The Last King of Brighton (28 page)

‘Any contemporary statements from friends and family? Known associates?'

‘Family no help. Father is dead and mother has Alzheimer's. We've got her class list from the university so we're tracking people down through the alumni association. We're checking the electoral roll too, just in case.'

‘Who was she?'

‘Student at Sussex; hippy by the sounds of it. Name of Elaine Trumpler.'

Watts and Tingley met David in the bar of the Jubilee Hotel in Jubilee Square that evening. The bar was low-lit and the décor was white plastic. David was sitting in a booth in front of a large aquarium. Brightly coloured fish drifted or darted behind him. He was speaking into his mobile phone but cut the connection when he saw them.

‘I'll get these,' Watts said to Tingley. ‘You've got catching up to do.'

Watts pointed at David's glass and the ex-soldier shook his head. When Watts went over a few moments later and put Tingley's drink in front of him, David laughed.

‘Still drinking that fag drink?'

Tingley gestured around them.

‘Yeah, keep forgetting what town we're in. Cheers, Tingles, and best of health to you, Bob.'

They drank. Tingley exaggerated smacking his lips after taking a sip of his rum and pep.

‘I told the boss I was seeing you,' David said. ‘Wanted to play it straight.'

‘Whatever way you want to play it – we weren't going to interrogate you, just wanted a bit of an idea of the set-up from your point of view.'

‘He said to tell you anything you want to know.'

‘You know he's a major crime figure,' Watts said. ‘You're putting yourself at risk of jail time getting involved in illegalities.'

‘I know policing used to be your business, Bob – what's lawful and what's not – but our government has sent Tingles and me out on many an op where the lines are blurred. In the twilight zone chances are we're helping shore up some regime that has raped an entire country. We must have worked for some of the world's biggest crooks but they're legitimate because they have the power. Terrorists who are now presidents. War criminals with the Nobel Peace Prize tucked in their back pockets. So Mr Hathaway's crimes, whatever they may have been – for I do believe they're all in the past – pale by comparison. What was it the man said? “All great fortunes are based on crimes.”'

‘Have you been rehearsing that?' Watts said with a smile.

‘Bit. How'd it sound?'

‘Good,' Tingley said. ‘Good enough to convince yourself, right?'

David looked him in the eye.

‘I'm working for him, aren't I?'

‘What's he like?' Watts said. ‘I've only got the police report to go on and, frankly, a lot of that is guesswork.'

‘What's he like? A man of his word, I think. A tough bastard – mentally and physically. He's a streetfighter. I've seen him spar with some of the guys and he knows some stuff you don't find in the textbooks.'

‘He's an expert in aikido and karate,' Watts said.

‘Nah, not that shit. Dirty stuff. The stuff Tingles and me were taught – you too, maybe – you've got the look of a military man.'

‘Reckon he learned those from Sean Reilly back when?' Tingley said.

‘Obi-Wan Kenobi? Maybe.' He saw their look. ‘Hathaway reveres that old commando guy. Talks about him far more than he ever talks about his dad.'

‘And you're certain Hathaway's not involved in anything illegal these days.'

‘Well, obviously I can't be certain but there's no heroin lab in the basement or brothel in the greenhouse, if that's what you mean. And the kind of meetings I accompany him to are with legit businessmen – as far as any businessman can be legit. I'm sure you wouldn't regard Laurence Kingston as a nefarious character.'

‘Laurence Kingston?' Watts said.

‘Last meeting I took Mr H. to was over at his place in Hove.'

‘When was that?'

‘Some time last week – Thursday, I think.'

‘You're sure it was him?'

‘Mr Kingston's hard to miss, wouldn't you say?'

‘You know he committed suicide the other night?'

David looked at Watts.

‘I didn't know.'

After a moment, Watts said:

‘Is that it? The sum total of your grief?'

‘Bob—' Tingley said. David raised his hand.

‘Give me a break,' he said, a look of disgust on his face. ‘I didn't know Mr Kingston. I don't entirely approve of suicide – though I would argue the toss in certain situations – so I've no reason to feel grief for the man. I've lost a number of friends and too many close friends to violent death. I'll keep my grief for such as those, if you don't mind.'

‘I'm sorry,' Watts said. ‘That was crass of me.'

‘Yes, it was,' David said.

‘You know the pier has been firebombed too,' Watts said.

‘I heard you thought Mr H. had done it – rather an odd thing for someone to do who planned to invest, I'd say, but I'm just a jarhead not a former top cop. What I do know is that Mr H. was well pissed off when he heard about the firebombing.'

‘And you maintain he's legit.'

‘Why would he not be? He's made his money – why run the risk of doing crooked things? You know better than me, Bob, how these things go. He owns restaurants, nightclubs, a chain of dry cleaners, office buildings and a couple of boutique hotels. He's a legitimate businessman.'

Watts smiled.

‘So why does he need you and the others like you?'

‘Everybody needs security. And, unfortunately, in the past Mr H. has mixed with a lot of unsavoury characters who want to drag him back into the mire. He has to protect himself.'

‘How many people like you does he employ?'

‘A dozen round the house, on shift. I wouldn't like to guess with regard to his businesses, especially as – I forgot to say – he also runs a security firm. Operates all along the south coast.'

There was a pause whilst they all sipped their drinks.

‘I assume you've heard about his accountant, Stewart Nealson?' David said.

‘We've heard,' Tingley said.

David looked down at his hands.

‘It's starting, then.'

EIGHTEEN

W
atts met his father in a pub at Kew tube station, a couple of miles from his Barnes home. Donald Watts, aka Victor Tempest, best-selling thriller writer, womaniser, husband, all-round bastard. Through a wall of windows they could see on to the platform where crowds waited for tube trains that took their time arriving.

His father was looking frailer than the last time he'd seen him, some six months earlier, but still darned good for ninety-seven.

‘Got a job yet?' Donald Watts said.

‘Sort of.'

His father looked at him. One eye was watering. He reached in his pocket for a cotton handkerchief and dabbed his eye. Watts took a sip of his wine. It tasted corked but he took another sip anyway.

‘It's about Brighton in the sixties, Dad. Skeletal remains have turned up near the West Pier. I wondered if there was anything you could remember about those times.'

‘Giddy times. Paisley shirts. Men wearing silk scarves knotted at the neck. Kipper ties. Or was that the seventies?'

‘You were friendly with Philip Simpson, the corrupt chief constable.'

‘We'd been in the force together back in the thirties.'

‘He destroyed the Trunk Murder files. Don't you think that's odd?'

‘Oh, you're back on the Trunk Murder again. How are these remains connected?'

‘They're probably not. I went off at a tangent. This is a woman with her face punched in as best we can tell from the skull. I was just intrigued by the destruction of the files.'

‘What year?'

‘1964.'

Donald Watts nodded.

‘Thirty-year rule. Standard thing to do.'

‘It seems to have been virtually the first thing he did. An unsolved crime.'

Watts's father shrugged his bony shoulders. He wiped his eye again.

‘Did you know Charles Ridge?' Watts said.

‘Of course – he was another one. He'd been in ten years or so when I joined. Moved through the ranks. We were part of the same social circle in the fifties, early sixties.'

‘And you stayed friends with Philip Simpson. I don't remember meeting him.'

‘He died of cancer – 1969, I think. You were but a bairn, as was William.'

‘We found the remains of a skeleton in a block of cement. The old Chicago waistcoat – feet in a tub full of concrete.'

‘Cement shoes, eh? And you think I did that too?'

‘Of course not. We're trying to figure out what was going on in Brighton in the sixties. You knew Dennis Hathaway. Went to his parties. Did you ever meet a young woman called Elaine Trumpler?'

‘Never. Dennis Hathaway. Good parties. And he liked my books.'

‘You know he was a villain.'

‘I was aware of him hoping to take over from Charlie Ridge, the ex-chief constable and his merry men – you knew about that?'

I nodded.

‘Charlie had been in the force since 1926 – he joined at the time of the General Strike. Then Philip Simpson came along.'

‘You knew they were bent?'

‘Most of them were bent back then.'

‘You?'

‘Not particularly. You know my crime.'

‘Selling stories to the newspapers.'

Donald Watts shrugged.

‘That was about it. A few backhanders but that was part of the system. Charlie refined it. Took over the whole bloody town. Controlled the abortionists, took a percentage from the brothels and the arcades.'

‘From when?'

Donald Watts looked at his son. Grinned. He looked vulpine.

‘Clever boy.'

There'd been a society abortionist based in Hove who'd been suspected of committing the Brighton Trunk Murder. Watts's father had sent a French girlfriend of his there who may have been the murder victim.

‘You mean, was the phony pharaoh, Dr Massiah, one of his?'

‘Did Ridge protect him at the time?'

‘From the investigation into the Trunk Murder? We'll never know that now, will we?'

‘Dammit, Dad, don't do this again. Do you know?'

‘I had my suspicions.'

‘What about Simpson destroying the Trunk Murder files?'

‘I told you that was at his discretion – the thirty-year rule.'

‘There were thousands of statements. Numerous people accused.'

‘What is it you really want to know?'

‘Everything.'

Watts's father took a long pull of his beer and stared out at the departing tube train.

‘I think you think I know more than I do know.'

‘Telling me anything you do know would be a start.'

Donald Watts scratched at his cheek.

‘My memory isn't what it was. Perhaps you'd be best reading the rest of my memoir.'

Although Simpson's father had admitted he had written the fragments of diary Kate Simpson had found, he had not mentioned the existence of anything further.

‘You sod,' his son said.

Gilchrist met Watts on the seafront.

‘We have a hit from a classmate of hers who was also her flatmate for a time. Claire Mellon. Want to come with me?'

Watts nodded. She drove him up to Beachy Head. They spoke little in the car. She found that awkward. He didn't seem to notice.

‘I've been here before,' Gilchrist said, looking up at the slope of the cliff edge and the house above it. ‘Woman who lost her cat.'

‘The cat in the burned-out car?' Watts said.

‘The very one.'

During their investigation of the Milldean massacre they had traced a car used to dump a body off the Seven Sisters to a burnt out hulk at Ditchling Beacon, all thanks to the remains of a cat that had disappeared from Beachy Head.

The house on the cliff top was a converted lighthouse that had been moved back a couple of hundred yards some years before because of cliff erosion. A slender, upright woman answered the door. Gilchrist remembered how the woman's grace had made her feel lumpen the last time they'd met.

‘Hello – we've met before,' Gilchrist said.

‘Not something else to tell me about my cat, I hope?'

The woman smiled. She was as elegant and graceful as before as she led them into her pristine living area. Watts looked around.

‘Lovely,' he said.

‘
Grand Designs
thought so, though Kevin was worried about our budget and our timescale.'

Gilchrist and Watts both looked blank.

‘TV programme? Never mind.'

‘It's about Elaine Trumpler.'

‘Yes, Elaine.' She ushered them to her white sofa. ‘A wild child if ever there was one. Would you like green tea or, in the circumstances, some herb?' She saw their expressions. ‘Just joking – sorry. What is it you want to know about her?'

‘When did you last see her?'

‘After your call, I gave this some thought. Sometime in 1969. We lost track of each other when we stopped being flatmates and because she was filming for a long time, and then there was her townie boyfriend, of course. Then she took off for India.'

‘Whoa – you're saying a lot there. She was filming?'

‘She was in several films being made in Brighton.
Oh! What A Lovely War
.
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
.'