Tingley smiled.
‘Then you became an embarrassment. So, actually, nobody was out to get you – this wasn’t planned to bring you down.’
I wasn’t going to admit that. I wasn’t able to. I looked beyond him to the row of spirits behind the bar.
‘Why was this man happy to tell you now?’ I said.
‘Timing. New way of doing things. Some familiar faces won’t be hanging around the corridors of power any more . . .’
I frowned.
‘You mean Simpson’s on his way out? Hmm. Maybe.’ Kate popped into my head. ‘How are we going to tell Kate exactly what’s going on with her father?’
Tingley shrugged.
‘Not my area of expertise.’ He looked across the room. ‘I want you to have a chat with someone I know.’
‘That’s always interesting. Who?’
Tingley gestured towards a table in the opposite corner of the pub.
‘A grass.’
I’d noticed the short, middle-aged man with the comb-over when I’d come in. He was with a strikingly pretty woman, taller than him. She was wearing full make-up and might have had plastic surgery to define that jawline. But there was a puffiness about her face. I’d wondered if she was an alcoholic and he the man who kept her drinking under some kind of control. There was an empty bottle of white wine and two empty glasses on the table alongside two further glasses. His was almost full, hers almost empty. They were doing a crossword in the paper and she was looking bored, but maybe that was because she wanted another drink.
‘What’s he got to say for himself?’
‘Let’s find out,’ Tingley said, leading me across the room.
Sheena Hewitt looked older. The Acting Chief Constable’s face was gaunt and there were dark shadows under her eyes that her inexpertly applied make-up couldn’t conceal.
‘What’s so urgent, Sarah?’ she said, tapping her pen on her desk. She sounded weary, too.
Gilchrist was seated in an uncomfortably low chair to one side of the desk, conscious of her knees sticking up in front of her.
‘I had a further interview with Gary Parker this morning. He told us that the male prostitute known as Little Stevie was attempting to blackmail William Simpson, the government adviser.’
‘He has proof of this?’
‘Not direct proof, no, ma’am.’
‘Then it’s hearsay evidence. There’s nothing to be done with it.’
‘But, ma’am, it’s a lead.’
Hewitt sat back in her seat and dropped the pen on her desk.
‘Sarah, the Milldean affair is old news. The Hampshire investigation has concluded no individuals should be prosecuted. Nobody is publicly pressing for any further enquiry and I don’t intend to stir things up again. Enough damage has been done to the reputation of this force already. My job is to contain it and move on. All the officers involved have left the force, retiring on the grounds of ill-health. You are the lucky one. You are working again.’
Gilchrist was indignant.
‘But, ma’am, that means nobody is being held to account for what happened.’
‘Our lax procedures are largely responsible and we are making strenuous efforts to put new ones in place.’
‘That’s just a whitewash,’ Gilchrist said heatedly. She saw Hewitt’s face. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’
Hewitt leant forward and stabbed her finger at Gilchrist.
‘DS Gilchrist, the Milldean affair is not your case, nor has it ever been. You are meddling in things to the detriment of this force and your other duties. You will desist forthwith or you will face disciplinary procedures. Am I clear?’
Gilchrist’s face was burning with a mixture of anger and frustration.
‘Am I clear?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Then you’re dismissed,’ Hewitt said, picking up her pen and pulling a sheaf of papers towards her.
The woman picked up her glass and went to sit at the bar when Tingley and I approached. The grass’s name was Stewart Nealson. I was expecting him to be shifty but he was articulate and open.
‘Bob here is interested in knowing a bit more about what the families are up to.’
‘What they’re up to?’ Nealson touched his nose. ‘The usual dodges and scams. But they’re under a lot of pressure from outsiders. Specially on the smuggling racket through Newhaven and Shoreham.’
‘What do you hear about Milldean?’ I said.
Nealson looked over at the woman at the bar.
‘A real mess from every side you look at it. And best kept away from.’
‘The Bosnian Serb connection?’ Tingley said.
‘Not a people you want to piss off.’
‘Tell us about it,’ I murmured. Tingley and I had not enjoyed our Bosnian tour.
‘And Hathaway and Cuthbert?’
‘Not involved, as far as I’m aware. Though Cuthbert’s on the warpath for you, Jimmy. You need to watch out.’
A thought occurred to me.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about Cuthbert in relation to Ditchling last night, have you?’
Nealson smoothed down his comb-over.
‘Well, he would have been in the neighbourhood. He always goes to Plumpton races – prefers it over the jumps to flat-racing. Plus he has a bit of business going on, of course.’
I exchanged a glance with Tingley.
I thanked Nealson and we left about five minutes later.
‘How’s he connected to the gangs?’ I said as we walked through the Laines. ‘Seems too straight.’
‘Accountant,’ Tingley replied. ‘Strictly legit and only handles their legit businesses, but he hears things.’
‘Taking a bit of a risk, isn’t he?’
‘His missus has expensive habits. Most of what he makes goes up her nose or down her gullet.’
I was contemplating her ruined beauty when my mobile rang.
‘Gilchrist,’ I mouthed to Tingley.
‘Had another meeting with Gary Parker,’ she said.
‘And?’
‘He gave us William Simpson’s name. I told Hewitt. She’s not interested.’
‘I’ve a feeling we can do something,’ I said. ‘I feel certain we’re closing in.’
‘That’s not my feeling,’ she said. ‘My feeling is that we don’t have a clue what’s going on.’
‘We have clues aplenty. It’s fitting them together that’s the problem. Let’s meet later at Kate’s place.’
Gilchrist ended the call. She was lying on the bed in Kate’s spare room. She was restless. She jackknifed off the bed and went over to the chest of drawers to change. She opened the top drawer and saw the framed photos lying face down. Absently, she turned them over.
I eventually found a parking space near Kate’s flat – Brighton is not car-friendly – and walked the few hundred yards to her door, working out what I needed to say to her. When she buzzed me in, Gilchrist was sitting on the sofa. Gilchrist gave me an intense look.
‘Kate,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to worry about this stuff that’s going on now. It’s nothing to do with that scare you had.’
‘Are you excluding me?’ Kate said.
‘Just didn’t want to bore you,’ I said. ‘You’re in if you want to be.’
‘Let me find some booze,’ she said, disappearing into the kitchen.
‘Something I want to show you in my bedroom,’ Gilchrist hissed at me.
‘You haven’t found the head in there, have you?’
She looked totally thrown.
‘The Trunk Murder victim?’ I said. ‘Forget it – bad joke.’
Gilchrist looked exasperated.
‘You know, frankly, I don’t really care about that.’
‘About what?’ Kate said, walking back in with a bottle of wine.
The doorbell sounded.
‘That’ll be Tingley,’ I said.
Kate headed for the door. Gilchrist laughed for no reason and stood to usher me towards her bed
room. The moment we were in there she handed me a framed picture.
‘Is that Kate with her parents?’
It was a much younger Kate, and William didn’t have his goatee, but it was unmistakably the family. I nodded.
‘Then we need to talk,’ she said, striding back into the living room.
Kate was ushering Tingley in.
‘Was your meeting with the Godfather useful?’ Kate said to Tingley.
‘Hathaway? Not really. But he put me on to someone else who was much more interesting. And today Bob and I got a little tickle from an acquaintance of mine.’
Gilchrist looked from one to the other of us.
‘Oh, what – there’s some stuff only the boys should know?’
Tingley looked down.
‘Some of this information specifically affects Bob,’ he said. ‘I’m not trying to exclude anyone. If Bob wants to share it with you and Kate, fine.’
‘It’s fine with me,’ I said. ‘But Kate, it also specifically affects you because of your father.’
Kate shifted in her seat.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘Your father is behind some bad things,’ Tingley said, his voice unusually gentle.
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Kate said, barking a laugh that couldn’t quite conceal her . . . conceal her what? Dread? Alarm? Fear? There was something, but I didn’t know her well enough to know what she was feeling.
‘He could end up in prison for a very long time,’ I said quietly.
Kate looked at her glass of wine, picked it up and took the smallest of sips.
‘It was only a matter of time,’ she said tonelessly. She put her glass back down on the table, very precisely. I glanced at Gilchrist. She looked like she was about to burst.
‘Did you get anywhere else with Philippa?’ I said to her.
She took a breath. Exhaled.
‘I thought I had. Now I’m not so sure.’
I frowned, but she gave a slight shake of her head.
‘Finch killed Little Stevie,’ she said. ‘That’s the first thing she said.’
‘And the rest?’ I said.
She shrugged.
‘According to Tingley’s source,’ I said, ‘Little Stevie wasn’t the main target. It was the couple in bed.’
‘Who were?’
‘That we still don’t know specifically. Bosnian Serb gangster and his moll, apparently.’
‘Moll?’ Kate said. Then, after a pause: ‘How is my dad involved with Bosnian gangsters?’
‘We think his link is with Little Stevie,’ I said.
Kate reached for her glass but stopped, her hand still outstretched.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘OK.’
Gilchrist was looking at Kate.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
Kate grimaced.
‘As I said: long time coming.’
Gilchrist stood and nodded at me.
‘I think you and I should have another crack at Philippa Franks,’ she said.
‘If you think I can help. When?’
‘Now?’
They took Watts’s car. The moment they were in it, he turned to her:
‘What’s going on?’
‘I recognize Kate’s father,’ she said. ‘William Simpson. I couldn’t think where at first.’
‘You’ve probably seen him on the telly,’ Watts said. ‘He does a lot of broadcasting.’
‘No, from somewhere else. Somewhere here.’ She took a big breath. ‘I saw him having an argument with Philippa Franks in a cafe in Hove a few weeks ago.’
Watts was silent for a moment. Tingley murmured:
‘Bingo.’
‘Hence our need to get back to her,’ Watts said. He looked at Tingley in the rear-view mirror. ‘Do you want to come with us?’
‘You don’t need me. Let’s talk later.’
Watts dropped Tingley on the seafront opposite The Ship and drove on in silence.
‘I assumed it was a lover’s tiff,’ Gilchrist said.
‘It may have been. Even so, it’s heady stuff.’
Watts parked near the entrance to the block of flats and Gilchrist rang Franks’s doorbell.
‘It’s me again. Sarah.’
There was silence, then Franks buzzed them in. They took the lift. Watts seemed embarrassed by their proximity in the lift, but maybe Gilchrist was imagining that.
Franks’s door was ajar. They knocked then walked in. She was standing on her balcony looking out to sea. The noise of the traffic going by on the main drag below ricocheted into the confined space. She saw Gilchrist’s expression.
‘I’d always wanted a place overlooking the sea. Imagined myself sitting out on the balcony of an evening with a glass of wine, listening to my favourite music, watching the sun go down. But the traffic along the sea front – who knew that sound rises? The fact is I can’t hear the music because of the blare of the traffic and the sea frets usually obscure the sun.’ She lifted her glass. ‘At least there’s still the wine.’ She nodded at Watts. ‘Cheers, sir.’
‘Call me Bob,’ he said.
‘It won’t get you anywhere,’ she said.
‘How do you know William Simpson?’ Watts said.
Franks was startled. It was clear she was about to deny it, equally clear that she realized there was no point.
‘H–how did you . . . ?’
‘The man I saw you with – that was him, wasn’t it?’ Gilchrist said.
Franks sighed.
‘It’s not easy meeting men when you work our hours and you have two kids.’
She sounded tipsy.
‘Is there anything you want to tell us about you and William Simpson with regard to the Milldean operation?’ Watts said.
Franks looked puzzled.
‘Nothing at all. Why?’
Gilchrist reached out to squeeze Franks’s arm.
‘We think that Simpson is somehow involved with what went wrong there and since you were involved with him . . .’
Franks’s eyes flashed.
‘You think he asked me to shoot somebody?’
‘What happened in that house?’ Watts said.
‘I’ve already told Sarah,’ Franks said. ‘Jesus. Let’s go inside.’
There were two big sofas in the sitting room. Franks took one, Gilchrist and Watts took the other.
‘It’s looking like the couple in the bed were a hit,’ Watts said.
After staring at him for a moment Franks said:
‘And?’
‘I wondered if you knew anything about it.’
She bridled and over-enunciated as she said:
‘I was nowhere near the front bedroom. And why would I be doing hits? It’s absurd – I’m a single mum, for Christ’s sake, not a contract killer.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m not saying you did anything. I just wondered what you knew.’
‘I’ve told Sarah what I know. And I also told her that my life and the lives of my children had been threatened.’
Watts looked at Gilchrist, who nodded then turned to Franks.
‘And your relationship with William Simpson has nothing to do with this?’ Gilchrist said. ‘Was that argument in the restaurant really about your affair?’
Franks gave her a hard look.
‘Fuck off, Sarah. How dare you? You presumed on our friendship earlier to get me to talk to you. But this, coming to my home like this – my home – and asking me this shit – this oversteps the mark.’
She got up from her sofa, swayed for just a second.
‘In fact, I want you both to leave. Conversation over.’
Gilchrist stood but noted Watts stayed where he was.
‘Philippa – we’re just trying to figure this out. It’s a bad coincidence that you’ve been having a thing with a man who seems to have some involvement with what happened in Milldean.’
‘You think those threats I got came from William Simpson? He’s a shit but he’s not that much of a shit.’
> ‘But your relationship—’
‘It hardly was a relationship. A few meals and hurried sex whenever he was down here.’
‘What about Little Stevie?’ Watts said.
Franks turned and peered down at Watts.
‘Little Stevie?’
‘The rent boy I mentioned earlier,’ Gilchrist said.
Franks looked from Watts to Gilchrist.
‘What about him? How would he connect to William Simpson?’
Gilchrist and Watts both looked away. Franks swayed a little.
‘Oh Christ. Well, isn’t that just the icing on the bloody cake?’
NINETEEN
Kate unbolted the door and took the chain off to let Gilchrist in.
‘Anything you can tell me?’ she said lightly as Gilchrist came through the door.
Gilchrist towered over her.
‘God you make me feel so big,’ she said, laughing. Then she turned solemn. ‘How close are you to your father?’
‘Isn’t that obvious?’ Kate said.
Gilchrist chewed her lip for a moment.
‘So how are you feeling about all this?’
‘I don’t understand it, to tell you the truth.’
‘Bob wants to nail him.’
Kate turned away.
‘That’s fine with me,’ she said. But Gilchrist didn’t believe her.
I went to see my father before I went to Simpson. Although I wasn’t as het up as Kate about the Trunk Murder, it almost seemed like family business. It wasn’t about the victim – in face of all the millions of other atrocities in the world, I couldn’t really get too worked up about that – but it was family.
Anna let me in.
‘Back again,’ my father said.
‘There’s a diary among the archive papers. Well, half of one.’
‘And you’re trying to figure out who wrote it?’
‘I’m pretty sure you wrote it.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘We think it might point in the direction of the murderer.’
‘You think? You mean you don’t know?’
‘The part of the diary we have doesn’t say anything incriminating in so many words—’
‘Not much use without the rest of it, eh?’
His smile was vulpine.
‘Why are you taunting me?’ I said.
‘I’m not, Bobby. It just amuses me to see my son, the ex-Chief Constable, doing some proper police-work for the first time in his high-flying career.’
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