Chris Nickson's Blog, page 16

The Muffin Man’s Daughter – A Lottie Armstrong Story

Continuing these 10 years of publishing crime novels set in Leeds, I’m moving back in time a little to revisit WPC Lottie Armstrong, one of the first policewomen in Leeds. She featured in Modern Crimes, set in 1924, then again, 20 years later, in The Year of the Gun.

This little story takes place in 1923, a few months before Modern Crimes, and gives more background into how Lottie (whom I really do love) came to know Auntie Betty and the Royal Hotel.

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Leeds, December 1923

 

December. One of those long winter days when the sun came out but hardly seem to rise in the sky. Lottie Armstrong’s breath had plumed in the air as she walked on patrol, and she’d been grateful for the heavy cape and leather gloves.

Now, sitting on the tram and it trundled up Chapeltown Road, she realised how much her feet ached. She wanted to peel off her scratchy woollen stockings and let her toes soak in a warm bath of Epsom salts. Still, it came with the job, and she’d wanted to be one of the first women police constables in Leeds. Today, she and Cathy Taylor, the other WPC, had covered the area around the railway stations, over to Holbeck, back through Hunslet, down to Kirkgate market and up through Quarry Hill. Some of the places where girls and young women might mix with low types, she’d been told.

They hadn’t seen any. Hardly any girls at all. They probably had more sense than to hang around in the cold.

The conductor rang the bell. Her stop.

The pavement felt very hard under her shoes. She had to stop at the butcher and the greengrocer on Reginald Parade to pick up something for tea; Geoff would be hungry when he came home from work. Sausages and mash. Quick, easy, warm and filling on a day like this. She’d just turned up Sholebroke Avenue when she heard someone call her name.

‘Mrs. Armstrong. Do you have a second?’

She turned and saw Tim the muffin man hurrying towards her. One handied stead the tray of muffins balanced on his head, while the other silenced the clapper of the bell he used to let people know he was selling by their house. He was wrapped up warm in the heavy greatcoat he’d worn during the war, a muffler tied around his throat and some knitted fingerless gloves.

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‘Of course you can, Mr Worthy.’ She stood and waited until he’d caught up with her. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘It’s our Nell,’ he began. She knew who he meant and her heart began to sink. His daughter, seventeen going on thirty. She worked in a mill, but the rest of the time she was part of a group of girls who haunted the dance halls in the city centre. Tim was a pleasant man, a hard worker who tried to do his best for his family. But Nell had been trouble since he’d returned from the fighting in France.

His wife had died on the Spanish flu a month after he’d come back, and he was left to bring up Nell and her older brother on his own. The boy was fine, settled in a good job. But Nell had turned wild.

Lottie tried to smile. ‘What’s she been up to now?’ she asked.

‘That’s the problem,’ he said. His face was creased with worry and his eyes filled with sadness. ‘I don’t know. She didn’t come home last night.’

This was serious, more than mischief. ‘Have you reported it? We can have the whole force searching for her.’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want to cause any fuss. At first I though she’d come home. She’d been out late and stayed at a pal’s house or something. Now…I’m worried that if I went in and told them, they’d think I’d done something to her.’

‘I can telephone and get things rolling.’

‘Would you?’ His eyes were pleading with her.

‘Of course.’ She gave him a warm smile. ‘Come on, you give me the details. I know what she looks like. And don’t worry, they come home when they get fed up.’

‘Do they?’ He needed hope. He needed something. Lottie knew that Nell had gone missing before, overnight on a few occasions.

‘Of course they do.’

 

The was a blue police box just down Chapeltown Road. She used the key to let herself in, identified herself and gave the dispatcher all she could.

It wasn’t much. Nell Worthy had left for work, the way she always did. But she’d never arrived; her father had checked with the mill owner.

‘She’s seventeen but she looks younger,’ Lottie said. ‘She could probably pass for fourteen. She has a wild side to her, thought. Likes to smoke and drink and she often spends her evenings down in those dance halls on Lower Briggate. Her father gave me the names of her friends and the addresses he knew.’

Another voice cut in, a man. She recognised the gruff tone. Sergeant Wilson.

‘Where are you now, Armstrong?’

‘Chapeltown Road, Sergeant. Mr Worthy just stopped me as I as walking home.’

‘And she’s been missing all night?’

‘Yes, Sergeant.’

‘We’ll send someone to talk to the father-’

‘He’s on his round. He’s a muffin man.’

A hand over the receiver, something that she couldn’t make out, then: ‘We’ll need you here to help look for the girl. There are other females to interview, is that right?’

‘Yes, sir. But I’m off duty.’

‘You’re back on as of now. I want you at Millgarth as soon as possible.’

A quick dash home with the shopping, scribbling a note for Geoff, then the tram back into town. It felt strange to be heading to work in the evening. The shops along Vicar Lane were a blaze of electric lights and there was a curious gaiety to the faces she saw. Work done for the day, an evening of pleasure ahead. Dinner somewhere, drinks, the cinema, dancing. Her police partner, Cathy Taylor, was probably out in it all. She was married, but her husband was in the merchant marine and she didn’t enjoy nights at home on her own. She wanted company and laughter and music.

Millgarth police station seemed to fizz with energy. Plain clothes officers were moving around, determination on their faces. She recognised a few of them, but far more were strangers. Drafted in from other divisions, she supposed; a missing girl would fire up the authorities.

‘There you are,’ Wilson said when she reported. ‘About time.’

‘I’m sorry, Serg-’

He waved her words aside. ‘I want you to talk to the men working on the case. You know the girl, don’t you?’

‘A little. I’ve met her and spoken with her.’

‘You know what she’s like, where she goes.’

It was easier to simply agree. He didn’t want detail right now.

 

Some listened. Others didn’t want to hear a woman. Never mind. She carried on and told them all she knew about Nell Worthy. Lottie finished and looked hopefully around at the faces.

‘Do we have a photograph?’ Sergeant Wilson asked.

‘Not at the moment,’ she answered.

`’Description?’

‘She’s about five feet tall, quite skinny. No shape to her. Mousy brown hair in a short bob,’ Lottie said. ‘I’m not sure about the colour of her eyes. Whenever I’ve seen her she’s always worn a lot of blue.’

Wilson rolled his eyes.

‘Right, that’s enough to get you started,’ he told the men. ‘Get out there and find here.’

‘What about me, Sergeant?’ she asked once they’d gone. ‘I could help. I know her.’

‘Leave it to the proper coppers, luv. We know what we’re doing. If you want to be useful, you can make us a pot of tea.’

Her cheeks burned with anger and humiliation. She stalked off letting the toilet door slam behind her, folding her arms and staring at the mirror.

Policewomen were nowhere near the equals of the men. They could deal with women and girls, and they didn’t have the power to arrest anyone.

Maybe she should just go home. After all, her shift was long since over.

She’d been standing there for more than a minute when she heard the tap on the door. Cautiously, she opened it, knowing her eyes were red and she was still close to tears.

She’d seen the man in the briefing room, standing near the back. In plain clothes, a dark suit with a sensible blue tie and polished black shoes. He was old enough to have fought in the war, a good six inches taller than her, looking down and smiling gently.

‘He was wrong, you know. There’s plenty you can do to help.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked acidly. ‘Fetch the biscuits as well?’

‘Maybe come out with me and we can look for her. You’ve seen her, you can recognise her.’

‘Why?’ Lottie asked. She could hear the harshness in her voice, but she didn’t care. ‘I’m not a proper copper. The sergeant said so.’

‘Well, I’m a detective sergeant and I think you have something to offer. What do you say?’

‘Yes.’ She suddenly felt calmer. And astonished. ‘Thank you. Can you give me a minute?’

She ran the cold water, splashing it over her face. Looked at herself again, patted her hair down. Better.

 

It wasn’t far from Millgarth to Lower Briggate, but warmer in a motor car. McMillan parked by the railway bridge and turned off the engine.

‘Where does this girl Nell like to go? Is there anywhere in particular?’

‘Dancehalls is all I know, Sergeant.’

‘The other officers will be covering those. Nothing else?

‘Most of the public houses won’t serve her. She looks far too young.’

‘That’s not very helpful, Armstrong.’

‘Sorry, Sarge. Maybe the best thing to do is go up and down and look into the little bars, see if we spot here.’

‘If you include all the courts, there must be more than a dozen.’ He looked at her. If you take off your cap and button your coat all the way up, no one will guess you’re wearing a uniform. ‘

‘I have a cloche in my pocket. I could put that on.’

She brought it out and patted it over her hair. It was a sweet, warm raspberry colour, a contrast to the dark blues and blacks.

‘Will that do, sir?’

‘Excellent.’

A chilly wind was blowing up from the river. No luck at the first place, a dismal little room hidden away in a railway arch, or at the second, a bustling club that played a succession of phonograph records, its bar nothing more than a door on sawhorses in them corner.

In both of them, McMillan knew people and stopped for a question or two.

‘She’s been in before, but not recently,’ he said as they came out into the cold night. He stopped and lit a Black Cat cigarette. ‘Why did you want to become a woman police constable, anyway?’

Lottie gave the same answer as always.

‘It was something different. Better than stopping at home, and it was a job that would take you if you were married.’

He nodded. ‘Do you enjoy it?’

‘Most of the time,’ she replied after a moment. ‘What about you, Sergeant?’

His face seemed to come alive. ‘I love the work. I’d been a bobby for a year when the war began, and I joined up in the first flush.’ He shrugged. ‘It seemed like a good idea. Patriotic. Was your husband over there?’

No need to say where he meant; everybody knew.

‘He was wounded. Invalided out.’ That was enough. Everyone knew a few men like that. ‘How did you end up in CID?’

McMillan nodded. ‘When I came back, I didn’t want to wear a uniform again. They took a chance on me wearing plain clothes. I suppose it’s paid off. They promoted me.’

An hour later and they’d covered almost all the bars; so many tiny places the Lottie never knew existed. Nell had been in a couple of them. The last sighting had been the evening before.

That was good, she decided. The girl had still been fine twenty-four hours earlier. She glanced up and down the street. She didn’t know what it was about the nightlife here that attracted Nell Worthy, but something made it seem much better than home. Maybe one of the other detectives had discovered her.

‘Just the Royal left,’ McMillan said with distaste.

Lottie had walked past the Royal Hotel often when she was on patrol. She knew the rumours, that the customers liked people of their own sex. There was one bar for men and another purely for women.

It was hard to imagine the girl in a place like that. Lottie had seen her with boys; she’d seemed interest in them.

‘We’ll check it, anyway,’ he told her. ‘You’ll need to go in by yourself. If I walked into the woman’s bar, they’d scatter like a flock of birds.’

‘All right.’ It didn’t worry her. What was they worst they could do, tell her to get out?

 

The bar was dimly lit. A few women sat that the tables, in couples or alone, caught in the shadows. A big woman stood behind the bar, her hair cut as short as a man’s, neatly parted and pomaded. She wore a pinstripe suit, with trousers, waistcoat, shirt and tie.

Lottie took a deep breath and walked across he room. She could feel people watching her. At the bar she stopped.

The woman facing her spoke very quietly: ‘Now you can turn yourself around and leave again. I don’t want any coppers in here. You’re not welcome.’

‘I-’

‘Don’t try and say you’re not with the police. You don’t look like you’d be a good liar.’

Lottie felt herself starting to bristle. ‘I don’t lie,’ she said. ‘And I’m not about to start now.’

‘That’s settled, then. On your way before I come round there and throw you out.’

‘You don’t understand. I’m looking for someone. A girl who’s gone missing. Her father’s very worried about her.’ Maybe it was the tone of her voice. She knew she sounded earnest. But the woman didn’t move, just watching her. ‘Her name’s Nell Worthy. I know her a little, and I know she likes this area. I’ve been in every bar. Other people are trying the dancehalls.’

‘How old is she?’ the woman asked.

‘Seventeen.’

‘You said you know her. What’s her father’s name?’

It was a strange question. What did that have to do with it?

‘Tim,’ she replied. ‘He’s the muffin man near me. He’s the one who asked me to look for her.’

The woman chewed her lip as she looked at Lottie. ‘Come through to the back.’

Crates lined three of the walls. Full bottles and empties. But along the fourth was a camp bed, a few clothes bunched underneath, and a door.

‘What…’ Lottie began. She didn’t understand.

The woman tapped on the door. ‘It’s all right, you can come out now.’

A moment when nothing happened. The Lottie saw the handle turn and Nelly Worthy emerged into the light.

‘She’s police,’ the girl said. It was an accusation, not an observation.

‘I know who she is,’ the woman told her. ‘She might as well have had it tattooed on her head.’

‘She wants to take me home, Auntie Betty,’ Nell said.

‘Well,’ the woman said, ‘you can’t spend the rest of your life living back here, now can you?’

‘You left home when you were younger than me.’

The woman shook her head. For a second, her eyes flashed. ‘I had to go. I didn’t have a choice. My father threatened to whip me bloody. He didn’t like what I was.’

‘Your father wants you back,’ Lottie said. ‘Maybe it’s not perfect, but he’s tried, you know. He’s doing it on his own. He’s a man, they can’t understand girls.’

‘Listen to her,’ the woman said. ‘He’s a good man. If my sister was still alive, you wouldn’t have run, would you?’

‘I don’t know.’ A young, sullen response.

‘Well, I do. Look, I’ll come up and talk to your Dad. Me and him always got on well enough. How would you feel if he let you come and stay with me sometimes?’

‘Do you think..?’ Nell’s eyes widened. There was hope in her voice.

‘Maybe. But only sometimes. I have a life outside this place, too. Would that satisfy you?’

‘Yes,’ the girl agreed after a second.

‘You pack up your things and come through when you’re done.’

 

‘A woman copper, eh?’ Betty asked as they stood at the bar.

‘Yes. There are two of us.’ She paused for a second. ‘Only two of us. And a matron.’

‘You seem to care, at least. You came in here to look.’

‘I told you, I know Tim.’ She smiled. ‘I like his muffins.’

The woman glanced back towards the room. ‘I can’t guarantee she won’t run off again. But I’ll start to spend a little time with her.’

‘It can’t hurt.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘WPC Armstrong.’

‘Your Christian name.’

‘Lottie. Short for Charlotte.’

‘You can call me Auntie Betty. Sure you don’t feel uncomfortable in here?’

No,’ Lottie said. ‘Why would I? We’re all people, aren’t we?’

Jingling James – A Christmas Story

It’s not a new Christmas story, a re-run from a few years ago. But this is the season for sentimental repeats, isn’t it? So why not enjoy it with Annabelle? It’s from a time before she knew Tom Harper.

Leeds, December 1887

 

Annabelle Atkinson didn’t want Christmas to arrive this year. She didn’t feel any of the joy or the goodwill this December. It was barely three months since her husband Harry had died; the earth had barely settled on his grave.

They’d had a few good years before the heart attack took him. Now she had to look after the Victoria public house as well as the two bakeries she’d opened. On her own, sometimes she felt like she was drowning.

On Christmas Eve, once the last customer had gone, she’d bolt the door, close the curtains, and keep the world away until Boxing Day. She’d never been one to wallow in sadness; if you had a problem you took care of it and carried on. But the last few weeks…she’d been slowly sinking and she knew it. She felt like one of the jugglers in the halls, trying to keep all the plates spinning in the air. Too many of them.

‘Come on,’ she said to Willie Hailsham, taking the empty pint pot from his hand. ‘You’ve had enough. Get yourself off home so your wife can remember what you look like.’

The same with Harelip Harmon, Donald the Steel Man, and Jingling James, always moving the coins around in his pocket. They’d stay drinking all night if anyone would keep serving them.

‘Don’t you have homes to go to?’

It was the nightly routine, almost a comedy act after so long. They drained their glasses, said their goodnights and then the bar was empty. She locked the door, drew down the bolts and let out a long sigh. Glasses to wash, woodwork and brass to polish.

Better get started, she thought. The work’s not going to do itself.

 

Up a little after three to supervise the baking in the kitchen at the other end of the garden. The last day before Christmas, orders to fill, plenty of demand; the shops would be little goldmines today. And the Victoria would be full from the time the factories closed.

Gossiping with the girls as they all worked together, mixing, kneading, baking, the smell of fresh loaves filling the air and making her hungry. Back in the rooms over the pub she made breakfast.

This was what hurt most: the silence. There used to be so much laughter here when Harry was alive. It seemed like there was always something to set them off. Now just being here was oppressive, all the weight of ghosts around her.

 

Dan the barman and Ellen the servant were already working hard with polish when she went downstairs. Sleeves rolled up and plenty of elbow grease, they’d be done soon enough. Nothing for her to do here. The day from the brewery was due at ten, but Dan could take care of that.

Annabelle put on her cape and picked up her purse. Go into town and have a poke around the shops. Happen an hour or two away would perk her up. But there was no magic in December this year. The pavements were full of people jostling around, weighed down by packages and bags. She felt removed from it all. The displays in the windows of the Grand Pygmalion didn’t make her want to part with her money. She was low, she knew it; a lovely gown or a good hat could usually tempt her. Today, though, there was nothing. No cheer.

Even a stop at the cocoa house for something warm to drink and a slice of cake didn’t help her mood. She trailed back out along North Street, through the Leylands and past Jews’ Park, back along to Sheepscar.

Soon enough the Victoria was busy, and it would stay that way until she kicked them all out. She took her place behind the bar, smiling, flirting the way she always had, and for a few minutes at least she could forget why she hurt inside.

‘Give over,’ she told one man who insisted he’d be a good husband. ‘I’d wear you out in one night, then I’d have to send you home to your missus.’ It brought laughter. As she walked around, collecting glasses, she brushed hands away, giving the culprits a look. It was all part of running a pub. A game; if you played it well, you were successful.  And she had the knack.

Annabelle promised old Jonas free beer for the evening if he played the piano in the corner, and soon half the customers were singing along the favourites from the music hall. It gave her a chance to breathe and Dan could look at the barrels.

By eleven she’d had enough. The pub was still busy, the till was overflowing. But all the noise made her head ache. She wanted peace and quiet for a while. She wanted the place empty.

‘Come on.’ She rang the old school bell she kept under the bar, next to the cudgel for sorting out the unruly. ‘Time for you lot to see your families. They probably don’t believe you exist.’

Slowly, the crowd thinned. Another five minutes and it was down to the usual four still standing and supping. Donald the Steel Man, Willie Hailsham, Jingling James, and Harelip Harmon.

‘That’s enough,’ she told them. Her voice sounded weary. She knew it and she didn’t care. They were regulars, they’d probably been coming in here since they were old enough to peer over the bar. ‘Let’s call it a night, gentlemen, please.’

James slipped off to the privy while she was ushering the others out, wishing them merry Christmas and accepting beery kisses and hugs until they’d gone and she turned the key in the lock.

Then James was there, looking bashfully down at his boots. He was a gentle soul, a widower with grown children. Fifty, perhaps, his hair full white, jammed under his cap.

‘Are you seeing your family tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Not this year.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘They all have their plans. It’s different now, everyone’s so busy. Are you going to your sister’s?’

‘A quiet day.’ Sometime before the new year she’d slip over to see her sister and the wastrel husband she had. Take some presents for their children. But she wouldn’t pop over to Hunslet and see her brother. He could take a running jump; she’d told him that a few years before. ‘Maybe it’s better that way.’

‘When my Alice died I carried on, same as I always had. The bairns were grown and gone but I still had to work and put a roof over my head.’

‘I know,’ she agreed. The everyday tasks that carried on like a machine. Without thinking, he jingled the coins in his pocket.

‘Then her birthday came around. We never made a fuss when she was alive, well, who could afford to? First we had the little ‘uns, then it didn’t seem to matter so much.’

‘We were the same,’ Annabelle said. ‘Harry’s birthday or mine, there was still the pub to run.’

‘Any road, the year she died, on her birthday it suddenly hit me how alone I was. Not just then, but for the rest of my days. Because no one could replace Alice. I had all them years in front of me.’

‘What did you do?’ she asked.

‘I sat there at the table and made myself remember all the good things. How she looked when she smiled, how she sounded when she laughed. The way she were pretty as a picture when we got wed. I said it all like she were sitting there and I was talking to her.’

‘Did it help?’

‘It did. But I can tell you’re feeling that way. I can see it in your eyes. I just thought it might help.’ He gave her a smile and bussed her cheek.

‘You said you’re not going anywhere tomorrow?’ Annabelle said.

‘That’s right.’

‘Come round for your tea. It won’t be anything special, mind.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’ll probably sick of my own company by then anyway.’

She locked the door behind him, hearing the jingling of his coins as he walked down the street.

Thank You All And Happy Holidays

Here were are, staring right at the end of the year. Holidays ahead, whether that’s good or bad. And inevitably, we reflect on the almost 12 months that have passed.

In terms of writing, 2019 has been quite an incredible year for me. I published two books, The Leaden Heart (Tom Harper) and The Hocus Girl (Simon Westow). Both have received glowing reviews from a number of people, and in the US each one received two starred reviews from different trade. That’s remarkable in itself, and actually quite humbling. After all, I’ve set a bar for myself that I can’t keep hitting every single time, although I will do my damnedest. After all, if you don’t try to make your next book better than your last, what’s the point? The only competition you have to beat is yourself.

On top of that, I was interviewed by one of the leading US trade magazines, Publishers Weekly. It didn’t just feel like a big deal, it was a big deal. The first commercial American press I’ve had, something ready by booksellers and libraries. So yes, I consider that major.

And I can look ahead to next year. It’s the 10 anniversary of me publishing books set in Leeds, and The Broken Token will be available again in paperback after being only in digital or audio for a long, long time. There will be a new Tom Harper, The Molten City, bringing us into the 20th century, a new Simon Westow, To the Dark. And after quite a wait, a new John the Carpenter next summer, titled The Anchoress of Chesterfield.

But, really, none of this would be possible if people didn’t buy my books or borrow them from libraries. To all of you, I’m hugely grateful. You allow me to sit here and keep telling the stories of people who are utterly real to me.

Whatever holiday you celebrate (or if you’re like me and try to avoid them all), thank you, and enjoy yourself. Be happy, be well in 2020.

And if you’re stuck for last minute gifts, historical crime novels are always greats presents.

A Story To Try And Ease The Pain

Plenty of people I know are hurting at the moment. For some, it’s politics. For others, the crushing weight of something in their lives – money, work, love, all manner of things.

I don’t have much I can offer to help. But perhaps this will offer a tinny glimmer of warmth, of hope. I’m a writer. Stories are what I have. But stories are what connect us, to the past, the future, to each other.

I publish this on the blog well over three years ago. Perhaps it time to see it again.

If you have pain in your life, I hope this helps, evemn if it’s only for a minute.

The light caught his eye, then the sign – Sardan Café, hand-painted and awkward. He was tired, he was thirsty. Inside it would be warm, at least. A tiny bell tinkled as he entered. Only six tables, each covered by an oilcloth. The air was heavy, damp. A scent of roasting meat and spices he couldn’t even begin to recognise.

With a sigh he sat. Within seconds, a man appeared. He was about thirty, a full head of hair shining with oil, a heavy black moustache, and a long white tunic that clung to his paunch. Without speaking, he placed a small cup of coffee on the table, gave a brief smile and bow before disappearing into the back room.

Cautiously, the man took a sip. This wasn’t espresso, bitter and strong. This was real Turkish coffee, thick, with a taste as sweet as a dreaming woman.

He didn’t recall ordering food, but it came anyway. Flatbread, still warm from the oven, beef sliced thin in a sauce that clung to the meat then fell slowly in dark brown drops. The food seemed to dissolve in his mouth. He hardly needed to chew, the texture just rough enough against his tongue. Vegetables so crisp and full of taste they could have been picked in the moment moment before they were cooked. Flavours mingled and overwhelmed him, carrying him along. He wiped the plate with the last of the bread, then the waiter appeared with a small cut-glass dish.

‘Eat,’ he said quietly. ‘Eat and enjoy.’ His voice was heavily accented and his belly wobbled slightly as he spoke. Somehow, it made him seem harmless, jolly.

The man stared for a long time before he picked up the spoon. He was sated. But just a little, he told himself. A taste to show his gratitude, although he had no idea how much the meal could cost in the end.

The ice cream was cold on his tongue. He held it there and the flavours blossomed through his palate. Lavender, as warm as a July afternoon, the velvet scent of rose petals, other things that hovered on the edge of his senses, just beyond grasp. Another spoonful and another, then it was gone, and slowly the tastes faded from his mouth, like the memories of childhood or that last beautiful dream before waking. He closed his eyes for a moment when he opened them again, the waiter was sitting across the table from him.

‘In my country we say that food is friendship.’ He smiled, showing very white teeth, one with a small, glittering gold star set in the middle. He picked up a small, battered coffee pot, the metal dull and stained from use, and poured more coffee, one for the man, one for himself. ‘You’ve eaten my food, so now you are my friend.’ He raised his cup in a toast. ‘To the future.’

‘The future.’ This time the drink tasted of deep winter nights in front of a log fire and the glance of the lover you could never forget.

‘Welcome to the Sardan Café.’

‘How much do I owe you?’ he asked. ‘For the meal, the coffee, everything.’

The waiter waved it away.

‘The food was already made. Who else was in here to eat it? It would have only gone to waste otherwise.’

‘That’s very generous, Mr-’

‘Call me Barsan.’ He smiled again, displaying that gold tooth. ‘I don’t have too many customers these days. With takeaways and ready meals, people don’t seem to bother about places like this. Either it’s too exotic or not exotic enough.’ Barsan shrugged. It didn’t seem to matter to him.

‘It feels very welcoming.’ That was exactly it, he decided. The pale walls, rugs tacked up for decoration. Like a pair of arms that wrapped comfortingly around you.

‘Thank you.’ He dipped his head. ‘My father opened the café after he came here. Forty-three years ago. It was popular then. Maybe we had more dreamers in those days.’

‘You don’t think there are now?’

‘Maybe they’ve gone elsewhere. Found places that suit them better. I seem to attract more of the lost souls.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Like you. People who thought they had something and lost it.’

He thought of the woman. The argument years before, the way she’d stormed out and he knew she wouldn’t be back in his life. Of the other women since, the jobs, the hopes that had all fallen by the wayside.

‘Maybe I have.’

Barsan poured more coffee from the pot.

‘Let us talk, my friend. There’s nothing else you need to do tonight, is there?’

It was funny, he thought. It seemed as if Barsan said a great deal, but really he just listened. He was the one who spoke. Bit and pieces, things that connected to each other in a way that made no sense to anyone else.

They drank coffee; the pot was tiny but somehow it was never empty. Barsan smoked his cigarettes, the tobacco with the aroma of wild thyme crushed underfoot. He smiled a lot, showing the gold tooth.

Finally he seemed to wind down, feeling as if he’d exhausted all the words that had been waiting inside him for the time to tumble out. No other customers had come in the café. How does it stay in business, he wondered at one point? How can it make money? Then the thought rose and drifted away.

He shook his head and glanced up. It had been night when he began to talk. Now he could see the first light of dawn on the horizon, rising in the sky. That wasn’t possible. It couldn’t have been more than an hour. Two at the very most. He started to panic, pushing himself upright.

‘Time passes quickly in good company,’ Barsan told him with an impish grin. Then, more seriously, ‘You miss her, don’t you?’

He nodded, not trusting himself to say more about that. He’d mentioned her briefly, then skirted the subject. Not the one he imagined he’d glimpsed. She’d made her decision and it was probably the right one; she was better off without his madness. The one he’d barely spoken about was their daughter, dead for eight years now. Playing in the garden when a car ploughed through the fence. The driver had suffered a heart attack. Instant. But it had taken three days for Jane to go. And after that his life could never be the same.

‘Here,’ Barsan said. Had he been into the kitchen? The man hadn’t seen him go. How could he have missed that? But he was holding a plate with a small piece of pastry on it. ‘Eat it, my friend. It’s baklava, sweet with honey. A good end to a meal.’ His eyes twinkled kindly. ‘Or a start to a day.’

He took one bite, then a second. It seemed to dissolve on his tongue, the taste filling his mouth. He need to close his eyes to absorb, to relish it. And as he did, he images came.

Jane at seven, laughing, at ten running in the sprint at school. Fifteen and the dark arguments with her parents, weighing every word before speaking. Eighteen: exam results and the joy of a university place. Taller, happier, more confident. With her degree, a job she didn’t enjoy but a life that brought her pleasure, helping at a charity. Serious boyfriend, marriage. Her first child, a daughter named Helen after her mother. A miscarriage, then a second girl.

Each picture seemed alive. He could smell, touch, feel, just as surely as if he was in it. And with every one, he was fading a little, Growing older. Until the last. Jane, the girls at her side, the pair of them almost grown. She was waving and blowing a kiss.

Very slowly, he opened his eyes.

‘Good, yes?’ Barsan asked.

‘Very.’ He had no idea what else to say. The man had given him the life that had been taken away. Glimpses of what might have happened. No more what if. He knew. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’

Barsan stood and stretched.

‘My friend, it is my pleasure. And now, perhaps, we should both find some sleep, eh? You know where Sardan Café is now. You must come again.’

Walking down the street he glanced over his shoulder. The city was coming to life around him, the mundane sound of buses and traffic. No light burned in the café’s window.

The Return Of The Broken Token

 

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Next spring marks the 10th anniversary of the publication of my first novel, The Broken Token (I’m pretty certain that the launch took place on May 10 – in Leeds, of course). I’d certainly never imagined all the things that have happened since, and all the book that have come out. At that time, I was working on the second in the series.

My small publisher sold out to a larger independent publisher later that year, and they understandably didn’t want the back catalogue, so physical copies of the book quickly vanished.

Thanks to Creative Content, it’s been available ever since as an ebook and an award-winning audiobook, named one of the Independent on Sunday’s 10 Best Audiobooks of 2012.

And now, to make the tenth anniversary, it’s coming back into print as a paperback. Creative Content approached me, and I’m very happy to continue our partnership. It’ll be a trade paperback, priced at £9.99, and should be available from February. Richard Nottingham will be back!

However, I do still have one mint copy of the original paperback, which I’ll be giving away in a contest next spring. That’s real collector’s value. I’m serious; someone on Amazon is offering a new copy for £161. You’ll need to stay turned to find out all the details.

Meanwhile, here’s the cover of the new paperback:

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Everything Safe: Urban Raven, 1939

 

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Continuing these 10 years of publishing crime novels set in Leeds, I’m moving back in time a little to revisit Detective Sergeant Urban Raven, the main character in The Dead on Leave.

That book took place in 1936. We’ve moved on a bit, to 1939, with the shadow of war hanging very dark over Britain.

Leeds, April 1939

 

‘I’m coming in,’ Raven shouted. ‘Just me, I’m a policeman and I’m not armed. No need to take a pot shot at me, all right?’

He waited, but there was no reply. He’d never really excepted one. He tapped the trilby down on his head, tightened the belt on his gaberdine mackintosh and took a deep breath. Nothing to worry about. The lad would be too scared to fire again, and he certainly wouldn’t dare fire at a copper.

He turned and looked at the other. Detective Inspector Mortimer and DC Noble standing behind the black Humber Super Snipe, and the three constables waiting for orders.

A deep breath and he began to walk across the cobbles. At the top of the embankment a train hurried by in a flurry of steam and smoke. Detective Sergeant Urban Raven put his hand on the doorknob of the workshop under the railway arch, paused for a fraction of a section, then turned it.

He stood, silhouetted by the daylight on Kirkgate.

The gun boomed.

 

The world was damp. It seemed to cling to him. Rain had fallen every day since the beginning of the month, sometimes heavy, sometimes no more than a mist. But it was always there. Everything seemed brown or grey in the city centre. People moved purposefully heads down. Nobody idled or stared and smiled.

Urban Raven didn’t mind. If they never looked, he’d be perfectly happy. His face bore the thick scars and shiny skin of plastic surgery. In France, October 1918, he’d been badly burned when a German shell exploded in a fuel dump. Two decades on and he was still all too aware of the effect he had, the way people glanced at him, then hurriedly turned their heads away. Sometimes he even imagined he saw disgust on his wife’s face. Or it might have been pity. Hard to tell which was worse. It seemed easier to think about work. There was always plenty to do.

War was coming. Chamberlain had claimed he brought them all peace in his time, but everyone knew the truth. All the young men on the police force would go into the services. Everything would fall on the shoulders of old-timers like him, on the policewomen and Specials. The only question was when the axe would fall. Soon, people agreed, soon; it seemed they were holding their breath.

Raven knew about some of the preparations, the amount of re-armament, civil servants preparing for a flood of army volunteers. He’d helped with checking the records on aliens around Leeds; come the declaration of hostilities and they’d quietly visit some of them and send them off to internment camps.

But right now, as he walked through Harehills, up Hovingham Avenue to Dorset Road, it all felt a long way off. It might never happen.

He rapped on the door of number seventeen, one more terraced house in a long row of them. Nobody answered. But someone was inside. He felt sure of it; he could feel them there, hiding away until he left.

Raven knocked once more, then went back down the street, glancing over his shoulder. No one had appeared. No twitch on the curtains to show he was being watched.

Easy enough to slip down the ginnel. The wall at the back of the yards was tall enough to hide him. He counted his way along, then placed his hand on the latch of the gate he wanted.

Even before he could press down, someone pulled it open and he was face-to-face with Bert Dawson, watching the man’s jaw drop in astonishment. Collywobbles, that was his nickname. The slightest thing and he’d start shaking with worry.

‘Fancy meeting you here,’ Raven said with a smile. ‘You’re just who I wanted to see.’

‘You should have come to the front door, Sergeant Raven. I was just off to the shop.’ But he was already shaking like an old man.

‘Happen I can save you the trip. We’ll have a cup of tea down at headquarters and you can tell me about those robberies you’ve been on lately. You made off with a nice little haul, by the sound of it.’

 

The CID office was upstairs in the Central Library, and Raven marched Dawson up the wide tiled steps.

‘You see, Collywobbles, you’re moving up in the world. Getting yourself charged in a place like this, not the local nick. You should be pleased.’

He’d just finished taking the statement when Mortimer popped his head round the door.

‘Have a uniform take him down to the bridewell.’

By the time he reached the office, men were already shrugging into their overcoats and pushing their hats over their eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘Wages robbery,’ Mortimer said. ‘Down at Hope Foundry. Two thieves and a driver. They had a sawn-off shotgun. Fired it. A couple of clerks were hit, one’s in bad shape. They got away, but they’re in a workshop in the railway arches on The Calls.’

‘Are we signing out any weapons?’ DC Noble asked.

‘Already done, lad. We have a trained marksman down there.’

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Three of them in the plain black car, Mortimer driving. No bells ringing. Everything quiet. He weaved in and out of the traffic on the Headrow and Vicar Lane, halting by the police roadblock on Harper Street.

‘Are they all still in there?’ Raven asked the sergeant in charge.

‘Witnesses said one of them scarpered as soon as they pulled up. We’ve got a description and we’re hunting for him now. But the shooter’s still inside.

‘What do you want to do, sir?’ Raven asked Mortimer.

‘First of all we’re going to evacuate all those businesses other arches. We don’t want any civilians around if there are people with guns. Take care of it,’ he order the uniformed sergeant. ‘After that, about all we can do is tell them the police are here so they should come out and surrender.’ He lit a cigarette and shrugged. ‘It’s all rather like a gangster film, but I don’t see what choice we have.’

A train rattled along, gathering speed as it left the station and going east. Smuts of soot settled all around them.

‘Do we have any idea how much they took?’

‘Well over a thousand,’ Mortimer answered as he blew out smoke. ‘Hardly pocket money, is it?’ He glanced around. ‘The marksman is upstairs in the warehouse across the street. He’ll be ready if we need him.’

‘Let’s hope we don’t, sir.’ Raven stared at the door. Big and broad for a motor car to fit through. Made of corrugated iron, like the rest of the covering over the arch. Worn and rusted. A tiny window to let in a little light. A thought struck him. ‘Could we cut off their electricity? Do that and it’ll be pitch black in there.’

‘We will if they don’t surrender,’ Mortimer agreed. ‘We’ll get someone down here, just in case.’

A young constable ran up and spoke quietly to Noble. The man frowned.

‘One of the clerks who was shot at the foundry has died. A girl, not even twenty.’

‘They’ll hang for that.’

‘Tell them, sir?’

Mortimer shook his head. ‘Not until they’re out and we have the weapon. They won’t give up otherwise.’

The sergeant dashed up, face red from running. ‘All the other arches are empty, sir.’

Inspector Mortimer picked up a megaphone and began to speak. It made his voice ring around the street. They’d be able to hear him clearly in the arch. A simple offer, a promise of fair treatment if they gave themselves up.

The silence hung heavy when he finished. Nothing from inside.

‘Electricity, sir?’ Raven said after they’d heard no sound for two full minutes.

‘Yes,’ Mortimer replied. He kept his gaze on the arch, finishing one cigarette and replacing it immediately with another.

It didn’t take long. The man was up the pole and back down again in the blink of an eye.

‘It’ll be like the dead of night in there for them,’ he said as he hitched up his leather tool belt and pulled down his cap. ‘You need me for owt else?’

 

Over the next two hours, Mortimer used the megaphone twice more. But there never any answer from inside.

Raven began to walk, flowing the pavement around the embankment where the old gravestones from the Parish Church burial ground cover the grass. No way out on the other wide. The killers were trapped in there. But not in any hurry to come out.

‘I don’t know about you, sir, but I don’t want to spend the rest of the day here,’ he said.

‘Any good ideas?’ Mortimer asked.

‘March in and drag them out.’

The inspector shook his head. ‘They have a gun and not much to lose right now.’

‘We can take go in. It might take them by surprise.’ He glanced across the street to the marksman waiting in the window, his rifle tight against his shoulder. ‘Just make sure he’s ready.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘What’s the choice, sir?’ Raven said. ‘Go in mob-handed? We risk losing more men that way. If we try to wait them out, they’ll be firing when they open the door. And God knows when that might be.’

‘I can’t order you to do it, Sergeant.’

‘I know, sir. I’m volunteering.’

If they killed him, what would that matter? No more looking at the face in the mirror every morning. No more thinking that his wife couldn’t stand to see him. She’d be able to find herself someone who looked normal.

He liked his job, he enjoyed being a detective. But if this was it…at least he wouldn’t pass the young lads on the street and wonder which of them might end up like him after the next war. And it was coming soon enough…

Mortimer cocked his head, as if he could read all the thoughts in Raven’s head.

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘It is, sir.’

 

A deep breath and he began to walk across the cobbles. A train crossed overhead in a flurry of steam and smoke. Detective Sergeant Urban Raven put his hand on the doorknob of the workshop under the railway arch, paused for a fraction of a section, then turned it.

He stood, silhouetted by the light on Kirkgate.

The gun boomed.

A pause, then it fired again.

 

The smell of cordite. Thick smoke that made him cough. His ears rang; he couldn’t hear a thing.

But he wasn’t hit. No wounds at all.

As the air began to clear, he could see them. A pair of young men in cheap, flashy suits, gaudy Prince of Wales checks. They were lying on the floor, sprawled on their back and staring into eternity. They shotgun lay between them.

Christ, he thought. He’d expected the worst, but not that.

Christ.

‘It’s me,’ he called. ‘I’m coming out, Everything’s safe in here.’

The Dead on Leave is available in paperback and as an ebook.

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Big, Big News

This has appeared in the US today. It’s an interview in Publishers Weekly, the biggest of the American publishing trade magazines. It’s the first US interview I’ve had. That alone would make it a big deal. That it’s in something so influential is the icing on the cake. Even better, their starred review of The Hocus Girl is on the following page.

Here’s the interview – which will give you a bit more background to the book.

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And here’s the review. Honestly, I’m still fizzing with pleasure.

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South of the Deadline – Seattle, 1898

Maybe quite a few of you know I spent 20 years living in Seattle. It’s not Leeds, but I have a lot of affection for the place, and it has a wonderfully colourful history.

I was reading back over some of that and I realised that the Klondike Goldrush era of 1898 was fertile ground for a fiction writer. Thousands of people came through Seattle, looking to make their fortunes in the Yukon. The city was wide open – like a more urban version of Deadwood, perched out there on the edge of America, as far as you could go without getting on a boat.

So I started a little something. Seriously, please do tell me what you think. I”d like to know. I’ve written a bit more than this, but i’m not giving it all way…

Seattle, July 1898

 

‘I’m going to say it once more. Let him go now.’

He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, thumbs hooked in his vest pockets, blocking the way.

‘Yeah?’ One of the young men asked. He had a cocky curl to his lip and a wisp of a moustache.

‘That’s right. Doesn’t take five of you to handle an old man. Look at him, he’s not likely to hurt you. Hell, you’ve got his hands tied and his denims round his ankles. All he can do is waddle.’

‘What you going to do if we don’t?’  The young man shoved his prisoner and sent him sprawling down to the ground.

‘This.’ He’d hardly seemed to move, but suddenly there was a gun in his hand. A brand-new Colt, pointing level and steady.

‘There’s five of us here.’ The young man was still grinning, pushing the derby back on his head. A faint Southern drawl to his voice. Another goldrush stampeder.  ‘You can’t take us all.’ He glanced over his shoulder. The crowd that had been following was quickly melting away.

He didn’t bother to reply, just moved his gaze from one face to the other along the line. Two of them couldn’t meet his stare. No need to worry about them.

‘He tried to cheat us at cards,’ another voice said. ‘He was fixing the deck.’

‘Charlie Turner? He couldn’t fix his own shoelaces. Now get out of here while I let you.’

‘Why?’ The leader again. ‘Who the hell are you?’

With one hand, he turned the lapel of his coat to show the badge.

‘Seattle Police Department.’ He waited for a moment. ‘If you want to complain, my name’s Detective John Linden.’

He waited until they were fifty yards away before he helped the man to his feet and cut the rope holding his wrists behind his back.

‘Pull up your pants, Charlie. You got an old man’s legs.’ They were spindly and hairless, pale as a clam shell where the legs of the grubby union suit had ridden up. Hurriedly, Turner dressed and tucked in his shirt, then patted his pocket. ‘They took my gun.’

‘Take a walk up First Avenue. There’s a dozen pawn shops be glad to sell you one cheap.’

‘They took my billfold, too.’

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Linden shook his head. ‘I’m not giving you anything. Get a job and earn some damn money. Go up to the Klondike. Everybody else is. You might get rich in the gold fields.’

‘Me?’ Turned opened his eyes wide in panic. ‘Way too cold for me up there. I’m grateful, John. I really am.’ He scurried away.

One of these days he wouldn’t be around to save Charlie and his body would turn up on the tideflats. Nothing he could do about that. Linden leaned against the telegraph pole, pushed up the brim of his homburg hat and felt the sun on his face. The middle of July and Seattle’s summer had begun. With luck, it would stay this way until October. A small breeze brought the welcome smell of salt water. Out over Elliott Bay a seagull cried then dived down to the water to snag a fish. Boats crowded along the wharves, ready to fill up with passengers who all just knew for a fact that a fortune was waiting just for them in the Yukon.

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He remembered the news that arrived down the line, hours before the Portland steamed in. Just a year ago now. It was carrying a ton of gold the first prospectors had discovered. It had been on the wires all across the United States long before the sun went down. Two days later the first of the hopefuls arrived, looking to book passage and make themselves Kings of the Klondike. A few Queens, too. The gold was there for the taking, they believed.

It hadn’t stopped since. Hundreds of them still coming every week. America was crammed to the gills with fools who wanted to get rich quick. Every hotel, rooming house, every single barn in Seattle was full each night. The first month it had cost two bits for a bed, then four, six, and now it cost a dollar and a half for a crib, cash up front.

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The city rumbled and roared, all day and long into the night. Drink and card games, the girls in their little rooms in the box house theaters or in the brothels. Seemed like every sporting man and girl from across the West had flocked here, too, ready to fleece the hopefuls before they could even head north. People with hard eyes, short tempers and violent ways. He’d put away his share in the last twelve months. Next to them, Charlie Turner was nothing, a harmless little man. But even the harmless could end up dead.

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He stayed for five minutes, eyes closed, trying to find a little pleasure in just being there. But he couldn’t shake the feeling in his gut.

Something bad was going to happen.

The Molten City

Since it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon and other online shops, I’m hardly giving away any secrets when I reveal the cover and tell you a little bit about the next (eighth!) Tom Harper book. It’s called The Molten City, and see Tom and Annabelle firmly in the 20th century.

Detective Superintendent Tom Harper senses trouble ahead when the prime minister plans a visit. Can he keep law and order on the streets while also uncovering the truth behind a missing child? Leeds, September 1908. There’s going to be a riot. Detective Superintendent Tom Harper can feel it. Herbert Asquith, the prime minster, is due to speak in the city. The suffragettes and the unemployed men will be out in the streets in protest. It’s Harper’s responsibility to keep order. Can he do it? Harper has also received an anonymous letter claiming that a young boy called Andrew Sharp was stolen from his family fourteen years before. The file is worryingly thin. It ought to have been bulging. A missing child should have been headline news. Why was Andrew’s disappearance ignored? Determined to uncover the truth about Andrew Sharp and bring the boy some justice, Harper is drawn deep into the dark underworld of child-snatching, corruption and murder as Leeds becomes a molten, rioting city.

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The Pop Star – A Dan Markham Story

As I’ve said before, spring 2020 marks 10 years of me publishing books set in Leeds.

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To me, that’s worth celebrating. I’d never expected it, or to have created so many characters. To celebrate the anniversary, and the people, between now and next April I’ll be publishing a short story each month featuring one of my Leeds characters.

I’m beginning with Dan Markham of Dark Briggate Blues and The New Eastgate Swing, the most recent creation, and bringing him (just) into the 1960s. From there I’ll go back in time, finishing with a new Richard Nottingham story next April.

Dan, in case you don’t know, loves his jazz. you can get an idea of his tastes in this playlist. This story puts him in a very different world.

It’s relatively long, but I hope you like meeting up with Dan again. If you don’t already know him, try Dark Briggate Blues as a starting point. It’s available in paperback, ebook, and also audiobook. Go here.

And now, welcome to Leeds as the world tips into the 1960s…

Dan Markham listened closely to the voice on the other end of the phone. His name was Harry Lewis, he’d said, a man with brisk London accent, a wheeler and dealer, skirting around the subject as if whatever he wanted might not be legal. The type who saw life as a deal to be won.

‘In your line, you know what things are like up there, don’t you?’ he said.

‘Depends what you mean by things.’ He cradled the receiver between his ear and shoulder, took a Craven A from the packet and lit it. From his desk across the office, Stephen Baker gave him an enquiring look. Markham shook his head and raised an eyebrow.

‘Bad people an’ that.’

‘I suppose I know some of them,’ he answered. Christ, the last thing he wanted on a Monday morning was a Cockney idiot. ‘Why don’t you tell me the problem. That might be easier.’

‘We manage singers. You know Adam Faith, Billy Fury, people like that? Stars.’

‘I’ve seen the names,’ Markham replied. He’d heard them, too, fragments of music on the radio that left him cold. ‘What about them?’

‘We have an artist on a tour. A young lad, first record just out, going to be big. He’s playing the Odeon up there this Friday. We’ve had a threat that something might happen to him.’

‘Talk to the police,’ Markham told him. ‘That’s their job.’ He started to replace the phone, but a thin voice stopped him.

‘I’ve tried them. Your rozzers up there weren’t interested.’

That seemed odd, unless they knew something he didn’t.

‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’ It might be a chance to make some money and do something a little different.

 

‘He must have cash to burn,’ Baker said when the call ended. ‘You were on the phone for fifteen minutes. That’ll cost him a fortune.’

‘It’ll probably all come off his taxes,’ Markham said. ‘But we’ve got two days work out of it. Usual rates.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Bodyguarding?’

‘Who? If it’s Diana Dors or Jayne Mansfield, I’m interested.’

Stephen Baker was a big man, a retired detective sergeant who’d long since run to fat. But appearances deceived. Go past the cheap mackintosh and bland face and the man was clever. He listened and put things together. Daring, too; he’d shown that. But he’d been a commando back in the war. And now he was the junior partner in an enquiry agency working out of the third floor of an office building on Albion Place.

‘His name’s Johnny Archer.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Neither have I. Evidently his first single’s just come out and he’s bottom of the bill on this package tour that’s playing here on Friday night.’

‘Doesn’t sound like much of a job,’ Baker said. ‘Not likely to be mobbed, is he?’

‘According to this man Lewis, there have been a couple of threats.’

‘What kind?’

‘Nothing too specific. He couldn’t give me any examples. More rumours than anything. That’s why the police won’t do anything.’

Baker shrugged. ‘Can’t blame them. They need something to go on.’

‘It’s money for us. The tour people arrive Thursday afternoon and leave Saturday morning. We need to make sure Archer stays safe.’

He snorted. ‘Is that his real name – Johnny Archer?’

‘I didn’t ask.’ Markham lit another cigarette. The man could be called Joe Bloggs for all it mattered.

 

The photograph and press packet arrived on Tuesday morning. Archer was a bland young man, faintly good-looking. There was a hint of something wicked in his smile, but he was too young to be any kind of threat; he barely looked eighteen. A cheap Italian-cut suit with the thin lapels, a narrow tie and Brylcreemed hair in a big, shiny quiff.

Believe the mimeographed words, and he was the biggest thing since Elvis Presley. Sex on legs. Lewis had included the single in its paper sleeve. At home, Markham put it on the hi-fi.

‘What the hell is that?’ Carla asked from the kitchen. ‘It’s awful.’

She was right. A confection of nothing, string and guitars and a hiccoughing voice that could barely stay in tune.

‘The next big thing,’ he said. She laughed.

Johnny Archer was useless as a singer. Maybe he was a nice kid.

He put on some Coltrane to wash away the taste. Giant Steps, only out for a few months, with that lovely rush of tenor sax coming through the speakers. Real music.

He didn’t know Archer, but Markham felt sorry for the boy. Another hopeful, one of dozens – maybe hundreds – with a single out and a heart full of dreams. So few made it, though. Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, one or two others. The rest would have a piece of plastic and the memory of a few shows onstage, careers over before anyone realized they’d begun.

Well, all he had to do was keep him safe in Leeds. From what, though?

 

It was a crisp autumn Thursday. As he left home, Markham noticed the way the leaves were turning and falling, covering the pavement. His breath clouded the air, and he needed to use the choke for his car to start. He’d bought one of the new Ford Anglias, seduced by the backwards-sloping rear windows and the low fins at the back. The best part of six hundred pounds, but he’d had a good year and it was worth every penny. It had style. The car was distinctive; it looked American.

In town, he parked outside the office, taking the stairs past the clatter of typewriters in the secretarial office below. Nothing more than a couple of bills in the post. He tossed them on to the desk. Later would be soon enough.

He was pacing around, on his third cigarette by the time Barker arrived, huffing and puffing his way up the steps.

‘You might as well turn yourself around. We’re going out again.’

The man sighed. ‘Couldn’t you have waited downstairs so I didn’t waste all that effort?’

Markham clapped him on the shoulders. ‘The exercise will do you good.’

The Golden Lion hotel sat on Swinegate, right on the corner with Briggate, no more than a short, brisk stroll from Albion Place. It must have been a glorious building once, but now it was run down, feeling like a small step up from a boarding house. The carpet was threadbare, the wood on the desk chipped and gouged. Still, it had rooms for all the groups on this tour. The clerk was an older, weary man with heavy jowls and a shadow of stubble heavy enough to look as though he hadn’t shaved. A cheap bri-nylon shirt with a grubby collar and a shiny C&A tie.

Markham introduced himself and handed over the letter Lewis had sent. The clerk read it and stared. Archer wasn’t expected until early evening, he said, along with a four-piece group. They had two rooms booked in the attic, staying until Saturday morning.

‘Mind if we go and take a look?’

Without looking, the man reached behind his body and took a pair of keys from their hooks.

‘Help yourself. Nowt to see, mind. The lasses will make up the beds later.’

Four storeys. Baker took a rest after the first two. Markham glanced at the surroundings. The wallpaper was decades old, peeling and torn. He took the final flight and unlocked one of the wooden doors. Light came in through a dormer window. Up here had probably once been home to the staff. Now it was crammed with three single beds, a chest of drawers and an old wooden wardrobe. No sink, no toilet, no bathroom.

He opened the neighbouring room. Exactly the same.

‘All the glamour, eh?’ Baker shook his head. ‘I thought pop stars had money.’

‘The people who manage them do.’

‘Always the bloody way.’

They began to search. It took no more than five minutes for both rooms. The beds were stripped, thin mattresses folded over, and there was nowhere to hide anything.

‘Waste of time,’ Baker complained as they left the building. As they turned the corner on to Briggate, he added quietly: ‘Maybe not completely. Did you see chummy standing around? Over by Walker’s old furniture factory.’

Markham nodded. ‘No idea who he is, though.’

‘I do. Billy Carter. He used to do some work for the Jenkins mob. Spotting, a bit of driving, things like that. Can’t imagine why he’d be watching the hotel.’

 

‘I wasn’t,’ Carter insisted. They found him just after noon in the Adelphi, on the far side of Leeds Bridge. Baker leaned over the man, hands on the table, while Markham stood back and watched. ‘Why would I watch the Golden Lion?’

‘I saw you with my own eyes,’ Baker said. He paused, then added with a hint of menace: ‘Or are you calling me a liar?’

‘No, course not. I was just waiting for someone, that’s all.’

He might as well have held up a sign with Lie written on it.

‘Who?’

‘She. It’s a woman. She’s married. You know.’

‘That’s the thing, Billy,’ Baker said. ‘I don’t. Why don’t you give me her name and I can ask her myself. Discreet, that’s me. My lips will be sealed.’

But no matter how Baker browbeat him, Carter wouldn’t give up a single thing more.

‘Something has him scared,’ Markham said was they walked back to the office.

‘Someone, more like. And him keeping schtum like that, it worries me.’

 

Markham was sitting in a chair at the hotel when a group of young men walked in a little after six. Four of them were quiet, serious, stretching as they moved. The fifth looked around eagerly, eyes alive, smiling to show a good young set of teeth. He looked like someone who believed he was about to inherit the world. A close-fitting Italian suit, knitted tie and pale blue shirt with a tab collar, hands pushed into the pocket of his overcoat.

One of the young men was talking to the desk clerk, handing out room keys and giving instructions.

‘I’m Dan Markham.’

The man looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘Who?’

‘Bodyguard for Johnny Archer?’

‘Bodyguard?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Someone’s been pulling your leg, mate. We’re the group, he’s the singer, and he’s been going down like a lead balloon, although he can’t see it. The only person he needs guarding from his himself. Now, we have to get our gear in. Not leaving it out there to be nicked.’ He disappeared, the other musicians behind him.

‘Archer?’

The young man turned and gave a camera-ready grin.

‘Johnny Archer.’ A firm voice, no shade of hesitation. ‘Are you a fan?’

‘I’m your bodyguard. Harry Lewis hired me.’

The first shade of doubt across the young man’s face, and then it cleared.

‘He said he’d have someone to look after things up here. But he didn’t say nothing about no bodyguard, though.’

‘You’ll be all right with me.’ He was beginning to feel he’d been had, that there was something going on that he didn’t understand. ‘I’ll take care of things.’

‘You can tell me where there’s a Wimpy in town. I just want something to eat and an early night. I been packed in that car all day. Come up from Bristol.’

‘There’s a Wimpy just round the corner, but they’ll be closing soon.’

‘Right,’ Archer said. ‘You can come with me. Got any money? I ain’t been paid yet.’

‘Got two personals tomorrow morning, some record shop and Woolie’s,’ Archer explained as he ate. ‘Matinee show in the afternoon and another in the evening. The birds are lapping it up.’

He looked around, as if a group of girls might be watching him. He was bland, Markham decided, a nothing. Someone had told him a few times that he was handsome and had talent, and he believed it.

‘How did Harry discover you?’

‘Walking down Oxford Street.’ He hesitated for a second. ‘You know where Oxford Street is? In London?’

‘I do. My wife’s an artist. She exhibits in galleries down there. We go to London regularly.’

The words flew over Archer’s head. He simply nodded.

‘I was there looking at the clothes and he came up and said I had some quality. Gave me a business card and said if I wanted to ring him, I might end up on the box.’

‘Have you? Been on television, I mean,’ Markham said.

‘Not yet,’ Archer replied, full of confidence. ‘But I will. The record’s doing good and Harry’s lining up a spot on another package tour. And he says I’ll be in the papers very soon.’

They walked back to the Golden Lion. Outside the door someone called out ‘Smile!’

Archer did what he was told as Markham tried to shield him. The photographer gave a thumbs-up and walked away.

‘That’ll be happening all the time soon,’ Archer said. ‘You going to be here in the morning?’

‘Half-past nine at the desk,’ Markham told him.

 

‘What do you reckon?’ Baker asked. He’d watched the whole scene.

Markham lit a cigarette. ‘Thank Christ we’re getting paid.’

 

Friday morning and Markham was working his way through the post before he had to go down to the Golden Lion. He’d started with a cup of frothy coffee from the Flamenco on Cross Belgrave Street, the machine hissing as spluttering as Fowzee worked it with his wide grin. Something to set him up for a long day and a longer night ahead.

Stephen Baker glanced through the Daily Sketch when he swore.

‘Take a look at that.’

It was the picture the photographer had taken the evening before. Archer, smiling, Markham, half in shadow, a protective arm in from of the young man’s chest. Threats Against Pop Star’s Life, the headline screamed. Bodyguard hired for appearance in Leeds.

He picked up the telephone and dialled Lewis’s office in London.

‘He’s out for the day,’ a secretary said. ‘Do you want him to ring you later?’

‘Yes,’ Markham said. ‘I’d like that a lot.’

‘We’re being used,’ Baker said. ‘There’s no threat. It’s all for publicity. Sell a few records and put some bums on seats at the show.’

‘Now it’s out there, someone might think it’s a good idea to take a pot shot at him. I’ll keep my eye on him, I’ve got nothing else today.’

Baker shook his head. ‘Waste of time.’

‘Money, remember?’

Baker snorted and turned to the football pages.

 

Archer looked sleek, dressed in his Italian suit with the tight trousers again, fresh shirt and bright tie. He was full of talk as they walked up to Vallance’s on Albion Street. Markham kept glancing around, assessing faces for any threat. Everyone dressed in dun and grey and olive, no splash of colour to be seen. They might as well be living in black-and-white.

‘After I’ve had a few hits and people know who I am, I was thinking a film, you know, like Cliff or Tommy. And move into showbusiness. That’s where the money is and you can keep going. Have a career.’ He spoke with confidence, as if he’d already plotted out every move for the next ten years.

Poor kid. In three months he’d probably be scuffling round for a job and wondering if all this had been a dream.

The record department downstairs at Vallance’s was Saturday morning busy with plenty of teenagers wanting the latest pop hits. They were crammed together in the booths to listen. Two girls approached Archer for an autograph and he seemed to come to life, eager, friendly, and with some kind of presence.

But for his hour there, no more than a trickle came to see him. Mostly girls, plus a pair of boys who seemed astonished that someone like them could have made a record.

His single played every ten minutes. A few seconds after it ended, Markham couldn’t even recall the tune. Disposable music for the consumer society.

No threats, though. Not even a sign of danger. Across the Headrow and down Briggate to Woolworth’s. Archer was talking nineteen to the dozen as he stepped out into the road.

Markham glanced to the right and saw a white Commer van barrelling towards them. He grabbed Archer by the collar and dragged him back on to the pavement as the car roared by.

For once, the boy had nothing to say.

Markham had tried to read the number plate. All he’d caught were two of the letters. No bloody help at all. Was it deliberate? Or a driver not paying attention. He wouldn’t put money on it either way.

Archer was shaken. His face was pale and his lips were bloodless.

‘Come on,’ Markham told him, ‘we’ll get a cup of tea in you. Hot, plenty of sugar.’

Like an infant, Archer followed him into a café.

‘That…’

‘Might have been an accident,’ Markham said. Better to let him think that. And accidents did happen.

‘Do you believe that?’

‘Who’d want to hurt you?’

Archer shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Nor do I.’ Markham smiled. ‘My professional opinion-’ he said the words slowly to give them weight ‘-is that you were almost the victim of an accident, Nothing more than that. OK?’

The young man pushed his lips together then gave a small nod. Like a little boy, he’d accept whatever he was told on this. Markham just wished he could be certain he’d given him the truth.

‘Drink up and we’ll go to this other signing.’

A few more fans than Vallance’s, but Archer wasn’t mobbed. Not even close. Even the story in the paper hadn’t helped much. As soon as the time was done, Markham escorted him up Briggate to the Odeon. No dangerous vehicles. No menacing men. Soon Archer was in the dressing room with his backing group. The musicians all looked bored. This was just the way they earned their crust, nothing more. They didn’t care about the music they played; it didn’t belong to them.

‘Make sure he doesn’t wander off,’ Markham said to the leader.

The man glanced at Archer. ‘He doesn’t look happy. Did somebody tell him he has a pimple?’

‘Someone nearly ran him over.’

That found the young man’s attention. ‘What? Deliberately?’

‘I don’t think so, but…look after him.’

‘Yeah, OK.’

 

The phone rang and rang before Baker answered and Markham pushed the button to let the coins drop. In a few short sentences he explained what had happened.

‘You didn’t get the number plate?’

‘No.’ He was still furious with himself for that.

‘A white van doesn’t narrow it down,’ Baker said.

‘I know that. I was thinking. Your friend Billy Carter who was watching the Golden Lion last night. Might be worth having another word with him.’

‘I will. But I’m not coming up to tell you about it. No reason for me to go near that noise they call music.’

‘You’re just old.’

 

It wasn’t just Baker, Markham thought. He was old, too. Thirty-one, and the kids in the crowd were only ten or fifteen years younger than him, but God Almighty, they made him feel ancient. He’d come of age during the war and its aftermath. During National Service in Germany he’d seen all the destruction of the bombs.

But this lot has only known peace. Conscription had just ended, so they’d never even need to put on a uniform. There were plenty of good jobs; they had money in their pockets. Rationing was a memory. They life was completely different to the one he’d known. Different music, too. He’d been introduced to jazz and fallen in love with it. Not this pop that had no substance. Yeah, he was old.

He stood at the back of the dress circle and watched as Archer performed his two songs. The audience was still arriving, no more than a handful paying attention to the music.

The lad tried, at least. He reached out from the edge of the stage. One girl dashed forward to touch his hand, then hurried back to her friends, giggling.

No sense of danger in the auditorium. Not much of anything, beyond anticipation for the acts still to come. The musicians were competent, pushing everything along, then carrying off their gear as soon as they’d finished. Professionals.

Standing outside, he smoked a cigarette as the thump of bass and drums leaked out from the building. Studio 20 was only a few yards further along New Briggate. There would be better music there tonight, but he doubted he’d have the chance to go. Someone needed to keep an eye on Archer until he left in the morning.

He’d taken the job, he was going to do it properly. Just in case the speeding van hadn’t been an accident…

‘You’re miles away. An army could have marched by and you’d never have noticed.’

Baker was dressed in his usual mackintosh and trilby, a pipe in the corner of his mouth and a satisfied smile on his face.

‘Go on, then, you look pleased with yourself. What have you found?’

‘Carter was in the General Elliot having a pint or four. I bought him another and it made him quite expansive. It seems your Harry Lewis was in touch with Jenkins, his boss. A few quid to watch Archer, enough to make having a bodyguard seem worthwhile.’

‘Not to hurt?’

‘Not in a million years. Not even a frightener. Strictly for publicity. Your incident with the van was an accident, nothing more.’

Markham felt a sense of relief. Deep down he’d probably known it was true. But having it confirmed made it feel real.

‘Why didn’t he say something when you questioned him last night?’

‘That was the deal they had.’ He grimaced as he cocked an ear toward the sound in the Odeon. ‘You staying for more of this racket?’

‘It’s what we agreed.’

Baker shook his head. ‘Sooner you than me. Still, you like that jazz muck; this can’t be any worse.’

 

The second house seemed to draw a larger audience that the first. A few years older, too, mostly fifteen and up, all the way to twenty by the look of them. He saw the disgusted glances by the girls as they passed him, as if he was a dirty old man in a grubby mac.

The music wasn’t any better or any worse. Whatever quality meant stardom, Archer didn’t possess it. Most of the crowd talked through his two numbers.

No incidents, of course. Once he’d finished and the group had dragged their equipment off the stage, Markham made him way back to the dressing room. None of them looked especially pleased.

‘It went well,’ Markham said.

‘It was bloody rubbish,’ the leader said. He finished wiping the strings and fretboard of his guitar with a rag and placed it with loving care the instrument in its case. ‘We couldn’t even hear ourselves.’

‘Maybe tomorrow will be better. Where are you then?’

‘Maybe,’ the man answered in a voice full of doubt. ‘We’re in Newcastle. Always tough there.’

 

 

A cramped night, parked near the hotel on Kirkgate, sitting in the Anglia. Too chilly to fall asleep. Too dark to read. Nothing to do but drink instant coffee from a flask and smoke. By morning his back felt as if someone had been chipping at it with an icepick.

He watched as Archer and the group packed their van and drove off. His job was done. The only thing left was to send the invoice and wait for the cheque.

 

The middle of the afternoon and he was jarred awake by the telephone. For a short moment, Markham wondered where he was, what day it was. He sat up straight in the office chair, yawning and blinking.

‘Have you listened to the wireless?’ Baker asked.

‘No. Why?’

‘There’s a transistor in my desk drawer.’ He hung up.

Markham searched, dragging it out from under a pile of papers and turning it on. Finally he found a voice reading out the headlines.

‘Police are investigating an accident on the Great North road this morning.’ He felt a prickle up his spine. ‘A young man was killed when the vehicle in which he was a passenger veered off the road going south in Lincolnshire. The name of the deceased is being withheld until next-of-kin can be informed, but it’s understood that he’s an entertainer, a singer of popular music. All the others in the van were released after being treated for minor injuries.’

Christ. Accident?

 

Three days later, Markham picked up the post. Strange. The invoice he’d sent for the Archer job, returned. Not known at this address. He checked from his notes. No, it was correct. When he dialled the London number, all he heard was a voice: ‘I’m sorry, that is no longer obtainable.’