Peter Guttridge - The Last King of Brighton

‘But our rifles are just air guns,’ Hathaway said.

His father shook his head.

‘Adapted to fire pellets but easy enough to convert back. We have half a dozen behind the counter…’

His voice tailed off.

‘Do you think he killed himself?’

His father scowled.

‘Don’t be bloody daft. A rifle in a car, a man of his bulk? If he was going to shoot himself, that’s what handguns were invented for.’

‘Who, then?’ Charlie said.

‘His chinkie was on Charing Cross Road.’ Reilly had stepped out of the office. ‘Right on the edge of Chinatown. The Tongs were shaking him down.’

Dennis Hathaway shook his head.

‘It’s the bloody twins. The chinkie went bust – probably because of the stuff going out the back door – and the twins got him to turn it into a club – The Nite Spot. They used to hang out there.’

‘So why kill him?’ Charlie said.

‘As a warning to me,’ Dennis Hathaway said. ‘Freddie’s been doing some negotiating on my behalf.’ He balled his fists. ‘Look, there are two main gangs in London. In the fifties it was the Cypriots and the Italians but today it’s homegrown, cockney boys. Now, what you think about them depends on where you’re sitting. Some say they keep petty crime down in the areas they control better than the rozzers can. Others say they terrorize the communities they live in – and live off.

‘Frankly, I don’t give a toss what they do as long as they stay out of my backyard. But they want to expand out of London. It’s obvious they’re looking at Brighton. They’ve been talking to those other tossers, the Boroni Brothers down here. Encouraging them to have a go at us. Divide and rule, that’s their plan. But it can’t happen. I won’t let it happen.’

‘So what do you want to do?’ Reilly said. ‘Pay them off? You know you can’t pay them off – they’d bleed you dry. Start a war?’

‘We can’t win a war.’

‘What, then?’ Hathaway said.

‘We’ll have a parlay at Freddie’s funeral. I want you boys to come up with Sean and me.’

Hathaway and Charlie exchanged glances. Stood straighter. Dennis Hathaway shook his head.

‘Freddie Mills dead. Bloody hell.’ His son thought he saw tears in his eyes. His father was both brutal and sentimental. ‘First time I saw him fight was here in Brighton. In a booth down on the beach not long before Adolf kicked off. Not what you’d call a stylist but he could hit hard – and he could take it as well as dish it out. He was a light heavyweight really but he fought heavyweight, so he had to take a lot of punches. I saw him win the world championship in 1948 – and lose it in 1950 at Earls Court. Knocked out in the tenth round. Freddie retired after that. He had headaches the rest of his life from the batterings he’d taken. But in his day he took any punch you could throw at him.’

Dennis Hathaway growled suddenly.

‘The fucking twins trying to muscle in down here. I knew that New Year when they turned up with that prick McVicar they weren’t down for the sea air. But we’ve got to keep them the fuck away – they’re fucking mental.’

‘Sean told me it was only one of them,’ Hathaway said. ‘That the other is OK.’

‘Fucking bum-bandit boxer,’ Dennis Hathaway said. ‘Not enough he wants to fuck you up the arse, he wants to punch you in the face whilst he’s doing it. Freddie was the same.’

Hathaway looked askance.

‘Freddie Mills was queer?’

‘Freddie wouldn’t be the first queer scrapper, Johnny boy. You never seen those wrestlers your mother likes watching, tent poles sticking out of their trunks when they get into a grapple?’

Hathaway flushed.

‘So could his death have been a queer thing?’ Charlie said.

‘Well, there’s a story that he’d been arrested in a public toilet and charged with homosexual indecency,’ Reilly said. ‘Plus his singer lover-boy, Michael Holliday, killed himself.’

Hathaway was a step or two behind.

‘But he’s married, isn’t he?’

‘He married his manager’s daughter and they had two kiddies – girls, I think. But he was queer.’ Dennis Hathaway chuckled. ‘Welcome to the confusions of the adult world, son,’

‘I thought Holliday belonged to the poof twin,’ Reilly said.

‘They were close,’ Dennis said. ‘But then I thought he was doing Freddie as well. Anyway, his brother insists he’s a real man’s man and not that way inclined.’

‘Aren’t all queers men’s men?’ Hathaway said. ‘Isn’t that the point?’

Charlie sniggered.

‘I saw him introducing Six-Five Special,’ he said. ‘Stuck out a bit. And in the Carry On films.’

Dennis Hathaway cracked his knuckles.

‘You’re going to hear all kinds of wild stories going round. One is that he’s about to be exposed as Jack the Stripper.’

Hathaway’s eyes swivelled from his father to Reilly and back.

‘Really?’

Charlie didn’t read the papers much.

‘Who’s he?’

‘Since about 1959 through to now,’ Reilly said, ‘some guy has been choking or strangling young women – eight to date – as he’s raping them. He dumps the bodies in or near the Thames. So far he’s not been identified.’

‘But why would they think that was Freddie Mills?’ Hathaway said. ‘Especially if he’s queer.’

His father clapped his hand on Hathaway’s back.

‘More confusion. Your mum won’t feel like going to Freddie’s funeral. She’s never got on with queers. But you and Charlie are set? It’ll give you a chance to see how the other half live.’

‘The queers?’ Charlie said.

‘No, you daft sod, East End gangsters and East End showbiz types. You know Freddy made a few films. It’ll be a big turnout.’

Hathaway and Charlie looked at each other. Nodded.

‘Good. I want to introduce you to a couple of people. Then we’ll do our bit of business with the twins. Sean, we won’t go mob-handed. We’ll show them what class is.’

‘Will McVicar be there?’ Hathaway said. Charlie gave him a puzzled look. Dennis Hathaway looked down at his hands.

‘Don’t see him around any more. They say he’s in the foundations of the Westway. Doing something useful for the first time in his life.’

Freddie Mills was buried at New Camberwell Cemetery. Hundreds of people turned out. Hathaway and Charlie filed past the grave behind Dennis Hathaway and Reilly. There were boxing gloves on the headstone and an urn in front of it.

‘See that urn?’ His father nudged Hathaway. ‘It’s got one of Freddy’s boxing gloves in it.’

‘Won’t someone nick it?’

Dennis Hathaway looked around.

‘Not with these villains around.’

‘Honour among thieves?’

‘Fear.’

A big man with a flat nose tapped Dennis Hathaway on the shoulder. Dennis looked up at him.

‘The brothers want a word.’

Hathaway and Charlie didn’t know what that word was. Hathaway’s father and Reilly stayed up in London and sent the lads back to Brighton. Hathaway was reluctant to go but his father insisted.

‘Nothing is going to kick off, Johnny. It’s a mi casa, su casa thing.’

‘What do you mean?’ Hathaway said.

‘I mean go home. Shag the arse off Ruth.’

‘I’m not seeing her anymore.’

Dennis Hathaway laughed.

‘OK, go and shag the arse off Charlie – in memory of Freddie.’

‘He should be so lucky,’ Charlie said.

‘Go on. Piss off, the pair of you. I’ll fill you in tomorrow.’

Hathaway was out the next day until mid-afternoon. He came home to the sound of his father raging and a woman crying. He hurried into the front room. His older sister, Dawn, was sprawled on the sofa, her hand to a bright red cheek. Her father was standing over her.