The Last King of Brighton (10 page)

‘Do you have a following?'

‘Not exactly,' Hathaway said. ‘We irritate a lot of people. We'll be playing Motown and the boys will want to jive—'

‘With each other, mind,' Billy said, ‘not with girls.'

‘And we're getting used to beer bottles being thrown at us,' Dan said.

‘I never feel we've connected with them,' Charlie said, ‘unless they're showering us with beer and trying to crack our skulls.'

Dawn giggled again and gave him an up-from-under look. When she looked away, Charlie winked at Hathaway.

‘Good-looking lass, your sister,' Charlie said the next day as he and Hathaway walked down the West Pier.

‘Keep your hands off,' Hathaway said, only half-joking.

His father was ranting to Reilly about Harold Wilson when they reached the office. He was furious Labour had got in.

‘Bloody bunch of lefties. Dennis Healey, Jim Callaghan, that drunk Brown. And as for Harold Wilson – we should swap him for Mike Yarwood – he couldn't do worse.'

‘Good morning, lads,' Reilly said. ‘How was your gig last night?'

‘A triumph, Sean, as always,' Charlie said. ‘A triumph.'

‘By that he means nobody threw any bottles at us.'

‘A breakthrough event, then,' Reilly said.

‘We're gonna have to kick you out of the office in a few minutes. We've got royalty coming.'

Charlie and Hathaway both frowned.

‘The chief constable is paying a state visit.'

‘His wife was around our house the other week playing Monopoly with mum and her coven.'

‘A looker, isn't she? I don't know what she sees in exorbitantly wealthy Philip Simpson.'

‘Maybe she has a thing about uniforms,' Reilly said drily.

‘Is he that wealthy?' Charlie said.

‘He's coining it,' Dennis Hathaway said. ‘But he's still annoyed about that Bank Holiday do and he wants us to sort out our differences with the Boroni Brothers. That's what he's coming for.'

‘How are you going to play it?' Reilly said.

‘Well, a little bird told me something that has intrigued me.'

‘Wasn't a Finch, was it?' Reilly said.

Dennis Hathaway grinned.

‘You two lads get into the storeroom. Listen and learn.'

Philip Simpson arrived about five minutes later. He was in his standard civvies: a checkered sports jacket, khaki trousers and brown suede shoes.

‘I haven't got long, Dennis. Having lunch with the leader of the council.'

‘Poor you. Frank isn't exactly a stimulating conversationalist.'

‘You know him well?' Simpson said.

Hathaway leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

‘I own him, Chief Constable. Anything you want to talk to him about, you may as well talk to me.'

Simpson shook his head.

‘A finger in every pie, Dennis. You'll be trying to take over the town next.'

There was asperity in his voice.

‘Not a chance, Philip. I like where I am. I'm a born liege lord. But I do like to take advantage of opportunities when they come up. I thought it might be useful to have the council in my pocket. Frank was working for me when I forced him to stand for election as a councillor. Man can scarcely write his own name. He's been cursing me ever since because of the council meetings.'

‘Now he's the leader of the council,' Simpson said thoughtfully.

‘And he loves being the boss man; still hates the meetings. I've had to hire someone to read the committee reports and write a one-paragraph précis of each one for him, so he has a vague idea what decisions he's making.'

‘Or that you're making.'

‘Far be it for me to take the credit . . .'

Simpson leaned forward.

‘Do you control planning?'

‘Astute of you, Chief Constable. Let's say I have input, yes.'

‘There seem to be some opportunities for investment in the town.'

‘Indeed, yes.'

Simpson showed his teeth.

‘Just make sure the man with the biggest private army in the county gets his.'

‘Right you are, Chief Constable, right you are. By the way, I hear you're shifting shop.'

‘We're moving to St John Street, yes. We've outgrown the old police station.'

‘Just as well to get away from the ghost.'

‘Ghost?'

‘Oh aye. The ghost of the first chief constable. Have you not felt his chill hand on your collar.'

‘I can't say I have, Dennis.'

‘The first chief constable was a Jew called Henry Solomon. In 1844 a young man was nicked for stealing a roll of carpet from a shop. Solomon interviewed him in his office – your office, I suppose. It was a cold day and there was a fire burning in the room. The young man got angry, picked up the poker and hit Solomon across the side of the head with it – so hard that he bent the poker. There were three witnesses to this but not a one intervened. The wound in Solomon's head killed him, of course. The young man was hanged at Horsham.'

Simpson frowned.

‘I'm not following.'

‘History, I suppose. That station has a lot of history. Though I hear you're chucking some of it out.'

‘I'm not with you.'

‘I hear you've been busy destroying files. Not evidence of police wrongdoing, I hope?'

Simpson clasped his hands in his lap.

‘Who's been talking to you? No – don't bother answering that. Old files, Dennis. There's a thirty-year rule. A clear out, that's all. But what business is that of yours? Or is some of your family business in there? Does your father feature?'

‘My dad never came to the police's attention.'

‘Hardly the case, Dennis. I was a copper on the beat from 1933 – one of the first to wear Brighton's white helmet – and use the new radios. Me and Donald Watts joined at the same time. Your father was well known to us, believe me. Your father ran the seafront. And the racecourse.'

‘Pay you off, did he? He never mentioned you. Besides, I heard the razor gangs ran the course in the thirties. Those London mobsters trying to squeeze out the locals.
Brighton Rock
and all that.'

‘They were rough days.'

‘Don't see any visible scars, Chief Constable. You obviously came out of it all right. Or stayed out of the way.'

Simpson looked at him.

‘Why are you trying to antagonize me?'

Dennis Hathaway bared his teeth.

‘You got me wrong. It's just that sitting behind your desk in your best bib and tucker, raking in your money from your own rackets and taking your tithe from mine, I don't see you as a scrapper, more a profiteer.'

Simpson thrust out his arm and pulled up his shirt and jacket sleeve. A long scar ran up his forearm.

‘I won't show you my stomach on such brief acquaintance.'

‘Grateful for that.' Dennis Hathaway leaned forward. ‘Anyway, I was a big fan of Max Miller. Sadly now gone.'

‘You've lost me again.'

‘I wondered if some of those documents you're destroying are linked to the Brighton Trunk Murder. You know – thirty years ago.'

‘Murders, Dennis; there were two. And, yes, we are getting rid of a lot of the witness statements. There are thousands of them. But why would that concern you – and what's Max Miller got to do with it? You're sounding as Irish as Reilly here.'

‘I met Max a few times. Max did variety bills on occasion with Tony Mancini. He's the pimp you'll recall who murdered his mistress, Violette Kay, stuffed her in a trunk and kept her under his bed for six weeks until the neighbours complained about the smell.'

‘I recall the case. Bizarrely, neither his landlord nor landlady had a sense of smell so they suspected nothing. He was taken to trial in Lewes but thanks to his brief – who later became Lord Birkett – he got off.'

‘Then confessed to the newspapers in 1963 that he was guilty.'

‘Your point, Dennis?'

‘Sorry, Philip, I do go round the houses sometimes. Well, Mancini did an act on stage in which he pretended to kill women – saw them in half, that kind of thing. Pretty bad taste if you ask me. And Max had the odd chat with him. Only when he had a free evening, Max said – Mancini had a bad stutter so conversation could take longer than normal. And Mancini told him he was suspected of the other Trunk Murder too.'

‘Two dead women found stuffed in trunks within six weeks of each other – even you would think there was a connection.'

‘True – though the other one, the one who was never identified, had no arms, legs or head, and no clothes for that matter. Her missing head the main reason she wasn't identified.'

‘I'm still not sure what your point is.'

‘He told Max some of the stuff the police were asking. Did you interrogate him by the way?'

‘I wasn't high enough up the pay scale,' Simpson said.

‘Well, according to Max, he was asked some rum questions about certain people in town. Do you want me to continue?'

‘I'm not with you yet,' Philip Simpson said cautiously.

‘Abortions were run by the rozzers then as they are now. Your area of expertise.'

Simpson spread his hands.

‘Still waiting for the light to come on. Oh, wait. You think I've ordered the files destroyed because I was somehow implicated? Because of links you're imagining with abortionists?'

Dennis Hathaway just looked at him. It was Simpson's turn to lean back in his chair and put his hands behind his head.

‘But if that's the case, why did I wait so long?'

‘Good question. Good question. Somewhere in those hundreds of statements in the Trunk Murder files there is something incriminating – but for whom?'

Hathaway picked the newspaper up and held it out to Simpson.

‘Seen the newspaper today.'

Simpson looked at the cover.

‘Great Train Robbers, getting what they deserve. So?'

Hathaway tapped a column low down on the right-hand side of the front page.

‘I meant this.'

Simpson unclasped his hands and took the paper.

‘You would have known it years ago, you being in the police force and everything,' Dennis Hathaway said. ‘But the rest of us – us civilians – only just found out that somebody actually found the head of the Trunk Murder victim back in 1934.'

‘A couple of youngsters found a head in a tidal pool at Black Rock. They didn't report it at the time. But it was before the dead woman's remains had been found at Brighton railway station. By the time they recognized the significance of the find, it was too late – the head was long gone. Stupidity and bad luck. So what?”

Reilly walked over to a cupboard. He withdrew a bottle of brandy and three balloon glasses. Simpson nodded to his unspoken question.

‘So it focuses interest on the Trunk Murder again. Makes those files you're chucking out particularly interesting.'

Simpson took a glass from Reilly. He nodded.

‘What do you want?' Simpson said as Reilly poured out two measures.

‘What the bloody hell do you think I want?' Dennis Hathaway said. ‘I want to renegotiate our deal.'

SIX

Time is on My Side

‘
I
ce hockey?' Hathaway said. He was sitting with his father, Reilly and Charlie in deckchairs on their private end of the pier. It was a sweltering Spring day and all were wearing shorts and open-necked shirts, except for Reilly, in sports jacket and cavalry twill, still managing to stay cool as a cucumber. All but Reilly had ice cream cones.

‘These Canadian guys in the war kept going on about it so I gave it a watch,' Reilly said. ‘Good, aggressive game. The Brighton Tigers are among the best in the country – just won the Cobley Cup against the Wembley Lions. They play at the SS Brighton.'

‘Are you a skater, then, Mr Reilly?' Charlie said.

‘Sean. Used to be. I still do it from time to time. But SS Brighton is closing down in a few weeks – end of May.'

‘Snow melting?' Charlie said, grinning.

Reilly gave him a look.

‘It's being pulled down to make way for a shopping centre, and next to it Top Rank are building this concrete box. A monstrosity. A dance hall with bars, opening November. The old place is closing in October with the Tory party conference – there's probably a joke in there somewhere but I can't find it.'

‘If it's a monstrosity, how did they get planning permission?' Hathaway said. His father just looked at him.

‘It's all progress, Sean,' Dennis Hathaway said, grimacing as melted ice cream ran down his cone and on to his wrist. ‘There's going to be a lot of development in Brighton over the next few years and we're right in the middle of it.'

He waved the cone at their surroundings.

‘We've got to get off this pier before it rots away. Shit.' His scoop of ice cream had toppled out of the cone on to the wooden boards. He tossed the cone over the railing into the sea and wiped his hand on his shorts.

‘We've got the site clearance for Churchill Square shopping centre this year. That's going to be massive. Three years' work before any shops open. We're providing the labourers. And the machinery. We're investing in Brighton's future.' He winked. ‘And our own.'

Billy, Dan and Tony, the group's new rhythm guitarist, hove into view, also in shorts.