The Last King of Brighton (8 page)

‘It's your usual fee,' Franks, a burly bald man, said, handing Hathaway a thick envelope.

‘No, not for that – for the ancillaries.'

The publican stared at him.

‘I think my father had a word with you about the new arrangements.'

The publican continued to stare. Finally, he said:

‘I was expecting Mr Reilly to do the collecting.'

Hathaway smiled.

‘One grasping hand is as good as another.'

The publican nodded slowly.

‘True enough. The dealer's nipped off somewhere. He said he'd be back but maybe not until tomorrow. Do you want to come back then?'

It was Hathaway's turn to stare. He could understand this sour man being irked that some youngster was taking more money off him, but he couldn't let him try it on.

‘Mr Reilly will be the one to collect it in that case. He'll doubtless want a word with the dealer too, if you could arrange for him to be here.'

The staring match continued for another minute.

‘Hang on a second,' the publican said.

He was gone for over five minutes, and Hathaway was getting steamed until the landlord returned with an envelope in his hand.

‘Thought I heard him in the back – he came back sooner than expected. All the calculations are in there too.'

‘Thanks, Mr Franks. My dad will be pleased.'

Charlie watched him back across to his table.

‘What was that all about?' Charlie said.

‘Just something for Dad.'

‘These machines must be quite good little earners for your dad. He'll be worth a bob or two.'

Hathaway took a sip of his beer.

‘I wouldn't know.'

‘You've got the biggest house on your street,' Charlie said.

‘Only because it's on the corner and there was room to extend.'

‘Wouldn't he want to move somewhere a bit posher?'

‘What's wrong with Milldean?'

‘Nothing moving out of it wouldn't fix. If I were your dad, I'd be buying something up the Dyke Road or round Seven Dials.'

‘I think he'd find them a bit snooty up there. He was born in Milldean. He's rooted there. Don't you like where you live?'

‘Moulscombe?' Charlie just laughed. He took a gulp of his pint. ‘You going to work for your father until the group takes off?'

‘I already am, in a way,' Hathaway said. ‘But it's not like a proper job.'

‘Couldn't find anything for me, could he?' Charlie said. ‘I hate my bloody job.'

‘I'll ask him. A lot of it seems to be cash under the table if you don't mind that.'

‘Same at my place. I'm just sick of wearing filthy overalls and spending half an hour every night getting the grease from under my nails. Plus, at this time of year, it's fucking cold in a garage.'

‘Not much different on the West Pier.'

‘But you're hardly in that office, are you?'

‘That's true. I'll ask.'

‘That's great. I owe you one.'

‘No, we're equal,' Hathaway said.

Charlie frowned.

‘How do you make that out?'

Hathaway shrugged.

‘Your van.'

‘The group pays for me to run that.'

‘Well, you're a bloody good drummer. Anyway, I'll see what I can do.'

Charlie studied him.

‘OK,' he said.

Hathaway and his father rarely coincided at home. His mother was there all the time, usually baking and talking back at the radio. Hathaway was out most nights and slept most days.

The group was earning good money but not enough for the others to live on. Hathaway felt he was rolling in money because of the new salary he got from his father for picking up the pill take. It wasn't exactly arduous work. He collected an envelope after a gig and dropped it through a night-box at one of his father's town offices.

He called in at that office late one morning. It was in the Laines, on the first floor over a jeweller, sandwiched between an antiques shop and a Baptist chapel. The Bath Arms was opposite. The Avalons had played there once but the acoustics were dreadful.

A couple of men were listening to a transistor radio in an outer office. They recognized Hathaway and waved him through. His father was alone, staring out of the window, his feet up on a big safe in the corner of the room behind his desk.

‘Yes?' he said, without turning.

‘Dad?'

Dennis Hathaway looked over his shoulder and dropped his feet to the floor.

‘John. A surprise.'

‘I was in the neighbourhood.'

‘I mean that you're up – it's not noon, yet.'

Dennis Hathaway smiled and waved at a low armchair in the corner of the room.

‘Doze in that.'

Hathaway sat and looked over the desk at his father.

‘And?' his father said.

‘You sent Barbara away.'

His father started to swivel in his chair to face the window again.

‘Dad – I'm allowed to ask. I cared for her.'

‘John, I don't care what wagtail you bumble. I just don't want you doing it in your mother's house.'

‘It wasn't just that.'

‘But it was a mistake,' his father said. ‘You don't know anything about her.'

Not for want of trying.

‘You don't know anything about me.' Barbara had said that very thing once.

‘You don't want to tell me anything.'

‘You don't ask,' she said.

‘I don't like to intrude.'

Now, he said:

‘I know more than you think.'

His father snorted.

‘You know her husband is in jail?'

‘That doesn't matter.'

‘It will when he gets out. You think she cares for you?'

‘I know she cares for me.'

‘She's scared of you,' Hathaway's father said.

‘Scared of me? Me? That's ridiculous.'

‘OK, strictly speaking, she's scared of me. As she should be. She disobeyed orders.'

‘Orders?'

Dennis Hathaway laughed.

‘I know you're a good-looking boy and you think you're a little Casanova, but she didn't just fall into you arms that first time.'

Hathaway flushed.

‘She was my birthday present to you.'

Hathaway sat back. His mouth dropped open. Dennis Hathaway spread his hands.

‘But that was meant to be the end of it. It wasn't supposed to carry on. She went against my orders.'

Hathaway's thoughts were scattered.

‘Why would she do that?' he finally said.

‘Because she's an idiot and didn't believe I would punish her.'

‘I mean, why would she agree to sleep with me for my birthday?'

‘Because I told her to. I knew you fancied her. I saw you gawking at her every time you came in the office.'

Hathaway looked at his father's hard face. He believed him.

‘You mean she's a—?'

‘No, I don't mean that.'

‘But you have that kind of power over people?'

Dennis Hathaway nodded.

‘Oh yes,' he said.

Hathaway looked down at his sun-freckled hands.

‘So when she carried on seeing me, she was disobeying you because she liked me.'

‘I told you. The way she explained it to me, she was afraid of what you would do, or what you would say to me, if she stopped seeing you.'

Hathaway clenched his fists.

‘That doesn't make sense. Where is she now?'

‘She's working abroad.'

‘That's her punishment?'

Hathaway's father tilted his head.

‘Oh yes,' he repeated.

Hathaway thought some more. A look sometimes on Barbara's face. The sorrow he'd noticed that first time. He was surprised at how quickly he could assimilate it. He looked at his father.

‘Are you a gangster? Like the twins? Do you run Brighton?'

Dennis Hathaway shook his head.

‘The council runs the town.'

‘I mean illegal stuff.'

‘Crime? I'll tell you who runs the crime in Brighton. The police.'

Hathaway smiled uncertainly.

‘I'm serious. Charlie Ridge, the previous chief constable, was utterly corrupt. Scotland Yard came down and made all our lives a misery. They arrested him, two of his CID officers and two members of the public. Tried to throw the book at them. Living off immoral earnings, taking bribes, running backstreet abortions, protection racketeering, robberies. He'd only been chief constable for a year but he'd been around Brighton for over thirty. God knows for how many of those years he'd had his nose in the trough. The charges only went back to right before he was made detective chief inspector in 1949.'

‘What happened?'

‘Ridge was acquitted, though the judge pretty much said he thought he was guilty. Said that unless there was a new chief constable, no court in future would be able to believe the evidence of the Brighton police. His CID men and one of the civilians were found guilty. Ridge got fired the next day but now he's suing the police authority for unfair dismissal as he wasn't found guilty of anything. And he wants his pension.'

‘Was he crooked?'

‘Of course. We paid him off same as everybody else. You had to or he'd close you down. As it was, as long as you paid, the police turned a blind eye unless you were really taking the Michael.'

‘And now?'

‘Well, thanks to Ridge they've got rid of Brighton police as an independent entity and are setting up Southern Police with its new chief constable, Philip Simpson.'

‘The man I met at New Year with Victor Tempest?'

‘The very man. And it's business as usual. Now we're paying him off. No coincidence that Simpson and Ridge both worked their way through the ranks in Brighton from the thirties onward.'

‘So the head of the police is also the king of crime in Brighton. What does that make you, Dad?'

‘I'm a prince of the city, son, just a prince of the city. And happy to be so. Kings have a bad habit of getting their heads lopped off.'

Hathaway's mind was racing. Personally, he was thinking, I would want to be king.

The Saint
was on the television but Hathaway wasn't really watching. He had a glass of beer in front of him but he wasn't really drinking. His mother had gone to bingo and his father was down on the West Pier. His mum had left one of her Jean Plaidys on the coffee table and he was idly flicking through it, thinking hard about his father and his father's businesses. How criminal were they?

He'd asked his dad if he could find work for Charlie Laker. Charlie was with his father and Reilly now, discussing it.

He was also thinking about Barbara. He missed her but mostly he was thinking that she came to him unwillingly. Every time they'd had sex, she'd been doing it under duress. It was messing him up.

He'd liked to watch her dress, though he had to do it covertly as he made her self-conscious. When she pulled on her stockings and clipped them to her garter belt he usually wanted her again, despite her protests.

Now he thought how terrible it was that she did it out of fear. That those protests were probably genuine.

‘Johnny, I hope you're not up to no good.'

Hathaway glanced at Charlie and Bill who looked at the ground.

‘Mum.'

‘Your dad tells me you're doing a bit of work for him.'

Hathaway loved his mother but she was away with the fairies.

‘Just bits and pieces,' he said.

‘How was your holiday, Mrs H?' Bill asked.

‘Lovely, Bill, thank you. I do like the South of France.'

‘Weren't you in Spain?'

‘There too.'

‘You've caught a nice tan.'

Mrs Hathaway stuck her thin arms out and looked down at them.

‘I'm peeling. For the second time.'

‘Mum, I'm going out now.'

‘All right, Johnny. Do you want the whisk?'

His mother was baking a cake. Nobody would be around to eat it and it would sit in the cake tin until it started going mouldy and she would throw it away. She held out the whisk, coated with cake mix. Hathaway ducked his head and took the whisk, running his finger along it and putting the mix in his mouth.

‘Thanks, Mum,' he said through a full mouth, his face burning.

His mother turned to his friends.

‘He's always liked the cake mix from when he used to help me bake cakes. Would you like some?'

‘No thanks, Mrs Hathaway,' Charlie mumbled. Bill merely shook his head.

Outside Hathaway stopped them in the drive.

‘Don't either of your say a bloody thing, alright?'

Bill squeezed his arm.

‘Don't worry, Johnny. Mums are like that. Mine's the same.'

‘Mine too,' said Charlie. Then, after a pause:

‘How do your angel cakes normally turn out?'

FIVE

Get Off of My cloud

H
athaway found his father in The Bath Arms with Sean Reilly. ‘You'll Never Walk Alone' was playing on the jukebox and Dennis Hathaway was quietly singing along. He broke off when he saw his son.

‘Johnny boy, come and wet your whistle. You're looking very smart – don't you think so, Sean?'

‘Quite the man about town,' Reilly said.

Hathaway preened. He was deeply into the mod scene now. He was proud of his suit. He and Charlie had gone down to John Collier and got suits made to measure. Both had edge-stitching, a ticket pocket, four buttons and shaped waist, though Charlie had gone for side vents whilst Hathaway decided on a sixteen-inch centre vent.