The Riot Read online

  Laura Wilson’s acclaimed and award-winning novels have won her many fans. The first novel in the series, Stratton’s War, won the CWA Ellis Peters Award. Two of her novels have been shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. Laura is the Guardian’s crime reviewer. She lives in Islington, London.

  Praise for The Riot

  ‘As well as being a crime narrative of great authority, the texture of the piece is immensely evocative’

  Financial Times

  ‘An academic historian’s accuracy and a born writer’s imagination . . . a most impressive piece of work’

  Literary Review

  ‘The tang of Wilson’s period detail pops off the page . . . a richly imagined, compassionate story’

  Metro Herald

  ‘Offers startling insights into an unfamiliar world. A party goes disastrously wrong, ending in a riot, and the novel is a sombre reminder of just how poor and divided London remained in the 1950s’

  Sunday Times

  CONTENTS

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Acknowledgements

  Also Available

  First published in Great Britain in 2013 by

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  55 Baker Street

  7th Floor, South Block

  London W1U 8EW

  Copyright © 2013 Laura Wilson

  The moral right of Laura Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  HB ISBN 978 1 78206 305 6

  TPB ISBN 978 1 78206 306 3

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78206 307 0

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  You can find this and many other great books at:

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  Also by Laura Wilson

  A Little Death

  Dying Voices

  My Best Friend

  Hello Bunny Alice

  The Lover

  A Thousand Lies

  DI Stratton series:

  Stratton’s War

  An Empty Death

  A Capital Crime

  A Willing Victim

  To George and Florence

  Well, believe me, I am speaking broadmindedly

  I am glad to know my mother country

  I’ve been travelling to countries years ago

  But this’ the place I wanted to know

  London, that’s the place for me.

  To live in London you really comfortable

  Because the English people are very much sociable

  They take you here and they take you there

  And they make you feel like a millionaire

  So London, that’s the place for me.

  From ‘London is the Place For Me’.

  Calypso by Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts, 1922–2000)

  Author’s Note

  In the 1950s, a legal loophole existed whereby anyone could set him or herself up as the chairman of a building society and – provided that he or she could persuade the public to invest by offering a slightly higher rate than normal – make use of the money to fund their own property empire. Comparatively little capital was needed (enough to open an office and pay for some advertising), but the potential rewards were great and it is surprising that more entrepreneurs did not take advantage of the situation to make themselves a fortune.

  CHAPTER ONE

  August 1958, Notting Hill Gate: Puncture wound to chest, entered right-hand side in 4th intercostal space, 4 in deep, penetrated to the heart …

  DI Stratton shifted irritably in his office chair – it was half-past midday and sweltering, and his shirt seemed to be plastered on to his back – and pushed the pathologist’s report aside. In the black and white photographs Herbert Hampton looked more annoyed than dead, and the stains on his clothing might easily have been the result of carelessness with ketchup or HP Sauce. Seated on the floor in his underwear, with a bald head and a petulant expression, he made Stratton think of a giant baby who’d been pushed over by an older sibling and was preparing to start howling about it. At least, Hampton’s top half made him think this. His lower half – a map of varicose veins and a partially visible scrotum so low and loose that it looked like pebbles at the bottom of a pigskin bag – just made Stratton think of the sad indignities of getting old and being murdered in your vest and underpants.

  He’d been found by a girl: Shirley Maples, aged seventeen, typist, on her way home from the ABC Royalty, Ladbroke Grove, where she’d attended the six o’clock performance of a film with her friend Sandra Mills. Glancing at the map of his new manor, he saw that Shirley Maples lived in Colville Terrace and Sandra Mills – also a typist – lived in Talbot Road, which was just around the corner. Stratton thought he could picture the streets: rusted railings, crumbling front walls, and rows of tatty five-storey Victorian houses, each one occupied by a dozen – or perhaps even two dozen – people.

  Both girls lived with their parents. They had watched Raintree County, which apparently, with the rest of the programme, lasted three whole hours, and Shirley arrived back home at half past nine. When she’d climbed the stairs to the family’s to
p floor flat, her father had sent her back down again and across the road to give the week’s rent to Mr Hampton and, while she was at it, to fetch him a bottle of Mackeson from the pub down the road. He never got his beer. Stratton imagined her pushing open the door of Hampton’s flat and standing hypnotised, before she began to scream. He shuffled the papers until he found her statement. Scanning to the end, he read: My dad says it’s the coloureds that do these things.

  The office door swung open and a large man he recognised as PC Jellicoe – two days into his new post, he hadn’t got all the names down yet – appeared with a cup of tea and a rock bun on a plate. ‘’Ot, ain’t it? ’Ere you go.’

  The voice was an exaggerated Cockney – the London equivalent of the country dweller’s exaggerated yokel act, put on for strangers – and there was a sort of menacing joviality about it, as if daring him to pull rank. Stratton wondered if he’d been put up to it. As the first appointment of a Superintendent who’d only been there a year himself, he was bound to be an object of suspicion, especially as his first task was to investigate a crime that the natives had failed to solve.

  PC Jellicoe, who’d put the tea and bun on the table, nodded encouragingly. ‘Thought you might like a cuppa after your lunch.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Stratton. He took a sip of the tea, and picked up the rock bun.

  ‘Just like Muvver useta make.’

  Stratton took an experimental bite and encountered a concrete-like substance. ‘Yes, if Muvver was a bricklayer. Still, it’s the thought that counts.’

  No snorts of laughter from outside, so it obviously wasn’t a setup, just Jellicoe having a sniff round the newcomer and, presumably, reporting back. Jellicoe studied him in a manner that made him think of a man trying to decide whether a piano would fit through a doorway. After a moment, his face broke into a grin. ‘They are a bit of a facer.’ Pointing at Stratton’s map, he added, ‘That’s where that bloke Hampton was done a couple of Saturdays ago, isn’t it?’

  Stratton, well aware that Jellicoe knew exactly what he was looking into, took this to be an olive branch of sorts and said, ‘That’s right – Colville Terrace.’

  ‘What that little lot –’ Jellicoe nodded at the papers on the desk – ‘won’t tell you is that all round there, Colville Terrace, Colville Road, Powis Terrace, Powis Square … most of them houses belong to Danny Perlmann. He’s got quite a lot in St Stephen’s Gardens too,’ indicating the street with a stubby finger, ‘and Chepstow Road, Westbourne Gardens, Pembridge Square. Got a bloody great mansion in Hampstead, I heard, and he drives about in a Roller full of blondes. Hampton was one of the rent collectors. But …’ Jellicoe heaved a big, puffy sigh. ‘It’s a disgrace, really. Not saying it hasn’t always been a problem round there – gyppos and all sorts, more your criminal class than your working class, if you see what I mean – but now with the darkies everywhere, it’s got to be the worst slum in London. Some of them club together and buy a house and then they want the tenants out so they can bring in their own sort. We had a Nigerian bloke a couple of weeks ago trying to evict a bunch of Irish – brawling in the street, they were, furniture thrown about all over the place, and what with that business in Nottingham over the weekend, coloured stabbing whites and all sorts …’

  ‘The Chief Constable said that wasn’t a racial riot,’ said Stratton, who’d spent quite a lot of the previous Sunday morning reading about the ‘milling mob’ of fifteen hundred people who’d rampaged through the streets of St Ann’s.

  Jellicoe sniffed. ‘Not a racial riot my arse – wouldn’t have happened if the darkies hadn’t been there. Anyway, bit different from your old patch in the West End, isn’t it?’ In other words, thought Stratton: let’s see what you can do in a really tough manor, glamour-boy.

  Jellicoe did have a point, though. Stratton’s old division, C – St James’s, Soho and the surrounding area – certainly had its problems, and a fair amount of poverty as well, but there wasn’t anything that approached the unrestrained squalor he’d seen on his brief tour of the Colville and Powis area.

  ‘Perlmann’s got a club up West too,’ said Jellicoe, ‘but you’d know about that.’

  ‘I don’t, actually.’

  Jellicoe looked surprised. ‘It’s called Maxine’s.’

  Stratton had only once glimpsed Maxine’s plush interior, but he knew it, and its smart clientele, by repute. ‘I know Maxine’s. It’s in Wardour Street. I didn’t know it was his, though.’

  Jellicoe nodded. ‘Him and another bloke. He’s got another club in Earl’s Court. Rumours of unlicensed gambling, though he’s never been had up for it.’

  ‘Sounds as if he’s doing all right for himself.’

  ‘Not short of a bob or two, that’s for sure.’

  *

  At least, Stratton thought when Jellicoe had taken himself off, I’ve got one potential ally. There was no record of money being found in the man’s room, which made robbery a likely motive and the money stolen would, presumably, have belonged to Perlmann, from whom he could find no statement. Putting the map and Shirley Maples’s statement to one side, he turned back to the photographs. There were five or six, and the police photographer had done a better-than-average job: different angles and everything in sharp focus. The accompanying plan of the third floor flat showed a living room – where Hampton had met his death – with a tiny kitchen partitioned off on one side.

  In the first photograph, Stratton could see, next to Hampton’s body, a television set encased in a wooden cabinet with doors that hinged out on either side like an altarpiece. From what he’d seen of Colville Terrace so far he doubted if many of the residents could have afforded such a luxury, but perhaps Hampton, as the rent collector, had been in an unusually privileged position. On top of the cabinet was a lace-edged runner, on which stood a china donkey and a framed photograph of a young woman. Stratton wondered if this was Mrs Hampton, who, according to the notes, had died the previous year. The television, according to Shirley, had still been on when she’d entered the room.

  The second photograph showed a collection of empty and unwashed milk bottles, together with a clutter of opened tins, two overflowing ashtrays and several plates of congealing leftovers, one of which was furred with mould. Clearly, Hampton hadn’t kept up with the housework after his wife’s death. The lino, Stratton could see from all the pictures, was haphazardly strewn with newspaper. As Hampton was sitting on some of it, he felt it was unlikely to have been put there by the man’s assailant – more likely it was a feeble attempt to keep the floor clean. The pages weren’t crumpled or dirty: Stratton could clearly see advertisements for Radio Rentals, Double Diamond and, by Hampton’s left foot, Kellogg’s Cornflakes – the sunshine breakfast with the wide-awake taste. Turning the photograph through ninety degrees, he made out another advert – Chilprufe vests, a must for the school outfit – and a headline: ‘Little Rock says shut schools to bar Negroes’. The paper was the Daily Express. Obviously recent, but he couldn’t make out the date underneath the masthead – he supposed it would be somewhere in the notes.

  Stratton read through the statements from the neighbours, who struck him as an exceptionally cagey lot. There seemed to be fourteen different people living in the same building as Hampton – not counting any children – and none of them had noticed anything unusual. What was interesting was that all of them, whether white or black, appeared to have liked Hampton: words like ‘kind’, ‘helpful’ and ‘nice’ kept recurring. Several of Hampton’s immediate neighbours, plus quite a few from surrounding houses, agreed with Shirley Maples’s dad’s assertion that ‘it was coloureds’, but without elaborating further. None of the coloured neighbours had an opinion as to what might have happened – or anyway not one they were willing to voice – and, thinking about it, Stratton couldn’t blame them.

  He lit a cigarette and had another look at the pathologist’s report: Caused by a single-edged knife … Wound edges protruding, probably owing to rapid withdrawal of instrument … No
other marks of violence about the deceased … No evidence of rigor …

  Hampton’s last meal – consumed, according to the report, at least three hours prior to his death – consisted of minced lamb, peas and potatoes. This, Stratton knew from the statements, had been taken in a nearby cafe, along with a cup of tea, between 5.30 and 6 p.m. The pathologist estimated that Hampton had been dead for between two and four hours before he was discovered by Shirley Maples at approximately 9.45 p.m. That would mean that he’d been killed sometime between, say, 6.05 and 7.45 p.m. At that time, thought Stratton, the older children would be coming in for their tea and the adults either home from work or off out for the evening, it being Saturday. Anyone in the house who had a television would have been watching it, as Hampton had been: the Six-Five Special for the kids and later, The Black and White Minstrel Show for the whole family.

  Perhaps, though, the neighbours weren’t being as cagey as all that. With fourteen adults and Christ knows how many children clumping up and down the stairs, the place wouldn’t have been exactly quiet. Any stranger would have been assumed to be an acquaintance of another of the inhabitants, one of whom, Stratton could see from a handwritten note helpfully pinned to her statement, was thought to be on the game.

  At the bottom of the pathologist’s report was another hand-written note: It is possible that this wound was caused by the deceased rushing at his assailant while he (the assailant) was holding the knife in his hand. In the absence of other evidence to the contrary, I am unable to suggest any satisfactory theory by which the wound could have been self-inflicted.

  Stratton was just about to go through the paperwork again to check he’d not missed anything significant when the door opened, revealing the immaculately suited and ramrod-straight form of his new boss, Detective Superintendent Matheson. Stratton started to rise from his chair, suddenly very conscious of the sweaty and crumpled appearance he must present.

  ‘No, no. Stay where you are, man. How’s it going? I see they’ve given you all the gen.’

  ‘I’m catching up as fast as I can, sir. Just about to go to Colville Terrace.’