London: May 25, 1951
Ted Wilmott was an old-school copper. Or perhaps he was just old. He had been pushing forty when Troy had joined J Division at the Leman Street nick that served Whitechapel and Stepney. He was well-liked, and as he lived in the community handled the occasional—perhaps frequent—arrest of people he knew with aplomb. Aplomb is not the same as discretion and was frequently accompanied with what Ted called “a punch up the bracket.” He was not Troy’s mentor, that had been George Bonham, a gentle giant of a man, lacking Ted’s rumbustious sense of humour, never known to sing on duty, and a man who handled street fights by lifting a combatant in each arm and banging them together like conkers. Troy had not seen Ted—or heard Ted, as he unfailingly did sing on duty, especially “Men of Harlech” and “A Bicycle Made for Two”—for several years.
On May 24, 1951, just after noon, Ted was on point duty at the junction of Sidney Street and the Mile End Road, opposite the Blind Beggar, when a Bedford truck loaded with first early potatoes from Jersey ran over him. By one thirty he was on a slab in the morgue of the London Hospital, two hundred yards down the road.
Bonham had called Troy.
“Run over by a lorryload o’ spuds. Would you believe it? A bloke as larger than life as Ted.”
Troy could not help but wonder if Ted had been singing at the time, and what he might have been singing.
“Perhaps it was the way he might have chosen to go.”
“Eh?”
“Well, he was awfully fond of a bag of chips.”
“Y’know, young Fred, the longer you spend at the Yard, the less I understand you. Talk about iron in the wossermacallit. Funeral looks to be next Tuesday. Gladys Wilmott’ll have her hanky out and be in tears till the first bottle of stout gets popped. Try and find something pleasant to say to her. Oh, and dust off your uniform.”
“Eh?”
“We don’t bury coppers in our civvies. At least not in Stepney we don’t.”
This presented a dilemma. The obligation to attend was inescapable. But Troy could not remember when he had last worn uniform.
At home, in Goodwin’s Court, he found it, at the back of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom. Surprisingly, it fit. But the moths had been at it, and it still bore sergeant’s stripes on the sleeves. He was short an inspector’s pip or two or three on the shoulder.
Bugger.
He’d have to get it fixed.
He needed a tailor rather urgently.
In particular, he needed Gieves and Co. of Bond Street, who’d tailored his cadet’s uniform all those years ago, and who had made this one bespoke for him just before the outbreak of war.
The next day, the twenty-fifth, he left Scotland Yard around half past two and headed for Bond Street.