Gaslight by Mark Dawson Page A

eventually came, was weak and intermittent. Damn it, he sighed. The pipe must be blocked. He would have to clear it out.
    “Alright, Harry?”
    He held on to the cross brace and looked down.
    It was his brother. “Hello George.”
    “How are you?”
    “I’ve been better.”
    “You’ve got a face like a month of wet Sundays.”
    “Out of smokes, I’m knackered and this fucker ain’t working.”
    “What’s wrong with it?”
    “Pipe’s blocked.”
    “The sooner you––”
    “I know, I know. I’m working on it, alright? Have you got everything?”
    George hefted the canvas bag in his right hand. “All present and correct. Just waiting for you.”
    It was obvious that Harry and George were related. They shared the same dark black hair, the same light olive complexion, the same vivid green eyes. Both were big and powerful and George especially so, with wide shoulders and hands as big as hocks of ham. His bulkiness extended to his face, with a slab of forehead that tapered down so that his face was pear-shaped rather than oval. He had a thick nose that had been flattened in numerous bar brawls and had set in so many different ways that it was kinked and uneven. His ears were fat and misshapen. People said that he had a primal look about him by which they meant Neanderthal. Angelo Ginicoli, an acid tongued drinking pal of the brothers, said that his face was like half a pound of walnuts wrapped in a flannel. Harry, in contrast to his brother, benefitted from slight and delicate features. Hair unkempt, mouth amiable and expressive, with white teeth and a ready and bright smile.
    Harry climbed down the ladder. “I’m going to be a couple of hours.”
    “What? Can’t you, you know––?”
    “Quit? Don’t be daft, George. I can’t very well do that the same night, can I?”
    “Suppose not.”
    George was the eldest, by five years, and he never tired of reminding Harry of that fact. He seemed to think that age automatically imparted wisdom, and, although Harry was happy enough for him to believe that––anything for an easy life––he knew that he was the clever one. If he was honest, George would admit it, too.
    “Go and get a drink,” he said. “Give me a couple of hours to finish and then I’ll need to wash my hands.” He held them up for inspection: they were slicked with grease from the workings of the lamps.
    George nodded. “I’ll be in the French. Come and get me when you’re ready.”
    “Don’t get drunk.”
    He grinned. “As if I would? Now then––let’s get you some smokes.”
    “Have you got enough?”
    “Rolled a bloke down on the Embankment last night. He had a crown on him.”
    Harry wasn’t concerned that his smokes were to be financed from the proceeds of crime and followed his brother into the tobacconist’s on the other side of the road. The signage said ROWCLIFFE and the wide window beneath was full of packets of cigarettes and the accoutrements of smoking. There were advertisements for Player’s Medium Navy Cut, Ogden’s Guinea Gold and Will’s Gold Flake cigarettes and, also, Rowntree’s chocolate and pastilles. Inside, the proprietor, Mr. Rowcliffe, was dressed in shirt and tie with an apron around his waist. He was talking in animated fashion to a second man and it was this character who drew Harry’s eye. Most of the men in Soho were dressed in their working clothes, but this man was different. He was wearing a single breasted grey herringbone flannel suit with a rust and orange overplaid. It was matched with a pastel orange shirt with double cuffs, white detachable collar, gold paisley tie and a collar pin. He wore a watch-chain and, through the buttonhole of his left lapel, a huge red carnation boutonniere . Harry would have said that he looked like a dandy but for the cruel cast to his face that leant him an unmistakeable aspect of menace.
    George paused in the doorway. Harry could sense the tension as his shoulders stiffened. Curious, he stepped around