They surged forward to jab at the police. I could hear the blows landing and the cries of pain before a crash above us made us look up, to see a window exploding, its glass falling just metres from where we stood. Through the empty casement we could hear the music as Lorelei welcomed the brave Soviet troops filing off the Archangel.
One of the Teddies drove his bike straight into the police ranks, leaping off when it struck home. Some of the boys, however, were riding in the other direction, away from the violence – whether scared or going for reinforcements, I couldn’t tell – and stones were flying in the air in both directions. A few cracked into the wall beside us. Alfie pushed me towards one of his friends who was about to ride from the scene. ‘You, go with him,’ he shouted to me.
I stared back at the film poster, committing to memory what I had seen there. ‘All right,’ I said, jumping on the back of the bike. Something metallic sped through the empty air where my neck had been a second ago. The boy with the bike gunned the engine so that it deafened me and we wound through the throng. Over my shoulder I saw Alfie barge into a policeman, knocking him back, but the officer was a burly man and he grabbed the boy in a bear hug, dragging him down. In the last moment Alfie looked directly at me. Then he was lost in the tide of bodies and it seemed almost as if he had been swallowed by some sort of beast.
As soon as we were clear of the danger, the boy whose name I didn’t even know dropped me off in a long, shabby street and roared away without a word. I was worried to see a police checkpoint where uniformed officers were going over people’s cards – it could have been a result of the trouble nearby, or simply down to the increased security we always saw for Liberation Day.
Even though they couldn’t possibly have suspected me of anything, I still felt worried walking away from them. It’s strange, really, how successfully the government had ingrained this layer of anxiety – of paranoia, really – into all of us. I just trusted that it was a phase we would be able to leave behind when the state was more stable.
I asked a passing cabbie for directions to the Rising Sun pub and soon found it tucked away in a narrow backstreet, with a few young men standing outside with drinks in their hands. It looked to me like the interior was packed – not surprising, when people had a rare weekday off work.
‘Excuse me!’
I froze as I was about to enter. One of the men standing outside was calling to me. ‘Yes?’ I did what Tibbot had told me to do: smiled and tried to look unconcerned.
He was a young man, with a hard body, standing with two others like him. They had barely touched their drinks. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ he said.
‘Me?’ I screwed up my face in a pantomime of trying to recall his. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ve met.’
‘No?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
He paused while he and his mates scrutinized me. ‘My mistake.’
My smile was fixed as I moved away. Did I know him? I didn’t think so. But perhaps he knew me because my photograph had been handed around in Great Queen Street. Or was it a genuine error?
I fought my way into the rammed saloon bar to find the air wet with breath and a television bracketed to the wall showing the parade. Tibbot was at a table, nursing a drink.
‘He hasn’t come,’ he said quietly as I reached him.
‘Can you think why?’
‘No.’
A sudden cheer rose from the bar and I turned to see what had caused it. The picture of the parade had disappeared from the television, to be replaced by a single fading white dot – the power cuts got even worse on Liberation Day as people held parties in their homes – but the cheer slid into a groan when it quickly flickered back to life.
I examined the lapel of my jacket and rubbed away at a stain. ‘Is it a worry?’
‘Could be,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s go outside.’
‘I think I know how the code works,’ I said, as we shuffled towards the front.
‘The key?’ He sounded impressed.
‘I think I’ve got it. Well, part of it,’ I said. ‘There was a fight near Liberation Square. The police went after the Teddies. I saw it there.’
‘How?’ I was about to tell him. ‘No, wait. Outside.’
At the bar, the landlord was arguing with two men who were trying to persuade him to turn the television down and switch on the radio so they could hear the Liberation Cup final about to start at the Tottenham ground. ‘No one wants the parade on, mate,’ a thick-set older man was saying. ‘Kick-off’s any minute. Go on.’
‘I can’t turn the parade off, can I?’ the landlord said, subtly nodding outside to where the three young men were sipping their drinks. ‘So no.’ The telephone behind him rang and he picked it up as we stepped out the door. ‘What? No. It’s the Rising Sun pub, mate. Frank who?’
‘Wait!’ shouted Tibbot, whirling around. ‘Wait, that’s for me.’
16
The landlord handed Tibbot the telephone. ‘It’s me,’ he muttered into it. ‘Yes.’ The landlord gave us a suspicious look, but obviously decided it was nothing to do with him and went off to collect some glasses. I leaned against the back of a chair and glanced at the men outside. They didn’t appear to be watching us, but how could I really tell? ‘Why would that be?’ Tibbot mumbled into the mouthpiece, resting his elbow on the bar. There was an undercurrent of concern in his voice, but also curiosity. ‘How recently? I see.’ He tapped his fingers on the bar. ‘Yeah. But she… Who could authorize that? Right. Yeah, please.’ He took a notepad and pencil from his pocket and wrote something down. ‘All right, ta. Take care.’
‘Did he find it?’ I asked, as soon as the receiver was down. He kept looking at the telephone, tapping his thumb on the bar thoughtfully.
‘Yeah,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘But there’s something strange.’
‘What?’ He looked over at the landlord, who was watching us through the corner of his eye. ‘There are three men outside,’ I muttered.
‘I’ve seen them.’
We chatted about the parade as we headed out, towards the end of the street, and as soon as we were out of earshot, his features clouded. I looked at him keenly. ‘It took Kenneth longer than he thought to find the file; and someone came back from the parade early so he couldn’t leave without it looking a bit off,’ he explained.
‘But he got it?’
‘Yes.’
I waited. ‘You said there was something strange.’
‘Yeah, well, we have the name of the woman who bought this car. For now, we’ll presume she’s the one in the photo you found. She’s Rachel Burton of 2 King Henry Road, Gravesend, Kent. She bought it in 1943. In 1950 it was requisitioned by the government as common property and transferred to the oversight of one Dr Richard Larren. No address for him, though.’ I was impressed by his precise recall without recourse to his notebook, but no doubt he had spent forty years committing such details to memory.
‘Who is he?’
‘No idea. But it’s strange to transfer ownership. Requisition cars, yes, but it’s not normal to transfer to another private citizen. Even less so back then. So what’s special about this Richard Larren?’ I wanted to know that too. Someone profiting, somewhere along the line, meant someone who had knowledge and influence over what was going on. Profits certainly hadn’t been banished to the old pages of history, they had simply been disguised as favours and rewards for loyalty. ‘Of course, it doesn’t mean he’s in on anything. He might just have been given the car for being a good boy, or he knows the local Party chief, or he paid a backhander for it. But, whatever it was, it’s something. So, we’ll call on Miss Burton, if she hasn’t moved, and hopefully she can also point us in the direction of Dr Larren. He might be able to fill in a few blanks.’