Headline Murder

by Peter Bartram

  Or, as they were in clippings, that should be in pieces.

  Henrietta was a small bird-like woman with a petite intelligent face and a pointy nose. To help her, Henrietta had three sturdy matrons – Elsie, Mabel and Freda. They were known around the paper as the Clipping Cousins, although they weren’t related to one another as far as anyone knew.

  When I walked in, Henrietta was sitting at her desk. She was wearing the kind of tweed suit that would be perfect for stalking deer and which made her look like a domineering duchess. I imagined it was part of her armoury for intimidating reporters with unreasonable demands. Like me.

  The Clipping Cousins sat round a large table that was piled with wire baskets overflowing with clippings and heaps of newspapers that spilled over the table like snowdrifts. They’d taken a break from snipping yesterday’s paper and were passing round a bag of sweets. The room smelt of sherbet lemons.

  I dropped my bag of doughnuts on Henrietta’s desk and said to nobody in particular: “Elevenses, with my compliments.”

  Henrietta picked up the bag and peered inside it.

  “Doughnuts, ladies,” she said.

  “Goody,” Elsie said.

  “Yummy yummy, says my tummy,” Mabel said.

  “My tummy usually keeps its opinions to itself,” Freda said.

  Mabel frowned.

  Henrietta quickly said: “He wants something special.”

  “Just a little token of appreciation for all the work you do to help the hacks in the newsroom,” I said.

  Henrietta gave me a look that would fell a stag at a hundred yards and said: “Cut the flannel and tell me what you want.”

  I said: “Cross. Do we have anything on him?”

  Henrietta said: “Which Cross? We’ve got at least thirty.”

  Hastily, I said: “Derek Cross. Member of Brighton Council.”

  “Oh, him. We’ve got a fat file on him. Anything in particular you want to know?”

  “Just general background.”

  “Let’s start you on the file, then.”

  She stood up and said: “Follow me.”

  We disappeared into the warren of wooden floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets behind Henrietta’s desk. It was a strange twilight world of narrow corridors flanked with cabinets on either side. The corridors were lit by dim bulbs. There was cheap linoleum on the floor, cracked in places. The air smelt musty. The sounds of the real world seemed to fade away as we walked further into the maze of corridors. It felt like being in a strange world of the living dead.

  We turned a corner and stopped. Henrietta pulled a stepladder on wheels towards her, climbed up the first two steps and pulled out a drawer. She handed me down a thick buff manila file.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Everything we know about Derek Cross.”

  We retraced our steps out of the filing-cabinet maze. As we emerged, Elsie said: “These doughnuts are scrummy.”

  “Delicious, if I can express an opinion” Mabel said.

  “Since when have I tried to stifle free speech?” Freda said.

  Mabel frowned.

  I walked over to a desk reporters used when they didn’t want the bother of taking a file back to the newsroom. I sat down and opened the file. There must have been more than a hundred cuttings, arranged in reverse date order. I started to flip through them.

  Derek Cross, it appeared, was a local lad made good. He was the son of a bus driver and hospital cleaner who’d lived in Coldean, a valley filled with soulless housing developments on the outskirts of town. He was evidently a bright lad. He’d passed the eleven plus and won a place at Varndean Grammar School. He’d left school at eighteen and gone to work as a negotiator at a local firm of estate agents.

  He’d started his own estate-agency business when he was in his early twenties. The business thrived as the town boomed during the nineteen fifties and after three years, Cross & Pringle – he’d taken on a junior partner – had two branches in Brighton and one in Hove.

  Cross had become a Brighton councillor eleven years ago when he was twenty-eight. He’d been the “baby” of the council when elected, which hadn’t prevented him pushing his way up through the ranks in the following years. He’d got himself onto a couple of sub-committees, one dealing with allotments, the other with parks and gardens. He’d made a few speeches in the council chamber on planning matters. I formed the impression he wanted to make a mark in the council chamber without upsetting his party leaders.

  His big break had come six years ago when he’d been appointed to the Planning Committee. In another three years, he’d been made chairman. Now in a seat of power, he’d pushed for more commercial developments of factories and offices on the outskirts of town. The cuttings showed this hadn’t made him popular with residents near the new developments or country types who liked bracing walks over the Downs.

  But he’d become the darling of the town’s business community. There was a cutting which described a Chamber of Commerce dinner. The chairman had lauded him as a “great business ambassador for Brighton”. Cross had replied to the speech by saying that he stood for “prosperity and principle”.

  Piffle and poppycock, more like.

  I flipped over to the last cutting. It was one of those awful group photographs which the paper sometimes felt obliged to publish. This one showed Cross and sundry other dignitaries at the new casino which had opened earlier in the year at the Metropole Hotel. The headline ran:

  BRIGHTON HOSTS BRITAIN’S FIRST CASINO

  Needless to say, Cross had made another of his speeches. This time he’d said that the government’s new laws on gambling meant that Brighton could become a “punters’ paradise”.

  I closed the file and thought about what I’d learnt.

  Over at the table, Elsie said: “My fingers are all sticky.”

  Mabel said: “I’ve got sugar all round my mouth.”

  Freda said: “I’ve got jam on my jumper.”

  Mabel smiled.

  It was clear that Cross was a man on the make. Estate agent. Councillor. Planning Committee chairman. Future mayor. But selfless public servant? I didn’t think so. Not from what I’d read. His career smelt of man getting into a position where he could do himself a bit of good. He wouldn’t be the first man to enter public life with his eyes on a personal pay-off.

  But it didn’t answer the two key questions. What was Cross’s connection with Darke? And did that connection have anything to do with Arnold Trumper’s disappearance?

  I stood up, picked up the file and walked over to the table.

  Elsie said: “We’ve eaten the doughnuts.”

  Mabel said: “All of them.”

  Freda said: “Hope you don’t think we’re greedy.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “With all these newspapers to clip, you need to keep your energy up.”

  They giggled in a sturdy matronly sort of way. I handed the file to Henrietta.

  She looked up at me. “Did it tell you what you wanted to know?”

  “Up to a point,” I said.

  “And what point is that?”

  “The point where I feel I understand the man, but I’m not sure what he’s intending to do next.”

  “Perhaps we have the detail you need in other files,” she said.

  “You’ve got more files on Cross?” I said.

  “Not specifically. But there may be passing references to him in other files. We’d only put a clipping in his own file if it was wholly or substantially about him.”

  I thought about that for a moment.

  I said: “The last cutting had Cross attending the opening of the new Metropole casino. Do you have a file on casinos?”

  Henrietta considered that. She rested her head to one side when she was thinking, like a sparrow having a kip.

  “I think we started one when the Metropole casino opened, but there’s probably only one or two cuttings in it. I think we do have a file on gambling, though,” she said. “Wait here.”

  She
disappeared into the filing-cabinet warren and emerged a minute later carrying a buff file. She sat down, opened it and flipped through the cuttings.

  “Not a lot here,” she said. “Clipping about one of the local MPs having a moan about the Betting and Gaming Bill which went through Parliament last year. Small item about a petition from the Mother’s Union opposing the Metropole casino. Item that looks as though it comes from the business diary column about a group of local businessmen on a trade mission to the United States. It’s in this file because it mentions that they visited Las Vegas to study the gambling industry. That’s all, I’m afraid.”

  “Could I look at that last clipping?” I said.

  She handed it to me.

  It was a standard diary item. Soft news of no particular interest except to the people mentioned. Fodder for their scrap-books. I let my eye wander down the column. Several names I didn’t recognise. One or two vaguely familiar. One that jumped out like a firecracker at a funeral. Septimus Darke.

  “Can I keep this cutting for a bit?” I said.

  Henrietta nodded.

  I moved towards the door. Turned back to the table. The Clipping Cousins were scissoring their way through newspapers.

  “Thanks for all the work you do, ladies” I said. “I wouldn’t be able to write half my stories without it.”

  Elsie said: “We’ve enjoyed your visit very much.”

  Mabel said: “It’s been ever so lovely.”

  Freda said: “Do come again any time you like.”

  I stepped swiftly through the door before one of them offered me her hand in marriage.

  I walked round to Frank Figgis’s office, knocked on the door and went in before he could growl “enter”.

  Figgis was putting down the phone. He said: “That was His Holiness wanting to know the top line on today’s news. I’ve had to wing it again. When are we going to get a story worthy of a splash?”

  I said: “I think we may have something but it’s not ready to roll yet.”

  Figgis reached for a mug of coffee on his desk, took a swig and said: “Tell me.”

  I gave him a summarised version of my visit to the morgue.

  I said: “You know the government changed the law on gambling last year with the Betting and Gaming Act.”

  “Of course. It’s now legal for the first time in Britain to open member-only casinos. But word on the street is that some dubious characters are moving in on the business.”

  “There’s been some talk about the Mafia taking an interest.”

  “The home-grown hoodlums are quite enough,” Figgis said. “I hear there are a couple of brothers in London – the Krays I think their name is – who’ve muscled in on the business. By all accounts, they’re not the sort of people you want to mess with.”

  “I think we may be getting a similar problem in Brighton,” I said. “My theory is that Septimus Darke is planning to open a casino.”

  “That figures. Darke has been racketeering in this town for too many years for my liking.”

  I said: “He’s trying to buy the Krazy Kat and, incidentally, the Fancy Rock Bazaar next door. I think he wants the two as the site for his casino.”

  “Makes sense. A casino right on the seafront would be a big draw.”

  “But it only happens if Arnold Trumper wants to sell. And, if he doesn’t, Darke might start to think of some unorthodox ways to make him.”

  “You think Darke has got to Trumper in some way?”

  “He’s got to other people in this town. When Darke wants something, ‘no’ is not a word he understands.”

  Figgis nodded. “Of course, even if Trumper agreed to sell, Darke would need planning permission,” he said.

  “That’s where Cross fits into the picture as chairman of the Planning Committee. At the very least, Darke would want to get an idea what line the council would take if he submitted a formal planning application.”

  “And you think that’s why Cross was at the Golden Kiss?”

  “Could be. But now I know more about Cross, I’m wondering whether there’s more to their relationship.”

  “You mean he’s on the receiving end of a backhander?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can’t print that. We’ve no evidence. The lawyers would have our balls on toast and His Holiness would add the sprig of parsley.”

  “But we do know that Darke has made an offer for the Krazy Kat, which Trumper has turned down.”

  “And has now disappeared.” Figgis drank some more of his coffee, then said: “What we’ve got here is too much suspicion and not enough genuine evidence. We need some hard facts. How are you going to get them?”

  “I plan to see Cross. If I show him that I know about Darke’s casino plans I may be able to shake him into an indiscretion or two.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Figgis said. “But watch your back. If you’re right and Darke finds out you’re asking around about his deals, you could find yourself taking an unscheduled swim off the end of Palace Pier.”

  Chapter 7

  I walked back to my desk in the newsroom and pulled the telephone directory from the shelf beside my desk.

  I thumbed through the pages looking for Cross, D. He wasn’t there. He had to be ex-directory. So I had to charm the number out of directory enquiries. And when it came to ex-directory numbers, that was about as easy as extracting a winkle from its shell without the aid of a pin.

  I walked over to one of the booths, picked up the phone and dialled.

  A bored voice said: “Directory enquiries. How may I help you?”

  I said: “This is Inspector Wilson from Brighton Police Station. Our lost-property section has just received some confidential papers that were left in the back of a taxi by Councillor Derek Cross of Brighton. We need to contact Councillor Cross immediately on his ex-directory number to arrange return of the papers. I know that you can only provide an ex-directory number after proper verification. So as a security check, will you please call back to Brighton Police Station lost-property section and ask for me by name? That’s Inspector Wilson.”

  I gave her the number of the booth phone.

  “In that case, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Thank you. Please ring back right away. We believe Councillor Cross urgently needs these papers for a meeting.”

  I put down the phone. I didn’t think she’d make an independent check of the phone number for the police’s lost-property section. She was probably being harassed by other callers. But I couldn’t be sure.

  I opened the door of the booth. Sally Martin, who wrote for the woman’s page, was walking by. She had bobbed blonde hair, and the kind of teasing expression which made her look as though she was always about to say something cheeky.

  I said to her: “In a moment, this phone will ring and the caller will ask for Inspector Wilson. Please answer the phone as Brighton Police Station, hold the caller for a moment or two, then hand the phone to me.”

  Sally grinned. “Beats writing a piece on baking the perfect scone,” she said.

  We waited for the phone to ring and chatted about life on the paper.

  The phone didn’t ring.

  We talked about writing for the woman’s page.

  The phone didn’t ring.

  I started to think of the excuse I’d make for impersonating the police.

  The phone didn’t ring.

  After a couple of minutes I was drumming my fingers on the side of the booth.

  I said to Sally: “If this doesn’t come off, I may join you writing about scones.”

  She said: “If this doesn’t come off, you’ll be lucky to be eating them.”

  The phone rang.

  Sally lifted the receiver and said: “Brighton Police Station.” I picked up the sound of a distorted voice at the other end.

  Sally said: “Hold the line please, caller, while I put you through to Inspector Wilson.”

  She tapped the mouthpiece a few times with her fingernails to sim
ulate a number being transferred to an extension. She handed me the phone.

  I put my hand over the mouthpiece and said to her: “You’ve done this before.”

  “We don’t only bake scones,” she said. She swung her hips with extra confidence as she headed back to her desk.

  I said: “Inspector Wilson. Is that directory enquiries? I believe you have Councillor Cross’s phone number for me.”

  I noted down the number and said with a suitably official voice: “Brighton Police thank you for your help.”

  I put down the phone, picked it up again, checked there was a tone and dialled the number. It rang three times and then a woman’s voice said: “Geraldine Cross.”

  I said: “Could I speak to Derek, please?”

  She said: “Who are you?”

  “Colin Crampton.”

  “Do you know Derek?”

  “I saw him last night at the Golden Kiss.”

  “Derek was at the Golden Kiss?”

  Genuine surprise. She hadn’t known. I decided to surprise her some more: “I believe he had a meeting with Septimus Darke.”

  “That dreadful man. I do wish he’d have nothing to do with him.”

  “No doubt it was business.”

  “No doubt. Anyway, he’s not here.”

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I need to check one or two facts with him. I’m a reporter with the Evening Chronicle.”

  “Something to do with the Planning Committee, is it?”

  “Along those lines.”

  “Well, this morning he’s at the Town Hall. But he’ll probably be in meetings. He usually is.”

  She sounded as though she preferred it that way.

  “Thank you for your help,” I said. I rang off.

  It was clear from my call to Geraldine that I needed to interview Cross as soon as possible. But when I got back to my desk, I found a message that Shirley had called my desk phone while I’d been in the booth. She was at her flat. I picked up the phone and dialled her number.