Sneak preview ~ A Dish Best Served Cold

You may have noticed that I’ve been quiet for the last couple of weeks. This is partly down to a horrible cold and a great deal of snuggling under a blanket, feeling sorry for myself whilst coughing and sneezing. I have also been busy reading through proofs and approving cover designs for my next novel, A Dish Best Served Cold. The book is set in Southampton in 1935 and features, amongst other things, a famous gold robbery at Croydon Airport. I promise I will tell you more about the research that went into this book later, but for now, I will give you a sneak preview to whet your appetite.

1 – Tuesday 8 January 1935

Bert sat on the old quay wall and watched the gulls wrangling amongst themselves. The chill of the rugged stone seeped through his trousers, but his thick fisherman’s jumper kept the rest of him warm. The sun had risen now, but the sharp frost would cling to the shadows for a while yet. He lit a cigarette, lifted his face to the brightening sky, and let out a long sigh. 

He had left home earlier than usual because Hetty was in a lather over someone breaking Yaffi Goldstrom’s window. It was likely to be kids mucking around, but she was insufferable when she got riled. Frank had made things worse by blaming the fascists, and Sam was in a state because he imagined he’d seen Arthur Fisk. Then there was Percy. He was bound to be melancholy today, and a moody Percy was heavy going. All this was without Maisie’s dramas. She was her mother’s daughter, sixteen going on twenty-five, and more mouth than a cow’s got udder. It was as if he was in the eye of a storm, and he didn’t like it.

The world was full of problems. There was no need to go searching for things to worry over. For a start, there were the poor sods on the dole. Every day, men in tattered rags sloped down to his wharf to ask if he had any jobs. The poor buggers were afraid to meet his eye. He hated to turn them away, but what else could he do? Millions of men were unemployed. He couldn’t find work for all of them. The only growth industries nowadays were pawnshops, moneylenders and undertakers.

Bert stared at the line of gulls on the rickety old pontoon and the blue hull of his sailboat, Sybil. Frank may not have been far off the mark about Yaffi Goldstrom’s window. Mosley and his Blackshirts made Bert nervous. They talked a good talk, but something rotten lurked beneath their words. Their contempt for the Jews was part of it. If the fascists hated the Jews, it stood to reason they despised the Romani too, and he and Frank had Romani blood. Mosley was too fond of that nasty little Chancellor, come Führer in Germany with his Nazi party, and the other bugger in Italy, invading Corfu and stirring up trouble with the Germans. Bert didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him.

How had Hitler hoodwinked the German government so easily? It was a mystery. Everyone could see he was a warmonger, burning books and sending storm troopers to smash up shops and arrest Jews. Why had no one questioned the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ or noticed what he was? The press called it a ‘purge of dangerous thugs,’ but it was murder, pure and simple. Building a few roads didn’t make it better. And the rumours of Hitler secretly manufacturing arms — despite the Treaty of Versailles — horrified Bert.

Whenever he thought of it, it put the wind up him. He was forty-two and had one foot with no toes. His hair was grey now, not black. There’d be no more being sent off to war for him, but what of all the other young men, his lad George, Tom and Harry’s boys, Frank’s Stanley and young Sam? After the things they’d suffered last time, another war was unthinkable 

Bert was still staring at the river and scowling when Sam sat beside him, put two steaming mugs of tea on the wall and sighed loudly.

‘I swear it was Fisk I saw the other day.’ Sam lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of blue smoke. ‘He was working on that new Guildhall.’

‘It’s been four years since you last saw him, Sam. How would you recognise him?’ It was a question Bert had asked a dozen times, to no avail.

‘I just did. I’d know the bugger anywhere.’

Sam took off his glasses, wiped them on the lining of his jacket, then put them on again. Bert watched him. Without spectacles, Sam looked naked, and each of his grey eyes gazed in a different direction. When he put them back on, his squint was barely noticeable. The glasses cleaning was a sure sign he was rattled, as was the nervous way he ran his hand through his ginger hair. 

‘Why would he come back here?’ Bert asked.

It was nonsense. If Fisk had any sense, he’d have stayed away. He was a wily devil, so Bert didn’t believe he’d returned.

‘Well, I came back, didn’t I? He’s got a ma too, and sisters.’ Sam’s hand went from his hair to his little goatee beard. He’d be pulling at those jug ears of his next at this rate.

‘But you saved him from hanging, Sam. Even if you did see Fisk, he has no reason to come after you.’

‘It’s Percy I’m worried about, not me. He put Arthur’s neck in the noose. It was Percy who told the police what Arthur was up to and got him sent down for seven years. Arthur ain’t the forgiving kind. If he is back, it can only mean trouble.’ 

‘He’s been out for, what, two years now? If he was going to do something, he’d have done it already, Sam. I’m sure you’re worrying over nothing.’

‘Well, I wish I was.’

‘I tell you what. Why don’t you and me take a drive up there tomorrow and have a look, just to set your mind at rest? I’ll bring my car in the morning. If it is him, then we’ll think about what to do. In the meantime, keep your trap shut, especially around Percy. The last thing he needs is you worrying him over this, not today. You remember what today is, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do. I miss Lenny too, you know. He was a good bloke.’

Maybe fretting over Fisk was Sam’s way of dealing with what had happened. They all missed Lenny, but Sam had had a rougher life than most. Perhaps losing someone so close in such a horrible way had been harder on him? 

Was it easier to imagine an old enemy reappearing and fuss over that than admit how much the spectre of death frightened him? It had been tough enough for the likes of him and Percy to watch, and they’d seen the battlefields of France. Sam might be pushing thirty, but he was still a nipper, and, most of his life, he’d had no one to lose.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little taster. The full book should be available very shortly, so watch this space.

If you like what I write, and you’re interested in my novels are available now on Amazon in paperback, on Kindle and via Kindle Unlimited. Check out my Amazon page here and my Goodreads page here. If you would like to help me keep writing, you can now buy me a virtual coffee by clicking on the little orange coffee cup at the bottom right.