2 The Imposter

THE IMPOSTER

By Mark Dawson

PROLOGUE

Southend Harbour

June 1946

SATURDAY NIGHT, three in the morning, and Billy Stavropoulos was making a hell of a racket, kicking and pounding like mad in the boot of the car. Edward Fabian ignored it––they were nearly there––and drove on. Rain lashed the streets, thundering against the roof. The area around the harbour had taken the brunt of a German raid seven years earlier. The rainwater that ran into the gutters was slurry-coloured from brick dust; the tarpaulins that had been nailed over vanished windows flapped incessantly; wild flowers sprouted amongst the ruins. The harbour itself was surrounded by derelict buildings, some of them flattened by the bombs, others looking like they ought to have been. Lines of boats were secured to the moorings, their rigging jangling and rattling as they rose and fell on the tide. There was a strong smell of fish on the wind. Grey streets, blotched and stippled with yellow light, led away into the murky distance.

Edward slowed the car to a stop. It had been given to him by detective inspector Murphy. It was new, probably impounded from some unlucky chap Murphy had arrested, and it still smelt fresh. It was a good car, not as impressive as Edward’s Triumph, but good nonetheless. It was almost a pity that Edward was going to have to torch it when he was finished, but there was no sense in leaving forensics that might lead back to him.

Jimmy Stern was sitting next to him in the passenger seat, staring ahead, impassive. Only the almost imperceptible grinding of his teeth revealed his nervousness. “Ready?” he said.

Edward breathed deeply, the cold damp air burning his lungs.

Jimmy put a hand on his arm. “Edward––we’ve got no choice. We’ve got to do it.”

The cabin’s courtesy light illuminated the ugly bruises on his uncle’s face. “I know we do,” he said.

He opened the car door. There was a dim and economical streetlight at the other end of the harbour but here it was black. It was closer to sleet than to rain, the edged drops seeming to slash their way through the buttonholes of his raincoat. It lashed into him and he was drenched in seconds. He went around to the back of the car and opened the boot. The light clicked on, illuminating the body inside. Billy was curled up in the narrow space, his wrists handcuffed, his knees against his chest, his ankles roped together and with a rough sack tied over his head. He started to moan, the rag that they had stuffed into his mouth turning his protests into an indecipherable mumbling.

Edward slid his hands beneath his shoulders, gripped hard and hauled him out.

PART ONE

Calcutta

May 1945

1

THE TROOPSHIP PASSED THROUGH THE MUDDY ESTUARY of the Hooghly River. Edward Fabian and the rest of the men disembarked amidst the great ships of His Majesty’s Navy and were taken by coach through the wide, throbbing, chaotic Calcutta streets. It was a spectacular place that pulsed with life, a place of the most vertiginous contrasts; during the fifteen minute drive to their billet Edward saw a corpse slumped against smoke-stained Victorian statuary, a sparkling American limousine bumping up against a rickshaw pulled by a half-naked tonga-wallah, a blind beggar asking for change from a Naval officer in full regalia, fakirs pushing knock-off suits to men wearing every uniform of the Allies in the Orient. India was poverty cheek-by-jowl with opulence and Calcutta was its apogee. Edward had become accustomed to the rhythm of the jungle: days of monotony between engagements, hours spent in silence broken only by the calls of parakeets and cuckoo-shrikes. Here was its complete opposite: innumerable mendicants, children imploring passers-by for buckshee, slums of swarming multitudes. Plunging into it was a shock to the senses.

They were to be billeted in the vaulted chambers of the Museum, beds jammed among the cabinets and display cases, cool radiating from the marble floor. The welcome was more than Edward could have dared imagine. There were dhobis to launder his clothes and dersis to fix them; after months of sleeping on hard ground or a sodden slop, he had proper rope-and-frame beds; there were baths with unlimited hot water and soap; a spacious canteen with bustling memsahibs fussing over huge pots of curry and dahl. After months of trench foot and pack sores, months of sleep disturbed by threat of Japanese soldiers coming across the wire, months freighted with the constant fear of death; this was absolute luxury.

Edward slept the sleep of the dead for twelve hours. When he awoke he went out to explore. The men were paid eighteen rupees a week and Edward had not drawn anything for the better part of six months; that accumulated into a tidy little sum to spend in a place as cheap as Calcutta. He even looked the part. The men had been given new suits of green fabric, the regimental black cat insignia stitched proudly on the shoulders. He polished his badges and fastened them to his bush hat. He bathed, washed himself with Lifebuoy and slapped Brylcream into his hair. He found his crutch, and, taking the weight off his injured foot, he set out.

He had only paused briefly in India on his way to the front and he was anxious to see the sights. Chowringhee, Calcutta’s central avenue, exerted a pull that few serviceman could resist. It was a wide thoroughfare that followed the route of the Maidan, a railway carrying noisy trams laid out between it and the river. The road was jammed with traffic: coolie-drawn rickshaws, military vehicles, battered trucks, countless bicycles. Sacred cows, garlanded with flowers, enjoyed the right of way and wandered wherever they chose. The pavement side of the street bustled with life, the ramshackle shops and stalls promising everything the Empire had to offer. Edward sauntered happily, stopping for a shave from a slender barber who massaged the scalp and shoulders with ridiculously strong fingers. He bought chapatis and curry from roadside shacks, gambling that his guts were up to the challenge. He bought a Conan Doyle compendium for a handful of rupees. He allowed himself to be jostled into the heaving pit of humanity that was the Hogg Market and, by the time he was spat out at the other end, he found himself in possession of a miniature Taj Mahal carved from ivory, a new pair of shoes, a landscape of an Indian sunset in an enamel frame and a much lightened purse.

The light began to fade and Edward threw himself into a headlong bacchanal. He gorged on a steak dinner from Jimmy’s Kitchen, ogled the twenty-foot high cut-out of Jeanne Crain in ‘Leave Her to Heaven’ that had been lashed to the awning above the Tiger cinema, and joined the soldiers in drinking the bars of Chowringhee dry. He eventually found himself in the Nip Inn. The atmosphere was rowdy and febrile, hundreds of drunken soldiers and sailors taking advantage of an opportunity to get drunk and forget the war. As Edward drank his first pint a brawl broke out between a group of naval ratings and half a dozen airmen. Punches were thrown and furniture shattered. The management had long since given up trying to stop the fighting. They let the participants punch themselves out and then ejected those who were still standing.

Edward was standing at the bar with his second pint of warm beer. He looked out at the sea of green and blue uniforms. He was aware of the American airman behind him and tried to back out of the way so that the man could get to the bar to order his drinks. His crutches made moving awkward in such an enclosed space; the man was impatient, edging forwards, his shoulder jarring against Edward’s arm and spilling his pint.

“Careful, friend,” Edward said.

“What about it?” The man was drunk.

“Pushing and shoving isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

“Better mind your manners, cripple,” he said, indicating the crutches.

“Take it easy,” Edward said, trying to placate the man. He was tall and brawny and there were two other flyers in uniform standing behind him. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Maybe you’re going to get some, anyway.”

The man hit him with a straight jab to the nose. Edward’s pint smashed against the floor as he staggered back against the bar. The American came forward as Edward dropped his crutch and fired out a right to the body and then a left to the jaw, both blows landing hard and sending the American reeling backwards. The bar was suddenly silent, and then hugely raucous again as the crowd parted, a space forming for the combatants and dozens of drunken soldiers struggling for the best vantage point.

Edward had to half hop on his right leg, but he still managed to stop the man’s rush with two straight lefts to the face, and the American, grown wary, responded by drawing the left, then by ducking it and delivering his right in a swinging hook towards the side of the head. Edward absorbed it on his forearms and hobbled forwards, firing out another one-two combination, but he was suddenly cold-cocked by a second man who emerged from the baying crowd from his left. The blow was high up but, when it landed, Edward felt the descent of the black veil of unconsciousness across his mind. For an instant, or for the slightest fraction of an instant, he paused. In the one moment he saw his opponent ducking out of his field of vision and the background of white, watching faces fade away; in the next moment he again saw his opponent and the background of faces. It was as if he had slept for a time and just opened his eyes again, and yet the interval of unconsciousness was so microscopically short that there had been no time for him to fall. The audience saw him totter and his knees give, then saw him recover and tuck his chin deeper into the shelter of his left shoulder. He stumbled into the ring of spectators and was shoved back into the space again, the crowd’s bloodlust not nearly sated enough to allow him an easy way out. His foot burned with pain and he shook his head to try and clear away the grogginess. The American came forwards, swinging powerful rights and lefts into Edward’s gut, driving the air from his lungs. A low blow followed, way below the belt, and, with Edward’s guard down, a powerful right cross connected flush on his jaw. The black veil fell again and this time he dropped to the floor, scrabbling for purchase amid the sawdust, spit and spilt beer.

A moment passed, then another. His awareness returned and found his crutch and struggled to his feet, his knees like water.

The crowd to Edward’s left parted as a man in British army uniform shoved his way through.

“Let’s be sporting and even the odds, eh?”

The American sized the newcomer up. “More the merrier,” he said. His two friends stepped forward with him.

The newcomer fired the first punch, a hook, with the twisted arch of the arm to make it rigid, and with all the weight of his half-pivoted body behind it. The American, caught on the side of the jaw, went down like a bullock hit between the eyes. The raucous audience whooped its appreciation. The new man could drive a blow like a trip-hammer.

One of the others came for Edward. He clinched to save himself, then, going free, allowed the man to get set. This was what he wanted. He feinted with his left, drew the answering duck and swinging upward hook, then made the half-step backward, whipping the crutch in his right hand full across the man’s face, the wood catching him against the jaw and crumpling him so that he fell backwards halfway over the bar.

Edward and his new ally stood shoulder-to-shoulder. The final American, facing both of them now, thought better of it. He raised his hands in surrender and helped drag his dazed comrades away.

Edward turned to the new man. “I had it under control,” he said, gasping for breath.

“Sure you did,” the other said with a hard laugh. He pointed at Edward’s face. “Your nose––”

Edward dabbed his fingers. They came back smeared with blood.

He grinned. “Jesus––”

“Here,” the other man said, handing him a handkerchief.

“Thanks,” Edward said, holding the fabric to his nostrils. “You’d never guess––I’m supposed to be a handy boxer.”

“You are?”

“Had a few bouts over here. Army Boxing Association. I was decent––well, until I got shot, anyway.”

“Your foot?”

“Jap bullet. Went right through it. I’m on medical leave.”

“Didn’t stop you then, did it?” the man observed. “That was a hell of a whack you gave him.”

“He left his chin open,” Edward grinned. “Rude not to take the invitation.” He extended his hand. “I’m Edward Fabian.”

The other man gripped it firmly. “Joseph Costello. Nice to meet you.”

“You want a beer?”

* * *

EDWARD AWOKE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING. He had a terrible hangover and he desperately needed the bathroom. He got out of bed, knowing he was going to be sick yet moving slowly because he knew just when he was going to be sick and that there would be time for him to get to the bathroom. The marble floor was cool against his naked knees as he crouched before the latrine and voided his guts, dunked his head in a sink of cold water and washed. He tried to remember the rest of the night. They had stayed for another few pints and then Joseph had negotiated a discount with a pair of Eurasian prostitutes. Edward remembered seeing Joseph’s girl pushing him down an alleyway for a wall job. Then there had been more beer, and he didn’t remember much at all after that.