Mr. Love and Justice

Title Page
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR JUSTICE (STILL)
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR LOVE (STILL)
MR LOVE AND MR JUSTICE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR JUSTICE (STILL)
MR LOVE AND MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE AND MR JUSTICE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE
MR JUSTICE
MR LOVE AND JUSTICE
About the Author
By Colin MacInnes
Copyright
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Frankie Love came from the sea, and was greatly ill at ease elsewhere. When on land he was harassed and didn’t fit in at all. The orders he accepted without question, though a hundred grumbles, from almost any seaman, were hateful to him in a landsman’s mouth. There was a deep injustice, somewhere, in all this. Landsmen, in England, depend entirely on the sea: yet seamen, who sustain them, don’t regulate the landsmen’s lives and have to submit, when landlocked themselves a moment, to all the landsman’s meaningless caprices.

At the Dock Board the chief had said there was no ship for Frankie. Those were his words, but his eyes said, ‘I get ten pounds from you before I put you in the pool.’ But Frankie had only three-pounds-seven from the Labour. At the Labour exchange they’d asked what he could
do
. How to begin to explain to the quite nice
young feller in the striped Italian jacket? On a ship he could do anything: off it, nothing, didn’t want to – he was all at sea. ‘But you can do a bit of labouring, can’t you?’ said the clerk, quite friendlily. How to tell him that a merchant seaman can be nothing else – that to do nothing else is a first condition of
being
a merchant seaman? The feller, trying to be helpful, had called over Mister someone who’d looked over the papers, said not a word to Frankie but, just in front of him (two feet from his face behind the grille), ‘He’s young enough for manual labour – twenty-six.’ And, ‘A bad discharge-book, too: adrift in Yokohama and repatriated at official expense.’

Frankie stepped back and stood there, feeling powerless and sick; and watched the next-comer, an Asian seaman with a turban. The Asian, at the wicket, smiled and smiled, and, as they questioned him, understood less and less. ‘Can’t you speak proper English?’ somebody shouted at him. Frankie, in his days of glory, would hardly have spoken to the Asian at all: but now both of them were sea princes exiled in distress. He stepped up again and said, ‘This man speaks
two
languages – ours and his. It’s more than you can – think of that!’ They answered nothing, said, ‘Next, please,’ and the Asian still stood and smiled.

Frankie walked out into Stepney, withered and disgusted. The clients round the Labour, apart from being landsmen, were mostly layabouts: professional scroungers such as you couldn’t be on board a ship – your mates wouldn’t wear it, let alone the officers. He found the Asian standing near, and turned to share with him
his deep contempt for London. In the old days, Frankie thought, he and I would have signed on as pirates down by Wapping: and why not? Frankie became aware the Asian was inviting him to share a meal. ‘I’m skint,’ said Frankie, not because he was but in refusal. The Asian slightly shook his turbaned head and took Frankie gently by the arm: the gesture was sufficiently respectful, and they set off together in silence. Round two and a half corners they went into a Pakistani café with a smell of stale spices, a juke-box, a broken fruit-machine, and several English girls. 

By Latimer Road, PC Edward Justice went into the London Transport gents: not for that purpose, nor (since he was uniformed) to trap some evil-doer, but simply to change his socks round from foot to foot. As he did so, balancing carefully on some sheets of tissue he’d laid out on the stone, he read the obscenities upon the wall. One said,

Man, quite young, nice room, seeks friend for
punishment.

Please say who and when.

A space was left, and then in capitals:

MEN MEAN A GREAT DEAL IN MY LIFE.

Ted Justice took out the pencil from his black official notebook and wrote under the first part,

Blond, 26, and brutal,
NAP
1717.

(This was the number of his section-house.) Then, under the second message, he wrote:

Mine too.

He left the establishment with a stern, penetrating glance at those inside it.

In the street and sun he stood, in official posture, before a haberdasher’s. In the plate glass he examined himself from helmet tip to boot toe, and up again, adjusted the thin knot of his black tie, and patted his pockets down. All present and correct, sir. What they’d make of the man inside, in a moment, he couldn’t tell: but the outward image was immaculate.

He caught the haberdasher’s eyes beyond his own, didn’t budge or change his expression in the slightest, then moved away, authority incarnate. The socks felt better: but tight and sticky, the serge was hot today. Would he make plain-clothes –
would
he? Think of it! In civvies yet unlike the other millions – up above the law!

‘Not now, lady, I wouldn’t,’ he said to a girl-and-pram combination at a corner and, holding the traffic, he saw her personally across the road. An ugly one, unlike his own, but then for all women he had a quite authentic love: not just the copper’s professional solicitude, but a real admiration and affection. Yes: even for women coppers, and some of
them
…

He reached the station dead on time, and calm, and spotless. The desk officer looked up and said, ‘The Detective-Sergeant’s ready for you, Ted. Good luck.’

Of the three girls casually eyeing Frankie and the Asian, one was a short, thick-set, chunky woman past her first prime – and second – maybe hitting twenty-eight. Her dark hair was dyed blonde, her face the colour of electric light, and her body desirable in an overall way only (that is, though the immediate impression was attractive, no part of her, on inspection, seemed very beautiful). She spoke less than the others, was very contained and self-assured, yet when she did speak her voice was emphatic and decided. Her clothes accentuated the same features as nature did beneath them, but elsewhere were casual and slack.

After a while of merely glancing at Frank, when he made a sudden movement on his chair she began to watch him. Frankie was used to this and had no vanity about it (though about other things a lot). He knew he
wasn’t ‘handsome’ whatever that may mean (for nobody seems to know or to agree), but he also knew he was well set up, and confident, and strong, and potent; and that though he repelled a great many girls for various reasons, for the kind he liked best he’d only to whistle and they’d come. He now whistled by looking steadily at the girl ten seconds in that kind of way.

She got up, came over and holding out a florin, said, ‘You got some pieces for the juke?’ In reply he took sixpences out of the front pocket of his slacks and, without getting up, stretched over and dropped them in the juke-box. ‘What you want?’ he asked, still stretching far.

‘You choose,’ she told him.

‘I can’t see the names from here,’ he said. ‘You pick them.’

‘I’ll press these for you,’ she answered, and without taking her finger off the button she moved the selector and jabbed eight times. Then she sat down at the far side of his table.

The juke-box made conversation quite impossible: but as it blared on they spoke to each other, perfectly clearly, with their eyes, their faces, and their limbs. This unspoken conversation established that they liked each other that way, and that way, at the moment, only; and reserved all their lives, and personalities, and friendship, and private particulars to themselves.

When the juke-box stopped neither of them wanted more music, and both looked up with faint resentment for anyone else who might consider feeding it again. The
girl put her hands on the table round her bag: a battered, soiled affair, square-black, but efficient and businesslike as a safe is in an office that seems otherwise untidy and impractical. She said to Frankie, ‘I’d say you look a bit tired.’

‘You would?’

‘Yes. Just look it, I mean. That’s all.’

‘Well, you’d be right. I have been.’

They both ignored the Asian as if he absolutely wasn’t there, although at this stage his presence as unconscious chaperon was rather helpful.

‘Bad times?’ she said.

‘Well, girl, you know how it is. No ship – no work – no money.’

‘I thought you were one of those,’ she said, waited for him to ask her what
she
was, and registered with approval that he didn’t.

Now, she played a right card … but a bit too early. ‘Shall we take a walk?’ she said.

He paused a fraction more than was usual in a man of quick decisions, and said, ‘I’ll take a rest here for a while.’

She moved her hands round the bag, didn’t hide a slight vexation and said (but quite nicely), ‘It was an invitation to you … You’ve told me how you’re fixed just now …’

He answered (also without any malice), ‘Another time. I won’t forget you.’

The girl smiled, took up the bag, said nothing more, and after a few words with the other girls, went out.
The Asian was in conversation with a countryman, and Frankie, catching up with this, said to him, ‘No, friend, I’ll pay …’

‘No, no!’ cried the Asian, for the first time in their acquaintance letting drop the smile.

‘Let me pay for myself, then,’ Frankie Love said, getting up.

‘No!’ said the Asian, giving money to the Pakistani fiercely.

Frankie now gave him
his
first smile of the day – but a very reluctant, meagre one – and saying no more, shook hands with the Asian, patted his shoulder gently, and went out.

The girl, as he expected, was at the far corner, waiting. As she’d expected, he took his time, and when he came up she made no reference whatever to his change of mind. She shifted her handbag to the other arm, took his, and clicked along the pavement on her stiletto heels.

It was about half a mile. Near the end of the journey, well after she’d passed them, she said of two men standing beside a delivery van, ‘Two coppers.’

‘Yeah? How you know?’

‘You shouldn’t look back like that. The way they stared at us.’

‘I expect quite a few men stare at you.’

‘Not
that
way. It’s not sex that interests them …’

‘What does, then?’

She stopped at the door, took a bunch of keys from her bag, looked around, and opened it. ‘What I do, does,’ she said. ‘You coming in?’

The Detective-Sergeant said, ‘At ease, Constable, have a fag, come and sit down by me.’ Ted Justice did so but with caution, mistrusting the affabilities of a superior: for no one, he’d learnt, is kindly without a motive – unless (and even then!) the old-timers who stayed stuck at uniformed sergeant, or below.

‘Well, Ted,’ the Detective-Sergeant said, ‘not to beat about the bush at all – you’re in.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘In on probation, naturally. We all want to see how you shape up, and keep an eye on you generally.’ He stared at Edward in a quite frankly treacherous way. ‘So,’ he resumed, ‘as from tomorrow, civilian dress, please – you’ll be drawing the appropriate allowances.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Stand up, Ted.’ Ted Justice did so. ‘Take off your
tunic and tie.’ He hung them neatly on a chair-back. ‘Come over in front of this,’ and they walked over to the mirror.

Reflected behind him, Edward saw his new superior gazing with him at the mirror’s image; and in it his own not very tall, and lean, and wiry and relaxed and sensual body. The Detective-Sergeant ruffled Edward’s hair, and he didn’t flinch. ‘Yes, it’s extraordinary!’ the Detective-Sergeant said. ‘You don’t look like a copper – except, perhaps, for that lovely pair of blue eyes.’ He laughed. ‘Come and sit down again,’ he said. And as Edward moved over, ‘Get out of the way of walking like that, please. You’re not on the beat any more, remember. It’s the first thing that gives the untrained plain-clothes man away.’

‘Now,’ said the officer, sitting at his desk. ‘Forget all you’ve learnt till now. Forget any pals you’ve made. Here in the vice game, you’ve moved up a degree.’ He paused. ‘
But
: and it’s a very important but; though you’ve moved up above
them
, so far as
we’re
concerned you’re right down at the bottom once again. I’ll be frank with you – you’re not a fool. I’m opening a file on you today. If there’s anything in that file that we don’t like – then out you go, boy! And if you fall, and go back to the beat again, you’ll fall even lower than you were before. Agreed?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Edward.

‘Agreed, then. Now: we’re moving you over towards Royal Oak: new section-house, new surroundings. Round here, if you’ve done your work well, your face
is probably a bit too familiar. That’s all right? You accept?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Splendid: we want all this to be voluntary. Now, one other thing: and don’t take it amiss. In the Force, we don’t interfere in an officer’s private life as far as is reasonable and possible. But in the CID, we have to. Why aren’t you married?’

‘Sir?’

‘You’re not a poof, are you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Sure of that?’

‘Quite sure, sir.’

‘Well?’

Edward thought fast: but knew however fast he thought, the Detective-Sergeant would observe it, so he said at once, ‘May I ask you one question first, sir?’

‘You may. Well?’

‘Do I get any expenses?’

The officer looked at him blandly, and with pity. ‘I don’t like that question very much,’ he said. ‘To begin with, it’s a foolish one. What we’re offering you is – well, influence. If you’ve got any brains, then money’s a secondary consideration: or should I say, where there’s influence, there’s money. Routine expenses can, of course, be recovered: but in this section, frankly, most of us don’t bother. How you manage there, provided you keep your nose clean, is really up to you, you know. You understand me, do you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

All this, which had entered one corner only of Edward’s brain, had given him time to frame his answer. The difficulty was this. He had a girl (in fact a woman, since she was older than himself), and he loved her, and she him, and he had since adolescence loved no other woman in the world or, as it happened, known any other.
But
– and this was it. Her father had been ‘in trouble’. And though he was – reluctantly – prepared to bless his daughter’s marriage to a copper, the girl herself – who loved the officers now, in the measure Ted was one – had told him she believed – and she was very lucid on this essential point – that while she would never leave him if he wanted her, to marry him would mean, with absolute certainty, that he’d never rise far in his career: if, indeed, once the Force knew of her, they allowed him to stay in it at all. So what to do? Pretend she did not exist? The uniformed lot might wear that one – but not the sharp boys of the CID: they’d soon discover; for if no one else told them, a nark or a disgruntled criminal would be certain to. Always, Edward had known this was the one chink in his newly burnished professional armour: but loving her so much, he had waited for time, somehow, to resolve the fatal contradiction. What he had
not
foreseen (and was blaming himself for severely at this moment) was that if
he
never spoke about her to the Force, the Force would raise the matter so abruptly.

‘I’d like to be frank with you, sir,’ he said (determined not to be).

‘That’s what we want, son. Come on – I’m waiting.’

‘I’ve got a girl …’

‘Yes …’

‘But I’m not sure the Force would find her suitable.’

‘Why?’

Edward Justice looked his superior officer right in the eyes and said, ‘She’s one of those persons, sir, who doesn’t care for the officers of our Force.’

The Detective-Sergeant smiled extremely unpleasantly. ‘Doesn’t she,’ he said. ‘She cares for you, I suppose, though.’

‘Oh, yes, sir. And on this matter, she may alter. As you can imagine, sir, I’ve made it …’

The Detective-Sergeant had got up. ‘Shut up,’ he said quite gently. ‘Look, boy, it’s simple. Change her ideas and marry her, or else … Well! That quite clear?’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Okay. No hurry: but just get it fixed.’ He smiled. ‘An item for your file,’ he added.

Detective-Constable Justice put on his tie and jacket. ‘Could I ask you, sir,’ he said, ‘what kind of work you have in mind for me?’

‘I don’t mind telling you,’ the officer answered, taking his trilby hat off a filing cabinet. ‘You interested in ponces at all?’

‘I’m interested, sir, in whatever you tell me to be.’

‘Good. We might try you out with them. What d’you say?’

Edward made no reply, and his senior put his hand on Detective-Constable Justice’s shoulder. ‘Remember one thing,’ he said. ‘It’s the only thing that matters –
really.’ He looked at Edward like a brother (as Cain, for example, did on Abel). ‘Don’t ever get in wrong with the Force: because if you do – well, a broken copper’s the only person in the world we hate more than a criminal.’