Kiss Me Quick (9 page)

No answer from Vince, now too busy admiring those hypnotic green-brown eyes. Someone next to them lit up an even bigger joint than the one Bobbie was holding. It crackled and spat like a firework and, even in the smoke-filled gloom, it threw light on to her face. Her eyes widened, till Vince could see his own
reflection
in them. The sheer proximity made him feel good.

‘Let’s go,’ said Vince again, hands around her waist, guiding her out of the crowd and into the fresh night air.

Just as they hit the pavement, three panda cars and a paddy wagon pulled up. No warning sirens. Ginge was bang on time and, as always, in a hurry. Flushed red and raring to go, he was the first out of the car. He then looked more than a little surprised to see Vince propping up Jack Regent’s girl.

Vince gave him the nod and said, ‘Enjoy yourself, Ginge. You’ve got pills, marijuana, hash and booze being sold down there. A real good collar. Run a check on a fellow named Spider, about five foot ten inches and skinny—’

‘I know him.’

‘He was the one dealing the pills.’

‘Gotcha, guv.’ Ginge raced down into the basement, with six uniforms following him.

Bobbie was now stoned out of her box. The lit-up Sophia Loren eyes were fast losing their glow and turning red and
tired-looking
. But for her the night wasn’t over. She declared she had a craving for a ‘Nickerbrorrahrrrrrrorlywithasherrryontop’, and kept giggling and slurring, her tongue lolling around redundantly in her mouth and failing to baton out the words. And her legs weren’t feeling too clever, either.

What she had a craving for, it seemed, was a Knickerbocker Glory with a cherry on top; and she knew a Wimpy bar in East Street that served them. Vince tried to explain that it wouldn’t be open at this time of night, but she kept insisting. Vince tried to remind himself that this wasn’t a date, and that he was a copper, and that, with her tongue loosened up by the copious amounts of reefer, this was a good opportunity to get more information out of her.

On the promenade, the sea air worked its magic and sobered her up. Vince tried his best to keep up with her as she performed an Isadora Duncan routine, running ahead, then jumping and dancing around him. To grab her attention he asked, ‘What’s with the surname, LaVita?’

Bobbie stopped dancing immediately. She didn’t like this line of questioning and could sense the cynicism in his tone. Understandably, while on Jack’s arm she never got pulled up about anything, however silly. She could have called herself Helen of Troy and no one would have dared bat an eyelid.

‘Was it you who called the police, party pooper?’

‘I am the police, remember?’

She threw him a playfully alarmed look and said, ‘Then I’d better answer your question, Detective, before you lock me up. It’s Roberta.’

‘That makes sense. It’s the LaVita bit I’m curious about. Are you Italian?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You’d surely know, wouldn’t you?’

‘Not necessarily.’

Vince gave a resigned shrug. ‘LaVita it is, then.’

They walked in silence for a few moments, then she announced, ‘It’s Drinkwater. Roberta Drinkwater.’

Vince stopped in his tracks and put a hand archly to his ear. ‘Drink …
what
?’

‘You heard.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying, Miss
Drinkwater
, you’ve got some nerve taking the mickey out of
my
name.’

She laughed. ‘I know.
Tread-well
and
Drink-water
, they do have a certain ring to them. That’s why I’m having second thoughts about marrying you, Mr Treadwell. It would be out of the frying pan into the fire.’

Vince didn’t take the hint of flirtation too seriously, as she was stoned.

‘And anyway, I’m looking for something more exotic. Like a Rockefeller or a Getty.’

That remark he did take seriously. He was about to tell her she was keeping the wrong company to run into those boys, but stuck with the affinity in their names instead, ‘Treadwell and Drinkwater, they’re not names, they’re instructions. Could be worse, though. Could be Roberta Guinnessisgoodforyou.’

She laughed. ‘Or Vincent Anappleadaykeepsthedoctoraway.’

‘So what made you settle on LaVita?’

‘Have you seen
La Dolce Vita
? It’s my favourite film.’

He had. Fellini’s Eternal City rendered godless, with Anita Ekberg dancing in the Trevi Fountain. It made sense: the look, the gown, the shoes in hand. All now done as a cheeky seaside parody.

‘Also I was in a hurry to get away from Drinkwater. Anyway, what’s in a name? I can always change it again.’

‘Life could get very confusing,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t know who you are.’

‘Do
you
know who you are?’

‘I like to think so.’

‘But you changed your name, too. You went from Vincent to Detective.’

‘It’s a job title, not a name.’

‘And are you always the detective?’ she asked as she sidled up to him, hooking her arm in his. He didn’t answer.

They walked down from the lawns on to the promenade. The tide was out, revealing the wet sand. On a beach full of hard stones the sand looked exotic, and almost erotic, like soft forbidden flesh only glimpsed under the cover of night. And as he gazed out at its moonlit iridescence, his memory rolled back to the long
summers
of his youth, when the tide was right out, and he could almost feel again the wet sand squeezing between his toes.

About twenty yards ahead stood a man leaning on the railings, looking out to sea. He looked like a tramp, with layers of shabby clothes, and a length of string keeping his trousers up. Yellow hair clumped like straw; a beard covering his face as freely as moss. In scabby hands he held up a copy of the
Evening Argus
, and he was reading the obituaries out loud. His voice sounded haunted and sad, as if he’d known every dead person intimately.

Vince felt Bobbie draw closer. ‘He’s here every night,’ she
whispered
. ‘Always the same routine.’

They were about to make a detour round him when his head turned sharply in their direction. The tramp had looked so caught up in his eulogy that they didn’t even think he’d notice them. Bobbie wanted to keep walking, but Vince stopped, because he recognized the man. Even though the face was one of those that had become unrecognizable, weatherbeaten features blunted like the stones washed over on the beach. But he still had two
distinctive
features. One side of his nose was bulbous, with a red-veined whisky river running through it, the other side was withered and fleshless, so it seemed hardly there. But what really marked him out was what was written there. Scrawled on his forehead in blue biro were the words:
I AM DEAD
.

Bobbie said softly, ‘Why would anyone do that to himself?’ Vince knew the answer, because he’d witnessed it first-hand. But this wasn’t the time to enlighten her.

The tramp stared at them vacantly with glazed eyes. He lowered the newspaper and spoke in a raspy, barely audible voice. ‘Never be without … never be without …’

Bobbie asked Vince, ‘Do you have any money?’

Vince nodded. He took out a ten-shilling note and offered it to the derelict. The offer was accepted, and a scabby hand grabbed the note. He then lifted the newspaper again and returned to delivering his eulogies. ‘Elizabeth Creighton, loving daughter of Ethel and Peter Creighton, died peacefully on …’

Vince and Bobbie walked on.

‘What did he say?’

Vince shrugged. ‘Who knows. Best ask the sea.’

‘That was good of you, to give him that much money. I was thinking of just enough for a cup of tea.’

‘He looked like he could use something stronger. A lot stronger.’

They made their way past the angel statue that divides Brighton from Hove. The crowds were coming out of the pubs and clubs and dance halls. Things could get lively now. And a stoned blonde turning cartwheels could prove a hazard. Vince stuck closer to Bobbie as they passed the pub on the seafront, between the two piers, where the Mods had clashed with the Rockers earlier. It had portholes for windows and a ‘seafaring’ wooden facade that jutted out like the bow of a boat about to set out to sea.

There were about thirty boys and girls milling outside. They were dancing around to Major Lance being played on a plastic portable record player, and clearly well tuned up on pills,
speeding
the night away. Bobbie wanted to join them, but Vince saw the looks some of the girls were giving her. Under all that
makeup
were hard little faces, hailing from Shepherd’s Bush, as tough and territorial as any of the boys. Vince steered Bobbie away, but she saw something else taking her fancy, and spun away from him.

A small bonfire was dying all alone on the beach, and that’s where Bobbie was now heading. Still barefoot, she skipped over the shingle, which didn’t seem to bother her. Vince followed obediently and laid down his jacket for Bobbie to stretch out on it, her eyes closed as if
moonbathing
on the beach.

He sat down beside her and stared at the crackling embers of the dying fire. ‘Are you originally from Brighton?’ he asked.

When Bobbie’s eyes opened, the redness had disappeared – seemingly cleansed under the blue light of the moon.

‘No, a small village in the New Forest. Before he retired, my father was the local GP, and my mother taught at the local school. We lived in a house just outside the village, surrounded by woods and fields. Father used to grow all his own vegetables. My mother kept horses, so my brother and I were riding almost as soon as we could walk. We had two dogs, a pair of black Labradors.’

Vince nodded solemnly, then commented, ‘It sounds … idyllic?’

Bobbie sat up and wrapped her arms protectively around her knees. She hadn’t noticed the question mark in his tone.

‘It really was. I was lucky to have such parents. Those were the happiest times of my life, I think.’

Vince retrieved his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. ‘Why did you come to Brighton, then? Why not London? That’s usually the first port of call.’

‘I did live in London for a few years. But there’s something about the sea, I guess. I just felt drawn to it.’

‘How do they feel about you being with Jack Regent?’

‘Who?’

‘Your parents.’

The dreamy melancholy look she had worn whilst talking about her childhood was suddenly transformed into a challenging glare. It was accompanied by a snide, pointed reply. ‘Oh dear, you really are a policeman, aren’t you? Really just can’t help yourself.’

This broke the spell of the moonlight and the music, and brought Vince sharply back into focus. ‘Well, Jack Regent isn’t exactly ideal son-in-law material. Just wondering how two such pillars of the community might feel about their daughter
shacking
up with a known killer.’

The clipped tones intensified, becoming positively haughty, and playing the class card for all it was worth. ‘My parents are educated people, Mr Treadwell. They were both born and bred in London, and they met at Cambridge. Just because they now reside in the provinces doesn’t mean they hold provincial
viewpoints
. They want me to experience life and make the most of my talent.’

‘So where does Jack Regent fit in with your talent?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I guess he knows a lot of useful people. Like Dickie Eton?’

She sounded not so much angry as petulant. ‘What have you got against Dickie? And where’s the proof that Jack kills people? You don’t know him … Those are just rumours that people put around. People can’t kill people and get away with it.’

‘Not in the land of horses munching in the stable and a pair of black Labs pissing on the vegetable patch, no.’

Now she was angry. She stood up suddenly, threw his jacket off her shoulders, and said, ‘Fuck off!’

It was the first time he’d heard her swear, and he decided she was good at it.

‘I want to go home,’ she said.

‘Where is that exactly?’ Vince asked, standing up. ‘The New Forest?’

And then the soundtrack changed. The music was drowned out by the sound of engines. Heavy engines from ton-up motorbikes making their way down the ramp towards the neat-suited and desert-booted sharpshooters listening to their sweet soul music. Not to Eddie Cochran – and that was the problem.

Vince stood up when he heard the first glass smashing. He was about to say ‘Let’s get out of here’ when already they were on him.

It was happening so fast that Vince couldn’t really get a line on them. They were indistinct danger, but he reckoned there were three of them. Not Mods, not Rockers, not even kids. The way they moved, they looked like professional muscle, looked like they knew what they were doing. The first that came at him wielded a cosh.

He swung, Vince ducked it, and threw his first punch. It
connected
, right in the gut, winding Cosh Boy, doubling him up. Attendant screams from Bobbie on the sidelines. Vince swung up again, and his fist smashed Cosh Boy on the jaw. He could feel teeth give way, and then Cosh Boy was down. Vince followed it through and stamped on his head. Cosh Boy was effectively done.

Then came number two, who was shorter, stockier and
fireplug
fast. Vince couldn’t see his face because his head was down and aimed like a bullet into his stomach. The bull-like charge put Vince on his back, and Stocky was immediately on top of him. Vince knew that one blow from the man’s balled fist would be like an anvil dropping on him, so the Queensberry Rules were quickly ditched. Vince put his right hand up to Stocky’s face and gouged his eye. Stocky grabbed at Vince’s hand and reeled
backwards
. Vince slid his left hand down to his attacker’s crotch and squeezed hard. On this fresh assault Stocky discharged a squeal. Stocky now had some painful choices to make, as Vince’s thumb pitilessly worked away at his eye socket. He rolled away, grabbing simultaneously at his aching balls – both pairs of them.

The screams from Bobbie grew louder. Vince looked up to see number three, a tall skinny fellow with crinkly blond hair, had grabbed hold of her and had a knife to her throat.