Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

They both looked over at Finch shambling out of the room with Darren White, the other Haywards Heath officer, stretching up to whisper in his ear.

‘Did you remove evidence from the kitchen?’

‘What evidence?’

‘Whatever it was he’d had in his hand. Judging from the footprints in the blood, it looked as if someone had been moving about in the kitchen.’

He picked up her hand as if it were a dead thing and removed it from his arm.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, turning for the door.

‘He had something in his hand.’

Connolly put his hand in his pocket and continued walking.

‘So have I. D’you want to hold it?’

‘I saw it,’ Sarah said.

‘Big, isn’t it?’

‘In the man’s hand.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’ He nodded at Finch’s retreating back. ‘And nor did Finch. Or White.’ He looked back at her. ‘So there’s only your word for it.’

I’m not a pessimistic man, rather the reverse. My optimism used to anger my wife, Molly, especially when she herself was plumbing the depths. She would call me Pollyanna, her voice cold and jeering.

‘Only people with no imaginations are optimists,’ she snarled at me more than once.

Getting through the days after the shooting at Milldean tested my optimism. These were probably the worst days of my life. Worse than when Molly and I later split up – I leave you to decide what that says about me.

That night Phil, my driver, dropped off Jack Lawrence, my press officer, back in Brighton then drove me over the Downs to the little hamlet where Molly and I had settled four years before. I always liked the idea of leaving Brighton behind. Although my remit covered all Sussex, there was something about Brighton that seemed to stand for the venality and the criminality of the whole region.

Leaving it, coming over into the pure country air of the Downs, allowed me to leave the job behind more effectively than anything. When I got home Molly was already asleep. I tiptoed up the stairs, put my head round our bedroom door and listened to her heavy breathing. I could smell the alcohol.

I went back down the stairs, poured myself a brandy and went out on to the terrace. I could see the nimbus of the city’s light pollution across the top of the Downs. I imagined it getting brighter and brighter as Brighton’s pollutants threatened to spill over the South Downs into the countryside beyond.

I wondered if there was any way I could save my job. I thought about phoning Simpson again. I wondered how bad tomorrow would be.

The new area police headquarters were on the border between Brighton and Hove, down on the seafront. Given the traffic along the seafront, it was a ridiculous place for any kind of rapid response policing but I enjoyed the view from my window. I preferred bad weather days to good – watching the waves crashing over the groynes and spilling on to the promenade energized me.

I love Brighton. OK, I know the city is officially Brighton and Hove since the councils merged but that’s just a sop to Hove civic pride. Although there are restaurants and bars springing up in Hove, Brighton is the engine that drives the city.

I love Brighton for its energy and for its odd mix of people – a mix that, frankly, is a big policing headache. The students from Brighton and Sussex Universities clubbing until dawn, and the gays and lesbians who live in the city or come to visit in droves – all prey for any local gang, mugger or rapist. The unemployed kids on the estates around the city. The druggies, a danger to themselves and others. The crooks who come down from London at the weekends to have a lavish time on a strictly cash-only basis. The prostitutes. And, of course, the local crime families. There were two main ones – the Cuthberts and the Donaldsons – although a man called John Hathaway was rumoured to be the town’s crime kingpin.

There was tension in the air when I strode through reception and the open-plan ground-floor office. I clocked covert and overt glances as I passed. At the rear of the building I jogged up the stairs to my office.

Winston Hart, the chair of the Police Authority, had been phoning my mobile during my journey but I’d ignored his calls. He was a pompous prat of a local councillor from Lewes, one of many academics from the local universities involved in local politics. He’d left four messages with Rachael, my secretary.

I eased behind my desk and looked across at the painting on the opposite wall. I’d bought it ten years ago when I could little afford the expense. I loved the mystery of it – a man and a woman sitting at a table, both gazing at a flower she was holding in her hand. A pot of the same flowers behind them on the window sill. The colours were bright – a yellow wall, red chairs, the man’s green coat, her black hair. But what was its story? That was the mystery.

I sighed and called Hart. Our conversation was brief.

‘I have utter faith in my officers,’ I said. ‘Whatever happened was, I’m sure, justified. I’ve asked Hampshire Police Authority to carry out a full investigation but I’m confident it will confirm my belief.’

Hart had a spindly voice and always sounded tetchy.

‘Do you know exactly what happened?’ he said.

‘I know enough about my officers to stand by them.’

When Hart and I had finished speaking I buzzed through to Macklin.

‘And?’

‘We’re still not clear, sir,’ he said. ‘The statements we took last night leave a lot unexplained. And we can’t locate DC Edwards. It was his man who gave us the tip about Grimes staying in that house. We think he was also the man monitoring the house.’

As he spoke, I picked up the photo of Molly and the kids beside the phone and looked at their smiling faces. It was taken a long time ago.

‘Is Foster still around?’

‘They’re all on suspension but he’s writing up the debrief.’

‘Find him. I want to talk to him today. Listen, Philip, why wasn’t Danny Moynihan leading the operation? He’s our most experienced silver commander.’

I put the photo back on the desk.

‘He’d done the morning shift. I called him but he stood himself down. He’d been drinking after his shift. He wasn’t drunk but-’

‘Yes, I get it. He was complying with the rules.’

The regulations for armed operations stated that officers should have had no drink or drugs of any nature in the previous eight hours.

‘Philip, why don’t you have anything for me? You have responsibility for our use of firearms, for God’s sake. There’s a press conference this morning. People will expect me to have answers. I expect to have answers, but I don’t. I’m supposed to go out on a limb and stand up for my officers when I don’t in fact know what has happened.’

‘Don’t you think it might be a good idea to postpone the press conference?’ I could hear by the tone of his voice that he thought I’d been wrong to call the press conference so soon in the first place.

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Well, then, why not keep it low-key?’

‘Were any weapons found at the house?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Have the people been identified yet?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So we don’t know if Bernard Grimes was even there.’

‘It seems unlikely, sir.’

‘Do we know who Edwards’s informant was?’

‘No, sir.’

I shook my head wearily.

‘Philip – give me something. Anything.’

At the press conference I announced that I’d asked Hampshire police to investigate under the direction of the Police Complaints Authority.

‘All the officers involved in last night’s incident have been suspended pending that investigation. That should not, however, be taken as an indication of guilt.’ I looked round the room. ‘In fact, I’m sure they will be vindicated.’