The Manor Read online

  To Cliff, who threatens that one of these days

  he’s going to write a book called Living with a Writer . . .

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To all the people – friends, fans, helpers, all of you – who get me up in the top ten bestseller charts, time after time.

  Thanks. It’s appreciated.

  ‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.’

  Abraham Lincoln

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  1980S

  PROLOGUE

  1950S

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  1960S

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  1970S

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  1980S

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Chapter 159

  Chapter 160

  Chapter 161

  Chapter 162

  Epilogue

  1980s

  PROLOGUE

  Belle Barton was learning the true meaning of terror. She was learning that it brought cold sour sweat to your body and hot burning bile to your throat, bile you had to choke back because you couldn’t, you didn’t dare, show how frightened you were. Because he’d love that. He would feed on that. He was watching her, that mocking half-smile on his face. She wanted to lunge at him, to damage him, to make him pay, but she couldn’t. Two big men were holding her still, one on either side of her. She knew them. Had even grown up with one of them. Now, they were her enemies. They were Harlan Stone’s boys, his puppets, his creatures, and they would do exactly what he said. She had no power here. None at all.

  ‘I bet you’re thinking, round about now, that you wish you’d been nicer to me,’ said Harlan.

  Belle stared at him with hatred in her eyes. Sweat trickled into them, making them sting. Outside, thunder rolled. Rain battered the roof. Inside, it was a jungle, wet ferns brushing her legs, humidifiers roaring, the heat crushing and damp, the trickle of small waterfalls a constant noise. Charlie Stone’s reptile house was kitted out with no expense spared. There was a large pond, black, brackish. Things moved in there, but she wasn’t going to think about that.

  Water torture.

  Yes, that was what this was. Belle’s legs were trembling. Her brain was in a panic, like a rat caught in a trap. There had to be a way out of this.

  But there was no way.

  I’m going to die.

  The thought popped into her brain like gas rising out of a bog, bringing a fresh surge of terror with it. She was perched on the edge of the pond, standing on big ornamental rocks, the men holding her there. Water from the domed roof dripped, ran down her face. So wet and hot in here. Hot as hell. Stifling. She thought of her parents then, and pain roared up through her stomach, up into her throat. She was going to be sick.

  ‘Pretty little Belle,’ said Harlan, shaking his head. ‘Bet you wish you’d played ball now, eh? Been nice? But you never were. Were you.’

  Belle glared at him, standing there so elegant; so handsome and calm and in control, with his neatly brushed honey-coloured hair, his pale emotionless grey eyes. While she was barefoot, wearing a tattered rag of a dress, soaked in sweat, her blonde hair plastered to her head. She was scratched and bloody from where they’d dragged her in here. If the men hadn’t been holding her up, she would have collapsed to her knees.

  ‘So go on,’ he said.

  Belle gulped and stared at him. What?

  ‘Go on,’ he said again. ‘Beg me.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Beg me for your life,’ he said.

  Belle looked down at the water. There were things mo
ving in there. Something long slipping in from the opposite side. Eyes, she could see eyes. Reptilian and cold. The powerful swish of a tail. Her mother’s words came back to her then.

  ‘Keeping bloody snakes and lizards and caimans! Only weirdos do that.’

  Caimans.

  Belle knew that Charlie had fed them on whole dead chickens. A caiman was like a crocodile, it could take a pig. They were plenty big enough to do that. They could also take a human being. No bother at all. You needed a licence under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act to keep them, which Charlie had acquired without any difficulty.

  Friends in high places.

  Low places, too.

  Oh Christ help me . . .

  ‘Waiting,’ said Harlan. ‘What do you say, Belle?’ He was smiling.

  ‘I know what you did,’ said Belle.

  ‘Did?’ He frowned. ‘About what?’

  ‘You know very bloody well,’ she said. ‘Beezer. Jake. And the business. The manor. I know what it is.’

  The smile dropped from his face, leaving it blank.

  ‘Throw her in,’ he said.

  1950s

  1

  ‘You’re nicked, my son,’ said the copper, grabbing hold of nine-year-old Charlie Stone’s collar with one beefy hand.

  Terry, Charlie’s best mate, kicked the policeman in the shin and hefted a dead rat at him. It was so ripe, the tail dropped off and its innards spattered the copper’s legs. The stench was horrible.

  ‘You dirty little bastard,’ said the copper, swiping at Terry while trying to keep a grip on Charlie, who was wriggling like an eel.

  Terry darted in and kicked again. The rest of Charlie’s gang had scarpered already, headed back to the den. But Terry wouldn’t desert Charlie. They were a pair, these two. They skived off school together. Went scrumping together. And together – today – they’d shinned over the back gates of the grocer’s and started lobbing apples and pears over the top for their mates to catch.

  Everything had been going good, then this filth had come out the back door of the shop. One of the neighbours must have raised the alarm.

  Terry kicked again.

  ‘Little fucker,’ roared the copper, and let go of Charlie.

  Charlie tore off and scrambled back over the gate and was gone, Terry hot on his heels. The copper snatched at Terry’s short trouser leg but Terry was up, he was over – he was away. Him and Charlie ran off down the street, gasping and laughing fit to bust.

  Charlie Stone was leader of the gang. And their den – his den – was set deep in scrubby woods where the gang met under Charlie’s rule and divvied up their bounty. Bill ‘Beezer’ and little Col Crowley’s father owned a sweet shop where Charlie had spied out a big half-pound box of chocolates set high on a shelf. If Beezer and his little shadow Col wanted to be part of the gang, then that was the price.

  Beezer paid it. The chocolates, the fruit from the grocery store, other things. He robbed stuff out of a few cars, teaching little Col how twocking – take without owner’s consent – worked. Then everything was taken back to the den and laid at Charlie’s feet.

  ‘More,’ said Charlie every time. ‘We need more.’

  They were the Charlie Boys gang, and Charlie was their king. They charged across the old bomb sites on the manor, armed with dustbin lids for shields and wooden swords. Slowly they grew in strength, and purpose, and bulk.

  2

  At fourteen, Charlie found there were plenty of opportunities for theft and he exploited every one of them. The Charlie Boys were now teenage tearaways, villains in the making while the manor was ruled by real gangs, much older and more dangerous. Things were changing. Churchill had resigned and Eden had taken over. Charlie and Terry started boxing a bit, but they had no real talent for it, so Charlie decided crime paid better.

  Charlie was leader, so Terry agreed. Why not? All Charlie’s mad schemes seemed to pay off. They started doing more cars – only nobs, flash gits and doctors had cars, so the pickings were good – and then a few houses. They nearly got caught when they were clearing out some candlesticks and jewellery from one house, but Terry tripped the furious owner up and took a punch in the back of his head that made it spin, just to let Charlie make a clean getaway.

  Afterwards, in the den, when it was only the two of them, Charlie expressed his gratitude.

  ‘He would have caught me,’ he said.

  ‘Nah, you were off on your toes, mate,’ said Terry.

  Charlie’s button-like dark brown eyes held Terry’s. Charlie was a short, solidly built boy, brown-haired and red-faced, while Terry was thinner, taller. With his red-blond hair and green eyes, he was shaping up to be a good-looking man one day.

  ‘That ain’t the truth,’ said Charlie. ‘The truth is, Tel, you saved my arse, and I’m grateful.’

  ‘It was nothing.’ Charlie was Terry’s mate, had been ever since the cradle. They were war babies, tough as old boots, the pair of them. He’d fall under a bus for Charlie, gladly. ‘My job, innit? I’m number two, so I protect number one, don’t I? Simple as that.’

  ‘Yeah, I s’pose.’

  Terry eyed his mate. ‘Forever, Charlie. I’ll always look out for you. You know that.’

  ‘Forever,’ echoed Charlie, and held out his hand. ‘We’re going to run this whole fucking manor, Tel. You and me mate. Together. You see if we don’t.’

  Terry shook Charlie’s hand. ‘Forever,’ he said.

  And that was it.

  The pact was sealed, the deal done.

  1960s

  3

  At nineteen, Charlie Stone and his mob were Teddy boys, getting into all sorts, slouching around in the new coffee bars with their duck’s-arse hairdos and brothel-creeper shoes, lounging around in the cane furniture surrounded by rubber plants and big-skirted girls while listening to Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard on the juke. Charlie’s ideas were getting bigger and better all the time. They were pretty well off now, Charlie and his crew, and they were dangerous enough for Charlie to receive a warning off one of the big boys, Gordie Howard, a Scottish loan shark who’d beaten back fierce competition from the Maltese and who now ruled the manor.

  Charlie and Terry came out of the Palais one night and instantly they were set upon. Charlie was taken down an alley by two men and given the thumping of his life while another two blokes held onto Terry.

  Finally, humiliatingly, Gordie held a battered Charlie down on his knees and pointed an old WW1 bayonet at his throat.

  ‘You see this, ya cunt?’ he asked in his thick Glasgow accent.

  Charlie could barely nod his head, he was that beaten. He spat out a tooth. ‘What’s that then? A fucking butter knife?’

  ‘Clever bastard, aintcha? Well next time I see your fat grinning ugly mug, I’ll slice you open with it, you got me, pal?’

  Charlie stared up at him.

  Gordie pressed the bayonet harder against Charlie’s neck.

  ‘I said, you got me?’ he snarled.

  Charlie had to nod or die.

  He nodded.

  Afterwards, Terry helped Charlie home where his mother Joan threw a fit. Charlie was patched up and put to bed. Next day, Joan was ranting that they should call the police, but Charlie – through a swollen jaw and several broken teeth – insisted it was nothing, a bit of a ruckus, forget it.

  When she left his bedside and only Terry was beside him, Charlie said: ‘I’m going to kill that cunt Howard.’

  ‘Just rest up, Charlie.’

  ‘I mean it. That arsehole thinks he’s the big noise around here? He’s joking. He ain’t even English. I’m a Cockney. Born to the sound of Bow Bells. These streets, this manor, they ought to be mine. I got enough foot soldiers to crush that cunt and I’m going to do it.’

  Terry felt bad. He’d been right there, on the spot, but unable to help. Helping Charlie was his job in life, he’d given his word on that. And he’d failed.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he said, feeling uneasy. Around Charlie, things moved fast. To
o fast, he thought. He wasn’t sure, as Charlie was, of their capabilities when it came to mixing it with the big gangs.

  ‘We’ll do it together,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Yeah. But rest up first, OK?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll do that.’

  4

  When she was seventeen, Nula Perkins fell in love with nineteen-year-old Terry Barton, Charlie Stone’s handsome number two. How it happened was like this: she went ballroom dancing with her brother, who got off with the girls while she sat there alone at the edge of the dance floor listening to song after endless song and being thoroughly ignored. Finally Jim Reeves was crooning out the last number of the night – the smoochy one where couples always got together. Couples, but not her. She sat there, red-faced, a failure. Somehow she wrenched herself out of her seat midway through the song and went into the bogs and cried. When she came out, teary-eyed and blotchy, Terry Barton was standing there.

  ‘Want to dance?’ he asked.

  She was so grateful. And she fell for him, right then and there, because with her mousy hair and her big nose she was no looker – and she knew it. Terry was being kind; he’d rescued her from an embarrassing situation.

  Of course, he didn’t linger. Once the dance was over he was out the door like a shot, with not a single glance back in her direction. She watched him peel out of there with a group of young men, at the head of which was short, bulky, hard-eyed Charlie Stone. Charlie Stone was always in the lead and, wherever Charlie went, it seemed Terry Barton was never far behind.

  Still, Terry had turned her disaster of an evening – and oh yes, she’d seen her big brother laughing at her with his mates and their girlfriends as she sat there, her face burning with shame – into a good one.

  ‘You want to watch him,’ said her brother Jimmy on the drive home in his cream Ford Anglia, which shuddered as it went round corners. Its heater was clattering and throwing out no real heat at all.

  ‘Who?’ Nula asked.

  ‘Come on!’ Jimmy shot her a laughing glance. ‘Terry fucking Barton. He’s in with a bad lot.’

  ‘What, you talking about Charlie Stone?’

  ‘Course I bloody am. You don’t want to fuck around with that crowd, believe me.’