Peter Guttridge - The Last King of Brighton

Saturday night they were at the Hippodrome supporting The Who. Hathaway, Billy, Dan and Tony were chatting up some girls when Charlie jig-a-jigged over.

‘Charlie – you OK? You look a bit-’

‘Right as rain, Johnny, right as rain. Me and their drummer, that Keith guy – he’s mental he is – you know he’s pissed in his wine?’

‘Pissed in his wine – why?’

‘Not his own wine – the wine of that guy with the big nose. He hasn’t noticed – been swigging it back from the bottle. The others know. They’re cracking up in there.’

Hathaway reached for Charlie’s sunglasses. Charlie reared back.

‘Sorry, Charlie, but you seem a bit-’

‘Did you know our roadie is a dealer on the side?’ Charlie said. ‘Uppers, downers, blues, speed. He’s a mobile chemist that lad.’

Hathaway waved the girls away.

‘Alan is dealing drugs?’ Dan said.

Hathaway turned back but said nothing.

‘He’s a right little wheelerdealer,’ Charlie said. ‘He’s just told me their roadie is offering us a deal on a hundred-watt Vox amp.’

‘Hundred watts?’ Billy said. ‘That’s bloody enormous. And a Vox? We gotta have it.’

‘We’d never get it in the van,’ Hathaway said.

Charlie cackled, jerking his body in another weird jig.

‘They use an ice cream van. They nicked the amp from the Ready, Steady, Go studio last week. It’s got the show’s name plastered all over it.’

‘Receiving stolen goods?’ Dan said. ‘We can’t do anything illegal.’

Charlie looked at Hathaway.

‘Yeah, right.’ He cackled again. ‘That Alan. His speed is bloody… speedy. Talk about m-m-my generation.’

The others all laughed at Charlie, though Dave, Bill and Roy probably shared Hathaway’s concern that a drummer on speed wasn’t going to be exactly consistent keeping the beat.

Hathaway met a girl called Ruth that night. She was up for anything. The next day he took her to the open-air swimming pool at Black Rock. He spent time there when he could, usually chatting up girls rather than swimming. It was sheltered by the cliffs, so could be really hot in the sunshine. When he was a kid he’d often played in the rock

pools there. Now he made Ruth shudder telling her how the head of the Trunk Murder victim had been found in a rock pool back in 1934.

He was surprised to see his father and Reilly walking around, deep in conversation with another two men. All of them looked overdressed in dark suits.

His father saw him and Ruth in their deckchairs. Ruth was wearing a skimpy bikini and Hathaway saw her self-consciousness as his father stared down at her.

‘The hard life of the working man,’ Dennis Hathaway said to his son.

‘I’m working tonight,’ Hathaway said, getting out of his deckchair and tossing Ruth a towel. He nodded to Reilly. ‘What are you both doing here?’

He drew them away.

‘Considering a bit of business,’ Dennis Hathaway said. ‘What do you think about this whole area becoming a marina? Berths for a few thousand boats, an oceanarium, an ice rink, a sports centre, tennis courts, apartments, a hotel, pubs – the works. Even a fishmarket.’

‘The fishmarket doesn’t do anything for me but aside from that it sounds great,’ Hathaway said. ‘We’re involved?’

‘We could be. I’ve got a bit of money lying around. Couple of problems, though. Getting a road in here is tricky. And the porridge makers are being a right pain.’

‘Porridge makers?’ Hathaway said.

‘Yeah, the Quakers.’

Hathaway laughed.

‘Do they still exist?’

‘You bet.’ Dennis Hathaway pointed up at the cliff. ‘And they have a burial plot up near the gasometers. The plan needs that space.’

‘Then there’s the cliff itself,’ Reilly said.

‘Yeah, we can’t touch that. Full of fossils, apparently. Dinosaurs and all that.’

‘Really?’ Hathaway said.

‘Don’t get overexcited, John. You’re such a bloody kid. They’re in the way, frankly.’

Hathaway gestured around.

‘Will this go?’

‘Inevitably,’ his father said. He took Hathaway’s arm. ‘Me and your mum are off to the theatre tonight.’

‘The Theatre Royal?’

‘Nah, the Palace Pier. Good bit of cabaret.’ He looked over at Ruth. ‘Want to join us?’

Hathaway shook his head.

‘No, thanks, Dad. We’ve got plans.’

His father looked over at Ruth.

‘I’ll bet you have.’

‘We’re going to see The Beatles. They’re closing the Hippodrome.’

‘Don’t get me started on that. Are you supporting?’

‘Nah – they’re bringing their own support band. Some other Scousers. We’ll meet them, though.’

Hathaway’s father nodded towards Ruth and leaned in to his son.

‘That should get you whatever you want from yon lass.’

Hathaway flushed and smirked.

‘I’ve already had that.’

Dennis Hathaway was in London a lot in June for meetings. One day he came back to the West Pier with Freddie Mills, the former world champion. Mills, mashed nose and kid’s gap-toothed smile, was friendly and took Hathaway on at the shooting gallery. Hathaway won, though he thought perhaps Mills had once more let him.

On 9 July, Hathaway, sprawled on the sofa in the office after a lively night with Ruth, read in the paper that Ronnie Biggs, one of the Great Train Robbers, had been sprung from Wandsworth in an escape like something out of Danger Man.

‘He must be important,’ he said to Reilly. Charlie was tilted back in a chair, his feet up on the window sill.

Reilly shook his head.

‘He was brought in at the last moment. Small time – made his living as a painter and decorator.’

‘Why, then? Who would bother?’

‘Money,’ Charlie said. ‘He’d make it worth someone’s while. Or someone would make it worth their own while by stealing his money from him.’ He tilted the chair forward. ‘Or – he threatened to talk unless they sprang him.’

‘Who is “they”?’ Reilly said, amusement in his voice.

‘Well, I heard there were other people involved in the robbery who were never caught, never identified. Maybe he threatened to talk unless they got him out.’

‘Why didn’t “they” just pay someone to shaft him in the Scrubs?’

‘Painful,’ Hathaway said. He giggled. ‘Have you ever been shafted in the scrubs, Charlie?’

‘Piss off.’ Charlie pointed at Hathaway. ‘You thought Muffin the Mule was a sexual practice until you discovered Smirnoff.’

Even Reilly smiled at that.

‘And your dad thinks music hall died with Max Miller,’ he said. ‘Jimmy Tarbuck has a lot to answer for.’

‘As I was saying,’ Charlie said. ‘Biggs is sprung, killed and buried somewhere he’ll never be found. Mark my words. He’ll never be heard of again.’

Reilly shifted in his seat but said nothing.

Just over two weeks later, Charlie and Hathaway were sitting in deckchairs outside the office. They were arguing, first about whether Michael Caine was better in Zulu or in The Ipcress File, then about the relative merits of the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. It was a slow day.

Dennis Hathaway stomped out of the office. He went over for a low-voiced discussion with Tommy, who ran the shooting gallery, then headed over to the lads.

‘Everything all right, Dad?’

‘No, it’s bloody not. Freddie Mills is dead. Shot in the head in his car in a yard behind his club.’

Charlie and Hathaway both struggled out of their deckchairs.

‘Who did it?’ Charlie said.

‘They’re saying it’s self-inflicted. With one of my bloody rifles. I lent him it from the shooting gallery when he was last down. According to Andy, his business partner, he’d told his staff he was going off for his regular nap in his car.’