Authors: David Roberts
He decided he ought to try and find Verity and warn her that she and her friends were in serious danger but, of course, they must have realized that. In any case, there wasn’t time. Many
of the horses had not been able to break through the barricade but one particularly determined group, supported by officers on foot brandishing batons, had made a gap at the far end, furthest away
from where Edward was standing. By the time he had doubled back the way he had come and made his way round the barricade, the fight had degenerated into chaos. The rioters were throwing marbles and
broken glass under the horses’ hooves and women appeared at an upstairs window and began pelting the police with stones. One horse stumbled and fell. Edward could not see its rider as the
fallen horse was quickly surrounded by rioters, but he feared the worst. Several policemen had been hit by missiles and were lying in the road being tended to by their colleagues. Dodging stones
and bottles, Edward made his way to an upturned lorry where Jack Spot was rallying his troops. He thought it most likely that Verity would be as near the centre of the storm as possible. Oddly
enough, as though this was at the very eye of the storm, there was relative quiet here and he was able to shout to Spot: ‘The police are never going to let you anywhere near the blackshirts.
Oughtn’t you to retreat and fight another day?’
‘Never!’ gasped the little man, still clutching his chair leg. ‘They shall not pass. London will not allow Jew baiters through and . . . ’
At that moment a police horse jumped right over the barricade and one of its hooves caught Edward on the forehead and knocked him to the ground. He could only have been unconscious for a few
seconds but, when he came to, he found he was being dragged unceremoniously into Grace’s Alley. ‘The Old Mahogany Bar’, in what had once been Wilton’s Music Hall but was now
a Methodist Mission, was serving as the protesters’ headquarters. The ‘barley-sugar’ pillars were draped in red banners and the mahogany bar – which gave the place its name
and which the Methodists had been canny enough to retain from its less respectable days – served as a huge desk from which the leaders dispensed badges and instructions. Absurdly, Edward
thought for a moment of what Fenton would say when he saw the state of his suit and he tried to laugh.
‘Oh, so you’re awake,’ a voice said briskly. It was Verity and she was not pleased. ‘I’ve had to desert my post to look after you.’
‘Sorry,’ he said meekly.
‘Thanks, boys,’ she said to the two lads who had been manhandling him. ‘He’s all right. You can leave him to me.’
Edward noticed that, in a quaint gesture totally inappropriate to the situation, they touched their caps to her before running off. Verity might be a paid-up, card-carrying member of the
Communist Party but she was always going to be a lady to men like these and the thought amused him.
‘I was trying to find you,’ he said plaintively.
‘Oh, you were attempting to rescue me, were you?’ she said callously. ‘Quite the little hero. Oh well,’ she relented, ‘I suppose you meant well. Anyway,
you’ve been wounded in the war against Fascism and you’ll probably have a scar to prove it. Do you know, I saw something very strange on the barricades,’ she said, mopping his
head with something soft. ‘Ugh. You’ve ruined my best silk handkerchief. Here, give me yours. You really are the limit, Edward.’
‘What did you see that was strange?’ he said, feeling rather sick and giddy.
‘You remember when I went to that horrible dinner party at the German Embassy when we were investigating General Craig’s murder?’
‘Yes,’ he said, hardly able to concentrate.
‘Do you remember I said I was sitting next to a really awful man called Stille – Major Stille?’
‘I think so.’
‘I’m sure he was a major in the SS or something. Anyway, he was the most frightening man I’ve ever met.’
‘And you saw him here, with Mosley?’
‘No, that’s the queer thing. He was
this
side of the barricade. We can’t even see the blackshirts from here. But what was so queer was he was tossing bricks and urging
us to do the same.’
‘Golly, that’s odd. Do you think he’s changed sides?’
‘Has that horse addled your brains? Of course he’s not changed sides. He’s an
agent provocateur
. We had them in Spain.’
‘Is he still there?’ Edward tried to raise himself to take a look.
‘No, lie still. He caught my eye just as I saw him and smiled and then, as I started to shout for someone to get hold of him, he made himself scarce.’
‘He smiled at you?’
‘Sort of like a challenge – as though he was taunting me.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘Nazi uniform. What do you think he was wearing? He was dressed like anyone else, of course.’
‘Perhaps you were mistaken. Maybe it wasn’t Stille.’
‘It was Stille all right,’ she said grimly.
‘Well, do you know who I saw the other side of the barricade?’
‘Who?’
‘Sir Geoffrey Hepple-Keen, that’s who.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Of course, I didn’t tell you. He is a very right-wing Conservative MP – a friend of Scannon. He was at Haling when I was there. That’s where I met him.’
‘Was he with Mosley?’
‘I don’t know,’ Edward said, feeling distinctly woozy, ‘I don’t think so. He was standing beside me, at least for a moment.’
He sat on the ground and felt very sick. Verity looked at him anxiously. ‘Oh God. Are you all right? I suppose I had better get you home.’ She looked round wildly and to her
amazement saw Fenton.
‘Can I help, miss?’ he inquired.
‘Yes you can. Lord Edward’s taken a bit of a knock from a horse’s hoof and he’s feeling a bit sick. Gosh, am I glad to see you. Where have you sprung from?’
‘Mr Fox telephoned me this morning after you had departed and suggested you might be glad of – as he put it – “back-up”. So I thought I would make my way here by
public transport and see if I could locate you.’
‘Gosh! Who needs guardian angels when they’ve got you?’
‘Very kind of you to say so, miss.’
‘The car’s about half a mile away, in Goodman’s Yard. Do you think you can find it?’
‘Without any difficulty, miss.’
‘You don’t want all this toast, do you, Edward? . . . Thanks.’
It was the next morning and Verity was sitting on Edward’s bed eating his breakfast. They were discussing the riot.
‘It’s an odd thing,’ he said, ‘but you’re the only girl I know who perches herself on a fellow’s bed at breakfast for reasons of greed and not for the immoral
purposes which modern literature prescribes.’
‘Fenton doesn’t approve.’
‘Of you visiting me while I’m still in my pyjamas or for eating my toast and marmalade?’
‘Both, I should think but mainly the former. He doesn’t say anything but he looks. Am I the only lady who is to be seen on your bed before luncheon?’
He felt a twinge of guilt recalling that someone had actually been in his bed only a few nights before, though why he should feel guilty, when he was perfectly aware that Verity too had had
lovers, he really couldn’t say. He prevaricated. ‘Now you’re being impertinent. Ouch!’ he added, as she cuffed him.
‘Oh sorry, I forgot. How is your poor head?’
‘As well as one might expect after being trampled on by a two-ton police horse.’
‘Don’t exaggerate. You suffered what the medical men call a “glancing blow” from the animal’s hoof and, quite honestly, I think you deserved it.’
As soon as they had reached Albany the previous day, Fenton had insisted on calling the doctor. He had seemed to think Verity was personally responsible for his master being wounded and would
hardly let her in his rooms. Once the doctor had arrived and checked that he had only suffered bruising and would recover after a good night’s sleep, Fenton had sent her packing, politely but
firmly. He had not liked it when she had turned up to see the patient before nine this morning.
‘Why, for goodness sake? I was coming to your rescue.’
‘I didn’t want to be rescued. As it happened I was enjoying myself.’
‘Tossing broken glass to maim those poor brutes you were commending a moment ago for knocking me flat?’
‘No, not that but I knocked off a policeman’s helmet.’
‘And you lost your hat,’ he said nastily. ‘Fancy going to a riot in a hat. Fffou!’
‘If you knew anything about protest marches, you’d know women always wear hats so the police can’t grab you by the hair. As it happens, it was the hat I always wear for marches
and I was very attached to it.’
‘Obviously, not attached firmly enough.’
‘Ha, ha. Anyway, what do you mean, “fffou!”?’
‘I mean fffou,’ he said haughtily, grabbing a piece of toast and honey before she could devour it.
They munched in companionable silence. ‘Have you seen the papers?’ she asked at last.
‘Yes, Fenton gave me
The Times
and the
New Gazette
.’
‘Did you like my report?’ she asked defensively.
‘Mmm,’ he said, gulping down the last of the coffee. ‘A little over the top perhaps but,’ he added hurriedly, seeing the look in her eye, ‘indubitably vivid. Why,
you might have been there yourself.’
‘Chump,’ she said affectionately. ‘Apparently we missed another two hours of rioting so you probably ruined my dispatch from the front. There were two police baton charges
after we left and the police used water hoses. Dash it! In Spain we learnt never to tend the wounded until after the battle was over.’
‘By which time it was too late, I suppose?’
‘Very often it was,’ she said soberly.
‘See here,’ she continued, opening
The Times
. ‘It says “The Chief Police Commissioner asked the Home Secretary if he should tell Sir Oswald Mosley his march was
cancelled and he said he should.” The interesting thing is that apparently Mosley was rather relieved and dismissed his band of thugs without making a fuss. Here, he is quoted as saying
“The Government surrenders to Red violence and Jewish corruption but we shall triumph because our faith is greater than their faith, and within us is a flame that shall light up this country
and the world.” What nonsense!’
‘Yes, but it may just be nonsense which
will
light up the world,’ Edward said seriously. ‘Light it with the light of bombs and cannon fire. When I was with Joe in his
office the other evening, he showed me the view – the Thames like black velvet, the streets streaked with orange and yellow, St Paul’s glowering at us like some holy mountain –
and I felt a bit like Faust. Joe said he didn’t believe there would be war but that, if there was, he foresaw this peaceful scene transformed into a hellish bonfire. I tell you, Verity, I
felt as if someone had walked over my grave. I imagined old Sam Pepys watching the great fire destroying the city he knew and I wondered if he had felt fear or excitement, or dread.’
‘I watched towns burn in Spain and that was awful – it was like being a tourist in hell but I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an excitement about it.’
‘That reminds me. I’ve been summoned to the
New Gazette
. I expect Joe wants to talk to me about Molly’s death and what happens now.’
At that moment the telephone rang and they listened while Fenton answered it. Then there was a tap on the door and Fenton said, ‘My lord, Inspector Lampfrey is on the line and would like a
word with you if it is convenient.’
‘Of course, tell him I’ll be right with him. Verity, pass me my dressing gown and then turn your head away or, better still, remove yourself to the drawing-room.’
Verity tossed him his red and blue-striped silk gown and flounced out of the room. She hated to admit it but, deep down, she too felt that ‘nice’ girls did not make themselves at
home in a man’s bedroom if they were not married to them and it annoyed her to find herself still so conventional. In any case, she had no wish to scandalize Fenton so she threw herself into
an armchair and picked up the
New Gazette
and prepared to reread her account of what was being called the Cable Street Riot. Her report was on the front page which was pleasing. After all,
she was the paper’s only female news reporter.
The Times
had no female correspondents except writers on fashion, food and other domestic matters, so perhaps she had a right to be a
little pleased with herself. But that raised the whole matter of what she did next. It was part of her nature never to be satisfied with what she had achieved. There was the book, of course, and
then back to Spain, she supposed.
The fact of the matter was she did not particularly want to go back. She knew the Republicans were losing the civil war but it wasn’t just that. When she had first gone to Spain, the
issues had seemed to her to be clear. Spain’s legitimate government was being challenged by the army and the Catholic Church in unholy alliance. The Republic had been corrupt, chaotic and
ineffectual but its government had been freely elected and was trying to bring some hope to the vast, voiceless, impoverished peasant class. In her heart she doubted the new Republican leaders had
the same priorities. Her commission to write a book on her experiences in Spain had been a godsend. It gave her an alibi for staying in England for a month or two. After Christmas, the whole
situation in Spain would have changed and it might be easier to see her way forward.
Edward stuck his head round the door. ‘It was as I thought. Poor Molly
was
murdered. She had taken ten grams of veronal – about twenty times what she might have been
prescribed. It’s conceivable she committed suicide but I don’t think she did. She certainly didn’t give me any hint that she was thinking of doing away with herself. Quite the
contrary. She wasn’t depressed. She was angry. Angry people don’t kill themselves. If anything, they kill the person they’re angry with. I say, Fenton, is my bath
ready?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Very good. Will you bring the car round in about ten minutes? The Inspector wants us back at Haling as soon as possible.’
‘Very well, my lord. Might I be forgiven for reminding you of your appointment with Lord Weaver?’