5

Arthur Drayling ranked in the general view, including his own, as one of the leading citizens of Plumstead. His shop or, as he sometimes called it, his studio, was also his private house. It stood in an acre and a half of garden and was fronted by a colonnade in the Italian style. Photographs of the beautiful things it contained, statues, baths and fountains, porticoes, wrought-iron gates and railings, appeared regularly in Country Life and The Connoisseur. It was a business which he had built up, with hard work and real artistic taste, over the forty years since he had left Oxford with an unimpressive degree, a small patrimony and a liking for instructive travel.

He was a heavily-built man. The bald dome of his head, sunburned by the regular trips which he still took to Mediterranean countries, was surrounded by a fringe of curly auburn hair.

The reputation he had earned and the money he had made should have been the recipe for a relaxed and happy existence. If it was, it was curious that on that particular evening he seemed unable to sit still. He was in the main living-room of his house. It faced the back part of the garden, which sloped slightly downhill, with a view across Woolwich Common.

For no apparent reason he jumped up and paced across the room. This had as many gods and goddesses in it as any heathen pantheon. His objective seemed to be to admire for the hundredth time the young athlete in the corner. He stroked a hand over the smooth contours. It was a fine reproduction of an original by Donatello and he had refused many offers for it.

To his surprise he found that his hand was sweating. The weather was warm, but surely not as warm as all that? Probably he had allowed the room to get stuffy. He looked at his watch. Six o’clock. The club would be open. He would walk round for a drink.

He felt better as soon as he was out of the house. It was one of the incomparable evenings that early October sometimes brings, when the sun goes down in red splendour and there is a tiny, but invigorating, foretaste of winter in the air. When he reached the point where Perry Road turned right, along the north-west wall of the Infantry Barracks, he stood for a moment listening to a train which was clattering along the line between the Arsenal and the Dockyard stations.

He was beginning to throw off the feelings which threatened him whenever he thought of the evening, when that vile boy had turned up, unannounced and horribly self-possessed, out of the autumn dusk. It was not so much the threat to his material welfare; it was the destruction of his peace of mind. Intolerable persecution. Unthinkable submission. He started to walk briskly as though by moving fast he could put the thought of it behind him. The exercise was doing him good. He was beginning to recover some of his poise. He strode along the pavement, crossed Berridge Street at the end and headed for the club.

He was too preoccupied to notice the man who turned the corner into Perry Road some seconds after he did and kept a careful distance behind him.

He found reassurance in his welcome at the club. The ex-corporal of marines, who acted as caretaker, said, “Good evening, sir. You’ll find quite a crowd here already. They were all talking about that piece in the paper about you.” This was the first article in a daily series being run by the Woolwich Herald on notable local businessmen. No question that he was one of the most important businessmen in Woolwich and certainly the most important man in the club that evening. Not, he reflected, that the group present that evening amounted to much in the way of competition.

Little Mr. Nabbs, the solicitor; Crispin Locke, headmaster of the local secondary school, tall, thin and pedantic; Abel Drummer; Bernard Seligman, the grocer and a number of minor characters, hardly worth a glance. He accepted a drink from Seligman, who was holding forth on the unfair competition of supermarkets with decent old-fashioned provision merchants; ‘provision merchant’ being a description he preferred to ‘grocer’.

“They buy in bulk and they undercut our prices,” he said. “But I can tell you one thing. They have ten times more loss from shop-lifting than we do. Youngsters – boys and girls – go in there regularly, get behind one of the racks where they can’t be seen and stuff things into their pockets or somewhere down their clothes. Then they come out with one or two small items, pay for them and walk off scot-free with the rest.”

“Why don’t they do it in your shop?” said Nabbs.

“Because it’s arranged so that I and my assistants can watch every inch of it.”

“I thought you were going to say that the sort of families who come to your shop are naturally more honest than the sort of ones who use supermarkets.”

“Give ’em the chance; they’re all dishonest,” said Seligman gloomily. “And we know why. Schools don’t teach them honesty nowadays.”

“I thought it would come round to the schools soon,” said Locke. “And I resent it. Tell me, how can schools teach children honesty when their parents live dishonestly?”

“Oh, come off it,” said Drummer. “We’re not a nation of crooks. Not yet.”

“Maybe not crooks. Short changers, tax dodgers, people who travel first class with second-class tickets.”

“I don’t know if the present generation are more dishonest,” said Nabbs. “But they’re certainly cleverer. An articled clerk who joined me a year ago is already teaching me the law.”

This produced a laugh. Nabbs was not a profound lawyer.

“Naturally every generation in a civilised community is cleverer than the last,” said Locke. “It’s the law of cumulative progress. You can’t stop it. Twenty-five years ago no child would have understood computers. Now they take to them like ducks to water.”

“There’s one consolation,” said Seligman. “In another twenty-five years their children will be sneering at them for not understanding the latest microchips. What do you say, Arthur?”

Called on to sum up arguments which he had heard many times before, Drayling put down his drink and pronounced, in his most judicial tones, “The thing which schools nowadays fail to teach is discipline. Financial discipline. Children who get everything free can’t be expected to grasp the first rule of life. Which is, as I’ve often said before, that if you want something you’ve got to be prepared to pay for it.”

“Talking of which,” said Nabbs, “I’m bringing up at our committee meeting next week the question of whether those boys who use the shed behind the club house oughtn’t to be asked to pay some rent.”

“I’d support that,” said Seligman.

“What if they can’t afford to pay?” said Locke.

“I expect their fathers can help them out.”

This was said with a side glance at Drummer, who ignored it and moved away.

Later Drayling joined him at a table in the corner. By this time most of the men had gone into the next room to watch a needle game of snooker and barrack the players. He said, “Don’t worry about Nabbs. If he pushes his proposal through the committee you can count on me to contribute any rent they see fit to extort.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Drummer. “But I couldn’t expect you—”

“Don’t say any more about it. I’d like to do it. It’d be a privilege to support boys like yours. I heard what happened. It’s right, isn’t it, that the Paki said something insulting about this country and your boy knocked him down?”

“That’s right,” said Drummer.

He had repeated this version of it so often that he’d come to believe in it himself.

“He ought to have got a medal. Not been run up in front of old Norrie. Anyway, let me get you another drink.”

It was half an hour and two drinks later when he left the club. It was dark now and the light mist which came up from the river on autumn evenings was beginning to veil the street lighting. He was glad that his route to the Arsenal station was along the public and well-used Berridge Street. There had been one or two stories of mugging in the papers. If it did happen, people said, the best thing to do was hand over your wallet and not make a fuss, but at that moment he had more money on him than he would have cared to part with. The entertainment he was after had to be paid for in cash. Quite a lot of cash.

At the Arsenal station he bought a ticket to Waterloo. There was not much traffic at that time of night and he found an empty carriage. No one followed him on to the platform and no one got on to the train after he did.

The man who had been following him was now seated in a car outside the station. The driver, a top-class rally driver, was confident that he could keep up with the train. In fact they missed it at Dockyard, owing to a jam in Woolwich Church Street, but made good use of a long clear stretch in Woolwich Road and were ahead of it at Maze Hill and again at Deptford. By this time it was fairly clear that their man was making for Central London. Unfortunately there were three termini on that particular line: London Bridge, Waterloo and Charing Cross. At London Bridge, with its maze of entrances and exits, they had to take a chance and it was a relief to see their man coming down the steps from Waterloo West and moving off down the road.

“Underground now, Max,” said the driver. His passenger, who was the older of the two, a thickly-built man with weight-putter’s shoulders and a shovel-shaped inquisitive nose, grunted and got out. Like a lot of big men he was lazy and preferred driving to walking. Luckily Drayling was not moving fast. As predicted, he was making for the Underground station in York Road. Since he bought his ticket at the machine, Max could only do the same and follow him down the long escalator and get into the train two carriages behind him. He had a lot of experience and he knew, from half a dozen tiny indications, that his quarry was, for the moment, easy and unsuspicious.

It would be different when he got closer to wherever it was he was going.

Drayling got out at Charing Cross station, passed the frontage of St Martins-in-the-Fields and strolled up the Charing Cross Road. He was walking more slowly now and stopped once or twice to look into booksellers’ windows, as if interested in the titles shown there.

Max crossed to the other pavement and got well ahead of him. It was usually better to follow a suspicious man from in front. Also he wanted a chance to talk on the bat-phone which lived inconspicuously inside his coat. The car, if it had followed their agreed plan, should be in Soho Square by now. He found an empty doorway and stepped inside.

“Jonty. Max here. Are you on site?”

“Been here three minutes. Where’ve you been? Stopped off for a drink somewhere I suppose.”

Max ignored this. He said, “The bod is coming up Charing Cross Road now. He’s beginning to look fidgety, so I can’t get too close. When he reaches Cambridge Circus, I’ll tell you which way he turns. OK?”

Jonty, who had done his early service at West End Central, knew Soho. He said, “Dean Street, Greek Street, or maybe Barnard Street or Lord Scrope Street. I can watch the far end of any of them, as soon as we know which one it is.”

“Right. He’s at the Circus now. I’ll have to shift.”

When Drayling, after a number of hesitations and looks behind him, reached the corner of Barnard Street, he saw the bulky man, who had been hurrying along the pavement ahead of him, turn off down a side street. There were two girls coming towards him, holding arms and giggling. He let them go past him before he turned into Barnard Street. He was telling himself that it was absurd to be so cautious. No one was in the least interested in him.

The lighting in Barnard Street was not good and the doorway he wanted, Number 54, was midway between two of the old-fashioned lamp posts. He dived into it as quickly as possible.

“Did you get him?” said Max.

“I think so. The doorway in the building two up from the lamp post.”

“Snap. Can you park the car and come down on foot?”

They met outside Number 54. It was a tall building of agedarkened brick which might have been put up at any time in the last 150 years. The houses on either side had suffered in the blitz and had been rebuilt, but only up to third-storey height, so that they looked like young friends supporting a taller and frailer man between them. All three buildings seemed to be full of offices. There was a frame inside the doorway of Number 54 which held cards. The ground floor and the three floors above it were occupied by two firms of wholesale fruit importers, a tailor and cutter, a vendor of canteen ware and a commission agent.

Max went out into the street and peered up.

“Only lights showing,” he said, “on the top floor.”

They had noticed that there was a space in the frame for the top floor, but no card.

Jonty, who was two inches shorter than Max and a few pounds lighter, a welterweight compared to a heavyweight, said, “Suppose I’d better go up and have a squint, eh?”

“Better have a story ready if he bumps you. What are you doing? Buying a new suit or laying a few bets?”

“If I hear him, I’ll come down fast. Then we put on the old drunk and fighting act. Right?”

They were a resourceful pair of goons who often operated together. The routine referred to had caused a useful diversion on more than one difficult occasion. This time it was not needed. A few minutes later Jonty reappeared and said, “There’s a card on the door. Just tacked on. Looks new. Says, ‘The Photographic Supplies Company’. I could see a light under the door and could hear men’s voices. That’s where the old bugger’s holed up, for sure. What now?”

“I been thinking,” said Max. “What we’d better do is, I’ll stop here. You take the car, quick as you can, to West End Central. There’ll be someone there you know who’ll help. Ask him for the form.”

Jonty said, “It was four years ago. But if my old oppo, Bill Bailey, is still there, he’d give us what we want. He knows every filthy rat’s nest and whore’s nest in this stinking square mile.”

Like many policemen he had a puritan streak in him. Some of the episodes during his posting in Soho had turned his stomach. Fortunately Sergeant Bailey was still at West End Central and was available. He welcomed his old friend boisterously and suggested a move to the Eagle and Child. Its private bar had, by long use, become a clubroom for local police officers.

“OK. But mussen be too long,” said Jonty, “or I’ll get stick from Max.”

“Doesn’t take long to drink a pint of wallop, boy.”

“You’ve twisted my arm.”

As soon as they were settled Sergeant Bailey said, “All right. What can I do for our political arm? What’s the job?”

“Straight surveillance,” said Jonty. He explained where they had got to.

“Number 54,” said Bailey thoughtfully. “Yerrs. We’ve been wonderin’ a bit about that. The new people on the top floor. Call themselves photographers.”

“Photographic Supplies.”

“Pornographic Supplies, more likely.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“You haven’t been round the back, have you? No. Well it’s an old house and it’s got one of those real old-fashioned fire escapes. You know the sort I mean? You can jack up the bottom section. Then it’s out of reach of anyone down below. It always used to be kept that way at night, but since the top floor tenants have been there it seems it’s been left down.”

“Don’t the other tenants object?”

“Maybe they haven’t spotted it. They’re mostly locked up and away by six o’clock. And it isn’t too easy to see the back of the house, but there’s an old boy has a studio in the block in Lord Scrope Street. He’s a commercial artist and works late. He mentioned once he’d spotted boys going up the escape.”

“Boys?”

“Twelve-year olds. That sort of age. He thought they might be sneak-thieves trying to break into the offices. That’s why he reported it.”

“But you don’t think they were?”

“If you ask me,” said Sergeant Bailey, “I’d say as like as not they were filthy little brats who’d sell their bums for a fiver.”

Jonty thought about this. He knew enough about Soho not to be surprised, but his upper lip curled.

He said, “That’s the scene now, is it?”

“PE’s the name of the game. Paedophiliac Exchange. We raided a place the other day. They had a collection of photographs of boys in their nothings.”

“Boys, not girls?”

“Boys mostly. Photographs and a collection of films. Some of the things they got up to—well—”

“Has the owner of this one got a name?”

“In our records he’s a Mr. Lamb. Initials B.A.”

“Baa Lamb. That’s sweet.”

“Oh, he’s a sweet person.”

“And you think that Number 54 is a new PE.”

“Could be. Looks as if it might be the place they take the photographs and do the filming. We’ve got a friend in the tobacconist’s opposite.”

By ‘friend’ Jonty understood that he meant someone who would give the police occasional help without doing anything particularly active.

“He told us he thought he’d seen film equipment going in recently. We’ll find out when we raid it.”

“When will that be?”

“When we find time,” said Bailey wearily. “Fast as you rake out one nest the rats set up another.”

Jonty finished his drink, thanked Bailey and drove back to Barnard Street where he found Max propping up a lamp post.

“The bod came out ten minutes ago,” he said, “and pissed off. Seeing as how you’d left me on my tod,” he sniffed, “and taken yourself off for a drink – am I right? – I couldn’t do much about him. Anyway I guess he was heading for home. What did you get?”

Jonty told him what he’d got. He said, “So what do we do now?”

“Report,” said Max.