2 The Imposter (31 page)

“Piss off, Joe.” Billy was furious now. “I don’t know what happened to you, you can’t see nothing straight no more. You only met him once, you don’t know him either! He goes around with his bloody university education, his airs and graces, but he ain’t got nothing in common with any of us and he needn’t think he does. He don’t belong here.”

“There’s no need for that,” Edward said. “You want to calm down.”

“Is that right? I want to calm down, do I? You want a kick in the slats, you patronising bastard.” He stood up so suddenly that his chair clattered behind him and, before Edward could even get his hands up, he swung a right-hander and stitched him square on the chin. It was the shock of it more than anything else. Edward toppled backwards off his chair like a skittle. The punch was decent but he was too far away to put any power into it and he hadn’t connected with enough force to do more than dizzy him for a moment. Edward bounced up and tackled him into the table and then onto the floor, firing in two quick punches of his own before Tommy and Joseph pulled him away.

The proprietor hovered by the door. “It’s alright,” Joseph said. “Just a little argument. Bit too much to drink.” He put his palm against Edward’s shoulder. “Right then, chaps. No more nonsense. We’ll have a drink and forget all about it, alright? Alright?”

“I’m fine,” Edward said, his temper tamping down. He wiped bloody saliva from his mouth.

“Billy?”

Tommy was between them. Billy did not say a word.

“Bubble?”

“Don’t call me that!” He shoved Tommy away and headed for the door.

“Let him go,” Joseph said. “He needs to calm down. I’ll sort him out later.”

Outside, one of the trucks growled into life.

“Joseph––?”

“Bugger. He’s got the key.”

They went outside. Billy jerked the truck backwards and crashed into a bollard that marked the boundary of the car park and the hotel’s ornamental garden. He crunched the gearbox into first and pulled out onto the road. They watched as the headlights painted the dark trees at the side of the road, the red glow of the tail-lights dimming as he turned through corners and, eventually, disappearing completely as he crested the brow of a hill.

The four of them stood there, the sound of the engine gradually fading away.

“I didn’t even know he could drive,” Jack said.

“He can’t,” Joseph said.

“What if he gets stopped?”

“It’s late, the roads are empty. He’ll be fine. I’ll speak to him tomorrow.”

Edward stood shivering in the cold. He was imagining the worst. He pictured Joseph and Billy together, Billy persuading him that the story behind Edward’s medal did not bear weight. He imagined Billy checking the regimental history, somehow knowing to ask questions about the injury to his foot. He tried to remember everything that he had told them at his birthday dinner, tried to remember the expression on Joseph’s face as he recounted his adventure. It was no good. He suddenly felt insecure about what he had told them. The story needed more detail. The more detail it had, the easier it was for him to believe it himself. He began to invent. He was imagining himself back in the jungle, the rain lashing into his face. He imagined himself in the middle of the formation, sweeping across a paddy field towards a road and, beyond that, a river and a bridge.

42

THE ROAD STRETCHED on endlessly to the east. The windscreen was not fully flush with the chassis and cold air whipped through the gaps. Billy turned up the collar of his overcoat and tried to ignore how cold he was feeling. All he wanted was to get back to London. He did not want to stop. He sat bolt upright, his eyes fixed on the road. Occasionally, a row of flickering lights to his right or left revealed the locations of the towns and villages that he passed. He had been driving for half an hour when he saw the lights of another all-night café approaching. Half a dozen laden lorries had drawn up in a wide car park next to a filling station and, beyond them, advertised by a bright neon sign, was the café: WATSON’S.

He gave up. He needed a hot drink. He rolled the lorry between two others, jumped down from the cab and went inside.

“Shut the door, mate, it’s brass monkeys out there.”

Billy did as he was asked and looked around. The café was down at heel, redolent with the smell of sweaty bodies, an open coke fire, damp clothes that were drying in the warmth and the cheap fat they used to fry the eggs. Most of the floor was sanded, and stairs led up to a second storey where a bed in a dormitory could be had for a few pennies. A handful of drivers were gathered around a pin-table, gambling. Others sat around the open fire, one of them cutting up plug tobacco with the blackened blade of his knife. Billy went up to the counter, paid three ha’pence for a cup of tea and went over to the fire to get some warmth.

A woman had been observing the action at the pin-table. She came across and took the seat next to Billy. “Alright, handsome?”

Billy looked over at her. She was wearing patent-leather slippers with worn heels. Her cheap stockings had been darned one too many times. Too much make-up, cheap perfume that smelt sickly. He nodded in her direction.

She took a dog-end out of her pocket and lit it. “Where are you headed?”

“What you want? A ride?”

“Yeah. Can you give us one?”

“Where to?”

“London. Give a girl a lift?”

Billy thought about it. He didn’t have much truck with pushers but he could do with some company, help him keep his eyes open. “Go on then,” he told her. “Get your coat.”

Billy finished his tea and led the way back out to the lorry. The wind was up, slicing through his clothes like a knife. The girl was hardly dressed for the weather. Billy opened the cab for her, cranked the starting handle until the engine caught, then pulled himself up into the cab.

“Bloody freezing in here,” the girl said. Her imitation fur collar was turned up but it couldn’t have made much of a difference. She crouched forwards towards the engine, trying to keep warm, and opened her battered old handbag. She fumbled through it: old letters, a handful of change, a box of cheap powder. “What a bloody turn-up.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Can’t find my bleeding smokes.”

“Here.” Billy passed over his packet of Players.

“Got a match?”

Billy handed her his lighter and she thumbed flame, her sallow flour-coated cheeks hollowing as she drew hard on the fag. They roared through a sleepy market town. In the market square, across from the church, was a brightly lit café. It looked cosy.

“I’ve been in that bloody place all night,” she said. “Ended up spending half a crown on grub and tea. None of them lorry sheiks even staked me a cup, right mingy lot of bastards they were. None of them would give me a ride, neither. Never thought I was going to touch lucky, not until you came in. You can’t deny the Old Bill are right mustard about lorry girls these days but how many plod do you reckon are going to be out on this toby on a night like this?”

Billy stared resolutely ahead, hardly hearing her. His mind was racing.

“I’m just trying to get myself a bit of money together. Just a little––get my hair permed, just the ends, mind, that ought to do me nicely. You can get off alright if your hair looks nice under your hat. Riding in wagons you don’t need to take your hat off.” He didn’t pay her any heed. “You a London bloke, then?”

“Yes.”

“Which part?”

“Here and there.”

“I’m from the Angel. Originally, that is––on the road most of the time these days.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t say much, do you?”

“Not as much as you.”

“Right charmer, you are.”

“Got something on my mind.”

“Go on then––a problem shared’s a problem halved, or whatever it is they say.”

Billy tried to relax but it was no good. He needed to get it off his chest. “You ever been let down before?”

“How’d you mean?”

“By a friend. Someone you thought you knew. Not like a misunderstanding, more than that––someone really disappointing you.”

“I ain’t really got that many friends. My line of work––”

Billy wasn’t listening to her. He just wanted to talk and she was in the cab: she would have to do. “I’m pals with this bloke, right? Been chums for years, ever since we was nippers. Best mate, that’s what I always thought. He goes off to the war and I didn’t and when he comes back he’s got this new mucker, this bloke he met out there. Not my type, he ain’t––he’s been to University, thinks he’s a right clever sort, looks down at the likes of me like I’m the shit off the bottom of his shoe. Joseph don’t see it, though. This is my mate. He don’t see it at all. Thick as thieves, the two of them are. Living together now and all. I try and tell him something ain’t right but he ain’t listening. Next thing I know, this bloke’s been brought into our business.”

“What business is that, dear?”

“Doesn’t matter what business it is. You need certain––certain
qualities
––to be any good at what we do, and this bloke don’t have none of them. There was this time, a couple of weeks ago, my pal gets himself arrested and he’ll never go and say it but I know for sure that the only reason he got pinched is because of this bloody cowson he’s been dragging around with him. Bad luck, straight he is.” A private car rushed past without dimming its lights. “I don’t know why that cowson gets under my skin so much, but he does. I’ve been working hard for years to make a name for myself, carve out a reputation. My chum gets back and I seen my chance. I’m no mug, see––my mate’s going to be a big noise, a proper face, like his old man was before him, like his uncle is now. I know I’m not like him––I don’t have his brains, and I know I’ll never make as much of myself if I work alone. That’s why I’ve tried to work on our friendship, tried to make myself what you’d call indispensible. By rights, I should be his right-hand man––he’s known me for years, he knows he can trust me, it’s obvious, right? And then this Fabian comes along––bloody Fabian, his head up his bloody arse––and it all goes wrong. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

They rode in silence after that, mile after mile ticking off on the speedometer. Billy had said what he wanted to say and neither had anything else worth mentioning, certainly nothing that was worth shouting over the noise of the engine.

Eventually, the girl looked bored. “Come on then, mate,” she said. “You got a present for me?”

“You what?”

“I’m not here for the good of my health, you know. How’s a girl supposed to eat? I could be very nice to you.”

“I’m not after any of that.”

“What you mean? You don’t like me?”

“I just want to talk.”

“Talking ain’t going to pay my bleeding rent, is it?”

“I’m giving you a lift…”

“Bloody hell, mate, don’t talk silly. Give me half a dollar.”

They were approaching London, the lights of the city glowing beyond the rim of the North Circular. A filling station was on the road ahead. Billy changed down through the gears and swung into the forecourt. He reached into his pocket and took out a handful of loose coins: half a crown, a florin and six-pennorth worth of coppers. “Here you go,” he said, giving the coins to the girl. “Out you get.”

“We ain’t in London yet,” she protested. “I’ll never get a ride here.”

“Not my problem. Go on. Get.”

She muttered darkly but opened the door and stepped down. Billy cranked the lorry into gear again and pulled away. He glanced in the mirror, the woman stamping her feet against the cold, and then turned his gaze to the road ahead and, beyond that, the lights of London. His thoughts turned back to Joseph, and then to Edward. Talking about it hadn’t helped at all.

He needed to do something.

43

TOMMY FALCO ROLLED THE AUSTIN A40 to the kerb and killed the engine. Two in the morning and it was still busy out. Drunks, poofs and perverts: par for the course. Tommy gave it a swift East to West. Nothing out of the ordinary. He sat back in the seat and relaxed. The car was only a month old and still smelled new. It was the Sports model, a four seater coupé with the 1200cc engine. Joseph had promised him a new motor and he had been true to his word. His parents wouldn’t have believed it. Wouldn’t have approved of his line of work, but that didn’t matter now, both of them long since dead and gone. The wheels, the fancy clobber, the gelt. The old man would have choked: thirty years in the rag trade hadn’t got him the kind of dough Tommy was making now. The last thing he’d said to him before he died was that he needed to get a job, to get ink on his fingers, but the old bastard had been boracic when he went so what kind of example was that? Tommy looked in the mirror and stroked his pomaded hair. Wasn’t going to happen to him, no fear. Twenty-seven years old and he felt like a prince, driving a car worth more than his parents’ house. No doubt about it. He was on the up.

They had made another run with the trucks yesterday. They had stopped at Honeybourne and loaded up with silk parachutes, delivered them to Barry and returned with the refrigerators. Ruby Ward had nearly fallen off his chair when he had seen them. He had said they would be worth more than he had originally thought, the condition and quality of them, quite a bit more than he had thought. Joseph had promised him a tidy sum from the job in any event and now it looked like there was going to be more. Tommy wouldn’t complain at that, not at all.

He clicked off the headlights and opened the door. It was chilly out. He draped his coat over the Remington .12 bore, reached down for the bag, got out of the car and walked across the pavement to the club. REGAL BRIDGE AND BILLIARDS said the long vertical sign stretching between the second and third floors. That always made him chuckle. One battered old table, the baize ripped to buggery and the balls rolled up against one cushion because of the sloping floor. It hadn’t seen a game for donkey’s years. It was all just for show. The Regal was a spieler, the jewel in what was left of the Costello crown. George Costello ran it like a military operation together with the rest of the betting clubs, drinking dens and whorehouses they’d managed to keep since Jack Spot had been coming around.