‘No husband?’
‘Mothballed suits in the wardrobe downstairs. And no shaving brush and mug by the sink.’
‘P’raps he had a beard.’
‘No men’s underwear or socks either. The husband was either serving in the Forces, or the woman was a widow. I think when the final rockets fell she took her kids to the Underground station in the high street That’s probably where they died.’
Cissie gave a little shiver. Even after all this time and so much tragedy, the deaths of one poor woman and her deprived kids still caused her grief. How much more difficult then, when the victim was someone you knew and loved. Oh yeah, that could lead to your own disintegration.
‘Look,’ I said, sitting up on the bed, ‘I’m gonna make coffee, tea if you’d prefer. You rest up and I’ll bring it to you. Then we’ll think about…’ I shot a glance out the window, judging the sun’s position ‘…we’ll think about some lunch.’
She rose too. ‘No, let me do it. You must still be all in.’
I pushed her down again. ‘I know where everything is. And I’d rather be moving around than letting my muscles stiffen up. So what’s it to be – tea or coffee?’
‘Tea.’
I swung my legs off the bed, but she caught my hand before I could move off.
‘Hoke, those people outside the hotel last night…Who were they, where did they come from? Were they part of Hubble’s organization?’
‘You saw the surprise on their faces, and you saw how the Blackshirts reacted when they ran into ‘em.’
‘Then who…?’
‘Refugees, like us. Refugees from the Blood Death. At least nearly all of them were – they seemed to be taking care of the odd one or two who didn’t look so good. I think they were a little whacky after so many years of hiding away and the Savoy being lit up like that, like some Christmas tree in a black limbo, well, I guess it drew them out, lured them away from their hiding places all over the city. The lights probably gave ‘em some hope, made ‘em think a part of the old life was returning, and they had to see it for themselves. They made a bad mistake.’
‘What will Hubble do with them?’
‘You already know.’
She lowered her head and as I watched, a single tear dropped into her lap.
I touched her shoulder. ‘It takes some of the heat off us, Cissie.’
I left her there on the bed, staring after me, my meaning slowly dawning on her. Maybe it was a selfish remark, but there was truth in it: Hubble had all the decent blood he needed for now, so he didn’t have to come looking for us. Okay, I was thinking only of our own skin, but selfish as the notion might have been, it gave me some passing comfort. Unfortunately I’d underestimated Hubble’s hatred of me – or was it his obsession with me – after all this time. Yeah, I’d underestimated it badly.
21
ON THE TINY LANDING outside the top bedroom, I took time to stretch a leg across the winding staircase and rest my foot against the edge of the deep window sill opposite. It was an easy manoeuvre – the gap was less than four feet – and by leaning forward I was able to pull open the curtainless window. It swung inwards towards the adjacent wall, displaying a fine view over east London’s rooftops, the white spire of Spitalfields church rising into the bright sky in the distance, its clockface forever frozen to one moment in time. It said ten-to-four, and I wondered what day, what month, what year it had stopped and how meaningless that very second must have been with no one around to notice. I don’t know why, but it felt to me that this day was a Sunday – maybe it was because Sally had always brought me to the market here on Sunday mornings – and, judging by the sun’s position, it was around noon. The month was July or August, I wasn’t sure which, and the year was ‘48. Yeah, so call it a Summer’s Sunday, 1948. It had no significance, and I had no idea why the muse had come upon me; unless some kind of order was slowly filtering back into my life. Was Cissie’s presence doing that, this awareness that she’d be depending on me? Was having another life to consider going to bring about some kind of pattern to my own?
I snapped out of it and scrutinized the yards directly below, making sure no one was creeping up on us down there. A drop of maybe thirty feet below was No 26’s back yard, half of it roofed over by several sheets of corrugated iron that was meant to keep the rain off the coal heap and rinsing mangle underneath; in the open section I could see a tap fixed to the wall and the door to the outside lavatory. All was quiet down there, as I’d expected, and I pushed myself straight, using the banister post on the landing to haul myself back.
The wooden stairs creaked as usual as I descended to the next landing, and I paused outside the door of the bedroom where Wilhelm Stern’s cold body lay. I decided not to look in – what was there to see? The shrouded shell of what was once a very brave man? No thanks, not today – and went down to the ground floor, my left hand sliding round the thick central beam that rose from the corridor below to the landing at the top of the house. When I filled the kettle I noticed the water was running brown, something I hadn’t been able to discern the night before. I shrugged and put the kettle on the gas cooker – boiling heat would kill any germs and we’d just have to put up with the taste. It was as I was reaching for the matches to light the canned gas that I heard the noise.
A scratching sound, coming from the corridor outside.
Mice? Rats? Tiny animals who were survivors like me? Creatures lurking behind the walls or under the floorboards? As I struck the match, the noise came again. And this time I realized it was coming from the front door.
Blowing out the flame, I made my way round the Morrison shelter to the window. I leaned between the withered flowers and wireless set on the sideboard and peered through the parted curtains. The street outside was empty.
The quiet yelp I heard next had me scooting into the corridor and drawing the bolts of the front door I’d locked in the early hours of that morning. Turning the key and without thinking, I pulled the door open and there was Cagney sitting in front of the doorstep, his paw raised to scrape the painted wood again. He howled when he saw me, but it was a small, exhausted sound, and he tried to stand on all fours, his tail twitching in a feeble attempt at a wag. He almost toppled over with the effort and I saw that his haunches and back legs were covered in blood, the pavement underneath him sticky with the stuff. There were bloody stripes across his back and flanks, as if someone had taken a whip or thin stick to him.
‘Oh Jesus, boy…’ I dropped to one knee and Cagney tried to lick my face. ‘What have they done to you?’
Opening up my arms to him, I leaned forward and he shuffled towards me, desperate for my comfort, the drool that sank to the ground from his jaw flecked with red. Bad thoughts surged through my mind just then, a deepening rage welling inside me that was only contained by my pity for the half-dead mutt that was my friend and companion.
‘Cagney –’ I began to say, when the doorframe beside me erupted into a powdery flurry of splinters.
I fell back into the corridor, the machine gun’s roar and wood shrapnel shocking me off balance. The second burst of gunfire caught Cagney full-on and small explosions ripped open his back, lifted him, his agonized shriek piercing the air over the sound of the bullets.
This time I screamed his name, knowing when the last bullet tore open his head he was already dead. His quivering body slumped across the threshold and I had no choice, no matter how much I loved that dog, self-preservation taking over and instinctively making me kick him out again. With nothing to jam the door now, I kicked it shut.
Bullets pierced the thick wood, showering me with splinters, thin rays of sunlight penetrating the tiny holes to shine through the dim, dust-filled air like a dozen narrow flashlight beams. I heard footsteps on the cobbles outside and something slammed against the door, shaking it so hard I feared it might fall inwards. Taking a chance, I reached up for the key, twisting it in the lock, then I scrambled away from those beams of light, rising to a crouch as someone be
gan to prise open the door’s vertical letterbox. From the room beyond the partition wall came the sound of breaking glass.
I fled up the stairs, taking them three at a time, cursing myself for stupidly leaving the pistol beside the bed, reaching the first landing as furniture crashed over in the room below and more bullets bit into the tough front door, probably around the lock itself. Something smashed and I knew they were inside.
On the first landing I ran into Cissie, who was barefoot and – beautiful, gutsy lady – was clutching the gun I’d left behind.
‘Back up!’ I yelled at her, no time for explanations. Besides, I think she’d figured it out for herself.
Running footsteps and shouts along the corridor below.
Snatching the gun from her, I pushed Cissie up, barely giving her the chance to turn. She tripped, but regained her balance instantly, using her hands on the stairs above to help herself climb.
‘We’ll be trapped up here!’ she shouted back at me, but I shoved her onwards, speeding her on her way.
I paused only long enough to lean round the stout centre post and shoot at the leading shadow below. The shadow’s owner hesitated, reluctant to risk the next bullet, and it gave us time to gain the top landing.
‘How did they find us?’ Cissie cried, clutching at me. ‘I thought they didn’t know this place.’
‘They followed Cagney,’ was all I could tell her as heavy boots pounded the stairs. I realized the Blackshirts must have caught Cagney back there at the hotel, trapped him in a room, as likely as not, just in case he might come in useful. They’d beaten the poor mutt, half-crippled him so’s he couldn’t move too fast, and then they’d let him go in the hope he’d head straight for one of my sanctuaries. And Cagney knew my routine, even if I wasn’t properly aware of it myself. Y’see, I always came here after the Savoy, it was a rut I’d subconsciously fallen into over the years. The palace, the hotel, downgrading to Tyne Street, from there to an apartment near Holland Park, back to the palace to repeat the process. It could’ve been natural instinct that had brought Cagney after me, but I figured it was more likely to be the set agenda, one he’d gotten used to. And of course, he’d used the alleyway to get to the house as we always did, a route I believed would be invisible to the enemy, bringing his trackers with him. Hubble had gone with his hunch, and it’d paid off. What I couldn’t understand was why he’d gone to so much trouble now that he had a healthy blood supply.
Machine-gun fire sprayed the wall next to the landing window opposite us and Cissie screamed as she backed into the tiny bedroom with its single cot behind us. I caught her arm and hauled her back out onto the landing, firing four shots over the stout balustrade to give the Blackshirts something more to chew on. Their reply was another burst of machine-gun fire that smacked into the ceiling over our heads, dislodging plaster and fragments of timber.
It suddenly dawned on me. These lunatics weren’t out to capture me – hell no, they didn’t need my blood any more. This time they were out to kill me. Call it revenge, anger over the killing of some of their own by me and the dance I’d led them over the years, or maybe just plain envy because I had something they hadn’t – good, wholesome, disease-free blood. These boys were out to nail me once and for all – and I guess that included anyone who was with me.
‘Cissie,’ I said, more calmly than I felt, ‘we’re gonna jump.’
She looked at me as if I were crazy. Then her gaze went to the open window and panic took over. She tried to yank her arm away.
‘There’s a roof just below,’ I said quickly, holding her tight ‘We’ll be okay. Just trust me.’
Bullets thudded into the plaster ceiling again and chipped wood off the edge of the landing. Gunsmoke rose from the stairwell, its cloud mingling with the floating white dust. There were more excited shouts down there and one or two banshee screeches. Heavy boots clumping on wood, single, wild shots. They were coming up.
‘Now, Cissie, now!’
She came with me, no hesitation at all, hopping across the gap onto the window’s deep ledge, our figures blocking the light for no more’n a fraction of a second as bullets shattered glass and frame beside us. We were gone, dropping like stones through the air, falling in an eternity of dread that took maybe three seconds, possibly less, the corrugated roof rushing up to meet us.
We both yowled in terror as the old, rotted iron gave way beneath us, a neat section breaking off like a trapdoor. Our fall continued, but was soon over as we landed on the piled coals in the yard below. Like the tin roof itself, it broke our fall, saved our legs, maybe even our backs, from being broken. We rolled down the small hillock in an avalanche, then sprawled across the concrete floor of the back yard.
I sucked air, too numbed to feel pain just yet, my eyes unfocused, seeing only a spinning blue expanse of sky above. The weight on top of me was Cissie and I let her head rest on my heaving chest while the dizziness slowed down. The edge of the roof we’d fallen through came into view, then the brickwork of the house itself, rising impossibly high into the sky – or so it seemed lying there on my back with lumps of coal digging into me. The little landing window was about a mile away.
My senses, nudged by fear, returned fast Any moment now there’d be gun barrels poking through that opening, aimed down at us. I pushed myself to a sitting position, bringing Cissie with me, my hands on her shoulders. She was blinking hard, trying to regain her own equilibrium, as I examined her face. But she got the question in first.
‘Are you all right?’ Her voice seemed distanced from the dazed uncertainty in her eyes.
Instead of replying I got a knee under me, then hauled us both to our feet. My gun was gone, lost when we’d crashed through the roof, and I swiftly scanned the yard. A stirrup pump stood in one dark corner and a two-handled zinc bath leaned against a wall; a dried heap of soiled clothing stood in a straw basket next to the rusted mangle; coal was scattered everywhere, making my search more difficult. But I found the Browning lying on the small drain covering beneath the yard’s tap.
Grabbing the gun and quickly checking it for damage, I bundled Cissie towards the back wall as more noises came from inside the house, shouts and footsteps beating the stairs, growing louder as they descended. We had to be over the wall before they pulled the double bolts of the big back door and turned its stiff key. And before those weapons appeared at the top window.
Without a word, I tucked the pistol into my waistband and folded my arms around Cissie’s lower legs. As I lifted her she reached for the top of the seven-foot high wall and dragged herself up, a final push from me helping her on her way. Then I climbed after her, toecap digging into the rough brickwork, elbows levering myself upwards. All this had taken a matter of moments, from leap to climb, and by the time I’d straddled the wall, Cissie had dropped to the other side. I took a swift glance at the landing window before following her.
Sure enough, the first gun barrel had shown up, a strained face looming behind it; I realized the Blackshirt was being supported by his cronies on the stairs below, because they hadn’t figured how else to reach the window. It gave us an advantage, gave us a chance to skip through the long stallholders’ yard at the rear of the houses before they’d worked out a decent way to take aim at us. Something crashed against the back door.
I knew it was dark at the end of the corridor inside No 26, even during the day, a small set of steps leading down to the yard door, another flight descending from there to the cellar, and because of the lack of light the Blackshirts were now scrabbling around for the door key and bolts and banging at the wood in frustration, all of which was allowing me and Cissie extra time. I decided to use it.
My left hand cupping the fingers of my gun hand, I took careful aim at the wrinkled-up face at the window above and gently squeezed the trigger with the pad of my index finger. The Blackshirt saw me though and his head plunged from view – now you see it, now you don’t – as the gun spat flame.
I heard faint cries as he fell onto the m
en supporting him and hoped they’d all taken a tumble. Wasting no more time, I dropped from the wall, grabbed Cissie by the waist, and started running through the debris of rotting stalls and barrows, weaving around wooden packing cases and lumps of metal, old wheels and mouldering cardboard boxes, making towards the big gates at the end of the yard.
We were halfway there when Cissie tripped over wire sprung loose from a busted orange crate. She stumbled into another box and went down, with me sprawling over her. That fall probably saved our lives, because at that moment a round of bullets whined over our heads, breaking up a trestle and snapping a stall’s wooden upright a few yards in front of us. Still on the ground, I aimed the pistol over my shoulder.
There were now two faces up at that top window, the Blackshirts’ shoulders crammed together, elbows on the sill supporting their bodies. One was pointing a machine gun, the other a rifle, and it was the machine gun that was spitting fire. Below them, arms and hands were appearing on the wall as the goons who’d managed to open the back door tried to follow us. I fired at the window first, four or five rapid shots in desperation, praying my ammo wouldn’t run out.
Even from that distance, the two holes that appeared on the forehead of one of those faces were neatly precise, but it was the shot man’s buddy who screamed and disappeared from view; the dead guy just slunk away, slipping out of sight like someone sinking into quicksand. My next shots were at the head appearing over the wall, the bullets chipping brickwork; luckily it was enough to make our pursuers duck down again. The hammer clicked on empty with my next attempt to warn them off and I knew that was it – the gun wasn’t jammed, it was empty. I tossed the useless piece of iron away.
Cissie and I rose together and we both realized we’d never make it to the end of the yard – once the enemy regained its nerve we’d be like targets in a shooting gallery. There was only one hope for us and there was no time for words: I pushed Cissie towards a nearby stall that backed up against a back-yard wall to our left. Leaping onto the stall’s flatbed, I reached down and hoisted Cissie up after me just as the Blackshirts began clambering over the far wall again. We scrambled over and dropped down into another enclosed back yard. I almost whooped with relief when I saw the back door to the house was wide open. We rushed straight into the welcoming shadows and, once inside, I wheeled around and slammed the door shut behind us, praying the Blackshirts hadn’t had time to witness our change of direction.