‘You’re just like the Nazis, are you?’ shouted the tall man in front of Lydia. ‘Is that what you mean?’
At that moment, in the silence that followed the question, Lydia realized that the man in front of her was Mr Goldman from Hatton Garden.
‘We have no quarrel with those of Jewish blood per se,’ Fisher said.
‘Your Mr Joyce says, and these are his very words: “I don’t regard the Jews as a class, I regard them as a privileged misfortune.” That was in January. Your Mosley says that Fascism has accepted the challenge of Jewry. What challenge?’
‘Thank you, sir. The British Union requires the Jews, as we require everyone else, to put the interests of Britain first.’
‘And your Mr A. K. Chesterton said-’
‘That will be all, thank you,’ Fisher said. ‘You seem to have forgotten that I am addressing this meeting, sir. It’s time for you to return to Jerusalem. See the gentleman out, please.’
An eddy rippled through the standing crowd as three Blackshirts pushed their way towards Mr Goldman.
‘Answer the question, sir,’ somebody else shouted. ‘What challenge do the Jews pose? Are you aware that-’
‘I’m aware that another gentleman would like to leave,’ Fisher said. ‘To return to the matter in hand-’
‘Do you realize that in Germany-’
The question ended in a gasp, as if someone had hit the questioner. At least a dozen people were shouting now and fighting was breaking out sporadically throughout the audience. Lydia watched in a daze as Fisher beckoned to a young man at the end of the platform and murmured something in his ear.
The Blackshirts reached Mr Goldman. Two of them grabbed him by the arms. The third man put his head in an armlock.
Lydia snapped out of her trance. ‘You stop that!’ she shouted, and kicked the man as hard as she could in his calf.
He looked at her, open-mouthed in astonishment. ‘Here,’ he said, not relaxing the armlock, ‘you can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’ Lydia asked, and kicked him in the other leg.
The Blackshirts began to drag Goldman towards the door to the cloister. Suddenly the public address system burst into life. ‘Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1’ boomed through the undercroft. Marcus was advancing into the audience with a couple of Blackshirts behind him. He pointed to his right. Lydia followed his finger and saw Rory, notebook in hand, in the act of standing up.
Behind her, one of the urns toppled off its table and somebody shouted, ‘Watch out! The water’s bloody boiling!’ The table itself went over with a clatter, and crockery smashed on the stone floor. ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ pursued its stately course, a serene and triumphal counterpoint to the racket.
They hauled Goldman onto the short flight of steps up to the cloister. He lost his hat and his overcoat was ripped down the back. Three respectable-looking middle-aged men, none of them in Blackshirt uniform, shouted in unison, ‘Jew out, Jew out.’ They looked like a trio of tobacconists or ironmongers on an outing, determined to extract the utmost fun from the occasion.
A large blonde man in ridiculously wide Oxford bags took a swing at one of the Blackshirts manhandling Mr Goldman. The blow missed and the Blackshirt punched his attacker in the mouth, knocking off his glasses. The man reeled back, a hand to his mouth and blood seeping through his fingers.
‘Jew out, Jew out.’
A small woman slipped under the blonde man’s arm and punched the advancing Blackshirt in the testicles. He screamed and doubled up. The scream was high and loud and so like an animal’s that it shocked everyone except Elgar into a moment’s silence.
Lydia felt a momentary but painful twinge of jealousy. The woman was Fenella Kensley.
The noise began again. Mr Goldman’s attendant Black-shirts turned aside to deal with the blonde man, Fenella and a couple of other men who had come to their support. Taking advantage of their absence, Lydia ran across to Mr Goldman and helped him to his feet. He groaned and swayed.
‘Quick,’ she urged. ‘We’ve got to get out.’
Linked together, they staggered down the cloister. The blonde man ran after them, and took Mr Goldman’s other arm. Fenella followed them. Mr Goldman was flagging badly. At the door to the chapel forecourt, Lydia glanced back over her shoulder. Marcus had come up the steps from the undercroft. He saw her: his face was white and twisted, a stranger’s.
‘The house over the road,’ Lydia snapped. ‘I’ve got a key.’
They half-dragged, half-carried Mr Goldman between Fisher’s car and the black van, both of which were empty and unguarded, over the road to the doorway of number forty-eight. Lydia dug into the pocket of her coat and pulled out the latchkey. Her hand was shaking so much that she couldn’t get it in the lock at her first attempt. The second attempt succeeded. The door opened into the high, musty hallway, with the dark linoleum stretching away to the stairs.
‘Quick!’ Fenella said in her ear. ‘I can hear them running.’
Lydia and the blonde man, Fenella and Mr Goldman, almost tumbled into the house. Lydia closed the door behind them and rammed the top bolt home. Mr Goldman was gasping for breath.
‘Damned barbarians,’ the blonde man said. ‘Are you all right, sir?’
Lydia ignored them. She knelt and opened the flap of the letter-box. This gave her a narrow, rectangular view across the road to the chapel. At the far right of the rectangle was the left-hand leaf of the double gates to Bleeding Heart Square. To her horror, she saw Serridge standing in the angle between the gate and the pillar supporting it. He was smoking a cigar and staring placidly down the length of Rosington Place.
Marcus burst into view, followed by three Blackshirts. They hesitated for an instant on the forecourt. Marcus walked into the road and looked up and down. He saw Serridge.
‘I say!’ he shouted. ‘You there! Which way did they go?’
Serridge unhurriedly removed his cigar. ‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Two women and two men. You must have seen them.’
Serridge pointed the cigar down Rosington Place towards Holborn Circus and the thin, fussy tower of St Andrew’s beyond.
‘But we’d still see them if they’d gone that way.’
‘No, they went down past the lodge and turned right.’ Serridge turned his head to his left. ‘Ain’t that right?’
Another man came into view — Howlett, stately in his uniform frock coat, with Nipper at his heels. He touched the brim of his top hat to Marcus. He looked every inch the loyal servant. But whose servant, Lydia wondered, and why?
‘That’s right, sir,’ Howlett said. ‘Went down there like bats out of hell. As if the devil himself was after them.’
23
You are haunted by the ghosts of what might have happened. If Philippa Penhow had had the sense to run away to the village. If she had hammered on Mr Gladwyn’s door. If she’d run into the Alforde Arms. If she’d stumbled across the muddy fields to Mavering.
Sunday, 20 April 1930
