He walked home, untroubled and unobserved via Brewer Street. If one shop could constitute a Little Italy, then London’s Little Italy was Lina Stores, which had opened in the last year of the war, not long after Italy, with commendable good sense, had changed sides and hundreds, if not thousands, of POWs and internees had been released, and one could once again get a decent Italian meal in the middle of the city.
A couple of hours later, armed with fresh spaghetti, a chunk of Parmesan, tinned tomatoes (it was November, after all), a bulb of foreign “nunnion” and twelve ounces of mince, he had rustled up spag bol for two, and he and Foxx were sprawled on the sofa with the last glasses to be tipped from a bottle of Chianti.
He’d put on the Miles Davis.
Foxx did not care for it.
“It’s a bit harsh. Austere even.”
“Yep. Let me find something a bit more relaxing.”
He put on the Stan Getz LP.
“Oh, don’t you just love saxophones?” she said.
Troy said nothing.
Waited until Stan and Oscar had reached “Bewitched.” Until he could hear the unuttered “wild again” in the mind’s ear.
“Over the next few days … let me know if you notice anything odd.”
Foxx was curled into a ball, her favourite position, head on his lap. She twisted onto her back so she could see his face.
“Eh?”
“Just anything out of the ordinary.”
“Such as?”
“I’m suspended. Subject to a Special Branch investigation. I’m being tailed. They may stick to me, but they might also follow you, and they may try and turn over the house when we’re out. Illegal, but they may try all the same. Just tell me if you notice anything out of place. Objects not where you left them, that sort of thing.”
“Oh bloody hell! It’s that bugger, Burgess, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Oh God. I wish you’d come home with me and not met up with him.”
“What’s done is done. Besides. He was a friend. Traitor or not, I would not have refused to see him.”
“And now you’re a suspect? … they think you’re a traitor too?”
“They’re clutching at straws. Looking for someone to blame.”
“Are we in trouble?”
Troy’s second first-person-plural pronoun of the day. He might never feel lonely again.
“No. If I can’t see this one off I’m a poor excuse for a copper. We may run into extra time, I may kick the odd penalty, but believe me, I will score.”
“I hate it when you use sporting metaphors.”
“Why?”
“Because you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. You wouldn’t know a silly mid-off from a centre-half.”
“I’ll win all the same.”
“You’d better,” she said, and squirmed back into position.