There had been three boys in particular who had held at bay their own inadequacies by hurting him. He could hear the high-pitched giggle of one of them even in his nightmares. He could remember the pain from one time to the next, as if it were going on even before it happened. But it was the humiliation that was the worst. He wanted more than anything else on earth not to be afraid of them, but it was beyond his power. It was the fear they fed on, the spur it gave them to terrify the boy who consistently outdid them in the classroom. Even if he said nothing, pretended he did not know the answers when he did, they knew it. The need to succeed at something had driven him on. Perhaps the master had realized what was happening, but his intervention would only have made it worse.
The time he could not bear to remember was the one in the school yard, near the rubbish bins, when he had been so afraid that he had wet himself. The fat boy with the giggle had laughed so hard he had choked, and called him Pisspants for the rest of his school days. Tellman still flushed hot at the memory. He had had daydreams about beating the boy to a pulp.
He had never told anyone about that. He had tried to forget it, deny its existence in his mind. Over the years he had all but succeeded.
So why did it come back now, this quiet evening in front of the fire with Gracie sitting not two yards away?
Because the certainties that made him strong were crumbling. He had seen in the police a force for good, a protection of the ordinary man or woman who had been victimized physically or had their belongings stolen or damaged. He was used to poverty and he knew that a few shillings was a fortune to some, the difference between eating and going hungry and cold. One pair of boots might be all a man had. Theft was a major crime to such people.
And for a boy without brothers and sisters, belonging to a group was of intense importance. The friendship, the loyalty, the unspoken trust were rewards greater than the money, although pay was regular in the police, and it meant he could have a home, eat every day, be warm in the winter. Above all, he could look at his own thin, lantern-jawed face in the glass when he shaved and see a man he could respect, a man who did not fail when others looked to him for help. That was happiness.
Thomas Pitt had been his first hero. He was human, and certainly fallible, but he was never dishonest, and even when he seemed beaten, he never gave up. Rumpled, wild-haired, pockets bulging, he always knocked on the front door, and, speaking quietly, insisted on going in.
Tellman recalled vividly the first time he got in the middle of a street fight to protect a man who had been alone and terrified, and Pitt had praised him. He had stood on the pavement, his uniform muddy, boots soaked from the gutter, burning with pride.
Police were better regarded now, and Pitt was head of Special Branch. No one treated him lightly; he knew too much about them.
Yet Pitt thought the police were corrupt, so much so that they had brought upon themselves the terrible bombing at Lancaster Gate. Tellman could still smell the smoke and the charred flesh in his dreams.
No one deserved to die like that!
Not that Pitt had said they did. He was just afraid that the bombing could be in revenge for some injustice rather than an anarchist lashing out at the establishment.
Quarreling with Pitt had been stupid. They had both been tired and, more than that, afraid. The old order was falling to pieces and suddenly they had to face that fact.
Pitt was right, even if he had been clumsy in the way he put it. And perhaps Tellman had been too quick to take offense, striking back without thinking.
Gracie woke with a start and smiled at him, finding the sewing again. The piece she was working on was finished. It was one of his shirts. She was turning the collar. He tended to fray them running his finger around the inside when he was worried. He liked her carefulness. She had learned that from Charlotte, when Pitt was still in his early days.
“So are yer going ter tell me,” Gracie asked, “or sit there all evening letting me worry about yer?”
“There’s nothing really wrong,” he lied. He did not want to tell her the truth. She would have no respect for him if she knew how much he depended on his belief in the men he worked with. If he tried to explain, it would all lead back to the school yard, and he could not bear that. She must never know about that.
“Just feel badly about the Lancaster Gate bombing,” he added. “We aren’t really getting anywhere. Not yet.”
Her face crumpled a little. She knew he was evading answering her properly. He felt guilty, but he must not tell her all the things that were churning in his mind. It was his duty to protect her from them. He should make an effort to change his expression and occupy his thoughts with something else. He mentioned one or two other things in the news.
“Don’t change the subject, Samuel,” she responded. “Yer got a face on yer like a burst boot! There’s something wrong real bad.”
“Ednam died today,” he answered abruptly. “We thought he’d make it. He was the most senior officer. We have to defend his reputation, now that he can’t do it.”
“And that in’t going to be easy, eh?” she replied.
She was too quick. She could read him as if he were an open book. It made him feel exposed. Her opinion of him mattered more than anybody else’s-in fact, more than everybody else’s added together. She needed to believe that he was strong enough to look after her, especially now that she was going to have another child. She needed to believe in the police too. The city held millions of people who needed to believe that the police were both honest and brave. If that belief went, so eventually did everything else.
How was he going to deal with it, if Pitt was right and the whole force had crumbling patches in it, like rotten wood holding up a house? If the bad bits fell, buckled, couldn’t take the weight, then the good bits fell with them! Everything came down, and there was no shelter left at all.
“Samuel!” Gracie said sharply, cutting across his thoughts.
He looked at her, and saw the fear in her eyes.
“There’s summink bad that yer won’t tell me,” she went on. “?’Ow can I do anything about it if I don’t know?”
He smiled and felt a sudden rush of emotion. How like Gracie, all five foot nothing of her, but ready to fight anybody to protect her own. He was being selfish shutting her out, and he recognized it at last. By doing it he was leaving her frightened and alone, as if he didn’t think she was capable of helping, or worth trusting. He could see it in her eyes, the hurt far outweighing the fear. He wasn’t protecting her; he was protecting himself.
He sat in silence for several moments, trying to find the words that would frighten her least. She had all the courage in the world, but she was still so very vulnerable. She had a child who was not yet two years old, and in another six months she would have a second one. How could he look after her properly if he put himself in jeopardy also?
She was waiting. He could see it clearly in her face, the pain over the fact that he did not trust her. He had been selfish. He must repair that.
He started with the worst part. “I quarreled with Pitt.” He could hear the reluctance in his own voice, the raw edge of it. “He thinks we need to find out if certain accusations against the police are true…”
“Why?” she said instantly. “Who said anything? Does ’e believe it, or is ’e trying ter prove it in’t right? Yer can’t just stick yer ’ead in the sand an’ pretend it’s all right. Yer wouldn’t if it was about anyone else. People’ve got a right to trust the police.”
“I know that. But the fact that we’re looking into it means it could be true,” he explained. “And the police know that, and so does everyone else. It must be possible, or we wouldn’t be looking!” It was so reasonable, and yet it pained him even to think of it.