Fires of London (The Francis Bacon Mysteries) (11 page)

With the blackout in place, the only illumination came from the entryway, below the wide formal stairs. In the darkness, specimen cases loomed, the size of mastodons, while lumps of minerals like eroded heads stood sentry on display columns. My gumboots squeaked on the hard, slick floor. I stopped twice to listen to the echoes of voices below, to check the faint lights near the entrance. When I heard a clatter, I started to run. They were coming up; I’d go back down the narrow rear stair. Some of the junior staff had offices on the lower level, and I touched the doorknobs as I went along: locked, locked, locked. There had to be someone careless. Had to be. I’d been along here before, exploring during the boring early days before the Jerries got under way with mass murder. A sound somewhere; I switched off my torch just in time, because there was a glimmer of light at the far side of the massive building: the second patrolman, no doubt. I slid along the corridor, door to door; everything was locked up properly. Who did they think would steal their Jurassic or Precambrian specimens, their sediments and igneous and conglomerate rocks? But human life is a constant battle against delusion, and who knew that better than yours truly, who was beginning to regret his oh-so-natural impulse for flight? To have been detained to assist the police would have been seriously inconvenient, but to be arrested for attempting to elude them would be worse, would be, for my inspector, pretty much a signed confession.

I was casting about for some plausible excuse—the sound of a rat was lame, a promise to check the museum blackout only slightly better—when a doorknob rattled under my hand. I almost dropped the torch in surprise, but one push and I was inside. I flipped the latch and switched on my light. A figure leaped out at me: hat, tweed coat . . . no, no, breathe again, clothes on a rack. This was a proper office, teapot on the hot plate, blackout in place on, yes, there it was, high in the wall, a small horizontal window.

Onto the desk, dusty boots on his papers, sorry mate, couldn’t reach otherwise. Still couldn’t. I jumped down, pulled the chair aside, shoved the desk to the wall. Up again, stretched to my utmost, I fumbled under the blackout fabric for the latch but found the sash swollen shut, showing the occupant’s shocking indifference to fresh air and my personal safety. I clawed at the window, tearing my fingers. I was shaking them when I heard footsteps in the corridor and, with a decisive wrench, swung the window up. I pushed my hat and my torch out onto the wide sill and clambered after. I kicked the desk back as I dived though the narrow opening. Hat and torch flew out ahead of me, landing with a bump and a rattle in the darkness below, while I wound up balanced with my head and chest in the night, my hips, legs, and feet sticking up into the office. I couldn’t see how far I had to fall, but I wiggled farther and farther out before, losing my pivot point and my balance, I dropped into space. The window banged down behind me.

My hands hit gravel and the rest of my anatomy somersaulted afterward, connecting with something hard on the way down but coming to rest no more than three or four feet below the window. And then, for the first time in many hours, luck: the air-raid siren set up a howl. I sprinted away. A few streets over, I clamped my tin hat on my head and, in the smoke and darkness, started directing folk to the shelters.

In this way, I hid in plain sight most of the night, which, with few clouds and the moon coming to full, was a bad one. Under cover of the raid, I moved through the city, my dusty warden’s uniform acting as my credential. I was
on an errand, reporting to HQ
; I’d been
sent to the wrong post; streets were closed
behind me—the Blitz provided plenty of excuses. I reached Soho shortly before dawn. The wet streets were spangled with glass and mucky with earth from bomb craters. The all-clear was sounding when I pounded at the door of the Europa.

A window opened above. Maribelle bellowed, “We’re closed, cunty. Fuck off.” The voice of an angel!

“It’s Francis,” I called. “Let me in. I’m in an awful pickle.”

“Ha,” she said. “When aren’t you?” From the depths of the room, I heard Delia, her Jamaican lover, say, “What that little bum boy want at this hour?” The window slammed shut, but after a few bad moments, there was a rattle behind the door and Maribelle appeared with her noble face and hawk nose, straight and imperious even in a threadbare bathrobe like some exiled empress.

“I need a place to hide,” I said.

Maribelle gave me a skeptical and appraising glance. Other pickles had left me in a less flourishing state. “And you’re in bloody uniform. We’ve got a uniform, Delia,” she shouted upstairs.

“Don’t bring her up unless it’s a Wren.”

“I’d have thought you’d rather have a FANY,” I called.

A big laugh from upstairs, but I knew it would take more than that to pacify Delia, a powerful Jamaican who sometimes worked the bar and who was known for her violent and uncertain temper.

Maribelle gestured toward the stair. Above, we bypassed the empty club, so much smaller and shabbier than when it was full of revelers and three deep at the bar with my friends, rivals, and lovers, to reach a bedroom done in flaming pink satin and red-flocked walls like an elderly bordello. Delia, lanky and graceful with long dark limbs under a short nightdress, was sprawled in bed, looking as fierce and exotic as a panther and not much friendlier.

Maribelle nodded toward a round padded ottoman covered in wild gold brocade. I sat down and took off my tin hat. “I’m on the run from the police.”

“Oh, mon, police is bad,” said Delia. “Why you think we want them here?”

“How bad?” asked Maribelle.

“Do you remember Damien Hiller, the boy who was murdered?”

“Of course. They don’t think . . . ?”

“Not him, no, but that’s when the inspector got his eye on me.”

“Oh, ho,” said Maribelle.

“Oh, ho, indeed. And now there’ve been two more bodies, and, Maribelle, here’s the thing. I found one on the street when I was going off duty and the other turned up two nights ago after I’d stopped to help another warden.”

“That’s awkward, cunty, but it doesn’t sound more than awkward.”

I explained my difficulties the dreadful night at The Pond.

“What you drinking for in that hole?” Delia asked. “You drink in a place like The Pond when you could be among friends?”

“Momentary lapse in judgment,” I admitted. “And tonight. After talking to me this afternoon, the inspector shows up with two coppers.”

Maribelle and Delia agreed two cops indicated serious intent.

“So,” said Maribelle, “how is it you’re not tucked up safely at the station?”

This was my cue. Maribelle’s found me amusing from the first day I set foot in the club. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that I drink there gratis for the pleasure of my company and the custom of my friends, who are many and thirsty. Maribelle likes a laugh, but she is also a businesswoman par excellence. I leaned forward on the ottoman and described our ARP center.

“Not a real uniform in sight,” Delia grumped.

“But full of rocks.”

“Sounds promising,” said Maribelle. “For those of your persuasion.”

She had joined Delia on their big and very pink bed. They sat together, arms around each other’s shoulders, while I described my race through the storerooms and my frantic search for an unlocked office. I had them both laughing by the time I was stuck half in and half out of the window.

“Then on to my warden’s duties. I kept moving toward Soho, my promised land and sanctuary.”

I hoped Maribelle would take the hint, but instead she said, “Bloody night. We had to close after the second air-raid warning. Members aren’t what they used to be.”

“You can say that,” said Delia and laughed uproariously.

“I need a place to hole up. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ll sleep on the bar.”

“You’ll sleep in the street cause you’ll bring the coppers, mon,” said Delia, and even Maribelle, more inclined to mercy, was dubious.

“Best cut a deal with your inspector,” she advised.

“I don’t trust him. We have a history.” Of course, I described our encounter in the park instead of how I’d embarked on a career as a police snitch. I would have been done for with both ladies if they’d known about that.

Maribelle’s face clouded.

“Just until I can get a message to Nan tomorrow,” I pleaded.

“You crazy, mon. They’ll look for you here first. Everyone knows you drink at the Europa. And you crazy, too, girl, if you let him stay.”

“What’s his name? Your inspector,” Maribelle asked.

“Mordren. John.”

“Oh, shit,” said Delia. Maribelle looked grave and shook her head.

“What? What is it?”

“He has a bad reputation in certain quarters.”

“He likes to beat up boys,” Delia added with a certain relish.

“This is not news to me,” I said. “He banged my head against a tree.”

“Not likely to hurt you that way,” said Delia. “He beats little white boys black, I heard. Maybe he thought you were with some razor gang. Thought you might come back and cut his throat.”

It struck me there might be some truth in that idea.

“There was talk right here at the bar,” Maribelle said carefully, “after Damien was killed and the boys found out who was investigating. That’s all I’ll say.”

“Who? Who was talking, Maribelle? I’d better know. I’m going to have to find out.”

“Hire a fucking detective,” Delia said. “Everything that happens in the Europa is confidential.”

But Maribelle appeared to be taking the idea under advisement. Her list of club members is a well-guarded secret, but visitors are fair game, and after a moment, she said, “Came as a guest and hasn’t been back lately. George was his name. I think he works as a mechanic, but John, your friend the photographer, will know. He was all over him. I blush to remember.”

Delia laughed at this. There is no recorded instance of Maribelle blushing for anything, ever, but, all right, I’d start with John; I should have thought of that myself. He went everywhere, drank with everyone, shot anyone interesting who came within camera range. “Thanks,” I said. “And can I stay for now?”

“Tonight only.”

Delia set up a loud and coarsely obscene protest, but Maribelle overruled her in the end. “Francis is an artist. He’s going to immortalize me. When we’re all dust and the Europa has passed on, there I’ll be forever. Right?”

I bowed. I would, indeed, do her portrait, a challenge and a pleasure, if I could keep out of jail.

She threw me a pillow and told me to be up before nine when the charwoman arrived. “You’ll have to move on then. Best find somewhere no one knows you.”

I felt that I could rely on Nan for that.

A rattle, the squeal of old hinges, the scrape of swollen wood. I opened my eyes on a sour, dusty morning-after-the-Blitz light. Sat up and knocked my head against the shelf of the bar. Saw a very pink pillow and a row of bottles, heard footsteps approaching: the day jumped into focus. I was lying behind the bar at the Europa, where I had slept on one of Maribelle’s pink satin pillows. That uneven step was the charwoman, whom I had promised to avoid. I peered over the top of the bar. A stout, gray-haired woman was stumping toward the WC for her pail and mop. I stuffed the pillow onto the shelf and collected my hat and mask. As soon as I heard the door to the WC close, I jumped up, stinking of dust and beer, and hustled out the door and down the stair in my stocking feet to the street. I pulled on my boots and set off into the morning.

Horns, sirens, detours; dust, smoke, and mist. Workers of all sorts were already picking their way over craters and trenches, trying to avoid gas lines, some broken, and cables, some live. Heavy Rescue Squads were at work on nearly every block, and on one corner firemen sprayed water onto a still-smoldering building—three walls, no windows, roof in the cellar.

I got tea and a cheap roll at a canteen. “Bad night,” I remarked.

“I’ve seen worse,” said the tea lady, her face pasty with fatigue, her hair in a kerchief, her sweater stretched and stained: everyone’s wardrobe was beginning to look tired.

Back on the street, I was nervous for a bit, seeing coppers and arrest in every pedestrian, but I soon realized I had little to fear in the post-raid chaos. The previous night had left my face black with soot, and I believe that I could have passed the inspector and his handsome sergeant without their taking the slightest notice. With this conviction, I stepped out boldly with a reasonable impression of innocence.

Besides, the eyes of the London public were focused on the newly treacherous ground, the heaved paving stones, the sharp obstacles; we were all busy updating our personal maps in a district where landmarks were routinely altered or erased. There should be a pub on the corner—wasn’t that the one with the fine fish and chips? Where was its old-fashioned hanging sign? Gone with the blast, along with the pretty window boxes and whole upper story. And what’s this? Usually a convenient alley, a quick detour by the antiquarian and used bookstores, now a massive, steaming, Blitz-reeking heap of masonry.

I took the better part of an hour to reach John’s studio, normally a fifteen-minute walk, but my knock still came too early for him. I pounded the door for a good five minutes before he rolled out, whey-faced with black circles under his eyes and a greenish tinge to his unshaven jowls.

“Francis?” He rubbed his hand over his eyes as if I might be the ghost of last night’s gin.

“Yes, it’s Francis. May I come in, John?”

He looked up at the sky. “I dare say it is still morning, Francis.”

“It’s around ten. May I come in?”

“At this hour? Afternoon. See me then. Not too early afternoon either.”

He made to close the door, but I wedged it open with my foot. “I need your help.”

He looked at me blankly. John does not function well in the early hours. Nor the late hours either, though there is a period in between when he makes brilliant photographs.

“I’m being pursued,” I said, knowing he loves gossip and scandal.

“Oh, to be young and beautiful. Let him catch you, darling. That’s my advice.” He again attempted to close the door, puzzled by what was keeping it open.