The Walking Stick (23 page)

Tomorrow is Saturday, and it won’t happen.

The weekend an oasis in the winter, two rare January days, sunny, mild, windless. We drove down to the coast – I drove most of the way – and saw people sitting in
deck chairs on promenades. Also an oasis in our private life. We forgot the thing. We parked on Beachy Head and took the hood down and ate sandwiches of chicken fillets and ham and shared a big
bottle of beer, and there was a lot of friendly talk and laughter.

Although we’d been together months now, our talk didn’t often deal with our past lives. He seemed afraid of mine, perhaps because he thought recalling it separated me from him again,
broke the ‘spell’. When I asked him about his he usually shrugged it off with a word or two, like someone getting rid of an uncomfortable coat. One heard nothing of his brothers;
vaguely I knew one was on the railways, the other in a shop, nothing more.

After we’d finished eating we got out and walked to the edge, looked over the white chalky cliff to a sea pale as porcelain. A seagull drifted here and there; no horizon existed; the sun
shone soundlessly; voices echoed in a void.

He said: ‘Let’s not go back tonight.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Let’s stay at some hotel. Let’s see if they’ll take us without luggage. We’ll pretend you’re an heiress and I’ve run off with you. A ward in chancery,
that’s what they call it.’

I laughed. ‘We’ve nothing. No night things. Not a toothbrush.’

‘We can buy toothbrushes, if you’re that fussy. Let’s stay at some little pub in a village. With blackened oak beams and open fires with iron kettles and a big double bed that
you have to climb into.’

‘They always charge extra for double beds.’

‘Well, I’ll pay. It’ll be worth it.’

I had a queer feeling in the back of my knees. ‘Let’s be practical . . .’

‘What for? It’s Sunday tomorrow. I want to wake up in a village where the church bells are ringing. Maybe I’ll even go to church. Come with me?’

‘If you want, yes.’

‘Even after the double bed?’

‘You’re leading me astray.’

‘Fabulous thought. How astray can we get?’

I took his hand. ‘Let’s enjoy the sun.’

Surprisingly, we found what he wanted, a small village hotel six or seven miles inland from Seaford. One bedroom free and that a sort of attic, with tiny windows and beams dangerously low, and a
floor that creaked and sloped, and a cistern that gurgled at intervals through the night. But it had the double bed. Leigh said we were having trouble with our car and paid for the room in advance,
and no questions were asked. He insisted on signing the register as Mr and Mrs James Smith.

And we slept naked, and in the night I woke up to find his head heavy on my breast, and in the morning we sipped tea and listened to the sparrows chirping in the sun.

He said lazily: ‘This room reminds me of the one I had when I was a kid. It was the top room of a house overlooking Clapham Common. We just had the top floor.’

‘I thought you lived in Swindon.’

‘So we did – later. But we were a couple of years in London when I was a kid. Good job we moved.’

‘Why?’

‘I got in with a crowd. That’s when the good old JD began.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Juvenile Delinquency. Not that it amounted to much. I’ve told you, I’m a stinking coward when it comes to the law. A couple of coppers round at the house, and a probation
officer puts the fear of God into you. No more breaking windows or pinching sweets in supermarkets. So I stayed straight, s’welp me, until I met you.’

‘I don’t think that’s fair.’

‘No, it isn’t. Forget I spoke.’

Later we actually did go to church, Leigh in the rather hi-fi clothes he still sometimes wore in spite of my influence. I was far more at sea in the service than he was. He found the place in
the Prayer Book and all that. Douglas and Erica, being unbelievers, had done nothing to educate their children in what they considered an obsolete superstition.

Leigh knew the hymns, too, and sang away in a lusty voice that wasn’t very musical but kept in tune. Afterward we all filed out into the respectable sunlight among the yew trees and the
grey-faced gravestones. ‘Cremation’s so much more hygienic,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but it’s too sudden. I’d rather rot.’

Back to the hotel and off. We found a shop open and bought some food and picnicked at Birling Gap. The sun was blazing still but the air was colder, the brief spring nearly spent.

I said: ‘Let’s not go back at all.’

He stared at me and laughed. ‘Not at all?’

‘Let’s go away somewhere, somewhere else to live.’

‘Now who’s being unpractical?’

‘It can happen. Douglas told me of a doctor in London who suddenly resigned, changed his name, left his things to be sold up, and emigrated with his wife to France.’

‘But he had money, I’ll bet.’

‘Oh, he had some. But they did work in France.’

‘You want us to go to France? Or Spain? Just like this? With an old motorcar and two tooth brushes?’

I sighed. ‘When is Jack paying you the three hundred pounds?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘I’d rather go without that than stay.’

‘Just decamp, eh? With the booty. And leave the debts. Where’s your passport?’

‘At home.’

‘So’s mine.’

We drove home reluctantly, slowly, with the returning traffic. A thin haze of early fog hung over London. When we got back to our studio you couldn’t see the other bank of the river. After
only a day of absence the studio smelled dank. I drew the curtains, shivering slightly. He noticed it and asked me if I’d caught a chill. I shook my head, because it wasn’t that sort of
chill.

The bright day is done and we are for the dark.

The jewellery sale on 23 February, which was a Thursday, would be the most important one of the year so far as our firm was concerned. The Plouth diamonds were to be sold, and
the Maharajah of Gwalpur had sent a collection of emeralds of exceptional quality. Around these ‘big’ offerings had been built a conglomerate of ninety-six lots ranging from pearl studs
that might fetch £30 to diamond bracelets and rings that could go for two or three thousand apiece. The sale would start on the morning of the twenty-third at 10 a.m., and John Hallows would
conduct it. During the preceding weeks much of the jewellery would come to accumulate in our safe, but such things as the Gwalpur emeralds would not arrive until three days before, when they would
be put on view. The catalogues were sent out on 1 February.

All this sounds exceptional, but of course it was not. We had four jewellery sales a year, and any number of others in which objects of great value in themselves or of great value to collectors
were deposited with us and remained in our cellars or strongroom until sold. The normal precautions, as even Jack Foil admitted, were adequate for all occasions.

The first week in February passed with no word spoken. Leigh said nothing; I said nothing; I caught no glimpse of the others. Perhaps it was all abandoned. Perhaps it was all arranged.

I had a card from Sarah inviting us to dinner on the twelfth, the Sunday evening, at her flat. The evening before, we went out as usual for a drink, and in the smoky noisy atmosphere of the pub
I could stand it no longer and asked Leigh for news. Apart from variations of expression he really had three faces; the young, open, boyish one, which I saw most often in love, and loved best; the
petulant, explosive, tormented one, without patience and without malice, which was rooted in his painting, his work, his drive to create; and the narrow, cautious one, eye-on-the-door,
whisper-behind-your-hand, money envious, the one most rarely seen – at least by me.

This settled on him now as he said: ‘Must you know?’

‘If you’re in it – yes.’

‘We’re going to have a shot on the twenty-second.’

‘How?’

‘“Baker” Evans has come in with us.’

‘D’you mean he’s on at that time?’

‘Yes, he comes on on the Friday before. It’s a lucky break.’

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. The band was playing:
I’m Shy, Mary Ellen, I’m Shy!

‘Well?’

‘Well, that’s it.’

‘How are you going to do it?’

‘You’d best not know.’

‘I think I’ve a right to.’

‘Yeh . . . I know you have. But why ask?’

‘I want to know.’

‘Well . . . we go in at 2.30 a.m. on the Thursday morning. Evans switches off the two alarm circuits in the director’s office and opens the back door for us – the one in Bruton
Yard. We then overpower him, give him a cosh on the head and tie him up. First thing the other man knows – that’ll be a bloke called McCarthy – we’re in his room and
it’s four to one. We tie him up, break the strongroom and blow the safe. We reckon about two hours at the outside.’

‘What about the telephoning?’

‘Evans will know the code word. The man at the other end won’t know it’s one of us speaking.’

‘And the clock alarms?’

‘They’re all controlled by the two switches.’

It was just a two-piece band in here: piano and drums, playing popular numbers of older days. Sometimes customers joined in the singing. It was all good-tempered, friendly, warm.

‘How can you get into the strongroom?’

‘It shouldn’t be difficult. Ted Sandymount got down there the other day pretending to lose his way. It’s a glorified cellar.’

‘And the safe?’

‘It’s about fourteen years old; we know that by the number you gave us; and there are ways of getting in.’

‘Did you say there were four of you?’

‘Yes, the other’s the expert on safes.’

‘Is he the leader, the organizer you spoke about?’

‘Not really.’

‘Did he come to our house in November?’

Leigh shifted uneasily.

‘Leave it, Deb. D’you want another drink?’

‘No, thanks. Let’s go home.’

When we got to Sarah’s the next night, Philip of course was there, and Virginia Fisher and a young man she had recently acquired, a friend of Philip’s who was
reading law. I admired two new pieces of Georgian silver Sarah had bought. For dinner we had terrine, and a pheasant with onion stuffing, and a Stilton. (I missed the better cheeses; Leigh cared
only for Cheddar.)

Other things I had missed, I found tonight. Philip had the voice for a barrister; deepish, clear, educated but not affected. The others all spoke well. Like coming back to my own people. For the
first time I felt a sense of homesickness. Even the food was different from the snack meals we so often made do with. The wine was decanted, tasted extra good.

Of course I should have known that this leisurely gracious meal was really a far greater exception in the life of an overworked and underpaid young doctor like Sarah than it was in my own, but
this didn’t register. My feelings all stemmed from one thing: I didn’t want to go through the next few weeks.

After dinner the talk ran near what was in my mind. It was Leigh’s doing; but probably he couldn’t forget it either. The other man, called Bingham, said something about the criminal
law he was reading, and Leigh took him up on it, in the way he had once talked to me, said he thought the whole system was pie-eyed, because the punishments were wrong. It was time something was
done to put things right in the book. Was anything being done?

Bingham laughed: ‘I’m not a law reformer; I’m just a law-learner. I can tell you more about the Romans than the Angles just now.’

Philip said slowly: ‘Oh, there’s always room for improvement. But it’s not as easy as you think, Leigh.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, this distinction you draw between the crime that’s anti-human and the crime that’s anti-property. A lot of people do, but—’

‘Well, isn’t it right to do that?’

‘No. Not altogether.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Well, to begin on the simplest level, if a man goes in for crime and decides all his activities shall be against property, how does he keep on the right side of the line he’s drawn?
He may never intend to hurt a fly, but supposing he’s doing a job and is on the point of success, and then somebody unexpectedly gets in his way – does he meekly say, “What a
pity, I’ve failed,” and drop his loot and run? Or does he try to put the inconvenient person out of the way? This was the problem of the people who did the great train robbery. One man
had the guts to stand up against them, and he was dangerously injured and his health impaired for life. Yet the newspapers led the way in admiring those criminals for their cleverness, not
condemning them for their brutality.’

‘The judge did plenty of that,’ Virginia said. ‘Thirty years was a bit thick, I must say. That’s where I do feel the law goes wrong.’

Leigh smiled at me. I didn’t smile back.

Philip said: ‘People said at the time that the sentences were a psychological mistake, but I doubt it—’

‘You think they were just?’

‘They’re still open to revision; you have to remember that. But people in the know thought the judge was right.’

‘Why?’ said Leigh. ‘This is just what I’m talking about.
Why?
’

‘Because crime at this moment in our history has to be
seen not to pay
. We’re on a knife-edge in this country at the moment. You may think I’m talking like this because
of my father, what he is; but it isn’t just that.’

Leigh put a lump of half-melted sugar in his mouth with his coffee spoon. ‘You have to admit, though, the really clever men were not all that bad. They’re too
smart
to be; it
doesn’t pay them—’

Philip said: ‘Until about fifteen years ago there wasn’t any organized crime in this country. Not really organized, planned, financed, run as a business. So it was easy to deal with.
The police dealt with it. A few criminals got away but most got caught. It wasn’t a serious problem, a problem that could get out of hand. But now it can. And it’s on the verge of doing
just that.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The sex criminal, the man who knocks an old woman down for her handbag – all that – they’re just individuals – maybe worse as individuals but not a danger to the
community as a whole. But in the last five years in this country we’ve come up against the real thing – which is the menace of big business. When big money comes in – finance
– where crime is on the verge of becoming respectable, as it has done in the United States, then look out. This is the terrifying danger. How was that great train robbery financed? Perhaps
from the London Airport robbery of the year before. In any event, there was whacks of money behind it. And where there’s money there’s danger. We’ve always reckoned that about 90
per cent of all people in this country are honest. That’s to say, if someone offered them a bribe of £10 – or perhaps even £100 – they’d refuse to listen. But
what if the bribe were increased to £1000 or even £10,000? How many people are honest then? And even if they want to be honest, there’s all the other pressures that can be
applied. Once crime becomes big business, run by apparently respectable people for respectable people, there’s no end. You see, you see . . .’ Philip leaned forward. ‘Jock Bingham
here, is going to be a solicitor. He’ll do well for himself, I’m sure, as most of them do. But if there’s enough money, enough lawyers will be corrupted to defend shady clients on
knowingly false evidence. If that becomes the case, then it becomes really much easier to teach the shady clients how
not
to get caught, than bothering to have to fake up the evidence to
defend them. Then some of the police can be bought. Who knows that judges – a few judges – can’t be bought, if the price is big enough? This is the beginning of the corruption of
all civil life. It’s been proved so in the United States – thanks chiefly to the mistake of prohibition. Once the corruption is there it’s the devil’s own job to uproot.
That’s why the handbag snatcher is not so important, and that’s why our laws are not so wrongly slanted as you think, Leigh.’