The Streets Page 13

  There was barely room on the bench for me, but Roma wordlessly moved along and I squeezed myself in next to her. The tiniest gleam was perceptible in her gaze, and I had the impression she was trying not to laugh. I loosened my collar, feeling suddenly warm.

  ‘Nice togs,’ she said by way of greeting, and in my surprise and relief I raised my pint of ale to her – too quickly, for it sloshed over the lip of the pewter and soaked my sleeve. She smiled slightly, and shook her head, as if she expected no better. It was a look I was beginning to know.

  ‘Jo reckons they’re a bit . . . tofficky,’ I confessed.

  Roma offered no reply, merely kept a level gaze, as if considering the justice of Jo’s estimation. Her silences were unnerving precisely because you could never tell what she was thinking. Eventually – minutes seemed to have elapsed – she said, ‘We haven’t seen you round here for a while.’

  ‘Yes . . . I think I’ve become of less use to the paper. Marchmont doesn’t seem so interested in Somers Town any more.’

  She gave a sardonic moue. ‘They all lose interest in the end.’

  I shrugged, and told her of my enquiries concerning the leaseholders. ‘What I can’t understand is how the leases have changed hands so quickly. I visited the Records Office and found that Moyles and his cronies are no longer liable as landlords – they’ve ceded the worst of their property to a company named Condor Holdings. And unless –’

  The sombre turn of this conversation was interrupted by a strange cackle from across the table. Jo had just then uncovered the contents of his birthday box and was holding it up to view. The gift I had brought was now displayed for all: a wooden monkey with articulated limbs and an expression altogether more prepossessing than Ferdinand’s. The faces crowding round the toy and its recipient looked bemused, but not unimpressed.

  ‘Cool this feller!’ laughed Jo, jigging the monkey about as though it were a living creature. He looked over at me and cried Davie!, which I was pleased to interpret as a lively expression of thanks. For the second time that evening Jo was moved to sing, and (as I remember) his ditty went thus:

  Click, click, I’m a monkey on a stick

  And anyone with me can play

  And my antics he’ll enjoy till he finds a newer toy

  Then he’ll bid me a polite good day.

  This provoked another burst of laughter from his companions, who were now scrutinising the monkey as if it were some creature I had personally carried back from the Galapagos Islands. I turned to Roma, whose open smile at Jo, different from the Mona Lisa twitch I knew, had transformed her face: the delight on it seemed the more precious for being so rarely glimpsed.

  ‘Does Jo have a song for every occasion?’ I asked.

  ‘Most you’d care to mention,’ she conceded. ‘Our mum knew lots of songs – ballads and such – but Jo would’ve been too young to remember them.’

  ‘Maybe it’s in the blood.’

  She was still looking fondly at her brother. ‘He’s pleased with his new pet, anyways. Where d’you come by it?’

  ‘A toy shop near Upper Street. I’ve had monkeys on the brain ever since a friend of mine – Kitty – acquired one. A real one, I mean.’

  ‘Oh. Kitty your girlfriend, is she?’

  ‘No, no. She’s the daughter of my godfather.’ I didn’t dare to enlarge on that, sensing that Roma would not be impressed to hear of the high-born Elders or their fabulous wealth. But I couldn’t altogether ignore the connection, now that it had been raised. ‘As a matter of fact, she’s invited me to join her in a charitable venture a few weeks hence. We are to accompany a large party of Somers Town people on a country jaunt – a meadow somewhere in Bedfordshire, as I understand, where food and entertainments will be provided.’ I gave a slightly nervous shrug. ‘A day out for those who perhaps cannot afford one . . . It seems to me a worthy cause.’

  Roma considered, frowning. ‘I didn’t know you worked for a charity.’ The way she said the word put me on guard.

  ‘I don’t – my purpose is to report on it. You have a dislike of charity?’

  ‘No. I just don’t believe it’s charity that people deserve – it’s justice.’

  The implications of that seemed well-nigh impossible to challenge. I took a long draught of my half-and-half. ‘So, I should presume that you would rather not . . . join me for the day.’

  ‘Why should you presume that? A day in the country might be just what I fancy’.

  ‘Is it?’ I said, a rising note of hopefulness in my voice.

  ‘I dunno,’ she replied coolly. ‘Depends on who arsked me.’

  I blinked at her. ‘Have I not just asked you?’

  ‘No. You said that you “presumed” I’d rather not. You didn’t arsk me.’

  I was careful not to show my exasperation. ‘Very well. Would you consent to accompany me?’

  She bowed her head in an exaggerated gesture of graciousness, then said, ‘I’ll think about it.’

  The rest of the evening concertinaed in a blur of ale and porter and singing. Jo, used to keeping them in a roar upstairs at the Rainbow, gave a full-throated recital of his repertoire, then Roma herself (at my request) sang ‘The Leary Man’. For some reason a couple of lines from it – For every day, mind what I say, / Fresh fakements you will find – had lodged in my head as I accompanied Roma, arm linked with Jo’s, along the midnight streets back to the Polygon. On the way I mentioned the charity outing to Jo, expecting him to decline, but to my surprise he responded with bright-eyed alacrity. He would leave his Sunday stall to the care of a pal.

  ‘Free grog and skittles for a day – doogheno!’

  ‘By “refreshment” I think they mean lemonade rather than grog,’ I said quickly. ‘It won’t be like a night at the Rainbow.’

  He shrugged amenably. ‘’S all right. I ’ear as the countryside’s pretty as a pitcher, but them that lives there is a queer lot.’

  ‘Some are a little odd,’ I admitted, ‘but most you will find quite friendly.’

  We had stopped at their door when I happened to look up, and a shaft of moonlight glinted on something affixed to the wall of the Polygon. Squinting, I made out a brownish memorial tablet on which was inscribed the following: William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft lived at this address Anno Domini 1797. I had never noticed it there before. I turned to Roma. ‘What were they known for?’

  She looked disbelieving. ‘You must be joking. She was a famous author, wrote books about women and how they’ve been cheated and done down – by men. He was an author, too, Godwin. They’d just got married when she died, in childbirth.’ She paused a moment. ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I’ve never heard of them.’

  She clicked her tongue in reproof. Now Jo spoke up, ‘They sez Dickens lived ’ere too for a bit, when he was a lad, an’ up at Bayham Street.’

  ‘You’ve heard of Dickens, haven’t you?’ said Roma drily.

  ‘Yes, of course I have,’ I replied, offended. ‘I will be sure to borrow a book of this Mary Woll – what’s-her-name – at Mudie’s, if she’s indeed so famous.’

  We had said our goodnights, and they were climbing the steps up to the door when I called to Jo that he should keep the Sunday week free for our trip.

  ‘Sunday week, prime. Anyone else comin’?’

  ‘I’ve asked your sister,’ I said, with a glance at Roma, ‘and still wait on her reply.’

  Roma, jiggling her latchkey in her hand, gave me a sidelong look. ‘I s’pose I should go. Keep you two out of mischief.’

  Jo, emitting a series of animal grunts, hoisted his monkey onto his shoulder. ‘Three, ya mean.’

  Bindon Fields

  WHAT IS IT that makes us persist in the face of fatigue, discouragement and dreariness? Or, more precisely, what made me persist in an endeavour that seemed utterly unprofitable? I had been knocking at the door of Condor Holdings for weeks and had received not a peep from the place or its representatives. My letters had gone unan
swered. I would have been tempted to dismiss the company as a chimera, a figment, were it not for their name, inscribed in black and white, on that list of occupants at Bishopsgate House. Someone had taken the trouble to affix the plate there, so it had to have some material form. I was waiting as usual on the fifth floor one afternoon, my eyes glazing over, when something happened.

  A man in smart checks and bowler, with a watch chain glinting on his waistcoat, came down the corridor and – to my astonishment – unlocked the office door at which I had been keeping my tiresome vigil. Without a glance at me he disappeared inside. Finally! I rose, and knocked, and waited. When no reply came I knocked again, and then repeatedly for the next five minutes. Exasperation must have compelled him to answer, because the face that appeared at the jamb contained no glimmer of a welcome.

  ‘Good day,’ I began. ‘I’ve been trying –’

  ‘What business have you here?’ he cut in sharply.

  ‘My name is Wildeblood and I’m pursuing an enquiry into property developments at Somers Town.’

  He stared hard at me. ‘On whose behalf?’

  I sensed that to reply ‘the renting classes’ would not be to my advantage. ‘A private client.’

  At this the man stepped brusquely past me and looked both ways down the corridor, as if he were expecting to find a phalanx of heavies in attendance. Once he realised that I was alone, he squared up to me, so close I could see the stubble on his chin and smell the cigar on his breath. ‘Don’t call at this office again – understand?’ he said, then turned his back and closed the door on me. For a moment I was too stunned to move. After all of my petitions and letters, all the waiting and stalking, this was the manner of reply I was to expect? I was about to start banging on the door again and demand satisfaction when an impulse cautioned me to hold off. If secretiveness and intimidation were the principal tools by which the company appeared to operate, then I would have to be a little shrewder in my dealings with them.

  I checked my watch: it was twenty past four. The offices would close at six. I took the stairs to the atrium and walked out onto Bishopsgate Street, where I spotted a low dining room directly opposite the building I had just exited. Inside, I waited for a table by the window, and then installed myself there, twitching the dusty net curtains to get a better view of the entrance to Bishopsgate House. I worried that amidst the toing and froing of City gents and clerks I would fail to spot the check-suited fellow emerge. I waited, drinking tea and wiping the condensation from my lookout window (the noise and steam from the cooking in there was monstrous). Five o’clock came and went, and by half past I was convinced that he had somehow eluded me. Perhaps the building had a back entrance and he had slipped out that way. At ten to six I paid my bill and returned to the street, berating myself for the missed opportunity – and at that moment the Condor Holdings man came trotting down the steps in my direction. If his eyeline had strayed an inch to his left he would have seen and recognised me as the pest at his door, but it did not, and he walked right past me. It was a gift from Providence I was determined not to spurn.

  My quarry had a purposeful gait, and my first anxiety was that he would outpace me and vanish into the thickening late-afternoon crowds. I dared not get closer than twenty yards to him lest he sensed his footsteps being dogged. It was fortunate that the suit he wore, with its green-and-brown checks, was sufficiently distinctive to mark him at a distance. He had turned off Bishopsgate into Cornhill, at this hour a streaming mass of toppered gents on their way home. At Cheapside he stepped onto an omnibus, and I thought he had given me the slip; but Providence was once again my friend, for another ’bus, the first one’s twin, happened to be passing, and reaching for the pole I clung on as it rattled west. Towards Holborn Circus the wheel traffic began to cluster, and, halted at a crossing, I darted from my hanging post and leapt to catch the one on the ’bus in front. I spied the man sitting on the knifeboard upstairs, and, shielding my face, settled in at the back.

  As the ’bus continued its bumpy course along Oxford Street – a maddening din of wheels and hooves – I considered what I should do were the fellow to be run to ground. His demeanour had argued a certain brusqueness that might turn unpleasant if provoked. I was calculating my chances when, at the junction of Baker Street, he rose and edged his way towards the stairs. Having pulled my hat over my brow, I sensed his shadow loom across me, and stop: for a moment I thought the jig was up, and he was waiting for me to look him in the face. Head down, I held my breath – and then the shadow moved on, his pause explained by the crush of other passengers waiting to alight. Down the stairs he went, and I was on his heels again as he turned up Baker Street. He stopped, once, to buy a Standard from a street vendor, and I loitered by a shop window before he moved on again, a left turn, then a right. We were now in a district which suddenly seemed familiar, and it took me a minute to realise why: the man was heading directly into Montagu Square, which I had last visited the week in February I had started at the paper. I dawdled around the square’s railings, watching yet hardly believing, as the man stopped and knocked at the one and only residence I knew there. The door was opened, the man disappeared within. Had I made a mistake? I took out my notebook, and flipped to a list of addresses. There was no mistake. It was a house I had once entered myself – Marchmont’s house.

  It was an early summer’s evening, and I noticed the narrow public garden in the square was still open. The tall chestnuts and hedges provided handy cover against being spotted from the house. And there I lurked, my mind as giddy as a spinning top. What business did Marchmont have with an agent for Condor Holdings? Did he know about the galloping progress of clearances in Somers Town, and, if so, why had he not made efforts to oppose it? Then I wondered if there might be a more innocent explanation. It was a Friday, which I now recalled Marchmont describing as his ‘card night’ before he cut short our interview. Perhaps the fellow I had pursued to his door was simply another of his gaming cronies. Ten minutes later a carriage drew up outside; the door of the house opened, and there he appeared, with his unmistakable rolling gait – Marchmont – and the check-suited man in tow. They climbed in. I was close enough to see Marchmont signal to the driver with a tap of his cane on the top, and they were gone.

  Checking my watch, I knew that Paget would have finished for the day at the Chronicle, and that he might be found at one of his haunts off Fetter Lane. In my urgency I hailed a hansom, and soon we were clattering back across town towards the City. Within twenty minutes I was paying off the cabby at Holborn Circus and hurrying between those public houses frequented by newspapermen. At the third I tried Paget was standing at the bar with some of his familiars, and caught sight of me agitatedly beckoning him over. I realised only then that sweat was pouring off my face.

  ‘You look as though you’ve been chased here,’ he remarked.

  I mopped my brow. ‘D’you recall my asking you about a company named Condor Holdings?’

  ‘The one listed on the leases?’

  ‘Yes! I’ve been trying to hunt them down for weeks – they’re more secretive than the Masons. But here is their dodge. Most of the leases are fast-expiring, so if the landlord gambles right, he will be able to get to the end of the lease without spending any money on improvements. The houses meanwhile fall into disrepair, the leases are acquired by Condor Holdings, they decide for the sake of profit to raze the lot.’ Paget began to speak, but I interrupted him, gabbling through the story of how I had just stalked the agent across town to Montagu Square. ‘And whose house d’you suppose he called at? Marchmont’s!’

  He raised his eyebrows briefly, though his expression betrayed nothing beyond thoughtfulness. After some moments he said, ‘Let us not forget that Henry has many business interests. If Condor Holdings is amongst them, what of it? It’s a registered company, even if it is rather particular about its privacy.’

  ‘But you said yourself – the first time we met – property has its duties as well as its rights.’

&nb
sp; ‘Indeed I did.’

  ‘Then surely you see the conflict? They are overseeing a demolition of property that will leave many in Somers Town homeless. Marchmont’s own periodical exists to report on the hardship of just those people. Now it seems that he is hand-in-glove with the destroyers.’

  He sighed. ‘I have seen too much of Henry’s sharp practice to be surprised. It is unethical, I agree. But not illegal. The law says an Englishman is entitled to do with his property as he sees fit, and that includes knocking it down.’

  ‘So . . . there is nothing we can do?’ I asked, deflated.

  ‘Not unless we can discover malfeasance in the handling of the leases. Don’t despair, my boy. We shall get to the bottom of this affair.’ He paused, and his face darkened. ‘I have some news, too. You remember that Kenton was arrested at the Trafalgar Square demonstration? Well, he’s disappeared.’

  ‘I thought they had released him.’

  ‘They did – but he never returned home. His wife came to me yesterday, said she hadn’t seen him in three days.’

  ‘Might he not simply have – left town?’

  ‘Unlikely. Kenton’s a family man. He wouldn’t abandon them. I visited his printing press in King’s Cross and found the place had been turned over. The man is in trouble, I fear.’

  ‘D’you suppose the police are behind it?’

  He shrugged gravely. ‘He’s been a thorn in their side . . .’

  A silence fell between us. I thought of the last time I had seen Kenton, wading into the melee at Trafalgar Square and being set upon by the slops. He had spearheaded a movement to change living conditions, not just in Somers Town but in other downtrodden neighbourhoods of London. In reward for his efforts he had somehow become an enemy of the state. Paget cleared his throat again. ‘I don’t wish to alarm you, David, but you would do well to be on your guard,’ he said. ‘Kenton told me some weeks ago he was being followed. It’s conceivable that you and I are also under scrutiny.’