The Talisman

Chapter one

Two weeks after the burial of his father, Alex Stubbs was sent to a remand home, Rochester House, a large Victorian building with a six-foot wall and another six feet of barbed wire on top. Not exactly a prison, yet it still had the feel of one, and for those boys sent there Rochester House was anything but homely. They all wore grey shorts and socks, with navy blue pullovers over white vests, and black plimsolls. There were strict rules and regulations. Rochester was an assessment point, a halfway house until the boys went before the ‘beak’ to be sentenced for their crimes. It was therefore imperative that they obey the strict regime. Many of them would, after assessment, be released, but those with a past record would be sentenced and transferred to the reform schools.

The boys’ hair was cut short to avoid nits spreading, and they all smelt of carbolic from the showers, and of mothballs from their institutional sweaters. Their ages ranged from ten to sixteen. Alex, being fifteen, was placed in a dormitory with the older boys, all of whom were already hardened to reform school life, having been in and out of institutions since they were ten.

Alex was terrified, but he never showed it. His fear made him silent, a loner. His manners, his gentleness and his obvious intelligence set him apart. He was a grammar-school boy, and that was something in itself. During classes, Alex soon learned not to answer all the questions put to them by the teacher. Any boy standing out as ‘different’ or ‘special’ would be tormented. He learned fast, even going so far as to make deliberate spelling mistakes in his essays. At grammar school he had been at the top of his class in maths, but at Rochester House he made sure he achieved only average marks.

The boys had little or no privacy. Throughout their waking hours they were watched and monitored by the warders. The head warder of the school, Major Kelly, was a threat to all the boys living under him. If they didn’t behave, the staff would report them to ‘The Major’, whose name was enough to instil order.

Even at night Alex could find no comfort in sleep. He tried to blank out from his mind the terrible pictures of his dying father wrapped in his mother’s arms, tried not to hear the sounds of his mother’s weeping. He willed himself once more to conjure the dream he had dreamed when he had first been held in jail. The dream that had given him peace, had comforted and cleansed him.

In the dream Alex had been running up a mountain bathed in sunlight, lush green grass beneath his feet, and above him a brilliant blue sky. It was surreal and yet tangible, and running he had felt free, heading towards the very peak of the towering, magnificent mountain. Then he heard the thunder of hooves, ringing and echoing around the mountainside. Still he ran on, filled with joy, breathing the sweet, clean air... and then he saw, breaking through the clouds with his raised hooves, a black, shining stallion galloping towards him. Astride the horse sat a man with flowing, blue-black hair, at one with the beast. Alex lifted his arms to the man, calling to him as if he represented his own free spirit. The rider was his father, he was Freedom... ‘Don’t go, don’t go,’ Alex cried. But the rider had passed by, into the clouds, which closed like a grey curtain behind him.

Alex had recaptured his dream, but now it turned into a nightmare. There was no rider, no stallion, just the suffocating, grey cloud enveloping him. He was awakened by his own cry, his body drenched in sweat. He pulled the rough blanket around him, shivering now, afraid his cry had been heard by the other boys in the dormitory. He was not alone. Around him he could hear the muffled sobs of boys as frightened as himself hiding beneath their sheets, all of them afraid of tomorrow.

Fights broke out in class, and in the yard at recreation time. Bullies, already hardened to the system, took delight in tormenting first offenders.

Alex watched closely and remained apart, ignoring taunts, ignoring any incitements to argument. He had heard the whispers behind his back. Somehow the boys had learned why he was there, that he had committed murder. This gave him some standing among them, and a slight aura of menace.

Wally Simpson was the same age as Alex but only half his size, which earned him the nickname ‘the Shrimp’. He had the next bed to Alex. A cheeky, cocky little chap, he took a lot of beatings from the bigger boys, but he always fought back, if not with his fists then with his sharp wits.

Often during the long, lonely nights Wally would try to make contact with Alex. ‘Psssst, hey, Alex, can yer ‘ear me, mate? Yer got anyone visitin’ yer? Psssst...’

Alex feigned sleep, facing the wall, glad he was in the last bed.

‘Is it true what they say? You in fer murder? Alex...?’

With one eye on the door, Wally slipped out of his bed, crept over to Alex’s and tapped him on the shoulder. Alex whipped round, and Wally stepped back sharply.

‘Stay away from me, stay away.’

‘All right, mate, only offerin’ ter be friendly — sod ya!’

Alex drew his blanket over his head and snuggled down. He wished his brother, Edward, was with him, wished it was all a nightmare, but the stink of the blanket brought it home to him that this was reality. No matter how hard it was, he would do just as his mother had told him.

Alex’s mother, Evelyne, had come to the police station on the morning after Freedom’s death. Only twenty-four hours had passed since the murder, and yet she seemed to have aged. Her son was deeply shocked by the change in her. Evelyne had always been thin, but her tall, angular frame had never stooped before. She had always stood upright, her big-boned hands strong, a firmness and strength to her that had set her apart from an early age, even in the small Welsh mining village where she had been born. She had never been known as a beautiful woman; her cheekbones were too prominent, her face appeared carved rather than moulded, and her face had always lacked youthfulness. But her dark green eyes, set off by wild red hair — her ‘crowning glory’ as her mother used to say — made one turn to look again. She was striking, and with that hair one knew she had a fiery temper. She could be disdainful, even arrogant, when she wanted, but when she smiled that fierceness disappeared, and then she was simply lovely.

It was this picture of her that Alex had held in his mind since the murder, the face he loved so much and was so desperate to see again.

The twenty-four hours since Freedom’s death were etched in her face. The brightness was gone from her eyes, her shoulders were bent and her hands constantly fumbled with the strap of her worn handbag. He reached out to hold her, but she stepped back, hugging the bag to her chest. There was no colour to her, she was drab and empty, and even her lovely, lilting voice had changed. When she spoke she sounded hoarse... he could hardly believe that this was his mother; all her strength had seeped away.

‘I’ve a lawyer. He says for you to tell him everything. They’ll send you to Rochester House. You’ll be evaluated there, so it will be up to you, son. Do whatever they tell you, and don’t mix with the other boys — keep yourself apart. When it’s over we’ll start afresh, you and me — when you come out.’

Although distraught with worry for her, he was so upset himself he couldn’t think how to comfort her. She continued to hug her handbag, hunched in the chair.

‘I’ll visit. I know the truth, I know it was Edward, I know, but you tell the lawyers what you have to.’

Alex bit his lip so hard he almost drew blood. ‘How’s Edward, Ma? How’s he taking it?’

Her face twisted, her mouth turned down. ‘It’s just you and me now, Alex, just you and me. Don’t ever mention his name, not yet. I can’t stand the sound of his name.’

He choked back the tears and his lips trembled. There was an awful, heartbreaking silence, then he remembered his beloved dog, Rex. His father had bought him the puppy one Christmas. He leaned forward. ‘Will you take care of Rex for me, Ma? Tell him I’ll be home soon to take him for walks.’

Evelyne shook her head and made a strange, small moaning sound. Then she pushed her chair back and walked away, without touching him, without kissing him. When she finally spoke, there was the strange hoarseness in her voice again.

‘Rex followed the ambulance, after your Da, followed it until he dropped. They said his paws were bloody. God knows how many miles he must have followed... He loved him so, he loved... He’s not come home, nobody’s at home.’

The warder opened the door to let her out, and Alex knew she was crying. He shouted after her.

‘Mum! Mama! I’m sorry... I’m sorry!’

The warder had to prise Alex away from the door. He was as gentle as possible; the boy seemed so young, so distraught.

‘Your Ma’s gone now, lad. Now quieten down, don’t go making a fuss.’

Alex flung himself down on his bunk and cried his heart out. He cried for his father, he wept for his beloved dog, and he sobbed for his mother until he lay, face down, head buried in the pillow, exhausted. Then he whispered over and over, ‘Eddie... Eddie? Why did you do it, Eddie? Why?’

At weekends the boys had more recreation time. They could play football games in the yard, and billiards in the main hall. Parents arrived to visit their sons in shifts, as they could not all be accommodated at once. They were led into the dining hall, which doubled as the visiting room. The boys sat on one side of the long row of tables, parents on the other.

‘Alex Stubbs to the dining hall!’

Alex ran from the yard into the hall. He had to search almost the entire row of parents before he found his mother near the far end. She wore her best brown coat and hat, and sat erect with her usual handbag and a paper carrier bag on her lap.

‘Hello, Ma, everything all right, is it?’

She held out her hand and gripped his tight, lifted it to her lips and kissed it. Alex looked covertly around, not wanting the other lads to see.

‘You’re eating all right, are you? I’ve brought a bag of fruit and nuts for you.’ She passed him the bag in which she’d also put a chocolate bar and a few shillings in case he needed them. She sighed and told him that Mrs Harris’ youngest, Dora, was giving her a terrible time, getting up to all sorts of tricks. ‘She’s out all hours in high heels and little else, according to her mother. She’s been nothing but trouble, that one.’

Alex enjoyed her gossip, not wanting to talk about anything serious.

‘I’ll be here next weekend. You behave yourself and there’ll be no reform school — that’s what the social worker said — so be a good boy. They’re just assessing you in here, that’s all, then they’ll let you come home!’

Alex murmured that he always behaved himself, and had no intention of doing anything else. The bell rang for the end of the visit, and Alex asked quickly if Evelyne had heard from Edward. She flushed and pulled at her hat. He knew she was trying not to let him see the tears in her eyes.

‘Edward’s just fine, thanks to you, and he knows he’s got to make this up to you, he knows.’

Alex wanted to ask her if he could write to his brother, but the warders were already ordering the boys out of the hall. He stood up and gave Evelyne a wink, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and strolled out, head high. He kept it up right to the door, then turned; she could see the tears on his cheeks before he hurried out.

Evelyne tried to stand, but had to sit down again. It had been so hard, so hard not to wrap him in her arms. He had looked so tall, so thin, and his knees were red raw. He had just got into long trousers at grammar school, and now they had put him back into shorts. If he was suffering, he made no mention of it, only in his beautiful blue eyes could she see her son’s fear. She almost decided to go to the police and tell the truth, but then if it wasn’t Alex behind bars it would be Edward. At least for Alex it wouldn’t be long, she told herself.

Later that night, Alex was sitting in a corner of the games room reading a book. A snooker match was in progress, and a group of rowdy lads was arguing about whose turn it was. Kenny Baker, a big sixteen-year-old and the self-appointed ‘guv’nor’ of Rochester House, sauntered in. As he passed the snooker table he picked up one of the balls ‘the Shrimp’ was just about to take a shot at. He tossed the ball in the air, caught it, and held it just out of Wally’s reach. He turned to Alex. ‘Hey, you, skinny Jim, wanna game of snooker wiv me?’

‘You give us the ball back, Kenny, or I’ll stick this cue up your arse. Way I hears it, that’s just what yer like.’ With three boys grouped around him, Wally was full of bravado, but he shrank as they moved quickly to avoid trouble.

‘Well, ain’t yer got a big gob on yer fer a shrimp? Wanna say that again, eh? You wanna say it again?’

Wally sprang around the table, and tried to wheedle his way out of it. ‘I were just jokin’, Kenny, honest!’

Whack! The cue came down across Wally’s shoulders. Next minute Kenny had him lying across the table, and was pushing him down, trying to stuff a billiard ball into Wally’s mouth. None of the other boys did anything to help. Alex watched for a moment, then went back to reading his book. The screams and scuffles got louder as Wally struggled.

‘Leave him alone.’

Kenny turned round and gave Alex a nasty, sickly smile. ‘Well, well, the beanpole can talk! Well I never, yer got yerself a champion, Wally...’

Wally slunk away from the table and closer to Alex. Kenny leered at the boys behind him, keeping a watch on the doors. ‘You fink yer boss around ‘ere, do yer, Stubbs?’

The printed page blurred before Alex’s eyes, but he refused to look up, pretending to continue reading. The next moment the billiard cue cracked down on his knee. Slowly, he closed his book and stood up, as Wally danced around, his little fists up. ‘Come on, Alex, we can take ‘im. He finks ‘e’s so bleedin’ tough, we all know he’s only in ‘ere fer nickin’ shillings from ‘is granny’s gas meter...’

Alex stepped behind Wally, heading for the door. The boys on guard promptly shut it and stood in his way, arms folded. Pushing Wally aside, Kenny faced Alex, grabbing him by the arm. ‘Least I didn’t knife me old man,’ Kenny sneered. ‘That’s what you done, ain’t it, Stubbs? We all taken a beatin’ from our Dads, ain’t we, lads, but knockin’ off yer old man...’

Alex could feel the fury building inside him, and he spoke through clenched teeth, ‘Will you get away from the doors?’

He felt a blow on the back of his neck, and saw stars. He knew he couldn’t take Kenny on, he was so much bigger, so he had to get out. He tried to reach for the door handle, and one of the boys on guard pushed him. He sprawled backwards on the floor. Kenny kicked him hard in the ribs, so hard his breath caught and he coughed and spluttered.

Laughing, Kenny picked up Alex’s book and tossed it aside, then saw the brown paper bag. He tore it open and held the chocolate bar aloft. ‘Gor blimey, what else yer got in ‘ere, Stubbs?’

Alex picked up the pool cue and brought it crashing down on Kenny’s head, then held it crosswise and hit him in the throat. He was caught red-handed with the cue by the warders as they burst into the games room and saw Kenny screaming and clutching his throat.

‘Right, who started this? I want the truth, which boy started this?’

Kenny, Wally and the other witnesses remained silent. The Major rose to his feet behind his desk. He was a massive man, with a vast barrel chest and a waxed, grey moustache. His left arm was stiff, pressed to his side, and a brown leather glove covered his false steel hand. ‘Put them in the detention block... all of them. You’ll be a damned sight sorrier in there. Go on, get out of my sight.’

The warder ushered the boys out and returned to the office. The Major was standing at his desk, holding Alex’s report file. He flipped it open. ‘Keep your eye on Stubbs — not like the rest of ‘em, he’s a grammar-school boy, and cocky with it. When his mother comes next visit, ask her to see me, would you?’

The warden nodded and took out his notebook. He asked what Stubbs was in for, and the Major pursed his lips, then handed the file over. ‘As I said, he’s different. Stubbs knifed his own father. Dear God, what is the world coming to...’

Evelyne was dumbfounded when she was led to the Major’s office, and even more shocked when she was told of Alex’s behaviour. She told the Major over and over that it was very unlike Alex, he was always quiet, and when he showed her Alex’s school reports she was stunned. They were bad; although he wasn’t at the bottom of the class he was still well below his average at grammar school.

Although he felt sorry for Mrs Stubbs, the Major told her that as Alex had been causing trouble in the detention centre, he was denied future visiting privileges.

The next time Evelyne saw Alex was when he was led before the judge to hear what his fate would be.

‘Well, Stubbs,’ said the Beak, ‘you don’t appear to have learned your lesson. On three occasions you were warned to behave yourself. I therefore have no alternative but to send you to reform school for two years.’

Alex stood in the dock, white-faced, and could not bear to look at his mother. He could not believe his ears. Evelyne wept and hung her head, wiping her face with her handkerchief.

Letting herself into the empty house, Evelyne set her gas mask on the kitchen table and, too tired to build the fire, sat alone, sipping a cup of strong, sweet tea. The broken windows had been boarded up, and a large tarpaulin covered the bomb-damaged roof. She had always been a fighter, but now she was giving in. Overwhelmed with tiredness, she sat in the chair. She couldn’t bear to think of Edward, and now Alex had failed her, too.

The train thundered through the black tunnel, and Alex sat opposite Major Kelly, his haversack on his knee. The Major snored, his steel hand hanging limply at his side. Eventually the train pulled into Brighton.

Oakwood Hall was a gothic monster set in large grounds a few miles outside Brighton. Alex half-expected the place to be surrounded with barbed wire, but the manor house looked more like a grand hotel. As the taxi entered the gates, he stared around at the grassy fields and woods.

The hall was oak-beamed, Tudor style, with highly polished oak floors. They waited in the hall as a plump woman, wearing a starched white apron, came down the wide staircase. Alex was ushered in to meet his housemaster, Mr Taylor. He had a thick thatch of straw-coloured hair with a reddish tinge. His eyes were blue, piercing and icy, framed by round wire glasses. Alex could see that he was actually rather a handsome man, with full, red lips and wide cheekbones, very fresh-faced. When he rose from behind the desk he stood at least five foot eleven, well built with broad shoulders. He wore a crumpled tweed jacket and the fashionable, baggy grey flannels. They were held at the waist by a tie, which Alex was later informed was from Eton, where Mr Taylor had been educated.

Taylor gave Alex a quick, sharp lecture, a stamped envelope for his weekly letter home, and, just as Alex reached the office door, he snapped, ‘I run a tight ship, Stubbs. Just do as you’re told and we’ll get along. I’ll have a chat with you at a later date, run along.’

Lounging outside Mr Taylor’s office was Sidney Green. Dapper in his uniform, his hair slicked back with grease, he possessed a natural sharpness. ‘Well, that was short an’ sweet, must be yer lucky day. Name’s Sid, just follow me, I’m ter show yer the ropes... got all yer kit? Let’s get this over wiv, got a game of football. You play footer, do yer?’

Alex trailed behind Sid down endless corridors, until they came to a long dormitory. Sid barely paused for breath, keeping up a steady flow of chatter. He pointed out a small bed, a locker, and then sat swinging his legs impatiently while Alex unpacked. ‘Take yer gear, stick us in this ruddy uniform, makes yer sick. I got meself a nice suit just before they copped me — nice double-breasted with a crease in the pants yer could cut yer ‘and on, very tasty — got one of them new skinny-rib ties what’s all the fashion...’

Sid continued to talk all through the tour of Oakwood Hall, making rude remarks about every room, every teacher, until his black humour had Alex smiling. ‘Yer fink I’m jokin’, mate, but wait, just wait. You’ll see all I’m talkin’ is God’s truth. This place comes wiv the ark, no kiddin’.’

Alex never really chose Sid as his friend, Sid simply latched on. He was very glad in the end as Sid was so popular, forever joking, always ready with the hottest rumours. Oakwood Hall was a far cry from Rochester House, and Alex settled in fast. Lessons were treated seriously, though not by Sid. The only thing he really worked at was his football. On the pitch he could dribble the ball so fast he was at the far end and back again with no one to touch him. They became even more inseparable when Sid saw how fast Alex could run. ‘Hey, you an’ me, yer know, we could make it on the professional circuit — did I tell yer me Dad’s a professional? Yeah, he’s one hell of a football player. Soon’s I’m out, an’ the war’s over, I’m gonna try out fer Fulham.’

Evelyne’s weekend visits left Alex increasingly anxious about her. She seemed thinner and unnaturally quiet, but she always brought him a bagful of fruit and a chocolate bar. She gave him a half-crown to slip in his pocket and told him it might be difficult for her to come every week as it was such a long way from home. ‘You look well, son, it must be the sea air. Do you get out on to the beach at all?’

Alex told her they went for long walks every other day, and one of the masters took them on country rambles. He did look well, and he was filling out. He was taller, and his long trousers made him look very grown-up. To Alex, his mother seemed vacant, and her big, worn hands fiddled nervously with her handbag strap all the time.

‘You heard from our Eddie, then, Ma?’

Evelyne frowned slightly and said he’d written, but he was very probably busy with his studies. ‘I asked Mr Taylor and he said you were doing well here. So stay that way and I’ll have you home soon. That will be nice, just the two of us.’

Alex gave her a soft, shy smile, and she reached over and gently touched his face. She noticed his quick, embarrassed glance to see if any of the other lads were watching.

‘You’ve not been getting into any fights, the way you did at Rochester House?’

‘No, it’s not bad here, and I’m working well. They tell you I was top in maths? And then there’s the sports. I play a lot of football.’

She smiled, pleased, and he slid his hand across the table to hold hers. ‘I love you, Ma... love you with all my heart, I do.’

‘I know, son, I know... I never told you much about your grandfather, but, well, you’ve got more of a look of him than ever. It’s the dimple in your chin.’

Alex had rarely, if ever, heard her mention his grandfather. He couldn’t know that Evelyne had her reasons, deep, hidden reasons, and there was also the fact that there had never been a legal form of marriage between herself and Freedom.

The wardens began to open the doors, at any moment the bell would ring. ‘I’ll write to you, Mum.’

Evelyne appeared to be miles away, staring into space.

‘Mum, I know it’s hard for you to come and see me, so don’t put yourself out too much.’

Alex always had so much more to say when the bell rang. There was that emotional surge when he first saw her that made him go dumb. Then, just as he relaxed, it was time for her to go.

The wardens called ‘Time up’, and the boys had to file out before their parents left. Evelyne noticed that Alex had a manly swagger to him now. He was growing away from her and it tore her heart. When he turned and gave her that smile of his at the door, she fought to put on a brave face, giving him a little wave of her hand. Today more than ever she saw Hugh, her father, in her son — his curly hair, his blue eyes — then the pain swept over her and she could see Edward’s face, Edward her first-born, Freedom’s mirror, and by the time she boarded the train home she was drained, a terrible empty feeling inside her. She felt cut off, and desperately alone, the confusion of faces dead and gone haunting her...

Like all the boys at Oakwood, Alex felt deeply depressed after these visits. He jogged out to the football field in search of Sid, who appeared never to receive either letters or visitors. Seeing two younger boys kicking a ball around, he asked after Sid.

‘Matron took ‘im up to the sickroom, he’s had one of his turns.’

It was not until they were getting ready for bed that Alex saw Sid again. The matron brought him in, looking pale and drawn, and she had to help him into bed. The young lad next to Alex whispered, ‘They give ‘im somefink ter quiet ‘im down, drug ‘im...’

‘Why does his Dad never visit?’

The boy sniggered, ‘You don’t believe ‘is stories, do yer? He ain’t got no Dad, that’s why they keep bringin’ ‘im back ‘ere — he got no place else.’

Alex lay back. He couldn’t believe it — why had Sid lied to him about his father? He looked over at the still figure of his usually buoyant friend and was angry at Sid for making such a fool of him.

At breakfast next morning Sid was as lively as ever, fooling around and spilling sugar on the floor. Eventually Mr Taylor yelled at him.

‘Hey, Alex, want a quick game at break? Alex...? Whassamatter wiv yer?’

‘You should have told me, Sid, why’d you lie? What you lie to me for?’

Sid sniffed and shrugged, looked down at his shoes. ‘Why don’t yer mind yer own friggin’ business... you want ter play or not?’

‘No, I gotta see Taylor...’

Sid stuffed his hands in his pockets, gave Alex a peculiar smile. ‘Taylor asked to see yer, ‘as he? I wondered ‘ow long he’d take to get round yer... Well sod ya, I’ll play on me own.’

Sid went to move away and Alex caught him by the arm. ‘Sid, is it true yer don’t ‘ave a Dad?’

‘Look, I ain’t got nobody, so I make ‘em up in me ‘ead — is that such a terrible fing? I don’t hurt nobody... But you try it sometimes, everybody comin’ in wiv fings what they been given. I don’t even get a friggin’ letter.’

Alex put an arm around him, pulled him towards the lockers. ‘All right then, from now on what I get, we halve... here you go, fruit, chocolate...’

Sid slipped an arm around Alex’s shoulder, grinning from ear to ear, then he glanced at the door and whispered, ‘Watch out for Taylor, he’s a bastard — know what I mean?’

Alex shook his head.

‘Gawd ‘elp us, you are green, yer know that... Look, this is what yer say when he asks...’

Before Sid could elaborate, Alex was called by a junior to get a move on, as Taylor was waiting for him.

‘Tell me later... We’ll have a game after tea, okay?’

Sid watched Alex hurry off. He snapped the bar of chocolate in two and ate a square. Alex grinned from the door, and Sid gave him the thumbs-up sign. No older than Alex, Sid was streetwise. Alex was such a good-looking boy, skinny maybe, but a real looker. ‘Well, son, you’re gonna learn the ‘ard way, that’s fer sure.’

Mr Taylor was sitting at his desk marking exercise books, his pebble glasses stuck on the end of his nose. He looked up, smiled at Alex and told him to sit down, he would be with him in a moment.

Mr Taylor continued to work, ignoring Alex, who sat and looked around the comfortable office. The bookcases were crammed, in fact the whole room seemed to bulge at the seams with books on every available surface. There was an old couch close to the window which overlooked the playground. On the mantel a big, white-faced wooden clock ticked loudly. The scratching of Taylor’s pen continued as the minutes ticked on and on. Alex shuffled his feet and looked at the thick crop of hair bent over the books. Taylor finished his work, carefully replaced the cap on his pen, and stood up. He yawned and stretched, took off his glasses and set them down. Then he walked to the office door and locked it. Leaning against the door he smiled again, and rubbed his hands through his hair.

‘Going to ask a few questions, Stubbs, and I want you to answer them clearly and truthfully, understood?’

Alex nodded his head, and watched as Taylor returned to his desk and picked up a steel-edged ruler. He wondered why Mr Taylor had locked the door, but he straightened up and tightened his tie.

‘Right then, tell me if you have had any sexual relations to date?’

Alex gasped, he didn’t know what to say, and he blinked at his housemaster, who moved closer. Alex shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

‘What kind of an answer is that?’

Alex felt the stinging blow of the flat end of the ruler on the top of his head. Taylor repeated his question, and Alex ducked another blow.

‘I haven’t had any, sir.’

Taylor gave a weird, high-pitched laugh, and he stood in front of Alex, smirking into his face. ‘Don’t joke with me, sonny, it won’t wash. I want every detail and you’d better tell me — big boy like you, never had a woman, that right? That what you are trying to tell me?’

Alex looked nervously towards the door, and his head was jerked back by the hair as Taylor leered down at him. Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Taylor went on about how he knew Alex was having an affair with Miss Walters, how he had seen Alex looking at her. He knew Alex fancied her and suspected that Alex had put his hand up Miss Walters’ skirt.

‘No sir, I swear, sir, I never.’

Taylor patted Alex’s cheek so hard that it hurt, patted it with the flat of the ruler. He pushed his face close, until Alex could smell his breath, then he hauled Alex to his feet by the back of his shirt collar. ‘So it’s not Miss Walters, all right then, which boy, come on, you’d better tell me, which boy have you been with?’

Alex tried to squirm away from Taylor’s grip, but Taylor kneed him from behind and he fell to the floor. He tried to crawl under the desk, but Taylor yanked him back and kicked hard so he curled up with a howl of pain.

‘What experiences have you had with men, Stubbs?’

Alex looked up from the floor and he could see the bulge in Taylor’s trousers as he stood with the ruler in one hand, the other buried deep in his trouser pocket. ‘Get up on your feet and sit over there, come on, get up, up.’

Alex huddled on the sofa, hugging his knees. He said he had had no sexual experience with men, but he had hardly finished the sentence when Taylor struck him again and sent him sprawling back on to the sofa. ‘You lying little bastard, if you don’t tell me the truth I’ll beat it out of you, so help me I will.’

This time Alex retaliated, putting his fists up to block the next punch, which seemed to infuriate Taylor even more. He lashed out at Alex again, knocking him to the floor. Alex felt his nose snap, and blood gushed on to the carpet, but try as he might he could not get up. Taylor sat astride him as though he were riding a horse.

‘You want to fight, do you, sonny lad? Well, fuck you, I’ll teach you not to answer me back, I’ll teach you.’

He rained blow after blow on Alex’s head until Alex thought he would pass out. He began to plead for Taylor to stop. Taylor was rubbing his bulging crotch up and down Alex’s back, his hands everywhere, his voice thick and hoarse. ‘Tell me, tell me what happened, I want to know what happened, what did he do to you?’

Alex was crying, and he blurted out that once, when he and his brother had been in bed together, they had played with each other. That was all, there had never been anyone else. Taylor rode him maniacally, demanding that Alex give him a full description of his brother and what they did together. Alex, his face pressed against the carpet, breathing in the dust and his own blood, was helpless. ‘I’ve never had any other experiences, sir, I swear it on my life... just with Eddie, my brother Eddie, that’s all, honest, sir.’

Taylor got off Alex’s back and bent to help him to his feet, took out a handkerchief and dipped it in a bowl of water, wiped Alex’s bloody nose. ‘Come on lad, stop crying, wipe your face, come along now.’

Alex was utterly confused about who was right and who was wrong. He believed he was in the wrong, he shouldn’t have fondled his brother and was being punished for it. Taylor led him to the couch and began to undo his shirt, gradually stripping him naked. Alex shivered from the cold and lay, terrified, doing nothing to stop Taylor, not knowing what to do.

‘Just have to examine you now, this is all part of the interview, now turn over, there’s a good boy.’

Alex could feel the hands caressing him, saw Taylor’s clothes dropping to the floor. Then Taylor lay on top of him, his hands everywhere, kissing and sucking Alex’s ears, his neck. Alex bit his lips to stop himself crying out. Taylor masturbated him, rolled him over and kissed his body, pushing his legs apart, kissing and sucking his penis. Alex wept, the tears running down his face, even when Taylor forced his own penis into the boy’s mouth.

Taylor leaned back, moaning with satisfaction, and suddenly Alex went crazy. Grabbing Taylor’s erect member, he wrenched with all his strength. Taylor screamed, and Alex brought his fist crashing down into the open mouth. He felt Taylor’s teeth cutting into his knuckles, but he brought his fist down time and time again, until he saw that his hands were covered with blood. He pushed Taylor’s unconscious body from him and watched as he crashed to the floor. Then he collected his clothes and dressed as fast as he could. He didn’t know if Taylor was alive or dead, and didn’t care. He quickly wiped his face and unlocked the door, locked it again behind him, threw the key away and ran to the dormitory.

He stuffed his few possessions into his haversack. A couple of other boys had seen him come in, but they turned away and went back to their game of draughts. As he ran to the door he collided with Sid, and shoved him against the wall, calling him a shit. He must have known what would happen. Sid laughed, but his face straightened when he saw the haversack.

‘I tried, Alex, but you wasn’t listenin’... Hey, where you goin’? You doin’ a bunk, are yer? Well, wait fer me.’

It was so easy. They simply walked out of the main gate, crossed the gardens, hopped over a wall and thumbed a lift into town. By this time Alex had told Sid that he might have killed Mr Taylor, Sid might be better off going back. But Sid wouldn’t hear of it, and flung an arm around his mate. He admired Alex. Like all the other boys at Oakwood, he had at one time endured an ‘examination’ at Mr Taylor’s hands. No one had dared say anything about it, they suffered in silence. But Sid was happy, at long last the pervert had got what he asked for.

They took the train to London, and from there a bus to Hackney, where Sid had friends. ‘You’d best not show yer face near ‘ome, Alex, or they’ll pick yer up. That’ll be the first place they look. We’ll stay under cover for a couple o’ weeks until the heat dies down, then we’ll travel the world.’

Sid’s excitement kept the pair of them going, and Alex was thankful that he’d made up his mind to leave.

They threaded their way through the bombed-out buildings to a boarded-up house that had been severely shelled. No one occupied it now. Sid pulled back the corrugated iron door and led Alex down into the dark basement. His friends were not around, but there were mattresses scattered about and a pile of tinned food. The place stank to high heaven as the drains were open, and they crawled along the filthy hallway into a back room.

‘This’ll be fine when we do it up, Alex. It’s dry, and it’s not too cold. No one’ll find us here.’

Sid fetched blankets from the other room and dragged in one of the dirty mattresses. They huddled together and made elaborate plans for what they would do the following day with their new-found freedom.

Later, Sid slept like a baby, but Alex lay staring into the darkness, seeing his mother’s face when she learned what he had done. He didn’t cry, he couldn’t, and he knew he wouldn’t go back to the school, not ever.

In the morning they were woken by the sound of the corrugated iron being dragged back. They listened as voices echoed around the empty house.

Johnny Mask looked into the room and snorted, called to his mates that there was no panic, just a couple of kids.

‘It’s me, Johnny, it’s Sid, we just come over the wall — the pair of us — last night. I said it’d be all right to doss down here for a few days until the heat dies down.’

Johnny laughed, and handed the boys the greasy remains of his fish and chips to finish. His two friends came through the doorway behind him. They were much older, and looked pretty tough.

‘It’s young Sid, lads, remember we used him as lookout on the dairy job? Well, well, who’s your mate then, Sid?’

Alex, wolfing the chips, introduced himself.

‘Johnny, it’s okay for us to doss down ‘ere, ain’t it?’

On closer inspection, Johnny was much better dressed than his mates. His tell-tale coal-black hair, greased and swept back from his face, and his dark eyes, gave away his origins. Johnny Mask was a gypsy.

Freedom’s path had already begun to cross his son’s. It would pass unseen, unfelt and unknown. If discovered, it could be said that it was just a coincidence. But for Alex it had begun with Johnny Mask, because he was linked to Freedom. Not just because he was a gypsy but because he was the illegitimate son of an old friend, Jesse Evans. It was Jesse who had stood by the champion’s grave and warned Evelyne to give him the talisman. A life-long friend, Jesse had been a member of Freedom’s clan. He had fathered many illegitimate children, but Johnny had been his first. And young Johnny had been given the name ‘Mask’ because no matter how many times he had been beaten for thieving, he always smiled. No one ever really knew what he was thinking.

His white teeth gleamed, his one gold cap sparkled — he seemed to find the boys amusing. In some ways they reminded him of himself; he had absconded from more juvenile homes than he could count. He had not the slightest inkling that Alex, the big, raw-boned kid, had any Romany blood in him, let alone that of a royal prince. But the curse had begun.

Sid sidled up to his hero, asking, ‘You know of any jobs we could get in on, Johnny? Just that me an’ me mate are short of the readies.’

Johnny took out a nail file and began to clean his nails. He gave Alex the once-over and asked him why they’d run. Alex couldn’t meet Johnny’s eyes, black eyes with thick, long lashes. He stammered a few words about trouble with his housemaster, but Sid interrupted. ‘Bastard was a faggot, Johnny, after ‘is arse. He’d done it to all the kids in Oakwood. Alex gave him one hell of a thrashin’, so we done a runner.’

Alex flushed with embarrassment, half-expecting Johnny to laugh, but instead he yelled to his mates to go out and get some coffee. He still lounged in the broken-down doorway, filing his nails. ‘What you say your name was?’

Again Sid interrupted before Alex could speak, and Johnny clipped Sid round the ear. ‘Shut up, I’m not talkin’ to you... Come here, Alex, an’ you, blabbermouth, get into the other room and clean it up.’

Left alone with Johnny, Alex stood with his head bowed. Johnny moved closer, and Alex could smell his cologne, a heavy, sweet smell. When he spoke his voice was soft and gentle. ‘You do him in good, did ya? Eh, look at me when I’m talkin’ to you.’ He took Alex’s chin and turned his face to the light, then ruffled his hair, leaving his hand resting on Alex’s neck. He was shorter than Alex and had to look up into his face. ‘Those shits always go for the lookers. I know, believe me, I know... You forget it, I’ll find you and Sid a little money earner, all right? Big lad like you would be useful. Now go and give the little squirt a hand, wanna get the place cleaned up.’

Johnny watched Alex leave the room as one of his mates came in. He looked at Alex’s retreating back. ‘What you want those kids hangin’ around for, Johnny?’

Johnny shrugged and didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t really know what he could do with them. But there had been something in the big blond boy’s face, his pained eyes. Johnny knew exactly what Alex was feeling; he hadn’t been home since the age of ten himself. Maybe it was the scars of his own rape that had made him reach out and touch Alex. But whatever it was, Johnny had felt an immediate bond between himself and the tall, skinny boy. He laughed, then took out a greasy comb and ran it through his thick black hair. ‘Nice-lookin’ kid, may be useful, an’ we’ve got a lot to do before we get this place workin’. I got the beds comin’ in and all the girls standing by. Get ‘em white-washin’ the walls.’

Evelyne sat in Mrs Harris’ house, worried half to death. Her oldest friend, Mrs Harris, had helped deliver Edward. She was a big, motherly woman, very overweight, and had in many ways been a surrogate mother to Evelyne when she had arrived in London.

Although many years younger than her friend, Evelyne now seemed just as old and worn out, and her constant fiddling with her handbag strap was getting on Mrs Harris’ nerves. The change in Evelyne could not be missed; but they didn’t discuss it, just as Evelyne’s real feelings, deep down, were not expressed. Sometimes her eyes were so vacant, her expression so distant, that Mrs Harris feared for her sanity, but then she would come round and talk about her problems with Alex. Then she would be the old Evie again, but those dream-like lapses were unnerving, and her constant fiddling drove Mrs Harris spare.

‘Did I tell you the police were round again today? Yes, they came again today.’

Mrs Harris nodded. Evelyne had told her this piece of news three times, and everyone in the street knew the police were looking for Alex since he had run away from the reform school.

Evelyne lifted the cracked tea cup to her lips, but did not drink. She sat staring into space.

‘Oh, God help me, she’s going off again,’ thought Mrs Harris. She coughed. ‘Evie? Evie love, can you hear me?’

Evelyne turned, surprised, and gave a beautiful smile, just like her old self. ‘What are you shouting for? You’re the one that’s gone deaf, not me.’

‘Well, you get so far away sometimes... What I was going to say was, it fair surprised me about your Alex. He was always the quiet one, and you said he was getting on so well.’

‘It just doesn’t make sense, I know, but then there’s always two sides to a story. Maybe something happened.’

Mrs Harris nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. But then, he and Edward was always together, like peas in a pod. They was always side by side.’

Evelyne’s whole being tensed at the mention of Edward’s name. Her foot began to tap. Suddenly she said, quite loudly, ‘You know, if I had my time over again I’d not have children. If I had my time again I’d be with him. Wherever he wanted me to go I’d go, because when all the learning’s over, when all the education’s done, it can’t warm you when you’re cold, it can’t hold you when you need to be held, and it can’t kiss you awake in the morning.’

Mrs Harris could not quite follow her, particularly as Evelyne had always gone to such lengths to educate her boys. ‘You sayin’, ducks, that you wish you’d not educated the lads so much? You think that’s where it went wrong?’

Evelyne laughed. It was strange, because it sounded so alien, even to herself. She shook her head. ‘No, I think what I’m trying to say is — I didn’t know until he’d gone what it was to have such a gentle soul love me. I miss him with every breath I take, I look for him down every street. Sometimes I think I hear his voice and my heart lifts, because I can remember now what it was like to run into his arms, run to him and have him sweep me off my feet... I can remember so much I had forgotten while he was alive, and it’s all that keeps me going. I’m scared, though, scared of when I run out of these memories, so scared...’

‘Well, love, that’s when the grieving’s over...’

‘Ah, that will be when I die, then.’

Mrs Harris sighed. Nothing really made sense to her any more. She was sorry for Evelyne, but everyone had their problems and she was sure the boy would turn up.

‘He almost killed his teacher, the man’s in hospital. Why he would do a thing like that I just don’t understand.’

Mrs Harris couldn’t provide any answers, she just nodded and made soothing noises. Alex sounded like a bad lot to her and she was afraid her friend would have nothing but trouble. It seemed so unfair to have one son at Cambridge, doing well, and the other on the run from the law, but that was life.

Dora, Mrs Harris’ youngest, swept in with her bleached blonde hair and scarlet-painted nails, teetering in heels so high that Mrs Harris didn’t know how she could walk. She was wearing a new dress, and was in high spirits as usual. She had brought a huge bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates. “Ello, Mum, these are for you... Hello, Mrs Stubbs, how you doin’, all right, are you? I’d love a cuppa, Mum.’

Both the older women knew what Dora was up to, you could tell with one look. She even carried her gas mask in a special embroidered bag. She tucked a bundle of pound notes under the tin on the mantel and gave Evelyne a wink.

‘You can take that money back, Dora, I won’t have it.’

‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Mum... an’ I got some chewing gum for the kids, here, from their Auntie Dora.’

Evelyne sipped her tea and murmured that she really should be going, but the warmth of the kitchen and Dora’s cheerful chatter made her forget her troubles. ‘So how’s things, Mrs Stubbs? Your two boys doing well, are they? Mum says you got one at university, that’s somethin’, ain’t it? I always said education was worth the trouble, but there again it’s no good tryin’ for it if you’ve not got what it takes. Me? Well, I was never good at nuffink at school. Me fortune’s in me face, isn’t that right, Mum? Gawd ‘elp us, is that the time? I gotta rush.’

Dora was up and out before Mrs Harris could say a word. As the door closed behind her, her mother banged on the table with the flat of her hand. ‘I know what she’s doin’, Evie, an’ I know no amount of tryin’ will stop her. She’s with the American airmen, an’ it’s a different one every night. It’s breaking my heart. If her father knew he’d turn in his grave.’

Evelyne stared vacantly ahead, remembering how she had bathed Dora when she was just a baby. That had been the time when she was pregnant with Edward, living with the Harrises. The years had passed so quickly, and now Dora was a woman — and, by the look of her, a very knowing one, most certainly up to no good.

Both women, wrapped in their own thoughts, sighed, and dipped Dora’s black-market biscuits into their tepid tea.

Dora giggled as she was helped over the corrugated iron fence. She swiped at Johnny with her handbag, and said that she’d been in some dives before, but this had to be the worst. Johnny carried her over a puddle and put her down in the passageway. The red bulb cast a warm glow over the dank, whitewashed corridor. ‘Difference is, Dora, this is my place, an’ wait ‘til you see the rooms. I got them all done up fine, all we need now are the customers, an’ that’s your job. Come on love, let me show you.’

Dora had to admit Johnny was a fast worker, and she loved him more than ever. She agreed to contact the girls she knew at the airbases, and put them in touch with him. Here they would have free beds, free drinks, and would pay the management a percentage of their fees.

Sid and Alex were put to work on three more of Johnny’s establishments. The two boys worked hard, and Johnny gave them a ‘tenner’ a week. He had to admit the kids really put their backs into the painting, and they were always ready and willing to do anything he asked. Alex was particularly good, and one day when he helped to cash up the evening’s takings, Johnny was amazed at how fast the boy could handle figures. ‘Eh, son, how old are you?’

Alex lied and said he was eighteen, and Johnny gave him an extra couple of quid, saying he might be useful when it came to doing the books. The following week he took Alex with him on his Friday round-up, and was very impressed. The boy was as sharp as a tack with money, even suggesting a couple of ways for Johnny to make extra cash. For instance, he and Sid could make up a few sandwiches, deliver them to the brothels, and they could charge a ridiculous amount to the girls and their clients.

So Sid and Alex added a string to their bow, and business was good enough to buy them new suits and shoes, and flash ties and fedoras like their idol, Johnny.

One of Johnny’s bouncers at the Angel club had taken Alex under his wing, and they would work out at the local gym. Alex’s skinny body filled out with weight training, and his personality changed with it. He liked the look of his body now, the frame tight and muscular.

He and Sid had been up to the West End to ‘kit themselves up’, as Sid put it. They had visited all the menswear stores, and had even been down Jermyn Street. Sid couldn’t believe the way Alex lingered outside one of the posh tailors in Jermyn Street. ‘Do us a favour, yer don’t want nuffink like that! I mean, it’s like old-fashioned, ain’t it? An’ look at the price, just look what they got a nerve askin’ fer a ordinary suit what you wouldn’t be seen dead in.’

Alex liked the suit, liked the plain styling of it. But his money wouldn’t run to the navy pinstripe. He recognized the difference in the cloth, never mind the cut, when they paraded in front of Tooley’s Menswear’s window and saw a brown suit. He wished he had stuck to the dark blue, but Sid had been so persuasive, insisting the brown suited him. ‘Well, what yer fink? Couple o’ smarties, eh?’

‘I should ‘ave got the blue.’

‘Bleedin’ hell, I never known a man go on more about ‘is gear than you, Alex. The brown’s very nice, an’ yer can’t see yerself from the back. It’s a lovely cut, an’ the Slim Jim tie’s fantastic.’

Unlike Sid, he had chosen plain shirts, one white and one cream. He alternated them, inspecting them each time they came back from the laundry. Sid had offered him a pair of cufflinks, the sort Johnny would wear. They were theatrical masks with red chips of glass for eyes. Sid thought they were real class, but Alex refused them. Instead he bought a pair from Woolworth’s. They were plain rolled gold, and he was very careful not to get them wet in case they went green.

Sid watched Alex as he carefully tied a tea towel around his waist and rolled up his shirtsleeves before cutting the sandwiches for the club. He sliced the bread carefully. ‘You just gonna look at me workin’ then, Sid? Ain’t you got the butter ready yet?’

Sid set to work, managing to get margarine on his sleeve as he slapped it on the bread. Alex had finished cutting bread and while he waited for Sid, he combed his hair and studied his face in the mirror.

‘Alex, what was you in Oakwood fer? Was it thievin’ like the rest of us? Yer never tell me when I ask, but what was yer in fer?’

Alex had learned fast how to impress. ‘Murder — I killed a bloke. Now, you got those sandwiches ready?’

Sid’s jaw dropped and he hurriedly packed up the food. ‘Christ, if old man Taylor snuffed it, you’d better stay well clear of the cops. Won’t be no reform school next time fer you, Alex, you’ll do time, real time, in prison.’

When Sid delivered the sandwiches, wanting to impress Johnny he told him what Alex had said. Johnny feigned indifference. ‘That right, Sid? Well, I always said the boy had somethin’. Maybe he should start looking out for me instead of that boozed-up Harry — I’ll talk to him.’

That night Johnny approached Alex with a proposition. Now they were making the rounds together every Friday, he wondered if Alex would like to start working even closer, on a day-to-day basis. He needed people he could trust. Alex was quick to agree.

Alex’s education gained a great deal as he went from house to house with Johnny, meeting all the girls Johnny and his gang controlled. They were all shapes and sizes, even, to Alex’s amazement, a black girl and two Chinese. They all seemed to dote on Johnny. Alex was seventeen years old and still a virgin, but no one would know it.

Sid was growing jealous of Alex. He was still making the sandwiches and running small errands for Johnny. When he complained, Johnny grinned and said if he wanted to do something more ambitious there might just be something suitable. ‘I need a lookout, little warehouse we’re gonna knock off, so stand by and I’ll give you the nod when I need you.’

Sid couldn’t wait to tell Alex, implying that Johnny had been keeping him under wraps for bigger things. Alex polished his two-tone shoes and listened, then said quietly, ‘I wouldn’t do it, Sid. Collecting cash from the girls is one thing, but getting involved in robbery is another.’

‘You mind yer own friggin’ business, Mister Big Shot, Mister Know-It-All... Johnny dropped me the wink that I might end up a partner in the business, so you just keep yer nose out of it. You do your job an’ I’ll do mine.’

Alex slipped his shoes on, saying nothing. He had outgrown Sid and he knew it. At the same time, he knew he owed Sid a lot. Without him he would never have met Johnny.

Alex took the takings to Johnny, forgot to knock on the door, and apologized when he saw that Johnny was in bed with a girl. ‘Sorry, Johnny, I’ll come back later.’

‘Not with my money you won’t, get yer arse in ‘ere, help yerself to a drink an’ I’ll get me trousers on.’ Johnny wandered around stark-naked, and Alex flicked an embarrassed glance at the bed. Dora lolled back and yawned. Alex poured himself an orange juice.

‘Now, that’s what I like to see, dedicated — see, Dora, offer the lad a drink an’ ‘e takes an orange juice! Good on yer, son. Alex, say hello to Dora.’

Alex knew who she was, Mrs Harris’ girl, but he flushed at her nakedness and looked down at his shoes.

‘Aw, bashful, ain’t ‘e?’

Dora hadn’t the slightest idea who Alex was, it had been ten years since she had seen him. His face had altered, anyway, his broken nose had been flattened in the fight with Mr Taylor.

‘Put something round yer tits, Dora, can’t yer see you’re embarrassin’ the lad?’

Hot under the collar, Alex still tried to avert his eyes, but felt himself drawn to Dora’s perfect breasts. Johnny laughed, and immediately knew it was a mistake. He saw Alex tighten, clench his fists. ‘Can I talk in front of her, Johnny?’

Johnny nodded as he pulled his socks on.

‘You really think it’s a good idea to use Sid on this caper next week? He’s only a kid, you know.’

Johnny stamped into his shoe. ‘Nobody’s makin’ him do it, Alex, it’s his choice, unless you want the job, do yer?’

‘No way, I’m nobody’s lookout, Johnny... here you go, fivers one packet, tenners the next, the ones in the big pack.’

Johnny caught the packets of money. ‘You’re a strange one, Alex, you know that? You got brains. What you after, eh? Somethin’ bigger? More’n a few cases of booze, yeah?’

Alex gasped as Dora casually flung off the bedclothes and wrapped a silk dressing gown around herself. He knew he was flushing bright pink so he made a hasty exit, saying he’d see Johnny later.

‘Where’d you find him, Johnny? He’s a good-lookin’ kid.’

Johnny was checking the accounts. As usual, Alex had done them in meticulous detail and he wasn’t ripping Johnny off, which made a change. ‘Never mind the kid, get yerself dolled up, Dora, and sharpish, I got a party of Yanks comin’ in ternight.’

He splashed cologne on his face and straightened his tie, and she threw off her gown and walked into the bathroom. She could see there was no point talking to him any more now, it was back to business. She ran water into the cracked washbasin and sighed; she wished Johnny didn’t make her work every night.

‘I’m off, sweetheart, clean yerself up, ta-ra!’

Dora stared at her lovely face in the fly-specked mirror, then rinsed out the face cloth and washed herself.

She was dressed up to the nines when she went to the basement club in Hackney. The place had been really smartened up, not like most of Johnny’s dives. This one had had real money spent on it, and there were quite a few punters already coming into the small bar. She saw Alex again, and smiled, asked if he’d like to join her for a drink before business started. He said he couldn’t, he had to go and collect from one of the other places.

‘Another time then, okay?’ Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she had a vague idea that she knew him from somewhere, but she forgot about it as the air-raid sirens sounded and the lights dimmed. They all waited to see if they would have to go to the shelter, but the all clear sounded quickly and the partying began.

Alex made the rounds. Everything Johnny was involved in was makeshift, all his properties were derelict, even the small office was a temporary affair. He lived in a small bedsitter next to the office. After his daily collections, Alex would go to Johnny’s office and work on the accounts. He had his own key and came and went as he chose. One afternoon he had just closed the door when he heard a voice from the bedroom. ‘That you, Johnny?’

Alex flushed as Dora appeared, wearing only a bra and panties. She was smoking as usual, and her hair was hanging loose like Veronica Lake’s. She looked around for an ashtray and Alex dived across the room to hand her one.

‘Well, ain’t you the gent, thanks. Why don’t you come an’ sit with me, it’s hours before I gotta work. Come on, you ain’t shy, are you?’ She smiled at him, puzzled. ‘I know you from somewhere, an’ I just can’t put me finger on it. You ever met me before?’

Alex knew exactly who she was, but he shook his head. She got up from the bed and came over to him, standing there in her brief underwear with her hands on her hips. She had the palest skin, unblemished, pink, and he wanted to touch it. But he kept his eyes lowered, staring at the tips of his polished, two-tone shoes. She started to laugh, but he wouldn’t look up, and suddenly she sat on his knee, simply sat down astride him, and held his face. ‘I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time I saw you.’

She cupped his face in both hands and kissed him, lightly and swiftly, and it took his breath away. He could smell her perfume and face powder. ‘Why don’t we move three paces across the room to the bed?’ she said.

Alex could hardly form the words, he coughed and said something about Johnny — what if he was to walk in? Dora hopped off his knee and locked the door. She strolled over to the bed and unhooked her bra. Standing with her back to him, she tossed it aside and lay on the bed, lifting her arms to him invitingly.

‘I can’t, I can’t.’ He went to the door and reached for the lock, but instead he flipped off the light and stood in the dark waiting until he could make out her shape clearly.

‘I’ve never been with a woman, Dora, I don’t know what to do.’

Dora took his hand and began to undress him. He moaned, but he didn’t know what to do with his hands, they hung at his sides. She unbuttoned his shirt, loosened his tie, and whispered that he didn’t have to do anything, just relax and she would teach him everything he needed to know.

She took a long time removing each item of his clothing, laying them down carefully while he stood frozen, unable to speak. His chest was now bare, and she kissed each nipple until he felt he would scream out, then she began to unbutton his flies, and slowly got down on her knees to kiss him. He gripped her shoulders tight. ‘No, don’t do that, don’t.’

Dora eased herself up and pulled him close, whispering that he would like it, like what she was going to do — but she could feel his strong arms picking her up. ‘I thought I was supposed to be teaching you.’

He laid her on the bed and removed his trousers, kicked off his shoes. He had lost his erection, and he sat on the side of the bed, unsure of himself, but she held him and began to kiss his neck softly, licking inside his ears. Her hands fluttered slowly over his body, and his heart began to thump. He lay down and closed his eyes.

She eased herself on top of him, held his face. Although he tried to reach her lips, she didn’t kiss him, not once, she didn’t want him to kiss her lips. She played with him for so long he thought he would die, and she whispered to him to let it go, let it go, and without ever having been inside her he climaxed. He lay in confusion, not knowing what to do or say.

‘Now then, let’s start all over again, an’ you hold on, understand me, hold on until I say so.’ Dora was an expert, she worked on him, caressed him until he reached screaming point. She liked virgins, enjoyed them, liked the power games, and it was hours before she allowed him to enter her and make love to her. Still she wouldn’t kiss him, every time he tried she bit him so hard it hurt, so he contented himself with sucking and kissing her nipples.

He was exhausted, but happy, and she slept in his arms. He felt so good, and he smiled to himself. Eventually she stirred and muttered that they must get up, but he wouldn’t let her, he held her tightly as if he never wanted to let her go.

‘Alex, come on, I got to work, and Johnny will be back... Hey, come on, we can do this again.’

Sid and four of Johnny’s men were picked up by the police as they attempted the warehouse robbery. They were taken to the police station and Sid, terrified, tried to save his own skin by telling them everything he knew. What frightened him most was that he might be named an accomplice to the attack on Taylor. He gave Alex’s name to the police.

Alex was arrested as he left the basement. He ran straight into the arms of two police officers, and was thrown into a Black Maria with three other men and two girls. At Hackney police station he was put in a cell, but was soon led into the chief inspector’s office, where a sergeant read out a report. ‘Alex Stubbs, absconded from Brighton. They picked him up at one of Johnny Mask’s brothels.’

The chief inspector turned, expecting to see a young, seventeen-year-old boy, and was taken aback when Alex swaggered in, looking taller than ever in his pinstriped suit. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, and when he was told to sit he slouched in the chair and crossed his legs.

The chief was disgusted. His own son, not two years older, was fighting for his country and this bloody delinquent, with his slicked-back hair and cocky manner, appalled him. ‘You’re going to be taught a lesson, son, but first, do you want to tell us about Johnny Mask?’

Alex stared, blank-eyed, at the chief inspector.

‘Let’s try one more time, son. We want to know where Johnny Mask is. We know all about you, we know you’ve been working for him, so why not help yourself? We’ll make it easier for you if you co-operate.’

Alex remained silent, staring straight ahead. He got a sudden, stinging blow on the back of his head. The chief inspector leaned forward, his face close. ‘That bastard Mask, that stinking gyppo, would sell you, and anyone else who worked for him, for a ten-bob note, and you’re too dumb to know it. But your pal Sid isn’t... He’s been very helpful — how do you think we picked you up? Now, you’ve had time to think about it, so talk if you know what’s good for you.’ He slapped Alex’s face, first one side, then the other. The ice-blue eyes never flickered, and there was a slight hint of a smile on his face.

‘Get him out of here. You’re going to the Scrubs this time, son, that’ll teach yer. See how long the smile stays on your face in there. Go on, get him out of my sight.’

Evelyne had to fight to keep herself from weeping openly. Alex had changed, she hardly recognized him. His broken nose had healed crooked, and his hair was combed back from his forehead, the blond curls flattened with grease. The two warders stopped at the door of the visiting-room and Alex walked forward. He put his hand out to her and one of the warders motioned him back. Evelyne was shocked at the coarseness in his voice when he turned on the warder. ‘I just wanna hold ‘er ‘and, fer Chrissakes.’

Evelyne withdrew her hand sharply. She was afraid to ask what he had been up to while on the run. He had not made contact with her, and now he sat there like a stranger. She couldn’t speak, and began to wonder if all the terrible things she had been told about him were true.

Alex’s bravado began to slip. She was so frail, so helpless, and her desperate, pleading eyes made him want to weep. His voice was softer. ‘I love you, Ma, I love you... Don’t worry about me. Don’t come to court — fings’ll be all right, you’ll see.’

Their time was up, and the warders led him out. He didn’t look back, he didn’t have to, he could hear her sobbing. Alone in his cell he felt full of remorse, and he vowed he would make it up to her, somehow.

The lawyer Evelyne had hired for Alex came to visit him. Alex told him exactly why he had attacked Taylor, and watched him write copious notes. He listened to everything Alex told him, and spoke reassuringly. He would see what he could do.

Alex did not see Evelyne as he was led into court. She sat alone in the gallery, hands tightly clasped. The lawyer had told her that, under the circumstances, he felt sure Alex would be sent to a borstal for young offenders. He chose his words carefully as he explained her son’s reason for running away from Oakwood Hall, and told her a full statement had been handed to the court and the education authorities.

Alex’s case was heard in fifteen minutes flat. The judge, known for his harshness, dismissed the lawyer’s plea for Alex to be returned to reform school. He sentenced Alex to four years in Wormwood Scrubs, one of the country’s toughest prisons, which had a section for hardened juvenile offenders.

The judge’s voice grated in Alex’s ears. He clenched his hands violently. So much for that sweet-talking bastard lawyer, so much for justice. As he was led down from the dock, he knew his mother was there, and he stared frantically around the courtroom as the warders pulled at his handcuffs to drag him out. He caught sight of her in the gallery and forced a smile, looking up at her... But all his cocksure manner had gone, he was just a boy and very frightened. ‘Mum! Mum!’

They hauled him out, but she could still hear him calling for her, his terrible screams, and she could do nothing. She was still sitting in the gallery an hour later when one of the clerks told her gently that she would have to leave, the court session was over.

Chapter two

If Edward Stubbs felt any remorse for the murder of his father, he never showed it. Even immediately after the killing all he had felt was relief, that Alex had agreed to say that he’d done it.

He adapted quickly to his new life, putting the past behind him, including his brother. He refused to think about Alex, and was capable of behaving as if he had never existed.

Edward walked out of the local Post Office in Cambridge and paused, frowning. He had miscalculated and was running very low on funds, lower than he had anticipated. He sighed as he put his Post Office book away, wondering if he could touch his mother for a few more shillings a week. He was on such a tight budget he hardly ever had so much as a spare penny in his pocket. Evelyne had calculated the costs of his gown, his books, all his accessories, down to the last penny, and he could see no way round the situation. He shifted his weighty books on to his other hip and worked it out in his mind. If he left the hall of residence, moved into digs, it would be cheaper. Then he could get a bike so he could ride to college and that would save his bus fares.

The sun was shining, it was a beautiful clear day, and here in Cambridge there was little sign of the continuing war, apart from the odd pile of sandbags propped around the doorways of the colleges. Edward walked to the river bank and sat down, going over his money once again. His mother had certainly got him living on a shoestring, and it annoyed him. He had his meals in hall, which was cheaper than eating out, but it meant his social life was a void. He couldn’t really join the crowd in the pubs in case he got stuck for a round, that could wipe him out for a whole week. No one else was really aware of Edward’s financial situation, no one really cared, they put him down to being a bit of a loner. His thick cockney accent amused some of them, but it set him apart from the jet-setters.

He had tried hard to be part of the crowd, even rubbing his new grey trousers so that they looked worn, scuffing his shoes and rolling his gown in the road so it didn’t look so shiny and new. Most of the students wore baggy cord trousers with white cricketing sweaters, their shirt collars undone and ties hanging loose on their chests, ready to be tightened up fast if they saw their tutors. Edward only had an old, grey sweater Freda had knitted for him, and he wanted a white Cambridge one and dark green cord trousers, wanted them so much and was so frustrated — he couldn’t even afford an extra pint of beer after classes.

The first months had been the hardest, as he had had to adjust to his new life. He found his background such a hindrance that he quickly covered it up as much as possible. All his books had been second-hand, and those he couldn’t afford he borrowed from the university library, like all the students who couldn’t buy their own. Edward was well aware that many students were in a similar financial position, but they were not of the same class. There were very few working-class boys, most of them were middle or upper class, and he was therefore an oddity, knew it and hated it.

During his first few days he had overheard one of the students talking outside his window. ‘Thing is, according to my old man, never make friends in the first term, means you are stuck with them for the rest of your time here. You can get some frightful bores, you know, dreadful fellows, but first-termers are so nervous and desperate for pals that they latch on to quite the wrong sort of chap. I never spoke to anyone in my first term, jolly glad too.’

Edward said ‘jolly glad too’ to himself, using a high-pitched, plummy voice. He took what the idiot had said to heart, and during his first term he watched, listened, and worked like hell. He was reading geology, and his tutors were helpful. He was learning fast, and he didn’t want to appear vulnerable to the other students.

His tutor, Professor Huston, detected Edward’s discomfort with his own background from the word go. He tried to assure Edward that, contrary to being ashamed of his roots, he should be proud. However, his advice fell on deaf ears, and he watched with interest as Edward kept himself to himself. He could not help but notice that the boy was gradually losing his accent.

The process was by no means easy. Night after night Edward sat in front of his mirror, practising the vowels over and over again, gradually interspersing his conversation with ‘Oh, I say’, ‘Jolly good man’ and ‘Whizz-o’. He had no idea that his attempts at aping the upper classes were mimicked and ridiculed by the rest of the students in his tutorials. He was the source of many a night’s entertainment as they copied his broad cockney voice and followed it with ‘Oh, holly hood, old bean.’

Edward had walked all the way across Cambridge to look at his new lodgings. He was very dispirited that they were in a large, Victorian house where the rest of the rooms were let to travelling salesmen, chefs and domestics from the colleges.

All students ‘living in’ bought any furnishings and fittings left by the previous tenant. Edward’s room contained nothing but a small bed, a chair and a desk. The previous occupant did not even bother to ask for payment. Edward brought nothing other than his books to his room. He hung no posters on the walls, it was as bare as the day he moved in. He reckoned that even with his scholarship he needed at least forty-five pounds a term, and that was cutting it fine. He hadn’t joined any clubs or organizations, he didn’t take part in any of the sporting events. He had never played rugby at his school, only football, and he had never been keen on cricket so he didn’t bother with sports at all. He made careful notes in his book, initial expenses, university fees, college fees, board and lodging, personal expenses, and a few possible additions. His mother had bought his cap and gown, had it made up by a Jewish tailor in the East End, and had also bought him two shirts and two pairs of trousers. He hated everything he wore. He wanted a sports jacket in brown, the fashionable colour that year, but all he had was an old black jacket of his father’s and a raincoat.

He lay back on the river bank and closed his eyes. He was free for the afternoon, he had no lectures until the following morning. The sound of someone sobbing made him sit up and look around. He couldn’t see anyone, but the sound continued and he got to his feet and searched around, eventually finding a pair of green cord trousers sticking out from beneath some bushes.

‘You okay? Hello... you okay?’

The trousers wriggled and the bushes parted, and he recognized the chap from lectures, but realized he had no idea of his name. He was small-boned, with delicate features and big, china-blue eyes, red-rimmed from weeping. The boy blushed at being caught. ‘Oh God, I didn’t think anyone would be around here.’ He spoke with a very refined, upper-class accent, and took a small, crumpled linen handkerchief out of his pocket to blow his nose. This seemed only to start his crying all over again, and he flopped back into the bushes. ‘I’m so sorry, but I’ve had dreadful news, I can’t cope at all.’

Unsure what to do with the boy, Edward hovered by the bushes.

‘I’ll be all right in a while, really, it’s just... Oh God! This is so embarrassing.’ He wiped his eyes and sniffed, but for all his apologizing he seemed quite unconcerned at being caught weeping, hidden in the bushes. ‘I say, do I know you? Think I’ve seen you around, haven’t I?’

Edward sat down beside him and introduced himself, and the boy held out a slender, delicate white hand and shook Edward’s big paw. ‘I’m Charles Collins, everyone calls me Charlie. You’re the frightfully keen chap, aren’t you? Where do you hide yourself, you never go to the clubs.’ He sighed again and stared into the river, picked up a stick and began ripping little twigs off it, throwing them into the water. ‘Just got the old telegram, my brother missing in action, they don’t hold out much hope of finding him, judging by Ma’s letter. Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m going to start again.’

Much to his surprise, Edward found himself putting an arm around the boy’s shaking shoulders. Charlie was easy to be with, and so unembarrassed by his sobs.

‘Have you been up before the conscription board?’

‘I’m on the waiting list along with everyone else. Frightful, isn’t it, putting me dreadfully behind with my study programme. Mind you, what’s the point if they’re going to tog you up in the old khaki, what?’

Edward realized that Charlie, even though he didn’t look it, must be a couple of years older than himself.

‘All my pals are on tenterhooks, absolute tenterhooks, I mean, they’re whisking them off willy-nilly, clutching their rifles, poor souls. I say, do you know Edgar Willard? Well, he went before the board four months ago, got such jolly good marks in everything that they told him to stand by for officer training. Anyway, the adjutant told him he could be called up but he was to take his exams, it’s not on... I say, you don’t know Henry Fullerton, do you? He’s waited so long that his plans have been changed goodness knows how many times now. He lives from day to day, lecture to lecture, very firm believer in kismet. Fabulous fellow, nothing worries him, he says he’s resigned to whatever happens, whether it’s Aldershot, the Tripos, the Maginot Line or, worst of all, his college bills.’

Edward listened, fascinated. He had never heard of any of Charlie’s friends, but Charlie seemed not in the slightest bit interested in whether he had or not, keeping up such a fast, steady flow of chatter that Edward’s brain reeled.

They walked along the river bank, but Edward had to go back to retrieve Charlie’s jacket from the bushes. He noticed it was of very fine quality, like the rest of Charlie’s clothes. Charlie chattered on and threw sticks into the water, and then he started to cry again because he suddenly remembered his brother, Clarence, and threw his arms around Edward.

‘Actually, that is only part of my troubles, one of many, dear chap. You see, I have been so preoccupied with all this war effort that my studies have taken a turn for the worse, and my tutor really hauled me over the coals last Monday. I’m not even going to take the exams, they don’t think I’m up to it. Father will have a fit, not that it would be anything new, he’s been having them since the day I was born. It’s Ma that’s my real trouble, she’ll throw such a tantrum... You see, she adored Clarence, and with him gone all her bloody-mindedness will be directed at me. God, what am I going to do?’

They had walked all the way back into town along the river bank, and Charlie had not stopped talking for one moment. As they passed people they all called out his name, everyone seemed to know him, and the gatekeeper laughed and made a joke as they entered the gate to the hall of residence.

‘You want to have some tea, Edgar, you’ve taken such good care of me? Do come along, I’m top floor, number eighteen, say about four-fifteen? Super... cheerio.’

Edward hadn’t liked to point out that Charlie had got his name wrong, and he was in no hurry to go up to number eighteen for tea. He went to the main hall for his tea instead, and then regretted it when he saw Walter Miller approaching him. The boy wore such thick glasses that he looked Chinese, and he suffered from appalling acne. He had latched on to Edward almost from their first lecture. Walter was extremely clever, working diligently all the time, and when he wasn’t studying he went to the pictures. He sat down and asked Edward if he had seen the new W. C. Fields comedy at the local picture house. In his broad Lancashire accent he told Edward all about the film. ‘It’s very funny, Eddie, he’s got such a bucolic humour he has you splittin’ yer sides, lot better than that ruddy Gunga Din at the Rex.’

Edward hated to be called Eddie, and loathed the way Walter latched on to him. Walter loaded jam on to his bread and made slurping noises as he ate. He talked about wanting to see The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel, it was part of a double feature at the Cosmopolitan. Edward listened with only half an ear to Walter’s theory that Hitler had ordered Leslie Howard’s plane shot down because, in his portrayal of the Scarlet Pimpernel, there was a definite insult to the Third Reich. Walter squinted as Edward suddenly pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘You want to come, I’ll pay for you, Eddie, I don’t mind, really I don’t.’

Edward looked for a moment as if he would hit Walter, then he turned on his heel and strode out of the hall. He was angry because he had used Walter a few times, used him because he couldn’t afford to go to the pictures, and now he regretted it. Walter only hung around him all the more.

Edward made his way to number eighteen, even though he told himself he didn’t want to bother with fools like Charlie. The door was ajar, and music thudded out from a gramophone, but he thought he could hear Charlie’s high-pitched sobbing and gasping despite the music. When Edward pushed the door open it was his turn to gasp. Even though it was light outside, the blackout curtains had been drawn, not only across the windows but also from the ceiling, making the room look like a tent. There were candles on every available surface, and on a long monk’s refectory table were massive, dripping silver candlesticks holding huge, gothic monastery-type candles. The table top was a sea of wax.

Tears were running down Charlie’s cheeks, but he wasn’t crying, he was helpless with laughter and surrounded by a group of very pissed friends. He waved to Edward and shouted to everyone to welcome ‘Edgar’, then continued with his story, laughing so hard himself that it made everyone around him laugh, even though they didn’t know why.

Edward slipped into the room and sat to one side, picked up a silver goblet and poured himself some wine. He had never seen such an untidy room, there were clothes strewn everywhere, books and papers tumbled on the floor, all over the unmade bed. An old gentleman pottered around trying to empty ashtrays and wipe the debris of toasted teacakes, wine and jam from the table and every other flat surface. Charlie held everyone in rapt attention as he acted out his date the previous day with Gloria, from the local ladies’ lingerie shop, pulling hysterically funny faces as he did so.

‘When I asked for a pair of knickers she replied, “What size?” and I, looking her over very carefully of course, as you all know is my way, I said, “Your size will do, my darling,” and she wrapped them up and I made the grand gesture and said, “My dear, they are for you, on condition that we have a date.”’

Charlie went into such peals of laughter that he fell across the table. He took another gulp of wine, filled his goblet again and swung his arm, spraying everyone close to him with red drops. ‘No, wait for the punch line, chaps... Later that night, back at her flat — have I told you how well stacked she was? My dears, a good thirty-eight C cup if ever I’ve had my hands round... Anyway, when I stripped her she was wearing the damned things, still had the price on them, and I have to say that was the best fifteen-and-sixpence I have ever spent.’ He swung back in his chair as everyone hooted with laughter and thumped the table with glee.

Everyone wanted to get their stories in about who had done what to whom, and in the rowdy room no one noticed Edward beating a hasty retreat. As he left, Charlie was launching into a detailed description of how he was working his way through all the counters in Woolworth’s. He was now past the cosmetics and on the record section. ‘I aim, before the term is out, chaps, to have had every single woman in Woolies.’

Edward returned to his rooms and lay on the bed. He found their tales of sexual prowess faintly ridiculous. He had not seen one woman in Cambridge he would bother to speak to, let alone have sex with. Not that he had been inundated with offers — far from it.

He awoke to hear shouting from below in the courtyard and looked out of the window to see Charlie, so drunk he could hardly stand up without help. He was attempting to climb up the side of the building, holding what looked like a rag doll. The place was in darkness because of the blackout, and Edward had to squint to see what was going on. Charlie was standing on Freddy’s shoulders, clinging on to a window-ledge. Edward swore at his foolishness, grabbed his dressing gown and made his way down the inky-black staircase to the courtyard. Charlie was now up to the second window-ledge and stood, weaving, one hand holding on to the window and the other still clutching the rag doll.

‘Get him to come down, the idiot, he’ll hurt himself.’

Freddy smirked and waved his arms for Edward to follow Charlie up if he was so clever. From the main gate voices echoed, a torch flickered, and Charlie’s friends all ran like hell, knowing they would be in for it if they were caught.

Edward climbed up and grabbed Charlie’s legs, hauled him down, and they both crashed to the ground. The torchlight moved closer. Edward heaved Charlie over his shoulder and moved back into the shadows.

‘This is very decent of you, old boy, but if you don’t put me down I’ll vomit all over your dressing gown.’

Edward put his hand across Charlie’s mouth as the two porters searched the courtyard. ‘Bloody war on, you’d think these lads would have better things to do than play silly buggers.’

The porters departed with the rag doll and Edward released his hold on Charlie’s mouth. The next moment Charlie had passed out in his arms. Edward carried him back to his quarters, all the way up the stairs, opened the door and dumped the drunken boy on the bed.

‘Thanks awfully.’ Charlie fell immediately into a deep, drunken sleep, and Edward stripped him and put him to bed. The room was a shambles, the remains of tea still all over the table. Edward stared around the room, at the closet full of clothes, rows of shoes, every drawer half open. He crossed the room to blow out a guttering candle.

He couldn’t help but see the stacks of papers stuffed into a desk drawer, and he carefully inched one out. There were shoals of bills — unpaid bills — from tailors, bakers, wine merchants, clubs and restaurants. Edward left his sleeping friend and closed the door silently behind him.

The following morning Charlie did not appear at the lecture, which was not unusual, but this time Edward was looking out for him, had even kept a space for him.

After lunch Edward went to see Professor Emmott to ask his permission to move out of the hall of residence into lodgings. He tapped on the study door and a high-pitched voice bade him enter. Emmott was sitting at his desk, elbow-deep in papers. He was a strange-looking man in his late forties, and his thick black hair had receded to the halfway point, making his domed forehead look even larger above his thick, round, black-rimmed glasses. He also had an unfortunate humped back that forced him to bend almost double to walk. Sitting down, however, he was a chilling spectacle, and he looked over the top of his glasses with strange, clear eyes.

‘Ah, Stubbs, come in, come in, wanted to have a chat with you. Take a seat. I have been looking over your half-term’s work, excellent, excellent. What was it you wanted to speak to me about?’

Edward tried not to sound desperate, he just said that he felt it would be more convenient if he moved into lodgings.

‘Finding it a tight squeeze, are you, old chap? You do know that there are certain extra scholarships, exhibitions, sizarships, sub-sizarships and what have you, grants for those in special need? Those eligible for, shall we say, “poor student grants” are usually restricted to divinity students, a lot of conditions, of course, City companies and so forth, but if you would like me to put forward an application...?’

Edward flushed. It was the ‘poor student’ line that really got to him, and he assured Emmott that it would not be necessary. In truth he hated the mere mention of ‘poor’, and wouldn’t even stay to listen to the pros and cons of applying to a company to supplement the scholarship he had already won.

‘I’ll be able to manage quite well, sir, you see, I can save a little by taking lodgings instead of remaining in residence.’

‘As you will, as you will. Got your notes here, good work in the laboratories, Stubbs. Like your essay on petrology, good identification, chemical analysis faultless... got a few books of my own, maybe you’d like to take them away with you?’

Edward smiled his thanks. He wanted to leave the hot, stuffy study, the fumes from the gas fire were drying his mouth.

‘All work and no play, not always a good thing, you know, Stubbs. I notice you do not take part in any form of sport, any reason? Good to socialize a bit — not too much, I grant you — but from what I have seen you are working harder than any other student I have this term. Takes me all my time to keep up with you.’

Edward heard a weird, high-pitched cackle and realized it was a laugh, the strange little man was laughing. ‘Remind me of myself when I was your age, but then, well, I’d say it was slightly different with me! Thought of joining any debating societies? Good to come out of yourself, you know, get up on the platform and spout a few illogical things, always good for the future. You a member of any of the societies?’

There were two reasons why Edward did not belong to any of the clubs. One was financial and the other was embarrassment at not being sure exactly what to do.

‘Fine chap like you should perhaps try for the boating crew, you are fit, I presume? Fit, yes?’

Edward was quite obviously fit. He stood six feet two and a half inches tall, but his body was slender, not yet filled out. He was deeply embarrassed by Emmott’s enquiries and looked down at his shoes. Eventually Emmott got round to his reason for wanting to speak to Edward; his name would be going before the board, and he could quite easily be called up to the army.

‘You’ll have to go before them in a few months’ time. If you are fit, which you obviously are, you will stand in line like the majority of students this term. I have already made my feelings felt on this matter. You are one of my best students and I would be loath to lose you, very loath, but there is a war on, and... you see all right, do you? No problem with your eyesight? Not deaf either? In certain cases the medical is pretty rigorous, there again, occasionally not, flat feet is a certain let-out... I just wondered, as you have not joined any of the sports societies, if perhaps you are flat-footed...’ Edward was still slightly unsure of what Professor Emmott had been hinting at, but he thought that if he had read the old boy right he was tipping Edward off before he went for his medical. The last thing Edward wanted was to be conscripted, having got this far, and if he joined up it could be years before he came back to college, if ever.

As Edward left the study Emmott was already sitting back at his paper-strewn desk and, without looking up, he suggested that if Edward wanted to make a few bob, the radio factory just out of town was looking for people to do shift work, perhaps he should look into it.

Edward smiled his thanks, and Emmott gave him a direct look, then returned to his studies. He believed Edward to be academically brilliant, with a great future ahead of him. It was rare to find a student who was so diligent, but Emmott’s uppermost thought was that Edward was the first student he had ever come across who touched on his own obsessive interests. Emmott’s life centred on study, stretching his mind inside that domed forehead. Edward had the same yearning, Emmott recognized his hunger for knowledge and would have liked to express it in words. He didn’t, however; not many virile young men wanted to be told they were akin to a bent cripple.

Edward went to the radio factory, where they offered him three shillings a night on the late shift. He had to sort and examine plastic washers, a boring, tedious job, but he needed the extra money for the sports jacket he was saving for.

He had to get permission from the college to work, but of course Emmott gave it, so Edward had a special pass for the three nights a week. His good looks made him very popular with all the factory women, and some of them hovered around his table with cups of tea and home-made biscuits. They were all after him, but he found them coarse and he hated the way they giggled behind their dirty hands. They wore headscarves knotted at the front, and it made them all seem unattractive, but most of them came from the farms around Cambridge where they could lay their hands on butter, eggs and milk, and so he charmed them and played them along.

The digs were the pits, but he bore with them because they saved him money. One night he was working in his room when he heard the ‘toot-toot’ of Charlie’s car horn below. He burst into Edward’s room, then stopped and sniffed. ‘Good Lord, place stinks of cabbage, or cat’s piss. Listen, old chap, you fancy coming for a spin? Not seen you about.’

Edward refused, saying he wanted to finish an essay.

‘Why not show your face at the rugger match, Sat’day, should be a good game... won’t change your mind, eh? Few jars at the Duck and Feather?’

Edward shook his head and Charlie bounded out. Edward looked out of his window as Charlie hopped into his MG. There he was with a strapping blonde sitting beside him. He waved to Edward and careered off. Edward sighed, Charlie never seemed to worry about anything, least of all finances, and although petrol was rationed Charlie was never short. Edward had heard he got all the boys’ petrol rations in exchange for alcohol.

When Edward went to collect his mail from residence, he found a letter from his mother. He hated her letters, they always depressed him. There was little mention of Alex, only a paragraph to say his brother had got into trouble, but there were no details. Whenever Edward saw his brother’s name in his mother’s writing he felt a certain amount of guilt, but he always assured himself that he was doing what they had both wanted, therefore it was all right. Evelyne mentioned that she had not been feeling too well, but she hoped he was fit, and working hard. She would write again soon. There was no mention of the extra money he had written to ask her for and, angry, he ripped the letter into shreds. He was sick and tired of working at the radio factory with those stupid bitches tittering and nudging each other every time he inadvertently touched them. He had now taken on another part-time job, one school-kids usually did, sitting watching for incendiary bombs for three shillings a night. He would sit by the sandbags with a torch hidden under a blanket and do his reading.

Edward hated being poor, and began to resent the sight of Charlie and his crowd as they steamed around town, in and out of the dance clubs, their days seemingly revolving round a desperate search for pleasure. They all suffered from hangovers, and several times Edward had seen Charlie staggering across the quad, wearing his pyjamas under his cords and jacket, on his way to the Dot to join his ever-increasing circle of friends. They danced and drank, their eyes always open for new girls, and then they would go on to Leo’s where they would down Pimm’s or whisky. They were known to be in a permanent alcoholic haze, always hunting out the women in Woolworth’s or Boots, wheeling around the town laughing too loudly and propping each other up as they made their way unsteadily back to college during the blackouts.

Edward worked all the hours that God gave him, and yet was never late for a single lecture. Charlie, on the other hand, played hard all night and caught up on his sleep during lectures. Edward presumed that Charlie spent most of his days sleeping off the booze, until one afternoon he passed the rugby pitch. He stared in amazement at the game, which he couldn’t begin to understand. The boys, covered in mud, hurled an odd-shaped ball backwards and forwards, while rows of men stood on the touchline, waving bottles of beer. He had been impressed by Charlie, however. Small as he was he was a little demon on the pitch, zigzagging through the larger men like an eel. He was so obviously popular that it needled Edward, and he stayed to watch. He started to laugh when he saw Charlie in the centre of the scrum, and joined the cheering when it seemed that Charlie’s team was ahead. He watched Charlie fighting at the side of the pitch, yelling and striking out at the linesman, which was greeted with cheers and shouts from those on the touchline.

When the match was over Edward followed the crowd into the local pub, and there was Charlie with his hair plastered down after his shower, ordering beer all around, and as always the centre of attention. ‘Eddie, my boy, come over and meet the team; everyone, this is Big Eddie, we should rope him in, look at his shoulders... come on Eddie, have a beer.’

Although it upset him to be called ‘Eddie’, Edward accepted the beer, and afterwards it seemed only natural to go with them all to the restaurant for a booze-up. The food kept on coming, even though rationing was in force, and it was good. The proprietor obviously knew Charlie and was bowing and scraping and allowing them to sing at the tops of their voices.

Edward began to get a little uneasy as the drinking got heavier, the coffee had been and gone and he wondered how the bill was to be paid. He was in a very difficult situation. He had to admit he was enjoying himself, but he kept one eye on the waiters as they began adding up the cost of the food and the drinks. ‘Okay, everyone, it’s twenty-five bob a head, and I think that’s jolly reasonable, so let’s have a cheer for Angelo! All together now — For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow...’

Charlie was prone on the floor, and his pal Freddy took out a wad of notes and shouted that he’d take care of Charlie’s share. Two other players passed their hats round the table. Edward was tight-lipped, angry because he had allowed himself to be drawn into the binge. Now he had to pay for it, and pay for it dearly. This meant that he would have no cash for the rest of the week.

He made it look as if twenty-five shillings was nothing, but considering he could get a three-course meal for three shillings and sixpence it was an outrageous amount of money. He dropped his share into the cap, picked up his coat and walked out. That would be the end of his mixing with Charlie and his pals.

Edward worked late at the radio factory, doing double time and hating every minute of it. By the time he got home it was after twelve. The landlady warned him that she would have to report him, he was supposed to be in by ten-thirty. He wanted to hit her, but he controlled his temper and smiled, and told her there had been a bomb scare at the factory, so he had had to stay later than normal.

Charlie breezed into the lecture the following afternoon and squeezed in beside Edward. He pressed up close and whispered, but Edward couldn’t hear. ‘Can you help me out, I’ve got nothing done, not had the time, just fill in a few pages for me?’

Edward obliged, and the lecture continued with Edward writing down the notes for Charlie that were to be handed in the following day. Charlie was very grateful, and waited for Edward as he came out of the lecture. Slinging his arm around Edward’s shoulders, he walked with him to the hall for lunch. They were coming up to the end of term, and Charlie, with his mouth full, asked Edward what his plans were. Edward shrugged and said he would be going back to London, and Charlie asked if perhaps Edward would like to spend the long vacation with him. ‘There’s a bit of a catch, see. If Ma finds out the condition I’m in this term all hell will break loose, know what I mean, old thing? On the other hand, if you were to stay for the summer vac, as a house guest, she wouldn’t go out and grab Emmott or some other cripple to get me working all summer. You and I could do a bit of swotting, help me along, what d’you say?’

Edward wanted to say yes, but he thought of money as always. Charlie grinned, as if reading his friend’s mind, and said it would cost his Ma about ten shillings an hour to pay a tutor and he, Charlie, would hand it over to Edward instead, then he would have his full board and lodgings plus a hell of a good time.

Edward wrote to his mother to say he would not be able to return home for the summer, as he was taking a special course in Wales. She did not have to worry about money as he would have all his costs paid. He would write to her when he got there. He wrote the note on a picture postcard of Cambridge town centre, knowing she would like to show it to her friends.

Edward packed his case into the back of Charlie’s MG, and was amazed at how much luggage Charlie had — two trunks and three cases. Edward’s small, cheap case looked embarrassing.

‘You travel light, don’t you? Well, come on, hop in, we’ve got a long drive. You ever been to Wales? We’ve got a pile of rubble there we use for hols.’

They drove fast, and Edward was again astonished that Charlie never seemed concerned about petrol, just as he seemed unconcerned about everything in his life.

They headed for Cardiff, and Edward looked around the countryside. It was so different from bombed, scarred London — as if war were far removed from this part of Britain. The sun shone, they passed farms where cattle grazed, it was idyllic and Edward started to relax. He had worked hard all term, and he looked forward to days with nothing to do. As usual, Charlie talked incessantly throughout the journey, gossiped about his pals, who they had been out with, the abortion they had fixed up for the redhead from the cosmetic counter at Woolies, the barmaid with the big tits from the Old Boar.

They drove through Cardiff town centre, shooting through red lights while Charlie yelled to Edward that he should look at this or that sight. As he never stopped, Edward was forced constantly to swivel round in his seat. The town disappeared behind them and they drove along twisting country lanes.

Charlie stopped and went behind a hedge to pee. He shouted to Edward that they were nearly there. When he got back in the car his mood had changed, suddenly he was quiet and he drove more slowly, and he spoke more calmly. ‘Look, there might be a bit of an atmosphere at home, with Clarence getting it. Ma might be a bit down. But she’ll be all right, there’s lots of friends coming up, so we won’t get too bored.’

They travelled on in silence, and Edward looking sidelong at Charlie who was chewing his lips and seemed edgy. They went on for another ten miles before Charlie spoke again. ‘You’ll find my old man a bit strange. Just ignore him, something happened to him in the war so he’s a little daffy.’

Edward asked which war, and Charlie chortled, said the first one, but he doubted if his father even knew what day it was so he might think he was fighting in the present war.

The car bounced along a dirt track and across a field, which Charlie said was a short cut. He waved to a farmer, who shook his fist at them, and then doffed his cap. They emerged on to a man-made road, wide enough for one car only. The hedges were thick on both sides so Edward could not see what went on. Suddenly they ground to a halt before a wall in which were set two huge iron gateposts, the gates missing. Charlie eased the car over the cattle-grid, bumping and thudding, then put on speed again. The path was edged with rhododendrons in full bloom, some of them overblown, the pink petals littering the ground. The drive seemed to go on for ever, but then they were among gardens and long, sweeping lawns which needed trimming, but were thick and lush. The car rounded one more curve and Edward gasped, ‘It’s a castle, Charlie, it’s a castle, you never said you lived in a castle.’

Charlie snorted and said again that it was just a pile of rubble, they could only use it in the summer as the place froze everyone to death in winter. ‘We only use one wing, the rest is falling down. We were lucky — my uncle, oddball fellow, died without any heirs, so he left it to Ma, there she is... Ma! Maaaa!’

Edward looked in the direction Charlie was waving, and he could see a figure in a picture hat, cutting roses. She carried a large basket on one arm and wore a man’s gardening glove on the other hand. She waved frantically and put the basket down, running towards the car.

The car skidded to a halt and Charlie jumped out, not bothering to open the door, and ran to her. She was shouting and waving as she ran, and Charlie caught her up in his arms and twirled her around, kissing her. Edward had still not seen her face beneath the hat, she was kissing Charlie and holding him at arm’s length, cooing that he looked just wonderful. Edward detected the same plummy accent, just like Charlie’s. He remained sitting self-consciously in the car as Charlie pulled his mother by the hand towards him. ‘Eddie, this is Ma; Ma, Eddie’s staying for the vacation, his family was bombed out so he had nowhere to go.’

The lie came out without Charlie batting an eyelid, and Edward tried to get out of the car and shake hands at the same time.

Lady Primrose Collins was furious with Charlie for not warning her or asking her permission to bring Edward, but Edward couldn’t detect anything but a rather cool welcome. She took off her hat and removed the gardening glove. ‘How do you do, please come into the house, Humphrey will see to your luggage.’ She linked hands with her son and walked up the big, crumbling steps into the castle. Edward hung back slightly, then followed them. He had been taken aback slightly at Lady Primrose’s age, thinking at first that she was very young. It was the way she moved, but close up he could see that she must be in her fifties. Charlie had inherited her pale blue eyes and snub nose. Even though she was gardening she was perfectly made up.

Edward’s initial reaction was disconcerting; a shadow seemed to pass over his heart and he felt his entire body shake in a strong sensation of deja vu. Yet he knew he had never met Lady Primrose before.

Perhaps not, but his father had known Lady Primrose Collins. And his mother, Evelyne, knew this pretty woman very well. If Lady Primrose had looked closely at Edward she, too, would have felt the powerful hand begin to manipulate from the grave. Edward strongly resembled his father, although he was not as tall, or as wild. His dark hair was cut fashionably short, but the young man’s face was almost a mirror image of the gypsy fighter’s.

Lady Primrose did not feel the past catching up with her, not yet. She simply welcomed into her home a young friend of her son’s, that was all.

The huge, baronial hall with its stone walls and massive, open fireplace was, as Charlie had said, cold, even though the sun was shining outside. There were suits of armour, shields and animal skins everywhere, very masculine, and the stone floor echoed their footsteps. Humphrey, in his butler’s uniform, walked past them to collect their luggage, while Charlie chattered away to his mother, telling her about the journey down and how well he had been doing.

‘Eddie, is it? Would you like to go into the drawing room, I will have to see about getting a room ready for you... Charlie, come up and say hello to Daddy.’

Edward stood, not sure which door led into the drawing room, and watched the pair walk upstairs. The sun shone on the carpeted steps and he could see threadbare patches. Humphrey returned with Charlie’s big trunk, staggering slightly, but he frowned when Edward went to give him a hand, preferring to stagger on alone. ‘The drawing room, sir, is to your right. Tea will be served at four-fifteen.’

Edward pushed open the thick oak door and walked into the sunny room, with its oriental rugs covering most of the wooden floorboards, large, squashy, flower-printed sofas, and cushions thrown all over the floor and heaped up by the inglenook fireplace. The room was cluttered and friendly. There was a polished table filled with books and a large bowl of fresh roses, their perfume filling the air.

Edward wandered around the room, smelling the roses and picking up a few of the books. From the window he could see Humphrey carrying in more of Charlie’s bags. He opened the window and looked out across the tangled garden.

Hearing someone approaching, he closed the window and walked back to the fireplace. Charlie breezed in and clapped his hands, said he was gasping for a cup of tea, but would Edward like to be shown round before tea was brought in?

They wandered through the old, ruined areas, Charlie pointing out the rotten floors and warning Edward to be careful. He then led him out to the back of the castle.

There was an enormous swimming pool, Grecian in style, and it looked as if it had been added by someone without much artistic sense. It was an eyesore, completely out of keeping with the castle. Charlie whistled, his hands stuck in his pockets. Suddenly he burst into giggles.

‘Clarence was such a hoot, he had some crammer staying during one vacation who was terribly shortsighted. Clarence brought him out here, keeping him talking, telling him to go up on the diving board and jump straight in. Chap was actually on the board, teetering right on the edge, when he looked down.’ Charlie bent over, laughing until the tears came into his eyes. ‘Pool was absolutely covered in millions of wasps, wasp nest had been built close by, millions of them all floating on the surface... Oh God, it was funny seeing that chap doing a Charlie Chaplin on the end of the board.’

Edward didn’t think it funny at all, and he asked Charlie if the fellow had fallen in.

‘Course he did, stung all over. Do you swim? Be jolly nice when the weather warms up. It needs cleaning, but it’s a jolly good length... oh, don’t look so squeamish, no wasps now, old fellah! Come on, let’s go in for a cuppa, I’m parched, what about you, Eddie?’

As Charlie was about to walk back indoors, Edward told him quietly that he preferred to be called ‘Edward’, not ‘Eddie’. Charlie shrugged and said if that was what he wanted then so be it; he was edgy again, Edward could feel it, and his uneasiness manifested itself when they returned to the drawing room. ‘Why are there four cups laid out, who else is coming?’

Lady Primrose entered with a plate of buttered scones, which she placed on a large warmer. ‘Your father is joining us, have you mentioned him to your friend?’

Charlie muttered that he had, and sat down. Without offering anything to Edward he picked up a sandwich.

‘Good heavens, I hadn’t realized how tall you were, Eddie... please help yourself.’

Charlie laughed and told his mother that his friend didn’t like to be called Eddie. She seemed flustered, then apologized. Tea was poured and handed round, Charlie devouring everything with such speed that Lady Primrose gave him a cold stare.

The door opened and David Collins appeared, wearing a velvet smoking jacket and using a silver-topped cane. Edward was taken aback by his handsome features, Charlie paled beside him. He looked delicate, his face had a fine paleness, and very few wrinkles creased his skin. Charlie sprang up. ‘Hello, Pa, want you to meet a friend of mine, Edward Stubbs, Edward, this is my father, Captain Collins.’

Captain Collins paid no attention whatsoever, as if he had either not heard Charlie or didn’t wish to meet his friend. Charlie gave Edward a wink, and they both watched as David made an elaborate, slow manoeuvre around the winged fireside chair. He sat down, placed his feet very carefully together, and seemed to be fascinated by the gold monogram on his velvet slippers.

Lady Primrose was fussing with the tea tray. ‘Would you like tea, David? Darling, tea? It’s just brewed, tea?’

David gave her a vacant stare, then a puzzled frown. ‘I haven’t had tea, have I?’

Charlie gave a short, quiet giggle and turned his back.

‘No, you haven’t had tea yet, I’m asking you if you want a cup?’

‘Well, if I haven’t had tea, then yes, please, I would, thank you, darling.’ He took out a silk handkerchief and laid it on his knee in preparation for his plate, and his teacup was put on a small table next to his armchair. He ate his cake with his delicate hands, carefully picked up every crumb and popped it into his mouth.

Charlie winked at Edward, who was trying hard not to stare at the older man. He actually seemed to be getting older by the minute, every gesture was ageing him. He was as fussy as an old maid. As Lady Primrose rang a bell beside the fireplace, David leaned forward and goosed her. She jumped, and he sat back as though he hadn’t moved. Charlie tittered and Lady Primrose gave him an arch look, but Edward could see she was as amused as Charlie.

Humphrey came in to clear the tea things, and Lady Primrose fetched a plaid rug from the windowseat and carried it across to David. She unfolded it and gently wrapped it around his knees. As she bent forward, David’s eyes gleamed. ‘Had a flash of your titties then!’

Charlie had to put his hand over his mouth. Primrose turned and made exactly the same gesture, cupping her hands over her lips. The pair of them were like naughty schoolchildren, their giggles getting completely out of hand. They ran out of the room.

Without batting an eyelid at the extraordinary behaviour of the lady of the house, Humphrey bowed formally to David and backed out of the room with the tea tray, inviting Edward to follow him and be shown to his room. Charlie and Lady Primrose were laughing in the hall, Charlie mimicking his father’s voice. ‘Ohhh, I saw your titties...’

Edward’s room was some kind of nursery, with a heap of broken toys thrown into one corner, and a rocking horse surrounded by tin soldiers in worn boxes. A bookcase was filled with children’s fairy stories, and a large cardboard box contained school exercise books. Also, the bed was about six inches too short for Edward.

He unpacked and hung his clothes in the blue-painted wardrobe with the transfers stuck all over it, and then, having nothing further to do, he picked up one of the exercise books which had the name ‘Clarence Collins’ scrawled across it. The name was everywhere he looked, scratched into the headboard of the bed, on the walls... it made Edward feel ill at ease, as if a ghost inhabited the room. The strange feeling persisted, making the small hairs at the back of his neck prickle, and he picked up a small tin soldier, holding it in the palm of his hand as though to conjure up a picture of the dead boy.

Clarence had been a tiny child when Edward’s mother had first seen him. She had paid a call on Captain David Collins, Lady Primrose’s husband. These people had all been linked to his father’s past, a past Edward knew nothing about. The curse now touched Edward; the shadow had already entered his heart.

Captain David Collins had been the leading light of the society set in Cardiff, people far removed from the lives of a poor young village girl and a gypsy fighter. Freedom Stubbs was a booth boxer, travelling with his people from fairground to fairground. And the lives of all three had crossed when David had taken Evelyne to see Freedom fight. It was a night all of them would remember; a young gypsy girl had been raped and beaten by four young miners. Over a period of three years all four had been found brutally murdered; their hands tied behind their backs, their throats slit from right to left, and on each boy’s forehead a curse was written in his own blood. The murders became known as the ‘gypsy revenge killings’, and Freedom Stubbs had been charged with all four murders.

Edward replaced the tin soldier. He smoothed the back of his neck with his palm, and when he looked at it he could still see the imprint from the toy, like a red stain. The strange mark disappeared as he stared, and he jumped, startled, as Charlie burst in and bellowed that the bathroom on this floor was dodgy. Edward could use his on the floor below. ‘Want a drive around the country before dinner? A few folks coming over, just old family friends, no doubt Father will keep them amused with his repartee, quite a jolly fellow, isn’t he, what?’

Edward was nonplussed, he didn’t know how to take Charlie’s jokes about his father, and he simply smiled. He asked tentatively if they would be dressing for dinner. Charlie mimicked Edward’s cockney accent, and with a grin said that of course they would be ‘dressin’ fer dinnah’. He saw Edward’s mouth tighten and knew he shouldn’t poke fun at him, but sometimes he was such a big oaf.

‘I’m not hungry, you go for a drive, I’ll just stay here, have a lie-down.’

Charlie shrugged and went out whistling. Edward could hear him banging down the corridor, then he heard the footsteps coming back. Charlie burst in again, walked over to the wardrobe and swung the door open, then slammed it shut and turned to Edward. ‘You liar, you just haven’t got your kit with you, won’t get out of it that way, old man. I’ll have a word with Ma, get you kitted out.’

Lady Primrose tapped on the door and entered. She was so like Charlie that Edward found it unnerving. She crooked her finger at Edward to follow her. They walked along the corridor and down to the next landing, and she opened a door, putting her finger to her lips for Edward to keep silent. She tiptoed into the room and closed the door after Edward. ‘This was Clarence’s room, I don’t want David to hear us in here, he may get confused and think it’s ghosts. Come along, follow me, but quietly does it.’

They tiptoed over to the adjoining dressing room, where there were rows of wardrobe doors, each mirrored, and she opened each one, searching, then in the end she turned to Edward. ‘He was a little shorter than you, but I’m sure everything will fit, much too big for Charlie. Please just take what you need, but do it quietly.’

She walked back into the bedroom and left Edward gazing into the immaculate wardrobe. There were rows of suits, racks of shirts, ties, shoes... he had never seen so many clothes outside a shop in his life. He didn’t know where to begin, and he went back to the bedroom. She was still there, standing with her back to him by the side of the bed, holding a photograph in her hand. She was crying softly. ‘I can’t take these things, really, it’s ever so kind of you.’

She put the photograph down and turned to him, her face, even with the tears on it, set and hard. She kept her voice low, but it was fierce. ‘I am sure it is “ever so kind”, but if you don’t they’ll only be eaten by moths, please just take whatever, take them and leave the room.’

She went out, and Edward returned to the closet. He began to sort through the clothes, feeling each piece of fabric, his heart thudding with excitement. He could get his whole year’s wardrobe out of this. Never mind just a dinner jacket, there were coats and cord trousers, the very ones he’d been saving for. He carried the things back up the stairs to the nursery, laid them on the bed and then carefully dressed, inspecting each item with care. The sleeves were slightly short, as were the trousers, but if he pulled the waist down on to his hips they looked perfect. He had sweaters and shirts, and after a while he made another trip, wondering if he and Clarence had had the same shoe size.

They pinched like hell, but they would stretch, he kept on telling himself they would, and even if they didn’t he’d still wear them.

Dressed from head to toe in Clarence’s clothes, Edward returned to his own room. He opened the child-size wardrobe, bent low to see himself in the mirror, and studied his reflection. For a moment he felt it again, the strange sensation that made his body tingle. He gasped — he was sure he had seen his father in the mirror, wearing an immaculate dinner jacket. He shook his head, smiling to himself. He had never seen his father dressed in anything but worn working clothes. Again he peered into the mirror, struggling unsuccessfully with his bow tie.

Charlie appeared flushed and wearing a dinner jacket. He laughed at Edward because he was purple in the face from trying to do up the bow tie. In the end Charlie made him practise it so many times he could do it blindfolded. Then Charlie held him at arm’s length and nodded his approval, grinned and said that he looked like a million dollars. If he didn’t drop too many ‘aitches’, anyone would take him for a gent. Then he backed off, his hands up. ‘Just a joke, it’s a joke — when you get that frosty look on your face it sends shivers up me. Right then, you set for a cocktail?’

They walked down the broad stone stairs covered in the threadbare carpet and entered the drawing room together. A fire had been lit, even though it was summer, because the castle walls were damp and cold, but the fire brightened up the room. Charlie began mixing Pimm’s for them. ‘Better fill you in on the guests, Lord and Lady Carlton, Ma’s oldest friends. She’s a dreadful, hatchet-faced woman and he’s a spellbinding chap, real bore of the first order, then there’s the “Hons”, their daughters, take after their mother and are frightfully ugly, but they are sooooo rich... Here you go, get this down you.’

Edward sipped his drink and liked it. He asked if Charlie was rich, judging by the looks of the place he thought they must be pretty well off. Charlie sniggered and said they were all broke, but there was a trust set up by his uncle, his mother’s cousin, he was the chap who had left them the castle. From what Edward could gather it was his money they were living on. ‘My father, as you may be able to tell by his amazing, zestful, energetic, athletic appearance, never earned a penny in his life. Mother believes she married beneath herself. Must be obvious he’s round the bend, got well and truly lumbered with the old boy. Well, here’s to us, chin chin.’

Lady Primrose entered, wearing a long, dark rose-coloured evening dress with padded shoulders that accentuated her slimness. She looked very elegant. ‘My, Charlie, your friend does look smart. Turn around, Edward, yes, frightfully good, sleeves a trifle on the short side, but... oh, let me see... cufflinks, Charlie, go and get a pair of... there must be lots of cufflinks upstairs.’

Charlie moaned but departed, and as Lady Primrose helped herself to a cocktail she turned to Edward and gestured with her hand, a small fluttering motion.

‘I like a gin and it before dinner, just so you know, this much gin and this much... it... and no ice, but I do like a cherry.’

She giggled, and Edward stood like a sentry as she moved closer. Her perfume swamped him, ‘Tea Rose’, a bitter-sweet tea rose. She had to look up into his face, he was so tall. ‘Where do you come from? Foreign blood in you, I can see it. You are very dark, and my goodness, what long eyelashes you have, well, where are you from?’

Edward looked down at her, she was standing too close for comfort, but he didn’t like to back off in case it was rude. But she was very close, so close he could see the fine wrinkles around her eyes, and tiny, tell-tale lines around her mouth.

‘I’m from London, the East End.’

‘Ho, the East End? Well, well! Oi, Charlie, yer should ‘ave told me he is from da East End, lord love yer! Now then, Charlie Collins, don’t you splash the drinks around, it is rationed, yer know! Oi, is dat their car?’

She enjoyed herself with her appalling impression of an East End accent. Charlie gave her a stern look and winked at Edward, then poured himself a very large gin. He inched the blackout curtains up a fraction. ‘Yep, they’ve arrived... all four of them. Can’t you hear the gravel crunching under their delicate feet?’ He slipped over to Edward’s side and nudged him. ‘Come on, she was only joking. Lighten up, old man. Here’s Clarry’s best cufflinks — all yours. Oh, God, here they come.’

Lady Primrose laughed as Lord Freddy entered the drawing room unannounced. He strode across the room, beaming, hand outstretched. ‘Charlie, Charlie, good to see you... looking handsome as ever, Primmy, how are you, darling one?’

Lord Carlton kissed Lady Primrose’s hand. She giggled girlishly, and introduced Edward as a friend of Charlie’s staying for the vacation. Lord Freddy hardly gave him a look, he was already pouring himself a drink, completely at home in the castle.

‘Where are the girls, darling?’

As if on cue, and with a shuddering of the floor, Lord Carlton’s wife appeared. Lady Heather was a thickset woman, her short, stocky legs set rather wide apart to support her weight. She wore a terrible, motheaten silver fox cape, the head of the fox jumping up and down on her ample bosom.

She wore her greying hair in an unflattering wartime style, rolled around her head. ‘Charlie, you’re home, jolly good... How are you, Primrose? Good God, you’ve got a fire at this time of year? Aren’t you hot? It’s frightfully hot in here, isn’t it?’

No one introduced Edward, and Lady Carlton showed no interest in him. Her husband handed her a large gin and tonic as their daughters appeared, standing shyly at the door. ‘Now, gels, let me introduce you to a lovely, eligible young man, bound to need partners for all the summer dances, this is Edward... Charlie you both know, of course, and... oh, one martini, Edward, and one gin and it.’

Edward had not said a single word. Charlie, in fine form, had already taken Lady Carlton’s fox fur, and was doing impressions with his hand inside the fox’s mouth. Humphrey announced dinner, and the next moment Charlie leapt on the two girls with the fox.

‘Charlie, that will do, don’t have any more to drink. Edward, make sure he doesn’t drink too much, he gets out of control.’

The dining room was even more medieval in style than the sitting room, with a long refectory table and heavy, carved chairs, a throne covered in worn red velvet at one end. The walls were decorated with shields and ancient guns, and deer heads leered down at them. On the far wall was what looked like an African shield with two spears. The main source of light was an iron chandelier, with more candles scattered along the table. Lady Primrose told everyone to sit where they liked, and she herself sat to the right of the throne with Lord Freddy opposite and his wife at his side. The party did not fill the table and Edward noticed that the far end of it was unoccupied and rather dusty.

‘I’m afraid the dinner will be the usual hotch-potch... Oh, darling! There you are!’

Captain Collins, wearing an immaculate dinner jacket with a rose in the buttonhole, walked slowly down the room, using his silver-topped cane. He didn’t even acknowledge his guests, but seated himself on the throne, which Humphrey moved closer to the table. Out came a clean silk handkerchief, and he carefully picked up each piece of cutlery at his place and cleaned it. Each prong of the fork was treated to a careful inspection as he slid the handkerchief between them. That done, he wiped the table carefully around where he sat — fussy, tidy movements, without saying a single word. No one paid him any attention, apart from Edward, who watched, fascinated, until he got a nudge from Charlie, who twiddled his finger at his head to show that his father was ‘up the wall’.

The first course was a thin, gravy-like soup, and it wasn’t very warm, but no one seemed to mind. The clatter of spoons as they ate covered any embarrassment.

‘Eddie, old chap, I think you’ve just eaten my bread roll.’

Edward had forgotten his side plate was to his left, and he had indeed eaten Charlie’s roll. He offered Charlie the other one, apologetically.

‘Well, I don’t want it now you’ve had your sticky fingers all over it, chuck it away... here, give it to me.’

Charlie hurled the bread roll down the table. It hit Captain Collins and bounced off. He appeared not to notice. The conversation continued.

After that, Edward did not eat anything until he had seen which plates and cutlery everyone else used. He sat quietly, listening. Charlie started a general conversation when he denounced Somerset Maugham as a futile, irrelevant writer, and gradually they all joined in. Lord Freddy disagreed, and his wife nodded her head in agreement with him. Lady Primrose told Charlie he was being ridiculous.

‘I say he’s very competent, I give him that, and don’t suppose I am actually criticizing him. Ma, good God, I am far too conscious of the difficulty of constructing even the most simple paragraph myself... I simply said that I do not think he is a writer of great importance because he doesn’t have anything of importance to say.’

Lady Primrose laughed and said that now he was backtracking, and they began to discuss authors they liked and disliked. Lord Carlton pounded the table as he talked about Lockhart’s Life of Scott; he had found it invigorating. Lady Carlton turned to Charlie and asked if he enjoyed Byron, and this was greeted with a typical Charlie-type yawning howl. ‘Enjoy? Enjoy? The cumulative effect of that cripple’s style is stupefying.’

Lady Carlton turned to Edward. ‘Are you reading the same subjects as Charlie?’

Edward’s mouth was full and so Charlie answered, saying that he was a brilliant scholar. The girls tried to continue the literary conversation, asking if Edward had read Amurath to Amurath by Gertrude Bell. It was exceedingly interesting, about travel and archaeology in Asiatic Turkey.

‘Sounds utterly boring to me, what on earth are you reading garbage like that for, dear gel?’ asked Charlie. ‘You should be buried in Virginia Woolf, much more your type, and such a life! Did I tell you she was a lesbian?’

Lady Primrose threw her bread roll at Charlie, and he thanked her because Edward had eaten his.

Throughout the meal David Collins ate like a bird, chewing each mouthful carefully, wiping his mouth after every swallow. He sipped a watery, milky-coloured drink that Humphrey topped up from a decanter kept separate from the other bottles. He seemed unconcerned with anything at the table, and paid no one the slightest attention, keeping his eyes on his plate.

Charlie launched into another anecdote. ‘Did I tell you, Ma, the bomber pilot brought down near Cambridge is supposed to have been a German ex-undergraduate, jolly good example of those bastards’ thoroughness.’

Lady Primrose looked puzzled and turned to Lord Freddy for assistance.

‘Mother, you really are unbelievable. No need for sir to deliberate, bugger tried to pass himself off as one of us.’

Suddenly the whole table went quiet as David Collins spoke. ‘I hate the place, caught a devastating cold there.’

Charlie had to put his hand over his mouth to stop himself bursting into a fit of giggles, and Edward noticed his mother doing the same.

‘Are you referring to Germany or Cambridge, old chap?’

David looked blankly along the table as if he hadn’t spoken and sipped his cloudy drink.

They were about to leave the dining room when David did it again. His voice was clear as a bell, but this time he was pointing at Edward. ‘Why is that fellow wearing Clarence’s cufflinks?’

Everyone turned to Edward and then back to David. He seemed very lucid, and his pale blue eyes were staring hard at Edward. He pointed again, and his face was tight and angry.

‘You must be mistaken, darling, now come along, we are all going into the drawing room, and it’s time you went to bed, come along everyone, Edward, Charlie.’

They trooped out, leaving David sitting at the table. Lady Primrose was the last to leave, and she turned when she reached the door. ‘Go to bed, David, you’re tired.’

As the party crossed the hall they couldn’t help but overhear the high-pitched, bell-like voice rising in anger. ‘That chap’s got Clarence’s cufflinks on, I bought them for his twenty-first, I would know them anywhere. He’s a ruddy thief, I want the police called. Primmy, please don’t walk away when I’m talking to you. Who is that fella, and where is Clarence? He won’t like it, I am going to do something about this.’

Charlie closed the sitting-room door with a wink to Edward and began to pour port and brandy, spilling it as he was already rather drunk. The raised voices continued out in the hall, and Charlie grabbed hold of Edward’s cuffs, swearing and trying to take out the cufflinks.

‘Better get ‘em off, old chap, he’s liable to get into such a state. Here, give them over.’

Lord Carlton looked on and the girls sat eagle-eyed on the settee as Charlie ran from the room. He left the door ajar, and they could all see the irate David standing with his cane in the hall.

‘Here, Father, take them, put them away safely so no one can take them, here, these are what you want, aren’t they?’

Lady Primrose hovered at the door and gave Edward an apologetic shrug of the shoulders. The high-pitched voice continued, and now Humphrey could be seen trying to cajole David up the stairs, holding a cloudy drink out for him like a carrot to a donkey.

‘All I’m saying is, that chap has no right to be wearing Clarry’s cufflinks. When he comes back he’ll play hell, don’t like this sort of carry-on at all, not nice, throw the beggar out on his ear.’

At last the door was shut, and everyone tried to cover up their embarrassment by talking at once. Edward sat with his sleeves flapping and his feet, in Clarence’s patent-leather shoes, hurting. At the first opportunity he excused himself, pleading a headache.

He stood outside the door and knew they were talking about him. He hated the feelings churning inside him, hated being laughed at, but more than that he hated being the outsider. Edward had only just undone his tie and hung it on the doorknob when Charlie knocked and walked into the bedroom.

‘Look, sorry about all the carry-on down there, but the old man is out of it, been that way as long as I can remember.’

‘Just so long as he doesn’t undress me next time. You want Clarry’s suit back? Tie? Shirt?’

Charlie thumped him on the shoulder and then sprawled on the bed. ‘You know Freddy was engaged to my mother when they were young, and then she ditched him for old loonydrawers... Apparently Freddy is still getting the old leg over her, and I can’t really say I blame him — or her, for that matter. Neither of them have what one could describe as perfect partners. Lord Freddy was married for his title — the little hairy woman is tres riche, but poor Ma married for love.’

Edward was unbuttoning his shirt. ‘What happened to your father?’

‘Well, it’s all cloaked in mystery, something like shell-shock. He was getting better for a while, then this scandal blew up... Well, that’s what Ma says put the lid on him.’

Edward sat next to Charlie, cocking his head to one side. ‘Well, don’t stop there, you’ve got me hooked now...’

Charlie’s face puckered, and then he stuffed his hands in his pockets. ‘I don’t know all the facts, but I had an uncle — he was a boxing promoter. You know the kind — “Gentleman Jim” — with more money than he knew what to do with. Well, Pop took some tart to a boxing match — you know, bare-knuckle job. What the hell he was doing there I don’t know. But then he was a bit of a social climber, ya know, maybe thought it was infra dig. But he dragged poor old Freddy with him, and a bunch of debs too — not, I hasten to add, my dear mother, she’d never have been seen dead at a boxing match.’

Edward could feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickling again, and he started to feel cold, icy cold.

‘Well, go on,’ he said.

Charlie continued, ‘Well, it all got out of hand and some blokes raped a gypsy girl. Then this tart tried to make Pa take her home. Well, he paid her off, and all of a sudden these horrific murders started, they called them the revenge murders... the gypsy revenge murders. Seems the lads who raped the girl were found bound and gagged, throats slit. Oh, yes... and some weird markings on their forehead, or so the story goes.’

Edward stared at his tie. It was hanging down the door like a noose, a hangman’s noose.

Charlie yawned and sat up, rubbing his head. ‘Next thing, this whore reappears, saying she’s going to stand as a defence witness for this gyppo, who was charged with the murders, and she wants Pa and Freddy to act as witnesses because they were at the fight. I think she wanted them as character witnesses, not for the gyppo but for herself, so you can imagine what a scandal that would start up... so they refused. Then Gentleman Jim, Uncle Charlie, swashbuckles his way into town. He wants this gyppo for his boxing stable, so he organizes all the legal buffs, and gets poor old Pa into such a state that he agrees to appear. He also gets Lord Freddy to stand up for this dreadful woman.’

‘What was she called?’

‘Dear God, I haven’t the slightest. You’ve no idea how tough it was trying to get that much out of Freddy, and he was pretty tight so I’ve no idea how much of that was true. Ma won’t even discuss it, says that if that tart hadn’t made such a fuss, Pa would never have had a relapse.’

‘What happened to the fighter?’

‘No idea. I was just getting to the nitty gritty when Freddy got all tearful... Apparently, this old bastard uncle, the gent I owe my name to... well, apparently he was a tough negotiator, blackmailed Freddy and Pa...’

Edward interrupted. ‘How? What did he have on them?’

Charlie stared at Edward, finding his interest a little distasteful. ‘Freddy never said what made them step forward, but... Look, what’s it to you?’

‘But what?’

Charlie’s face tightened, then he shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s just deserts.’

‘I don’t follow?’

‘I didn’t really intend you to, old boy... It’s not something one likes to broadcast, but Clarry knew. Maybe that was why he couldn’t wait to get to the front, get himself shot in a decent hero’s death.’ He ran his hand along the name scratched on the bedpost, tracing the childish letters over and over with his fingers. Then he stuffed his hands back into his pockets, no longer joking; Edward felt that he was ashamed.

‘The old man, Edward, turned custard yellow and fled. He left his entire regiment to be hacked to death, that’s why he’s loony. He can’t face the past, can’t face the truth... C’est la vie, huh?’

Edward knew who the fighter was, knew the woman Charlie had referred to as a ‘tart’ was his mother, but he showed no sign that anything Charlie had said had affected him personally. He spoke flippantly, hoping to get more information. ‘So what happened to the tart and the fighter?’ he asked.

Bored by the subject now, Charlie picked his nose, then lurched to his feet, dismissively. ‘God only knows. No doubt they lived happily ever after — luck of the gyppos, I suppose. And I’ve said too much, always do when I’ve been on the gin. Well, g’night, I’m falling asleep on my feet. See you on the morrow, old chum.’

He sauntered out, and Edward relaxed, stretching his hands, his fingers... Then he undressed and lay, naked, on the small bed. He was sure Charlie had no inkling of his background, it had been sheer coincidence. Freedom Stubbs and Edward were too far apart, worlds apart now, and no one could link him with the gypsy and the ‘whore’, as Charlie had called her. He turned to lie on his belly. He would make sure no one else would make the connection.

Softly, he practised his speech over and over again, listening to his voice, modulating the accent Lady Primrose had mimicked so poorly, flushing as he remembered. He knew she would have been horrendous to his mother, and he would have liked to shove the cufflinks down the old fool’s throat. He found himself wondering if his mother had been David Collins’ girlfriend, and why a man as well connected as the captain would have been involved with a girl like her. He would have liked to get up and leave there and then, but he was stuck without enough cash to walk away. Anyway, something held him here, held him to this dead boy’s room, to these half-dead people. Somehow he knew that by the end of the summer he would change.

Eventually he slept, while the noose he had made out of his tie slid slowly from the door to lie on the floor.

The following morning, Edward borrowed a bicycle and rode into the nearest town. He spent four hours in the public library, looking over the old newspaper cuttings of the trial of Freedom Stubbs. His mother had never mentioned her past, her life in the valleys or the murder trial.

His father, the man Edward had knifed to death, had himself been charged with four murders. Again and again Edward turned the pages to look at the black-and-white photograph of Freedom. The strange, youthful face glared back. In one shot, his long hair swirled around his shoulders as if daring the photographer to take his image. There were also several photographs of his mother, often blurred, out of focus, but it was Evelyne, haughty yet shy, arrogant yet so innocent. The photograph touched a chord inside him that made him ache to see her.

He read the articles over and over; how she had become a heroine, standing as a witness for a man she barely knew because she believed in justice. There was an account of how she had been asked, before the jury, if she had had any kind of sexual relationship with the accused, and she had replied that she had not, she was there simply to see that an innocent man did not hang. She had been with the gypsy on the night of the last murder and knew he could not have committed it. The lawyers were able to prove him innocent of all charges, and he was freed.

Edward wondered if her story was true. It certainly read so, yet his mother had eventually married Freedom. There was so much he wanted to ask her, so much he wanted to know, but he knew he now had no right ever to ask. He had killed the man she had saved from the rope, killed his own father — he even mused over the fact that it was possible his father had been a murderer. He read of the way the gypsy had caught the press’s imagination with his handsome looks, much like the film star, Valentino. With a sense of foreboding he read of the curse sign on each of the four young miners’ foreheads. So much he had no knowledge of, so much of his father he had never known. And the more he read the surer he was that he did not want it known, the more he reconciled himself to moving further and further away from his roots. He wanted no part of this past, no whispers attached to him of his gypsy father; yet carefully, surreptitiously, he cut out as many of the newspaper photographs as possible. Then he returned to the castle.

The days passed by, and although Edward spent two or three hours in the early mornings reading and revising, Charlie made no effort to study. He was out shooting rabbits for food, or chasing the farm girls for other reasons. Charlie was a walking time bomb, full of energy.

One morning, after Edward had been at the castle for three weeks, he went as usual to the breakfast room. The housekeeper shuffled around, carrying dishes and muttering about everything being ‘short’. Yet there never seemed to be a lack of food. It was never cooked well, but no one went hungry. The feeling that the war was far away was more prevalent here in the country.

Edward sat between Lady Primrose and Charlie as they argued about money, and was astonished yet again by Charlie’s total unconcern. He talked to his mother as if she were one of the girls from Woolworth’s, at the same time wolfing down his breakfast as though he had a train to catch.

‘You’ll just have to find the money yourself. Two hundred pounds, Charlie, how could you?’

Charlie munched on his toast and shrugged, then he scraped out the marmalade jar and kicked Edward under the table.

‘You’ve got the cash, Ma, I know it, all the booty you got from Uncle Charlie — you’ve just become a miser in your old age.’

Lady Primrose turned to Edward for help, and told him his cousin Charlie had been dead for nearly twenty years. ‘He just doesn’t know the meaning of money, Edward, but he’s going to learn, I’m not going to pay this time. Last term how much did you owe? Three hundred, and you promised me, you promised me faithfully.’

Charlie laughed. He knew if he encouraged his mother to talk about Uncle Charlie, his namesake, she would forget about the bills. Lady Primrose sighed. She wandered around the room while she told Edward about Sir Charles Wheeler. ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about boxing, do you, Edward? Well, Charlie was a promoter — you know, he used to find boxers and then take them all over the world — he was such a sportsman, everyone knew him. He died in a plane crash in Nevada, or was it Florida, I don’t really remember — anyway he never married, and his money went to the trustees of his estate, and they are so mean, really awful. You see, we are the only heirs, and it should all be ours.’

As Lady Primrose talked on and on, Edward felt as if a ghost were walking across his grave.

‘I say, are you all right? Gone a paler shade of yellow, you should come out shooting with me, get some colour into your dark cheeks.’

Edward smiled and drank the dregs of his cold tea. Lady Primrose was called to the telephone, and Charlie stuffed the bills away in a drawer with a bow.

They walked for miles, and Charlie showed Edward how to use his shotgun. As they walked, Edward turned the conversation to their studies, asking when Charlie was prepared to begin work. ‘And you did mention paying me for my time here, sorry to bring it up, but I would have got a job during the vacation. Unlike you, Charlie, I don’t have a rich mother, so when do we start?’

They began, in a haphazard way, to set aside a few hours a day for work, and Edward began to realize that his pupil was way below himself in his studies. It was something of a shock, how on earth had he got himself into Cambridge? ‘Look, why don’t we start at the first lecture and work our way through, Charlie? You don’t have the foggiest notion of what I’m talking about.’

Charlie admitted it, saying he had actually wanted to read English literature, but as his brother had done that he chose geology. He hadn’t the slightest interest in rocks or anything to do with mineralogy or petrology, and to prove it he began to hurl his books across the room. ‘I want to live, Eddie, really live, you know, enjoy life. What’s the point of being cooped up in those ruddy lectures, those interminable centrifuges? I am so fucking bored all the time. My mind’s petrifying like your bloody rocks.’

Edward had never seen Charlie so ‘real’, this was what he was really like, and all the laughs and the madcap antics were out of frustration.

‘Clarence was the clever one, you see, always Clarence, and he went and got himself shot to pieces. So I have to go to Cambridge, I have to emulate the “Boy Wonder”... Well, I can’t, I simply can’t. Added to that I’ve got this wretched farm girl up the spout and she’s chasing me all over the place with a pitchfork.’ Charlie’s face tightened and he chewed his lip. ‘Look, I’m going off for a while, see a few old friends, you won’t mind being on your tod, will you? Only I’m sure they’d all bore the pants off you...’

Charlie didn’t wait for a reply, he just turned and marched off, leaving Edward feeling like a spare part. He somehow knew Charlie didn’t want him to meet his friends.

Edward sat at the small nursery desk for a few hours, studying, until he heard a car outside on the gravel. He looked out of the window to see Lord Carlton in his car. He opened the door and Lady Primrose ran to join him. They drove off, and Edward could see her kissing Freddy’s neck as they disappeared from view. He felt slightly disgusted — Lady Primrose had to be in her early fifties, yet she was acting like a teenager, and a naughty one at that.

By mid-afternoon the sun was hot enough to crack the flagstones so Edward crept into the dead Clarence’s room and found himself a pair of swimming trunks. The water was icy cold, and the surface of the pool was covered with leaves. He nervously lowered himself into the water. Clinging to the edge, he dog-paddled, never having swum in his life. He tried a few strokes, and made it from one side of the pool to the other. Then he got out of the water and sunbathed, lying on the marble side of the pool. He had still not been paid, and it was beginning to irritate him. So Charlie was in a mess, that didn’t mean Edward had to follow in his tracks. He was going to succeed, even, perhaps, one day, live in a place like this. He liked the old furniture, its weight. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘one day I’ll have a place like this.’

He began to burn from the heat of the sun, so he returned to his room. He had a long bath, then changed for dinner. He was always a little wary of going to the drawing room before the dinner gong sounded, as he felt such an intruder.

At last the gong boomed, and Edward made his way downstairs. He was starving from his walk and his swim. Charlie thumped him one from behind as he moved down the stairs. He was in full evening dress, a white silk scarf wrapped around his neck. ‘Just out for the evening, you don’t mind. Oh, Ma, Ma... the Henleys want you to call them, I said you’d see them at their fete.’

Edward hung back slightly as Lady Primrose stood at the open doors waving Charlie off, calling to him to enjoy himself. Edward stood in the hall, uncertain what to do.

‘Well dear, it’s just you and me. God knows what Mrs Forbes has come up with tonight... now, I insist you sit in the throne, David won’t be down. Do help yourself to wine...’

‘Thank you, er... where’s Charlie gone, Lady Primrose?’

Lips puckered, she picked at the dreadful mess on her plate, then jabbed at it with her fork. ‘Oh, he’ll be with Lorna... they’ve come for a few weeks, all staying at the Waverleys’... Humphrey, what on earth is this? It’s like dead frog.’

Edward ate in silence while she chattered away, hardly touching her food, but the wine decanter was refilled by Humphrey and they both drank liberally. ‘She’s such a darling, awfully pretty gel, poor darling child was so in love with Clarry.’

Edward found it difficult to follow her train of thought. When she mentioned her dead son she stared into space. ‘Lorna is so patient. Charlie’s supposed to be engaged to her, you know, but he won’t name the date. This is dreadful, I can’t eat another mouthful. Why don’t we have some coffee in the drawing room... come along.’

Edward, still hungry enough to eat anything and light-headed from having consumed nearly a bottle of wine by himself, dutifully followed her into the drawing room. She offered him brandy and he accepted. He had never had it before and found it a harsh, burning liquid, but he liked it, it relaxed him. He even accepted the proffered cigar.

The fire blazed, the room was hot and stuffy, and the brandy and cigar made Edward feel a little dizzy, but he liked the feeling. He asked Primrose if she would mind if he loosened his tie, and she laughed, crossed over to him and, with one deft finger, unhooked the tie, then loosened his collar. He averted his face, ashamed. Lady Primrose misconstrued his look. He was certainly a very handsome young man, much better-looking than any of the other students Charlie had landed her with. ‘Shall we play some music, sort out something from that pile of records over there — not that other stack, they were Clarence’s.’

She watched him standing over the record-player. He hadn’t refused, hadn’t made an excuse to go to his room. Perhaps he rather liked her. She leaned back and sighed, that would be nice, to have a young man in love with her. She lolled against the cushions and closed her eyes in what she thought was a provocative pose.

Edward had no idea what record was what, and he looked through them at a loss. He chose one at random, placing it on the turntable and winding the handle energetically. ‘The Moonlight Serenade’ drifted out, slightly cracked and at a rather slow tempo as he had not wound the phonograph up properly.

‘I’ve had a disastrous afternoon.’

Edward wound the handle. ‘Pardon?’

‘Shall I tell you something, something naughty? I have been having an affair with Lord Carlton for more years than I care to remember. It’s not as shocking as it sounds, his wife knows, she’s known for about as long... she just turns a blind eye. But it’s no good when it’s sort of accepted, is it?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

She laughed, held out her glass. ‘Be a sweet boy and give me a refill, would you, make it a large one. Thank you, sweetie.’

Edward took her glass to the cabinet and filled it, took it back to her and turned the phonograph off as he went. He handed her the glass.

‘Well, chin chin, aren’t you going to join me... oh do! Go on, help yourself.’

Edward shrugged and refilled his glass.

‘He’s impotent, well, he has been for the past four months... I put it down — haw, haw, haw! That was a slip of the tongue — his factory, or his wife’s factory, is being closed down, not many people are really all that interested in toffee when there’s a war on... Come and sit beside me.’

Edward moved closer, but did not sit beside her. He sipped his brandy and stared into the fire. He felt Primrose’s hand touch his head, stroking his hair.

‘You’re very quiet, what are you thinking about?’

‘Oh Christ,’ he thought, ‘she’s making a play for me.’ Aloud, he said, ‘I think I’ll go up and do some work, do you mind?’

‘I’ve got a super record somewhere, better than that creepy slow stuff, we’ll have something bright and lively.’ Her whole body broke into a flush as she looked at him. He was so tall, so lean, and his hair coal black. It had grown longer over the summer and it suited him. He was quite the most beautiful boy she had ever seen in her life. There was a quality to him that she found so overtly sexual, even on their first meeting she had noticed it — a strange, animal quality, the way he moved, so guarded, so watchful, his eyes brooding.

Edward turned as she laughed. ‘I was just talking to myself, in my mind, thinking what a handsome boy you are. My thoughts were like those cheap penny-dreadfuls; “animal quality”, you know the sort of thing, “He paced the room like a wild beast, his broad shoulders, his dark, handsome looks.”’

When he looked at her, she couldn’t tell from his expression what he was thinking, and she didn’t care if it did sound like a cheap novel, his eyes were as unfathomable as... somewhere, somewhere she had seen eyes like these before, perhaps in the picture house, some long-forgotten film... she got up and went to the gramophone. Edward watched her tossing records about, and downed his drink. He shouldn’t have mixed them. ‘I don’t dance, and I’m a bit drunk, actually, I really think I should go up to my room.’

‘I’ll teach you, this is a tango, come on, up you get, on to those long legs of yours.’ Lady Primrose began to dance, and she swayed across the room as the music crackled from the old gramophone. She was still slim, still able to move like a young girl, and she began to tango. She tugged a shawl from the table, almost overturning the bowl of flowers. ‘Come on, dance with me, dance, hold your arms up, that’s it. Now stamp your feet, as if you were a bullfighter... wonderful, da-da, darumrum-rum da... da rumpupup daaa.’

Suddenly she threw herself into his arms and clung to him. The sunburn on his back was painful, and he tried to push her away, but she hung on. ‘Please, oh please don’t push me from you, hold me, hold me tight.’

The record stuck, but she didn’t seem to hear it. She hid her face in his shoulder and ran her hands up his arms, murmuring, moaning, ‘You have such a body, such a body, so firm, so young, make love to me, please, please make love to me.’

Primrose grabbed the decanter and pulled him by the hand towards the door. She was drunk and she knew it, but she wanted him, wanted him naked beside her.

Edward allowed himself to be dragged up the stairs, along the corridor and up to his nursery room, where she shut the door and pressed her back against it. She drank from the decanter itself, then swung it in her hand. Edward took off his jacket and hung it neatly on the small child’s chair.

He looked at her through the mirror, her face flushed, and in the dark he could make believe she was young, or youngish, but as she stepped out of her dress he had to turn away, disgusted. She was Charlie’s mother, for God’s sake.

She lay on the bed and held out her arms to him, begging him now, pleading, and it sickened him. He picked up the decanter and took a heavy swig, feeling the brandy hit the back of his throat, then he stood by the bed, looking down at her, and found her pitiful as she writhed in front of him.

‘I have no money, I need money, I don’t have a cent with me, not a penny, Lady Primrose.’

She stared at him, suddenly cold. She pulled the sheet around her naked body, ashamed, and turned her back on him. He slowly rubbed her shoulder, softly, gently.

‘How much do you want?’

‘God,’ she thought, ‘was that my voice, asking how much?’

Edward began to unbutton his shirt, pulling it out of his pants, and he smiled down at her, bent to kiss the side of her head.

‘Ten pounds, I want ten pounds.’

Primrose lay back in his arms and sighed. He had been worth every penny, and she kissed him. The fact that she was paying for it somehow heightened her enjoyment. He looked down into her face, patted her bottom and said that was all she was getting for a tenner. She laughed, searched around for her underwear, and as she gathered it up in her arms she bent over him, over the small bed, to kiss him goodnight. The childish, scrawled writing of her dead son confronted her, and she blushed with shame.

The next few weeks Edward rarely saw Charlie. He was always driving off to visit ‘friends’, seldom back until the early hours, sometimes not appearing at all. Edward spent his days working, walking and practising swimming. The evening began to take on a pattern; if Lady Primrose was home, she invariably came to his room, often the worse for drink, and always clutching her ten-pound note.

One night, Charlie arrived home unexpectedly. Edward and Lady Primrose were in the small child’s bed when they heard him calling. Lady Primrose hastily wrapped her dressing gown around her and was just reaching the door when Charlie burst in. ‘Oh, hello, darling, I just brought poor Edward an aspirin, he’s not feeling at all well...’

Edward lay on the bed, naked apart from a sheet draped over him. He had tanned to a dark brown from his sunbathing, and Charlie was quick to take in the situation. He lolled at the door. ‘Just thought you should know, Ma, I’ve sort of said we’ll throw a dance before I go back up...’

Lady Primrose covered her embarrassment fast, clapping her hands with delight and telling Charlie it was a wonderful idea. She then beat a hasty retreat. Charlie remained at the open bedroom door. ‘You got a cigarette, old chap?’

Edward sat up, reached for his trousers and tossed a packet of Craven ‘A’ cigarettes to Charlie.

‘What was she doing up here? Trying to grope you?’ Charlie lit the cigarette, tossing the match aside. He had a smirk on his face. Edward shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve got a headache.’

‘Too much study, old fella, not enough play...’

‘Look, Charlie, you owe me, you know. I could have got a job — you said ten bob a week. I’m not one of your fancy friends, I need the cash.’

Charlie wandered about the room, puffing at the cigarette. ‘I’ll pay, for Chrissakes...’

‘You should have done some work, you know. Emmott’ll haul you over the coals next term.’

‘I think it should be fancy dress. We’ve got loads of costumes up in the attic, should be great fun... You could wrap a few sheets around you, come as Rudy Valentino... You okay? What’s up?’

Edward broke out in a sweat. He could see himself, sitting at the kitchen table with Alex, his mother, and the scrapbook. Freedom’s face, the programmes, the boxing pictures. He could hear his mother laughing, ‘They used to say your Dad was the image of the film star, Rudolph Valentino... see, look at this picture. Look, Eddie, here’s another. This was in Miami...’

‘Eddie, you all right?’ Charlie moved closer to the bed and Edward shrank back from him.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, nothing, just... You mind leaving me alone?’

Charlie stubbed out his cigarette and wandered out. Edward opened the window. He was panting, nausea swept over him. He couldn’t get the picture of his father out of his mind. He began to pace up and down the room, feeling the walls closing in on him. He dressed, crept downstairs and out into the garden. It was a clear summer night and he slowly began to shake the panic inside him. He sat on a bench, leaned back and closed his eyes.

‘Hello... I saw you out here. Did Charlie suspect anything?’

The last person he wanted to see was Lady Primrose, wrapped in her floating pink negligee. He sighed, gritted his teeth. She put her arms around his neck.

Standing up at an unlit window, overlooking the gardens, was David Collins. He could see his wife fawning over some fellow who, to his mind, looked like a bloody gypsy. He sipped his medicine, his mind as clouded as his drink, then turned away from the window, missing the sight of Edward pushing Lady Primrose roughly away.

‘Oh, you brute, that’s what you are, a brute... let’s go inside, I want you, darling, I want you.’

Edward gripped her arms and pushed her away again, making her stumble backwards. She began to be afraid of him. ‘Eddie, is something wrong, Eddie darling?’

He wanted to slap her over-made-up face, felt his hands clenching and unclenching. If she tried to hold him one more time, he didn’t think he would be able to control himself. ‘I don’t like being called Eddie. My name is Edward, for Chrissakes, Edward.’

Lady Primrose, with all the confidence she could muster, told him that she knew who he was, there was no need to be cruel.

‘You don’t know me, none of you know me. If you must know, you disgust me, disgust me as much as my own pitiful circumstances do. Now leave me alone.’

She made the mistake of putting her arms around him as he walked away from her. He turned and slapped her so hard with one hand that she fell on to the gravel path. ‘Get off me, you old hag, for God’s sake get away from me.’

She started to cry, her make-up running, begging him not to call her old. He had said she was beautiful, said she was beautiful...

‘I’ll say anything if I’m paid for it, darlin’, now get lost, hear me, fuck off.’ The cockney accent, so carefully disguised, burst out of him, and he walked away cursing himself for letting it slip. He wasn’t worried that he had struck her, hurt her, only angry that he had let his accent slip.

The fancy-dress dance never materialized. The following morning Edward found Charlie sitting at the breakfast table. He looked up with a glum smile as Edward joined him. ‘Look, old chap, I think we should beat a hasty retreat, get the hell out of here... About this cash I owe you — I feel really rotten about it so if you agree, there’s a whole load of stuff up in the attic. You sort through it, take what you want, sort of payment in kind. Then we’ll be on the road...’

‘Fine by me — what’s up, the wedding off?’

Charlie shrugged, poured himself more coffee. ‘Not much point, really... I’ll explain when we’re on the road. Just think we should make preparations to leave.’

Edward didn’t argue, and was left eating alone. He wondered if Charlie knew about Lady Primrose and himself. Something was up, that was for sure. He finished his breakfast and went upstairs to his room to pack.

Charlie popped his head round the door. ‘Look, I’ve got my gear in the motor. You go upstairs to the attic and take what you want. I’ll be outside waiting. Really, just take anything that takes your fancy...’

‘Charlie? Charlie, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’

‘Tell you later. Get a move on, I’ll have to go and see Ma.’

Edward searched the musty, dust-filled attic of the castle. He found three oil paintings, two embroidered velvet curtains, vases and candlesticks. He would have taken more but he felt there wouldn’t be enough room in the car. He carried everything downstairs and piled the boot high with his luggage first — all his new clothes, courtesy of the dead Clarence. Somehow he managed to fit all his pieces of furniture in. As he was coming down the stairs on his final trip, the drawing-room door was open. Lady Primrose sat on the sofa, weeping, with Charlie next to her, holding her hand. Edward stood outside by the car, unsure whether or not he should disturb them. At long last Charlie came out.

‘Don’t you think I should say goodbye to your mother, Charlie?’

Charlie hopped into the driving seat, searched his key-ring for the car key and said nonchalantly, ‘No... Besides, I have a feeling your goodbye would take longer than a peck on the powdered cheek.’

Edward flushed at the insinuation. So Charlie had known about himself and Lady Primrose. Charlie laughed, ‘Write her a note. She’s a bit upset... come on, let’s get cracking. Good God, it looks like a removal van.’

Edward went even redder. ‘Well, you told me to choose...’

‘I was joking. I suspect you’ve earned every stick of it. Now get in and stop rabbiting. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, more than likely it gave the old boiler a new lease of life.’ He revved the MG and slammed it into gear. They shot off down the gravel path as Lady Primrose opened the door, just in time to see the bright red car career out of sight. She leaned on the door and sobbed.

From his bedroom window, David Collins looked out. It was a beautiful, sunny day. He presumed they were off on a picnic. ‘Pity,’ he thought. ‘They should have asked me along. Nice day for a picnic.’

Charlie drove fast, bumping over cattle-grids, and Edward had to reach over the back to secure one of his paintings. The car skidded around a narrow bend and they almost ended up in a hedge.

‘For Christ’s sake, Charlie, there’s no need to kill us both.’

Charlie brought the car screeching to a halt, and rested his head on the driving wheel. ‘Oh, shit, shit, shit...’ When he looked up, his eyes were brimming with tears. ‘Got the old papers, bloody awful... You know, I wanted to go so badly, but now I am, well, it’s just so ruddy inconvenient.’

Edward was not sure what Charlie was talking about.

‘I’ll be in uniform, old bean, off to fight the ruddy Germans. I’m joining my regiment as soon as I report back to college. Ask me, it’s bloody Emmott’s fault. He couldn’t wait to get rid of me.’

Edward was stunned, but Charlie shrugged it off in his usual manner. ‘Will you do me a favour, sort of keep in touch with Ma? She’s taken it awfully badly — Clarence, you know. The old man’s no use to her, he’s completely whacko. She liked you, so drop her a note.’

Edward slipped his arm around Charlie and gave him a hug.

‘You’re an odd chap, Eddie. Underneath all your brooding, you’re all right. Tell you what, why don’t you take over my old rooms? I dare say a lot of my stuff I won’t need where I’m going.’

Edward smiled his thanks, and they started the drive back to Cambridge. Charlie began to whistle, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Edward took over Charlie’s rooms, and now he had his own bathroom, study and bedroom, plus a small area for cooking if he wished. Additionally, he had the services of a bedmaker and cleaner, and, with all his acquisitions from the castle, he made the rooms look very classy. He sat and surveyed his handiwork, well pleased. He had his own castle now, and a wardrobe that was more than suitable. Even better, he had cash in his pocket.

Edward hung the oil paintings and threw all Charlie’s outrageous black sheets into a corner. He preferred the room more austere and, with the heavy curtains he had taken from the attic of the castle, he didn’t need the sheets as blackouts. Pleased with himself, he lay in his bed, surveying the room. Sleep was hard to come by, and when he eventually dozed off it was only to wake again, sweating. He looked at the alarm clock Charlie had left behind and saw that it was only two o’clock. He tossed and turned, and couldn’t tell if he was awake or dreaming. He saw boats, hundreds and hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes, landing on a long beach. Men were running, screaming... a small group of soldiers was rushing to the water’s edge, carrying a soldier in their arms... Edward sat bolt upright. The boy was Charlie, bleeding, his head blown away on one side... ‘Charlieeee...!’

Edward ran to the gates. They were locked and bolted, and the night porter came to the door asking what the hell Edward thought he was doing. If he was drunk, he would be reported; if not, he should go back to his rooms immediately. Edward climbed the stone steps and returned to his rooms, telling himself he was just being stupid, he was crazy... It was just a dream, a nightmare. Old Charlie would be all right.

Edward’s premonition of Charlie Collins’ death became a reality. He died in action six months later in the arms of two young officers as they carried him towards a waiting ambulance. Shrapnel was embedded in the left side of Charlie’s skull and his face was horribly disfigured. When Lady Primrose received the news, she arranged for her husband to be committed to a nursing home. She returned to the castle and dressed herself in a full-length, floating, pink evening gown. At the inquest, her butler said he had heard the gramophone playing in her room, so he had not disturbed her. The following morning her body was found in the swimming pool. The remains of a note were found. It was addressed simply to ‘Edward’. She had begun the letter and been unable to send it as she could not remember his surname. The torn fragments were pieced together from the waste-paper basket. It contained no reason for her suicide.

David Collins lived contentedly in the nursing home, in a world of his own, until he died alone, ten years later.

Chapter three

Alex Stubbs became prisoner number 4566. He occupied a cell with four bunks in the juvenile section of Wormwood Scrubs. They were separated from the prisoners in the main block, the old lags. But the boys in the juvenile section were hardened offenders, most having had one or two stays in the more lenient borstals. The Scrubs differed greatly from the borstals and remand homes, as it was run on similar lines to the main prison.

Alex was quite pleased that he was allocated a cell with a friendly faced cockney boy. Some of the men he had seen looked like real criminals, at least Dick was around his own age. As they prepared their beds two more inmates appeared. They were tough-looking, and already on friendly terms. Tom Donaldson had red hair and a freckled face, and he chucked his sheet on to the top bunk opposite Alex. ‘You take the lower deck, Joe.’

Joe, a fat boy with hair so short it stuck up on end, complained about always getting the bottom bunk, and Tom flicked his towel at him. ‘I don’t want that arse comin’ down on me at night, so you git the bottom whether you like it or not, okay, fat man?’

Alex checked the washing facilities. There were four enamel bowls and jugs on three scrubbed corner tables, some nail brushes and four plastic mugs. On the floor were four chamber pots.

Tom swung himself up on to the top bunk and dangled his legs, looking down at Dick and Alex. Dick grinned and said he was in for armed robbery, and Tom smiled and shook his hand, saying he was in for ‘aggravated burglary’. ‘Bleedin’ aggravated, all right. They copped me, that’s all I know. Joe down there’s in for shoplifting, what yer say you were in for, Alex? Alex, is it?’

They all looked questioningly at Alex, who busied himself clearing a space on the corner table. ‘Murder... Okay, that’s my place.’

The effect was just as he’d hoped, just as it had been on Sid, even Johnny. He could see their reactions and it amused him, suddenly he was the big shot.

Tom, impressed, jumped down to stand by Alex, and picked up his chamber pot. He asked if Alex had done time before, knowing he hadn’t by the way Alex examined everything in the cell. ‘Right, then, lemme give you a piece of advice. It’s kid’s stuff in ‘ere, but yer gotta remember the golden rule. Make sure you have a shit before you’re banged up for the night, otherwise it’s terrible sleeping wiv yer own stink, even worse wiv someone else’s... If yer caught short in the night, then chuck it out the winder, wrap it in paper an’ chuck it. I mean it, yer think it’s funny but you take a look outta any nick’s windows and yer see the bombs chucked out in the night.’

The spyhole in the door was moved aside, and they turned to see an eye staring in at them. ‘Lights out!’

The lights went off and the small, claustrophobic cell went quiet. Joe let rip with a fart and laughed. Tom belted him one, but was laughing too. They settled down for the night.

They lined up for their breakfast, grabbing trays and moving along as the food was served. The enamel trays were just large enough for a bowl, a cup, and a knife and fork. They had ‘skilly’, a very thin porridge, an egg and a couple of slices of bread. Weak tea was poured from a vast pot at the end of the line. They carried it all the way back to their cages and ate hurriedly, because when the next bell rang they had to clean up the cell. The bunks had to be stripped and the sheets and blankets folded box-style. The washing bowls had to be cleaned and the clothes and towels folded, everything neat and orderly, ready for the screws to inspect.

The first morning was to be like every other. There were no classes here as there had been in the reform schools. They waited to hear where they would be put to work — some would be assigned to cleaning, some to sewing mail sacks, others to the radio repair shop. They worked from eight-thirty in the morning until twelve-thirty. Alex was pleased to be taken to the radio shop, it was considered a good job. But he soon found out that it was very boring, mundane work. He had to take old radios apart for scrap metal, and it took no brains whatsoever, a child could have done it.

The exercise periods were heavily patrolled by screws, as this was when fights usually broke out or attempts were made at escaping. Although the borstal boys were separated from the older prisoners, they would occasionally see a ‘trusty’ with a blue armband circulating the library trolley, or washing down the corridors. After exercise came tea, and then they were locked in their cells until the recreation period at six o’clock. It was a rowdy time and they played table tennis, draughts and chess.

Sid was the first person Alex saw, laughing loudly as he knocked a table-tennis ball back and forth. Alex walked slowly around the table, pushed Sid’s opponent away and took up the bat. Sid’s jaw dropped, he turned around, scared, and Alex bounced the ball up and down. ‘My serve... All right, Sid?’

‘Sure, Alex, ready when you are.’

Alex looked at his cell-mates, nodded to the recreation-room doors for them to keep watch. All the boys knew something was about to happen, and the room went silent.

Alex moved fast around the table and the bat crashed down on Sid’s head. Alex gripped him tightly. ‘What you tell the law on me for, Sid? Why’d you rat on me?’

Sid tried to wriggle free, but Alex was far bigger and stronger. ‘You know what you done to me? My mum hadda come an’ sit in the court, you know what that done to her, do you? Do you?’

Suddenly, Alex went crazy, hammering Sid over the head with the table-tennis bat. Tom yelled from the door that the screws were on the way running down the corridor. They burst into the games room. ‘Right, you — Stubbs... Come on, let him go... Stubbs!’

Alex threw the bat at one of the screws, and the next moment he was down on the ground and they were kicking the daylights out of him.

When he woke up in the hospital, Alex’s face was puffy from the beating. He had lost a front tooth, and one ear had been stitched badly, making the lobe lumpy and extremely unattractive. Alex was examined and given the all clear and two weeks’ solitary confinement on bread and water.

A naked light bulb was kept on in the cell at all times. The only way Alex could sleep was face downwards.

During the second week, the diet of bread and water making him feel shaky, he didn’t even get up from his bunk. He lay and stared at the light bulb, and stared... he began to hallucinate, shadows on the walls took on weird shapes. Suddenly it started again, the dream, the mountain, the green grass, the fragrant smell of fresh, clean air. Alex began to breathe deeply, filling his lungs, willing himself to hear once more the horse’s hooves galloping... Now he was running, running, wanting to see the man he knew was his father. The pounding became more and more insistent, he couldn’t tell whether he was awake or dreaming... He was awake, the screws were unlocking his cell to take him back to the prison. He didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay by himself, alone. The screws thought he was being difficult and dragged him out, shouting that if he didn’t behave he’d be back in solitary.

When he returned to his cell he was greeted as a hero. There were three letters waiting for him from his mother. The lads backed off, letter-reading was private, and they picked up their magazines as Alex slowly opened his letters, one by one, savouring the contact with the outside world.

Evelyne’s letters always managed to upset him. He knew she was trying to sound cheerful, but it only made things worse.

The bell rang for recreation and their cell was unlocked. The boys left Alex sitting on his bunk, reading.

The third letter made Alex even more depressed; she was to go into hospital, she had underlined that it was nothing serious and he was not to worry. Alex wanted to cry, he felt so helpless. There was his poor old mum, no one with her, dependent on neighbours. She did not mention Edward, and Alex swore, hitting the wall with his fists. ‘Bastard, didn’t even go an’ see her in ‘is ‘olidays.’

A warder knocked on the cell door with his baton. ‘Hey, Stubbs, what you think we’re runnin’, a post office? This come fer you, an’ Stubbs, there’s a message inside, all right?’

Alex took the open brown-paper parcel. Evelyne had sent him the only two leather-bound books she had left. They still bore tell-tale marks of the fire. They were Christina Rossetti’s poems and a thin volume of plays by Strindberg.

Alex was so emotionally disturbed by the books, the feel of them, the memories flooding through him, that it was a while before he even opened them. Tucked into the centre of the book was a sheet of cheap, lined notepaper. Opening it, Alex knew immediately that his mother had not written it. The writing was that of a child.

‘Frankie Warrs wants a meet, breakfast, Monday.’

Frankie Warrs was the baron of the main prison. He offered Alex the borstal section to run on his behalf. It was an offer Alex couldn’t refuse. Frankie Warrs was an old friend of Johnny Mask, and Johnny was making sure Alex was being taken care of, as a ‘thank you’ for not grassing on him.

The barons operated food, drink and cigarette rackets, and could get you anything you wanted provided you could pay the price. Alex was given careful instructions on how to proceed. The commonest weakness in prison was smoking. The men were given their cash on Friday and they shelled it straight out on tobacco. By the next day it would be gone. They would then have to buy from the barons, whether a single roll-up or a larger quantity. They had to pay three times the proper price, so they were always in the red. The barons’ paid runners took money to relatives to buy goods outside and smuggle them in. Prisoners often saved themselves a beating by getting their families to bring in the cash they owed, but the less fortunate would have to perform sexual favours. They even got cut up with knives that were smuggled in somehow. No one dared rat on their attackers for fear of further harassment.

As a baron, Alex even had two screws in his employ, who brought him whisky, for which he paid three times the market price. Tom, Joe and little Dick became his runners. Above all, Alex was a very popular boy, so that when his eighteenth birthday came round they threw a party for him in the recreation hall. Evelyne had been allowed to send him a gift, cakes and biscuits, and even the screws sang ‘Happy Birthday’. But the best gift Alex had was a short letter from Dora. He had written to her, not really expecting a reply, and was tickled pink when he got her funny, misspelt letter. She asked if he was okay, and said she was doing fine, but that Johnny Mask had been arrested shortly after Alex and was in Brixton Prison. She added a footnote that she would try to come and see him one visiting day. She didn’t say when, but Alex lived in hope. She had also sent him a photograph of herself, and Alex had pinned it on the cell wall. All the lads thought she was the best-looking ‘bird’ they had ever seen, and Alex gained even more glory through her. He seemed to have everything, and they stared hungrily at Dora’s smiling face as they drifted off into their wet dreams.

Alex was counting his weekly take from the tobacco sales when Tom hurtled into the cell. He could hardly speak, he was so excited, and he gasped out that Alex had a visitor. It wasn’t his ma, he’d seen her arrive and all the lads were trying to get a look at her. It was her, the girl in the picture.

She was looking wonderful, her lipstick red and glossy, her nails scarlet. She waved, and Alex felt his heart thudding as the screws made snide remarks about his girlfriend. He could hardly speak for nervousness, and Dora giggled, saying he looked even bigger than when she had last seen him. He had grown — he was now six feet two inches tall, and had filled out because of all the work-outs he did in the gym. He cracked his knuckles, showing off the muscles in his arms, and she giggled again. ‘I got a few things from your ma — she don’t know I know you, I never said — but remember me once sayin’ I thought we’d met? Well, you could ‘ave knocked me down with a feather when I realized who you was. Anyways, she told me to give you these. It’s just some fruit — things are hard to come by with the war an’ all... How do you do in ‘ere when the sirens go? Bet they can’t let you all out into a shelter, can they?’

Alex asked if Johnny knew about him and Dora, and she laughed. She didn’t really think there was anything to know. When Alex leaned forward he could smell her perfume. ‘You know how I feel about you, you know it... Open your blouse for me, go on, just a bit — lemme see them.’ Dora looked around, then slowly unbuttoned her blouse and let him peek at her lace bra, running her tongue round her red-painted lips. Alex rubbed at his erect penis and squashed his legs together until his balls burnt him. She was still talking away, telling him how bad her mother was and how her legs were swollen up like balloons. ‘I said to your mum that if she couldn’t come next visitin’ day I’d like to come again, would you like that?’

Alex was puzzled — what did Dora mean his mother couldn’t come? She looked at him in amazement. ‘Haven’t you been told?’ she asked. Then she looked at the screws and frowned. ‘Bastards never told you, she had to go in for an operation. They say she’s all right but she’s ever so weak, maybe she just didn’t want to bother you.’

The bell clanged and it was over. Alex was led back to his cell. On the way he asked the screws if they could check on his mother — that he had just heard she was ill.

He couldn’t sleep that night for worrying about Evelyne. The lads in their bunks could hear him tossing and turning, and presumed it was because of his lady love. In the morning he requested an interview with the Governor.

He had to wait a whole week before he was taken to the Governor’s office. ‘I want someone to check on me ma, she’s ill, and she’s got no one ter look after her.’

Predictably, he was told that perhaps he should have thought of that before he got himself into trouble. He was so angry that he slammed his fist on the desk and demanded that someone go to see his mother. The wheels were put in motion, and various letters were written to social workers to check up on Mrs Stubbs, but no one seemed particularly concerned.

Edward collected his mail from his pigeon-hole. He recognized his mother’s letter immediately, but was confused by the large manila envelope. He had no idea who it could be from.

He was going to be late for a lecture, so he stuffed the letters in with his books and crossed the quad.

It wasn’t until he got back to his rooms to study that he remembered the letters. He picked them up and sighed — he hated reading Evelyne’s letters, they depressed him so much. But he deftly slit the first cheap envelope with a paperknife. He gave the letter a cursory glance — the usual chatter about the neighbours. Mrs Harris’ daughter again — Edward sighed, and was just about to toss the letter in the waste-paper basket when he noticed there was a postscript. He put the kettle on the small stove to make his cocoa, helped himself to a biscuit and carried it back to his desk, munching while he continued to read. Evelyne wrote that the operation had been successful but she would be in for a few more days. She was feeling much better, but had been worrying about certain financial matters that Edward should be aware of.

Edward’s hand shook when he read that Alex was in Wormwood Scrubs — in the circumstances Evelyne had made a will, leaving everything to Edward. She had signed the letter, as usual, ‘Your Mother’; no love. It was a single sheet of cheap paper. He turned it over. Scrawled on the back was one sentence, underlined, ‘Whatever the outcome, you must take care of your brother, you have a debt you must never forget.’

Edward felt sick, his stomach churning. She had made no mention of why she had had an operation, or why Alex was in Wormwood Scrubs. He crumpled the letter into a ball and hurled it across the room. ‘Stupid bitch, stupid bitch.’

A sob caught in his throat and he retrieved the letter, pressing out the creases. He ran from his room, down the stone stairs three at a time to the telephone booth by the main hall. As he hurried across the quad Walter waved and joined him. ‘I’m just going to see the new Carole Lombard flick at the local, there’s a double feature, Greta Garbo, you want to come? I’ll pay for your ticket.’

‘I’ve got to make a phone call.’

‘You’ll be lucky, all the lines are down, didn’t you hear the blast last night? Do you want to come? Have to get a move on, film starts in five minutes.’

In the small, dark picture house, Edward sat with his eyes closed. The letter felt as though it was burning in his pocket. He took it out and then leant forward and stuffed it in the ashtray. On the screen Greta Garbo portrayed the dying Camille. She held her arms out to her lover, saying over and over in her deep, throaty voice, ‘I love you, I love you, I knew you would come to see me, my love.’

Walter sighed, his thick glasses had steamed up. He was about to dig Edward in the ribs to see if he wanted a choc-ice in the interval when he realized that he was staring at the screen, tears streaming down his cheeks. Walter was surprised, he’d never seen Edward show any emotion at the pictures before. He looked up at the screen; Greta was dead, lying on a bed covered with gardenias, one clasped to her bosom.

It was a month later that the Governor got the word that Alex’s mother was indeed seriously ill. She had already been operated on for cancer, but had been released from hospital. Alex was called and told the news. He was shattered, and had to be helped into a chair.

‘I’ve put in for a special visit, Alex, but the Home Office have to agree — so get back to your cell and as soon as we have news I’ll let you know.’

Alex was in such a black mood when he returned to his cell that the lads were half-afraid to speak to him. Tom climbed up into Alex’s bunk as soon as the lights went out, and held him close. He knew Alex was worrying about his mother. Alex smiled at his pal, and tried to explain what his mother was like — how she was such a fighter, how she had fought all her life to better herself and her sons, even her husband. ‘She always said that you can only climb out of the shit by yer brains, Tom, not yer fists. Always was a stickler for books an’ reading. Since I can remember she was always at the kitchen table wiv a book ready and waitin’, and the way she’d read to us when we were kids...’

Tom had never heard Alex speak of his brother, and he was puzzled for a moment. ‘Eh, you didn’t tell me — you got sisters an’ all, Alex?’

Alex shook his head, his voice so quiet Tom had to lean close to hear him. ‘I just got a brother, just one, his name’s Edward.’

Tom knew for a fact that Alex had never received a letter from a brother, and he was surprised. The fact that Alex never spoke about him made it even stranger. ‘Don’t you two get on, then? I mean, you don’t ever talk about him? What’s he up to, doin’ time, is he? Where is ‘e, then?’ Tom laughed and Alex cuffed him, then stared blankly at the wall. After a while he told Tom that Edward was at Cambridge. Tom giggled, nudged Alex and said there was a good open prison near Cambridge. Alex didn’t laugh, he got down from his bunk. ‘He’s not in prison, he’s at university.’

Still Tom laughed, letting his head loll over the edge of the bunk. ‘Go on, yer ‘avin’ us on — you ain’t got no bruvver, do us a favour.’ Tom could have bitten his tongue out, his hero seemed so helpless, so vulnerable, and he wanted to reach out and hug him. Whatever emotion Tom saw disappeared in the fraction of a second, and Alex laughed, tugging Tom’s hair good-naturedly. ‘You’re right, mate, I ain’t got no friggin’ brother... I was just ‘aving you on. Yer think the likes of me would have a nob at Cambridge? You lot’d believe anything I say.’

They all laughed and Alex swung himself up into his bunk. He flicked open a well-thumbed American movie magazine, pretending to read. None of them heard a murmur, they all went back to their comics. Alex had to grit his teeth so hard, staring at Carole Lombard’s glossy red lips, her gold lame swimsuit and all the time hearing Eddie’s voice — the voice he hadn’t heard for so long — yelling at the kids in the street, ‘We are brothers — take ‘im on, yer take me...’

Alex wouldn’t release the tears. He ground his teeth and flipped the page over. It was true, he had no brother, not any more, and if he did see him, after all this time, he would knock his teeth down his throat.

He slipped his hand under his pillow to the two small, leather-bound books. Holding them brought his mother closer. He tried to remember the poem she loved so much, the one she could recite from memory, ‘Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land...’

He closed his eyes, holding the book close to his chest. He wanted his dream so badly — the mountain, the horseman, the clean, sweet air... ‘freedom’.

Chapter four

Mrs Harris shuffled down the hospital corridor stopping constantly to catch her breath. She asked a passing nurse the way to Keats Ward, and was directed to a lift. It was on the third floor.

She looked down the long row of beds and noted that they had moved Evelyne again. She was even further along than she had been on the last visit. She was watching out for Mrs Harris, her face pale, and she waved. It broke Mrs Harris’ heart. Evelyne’s arm was so thin and she looked so fragile. Mrs Harris put on a brave smile.

‘Well, ducks, nice to see you looking perkier today. My God, the bus was stopped five times — more rubble in the streets — and as fast as they get it away another attack comes, poor Mrs Smith blown right off her feet she was, an’ her two kids with her — it was a sight to be seen, so I was told, legs up in the air an’ her bloomers showing for all the world.’ She kept up a steady flow of chatter as she took a washbag out of the cabinet, wiped Evelyne’s face and then unbraided her long hair and brushed it slowly. She knew it soothed Evelyne, and that she liked to look neat and tidy.

‘My God, what a length it is, what a length, you could make a few shillings on this, you know. I tell you about Mrs Walter’s youngest, well she was sitting on the bus on the way home from school, and you know she had hair right down to the back of her knees... Well, she didn’t even feel a thing, didn’t even hear anything, but my God, Evie! She got off the bus with a bob! No kiddin’, some bugger had cut off her hair, somebody sitting behind her, her mother had a fit!’

Evelyne closed her eyes. She liked Mrs Harris’ chatter, and the gentle strokes of the hairbrush soothed her. ‘I wrote to Edward, and the lawyers, but I’ve not heard back.’

Mrs Harris told her, pursing her lips. She tutted and had to apologize for giving Evelyne’s hair a tug.

‘I know I said I’d keep my mouth shut, but don’t you think he should have written by now, I mean, you’ve been in here right the way over Christmas with not even a card, just that one with the Cambridge school on it, I think he should get a rap over the knuckles, that lad, I do, he should have been home and here with you, looking after you. I dunno, one lad gallivantin’ all round and the other behind bars, it’s a dreadful thing, Evie, it really is.’

Mrs Harris wished she had kept quiet when she saw Evelyne close her eyes, and she began to braid the hair, saying that she would write to them both and give them a piece of her mind, that’s what she would do.

‘No, no, don’t, best not... will you pass me my bag, it’s on the side there?’

Mrs Harris handed Evelyne her old brown leather handbag, and had to help her into a sitting position. As she spoke, she put her arms around Evelyne and felt her thin, frail body. She couldn’t help herself — she burst into tears. Evelyne raised her hands in a futile gesture, ‘Now you just stop that — you know you’ll have me in tears if you carry on like this. Now then, look in my handbag there. Take out that leather case — I want you to take it away with you. There’s so much coming and going in here, I don’t think it’s safe to be left. You never know who might take it in the night. They give me pills to make me sleep and I’m out for the count by nine. Here, now you keep it safe until I come home.’

Mrs Harris took the small leather case, opened it and gasped. It was the pearl necklace with the gold beads and fine, detailed work, the pearl drop earrings to match.

‘I’m going to ask you to do something for me, and you must promise me to do it — it’s very important. I want you to bury the necklace with me, with me and Freedom. They told me I should have put it in his grave when he died, but what with one thing and another I just never got around to doing it. But it’s very important, it’s his talisman and it must lie with him. Promise me?’

Mrs Harris put the leather case on the bed and grabbed Evelyne’s hand. ‘I’ll not listen to that talk. You’re coming out, of course you are, and I’ll have you at my place while you get your strength back. Now, no more of this.’

Evelyne grasped the big, raw hand tightly, lifted it to her lips and kissed it. Then, as if even that had taken all her strength from her, she let her hands fall back on to the covers. ‘No more games, you know as well as I do that I’m going. Now don’t you start the tears, just listen to me. The bell will be ringing any time and there are a few things I want to say to you.’

Mrs Harris was sweating, her mouth dry, and she was trying so hard to stop herself crying that she wanted to go to the lavatory.

‘I want to be buried with him, you’ll make sure of that, won’t you? It’s all arranged and it’s all paid for. Mr Georgeson’s the man you ask for at the funeral parlour, he has everything ready for me. I don’t want flowers or anything like that, the money would be wasted. Once, a long time ago, when we were parted, he said that while I’d been away from him he’d been dying, little by little... Well, I know now what he meant. Since he’s been gone I’ve not had the will, somehow — not the strength I used to have — and I’m not going to fight any more. You see, I miss him so much, I just can’t go on without him. I’m not frightened, I’m going to be with him, where I should be. We weren’t like ordinary folk, we were closer, we were blood to blood.’

The bell rang, and Evelyne smiled so peacefully that Mrs Harris felt her heart break. She stood up and had to hold on to the bed to get her balance. ‘I’ll be here next Wednesday, lovey, and I’ll take care of your necklace, now I’d best be going.’

Evelyne looked like a young girl in her white nightgown, her long hair braided in plaits on each side of her head, her strange, dark, greenish eyes so large in her pinched face that it added to the childlike effect. Mrs Harris picked up her shopping bag to leave. She couldn’t even bring herself to kiss Evelyne, she knew she would break down and sob, so she bustled around and chatted about the bus she would more than likely miss.

‘Go on with you, and give my love to Dora. Don’t look back, don’t look back, it’s unlucky. Don’t look back...’ But when Mrs Harris reached the double doors leading into the corridor, she couldn’t help but turn. Evelyne had raised her skinny arms above her head, both hands waving goodbye, and she was smiling. She looked so happy, so at peace with the world. The tears rolled down Mrs Harris’ fat cheeks as she mouthed, ‘Goodbye, Evie, goodbye my love.’

‘Stubbs 4566, to the Governor’s office.’

Alex brushed his hair and Tom instructed him to ask for permission to wear his own togs, he didn’t want his ma seeing him in prison overalls at the hospital.

The Governor was sitting at his desk as Alex was led in by the screws.

‘Prisoner 4566, Stubbs, Alex, sir.’

The Governor looked up, removed his glasses and indicated a chair beside his desk. He waited until Alex had sat down before he carefully laid his glasses on the desk and gave a warning look to the two warders. He coughed, hesitating before he spoke. ‘I’m afraid, Stubbs, I have some very sad news for you — your mother died last night.’

Alex never moved a muscle, but he stared at the Governor as if he hadn’t heard.

‘I am deeply sorry, even more so as it took so long for permission to be granted for you to visit her, but these things cannot be helped. It is most unfortunate.’

Alex sprang over the desk and had the Governor by the throat before either of the guards could stop him. He was like a man possessed. The Governor screamed as he felt the air being squeezed out of his throat, and his head shook as though he were a rag doll. The guards couldn’t get Alex away, he was pressing his thumbs harder and harder into the Governor’s scrawny neck. One guard pulled at his hair and another kicked him in the groin as the alarm bell sounded.

Three more guards and half an hour later, Alex was handcuffed. With blood streaming from his head where he had been beaten he was led into solitary confinement. The Governor was rushed to hospital but was released the following day, and the whole prison was agog at what had happened. The number of guards Alex had taken out tripled and the stories so embroidered that his name was on everyone’s lips. He had eighteen stitches in his head, another twenty in his face and cheek, and his already broken nose was cracked again.

Alex smashed his fists against the wall until they bled. His bread and water were pushed through a hatch in the cell door, and even that he hurled at the walls. The Governor, when informed, remarked that if he carried on that way he would remain in solitary until he was controllable. ‘If he behaves like a wild animal, we shall treat him as one, and until he quietens down, leave him.’

In the fifth week a doctor was called in. He treated Alex’s hands, which were badly infected, and made notes that the man was deeply distressed. He prescribed sedatives and said the prisoner must be properly fed, force-fed if necessary. He requested an immediate visit from a psychiatrist.

The food was refused, and Dr Gordon was called in again. No psychiatrist had been to see Alex, who just sat very quietly in his own excrement, staring vacantly at the wall in a drugged, semi-catatonic state.

They should have been suspicious when Alex meekly held out his hands to be rebandaged. As Dr Gordon cut through the plasters, Alex punched him in the face and got hold of the scissors, held them at the doctor’s neck and demanded to be released. If he wasn’t, he would slit his throat. The warders stood by helplessly and Dr Gordon ordered them out of the cell, then still with his arm twisted behind his back but with no sign of fear he talked quietly to Alex. He asked Alex what he wanted. He would do his utmost to help, but what Alex was doing was an act of madness.

Alex wanted to go to his mother’s funeral. Time appeared to have stood still for him, he didn’t realize how long he had been in solitary confinement.

‘Alex, you know that’s not possible, now lad, you know that, why don’t you release me and I’ll do what I can? I give you my word, but what you are doing now will only add to your troubles.’

Alex stood at the open door of his cell, the screws in a row in front of him. He knew it was pointless, and he suddenly dropped his arm and threw the scissors aside. He turned to walk back into the cell and the screws moved, surrounding him as the doctor begged them to stay clear, even tried to physically pull them away from the prisoner. They threw Alex against his bed and out came the truncheons.

In a fury Dr Gordon went to the Governor, demanding that Alex be removed from solitary and treated.

‘There’s a war on, men are dying every minute of the day, and you want everything here to revolve around a prisoner who has blatantly and consistently fought the rules of this establishment? He’s only got himself to blame. If I allowed every man to behave as he has and get away with it, my position would be intolerable. We are overcrowded, understaffed — the man attacked me, for Chrissake, what do you expect me to do with him?’

Stony-faced, Dr Gordon sat and told the Governor quietly that the boy was grieving, he needed time. He needed help to face up to the fact that his mother was dead.

‘That boy, as you call him, Doctor, murdered his own father! You have his records, why don’t you read them?’

Dr Gordon said of course he had read Stubbs’ reports. He was the prison doctor, and his request for a psychiatrist had been ignored.

‘If there was one available, he would have been brought to the prisoner. As I have said, Doctor, there is a war on, and we are seriously understaffed and overworked. Right now, Stubbs is a hero to the rest of the men. If he goes unpunished, we will not be able to maintain any kind of discipline.’

Alex was removed to the hospital wing and remained there for another five weeks. He was drugged to keep him subdued, and the doctor used every power he had to get him transferred to a rehabilitation programme. He had spent a long time going over Alex’s records, and found them disturbing.

Due to Dr Gordon’s persistent efforts, a psychiatrist was eventually found and, after discussing Alex with the doctor, he agreed to take on his case.

Alex would not co-operate. He didn’t want any ‘nut doc’, he wanted to go back to his cell. Dr Gordon went in to see him, in his own time and purely because he wanted to help Alex. ‘Alex, if you want to get out, lead a normal life, you have to help yourself. First, you will have to go before the prison authorities. You’ve got a list of charges as long as your arm, and even with mitigating circumstances you could get another God knows how many years on your sentence... Talk to the man, he only wants to help you, that’s all. Maybe we can do something for you.’

‘There’s fuck all wrong with me — I just want to get out an’ see me mother. Bastards, keeping me penned up in here. I just want out.’

‘Well, you’re going about it the wrong way. If I try to get permission for you to go to her grave, acting up like this will make them refuse to even consider it... Now, talk with the psychiatrist, just talk things through. Is that too much to ask? Can’t you do that for me?’

After a long pause Alex slowly nodded his head. Dr Gordon patted his shoulder. ‘Good lad... I’ll keep on coming, all right?’

Alex shook his hand and held it a fraction longer, as if he needed some sort of contact. He gave a strange, shy smile. ‘Thank you.’

Frank Nathan closed the cell door and winked at Alex as the key turned in the lock. He was not at all what Alex expected — his short, squat body was muscular, and the black hairs sprouting on his barrel chest were visible even though he was wearing a shirt and tie. Nathan was like a chimp, his big hands fuzzy with thick, black hair. Stubble seemed to appear on his chin as you watched him. He had a pug nose, as if he had been in the ring at one time, and a wonderful, raucous, rumbling laugh. He jerked his thumb at the cell door. ‘Looks like they don’t fuckin’ trust me, neither... Right, you an’ me are going to thrash a few things out. I’m here to listen. Sometimes I’ll ask you a few things, but on the whole I’m a bloody good listener. You smoke...? Here.’

Frank lit his cigarette and his powerful body made the chair creak alarmingly as he sat down. He folded his chubby hands over his belly and leaned forward. ‘My time’s valuable, so if you want to act like a prick, go ahead. I’ll just cross you off. There’s fellas who need me, an’ if you think you don’t, sod ya. If you don’t want to help yourself, then if you don’t mind my sayin’ so, you are well and truly fucked...’

Alex was taken off guard, not only by Nathan’s presence but by his gruffness, yet he liked him. There was something powerful and, more important, genuine, about the man.

‘Let’s start off with why you knocked the Guv’nor’s front teeth out.’ Nathan puffed on his cigarette and waited. Alex hesitated, and Nathan prompted him, ‘What is it, son? What do you want to say — best to get it off your chest...?’

Alex clasped and unclasped his hands, refusing to look up. His voice was quiet and strained, ‘She’s dead. Some way I’ve been thinking, maybe, just maybe, she’s still alive an’ you was all doing this to me to get at me. Like even you was tryin’ to deceive me.’

‘No, Alex, your mother is dead, and nobody has tried to deceive you in any way. It was just unfortunate that you couldn’t see her in hospital. No one realized how ill she was until it was too late.’

‘Aye, well, she was never one to complain — she was that sort of woman. She was a wonderful...’ He pressed his hands together until the knuckles were white.

‘Alex, it’s not wrong to cry for her. It’d be a release, don’t try to stop it. No one’s here to see you but me... Come on, son, cry for her, get it out of your system.’

Nathan watched Alex struggle to regain control of his emotions. He took Alex off guard with his next question. ‘Did you cry for your dad when he died?’ He could see the barrier — the feeling in the boy’s eyes was breaking him up, it was so desperate. Still Alex’s hands opened and closed spasmodically. Nathan kept up the pressure. ‘Did they love each other, your mum and dad?’

Unable to speak, Alex just nodded his head. His eyes never left Nathan’s face now, as if mesmerized by him.

‘They love you?’

Nathan could see the marks on Alex’s hands where he was inflicting pain on himself to control his emotions. Alex made a strangled, guttural sound. He wanted to tell Nathan they had loved him.

‘I didn’t hear you. You say they loved you or they didn’t?’

Alex’s voice was alien to him, childlike. He gasped out, ‘They loved me.’

‘What about your brother? You’ve got an older brother, haven’t you?’

There it was — Nathan saw it, the boy’s whole body altered. One moment he was helpless, a child in need, and the next the body was tight, the face set, the highly charged emotions under control. It was as if someone had stopped a dam bursting. The transformation fascinated Nathan. He knew he wasn’t dealing with a schizoid or a psychopath, as the prison had hinted. He also knew that to unlock the boy’s trauma would take time, time he didn’t have, wouldn’t be allowed.

‘I read about your dad. He almost made heavyweight champion of the world, didn’t he? Used to box meself, tell by me hooter. You box, Alex?’

The blue eyes met Nathan’s. The barrier was still there. Nathan tried again. ‘Did you want to follow in his footsteps? Eh? Big lad like you could fill out, maybe go on the heavyweight circuits — good set of shoulders on you. Mind you, you’d have to put on quite a few pounds. What are you, six-two, six-three? Your dad now, lemme see, I was readin’ up on him — six-four, wasn’t he, Alex?’

Rising from the bunk, Alex walked to the wall, leaned against it. Nathan showed no fear of him, just lit another cigarette. He hated having to cut corners, hated the pressure he was under. He had reached retirement age, but being wartime he had been roped in. But more than anything he hated knowing that time was against him. If he didn’t crack Alex fast, he wouldn’t get another chance. He also knew that if Alex didn’t get help, and fast, they would have a potentially lethal young man on their hands. ‘He ever hit you? That what made you go for him? Your dad a violent man, was he?’

That guttural sound again, the low moan, the hands moving rapidly.

‘Sit down, son... come on now.’

But Alex turned his face to the wall, and when he spoke his voice was strained, close to breaking. ‘He was gentle... I had a dog, he give me a dog. He never hit none of us.’

‘What about your ma?’

The fist slammed into the brick wall and Alex turned on him, eyes blazing. ‘No!’

‘All right, all right... what about your brother?’

There it was again. At the mention of the word ‘brother’, Alex recoiled. Nathan knew he had put his finger on it, but he had to get Alex sitting, had to calm him. But he knew his time was up, although he hadn’t looked at his watch once. At any moment the screws would bang on the door, and there were a lot more patients to see. ‘I am trying to arrange for you to visit your mother’s grave. You’d like that, wouldn’t you...? Maybe get some flowers... We’ll take it stage by stage, all right? And I’ll come and...’

Alex put his head in his hands and wept. He slumped on to the bunk, mumbling over and over that he wanted to see her, see his mother. Nathan stubbed out his cigarette and then put his hands on Alex’s head in a comforting, fatherly gesture. He had to go, and he felt badly about it, he could feel that the boy was ready to open up.

‘I can’t find my dream no more, I don’t seem to be able to lose myself anywhere no more.’

‘Maybe, son, that’s what the problem is, you’ve been trying to lose yourself. But we’ll find you, and we’ll do it together, okay? I’ll pull every string I can, I’ll get you out of here. You’ll say goodbye to your mum first, then — well, we’ll set about putting you together. You’ll have to take the punishment doled out to you, son, for the little fracas with the Guv’nor, but don’t let it get to you. I’m on your side, I give you my word...’

Later that night, Nathan sat in a pub with Dr Jim Gordon. He had already put away a few Scotches, and his pug face was flushed. Both men were depressed as Alex had had five years added to his sentence. The Governor, however, had promised that Alex would be allowed to visit his mother’s grave.

‘I need time. You can’t help a kid with his kind of problems in a few hours... I feel sorry for the bastard. Any chance we can get him out of the Scrubs, somewhere he can pick up his education? The lad’s clever, that’s one of his problems. If they keep him banged up in a cell, when he gets out you’ll have a fucking killer on the loose. The key to Stubbs lies with his brother, I’d put money on it. You know if there’s any way I can get to him?’

The sirens sounded, and everyone in the pub had to run like hell as the bombs began to drop. The two men lost each other in the confusion. Nathan never made it to the shelter — he was killed by a second bomb one hour later — and Dr Gordon worked through the night, helping the injured. Prisoner Stubbs was forgotten.

Evelyne was buried in as neat and orderly a fashion as she had lived, with only Mrs Harris and a few other neighbours attending. There was no great fuss, no weeping, and no high tea afterwards. Mrs Harris, exhausted from the effort of standing by the grave, went home alone. She had shed her tears, and even when she went into number twelve the next day, to collect Evelyne’s things, she didn’t cry. She crept around the silent house, then locked up and took the key to the lawyers as requested.

Later that night the house took a direct hit. The blaze lit the sky, and Mrs Harris watched it from her bedroom window. ‘Dear God, there’s nothing left there now. Almost the whole street gone, and neither of those boys around to give a helping hand.’

Mrs Harris remembered then, and went to her dressing table. She took out the leather case containing the gold and pearl necklace and stared at it as Dora moved away from the window.

‘Well, that’s them finished, it’s as if they never existed. Sometimes it makes you wonder what life is all about.’

‘She wanted me to bury this with her, and I promised.’

‘What is it? Let’s have a look.’

‘It’s her necklace. She said it was like his talisman, that it had to be buried with them, and I promised...’

‘Bloody ‘ell, Mum, this is real gold, an’ these are pearls. This must be worth a packet.’

Dora danced over to the mirror and slipped the necklace around her neck. ‘Oh, Mum, isn’t it beautiful? It’s so beautiful.’

‘Well, you can’t have it. It belongs to her sons.’

Dora put the earrings on and admired herself. ‘Yeah? Well, they don’t deserve nothing, them two, and what they don’t know you got they won’t miss.’

‘Dora, you put that back now. It’s unlucky, don’t wear it, you can’t have it.’

‘Why not? You think about all the years she stayed with you, the way you was the only one to see her at the end. You’ve got a right to it, so I’m keeping it. Besides, who’s paying the rent and feeding you? You gotta let me keep it, Mum...’

Mrs Harris shrugged. She knew it was pointless to argue with Dora when she wanted something.

Mrs Harris took a long time to decide exactly what to write. Dora had promised to copy it out neatly for her, as her eyesight was none too good, let alone her spelling. Dora would do anything for her mother right now, since the pearl and gold necklace and matching earrings had been given to her.

Mrs Harris had found Edward’s last letter to his mother with her other things at the hospital, and she was so furious at his request for money from the poor, sick woman that she crumpled it up and threw it in the fire. Dora had told her off, because now they didn’t have Edward’s address so how could they tell him about the funeral? In the end they had written to Edward care of Cambridge University, hoping it would reach him, and in the meantime Mrs Harris had gone to the funeral directors and found that Evelyne had organized every last detail. She had forgotten nothing; the casket had been chosen, the cross and the exact wording for Evelyne and her husband. And everything had been paid for.

Edward stared at the strange, scrawled writing on the cheap pink envelope. He hadn’t the slightest idea who it was from. He opened it and read the badly spelt letter as he walked across the quad.

‘...I am sorry to inform you that your mother died last Wednesday and was buried Friday. We had tried to contact you and hope you will understand why everything went ahead as your mother had arranged everything. Please call on us when you come to London as we would like to tell you about everything then, also that the lawyers have the keys to your house as your mother instructed us to leave them there. I am writing this on behalf of my mother as she cannot see too good, and is still very upset as she loved your mother very much as did everyone else in these parts. Yours sincerely, Dora Harris.’

In the privacy of his room, Edward read and reread the letter. He was ashamed that he couldn’t cry, could feel nothing. He tore the letter into shreds and burnt it, then lay on his bed for hours, staring at the ceiling. His body felt light, alien to him, and he tried to feel some kind of emotion, tried to recall his mother’s face.

Walter found him still lying there, fully dressed, the next morning, staring into space. He offered to call a doctor, thinking he was ill. ‘There’s a big bash tonight, Teddy Kingly’s departing for the army, it’s over at King’s, you going?’

Edward stared vacantly at Walter and asked him to get his dinner jacket out, it would need cleaning.

Walter did as Edward asked, then turned and asked again if he was all right.

‘I’m fine. Look, can you do me a favour? I need a weekend leave, I used mine up going to that party at Cynthia’s. You don’t need yours, do you?’

Walter hesitated. ‘Nothing wrong, is there?’

‘No, old chap, I just got an invite to a dinner party in London. Can you fix it for me?’

Although he had been thinking of going to see his parents, Walter gave in to Edward as usual. The next weekend Edward returned to the East End for the first time since he had left for college.

He walked among the bomb sites, turned into the old street and stood at the top of the road, stunned. Hardly a house was left standing, and he could see that number twelve was no more than a piece of waste ground. He walked slowly to the site of his old home and stood where the doorstep had been. He felt nothing, just as he had been unable to feel anything when he learned of Evelyne’s death.

Side-stepping puddles and piles of rubble he walked on, trying to remember where Mrs Harris used to live. As he turned into a narrow alley the sirens started screaming overhead. A warden ran along the alley towards him and yelled for him to take cover as they were coming this way. Edward asked for the nearest shelter and ran for the railway sidings.

He had forgotten the voices, the accents, and he stood huddled against the wall, remembering, as more and more people crowded under the railway arches. The planes passed overhead and as they heard the bombs dropping they were all looking skywards.

‘Bleedin’ bastard Jerries, sons of bitches, go on ya buggers, get out of it.’

The all clear sounded, and they made their way out, carrying their gas-mask cases. Edward asked a couple of people if they knew a Mrs Harris, and he was eventually directed to a rundown block of flats. The smell of cabbage and the stench of urine swamped him as he went up the stone steps — obviously many people used the stairs to live on — and he shuddered. Most of the windows were boarded up, and the flats had evidently been hit more than once, as there were holes in the roofs.

‘All right, I’m comin’, for Chrissake ‘ang on, no need to ring on an’ on.’ Dora Harris opened the door and stepped back, surprised. She didn’t recognize Edward, saw only a well-dressed gent who, when he spoke, sounded posh, upper crust.

‘Mrs Harris?’

Dora tried to close the door, thinking he might be the law, but Edward put his foot between door and post.

‘What you want ‘er for? She’s busy right now, if it’s the rent then you’ll have to come back, but you ain’t the usual rent man, is you?’

Mrs Harris shuffled out of the kitchen and asked what all the racket was about. She squinted past her daughter and stared.

‘Are you Mrs Harris? It’s Edward, Edward Stubbs.’

She stared at him then after a moment nodded to Dora to let him in. Dora went towards the lounge, but Mrs Harris moved back into the kitchen. Dora wore only a thin wraparound and fluffy slippers, her hair in curlers. She watched the smart gent as he passed by her into the stuffy, smelly kitchen.

‘I’ll be gettin’ changed, Ma, won’t be a tick.’

Mrs Harris lowered her bulk into the easy chair and looked into the fire. She was sweating with the effort, and her heart thudded in her chest. ‘So you’ve come. You took your time — well, sit down, lad, sit down.’

Uneasy, Edward sat down and wished he hadn’t bothered, the place reminded him of his old home and he felt sick.

‘You look all done up like a dog’s dinner, what you up to, then?’

Edward explained that he had not received her letter until too late, and thanked her for taking care of his mother.

‘I never did nothing, boy, she took care of herself, that one, even arranged her own funeral down to the cross, have you seen the grave? No, didn’t think you would have done. What about your brother, been to see him, have you? Our Dora used to go, but they moved ‘im, did you know that? You want a cup of something?’

Edward shook his head and stood up, he had nothing to say, he should never have come. Mrs Harris looked at him in his smart clothes. ‘She was ill, you know, cancer, but she never let on, not to me even. Yer brother took it hard, is he all right?’

Before Edward could answer, Dora swung into the kitchen, wearing a cheap perfume that filled the room, and bright red, high-heeled shoes. Her breasts were pushed up into a new type of bra, and her flowered blouse was open at the neck to display her cleavage. Her blonde hair was fluffed out into the latest fashion, and she was wearing the full war paint.

‘You off, are you? Don’t suppose you’re going up west are you, only I could do with a lift?’

Edward buttoned his coat, eager to be gone, and shook his head. Dora kissed her mother’s balding head and then opened a drawer in the untidy sideboard. ‘So you’re Eddie. Well I never, you grown up a real dandy, that’s for sure. Looks ever so nice, don’t he, Ma? Hang on, I’ll walk wiv ya. I’m almost ready.’

Edward watched her open a leather box, take out his mother’s gold and pearl necklace and clasp it around her neck, looking into the mirror above the fire. While she fixed the earrings she caught him looking at her, and she flicked her tongue over her painted lips, smiled at him with a coy, sexy pout. ‘You recognize this, do you? It was yer mother’s, she left it to me in her will, didn’t she Ma? I never have it off, do I? It’s just lovely.’

Edward’s stomach churned. Emotions he had thought himself incapable of feeling were beginning to surface and he had to get out. But Dora wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily — she caught his arm and teetered on her heels, clip-clopping beside him down the concrete stairs. ‘Stinks here, don’t it? Terrible, I’m only here ‘cause of Ma, otherwise I’d be in my own place, I got enough put by for a nice flat, but until she pops off I have to stay. Only fair really, all the others are married now, with kids, and they got their own problems... You got a girl, have you, Eddie? I bet you have, nice-looking boy like you, and yer ever so tall, taller than yer brother by a couple of inches. Oh, he’s been ever so hard done by, did me mum tell you? Poor bugger, just one of those types, isn’t he? Walks into trouble.’

Having nothing better to do, Edward went all the way into the West End with Dora. She kept up a steady flow of chatter, and as they neared Mayfair she asked Edward if he would like to have a drink at the club where she worked. ‘It’s ever so nice, and very exclusive, lots of Yanks in there, but they are really nice blokes, you know, not just servicemen but officers.’

Edward found himself sitting at a small, seedy bar in a drinking club close to Berkeley Square. The club had only one main room, fitted out with tiny, two-seater tables and a couple of booths. There was a dance floor the size of a postage stamp, and crammed into a corner was a three-piece band. Dora seemed to be the ‘head girl’, all the other ‘hostesses’ were younger by a few years. Edward watched her circulating among the tables, chatting with everyone and ordering champagne. He could see the girls were hookers, but he reckoned they were reasonably expensive ones, since they were all well dressed. Dora herself had changed into a slinky evening gown which was cut very low at the neck, and it showed off his mother’s necklace very well. She constantly checked her lipstick in the wall-to-wall mirrors.

After a couple of drinks Edward decided to call it a night. He was bored and the music annoyed him. He was just about to leave when Dora sat down with a glass of what looked like champagne. She leaned over and whispered that she was drinking ginger beer, although nobody knew it, but she had to keep sober for the clients. A swarthy gent in a flash tuxedo with red cummerbund joined them, and Dora introduced him as her manager.

Johnny Mask took a good look at Edward and smiled his flashy smile, showing two gold-capped teeth. Edward seemed familiar to Mask and he asked if they had met before, but the upper-class twang to Edward’s voice confused him.

Edward wanted to get out now, the seedy little club was beginning to grate unbearably on his nerves, and he was wary of the sly-faced Johnny Mask. Dora walked him to the exit and clung to his arm, her sickly-sweet perfume becoming even more cloying. ‘Why don’t you come back later, Eddie, place doesn’t liven up until two or three in the morning. These are just a few regulars, we get all sorts later on — types you’d more’n likely mix with these days — you know, high-class... An’ out at the back, through the mirrored doors just by the bar, there’s a private card game goes on. You come back, lovey, you’ll like it, I could show you a nice time.’

Edward had to unwrap her fingers from his arm. She disgusted him, and yet he couldn’t help but find her attractive. She had a beautiful figure, and even though she was no longer a young girl she was still very pretty in a common way.

He buttoned his coat and asked her how much she charged, saw the hurt look on her face and smiled. But she tossed back her head and said that if he was a real nice gent she might give him one for nothing. He may look posh, but he shouldn’t forget that she knew where he came from, and more’n likely he couldn’t afford her anyway.

Edward cocked his head to one side, then pulled her close and whispered, ‘Nothing is free, sweetheart. Get your coat.’

Dora wanted him, not like a ‘punter’ — she wanted him, so she went over to Johnny Mask and took him aside. ‘Listen, this toff, he could be useful — you know, bring in his friends? You want me to make him a happy boy?’

Johnny looked over at Edward and gave Dora’s arse a slap. ‘Go to it — tell him he’ll get a special membership price if he helps with the cash flow down here...’

Johnny Mask’s flat was a monument to bad taste — full of glass and Formica, the new rage. The furniture was Art Deco — there were dreadful satin drapes and bowls of wax fruit everywhere, a grubby white carpet and a huge radio.

Dora danced over and switched the radio on. She smiled at Edward. ‘You like jazz, Eddie? I like the soft, quiet kind, not all those bleedin’ trumpets. Come on through, it’s fantastic, isn’t it?’

The bedroom was even worse, with purple drapes around the bed, which was flanked by statues, and behind the drapes a mirror. Dora lay back on the bed and pulled a cord. ‘See, isn’t it something? And guess what — you gotta promise me that you won’t let on I told you — the mirror, well, it’s two-way glass. He gets people here, huddled behind it, watching the sessions.’

Edward walked around the room, its seediness and decadence exciting him. Dora giggled and began doing a striptease in time to music, throwing each item across the room as she removed it. Naked, she lay back and stretched, then sat up and leant on her elbows, her face sweet and childlike. ‘Well, come on, if you’re coming... I’ve not got all night, and Johnny don’t like me doin’ too much “voluntary work”. I just said you was an old friend, that you’d bring us a lot of business. Johnny wants new customers, you know, with class and cash. They’re always easy for us. Only trouble is the bleedin’ poor ones, they always cause problems.’

Edward folded his clothes neatly on the satin-covered chair and leaned, naked, against the bed.

‘Oh, I knew you were lovely but not this good, yer got a body on yer that’s just perfect, just beautiful. Come here, I’m going to enjoy this one.’

Slowly, he lay against her soft, pink body, and had reached for her before he realized that she was still wearing his mother’s necklace. He shut his eyes, clenched his teeth, feeling sick, and his head throbbed.

‘What’s the matter, lovey? What’s the matter, darlin’ — you’re not gonna pass out on me, are yer? Come here, come an’ let me hold you, just don’t be sick, not on this nice bed.’

Instead of Dora he could see his mother, hear her, the way she would hold him and rock him in her arms. He didn’t know what to do, he could feel it all churning up inside, and he wanted her to shut up. But she kept talking, talking... He grabbed the necklace and tore it from her neck, rolling off the bed. ‘You don’t deserve to wear this, you cheap tart, you slut — give me the earrings, give me... Give!’

She wriggled away, cramming herself against the headboard, hands to her ears. ‘Ah, no! What you doin’, what you doin’? It’s mine, I was give it, yer mother give it us, it’s the truth, Eddie — I swear it, yer mother give it to me!’

He crawled up the bed and grabbed her, close to him, snatched off one earring then the other.

‘You bastard, they’re mine, I’ll have you for this — I will, I’ll bleedin’ have you, you bastard!’ She slid off the bed, grabbed one of her high-heeled shoes and went for him. He slapped her so hard she fell across the room. Her mouth bleeding, she was up like a little tigress, screaming at the top of her voice. He caught her and slapped her face, first one way, then the other, until she was crying, begging for him to stop. Weeping as he punched her, he banged her head against the headboard until she nearly blacked out. She was convinced he was going to kill her, and she held her hands over her face to protect it, but the next moment he gathered her gently in his arms and was kissing her, lovingly, and she stopped crying. ‘Don’t hurt me, Eddie, please don’t, please don’t, I’ll make it right for you, you’ll see, you’ll see.’

He made love to her and she played along, pretending, kissing his shoulders, his neck, his ears... Suddenly she wasn’t acting, it was for real, and she could feel it. To be excited was, for her, something new. She could turn any man on, do any amount of tricks, but she had learned to block it out of her mind. But she lost that with Edward, for the first time in years, years of being screwed by so many men she couldn’t even remember how many, let alone their names. This boy made her feel clean, unused and fresh, and she lay in his arms crying her heart out.

Exhausted, they curled around each other, and he rested his head on her belly.

‘Eddie, you believe me if I tell you that was special, honest it was. I got so used to doin’ it, it’s like makin’ a cup of tea, I got so I don’t feel nothin’, but you’ve just changed all that. Will you kiss me? On the lips, like you was my boyfriend?’

He held her head in both hands and kissed her lips, looking into her eyes, and she reached for him, pulled his head down and kissed him over and over again. ‘I don’t kiss, ever, I never let ‘em kiss me, that sound weird? They don’t mind, yer know. I say, “You can kiss me fanny, me arse, but me lips are me own”... you want that necklace, them earrings? Take ‘em, it was worth it.’

He was up and out of the bed, dragging his trousers on, and as he looked at her his eyes were so blank and unemotional he frightened her all over again.

‘You angry? What’s the matter with yer?’

Edward pulled his shirt on, grabbed his jacket, and at the same time he shoved his bare feet into his shoes, put his socks into his pocket. He had been paid by Lady Primrose and now a tart was paying him — he hated it, and he had to get out before he really hurt her.

‘What did I say? You want your mother’s necklace, don’t you? Eddie? Eddie, why don’t you say something to me?’

He picked up the necklace and put it in his pocket, and she drew the satin sheet up around herself. She tried to touch him, but he moved away.

‘Eddie, will I see you again — you’re comin’ back, aren’t you? Tell me it wasn’t just a one-night stand, I wasn’t just that, was I?’

He was at the door, yanked it open and then changed his mind. He turned to look at her, still draped in her sheet. ‘How much do you pay Johnny Mask?’

Dora stammered out that she gave him twenty-five per cent, but there was more to it than that, she earned from the club, she was more than just one of the girls. ‘I’m not just a tart, Eddie, I own part of the place. Johnny’s my manager.’

Edward smiled and walked out, and Dora slumped on the bed and curled up like a baby. Johnny found her there two hours later and hit the roof — he’d had God knows how many customers asking for her, and here she was, kipping. She had all day to sleep. He slapped her around, and she took it, picked up her clothes and walked towards the bathroom. ‘Is it that swish fella, the one with the face like a gyppo that you bin half the night with?’ he yelled to her retreating back. ‘Gawd ‘elp us, anyone can see what’s he’s worth — fuck all — he’s just a punk that’s learned to speak with a posh voice. You stupid?’

Dora went into the bathroom without answering. She knew she was stupid, but she also knew that Eddie would be back — she knew it.

Edward caught a tram to the East End, with his mother’s necklace and earrings in his overcoat pocket. The guilt clung to him; he wanted to see her grave. He swallowed constantly, using all his self-control to block out the grief that was building up inside him. The closer he got to the cemetery, the worse it was.

When Alex was informed that Nathan, ‘the Chimp’, had been killed in the Blitz, he shook his head in despair. Why was it that every time he trusted anyone, felt for anyone, they were taken from him? Dr Gordon had given him the news, half expecting trouble, while the two warders watched at the open cell door. Over the weeks they had grown fond of Alex, had come to sympathize with him, and he had given them no trouble. This, along with the doctor’s report, persuaded the authorities to allow Alex to be taken, at long last, to see his mother’s grave.

Dr Gordon repeated over and over that they were trusting Alex to behave. The two guards that Alex had grown used to accompanied them.

The green security van with the tiny slit windows drove slowly across London in the early dawn. Alex stared through the small aperture like a child. He was scared — everything looked so different.

Twice they were held up by workmen redirecting traffic around huge bomb craters in the road. Alex took everything in, and his realization that a war was raging while he was incarcerated shamed him.

At the cemetery Edward paid off the cab driver, refusing his offer to wait, and watched him drive away. He wandered among the tombstones for quite a long time, looking for his mother’s grave. Then he stood still, closed his eyes and, when he opened them, he walked directly to her, sensing where she was buried.

The necklace felt as though it was burning in his pocket. No one had told him what to do, he just seemed to know, as he slumped to his knees and began to dig with his bare hands at the soil to the edge of the white cross. He dug a deep, narrow hole, blackening his hands and nails with the soil. His breath heaved in his chest as he took from his pocket the gold necklace and tiny earrings. He wrapped them in a clean white handkerchief, knotted it, then placed it in the earth and filled the hole.

He could hear his own voice, as though someone else was speaking aloud, ‘Don’t haunt me, Mama. Rest, sleep in peace with him — and forgive me.’ He bowed his head and wept, the tears that had refused to come before falling now.

The release was immediate; his body felt cleansed, and he was free. But in his grief he could not stop shaking. He remained on his knees beside the small white cross, then bent his head until it almost touched the centre of the cross.

‘I’ll make you proud of me, I swear to you. I’ll be rich one day, Mama, I’ll be everything you ever dreamed of for me. I love you, Ma. I love you.’

As the prison van pulled up at the cemetery gates, the doctor draped an overcoat around Alex’s shoulders. It was winter, and the rain was lashing down. The strange group stepped out of the van and Dr Gordon reminded Alex of his promise to behave.

At the gate an old woman sat on a beer crate, offering a few bedraggled flowers for sale. The doctor bought a bunch and handed them to Alex, who waited with a warder on each side of him. The overcoat hid the fact that he was handcuffed to one of them.

Edward’s knees were wet from the muddy ground, but he still knelt. There was more, much more he had to say, but he couldn’t form the words. His father Freedom lay with her, but even here he couldn’t say that name, ask for forgiveness for what he had done... He found himself trembling violently, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The steady rain gave way to a torrential downpour, and he got to his feet, pulling his collar up around his ears. It wasn’t the rain that was making him feel this way, it was something else. His heart was thudding and he was flushing hot, then cold. ‘Jesus,’ he thought, ‘what the hell’s the matter with me?’ He turned to walk away from the grave.

A group of four men headed towards him from the entrance. He turned away from them and walked to the lee of a large tomb surmounted by a six-foot-high stone angel, kneeling with clasped hands. He was sweating so his shirt stuck to him, despite the chill rain. Apparently unnoticed, he watched the four men approach his parents’ grave.

Dr Gordon had visited the cemetery previously to be sure he knew exactly where Evelyne Jones was buried. He was thankful for that as he guided the little party through the downpour — he didn’t want the boy to have to search for her. They threaded their way along the narrow path, the handcuffs forcing Alex and the screw to walk very close together. Before the doctor could indicate the grave, Alex stopped and pulled at the handcuffs — he knew instinctively.

The grave seemed small, and its white cross had just enough room for the two names and short inscription: Freedom Stubbs, Evelyne Stubbs. Heart to heart — Camipen-lil, manushi.

Alex laid the flowers gently on top of the cross and bowed his head. He stood as if frozen, making no sound, but the tears streamed down his pale cheeks. It came as a shock when he finally spoke, ‘They left no room for us, no room, as if she didn’t want us buried wiv ‘em. My Dad was a Romany, yer know. In the old days, when a Romany of high-ranking blood — like my father, he was a Tatchey Romany, pure-blooded — well, when they died they destroyed everyfing they owned, ‘cept money, of course. Everyfing they could burn was set on fire, an’ their crockery, pots an’ stuff were broken or thrown in the nearest river. They even destroyed jewellery, an’ if there was a horse it’d be shot. They said it ‘ad to be done or the dead person’d haunt yer. Gypsies believe the ghost hovers near its possessions after death, so it ‘ad to be done.’

Edward had not recognized Alex at first. He leaned against the praying angel and watched. Alex was so tall now, so terribly thin. His face was gaunt and his blond, curly hair was cut close to his head. What shocked Edward most was his brother’s face. With his flattened nose this once-beautiful little brother looked like the thugs Edward had seen in the movies. They were so close he could hear their voices, and yet he could not move those few steps to reveal himself. He had seen the handcuff on Alex’s wrist as he had laid the flowers on the grave. He knew what he had done, knew that those handcuffs should be around his own wrist, but still he could not move. The rain had eased a bit, and he could hear every word they were saying, as if he were standing beside them.

It was time for Alex to leave. Dr Gordon nodded briefly to one of the warders, who tapped Alex on the shoulder. ‘We’ve got to get back now, son, I’m sorry. You all right? Come on, stand up, lemme give you a hand.’

Alex had been kneeling in exactly the same spot Edward had vacated moments before they arrived. He reached out and touched the disturbed earth close to the cross. He could tell it had been freshly turned, despite the fact that the soil was sodden with rain. The warder jerked slightly on the handcuff, and Alex looked up. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

The doctor began to talk quietly as he helped Alex to his feet, mainly to distract the boy as they left. ‘Do you believe those stories, son? Do you think your mother’s ghost is at rest?’

Alex laughed softly, unnerving them all. ‘She was no Romany. He was, Freedom, and he’ll not rest, he’ll haunt ‘im all right. He ‘as to live with what he did, not me. You see, Doc, I know it’s too late to do anyfing about it now, but I never killed ‘im. My brother did it. The ghost’ll be on ‘is shoulder, not mine.’

The doctor walked back to the van in silence. He couldn’t take in what Alex had just told him — could not believe that Alex was in prison by his own choice for a murder he did not commit.

The prison van was out of sight before Edward could move. He averted his face as he passed the grave. If he had been determined before, it was now an obsession with him to succeed in life. His guilt on seeing what his brother had become had sickened him. But Alex was a millstone around his neck from which he would never be free, and he wished him dead. The realization that he hated Alex released him from all ties. He would repay Alex, but that would be the end of it. From now on, Edward was alone.