City of Dreadful Night (20 page)

I try not to feel guilt. It's a negative emotion and those emotions just hold you back. Oh yes, I've been on all the right motivational management courses. But I was also aware that with Molly I'd betrayed a trust and behaved like a shit. I was acutely aware of how much distress I'd caused her. That what she was going through was my fault and my responsibility. So, in fact, guilt was dragging me down.

I've never been one to chase women. When I was a teenager, sure, but by the time I was nineteen or twenty I was looking for someone to settle down with. That probably makes me sound boring but I think most normal people are like that. I don't know what possessed me when I spent the night with Gilchrist. I can think of all sorts of excuses: things bad at work, Molly not understanding or caring, me under stress, drink. Lust, of course. And I was drawn to Gilchrist's spirit. Although, if I think about it honestly, it was actually because that spirit reminded me of Molly before her depression.

But no doubt about it, Gilchrist and I did click. I think she was as surprised that she went to bed with me as I was. I think she felt as guilty as I did afterwards. And yet there was this tug.

It was by mutual agreement we had decided not to see any more of each other. I loved Molly and, if I could, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Gilchrist didn't want to be involved with a married man, especially a married man at work.

But now Gilchrist and I were avoiding each other's eyes over an embarrassed breakfast of toast and coffee. Gilchrist looked over at the pile of papers on the sofa. I followed her look.

‘The Trunk Murder files. Want to take a look?'

She almost ran over there. I followed. We separated the files. I sat behind my desk, she sat on the sofa and we began to read.

Kate was back on her balcony, memoir in front of her but thinking about her father's visit. And how her hero-worship had changed to something more negative. Family holidays when she was young. They had always been a bit weird as her dad would then write a piece about them. And both her parents were shameless about using that fact to get deals at hotels and restaurants. She used to squirm at the fake bonhomie they received from maitre d' and hotel managers who were hoping for a good write-up.

Her mother was more shameless than her father, more imperious, more strident at check-in desks when asking for upgrades. Kate saw the contempt on the faces of the check-in staff, saw her parents – and by implication herself – tagged as freeloaders and liggers.

One incident still made her face burn with shame at her father's barefaced push and, well, nastiness. It was a press trip to California with half a dozen press families invited to promote a superior camping holiday. On the way out, the rather hunky PR man for the company had got everyone an upgrade to first class. On the four-day trip he'd been pretty good at boosting upgrades and freebies from Santa Monica to Santa Barbara via Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

On the way back, the upgrade to first was at the discretion of the airline. Her father had been pretty wrecked from the last-night party. He turned up at check-in bleary-eyed, unshaven, in a baggy T-shirt and scruffy jeans that were too loose at the waist. He looked like a bum.

The tanned man at check-in was gay, of course, with neat hair and a small moustache.

‘I believe there's a possibility of an upgrade,' her dad croaked.

The man behind the counter looked at her unkempt father standing before him.

‘We like to think of first class as a rather superior party,' he said. ‘At which our passengers are the guests.' He touched the corner of his moustache. ‘We expect our guests to dress accordingly.'

Kate flushed and looked down as she saw her father stiffen. She knew what was coming.

‘Fuck you,' her father said loudly.

The man behind the counter stiffened.

‘And that is certainly not the kind of language we tolerate in first class. In fact, we may have to reconsider whether we fly you at all.'

Kate was crimson as she looked quickly from side to side to see where she could stand unnoticed. The man behind the counter pointed dramatically at some chairs off to the left.

‘Please,' he said, his voice quavering almost parodically as he tried to do fierce. ‘Kindly go and wait over there. If we allow you to travel, you will be informed later.'

Both her mother and father stood in front of him, unmoving. When she had replayed this event in her memory as she got older, she had remembered nuances or suddenly realized things (or perhaps fictionalized things). Like the fact the man behind the counter was gay. Her memory had stored that unassimilated at the time, not totally understanding what was going on but like an animal aware of the atmosphere.

It was typical of her parents that not only did they get the upgrade, but the man also ended up apologizing to them for the ‘misunderstanding'.

In the nineties she was watching TV one night and recognized with an embarrassed jolt her parents on the news. It wasn't her parents but it might as well have been. Hand-held camera footage of Neil and Christine Hamilton bearing down on the Man in the White Suit when he was announcing he was standing against Hamilton in a by-election. The same arrogant attitude; the same self-righteousness; the same hard faces. That was her parents at their worst.

By then her father was inside New Labour and her mother was riding on his coat-tails to write high-profile pieces for the qualities.

She didn't mean to be so bitchy about her mum. There was just something about her – always had been. Again, things heard but not understood until much later. Kate sitting on the stripped pine stairs whilst a raucous dinner party went on below.

‘Oh, God.' Her mum's voice loud, brittle and bored. ‘I suppose that means I'm going to have to give you a blow job tonight.'

So where did that leave Kate? Why didn't it bleed down into her? The genes were there. Was her anti-competitiveness simply a resistance to the obvious, or some perverse version of the same impulse? Could she deny her genes? She guessed she had little to do with it.

She'd avoided going into journalism, though that was the easy option. She looked around and the newspapers were full of kids of famous people. Had they no shame? She accepted that if they couldn't write, they wouldn't be there. But she also accepted that there were hundreds of other journalists who could write just as well, or much better, but didn't have the inside track. She avoided taking advantage of her parents' connections, those newspaper deals made over lunch and dinner with editors and publishers. She reacted against it. Hence her local radio gig. Was she shooting herself in the foot?

She sighed, picked up the diary – and did a double take.

Her mobile phone rang. She checked the number. Answered.

‘Kate, it's Bob Watts. Wondered if you wanted to meet to discuss the Trunk Murder with me and a serving police officer.'

‘They found the head!' she said.

‘I take it that's a yes.'

They agreed to meet in the Hotel du Vin in two hours' time. Kate idly wondered who the serving policeman was but was eager to find out more about the head. She read on.

‘
Why wouldn't you let her?' Pelling asked, puzzled.

‘
Dunno.
'

The girl, Barbara, said: ‘Fred thought some person had committed suicide by throwing themselves from the cliff above and that the police –' she looked round quickly at the officers around her – ‘having taken away the remains they required, had swept the other parts into the sea.
'

Jimmy Tingley phoned.

‘Just checking in,' he said. ‘No real developments my end. You?'

‘Nothing here,' I said, glancing across at Gilchrist, feet up on the sofa, frowning as she speed-read the files, occasionally jotting down notes. ‘Have you been able to check out the Haywards Heath guys yet?'

‘I'm certain they're dirty but I haven't got close yet. Do you want to meet?'

‘I'm coming into town for a little get-together to discuss the Brighton Trunk Murder shortly.'

There was a pause on the line.

‘First or second?' he finally said.

‘You know about them, then – want to join us and then we can have another chat after?'

He agreed and I put the phone down. Gilchrist was looking steadily at me. I smiled and she smiled back, then dropped her gaze back to the files.

Kate arrived first at the Hotel du Vin. A sudden gust of wind just as she stepped off of Ship Street ballooned her skirt out and up, earning a whistle and a few grunts from some builders on the other side of the lane. She went to the loo to comb her hair and sort her make-up, then settled herself on one of the sofas that ran along the wall to the side of the bar. She sipped her wine and gazed up at the rafters far above.

Watts walked in accompanied by a tall woman about ten years older than Kate, with broad shoulders and a long stride. He flashed a big smile as he walked over to Kate whilst the woman deftly checked out the room. She nodded at a man at the bar. Kate glanced across. She hadn't noticed the unassuming man sitting there but now he slipped off the bar stool and walked across to them, carrying a coloured drink in his hand.

Watts made the introductions. Kate tried not to react when she heard Sarah Gilchrist's name – she read the tabloids. She tried not to give her the once-over but, of course, she did. Gilchrist was attractive and had a strength about her. Kate was surprised to see her with Watts. She'd assumed it had been a one-night stand. Were they actually having an affair? She recalled that other wine glass in Watts's bungalow.

‘So they found the head?' Watts said.

‘And lost it again,' Kate and Gilchrist said, almost together. Kate smiled at Gilchrist. ‘It was in the police report.'

‘Though the public didn't know until a newspaper report in 1964,' Tingley said. He turned to Kate. ‘Hello, I'm Bob's friend, Jimmy Tingley.'

‘You know about all this, then?' Kate said, puzzled by his presence. She was worried she was going to lose control of the investigation.

‘I've given it some thought from time to time. I like analyzing things.'

‘And what has your analysis concluded?' Watts asked.

Tingley took a sip of his drink.

‘Rum and pep,' Watts said to Kate, seeing her curious look. ‘Otherwise he's more or less normal.'

‘First, you've got to figure out how this guy got the trunk into the left luggage in Brighton. The body weighed seventy pounds – that's a lot to lug around. The maximum weight marines are expected to carry in their packs is fifty-five pounds. They're big, fit blokes.'

‘He took the train from London,' Gilchrist said.

‘Maybe – if that sighting of a middle height man at London Bridge is accurate. But he still had to get it to the station in the first place. Same if he just dropped it off from somewhere in Brighton. This bloke is going to have difficulty moving this thing around. Such a high-profile case, a taxi driver would remember picking him up and helping him with the trunk.'

‘There's nothing in the files I read about taxi drivers coming forward,' Watts said.

‘So, perhaps he thought of that risk and he drove to the station. Whether he did the deed in Brighton or elsewhere, he would still have needed to drive.'

‘Getting the suitcase to King's Cross would have been easier,' Gilchrist said. ‘We need to check how easy that journey would have been from Brighton – and think about why he chose King's Cross. What was its significance?'