Full Dark House (3 page)

The elliptical translation wasn’t enough to provide an explanation. May knew he would have to rely on his own elusive memories in order to appreciate what had happened. As the sun slipped below the trees and the shadows became scented with damp earth, he closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to drift across over half a century, to a time when London’s character was put to a test few other cities could have hoped to survive.

He tried to remember how the seeds of their future had been sown. It was 1940. It was November. A nation was at war, and the world had blundered into darkness.

4

SKY ON FIRE

Viewed from the far perspective of world terrorism, the wartime bombing of London now seems unimaginably distant. But the blossoming white dust clouds, debris bursting through them like the stamens of poisoned flowers, contained the same moment of horror common to all such events.

The conflict had been so long anticipated that in some perverse way its arrival was a relief. The people of Britain had methodically prepared their defences. This time the island did not wait to recruit its forces. Conscription created armies, and attacks were launched by sea and sky. For those who remained behind, daily life took strange new forms. Children carried their gas masks to school. Public information leaflets explained the rules of the blackout. Rationing made the nation healthier. An aura of orderly common sense settled across the city of London.

As the fittest men were conscripted, the streets grew quieter, and an air of becalmed expectancy prevailed. It felt as though a great change was drawing near. More civilians found a purpose in war than in peace. Nothing could be taken for granted, not even an extra day of life. For those who were as old as the century, it was the second time to fight.

In 1939, London was the largest city in the world. The riches of the British empire still poured through its financial institutions. Memories of the Depression had faded. Good times, boom times, had arrived. Despite the false celebration of ‘peace in our time’, rearmament paved the way to prosperity. One still saw reminders of the Great War on the streets: one-armed liftmen, blinded match-sellers, men who stuttered and shook when you spoke to them. During that earlier conflict, German airships had bombed the city but managed to kill only 670 people. Surely, everyone said, it would not happen again.

Even so, the Committee of Imperial Defence had begun a study into air-raid precautions as early as 1924. They calculated how many bombs could be dropped by Germany should hostilities recommence, and how many people they would kill. Every ton of explosive would cause fifty casualties, a third of them fatal. Three thousand five hundred bombs would fall on London in the first twenty-four hours. It would be essential to maintain public order, to prevent the city from descending into a living hell. For the first time in a war, the reinforcement of morale at home became a priority.

The first bomb to explode in London was not dropped by the Germans but planted by the IRA, and aimed at the most prosaic of targets—Whiteley’s emporium in Bayswater. German bombers could not reach their target, and the city had become an impregnable citadel. The country’s prime minister had seen active military service, and was experienced in the way of warfare. The King remained in Buckingham Palace. The government, the monarchy, the people were seen to be moving in one direction. The shops remained open. The deckchairs were set out in Hyde Park, and the band played on.

But by November 1940, the uneasy anticlimax of the Twilight War had been over for six months, and the Blitz had become a way of life. After the fall of France, the nation was braced for imminent invasion, and Londoners were so used to living under the constant threat of air attack that they simply went on with their business. ‘Taking it’ became part of the fight, as important as attacking.

Bombs were particularly devastating when they hit crowded stations. One hundred and eleven people were crushed and blown apart at Bank station. Sixty-four were drowned in cascading mud at Balham. Everyone knew someone who had died, or who had narrowly escaped death. The thin newspapers were filled with vague news of victories, but personal experience suggested only misery and endurance.

Images etched themselves in John May’s mind and remained there throughout his life: a bus standing on its end, a warden hugging a silent, terrified child, a bright blue hat at the edge of a blood-spattered crater. One night, audiences emerged from
Faust
at Sadler’s Wells to find the sky on fire. If London was the centre of the world, the world was burning. It was a violent place in which to discover a purpose. It was a good place to forge a friendship.

5

SANDWICHES ON THE BRIDGE

On the morning of Monday, 11 November 1940, after a weekend of sirens, booming anti-aircraft guns, distant bombs and droning aircraft, nineteen-year-old John May was most concerned about getting to work early, because it was his first day in a new job and he was anxious to make a good impression.

He jumped from the rear platform of the bus as it slowed on its turn from the Aldwych, and searched the ashen pavements of the Strand, wondering if he had somehow missed an air-raid warning. It was still quite dark, too early for a daylight assault. The blackout ended half an hour before sunrise, when the greatest danger to commuters was the ‘silent peril’, trolley buses that glided by with a whisper of sheened steel. The clear weather of the last two days had allowed heavier bombing raids than usual, but the morning was mild and overcast, a healthy sign; German bombers were unable to follow the river into London’s heart when the cloud base was so low.

May wasn’t sure where the nearest shelter was, and had yet to make his way to Bow Street. He kept his shirt-tail hanging out below the hem of his jacket as a white flag to motorists; over four thousand people had been killed in blackout accidents during the first few months of the war. It was safer to take an overseas posting with the British Expeditionary Force.

The shops and restaurants of the Strand had been boarded up from the Kardomah to the Coal Hole, but a sign nailed beneath a shirtmaker’s ‘Business As Usual’ banner pointed the way to a shelter. May made a mental note of it. The street lamps were off, and only strips of white paint on the kerbs marked out his route. He passed a large branch of Boots fortified with sandbags and, near the top, when those had run out, old telephone directories.

May wondered if he was over-keen, turning up so early on his first day. There had been several raids the previous night and few Londoners had managed more than four hours’ sleep, despite the protestations of patriots who insisted that their slumber was undisturbed by falling bombs. This morning it seemed as if the entire city had decided on a late start. He passed a pair of sleepy-eyed girls walking arm in arm, their matching homemade hats pinned with luminous brooches. An ARP warden paused in a shop doorway to draw guiltily on a thin roll-up. An elderly man in a cap and a heavy wool coat checked the gutter for dog-ends. The grey street smelled of rolling tobacco and charred wood.

Sixty years later, John May would amble along the same route and see more people sleeping rough than he had during the war, but at the moment, on this anaemic Monday, all he cared about was reaching his office before someone decided that they had made a terrible mistake and didn’t actually need a new recruit to work in an experimental police department, especially not a kid who had been prematurely thrust into his profession by the outbreak of war.

He found the police station at Bow Street with ease—he’d spent enough mornings in Covent Garden with his father to know his way around—but could not locate the entrance he had been instructed to use. Carfax, the bulldog-faced desk sergeant, sent him out of the front door, past the hand-printed sign to the public that read: ‘Be Good—We’re Still Open’, and into a side alley where he discovered the unmarked blue door. Failing to find a bell, he was about to knock when it suddenly opened.

‘Are you the new chap?’ asked a statuesque young woman whose cockney accent emerged through carmine lips. ‘Blimey, you’re a bit eager, aren’t you?’ She opened the door wider. ‘You’d better come in, you’re making the street untidy.’

May pulled off his cap and stepped into a narrow corridor. The young woman’s protuberant bust was alarmingly close to his face in the darkness, but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Go up the top of them stairs and take the first right. Mind you don’t trip on the treads, some of the rods are gone, and there’s textbooks everywhere. We only just moved in.’

May reached the linoleumed landing and found himself standing before a faintly lit office door. Radio music played inside. On the panel in front of him was tacked a sheet of paper reading: ‘KNOCK AND WAIT’. He did so, lightly, and when nothing occurred, more heavily.

‘You don’t have to bash the thing in,’ called an irritated voice. ‘Just open it.’

May entered a cluttered sepia room with a sloping floor. A pair of green glass desk lamps threw cones of light against the blackout curtains, where a young man with chestnut hair and a purple scarf knotted round his throat was trying to see something through a magnifying glass. ‘The Home Office insists on the “Knock and Wait” signs,’ he explained, not looking up. ‘They’re meant to give us time to clear away sensitive papers. As if we had any in the first place. Here.’ He thrust the glass at May, together with a sheet of butcher’s paper covered in hand-drawn illustrations of butterflies. ‘See if you can spot a hidden message on that.’

Taken aback, May turned his attention to the drawing and studied it carefully. ‘They all have the same pattern, red admirals,’ he said, ‘but the colours are wrong. They rather look like naval code. You know, signal flags. Admirals, I suppose that’s the tip-off. I think I can read it.’ He squinted at the page. ‘W-E-R-E-O-U-T-O-F-T-E-A.’

‘I see.’ The young man snatched the sheet of paper back from him. ‘It’ll be from the tailors downstairs. They were both in the navy. We have to share the kettle and the gas ring. Bit of a smartarse, are you?’

‘N-No,’ stammered May.

‘Jolly good,’ said the young man, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Arthur Bryant.’ He tugged his fawn cardigan over a pudgy stomach and smiled conspiratorially. ‘You must be Mr May. What should I call you?’

‘John, sir.’

‘Don’t call me “sir”, I’ve not been knighted yet. You look fairly sturdy. We could do with someone like you.’ Bryant was the indoor type, shorter and fleshier than his counterpart. May boxed and played football. He had a long reach, wide shoulders and thick thighs, a look women liked. In decades to come, the difference in their heights became more noticeable as Bryant shrank and May’s posture stayed firm.

‘Did you meet our glamorous DS?’

‘Rather.’ May nodded enthusiastically.

‘She’s a hoot, isn’t she?’ Bryant’s smile unclouded into a grin. ‘One of the first female detective sergeants in the country, thanks to this mess.’ May assumed he was referring to the war and not the room. ‘Idolizes American film stars, wears make-up and high heels to work against the rules, not at all frightened of looking like a tart. Gladys Forthright. She’s engaged to a sergeant called Harris Longbright. Do you think she’s just doing it for the assonance?’ Bryant barked an extraordinary laugh. ‘I must say I thought they were going to send me someone older. You’re what, twenty?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Nineteen, eh?’ Bryant rolled his pale blue eyes. ‘That’s a bit young for this lark.’

‘Not at all,’ May bridled. ‘There were lads younger than me lost at Scapa Flow.’

‘You’re right, of course. Eight hundred on the
Royal Oak
. It makes one doubt the existence of a grand plan. Still, all hands to the pumps at home, eh? I hope we’ll be able to do something useful together. I hear they’re making you a detective.’

‘Apparently.’ May tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I was on a one-year intensive but I wasn’t able to finish the course. It’s impossible to get into Hendon, and our place was closed down. They’ve run out of instructors.’

‘So they just bumped you up? Very decent of them. I’m twenty-two and absolutely forbidden from participating in investigations unaided because they think I’m irresponsible, but there’s no one else available to head the unit, ha ha. They probably sent you here because you look sensible. Good trick, that.’ Bryant peered round the edge of the blackouts, saw that the street was growing light and opened the curtains, hastily switching off the desk lamps. ‘We can’t afford to get fined again,’ he explained, looking down through the X-taped windows. ‘I’m hopeless at remembering to turn things off.’

‘You didn’t get called up?’

‘Well, I did, but I’ve a bit of a dicky pump.’ He gave his chest an exploratory tap. ‘And there were other factors that prevented me from going,’ he added mysteriously. Years later, May found out that Bryant’s brother had died on a Thames barge, and because their mother lived alone in Bethnal Green without financial support, the Port of London Authority had arranged a special dispensation for her surviving son. There was another mitigating circumstance that protected Bryant from conscription, but it was not something he felt comfortable speaking of. ‘What about you?’

‘Essential industry. I’m waiting for a post to come up. I’ve been recommended for cypher-breaking. Shortlisted for a special unit intercepting codes coming from the Atlantic.’

‘They’re putting something together in Hertfordshire, aren’t they? If they don’t get a move on it’ll all be over. Do you want a pipe? We’ve still got some tobacco, but it’s a bit ropy.’ Bryant waved a wallet of foul-smelling shag past him and dropped it into the chaos of the desk.

‘I don’t, thanks,’ said May, removing his coat and looking for somewhere clean to put it. ‘There’s a very good code station already running, but they’re stocking it with the best of the Oxford grads. I’ll just have to wait my turn.’

‘You probably want to know what this is all about,’ said Bryant, pushing a chair at him. ‘Sorry no one could tell you much, but the MoI and the Home Office are very big on public morale at the moment.’

‘I’ve noticed,’ said May. ‘The block on information is a bit stiff. Part of Hyde Park near Marble Arch was roped off at the weekend. They reckon an underground shelter was blown to bits, heads and arms and legs everywhere. The only way they could tell the girls from the men was by their hair. But I didn’t see anything about it in the papers.’