Chapter Eight

Herbert Lawrence, known as Lawrence to everyone except his aunt Ruth, who ran the Hamble Herald and who he was certain occasionally called him by his given first name to be annoying, was feeling let down, in more ways than one—he was dangling by his fingertips from the doorway of a bombed-out store in the East End of London.

“Hold on, boss!”

If Lawrence hadn’t been so intent on not dropping onto a pile of rubble ten feet below, he’d have expended some energy to tell his assistant exactly what he could do with his advice. He’d been clinging to the ledge since he’d taken a wrong turn whilst chasing down a gang who were behind the stripping of lead from church roofs in the area, and his strength was beginning to wane.

“Any time this year, Durrell!” he yelled, using up precious energy.

Running a hand through his thinning hair, Durrell edged closer until he was able to stoop down next to where only Lawrence’s hands were visible. When his wide blue eyes appeared over the edge, a bead of sweat dripped from his brow and splashed against Lawrence’s left ear on its way down to the rubble.

Upon seeing his wide-eyed assistant hesitating, Lawrence tried a last time to pull himself up. This was a mistake, and very nearly his last. As his strength gave out, his left fingertips lost their grip, leaving him flailing in midair, still gripping the ledge by just his right hand. He’d about given up on ever asking Mary to marry him when he felt the hold of what he assumed was Durrell’s hands grasping him painfully under the arms and starting to lift him to safety, more quickly and much more roughly than he expected, as his assistant was a little on the weedy side. Before he knew it, Lawrence found himself dumped face first on the rough boards of what had been the landing of the corner store they’d tracked the gang to.

The store, long cleared of anything useful, was in a street hit hard in the bombing of London’s East End in late 1940. He’d led a small team of detectives which eventually tracked the gang to their lair. To say crime was difficult to detect in a rubble-strewn environment was putting it lightly. Some unpatriotic people would do anything to avoid aiding their country in its hour of need, and it went without saying these were often of the criminal persuasion. As time went on, they became even slyer, even going so far as to conduct their nefarious activities under the dubious cover of an air raid, disappearing into the background as the all-clear siren sounded.

His team had lucked out, Lawrence was quite prepared to admit, when one of the gang had left their battered truck before the gates at the back of the shop. Why, he didn’t know, but what mattered was a passing copper on his beat had got curious. He’d lifted up the torn and tattered tarpaulin, discovered a load of lead, and displaying a clarity of thought Lawrence intended to see rewarded, had immediately run off to call up Scotland Yard.

Levering himself up on his hands, ignoring the pain from his shredded fingertips, Lawrence found himself looking up into the rough-hewn faces of two forty-something men. The part of his brain which was still working noted neither was wearing a mask. So they weren’t worried about being identified, then. He didn’t recognize them, either, and hoped they weren’t prepared to move up in the world of crime to murder, especially of a policeman, namely, himself.

“I suppose I should say thank you,” Lawrence began, whilst his eyes were skirting for any sight of Durrell, “for pulling me up.” Behind them, sprawled in an untidy heap, was Durrell. He was unmoving, blood bubbling from his open mouth.

“Blame him,” said the one to Lawrence's left, nudging his smaller compatriot none too gently in the ribs before Lawrence had the chance to ask about his colleague.

“He’s a copper, Bill!” retaliated the other, earning himself a punch to the side of his head.

“Shut it!”

“But what’re we going to do? He’s seen our faces!”

The one called Bill stretched up to his full, considerable height and, with no warning, grabbed hold of his smaller colleague by the collar of his tattered shirt, lifted him from his feet, carried him with no apparent effort to the edge of the doorway, and tossed him out.

“And now he knows my name!” he yelled down at where his erstwhile colleague lay broken and unmoving in the rubble-strewn yard.

For the first time he could recall, Lawrence froze. Not through fear, through shock. Death was far more to the forefront of everyone’s existence than before the war came. Still, even taking this into account, on the home front it usually came from the results of enemy bombing or accidents. This was the first time Lawrence had witnessed someone being murdered before his eyes, and he was shocked to realize he didn’t know what to do. His inaction was about to cost him.

Whilst this had been going through his mind, the one called Bill had turned his attention to him. “Now, to get rid of my other problem,” he told Lawrence, bending down and putting his face close to the policeman’s. In spite of his fear, the overwhelming stench of rotten teeth and chewing tobacco made him avert his head. As he did so, the man reached down and grabbed the back of his collar, giving the policeman a clear view of a tattoo, HMS Vindictive, in large green letters across an anchor. The hand appeared to have been badly burnt, with two fingers missing. With little apparent effort, he turned Lawrence around in one swift movement and heaved him toward the gap through which he’d just thrown his colleague.

“Nothing personal, copper,” he told him, as if they were in a cheap thirties gangster film, “but I can’t leave you alive now.”

The next moment, Lawrence felt himself being hoisted into the air, followed by a momentary feeling of weightlessness, overwhelming pain, and then, mercifully, everything went black.