Gordon Ferris - The Unquiet heart

“… charming,” she finished.

We slithered among the silk and satin cushions, and Mary smiled at us as she poured the tea.

“Danny say you write in paper. Not ’bout us!”

“No, no. Mary. I promise you. I just need some help. Some advice.”

“I got advice. Stop. Don’t you go looking for trouble. Enough come to you.”

“It’s my job, Mary. All I want is to get a little closer to the action. Danny tells me you know everything that’s going on in…”

“… in bad part of town? That what you mean? Sure, lady. I got best ears in business.” She giggled, which might have looked charming in someone half her age. Though with her tiny physique, her black wig and her thick painted face, I couldn’t begin to put a year on Mary.

“Mary, one thing before we get started. I know how much you like silk…” I glanced round the room. “The redder the better, eh? Do you mind telling me where you get it?”

She screwed up her face so that her eyes became cunning slits.

“Why you interested, Danny? I paid all this.” She swept her hand round the room festooned with shiny hangings.

“I’m sure you paid for it, Mary. But maybe not full price. I’m not going to report you and this is off the record for Eve here. A customer of mine keeps losing some silk. I want to know where it turns up. I have my suspicions.”

Mary sat thinking for a second or two. “OK, Danny I trust you. But if I get in trouble ’cos you, then I send boys to cut off balls, OK?”

I coughed and dodged Eve’s stifled laugh. “Fair enough, Mary. What do you know?”

“Place in Whitechapel. On top of shop. Always got plenty stuff. Got stall in Petticoat Lane, but that rubbish. Good stuff, you need to know right man.” She tapped her head indicating she was in the know.

“Do you have a name, Mary? Just between these four walls. Promise.”

“I tell.” She shrugged. “No do you good. Big top guy too big to touch. Gamba, they call him.”

“Gamba? Gambatti? Pauli Gambatti?”

I whistled but it was no surprise. Gambatti had his finger in every dirty pie from Stepney in the east to Gray’s Inn in the west, and from the Thames up through Whitechapel and Bethnal Green to Hackney in the north. The western edge of his territory collided – in frequent bloody disputes – with Jonny Crane, boss of Soho and Holborn. His patch covered the warehouse area of Wapping. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Eve’s face. Her eyes were alight and her teeth were bared.

“Know him?” I asked her.

“I know of him. A name that comes up a lot in conversation. But I’ve never been able to use it in a story. He’s got expensive lawyers.”

I left it at that. We drank more tea, and Mary told us of dark rooms where poker was played, drinking dens that were open all hours, dog races where both dogs and punters were drugged, and pubs where you could arrange for a business rival or straying spouse to be fixed – permanently if required – for less than fifty quid. Eve wrote and wrote and when we emerged Soho was dipped in a golden glow from the last of the sun, and Mama Mary had broken off twice to welcome her first guests of the day to the pleasure palace: men dropping by on their way home from work.

“I need a drink,” Eve said as we stumbled into the light.

“As long as it’s not tea.”

“Never. I will never drink another cup of tea.”

“I know a place.” I checked my watch. “And they’re open in ten minutes.”

I steered her through Soho noting the subtle changes that were taking place.

Lights coming on in dark doorways, bouncers rolling their shoulders, heavily made-up girls beginning their patrols. The streets were filling with men with hats pulled down despite the early summer warmth. As we walked, we touched occasionally; I even held her arm from time to time to see her across a road or past a pushy procurer. She didn’t seem to mind.

We joined a small queue outside the Dog and Duck in Greek Street. Neither of us looked at each other, not wishing to advertise our need. At exactly six o’clock the bolts rattled; the door gaped open and a rush of stale air wafted over us. I got us drinks and led the way upstairs. We were the only customers in the small dark room. It smelled of two hundred years of beer and smoke.

“Cheers!” I raised my pint glass.

She smiled and clinked her vodka and lemonade. “Cheers, Danny. Thank you. I liked Mary.”

“She’s a tough little cookie, but honest. As honest as a madam can be, I suppose.”

“She seems to like you.”

“I told you, we helped each other.”

“But I’m not sure if I got anything that will make my readers sit up and buy more papers.” She took out her notebook – a black leather-bound pad that fitted into her raincoat pocket. She flicked through it, frowning. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be ungrateful. It’s just I need more…”

“… excitement? Look, if you’re up to it, we could grab a bite and then try one of the clubs or illegal bars. I think I can get us in.”

She shook her head, and I felt curiously let down at the prospect of saying goodnight.

“I can make something of it.” She raised her hand and drew a headline in the air. “Illicit gambling den! All-night bars of Soho! But it’s been done. And everybody knows it goes on. I need action. Bring me the head of a gangster,” she challenged. “Crime boss captured in shoot-out. That’s what makes the news.”

“If only we had Prohibition.” I sat back and examined her, trying to see the situation dispassionately, as if what I was about to suggest was simply business. I digested her quirky features – nose too long, eyes too big and mouth too full. Some women – not always the prettiest – set your blood racing. You want to do foolish things in front of them to keep their interest: cartwheels, picking fights with strangers, robbing a jewellery store. Eve had that quality.

I wanted to impress her, to keep her near me.

Yet I knew nothing about this woman. I looked down at my beer and tried to picture her climbing a wall, running for cover, perhaps swimming for her life. I thought of the agents I’d worked with – women so brave and selfless it made you feel namby-pamby. Was she up to their mark? No one ever knows until they’re tested. And by then it’s too late.

But Eve Copeland seemed to have fire in her belly. Look what she had achieved.

And the way she’d sought me out. It said a lot about her determination. I lifted my gaze again into her questioning eyes. Unless I had failed to get the measure of her, I’d seen this sort of steel in only a few people in my life.

“Are you scared of water?” I asked.

“I’m a fish. You should see me at the Lido.”

“I’d like to.’ I smiled at the thought. “OK in boats?”

“Big ones or little ones?”

“Little to start with. Can you take a risk?”

“Life’s a risk. What is it?!”

“What I’m about to propose is dangerous. You could get hurt… badly. Depends what we run into. Who we run into.”

“Are you going to tell me before I start screaming?”

“There’s going to be a raid. On a warehouse.”

She was sitting forward now, her dark eyes gleaming. “That’s more like it.” She looked round the empty bar and lowered her voice theatrically. “Tell me more.”

“Bales of silk. Mary described the end result. We’ll have a ringside seat at the start. The warehouse owner’s being robbed blind. Tomorrow there’s a fresh shipment in from Holland on the goods ship Clever Girl. I’m going to try to stop them.”

“Count me in!”

“There’s one thing. Mary mentioned a name. It shook you. Pauli Gambatti. I think he’s behind this. If he is, he won’t be happy. In fact he’ll go berserk. And he’ll know you were on the inside if you write the story. Still want in?”