Seventy-Seven Clocks (37 page)

‘I had to return it immediately,’ said Jerry. ‘His apartment keys are taped to the back.’ 

May’s mouth fell open. 

‘That’s the point,’ said Bryant, taking the bleeper and turning it over to reveal a pair of labeled Yale keys sellotaped in place. ‘I thought I wouldn’t lose it if I needed it to get into my apartment.’ 

‘Do you mean to say that I owe my life to—to—’ 

‘That’s right,’ said Jerry, pleased with herself. ‘If it wasn’t for your partner’s annoying little habits, you’d have drowned.’ 

The patrol car sped on across the bridge, towards a lightening sky.

53 / Captain of Industry 

For once, Charles Whitstable was at a loss for words. He was still wearing the previous day’s clothes, and had not slept. 

‘We just want to know how you did it,’ said May, hunching forward on his chair. The workmen had made a surprise return to Mornington Crescent, and there were tools all over the floor. There was also, inexplicably, a large hole in the ceiling. 

‘I’m not sure what you’ll even be charged with,’ added Bryant, ‘but it’ll certainly be as an accomplice to murder. Try to explain what happened. Then we’ll decide what you need to put in your official statement.’ 

Charles lifted his head from his hands and attempted to smooth his hair back in place. ‘All right,’ he said, resigning himself to the first in a series of trials. ‘When I went to Calcutta, I found the guild’s group of companies still operating under archaic conditions. There had been no technological advances, no updating of the infrastructure. The offices were staffed by the grandsons of the original owners. Bureaucracy was rampant, even by Calcutta’s standards. Nothing had changed from James Whitstable’s time. 

‘Back in London, Peter and Bella were moaning about profits dropping. They were all complaining, even the damned lawyers, and no one had the balls to come and sort out the mess. Everything was left to me. I soon noticed that certain “obligations” transmitted from London were being honoured by staff members. Every once in a while, someone would disappear for a few days on “company business,” financed by money orders transferred through the lawyers’ office in Norwich. That staff member would then reappear and continue working without a word of what had transpired. Apparently, this had been going on for years. 

‘I noticed a pattern in the type of people chosen for this clandestine work. They were always the sons and grandsons of men who had been granted a great favour by the guild at some point in the past.’ 

‘What sort of favour?’ 

‘The usual sort of thing—a cash advance for a newlywed, an executive post for a son—a favour that demanded repayment at some unspecified point in the future,’ explained Charles. ‘Employees of even the most distant branches of the Watchmakers could, in extreme circumstances, be granted special deals in the form of large lowinterest loans. In return, a brown-paper package was delivered to the home of the borrower, to be kept within the family and opened at a time specified by the company. 

‘When the time came, instructions were to be carried through to the last letter. The debt was canceled once the rival was out of action. There could be no defaulting on repayment. At least, that was how the system had worked in the past. I arrived to find dissent. People had begun to refuse to honour these “obligations.” They’d been held to promises by their fathers, their grandfathers, but couldn’t see why they should perform favours for the English any more. Victoria’s reign might have gone, but it was a damned long time dying. Our employees had been kept in place with threats and superstitions, but they no longer feared the power of the alliance. India now had its independence, after all.’ 

Charles Whitstable looked as embarrassed as a captain of industry could ever be seen to be. ‘Well, I couldn’t completely abolish the system. But the Calcutta police were becoming suspicious. I had to take control. I had the family’s best interests at heart. The machine provided the competitors of those marked for removal because it was regularly updated in London by Tomlins. I had no idea that the system had begun to backfire, or that it would kill my own family. James Makepeace Whitstable used everyone— his craftsmen, his lawyers, the heirs of his most loyal members of staff. That was the simple beauty of his scheme. All the dirty work was done overseas, thereby keeping his own hands clean. James never dreamed that one day it would all come home.’ 

‘That was why the assassins used such old-fashioned methods of execution,’ May realized. ‘They were working to a tried and trusted formula. When Max Jacob’s killer used cottonmouth snake venom, it was probably the closest he could get to a native Indian reptile.’ 

‘What an apt Victorian process,’ snorted Bryant. ‘Butcher your rivals, dupe the locals, and improve your own fortune. If anyone gets caught it’s only an invisible foreigner, a third-class citizen, and who’ll believe him against the word of a white man? So men like poor Denjhi had their lives destroyed by the debts of their forefathers. His conscience prevented him from killing Daisy Whitstable, so he was used again. But he beat the system a second time. Instead of lethally poisoning Peggy Harmsworth, he diluted the concoction, hoping to spare her life without failing to honour his debt.’ Bryant rose and refastened his shapeless brown cardigan. ‘You have the deaths of your own family on your conscience. It’ll be interesting to see if we can make you pay in the courtroom.’

54 / Mother & Daughter Revisited 

Gwen Gates stared at the glowing end of her cigarette and smiled ruefully. The room was flooded in cold sunshine as panels of light reflected from the wet pavements outside. She wore no makeup and was wrapped in a heavy white towelling robe. Jerry had rarely seen her mother like this, in what Gwen would regard as an unfinished state. 

The hour was still early. Jack had gone to thrash a ball about at the Highgate Golf Club. Gwen had heard Jerry moving about and had come down, almost as if she had sensed something was different about today. She looked up at her daughter now, and for a moment Jerry felt a flicker of sympathy. It had been a shock to discover that Gwen’s desire to improve her social standing had outweighed her love for her only daughter, but it was as if something Jerry had always suspected had now proved to be true. 

The knowledge produced little satisfaction, only the bitter taste of betrayal. Her love had been weighed as a commodity, quantified and traded off for something more rewarding. And yet, there was still the faintest trace of a bond between them. 

‘If it’s any consolation, I’m ashamed for not speaking up and stopping you going back to Charles Whitstable’s house.’ 

‘You just wanted me to work for him and be accepted by the Whitstable family,’ Jerry replied, folding the flap of the nylon backpack over and clipping it shut. ‘You’d convinced yourself I wouldn’t remember what had happened. Even if I’d taken up Charles’s offer, he would never have given you the things you wanted. If and when he gets out of jail, that’s assuming he even goes, he’ll carry on with his business quite happily without me or you. All of them will. The Whitstables will carry on long after all the press and television coverage, after all the scandals and investigations. The Whitstables don’t need anyone else. Poor Gwen, let down by yet another man. First Jack, then Charles Whitstable.’ 

‘You’re a very cruel girl.’ 

‘I’m not a girl any more, Mother. You must have been able to see that nothing would ever change for us. What were you hoping for? Did you think you would get Jack’s respect back? That’s long gone. What do you want any more privileges for, anyway? It’s not as if they would have made us different people.’ She checked the spines of a few paperbacks and added them to the bag. There were some books she had to take with her wherever she went. 

‘I thought it would be nice if you could marry well.’ Gwen’s voice was soft and tired. 

‘If I really wanted what the upper classes have, I’d have to be as dishonest as them.’ 

‘I never meant to be dishonest with you, Jerry.’ Gwen seemed to find the taste of the cigarette disagreeable, and ground it out. ‘I simply wasn’t honest with myself. You have no idea what it was like being so close to them, and so far away. To tiptoe around the edges of their lives, always within sight of something better. I wanted to have what they had, for you as well as me. It didn’t seem fair.’ 

‘Well, it’s not what I want.’ Jerry picked up the bag and walked to the door. ‘That’s why I have to go. I want to make my own changes. You’re right, the Whitstables aren’t fair. They keep what’s theirs by building barriers. The whole rotten country’s founded on them. It’s a nation of boxes and walls. Mostly walls.’ 

‘You’re being naive if you think you can change anything. Nothing changed for me.’ Concern shadowed Gwen’s face. For whom, Jerry couldn’t tell. ‘You have no idea of the things that went on.’ 

‘Perhaps not,’ said Jerry. ‘You never talked about—’ 

‘What could I have said? How could I have described the contemptuous looks on those damned faces?’ She checked herself. ‘Half the family hasn’t talked to me for years. Oh, they’ll give cold smiles when you’re around, and cut me dead behind your back. All the clever little cruelties, the endless subtle indignities. Because of you, and the way you behaved. The trouble you caused.’ 

‘I’m sorry, Gwen. I didn’t know.’ 

‘Well,’ she said bitterly, ‘there’s a lot you still don’t know. People are monstrous. When you’re protected by money, there are a thousand ways to hurt someone.’ She clearly had no intention of allowing her daughter to feel sorry for her, and changed the subject. ‘What are your plans? Where are you going to go now?’ 

‘I’m not sure. I’ll try to find some places where there aren’t so many restrictions.’ 

‘That’ll be a lot harder than you think. God, you’ve some learning to do.’

‘Then I’ll learn.’ 

Jerry’s career at the Savoy had ended. She had been forced to give it up after realizing that it was Nicholas who had collected the photographs for Peter Whitstable. May had uncovered that particular detail during his interviews. The management had subsequently caught her slapping Nicholas around the face. The satisfaction of her stinging palm still stayed. 

Her mother was pacing in front of the lounge door, as if frightened to see it opened. ‘You barely know this boy Jacob.’ 

‘His name’s Joseph. He wants to travel for a while, and so do I.’ 

‘You’re not planning on getting married, are you?’ Gwen asked cautiously. 

‘Of course not. It’s the seventies. Nobody needs to get married any more. We’re just friends.’ 

‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say that will make you change your mind.’ Gwen searched for a fresh cigarette, something to occupy her hands. 

Joseph Herrick had talked about touring Europe, and Jerry had jumped at the chance. His Christmas, unlike hers, had been a quiet one. 

‘Say good-bye to Dad for me. Don’t let him worry.’ 

‘I think he’ll be rather pleased for you. Especially if he sees it as a defeat for me.’ 

‘Oh, Mother. What are you going to do?’ 

Gwen glanced up at the clock. ‘I’m supposed to be chairing one of my charities in an hour. I have a feeling it’s arthritis.’ 

‘Then you’d better get ready,’ Jerry said, smiling. 

Gwen lit her cigarette and looked out of the sunsmeared window. ‘I don’t know. I may go for a walk instead.’ 

‘The park should be nice.’ 

‘I was thinking more of Harrods.’ 

She turned back to Jerry, her eyes narrowing. ‘Tell me,’ she asked, ‘what’s the point of having children if they only leave?’ 

‘Because of the love,’ Jerry replied. ‘I always wanted to be able to love you.’ 

‘Yes,’ Gwen agreed, taking a step toward her, then thinking better of it. ‘It may surprise you, Geraldine, but there is love.’ 

‘I’ll let you know where I am,’ Jerry promised. As she looked back at her mother from the door, standing squarely in the centre of the hallway, her hands by her sides, her feet bare, she saw how fragile Gwen’s life had been, and how much emptier it would be now. 

‘I’m going to come back,’ she said. 

‘I’d like that very much, Jerry. I wish—’ 

‘What?’ 

‘I wish I could go away somewhere. Start learning again.’ She gave a rueful half smile. 

‘You can learn right here,’ Jerry said. ‘You don’t need to go anywhere.’ 

‘That’s simple for you to say. Everything’s easy to the young.’ 

‘At least you could try, Mother.’ 

‘Mother.’ Gwen turned the word over, as if hearing it for the first time and trying it for size. Finally, she raised the palm of her right hand in farewell, coolly watching as Jerry walked to the end of the road. But even as Jerry turned the corner, she knew that Gwen would be standing at the door long after she had passed from sight.

55 / Turning On the Lights 

Tower Bridge was the gateway to London, the first bridge a ship encountered upon its passage into the Thames. Its Gothic turrets are merely stone clad over steel, and have guarded the river for barely a hundred years, yet it has become as definitive a representation of the city as the Tower of London itself. Below the bridge, smelt, dace, roach, and perch have been known to swim with flounders and elvers through the thick brackish water of the Thames. The riverbank here was once a thick slope of orange sand known as Tower Beach. From the 1930s to the 1950s, families swam and played on it as if day-tripping to the Brighton seashore. 

On a Friday evening at the end of January, as a sulphurous sunset jaundiced the roof of the southern turret, two middle-aged gentlemen surveyed the river scene. Above them rose the tower’s massive pressurized-water pistons. The bridge had recently been repainted a rich blue, the colour of a summer sky. It was deserted as the two men crossed it on the west side, their hands thrust deep into their pockets. 

John May paused to lean on the wooden handrail and look down over the edge. Arthur Bryant had summoned up another vile scarf from his infinite collection of depressing knitwear and was even now peering over its folds like a perished frog. The top of May’s head was still swathed in bandages, lending him an Oriental air. 

‘I don’t know what the bare-breasted woman on roller skates was supposed to be doing,’ he said, puzzled. ‘And why on earth was she wearing a centurion’s helmet?’ 

‘That was Britannia,’ Bryant explained. ‘I told you, it was a very modern interpretation. Still, it was nice to see the Savoyards again.’ 

‘Yes,’ agreed May, ‘they weren’t bad for a group of people who are obviously deranged. I’m afraid it’s not my cup of tea, all that theatrical stuff. It’s just not real enough. Good tunes, though, I must say.’ 

The Savoy Theatre had finally reopened its doors to a brand-new production of Patience. Bryant had dragged along his reluctant partner on the first night that they had been provided with a corresponding respite from their duties. 

‘Actually, I think I might have dozed off in the second half,’ May admitted. 

‘I know. I heard you. So did everybody else. You should have your sinuses seen to. Look, John.’ He stopped in the centre of the bridge and looked back at St Paul’s. ‘It’s nice to see that the cathedral still stands high above the other buildings.’ 

‘That’s just because they haven’t given planning permission to build office blocks around it,’ said May unsportingly. 

‘I love this skyline. It’s less spectacular than other cities, but when I think of the men and women who firewatched for the domes and spires through the war, the mere fact that it still survives at all amazes me.’ 

‘You’re a dreadful sentimentalist, Arthur. Look at the crumbling tower blocks and the empty docklands buildings.’ 

‘I know they’re there, and I can’t do anything to change them. I suppose they’ll all get pulled down and replaced. Soon there will be nothing left of the city I played in as a kid.’ 

‘Perhaps the next batch of politicians will improve our lot. I hear this Mrs Thatcher is a rising star. It would be good to have a woman prime minister. She’d be more inclined to kindness, one feels. She could end inequality in the city.’ May withdrew a cigar and lit it. He was allowed one at the end of a case. ‘You know what Tower Bridge reminds me of? The Shepherd’s Market diamond robbery, our second case.’ 

‘Good Lord, you’re right,’ exclaimed Bryant. ‘Remember Sidney Dobson, the deaf explosives expert? The mastermind behind Mayfair’s finest safecracking ring. His old dad ran the Smithfield black-market sausage syndicate during the war. To think that Sidney would have got away with the diamonds if he’d taken London Bridge instead of this one.’ 

‘That’s right. I almost felt sorry for him, stuck in a lorry full of pigs while they opened the bridge for a barge full of illegal bananas.’ 

‘He was very decent about it. The last of the gentlemen crooks. Had a nasty three-legged cat called Wilfred. I visited him in prison, you know.’ 

‘That was nice of you.’ 

‘Not really,’ conceded Bryant. ‘His sister-in-law sold me a car with no brakes. I was trying to find out if he’d heard from her. Sidney told me she’d emigrated to New Zealand, but on the way back from the prison I passed her at a bus stop.’ 

‘What happened?’ 

‘Nothing. I couldn’t slow the damn vehicle down. I think she heard me yelling. I suppose men like Sidney are into property scams now. That seems a rather sleazy, backdoor style of crime. The old ways felt more honest.’ 

‘That’s enough, Arthur,’ said May, raising his hand. ‘Looking back is morbid and unhealthy. I think I prefer you cantankerous. Anyway, there are all kinds of interesting crimes now.’ 

‘Did I tell you? I got a postcard from Jerry Gates. She’s on her way to India with some chap. She’d do well to stay away from the Calcutta offices of the Whitstables’ shipping company. Mind you, there’s no one left at the addresses Charles Whitstable gave us.’ 

‘Raymond Land says he’s going to refute the possibility of the entire case with tested scientific evidence.’ 

‘We saw the device with our own eyes. How can they refute that?’ 

‘There’s no concrete proof left, Arthur. Even Land doesn’t believe it, and he was there.’ 

A variety of lurid theories had allowed the tabloids to speculate in all kinds of colourful, alarming ways. Yet, despite this and other damning publicity resulting from the investigation, the fickle press had decided to champion the Peculiar Crimes Unit. After all, it had provided them with gruesome entertainment for weeks. Although the official hearing had yet to take place, there was now at least hope for the unit’s future. 

Charles Whitstable’s fate still lay in the hands of the British magistrates’ court. May had to admit that James Makepeace Whitstable’s system was ingenious. It was impossible to estimate how many families had been bullied into accepting his sabotage orders. Many would still be keeping their secret packages for years to come—just in case the cycle renewed itself and the system returned one day. 

The most capricious casualty of the investigation had passed from her life barely mourned. May had been one of the few people to attend the funeral of Alison Hatfield. He had forced himself to stop thinking of an alternative future where she was still alive. He knew that her memory would be better served by destroying every branch of the organization that had ultimately caused her death. Sadly, this would never be entirely possible. Too many companies carried the seal of government approval. They would continue to prosper, aided by powerful financial protection. 

His thoughts were broken by the ghastly sound of Bryant chuckling to himself. ‘What’s so funny?’ May asked, leaning back against the painted balustrade. 

‘I was just thinking about the Whitstables,’ said Bryant, his breath clouding the air. ‘How W.S. Gilbert would have loved to write about them.’ 

‘Oh? Why?’ 

‘He adored paradoxes. He lampooned every institution in the land by putting lawyers and ministers in topsyturvy situations. Without realizing it, the Whitstables managed to create a paradox worthy of Gilbert himself. The astrolabe, you see.’ 

‘Talk to me while we walk. My ears are getting brittle.’ 

‘The astrolabe destroyed the children of the aristocrats who set it in motion. And its instruments of death were the poor, the very people the system was designed to keep out.’ Bryant sighed and continued walking. ‘Of course, the paradox still exists. We live in a land of upper and lower orders. For every man willing to help those less fortunate than himself, there are ten others ready to exploit him.’ Bryant waved his moth-eaten gloves about. ‘Thanks to families like the Whitstables, the circle may one day turn again from light to darkness.’ 

They were standing at the southern end of the bridge, looking back along the river. Above the battered slate roof of Charing Cross station, the clouds shone with a soft citrine light. 

‘I don’t think London will ever be completely dark again,’ said May. ‘Look.’ 

‘It’s rather a shame,’ replied Bryant. ‘What must it have been like in the world that existed before twentyeight December, 1881? There once was such a thing as absolute darkness. And there was something else perhaps, a collective warmth, a hidden strength. Men and women bound together by superstition and folklore. Families were connected by myths and fantasies. I think something was lost the day they turned on the lights. Something indefinable and very important.’ 

‘You find comfort in darkness. I prefer the world brightly lit; there’s so much more to see.’ 

‘That’s why we complement each other.’ Bryant looked down into the swirling brown waters, at clouds of mud blossoming in the wake of a passing tug. ‘Look at the river. I miss her so much, John. Never a day goes by when I don’t think of her.’ 

‘All this time, you never mentioned Nathalie.’ May had not thought of Bryant’s radiant French fiancée in an age. He didn’t like to recall how she had died so many years ago, slipping and drowning in the fast-flowing waters below them. 

‘I couldn’t save her, so I must always remind myself of the service I owe others. Why else do you think we return daily to the bridges of London? She brings us here. I have to see her face.’ 

‘Oh Arthur, what’s done is done. We must acknowledge the past, but we have to keep moving on, for ever forward. There’s no other way.’ 

‘I know. Nothing reduces the power of those left behind. That’s their legacy.’ 

Unsure how best to reply, May patted his friend on the back and set him off in the direction of the city lights. Their shadows lengthened across the opalescent pavement, where specks of flint danced like reflecting stars.