City of Dreadful Night (13 page)

Walking back down to the car Williamson kept pace with her. She felt awkward with most of her colleagues. First because of the shooting, second because of the splash the papers had done on her one-night stand with Watts. So she was surprised and touched when Williamson said:

‘Sorry you've been going through all this shit, Sarah.'

‘Oh, Reg, you know how it goes . . .' Her voice trailed away.

‘Sorry if I've been a bit tricky today.'

Williamson apologizing too? Gilchrist gave him a sharp look as they neared the car.

‘Fact is, these suicides don't agree with me—'

‘So you've made clear,' she said quickly.

He looked at her, seeming to want to say more.

‘Ay, well. Let's see what forensics come up with, eh?'

I was sitting in what passed for my back garden, pen and pad on my lap, when the bell of my bungalow rang out harshly. I was tempted to ignore it, as I had the telephone that had been ringing throughout the afternoon, but I felt vulnerable. I was pretty sure the front door was unlocked and whoever it was could just waltz in and find me sitting here.

I was punishing myself by living in this horrible place, sure enough. The thing about our old home was the view. Here there was no view. I had thought of renting somewhere in Brighton by the sea – another view I loved. Instead I'd chosen this place where the only view was of the big house that straddled the space between me and the Downs. A travel agent owned it. He and his wife acted like seigneurs, tramping by each day to walk their estate.

Fired up by the meeting with Tingley, I'd been mapping out a plan of action. What the hell else was I going to do? I had no job and no immediate prospect of one.

The past weeks had given me plenty of time to think. Seethe, too. I had been thinking about me, about what I am. I find it so unlikely that I got where I did. I was just a kid with wacko parents.

My dad, the writer, Victor Tempest, churning out these gung-ho thrillers. He was most successful when I was growing up. To meet his deadlines – he was writing three a year – he scarcely left his study, never mind the house. He was in his fifties before I came along and I guess he was set in his ways.

My mother was giddy, excitable – OK, mad as a hatter. Her mood swings, from the heights of joy to the depths of despair, made a big dipper seem like a sensible mode of transport. When my wife, Molly, proved depressive – post-natal depression – it didn't need a shrink to tell me that maybe I was looking for my mother in my wife. But a shrink did, unable to believe my wife hadn't shown some propensity for depression earlier in our marriage. Actually, rack my brains though I did, I didn't think she had.

What did I get from my parents? From my dad, my ambition and my toughness. From my mum, something more theatrical. The drive to succeed I got, of course, from my desire to leave these two people behind. Not that you ever can, however far you go.

I was a driven man. People could see that in me. They couldn't see that I was also a fearful one. My ambition hiding my insecurity. Often before big meetings, like an actor before a first night, I was physically sick. When I first came into the police at quite a senior rank I forced myself to speak within the first two minutes of a meeting, otherwise I feared I would not speak at all. I had difficulty addressing the troops. I was conscious that I didn't have their experience, hadn't worked my way up through the ranks.

The doorbell rang again, more insistently. I left the pad and pen on my chair and padded through the back door, down the corridor to the front. When I opened it, Sarah Gilchrist was standing there, an embarrassed look on her face. I flushed and glanced at the other houses around me.

‘It's an official visit,' she said hastily. ‘I have to take a further statement about that burning car you came across.'

I wondered whose tactful idea that had been. I stepped aside.

‘Come in,' I said, acutely conscious of my rumpled appearance, in chinos and unironed linen shirt.

Gilchrist was not in uniform, but from the little I knew of her, this was her unofficial uniform: jeans and white T-shirt. She was big on the hips but long-legged and tall enough to carry it off.

I ushered her into my cramped sitting room.

‘You know I've already given a statement to Ronnie?'

Gilchrist was standing in the middle of the room. The space seemed unnaturally confined. She nodded.

‘Just a follow-up.'

‘They're giving you the shit jobs, then,' I said.

‘At least I'm back on duty.' She laughed. ‘Although the thought of investigating the disappearance of a cat this morning did test my patience.'

‘A cat?'

She told me of her visit to Beachy Head. I unscrewed the top on an expensive bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and poured us both a glass. I laughed when she came to the end of her story.

‘But you know there's this whole thing about cats being stolen around here, either to make into fur rugs and stuff or for black magic purposes,' I said.

‘Black magic – the Lewes loonies, you mean?'

Whereas Brighton was everything wacky and New Age, Lewes, the market town four miles inland, was more superstition and Old Religion. Its residents still burnt the Pope in effigy every Bonfire Night because some Protestants were martyred in the town five hundred years earlier.

‘Who knows?' I handed her the glass of wine. I told her my theory about burning cars as a sign that big city corruption was creeping into the pristine countryside.

‘Hardly pristine, sir,' she said with a laugh. ‘You know how many white collar crooks live out here. I don't think anyone can be a millionaire without cutting a few corners.'

‘I suppose,' I said. ‘The burning car reminded me of that burnt-out car up at the Ditchling Beacon just about the time the roof fell in.'

‘The roof fell in? I'm not following.'

‘On my career.' I shrugged. ‘Might be worth seeing if there's any link.'

Gilchrist frowned.

‘Doesn't seem likely, sir.'

‘Call me Bob,' I said gently. ‘Please.'

She held my look, gave a little nod.

‘So have they identified who was in last night's car yet?'

She shook her head. ‘Folsom is working on the human remains, such as they are. We may never identify the person.'

‘Dentition should help.'

‘That's always a bit hit and miss.'

I nodded.

‘What do you need from me?'

‘Just the usual. What you saw, what you did, where you'd been. Did you pass any other vehicles or anybody acting suspiciously?'

‘I saw no other vehicles on the lane. I may have passed a couple of cars coming across the Downs. I didn't really notice.'

I described what had happened with the deer and how I'd walked across the field.

‘And why were you passing that way at that time of night?' She saw my look. ‘I have to ask.'

‘I was on my way back from a meeting in Brighton.'

‘What kind of meeting?'

‘The private kind.'

She flushed again and seemed to tense.

‘I have to know, I'm sorry.'

‘Not that kind,' I said, smiling. ‘I had a drink with Sheena Hewitt.'

‘Oh,' Gilchrist said, not sure whether she should be writing that down or not.

‘About the Milldean investigation.' I looked at her intently. ‘I thought our successful professional relationship whilst I was Chief Constable might count for something.'

Gilchrist looked down at her pad but didn't say anything.

‘I'm going to find out exactly what happened,' I continued. ‘I can't believe the investigation so far has been so badly handled. Foster's suicide, Finch and Edwards disappearing without trace, nobody knowing who the grass was. And not a single victim identified.'

Gilchrist met my stare.

‘I wish I knew what happened,' she said. ‘Because it has fucked my career.'

‘I know the feeling,' I said shortly.

She looked embarrassed again. Closing her pad, she started to rise.

‘Please, stay a little longer. You haven't touched your drink.'

She looked embarrassed.

‘I'm on duty.'

‘Sorry,' I said, feeling foolish.

Gilchrist's mobile phone rang. She glanced at the number. Excusing herself, she walked over to the window. She listened but scarcely spoke. She finished the call and looked off into space for a moment.

‘You OK?' I said.

‘Reg Williamson just phoned. The body on the beach has been identified.'

‘That was bloody quick.'

‘It was Detective Constable Finch.'

‘Christ – another suicide? But where's he been – he can't have been in the water all this time.'

She shook her head.

‘Apparently, he's only been in the water a few days. And they don't think it was suicide.' She looked up at me with her clear blue eyes. ‘They think he was murdered.'

EIGHT

K
ate Simpson drove carefully over the series of speed bumps on the long drive that circled the big mansion. She parked in a small car park at the edge of the cluster of houses at the back of the mansion and walked across to ring the bell on the bright blue door of the bungalow.

She was nervous. Just as she was about to ring again, the door swung open. She looked up at the tall, broad-shouldered man standing in the doorway. He had a broken nose, generous mouth and bags under his eyes. His blond hair was swept straight back from his forehead.

‘Mr Watts, I'm from Southern City Radio. I wondered if you might like to help with a review of an old murder case.'

‘You doorstep me for that?'

She flushed.

‘I wasn't really doorstepping you,' she said quickly. ‘I've been telephoning but there was no answer and you don't seem to have an answering machine.' She showed him an envelope addressed to him.

‘I was going to leave you a note.'

Watts peered at her.

‘I know you, don't I?'

‘I was at the press conferences you gave at the time of the Milldean incident.'

‘And you were there the night it happened. Yes, I know that.' He sounded impatient.

She held his look. Had he been the kind of boss who didn't suffer fools gladly? How had his staff regarded him?

‘I mean you're familiar to me aside from that,' he said.

‘My name's Kate Simpson.'

It only took him a moment.

‘William's daughter.' Watts smiled. ‘My God – I'm sorry I didn't recognize you straight away.'

‘That's OK – you haven't seen me for a couple of years.'

Watts smiled.

‘Local radio is a bit small beer, isn't it? Couldn't he get you a better job?'

Anger flared in her eyes. Tight-lipped, she said:

‘I didn't want and don't need his help.'

He studied her for a moment then stepped aside.

‘I'm sorry – I'm a bit distracted by some news I've just received. Do you drink wine?'

She followed him down a narrow corridor made narrower by piles of boxes neatly stacked along one wall.

‘Books,' he said over his shoulder as he turned left into a small sitting room. ‘Nowhere else to put them.'

The sitting room had a sofa and a desk. Bookshelves lined every wall, filling any available space, making the room even smaller.

She sat sideways on the sofa as he collected wine and glasses from the kitchen. She gestured at the books.

‘I didn't expect you to be such a reader.'

‘Maybe you have the wrong stereotype of a policeman. Maybe you're reading the wrong crime fiction.'

‘Is that what these are?' she waved at the bookcases. ‘Crime novels?'

He shook his head.

‘I'm not a great fiction reader.'

‘You have some thrillers here, though. Victor Tempest.'

She pointed.

‘They're my father's, actually.'

He handed her a glass of pale white wine and sat down beside her. It was a two-seat sofa and awkwardly intimate. He didn't seem to notice.

‘About this project—'

‘About the money?'

‘It's local radio . . .'

‘So no money.'

She flushed.

‘But being on the radio . . .'

He looked into his wine. She flushed again. He had done so much national radio and TV that there was nothing at all in it for him. She was aware she was out of her depth.

‘What's the case?' he said in a kindly voice.

‘The Brighton Trunk Murder of 1934. The unsolved one.'

He put down his glass.

‘I don't think so.'

Kate put her glass down too.

‘I think you were a scapegoat.' He seemed startled by the sudden change of topic. ‘And I assume my father railroaded you.'

‘That's not over yet.'

‘Why won't you help me?' she said, leaning forward over her knees.

‘It's not what I'm good at.'

She knew she wasn't hiding her disappointment. Her face always showed her emotions, however much she tried to mask them. But if he noticed, he didn't respond.

‘Do you miss being a policeman?'

He nodded slowly.

‘It's what I always wanted to be.'

‘Family tradition?'

He hesitated, she assumed because he couldn't decide whether he wanted to share personal things with her.