Peter Guttridge - The Last King of Brighton

Hathaway remained seated when the three men walked in.

‘You two again – you’re like a bad fart. What is it this time?’

‘Do you know anything about the Visegrad genocide?’ Tingley said.

‘I’ve a feeling I’m about to,’ Hathaway said. ‘You two want a beer? Afraid I’ve got standards. I drink it out of a glass. I drink my wine the same way.’

Tingley told much the same story he’d told Gilchrist. Hathaway watched Tingley carefully as he talked.

‘The Serbs practiced eliticide, systematically killing the political and economic leadership. Then moved down the hierarchy, killing and raping at will. And the ethnic cleansing worked. These days Visegrad is a Serbian town. There’s hardly any Bosniaks living there.

‘Terrible,’ Hathaway said when Tingley had finished. ‘But there were war crime trials for these people.’

‘For some people. Eight men were charged with war crimes at The Hague for this and imprisoned. But some ringleaders got away – as we know, the two biggest Serbian war criminals did – Radovan Karadic and General Ratko Mladic. As did a certain Miladin Radislav. He parlayed the plunder he took from his victims into criminal wealth and a criminal empire. Ended up after the war in some fortified mountain eyrie as a white slaver and drug baron.’

‘I don’t know the name,’ Hathaway said.

‘Better known by his nickname. Vlad the Impaler.’

Hathaway looked off into the distance.

‘Nealson’s death, eh? You think Radislav is here.’

‘I think,’ said Tingley, ‘that he came across the oceans bringing plague and pestilence.’

‘That’s very poetical.’

‘I was thinking of Nosferatu. Dracula? Came from Transylvania in a plague ship. Killed all the crew. Captain tied to the wheel?’

‘You’re making him out to be a nightmare figure. But he’s just a gangster. I’ve known gangsters all my life. He doesn’t scare me.’

‘He should. He’s not just a gangster. He and his men are hardened in war. Trained killers. And he’s part of a pan-Balkan crime syndicate, thanks to the war. Which means he has a limitless supply of money and manpower. If they want to take over Brighton, they will. If they want you dead, you’re dead.’

Hathaway chewed his lip.

‘And you think I’m weaker than them?’

‘I think you’re twenty years older than them. And you have some sort of moral compass, skewed though it might be.’

‘Do you know why they’re here?’ Hathaway said.

‘Specifically? No.’

Hathaway stood and walked over to a desk against the wall. He picked up a small, plastic-covered red book then put it down.

‘You know about Mohammed?’ he said.

‘Which Mohammed are we talking about?’

‘ The Mohammed.’

‘Your point is eluding me. He was from the Balkans?’

‘He died in 632 and within twenty years his followers had conquered half the Mediterranean. North Africa fell in about two years, then they were all over Spain and Italy and Sardinia. You know how?’

Watts turned to Tingley.

‘Seems it’s our turn for a history lesson.’

‘Alliances. Always alliances. They came in when areas were in trouble and they came to deals with the guys who were losing, then they took over the whole thing. The Spanish conquistadores did the same in South America.’

‘You think the Balkan guys have been invited in. By whom?’

‘Whoever their friend came to talk to in Milldean?’ Hathaway said. ‘Maybe the person who is behind the Palace Pier people now?’

‘What’s the Palace Pier got to do with it?’

‘Somebody is making a play for Brighton. That’s why they bombed the West Pier.’

Watts sat back in his chair.

‘There’s a rumour your guys heisted the Palace Pier the other weekend.’

Hathaway turned, a small smile on his face.

‘In a way,’ Tingley said, ‘that doesn’t really matter. Nor does why these people came. They came for revenge but now they are here to take over, as they have in France and Italy and Germany. And they will take over.’

‘Over my fucking dead body.’

‘I believe that’s their intention, yes. They intend to kill you. And they will succeed.’

‘Bullshit. If you think I’m going to let a bunch of Balkan gangsters take over my town – my town – you’re fucking mad.’

‘Now don’t go all Bob Hoskins on us. It’s over. Embrace change and get out alive. If you can.’

‘Bob Hoskins? The mockney actor? You lost me.’

‘It’ll come to you.’

‘ The Long Good Friday.’ Tingley said. ‘Thought he could take on the IRA. Ended up in the back of a car being taken to a very bad end.’

‘Saw it. Down in Worthing. Got my car keyed that night. Maybe that was a message.’

Hathaway sighed.

‘So, you’re saying these guys have come into town and they’re intending to take over all crime as we know it.’

‘Not just crime. They’ll want what you have. Your legit businesses. And they will take over. These guys are killers. They’re at a different level. They’re war veterans. Mercenaries. They live by the feud, by torture. They are more barbarous than you can imagine.’

Hathaway walked over to his balcony. With his back to them, he said:

‘You don’t know what I can imagine. To frighten naughty children Romans used to warn them, “Hannibal the barbarian is at the gate.”’

‘More of your classical education, John?’

‘A Kevin Costner film called The Postman, actually. Much underrated.’

‘Sounds riveting,’ Watts said.

‘Oh, it was an epic. But you know the history of postal services is a history of adventure and of secrecy.’

‘I’ll tell them that the next time I’m at the sorting office,’ Watts said.

‘You should read The Crying of Lot 49.’

Watts was growing exasperated at Hathaway always talking in riddles.

‘I don’t have time to sort that title out, John.’

‘I’ve done a lot of reading over the years.’ Hathaway looked at his hands. ‘It feeds the soul.’

‘I’m sure it does. We need to move on, John.’

Hathaway ignored him.

‘You know how many times Britain has been invaded? We think we’re this island and that protects us, but that’s bullshit. Before 1066 and all that we were invaded by every bugger that took a fancy to us. Brighton got burned down by the French more than once in the Middle Ages.

‘Have you heard of the Barbary pirates? Muslims again on the north coast of Africa. In the sixteenth century, they took entire villages into slavery. Cornish and Irish villages left deserted for decades.’

‘John. Please-’

‘But that was then. No foreign invader has landed on these shores since the nineteenth century and, as far as I’m concerned, no fucker is gonna. Yeah, we’ll take their cockle pickers and strawberry pickers, we’ll pay their slaves shit but we aren’t going to let them get a hold.’

‘Jesus,’ Watts said, jumping to his feet and striding over to Hathaway. ‘They’ve already got a hold. Russians, Triads, Yakuza. They run Britain now. The Serbians have been running crime in the Midlands since the end of World War Two.’

‘They don’t run Brighton.’

‘For the moment, King Canute. For the moment.’

Hathaway pushed his face towards Watts.

‘Yeah, well, if that’s all you have to say, you can go. I hate negativism. Can’t abide it.’

Watts eye-balled him.

‘It’s realism.’

‘Yeah. Do you know how many years I’ve heard people talk of pessimism and say it’s realism? It’s not. It’s pessimism. That’s it. End of story.’

Tingley walked up beside them.

‘They’re going to kill you, John.’

Hathaway half-turned so that he was facing Watts and Tingley.