“Hi, Bozo. Didn’t hear from you yesterday?” she said.
“I brought you breakfast in bed. Remember?” I said.
“I meant after that. After you’d had your wicked way with the simple colonial girl.”
“I was working on a story until late.”
“Yeah. How about seeing me tonight?”
“I thought you were working.”
“Got the night off. Marco says we’re not likely to be busy in the restaurant.”
“What would you like to do?”
“Thought we might see that new movie – To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s on at the Duke of York’s.”
“That’s the Gregory Peck picture.”
“Yes. I thought it might appeal to the great journalist and righter of wrongs.”
I laughed. “I suppose I’ll never live down that little heart-to-heart we had in the Starlit Room.”
“You betcha.”
“Anyway, I’ve read the book and I’ve heard the film is just as good,” I said. “When does it start?”
“Seven forty-five.”
“Let’s do it. I should be finished by then. I’ll meet you in the foyer.”
“See you then,” Shirley said. The line went dead.
I picked up my notebook and went out. I was heading for the Town Hall. I had my own mockingbird to confront.
When I arrived at Brighton Town Hall, I still had no firm idea about how to tackle the interview with Cross.
Everything I’d learnt about him suggested he wouldn’t give away information readily. I’d need to manoeuvre him into a position where he had no choice but to answer my questions.
Brighton Town Hall was a large solid building fronted by a row of columns which looked as though they’d been borrowed from the front of a Greek temple. There were wide steps up to massive wooden double doors. The doors were open when I arrived. So I bounded up the steps between the columns and went in.
In the lobby, a commissionaire with a peaked cap, toothbrush moustache and sergeant’s stripes on his arm barred my way. He demanded to know my business.
I flashed my press card and said: “Interview with Councillor Cross.”
He nodded and reluctantly moved aside.
I clumped down the corridor which led to the committee rooms. It had a polished parquet floor and tiled walls. It was hung with a rogues’ gallery of photographs of previous mayors. There was one with a rubicund face and a belly that bulged like the dome on the top of the Royal Pavilion. A thin one with wire-framed spectacles and an apologetic expression. One with bushy eyebrows and a thin moustache – the town’s first woman mayor. One dressed in red robes and tricorn hat, like Alderman Fitzwarren out of Dick Whittington. And one, with pointy ears and dark eyes, who looked like Dick’s cat.
A noticeboard at the end of the corridor listed which meetings were taking place in which rooms. The Planning Committee was in room six. The meeting was scheduled to finish at twelve-thirty. I glanced at my watch. Ten past twelve.
I hurried along to the room, opened the door and went in.
There were about fifteen people sitting around a large boardroom table. To the side was a smaller table for the press. An old guy with straggly hair and a bored expression was sitting there. He was wearing a worn grey suit that looked as though it might have become a haven for wild life. I recognised him as a reporter from the Evening Argus. He was freewheeling the last few months of life as a journalist before retiring. His news editor would have sent him to this news-free meeting to get him out of the way. I think he was called Mick. Or it may have been Nick.
He could be a nuisance if he hung around after the meeting when I was trying to get Cross on his own. I didn’t want him getting wind of the fact that I needed to interview Cross. For a moment, I considered ducking out of the meeting and bearding Cross elsewhere in the Town Hall. But heads had swivelled when I entered the room, including Mick’s. Or Nick’s. Going out now would look odd if not downright suspicious. But I’d have to find a way to shake off Mick at the end of the meeting. So I smiled sheepishly at the swivelled heads and mock tip-toed across the room to the reporters’ table.
I sat down beside Mick and whispered: “Good to see you again, Mick.”
He whispered: “It’s Nick.”
I whispered: “Of course. Can’t think why I said Mick. Must be going senile.”
I took out my notebook and pretended to be absorbed in the fascinating proceedings. Cross was seated at the head of the table. He was a tall man with broad shoulders and long arms. He had bushy black eyebrows and thin lips. He was wearing a well-cut chalk-stripe suit that didn’t look as though it had come off the bargain rail at Burton’s. He spoke with the kind of studied precision that people use when they want to make an impression but which comes over as self-importance.
He said: “Have we fully ventilated the subject of new railings around the children’s paddling pool?”
There were murmurings round the table and an outbreak of nodding heads. Apparently, the paddling pool railings had been fully ventilated.
Cross said: “Then we shall move to next business.”
I ignored next business and wrote something in my notebook, tore out the page and slipped it across to Nick. My note said: Feel like meeting for a drink after this?
He wrote on the bottom: Great. He pushed the note back to me.
I wrote: How about The Cricketers? Might have a ploughman’s too. On me. I pushed the paper back to him.
He wrote: Be delighted. Thanks.
The meeting wound on. Cross was saying something he thought important because he kept repeating himself.
I ignored him and wrote on my note: After the meeting, could you go and grab a table before the lunchtime rush? I need to get some money from the bank.
He wrote: No trouble.
I wrote: Could you get the first round in? I took out a ten-shilling note and pushed it across to him with the paper.
He wrote: Thanks. No problem.
I turned the paper over to the other side and wrote: Mine’s a G&T.
I didn’t bother to specify one ice cube and two slices of lemon. I didn’t expect to be there to drink it.
When the meeting ended, Nick obediently trotted off to reserve our table at The Cricketers.
I didn’t feel too bad about it. He had my ten bob to spend on drinks and lunch. I made an excuse to stay in the committee room by telling him I wanted to write out a cheque before I went to the bank. In reality, I was waiting for an opportunity to pounce on Cross. After the meeting, he went into a little huddle with a couple of officials. I worried they’d all leave the room together and I wouldn’t be able to get Cross on his own. But after three or four minutes, the officials collected up their files and left the room. Cross ignored me and began shuffling his papers together. I walked over to him.
I said: “Colin Crampton, Evening Chronicle. Could you spare me a minute, Councillor Cross?”
Cross looked up from his papers and frowned. “Have we met before?” he said.
“I don’t think so.”
“But I recognise your name. You’re the Chronicle’s crime correspondent.”
“That’s right.”
“So what brings you to the Planning Committee? Not a sudden interest in the railings round the children’s paddling pool, surely?”
“No. I want to talk to you about the plans for the new casino on the seafront.”
He stopped gathering together his papers. I’d surprised him, but he recovered his composure. He picked up his brown leather briefcase from beside the chair and opened it.
“I think you must be mistaken,” he said. “The council has not received any planning application for a casino on the seafront.”
He started to put his papers in the briefcase.
I said: “I know that there’s no formal application. But I also know that a property developer is seeking to acquire land as a site for a seafront casino.”
“Property developer? Which property developer?�
��
“Septimus Darke.”
“We’ve had no planning application from Mr Darke.”
“You know Mr Darke?”
“I know that he’s a property developer in Brighton.”
“That’s not quite what I asked. Do you know him?”
“I have met him once or twice.”
“Your wife seems to think you know him quite well.”
Cross stopped fiddling with the papers in his briefcase. Those thin eyebrows were drawn together. He didn’t look friendly.
“You’ve spoken to Gerry.”
“Yes. What were you doing at the Golden Kiss nightclub last night?” I asked.
Now there was a flash of genuine worry behind his eyes.
“Where?”
He’d recovered but not quite quickly enough.
“The Golden Kiss, the nightclub on the seafront,” I said.
“I don’t think…”
“I saw you there.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“The Invisible Man,” I said.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Cross said. “You’re treating me like one of those criminals you seem to enjoy spending your time with.”
He slammed the lid on his briefcase, picked it up and marched from the room. I tagged along beside. We trooped down the corridor like a pair of guardsmen going on parade. We passed the mayor who looked like the cat and the one like Alderman Fitzwarren.
“I’m just trying to get some answers to questions that interest our readers, Councillor,” I said.
“My visit to the Golden Kiss was on council affairs,” Cross said.
“On a Sunday evening? In a nightclub?”
“Mr Darke is a very busy man. So am I. It was the only time we could manage for a brief meeting.”
“Business or pleasure?”
“Strictly business,” Cross said. “I have never met Mr Darke on a social occasion.”
“Never?”
“I must stress never,” he said.
“And last night’s business meeting was about the casino plans?” I asked.
We’d reached the lady mayor who needed a shave. Cross stopped. I stopped. We faced each other.
“Yes,” he said. “Mr Darke wanted to consult me informally about whether the Planning Committee would consider an application positively.”
Cross went into his pompous chairman act. “Of course, I cannot prejudge any decision my fellow committee members may take but I told Mr Darke that I thought we would give the application favourable examination.”
He grabbed my arm. There was the kind of desperate light in his eyes that I associated with street-corner preachers and people trying to borrow money.
“This could bring thousands of new visitors into Brighton,” he said. “Millions of pounds. Scores of new jobs for local people. It’s just what the town needs to drag it into the nineteen sixties, Colin. I may call you Colin, mayn’t I?”
So it was best-friend time.
“Of course, Derek. You don’t mind me calling you Derek?”
He nodded, a touch reluctantly. He let go my arm. We continued our march down the corridor. We passed the thin mayor with the apologetic expression and the fat one with the rotund belly.
“The casino project is something everyone in Brighton will benefit from one way or another,” Cross said.
“Arnold Trumper doesn’t think he’s going to benefit from it.”
“Arnold Trumper?”
“The owner of the Krazy Kat miniature golf course.”
“Of course. I’m afraid I haven’t yet been able to ask Mr Trumper for his views.”
We reached the foyer. It was crowded with staff scurrying about making the best of their lunch hour. Suited management types strolled out to restaurants. Secretaries tucked their bags of sandwiches under their arms and headed to the seafront.
Cross looked relieved by the general bustle. I didn’t think there was much more I could get from him in the crowd.
He said: “I’m going to have to say goodbye now, Colin. It’s been a pleasure.”
“I expect we’ll talk again soon, Derek,” I said.
We shook hands. Cross turned to leave. He stepped backwards. Two secretaries running for the door cannoned into him. The lid of his briefcase flew open. His papers crashed on to the parquet and skittered across the floor in all directions.
When they realised whom they’d jostled, the two secretaries looked as though they’d been convicted of multiple murder. They crouched to gather up papers. Cross bent to pick them up. Everyone stooped to help. The lobby was filled with prostrate bodies bumping into one another grasping at papers.
I retrieved a bundle that had slid towards the door. I patted them together – and stared at the letter on top. In the background, I sensed a dozen people milling around Cross helping him put papers back in his briefcase.
I sensed the secretaries sniggering. A couple of copies of Health & Efficiency, the nudists’ monthly magazine, had fallen out of one of his files. I sensed Cross, red as a radish, stammering that they were evidence for the chairman of the Watch Committee. That this kind of filth must be driven out of a pure and innocent town like Brighton. I sensed a young lad opening one of the magazines, nudging his mate and saying, “Hey, bet you don’t get many of them to the pound.” I sensed Cross snatching the magazines back.
And I only sensed it because my attention was riveted on the letter on top of the pile I was holding – the carbon copy of a letter from Councillor Derek Cross to Mr Arnold Trumper. What had Cross just told me?
“I’m afraid I haven’t yet been able to ask Mr Trumper for his views.”
I’d caught him out in a lie. And I realised that Cross and I had something more to talk about. But not now.
My eye raced down the page, absorbing the text, striving to memorise the key phrases. My mind whirled. There would be only seconds before Cross had disposed of the secretaries and started looking for his other papers. Could I pocket the copy letter? Should I? No. Cross would miss it and he’d know I’d taken it. I thrust the letter back among the other papers. I walked over to Cross.
“You dropped these, Derek,” I said.
“That’s very kind of you, Colin. Very kind indeed.”
We were still best friends. He bustled off through a door into another part of the Town Hall. He couldn’t get through the door fast enough.
Somehow I didn’t think we were going to be best friends much longer.
Chapter 8
I skipped lunch and went straight back to the Chronicle.
I wanted to discuss what I’d discovered with Figgis as soon as possible. When I walked in, I found that he’d left for lunch half an hour earlier. I thought about trawling round the pubs that were his usual watering holes but decided to wait until he returned. Besides, I’d found a message on my desk marked “confidential and urgent”. I was to telephone a William Shakespeare on a London number. I didn’t recognise the number.
I was tempted to dismiss it as the kind of spoof journalists play on one another. After a couple of pints, it was hilarious to leave a fake message to call R. Hugh-Leakey – or some other invented name – on a colleague’s desk. When the mug called the number, he’d find himself asking the baffled person on the other end of the line: “R Hugh-Leakey?” It would be one of the town’s plumbers. As the realisation that he’d been duped appeared on the sucker’s face, the newsroom would burst into uproarious laughter.
But I didn’t think this was a joke. Most of the wheezes involved Brighton phone numbers. And never the Bard of Avon. So I headed into one of the booths and dialled the number.
A throaty voice with a touch of London’s East End answered: “Hallo.”
I took a deep breath and said: “I’d like to speak to William Shakespeare, please.”
The voice said: “Forsooth, it’s Colin Crampton. Hail, fellow, and well met. This is Albert Petrie.”
I stepped back in shock and banged my elbow into the booth’s door.
“The news editor of the Daily Mirror?” I asked.
“The very same.”
Petrie had become a legend among national newspaper news editors. He was one of the journalists, alongside Hugh Cudlipp, the paper’s editor, who’d made the Mirror the country’s biggest-selling national newspaper with a circulation of more than five million copies a day.
“I expect you’re wondering why I’ve asked you to call me with this elaborate deception.”
“It had crossed my mind, Mr Petrie.”
“Call me Albert. Fact is that Jonnie Slingsby, our crime correspondent, is retiring in a couple of months. We’re looking for a replacement and I was wondering whether you might be interested.”
I found myself gripping the receiver as though it were a lifebelt. I forced myself to relax.
“Of course. Most certainly. Thank you.”
“Well, don’t thank me just yet, young Colin. You don’t get on the Mirror that easily. We’re going to interview three likely lads for the post so you’ll have a bit of competition.”
“I’d still like to be considered.”
“We’ll certainly do that.”
“When are you making your decision?”
“That’s the reason for the sudden call. Jonnie’s retiring a bit earlier than we’d expected. Bought himself a place down in Spain, lucky bugger. So we’re doing the interviews on Thursday. We’ll make the decision the same day. Can you be here?”
“Well, Thursday is a working day and I’m expected…”
Petrie cut me off.
“Know what you’re going to say. Don’t want any suspicious absences from the office at edition time.”
“Could be awkward,” I said.
“That’s why we’ve scheduled the interviews for early evening. Could you get to Fetter Lane by six o’clock?”
“That should be no trouble,” I said.
Petrie told me who to ask for when I arrived at the Mirror offices.
He said: “One last thing. I’m not pre-judging the issue but we would certainly like to have your name on the short-list. If you take my drift.”
“I do.”
“Good. Any questions?”
“Only one. When I called and asked for William Shakespeare how did you know it was me and not one of the other two candidates for the job?”
Headline Murder Page 7
