“Message for Mrs. Coker. I’m to take it to her.”
The cook placed the loaf tins in the new refrigerator to prove until tomorrow. She liked her bread to have a long prove. The refrigerator was not unlike a mortuary cabinet. Peace reigned in the kitchen once again. The bread has been conquered.
“Off you go, then,” the cook said.
* * *
—
“It’s tonight,” a breathless Phyllis told Nellie when she reached the Amethyst. “Maddox is coming for you tonight.”
“Better get a move on, then, hadn’t we?” Nellie said.
* * *
—
Maddox drank a cup of weak black tea at the breakfast table. He had an acid stomach and never ate before noon. Around him, his children were spooning up their porridge. All five of them, including the baby, had remarkable appetites. “Eating me out of house and home,” he would laugh, but he wasn’t really joking. If he didn’t have to make endless provision for his children and his unsatisfied wife he wouldn’t have to worry about money. His household didn’t run on fresh air, unfortunately.
Eggs appeared next, boiled, two for each child, except the baby, who was still sucking at his wife’s worn-out breasts. Maddox’s children were as plump as piglets being fattened for the spit. He watched the skin stretching over their round pink cheeks as they chewed. Two of them were in school uniform, ready, if reluctant, for the walk to school. Maddox couldn’t wait to be off himself. He loved his wife and children, but he couldn’t stand being trapped in the house with them.
“Going to work again today, then, Arthur?” his wife asked, unable apparently to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Your ‘bad back’ still better, then?”
The doorbell rang.
“For goodness’ sake, who’s that at this time of the morning?” she said crossly. “The postman’s already been.”
She returned with an envelope in her hand. “A chauffeur in a flash car delivered it,” she said. “What are you up to, Arthur?” The children rushed to the door to look—a chauffeur-driven flash car was not a common sight in Crouch End, but it had already disappeared and they returned, defeated, to their eggs.
His initial plan had been simple—to put Nellie out of business by degree, orchestrating a series of misfortunes—the raid on the Amethyst, the raid on the Sphinx, the fire at the Pixie, the Huns running amok in the Amethyst—death by a thousand cuts, lingchi, Brilliant Chang had once explained to him. They had some business together occasionally. Dope and girls, the twin pillars of crime in London. Chang was long gone now. Unfortunately, all Maddox’s attempts so far had been dismal failures, in fact the campaign was in danger of turning into a farce. Nellie Coker had the luck of the Irish.
And now Oakes had gone rogue, “used his initiative,” he said, and killed that girl in the Sphinx. An idiot with initiative, what a recipe for disaster. And it wasn’t even the right girl! Maddox didn’t kill girls—you didn’t make money out of dead girls. He had daughters himself, three of them, he was not inhuman. Had he allied himself with a madman?
Just as well he was making his strike tonight. There was to be one assault after another, starting with the most vulnerable club. The Pixie was all women and would put up little resistance. Nor would the Foxhole, and the elite members of the Crystal Cup would disappear into the night at the first sign of trouble. The Sphinx might be more of a challenge, there was the big Dutch barman to contend with. And then, the culmination, he would take the Amethyst. The citadel.
He recognized Edith’s handwriting on the envelope his wife handed to him and tucked it into his pocket to read in the safe haven of the Wolseley. He left the house quickly, before his wife could ask about the missive, kissing her fleetingly on the cheek and saying, “I’ll be very late tonight.”
There was no Wolseley. Damn and blast. He had loaned it to Oakes yesterday. He had been ferrying a girl uptown, a party favour for a group of male friends celebrating something or other. A sporting achievement or a successful investment, he really couldn’t remember.
He paused at the corner of the street to read Edith’s letter. The tone was melodramatic, which was not usually her style. Dear Arthur, he read, it is imperative we meet. I fear we are undone. Come to the Sphinx before it opens tonight. Yours ever, Edith.
She had taken him for a fool, first about the pregnancy and then about the abortion. What other betrayals was she planning? Since she had been shut away in Hanover Terrace, he hadn’t been able to see her and he had no idea what her frame of mind might be. What had “undone” them? Was it Nellie? Was it something that was going to scupper his plans for tonight? He sighed. He would have to see her.
He was not a bad man, he reflected. He went to Mass nearly every morning, twice on Sundays. He taught his children right from wrong, he believed in good manners and discipline. He believed a man made his own fortune. He was about to make his, he would not be derailed, by Edith or anyone.
* * *
—
Late last night Gwendolen had abandoned her post at the Crystal Cup and gone to the Amethyst, where she had asked Nellie if she could have a quiet word. They had sequestered themselves in one of the unused rooms at the top of the building. Nellie was fully aware that Gwendolen was betraying her at every turn and yet she felt a curious warmth towards her—a trust, almost. She had seen something in the cards that first Sunday, but she had been distracted by Maud gliding out of the wall of the Crystal Cup and had never reached a conclusion.
At the moment, Maud was daintily perched on a packing case in the corner, examining her fingertips as though she were bored. She no longer had fingernails. She seemed to be disintegrating. Nellie would miss her if she disappeared entirely.
“Mrs. Coker?”
“Sorry, yes, Miss Kelling?” Nellie said, giving her head a little shake.
“I have to confess,” Gwendolen said, “I was sent to spy on you.”
“What a surprise,” Nellie said.
But, of course, this was just a prelude and Gwendolen proceeded to tell Nellie everything that Frobisher had told her about Maddox. She didn’t mention Edith’s part but it seemed Nellie already knew.
“Frobisher will bring Maddox to justice,” Gwendolen said. “I’m sure of it.”
Due process, Nellie thought. The dry meal of affidavits and witness statements. The slow grind of the courts. And at the end of it, Maddox might be convicted, but equally he might not. Justice should be swift, not slow. It should be a knife in the heart. The black wings of retribution crushing Maddox in their righteous embrace. Nellie was feeling rather perky for a woman so under siege.
* * *
—
“Visitor for you, sir,” the desk sergeant said. “I put him in your office. He was waiting on the doorstep first thing.”
The dog was sitting on his chair, its face just visible above the desk. For a moment Frobisher imagined it was going to give him orders, but then it jumped down and ran towards him, propelled by its whirring tail. Frobisher picked the dog up and buried his face in its fur and sent up a small prayer of thanks to a God he didn’t believe in.
* * *
—
“Off out, sir?”
“Yes. I have good news to convey to someone,” Frobisher said.
“Well, he’s got a spring in his step today,” the desk sergeant said to Cobb when Frobisher had gone, the dog trotting happily in his wake. “Cherchez la femme, as we used to say in the war.”
“Share what?” Cobb puzzled.
“The women,” the sergeant explained. “Share the women. And we did, believe me, son, we did. I caught the clap twice out at the Front.”
Cobb blushed. He hated that kind of talk.
* * *
—
Frobisher went first to Gwendolen’s flat. There was no answer to his ring and the club below was closed, and he was wondering where she might be when he saw her approaching along the street. “I have good news,” he said, and she said, “Walk with me.”