There was an horrendous metallic screeching.

“Come on, you bitch!”

It was futile: the axle of the float was jammed into one of the wheel arches and it was impossible to separate. The MG was going nowhere.

“It’s jammed!” Edward’s nose had mashed into the dashboard and blood was running freely. He swung around and looked through the rear window: the woodentops were blowing their whistles for all they were worth. They would be there in seconds. “Run for it!”

Edward sprinted but Joseph could not keep pace. Edward stopped and turned back. He was limping badly. He must have injured his leg in the crash. He was trying to run, a pathetic hop and skip, pain written across his face. Edward paused. He could get away but to do so he would have to abandon Joseph, and how would that look? He paused, caught between two competing urges: the desire for self-preservation and the need to remain in Joseph’s good graces.

“Dammit!” Joseph spat.

The policemen were two hundred yards away.

Edward ran back to him. “Come on,” he urged. “I’ll help.” He took his elbow and started to drag him along.

“My leg––I’ve done something to it. It’s hopeless.”

“Come on!”

“No, Doc, go on. Clear off. No sense us both getting nicked, is there?”

The woodentops were almost on them. Edward started to edge backwards.

“I’ll sort it out,” Edward said.

Joseph shoved him. “Get going. It’ll be fine.”

Edward turned and ran. The bobbies shouted out for him to stop but he ignored them. He crossed the road at full pelt and reached the junction. He turned to see Joseph shoved to the pavement, both woodentops on top of him, one with his knee in his back and the other yanking his wrists up towards his shoulder-blades. His face was angled towards Edward and, through the grimace of pain, he thought for a moment that he caught a wink.

34

EDWARD TOOK THE UNDERGROUND and emerged at Embankment. By the time he had reached Victoria Gardens he was as confident as he could be that he was safe. He went across the road, past the fruit-hawkers, and into the park. Not many people were sitting on the benches at that time of the morning and he sat down, joining the anonymous and the dispossessed: the old man feeding sparrows; the woman with a brown-paper parcel marked Swan & Edgar’s; the down-and-out blowing a tuneless ditty on a penny whistle. He sat among them with his head bent, staring at his shoes, shivering in cold sweat and trying to regain his breath. He stayed there for ten minutes, watching the grey cumulus passing over the south bank, the eddying throng of people accumulating around the entrance to the underground station. The gulls flew low over the barges and the shot-tower stood black in the cold light among blitzed and ruined warehouses. He thought about what had happened. Their long string of successes had inured him to the prospect of failure, and what that meant, but the consequences were real now.

Joseph had been caught and he had barely escaped. And, if he had been caught, everything would surely have been unravelled. Burglary would be the least of his concerns.

No, he chided himself. No. You’re too smart. Clever and resourceful. You can get out of this, and you can get Joseph out of it, too. He told himself to calm down, and, eventually, he did. He stayed there until the man who had fed the sparrows had gone and then, his confidence returning, he retraced his steps, passed the fruit-sellers and went back down into the Underground.

He caught a train towards Holborn, emerged into the sunlight and walked the short distance to the Hill. Billy Stavropoulos still lived with his mother in a two-up, two-down on one of the better streets in the area, but it was still a stone’s throw from The Rookery and far from pleasant. He walked down the terrace to number seventeen and rapped on the door.

A raddled woman from whose face dried paint and powder were falling in little flakes opened it. “Yes?” she said, uncovering teeth like mildewed fragments of cheese.

“Is Billy here?”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “No-one called Billy here.”

“Please.” Edward put his foot between the door and the jamb before she could close it. “I’m not the police.”

“No? Who are you, then?”

“I’m a friend. It’s about Joseph Costello. It’s important.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You sure? Our Billy hasn’t been up to no good again?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. I just need to see him.”

She turned, leaving the door open. Edward followed her inside.

“Wait in there.”

He followed her instructions, went through into the sitting room and sat on the dusty, unsprung sofa. A goods train rattled and gasped out of a nearby junction and in the distance an engine blew its whistle three times, deliberately. From the street outside came a sudden concert of horns, angry drivers setting off a lugubrious honking that put him in mind of geese. A man shouted. A motorcycle screeched to a stop, its engine turning over impatiently. Edward took the moment’s peace to run over what he meant to do.

He knew perfectly well how he would fix the mess.

Billy stood in the door, a cigarette in his mouth. “What do you want?”

“Hello, Billy.”

“What is it?”

“Joseph’s in trouble.”

“What kind?”

“Police. He’s been nicked.”

Billy shut the door quietly. “Alright––just keep it down, don’t want the old dear to overhear. She’ll just worry. What happened?”

“We were out last night. We both had a bit too much to drink. There’s a place Joseph’s had his eye on, we thought it’d be a good idea to do it over.”

“Without me?”

“We were drunk. And you weren’t there.”

“I know I wasn’t.”

“Well, you couldn’t very well––”

“So?”

“You would still have had your cut.”

“Too bloody right I would.” His hostility fizzed and spat.

Edward didn’t have the energy to argue with him. “We were spotted. We crashed the car getting away. Joseph hurt his leg and he couldn’t run. They’ve caught him.”

“But not you. You made it off?”

“There was no point both of us getting caught, was there?”

Billy considered the situation.

“What you doing here, then?”

“I need your help.”

“Why me? Why not Jack or Tommy?”

“I don’t know where they live.” The answer was brutal, and any thought Billy might have had that he was suddenly more important was quickly snuffed out. “Look, stop sulking. Are you going to help or not?”

“What do you want me to do?”

35

THE OXFORD EXPRESS DAIRIES operated from premises at 26 Frith Street, Soho. It had been there for more than sixty years, and, during that time, the Welsh had become the cow keepers and dairy suppliers of West London. The business was owned by the Pugh Family, who originally hailed from the county of Cardiganshire. Milk was delivered before dawn every morning on the milk train that collected its freight from farmers on the West Coast of Wales. The milk was excellent, and business was brisk.

Arthur Pugh, oldest of the Pugh boys and presumptive heir to his father’s business, cracked the reins and the big dray horse jerked forwards. The dray was loaded with milk bottles, metal cream pitchers and little packets of butter wrapped in greaseproof paper. Larger blocks, forty pounds’ worth, were destined for the local restaurant trade. A large blue and white glazed milk crock had been screwed to the front of the dray. It said PURE MILK, and OXFORD EXPRESS DAIRIES, and had been attached there for the purposes of marketing. The bottles were slotted into wooden crates and they rattled loudly as the dray trundled across the cobbles. It was a touch after six and Arthur was just beginning his rounds.

Edward Fabian watched him from the shelter of a parked car.