‘Cleaner’s year off,’ she said. She had a glass in her hand, almost full to the brim with a clear liquid Watts assumed to be vodka.
‘As you’ve probably guessed, I’m an addict,’ she said.
‘You cope?’ Watts said.
‘Do I? I don’t know. It’s a heavy blanket. Anything that requires effort, more especially anything that requires emotion, and this blanket drops on me.’
She took a sip of the drink. Watts knew from observing his wife Molly that alcoholics always started slow.
‘Do you know who might have wanted to harm your husband?’
‘He wasn’t my husband. I’d never marry him. I still have some self-respect.’
She picked at the chair arm with a long crimson fingernail.
‘How long were you together?’ Tingley said.
‘Ten years. He looked after me. He knew I didn’t love him. Can’t love anybody. But he looked after me. Didn’t get much in return. Can’t even give a decent blow job these days.’
Watts dropped his eyes.
‘How did you meet?’ he said.
‘Don’t remember.’ She put her drink down carefully on the coffee table and leaned forward. ‘I see most things in a haze. My memory is pretty much shot. Conversations had, arrangements made – forget it. So your next question will be: what good am I? It’s a question I ask myself all the time.’
‘Dana—’
‘I’ve got a dyke friend who prefaces almost everything she says with “As a lesbian”. Fuck’s sake, just get on with it. But then I think, I’m the same. As an alcoholic . . . so bloody tedious.’ She looked at Tingley as if he had said something. ‘Am I promiscuous? I’ve been fucked for a bottle of voddy. Easy for a woman. I just have to let you get on with it.’
‘Did Stewart have any enemies?’ Watts persisted.
She ignored him.
‘Feel sorry for drunk men. They get the horn but they can’t perform.’ She hacked a laugh. ‘Hey – I’m a poet and I don’t know it.’
‘Enemies?’ Watts said.
She finally looked his way, touched a finger to her red mouth.
‘Course he had enemies – he was surrounded by enemies – he lived in enemy country. Hostile environment.’ She took another sip of her drink, pulled her skirt down. She had good legs.
‘You have a child?’ Watts said.
‘Children. They’re with their father. He remarried – proper home for them.’ She twisted her mouth oddly. ‘I don’t see them.’
‘Any specific people you’d like to draw our attention to?’ Watts said.
She glanced his way.
‘Do you know how much I hate waking up in the morning feeling so fucking awful? Every day I decide this day will be the day. I’ll stop. I’ll force a healthy breakfast down – superfoods, you know? But by eleven there’s that little thing scratching at me. Then I go: OK, today I’ll pace myself. Then someone comes along and says Stewart has been murdered . . .’
Watts and Tingley watched as she sipped at her drink again. Watts leaned forward.
‘Any names you can give us?’
Dana looked bemused. Maybe the drink was finally kicking in.
‘Of the men I’ve slept with? Don’t remember. I’m not that Tracy Emin, you know. All the same, they are. Slimey.’
Watts looked at Tingley, but Tingley was focused on Dana.
‘Not Stewart, though . . .’ Tingley said.
‘Why not Stewart? Why else was he with me? Panting for it all the time. He was useless for a woman who’s had two kids. Hadn’t a clue.’ She looked vaguely round the room. ‘But he was kind to me.’ She sniffed. ‘What am I going to do now?’
‘Do you have a name?’ Watts said.
Again she looked befuddled.
‘I know lots of names. How’s about John Hathaway?’
Again Tingley and Watts exchanged looks.
‘You know John Hathaway?’
‘The King of Brighton? Of course I know Johnny. I’m one of his cast-offs. When I was eighteen. He might even have passed me on to Stewart. I can’t be certain. My memory is shot – did I say?’
‘Stewart worked for lots of criminals, didn’t he?’ Watts said.
‘Accountant to the crooks, that was Stewart.’
‘Do you think any of them might have done this? On account of—?’
Watts paused, but Dana looked at him sharply, for the first time.
‘On account of Stewart was a snitch? Doubt it – Stewart wasn’t a real snitch, you know.’
Watts leaned back.
‘Meaning?’
Dana looked at him and smirked.
‘Meaning that clever bastard knew what Stewart was up to.’ She put her hand to the side of her head. ‘He was probably pulling his strings.’
‘Cuthbert?’ Watts said, though he knew the answer.
Cuthbert was a small-time thug in Milldean he and Tingley had clashed with several times.
‘Cuthbert?’ Dana said witheringly. ‘He’s a lot of things but clever he isn’t. Cunning maybe. I mean Johnny. Johnny Hathaway.’
Watts tried to process this information.
‘He fed Stewart selected information to pass on to the police.’
Dana reached for her glass. Missed.
‘And the likes of you.’
Tingley leaned forward and handed her glass to her.
‘But Stewart was the one who led us to Hathaway,’ Watts said, almost to himself. ‘Why would Hathaway want that?’
Dana sighed and took a longer drink from her glass, almost emptying it.
‘Didn’t get you anywhere but involved, did it?’ she said, slurring for the first time.
‘Involved in what?’ said Watts, leaning forward again. Tingley gestured for him to cool his eagerness. He leaned over and took Dana’s hand. She looked down at his as if a hand were something alien.
‘You know there’s a rumpus in town over who runs it?’ she said, looking from his hand to his face.
‘You mean between the crime families?’
Tingley released her hand. She smiled at him. A good smile, given she was drunk.
‘Perhaps Johnny figured you to be a couple of wild cards.’
‘Between the crime families?’ Watts repeated Tingley’s question.
Dana drained her glass. She looked from one to the other of them.
‘Someone is trying to take over. Someone different.’
‘Based locally?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t think so.’
She jiggled her foot.
‘Look, Stewart used to tell me bits and pieces. I never got the whole picture from him. But I used to overhear him on the phone too. He was always cautious. But there’d be bits and pieces.’
She looked at her glass. Tingley took it from her and went into the kitchen. He returned with the glass refilled and set it down on the table in front of her. She looked at him.
‘A true gentleman. Stay on after your friend has gone.’
Tingley smiled.
‘This person from outside,’ he said. ‘Any names mentioned?’
She started on the new glass, not sipping now.
‘No names that I recall.’ She started to put the glass down, then lifted it to her lips again. ‘But then I don’t recall much. He was the middle-man setting up a meeting with someone here and some foreign people. It had something to do with those police killings over in Milldean.’ She looked at Watts. ‘That was you, wasn’t it? You should know.’
Watts looked at his hands.
‘If only I did.’
John Hathaway had a problem with the Palace Pier people. The Boroni family were long gone and for decades it had been a legitimate enterprise. Hathaway had left it at that. He’d moved on from piers when the West Pier closed for good in 1975.
But lately he’d got back in via the West Pier development. And in consequence he’d been getting grief from the new owners of the Palace Pier. Niggly things. Stewart Nealson was suppose
d to find out who was backing the new owners but he hadn’t got anywhere before his terrible demise. Hathaway thought for a moment. Or maybe he had got somewhere.
And then they’d torched the West Pier. Hathaway was in no doubt the new mystery owners of the Palace Pier were behind that. So now it was payback time.
His phone rang. He had his feet propped up on the rail of his boat, looking out over the marina. He reached over.
‘Yeah?’
‘Is it a go?’
‘It’s a go. We’re gonna fuck ’em during that party on the beach. Do you remember last time DJ Dickhead did his thing? The entire beach was mobbed. People pissing where they stood because they couldn’t move. The entire city gridlocked right out on to the Downs, west to Worthing and east to Eastbourne, and nobody getting anywhere near the London Road.’
‘So excuse my asking, but how do we get away?’
‘By sea, you idiot. Just like those guys who firebombed the West Pier. The thing is, there’s no way anyone can stop us.’
‘Are we going armed?’
Hathaway didn’t even bother to reply.
The boat came in from the east. Hathaway was watching from the window of his room at Blake’s Hotel. He could see people streaming past the entrance to the Palace Pier, heading for the sound of the music. The promenade was a solid mass of them.
He could hear the music clearly. On the beach it must have been overwhelming.
He saw the boat slow as the driver eased up on the throttle. It sent out a long wave in its wake as it curved into the far end of the pier.
He saw the line go out to secure the boat to a thick stanchion. Secured, the boat bobbed on the waves. Hathaway adjusted the binoculars and looked at the deck of the pier. It was crowded with people facing towards the west, towards the music.
Hathaway focused on a door at the back of a solid-looking building on the pier. After a few moments it opened and four men in jeans and denim jackets spilled out. All were wearing balaclavas.
They each carried rucksacks on their backs. Without looking back they walked to the edge of the pier and looked down at the boat. One by one they clambered over the side and down a rusted ladder to the boat.
The first dropped easily into the boat. The second paused as the boat dipped in the swell. One-handed he took his rucksack and dropped it into the boat. The third and fourth lowered themselves in.
The driver reached out and unhooked the rope. The boat roared away from the pier, heading out to sea. It would be in Varengevilles-sur-mer within three hours.
Hathaway smiled and turned back to the girl sitting up in bed. She saw the expression on his face.
‘Has it taken effect?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, walking towards her.
SEVENTEEN
Hathaway and Tingley went up to see Hathaway in his mansion on Tongdean Drive.
A black man in a well-cut grey suit answered the door.
‘For Mr Hathaway,’ Watts said.
The man looked him up and down, nodded. Then he looked at Tingley. Smiled.
‘Hello, Tingles.’
Tingley held out his hand.
‘David. You’re looking trim.’
‘You too,’ David said, shaking the offered hand.
‘You’re out of the business in one piece, then,’ Tingley said.
David glanced at Watts.
‘Bob here is a good friend of mine,’ Tingley said.
Watts stuck out his hand.
‘Bob Watts.’
David took the offered hand.
‘If Tingley vouches for you—’
‘I definitely do. He’s the ex-chief constable—’
David kept hold of Watts’s hand.
‘The one who got busted for standing up for his men?’
‘And women,’ Tingley said.
David clapped his other hand over the hand clasp.
‘Pleased to meet an officer who knows what his primary function is.’
Watts let go.
Hathaway appeared in the doorway behind David. He saw Tingley, the dapper, slender man he’d met some months earlier and decided he liked. The big, broad-shouldered blond man with the broken nose he recognized from the press as ex-Chief Constable Bob Watts.
‘If you’re finished with the love-in, Dave, perhaps you’d bring your friends through – where your boss is patiently waiting. Sometime this year would be favourite.’
David turned and grinned.
‘Sorry, Mr H. Mr Tingley and Mr Watts.’
‘Well, I can see that for myself, can’t I?’ He looked at Watts. ‘I don’t know why I bother. Try to ease the unemployment statistics and look what you get.’
‘If David is typical of who you’re hiring,’ Tingley said, looking at Watts, ‘then you’re hiring the best.’
Hathaway dropped his arm on David’s shoulder and winked at Watts.
‘David? He’s just the trainee. Coming along nicely, though.’
‘Thanks, Mr H.,’ David said.
‘All right, hop off and polish your medals or whatever it is you do for your extravagant salary all day. Come in, gentlemen, do. Mr Tingley – not an unalloyed pleasure to see you again but anyway. And ex-Chief Constable Bob Watts – I know you only by repute – though I did know your father. How is the old rogue?’
Watts was thrown by mention of his father.
‘He’s fine, thanks – how do you know him?’
‘Well, Bob – OK to do first names?’ Watts nodded. ‘Well, Bob, that’s a bit of a convoluted story – but who knows – if we make an afternoon of it there may be time.’
Hathaway took them up to a mezzanine where one whole wall was a window. He pressed a button and the window slid open. He led them on to a deep balcony enclosed in more glass. Another button and the glass retracted. Half a dozen ample wicker armchairs were spread across the balcony.
‘Sit, sit. I’m about to have a mojito – my girls make great mojitos – and you’re welcome to join me.’
‘I don’t know what it is but I’ll give it a try,’ Watts said. Tingley nodded. Hathaway raised three fingers and waved them towards a beautiful olive-skinned young woman hovering by a doorway.
‘You obviously don’t have kids who hit the cocktail bars,’ Hathaway said.
‘I probably do,’ Watts said.
‘You probably have kids or they probably hit the cocktail bars?’ Hathaway grinned his perfect white teeth grin. ‘Doesn’t matter – either way your answer is indicative.’
‘How old are your kids?’ Watts said.
Hathaway made an odd face.
‘I don’t have any – but I have a big family.’
Hathaway toasted Watts and Tingley.
‘Here’s to coalitions – may they always fail.’
‘You don’t like coalitions?’ Tingley said.
‘Worst of both worlds, then one member takes over.’
‘Here’s to truth,’ Watts said.
Hathaway laughed.
‘Yeah. Right.’
When they’d all sipped the cocktails Hathaway looked at Tingley.
‘I assume you and David were brothers-in-arms at some stage.’
‘More than once,’ Tingley said.
‘I’ve always had great admiration for soldiers,’ Hathaway said. ‘Never had any desire to join up, let me add, and I was the right side of National Service. But, growing up, I was close to an ex-commando who worked for my father. Became something of a mentor.’
Hathaway raised his glass.
‘Here’s to him.’
Watts and Tingley raised their glasses.
‘Does he have a name?’ Watts said.
Simultaneously, Tingley asked:
‘Is he dead?’
‘His name is Sean Reilly, Bob. And he’s very much alive, James. Later he worked with me for a few years but eventually retired. To Normandy, actually. His health isn’t good but he’s still sharp as a pin. I have a house in Varengevilles-sur-mer, a little village outside Dieppe. He lives t
here. Lovely place. If you’re a gardening nut, Gerturde Jekyll did the garden on the side whilst she was landscaping a local chateau. Name means nothing, Bob? Your wife does the gardening, eh? Or you’re thinking Jekyll and Hyde. How about Luytens, the architect who refurbished the chateau? No? He created Delhi – or whatever it’s called now. Bob, you did go to school, did you?’
Watts smiled.
‘Anyway your dad’s still kicking? Glad to hear it. He must be a fine old age. I’m afraid, Jimmy, I never had the pleasure of your father, as it were.’
‘Nor did I,’ Tingley said. Watts gave him a glance.
‘Yeah, well, that’s fathers for you.’
Hathaway drained his glass.
‘The West Pier,’ Watts said.
‘And?’
‘It’s been firebombed three times.’
‘And you’re asking me about this why, exactly?’
Watts leaned forward.
‘Come on, Mr Hathaway—’
‘John. My name is John. I thought we were doing first names.’
‘Nothing happens in this town without your knowledge and say-so. The pier’s development syndicate had the money in place to put the pier back in business and you didn’t want that because it would impact on your businesses.’
Hathaway looked out over his garden.
‘You want a confession?’ he said when Watts paused. ‘Because otherwise I’m not quite sure what the point of this bombast is.’
‘Actually, we want help with something else. At the same time as the pier was being firebombed, Laurence Kingston, chair of the West Pier Development Committee, was committing suicide. Pills and booze. Died inhaling his own vomit. Odd coincidence, don’t you think?’
‘Now you want my advice on synchronicity?’
‘Did you know Mr Kingston?’
‘I don’t associate with many poofs but as it happens I did know him. Not in itself a crime, even when homosexuality was illegal. Can I just say, Bob, that you show shocking research skills in your assumptions about me and the two piers.
‘If you knew anything of my history and my family’s history, you’d know that the West Pier runs through our lives like the lettering in a stick of rock. I’d no more have it firebombed than I would – well – almost anything. I used to spend my Easter holidays every year giving a small bit of the West Pier a lick of paint to keep the elements away.’
The Last King of Brighton Page 20