City of Dreadful Night

by Peter Guttridge

  ‘We told him it was dangerous as it was near a wooden fence.’

  ‘Proper little Girl Guide, aren’t you?’ She just looked at me. ‘What did he say?’

  She looked indignant.

  ‘He told us to clear off.’

  She was a buxom girl. She caught me glancing at her breasts but didn’t seem to mind. I’m sure she arched her back a little.

  ‘So we asked him what he was burning. He said fish. The smell was something peculiar but we couldn’t see properly because he wouldn’t let us get any nearer.’

  ‘You like going up on the Downs?’ I said.

  She looked me straight in the eye.

  ‘Are you asking in your . . .’ she seemed to be searching for the right phrase, ‘. . . official capacity?’

  Wednesday 27th June

  Today we had a Southern Railway porter telling us about his experience with a man arriving at London Bridge station at 2.25 p.m. on Derby Day. He got off a train from Dartford en route to Brighton. He had a trunk that looked like the one pictured in the newspapers.

  This porter – Edward Todd was his name – offered to carry the trunk. Unwillingly the man let him. Todd had difficulty lifting it – it weighed something like 60 pounds. And when he got the trunk to his shoulder he heard a dull thud inside it.

  That train would have arrived in Brighton at 4.05 p.m. A bit early for the time we’d established, but this man could have been the killer.

  Kate was really curious about the identity of the memoirist. She’d flicked ahead and through some of the files but couldn’t find any indication. She wondered where the rest of the records might be. She was sure that there must be some official account of who attended the opening of the trunk – she could find his name that way.

  She phoned the library. A cheerful young woman gave her the number for the County Records Office in Lewes. Yes, they had the files that had belonged to the Central Division of the South East Police Authority. She could make an appointment to see them. And the autopsy photographs. That last threw her.

  She knew Lewes. It was a pretty town, its streets clustered about the ruins of the castle keep. It was Islington-by-the-sea for fashionable Londoners who wanted to start a family in a place where there was a better quality of life.

  She’d been brought up in Hampstead, just off Southend Green. When she was a teenager and taking her first alcoholic drinks, the pub she used was the one outside which Ruth Ellis had shot her lover. A bullet hole could still be seen on the outside wall of the pub – well, they said it was a bullet hole.

  Sarah Gilchrist was talking to Reg Williamson when her mobile rang. They’d moved away from finding Finch’s body to the recent raid on the rotten meat store in a rat-infested warehouse in Newhaven.

  The raid was the conclusion of Operation Dinner Out, in conjunction with local environmental health officers. The warehouse had been stacked to the rafters with rotten meat. Around a hundred tonnes of it. The stench had been incredible. Rancid chicken that had turned yellow through putrefaction had been bleached with chemicals to make it look healthy.

  Then they’d found the ‘specialty’ meat. Decomposing lambs’ brains and cows’ feet, cows’ muzzles, smoked cattle-hide, gizzards and goat carcasses in two huge freezers. It was supposed to be sold as pet food but somebody cute – and they were thinking Steve Cuthbert – had decided to buy it from abattoirs, process it, package it and reintroduce it into the human food chain.

  ‘You know, all I see is the shit in life at the moment,’ she said. ‘It’s really getting me down. People acting as low as they can.’

  ‘I’m impressed by the ingenuity of criminals,’ Williamson said, rolling his ever-present, ever-unlit cigarette between his chubby fingers. ‘The way they can figure out how to make a buck in the gaps between. Jesus, if they applied that entrepreneurial spirit to legitimate business, they’d be captains of industry.’

  ‘What, you think captains of industry are legitimate?’

  ‘True enough,’ he said. ‘But when do they have the time to think up this stuff? Who would think Steve Cuthbert, if it is him, would say to himself: “Hello, there’s a gap in the market for reusing rotten meat.” How would they have the chemical knowledge to know what to do to make it at least look edible? And then to set up the production line, the transport infrastructure. And these are guys who were kicked out of school at twelve.’

  Gilchrist stood and walked over to the window.

  ‘I don’t eat meat in ethnic restaurants any more,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t. Most of that rotten meat ends up in halal butchers and specialist outlets. I’m not being racist but I do want to know where my food has come from.’

  ‘It’s no worse than fast food,’ Williamson said, ‘big greasy burgers.’

  ‘I don’t eat them either. Or sausages because usually they’re made from the sweepings off the butcher’s floor.’

  ‘Minced testicles and eyeballs in some frankfurters, I read. Give me Chinese any day. Hit me with that monosodium.’

  Gilchrist’s mobile phone rang.

  ‘It’s Bob.’

  She was silent for a moment, aware of Williamson watching her.

  ‘Hello, s—, hello,’ she said with forced enthusiasm.

  ‘I’m sorry to call you there – I know it’s awkward – but I wondered if you’d had a chance to look up that car that was burnt on Ditchling Beacon.’

  ‘As a matter of fact—’

  ‘Did the report say anything about a cat?’

  ‘A cat?’ she said, her tone clearly reflecting her thought that he was losing it.

  ‘I seem to remember they found a cat in the boot of the car.’

  There was silence again.

  ‘Your ex-dancer on Beachy Head?’

  No, she was the one losing it. She flushed.

  ‘I’ll get back to you later,’ she said, breaking off the call. She looked at Williamson. ‘We might have a bit of a break. And do you know why? That woman’s missing cat.’

  ‘Tiddles to the rescue, then.’

  Tingley had called and wanted to meet at lunchtime in English’s Oyster Bar. When I arrived he was sitting at the narrow counter, tucking into a plate of oysters in their shells on a bed of ice.

  ‘You’re going up in the world,’ I said. ‘Bit of a change from the Cricketers.’

  He didn’t look up.

  ‘Are you going to eat? The Dover Sole is always good.’

  ‘Sure.’ I took the stool beside him and glanced around. Although English’s was something of a Brighton institution, with its white painted Georgian fascia and its location just at the edge of the Laines, I’d never been in here. Behind Tingley’s head was a framed poster for a play from God knows when signed by an actress called Susannah York. ‘Thank you for a third lovely evening’ she’d written. Next to it was an old black and white studio portrait of George Robey and below him a more recent actress in a posh dress.

  Through the open windows of the pub opposite I could hear a bunch of men singing raucously.

  The waitress came over. A tall, pale woman with fine features and an accent. I ordered and when she’d gone into the kitchen, Tingley said:

  ‘Estonian – part of the latest tranche from eastern Europe.’

  ‘The influx causes all sorts of problems when they get into trouble – from prostitution to orphanages. In policing terms—’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not a policeman any more.’

  I looked down at the stained marble counter.

  ‘Difficult to lose the mindset.’

  ‘But you’ve never been a proper policeman. When you came in here you didn’t scan the room to check out the suspicious characters.’

  Now he was looking at me. Was he trying to pick a fight? I glanced at the two glasses beside his plate. One was a wine glass, half-filled with something red; the other was an empty whiskey glass.

  ‘I spotted you, didn’t I?’

  My voice was light but I was aware of a tightness in it. I looke
d at photos of Omar Sharif, Albert Finney and Maureen Lipman on the wall behind the bar. He ducked to slurp an oyster from its shell. He looked back at me.

  ‘I’ve been checking out Milldean. Word is that a guy I pissed off in a pub there the other night is even more pissed off about a raid on a rotten meat warehouse in Newhaven. Name is Cuthbert and, as far as I can see, he’s into everything rotten. Gang bosses report to him as they park South Vietnamese and Chinese labourers all over the Sussex countryside, and Polish and Lithuanian youngsters in brothels. He’s into DVD piracy from China and he’s been on the carousel for VAT on mobile phones. All that quite aside from Shylocking on a third of the estate and the fraudulent benefit claims.’

  ‘We know some of that.’

  ‘So why has he never been done? He must leave a trail.’

  ‘Lack of evidence? I never got directly involved in operational matters.’

  He put his fork down and shook his head.

  ‘One of two reasons. He’s either got the fix in very high up or he’s registered as an informer.’

  ‘I don’t know which he might be but I can find out.’

  ‘I’ll find out,’ he said. ‘You’re too much on the outside.’

  ‘I’ve got some contacts,’ I said, hearing the petulance in my voice.

  ‘This involves intel the Israeli way, Bobby, I’ve told you.’ He took a sip from his wine and shucked the last of his oysters.

  ‘Is he linked to the massacre in some way?’

  ‘I’m inclined to think not, but he is part of a bigger picture. This guy has got a competitor. I need to find out more about him. Guy called Hathaway. Into the same sort of shit but a bit more high-end. Maybe better connected. Maybe the man.’

  I got back to the bungalow late afternoon and within an hour Gilchrist had turned up. Jeans and T-shirt, her hair tied back. She didn’t demur when I handed her the glass of wine. This time I sat beside her on the sofa. She was conscious of me but didn’t seem put off by my proximity.

  A strong wind had blown up. The window behind us trembled as a strong gust hit it.

  ‘So what have we got, Sarah?’

  ‘The cat from Ditchling Beacon is the Beachy Head cat.’

  ‘Was it chipped?’

  ‘Yes. There were very few remains but we found the chip. So we’ve got a cat disappearing on Beachy Head just a few hours before a car is torched on Ditchling Beacon.’

  ‘And we’ve got the body of Finch – a policeman involved in the Milldean operation – thrown into the sea off Beachy Head around that time.’

  She leant forward. She was making sure we weren’t touching by keeping her knees close together.

  ‘They didn’t close the boot when they were carrying the body to the cliff edge. They wanted to minimize noise. He was alive but probably gagged. And he’d been beaten up.’

  ‘Poor bugger. So whilst the boot was open, the cat jumped in. They came back, having done the deed, closed the lid and drove over to the Beacon.’

  ‘They’d left another car at the Beacon.’

  ‘Leaving a car up there is asking for it to be broken into or vandalized, plus a police patrol is supposed to go by at least once a night.’

  ‘Rendezvous, then.’

  ‘What about the courting couples?’

  ‘Courting couples?’ Gilchrist laughed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s such an odd phrase,’ she said. ‘They’re not courting, they’re shagging.’ The window shuddered again. Gilchrist glanced back at it over her shoulder. ‘Plus it’s either a bit late at night or too early in the morning for that kind of thing to be happening up there.’

  ‘I was thinking of when the rendezvous car arrived. And I’ve never liked that term.’

  She sat back in the sofa and looked sharply at me.

  ‘Shagging?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Let me guess. You prefer the term “making love”.’

  Her voice was sharp and I immediately regretted what I’d said. Even so, I held her look. I was conscious of the emotion welling up in the room. I nodded. And then the question I knew would be next:

  ‘So is that what we did?’

  The harshness in her voice was a thin disguise for vulnerability. Another gust of wind. I realized she was hugging her body unconsciously.

  ‘I hope what happened between us was caring, yes.’

  She looked at me, her cheeks flushed.

  ‘You shagged the arse off me.’ She shrugged. ‘It was a one-night stand, ergo, it was a shag.’

  I played the sentence back in my head. It should have been bitter or harsh but it wasn’t.

  ‘Come on. We were drunk. Did you think it might be more? You knew I was married.’

  She reeled back as if I’d hit her in the face. Stood up abruptly. Shit. I could hear the tone of my voice as I’d said those things. I was harsh.

  I stood up too. She moved a couple of yards away from me.

  ‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. My tone of voice was wrong.’

  ‘You chose your tone.’

  She moved over to the window, her back to me. She had strong shoulders and a long back.

  I felt wretched.

  I’ve never been good with women. I don’t mean I’m sexist – at least I hope I’m not – but I haven’t spent too much time with them. I’ve never been a ladies man. I think I’m a good listener, which I hear is a good trait. But then all men think that, and how wrong most of us are.

  I was distressed that I’d upset her. I wanted to put my arm around her and hold her close. I watched her long back. She held still.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said softly. ‘I spoke without thinking.’

  She turned back to me. I looked in her eyes. Yes, definitely too revealing.

  I wanted to say so much but I was split because I still cared about Molly and felt we should be back together. I’d already behaved entirely improperly with Gilchrist, messed her about emotionally. It wasn’t right to mess her around any more. And yet.

  She cleared her throat.

  ‘So the car burnt at the Beacon was the car that had delivered Finch’s body to Beachy Head,’ she said, walking past me and resuming her seat on the sofa.

  I had taken a seat behind my desk.

  ‘Was the car identified?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Stolen in Worthing the previous day. Audi A4.’

  ‘But where does that take us?’

  ‘Well, at least we know how Finch got to Beachy Head.’

  ‘But not what he was doing in the two days before then.’

  ‘What about these Haywards Heath blokes – Connolly and White?’

  ‘They were given a hard time by your friend from the Hampshire force, but, as far as I’m aware, they had nothing to say.’

  ‘But maybe it’s time they were examined again?’

  ‘Get Jimmy Tingley on it.’

  ‘Then where do we go?’

  ‘We follow the trail backwards.’

  I nodded and sat down beside her, conscious of our proximity. She turned to face me. We looked at each other, then she leant towards me.

  Tingley was back in the pub in Milldean. This time he was drinking brandy. The barman had made a call and within fifteen minutes Cuthbert was standing beside him.

  ‘I’ve been finding out about you,’ he said.

  ‘That must have been exciting.’

  ‘Well, there’s only scraps, but you wouldn’t think it to look at you. SAS, intelligence agencies. Bit of a lethal weapon.’

  Tingley didn’t say anything.

  Cuthbert had some heavier men with him than on the previous occasion. He looked round at them.

  ‘But I’ve got to ask – is this the same person? I mean you look like something I shit out after a bad curry.’

  His men sniggered. Tingley smiled.

  ‘Are you going to go on with this macho stuff all night?’

  ‘Well, it’s a problem for me. Problematic.
You like that? Educated, you see. I mean, I hear this stuff and then I see you and I think someone is having a laugh.’

  Tingley didn’t go for introspection. To say he was a man of action would be wrong. He was a man of inaction, of calm. However, he didn’t soul-search. Never had. He looked at Watts agonizing over the break-up of his marriage, the loss of his job, and he wanted to stay focused on the externals.

  Tingley shifted in his seat and looked around him, clocking where the four goons were.

  He could take out this room without raising a sweat. He knew which strike to make on each of them. The jab to the throat; the thrust to the diaphragm; the kick to the inside of the knee. He could disable easily enough. Cuthbert would undoubtedly have a weapon. Could he do all that before the gangster drew and used it?

  Probably. Tingley stood.

  ‘I thought we might have a useful conversation but in the absence of that I might as well go.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  There it was, in the open.

  He took out the bodybuilder first – that rigid V between thumb and first finger whacked into his Adam’s apple. As the bodybuilder choked, clutching at his thick throat, his face purple, Tingley was on to the next, stiff fingers thrusting through the beer belly and up deep behind the diaphragm. With a startlingly loud exhalation, the man doubled over.

  Two down and nobody had yet reacted. Then Cuthbert started to reach into his pocket and the fourth guy had a knife in his hand. That was quick. He must have had it palmed all the time.

  Tingley kicked him in the face and chest and he went crashing backwards, falling heavily. Tingley nutted Cuthbert whilst he was still fishing in his pocket; kneed him between his legs and pulled his jacket down over his arms, trapping his hand in his pocket. As Cuthbert slumped forward, Tingley guided his head down on to his knee. He felt the nose go.

  He only had to point a finger at the barman for him to stay where he was. He leant into Cuthbert.

  ‘I thought I could deal with the monkey,’ he whispered. ‘But clearly I need the organ-grinder. Tell Hathaway I want a word.’

  Tingley looked around. Bent down again.