4 Bones Sleeping (Small Town Trilogy) Read online

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ He sat down again, ‘Look at the girls. Look how well they mix. They do Teddy’s work for him. We don’t need violence.’

  I nodded; I could see that they would be more effective than all of the bribes and the free booze. But extortion needs policing and not the boys in blue either.

  But my new friend only wanted to talk about the women and he confirmed this by saying. ‘Poke one of these women and …’

  I never said anything, but he was right, sleep with one of these girls and blackmailed straight away probably, though not for money necessarily. Power, leverage – networks springing up again and hey bingo, Teddy’s back in business. He needed immunity, but the large amounts of cash going into corrupt policemen’s pockets was no longer a guarantee. Teddy had become a marked man in many ways now, they might still take his money, but gone were the days when he strutted around with impunity and immunity.

  Oh, but we still took all the booze and women on offer. I mean if someone is that stupid to throw it your way, well why not? Where did all of this leave me? Principles, ethics, morality – I glanced across at Teddy sat back in his chair, gin in one hand and a large cigar in the other. A woman stood behind his chair and gently rubbed his neck. Then she bent a little and whispered in his ear, he never smiled. She blinked a couple of times, her mouth formed a circle. Her irresistible offer rebuffed by a surly man with other things on his mind.

  Teddy’s eyes scanned the room. If I were sensible and in control I would have looked away. Eye contact with a barracuda? But I couldn’t resist staring at such a handsome man. Again I couldn’t answer another question, was it the danger, the power of the man? Or his sexuality? Teddy comfortably held my gaze and I knew. One of my questions had been answered. I shook my head, this was a dangerous game to play.

  I turned to my companion and said, ‘Where’s that good looking woman that was always hanging onto Teddy’s arm? Before he went down that is.’

  ‘Doing some administration for Teddy.’

  He laughed and I frowned as a small electrical charge of discomfort shot down my spine. I asked my companion another question. ‘Are they still together then?’

  ‘Well, I picked her up outside of East Acton station. She sat in the back. We drove on to the Scrubs and Teddy came out a few minutes later. Got in the back seat with her. Then he told me to keep my eyes on the road and off the fucking mirror. She sucked him off.’

  I shuddered, hoping against hope that we were talking about different blondes. ‘She waited for him then?’

  My companion nodded, then pursed his heavy lips and sucked the smoky air in. He slowly shook his head, ‘If she looked at another man, Teddy will go fucking ape-shit.’ He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes and sent a short sighted squint my way.

  She wouldn’t dare.

  And there, right in front of me, the implied and thinly coded threat of a razor blade across the cheek if she ever crossed him. I frowned into my gin; these people would never last long. Short lived thugs they might be, but what was Shirley playing at?

  Messing about with recklessly violent men?

  Wyn felt that they could be persuaded to work together for the greater good. Business before anything else, but it wasn’t their philosophy, cunning and not very bright, petty jealousies and greed had turned most of them into a directionless mob.

  If she wasn’t already, Shirley would soon be out her depth. Teddy must know about her and Wyn After all, they had hardly made any effort to keep their relationship discreet. Although things had become marginally more discrete since Ronny’s arrival on the scene. He seemed happy enough working for Wyn. Just about accepted his wife’s closeness as some sort of business arrangement, he appeared unaware. Or maybe he pushed things to the back of his mind and hoped for the best. Like most of us would do, Shirley had a talent. Able to blind us all, twist us into believing whatever she wanted us to believe.

  A natural gift for deception maybe, but she was either not very bright or mad. She should know better than most why Teddy had gone inside.

  *****

  Michael Parlane was a good editor, old school, effusive and abrupt at the same time. The many broken veins on his bloated cheeks an indication that he pursued the god of alcohol like most members of this profession. When I got back to the office, Michael was waiting by my desk. I knew that under normal circumstances he would have gone to the party himself. But it was meant as a snub to Teddy, high flying editors couldn’t be seen alongside razor happy thugs.

  Michael put his shirt sleeved arm around my shoulders, ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Usual stuff – lots of girls.’

  Michael raised his eyebrows, never one to refuse hospitality, especially attractive prostitutes. He winked at me, ‘Pity I couldn’t make it. How was Teddy?’

  I wanted to get back to work and write a few lines about Teddy. I needed to think this was a harmless enough trade off. I didn’t need Michael regaling me with his tales of just how generous a south London yob could be.

  I tried to keep a straight face. ‘He’s turned over a new leaf and hopes to get into the night club business. All legitimate this time.’

  I sometime surprised myself and wondered if I sounded at all cynical. No one could believe that one and no one would, but I pushed it all to the back of my mind as best as I could. When reality made the occasional foray into my consciousness, I pushed it back as effectively as Canute might the tide. Forcing myself to believe that I belonged to that bibulous, collegial group of principled journalists that exposed corrupt politicians and crooked business men.

  I think Michael understood, he patted me on the back, ‘Don’t worry, you’re young. Still got one or two principles left. Write it up, you know the rules.’

  I knew all right, our strict libel laws and our neurotic legal team always gave us the excuse for not exposing, often holding back the best stories, the ones that we never printed. Perhaps they would have made us all famous and loved even. How I wallowed in self-pity – twenty one years old and starting at the bottom. How unjust my working life had quickly become, well down the list behind the political correspondents and the war correspondents, the diary editors and show business reporters. Bottom of the pile and remunerated accordingly.

  I sat in front of my typewriter, what did all of this make me? Someone happy to take free drinks from Wyn and yet more from Teddy. I told myself that I would never take anything else, oh maybe the occasional theatre ticket either of them sent my way but never the endless offer of girls, I couldn’t be tempted by that one. It would be fair to say that the first couple of months of the post war period were certainly not dull and I was on the take like everyone else. Justifying taking most things that came my way by wallowing in a glorious and self-righteous indignation.

  *****

  Later that night, I walked into Wyn’s club. Happy to be in the company of people, who had quickly become firm friends. I had fallen under the collective spell of a club owner and his deranged mistress. A woman with a blatant sexuality that she wore as proudly as any medal. A woman who I knew was betraying her husband and now it seemed, her lover as well.

  As was her custom, Shirley sat close and I always felt I wanted to use her much like you would a priest, sat close by like I was in a confessional box. Talking to Shirley despite the sense of suspicion she always brought out in me. I started to tell her what a bad lot life had become for me, when I should have been asking what she was doing with Teddy earlier this morning.

  Instead I said, ‘What do you want out of life?’

  ‘Have fun and be happy – not too much to ask is it?’ Shirley stared at me and said, ‘I always enjoy playing cards and having a laugh. But it’s not the same, I loved it when it was packed with servicemen.’ She smiled and said. ‘No – not just because they were mostly American men either. It was lively and I felt safer even when the air-raid sirens were going off. It’s become dangerous now, I hear what the girls whisper and listen to what Harry and Wyn won’t tell
me. That’s the biggest giveaway – what’s not said.’

  ‘I went to a party Teddy Lewis threw this afternoon.’

  Shirley never blinked, she out stared me and I eventually glanced across to Peggy, who gave a little wave and started to sing, ‘You’re a bad influence on me.’

  I watched as she sang, saw her eyebrows lift a touch and Peggy nodded in the direction of the bar. I did a rapid double take, Teddy Lewis waiting to be served, dressed conservatively – a man out to impress. I turned back to Shirley… gone. She had an intrinsic sense of survival that went way beyond a formal education. I stood up and rushed towards the back office, heart beating erratically, my eyes fixed on the floor.

  I knocked and walked into the centre of Wyn’s plush little universe. Neatly panelled with dark wood, table to match. Box of cigars and a large lighter close by. Wyn leant back in his chair; Shirley leant against him, her fingers stroking his neck.

  I blurted the words their way, ‘We... you have a visitor. Teddy Lewis is sat out the front.’

  I knew that I had become an adroit reader of expressions. I studied him now, the smile, followed by the slight inclination of the head. The brown eyes, I would never call him careless with his own life or that of others. I mean he had so much to lose for a start. But he did appear unconcerned with consequences. He studied me with a look that openly calculated and weighed me up. Then like a door being slammed shut, he smiled my way.

  Relax.

  ‘I’ve just heard.’

  They never said a word; it was as if they had rehearsed this moment many times. Shirley slipped a lightweight jacket over her shoulders. Picked her handbag up as Wyn lifted the phone out of its cradle. He gave the number slowly and waited, he drummed his fingers once on the mahogany table. Sat forward as the connection went through.

  He spoke, ‘Yes it’s the Major here.’ The first time I’d heard him use that epithet, under normal circumstances that would have made me smile. His voice carried calmly on, ‘Taxi – yes Beak Street, around the back please. No longer than five minutes.’

  Then the phone went back into the cradle. He stood and they embraced, oblivious to me. I felt that I was intruding, their long stare into each other’s eyes, his arms around her waist now.

  Shirley ran her finger along his cheek as she said, ‘Be careful.’

  We walked out of the office, along the corridor and along to the fire exit. She gave me a cheery little wave and disappeared out of the door.

  Wyn came up close and gently gripped my bicep, ‘I’m going to face the music, are you coming?’

  I was being drawn inexorably somewhere, a place that I didn’t know, accompanied by the strong intuition of dark consequences. It seemed that Wyn saw nothing and I felt everything. He picked his coffee cup up, sipped away as the clock ticked away on the wall behind. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate did I walk back into the club with Wyn, or go out of the same door that Shirley had just walked through?

  I felt a reassuring grip on my elbow and with no resistance from me, felt myself being guided back into the club. Wyn pulled two stools across and we sat at the bar, he nodded and a bottle of single malt appeared in front of me. I sat unsteadily, my temples throbbed and the world fell silent. Wyn poured a generous measure and I gulped most of it in one. It changed nothing; I wanted to lose myself in a mindless fug of smoke and booze. Surround myself with drunks, perverts and the dissolute.

  Not the psychotic sat somewhere behind me.

  I turned and looked for him, my cigarette stuck in the middle of my lips. As the smoke drifted up and stung my eyes I saw him. Sipping coffee just like the man sat alongside me.

  Coffee? What’s up with everyone?

  Teddy’s cold colourless lips matched his cold, cold eyes. Colder than a pair of marbles on a frozen, December morning. The face of an emotionless assassin? It wasn’t that he saw things that others missed so much. Rather that he saw what he wanted to see and most of the time that displeased him.

  Why did I keep glancing his way? I forced myself to stare at my half empty glass. That’s when I felt the tap on the shoulder, I spilt good scotch on my trousers and waited stoically for a punch in the kidneys.

  ‘Get your fucking head out of your arse Jack, he’s gone.’

  Harry!

  *****

  Much later, when most of the punter’s had all gone home, we all sat and talked the night away. Wyn with his pot of strong smelling coffee and his jug of fresh orange juice on the table in front of him, neither item available for most of us. The black market had blurred class boundaries. Decent people from all walks of life wanted the good things. Most of which could only be supplied by spivs and other shady people of the night. Organised crime had come to London. I say organised, chaotic in its infancy as gangs jockeyed for all the opportunities that dangled tantalisingly in front of them. The gangs of hungry dogs made for an unseemly and often violent scrap as the chased after the juicy bones.

  ‘What was Teddy Lewis doing here?’ I asked the question simply because Lewis was an east London boy, but he operated strictly south of the river… until now.

  ‘I don’t know, spreading his wings. West End is where the real money is after all. Don’t worry, there’s enough to go around, it we’re sensible that is.’

  ‘He’s everything but sensible. You’ve just had your card marked.’ I looked up at Wyn, ‘You know how it’s going to start – a fight breaks out, a few tables overturned. Glasses broken, women insulted and customers pushed and shoved.’

  ‘Not here.’ Wyn gazed evenly back at me, ‘I’m legal – extortion only works in illegal drinking dens.’

  He sat back, glanced at one of his girls as she slinked passed heading for the last unsuspecting business man. Propping up the bar and staring glumly into his drink. Wyn smiled at me as we both watched the woman as she ran the back of her fingers down the man’s cheek. He smiled up at her, apparently unaware that he had suddenly turned from a drab and inoffensive little man, into a magnet for an attractive woman. Wyn shrugged my way, just another public servant providing a valued service and another soon to be contented customer.

  I took my eyes back to Wyn; it had fast become a favourite pastime for me, trying to disturb his equanimity. ‘They wouldn’t have issued a drinks license if they knew you weren’t in the Army.’

  Wyn back handed away, despite giving himself the grand sobriquet of the Major. Laughably, everyone believed that one and they happily called him Major Watkins. He traded under that name despite never being near a uniform. Unless you count the times he was stood next to a squaddie at a urinal. Had I chipped away the veneer of imperturbability?

  Maybe… his mouth turned down a touch, ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘You only got the license because the magistrates thought you were a war hero.’

  ‘Whoever told you that lie?’

  I said nothing, Harry’s grin widened and his eyes creased as an awkward silence enveloped us, Wyn stared across the table towards Harry. ‘My brother can be so indiscreet.’ He said this, apparently hurt by the revelation.

  I pressed on, ‘Your drinking might be legal. The women and the gaming aren’t. You’re treading on these people’s toes in more ways than one. Sooner rather than later and you’ll get a call.’

  There, I’d done my duty, a caveat duly imparted. But words of warning broke over Wyn as ineffectually as waves across granite outcrops. No sign of fear or caution, merely mock outrage that I suggested he ran something like a glorified knocking shop.

  He confirmed this when he said, ‘You think I run a brothel – I find that offensive.’ His face reflected that, as though something rancid had been thrust under his nose.

  I could’ve argued that point, the illegal gaming tables and the women brought Wyn over a thousand pounds a week. That very illegality made an approach from any one of half a dozen thugs inevitable. Their offer of protection as reassuringly certain as the neap tide always follows the full moon. It wasn’t as if Wyn’s operations were
in any way covert either. The women made their trade apparent, happy to not only drink with customers, but soon place their cards well and truly on the table. Wyn even kept a couple of rooms upstairs. Covering every eventually, I mean punters with no hotel room available could soon be drinking his over inflated booze again after a quick and probably soulless coupling.

  Just then, the sound of a woman laughing drifted over from the bar, followed by a man saying, ‘How much?’

  Harry laughed, I smiled and Wyn sighed.

  I sat back in my chair and my mind kept wandering back to Teddy. Shirley had branched out it seemed. She was romping in the back seat of a car with Teddy. Not content with sleeping with Wyn behind her husband’s back. Shirley was sleeping behind her lover’s back as well. All these dangerous complications and pregnant too.

  ‘What are you thinking about Jack?’

  I sighed, ‘Life’s complicated isn’t it?’

  He backhanded this away, ‘I do all the right things. Politically I mean, policeman drink for nothing. Things are going nicely – complicated? I don’t think so.’

  I briefly thought about telling him what I knew. Shrugged and said nothing. Instead I scanned the club, Wyn was right. Business was booming all right. Everyone was on the make; policemen put the squeeze on plenty of illegal drinking dens. Doubling and trebling their weekly incomes at the same time. And there were a few sat in here tonight. Happy to drink still wearing their uniform. The dull, deep, deep, dark blue contrasted nicely with the garishly lit club. Sipping what should have been expensive drinks and watching the women. Despite all the free drinks and the women Wyn dispensed their way, an unstoppable chain reaction was in motion and the money rolled in.

  It appeared that he had the police on his side, but not his lover.

  6

  Jack - 1980

  My mood didn’t match the setting. All the lights were off, except for the dart board spotlight. That solitary light had been turned through one hundred and ten degrees and shined away like a guiding light onto the piano. Peggy came out on occasions like this, rather in the same way the Lutine bell is sounded whenever a ship is lost at sea. Someone dies in town and out she comes, turns all the lights off, plays the piano for an hour and then disappears again.