K ate Simpson drove carefully over the series of speed bumps on the long drive that circled the big mansion. She parked in a small car park at the edge of the cluster of houses at the back of the mansion and walked across to ring the bell on the bright blue door of the bungalow.
She was nervous. Just as she was about to ring again, the door swung open. She looked up at the tall, broad-shouldered man standing in the doorway. He had a broken nose, generous mouth and bags under his eyes. His blond hair was swept straight back from his forehead.
‘Mr Watts, I’m from Southern City Radio. I wondered if you might like to help with a review of an old murder case.’
‘You doorstep me for that?’
She flushed.
‘I wasn’t really doorstepping you,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve been telephoning but there was no answer and you don’t seem to have an answering machine.’ She showed him an envelope addressed to him.
‘I was going to leave you a note.’
Watts peered at her.
‘I know you, don’t I?’
‘I was at the press conferences you gave at the time of the Milldean incident.’
‘And you were there the night it happened. Yes, I know that.’ He sounded impatient.
She held his look. Had he been the kind of boss who didn’t suffer fools gladly? How had his staff regarded him?
‘I mean you’re familiar to me aside from that,’ he said.
‘My name’s Kate Simpson.’
It only took him a moment.
‘William’s daughter.’ Watts smiled. ‘My God – I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you straight away.’
‘That’s OK – you haven’t seen me for a couple of years.’
Watts smiled.
‘Local radio is a bit small beer, isn’t it? Couldn’t he get you a better job?’
Anger flared in her eyes. Tight-lipped, she said:
‘I didn’t want and don’t need his help.’
He studied her for a moment then stepped aside.
‘I’m sorry – I’m a bit distracted by some news I’ve just received. Do you drink wine?’
She followed him down a narrow corridor made narrower by piles of boxes neatly stacked along one wall.
‘Books,’ he said over his shoulder as he turned left into a small sitting room. ‘Nowhere else to put them.’
The sitting room had a sofa and a desk. Bookshelves lined every wall, filling any available space, making the room even smaller.
She sat sideways on the sofa as he collected wine and glasses from the kitchen. She gestured at the books.
‘I didn’t expect you to be such a reader.’
‘Maybe you have the wrong stereotype of a policeman. Maybe you’re reading the wrong crime fiction.’
‘Is that what these are?’ she waved at the bookcases. ‘Crime novels?’
He shook his head.
‘I’m not a great fiction reader.’
‘You have some thrillers here, though. Victor Tempest.’
She pointed.
‘They’re my father’s, actually.’
He handed her a glass of pale white wine and sat down beside her. It was a two-seat sofa and awkwardly intimate. He didn’t seem to notice.
‘About this project-’
‘About the money?’
‘It’s local radio…’
‘So no money.’
She flushed.
‘But being on the radio…’
He looked into his wine. She flushed again. He had done so much national radio and TV that there was nothing at all in it for him. She was aware she was out of her depth.
‘What’s the case?’ he said in a kindly voice.
‘The Brighton Trunk Murder of 1934. The unsolved one.’
He put down his glass.
‘I don’t think so.’
Kate put her glass down too.
‘I think you were a scapegoat.’ He seemed startled by the sudden change of topic. ‘And I assume my father railroaded you.’
‘That’s not over yet.’
‘Why won’t you help me?’ she said, leaning forward over her knees.
‘It’s not what I’m good at.’
She knew she wasn’t hiding her disappointment. Her face always showed her emotions, however much she tried to mask them. But if he noticed, he didn’t respond.
‘Do you miss being a policeman?’
He nodded slowly.
‘It’s what I always wanted to be.’
‘Family tradition?’
He hesitated, she assumed because he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to share personal things with her.
‘Crime is.’ He smiled faintly at her bemused expression. ‘My father wrote crime novels. Still writes them, though his type is rather out of fashion now. No serial killers or pathologists in them.’
‘I think my grandfather was in the police.’
‘He was. He made chief constable, like me.’
‘I never knew him – he’d died long before I was born.’
Watts nodded.
‘Does your father live round here?’ Kate asked.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I was just wondering if he might want to get involved with this – I was going to get a crime writer – and a father and son working on the case together…’
He shook his head and took another sip of his wine.
‘He lives in London, but we wouldn’t work well together. Even supposing he were interested – which I know he wouldn’t be.’
‘I’ve got all these files that were thought lost or destroyed. I’ve photocopied a set. Please say you’ll help.’
He stood and walked to the window, looked out at the back of the Elizabethan house across the courtyard.
‘Aren’t they police property?’
‘Apparently the police aren’t interested in them.’
‘Drop the documents off and I’ll have a look. I’m making no promises, though.’
‘The photocopies are in my car – shall I get them now?’
I watched Kate Simpson drive off, then hefted the box of photocopied documents back into the bungalow. Sarah was standing in my bedroom doorway.
‘I didn’t realize you were going to invite her in.’ There was irritation in her tone. ‘I felt weird skulking in your bedroom’
‘Sorry – I recognized her. A family friend. Kind of. It was strange seeing her again.’
I looked down at the box I was holding.
‘Could you hear what we were talking about?’
‘Those files – somebody phoned me about them the other day.’
‘You’re the one who wasn’t interested?’
‘It was a misunderstanding.’
She indicated her half-empty wine glass.
‘Do you think she noticed the presence of a third glass?’
I shrugged.
‘She’s a radio journalist, not Sherlock Holmes. Bright, though.’
I put the box down.
‘Do you want to help with this?’
‘I think that’s what I was supposed to do when the call came through to me. I was out of line responding as I did.’ She shrugged. ‘My first cold case. Sure. As if I haven’t enough else on my plate.’
There was a tension between us and we both knew why. We’d enjoyed our night together all those months ago. And not just the sex. We’d enjoyed talking, joking. It had been hard to leave it at that one night. For both of us, I suspected.
And now, here she’d been, hiding in my bedroom. We were alone and my circumstances had changed. Except that I was hoping Molly and I could find a way to get back together.
I suddenly got embarrassed, wondering if I’d left dirty clothes lying around. I put the box on my desk and turned back to her. She’d resumed her seat on the sofa.
‘But what about Finch?’ I said. ‘If he has been murdered, then he must have been involved in some kind of set-up. What do you know about him?’
‘Only that he was an asshole.’
‘Did he have a girlfriend? A close friend we should talk to?’
Gilchrist shrugged.
‘I don’t know and we can’t talk to them anyway. I’m not on this case.’
‘I need to talk to Munro, see where he’s got to in his investigation.’
‘I wasn’t impressed by his officers when they interviewed me.’
‘He’s a good man,’ I said.
She looked at the floor.
‘I thought at first that night in Milldean was shades of Operation Rambo.’
I must have looked puzzled.
‘Before your time, sir… Bob. It was part of a high-profile drugs operation. Seven officers smashed their way into a listed cottage and ransacked it. Overturned furniture, emptied cupboards, poured the contents of bathroom and kitchen cabinets into sinks and baths.’
‘Looking for drugs.’
‘Yes, but unfortunately we’d got the wrong house.’
I groaned.
‘We’ve done it before?’
‘Dozens of times, I’m sure. On that occasion we should have been battering our way into the house next door. ACC Macklin handled the house-owner’s claim for compensation. He decided the man was taking the piss, the amount of compensation he was asking for. Ten grand, I think. Replacement front door in a listed building, damage to antique furniture in the house. The distress caused: the raid had taken place in broad daylight in full view of passers-by and neighbours. The local press described it as a successful drug raid. The man lost his job.
‘Macklin offered two grand. The man went to court. He spent ten grand on legal fees then came up against an unsympathetic judge. He warned him to settle or risk paying police costs as well. Macklin reduced his offer to five hundred pounds.’
I shook my head.
‘No wonder we get a bad press for being arrogant and out of touch.’
Sarah spread her hands.
‘Look, there’s something I’m not happy about,’ she said. ‘That night in Milldean.’
‘The thing in the man’s hand?’
‘Nobody is interested. Command has gone to shit since you resigned. All the senior people are desperately trying to cover their backs, so nobody is doing any proper managing or policing. The crime rate is rising…’
She was getting heated.
‘What was in his hand? A weapon?’
‘I thought it might be when I first saw him. But I don’t think so.’
‘What, then?’
‘I think it was a mobile phone.’
‘And it never made it to the evidence box?’
‘I think either Finch or one of those blokes from Haywards Heath took it. Which was odd, but I thought it would be entered into evidence. It wasn’t.’
‘Did you ask them about it?’
‘Yes. Except for Finch. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. The Haywards Heath men denied removing anything.’
‘But you’re sure it was a phone.’ I sat back. ‘And you’re thinking that the man was in communication with someone outside.’
‘Not just anyone outside. A policeman, perhaps.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Just a feeling. And, if nothing else, there was a trigger-happy colleague on the outside.’
‘Why couldn’t he be in touch with whoever sounded that car horn?’
‘Yes – what was that about? An associate of the people in the house?’
‘Could it have been random?’
She shook her head and crossed her legs. I couldn’t help glancing. She noticed but continued:
‘The timing was too neat. It was a warning.’ She paused and tilted her head. ‘But I wonder who the warning was intended for? There’s no one I can talk to about it. If it was a set-up, I don’t know who I can trust. I’ve been waiting for the investigation but, as you know, it hasn’t really happened. I need to get more information.’
I walked behind the desk then looked back at her.
‘Are you saying that we didn’t raid the wrong house by mistake? That some person or persons unknown made sure we raided that particular house and that those people were the intended victims?’
‘Whoever was behind it wanted those people dead and he used the police to do it.’
‘I don’t buy it. Everyone in the armed response unit was in on it?’
‘Not everybody – just a couple – including Finch.’
‘But Foster was running the show – if what you suggest is true, he must have been in on it too. Why the suicide?’
‘If it was.’
‘You think someone has been going round knocking off the people who know exactly what happened that night?’
She nodded.
‘You think Edwards is dead, too?’
‘Or in hiding. And the same goes for the nark.’
‘He’s not been found yet?’
She shook her head.
‘Where can we take this?’ I said, coming round the desk. I moved over to her. I sensed her shrink back.
‘We need to talk to the Haywards Heath men but I don’t see how we can.’
‘I’ve got this friend – Jimmy Tingley. He can do it. He’s very good.’
‘You’ve mentioned him before.’
She looked at her watch and abruptly stood.
‘OK, then. I’d better go.’
‘I’ll call you when he’s got back to me,’ I said.
‘I’ll call you if I can find out anything more at work,’ she said, her hand already on the door knob.
‘Do,’ I said, before she fled from me.
Gilchrist felt like a teenager leaving like that. Watts confused her. She was determined there wouldn’t be a repeat of their one-night stand but she was drawn to him.
On a whim she decided to drive back into Brighton via the Milldean estate. She parked outside the pub and looked down the street to the house that had been the scene of the massacre. It seemed both an age ago and a matter of hours since she’d been crouching in the back garden.
She locked her car and went into the pub. A few heads turned as she entered but she ignored them. She approached the bar at the same time as a slender, unassuming man of middle height. He gestured for her to go first.
‘It’s OK,’ she said, ‘I haven’t decided what I want yet.’
The barman was burly with a big beer gut and forearms like hams.
‘Another rum and peppermint, please,’ the slender man said.
The barman looked him up and down.
‘Sure you’re in the right pub, love? This isn’t Kemp Town.’
‘A double.’
‘Big boy,’ the barman said with a grotesque pout.
There were two unshaven men standing at the bar. They sniggered. The man smiled but didn’t say anything. The barman made the drink and plopped the glass down heavily on the bar. The liquid shivered but didn’t spill. The man placed the exact amount of money on the bar, turned and went to sit by the window.
Gilchrist ordered a glass of wine, ignored the leering men and went to sit a few yards from the man. She wasn’t quite sure what she was doing here but she knew it was the local for at least one of the crime families.
A stocky, crop-headed man in his forties came in with a posse of four noisy youngsters. They all scoped the room.
‘All right, Mr Cuthbert,’ the barman said. The crop-headed man nodded and got into a huddle over the bar with him. The man who’d ordered the rum and peppermint went back up to the bar and put his glass down.
‘Another double when you have a minute.’
The man called Cuthbert glanced over. The barman straightened up.
‘Think you’ve had enough, don’t you, mate?’
‘I think I’ll take one more.’
‘You live here?’ Cuthbert said, staring straight ahead of him.
‘Near enough to walk.’
‘I was wondering why you’d come in here.’ He swept his arm out to take in the room. ‘It’s a pub for locals. Everybody knows everybody. That’s the way we like it.’
The man nodded.
‘That was a double, mind, not a single.’
The barman had stepped back and was standing in front of the rack of spirits and glasses. He flicked a look at Cuthbert.
‘As I was explaining,’ Cuthbert said, still not looking at the man, ‘everybody knows everybody. We’re like a family here.’
‘But this is a public house, not a club. And I am the public.’
He pushed the glass across the bar.
‘You can use the same glass.’
Cuthbert finally turned and as he did so the youngsters gathered in a loose semicircle around the mild-mannered man.
Shit. Gilchrist didn’t want to flash her warrant card in here, but if this turned out the way it looked like it was going to turn out, she would have to intervene. And probably get a good kicking in the process. She recognized Cuthbert’s name. He was a major Brighton villain. She cursed herself for coming in here, cursed the man for ordering such a ludicrous drink in a rough pub.
‘Are you dim?’ Cuthbert said, taking a step forward. ‘We don’t want you here. I don’t know what you’re looking for but, believe me, you ain’t going to find it here.’
‘I just want my drink for the road.’
Cuthbert looked at the barman and gave a quick nod.
‘On the house,’ he said.
‘You’re either the landlord or a leader of the community,’ the man said. ‘Did I hear your name is Cuthbert?’
‘Not that it’s any of your fucking business but, yes, it’s Cuthbert.’
‘I’m Jimmy Tingley.’ Tingley stuck out his hand. ‘And I’ve already heard all the jokes about my name.’
Gilchrist sat back in her chair. Jimmy Tingley. The man Bob Watts had mentioned. The way Watts had built Tingley up she was expecting Arnold Schwarzenegger, not this unassuming individual.
Cuthbert looked at Tingley’s hand, then at Tingley. Didn’t offer his own hand.
‘You’re one of the big three on the estate,’ Tingley said, withdrawing his hand.
‘I am?’
‘You are.’
Tingley looked at the youths, who had stepped in closer.
‘It would be great to talk to you privately.’
‘About?’
‘What goes on here.’
‘And why would you be interested.’
Tingley moved closer.
‘I need your help.’
Cuthbert tilted his head.
‘Get his bag, Russell.’
A young man with a pockmarked face loped over to the table Tingley had been sitting at and picked up a slender bag. As he took it back over to Cuthbert, he rooted in it and came out with a newspaper and a collapsible umbrella. He peered in the bag and passed it to Cuthbert.
‘That’s it.’
Gilchrist was back on the edge of her seat. Tingley remained impassive.
‘What’s this?’ the pockmarked youth said, fiddling with the umbrella. Suddenly it sprang open. The youths laughed as he waved it around.
‘Fucking neat, isn’t it?’
‘Fucking is,’ one of the other youths said.
‘Fucking neat.’
Tingley laughed along with them for a moment or two. Then:
‘It’s bad luck opening an umbrella indoors.’ He nodded at the mirror behind the bar. ‘If that goes as well, we’re all fucked.’
He held out his open hand out for his bag.
‘If you please.’
Gilchrist was thinking that in a movie, silence would have fallen at this point. Here it was a change in the atmosphere, a drop in pressure.
‘If I please,’ Cuthbert said. ‘If I please.’
Tingley kept his hand out but looked across at Gilchrist. As she started to rise, he gave an infinitesimal shake of his head. Then he reached over and took hold of his bag. Tingley and Cuthbert exchanged looks.
‘Check me out,’ Tingley said. ‘Name’s James Tingley. I’ll come back in a couple of days so we can talk.’
Cuthbert frowned but released the bag. Tingley turned to Cuthbert’s posse.
‘Gentlemen.’
He turned and walked to the door. Gilchrist was on her feet a moment later. Trying not to hurry, she strolled out of the pub after him.
Tingley was standing about twenty yards down the road looking back at her. She walked towards him.
‘Bet you’re glad you didn’t have to pull your warrant card,’ he said when she reached him.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘To me.’
‘I know of you, Mr Tingley.’
‘I know of you too, Ms Gilchrist. That was very foolhardy of you to go in that pub. Had you been recognized-’
‘You know who I am?’
‘Your photo has been in all the papers – that’s why you were taking a risk going there.’
Tingley looked beyond Gilchrist and quickly took her arm.
‘Get in your car and follow me – I’m parked down at the end of the street.’
Gilchrist crossed to her car, head down, ignoring the two men who were standing outside the pub watching her. One of them called to her but she slid into her car and drove down the street.
Tingley led her to the Marina.
Driving home, Kate couldn’t concentrate. She was thinking about the Trunk Murder but she was also thinking about Watts. Although she didn’t really go for older men, he was a bit of a hunk. He was a quiet man, but there was something about him that suggested he could take care of himself. And others?
She wondered about the third glass – whether Watts had been entertaining somebody who had hidden. Who might that have been?
She let herself into her flat. She lived in a first-floor flat in Sussex Gardens in Kemp Town, overlooking the sea. Kemp Town was the fashionable place to live in Brighton. Rows of Georgian terraces and brightly coloured cottages interspersed with restaurants and New Age shops.
Her flat in Sussex Gardens was her one concession to her parents. When she had moved to Brighton to do her doctorate, her father had bought the flat. As an investment, he said, but for her to live in whilst she was there.
She hated being beholden to her father but her mother pleaded with her. Kate selfishly didn’t want to share with other people – the last time had been a disaster – but she couldn’t afford the rent on anywhere decent in Brighton. Prices were the same as London. And this was more than decent.
She agreed. It was a two-bedroom flat and her parents came down sometimes to stay in the second bedroom over a weekend. It didn’t happen very often since it was awkward. She had worried at first that her father would want to stay when he came down for the Party Conference or when he had meetings with Labour politicians in town. But he chose to stay around the seafront in the Grand or the Hotel du Vin.
Kate went to the box in her living room. She moved the vase of lilies from the dining table and started to empty the box on to it. There was a box file labelled ‘Witness statements’ and a dozen or so cardboard files, all empty. Some had odd titles neatly printed on the covers: ‘Smells’, ‘Missing Women’, ‘Paper’, ‘Empty Houses’.
She took out the loose sheaves of papers from the cardboard box, papers that had at one time presumably belonged in these files. They were in no discernible order. A number were headed ‘County Borough of Brighton’ then ‘Statement of Witness’. Most were typed on manual typewriters, the occasional red letter coming through in the black type. Others were handwritten in blue or black ink by many different hands.
She turned one sheet over and found something strange typed on the reverse.
‘ This isn’t a diary as such. It’s a memoir if you like. A reminiscence. A slice of autobiography. Call it what you will – just don’t call it a confession. ’
Her interest piqued, she turned other sheets over and soon had a stack of what were clearly entries from a diary.
Excited, Kate settled down on her balcony. She looked around the square and smiled or nodded at those people in other flats who were on their balconies. Music drifted across the square. Coldplay and Bach and Miles Davis.
The sea was calm. As the sky darkened, the white lights that strung the length of the stubby finger of the Palace Pier grew brighter.
She had gathered the pages of the anonymous diary into some kind of date order. She was sure there were more pages in the files, but since the entries were typed up on the back of other documents, or on witness statement sheets, it was difficult on cursory examination to distinguish them from other typed material.
There were fragments that didn’t have dates attached. She put these aside. She started to read the entry for 6th June, the day the trunk was deposited at Brighton station.