The pub was one of those late Victorian monstrosities which, garish though they are, have a certain and undeniable nostalgic charm for the Londoner. It was all faded plush and fly-spotted, patterned glass, with screens dividing the saloon bar into semi-private cubicles. A stuffed parrot gathered moth in a dusty cage above the bar, there was a tank of depressed-looking goldfish swimming about behind a patina of green slime at one end of the mahogany counter, and just inside the door a huge, green china frog stood with its mouth open to receive the walking-sticks and umbrellas of a departed generation. The saloon bar was empty, as Shaw could see through the windows.
Pushing open the swing-door of the public bar, he walked in. The place had a bare, unwelcoming look. The juke-box deafened him; a group of Teddy boys looked round as he entered. The atmosphere was close, somehow unclean. A handful of older men and women, tarty-looking women mostly, lounged at the bar or sat at beery marble-topped tables. The room was thick, cloudy with tobacco smoke, stinking of spilt beer and sweat and foul breath and the closeness of a stuffy London night.
CHAPTER FIVE
The landlord of The Hertford came along the bar slowly, wiping a hand across his mouth.
He said, “Yur?”
Shaw asked for a pint of mild, brought out a two-shilling piece from his scruffy slacks, and slapped it on the bar. The dark liquid spilled into the glass straight from the wood, flatly, almost as though unwilling to leave the cosy friendliness of the cask. Shaw carried the beer over to a table, sipped, looked around. There was a hum of conversation, briefly audible between the changing jangles from the jukebox. Shaw studied the clientele over the rim of his glass; they all looked as though they had impressive records tucked away in police files, but they were all strangers to him.
All except the sunburnt man sitting at a table by himself.
This was a slightly built man, a man who looked rather more prosperous than the others, a man with a scrawny, lined neck and a long, horse-shaped face, a face with a humorous and defiant twist to the mouth.
Jiddle.
A few years older and tougher, but still — Jiddle. Jiddle who obviously didn’t want to be recognized yet.
The juke-box screamed to a stop, as though pain had won the day and it had died. Its stopping left a tangible silence in which the smallest sound — the chink of a coin in a pocket, the rasp of a match, the top coming off a bottle of light ale — stood out like gunfire. One of the greasy sideboarded youths lounged away from the bar, picking at a tooth, and inserted a coin into the demoniac machine. It blared out again, full belt, a deafening and raucous din that hit the ears like a physical blow.
Shaw groaned inwardly, moved in sudden irritation, nerves on edge and rasping at him. Then he caught Jiddle’s eye, saw the sudden gleam that came into it. There was the suggestion of a wink, a signal, and then Jiddle set down his glass on the table and got to his feet. He lurched past Shaw’s table, hit it, said, “Sorry, mate.” Just before he moved on he added very softly, “First right up towards Portobello… five minutes’ time.” Then he left the bar.
Five minutes later Shaw left The Hertford casually and without attracting any attention. He walked up towards the Portobello Road.
Jiddle was standing by a parked Humber just inside the first turning, dragging at a cigarette. He held the car door open and jerked his head towards it. Shaw climbed in. Jiddle settled himself behind the wheel and said, “Couldn’t talk in the boozer after all. That Teddy mob, they know me, see. Didn’t think they’d be there to-night.” He slipped in his gears, pulled the Humber round to the left at the end of the street, and roared away across the Portobello Road, making in the general direction of Paddington, as it seemed to Shaw, through a maze of back streets; but a little later he went off to the right, hit the Bayswater Road, and headed up for Marble Arch. He didn’t speak, kept his eyes skinned ahead.
As they went round into Park Lane and took it a little slower, Shaw asked, “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere we can talk private, see. Stay in the car and just drive.” Jiddle stared ahead, his lean features hard in the passing lights. “I’m not fussy. You?”
“Not a bit!”
“I want this meeting to look as unarranged as possible, see. You never know who’s watching in this life.” He added, “I’ve got reasons. Don’t question ’em. That way, it suits us both best. Check?”
“Check,” said Shaw, smiling faintly. Jiddle knew his business best. Jiddle didn’t say anything further just yet, and Shaw let him take his time. Meanwhile, his mind went back a few years. This car was an expensive model, a lush job… so Jiddle had made out all right, despite his record — or more probably because of it. Trust Jiddle! It had started, so far as Shaw was concerned, during the war-time days afloat. Shaw, who had broken his ankle, had been put aboard the depot ship in Scapa when his destroyer had sailed on convoy-escort duty. At about the same time Jiddle, a ‘hostilities only’ rating, had been landed from a cruiser in which he’d been serving as a supply assistant, to be accommodated in cells, also aboard the depot ship, and to await court-martial on a cast-iron charge of flogging Government stores on a scale which had staggered the whole naval command. (Even in those days Jiddle hadn’t done things by halves.) Soon after his cruiser had entered Scapa she had received urgent orders to proceed to sea. That had had to take precedence even over evidence at courts-martial; written depositions were left behind, and so, of course, was Jiddle.
There had been a desperate shortage of available officers in the command at that time, and the semi-mobile Shaw, though a very junior officer indeed, had been stuck with the job of Accused’s Friend. In this capacity he’d had several long talks with Jiddle so as to prepare the defence, had at once realized that the man was a bom racketeer, but had done his best in an obviously hopeless case. Jiddle had seemed pretty grateful, considering how little Shaw had been able to help him, and he’d gone to three years imprisonment with a smile on his face and an impudent offer of a job in Civvy Street for Shaw once the War was over. Shaw had never set eyes on him since, had never even given him a thought, and he’d certainly never expected to meet him like this.
He reflected, as they slowed into Piccadilly and Hyde Park Corner, that Latymer had an odd sense of humour at times…
Jiddle asked suddenly, “Come after that job, have you?”
So Jiddle remembered too! Shaw said, “Not exactly.”
“Whatever it is, let’s have it.” Jiddle engaged his gears, moving forward into the stream of traffic and turning down towards Knightsbridge.
Shaw asked lightly, “I suppose you’re still mixed up in all the rackets you can find?”
“Definitely. Only way to live, these days.”
“Well, I’ll have to take your word for that!”
“You can and welcome. Look now. I don’t know where the tip-off about you wanting to see me come from originally, and I’m not curious. Can’t be, not in my line. But I thought to meself: well, now, here’s a bloke who once did me a good turn and now he’s in a spot of trouble himself. I may look at things different from what you do, but that don’t stop me being grateful for favours received. Don’t stop me trying to repay a debt, see?”
“Thanks, Jiddle.”
“And I read the papers, same as anybody else. Saw your name, Commander Esmonde Shaw, who I knew when he wasn’t much more than a kid. Brought it all back straight off. So when I heard you wanted to see me, I was flippin’ surprised, I’ll admit, but I guessed it’d be about that little lot last night. Right?”
Shaw nodded. “Quite right, Jiddle. There’s… one or two things I’d like to clear up, seeing I’m likely to be called as a witness. Briefly, I’m trying to find the guard who was on that train. He’s a Nogolian — and his name is Patrick MacNamara.”