Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

She shook her head.

‘And that was it. Your team came up the stairs and I was in the corridor, deaf and feeling sick.’

‘So Finch shot Little Stevie in the bathroom.’

‘Little Stevie?’

‘That’s the name of the victim. Some kind of rent boy.’

Franks looked at Gilchrist for a moment.

‘A rent boy. Really?’

‘Unusually, he doesn’t have a record.’

‘That is unusual.’ Franks finished the rest of her drink. ‘My round? I could do with another.’

‘I’m driving. A tomato juice will do.’

Gilchrist watched Franks walk, stiff-shouldered, to the bar. Was she telling the truth?

Tingley’s meeting at Gatwick was almost surreal. He met the contact from one of the intelligence services in a seedy cafe area near to Domestic Arrivals. The man had flown in from Edinburgh. He was tall, stoop-shouldered, in an elegant suit but with dandruff on his shoulders. His face was pinched, his eyes hooded.

They sat at a tiny round table under bright fluorescent lights that made the man’s skin look sallow and tired.

‘Why did Bob Watts get dumped on?’ Tingley said.

The man shrugged.

‘Because he’d fucked up.’

‘There’s more to it than that.’

The man looked at his polished right brogue for a moment, jiggling his foot.

‘I’m not entirely clear why my agency sent me to meet with you.’

‘Because your agency and me go back a long way.’

‘But what I’m about to tell you is highly sensitive.’

‘So am I, especially when I’m mucked around. Just tell me, please.’

‘Telling is almost invariably a bad idea.’

‘You don’t have a choice, as I’m sure you’ve been informed. I’m calling in a large number of favours.’

The man stretched his right hand out and examined his nails for a moment. Satisfied with them, he looked at Tingley with an insincere smile.

‘Yes, I gather you’ve been quite a help to us over the years. Operations few people know about…’

Tingley said nothing. The man nodded.

‘The targets in the house were the man and woman.’

‘The ones in bed together?’

The man nodded.

‘What about the guy sitting on the toilet?’

‘Collateral. But not innocent.’

‘What about the man killed in the kitchen?’

The foot jiggled again.

‘An informer. Dispensable.’

Tingley wanted to hit him. He’d met people like this before. Every nation had them, every period of history. People who kill remotely, who don’t have to see the cost of their decisions in human misery.

Tingley lived with the bad things he’d done. He believed that one day he’d answer for them. But at least his bad deeds were always in war, overt or covert, and face to face. It didn’t mean he had a right to kill those he’d killed but it made some kind of sense.

He watched the man’s foot. The shoelace was unevenly tied, with a long stretch hanging over the side of the shoe.

‘Mind you don’t trip on that,’ he said, gesturing at the shoe. The man didn’t look down.

‘What had they done?’ Tingley said.

The man told him.

When I got back from London I drove over the Downs into Ditchling and bumped into Ronnie, the neighbourhood cop. Traffic was at its usual standstill because of cars parked on the High Street, so he led me into an alley near the church to tell me the body in the burnt-out car had been identified.

‘It was Edwards, sir. I believe his snitch had started the whole Milldean thing.’

‘Wonder who was using his credit cards in the south of France?’ I said.

‘Probably sold on.’

I nodded. I wasn’t sure that Edwards’s death took us any further than his disappearance had, but I needed to think through a few things. I thanked Ronnie and wandered into The Bull. I was pleased to see the big log fire was burning.

The music was turned off, thank goodness. The new landlord had introduced non-stop music into the quiet space. Bob Marley, Lionel Ritchie – I’d been there with all of that. I play music all the time in the car but in a pub I like silence.

On the odd occasions I bought crime fiction, it made me laugh to read of this or that policeman’s musical interests. This one’s a jazz fan, that one is into prog rock, another’s an opera buff and there’s one north London cop who likes country and western.

My musical tastes are more eclectic. Dissonance is my preference but one of the perks of my old job was getting invited to Glyndebourne for the opera and the Brighton Festival for world music.

It amused me too that the barmaids in this pub were so ill-suited to their job. They exuded arrogance and boredom because they were usually the good-looking daughters of local wealthy people. Tonight, it was a final-year student at Sussex with good legs and a sour mouth. She didn’t notice any of the customers because she kept her head down. Since there was a pile of people at the bar, it was irritating that she served only who was next in her narrow line of vision, however long others had been waiting.

When I eventually got my drink I sat down beside the log fire. It had started raining and my mind drifted as I gazed into the embers. Three policemen dead. Foster, Finch and Edwards. Presumably the ones who could talk about who was behind what had happened.

But what about Connolly and White, his Haywards Heath sidekick? I felt sure they took the lead in what had happened in the house in Milldean. Were they under threat or were they the ones doing the threatening? What was William Simpson’s involvement? Blackmail because of Little Stevie or something more? Was he the man pressing to get the investigation closed down? More to the point – was he the man arranging to have people knocked off?

I was contemplating the odd coincidence that our fathers were both around during the Trunk Murder investigations. I was still curious about how much my dad really knew. I was pretty sure he’d written the diary, even though I didn’t recognize the handwriting as his. I’d also been trying to get hold of Tingley but he was as elusive as ever.

Judging by the intriguing individuals drifting into the pub – mostly men, largely macho, often dodgy – I guessed there had been racing at Plumpton, a few miles down the road.

I couldn’t stop chewing over my encounter with Simpson. I knew I’d missed something. There was a look on his face when I focused on Little Stevie. Inscrutable, to be sure, but a hint of relief. It was there for just a moment then was veiled again. He was expecting something else. Something worse. I’d known this guy a long time. I was pretty certain I was right, I just didn’t know how to get him. It was bloody irritating. What had I missed? What else was there?

A guy came and stood in front of me, blocking my view of the fire. He was standing feet planted, legs apart, shoulders squared. Not big but thickset. Looking down at me.

‘I know you, you cunt,’ he said.

Which isn’t the most neutral of conversational openings. I looked up at him. Didn’t recognize him. I shrugged.

‘Remind me?’

At this point I was aggravated but calm. However, from the pugnacious way he was leaning over me, I thought it appropriate to uncross my legs and drop my hands on to my knees. The problem with the army training I’ve had is that it’s easier to think about the way to kill someone than it is ways merely to disable. And one of the first things you’re taught is that if you get the first punch in, you’re probably going to win the fight.

So, one part of me was resisting the – strong – urge to rise and smash the side of my hand into the base of his nose, driving the bone up into his brain. That’s the death option. Or I could just reach out, grab his balls and give them a good twist.