The Unquiet heart

ELEVEN

What I learned convinced me I didn’t want the police trampling over her life – or mine. Not yet. I slipped the notebook into my pocket and gave my farewells to Jim. He eyed me suspiciously from under those great grey brows but didn’t probe.

I left the building just as a squad car drew up. I pulled my hat down and walked up Fleet Street and into the Strand with the book burning a hole in my pocket. I crossed Waterloo Bridge, not pausing as I normally do to watch the coal barges trundling up and down river. I should have got a bus. My leg was aching. But I needed to walk. And the physical pain was oddly comforting. It took my mind off the one fact: She knew she was being followed. Why did she keep it from me?

I reached home in a lather. I threw off my jacket, undid my tie and made myself comfortable at my desk. I guessed it wouldn’t take long before I had visitors, and I needed to read enough to decide if I was keeping the notebook or handing it over.

The inside page had her name on it: Eve Copeland. She’d underlined her first name and written her office address underneath. The ink was black and was already fading to brown in the early entries. I had seen the fountain pen she used: a gold-nibbed, green lacquered tube, capable of producing elegant calligraphy in the right hand. A present, she said.

She seemed to be using three different scripts: plain English, some kind of jagged scrawl which included some English lettering, and a type of shorthand.

In the early pages – the pages in clear – Eve had jotted her thoughts down in a fine script, all leaning neatly to the right in flowing loops. My old teacher would have given her five gold stars. It was a feat beyond my talents; somewhere between dipping my nib in the inkwell and transferring it to the page, my hand would be taken over by the school poltergeist. Even the threat of the belt across my trembling palms was never enough to stop the inky havoc.

Eve’s pages were lined but unnumbered. She’d turned it into a kind of diary by putting dates at the start of every new item no matter where it began on the page. The entries began in mid ’45. Some pages had several short notes; some in plain English, some in “squiggle” as I called the indecipherable scrawl, and then the coded shorthand. Some items went on for several pages as she drafted a column or took down notes of a long interview. It also seemed to serve as an appointments book, with follow-up observations about some event or person she’d met: no doubt he’s a con man… mind like a sewer (I hoped she wasn’t talking about me!); sweet gentle lady… love to be friends; big disappointment compared to voice; great picture… wish I had legs like Cyd Charisse!!

It was uncomfortable; like dipping into her mind. But how else was I going to find out what happened to her? That’s how I’d explain it when we next met. When.

If had no room in my thinking. I was chewing my nails as I got to the later stuff covering the last few weeks, our weeks. What would I find about me? My anxiety rose when I identified the dates, but found the comments themselves in squiggle or shorthand.

I should have been able to read some of the shorthand, albeit slowly; it had been part of our SOE training. There were many forms but usually enough of an overlap to get the gist. But I was stymied by hers. The secret of Pitman is it’s phonetic; there are hundreds of symbols each with its own sound. The thickness of the strokes distinguishes vowels and consonants. All you have to do is memorise them and put them together in your head to make words. With daily practice you can become competent – in a year or two.

I tried saying some of the shorthand out loud, the ones that bore a vague resemblance to what I’d learned. Nothing. Gibberish. In fact with the ochs and achs I was making they sounded a bit like the Ayrshire dialect – Lallan Scots, the language of Burns.

The idea hit me. I grabbed the notebook and a pad and a pencil from my drawer. I ripped my jacket from its peg and ran down the stairs. The cat exploded at my feet.

I was out and running, gammy leg forgotten. A double-decker was trundling away from the stop. I sprinted and caught the pole and hauled myself inside, vowing to give up the fags sometime soon. A change at Elephant and I was in Bloomsbury within half an hour.

I’d never been inside the British Library but had once stood outside peering through the glass doors. To me it was a sort of shrine. Kilpatrick’s old Victorian library and museum, with its stuffed lion guarding the top of the stairs, held what I thought of as the world’s biggest collection of books. I would raid its shelves every week. But the British Library! Where Marx and Dickens sat. Too much for me before. Now, I needed to get in.

I explained my errand to the girl behind the desk. She said that it was impossible. I said I was a private detective. She said she shouldn’t. I said my girlfriend had been kidnapped. She said only if you’re quick and don’t let the Super see you. She led me to a little seat in front of a long brown desk. High overhead soared the great dome, and under it the wooden gallery that followed its curve. Around me and above me were miles of aisles holding books from every corner of the English speaking world. It was better than the echoing vacuum of St Paul’s. This was religion enough. A few minutes later the girl came back with a small heap of books. She laid them on my desk, gave me a stern look from behind her glasses and then a wink. I blew her a kiss and she shot off, red as a tomato.

I took the first book; it was Pitman’s standard shorthand dictionary. That was my benchmark. I then set out in front of me the other three books: versions of shorthand dictionaries for the German language. In the Lallan Scots and north of England dialects you can hear the last throaty vestiges of the language roots. I placed Eve’s notebook alongside and opened it at the first page of hieroglyphs.

I propped up the three German dictionaries in front of me and began to scribble on my pad. It took me five minutes to be certain: Eve hadn’t been writing in English shorthand. It was Gabelsberger’s system, which looked a little like proper writing with its flowing cursive style. Simple. But why?

Then I noticed something else. In the appendix of one of the dictionaries, was a set of squiggles that looked remarkably like the third form of entry Eve had used. The heading explained that I was looking at Suetterlin script, the standard form of German handwriting taught in all their schools until just before the start of the war. How did my ace reporter come to be able to write like a German and use a German shorthand? I put the obvious conclusion to one side while I grappled with the problem of turning both scripts into English.

I decided to tackle the shorthand first. It was closer to what I’d learned in spy school. The trouble was that the shorthand would translate into German words. Prof Haggarty had tricked me into revealing that I’d picked up some of the language while I was sunning myself in Dachau. The language student in me had learned enough to obtain a workaday if specialised vocabulary. The camp held some pretty bright people – doctors, engineers, teachers, musicians – and conversations sprawled across culture and philosophy as well as the mundane details of living and dying behind the barbed wire. But I never saw written material except on official signs. Arbeit Macht Frei for example. It wasn’t the sort of place to order your copy of Die Zeitung to be served with breakfast.

At the rate I was going it would take me a month to translate all her codes. But it didn’t take me long to spot the sign that meant Danny, a sort of lower case d with a tail and circle. So I confined myself to the last two months and wherever I saw my name.

Translating shorthand is an inexact science at the best of times. But now I was having to rely on getting a set of sounds and symbols on the page then listening in my head for the German word to pop up that most closely resembled it. I couldn’t write down the word because I didn’t know how it was spelled in German.

I had to make the leap straight to English, and see if some meaning emerged from the jumble.

As I struggled with my silent battle the receptionist came over looking anxious.

She asked me in a whisper if I was all right as someone had complained about me making faces. I pointed at the dictionaries and made some mouth shapes. She seemed to get the message but gave me a frown to keep my funny faces to myself.

Like other women in my life, she was already regretting her kindness.

I worked away for an hour or two until I had a page of jottings. Some of it was guesses, some inspired analysis, but sitting back and taking it from the top, I could get the gist of recent events from the day she invaded my office and my life: 22 May: d very red very scot, funny sarcastic, hates my paper, bastard, d needs money, hook? 23 May: d called, caught fish!!!! 25 May: mary prostitute, d very close????, first mention PG, d offer more?/deeper? action for me, d interest me/him? 28/29 May: tommy chandler warehouse job, big thrill, big time, big risk, showed?/ revealed??? gun, no choice, PG upset?, 29 May: d bed, tired lonely excuse? not love just warmth, stupid stupid 3 June: love? D soft hard, funny sarcastic, why not? Stupid time There were several more entries along these lines, each a seeming debate with herself about how to avoid falling in love. In three of them the word watcher or follower appeared with a query after my name. She knew, didn’t she? Then… 15 June: mother dress, Savoy, mother!!! Big night, big mess, beautiful couple, wrong time!!!! PG gate crash, mad, mad. D saw watcher, too late, always too late, must stop!!!

Then in clear English a week later: 23 June: Horrible day. Danny saw the watcher again and attacked him. I pulled him off and denied everything. Told Danny we had to break for a while. But it’s over, has to be. How did we get here? What am I doing? So sad…

Then back in code again except for the Latin: 25 June: saw midge saw stan, d watcher now!!! Quis custodiet!!! 30 June: all gone. All quiet, waiting. Alone again. Waiting for them.

That was her last entry a week ago. She knew something was about to happen to her. I could see her sitting in her room in a period of quiet before the storm hit. It tore my heart out. Why did she hide it from me? Why couldn’t she turn to me? All her notes seemed to be telling me she was trying not to fall in love with me, but she wasn’t succeeding. So why did she lie about the watchers? I could have helped. I could have saved her. Maybe.

Did she want to be taken? Was she protecting me? I’m certain the reference to PG was to Pauli Gambatti. That was more than coincidence. I flicked back through her notes. I was right; there were other PG references before my time. She’d feared him and decided that he was having her followed. But why would he? An East End thug? If he wanted to harm her, why didn’t he send one of his hoods round to her flat and pick her off there? And why did she walk into the lion’s gambling den? Did her nerve snap and she had to confront him, face her fears?

Like the mad bastard who storms a machine gun nest?

My head was reeling. I’d had enough. I needed time to digest it all. I handed back my books to the librarian and made her blush just by smiling at her and saying how sweet she’d been. I needed her on my side; there was more to uncover in this book, much more. For the moment it was time to act. In the absence of any better target, I wanted Gambatti in my sights. But before I could pull the trigger I had to flush my bird. There was no returning to Carlyle’s; they wouldn’t let me within a hundred yards.

Over the next three days – more exactly, nights – I put the word out. It was easy enough. I went on a pub crawl. I was careful to drink only in the East End and only in Gambatti’s patch. Wherever I went I bought a half of bitter and began asking questions. I would smile at the landlady and ask if Mr Gambatti ever frequented her fine establishment, and watch her face crumple in fear or irritation. Sometimes they flat out denied everything. Never heard of him.

Sometimes I was told to drink up and piss off. Sometimes they asked why I wanted to know. When I explained I had a bone to pick with him, they were as likely to laugh in my face as to tell me to clear off. Whatever their reaction I made sure they knew my name and I always used my loudest voice. Drunks have big ears.

I made a particular point of buttonholing Fast Larry when he slid into the George on night three. The lads were as startled as Larry was when I called him over to our corner of the snug.

“Let me buy you a drink, Fast Larry.”

He looked at me like I was dispensing hemlock. “I’m fine, Danny. You want to place a bet?”

“Sit down. I want a word in that shell-like of yours.” I ignored his protests and made the boys move over so that he could sit by me. He was twitching like a diviner’s rod, his eyes rolling everywhere except near mine.

“I want to talk to Pauli Gambatti.”

Fast Larry’s eyes stopped swivelling and he looked at me. “You’re fucking mad, Danny. Why d’you want to get your balls cut off?”

“I’m mad all right. Mad as could be. It’s his balls I’m after unless he has a cast iron alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the disappearance of a dear friend of mine.”

Fast Larry’s eyes were whirling again. “This bint of yours?”

“How do you know about that?” I asked sharply.

He shrugged. “It’s in the paper.” He tapped his shiny jacket pocket.

“Show me!”

He drew out a distressed copy of today’s Racing Mirror rolled inside a copy of the Trumpet. He disentangled them and laid the Trumpet out on the table, trying to flatten its folds in the pools of beer.

“Give me that!” I grabbed it from him. Her photo was on the front page. TOP REPORTER MISSING! was the headline, and underneath glowing words of praise and speculation about a gangland kidnap. Fearless reporter Eve Copeland abducted by very men she’d named and shamed. I read it twice. It said nothing I didn’t know, except they were offering a reward for news of her. I prayed someone was already phoning in to collect. In the meantime…

“Fast Larry, I want you to get a message to your mate, Gambatti. Tell I’m coming after him, and I’ll wreck his whole bloody organisation just like I wrecked his team at the warehouse job. Got that? Now bugger off and tell him.”

Fast looked at me pityingly for a long moment then got up, refolding his papers like a bad example of origami. “You’re round the twist, Danny McRae. Fucking doolally.”

The lads thought so too when I explained my plan.

A couple of days later my madness paid dividends. Of a sort. I walked into my office, wiping my forehead from the heat and the climb, and found a man sitting at my desk with a gun trained on my belly button.

I didn’t think he was going to kill me. Not right away. In my experience, if someone sets out to shoot you, they just do it; they don’t hang around and discuss it. That only happens in movies when they want the killer to reveal why he stole the falcon. And killers don’t usually sit in your chair with their feet on your desk, drinking beer from a bottle. Your beer. They wait behind the door and shoot you from behind. Much smarter and safer. For the killer.

But that didn’t mean that this guy wouldn’t kill me; it just wasn’t the first thing that was going to happen. I stuffed my sweat-stained hankie in my trouser pocket. My jacket was over my arm – the hottest day of the year, they reckoned – and I reached out and hung it on the coat rack behind the door. I turned and waited for him to get round to telling me why he was here and why the gun.

Though I had an idea.

“Comfortable?” I asked.

“In a shit hole like this?”

He waved the gun round my room. I wasn’t hurt or offended. No one would mistake the offices of Finders Keepers for a palace. But then why would you need fancy dйcor if most of your work took place on the street? And my customers weren’t the sort to be impressed with pictures on the walls or Persian carpets; they wanted results, fast, and as cheaply as possible.

“It may not be what you’re used to, pal, but it works for me. And unless this is a takeover bid, that’s what matters.”

I walked towards my desk as nonchalantly as a man can with a gun on him. I did it smoothly, no rush, hands well in sight, holding his eyes and smiling my best I’m-harmless-don’t-kill-me smile. I gingerly pulled the chair back – the one in front of my desk for clients – and sat down slowly in it. I sized him up. He was the heavy type, dark suit tight round his thick shoulders and biceps. The hand was steady and experienced holding the gun – a familiar gun, a Beretta M1935.

Out of Gambatti’s armoury. The goon’s face had been roughened by better men than me. And his eyes wouldn’t have looked out of place on a fishmonger’s slab.

“They said you’d be a funny guy. I don’t like smart arses.”

“Then maybe you’ve come to the wrong place.”

“An’ I don’t like what you did to my pals.”

“Then don’t get in my way.”

He rubbed his face wondering if he could get away with killing me and saying it was an accident. “The boss wants to see you.”

“Oh, and which boss would that be?”

“Mr Gambatti. Pauli Gambatti.”

“You see that thing on the desk?” I pointed at my phone. “Doesn’t Pauli have one? All he had to do was lift the other end and ask me to drop by.”

“In your own sweet time. And it’s Mister Gambatti to you.”

“Can we put the gun away? I get the message. Tell Pauli I’ll come by tomorrow.”

The muscle sighed. “You’re not getting the message. Mr Gambatti wants you now.”

“I’d planned to have a beer first.”

“Too bad, jock. It’s drunk.” Muscles picked up the bottle that I’d been keeping cool in a basin of water and drained the last mouthful. He burped and slammed the empty down on my desk. “Now you’ve got no excuses.”

“Put the gun away and I’ll get my coat.” I waited.

He wiped his lips and reluctantly lowered the weapon. London was flooded with souvenirs brought back by our boys. He gazed at it briefly, sorry it hadn’t been used, and slid it inside his jacket. A fancy holster under his arm. James Cagney had a lot to answer for.

“Let’s go.”

“I hope you’ve got a car. My feet…”

“It’s waiting. Let’s go. And no fucking tricks.”

I had no intention of attempting tricks, not with a gun in my side and a second muscleman driving. Especially when the driver turned round and showed me his face. The eyes were still black and blue and the nose looked as though it had gone ten rounds with Joe Louis. He grinned at me, not in a friendly way.

We cut down the Old Kent Road and then picked up Jamaica Road. Once through the Rotherhithe Tunnel we were in the badlands of Stepney. Everywhere we drove I could see how they’d taken a hammering. Goering sent his planes into the docks night after night, and it showed. Wide areas flattened and cleared. Plenty of football pitches. England should have a fine team in about twenty years.

“Here. Put this on.” The thug beside me had drawn a thin scarf out of his pocket and was holding it out to me.

“I’m not cold. It’s summer.”

“I told you I don’t like smart arses! Put the fucking blindfold round your fucking eyes!” This time he backed up his request with the Beretta jammed into the side of my head.

“This isn’t the bloody pictures, you know. Who am I going to tell?”

He pulled the gun back an inch then jabbed it into my ear. It hurt. And at that distance he wasn’t going to miss. I stopped arguing and tied the scarf round my head. He made me slouch down in my seat so that no passing copper would think it funny and pull us over. We drove for another five minutes, past a railway line, twice. I gave up trying to map our route in my head. At last we came into a yard; the traffic sound got cut off and our own exhaust note bounced back at us.

My door was opened and I was hauled out still unseeing.

I heard big doors creaking open and was shoved forward. I sensed we were inside a big enclosed space. A warehouse of some sort. I could smell a burning cigar.

The blindfold was ripped from my head and I was pushed forward so fast I stumbled and fell on my hands and knees.

“That’s where I like to see shit like you.” The familiar voice was dead ahead.

Introductions weren’t going to be necessary. I got to my feet, brushed the dust and gravel out of my trousers and wiped my hands. I looked at the man who was sitting on a crate in front of me. He had nicked a cigar from Winston’s personal supply and puffed away on it as though he was in his private club. His black grey-flashed hair was so heavily greased it would deflect an axe. The double chin and chubby cheeks didn’t soften the face one bit. It was the eyes that threatened, dark and feral either side of a long shaft of a nose.

Beside him, on another crate, with his crutches leaning against the wood and his leg heavily plastered, was my other pal from the casino. He looked pleased to see me. Like a hyena finding a baby deer with its hoof caught in a trap.

Gambatti spoke again. “If it isn’t the geezer who upset my card game? You’re a bit of pest, sonny.”

“Nice to meet you again, Mr Gambatti.”

“It’s not mutual, Mister McRae. Who the fuck do you think you are, putting the word out on me?”

As he said this he nodded at the muscle who’d brought me here, each cast from the same mould: Gog and Magog. Gog leered at me from behind his broken nose. The pair of them stepped towards the crates behind Gambatti, took their jackets off and rolled up their sleeves. Suddenly I began to feel hot too. They came towards me and helped me out of my own jacket and flung it away. They pushed me down on the ground again and unceremoniously removed my shoes and debagged me. They grabbed my arms and began wrapping rope around my upper body and my ankles so that I was tied up like a Sunday joint.

I heard clanking and looked up to see a hook descend from the rafters above me.

Gog held my body while Magog twisted the hook into my ankle ropes. He walked away and I heard the pulley cranking again and felt the rope begin to tug at my feet.

“Pauli! I wanted to talk! That’s why I sent out those invites. That’s all!” I cried out desperately as my legs were pulled from me and my weight was held by muscle boy for a few seconds until the hook had my ankles well above my head.

The pulley went on cranking until I was suspended upside down with my head at face height to the grinning thugs. My shirt was falling over my head until he ripped it open and let the ends flap down past my shoulders.

They began to spin me and I started to feel sick. Maybe it was just fear. Maybe it was a throwback to the feelings of helplessness in the camp when all you could do was take the beatings. I tried to hold on to that thought: I’d had worse done to me. But it wasn’t helping. Hanging upside down disorientated and semi-naked, in front of three villains with a reputation for chopping bits off people, leaves you feeling a wee bit vulnerable.

They stopped me spinning and when my head caught up with my body, I saw Gambatti strolling towards me. He got within two feet of me, took a drag on his cigar and blew it into my face. I coughed. It hurt. But not as much as the fist he rammed into my exposed belly. I jack-knifed up and felt my stomach heave; then I threw up, or in this case, down. Sadly, I missed Gambatti. I guess he knew what to expect.

I hung there feeling like shit, with a trickle of vomit running up my face and waiting for the real beating to start. It was not a moment to cherish. One of the thugs stood in front of me and I tensed. Instead he took the tail of my shirt and wiped my face. Gambatti stepped closer again.

“Now we talk, McRae. Yes?”

“That’s what I’m here for,” I croaked. “It’s about the girl.”

“Always a girl.”

“Eve Copeland. The reporter.”

“I know the bitch.”

“Were you following her?”

“Why would I waste my fucking time following some bint who gets up my nose?”

That seemed too heartfelt not to be true, and fitted with my own view, even an upside down one. Now the big question.

“Did you take her? Have you… did you get rid of her? That’s all I want to know.”

Gambatti scrutinised me silently for a moment. “A girl like that, she makes a lot of enemies. I thought about it. After what she and you did in my club. In front of my friends. Showing me up like that. I thought about arranging a nice accident. Something painful. Something permanent. But I never got round to it.

The filth would be round my door before breakfast.”

“You didn’t touch her?”

“You don’t believe me, you little shit!” He punched me in the belly and stood back while I retched and convulsed like a rat held up by its tail. I believed him. Now all I had to do was talk my way out of here.

“I believe you, Gambatti. I do. I can see you’re a man of your word. That’s it.

That’s all I wanted to know. That’s why I put the word out. I didn’t know how else to get hold of you.”

The blood was rushing to my head and made me sound like I was talking under water. I felt I was going to be sick again. I saw Gambatti smile.

“You shouldna bothered, shithead. I was gonna find you. I owe you one. Maybe several. For what you did to my business down by the docks. I had a nice little thing going there till you fucked it up. That’s bad in two ways. One, I lose money. Two, I lose face. Every shithead in town knows you done us over. That’s not acceptable.”

“Pauli, I didn’t know it was you. This isn’t personal.”

“Oh no?” He stuck his piggy face close to mine. “Now it is, shithead. Now it is.

I’m gonna let the boys get some exercise first. You owe them. Then you’re gonna join the sewage in the river. ’Cept shit floats. So we’ve got some stuff that’ll keep you down.”

Gambatti stood back and pointed his cigar at a large pile of chains lying by the crates. My only hope was that the beating would be so bad the drowning would be a relief.

“He’s all yours, boys.”

Gambatti stood back. Broken nose helped his mate to get down and on to his crutches. Then he picked up two long crowbars used to break open the crates. He gave one to the guy with the knee problem. It didn’t seem to inhibit his back swing. They were grinning like kids let loose in a toy shop. I closed my eyes, tensed myself and waited for the first blows. Already my skull was bursting where the plate was. It felt like one of my old fugues coming on me. It would be a mercy if it came quick.

Suddenly there was a crash behind me, and shouts. I heard running feet and saw three figures charging across the concrete. They shrieked like they were storming a Normandy beach with fixed bayonets. There was a brief clash of metal on metal, some solid thumps and then the three musclemen were on the ground nursing serious head wounds. It was no contest; combat-hardened soldiers versus spivs, one a cripple.

Someone grabbed me and lifted my head. Through bloodshot eyes I gazed into the ugliest, most beautiful mug I’d ever seen. My insurance policy.

“What kept you?” I managed. Midge just grinned.

“You said give it ten before interrupting. Maybe my watch is slow. Hang on in there, pal. We’ll have you down in a mo.”

He left me, then I heard cranking of chains and I was gently lowered to the ground. As Midge untied me, I looked up to see Cyril and little Stan poised with the crowbars above the groaning and thoroughly pissed-off gangsters. Gambatti, wisely, had his hands in the air and was chomping away at the cigar in his mouth. His minions struggled to sit up, trying to get their battered brains round this turn of events and what to do next. Midge helped them out. In his left hand he held the Beretta I’d confiscated at the casino. In his right was the crowbar.

“One move and you get another one!” He swung the heavy rod. “Hands on your heads.”

Stan moved towards the thugs and deftly patted them down. He relieved Gog and Magog of a brace of flick-knives, then searched their jackets and confiscated two more Berettas and a fine- looking Luger. It had the six-inch barrel preferred by the German Navy. The Wehrmacht made do with four inches. Gambatti didn’t seem to be carrying.

I crawled on to all fours then got slowly to my feet, head reeling. I found my trousers and dragged them on, then my shoes, and began to feel less like a human sacrifice. I walked over to Cyril and Stan and clapped each of them on the shoulder.

“Bloody heroes. Thanks, pals.” I swear Stan blushed.

“What do we do with this lot?” asked Midge.

“There’s enough chain. And it’s a wide river,” suggested Cyril with real enthusiasm.

“We could hang the bastards up one at a time like they did Danny and use those jemmies on them,” offered Stan.

I walked over to the four of them. I was hurting and nauseous and generally disinclined to be magnanimous. It must have shown; I could see real fear in the hard men’s eyes. I landed a good kick on two of them – not the cripple; I have standards. That made me feel better.

Gambatti looked sullen and nervous, and kept chewing on his cigar. I reached out. He flinched. I removed the stogie from his mouth and crushed it on the floor.

“Get your trousers off. Right now! All of you.”

They danced and shuffled and finally stood in their shirts and socks. It’s amazing how diminished a man looks without his trousers. “Down on the floor.

Sitting. Back to back.” I ordered.

They grunted and groaned, but got down into a clumsy huddle with their legs pointing out and their backs to each other. I picked up the rope they’d tied me with and made a loop in one end, slipped it over Gambatti’s neck and pulled it nice and tight. Then I looped it round the others’ necks and gave it a couple of turns round the body, pinioning their arms.

Gambatti was looking as though he’d self-combust with anger. When one thug moved, the other two choked. Perfect. I took the Luger from Stan and ran my hands over it. It was a fine piece, better to look at than to shoot. Better than the Beretta because of its longer barrel, though even then its accuracy goes to pot over about fifteen yards. But with the muzzle against his head, Gambatti knew I couldn’t miss. Sweat dripped from his brow. And I noticed the black in his hair was beginning to run in rivulets down his neck and sideburns.

“OK, Danny, you’ve had your little joke,” he said. “A hundred quid to let us go.

No hard feelings. We wasn’t really gonna do you in.” He tried a smile, sounding more Italian by the minute.

I squatted in front of him with the gun on his chest. “We’ll never know, will we, Pauli? The question is, should I be as charitable?”

“Let us go and call it quits, eh? Two hundred quid is yours.” His eyes went narrow. “What about you come work for me, Danny, eh? A handy boy like you? And your men here. I need a new team. How much you earn? I give you hundred a week guaranteed. And always bonus. All my guys make bonus. Two hundred a week!”

“Worth thinking about, Danny!” called Cyril.

For a long second I was amazed to find myself seriously considering the idea. I shook my head. “This isn’t about money. Tell me again, what happened to Eve Copeland?”

The rivers of black were melting down his face. “Nothing! On my momma’s life! I never touched her.”

I was inclined to believe anyone with a gun up his nose. “What do you know? You must have heard something on the street?”

He shook his head, looking desperate. “Look, I tell you what I do. Let me go and I find out. OK? I put the feelers out. I listen. Then I tell you.”

I held his gaze. Was it worth the risk? Knowing Gambatti’s type he’d as soon set me up as give me free information. Maybe the world would be a better place if we did drop this lovely quartet in the Thames wearing some heavy jewellery. I got to my feet. The lads were waiting. Say the word and they’d make these pigs disappear. I looked down at Gambatti. He looked pitiful with his hair dye dribbling and his thin knees knocking.

“You’ve got three days. If I don’t hear from you, with worthwhile information about Eve Copeland, I’ll come looking for you. Got that?”

He was all eagerness now. “Absolutely, Danny. Don’t worry. Pauli Gambatti is a man of honour.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s go, lads. Here…” I dug out Gambatti’s well-filled wallet and rifled through it. “Two hundred, you offered? Not enough here, Pauli. This’ll have to do.” I plucked out a dozen big white fivers. “Travel expenses.” I gave each of the boys twenty quid and threw the empty wallet on the floor. I kept the knives and the Luger.

“Let’s go. How did you boys get here?”

“Cab,” said Stan. “This’ll cover it.” He waved his fivers with glee.

I turned back to Gambatti. “We’re borrowing your car. You can pick it up at the George, Camberwell Green. Keys behind the bar. And no torching the pub, unless you want a war.”

We turned and walked out, leaving Gambatti cursing his hatchet-men for strangling him. But he didn’t seem to hold a grudge. Two days later I got a phone call.