Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

‘Why didn’t you come to me for help?’ I said.

‘At what particular stage of your plodding career and my meteoric rise?’

‘At the stage when you were deciding to have a blackmailer killed.’

He stretched his arms out along the back of the sofa but said nothing. We looked at each other. It turned into a staring contest.

‘What is it that you think you’ve got on me?’ he finally said.

‘Didn’t know you were into rough,’ I said.

‘Oh, Robert. Surely you know – a little bit of everything does you good.’

‘But it didn’t work out with Little Stevie.’

‘Little Stevie? Sounds like a little scut. They all try it on.’

‘OK, then. But are you going to explain what happened?’

He slapped the arm of the sofa. A little puff of dust bounced into the air and slowly dispersed.

‘My dear chap – you’ve come to get a confession! How wonderful.’ He crossed his legs revealing bright red socks. ‘But this is not a crime novel and I have absolutely nothing to confess to.’

‘So why have him killed?’

He pouted.

‘Is that what this is about? The death of a rent boy.’

‘What else did you think it was about?’ Tingley said. He wasn’t looking at Simpson, he was looking at the man at the bar, who had his mobile phone to his ear. I saw a curious look cross Simpson’s face. I flashed a look at Tingley.

‘William,’ I said. ‘We know you’re up to your neck with the gangster families who rule Brighton. We know you were being blackmailed by a rent boy who stole your wallet. We know your daughter was threatened because you’re in hock to the crime families. And we know Bosnian Serb gangsters had possession of your blackmailer. Your high-flying government career is well and truly over.’

Simpson looked from me to Tingley and shook his head.

‘Robert, there was a time when I thought you were politically most astute. Of late, I’ve become aware that you’re a plodder. You have no feel for nuance. These scurrilous allegations – what can you possibly do with them? If so much as a hint leaks into Private Eye or a national newspaper, so much shit will rain down on you that you will drown before you can even reach for a hat.’

He gave a nod to the man sitting at the bar.

‘If, however, you decide to do things above board and take me through the courts, I will, of course, have more respect for you.’

He stood.

‘But I will also destroy you and your family.’

That teatime I went to see Molly. She opened the door and when she saw it was me turned away and walked back into the sitting room, leaving me to follow if I chose. I closed the door and followed her into the sitting room.

She was wearing a baggy trouser suit and looked pretty good. Except that she had logs burning on the fire on a sunny summer day. She sat down in her chair but said nothing to me. I sat down in the chair opposite.

‘Thanks again for intervening the other day.’

She shrugged.

‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

Her voice was harsh.

‘How’s it going with the drink?’

‘Grand, just grand.’

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I feel like a cog has come loose and I can’t find a way to put it back on.’

She pushed her tongue behind her teeth, thrust out her lower lip.

‘How do you think I feel?’

I sensed a softening in her.

‘I know. I’m sorry.’ I shook my head. ‘Really sorry.’

She didn’t respond. I pushed my luck.

‘I want to be here to take care of you.’

Her tone didn’t change so it took me a moment to register what she said next.

‘Yeah, well, you can fuck off. You’ve fucked up this family. Family is meant to mean something. You make a commitment. You made a commitment. To our kids. To me. Our wedding day. Such a wonderful day. Remember when everybody clapped?’

I saw her grind her teeth, knew the calm was over.

‘You shit,’ she said. Then: ‘How does it feel to have ruined my life?’

‘Truly terrible,’ I said.

She had a lovely mouth. I watched as she worked it.

‘Good,’ she said, a dying fall.

Tingley met me in a bar on the Brighton boardwalk. When we’d left Simpson in London we’d talked a little but then gone our separate ways. Now, he looked at me.

‘So are you telling me this guy is going to get away with it?’ Tingley said.

‘For the moment it would appear so.’

There was an elderly couple leaning into each other, making their slow progress across the beach. The brim of the woman’s hat was blown up by the wind and she was holding it on with her left hand. His head was down, his chin tucked into his muffler. They had linked arms and she laughed, open-mouthed.

‘Terrific,’ Tingley said, swirling his drink in his glass.

‘We haven’t got the evidence – and we missed something.’

‘We did.’

‘How can you drink that shit?’ I said.

He said nothing. I sighed.

‘Do you think I’m happy about it? I lost my career over this. My life is in the toilet.’

He drained his glass and tilted his head to look at me.

‘So you’ve got nothing to lose by taking him on.’

‘There’s always something. And if we take him on, we won’t win.’

‘So? You lose either way.’

‘But I want to choose the terrain. You should understand that.’

He nodded.

‘You mean you want to live to fight another day?’

‘That’s the appropriate cliche, yes.’

He kept his eyes on me. Those pale, unblinking eyes.

‘I’m not giving up,’ I said. ‘I’ll get him some other day. Just not today.’

The couple stood facing the sea, the waves slapping slowly against the shingle. I looked back at my friend. He raised his glass.

‘To that other day.’

June 1934

H e was sitting in his suit in a corner of the room when she came home. City of Dreadful Night lay open in his lap. His father, a sunless man, had given him the bleak Victorian poem for his twelfth birthday. The gas jets were lit and the one behind his head cast his elongated shadow across the room.

‘You startled me,’ she said, her mouth somewhere between a smile and something more nervous. ‘I didn’t expect to see you today.’

He was sitting, left leg crossed over right, trousers on the left leg pulled up to avoid bagging at the knees, a narrow band of lardy, hairless leg between turn-up and sock.

‘Where have you been?’ he said.

‘To Hove – to that doctor we heard about. It’s all set for next week.’

He knew his temper scared her. He saw she was avoiding looking at his face, her eyes fixed instead on that narrow band of bare leg. Her eyes were still focused there when he stood. She looked up and saw his face. He moved towards her.

He felt he was in a cathedral or some vast building where the silence buzzed. That strange susurrus of sound that pressed on his ears. Then he realized the dim roar was inside, not outside, his ears. His blood pumped through him in sharp surges. He checked his pulse with a finger on his wrist. His heart was beating quickly but not as rapidly as he expected.

He looked around him. Everything neat and in its place. He glanced down at his suit. He saw a dark spot on his waistcoat. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed at the spot. It didn’t budge, although there was a blossom of pink on the white cloth.

He needed to still his ears. He walked to the radiogram and turned it on. The bulb glowed red. He recognized the music that grew louder as the radio warmed up. Ketelbey’s In a Monastery Garden.

He picked up the packet of Rothmans on the table beside the sofa. He smoked two cigarettes, listening to the music, looking everywhere but at her. She lay face down on the floor, blood in a spreading halo around her head.