In Conway Street, three houses at the end of a row of five-storey dwellings, mostly rooming and boarding, were down, and several more had had their fronts blown off. Tasting the dust in his mouth, Stratton ran his tongue round his teeth and grimaced. The road was covered in a mixture of bricks, slates, shattered glass, and wooden beams and joists, and where one house had been sliced in two he could see, high up on the fourth floor, a man’s coat still hanging from the back of a door. Above that, balanced precariously on ragged boards, was a child’s cot. Stratton thought of Pete and Monica, safe in the country, and wondered what had happened to its occupant.
Ten or fifteen oldish men and women were standing about, red-eyed and haggard. Had these been their homes? One woman was holding a china basin - the remains of her life, perhaps - in shaking hands. Next to her, an elderly man in a Homburg hat was staring at the debris. The brick dust on the group’s clothes made them look as if they were wearing shrouds. As he passed, Stratton heard Homburg hat say, ‘It’s happening right across London.’ He pronounced it ‘acrawss’ in the Edwardian way.
The old woman said, ‘Will they find us somewhere to go before tonight?’
‘Everywhere,’ said the man. ‘The whole of London.’ The woman ignored him, and kept repeating, in a quavering voice, ‘We haven’t anywhere to go. Will they find us somewhere?’
Stratton skirted the rubble and made his way towards the ARP warden, who was standing at the end of the road talking to one of the demolition crew. ‘DI Stratton,’ he said. ‘Are you the one who found the deed box?’
‘That’s right.’ The warden looked exhausted. ‘Down there.’ He gestured vaguely towards the shattered houses.
‘Was there anything else?’
‘Just the usual. Nothing like that.’
‘Many casualties?’
‘Old lady dead from number thirty-five, and we had to send three to the hospital.’
‘Everyone out?’
The warden nodded wearily, and was about to turn away when a tall, raw-boned man appeared at his elbow, carrying a tatty-looking piece of carpet. ‘I need to get the geyser out,’ he said, urgently. ‘I’ve got two more payments to make on it.’ The warden stared at him. ‘Only two more payments,’ the man repeated.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the demolition squad have finished,’ said the warden. ‘I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.’
‘You’ll tell me, won’t you?’ asked the man. ‘When I’ve got the geyser,’ he explained to Stratton, ‘I’ll be satisfied.’ He tipped his hat and went to join the other onlookers. Stratton turned to the warden, bewildered.
‘Can’t blame him,’ said the warden. ‘Looting. You wouldn’t believe the trouble we’ve had, and it’s getting worse.’
‘They’re not likely to make off with a geyser, are they?’
‘Those bastards’d take anything. Ought to be ashamed of themselves. ’
Stratton pointed out the distressed woman he’d seen further down the street, then walked back to West End Central, thinking how extraordinary it was how quickly you got used to the raids - the bombing itself, the fear and the din, the changes it made to the landscape . . . New views seen through gaps in rows of houses, and on moonlit nights the place looked almost fragile - the thought that you might be looking your last on some familiar piece of architecture made you more aware of it. It was the effect on people, like that poor old duck in Conway Street, which shocked and angered him. Tottenham hadn’t had it too bad so far, thank God. After the first few raids, when she’d clung to him, shaky and crying, Jenny seemed to have got used to it. Stratton had been worried about her being alone in the Anderson shelter if the warning went when he was at work, but as Doris and Donald had volunteered to join her if this happened, it was no longer a problem. Since the bombing started, she’d stopped agitating for Pete and Monica to come back, and had even gone so far as to tell him he’d been right all along, but he knew better than to make a song and dance about that. What will be left when they do come back, he wondered. Would everything be flattened? The newspaper seller had said it would take a hell of a time, which was true, but the Nazis had all of Europe’s resources at their disposal. With the civil defences worked to exhaustion - not to mention the police, he thought, yawning - how long could one little island stand it?
He stopped to indulge these reflections, but after a moment, his melancholy feelings struck him as unsuitable and repugnant. He remembered reading somewhere that sentimentality was the exact measure of a person’s inability to experience genuine feeling. He reflected that he couldn’t have put it better, or even half as well, himself, and, in any case, standing about feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to help. DCI Lamb may have been mollified, back in July, by his solving the business at the jeweller’s shop and the murder of the prostitute Maureen O’Dowd, but he hadn’t yet managed to discover who’d stabbed Kelland in the gang fight and nor, frankly, was he ever likely to. Besides which, there had been four more thefts from jewellers’ shops in the last month, plus a spate of robberies from high-class furriers, and two nights ago an eighteen-year-old ‘hostess’ had been assaulted in a night-club in Rupert Street.
Thinking about these cases reminded Stratton of what the warden had said about looting from bombed buildings. Just the sort of stupid thing, he thought, that his nephew Johnny might find himself involved in. He hadn’t seen the boy for a while, and neither Reg nor Lilian had mentioned him. The problem was, Stratton thought, that boys like Johnny knew everything in theory but nothing in practice. They learnt - or thought they learnt - about ‘real’ men from James Cagney and George Raft, and about women from strangers who scrawled their desires and conquests on the walls of public lavatories. He made a mental note to take Johnny aside for a chat, then rejected this idea on the grounds that this would be interfering. It was Reg’s job, after all, not his. And in any case, the boy wouldn’t have listened.
Smuggling the deed box out of the station after work was less of a problem than Stratton had anticipated. He carried it home and stowed it under the bench in the garden shed before going in to kiss Jenny and wash for tea. He went upstairs, wondering what the box would contain, when a sudden image of the cot, high up in the ruined house, compelled him to open the door of his daughter’s room. Looking round, he saw, on the shelf in front of her two least favoured dolls, a small piece of pale pink knitting. He remembered Jenny teaching Monica to knit the previous summer, their heads, one chestnut and one dark, bent over tangles of wool, and Monica’s proud announcement, once she’d got the knack of it: ‘I’m going to knit my doll a scarf, and knickers to match!’ They’d laughed about it; Jenny had worried Monica by pointing out that knitted knickers were both uncomfortable and unhygienic, and he’d had to assure her that the doll wouldn’t mind. He picked up the little scarf and examined it. It was very neatly done; Monica, like her mother, was careful and deft. Good at drawing, too, Stratton thought proudly, though heaven knew where she got that from, because neither of them were particularly artistic.
Hoping that Jenny wouldn’t walk in on him, he lifted the dolls’ skirts in turn to see if either of them was wearing the matching knickers. Neither was, and, feeling a little foolish, he stuffed the miniature scarf into his pocket and left the bedroom.
After tea, he left Jenny listening to Hippodrome Memories on the wireless, and went out to the shed. Clearing a space on the work bench, he lifted the box onto it and took a hammer and chisel from his rack of tools. The padlock gave at the first blow and Stratton, with deliberate slowness, removed it, returned the tools to their place, and lifted the lid.
TWENTY-TWO
‘I love you.’ Claude had said it. Not before, or during - neither of which counted - but afterwards. And he hadn’t just gone to sleep, as Guy did. Instead, they’d smoked cigarettes and laughed and told each other secrets, and when the AA guns woke them at half-past four and Diana sat up suddenly and banged her head on the underside of the bed frame, he’d held her in his arms and stroked her hair.
She had crossed the Rubicon. She knew now what it was really like. Returning home on an early tube, tired but happy, she replayed the events of the night over and over in her head. ‘I love you.’ He’d said it. He had actually said it. Each time she thought of it, the memory of his words seemed to renew her energy, and by the time she got to Tite Street, she bounded up the stairs in a mood of sheer elation.
Seeing Lally waiting outside her flat, Diana stopped abruptly on the landing and caught her breath. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came to see if you were—’
‘At home?’
‘Still in one piece.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Diana, opening the door. Lally didn’t answer, but followed her in and stood watching her as she began to remove her evening clothes and unpin her hair. ‘If you’re not going to answer,’ said Diana, donning a short slip and shrugging on her silk dressing gown, ‘I shall ignore you.’ She went into the kitchen. Lally leant against the doorframe, arms folded, and watched her making tea. ‘The thing is,’ she said, as they waited for the kettle to boil, ‘that the last time Claude pursued someone like this, it ended rather badly, and I thought you ought to know.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Lally,’ said Diana, brusquely, ‘I’m not a complete innocent.’
‘I know that. Listen to me, Diana. I know we make jokes about Claude, but—’
‘Did F-J put you up to this?’
Lally looked puzzled. ‘No. Why should he? He doesn’t know where you were last night, does he?’
‘No, but—’
‘He’s warned you off too, hasn’t he?’
‘Not really,’ Diana hedged. ‘He just said . . . well, what you said, really. Ladies’ man, heartbreaker, that old stuff,’ she added.
‘Because it’s true,’ said Lally. ‘This other woman worked for F-J, and she was married, too.’
‘Oh?’ Diana, feeling a flicker of apprehension, bent over the teapot in order not to have to look at her.
‘It was over a year ago,’ said Lally, ‘and Claude wanted her to leave her husband - divorce him. She was absolutely mad about him, and eventually she agreed and told her husband about the affair and that she was going to marry Claude. Then Claude said he hadn’t meant it and they’d had their fun and she ought to go back to her husband, but of course it was too late by then. She couldn’t go back. She had a complete breakdown, and . . . Well, she committed suicide.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Diana, lightly. ‘She must have been unbalanced. ’
‘Stop being so brittle, Diana. That’s what Claude does to people. He unbalances them.’
‘Well, I’m absolutely fine.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes! You don’t understand.’
‘Darling, I understand exactly. That’s why I’m worried about you - I’ve seen this before.’
‘How well did you know this person?’
‘Not very well, but that isn’t—’
‘Well then, you can’t really know why she did it.’
‘I know that Claude doesn’t take women seriously, Diana. You’ve got to be careful.’
‘If you’re so concerned, why didn’t you tell me all this before?’
‘I should have done. I just didn’t realise how far . . . you know . . . And last night, when you went off with him, I suppose I ought to have said something then, but I didn’t want to—’
‘Say anything in front of him? In case it wasn’t true?’
‘I know it’s true, Diana. I suppose . . . Well, Claude frightens me. There’s something about him. That probably sounds silly, but all the same . . .’
‘It does, rather.’ Diana poured the tea. ‘Why don’t you drink this? Consider me warned, and then I can get dressed and go to work.’
Lally took the cup. ‘You’re not warned, though, are you? You’re in love with him.’
‘Who says so?’ Diana asked, settling herself in front of the dressing table mirror.
‘The look on your face says so.’ Lally turned and caught her eye in the mirror. Flushing, Diana lowered her gaze. ‘And the way you’ve been behaving, and the fact that you haven’t really listened to a word I’ve said.’
‘Yes I have.’
‘Well, I hope so. I am your friend, Diana. To be honest, I rather guessed that things weren’t altogether blissful with Guy, or you wouldn’t have been so eager for a job.’
Diana, startled, jerked her head up. ‘How did you guess?’
‘Well,’ Lally shrugged. ‘For one thing, you’d have started a family, wouldn’t you?’
‘We . . .’ Diana bit her lip. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Lally about losing the baby. ‘It’s fine for you,’ she said, defensively. ‘Boyfriends, not bombs, and all that.’
Lally, looking hurt, countered, ‘It is rather hard cheese on Guy.’
‘Guy’s having a whale of a time.’
‘If you say so. I don’t want to quarrel with you, Diana.’ She deposited her cup and saucer on the mantelpiece. ‘I have to go. I’m glad you seem . . .’ She tailed off, frowning. ‘I just hope you know what you’re doing, that’s all.’
Left alone, Diana sighed. ‘Why can’t anything be simple?’ she muttered, as she re-pinned her hair. Why did Lally have to come and spoil everything? Close on the heels of that thought came the annoying reflection that Lally, far from trying to spoil things, was being helpful, and ought to be heeded. Pulling on her skirt, Diana wondered about the young woman who’d committed suicide. She hadn’t asked her name - hadn’t wanted to know. In any case - she glanced at her wristwatch - she didn’t have time to think about any of it now. She was going to be late for work if she wasn’t careful. She finished dressing, scooped up her handbag and gas mask and rushed out of the flat.