Dream On (43 page)

‘But you said the police had—'

‘You just ignore it. Carry on as usual. I'll nip down in a minute and see to 'em.'

‘How—'

‘Look, I've already straightened their governor out. He's getting more than a fair wage off me.' He shrugged. ‘But they'll be after a few quid for themselves. It's the way the world turns, innit? A bit of bunce and everyone's happy.'

Ginny reluctantly allowed him to help her up on to one of the bar-stools. ‘So why are they—'

Again he interrupted her. ‘They're just flexing their muscles. Right, Flora?'

‘He's right, Miss Martin.' Flora, now comfortably back in his rightful place, had relaxed. He nodded calmly. ‘They like to put on a bit of a show, don't they. They'll be lurking out there until someone goes down and gives them a nice little drink, then they'll stick it in their bin and disappear like nothing's happened. Then go and bother someone else.'

Saunders lowered his head and kissed Ginny gently on the forehead.

She smiled up at him. It wasn't often he made any public show of affection, but that kiss – maybe it was just a peck – he'd given her right there, in front of everyone.

He chucked her playfully under the chin and was just about to signal to Johnno to join him, when an almighty crash, followed by the sound of wood shattering and splintering, reverberated up from the hall below.

Saunders twisted away from Ginny as though an electric charge had pulsed through his body. ‘What the fuck was that?' he yelled, barrelling across to the double doors that opened on to the main staircase.

As he flew down to the entrance hall, four minders tight on his tail, the whole club was erupting around him.

Someone in one of the downstairs rooms shouted, ‘It's a raid!' and it was as though someone had fired a starting pistol. Men in evening dress were scrambling over tables, sending chairs and glasses flying, not caring whom they knocked out of their way as they raced towards the emergency doors and the fire escape at the back of the building. Police raids were all very well when you heard of one of your pals in the City being arrested in an illegal casino or a bawdy house, but they weren't the sort of thing you wanted to happen to you. And the girls were just as frenzied, screaming and scrapping as they chased after the men, not from fear of being left behind to the mercy of the law, but of losing out on their promised tips for the evening.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Saunders saw a young-looking plain-clothes man he'd never seen before, calmly stepping over the wreckage of what had once been a painstakingly restored Georgian front door. He was flanked by six more mature uniformed men – all of whom Saunders knew very well.

As Saunders stood there, panting from the exertion, trying to understand what was going on, his bewildered gaze passed from one officer to the next. The older men's faces were glowing as red as the sunset on the hand-painted mural that covered the wall behind them, but the younger man, apparently in charge of the operation, seemed entirely, and arrogantly, unmoved by the situation.

Saunders took another look at the shattered woodwork,
his
shattered woodwork, snatched up one of the heavy, mahogany hall chairs and lunged with it at the plain-clothes man. If his minders hadn't stepped in to restrain him, Saunders might well have found himself on a charge of attempted murder; this particular policeman happened to be a stickler for the letter of the law.

‘Temper, temper, sir,' said the young officer, seemingly unmoved by the situation.

‘Who the hell d'you think you are?' Saunders snarled, his anger giving him the strength to shake himself free from his minders' vice-like grip. ‘Fabian of the fucking Yard?'

‘Detective Sergeant Chisholm, actually.'

‘Billy?' Ginny asked from half-way down the stairs. ‘What's going on?'

Without taking his eyes off him, Saunders barked out his orders at Ginny, while stabbing his finger into the face of the now smiling DS Chisholm. ‘Get upstairs, Ginny. Now. And get Millson on the blower. This
little boy
has got some explaining to do.'

Within half an hour, Saunders was sitting at a table with Detective Inspector Douglas Millson in the second-floor bar of the club.

Apart from the minders and Flora, who were all downstairs doing their best to patch up the front door, and Ginny, who was behind the bar pouring the drinks, the place was now empty.

‘I couldn't believe it, Doug, I'm telling you. That wet-behind-the-ears little bastard was actually threatening me. Saying he was gonna send the zombies round with the kiddie wagon. The silly bleeder was even going on about white slavery. White slavery?'

Ginny put two triple scotches on the table. ‘Zombies?' she asked quietly.

‘WPCs,' Millson explained with a weary sigh. ‘They go out looking for under-age tarts. Then they round 'em up and send 'em off to the kids' home.' He spread his hands in bewilderment. ‘What's wrong with the bloke? I know you don't have no shit like that in here.' He grimaced as he realised what he'd said and bobbed his head in apology in Ginny's direction. ‘Excuse my French.'

Saunders tossed back his drink as though it were buttermilk. ‘Everyone knows this place is kosher. Except for the spieler downstairs, of course. And everyone gets more than his fair cut outta that.' He shook his head. ‘I don't understand. What's his problem? I mean, she won't even tolerate me showing a few blue films in a private room. Will you, girl? That's how straight this place is.' He held up his glass for Ginny to refill it. ‘I'm telling you, Doug, what with this and with all these other blokes causing trouble, I'm gonna get out of this lark as soon as I can. But in the meantime, just get him off my back, will you?'

Douglas Millson raised his glass and winked. ‘As good as done, Billy. As good as done.'

The next morning Saunders woke up early.

As had become almost his routine, he hadn't bothered to go home to his own flat, but had stayed the night in Ginny's bed. ‘I've made us a cup o' tea,' he said, clanking the spoon in the saucer so that she'd wake up.

Ginny levered herself up on to her elbows, squinting against the bright April sunshine that was flooding the room with its golden light. ‘What time is it?'

‘Nearly nine.'

‘Billy!' She flopped back on the pillows.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Come on, drink this and you'll feel better.'

She dragged herself up into a sitting position and leaned back against the padded velvet headboard. With her eyes tightly closed, she held out her hand for the cup.

‘Spit it out. What's worrying you?' she said, after she'd taken a mouthful of tea. ‘Is it that business last night that's getting you all worked up?'

‘You know me too well, Ginny,' he said, touching her tangled blonde curls. ‘But it's not just that.'

Her eyes flicked open. ‘So, what is it?'

‘It's the whole business of security. How could that have happened last night? I'm paying through the nose and then some little runt—'

‘Calm down, Billy, you sorted it all out with Millson, didn't you?'

‘Yeah, but that ain't the half of it. There's more of them Maltese moving into Shoreditch every day. Coming over here on them assisted passages, and—'

‘I'm sorry, Billy, but I won't listen to you talking like that.' Ginny slapped her cup down on to the bedside table, not caring that she spilled the tea in the saucer. ‘I've made myself clear with all the staff and I want you to be clear too. I won't have no colour bar in this club. I treat people the way I find them.'

‘And so do I. But we ain't talking about some Maltese geezer coming in for a few drinks and a bit of a cuddle with one of the girls. We're talking about gangs of 'em. All trying to muscle in on other people's territory. On
my
territory.'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘Millson put me straight last night. They're setting up a nice little network for 'emselves round these parts. A bit of gambling here. A drinking club there. Whores all over the place. They're getting more and more confident. Too confident. And I don't like it. It's attracting too much attention. That's why that young copper was round here sticking his beak in. He wants to earn himself a few points, get a chance of promotion under his belt, so he come where the action is.'

‘But surely—'

‘But, nothing. It's all getting silly. Out of control. This turf's gonna be carved up like bleed'n' allotments the way this mob's carrying on. At least around Soho you know where you are with the likes of Albert Dimes and Jack Spot. But these little bastards . . .'

Saunders stood up and began pacing around the room. ‘I'm glad I listened to you about not running toms from this gaff. You was right about that. Even if it was for the wrong reason. At least that's one bit of aggravation I ain't got to worry about: Maltese ponces fighting me over territory.'

He pulled on the navy silk dressing-gown that Ginny had bought him – a gift that was as much a wordless confirmation that she wanted him to stay with her, as it was an actual Christmas present – and lit himself a cigarette.

‘This is all getting to be too much bother.' He walked over to the window and stared down at the alley below, inhaling deeply on his cigarette. ‘After the war, even
during
the bloody war, it used to be so easy. All the competition you had was the tuppenny-ha'penny spivs running their black-market scams out of the docks and maybe keeping a few pathetic old toms they could scare into working for them. They acted like tough men, but they was never no real trouble. They still ain't, their sort. You only have to shout boo! and they're running away with their tails between their legs. But these new blokes. Some of 'em sound right nutters.'

Ginny swung her legs from under the covers and went to stand next to him. ‘So you meant it then, Billy, what you said to Millson yesterday.'

He turned round to face her. ‘Meant what, babe?'

‘That you wanna get out of this business.'

‘Yeah, I meant it all right. I've been doing a lot of thinking, figuring ways of getting out of the clubs.' Saunders stretched his arms wide. ‘Look at me, I'm forty-five years old. I don't wanna spend the rest of me life living off tithes from poxy little dice games, worrying about bar staff fiddling the tills and whether some Maltese slag's gonna chuck a petrol bomb through me window 'cos he fancies taking me clubs over.'

Ginny frowned. ‘So what do you want to do?'

‘I'm gonna expand the property side.'

Ginny sat down on the dressing-table stool and stared into her lap. ‘I see,' she said quietly, then considered for a moment before continuing. ‘Look, Billy, I know this is just a business to you, and you probably think I'm a right naive so-and-so at times, but this is the way I earn my living now. So if you are gonna close the club, could you give me a bit of notice, so's I can sort something out for myself?'

Saunders stubbed out his cigarette and pulled her to him. ‘That's what I like about you. You're a good girl caught up in a rotten world. But you're decent. There's no edge to you. You say what you think. Not like the rest of them.' He stroked her hair off her face and smiled tenderly down at her. ‘I'll make sure you're looked after, Ginny. Whatever happens, you're my girl now.'

She reached up and took his face in her hands and kissed him softly on the mouth.

He twisted round, threw himself on to the bed and pulled her down on top of him.

‘I reckon I could eat a bit of breakfast after that,' Billy grinned, slapping Ginny playfully on her backside. He rolled away from her and grabbed his discarded dressing-gown from the floor. ‘Get me energy back.'

‘What d'you fancy?' Ginny asked, pulling the covers up to her chin and flapping her lashes at him.

‘You can get that idea right out of your head!' He pulled the covers off her again and tossed them on to the floor, leaving her lying there naked. ‘Mind you,' he said slowly, ‘on second thoughts . . .'

He had just thrown his dressing-gown back on the floor, when a loud bashing started on the repaired front door.

‘What the bloody hell . . .' He looked at the bedside clock. ‘Half ten. Why don't Flora get it?' He dragged his dressing-gown back on.

‘You'd better get something on and all, Gin,' he said over his shoulder as he strode out to the flat door. ‘Who knows who it'll be this time?'

‘Flora! You there?' he hollered down the stairs.

‘Yes, guv,' Ginny heard him shout back.

‘Then why ain't you getting it?'

‘I am, I'm going.'

‘If you need me, gimme a shout. I'm just gonna get me strides on.'

Before Saunders had the chance even to locate his trousers, let alone put them on, Flora, puffing like a steam engine, was calling to him from the flat doorway. ‘Sorry, guv, I couldn't stop her. It's that Shirley Truman, she says she's gotta see you. I told her—'

Shirley didn't give Flora the chance to explain what he had told her. She shoved him out of the way and stumbled into the flat, rushing angrily from room to room until she found Ginny and Saunders.

They stared at the wild-haired, scruffy-looking, middle-aged woman who stood before them, hardly able to believe that it was Shirley. She had never been exactly beautiful, but she had always been elegantly dressed and well-presented, even when she'd had a few. That had been her big attraction for the type of punters who got a thrill from doing something naughty with a girl who could play it a bit on the posh side.

‘Shirley,' Ginny said, when she'd managed to get over the shock, ‘it's not even opening time.'

‘Don't you start preaching to me,' sneered Shirley. She staggered sideways, hitting her shin hard against the dressing-table. ‘Shit!'