst. I don’t see any way that I can help you. I mean, do I look like the kind of chump you’d normally be chasing?”

“You mean men like Joseph?”

“If you like.”

“You’ve got the money and the clothes. But apart from that? No. You’re not like him at all.”

“Right.”

“But criminals come in all shapes and sizes.” He screwed his cigarette into the ashtray and stared at him, his eyes steeled and humourless. “You might not see it now but I’m trying to do you a good turn. This might be the only chance you get to save your neck. I don’t know who you are but I do know that a man like you has no place with the Costellos. I can understand some of it: you come home from the fighting and everything seems tame by comparison. The excitement in your life has suddenly been taken away. You don’t have any money, either, and the idea of getting involved in something illicit has a certain charm. Really, Edward, it’s not an original reaction. You’re not the first serviceman I’ve met who’s felt that way.”

Edward fixed him in a cold, magisterial gaze. “Did you serve, detective?”

“No. The police was a reserved––”

“Yes,” he interrupted impatiently, “a reserved occupation, I know. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just one step removed from wearing a white feather. Very convenient if you don’t want to do your duty. If you want me to take you seriously it would be better if you didn’t presume to talk about something of which you have no knowledge. I find that offensive.”

Murphy smiled at that, his jaw tight. The barb had found its mark; was he sensitive to accusations of cowardice? “Seems to me I have your advantage,” he said, maintaining the tone of friendly threat. “I know plenty about you. It’s only fair you know something about me before I leave you to your dinner.”

“Please.”

“You need to know that I’m the most driven and ambitious man you’ll ever meet. I’m the youngest policeman to make detective inspector in the history of the Metropolitan Police. My father was a policeman, too, and I found out that he was involved in corruption so deep that the stink could’ve stuck to me, too. I could have ignored it––it would have been safer for my reputation to do that––but I brought him down. I sent him to prison where he will die an old and lonely man. And I didn’t think twice about it, Edward. I don’t have a wife or children. I don’t even have a woman. I have no interests outside of the law. And do you know why that is? Every waking moment I’m chasing fellows like you.”

“Sounds like a awful kind of life.”

“It’s the only life I know. I don’t want another one. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Murphy stared at him, across the table and right into his eyes, and Edward felt a momentary connection between them. “Neither do I,” he said quietly, almost in spite of himself.

Murphy fixed on the momentary connection, too. “It’s not too late for you, Edward,” he said, evenly. “I don’t know what you’ve done, but there’s not much I won’t be able to ignore if you’ll work with me. Give me the Costellos. That’s all I want. Help me put an end to the black market. All this”––he indicated around the room––“all this money and the smart clothes and the fine dining, it’ll all be irrelevant if you get caught.”

“Who said I’ll get caught?”

Murphy got up. He tapped out another cigarette and left it on the table for him. “You’ll get caught, Edward. I’ll catch you. We’ll see each other again, you can count on that. It would be better for you if it wasn’t with you in handcuffs.”

He straightened his shoulders and, with a single nod of farewell, made his way across the room to the exit.

Edward watched him go. He put his drink to his lips and finished it. His hand was trembling. He tipped the ice cubes into his mouth and crunched them, the cold making his teeth ache. The encounter had shaken him. There would have to be a recalibration. He thought about it for a moment and realised that perhaps there was something positive to be drawn from the meeting: it was new intelligence, a warning that the police were not just looking at the black market, they were looking at them specifically. Everything he suggested from this point on would have to be with that at the front of his mind. He would give them chances. Murphy might have been better keeping himself to himself.

The knowledge was a positive, certainly, but the evening had still been spoiled. He signalled the waiter.

“Yes, sir?”

“Could I have the bill, please?”

“Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine. It’s just––well, I’m afraid I’ve rather lost my appetite.”

39

JOSEPH DROVE THEM to George Costello’s scrapyard on Charlton Marshes and swung the car into the entrance to the yard. The sign above the gate said “John Williams’ Scrap”. Joseph had explained that it was one of the family’s kosher businesses. They had several, scattered across London, and used them to hide the family’s illegitimate operations and wash their dirty money. George had established it with Harry Costello at the start of the Blitz. The Costello boys had bought three second-hand Bedford trucks from the army, the big two-tonne monsters with plenty of space in the back. They would send them to bomb-sites, remove re-usable scrap and sell it on. Joseph said that he had worked in the business for a couple of months before he enlisted. He admitted that he had found it “too much like hard work”, lugging iron girders and other bits of wreckage into the back of the lorry, threw it all up as a bad lot and went back to screwing places instead. “Stick to what you’re good at,” he conceded. “I could make made ten times as much spinning drums than he could breaking his back with that malarkey.”

The family had wound the business down at the end of the war. George mothballed the lorries and still used the yard for storage, but Edward had heard the rumours about what he really kept the place for. It was quiet and off the beaten track, perfect for “business meetings” with fellows who needed persuasion to see things the right way.

Pliers, red-hot pokers, electric shocks.

None of it was very pleasant.

Edward looked around as the car bumped across the uneven ground. The yard was in a state. Beaten-up cars had been left to corrode, cannibalised for parts until there was nothing left of them but rusting, rotting husks. There was a small hut at the side of the yard. They parked and went inside. Tommy Falco had his feet on the single desk, eyes closed as he tried to grab a little extra sleep. Ruby Ward was writing in the small ledger that he always carried. Jack the Hat proffered a bottle of whisky and poured Edward a generous measure into a chipped china mug. Billy was there, too. “Alright, Joe,” he said.

“Mr. Fabian,” Ruby Ward said. “I was wondering where I’d lost you to.”

“No sore feelings?”

“None whatsoever,” he chuckled. “You’ll make me more money with this than you would flogging cars, believe me.”

Tommy had a kettle on the gas ring. He brewed up mugs of tea and handed them around with a plate of biscuits.

“Alright,” Joseph said. “Settle down. Let’s get cracking.” The men fell silent. “This new job––it’s a big one. Very big, and lots of dough to be made. My uncle knows this fellow in the army. He looks after the base at Honeybourne, old Yank place, they used to have a battalion based there. Now they’ve gone it’s just about empty––thing is, they’ve left all kinds of stuff behind. Me and Edward went and looked at it yesterday. Loads of stuff, brand new gear––cars, food, clothes, ammunition, fuel, domestic stuff. They never inventoried any of it so they don’t know what they’ve got. God knows what it’s all worth. Thousands. Millions, probably.”

“You two went to see it?” Billy said trenchantly. “You and him?”

“That’s what I just said, Billy. What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Joseph paused, a sour expression on his face, and then continued. “The fellow is going to let us onto the base. We’re going to pretend to be shifting gear for the MOD. We’re going to move it to a base in Barry.”

The men quietly absorbed the information. There were a few questions––how would they get onto the base, why was it necessary to make a second trip to Barry––but Joseph handled them all confidently.

“We just drive into the base and load up?”

“We’re going to be cleverer than that. Doc’s set up a kosher company. It’ll all look above board.”

Billy exhaled loudly.

“What
is
it, Billy?”

“Nothing.”

“No––what?”

“Can we have a chat––after?”

Joseph looked at him, with curiosity and irritation, but let it go. “It’ll be easy,” he said, pressing on. “There’s hardly any risk and it’ll pay bloody well. Who’s interested?”

“Are you kidding?” Jack said. “Course I am.”

“Count me in,” Tommy said.

“Ruby? You’ll be shifting it all on.”

“I like the sound of it already.”

“Billy?”

“Course,” he said.

“Alright then. Doc?”

Edward had worked late into the night. It seemed to him that the scheme needed meticulous planning if it was to proceed as they intended and, in his opinion, only he had the intelligence and forethought to do the job properly. So he had taken over their sitting room, brewing a pot of strong tea and sketching out an itinerary and a division of labour. He didn’t stop until a dozen Senior Service had been stubbed out in the ashtray and the tea pot was exhausted. Now he went through the list, assigning each of them a task. When he was finished he was satisfied that everyone knew what they had to do.