Chapter 23: Near Thing Monday

WE drove to Mile End very early the next morning. I parked the car near the Blue Jay Café, just around the corner from my office, but didn’t see anyone suspiciously hanging around. As agreed, I left Mary in charge of the car while I walked around the block, to approach the café from the opposite direction from where she was parked.

There were four people sitting inside the café, either eating breakfast or drinking tea, two young men in working clothes sitting at separate tables, and possibly a middle-aged married couple sitting in the window.

It was not a waitress service establishment. You ordered what you wanted from the counter and fetched it from there when they called it was ready. I consulted the menu and told the woman serving that I would just have a mug of tea while I sat down and made up my mind about breakfast.

When Bert came in, about five minutes later, he ignored me and walked straight up to the counter and also ordered a tea, exchanging pleasantries with the woman serving.

I got up and queued behind him with my mug in hand apparently ready for a refill or to place my breakfast order.

The woman on the counter turned to pour a mug of stewed tea for Bert from a huge paint flaked and dented white enamel pot.

Bert was about to pass the package he had hidden under his coat, below the level of the counter to me, when one of the diners sitting next to the little queue suddenly pulled out a revolver handgun and pointed it at us, waving side to side on each of us in turn.

“Put the package down on the counter and move away,” he barked as he pushed the chair away with the backs of his legs as he stood up from the table.

Bert put the package down on the counter next to his tea mug and stepped away, leaving me in isolation.

If I had been an arresting officer in that café, I would have ensured there was at least a two-stride gap between us. This chap was only a foot to eighteen inches away from me, and he was mostly pointing the gun at Bert, assuming that he might still be armed.

I reached across and grasped the gun with my left hand, over the cylinder and gripping the hammer, so the gun couldn’t be fired except if the firing pin went through the bone in my thumb, and I pushed the gun and hand downwards. Meanwhile, using the same directional momentum, I brought the heavy pint-sized china mug I held down across his temples. The mug shattered and he went down like a sack of damp flour, while I pulled his gun from his senseless fingers.

The other single male in the café, who had remained sitting, rose up from his seat. He reached into his inside pocket, but I dropped the remnant of the mug, collected the gun in my right hand and aimed the gun, which I recocked, at his right upper arm and waited momentarily.

As the handle of his weapon clearly emerged from his shoulder holster, I fired once, aiming dead centre of his upper arm, having no doubt that I broke his gun arm.

He dropped the gun and fell back across the table from the impact of the bullet at such close range.

The woman sitting in the window screamed, but her partner just sat and looked shocked. I grabbed the package from the counter, but instead of going out of the way I came in, I opened the counter flap, pushed past the café worker, through the kitchen and exited at the back of the café into an alley. I ran along the opposite way to the way I came and emerged close to where the Ford Anglia was parked. I dived into the passenger seat and Mary drove off.

“I ... heard ... the shot,” she said, turning to me in alternate words or short phrases so I could read her lips, “were they ... waiting for us? ... And are ... you OK?”

“Yes, I am not hurt, Mary. There were two gunmen in the cafe, and I was able to overpower one and shoot the other. I don’t know who sent them. They were not police, as they did not attempt to caution me,” I said, “If they were secret service agents, then they were poorly trained and I shudder to think what chances we have against the SS Gestapo, should they invade. I can only assume they were aware of who Bert and I were and that they wanted me alive for questioning to see what I know. Can you stop at the next telephone box, please, Mary.”

I rang Sir Leonard McLean’s direct line at his office at the Yard. Mary spoke on my behalf. He was immediately aware of the trap set and was very angry at me.

“God damn it man, you shot a copper in the line of his duty and assaulted another.” Mary mouthed the senior copper’s words to me.

“They didn’t act like coppers, no caution was given and both pulled a gun on me, Sir, even though I was unarmed. Why was that?”

“Look, those chaps are country coppers drafted in from regional forces so that the locals don’t know them and they are probably not as used to this sort of case or gun procedures as the normal bobbies are in the East End of London. Every bloody copper’s armed now, dammit, we’re at war, man!”

“So why waste resources watching for me?”

“We put a watch on your offices, of course, and thought you might be in contact with either the doorman or someone from a neighbouring office because we did not want you to muddy up the waters and allowing you to be armed, which would make life difficult for everyone. We know that you have a gun licence and therefore own at least one gun.”

I waited until Mary had mouthed Sir Leonard’s words before talking into the speaker.

“Well, if they knew or suspected I was meeting Bert at the café to pick up my gun, they could’ve warned me or cautioned me long before I disarmed the first copper. The second one drew his weapon in a public place where and when it was ill advised to do so. This case has got bent coppers, criminals and undercover agents of foreign powers all over it and I really don’t trust anyone any more.”

“Not even me, Onslow?” Mary mouthed Sir Len’s reply for me.

“After the trick you just pulled, Sir, quite frankly, no I bloody well don’t!”

“Well the senior officers all put their heads together yesterday evening, Onslow, and we have a number of lines of enquiries and you’re just a small part of it that we wanted to damp down ... and we take an exceedingly dim view of you still sticking your bloody nose into a current police investigation.”

“I cannot sit idly by, Sir. A man has been murdered and an associate of his killed, while my life and that of a visitor from a neutral nation has been threatened. And all I see you doing is getting in the way of my legitimate investigation.”

“Damn it, Onslow, if you don’t take a back seat and leave this to the professionals, I’ll have an arrest warrant made out for both you and the blessed American woman.” Mary grinned as she mouthed the last part. Because Mary was silent, mouthing his words as he was speaking them, I think McLean had completely forgotten that she was conveying his words to me.

“Thank you, Sir, for letting me know exactly where I stand and where your priorities lie.”

“What do you mean by that, Onslow?” Sir Leonard spluttered, Mary acting the part as a professional, with all the facial expressions to convey the officer’s indignation at my mistrust.

“I wonder whether you can evder catch up with me or on my lines of enquiry, when you’d made such a cock-up of it so far.”

“We have a damned sight more resources to call upon than you, Onslow. Turn yourself in man, and we can sort out the assault and wounding as a training exercise that went badly wrong. Otherwise, if you persist in this renegade action we’ll throw the bloody book at you.”

“Your resources are not much good to you if they are misplaced or misdirected, Sir. Unless we move quickly and decisively and get to the bottom of this case, it may be too late. Gold was murdered for a reason, either his usefulness had run out or he wasn’t material to whatever their plan is any longer, which means that whatever their plan is, we’re now into the endgame.”

I dropped the phone in the rocker with a sigh and rejoined the car with Mary. This time I took the wheel and we drove on in silence.

Mary and I stopped at a tea shop. They had a radio playing the midday news.

On the news we heard that, after a gangland shooting in a London café, an elderly man had been arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon and withholding evidence in a serious case involving the assault and wounding of two police officers. After our tea, we walked down to a red public telephone box on the corner and I called a friend of mine.

“Henry Conroy, please,” I mouthed to Mary, who repeated it using her perfect Home Counties accent to the secretary who answered the telephone.

“May I ask who’s calling?”

‘A female voice answered the phone,” Mary mouthed.

I mouthed back, “I imagine that’s his secretary, Peggy.”

“Hello Peggy, I’m Edgar Onslow’s assistant Mrs Mary Jones, unfortunately Edgar has suffered a perforated eardrum and cannot hear telephone conversations at the moment. He can talk but cannot hear. The condition will remain for a few more weeks yet, I’m afraid and he wishes to speak to Mr Conroy urgently.”

“Oh, hello Mrs Jones, is Mr Onslow there with you?” came the calm reply.

Mary silently repeated what was said and how calm Peggy sounded.

I spoke into the mouthpiece. “Hello, Peggy, it’s Onslow, I can speak but I cannot hear. Mrs Jones is listening in and can repeat to me what you say to her and I can lip-read pretty well. I lost the hearing temporarily in one ear during the last war, so I learned how to lip read at the time, and the more I do it the easier it is, which has proved useful since because only about half my hearing ever came back. Now I have only about ten percentum hearing in one ear only, nothing at all from the other, and it is almost impossible to hold a conversation over the telephone.”

I passed the phone back to Mary.

“Oh, hello it’s Mrs Jones again, Edgar has passed me the telephone.”

“Welcome back Mrs Jones, it’s Peggy here, you can tell him that it’s been a long time since we saw Mr Onslow.”

Mary repeated what Peggy said, “He is nodding so he agrees it has been a long time. By the way, Peggy, please call me Mary, hardly anyone calls me Mrs Jones.” She paused and added, “he has just agreed that it has been a long time and asks how are you and Maurice doing?”

“Oh, we’re fine, tell him Mary, that Maurice is out most of these frosty nights as an ARW, and has developed a frightful chesty cough, but he says he must serve and do his duty, even if he is sixty-eight bless him. He was too old for the last war but they seem to be roping everyone into the war this time around.”

“Well, make sure he sees the doctor for that cough, he’s no spring chicken any more!” Mary repeated for me.

“I try but he is so stubborn and the local surgery has closed down because the doctors are needed elsewhere. Henry’s free now, so I will put you through.”

“Hello, Ed, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Oh hi, Mr Conroy, I’m Mary, Edgar’s assistant, he has a hearing problem at the moment, so he is standing beside me reading my lips.”

“Sorry to hear that. So, business must be looking up, right?” Henry’s words were conveyed to me.

“Not really,” I chimed into the mouthpiece. “l’ve just the one major client, but I do need from you some legal work for a friend in some trouble with the police, trouble that I got him into.”

“Go on,” Henry replied, “I still owe you a couple of favours, I’ve done well from some of your referrals.”

“You may have seen on the lunchtime news that an old gentleman has been arrested in connection with the shooting of a policeman at a café first thing this morning?”

“Yes, I did hear that. Didn’t know that you were involved though. What do you want me to do?”

“Could I employ you to represent him and get the man freed on bail? He was only doing me a favour. He didn’t shoot the policeman, I did.”

“What have you got involved with, Ed?” Mary mouthed his question to me.

“I’m not absolutely sure, to be honest. He was only fetching my gun for me as I was sure my offices and movements were being monitored. There were two armed plain clothed policemen at the scene and I was forced to disarm one and wound the other in self defence, after not being cautioned. I believe there is some conspiracy going on, Henry, possibly more than one conspiracy. It is complicated because it involves the Secret Intelligence Services from both the U.K. and U.S.A., the Metropolitan Police and some element of the criminal underworld, possibly even the British Nationalist Movement.”

“Messy. Look, I’ll put you back to Peggy as she can take shorthand notes and type it up a lot quicker than I can. Tell her his name and what nick he’s likely to be held in and I’ll run along and see him this afternoon.”

“Thanks, Henry.”

After we had given the information to Peggy, Mary hung up the telephone and we walked quickly back to the car. We didn’t think that the police would have a trace on my solicitor’s telephone at the local exchange, but I wanted to get away from this phone sharpish, just in case.

“What do we do now?” Mary asked me directly before we moved off.

“If MM is Brad’s friend Mitch Mullinger, then Chief Superindent Morely Makepeace may not be involved in this whatever-this-is. If that’s the case, Makepeace may be able to help us. I am sure that he is out of the loop that has corrupted my old division at the Yard, from Cummings all the way up to the top. Just drive down the road to the next telephone box, please.”

About a mile away I called Makepeace at the Yard from another telephone box.