Headline Murder

by Peter Bartram

  “No, he said it wasn’t worth the trouble.”

  We ploughed on grimly round the course.

  “Could Mr Trumper be at his home?” I asked.

  “I’ve called his home number twice every day. There’s no answer.”

  “Where does he live?”

  Barnet gave me an address in Woodingdean, on the outskirts of Brighton.

  “Have you been there?” I asked.

  “No. It seemed pointless as nobody answered the phone. Besides, I didn’t want to waste money on the bus fare.”

  I scored another hole in one. Then said: “Got any theories why Mr Trumper has disappeared?”

  “None. Especially now.”

  “Why especially now?”

  “A buyer has made an offer for the Krazy Kat.”

  “And Mr Trumper is going to accept?”

  “That’s it. I don’t think he is.”

  Barnet put his ball on the tee and did the Arnold Palmer bit. The ball rolled over a hillock and down a hole. I skirted a puddle and moved to the next tee.

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  “He asked me some general questions about selling property.”

  “But not specifically about selling the Krazy Kat?”

  “No. You see, I don’t think he knows I know he’s had an offer.”

  “And how do you know?”

  “A man who I think might be the prospective buyer came to see Mr Trumper a few days ago.”

  “Just before he disappeared?”

  “Yes. They went into the back room and closed the door. I think they thought they couldn’t be heard but the walls in that ticket office aren’t that thick.”

  “And you couldn’t help overhearing the conversation?”

  “Not all of it. But I did hear the man say, ‘This is the best offer you’ll ever get for this dump. Don’t make the mistake of turning it down. Mistakes can be dangerous in your business.’”

  “That sounds more like a threat than an offer,” I said. “Did you hear what Mr Trumper replied?”

  “No, he was speaking quite softly. I think he felt a bit – how shall I put it? – cowed by the other man.”

  I thought about that as we moved on to hole eighteen, the last one.

  “How long were the two in the back room together?” I asked.

  “About ten minutes. Perhaps fifteen.”

  “Did you hear them say anything when they came out?”

  “The visitor just said, ‘I’ll be calling again.’ Mr Trumper didn’t seem that he was looking forward to it. In fact, he became quite jumpy after the visit.”

  I holed my ball. It splashed as it went in. The hole was full of water. I plunged my hand in and pulled out a snail. Barnet smiled sheepishly. Even the zits looked embarrassed.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “That last hole seems to collect the water from the others.”

  He stuck his hand down and pulled out the ball.

  “Who was this mystery man?” I said.

  “I did ask Mr Trumper who he was.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Someone you don’t want to know.”

  “So you don’t know who he is?”

  “Oh, I know who he is.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I was talking to Rocky Roxbury in the Fancy Rock Bazaar next door. He’d seen him come out of the ticket office and told me.”

  We struggled back towards the ticket office.

  “Who was it?” I said.

  “Apparently, his name is Septimus Darke. Never heard of him. Have you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard of him.”

  In my book, Septimus Darke was the most dangerous man in Brighton.

  Chapter 4

  I sat in Marcello’s Coffee Bar sipping a cappuccino and nibbling an Amaretto biscuit.

  I’d left Barnet fussing about whether he should stay open or close up – and whether he’d be paid if he did. Or whether he’d be paid at all now that Trumper had disappeared.

  Marcello’s hummed with the disgruntled muttering of day-trippers who’d taken refuge from the south-westerly. They stared at empty cups and bickered with each other about how long they could sit it out before they had to pay their bill and brave the seafront. Behind the counter, Marcello clattered about cheerfully with cups and saucers. The espresso machine hissed and bubbled.

  I stirred another sugar cube into my coffee and wondered what a man like Septimus Darke would want with a run-down place like the Krazy Kat. I had good reason to believe Darke was the most dangerous man in Brighton. Trumper had been right to fear his return. The words on Darke’s business card said “property developer”. It was as though Hitler had handed out cards describing himself as a “painter and decorator”. The real story was much more sinister.

  Darke had arrived in Brighton ten years earlier, apparently with very little. He bought a run-down boarding house in an otherwise respectable part of Kemp Town; word had it for a fraction of its true value. At first, it looked like the sort of move a property developer would make. Neighbours expected that he would renovate the property and sell it on.

  But instead of doing up the place, Darke allowed it to become even shabbier. In fact, he turned it into a slum. He moved in a host of misfits and undesirables – career burglars between sentences; terminal drunks gasping for neat meths; assorted ne’er-do-wells with time on their hands to make mischief. A couple of Alsatians were allowed to run wild in the street. Windows broke and were boarded up. Tiles slid off the roof. One night, the front gate caught fire. The garden became a car breaker’s yard.

  The place turned into a clearing house for most of the petty – and sometimes not so petty – crime in Kemp Town. Neighbours who complained were reminded by large men with tattoos on their arms that the Royal Sussex County hospital was located conveniently nearby. The police took an interest – but then lost interest. Local residents muttered about them being paid to keep out of the way. More likely, they’d worked out that a truncheon is not much defence against a couple of hungry Alsatians.

  Soon nearby houses were up for sale as neighbours clamoured to sell up and move out. Except that, by now, the place had such a reputation that no one was eager to move in. So neighbours cut their selling prices. Then cut them again. And again. And there were still no buyers. Except one. Septimus Darke. When Darke had bought enough properties in the street at knock-down prices, the burglars, drunks and ne-er-do-wells suddenly disappeared. The street became respectable again. Even, as Darke at last renovated the houses, highly desirable. Darke sold out – and pocketed a large profit.

  It was a scam he’d repeated in different parts of Brighton and Hove during the past ten years. Residents lived in fear that Darke or one of his front companies would buy a nearby house and install the neighbours from hell. In the process, Darke had acquired wealth which he wasn’t shy to flash about town. He’d become rich – and untouchable.

  But why did he want the Krazy Kat? Why had Trumper turned down a generous offer? And had his refusal something to do with his disappearance?

  I pondered the answers to those questions as I spooned the last froth from the cappuccino out of my cup. Barnet hadn’t known who Darke was but, I remembered, he’d said that Rocky Roxbury had. The Fancy Rock Bazaar was next door to the Krazy Kat. I wondered whether Darke could have made an offer to Roxbury as well.

  There was only one way to find out. I left Marcello’s and hurried across the road.

  An old-fashioned bell tinkled as I opened the door and went in. The cloying aroma of boiled sugar wrapped me in its sickly embrace. The place was painted in pink and white stripes. Shelves were stacked with sticks of peppermint rock in cross-hatch arrangements.

  At the far end of the room, a polished counter topped a long glass cabinet packed with gaudy boiled sweets.

  Behind the counter was a middle-aged man with thinning fair hair and a matinee-idol moustache. He wore a pink and white striped apron and a straw boater. A large
badge pinned to his apron read: “Rocky”.

  I ambled up to the glass cabinet looking, I hoped, like a tourist with time on his hands. I peered in wondering whether anybody actually bought any of the products on display. There was some rock shaped to look like a fried egg, and a rock rasher of bacon to go with it. A rock baby’s dummy. Bizarrely, sets of rock false teeth. Presumably to replace the ones that had rotted after scoffing this stuff.

  “Our speciality products,” Rocky said. “Each a testament to the confectioner’s art.” He reached into the cabinet.

  “Here is our pièce de résistance, new this season. A miniature lady’s leg. Made entirely from peppermint rock. Perfect in every detail, right down to the little pinkie on the foot. Tasteful,” he said.

  “In more ways than one,” I said.

  He giggled in a girlish sort of way.

  “They say,” – his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper – “the leg is modelled on one of Brigitte Bardot’s.”

  He handed the leg to me. I looked at it. It seemed hard to imagine the French sex kitten taking time out from filming And God Created Woman to model for an anatomical sweetmeat.

  “Is there much demand for confectionery body parts?” I asked.

  “Oh, very popular. We’ve sold hundreds of them this season already.”

  “Given your sales a leg up, then.”

  He trilled a little laugh. “Leg up. Oh, leg up. I must remember to tell that one to my friend Stanley when he comes in. Stanley loves a joke.”

  “So which new body part will you introduce next season?” I asked. “A hand? Perhaps the whole arm? Or maybe a torso?”

  Rocky’s face fell. He leaned heavily on the counter.

  “There’s not going to be another season,” he said. “At least, not here. We’ve had an offer to buy the shop.”

  “Good offer?”

  “The money is certainly fair. More than fair. It’s just…” His voice trailed off.

  “Is the offer from another rock company?” I said. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “The offer comes from a property developer.”

  I decided to push my luck. “Anyone local?”

  Rocky shifted uneasily. “I believe so. At least, he’s been responsible for quite a number of local, er, developments.”

  “So you’re selling out?”

  “I think there comes a time when it’s wise to move on,” he said. “Particularly in the present circumstances.”

  “What circumstances would they be?”

  “The developer seems anxious to acquire the property. Very anxious. He’s been quite, er, pressing about it.”

  I decided I’d pushed my luck as far as it would go.

  “So you’ll leave the rock business?”

  “No. Definitely not. Stanley and I are thinking of opening a new rock shop next year. Perhaps somewhere classy. Like Margate.”

  “A change might do you good,” I said.

  “Yes, I suppose it might.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  “I suppose I better buy something,” I said. I was still holding the lady’s leg. “How much is this?”

  Rocky cheered up a bit at the prospect of a sale. “That’ll be two and sixpence.”

  I handed over half a crown.

  “I’ll eat it later,” I said. “I’ll start with the foot and work my way up. You never know what it might lead to.”

  Rocky trilled another of his little laughs. “Oh, you are naughty,” he said. “Never know what it might lead to! Stanley will love that.”

  I left him chortling about what Stanley would think. I made sure I was out of sight before I threw the leg in a bin.

  After I’d discreetly disposed of the leg, I started to think about my next move.

  My meeting with Rocky had convinced me that I was on to a story with strong legs. And I wasn’t thinking of Brigitte’s rock substitute.

  Rocky hadn’t mentioned Darke by name, but I had little doubt that he was behind the offer the confectioner had felt obliged to accept. Yet he was still trading, if only to the end of the season. Trumper had apparently rejected Darke’s offer and had disappeared. I wondered whether that was cause and effect. And, anyway, I couldn’t understand what a big-league deal-broker like Darke would want with small-time businesses such as Trumper’s and Rocky’s.

  The only man who would know the answer to that question was Darke. I couldn’t expect to get a straight answer from him. But it might be worth asking him just to see his reaction.

  In the meantime, I needed to get Trumper’s side of the story. But I couldn’t ask him any questions until I found him. That, I guessed, would come down to some serious door-stepping work in Trumper’s neighbourhood of Woodingdean. It would mean a drive – so I bent into the wind and headed along the seafront to collect my car from the mews behind my flat.

  Beatrice Gribble was known as Beattie to her friends and the Widow Gribble to her tenants. I fell firmly into the latter category.

  The Widow owned a five-storey house in Regency Square, just off the seafront, an address that wasn’t as posh as it sounded. The house was full of small rooms, dark corridors and creaking stairs. There was lots of embossed wallpaper and brown paint. A faded print of Holman Hunt’s Light of the World hung in the hallway but failed to relieve the gloom. At night, the house sounded to the dyspeptic gurgles of temperamental plumbing.

  After her husband Hector had gasped his last breath, the Widow had retreated to the ground floor and turned the rest of the place into apartments. I rented the one on the top floor. It suited me fine. It was about as far away from the Widow as I could get in the same house.

  I reached the house, inserted my key quietly into the lock, went in and closed the door silently behind me. Moving like a wraith, I avoided the hall table with the glass ornaments that tinkled when you knocked against them. I stepped over the first stair to avoid the creaking tread. I crept upwards stepping only on the threadbare carpet to muffle the sound of my footsteps. I retrieved my car keys from my flat and crept back down the stairs.

  The Widow’s door opened ajar as I passed and two dark eyes peering over horn-rimmed glasses appeared at the crack.

  “And a very good afternoon to you, Mrs Gribble,” I said. “You want to take care you don’t catch your nose when you shut the door. You might chip the nice brown wood.”

  I heard her door slam behind me as I went out.

  I hurried round to the mews where I kept my car, an MGB: white coachwork with black trim, leather upholstery, walnut dashboard. Worth every penny of the two thousand pounds I’d paid for it. A favourite uncle had left me a legacy and I’d blown the lot on the car. I hadn’t regretted it for one minute. I climbed in and revved the engine. It growled low and gently like a tigress warning her cubs. I pushed down on the accelerator, drove out of the mews, swung on to the seafront and headed towards Woodingdean.

  The wind had dropped by the time I pulled the MGB into the kerb outside Trumper’s bungalow in Woodingdean.

  I climbed out of the car and glanced up and down the street. Nobody’s head popped out from behind a hedge. No net curtains twitched. No dog-walkers gave me sideways looks as their pooches watered the lampposts.

  Trumper’s bungalow was a modest affair – probably just a couple of bedrooms and a living room – but it looked well kept. The fascias had been recently painted and the windows were clean. A privet hedge which marked the boundary of his property was growing a bit wild. But that’s what hedges do.

  There was a wooden gate. The hinges squealed as I opened it. A brick path led up to a small porch. I walked up the path to the front door. Weeds were growing in the gaps between the bricks. The lawn needed mowing.

  I rang the doorbell. Chimes ding-donged the opening bars of Greensleeves. Nobody came. I hadn’t expected Trumper to appear, but I had to be certain there was no one at home.

  I peered through the window in the top of the door. There was a pile of letters on the hall floor. Mor
e, I thought, than he’d be likely to receive in one day. I walked round and looked through the other windows. The rooms seemed clean and well kept. There was an Agatha Christie, bookmarked with an old envelope, on the bedside table in Trumper’s bedroom and a large pile of wilting vegetables in the rack in the kitchen. It looked as though Trumper hadn’t been at the house for several days – all consistent with Barnet’s story. But there were no clues as to why he had left.

  Or whether he had been prevented from returning.

  I decided I’d learnt everything I could from the Trumper residence. I walked back round to the front of the house, down the path and out through the gate. I closed it carefully behind me.

  I strolled up the street examining the other properties. The bungalow to the right of Trumper’s had an overgrown garden. A child’s tricycle had been abandoned on the front path. I stood at the garden gate and listened. Inside the house I could hear a small girl screaming and a woman shouting. Not a good time to call.

  I walked back down the street and looked at the bungalow on the other side of Trumper’s. The windows were hung with heavy net curtains. A pull-along shopping bag had been left neatly in the porch. I strode up the path and listened. Inside a radio was playing the opening music of Down Your Way. I rang the doorbell and waited. Nobody came.

  I waited a minute then rang the doorbell again. Twice. This time there was a shuffling sound in the hall and the front door opened.

  An elderly lady with silver grey hair tied back in a bun said: “Did you ring the bell before?”

  She was small and slender with a kindly face which had lots of smile lines around her mouth. She was wearing a grey dress in some kind of heavy woollen material. She had tartan slippers on her feet and wrinkles in her stockings.

  She said: “I can’t always hear the bell when the radio’s on.”

  I said: “And why should you?”

  “I wasn’t really listening to it anyway.”

  “Who does these days?”

  “I just have the radio for company.”

  “The best kind. There when you want it. Turned off when you don’t.”

  She said: “It’s a point of view.”