2 The Imposter (33 page)

“Yes,” Scott said. “Time. That comes down to the nub of it.”

“We have to set a deadline on this, Charles,” Clarke offered from the side. “If you can’t present us with tangible progress––and by that we mean reliable arrests––then we’ve decided that we are going to have to close the investigation down and try something else.”

“I see, sir. How much longer do I have?”

“Three months,” Scott said. “Not a day longer.”

“Very well, sir. I understand.” Charlie stood. “Will there be anything else?”

Scott steepled his fingers and looked over them at Charlie, his eyes cold and blank. “Sit down, Murphy. I’m not finished yet.”

Charlie sat. He felt his heart hammering in his chest.

“The press is bad enough, detective inspector, but it’s more than that. The Minister was in here yesterday. Two hours. He was complaining that we’re not doing enough to get our house in order. And he can make ultimatums, too. He can assign blame. Just think about it for a minute: there are thousands of hard young men who have just returned home after fighting in the war. Many of these men have been unable to find work. After five or six years of service abroad, some of them might think that they have been abandoned by their government. Many of them will be tempted by the quick cash they might think they can make outside of the legitimate economy. Those men are not likely to be dissuaded from that course by a police force that is trumpeted as inept all the way across the national press. It was made very clear to me that something will be done unless we start to bring things under control.” He paused. “I know your reputation, Murphy. My predecessor and the deputy assistant commissioner here speak very highly about what you did during the war and, I’ll admit, your record is particularly impressive. But none of us can live on past glories. This is a results business and, to put it simply, you are not getting results. Your reputation and your career depend upon you doing your job and bringing these animals to justice. You understand me?”

“Yes sir,” Charlie said. “Perfectly well.”

“See that you do. Dismissed.”

45

EDWARD CROSSED PICCADILLY AT THE RITZ and headed west, then north, following Hyde Park up. They still had searchlights from the war hidden amongst copper-beeches and sycamores. St Johns was on Hyde Park Crescent. An empty hearse was already parked at the kerb. Edward parked behind it, checking his reflection in the hearse’s window before going around to the cemetery, a narrow space bounded by fir trees and box-cut hedges. Twenty-five men were gathered around the freshly dug grave. He slid through the throng until he was between Joseph and Jack. They each acknowledged him with a silent nod. They were dressed in black suits, white shirts and black ties, just as he was.

The atmosphere was palpable: sadness and anger in equal measure.

Tommy’s girlfriend stood alone on the other side of the grave. The chaplain delivered the sermon and she started to weep. Violet Costello put her arm around her shoulders. They sang a hymn before the eulogy, sang another hymn afterwards. Edward stared at the coffin. The vicar recited the committal as Tommy was lowered into the ground, the family and a few of the men casting flowers and handfuls of dirt down onto his coffin.

* * *

THE WAKE WAS IN THE ALHAMBRA. The club looked tattered and worn in the daylight, the imperfections that could be hidden in the darkness now more easily displayed. George and Violet Costello stayed for a drink, paid their respects to Tommy’s girlfriend, then quietly left. Edward necked a couple of jars then went up onto the roof to smoke and get a lungful of fresh air. When he went down again, the women were all gone. The chaps were gathered at the bar, talking. Edward went over.

“Something’s got to be done,” Jack McVitie said. “Another bloody funeral. My mate was shot dead by that bastard, and what are we doing about it?”

“Nothing.”

“That evil Jew must be laughing his bloody socks off at us.”

“You heard what happened in Soho last night? Fucking liberty! They hit three restaurants that have been paying up to us for donkey’s years. You know Da Vinci’s on Brewer Street? I went in there this morning, and they’re sweeping the glass up from all the windows they smashed, and I ask him for the weekly payment and he says he ain’t going to pay it no more. He says what kind of protection am I getting for my money when this kind of thing can happen? I gave him a thick lip, fair enough, I ain’t having him talking to me like that, but then I got thinking and you have to admit––end of the day, he’s got a bloody point.”

“And I can’t get the bookies on my patch to pay me my points. They’re more scared of Spot than they are of us. He’s nabbing all of them.”

“What’s happened to George’s bollocks? If this was a couple of years ago, he would’ve strung the greasy kike up on the nearest lamp-post weeks ago. He’s making us look like a bloody laughing stock, that’s what he’s doing. I used to be able to walk around the manor and people would treat me with respect. Blokes would either tip their hat to me or cross over to the other side. That don’t happen no more. They don’t give two shits about us. They all think he’s going soft.”

Joseph had been listening with a deepening scowl. He had no answer to that. Edward could see the colour rising above his collar and into his cheeks and decided it was better to intervene. He stood everyone a round. “To Tommy,” he said. “A good mate.”

“To Tommy.”

He drained his glass and ordered two more. He took Joseph by the arm and turned him away from the others.

He handed Joseph one of the fresh pints. “You can see the way this is going, can’t you?”

“I know,” Joseph said, fixing his stare into the bottom of his glass.

“If George and Violet don’t do something, they’ll start to lose the men.”

“Thank you, Doc,” Joseph said, his voice a tight slap. “I know that.”

Edward realised that Joseph didn’t want to pursue the conversation, but he there were things that had to be said and, he thought, he was the best man to say them. “Maybe I could speak to them? Your sister has invited me down to the house at the weekend. I could have a word with Violet?”

He snorted. “You saw how they reacted the last time you tried that. You’re not family, Edward. It wouldn’t go down well at all.”

Edward gritted his teeth.
You’re not family.
He did not respond to that, even though the truth of it stung. It was a reminder that that would always stand between them, a gap he could not cross. Joseph stood with his arms folded, staring out of the window behind them. Edward fumbled for the right thing to say, unable to find the words, his attention switching from the smell of the Senior Service between Joseph’s fingertips, to the curlycued grain in the wood of the bar beneath his hand, to the tight pressure in his stomach as if someone was holding their palm against his navel. The sense of frustration and inarticulateness was agony to him and, helpless to stop himself, he said, “Jesus, man,
someone
has got to do
something
.”

Joseph snapped. “Leave it out, Doc, alright? For God’s sake––on and on and on, every bloody day. I don’t need your advice. We don’t need it. You’re starting to be a bore.” Joseph started to say something else, his eyes flicking away as he considered better of it. He took a breath and said, instead, “Violet is sharp and she doesn’t mess about. You think she got to be where she is now by sitting around and letting things happen? She’ll have something in mind for Spot. We’re just going to have to trust her and brazen it out.”

There was no point in pressing him and so Edward reluctantly let the matter drop. He drank quickly, his mind working. He had been presented with an opportunity to make something of himself. A chance, and he had only really scratched the surface of it so far. To be stood at the side, watching impotently as the family slowly imploded, crippled by fear or inertia or laziness at the very moment that he arrived, was torture. He felt sick at the thought of it. It was almost more than he could bear.

46

EDWARD WAS IN THE SAME ROOM as the last time he stayed at Halewell Close. He laid his suitcase on the bed and changed out of the comfortable clothes he had worn for the drive from London, choosing one of his new suits instead. He applied pomade to his hair, shaved, and then regarded himself in the mirror: he looked very fine. He crossed the room and opened the window, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke out into the cool night air beyond. It was eight o’clock and the light had faded, replaced by a gloaming that made strange shapes of the lines of trees and made the landscape beyond the garden murky and indistinguishable. He saw his new car, next to Violet Costello’s Packard. It was a Triumph Roadster, the lights of the house reflecting on the highly polished, blood red bodywork. It had an 1800cc engine and a four speed gearbox with synchromesh on the top three ratios. There were large headlamps at the front and the radiator was set back between large “coal scuttle” wings. He was always taking taxis or relying on Joseph to drive him around and, now that money was less of a problem, he had decided to splash out. Ruby Ward had arranged the car for him. It had been enjoyable to return to the showroom. He was not fond of the other salesmen, and he knew that they would be jealous to see how far he had travelled in so short a time. It was brand new, not second-hand, and he had paid for it in cash. It had been a pleasurable way to spend an hour. Their gawping incredulity had been worth it all on its own.

The car was a beauty, and he loved it. He loved to own things, carefully selected items that he could cherish. He was not materialistic, but he liked the kind of things that said something about a man and his standing in the world. Excellent clothes and fine shoes, well-chosen pieces of jewellery, cultural artefacts that spoke of taste, tables at the best restaurants and seats at the opera. They gave a man a sense of self-worth. They spoke of his substance. It was more than just the impression they projected to others, although Edward was aware enough to know that that was a part of their appeal to him. They provided him with ratification. They were the proof that he had done well and that, despite the rotten cards he had been dealt so often in his life, he had still made a success of himself on anyone’s terms. They made a mockery of the self-doubt that sometimes whispered in his ear. He had owned those things before and, together with the lavish lifestyle that he had arranged for himself, they had made him as happy as he had ever been. He had had to abandon it all when he had stopped being Jack Stern. All he had taken with him into the jungle were his memories, and they had been just enough to make the worst moments bearable. It would never have been possible to make a beginning of reacquiring those things on the pitiful fifteen shillings a week that the Labour Exchange paid to him. It would have taken him a decade, even if he lived frugally, to buy the things he wanted. Joseph and his family had given him the opportunity to acquire them more quickly. The money would allow him to travel to Paris with Joseph and to do the trip properly, to fly first class, to stay in the best hotel and to enjoy the best restaurants. Paris would only be the beginning: he was already planning a trip to Athens and Rome, he wanted to return to Venice and he had heard that the Adriatic Coast was spectacular. His circumstances would allow him to begin his book collection again and, to that end, he had spoken to a dealer on the Charing Cross Road who said he would be able to source the first edition Dickens, Dostoyevskys and Conan Doyles to replace the volumes that he had had to sell. It would grant him the leisure to attend the Opera or to wander without direction through the sober halls of the Tate or the Royal Academy or even to find a struggling artist and to serve as their patron. It allowed him the opportunity to demonstrate his taste and the aesthetic discretion that set him aside from the likes of Joseph and Billy and all the others. They simply could not have been any more different to him. They were plebeians, ignorant and unappreciative of the things they were lucky enough to possess. It would allow him to support his father and uncle, too.

He looked down from the high window onto the Triumph below, on the voluptuous curves of its bodywork with the chrome details, and he smiled happily.

He sucked down on the Senior Service and exhaled into the darkness. Chiara had written to him and invited him to spend the weekend at the house. He was flattered, and had happily accepted. A break from London would be good for him, and it was an excellent chance to improve his relationship with the rest of Joseph’s family. He had hoped that Violet would be at the house and yet, when that was confirmed by the sight of her car as he pulled up earlier that night, the prospect had made him anxious, too. He knew that there was an opportunity to impress her, and that that was essential if he was to continue to ingratiate himself with the family, yet subjecting himself to her waspish temper filled him with apprehension. He wanted to speak to her, too, despite Joseph’s warnings. Spot was a problem and yet he was also an opportunity. If Edward could propose a solution he knew it would be good for him.

He finished the cigarette and lit another, smoking that until he had his equilibrium properly under control. He found his way down to the drawing room. Chiara was standing before the hearth, a fire burning in the grate.

“Hello,” she said, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek.

“You look lovely,” Edward told her, and she did. She was wearing a pleated skirt and a contrasting jacket. The colour of her face was warm in the glow of the flames.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Is your aunt joining us?”

“I’m afraid so. Is that alright?”

He smiled. “Of course.”

“I think she’s in a good mood, if that’s any help.”

“It’s quite alright, Chiara. It’ll be good to get to know her properly.”

They spoke for a few moments until Violet Costello entered. She was wearing a midnight blue cowl neck dress. Her hair was meticulously styled, as ever. Joseph had not considered her age before then, but, as he assessed her, he guessed that she must have been in her late fifties. She looked younger than that tonight.