Last Rights
Authors: Barbara Nadel
Tags: #Fiction, #Crime, #Mystery & Detective, #General
Barbara Nadel
Copyright © 2005 Barbara Nadel
The right of Barbara Nadel to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 0 7553 7851 7
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
Trained as an actress, Barbara Nadel used to work in mental health services. Born in the East End of London, she now writes full time and has been a regular visitor to Turkey for over twenty years. She received the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger for her novel
Deadly Web
in 2005. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed Inspector İkmen series set during World War Two.
Praise for
Last Rights
:
‘Nadel has made a sizeable impact on the crime and mystery field with her fascinating series of thrillers set in Istanbul
. . . Her new series, set during the London blitz, ably navigates different psychological waters; it conjures up a moving
character in Francis Hancock . . . A great depiction of the period and a touchingly reluctant new sleuth’
Guardian
‘Gripping and unusual detective story . . . vivid and poignant’
Literary Review
‘Nadel has created an atmospheric setting and a fascinating insight into the lives of Londoners struggling against the Luftwaffe’s
nightly onslaught. The book’s intelligent original theme and empathetic characterization make for a compelling read’
Good Book Guide
‘Excellent’
Birmingham Post
Praise for Barbara Nadel:
‘The delight of the Nadel book is the sense of being taken beneath the surface of an ancient city which most visitors see
for a few days at most. We look into the alleyways and curious dark quartiers of Istanbul, full of complex characters and
louche atmosphere’
Independent
‘This is an extraordinarily interesting first novel’
Evening Standard
‘
Belshazzar’s Daughter
, with its brilliantly realised Istanbul setting and innovative protagonist was a hard act to follow. But she pulls off the
trick triumphantly’
The Times
‘Inspector Çetin
kmen is a detective up there with Morse, Rebus and Wexford.
Harem
is the fifth in the series, and the most compelling to date . . . Gripping and highly recommended’
Time Out
‘One of the most intriguing detectives in contemporary crime fiction . . . The backdrop of Istanbul makes for a fantastic
setting’
Mail On Sunday
‘Unusual and very well-written’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Intriguing, exotic . . . exciting, accomplished and original’
Literary Review
‘A bewitching style . . . a story that carries the reader forward willingly along until the well-sprung denouement’
Scotsman
‘As before, Nadel presents a gallery of richly created characters along with the superb scene-setting we have come to expect
from her’
Good Book Guide
.
The Inspector
kmen series:
Belshazzar’s Daughter
A Chemical Prison
Arabesk
Deep Waters
Harem
Petrified
Deadly Web
Dance with Death
A Passion for Killing
Pretty Dead Things
River of the Dead
Death by Design
A Noble Killing
Dead of Night
The Hancock series:
Last Rights
After the Mourning
Ashes to Ashes
Sure and Certain Death
To my dad.
Although he’s been dead for almost four years now,
I couldn’t have written this book without him.
This book was an entirely new, unknown and scary venture for me and I have been fortunate in having had a lot of help from
a lot of people. Ron Hart, Publicity Officer of the East of London Family History Society, was a great help. He readily shared
some of his wartime experiences with me and put me in touch with others who also had great tales to tell. Foremost amongst
these were Sylvia Ramage, Ivy Alexander and Eric Vanlint. Ivy and Eric were also kind enough to give me copies of their books
Maid in West Ham
and
While Pigeons Cooed in Hackney Wick
respectively – both of which were most useful. I would also like to thank Sharon Grimmond from the New Deal for Communities
and her very welcoming History Committee.
Michael Grier, Community Relations Manager at Tate and Lyle was kind enough to show me around part of the plant and allow
me access to the company archives. Steve Maltz of London Jewish Tours was also a mine of information as well as being a very
entertaining fellow
walker. Susie, Philip and Pam at the Spitalfields Centre have my undying thanks for introducing me to 19 Princelet Street
– a truly life altering experience. I also have to thank the Newham Bookshop for the help they gave me when I needed it and
just for being there with the right books when I didn’t.
Brian Parsons PhD is a funeral service educator and author of the book
The London Way of Death
. He answered many often badly couched questions for me and was a mine of funeral service information. Thanks to him.
My family, both the living and the dead, were crucial to this project. Thanks especially to my mother for her memories, to
my son for his vision and my husband for his patience. Finally, thanks also to my agent, Juliet Burton and my editor at Headline,
Martin Fletcher.
N.B
. Readers unfamiliar with words or expressions used in this novel can turn to the Glossary at the end of the Ebook.
E
ver seen a man’s face smashed in? It explodes. I’ve seen it done with bullets more times than anyone should. Going up, over
the top, mud in your mouth, your eyes, your ears. The bloke next to you pokes his head over and then, bang! A bullet, one
of Jerry’s, one of ours sometimes, it hardly matters when his brains are all over your battledress. Not this time, though.
This time I could see it was a fist. Burrowing into his nose, a big, hard docker’s fist, pushing straight through to the back
of the poor bloke’s head.
I screamed. Bombs hammering down all around us, Canning Town, Silvertown, Custom House – every bloody inch of London’s docklands
– but they heard me. Men with faces like sweat-slicked potatoes. They turned and saw a thin, dark man in the shadow of one
of the trees, a man shaking from his hat to his boots.
You hear some people say that war is different now. They say that with all the bombing it’s not the same as what happened
in the first lot. They say it’s worse.
Depends on how you see war, I suppose. For me there’s no difference. When I was in the trenches in the Great War, people died.
Now people are dying again. Not only soldiers this time, I’ll grant you, ordinary men, women and kiddies. But at the end of
the day I wonder what’s the difference. People talk about the old Kaiser being better than Adolf Hitler and I don’t know about
that either. I was twenty when I went off to fight for King and Empire, just a nipper in the scheme of things. I grew up,
grew old and most of me died out there in the mud.
‘Who’s there?’ one of the potatoes said.
Somebody ran over to me and looked into my face. I couldn’t move, not with the terror on me. He was small, the one who came
over, and even through my fear I knew I could have had him if I’d needed to. But then he smiled. Middle of the night, but
I could see every inch of his leathery old face thanks to all the fireworks down at the docks.
‘Aw, it’s only the Morgue’s son,’ the old man said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.
‘What? The wog?’
‘Yus.’
And then they all laughed. Because it was funny.
So how did the ‘Morgue’s son’ come to be shaking in his boots on the edge of a bare-knuckle fight in a graveyard in East Ham?
I don’t know any more than anyone else. All I do know is that ever since all this bombing started on the seventh of the month,
this is what I’ve had to do. I’d
known it was coming. Ever since Dunkirk I’ve woken up shaking. Seems almost unbelievable all that happened only back in June.
Even the weather’s gone off now, as if we’ve suddenly crashed into winter before autumn’s really out. Thrown down into the
darkness . . .
But, anyway, this raid started and I had to get out same as always. My mum, my sisters and our apprentice boy Arthur went
down the Anderson shelter in the yard. But it’s like the trenches down there – bombs going off in your head, blood dripping
down the side of your brain. I ran. I had to get out of it and I ran. It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I do.