Peter Guttridge - The Last King of Brighton

‘The Tree of Jesse,’ Patrice Magnon said, following Charlie’s look.

‘Could have fooled me,’ Charlie said. He patted Patrice on the back. ‘Thanks for coming in with us.’

Patrice smiled thinly. Glanced at the grey-faced man sitting alert in the corner.

‘Did I have a choice?’

After some discussion, Watts and Tingley went in by the front door. Watts had declared he was too old to be scaling walls. They buzzed at the gate and walked through a cobbled courtyard to where Dave was waiting for them in an open door. There was the scent of honeysuckle around them. Clematis hung from the front of the house.

Dave had an uncertain smile on his face and a gun in his hand.

‘What the fuck are you up to, Tingles?’

‘Unfinished business with Radislav.’

‘And you?’ Dave said to Watts.

‘Making a stand.’

Dave frowned.

‘This is… unexpected.’

Tingley walked right up to Dave.

‘Are you going to let us in?’

‘More bloody coppers,’ Hathaway said when Dave led them into a long, gloomy drawing room. He was sitting in a wing-backed chair, a pistol on the table beside it. ‘I’ve only just got rid of the French flics.’

‘Ex-copper,’ Watts said. ‘Are they going to protect you?’

‘Hardly. They don’t know anything. Neighbours heard an explosion. I fobbed them off. Do you know what happened?’

‘I’m not psychic,’ Watts said.

‘Lippy, aren’t you?’ A woman’s head appeared from behind the wing of another chair. Hathaway gestured at her.

‘This is Barbara. Very loyal. First love of my life. It’s just his way, Barbara. Barbara was close to Sean Reilly back in the day. She’s in mourning. Barbara, this is ex-Chief Constable Bob Watts and Mr Tingley.’

‘Reilly’s dead?’ Tingley said. He’d been looking forward to meeting the old soldier.

‘They came in through the garden. I have a dozen men here but these scum waltzed in through the French windows to Sean’s room. He had a surprise for them.’

Hathaway looked down.

‘Sean took care of them. Well, most of them. My men, once they got their arses in gear, took care of the rest.’

‘Radislav?’

Hathaway shook his head.

‘Is Charlie Laker over here?’ Watts asked.

‘Don’t know. I expect so – every other bugger is. So much for my weekend retreat. Why the hell are you two boy scouts here? Gone soft on me or something?’

‘Must have,’ Watts said. ‘Where’s Cuthbert?’

Hathaway glanced at Dave, standing by the door.

‘Thought you knew. He was long past his sell-by date. But the rozzers don’t need to keep a guard on his family. I was just winding him up. I would never harm them. I’m evil but I’m not a monster.’

‘Subtle difference,’ Watts said.

‘Life is all in the subtle differences,’ Hathaway said.

Barbara stood.

‘I need a fag.’

As she passed Watts, she said:

‘I met your dad once.’

‘I hear that a lot,’ he said.

‘He made a pass at me.’

‘That too.’

She left the room. Hathaway was looking at Watts, sizing him up.

‘Your dad, yes. Somewhere in this house is something that might interest you.’

‘I’m sure there are lots of things,’ Watts said.

‘The bulk of the police files for the Brighton Trunk Murders.’

‘They were destroyed,’ Watts said.

Hathaway shook his head.

‘Nah. Philip Simpson desperately wanted them destroyed for some reason but my dad got hold of them, gave them to Sean for safe keeping.’

‘Why would I be interested?’

‘Family history?’

Watts glanced at Tingley.

‘I’d be more interested in what you meant when you said William Simpson’s birth was the Immaculate Conception.’

Hathaway stood.

‘Is this the time?’

He saw the look on Watts’s face.

‘Well, I guess we have nothing else to do until the barbarians reach the gate.’ He made a wry face. ‘I just meant that his pretty young wife confided in my mother, who told me and my sister, that they never had sex. Had separate bedrooms, in fact.’

There was movement in the corridor outside the drawing room. Dave turned then looked back, an odd expression on his face. A bunch of men crowded past him into the room. They were led by a man with scars on his face.

‘Mr H.,’ Dave said. ‘Charles Laker to see you.’

‘What happened to the man on the beach?’ Karen Hewitt asked Gilchrist. ‘The uniforms said he looked as if he’d been tasered.’

Gilchrist held Hewitt’s look.

‘Beats me. There was a lot of confusion. Maybe he got in the way of one of the others. What is he saying?’

‘Nothing,’ Hewitt said.

‘And Kadire?’

‘Kadire’s out on bail.’

‘What?’

Hewitt threw up her hands.

‘Tell me about it. Hathaway has disappeared, so has Tingley, so we just have an uncorroborated claim that he tried to shoot Hathaway. Smart lawyer and a lot of cash behind him, he’s out the door.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Disappeared.’

‘And Radislav?’

‘We don’t know where he is either. So it goes on. Do you know where Bob Watts is?’

Gilchrist shook her head.

‘That’s three strikes,’ Hewitt said.

‘Am I out?’

Watts was unconscious on the floor, a vicious blow to the back of his head with the butt of a machine pistol doing the damage. Tingley was inelegantly bound to the wingback chair. Dave stood over him.

‘Sorry about this, Tingles.’

‘You switched horses?’

‘Strictly speaking, no. I was Mr Laker’s man from the start.’

‘So all that hand-wringing about crossing the line?’

‘Well, Cuthbert was Laker’s man so I didn’t think he’d want his family wiped out. Had to think of some reason to phone you.’

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Why?’ Dave was almost jeering. ‘I’m a soldier of fortune. A mercenary. I go where the money is.’

Barbara came in shooting. The recoil of the sawn-off almost knocked her off her feet but she kept her balance. The blast was a terrible violation of the room. Dave fell against the fireplace and lay, still and broken, arms flung out. The Serbian by the window was writhing on the floor, blood spreading from his right hip down his trousers and up his shirt.

A shattered hip, Tingley judged. He tried to stand, taking the chair with him. Barbara looked at him and the chair hanging down behind him. She looked at Watts, slumped on the floor.

‘Where’s my John?’ she said.

‘They took him,’ Tingley said, turning sideways on to her. ‘Could you? I can’t reach.’

‘What good are you going to be to me?’ she said. ‘Scrawny guy like you.’

‘I’m better than I look.’

‘Then why are you tied to a chair?’

‘Misjudgement. But I won’t make another one.’

Barbara took a knife from her jacket pocket. Tingley laughed.

‘You come prepared.’

She sawed at the rope.

‘You have no idea.’

She cut him free and pointed at Watts.

‘I’ll take care of him,’ Tingley said. He looked over at the man with the shattered hip. ‘What about him?’

Barbara was already striding out of the room.

‘Fuck him.’

Tingley gathered up Watts. Though his friend outweighed him by a couple of stone, he hoisted him up and brought him out of the room.

‘You are deceptive,’ Barbara said as they went down the corridor.

They got into Tingley’s car, Watts laid out on the back seat.

‘What now?’

‘We find Hathaway.’

It took until dusk. They’d driven to Dieppe, haunted the ferry point, driven out into the country. They found him on the cliff-top beyond the church, silhouetted against the sinking sun in the west. He was hanging in a crude frame, a black silhouette outlined in orange flame from the sun beyond him. Naked. Impaled.