The China Governess

Prologue The Turk Street Mile“It was called the wickedest street in London and the entrance was just here. I imagine the mouth of the road lay between this lamp standard and the second from the next down there.” In the cold darkness of the early spring night the Chief Detective Inspector of the area was talking like a guide book with sly, proprietorial satisfaction. He was a neat pink man whose name was Munday and he was more like a civil servant than a police officer. His companion, who had just followed him out of the black chauffeur-driven police car drawn up against the curb, straightened himself and stood looking at the shadowy scene before him without speaking. They were standing in the midst of the East End on a new pavement flanking a low wall beyond which, apart from a single vast building, there appeared to be a great deal of nothing at all in a half circle perhaps a quarter of a mile across. The great fleece which is London, clotted and matted and black with time and smoke, possesses here and there many similar bald spots. They are cleared war-damage scars in various stages of reclamation. Around the edges of this particular site the network of small streets was bright and the arterial road by which they stood was a gleaming way bathed in orange light, but inside the half circle, despite the lighted windows of the building, it was sufficiently dark for the red glow which always hangs over the city at night to appear very deep in colour. “The Turk Street Mile has gone now, anyway,” Munday went on. “A serious trouble spot for three hundred years, wiped out utterly and for ever in a single night by four landmines and a sprinkling of incendiaries in the first raid on London, twenty years ago.” The other man was still silent, which was something of a phenomenon. Superintendent Charles Luke was not as a rule at a loss for words. He was very tall but his back and shoulder muscles were so heavy that he appeared shorter and there was a hint of the traditional gangster in his appearance, especially now as he stood with his hands in his trousers pockets, the skirts of his light tweed overcoat bunched behind him and his soft hat pulled down over his dark face. The legacy of the last few years which included promotion, marriage, fatherhood, widowerhood, and the Police Medal had had remarkably little outward effect upon him. His shorn curls were as black as ever and he could still pump out energy like a power station, but there was a new awareness in his sharp eyes which indicated that he had lived and grown. “I understand that the district was considered a sort of sanctuary,” the Chief was saying. “An Alsatia like the ancient one behind the Strand, or Saffron Hill before the First World War. They tell me there was a recognised swag-market down here.” Luke drew a long hand out of his pocket and pointed to a thin spire far away in the rusty sky. “That’s St. Botolph’s,” he said. “Take a line from there to the old gasometer on the canal at the back of the cinema over there and you won’t be far wrong. The Mile was a narrow, winding street and in places the top floors of the buildings almost touched. Right in the middle there was a valley with very steep sides. The road dipped like a wall and went up again. That’s why there was no through traffic to clear it. The surface hadn’t been altered for generations; round cobbles. It was like walking over cannon balls.” Now that he had recovered from his first astonishment at the sight of the new building which was not what he had expected, he was talking with his usual fierce enthusiasm and as usual painting in details with his hands. “When you turned into the Mile from this end the first thing you saw was the biggest pawnshop you ever clapped eyes on and opposite, all convenient, was the Scimitar. That was a huge gin palace built on what you might call oriental lines. The street stalls ran down both sides of the way to the hill and every other one of them sported a strictly illegal crown-and-anchor board. The locals played all day. Early in the morning and late at night by naphtha flares. Further on, round the dip, was the residential quarter. I don’t know if that’s the term. People lived in caves. There’s no other word for them. Have you ever seen a beam eaten to a sponge by beetle? Magnify it and dress the beetles in a rag or two and that’s about the picture. I went right through it once for a dare when I was about ten. My mother didn’t get me completely clean for a month.” He laughed. “Oh, the Mile was wicked enough in a way, depending on what you mean.” He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site. “What the devil have you got there?” he enquired. “A prehistoric ‘wot-o-saurus’?” “It’s a remarkable building.” Munday was earnest. “In daylight it takes your breath away. It’s as sleek as a spaceship, there’s not a hair out of place on it. It’s the reason why I’ve had to disturb you tonight. Mr. Cornish felt Headquarters must be notified at once.” “Ah, he’s the Councillor, is he? The one who’s going to get the knighthood for this lot?” “I don’t know about that, sir.” The Chief was wooden. “I know he’s got to raise the money to build five more of these.” Luke sniffed and surveyed the monster, scored with sun balconies and pitted with neat rows of windows, each one shrouded with pastel colours, blue, pink, lilac, biscuit, and lime. A sudden grin spread over his dark Cockney face. “Got the original families in there, Chief Inspector?” he enquired. Munday gave him a steady glance. “Not exactly, sir. That’s some of tonight’s story. I’m given to understand that although it’s the primary object of all these big improvement schemes to rehouse the portion of the populace which has been rendered homeless by enemy action, twenty years is a very long time. The new buildings have had to be financed in the ordinary way and the outlay has got to be recovered, so the tendency has been to allot these very exceptional new apartments—they really are quite impressive, Superintendent—to those people who have proved themselves first-class tenants in the temporary accommodation which was rustled up for them just after the war, prefabs and suchlike.” He came to an uneasy pause and Luke burst out laughing. “I shan’t be asking any questions in Parliament, Chief. You don’t have to explain anything away to me. You’ve got a hand-picked lot here, have you? And that’s why this present spot of bother which is only ‘wilful damage’ has so upset the dovecotes? I see. Come on.” They set off together down the partially constructed concrete ramp. “Some of these local government big boys are remarkably like the old-time squires, feudal old baskets!” he remarked. “ ‘Don’t hang your bedding out of the window,’ ‘Teach the kids to say please, damn them,’ and ‘No Singing except in the Bath.’ I don’t like it in a landlord myself. Someone has got irritated by it perhaps? Eh?” “I don’t know.” Munday shrugged his shoulders. “My information is that the couple whose home has been wrecked are a sort of show pair. The old boy is finishing his time at the Alandel Branch factory down the road and he’s reputed not to have an enemy in the world. The same thing goes for the old lady who is his second wife. I believe there’s a temporary lodger, a skilled worker from Alandel’s. They got permission to take him in for six weeks’ trial and the rent was properly adjusted, so it can’t be jealousy on the part of the neighbours. The damage appears to be remarkable and the feeling is that it may be directed against the building itself, the Council that is, and not the tenants at all.” “Could be. Who have you got out here?” “A good man, Sergeant Stockwell. I was speaking to him on the phone just before we came out. He thinks it must be the work of a small gang. Possibly juveniles. He doesn’t like the look of it but he doesn’t see what can be done before morning. However, Mr. Cornish—” He let the rest of the sentence remain unspoken. “He wants the top brass, does he.” Luke was good-tempered but fierce. “Here it is then. Both of it. We’ll go and give him a toot.” His amused, contemptuous mood persisted as they entered the aluminium-lined passenger elevator which carried them up to the top floor. The convenience and neatness impressed him but the termite-hill architecture made him uneasy. “It’s all very quiet. What’s everybody doing behind the fancy drapery?” he muttered, the attempt to muffle his remarkably resonant voice failing disastrously. “The trouble is on the other side of the building, sir. Top floor. All the doors are on that service side.” Munday sounded defensive. “It’s not quite like a street. A lot can happen without the neighbours knowing.” Luke opened his mouth to say something acid but at that moment they arrived and he stepped out of the silver box to be confronted by a prospect of his beloved city which he had never seen before. He stood transfixed before the unaccustomed view of London at nighttime, a vast panorama which reminded him not so much of the aerial photographs of today but rather of some wood engravings far off and magical, in a printshop in his childhood. They dated from the previous century and were coarsely printed on tinted paper, with tinsel outlining the design. They had been intended as backcloths for toy theatres and were wildly ambitious. The Fall of Rome was included, several battlefields, and even Hell itself complete with steaming lakes and cauldrons of coloured fire. Now to Luke’s amazed delight he saw the same glorious jumble of grandeur and mystery spread out below him. He saw the chains and whorls of the street lamps, the ragged silver sash of the river and all the spires and domes and chimney pots, outlined with a sorcerer’s red fire, smudging against the misty sky. It made his heart move in his side. Munday touched his sleeve. “This way, Mr. Luke.” He turned his head abruptly and caught sight of a small crowd at the far end of the balcony. Here again the lighting was dramatic and worthy of the view. The two open doorways were bright oblongs in the dusk and the shafts from them created a barrier between the crowd and a uniformed man on guard. As they came forward a square figure in a tight suit advanced to meet them. He stepped delicately like a boxer and everything about him proclaimed that he was Sergeant Stockwell, the inevitable “good man in charge.” Luke gave him a long experienced stare and moved close to Munday so that he could hear the murmured report. It was made with the mixture of smugness and efficiency he expected but there was an undercurrent of outrage which made him raise his eyebrows. “The Councillor, that’s Mr. Cornish, has taken the old boy who owns the wrecked apartment in to the neighbours next door to talk to him,” Stockwell said. “His name is Len Lucey. He’s a fitter and a good old craftsman with nothing known against him. Before the war he lived on the edge of this estate with his first wife who kept a tobacco and confectionery business—very small. She was killed in the big Blitz. He then married a woman from North London and he had to live over there, travelling across the city to work every day, until he was granted this new first-class flat. His second wife has made a little palace of it by all accounts and that’s some of the trouble. She had a sort of fit when she came in and saw the damage. There’s a neighbour with her but I’ve sent for an ambulance. I shouldn’t be surprised if she never comes right out of it. I don’t blame her,” he added gravely. “The state of the room shook me. I thought at first it was one of the local delinquent mobs but now I’m not so sure. There seems to be almost too much work in it for them, if you see what I mean.”