Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

This was typical of my dad. He’d always given me a rough ride but once he’d had his say and given me grief he’d be there if he could. Well, sometimes.

‘Not really. Got to stick it out, I guess.’

‘What are you going to do to make a living? Write your memoirs?’

He smiled as he said it. It was a thin smile. My father had a mean face. I’d often wondered about that. Does physiognomy reflect character? In the nineteenth century, police forces throughout Europe had built a whole system on that assumption. And some people did look cruel or sour. It was usually to do with the set of the mouth. My dad had a tight mouth drawn down. Eyes protuberant, unblinking. And he was cruel. When I was growing up, praise had been grudging. He’d always been demanding, always lorded it over the household. He was a bully, sharp with his words, contemptuous of what he saw as weakness.

I think he was missing an empathy gene. He could feign kindness. He was regarded as a charming fellow. But underneath he’d always been cold, hard.

‘A bit young for a memoir. Consultancy. Lecturing – I don’t really know.’

‘Crusading? Not that the word has the right connotations in these days of warring religions. Son, I have no idea where you have got this crusading thing from.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘My point is – there’s nothing good about any of us. We’re all in the gutter-’

I started to finish the quote but he interrupted.

‘I know the bollocks you’re going to say. Oscar Wilde – the man who invented sound bites. Some of us like to think we’re looking up at the stars, but whilst we’re doing so someone is nicking our wallet, someone else is shitting on our shoes and that other bloke is fucking us up the arse.’

He leant forward to take a sup of his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He caught my look.

‘What – you’re shocked to hear your dad talk like this? Bit late for finickiness, isn’t it, after what you’ve done? You’ve spent your life taking the moral high-ground about me and your mother but now you see how it can happen. You know what I thought when I read about your leg-over? Thank bloody Christ he’s actually got blood in his veins – because I often wondered.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with fidelity and having a moral code.’

‘Fidelity is for my old hi-fi system and don’t get me going on morality.’

His eyes were burning fiercely, his jaw jutting at me.

‘Dad, you’ve always been ice – there’s no give in you.’

‘Your mother was fire. Fire and ice is a good combination, don’t you think? Anyway, I’m a writer. We’re all less than human.’

‘You’re not exactly James Joyce,’ I said in exasperation. ‘You write thrillers.’

My father looked at me for a moment then continued:

‘Graham Greene said every writer should have a sliver of ice in his heart.’

‘You quote that approvingly. How does that work with family?’

He shrugged.

‘You seemed to have survived OK. Aside from your daft antics, and I don’t see how I can be held responsible for that.’

‘Did you know Graham Greene?’

‘I met him a couple of times.’

‘At some authors’ do?’

‘The second time.’

‘Is there an anecdote?’

‘I don’t do anecdotes.’

This was true. He was notoriously close-mouthed.

‘What was he like?’

‘The first time he was arrogant; the second time better.’

‘When was the first time?’

‘1934. Then in the sixties at a Foyles literary lunch.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Visit you to get your blood circulating.’

He barked a laugh.

‘Aye. It’s not exactly aerobic but it’s better than nothing.’

As the sky started to lighten, the two hooded men left the car. When they opened its doors, no interior light came on. The taller of the two men unlocked the boot and swung the lid open.

The other man looked along the deserted road then up at the dark house, perched on the edge of the cliff some quarter of a mile away. He nodded.

The two men lifted a long, bulky bundle from the boot. The bundle squirmed. Hoisting it between them, the two men walked up the steep grassy sward to the cliff edge.

The taller man looked along the line of the cliff, the brilliant white chalk pale in the dim light. He looked down to the sea some four hundred feet below. The tide was full. He could hear the slap of the waves against the rocks, the undertow sucking at the beach.

The bundle squirmed more vigorously.

The taller man gestured to his partner. Together they swung the bundle back and forth. Once, twice, three times. On the fourth swing they released the bundle. It rose in an arc up and beyond the cliff edge. For a moment it hung in the air, silhouetted against the brightening sky. Then plummeted to the sea below.

I was on the mobile arguing with Molly when I hit the deer. I clipped it as it lunged suddenly out of the black night. My headlights caught the panic flaring in its eye as we collided.

I should have anticipated it. I take pride in thinking ahead and I knew this lane well, every blind bend of it. But it had been a long day, Molly was raging in my ear and I was distracted by the sight of a car in flames in the middle of a meadow to my right.

My reactions in any case were slower than they used to be. Months of chauffeur-driven travel had had a deleterious effect – and on more than just my driving.

I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and skidded to a halt. The phone slid off the passenger seat on to the floor. Through my open window I heard the deer’s hooves skitter on the hard surface of the road. Then it cleared the gate into the meadow and was gone.

I became dimly aware of Molly’s voice from the phone in the well of the passenger seat. I reached down and switched the phone off.

I took a torch from the glove compartment and got out of the car. The torch’s beam was feeble in the darkness of the meadow and I could make nothing out. I guessed the deer was far away by now. I was relieved I didn’t seem to have done it serious harm.

I turned to watch the burning car. Five years ago, burnt-out cars were confined to the other side of the Downs. I’d pass them on the outer edge of Brighton, near the golf course and on the wide grassy verges above the Hollingbury estate.

A couple of years ago, the first two or three appeared on the Downs themselves. Only last week, a stolen car was set on fire in the car park of the Ditchling Beacon, two miles from the outskirts of Brighton and on a lip hanging over this deep countryside. Centuries before, the warning beacons lit in this Iron Age fort were visible for miles around. So too was this conflagration.

I saw the trail of burnt-out cars as further evidence of the creeping approach of Brighton crime into the country beyond the Downs. And now it was here.

I climbed over the gate and walked across the uneven ground towards the burning car. It had probably been abandoned after a joyride or a robbery but I wanted to be certain nobody had been injured.

I approached gingerly. I was pretty sure the petrol tanks had already blown, judging by the way the flames had a hold, but I wasn’t experienced enough at this kind of thing to know for sure.

I got within ten yards before the heat from the fire stopped me. Flames were consuming the whole car. The windows had blown out and burning fragments were scattered all around me. I felt the heat on my face but I stayed where I was. For from here I could see that there was a human form in the passenger seat, the head wreathed in fire. The person was clearly dead.

I backed away then turned to go back to my car and my phone. I swept the ground around me with my torch beam as I hurried to the gate, suddenly fearful that I might, after all, not be alone.