Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

your Fascist friends do.’

She was unintimidated. ‘And who, exactly, has been killed by Fascists here in England recently?’

‘The British Fascists haven’t got the power yet – but your Mosley admires Hitler. If they ever get the chance, they’ll do exactly the same as the Nazis.’

‘You mean they will eliminate unemployment and give the people pride and hope.’

Lloyd was drawn to her so powerfully that it broke his heart to hear her spouting this rubbish. ‘You know what the Nazis have done to the family of your friend Eva.’

‘Eva got married, did you know?’ Daisy said, in the determinedly cheerful tone of one who tries to switch a dinner-table conversation to a more agreeable topic. ‘To nice Jimmy Murray. She’s an English wife, now.’

‘And her parents?’

Daisy looked away. ‘I don’t know them.’

‘But you know what the Nazis have done to them.’ Eva had told Lloyd all about it at the Trinity Ball. ‘Her father is no longer allowed to practise medicine – he’s working as an assistant in a pharmacy. He can’t enter a park or a public library. His father’s name has been scraped off the war memorial in his home village!’ Lloyd realized he had raised his voice. More quietly he said: ‘How can you possibly stand side by side with people who do such things?’

She looked troubled, but she did not answer his question. Instead she said: ‘I’m late already. Please excuse me.’

‘What you’re doing can’t be excused.’

The chauffeur said: ‘All right, sonny, that’s enough.’

He was a heavy middle-aged man who evidently took little exercise, and Lloyd was not in the least intimidated, but he did not want to start a fight. ‘I’m leaving,’ he said in a mild tone. ‘But don’t call me sonny.’

The chauffeur took his arm.

Lloyd said: ‘You’d better take your hand off me, or I’ll knock you down before I go.’ He looked into the chauffeur’s face.

The chauffeur hesitated. Lloyd tensed, preparing to react, watching for warning signs, as he would in the boxing ring. If the chauffeur tried to hit him, it would be a great swinging haymaker of a blow, easily dodged.

But the man either sensed Lloyd’s readiness or felt the well-developed muscle in the arm he was holding; for one reason or the other he backed off and released his grip, saying: ‘No need for threats.’

Daisy walked away.

Lloyd looked at her back in the perfectly fitting uniform as she hurried towards the ranks of the Fascists. With a deep sigh of frustration he turned and went in the other direction.

He tried to concentrate on the job at hand. What a fool he had been to threaten the chauffeur. If he had got into a fight he would probably have been arrested, then he would have spent the day in a police cell – and how would that have helped defeat Fascism?

It was now half past twelve. He left Tower Hill, found a telephone box, called the Jewish People’s Council, and spoke to Bernie. After he had reported what he had seen, Bernie told him to make an estimate of the number of policemen in the streets between the Tower and Gardiner’s Corner.

He crossed to the east side of the park and explored the radiating side streets. What he saw astonished him.

He had expected a hundred or so police. In fact, there were thousands.

They stood lining the pavements, waited in dozens of parked buses, and sat astride huge horses in remarkably neat rows. Only a narrow gap was left for people who wanted to walk along the streets. There were more police than Fascists.

From inside one of the buses, a uniformed constable gave him the Hitler salute.

Lloyd was dismayed. If all these policemen sided with the Fascists, how could the counter-demonstrators resist them?

This was worse than a Fascist march: it was a Fascist march with police authority. What kind of message did that send to the Jews of the East End?

In Mansell Street he saw a beat policeman he knew, Henry Clark. ‘Hello, Nobby,’ he said. For some reason all Clarks were called Nobby. ‘A copper just gave me the Hitler salute.’

‘They’re not from round here,’ Nobby said quietly, as if revealing a confidence. ‘They don’t live with Jews like I do. I tell them Jews are the same as everyone else, mostly decent law-abiding people, a few villains and troublemakers. But they don’t believe me.’

‘All the same . . . the Hitler salute?’

‘Might have been a joke.’

Lloyd did not think so.

He left Nobby and moved on. The police were forming cordons where the side streets entered the area around Gardiner’s Corner, he saw.

He went into a pub with a phone – he had scouted all the available telephones the day before – and told Bernie