City of Dreadful Night

by Peter Guttridge

  A man called after me as I crunched over the gravel back to my car. I turned. Bill Munro was hurrying towards me, puffing as he came. I hadn’t noticed him in the chapel.

  ‘Didn’t expect to see you here,’ I said as we shook hands.

  ‘Nor me you,’ he said. ‘But you’ve saved me a trip. Have you time for a drink in half an hour or so?’

  We met in the Fortunes of War on the beachfront. It was a pub dating back to the twenties, set in the arches, cramped and with a low ceiling. I figured nobody would see us there. It was quiet – no people, no piped music.

  We sat upstairs by an open window and looked out to sea as we talked in low voices.

  ‘Did Foster leave a note?’ I said.

  ‘None that we’ve found. You know what happened? His wife didn’t know where he was and couldn’t get him on his mobile so she went down to their beach hut. It was locked from the inside but she could see blood coming under the door so she called us and an ambulance.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor woman.’

  ‘You’re assuming it was guilt over his responsibility for the raid going wrong.’

  Munro sighed.

  ‘He did more than that. He buggered up the return of the guns to the armoury after the incident. He immediately got the weapons handed back, right enough, but he didn’t tag which weapon had been in the keeping of which officer. That went for the snipers’ rifles too. Everyone’s DNA will be over everything. He compromised the investigation before it even got started.’

  ‘Stupidity or cunning?’

  Munro shrugged and reached for his beer.

  ‘Did you have more to tell me?’

  He looked into his glass a moment.

  ‘This would go down better with a couple of bags of crisps. Hang on a jiffy.’

  I watched the people wandering by below until he sat heavily down, dropping two packets of crisps on the table.

  ‘Cheese and onion and salt and vinegar.’ He tore both packets open. ‘Help yourself.’

  Then, through a mouthful of crisps, he told me the investigation had stalled.

  ‘Nobody who was upstairs will say what happened. Nobody. Not Connolly, White, Philippa Franks or Potter. None of the snipers will admit to firing the shot that killed the man coming out of the back door.

  ‘We have the rifle that was used for that but we don’t know who signed it out and checked it back in. Same goes for the other weapons. Since they were all discharged, we don’t know who did what to whom.’

  ‘And John Finch?’

  ‘Finch has disappeared. No sign of him packing at his flat, no movement on his credit cards or his bank account since he went AWOL.’

  I sipped my wine.

  ‘Do you think he’s harmed himself?’

  ‘Or somebody has harmed him,’ Munro said, scooping up crisps with his fat fingers. He shook his head. ‘But why would anybody?’

  ‘This is a murky business, Bill, I’ve said that from the start. Nothing really makes sense. Is DC Edwards, whose grass started all this, still on the missing list?’

  ‘He’s done a runner, looks like. He was due leave starting the next day, true enough, but he’s not answering his mobile and it’s turned off so we can’t track him through it. Credit card used in Dieppe the day after the incident, then points south – petrol and cheap restaurants – all the way to the Pyrenees. After that, nothing.’

  ‘His snitch?’

  Munro shook his head again then took a long gulp of his beer. I waited for more. Munro hid a belch.

  ‘The word that Grimes was on his own came via Edwards from his snitch, so that’s our starting point. But since we can’t locate either of them, we can’t actually start.’

  ‘What’s the deal with Bernard Grimes – is he one of the victims?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he ever in Brighton or was the whole story cock and bull?’

  ‘No, he was here but not in that house. The tip from London was firm. The confusion comes with what happened to it at this end.’

  ‘So did Grimes get to Provence?’

  ‘We’re still checking. We don’t exactly know where he has his place in France and, of course, he’s living under another name. There’s an arrest warrant out for him. The French police are on the job.’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Now, now – your lot have got nothing to boast about here.’

  ‘Do you think it odd that Edwards and Grimes are both in France?’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘I don’t think Grimes is involved in this in any way at all. He was a beard. Just a way to get the guns out.’

  ‘But what’s the thinking? Everybody in the task force was complicit in this?’

  ‘Well, they’re certainly being complicit now.’

  I rubbed my chin.

  ‘Can you not start with the victims?’

  ‘When we find out who they are, most certainly. They are not on any of our databases, nor, as far as we know at this stage, on any continental European databases. We’re going down the DNA route, of course, but that takes time.

  ‘According to the pathologist, the woman’s dentition suggests she’s from Eastern Europe. Something to do with the composition of her fillings.’

  ‘The others are Eastern European, then?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘How much longer are you going to spend on this?’

  He looked at me for a long moment.

  ‘You know how these things go, Bob. Your team isn’t denying people got shot, they’re just saying they don’t know who shot them. Unless someone comes forward, there’s nothing we can do except discipline them – and you know how that will pan out.’

  A young couple, heavily tattooed, came to sit at the next table. Munro leant forward – not easy with his belly.

  ‘Thing is, there’s a significant amount of pressure from higher up to let this one slide.’

  I leant in close and hissed:

  ‘How high up and how in hell can you let such a massive thing slide? The press will go bananas.’

  He sat back.

  ‘We’ll see. You know that in a couple of weeks’ time, before they can be disciplined, the shooters will resign on health grounds and then it’s over.’

  Retiring on health grounds is the standard get-out for coppers wanting to avoid disciplinary procedures. They do a deal – if they agree to go, the force doesn’t have to face public disgrace. It’s the police looking after their own.

  ‘What about a private prosecution?’

  ‘By who? Since nobody knows who the victims are, there is nobody to yell for justice.’

  Munro looked at the empty crisp packets and his empty glass.

  ‘Another?’

  ‘My shout,’ I said.

  I squeezed past the tattooed couple, who were hunched over their table, rolling cigarettes in readiness for a fag break. I didn’t know why I was so surprised or angry at what Munro was telling me. I knew how the system worked and I knew that the police, like any established profession, closed ranks to protect its own.

  When I got back to the table, Munro wanted to talk to me about my situation. His concern, I guess, was the reason he’d taken the trouble to see me.

  He rubbed his cheek, leaving a red weal.

  ‘You’ve been a bloody fool in more than one way but you’ve also had a raw deal.’

  ‘I’ve been set up.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far—’

  ‘I would.’

  He sighed and tilted his glass. The tattooed couple went outside to light up.

  ‘Sorry about you and Molly. Do you think you’ll get back together?’

  ‘Eventually, maybe. To be honest, I’m focusing on sorting this out first.’

  He put his glass back on the table.

  ‘I didn’t give you an update so you could start messing, Bob. I felt I owed you. But there’s nothing you can do, however unfair it might be. Family comes first – you focus on getting back home. You hear?’
<
br />   ‘I hear, Bill. Thanks – for all this.’

  We stayed another ten minutes, talking about anything but my situation. The tattooed couple came back in, bringing with them a group of boisterous friends. We finished our drinks and went down the narrow stairs out into the sunshine. Munro gestured at the pebble beach.

  ‘I’ve always been fond of that Acker Bilk tune Strangers on the Shore. Heard it on Wogan’s radio show years ago.’ He shook his head. ‘Funny, Foster being a trad jazz man – you don’t hear that much these days.’

  We looked up and down the boardwalk at the throng of young people going by. He held out his hand.

  ‘Good luck to you, Bob. And mind what I said – focus on sorting your marriage out. The most important thing.’ He grinned. ‘Though we don’t always recognize it when they’re giving us grief.’

  I watched him make his careful way through the holidaymakers. He was a decent man, a contented man. I liked to think I was the former. I’d never be the latter.

  On the day after Charlie Foster’s funeral, Sarah Gilchrist almost begged Sheena Hewitt to be taken off suspension. She didn’t care: inactivity was driving her mad. She had sat in her flat and suffered, waiting for a phone call that didn’t come. Once, she’d driven out to Haywards Heath and parked opposite the police station. It was stupid. Connolly and White were suspended too, so weren’t even there. Then she’d driven aimlessly round the town thinking she might see them but having no clue what to do if she did.

  Inactivity engendered a familiar feeling, one she tried to keep away from. Old stuff welling up. Stuff she hoped she’d dealt with long ago.

  Finch’s disappearance had made her paranoid. She roamed the streets of Brighton and Hove, keeping her head down. Once she saw Philippa Franks in a restaurant she’d been intending to eat in. Philippa was in heated discussion at the back of the restaurant with an older man. It looked like relationship stuff so Sarah walked briskly away.

  She phoned the Acting Chief Constable and on the sixth attempt was put through.

  ‘What do you want, Sarah?’ Hewitt said sharply.

  ‘I want to get back to work, ma’am.’

  ‘Do you indeed?’

  ‘You must have seen all the statements from that night in Milldean. You know I wasn’t anywhere near all the bad things going on.’

  ‘I don’t know because I don’t believe anyone is telling the truth.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You say.’ Hewitt sighed. ‘You know you’ll never be a firearms officer again?’

  ‘I know that when the enquiry apportions blame it will probably tar everybody with the same brush.’

  Hewitt was silent for a moment, then:

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  Ronnie, the community policeman, came round the afternoon after I’d hit the deer. I was having lunch when I looked out of the window and saw him standing in the gravel outside the bungalow.

  ‘Sorry – the bell’s kaput,’ I said when I opened the door. I stood to one side. ‘Come in.’

  ‘It’s about the body in the car, sir.’

  Ronnie seemed to duck his head as he walked past me. He hesitated at the end of the corridor.

  ‘Door on the left.’

  He was a tall, broad-shouldered man and the ceilings weren’t high. When I entered the room as well, also stooping, it suddenly seemed very crowded. He glanced around. I guessed he was thinking it was a bit of a rabbit hutch for an ex-Chief Constable but he made no comment. I gestured to the sofa under the window.

  ‘Want a coffee?’

  ‘Nothing at all, thanks, sir.’

  I sat behind my desk, not because I wanted it to be a barrier – my management experience clicking in – but because it was the only other seat in the room.

  ‘No identification possible yet, I assume.’

  ‘The SoCs are on it but the fire was intense. I just have to get a statement from you for the record. Oh, and I need the shoes you were wearing to identify your footprints in the field.’

  ‘Sure. The locals must be in shock.’

  ‘I’m in shock,’ he said with a grimace. ‘The most violent stuff I usually have to deal with are drunken youths on the weekend, the badger-baiters and the Countryside Alliance going rabid.’

  I gave him my statement, such as it was. When I had finished he got up to go, then stood awkwardly for a moment.

  ‘How’s the enquiry going, sir, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘It’s not getting anywhere, as best I can tell,’ I said with a shrug.

  ‘Truth will out, sir, I’m sure of it.’

  I smiled and patted his shoulder.

  ‘I wish I shared your optimism.’

  SIX

  The severed arm was found in the children’s paddling pool at about the time Sarah Gilchrist took the call from Australia. She’d been back at her desk a week, her suspension lifted, though the enquiry had not yet issued its final report. Since her return she’d been lumbered with the most menial jobs and the worst shifts – which is how come, tonight, she was alone in the office.

  The phone rang as she was standing by the window. She was watching the waves roll in. It was dusk but the sky was still bright blue.

  ‘DS Gilchrist,’ she said.

  ‘Look, I’m phoning from Sydney.’ The man’s voice was urgent and shaky. ‘I want you to listen to something.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Gilchrist said, immediately on her guard, especially as the man didn’t sound Australian. ‘Who are you, sir?’

  ‘I got this message on my answerphone waiting for me when I got home. Fucking freaked me out, excuse my French.’

  ‘What’s your name, sir?’ Gilchrist reached for a pen and pulled a pad towards her.

  ‘It’s from a bloke I know lives in Hove. You’ll have to listen closely – the tape isn’t very good.’

  ‘Sir—’

  She heard the muffled beep of an answerphone then this drunken voice, refracted by the phone line. What the man said sent a chill through her.

  ‘I just fucking took a fucking hammer and smashed John’s brains all over the wall, mate. Then I got one of my swords. He’s all over the fucking wall, all over the floor, all over the ceiling. John’s like lying on the floor in . . . loads of bits. I don’t know why I did that, man.’

  Gilchrist blanched. The voice was gleeful.

  ‘Is this a real recording?’ she said to the caller. ‘Wasting police time is—’

  ‘I’m not wasting your time. It’s a guy called Gary Parker. He’s always been a bit of a nutter. His best mate is John Douglas. They live in this flat in Hove.’

  ‘Give me your details.’

  She scribbled down his name and address.

  ‘And the address in Hove?’

  It was a house almost diagonally across from Hove railway station.

  ‘Your local police will be visiting you shortly to collect the tape and interview you,’ she said.

  On her way out she stopped at the desk and asked the duty sergeant to phone the police in Sydney and to send out a call for back-up at Parker’s address. It still might be a hoax, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  The sergeant gazed blankly at her.

  ‘You got that?’

  He gave a little start.

  ‘Sorry, Detective Sergeant. Had a bit of a shock. A man has just phoned in to say that he’s found an arm in the kiddies’ paddling pool on the seafront. I’ve sent a couple of constables down there.’

  Maybe not a hoax, then. Gilchrist nodded and headed for the door.

  ‘I’ve a horrible feeling I know where the rest of the body is,’ she called back to him.

  Two squad cars, lights flashing, were parked outside the shabby, three-storey Edwardian building. Commuters looked over as they came from the station and drinkers in the bar opposite were standing at the windows watching the action.

  Gilchrist and four constables walked up to the front door. The curtains of the ground-floor flat were drawn. She rang the bell. No an
swer. Rang the bells of all the other flats to get through the house door. They crowded into the hallway, littered with flyers and free newspapers. She rapped on the cheap-looking door of the ground-floor flat.

  No answer.

  She looked at the constables. Caught one of them eyeing her up. Ignored that.

  They were hefty-looking boys.

  ‘Break it down,’ she said.

  It took two attempts, then the door burst open with a splinter of wood and a screech of hinges. The constables started in but came to an abrupt halt when they caught sight of the interior. They stepped aside to let Gilchrist see.

  The living room was drenched in blood. It was sprayed across the walls and looked as if it had been poured on the furniture from a paint pot. It was pooled around the gruesome object in the centre of the room. A naked male, without head, arms or genitalia, spindly legs stretched out on the carpet. A bayonet sticking out of his chest.

  The sickly stench of the blood hit Gilchrist as she looked around the room and down at what remained of the young man. Dispassionately, she reminded herself she was always surprised to see that a body could hold so much blood. Then she threw up.

  Gilchrist was still at the station at nine the next morning. She was light-headed, nauseous and exhausted. She sipped at a bottle of water. She was standing at the window again, watching the waves roll in, when the phone rang.

  It took her a moment to respond. She’d been thinking about last night’s crime scene. All the officers threw up at pretty much the same time.

  When she’d calmed herself Gilchrist had moved in and looked more closely at the torso. It had been hacked about pretty badly. There was a yawning red-black hole where the penis and scrotal sack had been.

  In the bedroom she’d found a large plastic bag stuffed with what, after a moment, she realized were body parts. In the kitchen a pale, thin arm and hand lay on the electric hob. A hammer, a Gurkha knife and a Samurai sword, all matted with blood and hair, lay on the kitchen table.

  She picked up the phone. It was Sheena Hewitt’s secretary.

  ‘Sheena thought you’d be the best person to handle this call,’ she said.

  ‘Is it to do with last night’s case?’ Gilchrist asked.

  ‘I believe so.’

  The killer, Gary Parker, had been picked up on the beach in the middle of the night. A scrawny man of about twenty-five with a beer gut and scarred knuckles, lost on drink and drugs. His face was puffy, his eyes slitted, mouth a sour line. He’d been sitting cross-legged beneath the Palace Pier. He had his friend’s mutilated head balanced between his thighs.