Summer 1931 in seedy Bayswater and James Ross is on his uppers. An aspiring writer whose stories nobody will buy ('It's the slump'), with a landlady harassing him for unpaid rent and occasional sleepless nights spent in the waiting room at King's Cross Station, he is reduced to selling carpet-cleaning lotion door-to-door. His prospects brighten when he meets the glamorous Suzi ('the red hair and the tight jumper weren't a false card: she really was a looker and no mistake'), but their relationship turns out to be a source of increasing bafflement. Who is her boss, the mysterious Mr Rasmussen - whose face bears a startling resemblance to one of the portraits in Police News - and why he so interested in the abandoned premises above the Cornhill jeweller's shop?
Worse, mysterious Mr Haversham from West End Central is starting to take an interest in his affairs. With a brief to keep an eye on Schmiegelow, James finds himself staying incognito at a grand Society weekend at a country house in Sussex, where the truth - about Suzi and her devious employer - comes as an unexpected shock. Set against a backdrop of the 1931 financial crisis and the abandonment of the Gold Standard, acted out in shabby bed-sitters and Lyons tea-shops, At the Chime of a City Clock is an authentic slice of Thirties comedy-noir.
Praise for Kept: A Victorian Mystery:
'Very entertaining and well done, with a sharp appreciation for the details' The Times
'An ingenious tale of madness, murder and deception.' The Guardian
'A stylish page-turner ... all done with humour and cunning.' Sunday Telegraph
Release date:
March 24, 2011
Publisher:
Little, Brown Book Group
Print pages:
160
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The right of D.J. Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Every effort has been made to trace or contact copyright holders prior to publication. If contacted, the publisher will be pleased to rectify any omissions or errors at the
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A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84901-024-5
Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon Printed and bound in the EU
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For John Walsh
A city freeze
Get on your knees
Pray for warmth and green paper
A city drought, you’re down and out
See your trousers don’t taper
Saddle up
Kick your feet
Ride the range of a London street
Travel to a local plane
Turn around and come back again
And at the chime of a city clock
Put up your road block
Hang onto your crown
For a stone in a tin can
Is wealth to a city man
Who leaves his armour down.
NICK DRAKE
Part One
1. Caledonian Road
2. Red Hair, Black Sweater
3. Finsbury Pavement
4. A Day in the Life
5. Saturday Afternoon
6. Unfinished Business
7. White City
8. Primrose Paths
Part Two
9. Brighton Belle
10. Friends and Relations
11. Pimlico to Highbury
12. Seizing the Moment
13. Night and the City
14. Country Life
15. Return to Sender
16. Envoi
Wanted: smart lad (18–20) for clerical duties in fur trade, EC2. Good refs essential. £2.10s p.w. & prospects. Apply: Mr Berkmann, Gant &
Rosenthal, 17b Finsbury Pavement.
Holborn and Farringdon Gazette, 5 August 1931
The dawn came up over the Caledonian Road at about six o’clock. At this point, the life of the street – the part of it near His Majesty’s Prison Pentonville
– that had shown signs of lapsing over the past half-hour began to redouble its pace. The number of cars shuttling back and forth past the mouth of the underground slowly increased. A pair of
heavy lorries went by, three-tonners bound for the meat market at Smithfield. A taxi came crawling around the corner of Brewery Road, carrying home a gang of white-faced tarts to furnished rooms in
Maida Vale. As one kind of commerce came to an end, others were starting up. The door of a lock-up yard stuck between the sides of two grey-fronted houses opened a yard or so into the street and a
costermonger edged into view dragging his empty barrow through the gap. A man in a dirty white apron began to take down the shutters of the cafe thirty yards further away, stacked the shutters in a
neat pile next to the doorway and then brought out a chalked blackboard that read: Teas: 3d; tea and two slices: 6d; kipps: 6d. The sun, trapped for the last half-hour behind a giant
gasometer that aggrandized over the skyline, came suddenly into view, drenching pavement, road, cars and lorries alike in a harsh orange light. It was about twenty past six.
He woke just as the light began seeping through the space at the bottom of the blind. For some reason he hadn’t drawn it down properly the night before. Why was that, he
wondered? The window looked out into the road and you always got the early sun. There had been a snatch of dance music playing in his head – Henry Hall? He couldn’t remember – and
he lay there under the sheet for a moment trying to recapture it, until a little more light seeped in under the blind and the noise of one of the Smithfield lorries jerked him fully awake; this
made him look round wildly and take stock of his surroundings. It was a small room, not more than nine feet square, with the bed jammed into the far corner. As well as the bed it contained a
wash-hand stand, a cupboard, a wardrobe, a gas-ring and a chair. There was a picture on the wall of Carole Lombard in a bathing dress, which had been cut out of Film Fun. His belongings were
piled up on the chair, together with his wallet – he had taken the precaution of hiding this under his jacket – his watch and a packet of Player’s Weights. Wondering if the girl
was awake yet, he slid slowly out from between the covers, balanced himself on the balls of his feet – there was no carpet and he didn’t want a splinter in his toe – and began to
put on his clothes. He’d got the shirt on – there was a collar tag saying ‘T. Harris’, rather than his own name, Leo Merman. But the trousers were only halfway up when she
rolled over and lay on her side to stare at him.
‘What time is it?’
His watch was caught up in the folds of his shirt. ‘It’s jest gone about half-past six.’
‘What’s the hurry then?’
‘Got an appointment,’ he said, a bit importantly, despite himself. ‘Down in the City. Got to see a feller.’
He shot her a good steady look as he said this, just to show her that no woman was going to muck him about. Bending down again for his tie, he found that some of her clothes had got mixed up
with his and started angrily to separate them. F––––g tarts’ clothes messing up his good suit! The idea.
‘Nice,’ she said. She’d found the packet of Player’s Weights and had one lit between her fingers. ‘’Aving a job to go to.’ She was about twenty-two,
rather pale and dark, and barely covered up by the ochre-coloured sheet.
‘Who said anything about having a f––––g job?’
He was a bit disconcerted by the girl. Why didn’t she get up, like himself, and clear off? Women were always hanging around you, nagging away. If she thought she was coming down into the
City with him, she could do the other thing. He had his suit on now. A bit frayed around the elbows maybe, but it would do. In any case, he’d only be there the day, wouldn’t he? The
girl was still smoking the cigarette, one hand holding the sheet against her chest.
‘Ent you going to get me some breakfast?’
He finished pushing the knot of his tie into place and jabbed his thumb towards the window. ‘F––––g caff over the road.’ Seeing the look on her face, he
relented slightly. ‘Can have a cup of tea ’ere if you want. Why don’t you put your clothes on like a good girl and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea?’
There was a sink outside in the hall, next to a cane-backed chair where someone had left a brown-paper parcel that smelt of cat meat. As he filled the kettle he whistled softly through his
teeth. Get down to Finsbury Pavement by nine. See the feller. Do the business with the key to the Thompson and there you were. When he came back into the room the girl was sitting by the cupboard
buttoning up her blouse. He’d met her in a pub in Hoxton where she’d been waiting for her sister to come back from a trip to the Hackney Empire to see Nervo & Knox with her young
man. Somehow he didn’t believe in the sister or the sister’s young man.
‘Here y’are,’ he said with fake jollity, putting the kettle on the gas-ring. ‘Nice cup of ackamaracka in no time.’ He wondered if there was any milk. A brief search
turned up half a bottle in the cupboard. He didn’t know how long it had been there, but it didn’t smell too bad.
‘This tea tastes funny,’ she said, when he had given her the cup. Here in the cold light of morning she seemed less self-possessed. She had a pathetic little cheap handbag –
one of those things you could buy in Petticoat Lane for a florin – and he found himself sneering at it. A real cheap little piece, she was.
‘So what you doing with yourself this morning?’ he asked her. All the time he said it he was looking out of the window at the cars – she’d pulled up the blind while he
was out filling the kettle – and considering his route down into the City.
‘I don’t know. I might go and see my friend in Kensington.’
He wondered whether the friend in Kensington was a tart or one of those girls who couldn’t decide what they were. He’d known plenty of them. He drank another swallow of tea –
it was vile stuff, the colour of burnt umber – and thought again about the route down to Finsbury Pavement. Get on to the Farringdon Road. Then left along Old Street. Take a right along the
City Road, and there you were. All this time he’d barely registered the girl’s presence, but there she was staring at him again.
‘I’ll see you back here then, shall I?’ she said, almost shyly. ‘Later on.’
‘Can’t do that,’ he said, improvising rapidly. ‘This ain’t my place you see. Borrowed it off a mate. Tell you what,’ he went on, blinking furiously,
‘meet me at six. Liverpool Street. Under the clock. Know it?’
‘Course I know it.’
‘Right then. Six o’clock.’ Come six o’clock he’d be with the Bloke, getting his twenty quid. And he wouldn’t be coming back here. No sir. Looking at his watch
he saw it was nearly 7 a.m.. The sun burned suddenly against the curtain-less window and he held up his hand to shield his face. Get the key to the Thompson, whip out the box of tricks and there
you were. No trouble.
‘Seven o’clock,’ he said decisively. ‘Can’t hang around here drinking f––––g tea. You getting the bus down to your friend in
Kensington?’
‘S’pose I might.’
‘You’ll be needing your fare then.’
He saw by the look on her face that she’d counted on him giving her more than the bus fare. Half a quid maybe. Well, she could whistle for that. He could feel the frayed patches on his
suit rubbing against his elbows. Christ! What if they found him out? ‘So long,’ he said, as they stood together on the steps of the house.
‘So long.’
If he had looked back, he would have seen her walk off not in the direction of the bus stop but away east towards Barnsbury. Only he didn’t look back. Instead he plunged south, past the
lines of stationary cars and the cafe with its teas and two slices. F––––g teas and two slices, he told himself as he went by. He’d have a steak tonight, after this
caper was over. He hurried on, thinking of the office in Finsbury Pavement, the twenty quid the Bloke was going to give him that night, and the man whose identity he was about to make his own.
Sound Advice for the Salesman: I. Initiative
Remember! The salesman’s task is to sell himself as well as the product in his demonstration bag. When you have ‘made a sale’ to a satisfied
customer, you may congratulate yourself that this individual has responded to your personality. Even the finest products cannot sell themselves! No, they need your enthusiasm, your
recommendation, your reassurance. So use your initiative! Look closely at the situations in which you find yourself and make them work to your advantage. If the customer has a particular
susceptibility, play on it! If the customer expresses a particular preference, try to match his request. And remember, the customer who refuses your product is also refusing you!
Abraxas Salesman’s Handbook
Fact is, Susie and me getting together was the queerest thing. It was all because of the Cep.
That was what we used to call the demonstrations, seeing that ‘Customer Exposition Programme’ was a bit of a mouthful. Only someone who reckoned on making supervisor said that.
Everyone else made do with ‘Cep’.
It happened this way. By that stage of the summer I was pretty much on my uppers. I’d sold a couple of stories, but one of the magazines had stopped paying and the other wrote to say that
they couldn’t fit it in until Christmas. It was the slump, everyone said. Plus I’d had a run-in with Mrs Fanshawe, the landlady at my digs. There was money owing, too, at the laundry
and half-a-dozen other places. Anyhow, I got talking to this chap I met at the Labour round the back of Shaftesbury Avenue and he said there was a firm in Holborn looking for door-to-doors.
‘Commission job is it?’ I asked – I’d done door-to-doors before and got used to the tricks – but he said no, there was a basic of two quid a week. That bucked me up,
because two quid went a long way, even at Mrs Fanshawe’s, and I was halfway to Holborn before I remembered that I hadn’t asked him what it was that I’d be selling.
Turned out the firm had an office in Doughty Street – the last place you’d expect to find a door-to-door merchant – and pretty soon I was parked in one of those rooms that are
full of tubular chairs and gunmetal filing cabinets, being interviewed by a red-nosed character named Roper, who clearly drank like a fish and had pretty obviously seen better days. ‘Got any
experience of this kind of work?’ he asked, and I said yes, as it happened, I’d sold vacuum cleaners down on the south coast, Bognor way. ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘you
shouldn’t have any trouble with this’, and he reached into a cupboard next to the desk and pulled out what looked like a double-sized milk bottle filled with some sort of pinkish
liquid. ‘Carpet cleaning lotion,’ he said. ‘You spread it over the floor, wait a minute or two for it to dry and then clear it off with a brush and pan. You’d be surprised
what comes up.’
There were some old pieces of carpet on a side table and he told me to have a go, so I shook the bottle in what I hoped was a professional-looking manner – it was thick, runny stuff, like
a milkshake – decanted it over the carpet and then brushed away like billy-oh. It seemed to do the trick, so Roper said he’d give me a fortnight’s trial: twenty-five bob a week
basic – the chap at the Labour had been talking through his hat – and a thirty-three per cent commission. The stuff was seven-and-six a bottle, which worked out at half-a-crown a time.
There was even a sub – five bob – to pay for bus fares to my beat, which was up Kensal Green way somewhere.
‘We never got subs down in Bognor,’ I said.
‘Salesman’s graveyard, that is,’ Roper told me. I couldn’t tell if his hand was shaking or not.
So what with the job, and the five bob in hand, and the hot weather keeping up, I was in a pretty forgiving mood as I sailed up the Harrow Road on a bus with half-a-dozen bottles of the lotion
clinking in the big canvas carry-bag Roper had given me. On the way I read the salesman’s handbook he’d shown me, which was all about calling the customer ‘madam’ and wiping
your feet on the mat, along with some scientific stuff about what went into the lotion and what to do if it got on your skin by mistake. It was gone twelve by the time I arrived at Kensal Green and
half of me was voting for a quick one and a cheese sandwich out of the five bob, but I’d been on the door-to-door before and I knew that the lunch hour is a good time for finding people
in.
And that’s when the trouble started. I tried a dozen doors before one would even open, and another dozen before I could so much as get the lotion out of the case. One old lady did invite
me into her parlour, but it turned out that this was because she wanted to tell someone about her Sealyham dying. Another one got the idea that I was a Jehovah’s Witness and started telling
me about her aunt who was communicating with her from the Other Side, where she was the high priestess of a tribe of natives in the Amazonian rainforest. Finally I lugged the case up the path of
what looked like a boarding house – there were six or seven bells on the door, and someone had left that morning’s Mirror on the mat – and pressed the bottom bell, thinking
that if this one didn’t work I really would go and have a quick one and a cheese sandwich in the pub I could see across the way.
‘Yes?’
She must have been in her mid twenties, red-haired and wearing a black jumper that was a size too small – several sizes if you asked me. A real looker, in other words, and not what you
usually found in Kensal Green on a Tuesday lunchtime.
‘Yes, I suppose we are rather.’ Then she clammed up, leaving me desperately trying to remember what the book said you should do next.
‘Did you know, madam, that over the course of a year the average domestic carpet accumulates more than 3lbs of dirt?’
‘Gracious! That sounds a lot.’
‘Dirt that has a uniquely detrimental effect on the carpet’s fibres. In fact, scientific studies have shown that nearly half of all carpets are affected by a mould-carrying fungus
caused by dirt.’
I had her full attention now and time to appreciate that the red hair and the tight jumper weren’t a false card: she really was a looker and no mistake.
‘Is that what you’re selling? Carpets, I mean.’
‘No, madam. I re. . .
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