Kiss Me Quick

Title Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PROLOGUE: JACK, FOREVER
CHAPTER 1: LONDON
CHAPTER 2: GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
CHAPTER 3: BRIGHTON
CHAPTER 4: BODIES
CHAPTER 5: THE SWEET LIFE
CHAPTER 6: THE MODERNISTS
CHAPTER 7: ART
CHAPTER 8: ALBION HILL
CHAPTER 9: A DAY AT THE RACES
CHAPTER 10: REDSKIN
CHAPTER 11: THE ORACLE
CHAPTER 12: SWORDFISH
CHAPTER 13: LA DOLCE VITA
CHAPTER 14: UNIONE CORSE
CHAPTER 15: BIG CHIEF MASHIGINA
CHAPTER 16: TREBLE DUTCH
CHAPTER 17: KNOCK, KNOCK
CHAPTER 18: FRESH HELL
CHAPTER 19: POOR COW
CHAPTER 20: THE HEAD
CHAPTER 21: A NAKED GIRL AND A GUN
CHAPTER 22: THE VOLCANO
CHAPTER 23: ROOM SERVICE
CHAPTER 24: ROCK & ROLL
CHAPTER 25: SAWDUST CAESAR
CHAPTER 26: DIRTY WEEKEND
CHAPTER 27: PIERS, QUEERS AND RACKETEERS
CHAPTER 28: BLIND MAN’S BUFF
CHAPTER 29: THE BLUE ORCHID
CHAPTER 30: MAE WEST’S LIPS
CHAPTER 31: THE HALF OF IT
CHAPTER 32: SNAP!
CHAPTER 33: THE WORLD’S PROP STORE
CHAPTER 34: THE OTHER HALF
CHAPTER 35: BOBBIE AND VINCE, POUR TOUJOURS
EPILOGUE: THE DETECTIVE
About the Author
Copyright

I would like to thank Veronique Baxter at David Higham for picking the book up and going with it. Krystyna Green and all at Constable & Robinson for putting it out there. Cressida Ellis for looking at early drafts with her red pen. My mother Josie Miller for being a voracious reader and inspiration, and all my family and friends.

24 December 1939. Brighton. The middle of the night.

The driver glanced in the rear-view mirror as the man in the back seat ignited a cigarette with a gold lighter. As the flame burned, the man rubbed his thumb over the cartouche that had been etched with: ‘Jack, Pour Toujours’. It was a gift. She knew that he would appreciate this inscription, because Jack Regent was in the habit of putting his mark on the things he owned: monogrammed shirts from Jermyn Street, engraved silver cigarette cases from Aspreys and gold lighters from Dupont.

Jack snuffed out the flame and drew slowly on the cigarette, pulling the rich pungent smoke deep into his lungs. Then he steadily exhaled, and plumed a chain of smoke towards the
mirror
that the driver, Henry Pierce, was watching him in. Caught out, Pierce averted his eyes. He knew Jack didn’t like being stared at. He knew he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. The
cigarette
was Jack’s first real taste of freedom, and he was enjoying it.

They were sitting in a maroon 1936 Rover 8: red leather upholstery, walnut dashboard, top of the range. Less than an hour ago Jack Regent had stepped out through the gates of Lewes prison to find Pierce already waiting for him. He had been released early, with a commendation from the Governor. Jack had stopped a prison riot, one he’d organized, incited, then heroically ended. Jack also saved a screw from a beating – a beating he’d ordered, planned, then courageously prevented. It was all just a
set-up
, resulting in seven years being commuted to eighteen months.

Jack had been sent down for a malicious wounding. A
bookmaker
had refused to pay up, so a razor was pulled out and drawn across his face. Jack left his mark. The choice of weapon, the open razor, was not typical of Jack, however. He had always thought razors childish, a twee English affectation. You could never put enough force behind a razor to do the real damage. It acted more as a warning. Regent didn’t hold with the idea of warning his enemies, therefore the bookie was viewed as a mistake. A mistake he promised himself he would never make again. A promise he was going to keep tonight. Jack took one last hit of his cigarette, then stubbed it out.

That gesture was Henry Pierce’s cue. Pierce opened the car door, unfolded himself from the driver’s seat and expanded to his full bulk: six foot five inches and 230 pounds. An imposing figure sheathed in black from the brogues on his feet to the Homburg on his head. He reached into the pockets of his long black
chesterfield
overcoat and took out a pair of kid-leather gloves – black – that fitted over his large, brutal hands like a second skin.

As an ex-pro wrestler, Henry Pierce appreciated the
importance
of a good costume and putting on a performance. He’d once toured the country, playing to packed houses under the guise of a Red Indian; entering the ring in a full feather headdress, warpaint, a tomahawk tucked into his trunks and a squaw by his side, to the accompaniment of tom-tom drums and loud boos from the crowd. Pierce was the arch villain of the ring, and a top draw until one night he got carried away and almost killed a
fellow
wrestler. Pierce treated life as if he was still in the ring, still the arch villain, still the performer. He’d just swapped the feather headdress and buckskins for black.

The sharp sodium wind pricked Pierce’s scarred face. Scars he’d picked up years ago, but somehow they’d never weathered, just remaining smooth, shiny and pink. A long stripe running from an ear lobe to his top lip sectioned off one quarter of his face. A spider’s web on his cheekbone where the business end of a broken stout bottle had been plunged. His left eye resembled a rare bird’s egg sitting in a nest – a nest of scars. A shard of glass had
penetrated
it, leaving it completely redundant: a speckled, marbled jelly with streaky blue and red blood vessels running through it. Sometimes he wore an eyepatch, other times he liked the feeling of unease it gave people when he looked at them. And for his line of work it was as good a tool for intimidation as a knife or a gun. He’d long decided that he liked his bad eye better than his good eye, but appreciated the fact that he needed the good eye to
witness
just how monumentally unpleasant the bad eye looked. He wouldn’t swap it for the world, never mind for another good eye. And this is how Henry Pierce viewed the world.

He opened the rear door.

Jack Regent stepped out of the car, one foot hitting the
pavement
lightly, and one heavier foot following. The left foot was clubbed; he had a certain gait when he walked, but the club foot with its built-up shoe never affected his swiftness, never impeded him from what he had to do. And, like Henry Pierce, he’d learned to appreciate his physical disadvantage, but the club foot signified more than a few scars could ever achieve. For Jack had been born with it: a gift from God that marked him out.

The wind-driven snow had been falling steadily and had dusted the street white. A scattering of windows were illuminated with decorous Christmas fairy lights. The tall Georgian terraced town houses that lined St Michael’s Place had long taken a beating, been slummed over and turned into walk-up flats. One-or
two-bedroom
dwellings with shared bathrooms and toilets located off shabby hallways.

The front door of number 27 had a red and green festive wreath attached to its heavy brass knocker. The door was off the latch and the two men made their way inside to the dark hallway. Without turning on the light, Jack made his way up the stairs. It was on the stairs that Jack’s heavy-booted foot pronounced itself, the light foot levering its way upwards, while taking the weight off the other, which then landed with a distinctive thud.

Four floors up and they were on the desired landing. Jack stood at the door he was about to enter and listened for signs of life … All he heard was his own breath, measured and calm. The climb had taken nothing out of him, nor did the thought of what he was about to do unnerve him. He stepped back a couple of paces, raised the clubbed foot, then hammered it home, sending the door flying off its lock.

Inside, the startled voices of a man and woman rudely awoken were heard. A light went on in a bedroom. A sliver of it escaped under the door and feebly illuminated the living room where Jack and Pierce now stood.

Jack scanned the room, which was tatty and depressing. Threadbare carpet, damp and mottled peeling wallpaper, cheap painted furniture. As an attempt at seasonal cheer, a small
tinsel-covered
Christmas tree stood in the corner of the room, shedding pine needles on to a handful of wrapped presents. Some cards stood on the mantelpiece.

‘What the bloody hell is—!’ A woman’s voice, fearful, as she started getting out of bed and pulling on a dressing gown. The doorknob turned. Jack bolted to the door and entered the room before she could exit. The door slammed shut.

‘No … please, God, no!’ Her panic-pitched voice scorching the ceiling, but going nowhere.

Jack grabbed her hair and reeled her in towards him. Her long, shiny auburn tresses were wrapped around his hand like silk rope as he forced her to her knees. Her head was pulled back, the long white neck exposed, her green eyes wide open and so alive. Jack’s other hand gripped the ebonized hilt of a long slim knife. Her cries quickly muted to gargles and bubbled out in blood as the knife sliced back and forth; fast, savage, severing the spine. Her lifeless body, almost in two parts now, fell to the floor.

Jack then turned his attention to the corner of the room.

And there he crouched, cowering on the floor. Bollock-naked and well and truly backed into a corner. He still had the sweat of his exertions with the woman upon him. No doubt he was
cocksure
, felt he could handle himself in the right circumstances. These weren’t the right circumstances. He looked up at Jack, and the inevitability of it all took away some of the fear. He knew what was coming, because he knew Jack Regent.

Jack held the man’s gaze as he approached, then slowly drew the knife down to the level of his face. With a steady hand he placed the tip of the blade on to the black pupil of the man’s hazel eye. The pupil dilated and contracted – flashing on and off like an emergency signal. The tip of the blade slowly punctured the
membrane
that covered the jellied lens, yet still the man didn’t squeeze his eyes shut, or even blink. He couldn’t take his gaze off Jack, and time slowed for the kneeling man. His life didn’t flash before him, because what he was watching was so much more
compelling
than anything that went on before – a front-row seat for his own execution.

Jack gave the man a soft smile, almost an
adieu
. And in one swift, powerful movement drove the knife into his eye, through the soft grey matter until it reached the bone at the back of his skull. His body juddered and twitched as Jack rotated and twisted the blade buried in his head; skewering his brain, shutting down the fear, the thoughts, the memories, until his life faded like a diminishing signal … over and out.

Jack came out of the bedroom, switching off the light. Henry Pierce eyed him admiringly. Hardly a drop of blood on the long, perfectly tailored camelhair overcoat. Pierce knew what came next. Whilst it wasn’t exactly routine, this was how they’d done it before. Jack would depart and leave Pierce to get on with his work: the clean-up, the getting rid of the bodies. The tools were in the car. Cut them apart and bury them at sea. Pierce cracked his knuckles inside the black leather gloves, showing his readiness for the task ahead.

But Jack didn’t go immediately, and leave Pierce to his work. He held out the knife and fixed him with a challenging look. Henry Pierce took the weapon simply because it was offered to him. This unexpected gesture threw him slightly, and his heavy brow furrowed in confusion. He didn’t know what came next, so he looked to Jack for further instruction.

Jack didn’t say a word. He pulled out his silver cigarette case, took out another of his French cigarettes, put it to his lips and fired it up with the engraved gold lighter. The flame illuminated the dark hallway. Jack inhaled the rich smoke, then plumed it like an instruction towards the door.

Pierce was no longer confused; he had got the message. Sweat prickled his top lip. He quickly wiped it away with the back of one leather-clad hand. He knew Jack might take that for
weakness
– maybe even insubordination, a questioning of his
judgement
. Pierce gave him three slow, considered nods and conceded that it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. By the time he reached the third nod, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of this himself. But that was Jack, always one step ahead. It would join them, bond them in blood: a shared deed they would carry together to the grave. Pierce savoured this morbid thought. He gripped the knife tighter in a hand which still trembled. He reckoned even Jack could forgive him this minor weakness, considering what he was tasked with …

Jack left the flat. Pierce listened as those uneven footsteps faded away, heading down the stairs. He then headed towards the
bedroom
door and pressed his ear against it. The only sound he could hear was his own jagged breath. He opened the door. The room was pitch-black, seemingly windowless. No light from the street lamps below or the three-quarter moon above made its way into the room. But darkness, and whatever it held, never bothered Henry Pierce. Dressed in black, as always, he even felt an affinity with it.

The long knife in his hand remained steady now, as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him.