Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

She phoned the library. A cheerful young woman gave her the number for the County Records Office in Lewes. Yes, they had the files that had belonged to the Central Division of the South East Police Authority. She could make an appointment to see them. And the autopsy photographs. That last threw her.

She knew Lewes. It was a pretty town, its streets clustered about the ruins of the castle keep. It was Islington-by-the-sea for fashionable Londoners who wanted to start a family in a place where there was a better quality of life.

She’d been brought up in Hampstead, just off Southend Green. When she was a teenager and taking her first alcoholic drinks, the pub she used was the one outside which Ruth Ellis had shot her lover. A bullet hole could still be seen on the outside wall of the pub – well, they said it was a bullet hole.

Sarah Gilchrist was talking to Reg Williamson when her mobile rang. They’d moved away from finding Finch’s body to the recent raid on the rotten meat store in a rat-infested warehouse in Newhaven.

The raid was the conclusion of Operation Dinner Out, in conjunction with local environmental health officers. The warehouse had been stacked to the rafters with rotten meat. Around a hundred tonnes of it. The stench had been incredible. Rancid chicken that had turned yellow through putrefaction had been bleached with chemicals to make it look healthy.

Then they’d found the ‘specialty’ meat. Decomposing lambs’ brains and cows’ feet, cows’ muzzles, smoked cattle-hide, gizzards and goat carcasses in two huge freezers. It was supposed to be sold as pet food but somebody cute – and they were thinking Steve Cuthbert – had decided to buy it from abattoirs, process it, package it and reintroduce it into the human food chain.

‘You know, all I see is the shit in life at the moment,’ she said. ‘It’s really getting me down. People acting as low as they can.’

‘I’m impressed by the ingenuity of criminals,’ Williamson said, rolling his ever-present, ever-unlit cigarette between his chubby fingers. ‘The way they can figure out how to make a buck in the gaps between. Jesus, if they applied that entrepreneurial spirit to legitimate business, they’d be captains of industry.’

‘What, you think captains of industry are legitimate?’

‘True enough,’ he said. ‘But when do they have the time to think up this stuff? Who would think Steve Cuthbert, if it is him, would say to himself: “Hello, there’s a gap in the market for reusing rotten meat.” How would they have the chemical knowledge to know what to do to make it at least look edible? And then to set up the production line, the transport infrastructure. And these are guys who were kicked out of school at twelve.’

Gilchrist stood and walked over to the window.

‘I don’t eat meat in ethnic restaurants any more,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t. Most of that rotten meat ends up in halal butchers and specialist outlets. I’m not being racist but I do want to know where my food has come from.’

‘It’s no worse than fast food,’ Williamson said, ‘big greasy burgers.’

‘I don’t eat them either. Or sausages because usually they’re made from the sweepings off the butcher’s floor.’

‘Minced testicles and eyeballs in some frankfurters, I read. Give me Chinese any day. Hit me with that monosodium.’

Gilchrist’s mobile phone rang.

‘It’s Bob.’

She was silent for a moment, aware of Williamson watching her.

‘Hello, s-, hello,’ she said with forced enthusiasm.

‘I’m sorry to call you there – I know it’s awkward – but I wondered if you’d had a chance to look up that car that was burnt on Ditchling Beacon.’

‘As a matter of fact-’

‘Did the report say anything about a cat?’

‘A cat?’ she said, her tone clearly reflecting her thought that he was losing it.

‘I seem to remember they found a cat in the boot of the car.’

There was silence again.

‘Your ex-dancer on Beachy Head?’

No, she was the one losing it. She flushed.

‘I’ll get back to you later,’ she said, breaking off the call. She looked at Williamson. ‘We might have a bit of a break. And do you know why? That woman’s missing cat.’

‘Tiddles to the rescue, then.’

Tingley had called and wanted to meet at lunchtime in English’s Oyster Bar. When I arrived he was sitting at the narrow counter, tucking into a plate of oysters in their shells on a bed of ice.

‘You’re going up in the world,’ I said. ‘Bit of a change from the Cricketers.’

He didn’t look up.

‘Are you going to eat? The Dover Sole is always good.’

‘Sure.’ I took the stool beside him and glanced around. Although English’s was something of a Brighton institution, with its white painted Georgian fascia and its location just at the edge of the Laines, I’d never been in here. Behind Tingley’s head was a framed poster for a play from God knows when signed by an actress called Susannah York. ‘Thank you for a third lovely evening’ she’d written. Next to it was an old black and white studio portrait of George Robey and below him a more recent actress in a posh dress.

Through the open windows of the pub opposite I could hear a bunch of men singing raucously.

The waitress came over. A tall, pale woman with fine features and an accent. I ordered and when she’d gone into the kitchen, Tingley said:

‘Estonian – part of the latest tranche from eastern Europe.’

‘The influx causes all sorts of problems when they get into trouble – from prostitution to orphanages. In policing terms-’

‘Yes, but you’re not a policeman any more.’

I looked down at the stained marble counter.

‘Difficult to lose the mindset.’

‘But you’ve never been a proper policeman. When you came in here you didn’t scan the room to check out the suspicious characters.’

Now he was looking at me. Was he trying to pick a fight? I glanced at the two glasses beside his plate. One was a wine glass, half-filled with something red; the other was an empty whiskey glass.

‘I spotted you, didn’t I?’

My voice was light but I was aware of a tightness in it. I looked at photos of Omar Sharif, Albert Finney and Maureen Lipman on the wall behind the bar. He ducked to slurp an oyster from its shell. He looked back at me.

‘I’ve been checking out Milldean. Word is that a guy I pissed off in a pub there the other night is even more pissed off about a raid on a rotten meat warehouse in Newhaven. Name is Cuthbert and, as far as I can see, he’s into everything rotten. Gang bosses report to him as they park South Vietnamese and Chinese labourers all over the Sussex countryside, and Polish and Lithuanian youngsters in brothels. He’s into DVD piracy from China and he’s been on the carousel for VAT on mobile phones. All that quite aside from Shylocking on a third of the estate and the fraudulent benefit claims.’

‘We know some of that.’

‘So why has he never been done? He must leave a trail.’

‘Lack of evidence? I never got directly involved in operational matters.’

He put his fork down and shook his head.

‘One of two reasons. He’s either got the fix in very high up or he’s registered as an informer.’

‘I don’t know which he might be but I can find out.’

‘I’ll find out,’ he said. ‘You’re too much on the outside.’

‘I’ve got some contacts,’ I said, hearing the petulance in my voice.

‘This involves intel the Israeli way, Bobby, I’ve told you.’ He took a sip from his wine and shucked the last of his oysters.

‘Is he linked to the massacre in some way?’

‘I’m inclined to think not, but he is part of a bigger picture. This guy has got a competitor. I need to find out more about him. Guy called Hathaway. Into the same sort of shit but a bit more high-end. Maybe better connected. Maybe the man.’