Peter Guttridge - The Thing Itself

Cassidy looked at Gilchrist.

‘That true?’

‘Something along those lines,’ Gilchrist said. Thinking: if you miss out the bit where the three Balkan gangsters turned up and scared the bejesus out of the kids, then tried to kidnap me.

Cassidy looked off to one side for a long moment.

‘And you’re not going to try to hang something on Bernie?’

‘It’s other people we’re after,’ Williamson said, unconsciously stroking his paunch. Cassidy watched his circling hand.

‘He was in Milldean and he was with us, and the next day he did go off to France,’ she said. ‘He never went anywhere near that house.’

‘Did he know about it?’ Gilchrist said.

Cassidy gave her a sharp look.

‘That sounds like the start of a new line of questioning.’

‘Or a way of clearing him of all suspicion of complicity in what happened,’ Williamson said.

‘You’d have to speak to him about that,’ she said, with an odd twitch of the lips.

‘Love to,’ Williamson said. ‘Can you give us his number? Or, better still, his address? I’m fond of the south of France.’

‘I think it’s time you went,’ Cassidy said. ‘I think you’ve already got more than you deserve.’

‘Was that a loo down the hall?’ Williamson said. ‘Do you mind if I use the necessities?’

‘On your way out,’ Cassidy said.

‘Well, DS Gilchrist has just one final question for you,’ Williamson said, striding off down the corridor.

Gilchrist, startled, smiled uneasily at Cassidy.

‘Er, I just wondered when Sarah Jessica was coming home from hospital?’

Cassidy gave her a calculating look.

‘End of the week, they think.’

‘Remembered anything more?’ Gilchrist said.

Cassidy shook her head, looking beyond Gilchrist as Williamson emerged from the downstairs loo, his jacket over his arm.

Gilchrist followed her look.

‘Right then,’ she said. ‘We’ll be off.’

Cassidy followed her down the corridor. Williamson was on the doorstep.

Gilchrist joined him and turned back to Cassidy.

‘By the way, I found your marriage certificate and I found your daughter’s birth certificate. But I couldn’t find your divorce registered anywhere.’

Cassidy looked from one to the other of them, smiled slowly then closed the door.

‘You’re looking pleased with yourself,’ Gilchrist said, glancing across at Williamson as they drove back into Brighton from Donna Cassidy’s house in Milldean.

‘Fancy getting a quick half somewhere?’ Williamson said.

They parked in the small courtyard of a thatched pub opposite the youth hostel at Stanmer Park.

‘OK — what have you been up to?’ Gilchrist said as they sat down with their drinks — pints not halves. ‘You’re looking insufferably smug.’

He tapped his glass against hers.

‘Did you see that pile of mail? On the table by the front door? There was a phone bill.’

‘Jesus, Reg — you didn’t? They could hang you up by your balls for stealing that.’ Gilchrist stuck her hand out. ‘Let’s see it, then.’

Williamson shook his head.

‘I didn’t take it; I just borrowed it for a couple of minutes. It was already opened.’

‘And?’

‘I got a mobile number she phoned a lot lately and a foreign landline number that I hope is in France.’

‘Did you memorize them?’

Williamson looked at her over the rim of his beer glass.

‘I scribbled them down.’

‘Jesus, Reg. With your handwriting we’re fucked.’

Williamson took a crumpled piece of paper from the top pocket of his jacket. He tossed it on to the table.

Gilchrist spread it between them.

‘Did you use a spider instead of a pen?’

‘Give me a break. I was in the loo scribbling it down as fast as I could.’

‘What’s that — a two or a five?’

‘Pass.’

‘And that?’

‘Look, we can try options, Sarah. Don’t be a pain in the arse.’

Gilchrist patted his hand.

‘Only kidding, Reg. This is great — but what the hell can we do with it?’

‘What do you mean?’ Williamson said.

‘Well, if we pass it on to the Met, we’ve got to explain how we got the numbers. Same if we try to do anything with them.’

‘Bugger that,’ he said. ‘We track the locations down and worry about the legalities later.’

‘You want us to go down there? How? How can we justify it? Plus, he’s a very dangerous man.’

‘What about Bob Watts and his mate, Jimmy Tingley?’

‘You’re suggesting we use vigilantes?’

Williamson looked at her again over his glass.

‘Let’s see what the numbers show us, then decide.’

Sarah Gilchrist bumped into Philippa Franks coming out of a cafe in the North Laines. Franks had been a member of the armed response unit that had killed the apparently innocent citizens in Milldean.

‘How’s retirement suit you, Philippa?’

Franks, along with several others, had taken early retirement on the grounds of ill health to avoid any possibility of criminal proceedings. Gilchrist was sure Franks knew much more than she was letting on.

Franks shuffled a little.

‘I’m retraining to be a social worker,’ she said.

‘You’ll be good at that,’ Gilchrist said.

‘Terrible what’s going on at the moment.’ Franks gave a little shudder. ‘That man impaled on a stake on the Downs as a warning. John Hathaway over in France. They’re saying he was done the same way.’

She looked intently at Gilchrist. Gilchrist nodded.

‘He never had much chance, Hathaway,’ Franks said. ‘Having the father he had.’

‘You knew his father?’

‘I know I’m not looking great but do I look that old?’ Franks smile was tired. ‘My father knew them both. He used to run a pub that Dennis Hathaway “protected”. Then John took over the collecting when he was still a teenager. He was in a band. Charlie Laker was the drummer. Dad said it was God-awful but they got all these bookings in Brighton because everybody was frightened of his father.’

‘The men who killed Hathaway thought he had something to do with the Milldean thing. It was in revenge for that couple in the bed. You remember, Philippa — the two people that were shot to death by policemen in your presence.’

Franks looked down at her feet.

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

She kept looking down, but Gilchrist stared at the top of her head until she looked up.

‘I think you do. Don’t you think it’s time you told?’

Franks started to walk past her.

‘Not as long as I’ve got my kids to protect, Sarah.’

Gilchrist watched her go. When Franks was about ten yards down the street, she called after her: ‘We’ve located Bernie Grimes.’

Franks seemed to falter for a moment then carried on. Without looking round, she raised her hand in a little wave.

Charlie Laker was having an early fish supper in a restaurant on Whitby harbour front when his phone chirruped. It was a new phone and he hadn’t got round to changing the ringtone — he’d had a busy few weeks — but he winced every time it rang because it sounded like a bird choking.

‘Yeah?’ he said, his mouth full of Dover sole.

‘Bernie Grimes, Charlie.’

‘Bernie — how’s the south of France?’

‘Sweltering. Charlie, I need a favour.’

‘Well, I owe you one for your help with that Milldean thing.’

Laker reached for his glass of wine. Muscadet. The best the restaurant had to offer. It was OK, actually.

‘My wife tells me some gels have been picking on my daughter.’

‘Didn’t know you had a daughter. Or a wife, for that matter.’