City of Dreadful Night (27 page)

‘Who is Gary Parker's father?' she said.

‘Not who you'd expect,' Tingley said.

Kate was trying hard not to freak out. The man at the cemetery had chilled her to the bone. What could he possibly want from her? Surely nothing to do with the Trunk Murder – this wasn't one of those silly thrillers where secret societies protected a secret for centuries. Was it?

Wrapped in a rug, she was on her balcony. Tonight, the music in the square was just Amy Winehouse and something unrecognizable involving a heavy bass beat. She had a notepad on her lap and a pencil in her hand. She was trying to focus on the Trunk Murder but all she could think about was that thin man standing at the other end of the burial plot.

When he walked away she thought of following to ask what he meant, but there was no one around and she wondered if he might attack her. Then she thought he might have done something to her car. When she got back to it she got in gingerly and locked it immediately, before starting the engine and testing the brakes.

She'd entered her flat nervously too, but there was no sign of any kind of break-in. She'd phoned Watts and told him what had happened. He'd told her to stay in the flat until he got over there later in the day. Told her to keep her mobile beside her.

It rang now, playing the irritatingly perky tune she couldn't figure out how to change. Her parents' number flashed up on the screen.

‘Hello, Kate,' her father said in an oddly hearty voice. ‘How are things?'

‘Things are fine, Dad, thanks.'

‘Everything going OK, is it? You're feeling OK?'

Her father never asked anything about her except when he was checking up on her for his own peculiar reasons.

‘I'm fine, Dad. Why do you ask?'

There was silence on the line for a moment. Then:

‘Nothing unusual happened?'

It was Kate's turn to be silent as she pondered his asking her this question after her encounter in the cemetery.

‘Not really, no.'

‘Not really – what do you mean, not really?'

‘I mean no. How's Mum?'

‘Mum's fine,' he said impatiently. ‘She's wondering when you might be coming up to London again for a visit.' He cleared his throat. ‘In fact, we were both wondering if you might like to come and stay for a few days. We don't see nearly enough of you.'

Stranger and stranger.

‘I've got work, Dad.'

‘Don't you have leave due?'

‘I haven't been there long enough to get leave yet.' And if I had, she thought but didn't say, I wouldn't want to spend it at home.

‘Maybe next weekend, then.'

‘Maybe – it depends on my shifts.'

Another silence. Finally:

‘OK, then. Well, you take care, Kate. And phone me if you need me.'

‘Will do, Dad.'

‘Love you.'

‘Bye, Dad.'

She dropped the phone in her lap and listened to Amy Winehouse's by now poignant views on rehab ricocheting round the square. She thought for a moment about other singers she'd liked, who'd arrived but hadn't stayed long. Whatever happened to Macy Gray?

But really she was thinking about her dad calling. It
had
to be more than coincidence. The man in the cemetery was something to do with the grey areas of her father's life. The many grey areas. In threatening her, the man was sending a message to her father. And her father had clearly received it.

There had been concern in her father's voice as their conversation had gone on. It was a long time since she had heard that. It would have touched her had she allowed it to. There was fear too. She had never known her father to be in a situation he didn't fully control. Maybe this was it – the first time.

Kate pulled the throw up over her shoulders and waited to hear from Watts.

‘James Tingley – you tease,' I said. ‘Who would have thought it?'

‘I'm not teasing. I'm trying to get it clear in my head. I'd thought it would be Cuthbert – same Cro-Magnon mentality. I'd hoped it was Hathaway so we could do a deal that would explain your situation. But it's neither.'

‘We get that,' Sarah said. ‘So who is Gary Parker's father?'

‘Another close friend of Mr Watts here. This whole affair is bedevilled with them.'

‘And that close friend is . . . ?' I said, trying to listen to the satnav instructions at the same time. I was driving down dark, winding lanes to the north of Hampstead Heath.

‘A certain Mr Winston Hart.'

‘You're joking!' I said, almost missing a turning.

‘Who's Winston Hart?' Sarah said.

Tingley looked wolfish.

‘The Chair of the Police Authority that forced Bob's resignation,' he said.

Kate had gone back inside her flat from the balcony, double-locked the French windows and pulled out the Trunk Murder files again. She was conscious that she was spending far too much time on this but, frankly, she didn't have much else in her life. Her last relationship had gone south, her job was boring as hell . . . and so it went.

She looked again at the remaining two undated scraps of the diary.

Who was he talking about? Just another of his many women? Kate was thinking about what Tingley had said about Spilsbury getting the age wrong. Oh, there was something here, for sure. But what exactly?

The next entry was more factual.

Kate assumed it was the diarist's habit of leaking stories to the press that was the problem. But she wondered about his way with women. Wondered whether sometimes his seduction method was too forceful.

She needed to explore whatever files were available in the National Archives in Kew. That was the repository for all the old Scotland Yard files, and she hoped there would be material in there that existed nowhere else. Failing that, there might be something that would help her to identify whoever was writing this diary.

‘You're only paranoid if people haven't really got it in for you,' I said triumphantly – but my mind was whirring. First, I couldn't figure the man Sarah had described as the son of the effete Winston Hart with his stupid moustache and his middle-class pretensions. Second, did that actually mean I was right and he was somehow part of a plot against me?

‘I'm tempted to abandon Connolly and head for Hart,' I said.

‘No,' Sarah said. ‘We have to talk to Connolly – he's in this up to his neck.'

‘I've seen Hart,' Tingley said. ‘And we're here. Drive past the house, Bob.'

We'd reached an imposing Elizabethan farmhouse, alone on the road, with a wide drive to one side of it. I noticed that lights were on in various parts of the house. I drove about a hundred yards past it and pulled into a passing point.

‘You've seen Hart? And?'

‘Not now, Bob.'

I sighed.

‘So what do we do?'

‘We go up and knock on the door,' Gilchrist said.

‘What if he won't see us?' I said.

Tingley just grinned.

Somebody rapped on Kate's door. She had a fisheye lens set in it. She looked through it but nobody was there. The chain was on but she didn't open the door. Her heart thumping, she stayed with her eye glued to the fisheye. Still nobody there. She retreated to her sofa but couldn't take her eyes off her door. All she could think, however, was that to knock on her door you had to get through the locked outer door to the whole house.

She phoned Watts.

‘This is not a good time,' I said when I heard Kate's voice. Tingley was straddling Connolly, Gilchrist was over by the window looking out, rubbing her chin. Connolly was struggling to get his breath. Tingley punched him again, very precisely. Connolly's breath bubbled in his throat.

‘Enough now, Jimmy. You've made your point.'

‘Have I?' he said, slapping Connolly across the face. ‘Do you feel I have, Billy boy?'

‘Fuck you,' Connolly spluttered.

‘Tough guy,' Tingley said, drawing his fist back.

‘Enough.' Gilchrist this time, striding across from the window to grab Tingley's arm.

Tingley kept his arm raised but didn't try to get out of Gilchrist's grip. Instead he reached down with his other hand and smoothed Connolly's hair. After this oddly gentle gesture, he drew himself off Connolly and, in the same fluid movement, stood upright. In the process, with a quick twist and shake, he freed his arm from Gilchrist's grip.

Gilchrist grasped at thin air and looked momentarily bemused as she watched Tingley go to sit on a narrow sofa. Connolly lay on the floor beside Gilchrist, his chest heaving. He gave her a malignant look.

He pulled himself to a sitting position, all his weight on his right arm. His left arm hung useless by his side. His face was engorged with blood, his eyes bulging. He looked over at Tingley, who ignored him, fixing his own eyes on the stacks of DVDs beside the rogue policeman's giant plasma screen.

Connolly had readily let us in but then had taken offence at something Gilchrist had said and lunged at her. Tingley had intervened, and before I had even begun to react, Connolly was on the floor.

‘Someone has been trying to get into my flat,' Kate was saying in my ear.

‘Call the police. No, wait.' I called to Gilchrist. ‘Is Reg on shift now?'

‘How would I know?' She saw my look, thought for a minute. ‘I think so.'

I handed her my phone.

‘Give Kate his mobile number. And tell her we'll be over as soon as we're finished here.'

I'd doubted the value of fronting Connolly. We weren't going to strong-arm him into telling us anything. Tingley felt the same. He'd been monitoring Connolly and his colleague, White. But Gilchrist had been keen to confront him. And confront him she had.

‘You murdering scum,' she'd said the minute we'd got into the house. Not the most tactful opening gambit and the reason everything had kicked off.

‘What the fuck do you all want?' Connolly rasped, his voice hoarse. The open-handed blow to the throat does that to the voice box. The bubbling breath was the consequence of that and the punch in the diaphragm. The temporarily useless left arm was a nerve thing: Tingley's precise attacks on the elbow and that bundle of nerve endings just below the shoulder joint. Connolly would be feeling major pins and needles soon. Then a lot of pain.

‘We want to know what happened at Milldean the night that everybody got shot. What was behind it?'

‘You're Watts, aren't you?' Connolly said as he pushed himself up on one arm to his feet. He went over to a big armchair and dropped into it. ‘Mr High and Mighty.'

‘Why did you steal that phone from the kitchen?' Gilchrist said.

Connolly bared his gappy teeth.

‘What is this – amateur hour? If I have something to disclose, don't you think you should approach it with a bit more subtlety? Asking me straight out ain't going to get you anywhere.'

I agreed with him. Even so, I said:

‘We're on a clock. No time for subtlety.' I waved my arm around the large room. ‘Nice place. Must have cost a bob or two. You must be good at handling your copper's salary.'

‘That's subtle. It's Bob, isn't it? Are you thinking you were one of the bobs who paid for it?'

Tingley snorted. I looked over at him but he still seemed to be focusing on the DVD collection, tilting his head to read spines. Connolly looked over at him.

‘Anything you fancy, feel free to borrow it.' Connolly's voice was getting stronger. ‘You're handy, by the way. I'll remember that for next time.'

‘Won't do you any good,' Tingley murmured.

‘What was that?' Connolly said, leaning forward, belligerent again.

‘I said I can't see your ultra-violent gay rom-coms – I'm guessing you keep them in the bedroom.'

‘Let's go,' Gilchrist said, heading for the door.

‘We've only just got here,' I said.

‘This was a mistake. My fault. Asshole isn't going to tell us anything. He doesn't realize he's next.'

‘Oh, here they are,' Tingley said. ‘
Reservoir Ducks
.
Lock, Stock and Mockney Cockney
.
Gay Gangs of New York
. The whole gay gangsters-r-us collection. You must have
The Very Dirty Dozen
and
The Quite Wild Bunch
in your bedside cupboard.'