Last Rights Read online

  Last Rights

  Barbara Nadel

  Copyright © 2005 Barbara Nadel

  The right of Barbara Nadel to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 0 7553 7851 7

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Also by Barbara Nadel

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Note to reader

  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

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Trained as an actress, Barbara Nadel used to work in mental health services. Born in the East End of London, she now writes full time and has been a regular visitor to Turkey for over twenty years. She received the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger for her novel Deadly Web in 2005. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed Inspector İkmen series set during World War Two.

  Praise for Last Rights:

  ‘Nadel has made a sizeable impact on the crime and mystery field with her fascinating series of thrillers set in Istanbul . . . Her new series, set during the London blitz, ably navigates different psychological waters; it conjures up a moving character in Francis Hancock . . . A great depiction of the period and a touchingly reluctant new sleuth’ Guardian

  ‘Gripping and unusual detective story . . . vivid and poignant’ Literary Review

  ‘Nadel has created an atmospheric setting and a fascinating insight into the lives of Londoners struggling against the Luftwaffe’s nightly onslaught. The book’s intelligent original theme and empathetic characterization make for a compelling read’ Good Book Guide

  ‘Excellent’ Birmingham Post

  Praise for Barbara Nadel:

  ‘The delight of the Nadel book is the sense of being taken beneath the surface of an ancient city which most visitors see for a few days at most. We look into the alleyways and curious dark quartiers of Istanbul, full of complex characters and louche atmosphere’ Independent

  ‘This is an extraordinarily interesting first novel’ Evening Standard

  ‘Belshazzar’s Daughter, with its brilliantly realised Istanbul setting and innovative protagonist was a hard act to follow. But she pulls off the trick triumphantly’ The Times

  ‘Inspector Çetin kmen is a detective up there with Morse, Rebus and Wexford. Harem is the fifth in the series, and the most compelling to date . . . Gripping and highly recommended’ Time Out

  ‘One of the most intriguing detectives in contemporary crime fiction . . . The backdrop of Istanbul makes for a fantastic setting’ Mail On Sunday

  ‘Unusual and very well-written’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Intriguing, exotic . . . exciting, accomplished and original’ Literary Review

  ‘A bewitching style . . . a story that carries the reader forward willingly along until the well-sprung denouement’ Scotsman

  ‘As before, Nadel presents a gallery of richly created characters along with the superb scene-setting we have come to expect from her’ Good Book Guide.

  Also by Barbara Nadel

  The Inspector kmen series:

  Belshazzar’s Daughter

  A Chemical Prison

  Arabesk

  Deep Waters

  Harem

  Petrified

  Deadly Web

  Dance with Death

  A Passion for Killing

  Pretty Dead Things

  River of the Dead

  Death by Design

  A Noble Killing

  Dead of Night

  The Hancock series:

  Last Rights

  After the Mourning

  Ashes to Ashes

  Sure and Certain Death

  To my dad.

  Although he’s been dead for almost four years now,

  I couldn’t have written this book without him.

  Acknowledgements

  This book was an entirely new, unknown and scary venture for me and I have been fortunate in having had a lot of help from a lot of people. Ron Hart, Publicity Officer of the East of London Family History Society, was a great help. He readily shared some of his wartime experiences with me and put me in touch with others who also had great tales to tell. Foremost amongst these were Sylvia Ramage, Ivy Alexander and Eric Vanlint. Ivy and Eric were also kind enough to give me copies of their books Maid in West Ham and While Pigeons Cooed in Hackney Wick respectively – both of which were most useful. I would also like to thank Sharon Grimmond from the New Deal for Communities and her very welcoming History Committee.

  Michael Grier, Community Relations Manager at Tate and Lyle was kind enough to show me around part of the plant and allow me access to the company archives. Steve Maltz of London Jewish Tours was also a mine of information as well as being a very entertaining fellow walker. Susie, Philip and Pam at the Spitalfields Centre have my undying thanks for introducing me to 19 Princelet Street – a truly life altering experience. I also have to thank the Newham Bookshop for the help they gave me when I needed it and just for being there with the right books when I didn’t.

  Brian Parsons PhD is a funeral service educator and author of the book The London Way of Death. He answered many often badly couched questions for me and was a mine of funeral service information. Thanks to him.

  My family, both the living and the dead, were crucial to this project. Thanks especially to my mother for her memories, to my son for his vision and my husband for his patience. Finally, thanks also to my agent, Juliet Burton and my editor at Headline, Martin Fletcher.

  N.B. Readers unfamiliar with words or expressions used in this novel can turn to the Glossary at the end of the Ebook.

  Chapter One

  Ever seen a man’s face smashed in? It explodes. I’ve seen it done with bullets more times than anyone should. Going up, over the top, mud in your mouth, your eyes, your ears. The bloke next to you pokes his head over and then, bang! A bullet, one of Jerry’s, one of ours sometimes, it hardly matters when his brains are all over your battledress. Not this time, though. This time I could see it was a fist. Burrowing into his nose, a big, hard docker’s fist, pushing straight through to the back of the poor bloke’s head.

  I screamed. Bombs hammering down all around us, Canning Town, Silvertown, Custom House – every bloody inch of London’s docklands – but th
ey heard me. Men with faces like sweat-slicked potatoes. They turned and saw a thin, dark man in the shadow of one of the trees, a man shaking from his hat to his boots.

  You hear some people say that war is different now. They say that with all the bombing it’s not the same as what happened in the first lot. They say it’s worse. Depends on how you see war, I suppose. For me there’s no difference. When I was in the trenches in the Great War, people died. Now people are dying again. Not only soldiers this time, I’ll grant you, ordinary men, women and kiddies. But at the end of the day I wonder what’s the difference. People talk about the old Kaiser being better than Adolf Hitler and I don’t know about that either. I was twenty when I went off to fight for King and Empire, just a nipper in the scheme of things. I grew up, grew old and most of me died out there in the mud.

  ‘Who’s there?’ one of the potatoes said.

  Somebody ran over to me and looked into my face. I couldn’t move, not with the terror on me. He was small, the one who came over, and even through my fear I knew I could have had him if I’d needed to. But then he smiled. Middle of the night, but I could see every inch of his leathery old face thanks to all the fireworks down at the docks.

  ‘Aw, it’s only the Morgue’s son,’ the old man said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  ‘What? The wog?’

  ‘Yus.’

  And then they all laughed. Because it was funny.

  So how did the ‘Morgue’s son’ come to be shaking in his boots on the edge of a bare-knuckle fight in a graveyard in East Ham? I don’t know any more than anyone else. All I do know is that ever since all this bombing started on the seventh of the month, this is what I’ve had to do. I’d known it was coming. Ever since Dunkirk I’ve woken up shaking. Seems almost unbelievable all that happened only back in June. Even the weather’s gone off now, as if we’ve suddenly crashed into winter before autumn’s really out. Thrown down into the darkness . . .

  But, anyway, this raid started and I had to get out same as always. My mum, my sisters and our apprentice boy Arthur went down the Anderson shelter in the yard. But it’s like the trenches down there – bombs going off in your head, blood dripping down the side of your brain. I ran. I had to get out of it and I ran. It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I do.

  That I ended up in a graveyard was funny. St Mary Magdalene’s is an ancient, creepy one too. Half the tombs are broken and sinking, and in places there are weeds up to your neck. All dressed in black, my top hat with its veil on my head, I must have looked like something out of a ghost story.

  ‘Your dad buried my mum,’ one of the potatoes said, as he took his cap off his head to show respect. ‘Done her handsome.’

  I tried to thank him but nothing would come out. When I run like this, my mind sort of goes back to the first lot, and while I’m there I don’t know what I might be doing here. And even when it stops, as it had done when the men spoke to me, I’m still not right. My sister Aggie’s old man used to say I was a basket case – and that was before any of this madness was even on the cards. Sometimes he’d say it to my face.

  The man whose mug had caved in came over to look at me. He was holding something up to his nose to catch the blood. I think it was a vest.

  ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘Gone bleedin’ white by the look of him.’

  The men laughed again – and so did I. You have to.

  ‘What you doin’ out here, Mr H?’ It was a familiar voice, although I couldn’t for the life of me place it at the time.

  ‘I-I-I went for a walk,’ I stuttered. I hate it when I do that.

  ‘Funny time to go strolling,’ another voice cut in, ‘in the middle of a raid. Do this often, do you?’

  ‘Y-yee . . .’

  ‘Does it all the time so I’ve heard. Barmy!’ someone else said, and they all laughed yet again.

  Barmy. Yes. There’s so much about me that is barmy. Funny, really, when you look at it. Francis Thomas Hancock, old soldier at forty-seven, undertaker, wog – out of his tiny mind.

  There was one of those long whistling sounds then and a breathless moment before the bomb hit something close. Like I imagine an earthquake, like the endless pounding of the guns in the trenches.

  ‘Blimey, that was close!’

  ‘I think that’s going to be that for tonight, gents,’ someone said.

  Men, some of them bloodied, started to walk towards the cemetery gates. The old leather-faced geezer, still in front of me, said, ‘Come on, Mr H, get you ’ome. Don’t want to have to answer questions from no nosy coppers or none of them bleedin’ wardens, do we?’ He took one of my elbows in his hand and led me on behind the others.

  I’d heard that bare-knuckle fights sometimes took place in graveyards at night – you pick up whispers about such things in my trade – but I hadn’t expected to come across one during a raid. Not that I’d ever really thought about coming on one at all. I’m not a betting man myself. There’s enough risk in life without courting it.

  When we got out on to High Street South, the old fellow let my arm go and pushed ahead. Suddenly I was totally alone. I stopped. There had to have been at least thirty men at the fight, but as I began slowly to walk back up towards the Barking Road, in the general direction of my home, I couldn’t see a soul. Funny that, in the middle of a raid, no one about. Of course, most people were down the shelters or hiding under their stairs. You would’ve thought you’d see police and firemen and wardens about, though – at least, that’s what I’d thought before the raids got going. But there couldn’t ever be enough of them: the fires and the destruction are like the end of the world, what can they do?

  When I think about it now, I suppose I don’t know what I thought it would be like coming under attack from the Germans by air. In the first lot you could see their faces, frightened just like ours, scrambling to their deaths over the top of the trenches. But at such a distance it’s different. Faceless machines come, drop bombs, people die. And yet in spite of this you get up, go to work and carry on – at least, that’s what we’ve done so far. But not in a normal way. Normal ways for me used to include going to the house of the deceased, sometimes, sometimes not, laying them out and then burying them – not being given a head and a bag of bits by some copper telling me to ‘Cobble this bloke together for his family, will you, Mr H?’

  And they call me mad . . .

  It was only a matter of a couple of minutes later when I met him. Lurching, just like I was, over piles of something that had once been someone’s home. The sky was red and yellow with him silhouetted black against the beauty of the bombing. If he hadn’t been waving his arms around so much, I wouldn’t have taken any notice of him. But he was, and even though I don’t always stop and help – you can’t – this time I did. Perhaps I thought he was raving. There’s a sort of bond between madmen that almost forces you to get involved. I was in a couple of hospitals during the first lot. Gassed twice. But I knew who my own were in those places. They were the ones who ran like me, who howled and screamed like this chap now.

  As I got closer to him, I could hear that he was shouting something. And even though I knew he wouldn’t be able to hear me any more than I could hear him, I said, ‘It’s all right, pal, I’m coming.’

  I don’t know how old I thought he was at the time. Flames always, in my experience, draw the features down making people look much older. What I did know was that he was in trouble. He kept clawing at his chest as if there was something in there he wanted rid of.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve been fucking stabbed!’ He was a Londoner, I could tell from his voice, and now that I was next to him I could see that he was dark. Black hair and a long, thin nose. I thought that maybe he was a Jew – either that or he was like me, us not being unlike each other.

  ‘Stabbed? How?’

  It was bright now, the ground lit by I don’t know how many fires, some madness going on in the sky. Like daylight some of the raids, like the world melting into white heat.
He was dirty, covered in brick-dust, and his hair was reeking of cordite, just like mine must have been, but I couldn’t see any blood on him.

  Mad.

  ‘Look here!’ he said, and he moved his hand away from his chest. ‘Look at it, there!’

  There wasn’t much blood. Not like an artery hit or anything like that.

  ‘Nasty flesh wound is all you’ve got,’ I said.

  One thin, sinewy hand reached out and grabbed me by the collar. ‘She fucking stabbed me, I tell you,’ he said, through gritted teeth.

  ‘Hold on!’

  His breath smelled of beer and there were gaps in his mouth where some of his teeth had once been. A fighter, maybe even one of them I’d just come upon in the graveyard. I didn’t recognise him, but I wouldn’t have recognised any of them at the time had my life depended on it. What I wouldn’t forget, though, even in my dreams, was the look of hatred on his face as he turned away from me with a curse. ‘Fucking whore!’

  And then he was off. He pushed past me, skidding down a pile of bricks, heading for Beckton and the real heart of the inferno. To be honest, I didn’t try and stop him. I knew he was hurt, but he was in the grip of something too – and I know all about that and how unwise it can be to interfere with it. Sometimes helping those in the grip of madness can be worse than just letting the thing take its course. But then sometimes you read the situation wrong and it all goes phut. So I made my way home. I didn’t see the man with hate on his face and beer on his breath again until two days later when he turned up unexpectedly at my shop.

  Chapter Two

  Hancocks have been burying people in the London Borough of West Ham for two generations, three if you count me. Apart from the Hitchcocks’ firm, which also has premises on the Barking Road, I think we’re the oldest undertaker’s shop around these parts. My grandad, Francis, who I’m named for, started the company in 1885. Back in those days Hancock’s was a building firm as well as an undertaker’s, but Francis got out of the bricking and chippying around the turn of the century. So when Grandad died in 1913, my old dad took over the burying of poor men and women for a living. Because our shop is, and always has been, roughly at the centre of the borough, we’ve always got business from all over. And although in more recent years other firms have opened up in Stratford, Plaistow and further down towards the docks around Canning Town, we’ve managed to stay close to the people we serve.