‘Reg, it’s DS Fairley down at Newhaven. The customs boys have a truck here looks a bit dodgy.’
‘And that’s news?’
‘The truck belongs to one of Charlie Laker’s companies. We know Brighton division has an interest in him.’
Williamson was blinking, conscious of Karen Hewitt standing in front of his desk, staring down at him. He looked at her. She looked like shit these days. He’d always been impressed that, despite the pressures of the job, she used to look glamorous as assistant chief constable. Her long blonde hair, her care over how she presented herself.
But since she’d become chief constable, all that had gone to pot. Her long hair was lank, framing a tired, narrow face. Her make-up was caked on dead skin. She seemed to have lost weight but not necessarily in the right places. She suddenly looked old.
‘Laker. Yes.’
He heaved himself up from behind his desk, keeping the phone at his ear.
‘I’m on my way.’
Karen Hewitt sighed.
‘At least take a bloody driver,’ she said. ‘And that’s an order.’
FIFTY-ONE
Maria di Bocci was leaning over Jimmy Tingley, enveloping him in her heady perfume. He was lying in bed, a drip attached to one arm, blankets pulled up to his chest. He closed his eyes for a moment, but when he opened them she was still there. She smiled.
‘What happened?’ he croaked.
She shrugged, incomprehension on her face. He closed his eyes again.
The next time he woke, Guiseppe di Bocci was standing by the bed, a solemn look on his face.
‘We found you in your car in the square outside the hotel. You were unconscious. We brought you in and sent for our doctor.’
‘Why?’ Tingley said. He felt himself drifting away.
Di Bocci looked puzzled.
‘You were ill. You have been shot.’
Tingley focused again.
‘Your uncle. .’
‘Betrayed the family.’
‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘We know. The doctor has given you morphine. Sleep now. We will talk tomorrow.’
Williamson sat in the back of the patrol car, thinking about Angela leaving him alone forever. Thinking about how she had brought herself to commit her suicidal act.
The Downs glowered down on him. The driver, a nice enough young copper, kept glancing in the rear-view mirror with the idea of starting a conversation. Williamson wasn’t up for that so he kept his face sour — not hard to do as he got older — and turned to the window. The car reached Newhaven in twenty minutes, the orange lights of the decaying town looming abruptly out of the pitch dark of the Downs.
At the lorry park the lights were cold white. Williamson thanked his driver and struggled out of a back seat not designed for a man with a belly. He made up for that by striding with great purpose to the Newhaven police and customs officers milling around a container truck.
Introductions made, they looked at him and up at the rear door of the vehicle. He looked at the rear door and back at them. He nodded.
Kate Simpson rubbed her eyes and walked away from her laptop. She’d read Victor Tempest’s notebooks and immediately set about trying to discover the identity of Tony ‘Baby’ Mancini’s brother-in-law. She thought she knew but she wanted to be sure.
She was working on the assumption that Baby Mancini was the Mancini she had found in the archive who was born in Holborn in 1902 and that his sister was called Maria. However, she could find no wedding certificate for a Maria Mancini anywhere in Britain.
She’d found out more about Martin Charteris from police reports of a couple of trials for muggings — or possibly a 1930s form of cottaging? — in London. Nothing at all had come up about Eric Knowles.
She wandered over to the Brighton Trunk Murder files Watts had left with her. She had felt overwhelmed by them when she first saw them. She was excited by the treasure trove of documents but there were so many of them.
She dug through to find the file marked: ‘Sightings of man with trunk’. Some of the witness statements in the folder she’d seen before. Man coming in from Worthing taking up room on a crowded train with a trunk on the seat beside him. Porter at London Bridge lugging a surly man’s trunk with something sliding around inside. A statement from a couple who’d seen two men struggling to get a trunk out of the boot of a car on the road by the racecourse on Derby Day.
She remembered that last sighting from the files that had been discovered in the Royal Pavilion. When the men saw they were being observed, they pushed the trunk back in the boot and drove off. The couple had taken down the registration number. When the police had spoken to the — unnamed — owner, he said his car had been out of his possession at that time. There was nothing else in that file.
Here, there was a second sheet. On it a policeman had handwritten a note that the car had been traced to its owner, who had reported the car stolen a couple of days earlier. The owner lived in Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, London. The note gave the man’s name. Bingo.
Jimmy Tingley surfaced and this time stayed afloat. He looked up at the painted canopy above his bed; glanced down at his arm where not one but two needles were attached to tubes leading to drips. One, he knew, was saline, the other morphine. Maria was sitting beside the bed watching him. She became aware of his stare and looked his way.
‘Stomach cancer,’ he said. ‘I worry I have stomach cancer. Inoperable.’ He looked down his body. ‘But now my insides are really messed up.’
She shook her head, not understanding. He smiled at her.
‘It’s OK. I was saying it to me, not you.’
FIFTY-TWO
‘About bloody time,’ Charlie Laker said as he swung open the door of the converted lighthouse.
His mouth fell open when he saw who was standing in the doorway but he recovered quickly.
‘DI Williamson, isn’t it? I’m guessing you’re not here with my pizza?’
Williamson pushed him in the chest. As Laker fell back, Williamson barged into the room and slammed the door behind him. The woman — Lesley White/Clare Mellon — was sprawled on her white sofa, naked from the waist down, her legs akimbo.
She looked up at Williamson, eyes glazed, a bruise on her cheek. Williamson saw the white powder on the table, a flake of it beneath Laker’s nose.
‘Hey, fat man, fuck you and your family.’ Laker’s fists were going up. ‘Are you mental? Laying your hands on me-’
Williamson swept the cosh out of his pocket and brought it down on Laker’s collarbone. He heard more than felt it snap.
Laker howled and sagged to one side, his right hand reaching weakly up. Williamson stepped forward and pushed him in the chest again. This time Laker went down, screaming as his shoulder hit the wooden floor.
The woman on the sofa hadn’t moved. Williamson caught a breath.
‘Hello Lesley — or Claire — which is it?’ Williamson shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. I came to question you about your relationship with Charlie Laker and to ascertain his current whereabouts. Looks like I can skip down quite a bit.’
Laker was groaning, gripping his shoulder. Williamson kicked him and got another cry.
‘I’ve had a hell of a day, Charlie, a hell of a day. Quite aside from anything else, I’ve been wondering could I have done things differently, done things better? So if I’m a bit tetchy, blame it on the fact there’s a lot gone on today. Oh, and I’ve just been at Newhaven with the customs boys, opening one of your containers bound for Dieppe. Expecting, you know, rotten meat or some other scummy thing you were intending to offload on our European Community friends. Know what we found?’
Laker moaned, hugging himself.
‘You broke my collar bone — I can’t fucking believe it.’
‘I’m going to do worse than that,’ Williamson said, his belly wobbling as he raised the sap.
Laker had taken beatings before. Dennis Hathaway had beaten the shit out of him when he’d discovered Laker had made his daughter,
Dawn, pregnant. The Mexican in prison who’d sliced his face had damned near punched a hole in him first. But all that had been a while ago.
This cop was old school. He knew how to lay it on with minimum effort. A flick of the wrist rather than putting the arm and shoulder into it. He knew where to hit, too. He could do this all day and not break a sweat, despite his weight.
As Laker thought this, Williamson brought the sap down on his elbow. Laker roared. He’d never espoused the idea that keeping shtum when you were taking a beating showed what a tough guy you were. Screaming your nuts off frankly made it more bearable. That way he could take it and survive — and then he’d see about this fat fuck.
‘I’ll beat you to death, you don’t talk to me,’ Williamson said. ‘Then I’ll throw you out of the window and say it was hara-kiri. Think anyone will give a shit?’
The rage was on Williamson all right. He wanted to kill Laker. Williamson’s life had effectively ended when his son had killed himself and Angela had blamed him. Made his life unbearable, in fact. He loved his wife and he lived in misery because he knew he could never leave her.
Instead, she’d now left him. Forever. Taken their car with her. No note. Just their car — and her — smashed to smithereens on the beach below Beachy Head. God. Yeah, God had a lot to fucking answer for.
Williamson looked at Laker and the gangster saw it in his eyes.
‘Do you know the filth I’ve waded through these last months,’ Williamson said, ‘because of your sick ambitions?’
Laker ducked his head and cried out again as his collar bone shifted.
‘Do you know what we found in the back of your container? Do you?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Laker gasped.
Williamson bent and hit him on the knee joint. It wasn’t a good strike but Laker grunted. Williamson turned to the woman on the sofa, who was blearily trying to sit up.
‘Five young girls we found,’ Williamson said. ‘Trussed like pigs, lying in their own piss and worse, scared out of their wits. Snatched off the street in Milldean.’ He turned back to Laker. ‘That’s what we found in your container. Headed where, Mr Laker, sir?’
FIFTY-THREE
Laker believed Williamson was going to kill him. His bowels spasmed. Williamson seemed to guess. He leaned over him.
‘Scared, Charlie? You ought to be. Even if I don’t kill you, I can guarantee you’ll be shitting in a bag for the rest of your life.’
Laker’s face burned. His breath was coming in laboured puffs. God, his collar bone hurt. His right arm was useless from the blow to the elbow. He was finding it hard to think straight as the pain washed over him. He’d done some lousy things in his life but did he want to go down for doing this stupid fucking favour for Bernie Grimes?
‘Let me make a phone call,’ he gasped.
‘Fuck that.’
‘No, really. To stop something.’
‘Stop what?’
‘There are supposed to be ten.’
‘Some slimy Sultan’s special order? Ten young English girls for his harem?’
Williamson raised the cosh again. Laker shrank back.
‘It’s not like that.’
‘What then?’
‘Bernie Grimes.’
Williamson laughed mirthlessly but lowered the cosh.
‘Bernie Grimes. Now that name is music to my ears.’
‘I need a doctor.’
‘You need a microphone and a tape recorder, which I just happen to have.’
‘Won’t be admissible as evidence.’
Williamson smiled again.
‘Let me worry about that.’
Gilchrist’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out and looked at the screen. Reg Williamson. She moved down the boat and took the call.
‘Sarah? It’s Reg.’
‘Reg. How is it going? This isn’t a particularly good time.’
‘I’m realizing the beast is in all of us.’
Gilchrist looked back at Watts.
‘You got that right. Are you OK?’
‘Charlie Laker is in a gabby mood. In fact, he’s like a water spout. Can’t shut the fucker up — excuse my French. Oh — except you are in France.’
‘You OK, Reg? You sound a bit hyper. Have you arrested Laker?’
‘Not in so many words.’
‘What does that mean? Reg. .?’
‘We found five girls locked up in the back of one of his containers, no doubt headed for a brothel somewhere. Snatched in Milldean. Five others targeted for later dispatch. You’ll never guess who they are.’
‘Where exactly are you, Reg?’
‘They are the girls you rescued Sarah Jessica from.’
‘What?’
‘I know. Imagine that. The very girls she said her father would make pay for what they’d done.’
‘Laker is working with Bernie Grimes?’
‘Apparently so. And if you think about it, that makes a lot of sense for the Milldean thing. He’s copped to that too.’
‘He admitted all this?’
‘Oh yes. And more. Much more.’
‘How? Why was he so willing to talk?’
‘Got to go now.’
‘Reg. You’re worrying me.’
‘You’ve long been a worry to me but I’ve always been proud of you. Now think on, Sarah. Make use of what I’ve told you to get Bernie to grass on Charlie.’
‘Reg. Stay on the line a minute, will you?’
‘Got to go, lass. You take care now.’
Gilchrist realized she was gripping her mobile so tightly her fingers were aching. The line went dead.
Reg Williamson had seen a film a couple of years earlier. Made in the sixties in Brighton. A B-movie but it had been on at the Duke of York’s in a retrospective of Brighton-based films. He couldn’t remember how he’d ended up there. The Odeon was more his sort of cinema. In one scene they’d sent a car over Beachy Head for real. He’d expected it to soar — like Thelma and Louise’s convertible over the Grand Canyon — but its head had dipped and it had kind of rolled down the cliff face. He’d guessed they’d had to roll it because there was no stuntman foolish enough to drive it at speed towards the edge then jump out.
He didn’t imagine his wife had soared. She wasn’t the soaring type, especially after David’s suicide.
He looked at Laker beside him, gaffer-taped to his seat, in loop after brown loop, more tape round his mouth, his eyes bugging. Williamson was pretty sure the gangster had fouled his pants. He’d probably be doing it again soon.
FIFTY-FOUR
‘Laker’s not going to help you with those girls,’ Gilchrist said to Grimes.
Watts gave her a questioning look.
‘What do you mean?’ Grimes said.
‘We know the whole story. How you wanted those kids sent out to some brothel abroad. God, you’re sick.’
‘I’m sick? What about what those girls did to Sarah Jessica? Did you see what they did?’
‘I’m the only one who did see,’ Gilchrist said. ‘I was there, remember. What they did was dreadful but what you planned in revenge was a thousand times worse.’
‘Do unto others as they do unto you,’ Grimes said. ‘Only twice as much.’
Gilchrist shook her head.
‘Anyway, Bernie, your mate Charlie Laker has landed you right in it.’
Grimes stood up and this time Watts let him.
‘Why would he do that?’ Grimes said, seeming genuinely perplexed.
‘Well, let’s just say the scales weren’t weighed very heavily in your favour,’ Gilchrist said.
‘If you’ve got him, what are you asking all these questions for?’
‘Peace of mind,’ Watts said, smiling at Gilchrist.
‘Look, everybody could gain from this,’ Gilchrist said, holding Watts’s look. ‘We could get answers we need. You can cut a deal so that you won’t be held to account for some of your scumbag past. And whilst you’re beyond rede
mption for what you wanted to do to those girls, well, nothing actually did happen to them.’
She looked back at Grimes.
‘So, what’s it going to be?’
Grimes tugged on his chin.
‘You got booze on this boat?’
Gilchrist nodded.
‘There’s a minibar.’
‘Well, I’m sure the sun is over the yardarm somewhere in the world,’ Grimes said. ‘But it’s too hot down here to drink. Maybe we can go up on deck?’
Gilchrist and Watts just looked at him.
‘Tell us about you and William Simpson,’ Watts said. He saw Grimes attempt to deny he knew the name. ‘Don’t.’
Grimes shrugged.
‘I’ve known Simpson since I was a kid. He was on the scene.’
‘A crook?’
‘A bum bandit.’
‘You knew his father?’
‘Do I look that old? I knew of him. Philip Simpson. The corrupt chief constable.’
‘Pray tell,’ Gilchrist said.
‘Get me a drink and I will.’
Williamson revved the car. He thought he’d do it at an angle rather than dead on. Kind of like Steve McQueen trying to jump the barbed wire in The Great Escape. Dicky Attenborough was good in the film too, though not as good as when he played Pinky in Brighton Rock. That was a film.
He’d pick up some speed going one way, turn on the broad swathe of grass in front of the converted lighthouse, where that snooty woman was probably still sprawled on the sofa with her knickers off, then power downhill and over the edge.
‘Look,’ said Grimes. ‘All I did was let slip to a grass that I was going to be staying in this house the night before I went over to France. Charlie gave me the address. He didn’t say why. He said he’d do the rest. He just wanted the favour and I was happy to oblige.’
‘How do you know Laker?’
‘We’ve done a bit of business from time to time. More than I realized. I helped him when he took over the Palace Pier.’
‘Helped him how?’
‘I had a word with a few people. Eased negotiations.’
‘What a world you live in,’ Gilchrist said, shaking her head.
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