“We’ll do our best to keep our eyes open as we go as well, of course. If we find something, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Thanks,” Ray said, and Joseph added his gratitude as well, before they left Sean to return to his preliminary investigations.
“It’s a bit of a state,” Joseph said, mainly just so he had something to say.
“Let’s hope Sean can dig something out of it. We should probably clear out of here. Leave them all to it. I want to shift our focus a little bit.”
“Where to?”
“Tommy Jay.”
“Do you believe he could be involved?”
“He has his fingers on the pulse of the underbelly of these parts. More than we do, perhaps. With that in mind, I reckon that even if he isn’t involved, he’s going to be dead set on finding out who was.”
“You think he might be able to get some sort of leverage out of it?” Joseph knew as well as Ray did that Tommy Jay didn’t do anything that didn’t have a payoff.
“If there’s a killer working these docks, I imagine that they want to keep that secret at all costs. Getting found out would put them right in Tommy Jay’s debt.”
“That’s an understatement. Do you want to go speak to him?”
“I think we’d be best just watching for a while. Hole up somewhere nearby, watch who comes and goes for a little while. Anyone we like the look of, we can follow.”
Joseph was about to agree and suggest they head back to the car when a shout from Derek Nadderley’s office interrupted them.
“You pair. I thought you’d be done here now?” he called angrily down to them from the platform.
“Just keeping tabs on the Fire Brigade’s investigation, Mr Nadderley,” Ray replied. “All standard procedure. Don’t worry, we’re not here to tie up any more of your resources.”
“My resources are lying in bleeding cinders over there. You know how long they reckon it’ll be before we’re back up to speed? Bloody months. I’m going to have to start laying some of the lads off just to keep the rest of the place going. We could be shut down before the spring.”
Joseph took a deep breath and thought about shouting back before doubt crept in, his mouth already open. He saw Derek look at him, waiting for the retort. Joseph’s mind flashed back to taking off the underwear. The shame he’d felt for failing Dziko. He had to stand up for himself this time. “Don’t blame us, sir. Blame whoever killed one of your workers and set fire to your warehouse.”
He could barely believe he’d managed to say it. He’d nearly stumbled over every word he’d uttered, but it appeared to surprise Derek who tilted his head to the side and straightened up slightly.
“Finally got the monkey going and not just the grinder, then,” he said eventually through gritted teeth. “Things must be getting bloody bleak.”
“I take it you’ve nothing of use for our investigation, Mr Nadderley? Nothing that could speed up the process?” Ray asked.
“Nothing. Same as you lot.”
“Thanks, Mr Nadderley. We’ll see each other soon, I’m sure.”
“I bloody hope not,” Derek said, sneering down from his perch as they began to leave.
Joseph turned back as they reached the gate. Derek remained in place, his eyes on them. “He’s really not happy with us, is he?”
“Not even remotely. I get it, though. He’s under pressure, like we are. We all need to get this moving. Get results. Otherwise, we’re deemed surplus. Him and us. Believe me, he knows it’s not just other people he’ll be laying off. If he can’t get this place up to speed, he’ll be out on his rear as well.”
Joseph hadn’t contemplated that Derek’s position might become untenable until now. Suddenly, it all started to make a lot more sense. The docks were his responsibility, so if they weren’t working, he would carry the can. Someone had been murdered. A warehouse had been burned down. Both on his shift. What’s more, sooner or later it would become public knowledge that he had been off site, with a prostitute, at the time the murder occurred. If he still had a job after all that, he would be very lucky indeed. “I never thought about all that. I feel a bit bad for him now.”
“Don’t feel too bad. The bloke is still a miserable, racist so-and-so,” Ray offered a consolatory smile. “Losing his job might be what he deserves, in truth.”
“If we started firing all the people who were racist…” Joseph began.
“We’d have a much better world,” Ray didn’t give him the chance to finish the sentence. “Times are a-changing. That’s what it says in that song, anyhow. And I don’t particularly feel inclined to disagree with the sentiment. People like Derek, they’re for the past. Same as me and you. We’re yesterday’s news, even as young as you are. We can’t make a change that will happen now for us, can’t make them things right overnight. But we can make sure that when the kids today are our age, it’s better. Then they do the same. Never lose sight of that.”
“That sounds a little depressing,” Joseph said as they reached the car.
“That’s because you don’t have kids yet. Trust me, moment you do, world stops being yours and passes to them.” Ray pulled the door open. “Right now, we need to focus on cleaning up this one mess. I want to know what Tommy Jay is up to.”
19.
Ray and Joseph’s stake-out of Tommy Jay had begun with sources. They had cruised around Charlton, looking for familiar faces, asking just one question: “Where’s Tommy Jay today?” Ray Cribbs had been a fixture of Woolwich CID for a number of years. He knew plenty of people on both sides of the law. Some wanted to help readily. Others wanted to know what was in it for them. Ray had a fine-tuned radar for knowing who was stringing him along. Not that many tried.
The information they’d received as they drove the streets of South London ultimately led them to the very west edge of Tommy Jay’s territory, marked by Deptford Creek. Beyond that, control of the docks slipped into the hands of Christopher Peters. The two men, despite their shared occupation, couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Tommy Jay was the face of modern London. He owned nightclubs, wore the latest threads, spoke like the pop idols and movie stars on TV. Christopher Peters, on the other hand, styled himself on the age of the Empire. The Britain that had been and gone. Where Tommy Jay’s legal fronts were bars and clubs, Peters indulged in antiques from all corners of the globe. Another very plausible cover for someone who wanted to be able to smuggle things in and out of the country via the Thames.
Joseph’s interactions with Peters had been few and far between. There had been a brief introduction early in his days as Ray’s partner, as they’d taken a tour of their patch. Peters had stepped out of his Daimler limousine, beelining for the two of them and clasping first Ray and then the “new fellow’s” hands as he introduced himself. The story he gave, of being a humble trader in the local area, who longed for the south side of the Thames to thrive, was very different to the one Ray had painted later. Peters, in Ray’s mind, was a cunning villain who believed that his place at the top of the table should be assured on account of his superior breeding. Peters made a great deal of his direct relationship to the Baron of Bermondsey, being sure to tell Joseph of it when they first met. It probably sounded impressive in certain circles. It meant nothing to Joseph.
The Deptford Creek was a thin strip of water, dirty and oily, that oozed rather than flowed down to the Thames, separating the two men’s territories. It carried all manner of detritus from the wharfs and works that sprang up on either side. At the very mouth of the creek stood Deptford Power Station, its three chimneys rising up in amongst the cranes of the docks, smoke idling from the stacks. Each one corresponded to a single plant, the three of which made up the whole site, where the filth from the creek met the filthier river. Joseph wondered what manner of secrets lay hidden in the grimy water. If it weren’t for the aptly named Creek Bridge that crossed it, Joseph could easily imagine it being impregnable. No one would ever willingly enter it.
Tommy Jay owned a warehouse near where the railway crossed the creek on the lifting bridge. The word on the street pointed to him being there. The bridge itself had only been in place a couple of years, although earlier versions of the lifting bridge had existed since the mid-1800s. With the creek being tidal, higher tides meant that many of the barges that used the creek were too tall to fit under the railway. Four tall metal towers stood on concrete pillars sunk into the creek bed. At the top they housed the motor that would raise the section of track they surrounded, leaving sufficient space for the boats below to pass. Right now, the tide was out, the bridge was down. No need for any trains passing by to stop and wait.
The northern platform at Greenwich Station stretched long enough that with their heads poking over the wall, Ray and Joseph could see straight down to the front door of the warehouse. Joseph flexed his fingers to help keep the circulation going as he clung to the cold brick.
“You’d think they’d have realised people could be looking down on them from here,” Joseph pointed out.
“Most folk on train platforms are only in the process of moving from one place to the next. Their eyes are down the track waiting for their train to come. Or maybe they’re idly chatting to one another. But I can’t imagine many are doing their best ‘Mr Chad’.” Ray made his point sound reasonable.
