City of Dreadful Night (17 page)

‘
I live in Portslade and use the Worthing to Brighton train regularly to go to either of these towns,' he said. ‘On Derby Day I came into Brighton in a rather crowded compartment. There was a man in the compartment carrying a trunk which I'm sure is similar to the one I have seen in the newspapers.
'

‘
Did you notice anything particularly about this man?' I said, the phone tucked between my shoulder and ear as I
scribbled down his words.

‘
He kept the trunk beside him on the seat, even though the rest of us were crowded together and had little room. And when the train reached Brighton this man jumped out quickly and carried the trunk along the platform. It was clearly heavy but he ignored porters who offered to help.
'

‘
He seemed very worried,' my caller said. ‘For the first fortnight he didn't leave his room during the day, always going out at night.
'

‘
Did you ever see him with a woman?
'

‘
No, no, I didn't. But he suddenly left town two days before the trunk was discovered.
'

‘
Before his three weeks was up, you mean?
'

‘
That's right.
'

‘
Did you find anything unusual in his room after he'd gone?
'

‘
Not a thing,' he said. ‘Not a thing.
'

Kate's father had rung twice more from his mobile phone, each message more impatient. She still ignored him. By now she was sprawled on her sofa, the windows to the balcony closed, utterly absorbed in the narrative she was reading. Absorbed but also repelled by the author's callous way of talking about the women he met.

Kate's doorbell rang. She jumped. She had paused in her reading to think how many human stories were hidden between the lines of every statement the police took down. Why was the man who booked in to the lodging house so troubled? Why did he only go out at night? Why did he leave before his three weeks was up?

And Phoebe Ford – had she parted from her husband? Is that why she'd gone to a hostel in Folkestone and used her maiden name?

Kate looked at her watch. It was past midnight. She frowned and padded to the door. Perhaps it was Bob Watts. In your dreams, girl. She put the chain on, then opened the door a couple of inches.

‘What do you want?' Kate said.

‘That's not exactly the “Pater, how delightful to see you” I was hoping for,' her father said.

She led the way into her sitting room, and waved at the sofa under the window. Her father had a small smile on his face and tired eyes. His hair was too long and absurdly floppy, as usual. He wore an expensive navy suit, although he had taken off his tie. His shoes were buffed to a brilliant shine.

‘That may be because I never see you unless it happens to fit into your schedule.'

‘I might say the same.'

He stood at the window looking out then he turned round, taking in the pile of folders on the dining table.

‘Homework?'

‘Something I'm working on, yes.'

‘Anything I can help with?'

‘Not unless you want to confess to a murder.'

He nodded as if what she'd said made sense to him.

‘I'm staying at the Grand.'

‘Good.' She'd remained standing, feeling awkward.

‘I phoned earlier.'

‘I was working—'

‘Several times.'

‘Meaning two or three.'

‘More.'

‘I was working.'

Kate had a sudden urge to laugh. They were sounding as if they were scripted by Pinter, with an awful lot of subtext.

‘I wondered if I could buy you dinner.'

‘At this hour?'

‘Then. I was worried when you didn't answer.'

‘I could have been doing anything. Been out on the town. Actually, I was with Bob Watts.'

‘Bob Watts?'

He turned towards the piles of folders on the table.

‘The friend you railroaded out of office.'

He pursed his lips.

‘He did it to himself. He could have left with dignity. He was stubborn. Stupid.'

‘He was your friend.'

‘Why on earth were you with him?'

Kate indicated the files.

‘We're working on this together.'

Her father looked puzzled for a moment.

‘He was your friend, Dad,' Kate repeated.

‘Simply a consequence of the friendship between our fathers. And he was wrong.'

‘Did you leak stuff about his one-night stand?'

He looked her in the face and smiled in an odd, intense way.

‘How would I know about his one-night stand? But he would never have gone. He is the most obstinate man I've ever met.'

‘So what made him?'

‘Pressure points. It's knowing where to bring the pressure to bear.'

‘And?'

Simpson rested his hand lightly on her shoulder, ignoring her flinch.

‘Ask him about his father.'

TEN

I
kept in shape. Swam or ran every day, worked out five days a week. But even so, some nights I just couldn't sleep. Maybe living alone didn't suit me. More often than not, on such nights I'd drive up to the Ditchling Beacon.

I'd been living in the area a couple of years before I realized that the Beacon had been an Iron Age fort, now pretty much obliterated. I used to be interested in stuff like that, and the site of this car park was such an obvious one for defence, I don't know why I hadn't realized it before.

Tonight, I'd been sitting dozing for a couple of hours when two cars of gangbangers had come up with some girls from Brighton. It was around three. They had noisy sex to booming music. One car took the girls home. The other stayed, and I was aware of three young guys standing smoking about ten yards away, discussing whether to smash my window and steal whatever was in my car or just set fire to it. I didn't know if they realized I was in it, or whether that was the point.

I was in the passenger seat, reclined, so maybe they hadn't seen me. Then again. I switched on the headlights and turned the stereo up high. I probably should have gone but I figured the Art Ensemble of Chicago at its most dissonant would do the trick.

I watched them watching the car – I was still in darkness. Eventually they wandered back to their car, pumped up the volume of their own stereo and screeched out of the car park.

I switched to a CD on which there were actual tunes. More or less. Tom Waits at his most industrial. Molly always said I had a tin ear so liked avant-garde stuff because I couldn't tell the difference between music and noise. I don't know where I'd got my taste for such stuff. When I was growing up, my dad was firmly stuck in the big band era, my mother liked only romantic classics.

I slept but woke at five when a man in a bright yellow jacket arrived and parked his estate car next to me. He sat for ten minutes, ignoring me, his diesel engine shuddering, before he drove away again.

It was a clear morning, the sky blue and pink, wisps of cloud hanging in the still air. I could see the line of the North Downs some thirty miles away. I fancied I could make out Box Hill. I could certainly see our home from here. I looked down at my past life laid out below me and thought about how I'd fucked up.

Maybe I came here so often because I felt an estrangement from where I longed to be. An outsider looking in – something I've always felt. Peering in through the window at my own life.

Two hours later, dog walkers, runners and cyclists turned up and parked around me. The cyclists brought out frames then wheels and handlebars and put their bikes together, tugging on them, aligning them, bouncing on them and testing the brakes. A woman on horseback suddenly reared up from the path below, hidden by the parked cars until her horse trotted between them.

Another woman got out of her car, walked over to the edge to look down at the plain, her hands tucked in her back pockets. She wore sunglasses. Her hair was roughly tied back. She walked along the shallow embankment and stopped to stare at the Burling Gap in the distance. She stood there for half an hour or so. Then she reversed out and drove away.

The Burling Gap. Something Sarah had said about her visit to the lighthouse pricked at me. I got out of my car and climbed up the shallow embankment.

I crossed the road and walked over to the dew pond. I looked south to Brighton and the sea. I kept my face from any dog walkers passing by – Molly always said I looked menacing when I was deep in thought.

I was thinking about Finch's death and what it meant about the botched raid. Was it a revenge attack? Somebody tidying up loose ends? I smiled. It was a bit late in the day, given the position I'd achieved in the police force, but I was trying to learn how to investigate this crime that no one seemed able to make sense of.

When I went back into the car park a young couple nodded at me as a black flat-coat bounded out of their jeep. I nodded back and looked across at burn marks in the asphalt. A car had been torched there not long before I came upon my own burning car on the night I ran into the deer.

And then I realized what was nagging at me and I grinned. My God. Maybe I could be a real detective.

Tim was blathering as usual: ‘So collagen lip implants – luscious or loopy? And do they pass the kiss test or does it feel like kissing a pair of car tyres? If you know, or think you know, phone in now. And later we'll be discussing
Big Brother
: is Too Far the new How Far?'

Kate thought about that for a moment then decided DJ blather was a discourse all of its own, in which the meaningless did not even attempt to masquerade as meaningful.

She'd gone to bed after her father had left. His visits always left her bothered. She thought he was probably trying to reach out to her but that he was simply inept where emotions were concerned.

When she was growing up, her father was a parliamentary correspondent for the
Observer
. He was politically committed. When she was a teenager, all her friends fancied him. She wasn't quite sure how to deal with that.

Kate had hero-worshipped her father. That was probably why at university she'd had a long affair with her professor, a much older man. There was nothing she didn't know about father figures and how bad they could be for a girl. Her professor shagged her and liked her to be around when his friends came by. However, the problem with the older man is that his friends are also older and usually uninteresting and staid.