‘Where is he?’
Dave was quiet for a moment, though Tingley could hear his ragged breathing.
‘I’ve crossed a line. I don’t regret it. Cuthbert was a shit. You know his loan sharking? Once people borrowed from him he had them for life. He charged interest rates that worked out as high as a couple of thousand per cent.’ Dave was speaking more quickly. ‘He lent this nurse five hundred quid to buy a computer for her daughter. Over seven years he’s demanded eighty-eight thousand pounds from her. She had two strokes and a brain haemorrhage from the stress. He was a bastard.’
Tingley saw Watts get up from the table and walk away, fishing his own phone out of his pocket. Watts put it to his ear.
‘But Hathaway was talking of doing Cuthbert’s entire family. Blaming the Serbs. There’s no need for that, so I’m letting you know. The other – well, it’s a kind of war.’
Before Tingley could say anything, Dave hung up. He put his phone on the table and watched Watts walk back over.
‘That was Dave. It’s kicked off. Hathaway’s restaurant at the marina was torched. Something has gone on with Balkan gangsters at the Grand and I think Cuthbert might be dead.’
Watts slumped down.
‘That was Gilchrist. She can’t join us as she’s down at the Grand. There are three dead Balkan gangsters there after a gun battle on the fourth floor.’
‘Radislav among them?’
‘Apparently not. Was Dave one of the shooters?’
‘I don’t know. But I think he might have killed Cuthbert.’
Tingley told him the rest of Dave’s message. Before he’d even finished Watts was phoning Hewitt to get protection to Cuthbert’s family as soon as possible.
Watts put his phone back in his pocket and he and Tingley just looked at each other.
Tingley had never known peace. He knew how he appeared – calm and matter of fact. It was a front he maintained by rigid self-control. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt relaxed, though he also couldn’t remember when he could afford to relax.
Gaza, Lebanon, Iran for the Israelis. Iraq, both times. In the nineties, the Balkans, of course, that cesspit. Just back from Afghanistan. And now this. The Balkans on his doorstep.
‘Strictly speaking this isn’t any of our business,’ he said. ‘You’re examining a cold case and liaising between different people about the West Pier.’
‘True. But Stewart Nealson was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?’
‘Not exactly a friend . . .’
‘And Radislav is the one that got away.’
‘Not the only one . . .’
Watts gave him a long look and Tingley nodded. He brought out a sheaf of papers from his jacket pocket.
‘Radislav is somewhere outside Birmingham, lying low with his men. Drago Kadire, an Albanian, and another big name – Miklos Verbalin – were the Brighton forward brigade at the Grand. Verbalin is one of the dead. The other two are presumably foot soldiers.’
‘But Kadire got away with some of his men.’
Tingley nodded.
‘And Radislav will come running.’
‘Who will they go for?
‘Hathaway – who else?’
‘Did Dave say where Hathaway is?’
Tingley shook his head.
‘Let’s find out,’ Watts said.
Hathaway answered on the first ring.
‘It’s Bob Watts.’
‘How nice to hear from you, ex-Chief Constable, though your timing could be better.’
‘Got a lot on your plate, have you?’
‘The cross all entrepreneurs must bear.’
‘Sorry to hear about your restaurant.’
‘Yes, that was uncalled for. A malicious act.’
‘So was whacking three of the Grand’s paying guests.’
‘Well, they’ve paid now, that’s for sure.’
‘You know that isn’t going to end it?’
‘I think it might.’
‘Vlad is still out there.’
Hathaway said nothing.
‘What have you done to Cuthbert?’
Again silence.
‘His family are in protective custody by now.’
Hathaway sighed.
‘Oh dear. Dave did seem to take that very hard, though I did warn him that once he came in, he was in all the way.’
‘You’re not going to hurt him?’ Watts said. Tingley raised a questioning eyebrow.
‘No, no. Just reassign him.’
‘We need to talk to you.’
‘I get that a lot. OK. Come down to the marina. I’m on my boat. I might have something for you.’
Sarah Gilchrist and Reg Williamson got there first. They’d already been to the house on Tongdean Drive to try to question Hathaway about the torching of his bar and the deaths at the Grand.
They stood on the boardwalk now looking at the charred remains of The Buddha. Williamson had his jacket over his shoulder, his belly straining at his crumpled shirt. He looked out over the harbour, shading his eyes with his hand.
‘He’s on one of those boats.’
They walked along a narrow wooden walkway past boats of every shape and size. There was a large double-decker cruiser at the far end with a gaggle of tough-looking men standing before it. Subtle. As they got nearer, a broad-shouldered black guy stepped towards them.
‘Can I help you?’
Williamson produced his warrant card.
‘Looking for Mr Hathaway.’
The man shrugged.
‘Can’t help you.’
Williamson smiled thinly.
‘Won’t wash, mate. Either we go on or he comes off.’
‘It’s all right, Dave.’
Williamson and Gilchrist looked up at the sound of the voice. The tall, good-looking man standing on the rear deck gave a startlingly Simon Cowell-like grin and waved them aboard.
The two policemen were still there when Hathaway and Tingley arrived. Dave had come on board to alert Hathaway of their approach when they were a couple of hundred yards away.
‘Thanks, Dave. You make yourself scarce.’
Watts smiled at the sight of Gilchrist and Williamson when he and Tingley came on to the rear deck. Hathaway excused himself from the two policemen and came over, hand extended. He looked fit and lithe in navy linen trousers and a white silk shirt. He also looked remarkably relaxed considering what had been going on.
‘Gentlemen, good to see you. I’ve just been accused of several murders by proxy. I think you know DS Gilchrist, Bob – rather well, in fact. But have you met acting DI Williamson?’
‘We’re disturbing you,’ Tingley said to Williamson.
‘Mr Hathaway was being unhelpful,’ Williamson replied, shaking his hand. ‘But he assures me he has something to tell us all.’
Gilchrist nodded at Watts and Tingley.
‘Well, isn’t this jolly,’ Hathaway said. ‘Drinks all round? Oh, I know our coppers are on duty but this is a boat so pretend you’re in international waters.’
They all had beers.
‘You were about to confess,’ Gilchrist said. ‘The Serbians in the Grand?’
‘You’re a one, DS Gilchrist. No, I have a bit of a roundabout story to tell. It starts with Elaine Trumpler.’
‘That’s a cold case,’ Gilchrist said.
‘But the police would be arresting the murderer.’
‘If he’s still alive,’ Watts said. ‘Are you saying it was you, not your father?’
‘Not so fast,’ Hathaway said, putting his hand up.
‘Your father was not known for turning the other cheek,’ Watts said. ‘Your father was known for violence. Competitors disappearing without trace.’
‘I can’t comment on his business methods.’
‘Really? Even though you inherited them. Where’s Cuthbert?’
Hathaway looked down at his hands on his knees, tilted his head and looked at the four people facing him.
‘And here was
I thinking we were getting on so well.’
He spread his hands.
‘My father was a psychopath – I think you call them sociopaths these days. And for years I worried that it was a genetic thing, that I was the same. But I’m not. I know that. My fear that I carried the gene is the reason I never had children.’ He looked out over the marina. ‘One of the reasons.’
‘Who do you think topped your father?’ Tingley said.
‘Who said he was topped?’ Hathaway said, menace in his voice.
‘He disappeared. Your mum died of grief.’ Tingley saw Hathaway’s look. ‘That’s what I heard anyway.’
Hathaway jabbed his finger at Tingley.
‘You’ve got a cheek, Jimmy, saying such things to my face. But I’ll answer your question. I don’t know who topped my father and after all this time I don’t care. All that bollocks about revenge is a dish best eaten cold is just that – bollocks. No dish meant to be served hot tastes anything like as good cold.’
‘Thanks for the gastronomic tip,’ Gilchrist said.
Hathaway turned to her.
‘Let me tell you my dad’s philosophy. Courtesy of some Persian wise man. “The moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.”’
The four of them looked at him. He shook his head.
‘Nobody has any culture any more.’ He pointed at Watts. ‘Your father would know it. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, written in the eleventh century, as translated by Edward Fitzgerald in the nineteenth century. Very big for most of the twentieth century. Words to live by.’
‘No good crying over spilt milk, you mean?’ Watts said.
Hathaway gave him a curious look.
‘I made a decision to live in the present and the future. Decided not to get bogged down in revenge. Wasteful emotion. What’s done is done. Move on. Carpe diem. All that.’
‘You’ve seized a few days since then,’ Watts said.
‘That I have, ex-Chief Constable. Though, actually, you’re mistranslating. Everybody does. Horace was actually using the word “carpe” in the sense of “enjoy, make use of” – it actually means “pick, pluck or gather”. And it was the start of a sentence that went on “quam minimum credula postero” – “enjoy the day and put little trust in the future”. The ode is all about tomorrow being unknowable so focus on now – and drink your wine.’
‘The wonders of a classical education,’ Gilchrist said, almost admiringly.
‘You’re a constant surprise, John,’ Watts said.
Hathaway shook his head.
‘Just good at Latin at school.’
‘“Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”,’ Williamson said. ‘“Gather ye rosebuds whilst ye may.”’
Hathaway laughed.
‘Or as old Omar would say: “Here with a little bread beneath the bough, a flask of wine, a book of verse –”’ he looked at Gilchrist – ‘“and thee”.’
Gilchrist smiled, despite herself.
‘That’s all very well but who killed Elaine Trumpler?’ Watts said.
‘Anyone here know of a guy called Keith Jeffery?’ Hathaway said. ‘Apropos the Swinging Sixties.’
‘Another hoodlum?’
‘He’s the guy who either murdered or ordered the murder of Jimi Hendrix.’
‘Whoa,’ Williamson said. ‘Nobody killed Jimi Hendrix except Jimi Hendrix. He drowned in his own vomit after a drug-drink overdose.’
He sensed Gilchrist staring at him.
‘It’s a pub quiz question.’
‘Rather like Laurence Kingston, you mean?’ Hathaway said.
Gilchrist laughed.
‘Hang on – Elaine Trumpler, Jimi Hendrix and Laurence Kingston? This Keith Jeffery killed them all?’
Hathaway sipped his beer.
‘Jeffery was Hendrix’s manager. Insured him for two million dollars. He was worth more to him dead than alive.’
‘Hendrix was a megastar,’ Williamson said. ‘He would have made far more than two million.’
‘After his death he was a megastar. And Keith wasn’t exactly au fait with the music business. He didn’t really get Hendrix. In 1967, Jeffery put Hendrix on as support for The Monkees – the first boy band, I guess.
‘But he’d put a lot of money into building Electric Ladyland studios in New York. He owed the Inland Revenue a fortune. He’d had to pay off various ex-managers. He was spending money without getting much return. Then Hendrix said he wanted to change managers.’
‘So Jeffery killed him?’ Tingley said.
Hathaway nodded.
‘Took the two million dollars insurance, bought a house in Woodstock, took control of the studios in New York, made a packet out of Hendrix’s heritage. You know these guys can definitely be worth more dead than alive.’
‘He ordered it or he did it?’ Tingley said.
Hathaway spread his hands.
‘One or the other. He claimed to be in his nightclub in Majorca at the time. Claimed he didn’t know about it until the police turned up a few days later. But he was a Geordie wideboy who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty.
‘He started with a little night club that wasn’t doing too well on the outskirts of Geordie-land. It conveniently burned down. Then he had a coffee bar in the centre also not doing too well. That burned down. With the insurance money from both he opened up a dance place. The house band he booked and then managed was The Animals.’
‘I’ve heard of them,’ Gilchrist said.
‘Yeah. Well spare me your rendition of “House of the Rising Sun”. Jeffery was their manager. They had a string of hits. They weren’t The Beatles or Gerry and the Pacemakers and they weren’t as pretty, but that Eric Burdon had a voice on him.’
‘Is there a point to this pop history lesson?’ Williamson said.
‘The Animals split up in 1966. Creative differences. After all those hits they scarcely had a pot to piss in. Jeffery had persuaded them to put their money in an offshore account he set up in the Bahamas. Called it Yameta. Eric Burdon called it the Bermuda Triangle because all their money disappeared in it.’
Williamson put his empty glass down hard on the table in front of him.
‘I repeat – what is your point?’
‘The acting DI needs another drink,’ Hathaway called over his shoulder. ‘My point is that the pop scene in the sixties was like the wild bloody west. You may have heard about hoodlums muscling in on Tin Pan Alley in the fifties but, Christ, the sixties. Forget no law west of the Pecos – there was no law at all. There were all these managers getting rich off these pig-ignorant rock stars who were too busy getting high – and laid – to worry about their money.’
He put his hand up to placate Williamson.
‘OK, someone broke into Hendrix’s place, forced booze and sleeping pills down his throat. Autopsy showed a lot of wine in his lungs but little absorbed into his bloodstream, which means he hadn’t been on a drinking binge, as suggested.’
‘You knew Keith Jeffery?’ Watts said.
‘I knew him. I knew all the gangsters back then, but of course I was a generation behind.’
‘Did you manage anyone?’
‘You betcha.’
‘Did you rip them off?’
Hathaway laughed.
‘Of course. These guys were morons. Morons are fair game.’ He clasped his hands. ‘But they did OK too. I wasn’t a total louse.’
‘Is that going to be on your tombstone?’ Gilchrist said.
‘Not for a long time yet,’ Hathaway said, baring his white teeth at her.
‘Are you going to get to the point?’ Tingley said.
‘Two people have been fingered for killing Hendrix. One is Jeffery, who has his alibi. The other is a man he went into business with. A couple of years later, Jeffery died in a private plane crash and this man took over his empire. If you want to get into conspiracy theory, when Hendrix died he’d been with a Ger
man druggie who’d nipped out for cigarettes. In the mid-nineties she started mouthing off about how Hendrix was murdered. Then she killed herself in 1996. Supposedly.’ Hathaway turned to Williamson, who was pouring his second beer into his glass. ‘Have they checked Kingston’s lungs?’
Gilchrist laughed again.
‘Whoa. You really are saying the guy who killed Hendrix also killed his manager and his ex-girlfriend and, then, fifteen years later, Laurence Kingston of the West Pier Syndicate. Any chance he did JFK and the Pope too?’
She looked at Watts and Tingley for support. Both were looking intently at Hathaway. Hathaway picked up an envelope from the table beside his chair. He stretched his arm out to Tingley.
‘Read it aloud, Jimmy,’ Hathaway said.
‘It isn’t dated,’ Tingley said. ‘It says: “Hello Johnny. Time’s up.” I can’t read the signature. Charlie somebody?’
‘Charlie Laker,’ Hathaway said.
Watts had a flash of a newspaper cutting he’d found in the local history unit. He shook his head in disbelief.
‘Charlie Laker. Drummer with The Avalons pop group.’
Hathaway should have killed Charlie in 1970. He intended to. He had the gun to his head. He was going to shoot him in the face, like Charlie had shot Elaine. Charlie was pretty calm, in the circumstances.
Then Reilly was standing beside him.
‘John,’ he said quietly.
Hathaway had lowered the gun.
‘We’re even,’ he said to Charlie.
Charlie had buggered off to America. He thrived in the music business, first under Jeffery then on his own. Bought a house in Hollywood next to Cary Grant. Surfed the seventies, found a way to profit from punk and the US New Wave. Then sometime in the eighties he disappeared off the radar.
But here was the thing. The other reason Hathaway had let him live.
‘He and your sister are back together,’ Reilly told him that evening in Spain. ‘She loves him.’
‘So now you’re saying your drummer Charlie killed all those people and Elaine Trumpler and Laurence Kingston?’ Gilchrist was almost harrumphing in her disbelief.
‘He had form in the music business here in Brighton. Rough tactics against rival managers. He went off to the States, did well for himself.’
The Last King of Brighton Page 26
