"Meaning who?" the Boy said.
"Meaning decent innocent people. Poor people out to put a shilling on the tote. Clerks, charwomen, navvies. People who wouldn't be seen dead talking to you or to Colleoni."
"What are you getting at?" the Boy said.
"I'm getting at-this. You aren't big enough for your job, Brown. You can't stand against Colleoni. If there's any fighting I shall come down like a ton of bricks on both of you but it will be Colleoni who'll have the alibis. No one's going to fake you an alibi against Colleoni. You take my advice. Clear out of Brighton."
"Fine," the Boy said. "A bogy doing Colleoni's job for him."
"This is private and unofficial," the inspector said.
"I'm being human for once. I don't care if you get carved or Colleoni gets carved, but I'm not going to have innocent people hurt if I can help it."
"You think I'm finished?" the Boy said. He grinned uneasily, looking away, looking at the walls plastered with notices. Dog Licences. Gun Licences. Found Drowned. A dead face met his eye staring from the wall, unnaturally pasty. Unbrushed hair. A scar by the mouth. "You think Colleoni'll keep the peace better?" He could read the writing: "One nickel watch, waistcoat and trousers of grey cloth, blue striped shirt, aertex drawers."
"Well?"
"It's valuable advice," the Boy said, grinning down at the polished desk, the box of Players, a crystal paperweight. "I'll have to think it over. I'm young to retire."
"You're too young to run a racket if you ask me."
"So Brewer's not bringing a charge?"
"He's not afraid to. I talked him out of it. I wanted to have a chance to speak to you straight."
"Well," the Boy said, standing up, "maybe I'll be seeing you, maybe not." He grinned again, passing through the charge room, but a bright spot of colour stood out on each cheekbone. There was poison in his veins, though he grinned and bore it. He had been insulted. He was going to show the world. They thought because he was only seventeen... he jerked his narrow shoulders back at the memory that he'd killed his man, and these bogies who thought they were clever weren't clever enough to discover that. He trailed the clouds of his own glory after him: hell lay about him in his infancy. He was ready for more deaths.
PART THREE
IDA ARNOLD sat up in the boarding-house bed.
For a moment she didn't know where she was.
Her head ached with the thick night at Sherry's.
It came slowly back to her as she stared at the heavy ewer on the floor, the basin of grey water in which she had perfunctorily washed, the bright pink roses on the wallpaper, a wedding group Phil Corkery dithering outside the front door, pecking at her lips, swaying off down the parade as if that was all he could expect, while the tide receded. She looked round the room: it didn't look so good in the morning light as when she had booked it, but "it's homely," she thought with satisfaction, "it's what I like."
The sun was shining. Brighton was at its best. The passage outside her room was gritty with sand--she felt it under her shoes all the way downstairs; and in the hall there were a pail, two spades, and a long piece of seaweed hanging by the door as a barometer. There were a lot of sandshoes lying about, and from the dining room came a child's querulous voice repeating over and over: "I 'don't want to dig. I want to go to the pictures. I don't want to dig."
At one she was meeting Phil Corkery at Snow's.
Before that there were things to do; she had to go easy on the money, not put away too much in the way of Guinness. It wasn't cheap living down at Brighton, and she wasn't going to take cash from Corkery she had a conscience, she had a code, and if she took cash she gave something in return. Black Boy was the answer: she had to see about it first thing before the odds shortened: sinews of war; and she made her way towards Kemp Town to the only bookie she knew: old Jim Tate, "Honest Jim" of the half-crown enclosure.
He bellowed at her as soon as she got inside his office: "Here's Ida. Sit down, Mrs. Turner," getting her name wrong. He pushed a box of Gold Flake across to her. "Inhale a cheroot." He was a little more than life size. His voice, after the race meetings of twenty years, could hit no tone which wasn't loud and hoarse. He was a man you needed to look at through the wrong end of a telescope if you were to believe him the fine healthy fellow he made himself out to be.
When you were close to him, you saw the thick blue veins on the left forehead, the red money-spider's web across the eyeballs. "Well, Mrs. Turner Ida, what is it you fancy?"
"Black Boy," Ida said.
"Black Boy," Jim Tate repeated. "That's ten to one."
"Twelve to one."
"The odds have shortened. There's been a packet laid on Black Boy this week. You wouldn't get ten to one from anyone but your old friend."
"All right," Ida said. "Put me on twenty-five pounds. And my name's not Turner. It's Arnold."
"Twentyfive nicker. That's a fat bet for you, Mrs.
Whatever you are." He licked his thumb and began to comb the notes. Half-way through he paused, sat still like a large toad over his desk, listening. A lot of noise came in through the open window, feet on stone, voices, distant music, bells ringing, the continuous whisper of the Channel. He sat quite still with half the notes in his hand. He looked uneasy. The telephone rang. He let it ring for two seconds, his veined eyes on Ida; then he lifted the receiver. "Hullo. Hullo.
This is Jim Tate." It was an old-fashioned telephone.
He screwed the receiver close in to his ear and sat still while a low voice buzzed like a bee.
One hand holding the receiver to his ear Jim Tate shuffled the notes together, wrote out a slip. He said hoarsely: "That's all right, Mr. Colleoni. Ill do that, Mr. Colleoni," and planked the receiver down.
"You've written Black Dog," Ida said.
He looked across at her. It took him a moment to understand. "Black Dog," he said, and then laughed, hoarse and hollow. "What was I thinking of? Black Dog indeed."
"That means Care," Ida said. "The Popes used to find them under the bed."
"Well," he barked with unconvincing geniality, "we've always something to worry about." The telephone rang again. Jim Tate looked as if it might sting him.
"You're busy/ 1 Ida said. "I'll be going."
When she went out into the street she looked this way and that to see if she could find any cause for Jim Tate's uneasiness; but there was nothing visible: just Brighton about its own business on a beautiful day.
Ida went into a pub and had a glass of Douro port.
It went down sweet and warm and heavy. She had another. "Who's Mr. Colleoni?" she said to the barman.
"You don't know who Colleoni is?"
"I never heard of him till just now."
The barman said: "He's taking over from Kite."
"Who's Kite?"
"Who was Kite? You saw how he got croaked at St.
Pancras?"
"No."
"I don't suppose they meant to do it," the barman said. "They just meant to carve him up, but a razor slipped."
"Have a drink."
"Thanks. I'll have a gin."
"Cheerio."
"Cheerio."
"I hadn't heard all this," Ida said. She looked over his shoulder at the clock: nothing to do till one: she night as well have another and gossip awhile. "Give me another port. When did all this happen?"
"Oh, before Whitsun." The word Whitsun always caught her ear now: it eant a lot of things, a grubby cm-shilling note, the white steps down to the Ladies', Tragedy in capital letters. "And what about Kite's Friends?" she said.
"They don't stand a chance now Kite's dead. The mob's got no leader. Why, they tag round after a kid Df seventeen. What's a kid like that going to do against Colleoni?" He bent across the bar and whispered: "He cut up Brewer last night."