the Thames.
The best view, through the arch of the railway line that sliced across the street, was the dome of St Paul’s. No one knows how it survived; it’s not as if Jerry was trying benevolently to miss our cathedrals. Look what they did to Coventry.
The Wren was dark and low-ceilinged; their original customers must have been a lot shorter. I settled in with my papers and beer. I read the Trumpet from cover to cover, got stuck on The Times crossword, and finished a pint and two Players before Eve materialised next to my table.
“You’re reading the wrong rag, you know.” She flicked my Times. She was flushed but not a bit embarrassed at being half an hour late.
I sprang to my feet. My memory hadn’t betrayed me; teasing eyes and turbulent hair. Something flipped inside me, a forgotten thrill. I’d be quoting Burns to her next.
She slung her coat over the spare seat and sat down opposite me. She looked round to get her bearings. I’d chosen a corner spot and we were sufficiently far from the next table not to be overheard. Not that the two old boys had any interest in anything other than their next domino. It was war; they clutched their tiles to their chests like they held details of Hitler’s last secret weapon in their hands, silent except for the occasional crash of a tile on the wood table or muttered oath before “chapping”. Eve caught me eyeing them and smiled at me. A good smile. A conspiratorial smile.
I pulled the Trumpet out from under my coat and flourished it. “I’ve already done my homework. Yesterday and today.”
“Good. That’s how to butter up your clients. What did you think?” She put on her inquisitorial look.
“The truth, or do you want me to make you happy?”
She laughed. “The truth makes me happy.”
“There are some very, very good… cartoons.”
“Bastard.”
“And… some of the writing is pretty good too. I’m not just saying this. Your column is about the best in the paper. It’s well written, and makes its point.”
“Hmmm. I think you’re being sincere.” Her head lifted and her sallow eyelids narrowed like a haughty face on a Pharaoh’s tomb. “But I don’t know you well enough, Daniel McRae.”
“Trust me, I don’t know why you’re worried about losing your job. I don’t see any competition. Not in here.”
“Remind me to introduce you to my editor. I need to be ten times better than the next man. That’s how it is. I need new material, new angles, new stories. All I do is report what I hear sitting in the Old Bailey.” She pointed up towards the Aldwych. “And then some follow-up with the victim’s family. The personal angle.
Any fool can do that. I want to report stories before they get to court.” She had that gleam in her eye again, the one I saw in my office when she got enthused at the idea of patrolling the dark side of town with me.
“Right, then. Have you got your walking shoes?”
She looked down at her leg and lifted her foot.
“Will these do?”
I admired her slim brown leg for a moment longer than I needed. “They’ll do nicely,” I grinned.
“I meant the shoes,” she said dryly. “Where are you taking me?”
“Tea with Mary.”
We cut through the green stench and slippy cobbles of the market at Covent Garden. Several stalls are still serving fruit and veg, but the real business finished long before sun-up, unloading the fresh produce from the lorries and carts. The bars down Longacre are full of the porters who breakfasted on full fries and stout, and stayed on for the fun of it.
We resist their siren calls and cross Charing Cross Road into Soho. Along Rupert Street, trying to look businesslike rather than furtive. But a red-light district on a sunny afternoon isn’t an easy place to blend into. The denizens of the night are creeping about in mufti pretending to be normal citizens doing normal things like shopping, getting a haircut and chatting with their mates on street corners. It feels like a stage-set before the evening performance. We get the odd offer: two for the price of one, guv? You and your girl looking for a threesome, luv? But there’s no conviction in the solicitations, just practising their lines for when the curtain goes up.
“And this Mama Mary, you know her purely through business?”
I pretended not to hear the irony in her voice. “I helped her with a little thieving problem. Then she helped me over the Caldwell case.” That was as far as I would go. I just hoped that Mama Mary would heed my phone call plea to stick with that line. It was no business of Eve Copeland what I got up to in my private life, but I didn’t want her thinking badly of me.
We stopped outside the green door. “Now remember our bargain, Eve. Whatever is said in here is off the record. No mention of Mary or her girls in anything you print. Or all bets are off…”
“Relax, Danny, I’m like a priest.”
“You are nothing like a priest. Shall we?” I knocked and waited. Mama Mary must have been watching for us. The door eased open, a bird-like head darted out, looked each way, and a tiny but strong hand dragged us both inside. We crowded into the hall with its tasteful fake Rubens, a big fleshy girl with dimples in her rear.
“Scared what the neighbours might say, Mary?”
“Scared of big fat rozzer. Always sticking nose in.”
My blood cooled. “Not Wilson? Don’t say he’s back on the beat?”
“No, no. Silly man. You stopped him plenty good. Shoulda stopped him dead. Tea for you too, missy?” she asked Eve as she brought us into her private room.
Eve was too busy gawping at the sea of crimson to respond.
“Sorry? Tea would be lovely. This place of yours, Mama Mary, it’s very… very…”
“Red,” I whispered.
“… charming,” she finished.
We slithered among the silk and satin cushions, and Mary smiled at us as she poured the tea.
“Danny say you write in paper. Not ’bout us!”
“No, no. Mary. I promise you. I just need some help. Some advice.”
“I got advice. Stop. Don’t you go looking for trouble. Enough come to you.”
“It’s my job, Mary. All I want is to get a little closer to the action. Danny tells me you know everything that’s going on in…”
“… in bad part of town? That what you mean? Sure, lady. I got best ears in business.” She giggled, which might have looked charming in someone half her age. Though with her tiny physique, her black wig and her thick painted face, I couldn’t begin to put a year on Mary.
“Mary, one thing before we get started. I know how much you like silk…” I glanced round the room. “The redder the better, eh? Do you mind telling me where you get it?”
She screwed up her face so that her eyes became cunning slits.
“Why you interested, Danny? I paid all this.” She swept her hand round the room festooned with shiny hangings.
“I’m sure you paid for it, Mary. But maybe not full price. I’m not going to report you and this is off the record for Eve here. A customer of mine keeps losing some silk. I want to know where it turns up. I have my suspicions.”
Mary sat thinking for a second or two. “OK, Danny I trust you. But if I get in trouble ’cos you, then I send boys to cut off balls, OK?”
I coughed and dodged Eve’s stifled laugh. “Fair enough, Mary. What do you know?”
“Place in Whitechapel. On top of shop. Always got plenty stuff. Got stall in Petticoat Lane, but that rubbish. Good stuff, you need to know right man.” She tapped her head indicating she was in the know.
“Do you have a name, Mary? Just between these four walls. Promise.”
“I tell.” She shrugged. “No do you good. Big top guy too big to touch. Gamba, they call him.”
“Gamba? Gambatti? Pauli Gambatti?”
I whistled but it was no surprise. Gambatti had his finger in every dirty pie from Stepney in the east to Gray’s Inn in the west, and from the Thames up through Whitechapel and Bethnal Green to Hackney in the north. The western edge of his territory collided – in frequent bloody disputes – with Jonny Crane, boss of Soho and Holborn.
