‘The Yard’, as in ‘Let’s nip over to the Yard’, was a cheering phrase-a movie cliché to rank with ‘Let’s form a posse’ and ‘Come out with your hands up, we’ve got you surrounded.’
In reality it had meant more sitting on his butt while Walter had the sketch copied by Scotland Yard’s photographic section. Cal had dreamt of a day when you could stick a piece of paper in one end of a machine and get a copy out the other end in two seconds. It was like something out of H. G. Wells or Aldous Huxley. It went with food synthesisation and the Feelies. He even had a name for the machine-the Instant Image Replicator, very catchy. If he knew the first thing about science he’d’ve doodled a sketch and dashed to the patent office. Instead he had sat, getting angrier and angrier, until Walter reappeared with a bundle of photos, stuck one in his hand and said, ‘Pubs’re open.’
In the car, heading north up the Charing Cross Road, he said to Stilton, ‘Does everything take place in pubs?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘How many are there?’
Stilton laughed. ‘God knows. I’ve never counted and I couldn’t begin to guess. Mind, I did once count every pub, church and chapel in the town I grew up in. As I recall, thirty-five pubs and seventeen assorted churches and chapels.’
‘For how many people?’
‘Not a lot. A few thousand.’
‘Jesus. Is that what the English do, sin all Saturday and repent on Sunday?’
‘Pretty well,’ said Stilton.
When they pulled up in front of the Marquis of Lincoln, Cal asked ‘Why this one?’
‘The one time we lost Smulders, it was a few yards from here. It gets its fair share of refugees. Time to ask who was in that night.’
Considering the public house appeared to be the pivot of English social life, Cal was surprised they were not more friendly. More friendly, more clean, more warm-more everything. By and large this one did little to alter his first impression of the night before-they were grim places. Worse still, a bit of mugging to the wireless notwithstanding, they were joyless places. The wall of faces that now faced him across the ranks of half-empty pint glasses on every table looked to him like gargoyles. The barman was no exception-a nose like Punchinello, bright enough to light his way home and constitute a breach of the blackout regulations.
Stilton called him ‘Ernie’ and beckoned to him.
‘Mr Stilton. What brings you in, might I ask?’
‘Business, Ernie, business. Were you on, Monday night?’
‘I’m on every night.’
Stilton laid the sketch of Stahl on the bar.
‘Was this bloke in?’
‘Dunno,’ said the barman.
Stilton put a photograph of Smulders next to it.
‘Nor ‘im. Look Mr Stilton, why don’t you ask some of the regulars? They got nothing better to do than look who’s new and who ain’t. Me, I’m pullin’ pints all night.’
Stilton turned to Cal, said, ‘Have a seat for five minutes. I’ll just have a word with this lot.’
Cal watched him move from table to table, watched his face run a gamut of hammy theatrical expressions, each one donned and doffed like a Commedia del Arte mask. One man needed to be cajoled, another bullied and another wheedled. It took him ten minutes or more, but one way or another every look of suspicion with which they greeted him was overcome or outflanked. Stilton moved among these shabby little men-and it was men, not a woman in the place-like a colossus among the threadbare remnants of a tatty, defeated army. The weight of the word sank into Cal’s imagination. There was misery here. For the first time the English looked defeated-as he had thought when he first walked in, joyless. He’d often heard the phrase ‘crying into your beer’-maybe that’s what beer was for?
His attention came to rest on a couple in the corner. A blind man and his minder. A stout old man in a ragged blue overcoat. A few wisps of white hair seemed to stand up on his skull as though blown by the draught. His eyes were lost behind glasses that were not simply dark, but utterly opaque. Stilton was making his ‘way across the room to them now. Cal followed, picking his way between the whispering, surly faces at the tables.
‘Well, if it isn’t Mr Potts,’ said Stilton.
The blind man spoke to his minder, a surprisingly cultured voice, ‘I know that step better than I know that voice. The heavy tread of Old Bill. I take it the constabulary are in tonight, Leckie?’
‘It’s me, Walter Stilton. I just wanted a quick word.’
‘Always at your service sir,’ Potts answered. ‘Anything for the Met, Chief Inspector.’
Walter set the two pictures on the table, ‘I’m looking for two men. One or both of ‘em might have been in on Monday.’
Cal whispered. ‘Walter, this guy is blind!’
‘Trust me,’ Stilton whispered back.
The man sitting next to Potts was his logical opposite. A tiny man, his shoulders only slightly higher than the table, his eyes wide and bright, a mass of red hair spiralling off in all directions. Now, he whispered to Potts.
‘No, Mr Stilton. Leckie says we have not seen them.’
‘Monday. It’s Monday I was asking about.’
I.eckie whispered again.
‘We were here Monday but we don’t remember. But Leckie says we know a man who might.’
Another whisper.
‘Hudge,’ said Potts. ‘Hudge was in Monday. We are certain of that. Leckie has reminded us. We distinctly heard his lopsided shuffle. And then we heard his cough. No two men cough alike. Did you know that, Mr Stilton?’
‘A useful tip, I’m sure. About what time?’
‘Nine. It was nine, wasn’t it Leckie? And it was busy.’
‘Did Leckie see who Hudge was with?’
Another whisper.
‘We think he was alone and…’
One more whisper.
‘…and we think it’s your round. A pint for Leckie and a large malt for yours truly, Chief Inspector.’
Stilton grumbled, bought them each a drink, scribbled in his little black notebook and left, looking to Cal quite pleased with himself.
‘Hudge?’ Cal said, when they hit the street.
‘My Czech nark. I do like it when two bits meet in the middle.’
‘What’s a nark?’
‘A grass-a stool-pigeon. Needless to say, nobody else is sure of anything. Some thought they recognised ‘em, nobody was certain. And nobody would say they saw ‘em together. That lot might be dozy, they might even be lying to us, but Hudge, he’s in it for a living. If there was something going on in there on Monday he’ll have seen it. He’s a pro-one of me regulars, you might say.’
‘Then surely you know where he lives?’
‘I did. I went round there today before you were up. Nowt but rubble. Must have caught a packet last Saturday. Only one thing I know for sure, he was still alive on Monday.’
‘And there’s been no raid since?’
Stilton nodded.
‘So where do we go from here?’
‘The shelters. We do the shelters tonight.’
He looked at his watch. ‘It’s half past six. Meet me at the Yard at ten, and we’ll do the rounds.’
‘The rounds?’
‘Aye. Back East. We’ll do the Stepney shelters. Bound to be in one of ‘em.’