The Riot Read online

‘I told the station sergeant to make sure there’s a car at your disposal.’

  ‘I thought I’d walk this time, sir. Get the lie of the land, so to speak.’ As he said this, Stratton was aware that, as in their previous exchanges, he didn’t sound like himself but like something out of a war film: decent, doughty, doing his damnedest in a gruff, self-effacing sort of way. It was the effect the man had on him: the clipped, upper-class tones, distinguished countenance and military bearing, not to mention the background and reputation, plus the fact that, at forty-two, Matheson was a whole eleven years younger than him. He had, as anybody who read the papers knew, joined the Met in the thirties, under Commissioner Trenchard’s ill-fated scheme for recruiting an officer class. At the time Stratton had, like most serving policemen, viewed the Hendon ‘boy wonders’ as a bunch of ineffective public-school washouts, which a lot of them were, but not Matheson. His successes had been celebrated, the newspapers had fawned on him, and five years ago he’d become the youngest officer ever to be appointed Detective Superintendent by Scotland Yard. And – as if this weren’t enough – he’d had a good war too. He’d been a captain in the Desert Rats and taken part in the Normandy invasion.

  ‘Jolly good,’ said Matheson. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Take whatever time you need to talk to people – learn a bit about them. Come to my office whenever you’ve finished. I’ve a fair bit to do myself, so I shall be here until at least eight o’clock this evening. You can give me your ideas over a drink.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’

  Blimey, thought Stratton, there’s a turn-up for the books. In all the years working under Lamb at West End Central he could only remember being offered a drink once, and that was because the man was retiring. Dragging his jacket over his uncomfortably clammy shirt, he headed for the lobby to inform the desk sergeant of his whereabouts for the next few hours.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The desk sergeant had his hands full dealing with a man so drunk that his speech was as slurred and slow as a gramophone record played at the wrong speed. Stratton was content to wait. For one thing, the desk sergeant had managed to lay hands on an elderly fan – its incessant clacking being more than compensated for by the movement of air, even if it was warm – and for another, it gave him a chance to take stock of the place. Not that there was anything new to him: an elderly woman with violently dyed ginger hair was telling one of the young coppers that she’d lost her dog, and a couple of teenage Teddy boys were waiting to be booked in by another, who looked barely older than they were. Stratton eyed the pair. He’d seen it all before – the sharp clothes, the jittery insolence, the way they jingled the change in their pockets as if they couldn’t wait to unleash the next sixpenny-worth of strident music from an imaginary jukebox. Whether it was their frank air of villainy or simply their youth and appearance Stratton didn’t know, but he felt uneasiness creep over him like an infestation of lice and suddenly found he couldn’t wait to get out of the place. It’s because I’m getting old, he told himself. The world’s moving on, away from me, and things don’t make sense like they used to.

  *

  The sensation of discomfort was intensified when Stratton walked down Colville Terrace. There were about two dozen people there, either sitting on the steps of the houses or just standing about chatting, but every single one of them, apart from a couple of housewives carrying shopping, was black. It wasn’t, Stratton told himself, as if he’d never seen a coloured person before. He must have seen hundreds over the years in the West End – and there were several coloured clubs – but just not all at once, and not milling about in the street like this. They seemed friendly enough, cheerful and animated, and anyway, they were only people, the same – when you came down to it – as any others. Nevertheless the scene was still disconcertingly alien, especially against the background noise of bawling Cockney stallholders from Portobello market, which could be glimpsed at the end of the road.

  What was I expecting? he asked himself. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been warned at the station – there’d been plenty of comments: dirty habits, can’t be trusted around women, lazy and work-shy, playing music at all hours, touchy … Stratton decided he’d prefer to make up his own mind, although he wondered about the ‘work-shy’ bit as it didn’t look as if any of these blokes had jobs – unless, of course, they’d come home for lunch. Colville Terrace was, as he’d expected, a street of large crumbling and unpainted terraced houses, whose front porticoes were blocked by overflowing dustbins and empty milk bottles. Music was blaring out from at least three different locations, and the gutters were filled with dry rivers of old newspapers, rags, broken-up wooden fruit boxes, used French letters and the like. Already he knew what they’d be like inside: rigged meters, vermin and no hot water.

  Then again, Notting Hill Gate had never, as far as he knew, been an area that anyone would live in if they could have lived anywhere else. He looked at the groups of people again, but surreptitiously, to avoid giving the appearance of staring. He’d seen coloured people arriving in Britain on the television news. It had been back in January, and they’d been filmed bewildered and apprehensive in their thin, unsuitable clothes – straw hats, even – amid piles of luggage at Waterloo station. They must have seen newsreels, too, in their cinemas in Kingston or Port of Spain or wherever they came from, showing the best of Britain. Now it occurred to Stratton to wonder what the hell they must have been thinking as, standing on the station platform, they’d turned to the camera with those wide, brave smiles.

  There weren’t any people sitting on the front steps of number 19, where Hampton had lived, but the front door was ajar. Stratton skirted the evil-smelling dustbin and entered. The hall was dingy: cracked lino ingrained with dirt and peeling wallpaper. The place smelt of a combination of paraffin, dirt and cooking, and there were a number of unclaimed letters, circulars and pools coupons – many of which, judging by the footprints on the envelopes, had been there for some time – lying on the mangy doormat. On the first landing was a blackened saucepan on a solitary gas ring and on the second, a filthy lavatory with no bolt or handle on the door. From above, he could hear music punctuated by crackles of static. Rounding the bend of the stairs, he was able to identify it as ‘All I Have to Do is Dream’. Looking up, he saw a pair of shapely legs rising from slingbacks and topped by a tight, shiny skirt, a low-cut blouse and a come-hither smile.

  ‘Looking for someone, darling?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stratton. ‘I’m investigating the death of Herbert Hampton. Do you live here?’

  The girl – Stratton supposed she couldn’t be more than twenty, although the air of professional carnality made her seem much older – looked disappointed. ‘Is that all? I live upstairs, as it happens, but I’ve already told the coppers I don’t know nothing about it.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Vicky.’

  ‘Vicky what?’

  ‘Allardice.’

  Stratton pulled his notebook out of his jacket and looked through the list of names he’d compiled from the witness statements. Vicky Allardice seemed to be the only woman in the place who lived alone – assuming that she actually did live there and didn’t just use the room for business purposes. ‘How much rent do you pay, Vicky?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with you?’

  ‘Mr Hampton collected the rent, didn’t he? It’s possible that he was killed during a robbery.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Vicky shrugged. ‘But the rent weren’t due till the next day, so he wouldn’t have had it, would he?’

  At least, thought Stratton, that explained the lack of money in Hampton’s room. ‘How much?’ he persisted.

  ‘Two pound a week.’

  ‘Really?’ This wasn’t the West End, where a working girl might pay as much as £15 or even £20 for a flat, but Stratton was surprised by the disparity. He’d be willing to bet that she was paying a fair bit more than she’d said – but of course to admit that was tantamount to confessing how she earned a liv
ing. Deciding not to press the matter, he settled for raising a single eyebrow in a clear show of disbelief.

  Vicky folded her arms. ‘I don’t know why you’re asking me about any of it,’ she said defensively. ‘I wasn’t even here.’

  ‘But you do live here?’

  ‘Mm-hm. Ask anyone.’

  ‘So where were you?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘I went shopping.’

  ‘By the time Hampton was killed the shops would have been closed.’

  ‘We stopped out for tea.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and my friend.’

  ‘Her name?’

  ‘Marion.’

  ‘Marion who?’

  ‘Marion Lockwood.’

  Stratton glanced at the notes he’d made summarising her statement – so far, everything tallied. ‘Where did you have your tea?’

  ‘The Larchwood Cafe on Queensway.’

  ‘That’s off the Bayswater Road, isn’t it?’ Stratton had seen the scores of tarts who lined the railings – one every few yards – right down Bayswater Road and along Park Lane.

  Vicky stared at him as if he’d just dropped out of a spaceship. ‘Last time I looked.’

  ‘What time did you finish eating?’

  ‘Dunno – half past six.’

  ‘What did you do after that?’

  ‘Went for a walk.’ Her eyes were defiant.

  ‘Along the Bayswater Road?’

  ‘No law against it, is there?’

  ‘Depends on the purpose of the walk – as I’m sure you know. What time did you get home?’

  ‘About half past eight.’

  ‘Slow night, was it? Still, it was early, so presumably you went out again afterwards.’

  Vicky sighed. ‘Yes. About ten to nine.’

  ‘And you came back again when?’

  ‘I suppose … Quarter past nine, something like that.’

  ‘Kerb-crawler, was he? Gave you a lift back afterwards?’

  ‘I did get a lift, yes.’ This time the admission came sullenly, and she didn’t look him in the eye.

  ‘I’m not here to give you any trouble,’ said Stratton. ‘I just want some information. All right, you brought a punter back here – and you went out again when?’

  ‘Half past nine, twenty to ten, something like that.’

  ‘Did you see Shirley Maples when you went out?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The girl who found Mr Hampton.’

  Vicky shook her head. ‘The only person I saw was one of the coloured blokes who live downstairs. At least, I think it was him – the bulb’s gone on the landing, so I couldn’t really see. He was coming out of the lav.’

  Stratton consulted his notebook. ‘You identified him as Horace Conroy when you made your statement.’

  ‘It could have been. I mean, he lives here and he’s tall, and so was this bloke. Frankie – that’s the other one who lives here – is small and skinny, so it couldn’t have been him, but I never saw the face, so I can’t be certain.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Stratton made a note to this effect and said, ‘Frankie would be Francis Crockett, would he?’

  ‘I suppose so – I don’t know. Frankie and Horace share a room. They’ve got another bloke living with them now. I think he’s called Jackson or something like it but he won’t be no use to you because he only come here last week.’

  ‘What about one of the others …’ Stratton consulted his notebook, ‘Ernest MacDonald or Jeffrey Royce?’

  ‘They live on the ground floor so they use the lav in the basement.’

  ‘You mean they share it with the …’ Stratton had another look at his notebook, ‘the Tyndall family?’ He could see from the notes that not only did the Tyndalls have four children, there were two other adults and a baby living on the ground floor, as well as Mac-Donald and Royce.

  ‘Well, they’ve got to go somewhere, haven’t they? And up here we’ve got one lav for ten people – and that’s not including Winnie and Eddie’s kid.’

  ‘Winnie and Eddie?’

  ‘They’re the new people in Mr Hampton’s rooms. Coloured couple – moved in a few days ago. Not very nice when the poor old boy’d been murdered like that, but beggars can’t be choosers, can they?’

  ‘Might MacDonald or Royce have been coming up to use the bathroom?’

  ‘What bathroom?’

  ‘Haven’t you got one?’

  ‘Nope.’ Vicky shook her head, her mouth a thin, emphatic line. ‘Some of the rooms got basins, though,’ she added. ‘Wish mine did.’

  ‘Get on with your neighbours all right, do you?’

  Vicky shrugged. ‘Don’t see that much of them, really.’

  ‘What about Mr Hampton?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Did you get on with him?’

  ‘He was all right.’ Vicky uncrossed her arms. ‘Can I go?’

  ‘In a hurry, are you?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Good. Did your client see the man on the landing?’

  ‘Dunno. He never said. And he was coming down the stairs behind me – and, like I said, the bulb’s gone – so I doubt it.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘His name?’ Vicky gave him a scornful look. ‘Well, he said it was John, but it wasn’t his real name so it doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  Vicky shrugged. ‘Like a punter. Bit fat, horn-rimmed glasses … Oh, yeah – he was a kink. Wanted me to give him the cane. That should narrow it down for you,’ she added sarcastically.

  ‘Not one of your regulars, then?’

  ‘Never seen him before in my life.’

  ‘Who lives upstairs with you?’

  ‘Nobody lives with me, but there’s a couple of students next door. They’re English. Posh, arty types.’ Vicky rolled her eyes. ‘Bruce and Jimmy.’

  A glance at his notebook told Stratton that Bruce Massingberd and James Hartree were visiting their families in, respectively, Sunningdale and Bexhill-on-Sea – presumably to give themselves a break from playing at starving artistically in a garret – at the time of Hampton’s death.

  ‘What about this floor?’

  ‘Winnie and Eddie and the baby in there.’ Vicky jerked her head towards the door behind her. ‘And –’ she indicated the door adjacent to it – ‘Bill has that room.’

  Stratton looked at his notebook again. William Harkness was a fifty-year-old railway worker who hadn’t – according to him, his mates and the barman – returned from the Walmer Castle on Ledbury Road until gone eleven. ‘OK. And underneath them, on the first floor, there’s Horace Conroy and Francis Crockett, and who else?’

  ‘Two old girls who run a sweet stall down the market. They’re twins. Should be about because they usually come back for lunch. Lived here for donkey’s years – probably since the place was built.’

  ‘Margery and Mary Lewis?’

  ‘That’s right. And on the ground floor you’ve got Ernie and Jeffrey, and Mr Russell – he’s an old bloke, lives by himself. Then there’s Jean – she’s the Tyndalls’ eldest – and her baby. He’s half-caste – father’s Jamaican. He comes to see her sometimes, but he doesn’t live here. The Tyndalls are down in the basement, with their other four kids, and that’s your lot. Now can I go?’

  When she’d clattered off upstairs Stratton addressed himself to his notebook once more and discovered that, at the time Hampton was killed, Horace and Frankie were at home and so were the Lewis sisters and old Mr Russell. Ernest MacDonald and Jeffrey Royce had gone straight from work for a meal in a cafe, then for a drink in a pub, and then on to a basement club called the Calypso – this was confirmed by three separate sources – and Jean Tyndall had been downstairs with her mum. Her dad had been at the pub – the same one as Harkness, which wasn’t the one patronised by MacDonald and Royce – and had returned home at around half past ten. Jean, Stratton could see fr
om the notes he’d made, was seventeen, and the other Tyndall kids were fifteen, thirteen, ten and five. They’d all been home all evening except for the fifteen-year-old, Tom, who’d been out until around 9 p.m.

  *

  The two rooms occupied by the Lewis twins were, by contrast with the rest of the house, immaculately kept with fresh wallpaper, spotless linoleum and a gleaming collection of china cats. Elderly and identically prune-faced, sitting poker-straight on either side of the gas fire in matching cardigans and slippers, the two women confirmed that they’d been in all evening and had heard Horace and Frank’s record player through the wall. They’d heard people coming and going too, on the stairs, but as Margery – or possibly Mary – pointed out, ‘It’s always noisy, so you don’t pay any attention.’

  ‘And you didn’t speak to anyone else or leave your room at any time?’ asked Stratton.

  ‘Only to make our supper. We prefer our own company. In any case, there’s some here that no decent person would mix with. The Tyndall girl’s got a baby by a coloured man and there’s no sign of him marrying her, and the girl upstairs brings men back every night.’ Margery-or-Mary’s mouth pursed in disapproval.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to her.’

  ‘Then you’ll know exactly what she is.’

  *

  The two rooms shared by Horace Conroy and Frank Crockett were, in reality, one large one divided by a plywood partition, and they weren’t half as well maintained as those of the Lewis sisters. A huge chunk of plaster was missing from one corner of the ceiling, and there was a map of cracks spreading across one wall. It certainly didn’t look big enough for three. A glimpse through the door into the bedroom told Stratton that it contained only two beds with barely a gap in between them. Where did the new arrival – Jackson or whatever his name was – manage to sleep, Stratton wondered. Perhaps the three of them occupied the beds in shifts.

  The few bits of furniture in the main room were shabby: a scarred wooden table and two chairs and an armchair pitted with cigarette burns. Next to this, an orange box with some fabric tacked round it served as a coffee table.

  Conroy himself was tall – about the same as his own six foot three – and slim. He was, Stratton guessed, in his late twenties and had a strong West Indian accent. When Stratton introduced himself he was instantly apprehensive, as if he feared he might be accused of something.