A Question Of Honour: A Harry Royle Thriller (9 page)

Jenny waved another girl over, as soon as she caught sight of Royle walk in. Jenny Crosby linked his arm carelessly and walked him across the dance floor. Couples were moving slowly, seemingly indifferent to the music playing from the bar area. The stage was empty, a small Jazz drum set crouched panther-like, ready to strike behind the microphone stand. Thick wooden speakers stood to attention on either side of the stage. Smoke curled in thick wisps around the ceiling and a stale smell of alcohol, tobacco and desperation formed an atmospheric cloak falling about the head and shoulders of the place.

To the rear of the stage was the small office. Knocking three times, pausing, and then knocking twice, Jenny pushed the heavy wooden door open. Before they could go in, a man came out quickly. Royle noticed he had blood running down his sleeve and a bloodstained handkerchief wrapped around his hand. He passed them in the briefest of moments and the woman didn't appear to notice anything wrong. Inside and with the door closed once again, Harry saw a dark haired man sitting behind a highly polished wooden desk. He wore a dark suit and had his hair slicked back. He sported a pencil moustache and looked a little like a professional dance instructor. The man smiled at Royle and waved Jenny back out of the door. In the corner of the room, two men leaned up against the wall. They looked to Harry's eyes to be like twin ex-heavyweight boxers, washed up, but still deadly, in matching dark suits. Both men bore the marks and scars of past beatings, obtained perhaps in a moment or two of now tarnished glory. The man behind the desk continued smiling in a failed attempt to exude charm. His manner was both oily and grim at the same time. He was wiping blood not only off a thin bayonet but also off the surface of the desk.

"Mr Ro, sorry Mr Trent, it is a pleasure to meet you. I believe we can be good for each other, what do you say?"

Harry, glanced at the heavies and back at the man behind the desk. He took the briefest moment to decide on the best course of action and answered a second later.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know you and as for helping each other, well only time will tell on that one, anything else, well you and the boys can always try me if you like?"

Harry, couldn't manage even a weak smile, the thugs in the corner had him more than a little nervous. He tapped his foot in a steady rhythm on the wooden floor, which echoed in the confined space, and folded his arms across his chest. The other man's smile turned into a grin and beaming he waved the two other men out of the room. With a shuffle of shoe leather, a stray curse and a click of the door catch, they were gone. Alone in the room, the man behind the desk stood. He wasn't a big man, but he was a self-assured one.

"Royle I like you. You have balls and I do like that. You gave the boys a run and that's good. Could you take em? Don't answer. Me I think maybe you could. But that don't matter one bit, they think you could and that matters. The foot tapping had em rattled, me I saw their eyes. That and the arm crossing. Me, me you don't fool. I've had moments of uncertainty and moments of fear, you feel the shakes coming on and you either show em and they see a chink in your armour, or you hide the shakes in your hands by folding them and the leg wobble with a toe tap. You're good, you are also hard. Honesty, this I need, those two outside, they look good, but they're piss-poor. Between you and me Royle, they didn't even have a day to have had, if you get my meaning. But they scare punters and are good to dish out a slap or two. You, you I can work with. I know all about you, what you was charged with and the frame up way back."

Harry, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. The other man smiled again and flipped open a wooden cigarette case on the desk. Taking one himself, he offered another to Royle, who took it silently. The man lit them from an ornate orange glass table lighter. The man continued talking.

"Me, I have contacts all over I heard about you from Jenny and Ruth. Now I thought at first you was two different men, then I tipples. I heard a whisper a while back, not much more, just a whisper. It was that this poor sod crossed a certain ponce by the name of Mandell and got put in the frame for his trouble. I filed it away, and then the I hears about the Manchester ironworks job, and now here you are."

He continued.

"We can and we will do business. I've got a few jobs in the pipeline, just cooking on slow right now. You'll be paid and paid well, I'm not like those Mancs you fell in with last time. I'll give you a motor, nothing special, but all above board, a decent runner. You'll get papers for it and some for yourself as well. And if you bide your time, I think we might just be able to sort out Captain Mandell. I'm an honest villain and I don't like Johnsons poncing off of the backs of girls, it ain't right. And the girls he runs, well they ain't nothing but slaves, it's disgusting and people like him need to learn to respect women."

He spat out the last sentence so hard that it left a little droplet of spittle at the corner of his mouth. The man wiped his mouth with a white linen handkerchief, taken from his suit top pocket. Harry had been listening to the man's outburst silently and at last decided to speak.

"I'm no Dillinger, this is just survival, you know the ironworks was a mess and I got nothing for my trouble."

"Look, Harry, call me Johnny, by the way. You might not like it, but you my friend are up a certain creek without the old proverbial. So like it or not you're a blagger. You done the Manc job nicely and I'm offering you a proper job. Like it or not you have two choices, give in and let em win, or be the villain they've made you and make the best of it."

Harry nodded slowly in agreement and took the offered hand, shaking it in an unspoken, unwritten contract.

Reaching into another pocket, Mangusco placed a roll of banknotes on the desk in front of Royle. He pushed the roll across to Harry, who carefully picked it up. As he did, he felt the other man's hand cover his own in a tight grip. Johnny spoke again.

"You don't need to count it, and you don't need no accountant telling you what to buy with it. Well do buy some decent clothes, but beyond that enjoy it. Plenty more where that come from. I promise that I'll always be straight with you, give you my word of honour on that and you can take that to the bank. Anything I want you to do, I'll explain what, where, why and when, what I call the four W's. I won't pay for any job, but keep you on firms pay instead. That way you won't feel like some cheap gunsel on the make. I'm offering a proper job, and Harry, I promise I'll look after you. What do you say?"

Harry, took his hand and shook it firmly. He had said very little during the conversation and had spent the time listening to Johnny's words, spoken in that particular brand of cockney, that might have once been suggested by some phonetics expert up West, as being a speech defect. This would, of course, have later been retracted and another expert agreed on it being just another form of local dialect and not a lisp at all.

Pocketing the money, Royle nodded and turned to leave. The man now sitting back behind the desk, told him that he would be in touch. Harry realised that the little office must have been soundproofed, because while he had been inside, the band had begun playing. The unmistakable sound of metal brushes stroking drum skins, and a thumping double bass pinning the beat to the bandstand, while a guitar blocked out chords in what sounded to Royle's untrained ear, to be some minor key.

A lithe blonde in a tight black dress oozed velvet from a voice of pure smoke. Jenny was at the bar and gestured for Harry to join her. The first whisky he'd seen in a long time sat waiting for his attention and he didn't want to disappoint it. It was three cigarettes down and during the second whisky that Harry decided to mention at least in passing, the meeting which had taken place. Jenny, waved the subject away, with a none of my business riposte. She did, however, laugh at his innocent comment about his smiling host of the evening.

"You mean to say that you think that's why he's called The Teeth?"

With this, Jenny Crosby had thrown back her head and roared with laughter, leaving Harry confused, until she regained control of herself again and explained that his nickname had been earned from his particular technique when using a knuckleduster in his youth. Unlike others, he wouldn't just merely aim for the face, but would always target the upper lip area, making certain to break at least four or five teeth in one blow. Jenny Crosby had gone on to reassure Harry that Johnny was, in fact, a nice man and a gentleman and all that was in the past when he ran a race track gang back in the twenties. Otherwise, she assured Royle, she would not be with him. But she went on to say, it helped keep up his reputation. These days, she said, Mangusco was a business man, more or less.

During the next week, Mangusco had been as good as his word and a car had been delivered to Poland Street, complete with paperwork. Harry had also been invited to a little bookshop, where the owner, a small middle-aged Russian, with an odd mix of a Russian accent, mingled with Cockney and Yiddish expressions had turned out to be a first-rate forger. In the back of the book shop three days later, the man had furnished Royle with a complete set of papers, these included insurance card, savings book and even a passport, complete with stamps from previous trips. His new identity was Joseph French, a name Harry was later to find out belonged to a famous fictional detective, who happened to be Mangusco's current favourite bedtime reading, after Agatha Christie.

The money and there had been a lot, had come in handy and Harry had bought new clothes and had taken Ruth out on the town twice, she'd loved it. He had wanted to get them a better place to live, but that suggestion had annoyed her and the matter was dropped for good. The woman seemed to Royle's mind, to be tied to not just the area, but to her lifestyle. He couldn't understand it. To his mind, a woman on the game wants to get out of it, not class it as a smart career choice. Harry decided that his view of the moral world setup must be more than a little cock-eyed.

Rules like, if you live with a woman, you must be married to her, but here he was slipping into a relationship with Ruth, a woman who was so fiercely independent and so set on staying on the game. Something Harry despised. The black mood held tightly to Royle, like a straight jacket. He had money and a car, somewhere to live and friends, but still he felt useless and trapped. Johnny had not come through with any work for him and he was beginning to feel like a sponger. He took to pacing the small flat, drinking too much and smoking endlessly. His life seemed to be one of endless waiting; waiting for Ruth to come home, waiting to hear from Johnny, waiting for his new life to begin. At the point when he thought things would never change, finally, a call came from Johnny.

The call had been short and to the point. Royle was to be at a certain warehouse at midnight on Wednesday. At the warehouse, he would be told the rest. Against all odds, Harry found himself actually looking forward to the job, whatever it was. Ruth was much happier with the return of the old Harry and they enjoyed a late supper together that evening, before she went on duty, as she termed it.

Feeling almost relaxed for the first time in months, Harry found himself at the warehouse in Wandsworth at a quarter to the hour on Wednesday night. The air was still and July sticky, just enough moisture to make it uncomfortable. He wished he had left the collar and tie at home and gone with his original idea of a sports shirt, but that was life and he would just have to put up with the discomfort. He reasoned the coppers would more trust a collar and tie any day of the week. The car was beginning to cool down and the engine was making a ticking sound, this together with the leather creaks of the interior, were all that broke the late hour's silence.

The driver's window was open and there were three cigarette ends on the ground beneath. A flash of flame announced Royle's fourth smoke. He felt nervous, just waiting and not knowing why. The minutes ticked by slowly on the watch on his wrist, until with two minutes to go to the desired hour, the silence was broken by the sound of an engine. A car pulled up smartly, it showed no lights. Harry, startled, snatched the door handle and wrenched it open. Two men stood facing him in the shadows. The men stood motionless and gave no indication why they were there or what they wanted from him. Royle felt sweat begin to trickle down his neck. Before he could think of a plan of action, one of the men broke the silence and walked slowly towards him.

Chapter 6

July 1939

"Don't worry Harry, it's me, Johnny. Sorry for the ‘eavy moment."

Harry relaxed and released a long held breath, he managed a weak smile at the other man, now facing him. The second man remained standing by the driver's door of the other car. Johnny spoke quietly to Royle.

"I had to know if I could rely on you, Harry. I didn't do this just to mess with you, not my style. I had to know that if I asked you to do something, even after all this time, you'd do it, without question. You're a good soldier. Here's some spending money for your trouble, now go and have some fun. There will be a job soon, and I'll know that you'll be up for it, oh, better take this as well."

Johnny pushed a wad of notes into Harry's hand and passed him a brown canvas bag. Royle nodded and got back in the car. He purposely didn't look at the money, instead just shoved it into his inside coat pocket. The bag he dropped on the passenger side. The bag made a dull thud as it connected with the floor of the vehicle. The other car pulled away quickly, and Harry fired up his own car's engine and headed off towards the bright lights of Soho.