Second Violin (26 page)

Troy found Dora Wax towering over him.

‘Drink up, young copper, and I’ll do you next.’

His heart sank. Stilton was close to giggling into his tea. Troy obeyed and handed her the cup. Swirl, tip, peer.

‘I did you, young copper, ’cos I know wot a septic Walter Stilton is. And you know what I see? I see a woman in your life.’

Stilton was holding in the laughter now by force of will. Oh God, Troy thought, let not this woman have red hair. He couldn’t bear the end of Stilton’s ‘septicism’. He
couldn’t bear to have to explain.

‘Oooh . . . A dark woman – lots of thick black hair and coal-black eyes . . . wicked woman! A wicked woman is going to enter your life!’

Good, thought Troy. He was a policeman . . . from his point of view the world was full of wicked women. Dark or otherwise.

Neuberg appeared in the doorway. A briefcase under his arm, a small overnight case in one hand, a homburg on his head.

‘Gentlemen, I am ready.’

Troy drove. Stilton sat in the back of the Riley with Neuberg.

‘Do you know where this dark place is?’ Neuberg asked.

‘Probably just the cell at Leman Street. After that you will be going on a journey. Dora was right about that. I just don’t know where.’

‘Away from Dora.’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘Ach! The woman could drive a man mad, you know. She no longer believes in the God of her forefathers and seeks faith in the random arrangement of tea leaves in a cup. She looks in, states
what is obvious and is falsely reassured by the illusion of her own wisdom. Of course I’m going on a journey. I’m a refugee. When are we not in transit? The woman could drive me mad.
What she does not realise is that everything is numbers. If she wants the secret of the universe, it lies in numbers.’

‘Does it?’ Stilton said, sounding incredulous.

‘Trust me. I am – was – Professor of Mathematics at University College. Numbers are everything.’

He tapped Troy on the shoulder. Relaxed enough now to treat him as though he were no more than a chauffeur.

‘Would you pull up at the corner? I would like to buy a newspaper. Who knows how long I shall be in your dark place.’

If there was a pattern to the day’s work, thought Troy, it lay only in that initial sense of caution the men displayed. No one jumped to conclusions, no one assumed
anything about the nature of them as coppers until it became self-evident, as though each and every one of them suspected that somewhere in the hidden heart of England Churchill had been saving his
storm troopers for a day such as this. Once they were certain they were dealing with nothing more than a couple of unarmed London bobbies, the full gamut of reaction was possible. Herr Schwartz in
Jamaica Street had wept buckets, as had Herr Franzen in Commercial Road and Herr Bernstein in the East India Dock Road. Herr Tauber of Ropemaker’s Fields had made a run for it – Stilton
had left it to Troy to mess up his suit and rugby tackle him, and Herr Musil of Wapping Lane had adopted Gandhiesque tactics and lay rigid on the floor of his landlady’s sitting room in an
act of civil disobedience. The landlady had helped carry Herr Musil out saying, ‘If you wasn’t behind with your rent it’d be a different matter. I can let yer room to some bugger
wot pays proper.’

By the end of the day Troy had seen little opportunity for his supposed local knowledge or Stilton’s grasp of German to be much use, and said so to Stilton.

‘It’s a shabby job.’

‘It’s a job like any other, lad,’ Stilton said. ‘And who knows what the Chief Inspector has in store for us?’

Troy called in at the Yard on his way home to check his in-tray. There was one note:

‘Station Sergeant at Bow Street called. 6.12 p.m. Asked if you would return call.’

For a moment he had no idea who the Station Sergeant at Bow Street was or why he might be calling. Then he remembered.

‘Kitty Stilton, please.’

She came on the line.

‘I get off at eight,’ she said. ‘We could . . .’

‘What? We could what?’

‘We could go out for a bite to eat. Make the most of the light nights.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Before we make the most of the dark.’

Troy thought. He could not be taken aback at any of this. He had called her. It had been perfectly possible not to call her, but he had. And her initial suggestion was a good one – proper
though it was. Dining out might take away the shabby taste of the day.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going anywhere on the back of your bike. I’ll pick you up in my car in five minutes. We’ll drive to my house, and then
we’ll walk.’

He found her under the white lamps of Bow Street nick – white because Queen Victoria would not have those ugly, garish blue lamps opposite the Royal Opera House if it were to be truly
royal; the queen had been dead thirty-nine years, but the lamps remained white. Kitty slid in beside him, leaned over to kiss him, found her gas mask case jammed painfully between them and slung it
on the back seat, as symbolic as a discarded item of clothing.

‘Glad you’re free. I’d no idea how long Dad would keep you.’

Troy slipped the car into gear and set off up Bow Street and into Long Acre.

‘Do you and your father not talk?’

‘Not shop we don’t. I’m just uniform I am. A plonk. He’d no more tell me Special Branch business than he’d tell me how to nick the crown jewels in the Tower
o’London. It was just like that when I was a nipper – “Where you goin’ Dad?”. “See a man about a dog.” I got fed up hearin’ that.’

‘I’m not Branch. So I can tell you . . . we spent all day rounding up Germans and Austrians, mostly middle-aged and middle class, Herr Doktor This and Herr Professor That, banging
them up in Leman Street and then watching them get shuffled off to St Pancras or Lingfield.’

‘Wot they done?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So?’

‘So it’s distasteful. I’d sooner be chasing murderers. That’s what I do. And as for the crown jewels . . .’

‘Yeah?’

‘The ones in the tower are fake, so I wouldn’t bother. The real ones haven’t been on display since the days of Captain Blood.’

He parked in Bedfordbury. She slipped an arm in his and they walked along New Row and up as far as Seven Dials.

‘I know a nice little Italian place. Gepetto’s. Not much of a regular menu, but an astonishing array of specials on the blackboard every day, and a decent wine list. It’s
usually jammed, but I’ve known Gepetto for years, he’ll fit us in.’

‘I never drunk wine.’

Troy supposed there was a first time for everything. Perhaps most English women had never tasted wine? He had grown up with wine. His parents had settled in England after a few years in France.
Almost the first thing the old man had done was stock his wine cellar.

Outside Gepetto’s the blackboard was bare. Inside Gepetto’s Gepetto was seated alone with a bottle of wine and a glass, his head in his hand.

Troy tapped on the window. Gepetto looked up, a sad-eyed seventy-year-old, brimming with tears. He beckoned to them to come in. Turned over two more glasses and poured.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Ah . . . Freddie . . . Where I begin?’

‘At the beginning?’

‘After lunch today . . . two coppers come . . . they ask for Gepetto Zocchi . . . when I say that’s me they say “no, it must be your son”, and my son my Joe, my cockney
Joe, he come out and he talk to them, and he say you buggers got to be kidding and next thing I know he got his hat and coat and they take him down nick and put him in chokey and say he not be back
. . . he is . . . how you say . . . impermed.’

‘Interned,’ Troy said.

‘Impermed. Interned. Still chokey, yes? An’ I say what he done, and they say he a wop and that enough . . . they say they are coppers on the wop, Kraut and kike run. And they laugh
and they take my Joe away. So I got no cook, no customers . . . so I go walk and I go over to Soho . . . and I ask around and they nick also Gobbi from Mario’s and Spinetti from
Quaglino’s, and the bloke from the Café Royal, and those two blokes at the ice cream parlour in Old Compton Street . . . I tell you, Freddie, this night you cannot get a good Italian
meal this side of Milan!’

Troy took out his notebook, said, ‘Jot down Joe’s full name for me, date and place of birth, and let me look into this. I can’t make any promises. But I can at least find out
where he’s gone.’

Gepetto scribbled.

Troy felt a hypocrite.

Troy felt unclean.

Troy felt a liar.

Troy took up his glass of wine, hoping he could hide behind it or anything. The sooner he got out of here the better.

He sipped. It was superb. It sapped at his sense of hypocrisy. He felt it begin to wane almost at once. He turned the bottle to see the label. Gepetto had chosen to drown his sorrows in a Bruno
di Monticello 1926.

‘You good copper, Freddie. Not like these bums who come today. You never lock up bloke just cos he a kike or a wop. I tell you what. Let me feed you and your young lady.’

Hypocrisy, good wine and the prospect of food fought for space in Troy’s conscience.

‘It not be much. Just a little pasta and
putanesca
.’

He vanished into the kitchen.

Kitty was staring at him, her glass untouched.

‘Try it,’ Troy whispered. ‘You’ll like it.’

‘How can you
not
tell him?’

‘No . . . that’s the wrong question. How
can
I tell him?’

‘It stinks, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, I told your father as much earlier on . . . but the wine doesn’t and nor will the meal. And when did you last dine in an empty restaurant with the proprietor?’

Kitty tasted the wine, pulled a face just like the one she’d pulled at Art Tatum.

‘I could get used to it . . . anyway . . . pasta . . . that’s spaghetti . . . pasta and what?’

‘Putanesca.’

‘Wossat mean.’

Troy wished she hadn’t asked.

‘Lady of the night.’

‘Oh, nice.’

‘Less literally, Whore’s Sauce.’

‘Thanks a million, Troy.’

‘It just means olives and tomatoes and . . .’

‘Troy . . . just shut yer gob.’

Afterwards. A warm night. The window open. Kitty lying with her red mane spread across his chest, he said, ‘I had my fortune told today.’

‘Wot? Who by?’

‘Dora Wax.’

‘Dora Wax reads tea leaves She couldn’t tell you the Titanic had sunk or Mafeking been relieved.’

‘She said a wicked woman was about to enter my life.’

Kitty’s head rose up, a glint in her green eyes.

‘Wot . . . your
putanesca
? Your Lady of the Night?’

‘Yes . . . but it’s not you.’

‘I should think not. And one more crack about whores and I’ll thump you.’

Every day Troy worked on the wop, Kraut and kike run with Walter Stilton. Every day tasted worse. Every night he met up with Kitty Stilton, and whether they went to a
restaurant, a pub or a cinema they always ended up in his bed. Every day tasted better.

Came Friday.

Steerforth appeared at Leman Street at lunchtime. Neither Troy nor Stilton had set eyes on him since Monday evening.

‘I need you two in Hampstead this afternoon. Finish what you’re doing . . .’

They were drinking tea and eating sandwiches in Troy’s old office. Stilton never lost an opportunity for food or tea, and Troy had grown used to the fact that each morning Stilton would
cajole a second breakfast out of whichever household they invaded first.

‘. . . And be outside Hampstead Library at two thirty.’

Steerforth left without another word to them.

Stilton bit into his bacon sandwich, spat crumbs and said, ‘Do you want to guess or shall I?’

‘Book burning,’ Troy said. ‘He’ll have us tipping books off the shelves and burning them in the street.’

Later, Troy wished he had put more imagination into his answer.

They arrived at Arkwright Road to find three Black Marias and a couple of dozen uniformed coppers lined up outside. Steerforth was bristling. It seemed to Troy that what passed for his moustache
was twitching with anticipation. He picked two uniforms from the ranks and told Troy and Stilton to follow him inside.

Inside, the library was full of people, almost entirely men, some snoozing, most bent over books and newspapers, some even taking notes. It was a typical Hampstead Library Friday afternoon. Troy
had come here as a boy to change his library books after school. The watchword had been silence. One disturbed nothing in Hampstead Library. Fingers pressed to lips and whispered
‘hush’. The librarians even wore rubber heels. One librarian sensing impending trouble came up and asked if she could help. Steerforth ignored her, went over to the counter, raised the
access flap and slammed it down three times, until every head in the room had turned to look at him.

‘Everybody up! Everybody stand!’

Confused, people obeyed slowly and sporadically. Suddenly, Troy had worked out exactly what Steerforth was up to. The more obedient they were, the more they gave themselves away. Troy could spot
the Europeans just by looking at them. No Englishman would leap to his feet just because a policeman said so.

‘Mr Stilton, take the left-hand side of the room, Mr Troy the right. I shall be centre.’

So saying he walked up to a tall, elderly, bespectacled man who had risen slowly to his feet by the first table and said, ‘Repeat after me – “Heil Hitler”.’

‘Certainly not,’ came the reply. ‘Bugger off.’

Steerforth didn’t bat an eyelid, moved on to the next man.

‘Repeat after me – “Heil Hitler”.’

The only right answer to this preposterous request was indeed ‘Bugger off’, but this time the ‘Heil Hitler’ was all but whispered back to him in accented English.

Steerforth put his face only inches from his cringing captive’s and said, ‘Now say “God Save the King”!’

‘Gott Save de King.’

‘You’re nicked! Mr Stilton, Mr Troy! Nick anyone who can’t say it right.’

Stilton looked at Troy in disbelief. He hadn’t twigged. Then he said as gently as he could to the first man in his aisle, ‘Would you mind just saying “Heil Hitler” and
“God Save the King” for me?’