Mr Love and Justice E-Book

Colin MacInnes

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 325

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Frankie Love, new to his profession as a ponce, seems to run his illegal life on strictly fair principles. Ted Justice, recently appointed member of the vice squad, finds his upholding of the law complicated by love for his girl. Love is travestied in the activities of the prostitute, justice mocked in the procedure of the vice squad, as Colin MacInnes writes with an authenticity which only an intimate knowledge of the seamier side of life can deliver. It is a world in which motives, friendships and values are never as simple as they seem.

Leseprobe

Mr Love and Justice

COLIN MACINNES

Contents

Title PageMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR JUSTICE (STILL)MR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR LOVE (STILL)MR LOVE AND MR JUSTICEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR JUSTICE (STILL)MR LOVE AND MR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVE AND MR JUSTICEMR JUSTICEMR LOVEMR JUSTICEMR LOVE AND JUSTICEAbout the AuthorBy Colin MacInnesCopyrightAdvertisement

MR LOVE

Frankie Love came from the sea, and was greatly ill at ease elsewhere. When on land he was harassed and didn’t fit in at all. The orders he accepted without question, though a hundred grumbles, from almost any seaman, were hateful to him in a landsman’s mouth. There was a deep injustice, somewhere, in all this. Landsmen, in England, depend entirely on the sea: yet seamen, who sustain them, don’t regulate the landsmen’s lives and have to submit, when landlocked themselves a moment, to all the landsman’s meaningless caprices.

At the Dock Board the chief had said there was no ship for Frankie. Those were his words, but his eyes said, ‘I get ten pounds from you before I put you in the pool.’ But Frankie had only three-pounds-seven from the Labour. At the Labour exchange they’d asked what he could do. How to begin to explain to the quite nice young feller in the striped Italian jacket? On a ship he could do anything: off it, nothing, didn’t want to – he was all at sea. ‘But you can do a bit of labouring, can’t you?’ said the clerk, quite friendlily. How to tell him that a merchant seaman can be nothing else – that to do nothing else is a first condition of being a merchant seaman? The feller, trying to be helpful, had called over Mister someone who’d looked over the papers, said not a word to Frankie but, just in front of him (two feet from his face behind the grille), ‘He’s young enough for manual labour – twenty-six.’ And, ‘A bad discharge-book, too: adrift in Yokohama and repatriated at official expense.’

Frankie stepped back and stood there, feeling powerless and sick; and watched the next-comer, an Asian seaman with a turban. The Asian, at the wicket, smiled and smiled, and, as they questioned him, understood less and less. ‘Can’t you speak proper English?’ somebody shouted at him. Frankie, in his days of glory, would hardly have spoken to the Asian at all: but now both of them were sea princes exiled in distress. He stepped up again and said, ‘This man speaks two languages – ours and his. It’s more than you can – think of that!’ They answered nothing, said, ‘Next, please,’ and the Asian still stood and smiled.

Frankie walked out into Stepney, withered and disgusted. The clients round the Labour, apart from being landsmen, were mostly layabouts: professional scroungers such as you couldn’t be on board a ship – your mates wouldn’t wear it, let alone the officers. He found the Asian standing near, and turned to share with him his deep contempt for London. In the old days, Frankie thought, he and I would have signed on as pirates down by Wapping: and why not? Frankie became aware the Asian was inviting him to share a meal. ‘I’m skint,’ said Frankie, not because he was but in refusal. The Asian slightly shook his turbaned head and took Frankie gently by the arm: the gesture was sufficiently respectful, and they set off together in silence. Round two and a half corners they went into a Pakistani café with a smell of stale spices, a juke-box, a broken fruit-machine, and several English girls.

MR JUSTICE

By Latimer Road, PC Edward Justice went into the London Transport gents: not for that purpose, nor (since he was uniformed) to trap some evil-doer, but simply to change his socks round from foot to foot. As he did so, balancing carefully on some sheets of tissue he’d laid out on the stone, he read the obscenities upon the wall. One said,

Man, quite young, nice room, seeks friend forpunishment.

Please say who and when.

A space was left, and then in capitals:

MEN MEAN A GREAT DEAL IN MY LIFE.

Ted Justice took out the pencil from his black official notebook and wrote under the first part,

Blond, 26, and brutal, NAP 1717.

(This was the number of his section-house.) Then, under the second message, he wrote:

Mine too.

He left the establishment with a stern, penetrating glance at those inside it.

In the street and sun he stood, in official posture, before a haberdasher’s. In the plate glass he examined himself from helmet tip to boot toe, and up again, adjusted the thin knot of his black tie, and patted his pockets down. All present and correct, sir. What they’d make of the man inside, in a moment, he couldn’t tell: but the outward image was immaculate.

He caught the haberdasher’s eyes beyond his own, didn’t budge or change his expression in the slightest, then moved away, authority incarnate. The socks felt better: but tight and sticky, the serge was hot today. Would he make plain-clothes – would he? Think of it! In civvies yet unlike the other millions – up above the law!

‘Not now, lady, I wouldn’t,’ he said to a girl-and-pram combination at a corner and, holding the traffic, he saw her personally across the road. An ugly one, unlike his own, but then for all women he had a quite authentic love: not just the copper’s professional solicitude, but a real admiration and affection. Yes: even for women coppers, and some of them …

He reached the station dead on time, and calm, and spotless. The desk officer looked up and said, ‘The Detective-Sergeant’s ready for you, Ted. Good luck.’

MR LOVE

Of the three girls casually eyeing Frankie and the Asian, one was a short, thick-set, chunky woman past her first prime – and second – maybe hitting twenty-eight. Her dark hair was dyed blonde, her face the colour of electric light, and her body desirable in an overall way only (that is, though the immediate impression was attractive, no part of her, on inspection, seemed very beautiful). She spoke less than the others, was very contained and self-assured, yet when she did speak her voice was emphatic and decided. Her clothes accentuated the same features as nature did beneath them, but elsewhere were casual and slack.

After a while of merely glancing at Frank, when he made a sudden movement on his chair she began to watch him. Frankie was used to this and had no vanity about it (though about other things a lot). He knew he wasn’t ‘handsome’ whatever that may mean (for nobody seems to know or to agree), but he also knew he was well set up, and confident, and strong, and potent; and that though he repelled a great many girls for various reasons, for the kind he liked best he’d only to whistle and they’d come. He now whistled by looking steadily at the girl ten seconds in that kind of way.

She got up, came over and holding out a florin, said, ‘You got some pieces for the juke?’ In reply he took sixpences out of the front pocket of his slacks and, without getting up, stretched over and dropped them in the juke-box. ‘What you want?’ he asked, still stretching far.

‘You choose,’ she told him.

‘I can’t see the names from here,’ he said. ‘You pick them.’

‘I’ll press these for you,’ she answered, and without taking her finger off the button she moved the selector and jabbed eight times. Then she sat down at the far side of his table.

The juke-box made conversation quite impossible: but as it blared on they spoke to each other, perfectly clearly, with their eyes, their faces, and their limbs. This unspoken conversation established that they liked each other that way, and that way, at the moment, only; and reserved all their lives, and personalities, and friendship, and private particulars to themselves.

When the juke-box stopped neither of them wanted more music, and both looked up with faint resentment for anyone else who might consider feeding it again. The girl put her hands on the table round her bag: a battered, soiled affair, square-black, but efficient and businesslike as a safe is in an office that seems otherwise untidy and impractical. She said to Frankie, ‘I’d say you look a bit tired.’

‘You would?’

‘Yes. Just look it, I mean. That’s all.’

‘Well, you’d be right. I have been.’

They both ignored the Asian as if he absolutely wasn’t there, although at this stage his presence as unconscious chaperon was rather helpful.

‘Bad times?’ she said.

‘Well, girl, you know how it is. No ship – no work – no money.’

‘I thought you were one of those,’ she said, waited for him to ask her what she was, and registered with approval that he didn’t.

Now, she played a right card … but a bit too early. ‘Shall we take a walk?’ she said.

He paused a fraction more than was usual in a man of quick decisions, and said, ‘I’ll take a rest here for a while.’

She moved her hands round the bag, didn’t hide a slight vexation and said (but quite nicely), ‘It was an invitation to you … You’ve told me how you’re fixed just now …’

He answered (also without any malice), ‘Another time. I won’t forget you.’

The girl smiled, took up the bag, said nothing more, and after a few words with the other girls, went out. The Asian was in conversation with a countryman, and Frankie, catching up with this, said to him, ‘No, friend, I’ll pay …’

‘No, no!’ cried the Asian, for the first time in their acquaintance letting drop the smile.

‘Let me pay for myself, then,’ Frankie Love said, getting up.

‘No!’ said the Asian, giving money to the Pakistani fiercely.

Frankie now gave him his first smile of the day – but a very reluctant, meagre one – and saying no more, shook hands with the Asian, patted his shoulder gently, and went out.

The girl, as he expected, was at the far corner, waiting. As she’d expected, he took his time, and when he came up she made no reference whatever to his change of mind. She shifted her handbag to the other arm, took his, and clicked along the pavement on her stiletto heels.

It was about half a mile. Near the end of the journey, well after she’d passed them, she said of two men standing beside a delivery van, ‘Two coppers.’

‘Yeah? How you know?’

‘You shouldn’t look back like that. The way they stared at us.’

‘I expect quite a few men stare at you.’

‘Not that way. It’s not sex that interests them …’

‘What does, then?’

She stopped at the door, took a bunch of keys from her bag, looked around, and opened it. ‘What I do, does,’ she said. ‘You coming in?’

MR JUSTICE

The Detective-Sergeant said, ‘At ease, Constable, have a fag, come and sit down by me.’ Ted Justice did so but with caution, mistrusting the affabilities of a superior: for no one, he’d learnt, is kindly without a motive – unless (and even then!) the old-timers who stayed stuck at uniformed sergeant, or below.

‘Well, Ted,’ the Detective-Sergeant said, ‘not to beat about the bush at all – you’re in.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘In on probation, naturally. We all want to see how you shape up, and keep an eye on you generally.’ He stared at Edward in a quite frankly treacherous way. ‘So,’ he resumed, ‘as from tomorrow, civilian dress, please – you’ll be drawing the appropriate allowances.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Stand up, Ted.’ Ted Justice did so. ‘Take off your tunic and tie.’ He hung them neatly on a chair-back. ‘Come over in front of this,’ and they walked over to the mirror.

Reflected behind him, Edward saw his new superior gazing with him at the mirror’s image; and in it his own not very tall, and lean, and wiry and relaxed and sensual body. The Detective-Sergeant ruffled Edward’s hair, and he didn’t flinch. ‘Yes, it’s extraordinary!’ the Detective-Sergeant said. ‘You don’t look like a copper – except, perhaps, for that lovely pair of blue eyes.’ He laughed. ‘Come and sit down again,’ he said. And as Edward moved over, ‘Get out of the way of walking like that, please. You’re not on the beat any more, remember. It’s the first thing that gives the untrained plain-clothes man away.’

‘Now,’ said the officer, sitting at his desk. ‘Forget all you’ve learnt till now. Forget any pals you’ve made. Here in the vice game, you’ve moved up a degree.’ He paused. ‘But: and it’s a very important but; though you’ve moved up above them, so far as we’re concerned you’re right down at the bottom once again. I’ll be frank with you – you’re not a fool. I’m opening a file on you today. If there’s anything in that file that we don’t like – then out you go, boy! And if you fall, and go back to the beat again, you’ll fall even lower than you were before. Agreed?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Edward.

‘Agreed, then. Now: we’re moving you over towards Royal Oak: new section-house, new surroundings. Round here, if you’ve done your work well, your face is probably a bit too familiar. That’s all right? You accept?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Splendid: we want all this to be voluntary. Now, one other thing: and don’t take it amiss. In the Force, we don’t interfere in an officer’s private life as far as is reasonable and possible. But in the CID, we have to. Why aren’t you married?’

‘Sir?’

‘You’re not a poof, are you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Sure of that?’

‘Quite sure, sir.’

‘Well?’

Edward thought fast: but knew however fast he thought, the Detective-Sergeant would observe it, so he said at once, ‘May I ask you one question first, sir?’

‘You may. Well?’

‘Do I get any expenses?’

The officer looked at him blandly, and with pity. ‘I don’t like that question very much,’ he said. ‘To begin with, it’s a foolish one. What we’re offering you is – well, influence. If you’ve got any brains, then money’s a secondary consideration: or should I say, where there’s influence, there’s money. Routine expenses can, of course, be recovered: but in this section, frankly, most of us don’t bother. How you manage there, provided you keep your nose clean, is really up to you, you know. You understand me, do you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

All this, which had entered one corner only of Edward’s brain, had given him time to frame his answer. The difficulty was this. He had a girl (in fact a woman, since she was older than himself), and he loved her, and she him, and he had since adolescence loved no other woman in the world or, as it happened, known any other. But – and this was it. Her father had been ‘in trouble’. And though he was – reluctantly – prepared to bless his daughter’s marriage to a copper, the girl herself – who loved the officers now, in the measure Ted was one – had told him she believed – and she was very lucid on this essential point – that while she would never leave him if he wanted her, to marry him would mean, with absolute certainty, that he’d never rise far in his career: if, indeed, once the Force knew of her, they allowed him to stay in it at all. So what to do? Pretend she did not exist? The uniformed lot might wear that one – but not the sharp boys of the CID: they’d soon discover; for if no one else told them, a nark or a disgruntled criminal would be certain to. Always, Edward had known this was the one chink in his newly burnished professional armour: but loving her so much, he had waited for time, somehow, to resolve the fatal contradiction. What he had not foreseen (and was blaming himself for severely at this moment) was that if he never spoke about her to the Force, the Force would raise the matter so abruptly.

‘I’d like to be frank with you, sir,’ he said (determined not to be).

‘That’s what we want, son. Come on – I’m waiting.’

‘I’ve got a girl …’

‘Yes …’

‘But I’m not sure the Force would find her suitable.’

‘Why?’

Edward Justice looked his superior officer right in the eyes and said, ‘She’s one of those persons, sir, who doesn’t care for the officers of our Force.’

The Detective-Sergeant smiled extremely unpleasantly. ‘Doesn’t she,’ he said. ‘She cares for you, I suppose, though.’

‘Oh, yes, sir. And on this matter, she may alter. As you can imagine, sir, I’ve made it …’

The Detective-Sergeant had got up. ‘Shut up,’ he said quite gently. ‘Look, boy, it’s simple. Change her ideas and marry her, or else … Well! That quite clear?’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Okay. No hurry: but just get it fixed.’ He smiled. ‘An item for your file,’ he added.

Detective-Constable Justice put on his tie and jacket. ‘Could I ask you, sir,’ he said, ‘what kind of work you have in mind for me?’

‘I don’t mind telling you,’ the officer answered, taking his trilby hat off a filing cabinet. ‘You interested in ponces at all?’

‘I’m interested, sir, in whatever you tell me to be.’

‘Good. We might try you out with them. What d’you say?’

Edward made no reply, and his senior put his hand on Detective-Constable Justice’s shoulder. ‘Remember one thing,’ he said. ‘It’s the only thing that matters – really.’ He looked at Edward like a brother (as Cain, for example, did on Abel). ‘Don’t ever get in wrong with the Force: because if you do – well, a broken copper’s the only person in the world we hate more than a criminal.’

MR LOVE

Frankie got up to make two cups of tea, and now for the first time he had a chance of looking round about her room. He liked it. It wasn’t rich at all, no; yet as on a ship, nothing essential was missing. The sheets had been clean, and in the tins marked tea, and rice, and sugar, he saw there were actually these things, and plenty. It was, of course, a bit over-feminine, but then the girl was, after all, a woman. ‘Sugar?’ he said, looking round at her lying smoking on the bed.

‘Eight lumps,’ she answered. ‘I’m not naturally sweet.’

He came and sat beside her and fondled her abstractedly. ‘Thanks, girl,’ he said.

She smiled and said to him, ‘There’s not many, I can tell you, get a cup of tea as well.’

‘I dare say not,’ said Frankie.

‘Or leave as rich as they came in,’ she added.

Frankie frowned. ‘I’ve never paid for it,’ he said, ‘and never would, and never will.’

‘Oh, I was kidding.’ She sipped a bit, and said, ‘Not even those geisha girls, you wouldn’t?’

‘If a girl thinks she wants money from me, I’d rather go without.’

‘Well, dear, being as you are, I don’t expect you’ve often had to.’

Frankie smiled, then looked at her seriously. ‘You like the life?’ he said.

‘I don’t like or dislike, darling: I’m just used to it.’

‘Been at it long?’

‘Oh, ever since I can remember …’

‘Yeah – I see. You don’t mind if I ask: it doesn’t upset you?’

She laughed. ‘Upset me? Darling, you can believe me or not, but I just – don’t – notice.’

‘No? By the way: don’t call me “darling”, please. I told you my name’s Frankie.’

‘Yes. Frankie Love. You said so. And you’ve proved it.’

‘But listen. Stop me if I’m curious. When you go out: not knowing who it’s going to be. That doesn’t disturb you?’

‘No.’

‘Not at all?’

‘No. Only if they’re vicious or anything, or try to rob me …’

‘They try that? That’s not right!’

‘Sometimes they do … But you get to know the types – you’d be surprised.’

‘I suppose so.’ He took her hands, examined them, kissed them and said, ‘But listen. All those men. Maybe two or three a day. Don’t you find …’

‘Two or three? Are you kidding? What you take me for – a mystery?’

‘You’re mysterious, all right.’

‘Not that way, I’m not.’

‘Yeah. But what I mean is – doesn’t it disgust you any? One after another, dozens of them just like that?’

She sat up and fixed the pillows. ‘Well, Frankie,’ she said. ‘First ask yourself this question, please. If you go with me after all those dozens – doesn’t it disgust you?’

‘No. No – but I think that’s different.’

‘Men do.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Look, dear. If you’re going into this business at all, it’s best to have as many as you can, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?’

‘I dare say …’

‘This isn’t Mayfair, darling …’

‘… Frankie …’

‘… Sorry. Not Mayfair, but Stepney Green. Seamen and drunks. Thirty bob, a pound – even less, sometimes.’

‘But it all adds up.’

‘I’ll say it does. Pass me that bag.’

‘No.’

‘Go on!’

‘No, I don’t want to touch it. I don’t like women’s bags.’

She jerked her head at him, reached over, and spilt its contents on the bed.

‘What’s this?’ said Frankie. ‘Your life’s savings?’

‘Don’t be silly, boy. That’s just last night’s.’

‘You kidding me now?’

‘Why should I kid you?’

‘All that loot?’

‘Well, it’s not so much … I pay a Bengali eight a week for this little gaff …’

‘For this?’

‘Frankie, if you’re in business full-time, and your landlord’s not ignorant, you don’t get a gaff, even down here, for less. And if he is ignorant, believe me, it’s even worse: he might shop you, or throw you out unexpectedly.’

Frankie gazed at the notes and silver on the blanket. Like money you pick up in the streets, it seemed quite different from the contents of a pay-packet – like valuable stuff that just belonged to anybody.

‘What else you spend it on?’ he said.

She looked at him intently, then said, ‘Oh, this and that – it soon goes, you know. Expenses are heavy: nylons, for instance. Look! You’re not the first who’s laddered the best part of a pound …’ She rubbed her leg and said, ‘But sometimes there’s a bit over and to spare …’

Frankie reflected. ‘Well, I suppose you get your due,’ he said. ‘It can’t be easy …’

‘It’s not, Frank, believe me.’

‘All the same. Excuse my saying so, but I think a man who pays for that’s no man at all.’

She got up. ‘Oh, I don’t think much of them either. But I’m glad there’s plenty of them around …’

‘You going?’

‘Yes, Frank, I have to. But you can stop here a bit, if you like, till I get back …’

‘You’d trust me alone in here?’

‘Yes, of course. What’s there to pinch? You don’t wear girl’s clothes – at least I hope not – and I’m taking this …’ And she flourished the square black bag.

Frankie got up too. ‘No, I’ll be off,’ he said.

‘Off to where?’

‘I’m staying down the Rowton.’

‘That sty? I hope it’s not given you crabs.’

‘Baby, I wash,’ he said.

‘Me too. Turn the other way, I’m going to before we leave.’

MR JUSTICE

On his day off, Edward was sitting with his girl in the park at Little Venice, up by the Harrow Road. He was proud of his girl because though few men looked at her immediately, once they did so their attention was apt to become transfixed. Their initial disdain was perhaps to be explained by the fact that she wore spectacles, was plump and rather dowdy; but their interest became riveted when they grew aware that she had the tranquillity, the assurance, and the indifference that can denote sexual operators conscious of their powers: aware of them not merely as one woman in competition with all the others (which is only a quarter way to success), but aware of them in themselves absolutely.

He was telling her of his first weeks in the vice game: and these weeks had not been without their tribulations. In the first place, Edward had suffered the humiliation of being himself reported as a suspect by a colleague unaware (or was he?) of his real identity as a plain-clothes man. Perhaps this mishap was due to the extraordinary difficulty he found in loitering successfully, unobserved. Only a child can rival the absolute right a uniformed officer has, in the public eyes, to linger wherever he wishes. But in plain-clothes … well, what would you do if told to watch a house for a couple of hours in a thoroughly inconspicuous fashion? All sorts of stratagems will suggest themselves … but the real art is simply to learn how to loiter as a pastime in itself: just as you are, without disguises; and get away with it. Among adults, Edward noticed, only American servicemen seemed quite naturally to possess this skill.

Then there was the difficulty of moving in the dark. Of course, when in uniform there’d been the manoeuvre of lurking in shop doorways, or in mews turnings. But the whole point in the Force of a uniform had been that people should see it, and think twice. Now he’d had to learn to embrace the darkness, to become part of it and use it for himself.

He told some of this in confidence to his girl, but not too much of it because he believed firmly in an ultimate loyalty to the Force so far as its own secrets were concerned; and had learnt, in its hard and testing school, that a secret told to anyone is no longer a secret in any real way at all. Also, he was feeling his way in the new job, and still doubtful and insecure.

‘But you like it on the whole,’ she said.

‘Oh, yes. Who wouldn’t.’

‘Well, dearest, I don’t. Oh, don’t get me wrong! I mean, only because I seem to see much less of you.’

She moved her head slowly and kissed him, which she did quite unfurtively, warmly and decidedly yet in a private, serious, almost holy way (he thought) that no one in the little park could possibly take except to. He felt together with this short, wonderful embrace, the slight scratch of her spectacles, which enchanted him because of memories.

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry the duties make me see you less because, honest, this new job makes me feel quite a bit lonely.’

‘Well, naturally,’ she said. ‘Any new job does.’

‘Not only that.’ He hesitated how much to admit because he knew a man who betrays his weaknesses, even to the girl he loves, is giving her weapons for the tenderest blackmail. ‘It’s like this,’ he said. ‘The story is all coppers are just civilians like anyone else, living among them, not in barracks like on the Continent, but you and I know that’s just a legend for mugs. We are cut off: we’re not like everyone else. Some civilians fear us and play up to us, some dislike us and keep out of our way but no one – well, very few indeed – accepts us as just ordinary like them. In one sense, dear, we’re like hostile troops occupying an enemy country. And say what you like, at times that makes us lonely.’

She squeezed his arm, said nothing.

‘Now in this job the new one, even more so. Because not only the civvies all mistrust you, but – this is what I’ve discovered – the uniformed men do, too. They’re jealous, I dare say, and a bit scared: I’ve had a few very distant looks from former pals in the past few weeks, I can tell you, and it’s not so very pleasant.’

‘But there’s the satisfaction of your job,’ she said, because she knew this was a man’s great love by which, if she respected it, she could hold him all the more.

‘Oh, yes … there’s that, of course.’

The time was now approaching, as both knew, when they must have it out about the conflict of love and duty. After a silence made of gathering clouds, she broached the theme and said, ‘Did they ask you about me at all?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did you tell them?’

Edward was ready, this time, with his answer. He could not, he’d decided, tell her what he’d told the Detective-Sergeant: that she was a copper-hater; for then she’d think that, maligning her to his other dearest love, the Force, he’d secretly wished to detach himself from her altogether. Women were so mistrustful! And when you want irreconcilables you have to lie at some point – there’s really no other possible solution. So this double betrayal of the Force and her was the price he must pay for the higher idea of love. And he’d made up his mind that he’d say to her what he said now, and that was, ‘Darling, I just told them I hadn’t got a girl at all.’

She looked him full in the eyes and her own shut, a moment, behind her spectacles; then she said, ‘That was probably best: probably the only thing to say.’

‘I didn’t like it, though.’

She pressed her shoulder closer to him. ‘There’s only one thing,’ she said. ‘If my dad should ever die: have you thought of that?’

‘No …’

She looked at him. ‘In that case, we could get married: I mean, there’d be no objection any longer, would there?’

He considered. ‘No, I don’t think so, but … Well, your old dad’s hale and hearty, isn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes. No. All I meant was we mustn’t rule out the possibility of marriage altogether.’

He put his arm round her shoulder. ‘I should think not! And there’s also this. When I get on in the CID, get influence and get to know the men up at the top, the whole position – about you, I mean – might be reconsidered. ’Specially if your dad goes on keeping out of trouble.’

‘Yes. Well, he has done, hasn’t he, for quite a while … I’ve seen to that …’

‘I do wish I could offer you marriage!’ he exclaimed. ‘Here and now! Right out in the open.’

‘Well, Ted, we’ve had that out a thousand times, and you know I’ve said I understand and it’s quite all right with me … It’s you I want, not your name. And my money’s good so we’ve no economic worries, and I’ll just put up with it and hope. It’s all thought out and decided … But there is just one thing: what if we had a baby?’

‘We won’t! You don’t mean that you’re …’

‘No, no. But what if we did? It can happen. And honest, Ted, though you know I’d love and cherish it, I don’t want to make your son and mine illegitimate.’

He laughed nervously and a bit crudely. ‘Let’s face that problem,’ he said, ‘if it arises. And let’s hope it doesn’t arise at all.’

She hid her feelings about this (which were multiple, and would have amazed and alarmed Edward considerably) and only said to him, ‘I don’t mind being your mistress, Ted, but not having a baby makes me feel just a bit like a whore.’

‘Eh? Them? Don’t talk daft. Anyway, some of them have babies, I can tell you.’

‘On purpose? Do they mean to?’

‘Some do, I suppose … They’re women, after all …’

‘You’re seeing them, then, in your new job?’

Edward grew just a bit portentous. ‘Actually, yes,’ he said, ‘it is concerned with those matters – but more so with their ponces.’

‘Oh, yes. They’ve all got them, have they, these women?’

‘Not all: no, not by any means all. The older more experienced type of girl does without, but not the majority, I’d say. They seem to need them.’

‘And what are they like, those men?’

‘Which? The ponces? Well, that darling’s what I’m wising myself up on. It seems they’re all types. I’ve had one or two pointed out that between you and me, if the vice boys hadn’t assured me of it, I’d just have taken for – well, for anyone in this park.’ He gazed at the inoffensive ramblers. ‘But then, you see,’ he continued, ‘that’s one of the very first things they teach you in the Force: that everyone – repeat, everyone – however innocent-seeming, is a potential suspect.’

She gazed at the park population too. ‘And how do you catch them?’ she asked.

He looked round, lowered his voice and said, ‘Well, that’s tricky, it appears: you wouldn’t think so, but it’s very tricky. Because you’ve got to prove several quite different things. Number one, that the girl’s a known and habitual common prostitute. Number two, that she’s earned all her money – or the bulk of it – from prostitution. Number three – that the money she earns this way she hands over to him – and that he hasn’t got any other principal visible means of support.’

‘I see,’ she said.

‘It’s more than I do, believe me. There’s one thing they always slip up on, though, so I’m told. If you can get the woman to testify against him – then you’ve got him! And as women have all sorts of reasons for losing interest in their fancy-man – well, dear, I leave it to your imagination!’

She shook her head and said, without condemnation, ‘I think it’s horrible.’

He paused, then answered, ‘Well, as a matter of fact I think it is as well. Not, mind you, that I’m setting myself up as a judge: that’s not our part of the little business; and one of the very first things we learn is not to condemn and simply to detect. But after all: even allowing for that, these ponces are doing something rather special that puts them in a class apart. I’d say they’re making money out of love – or out of sex, at any rate. And personally, darling, I consider love as sacred: the one and only really sacred thing that’s left: and if you make money out of that, then you’re destructive and should be destroyed.’

MR LOVE

Frankie Love and the girl sat in a café (known to the local girls as ‘judge’s chambers’) waiting for the arrival of the solicitor’s clerk. ‘Now, I don’t know,’ Frankie said, ‘why you want to mix me up in all your bits of trouble.’

‘Trouble? It’s not trouble! Anyway, you’re my friend, aren’t you?’

‘I’m your friend, yes, but until I get a ship or even a job I want to keep clear of law, and courts, and solicitors – the lot.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, don’t be so silly, Frankie! This isn’t trouble! A soliciting charge? I’ve had dozens of them.’

‘Then what you want me here for?’

She looked at him seriously. ‘Well, Frank,’ she said, ‘this is a bit different as a matter of fact: it is a bit dodgy, and I felt the need of a pal around to give me courage.’

‘Courage to do what?’

‘Well, I’m not pleading guilty this time for once.’

‘You usually do?’

‘Always. In the first place I almost always am, in the second, what can you do with magistrates against copper’s evidence? and in the third – well, if you plead not guilty it’s a fiver instead of forty bob: or if the charge was hotted up to something worse, he might even send you to the Sessions.’

‘Who might? What Sessions?’

‘The magistrate. And if he did the law would have a barrister, and juries just don’t like whores – however often some of them have had a go with one of us.’

‘Why you taking a chance, then?’

‘Well – just because I’m sick of it!’

‘Of what?’

‘I’ll tell you. There’s a young fellow – vice-squad copper – who’s always asking me to take him home for free. Well, some of the girls do that – but I just won’t: not if I don’t like the feller, anyway. Last time he said, “Do what I say, or else.” And this is the “or else”: he’s bringing a charge.’

‘The bastard!’ Frankie cried, genuinely revolted. ‘That’s not right!’

‘I don’t think so either.’

Frankie pondered. ‘But he’ll get you all the same, from what you say.’

The girl looked round the café and said gently, ‘Perhaps not, you know – it all depends on the date of the alleged offence the charge is for.’

‘How come?’

‘Well, I’ve been having my whatsits this last week. With some of the girls that makes no difference – they just ram in some cotton wool and soldier on. But me, no, I’m particular: I stay at home those days – of which fact I’ve got witnesses.’

‘But baby – he’s not a mug. He won’t bring a charge unless he saw you at it, will he?’

She stared at him, amused. ‘Boy, are you crazy? He wouldn’t even bother to leave his desk! He’d make the charge blind. Against a known and convicted common prostitute? It’s a pushover!’

‘Unless you can prove …’

‘That’s it: an alibi.’

‘I see.’

‘You do? Smart boy! Here comes the shark from the solicitor’s.’

With a cheery wave and a cry of ‘How do, girl!’ there now approached a tall, mackintoshed, somewhat lumbering young man with dark greased hair and a sharp but uncritical regard. He sat at their table, said, ‘How do?’ to Frankie without asking who he was, and called out for a cup of tea and a cheese roll.

‘Money, money,’ he said cheerfully, holding out his hand. ‘The old firm doesn’t even move without a sub.’

From the black bag the girl handed him some notes which he counted, folded each one of them singly, and stuffed in a hip pocket, saying, ‘Ta very much, dear.’

‘It’s we who keep your wife and kids for you,’ the girl told him.

‘Don’t I know it! And the magistrates’! Have you ever thought of that? What wouldn’t the courts cost the poor old taxpayers if it wasn’t for all you girls and the thousands of forty bobs your little cases attract?’

‘Let’s talk business, son,’ the girl said. ‘We’ll be on very soon.’

He shifted his glasses on his nose and said, ‘Well, I know you girls never