Peter Guttridge - The Last King of Brighton

‘Have you been rehearsing that?’ Watts said with a smile.

‘Bit. How’d it sound?’

‘Good,’ Tingley said. ‘Good enough to convince yourself, right?’

David looked him in the eye.

‘I’m working for him, aren’t I?’

‘What’s he like?’ Watts said. ‘I’ve only got the police report to go on and, frankly, a lot of that is guesswork.’

‘What’s he like? A man of his word, I think. A tough bastard – mentally and physically. He’s a streetfighter. I’ve seen him spar with some of the guys and he knows some stuff you don’t find in the textbooks.’

‘He’s an expert in aikido and karate,’ Watts said.

‘Nah, not that shit. Dirty stuff. The stuff Tingles and me were taught – you too, maybe – you’ve got the look of a military man.’

‘Reckon he learned those from Sean Reilly back when?’ Tingley said.

‘Obi-Wan Kenobi? Maybe.’ He saw their look. ‘Hathaway reveres that old commando guy. Talks about him far more than he ever talks about his dad.’

‘And you’re certain Hathaway’s not involved in anything illegal these days.’

‘Well, obviously I can’t be certain but there’s no heroin lab in the basement or brothel in the greenhouse, if that’s what you mean. And the kind of meetings I accompany him to are with legit businessmen – as far as any businessman can be legit. I’m sure you wouldn’t regard Laurence Kingston as a nefarious character.’

‘Laurence Kingston?’ Watts said.

‘Last meeting I took Mr H. to was over at his place in Hove.’

‘When was that?’

‘Some time last week – Thursday, I think.’

‘You’re sure it was him?’

‘Mr Kingston’s hard to miss, wouldn’t you say?’

‘You know he committed suicide the other night?’

David looked at Watts.

‘I didn’t know.’

After a moment, Watts said:

‘Is that it? The sum total of your grief?’

‘Bob-’ Tingley said. David raised his hand.

‘Give me a break,’ he said, a look of disgust on his face. ‘I didn’t know Mr Kingston. I don’t entirely approve of suicide – though I would argue the toss in certain situations – so I’ve no reason to feel grief for the man. I’ve lost a number of friends and too many close friends to violent death. I’ll keep my grief for such as those, if you don’t mind.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Watts said. ‘That was crass of me.’

‘Yes, it was,’ David said.

‘You know the pier has been firebombed too,’ Watts said.

‘I heard you thought Mr H. had done it – rather an odd thing for someone to do who planned to invest, I’d say, but I’m just a jarhead not a former top cop. What I do know is that Mr H. was well pissed off when he heard about the firebombing.’

‘And you maintain he’s legit.’

‘Why would he not be? He’s made his money – why run the risk of doing crooked things? You know better than me, Bob, how these things go. He owns restaurants, nightclubs, a chain of dry cleaners, office buildings and a couple of boutique hotels. He’s a legitimate businessman.’

Watts smiled.

‘So why does he need you and the others like you?’

‘Everybody needs security. And, unfortunately, in the past Mr H. has mixed with a lot of unsavoury characters who want to drag him back into the mire. He has to protect himself.’

‘How many people like you does he employ?’

‘A dozen round the house, on shift. I wouldn’t like to guess with regard to his businesses, especially as – I forgot to say – he also runs a security firm. Operates all along the south coast.’

There was a pause whilst they all sipped their drinks.

‘I assume you’ve heard about his accountant, Stewart Nealson?’ David said.

‘We’ve heard,’ Tingley said.

David looked down at his hands.

‘It’s starting, then.’

Watts met his father in a pub at Kew tube station, a couple of miles from his Barnes home. Donald Watts, aka Victor Tempest, best-selling thriller writer, womaniser, husband, all-round bastard. Through a wall of windows they could see on to the platform where crowds waited for tube trains that took their time arriving.

His father was looking frailer than the last time he’d seen him, some six months earlier, but still darned good for ninety-seven.

‘Got a job yet?’ Donald Watts said.

‘Sort of.’

His father looked at him. One eye was watering. He reached in his pocket for a cotton handkerchief and dabbed his eye. Watts took a sip of his wine. It tasted corked but he took another sip anyway.

‘It’s about Brighton in the sixties, Dad. Skeletal remains have turned up near the West Pier. I wondered if there was anything you could remember about those times.’

‘Giddy times. Paisley shirts. Men wearing silk scarves knotted at the neck. Kipper ties. Or was that the seventies?’

‘You were friendly with Philip Simpson, the corrupt chief constable.’

‘We’d been in the force together back in the thirties.’

‘He destroyed the Trunk Murder files. Don’t you think that’s odd?’

‘Oh, you’re back on the Trunk Murder again. How are these remains connected?’

‘They’re probably not. I went off at a tangent. This is a woman with her face punched in as best we can tell from the skull. I was just intrigued by the destruction of the files.’

‘What year?’

‘1964.’

Donald Watts nodded.

‘Thirty-year rule. Standard thing to do.’

‘It seems to have been virtually the first thing he did. An unsolved crime.’

Watts’s father shrugged his bony shoulders. He wiped his eye again.

‘Did you know Charles Ridge?’ Watts said.

‘Of course – he was another one. He’d been in ten years or so when I joined. Moved through the ranks. We were part of the same social circle in the fifties, early sixties.’

‘And you stayed friends with Philip Simpson. I don’t remember meeting him.’

‘He died of cancer – 1969, I think. You were but a bairn, as was William.’

‘We found the remains of a skeleton in a block of cement. The old Chicago waistcoat – feet in a tub full of concrete.’

‘Cement shoes, eh? And you think I did that too?’

‘Of course not. We’re trying to figure out what was going on in Brighton in the sixties. You knew Dennis Hathaway. Went to his parties. Did you ever meet a young woman called Elaine Trumpler?’

‘Never. Dennis Hathaway. Good parties. And he liked my books.’

‘You know he was a villain.’

‘I was aware of him hoping to take over from Charlie Ridge, the ex-chief constable and his merry men – you knew about that?’

I nodded.

‘Charlie had been in the force since 1926 – he joined at the time of the General Strike. Then Philip Simpson came along.’

‘You knew they were bent?’

‘Most of them were bent back then.’

‘You?’

‘Not particularly. You know my crime.’

‘Selling stories to the newspapers.’

Donald Watts shrugged.

‘That was about it. A few backhanders but that was part of the system. Charlie refined it. Took over the whole bloody town. Controlled the abortionists, took a percentage from the brothels and the arcades.’

‘From when?’

Donald Watts looked at his son. Grinned. He looked vulpine.

‘Clever boy.’

There’d been a society abortionist based in Hove who’d been suspected of committing the Brighton Trunk Murder. Watts’s father had sent a French girlfriend of his there who may have been the murder victim.

‘You mean, was the phony pharaoh, Dr Massiah, one of his?’

‘Did Ridge protect him at the time?’

‘From the investigation into the Trunk Murder? We’ll never know that now, will we?’