City of Dreadful Night (35 page)

‘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

K
ate 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.'

He tilted his head.

‘But how do you propose to get the rest of this diary? Behind a cabinet? Misfiled somewhere? Didn't you tell me that when you were having the station redecorated you found a sealed-up room in the cellar with a load of files in it? Are you hoping to do the same trick twice?'

Finding the sealed-up room was true. Material in there included all the evidence boxes connected to the unsolved murder of a schoolboy in the sixties.

‘I don't think we can do that twice, no. Did you write the diary?'

He grimaced. I think he was trying for a smile.

‘I remember writing something. We had a lot of spare time stuck in this tiny room in the Royal Pavilion.'

‘I thought the investigation was inundated with stuff. You couldn't keep up.'

‘Aye, well, most of it was rubbish.'

‘Even so,' I said.

‘Even so – there's always an even so.'

He looked at me for a long moment.

‘Do you want to know who did it? Who the Trunk Murderer was?'

I laughed – this was unexpected.

‘Well, yes.'

He grimaced again.

‘I haven't a bloody clue.'

I shook my head.

‘Dad.' I bit the bullet. ‘All these women in your diary.'

‘You know I've bin a ladies' man all my life.'

‘Whether they wanted to or not?'

‘I didn't get many turn me down, I'll tell you that. And the ones who pretended they didn't want to – well, there were no blood on the sheets when I were done, so what does that tell you about them?'

‘What about Frenchy?'

‘Frenchy – my God. Couldn't pronounce her real name then, can't remember it now. She got on that ferry on the end of the West Pier and floated out of my life.'

‘Where did you meet?'

‘On the prom in Brighton. February 1934. She was over for the day from France. We went to see
The Gay Divorcee
. Fred Astaire coming to Brighton to get a quickie divorce. Always preferred Gene Kelly myself, but, to be honest, I didn't see much of the film.'

‘Was it unprotected sex?'

‘Aye, and she fell pregnant. We didn't know it. She'd come over once a month and we'd get to it. She was fiery. Then in May she comes over and says she's pregnant.'

‘So you sent her to Dr M, the abortionist.'

‘You found that part of the diary, then. Massiah. He was something. She wanted to keep it, wanted me to marry her. Daft wench. I refused, so finally she came back over fourth of June and I paid for her to have an abortion. Coppers' rates – still wasn't cheap, but he was a society abortionist so I reckoned she was in good hands. I phoned after and they said it had gone fine.'

‘So she wasn't the Trunk Murder victim.'

My dad gave me a surprised look.

‘Dad, you saw the body. Was it her or not?'

He looked out of the window towards the iron bridge.

‘There were hardly any distinguishing features, were there? I mean, what was left of her was just a naked woman. I never gave her body a good look anyway.'

‘But you suspected it might be her? How?'

‘Spilsbury's report mentioned what he called a pimple under one of her breasts. Frenchy had made a joke of having three nipples for me to suck on. That's a mole, I said. Suck on it all the same, she said. I'd never met anyone quite like her.'

Again, I tried to mask my discomfort at my father talking about sex.

‘Do you think Massiah botched the abortion and Frenchy was the victim?'

‘I think it's a possibility.'

‘So why didn't you at least mention the possibility it might have been Frenchy? It could have changed the focus of the investigation.'

‘Sod 'em. By the time I was wondering whether it was her, they were giving me grief about my little arrangement with the press.'

‘But didn't you want to see justice served for someone you'd known and been fond of?'

‘Fond of? She were nice enough, but it were just sex. I've had more meaningful relationships with my fist, believe me.'

‘What happened to Massiah?'

‘It went nowhere. They were going to put him under observation but Billy Simpson's dad – ambitious bugger – jumped the gun and went and accused him. Massiah just sat at his desk and wrote a list of names of well-connected people in Sussex and high society he'd had dealings with. Implicitly threatening that he'd name names if he was put on trial. They dropped it.'

‘Then as now,' I muttered.

Damn – maybe this old case was getting to me more than I realized. The enormity of the thought that my father had known this woman, had had sex with her, had perhaps made her pregnant – and had kept quiet about it.

‘Why did you get fired?' I said.

‘Who says I was fired?' he said. He brought his hands together. Separated them again. He grunted.

‘I was leaking stories to the press. That's all. Inventing them, really. The press were ferocious back then, as now. The press corps wanted stories every day. Needed stories every day. I supplied them.' He sniffed. ‘The stories weren't exactly accurate but they gave the press their headlines.'