‘How’s your Italian?’
‘Bit rusty, I only really speak it wiv me mum. Took her home a couple of years back for a visit.’
‘I remember you telling me.’
‘Not a success, was it? Most of her family think the sun shines out of Mussolini’s arse when I think he’s a pot-bellied git.’
‘Passport still valid?’
‘Yeh.’
‘I am going to do a job where I need someone to trust to mind my back. It might have a place for an Italian speaker too, and it pays well.’
Vince looked around his dump of a gym. ‘I got to keep this place goin’, guv, bad as it looks.’
‘Could anyone take it over for six months?’
‘Only if I could pay ’em.’
‘That can be arranged, Vince, but let me say this before you think about it: the job could be dangerous.’
‘Everythin’ you do is dangerous, guv.’ Jardine made a pistol with his finger and thumb. ‘That dangerous?’
‘Yup, but there’s enough pay to keep this place open and you in beer for a year.’
‘When d’you need to know?’
Jardine penned a number and handed it over. ‘You been in the ring again, Vince?’
‘Naw, feet are too slow now.’
‘The bruises?’
Vince touched his upper cheek. ‘Got them fightin’ Mosley’s mob, blackshirt bastards.’
‘Politics, Vince?’
‘Can’t let them just walk about shouting abuse just ’cause someone’s a Jew, ain’t right.’
Jardine looked around the decrepit gym. ‘You’re probably doin’ good work here, Vince — what if you had a benefactor?’
‘He’d need deep pockets.’
‘And if I could get you one?’
‘When was the last time somebody kissed your arse?’
‘Pay. Twenty quid a week and whatever it takes to get someone to replace you here. You can ring me tomorrow.’
‘To hell with that, I’m in for twenty smackers a week. Lead on, Macduff.’
Jardine rang Monty Redfern that night to tell him about Vince’s gym and how he got the bruises. It was a near-certain bet that the Jewish millionaire would back that.
‘All I remember of Vince Castellano was that he was a bloody handful,’ Lanchester remarked. ‘Fine boxer, mind. Did the regiment proud.’
‘I don’t think he drinks anything like he used to, and who knows, those fists of his might come in handy.’
‘So where are you off to in best bib and tucker?’
Jardine pulled a face. ‘I’m taking Lizzie to dinner and dancing at the Cafe de Paris. Apparently “Hutch” is playing tonight, and no doubt there will be two idiots trying to convince us of some new dance craze that is going to sweep the universe.’
‘Ah, the lovely Lizzie Jardine.’
‘Don’t you start, Peter.’
‘You cut her too much slack, old boy.’
‘I think you have that the wrong way round.’
‘Would you divorce her if she agreed, Cal?’
‘I would if that was what she wanted but I would have to get an annulment from the bloody Pope.’
‘A gentleman to the last, but that’s not what I asked.’
‘Peter, it’s none of your business. Now, if all our arrangements are in place, Vince and I will meet you at Victoria tomorrow morning.’ Picking up his shiny top hat, Callum Jardine, dressed in white tie and tails, bowed Lanchester out through his door. The Humber he had ordered was purring gently outside and that took him to Connaught Square to pick up his wife, who was, as usual, not ready.
‘Fix yourself a drink, Cal, I shan’t be long.’
‘When have I heard that before?’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
Going into the drawing room he stared at the furniture with distaste; Lizzie had redecorated once more — it was a biannual event — and this time all the furniture was white, even the sideboard which had on it the bottles and glasses. He poured himself a malt whisky, pleased that his wife had left out a jug of water, a pinch of which was put in the glass to release the peat flavours. That he took to the long French windows overlooking the garden square.
How many times had he stood at these windows waiting? Too many, the record being an hour — that had led to a row about the time it took her to get made up and dressed, then to an even more furious altercation when she found out he had sent the taxi away on the very good grounds the poor bugger had to make a living, which he did not do idling outside their house. There was no point in being cross; in fact, if she took long enough they might give the table he had booked away. He would much rather go to the Bag O’ Nails anytime.
‘Now, you have to admit, Cal, that is a record.’
Turning slowly he looked her up and down, knowing Lizzie had quite deliberately posed under a tall standard lamp to be admired, and admirable she was. Blond, with a pixie face and that bloody pert nose, wearing a white dress overlaid with silver, she had been the most beautiful debutante of her year, and daft Callum Jardine, fresh from the wilds of Dumfriesshire, tall, handsome, golden-haired and soon to be a dashing officer, had been the one who won her hand. He had suffered nothing but trouble and heartache since.
‘Well, are you going to say anything?’
‘Is white this year’s colour?’
Her tongue came out. ‘You are a pig, Callum Jardine.’
‘True,’ he replied, damned if he was going to compliment her. ‘Shall we go?’
The food at the Cafe de Paris was not inspiring, served as an adjunct to the entertainment, rather than on its own merits. They had danced a quick foxtrot right after cocktails, then had dinner to the sound of ‘Melancholy Baby’ and ‘The Very Thought of You’, with Lizzie mouthing along and making moon eyes at the singer, even more outrageously when ‘Hutch’ came on to play.
‘Pity Edwina Mountbatten has got her claws into him, darling,’ he whispered mischievously.
‘Just make sure Dickie doesn’t get his bits into you, Cal. He does so love a handsome man.’
‘I wish he would try, I haven’t killed anyone for a while.’
That made her frown deeply. ‘Must you bring that up?’
‘Sorry,’ he replied insincerely. ‘I thought it was proof I loved you.’
The eyes went dewy. ‘Do you love me, Cal?’
Here we go again, Jardine thought. Why can I not stay away from her? What is the matter with me? He so wanted to not sleep with her but he knew he would weaken, even as he looked around the packed room and wondered who else had enjoyed the privilege. She would drink just a little too much and get all romantic; he would have lowered his resistance by exactly the same means and he would sashay her into that bedroom at Connaught Square, hoping he could avoid looking at the bedhead and remembering the face of the naked man sitting up, his eyes wide with fear, just before he put a bullet in the left one.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Our friend does not look in a good mood this fine morning,’ said Peter Lanchester to Vince Castellano, as they watched Cal Jardine, a luggage porter alongside, heading towards the ticket barrier. His shout echoed as it always does in a railway station. ‘Had a good night, did we?’
‘Do shut up, Peter, and let’s get out of this bloody country.’
‘I sense domestic harmony has not reasserted itself.’
‘When was the last time you ’ad a belt round the ear’ole, Mister Lanchester?’ asked Vince, ‘’cause I can see one coming your way.’
‘Long time since Cal and I exchanged blows.’
‘Them mess dinners were a bit ’airy.’
Cal Jardine marched past them, his face still stiff: last night had conformed to the usual script, with much tender lovemaking, but so had the morning with its customary mutual recriminations. He needed some of that sea air to clear his head, and some action to salve his soul.
First stop was Belgium, a place where, in Vince’s parlance, they could ‘tool up’. Lanchester’s Mauser had gone into the North Sea as soon as he and the Ephraims had cleared the Elbe, Jardine’s pistol into the Danube at the Czech border, neither wishing to be caught bringing a gun into England. By the same token it was not an easy place to buy personal weapons, but Brussels was, and even if they were going to a country at peace, some kind of weaponry was a sensible precaution. They bought two ex-US Army Colt Automatics, while Vince got himself a vicious-looking hunting knife. In passing, Jardine took a shine to a rather natty leather attache case.