Peter Guttridge - The Last King of Brighton

‘Are CSI telling us anything else?’

‘They’re still up there. It’s pretty unforgiving ground, though, so don’t hold your breath.’

Gilchrist’s phone rang.

‘It’s Bob Watts.’

She coloured.

‘Hello. Is this a social call?’

‘Alas, not,’ he said. ‘Two things. Have you time?’

‘Well-’

‘Won’t take long. Kate Simpson just phoned me for Laurence Kingston’s mobile number. The radio wants a quote about the further collapse of the West Pier. Thing is, Kingston stood me up last night, which is not like him, and I’ve not been able to raise him since then.’

‘Laurence Kingston,’ Gilchrist repeated, indicating to Williamson to write the name down.

‘And the second thing?’

‘I was down by the West Pier before I was due to meet Kingston and I saw some flashes of light in the fog. And perhaps the sound of a motorboat.’

Gilchrist frowned.

‘What are you saying?’

‘Well, thinking about it, I believe the pier was firebombed.’

‘Firebombed?’

Williamson looked over as he tapped keys on his computer’s keyboard. Then he looked back at the screen and scribbled something down.

‘It won’t be the first time,’ Watts said.

The West Pier had been firebombed twice before in the past couple of years.

Williamson handed his note to Gilchrist.

‘OK, I’ll pass it along,’ Gilchrist said to Watts. She scanned Williamson’s note. ‘And I’m afraid Kingston won’t be answering his phone. I’m sorry, Bob. His cleaner found him this morning. A death by suicide.’

Kate Simpson was stymied until Kingston phoned her back. Steve was blaghing on, in his mid-morning banal flow. She glanced at the morning newspaper and her father’s name jumped out at her. Government adviser William Simpson to be given new responsibilities. She pushed the newspaper away. She’d been avoiding facing the fact that her father was somehow implicated in the Milldean massacre. In the course of the investigation she had found out more about her father than any daughter should have to know.

She was finding it difficult to deal with.

Steve buzzed through.

‘Are you seeing these emails about the West Pier?’

Kate looked at her screen.

‘People are reporting seeing flashes of light in the fog. There are suggestions the pier might have been firebombed again.’

John Hathaway was sitting on the deck of his boat, taking in the late afternoon sun. The boat was his secret hideaway, although anyone serious about tracking him down would have no trouble finding it, as it was usually moored just a few hundred yards from his bar in Brighton marina.

He did usually take the minor precaution of never coming out on deck until he was a mile or so out at sea, as he was now. But he knew that was stupid, as anyone could see him getting on the boat in the first place.

He looked at the men facing him in a semi-circle. Smart lads, every one. He never just hired muscle, those bulked-up idiots from the local gyms who spent their nights standing outside pubs and nightclubs.

These men were ex-military and all had some semblance of a brain.

‘Stewart Nealson is dead,’ he said, ‘Tortured and killed in a particularly horrible way. Not all of you know him, so for those who don’t: he’s our accountant and the accountant of a couple of other gentlemen in our line of work. His death jeopardizes our plan – and, indeed, may have come about because somebody suspected our plans.’

‘Fuck,’ Gavin said. He was a carrot-top and the sun had brought his freckles out. ‘Is that why he was tortured?’

‘Possibly.’

‘How’d they know to get suspicious?’

Hathaway shrugged.

‘Stew was discreet but he might have said something that somebody picked up on.’

‘But you’re not calling it off?’

‘Of course not.’ Hathaway had heard the early reports of the West Pier suffering further injury. ‘In fact I’m more determined than ever. But we’ll have to do a little more planning, just in case.’

‘The basic plan remains the same?’

‘Absolutely. I wanna hit them where it really hurts. Teach them a big bloody lesson.’

Ex-Chief Constable Bob Watts was sitting in a meeting with the deputy chair of the West Pier Syndicate. Theresa Henderson had heavily gelled hair. She was wearing a tight-fitting red trouser suit. Watts thought she looked like a distaff Hillary Clinton. He wasn’t sure how she made her money but he knew she had plenty of it. She leaned forward and parted her scarlet lips in a smile.

‘Bob, we could do with some informal help here.’

Watts looked at Henderson warily. He liked her but he didn’t trust her.

‘Help with what?’

‘The damage to the West Pier.’

Watts waited. She clasped her hands and leaned forward.

‘We’re going to have a nightmare with the insurance company on the pier. We need to be clear what has happened.’

Watts looked out of the window. They were sitting in The Ship sharing a pot of coffee. People hurried by outside, struggling with the gusting wind.

‘I believe you have a notion the pier was firebombed,’ Henderson said.

He looked at her. He’d never got the point of hair stiffened with gel or spray. He imagined for a moment trying to run his hand through her hair. His fingers would get stuck about a centimetre in.

‘I’m certain of it,’ he said. ‘A fire in a storm hardly makes sense otherwise. We both know the Palace Pier people aren’t happy about any competition from the West Pier development. Everyone assumes they firebombed it twice before. Who else is it going to be?’

‘The situation could be more complicated than that,’ Henderson said.

‘In what way?’

‘You’re the policeman. Don’t you think it likely that it’s connected to the death of our Chair? Rather an odd coincidence that he should die on the same morning.’

‘Coincidences do happen but I take your point,’ Watts said. ‘In what way connected, though? What aren’t you telling me?’

‘We think there might have been something fraudulent going on.’

‘Laurence? You know he asked to see me the night of the storm but he didn’t show up.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Henderson said, sitting straighter. ‘But, yes, we think it was Laurence.’

‘“We” being?’

‘Alec Henry and me.’

Alec Henry was the West Pier Syndicate’s treasurer. Watts looked at Henderson. She grimaced.

‘We’re talking twenty million pounds here, so I guess that’s a temptation for anyone.’

‘Do you know what he’d done?’

‘Not exactly. We just know there’s something weird going on with the grants for the development.’

‘What kind of weird?’

‘Possibly fraud on a massive level. The thing is, if it gets out the whole project will be in jeopardy.’

‘You want me to hush it up? That’s not really what I do.’

Henderson looked at him for a long moment. Watts guessed she was thinking he’d somehow hushed up what happened in Milldean. He didn’t say anything.

Henderson leaned forward. ‘Do you know the name John Hathaway?’

Watts nodded.

‘What do you know about him?’

‘A major player in Brighton. Almost certainly a major criminal, though he’s never seen the inside of a prison cell. He’s involved?’

‘His name has come up a couple of times.’

Watts looked out of the window again.

‘OK. I’ll look into it.’

The UK coastguard found the blood-spattered boat drifting at dawn, within sight of Brighton’s piers. Gilchrist saw the report flash on to her screen. She shouted over to Reg Williamson:

‘Listen to this. The UK coastguard have boarded a boat that was drifting off the coast of Brighton, swept into shore by yesterday’s storm. A luxury cruiser registered in Ravenna. The boat was deserted except for the carcase of the owner, an Italian industrialist hanging from the wheel.’ She read on. ‘Ugh.’