Nameless (9 page)

‘So you are. And if I thought you were actually going to use it, I might be more inclined to go along with you. But you’re not. Are you?’

She was calling his bluff.

Their eyes locked.

Charlie lifted the pistol away from her head, slipped it back into his pocket.

‘You know what?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘This
still
ain’t over.’ And with that, he opened the door and was gone.

19

Life went on at the Windy, and Ruby loved it. After the private booking, her and Vi became close, a double-act; and one night they were leaving the theatre when she spied, among the soldiers on leave and the crush of civilians, a blond head above the others.

Her heart leapt into her throat. ‘Oh God,’ she said, clutching Vi’s arm.

‘What?’ Vi was autographing programmes; she glanced up at Ruby’s face, saw what she was staring at. Vi’s face took on a knowing look. ‘Well, I saw
that
coming a mile off,’ she said.

‘You didn’t.’

‘I bloody did. You’ve been mooning around ever since that night. You’ve fallen prey to the Eton wall of charm, that’s what it is.’

‘The
what?
’

‘They’re taught to be charming. They
drip
charm.’ Vi looked at Ruby’s crestfallen face and added: ‘But I could see he was really taken with you. So go on then.’ She shook her arm loose of Ruby’s grip, shooed her in his direction. ‘Might as well talk to him, now he’s here.’

He was easing his way through the crowds, coming towards her, that full-beam smile on his face. Other women were looking at him, she noticed.

‘Hello,’ he said when he reached her side. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine. Thank you.’ Suddenly she felt tongue-tied. Didn’t know what to say or how to act. He was so far above her, so much her social superior, that she felt humbled and inadequate.

‘How’s the ankle?’ His smile widened to a grin. ‘No bruises?’

She shook her head. There
had
been a bruise, but she had almost welcomed it. If not for that drunken fool,
he
wouldn’t have spoken to her that night; she had hugged that memory to her, thinking that was all she would ever have, just that one brief encounter. She’d thought she would never see him again. But now he was here, talking to her – so why couldn’t she be like Vi and think of witty things to say?

Vi was standing yards away, surrounded by a host of admirers, tossing her head, laughing, acting the star. And here was Ruby, tongue-tied and with her head bowed because Cornelius Bray was here with her.

‘How about dinner?’ he said.

Ruby looked up at his face briefly. She had thought he must be joking, teasing her, but she could see he was serious. She looked quickly away, dazzled. She felt like a flighty female Icarus in one of Mr Van Damm’s tableaux, flying too close to the sun and doomed to crash to earth. She felt she’d be burned, blinded, if she looked at him too long. But she
wanted
to look.

‘Dinner?’ he asked again, smiling, when she said nothing.

Finally Ruby nodded. ‘OK,’ she said.

‘Come on. Let’s get a taxi . . .’

And he tucked her hand over his arm and led her away from the crowds at the stage door. Ruby looked back. Vi was gazing across at her. As their eyes met, Vi gave her a long, knowing wink.

20

1922

Leroy wasn’t there when Alicia opened up the shop next morning, and she felt a twinge of disappointment. She went through the motions of serving customers. Then she locked up to get home to make Ted’s dinner at one. She came back at two, opened up . . . Still no Leroy.

Feeling glum, she worked on and was glad when it was time to shut up shop. The kids were at her mum’s today, she didn’t have them to worry about. As she locked the door, Leroy appeared at her side.

‘Hiya, sweetness,’ he said with a grin.

‘Oh! Hello.’ Alicia pocketed the key and looked at him. He was so exotic, so beautiful. She knew she was staring.

A silence fell between them.

‘You got to get on home right now?’ he asked at last, very softly.

Alicia glanced at her watch. She didn’t, not really. Ted would be dozing, and he wouldn’t want his tea for at least another hour. ‘Well, I should . . .’ she started.

‘Half an hour?’ he asked.

‘Half an hour for what?’ asked Alicia.

His eyes were playing with hers. ‘For whatever you want, sweetness. Up there in my room. Some music, maybe . . . ?’

Ted would be asleep. The kids were with Mum. She could say – if anyone asked – that she’d been reorganizing the stock or something, couldn’t she?

‘I loved your music,’ she said.

‘Then come with me,’ he said, his voice like honey.

Alicia hesitated. ‘Someone might see. I’m a married woman . . .’

‘I’ll go first. You follow.’ And he turned and went back across the quiet street.

Alicia stood there looking after him, her heart in her throat, her pulses racing.

She was only going over there to listen to music, wasn’t she?

No. She knew that wasn’t it. Not at all.

She shouldn’t do this. But she looked left and right. There was no one she knew about, not right now. She quickly crossed the street and went through the door he’d left open, closing it softly behind her.

She was standing in a dingy hallway. He was at the top of the stairs, gesturing her to follow. She hurried up, afraid that at any moment his landlord was going to appear and ask what the hell was going on.

By the time she reached the top of the stairs she was laughing and breathless at her own daring. He led the way along the landing, unlocked a door, slipped inside. She followed, and he locked it behind them. They fell against the door, both laughing now, and suddenly he was kissing her, and the laughter stopped.

‘Oh,my sweetness, my Alicia,’he murmured against her mouth. ‘You’re so beautiful.’

She thought that he was, too. She put her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth back to hers, thinking of Ted, of her mum with the kids, of her grinding, lonely life with nothing to look forward to but middle age, old age, death.

But here was life. Here was Leroy,so strange to her,so wonderful,
bursting
with life.

This was a gift from the gods, it had to be.

Now they were tearing at each other’s clothes, giggling like children, pulling at fastenings, popping buttons, and finally they fell naked, laughing, onto the crumby little bed in the corner of this horrible room.

‘So
beautiful,’ he said, marvelling as the daylight from the grimy window fell on her skin.

Alicia squirmed and tried to hide her body. She had huge purple stretch marks on her stomach from having the kids. Her breasts had drooped from feeding them.

‘Oh God, don’t look at me,’ she said, embarrassed.

‘You’re perfect,’ said Leroy in those velvety tones.

‘No –
you
are.’ She gazed at him. He looked like an African carving,so smooth and muscular,his skin as fine as dark polished leather. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ she said fretfully.

But it was thrilling, arousing; she’d never felt so alive. When he caressed her, when he pushed inside her, she knew – at last! – the meaning of total bliss.

Leroy had to cover her mouth with his hand to stifle her cries; his own were muffled against the silky white curve of her shoulder.

‘This is wrong,’ said Alicia afterwards, when they lay quietly together. But she no longer cared about her stretch marks or her saggy breasts: he thought she was beautiful, and so she was.

‘How can it be?’ he asked, and kissed her again.

21

Joe and Charlie realized that they were going to have to hit the mail van in a way that was more subtle than they would have liked. They would have to hijack the whole thing, take it off somewhere quiet.

They started checking timings, rehearsing the robbery repeatedly. On little-used country roads they worked out exactly what they would do, time after time; and on the third rehearsal, to their absolute shock, a copper cycled past and asked what they were doing.

But Charlie was quick thinking. While the others, Joe included, stood there dumbfounded, he said cheerily: ‘We’re going to be shooting a film here soon for the war effort. We’ve got to make sure it’s all perfect for the next take.’

To the group’s amazement, the copper then went happily on his way, saving them the trouble of having to do something drastic to him.

They followed the Post Office van discreetly and recorded journey and location times; Charlie had his boys check parked cars along the quieter parts of the route so that they knew which ones they would nick on the night when the robbery went ahead. They had an electrician fix the traffic lights in the street selected for the hit. It was north of Oxford Street, running parallel to it.

The traffic lights were under the gang’s control. There were roadworks in the street, which was all to the good; it would slow the van even more.

Finally, all was as perfect as it could be; they were ready.

‘Bloody traffic lights. Day or night, the damned things stop you,’ said the driver of the mail van.

The postman was sitting beside him, yawning. He hated night work, but what could you do? The lights were red. The street was silent, a few parked cars about, nobody walking around. It was four o’clock in the morning, who but a nutter or a night worker would be abroad at this hour?

The guard leaned over from the back and said: ‘Gawd, won’t I be glad to get home to the missus. What’s the lights red for at this time of the night? Not a damned thing happening.’

Suddenly a black Riley parked to the left of the stationary van screeched out from the curb and blocked the van’s way forward.

‘Oh,
shit
,’ said the driver, and threw the van into reverse. In his rear-view mirror he saw a Vauxhall saloon draw up close behind. ‘
Shit!
’ he yelled.

Men in gloves and masks were tumbling out of the two cars. The driver pressed the siren button just as the door on his side was yanked open and he was jerked out of his seat and thrown into the road. He lay there, winded, as the postman was hauled out, and thought,
What’s wrong with the bloody siren?

It didn’t make a sound.

Charlie’s knack of always having boys on the inside was paying dividends yet again. The siren had been disabled.

The driver fought back instinctively, but he was punched, kicked, coshed into submission. Finally he just lay there, dazed and bruised, while they piled the postman and the guard alongside him. They looked like a pile of meat on a slab, there was blood everywhere.

‘Silly buggers, it’s not
your
money,’ said Joe in disgust. ‘Fucking well lie there, will you?’

It took just eight minutes. One man got in the Riley, another in the Vauxhall. The rest of them piled into the van. All three vehicles roared away into the night, and the driver, the postman and the guard lay there, groaning on the street, until they were found by an early worker passing by at half past six; then the police were called.

They dumped the two stolen cars at Covent Garden market, which was already busy with deliveries of fruit, vegetables and flowers being made; no one would notice the cars parked there until much later.

Then they all took off in the van. And everything was going fine, they were roaring with laughter, excited after the tension of the heist . . .

That’s when they hit the bloody dog.

It was just a mutt, white with black patches here and there. A mongrel – big and bony and plug-ugly. And it ran straight out in front of the van. Chewy, who was at the wheel, braked hard, but they all felt the bump as the thing was struck.

‘Fuck!’ said Chewy.

‘Drive on,’ said Joe.

Charlie looked around. All was quiet. ‘Hold on. I’ll take a look.’

The poor damned thing was lying there with its back leg jammed half under the front wheel on the passenger’s side. It was alive, but there was a lot of blood. It was whining.

‘Back up a bit,’ Charlie called to Chewy.

The dog’s whining changed into a howl as the van backed up, off its leg. Fucking thing. He couldn’t leave it lying there in agony. He pulled the cosh out and took aim at the dog’s head: give it a good hard whack and send it on its way. But then he hesitated, staring down at the dog’s pleading eyes. They were somehow full of hope, full of expectation that he, Charlie, would help. The stump of a tail twitched in a pitiful wag.

‘
Fuck!
’ said Charlie with feeling, and he put the cosh away and gathered the dog up in his arms, went round to the back of the van and slung the thing in on top of the money bags. It stopped whimpering. Maybe it had slipped away, died. He hoped it had, poor bastard.

‘Shit, you’re having a laugh!What we supposed to do with that?’ demanded Joe.

The knock on the door was loud and insistent and went on and on. The widow Tranter tumbled from bed, knocking into the side table in her alarm and haste.

What the hell?

She switched on the little lamp beside her bed and looked at the time. It was five thirty in the morning, not even light yet. She pulled on her robe and hurried down the stairs, crossing to the door. She halted there. The knocking had stopped. Now it started again.

‘Come
on
,’ she heard from the other side.

‘Who is it?’ she called.

‘Who do you
think
, Father fucking Christmas? Open the bloody door.’

She opened it. Charlie was standing there and he was holding a bundle of tattered black and white fur in his arms. The light from her living room glinted on wetness, redness; blood. She shrank back. What the hell now?