Mayfair, London
They met at Gieves, 21 Old Bond Street, in the heart of what could be termed “a Gentleman’s London,” a little to the left of Savile Row and Cork Street, a little to the north of the Burlington Arcade, a district with more than its share of gold cufflinks, those stretchy things like dog collars that shorten your sleeves, and old school ties … windows full of stripes … Repton, Marlborough, Sherborne, Harrow, Eton. Burgess, Troy observed, wore his old school tie. Troy didn’t. He could happily do without a morning reminder in the mirror of what a hellhole school had been.
Gieves flaunted no old school ties. They had settled for a window display that was simplicity itself—the dress uniform of a rear admiral, circa 1835, mounted upon a stuffed mannequin, complete with cocked hat, as in “knocked into.”
Burgess had not been vague in describing the tailors as “old boys.” Mr. Tom looked seventy-five, and Mr. Albert old enough to be his father.
They measured Troy all over.
Burgess watched with an appraising eye, though precisely what he might be appraising, Troy was not quite sure. And when it was over, they took his blue-black serge uniform and said softly that it would be ready on Thursday.
“We don’t have many police officers among our clients, sir, but we are pleased to say that the chief constables of both Hertfordshire and Kent are amongst them.”
Out in the street Burgess said, “I think they just anointed you.”
“God, I hope not.”
“You’re not in any hurry, are you?”
“No. Are you?”
“The life of a freelance hack is much like that of the unemployed. There’s never a hurry about anything. Let’s adjourn to the Burlington Arms for a snifter.”
“Of course,” said Troy, uneasily uncertain of what about him might make a man of twenty-five or so interested in a “boy” of nineteen.
They stayed in the Burlington on what Troy began to perceive as the Burgess pattern, until chucked out at closing time.
It was odd to be surrounded by midday boozers. Men, scarcely a woman in sight, who had nothing better to do than drink. Men of undetectable means, men in Savile Row suits, men in raggedy sleeves and elbow patches who’d look more at home on a Hertfordshire cabbage patch—all with the time and means to booze away the day in a fog of cigarette smoke and a hubbub of unrestrained gossip. He knew he didn’t look like one of them, he knew he didn’t look eighteen … but then no one was looking in the first place.
Burgess asked a thousand questions.
“Almost. It’s obligatory to live in at Hendon. But when my training’s done, I’ll be posted somewhere in the Met district, to one division or another, so my mother has picked out a small house just off St. Martin’s Lane for me. It’s central. There’s almost nowhere in London I couldn’t get to pretty sharpish.”
“Any preferences when you are posted?”
“I’ve asked for J Division. It covers most of the East End. Stepney, Whitechapel, Limehouse, and so on.”
“Ah … the mean streets.”
“If you like.”
“Good luck with that. It sounds like you might have a taste for Chinese opium dens and the odd bit of rough trade.”
“What’s ‘rough trade’?”
Burgess giggled, the same high-pitched snort Troy had heard at Mimram … all but choking on his pint of mild.
“My God, Freddie. Are you really such an innocent?”