Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

Wednesday 20th June

We had the inquest today. It didn’t last long. Percy Scales gave evidence that we were called to the railway station to witness the opening of the trunk. The coroner announced that the dead woman had been expecting her first baby. He also stated that cause of death had not been ascertained. So much for Spilsbury’s talents. The inquest was adjourned until 18th July.

Brighton was full of reporters from all over the country. Those from the big papers in London stayed at the Grand. They seemed to have money to burn. They hung around in the pubs when they were open. When the pubs were closed thelittle cafe across the square from the Town Hall became the unofficial press headquarters.

They were very free with their hospitality with any policeman they saw in the pubs or the cafe. Hutch, the Chief Constable, was being a bit tight-mouthed – hardly ever had a press conference – so the reporters were trying to find out whatever they could on the QT.

‘ It’s like making bricks without straw,’ one of the London blokes complained to me in the pub this lunchtime, eyeing me furtively over his double whiskey. His name was Lindon Laing and I’d given him a few titbits before now, ever since he’d told me that his expenses were more than?3 a day.

‘ Don’t suppose the cloakroom attendant has remembered what the man who left the trunk looks like? ’

I shook my head. Poor Henry George Rout. The evening the trunk was deposited had been a busy one and he’s obviously not the most observant of men at the best of times. But he’d been cudgelling his brains ever since we opened the trunk trying to remember what the bloke who deposited it looked like. With no success.

I wanted to give the reporter something but I didn’t have anything of use. I told him about the bungalows.

‘ Big conference of Sussex Chief Constables yesterday. Decided to make a rigorous inspection of empty bungalows. ’

‘ Looking for the scene of the crime?’ When he grinned the reporter showed big teeth stained yellow from tobacco. He had long hairs curling from his nostrils.

‘ We need to know where the body was dismembered. ’

Ordinarily that would have done him for the day but my news was eclipsed by the fact that Hutch made a frank statement in the council chambers to around thirty newspapermen about Spilsbury’s findings. Particularly the bit about her being pregnant. He also appealed for help in identifying the young woman. This was the start of twice-daily press briefings.

Even so, press men continued to hang about outside the station. People coming to the station to make statements were intercepted and questioned. We had complaints, so usually we had to escort witnesses from the building by the back exits.

Taxicabs and press cars were kept in constant readiness outside the police station and when officers were despatched in motor cars to make enquiries, the press followed. We ended up going round the houses to reach our destinations.

Once the late evening’s papers were printed there was a sensation throughout the country. Within minutes of the publication of the appeal we were besieged with callers offering information. We all worked overtime that night but Hutch also got in a relay of clerks to take statements over the telephone.

Within about an hour of the appeal we had our first possible sighting of the torso murderer. I took the call from a Territorial Army Captain – R. T. Simmons of the 57th Home Counties Field Brigade. Posh spoken, a bit querulous.

‘ I live in Portslade and use the Worthing to Brighton train regularly to go to either of these towns,’ he said. ‘On Derby Day I came into Brighton in a rather crowded compartment. There was a man in the compartment carrying a trunk which I’m sure is similar to the one I have seen in the newspapers. ’

‘ Did you notice anything particularly about this man?’ I said, the phone tucked between my shoulder and ear as Iscribbled down his words.

‘ He kept the trunk beside him on the seat, even though the rest of us were crowded together and had little room. And when the train reached Brighton this man jumped out quickly and carried the trunk along the platform. It was clearly heavy but he ignored porters who offered to help. ’

Simmons described this man as being about 35, medium height and dressed in a dark suit.

I thanked him then went to find Scales. The statement looked promising, although the timing wasn’t quite right – the sighting had happened earlier in the day.

I’ve not been a policeman long. Perhaps that’s why I was startled by the number of suspicious characters that populate our town, revealed by the calls we had.

A lodging house proprietor, breathless with excitement, told me that on 4th June a man carrying a brown paper parcel and a small suitcase booked a room for three weeks.

‘ He seemed very worried,’ my caller said. ‘For the first fortnight he didn’t leave his room during the day, always going out at night. ’

‘ Did you ever see him with a woman? ’

‘ No, no, I didn’t. But he suddenly left town two days before the trunk was discovered. ’

‘ Before his three weeks was up, you mean? ’

‘ That’s right. ’

‘ Did you find anything unusual in his room after he’d gone? ’

‘ Not a thing,’ he said. ‘Not a thing. ’

I thanked him and put the phone down. A constable would follow the call up but I doubted it would come to anything. I looked at my watch and stretched. My shift was over and Ihad a date.

I didn’t hear until the next morning that poor old Vinnicombe, sniffing around his left parcels office this evening, had found another body in a suitcase: that of a newborn baby.

Thursday 21st June

I was late into work after a long night. Everybody was talking about Vinnicombe’s discovery and making jokes in doubtful taste about the contents in general of the railway station’s left parcels office.

We’d had some kind of tip-off – I couldn’t find out what as it was very hush-hush – about visitors to the town on or about 21st May. Plain-clothes police were visiting boarding houses to see who’d come to town that day.

Late in the morning Donaldson went up to London to follow clues to a missing Hove girl. We heard later in the day he’d found her alive and well in Finchley.

In the afternoon we heard from the woman who’d written the word ending in ‘-ford’ on the brown paper we’d found in the trunk. A Sheffield woman, Mrs Ford, said that from the photo she’d seen in the paper she was sure it was her handwriting. She said it wasn’t the end of the word, it was her last name – she always wrote it with a small letter ‘f’.

She thought the paper was part of a parcel taken to London by her daughter, Mrs Morley. Mrs Morley had been using her maiden name, Phoebe Ford. She’d been staying at a hostel in Folkestone where she had given the piece of brown paper to a German woman.

One of Donaldson’s theories was that the murder victim had come from abroad. Boats go to and fro between the pier at Brighton and France every day, as I knew full well from Frenchy’s regular visits. We’d already been in touch with Interpol. He wondered if here, with word of this German woman, he had his continental link.

Then the knives turned up in Hove.

Kate’s father had rung twice more from his mobile phone, each message more impatient. She still ignored him. By now she was sprawled on her sofa, the windows to the balcony closed, utterly absorbed in the narrative she was reading. Absorbed but also repelled by the author’s callous way of talking about the women he met.

Kate’s doorbell rang. She jumped. She had paused in her reading to think how many human stories were hidden between the lines of every statement the police took down. Why was the man who booked in to the lodging house so troubled? Why did he only go out at night? Why did he leave before his three weeks was up?