City of Dreadful Night

FIVE

I was on the mobile arguing with Molly when I hit the deer. I clipped it as it lunged suddenly out of the black night. My headlights caught the panic flaring in its eye as we collided.

I should have anticipated it. I take pride in thinking ahead and I knew this lane well, every blind bend of it. But it had been a long day, Molly was raging in my ear and I was distracted by the sight of a car in flames in the middle of a meadow to my right.

My reactions in any case were slower than they used to be. Months of chauffeur-driven travel had had a deleterious effect – and on more than just my driving.

I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and skidded to a halt. The phone slid off the passenger seat on to the floor. Through my open window I heard the deer’s hooves skitter on the hard surface of the road. Then it cleared the gate into the meadow and was gone.

I became dimly aware of Molly’s voice from the phone in the well of the passenger seat. I reached down and switched the phone off.

I took a torch from the glove compartment and got out of the car. The torch’s beam was feeble in the darkness of the meadow and I could make nothing out. I guessed the deer was far away by now. I was relieved I didn’t seem to have done it serious harm.

I turned to watch the burning car. Five years ago, burnt-out cars were confined to the other side of the Downs. I’d pass them on the outer edge of Brighton, near the golf course and on the wide grassy verges above the Hollingbury estate.

A couple of years ago, the first two or three appeared on the Downs themselves. Only last week, a stolen car was set on fire in the car park of the Ditchling Beacon, two miles from the outskirts of Brighton and on a lip hanging over this deep countryside. Centuries before, the warning beacons lit in this Iron Age fort were visible for miles around. So too was this conflagration.

I saw the trail of burnt-out cars as further evidence of the creeping approach of Brighton crime into the country beyond the Downs. And now it was here.

I climbed over the gate and walked across the uneven ground towards the burning car. It had probably been abandoned after a joyride or a robbery but I wanted to be certain nobody had been injured.

I approached gingerly. I was pretty sure the petrol tanks had already blown, judging by the way the flames had a hold, but I wasn’t experienced enough at this kind of thing to know for sure.

I got within ten yards before the heat from the fire stopped me. Flames were consuming the whole car. The windows had blown out and burning fragments were scattered all around me. I felt the heat on my face but I stayed where I was. For from here I could see that there was a human form in the passenger seat, the head wreathed in fire. The person was clearly dead.

I backed away then turned to go back to my car and my phone. I swept the ground around me with my torch beam as I hurried to the gate, suddenly fearful that I might, after all, not be alone.

‘It’s Bob Watts, Ronnie,’ I said when I got through.

Ronnie was the neighbourhood policeman. He was surprised to get a call from me.

‘Hello, sir,’ he said after a moment. ‘How can I help you?’

‘You’ve got a possible homicide on your patch.’ I filled him in on the details.

‘I’ll be right down. Will you wait?’

‘The truth is, Ronnie, my involvement will just cause unnecessary complication. Once you’ve called it in to Division, everybody will be down here. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll go on home – you know where to get me when you need me.’

‘Fair enough, sir.’

I never could get him to call me by my first name. After my disgrace some people cold-shouldered me and others sneered. A minority, like Ronnie, however, thought I’d been treated shabbily, made a scapegoat. They still called me sir because they felt I’d done a good job in the brief time I’d been Chief Constable here.

Molly was standing in our kitchen as I drove by. I gave her a wave I knew she couldn’t see and carried on my way. Two miles further along the road I pulled through the first set of gates into the long gravelled drive of Harlingden Manor.

Whenever I took taxis, the drivers got excited around now, thinking they would be getting a good tip when they caught sight of the big manor house. I drove towards the second set of ornate gates at the entrance to the house then, as usual, turned left and followed the gravel drive round the back to the servants’ quarters.

This bungalow – it used to be the chauffeur’s in the old days – had become vacant just as Molly and I were separating. After my month in my friends’ farmhouse was up I’d moved straight in. It was by no means ideal. Boxes of my things were piled in the hallway, not because I hadn’t got round to emptying them, but because there was nowhere for the contents to go. However, it was all I would allow myself. And it was near Molly if she needed me.

The light was flashing on the phone. Probably Molly, angry that I’d hung up on her. Unsurprisingly, she was angry whenever we spoke these days, masking her hurt with rage. This evening she’d been angry because I’d made the mistake of telling her the truth. I’m a trustworthy man, on the whole, but I still believe truth is sometimes overrated.

‘What do you mean you’re going to go back into the case?’ she had said as I was driving over the Downs after a tense meeting in Brighton.

‘I’m even more convinced now that I was set up. I can’t allow that kind of corruption to flourish.’

‘Can you hear yourself, Mr Knight in Shining Armour? I’m as sorry as you your glittering career ended so abruptly but, Christ, you presided over a massacre that caused two nights of rioting.’

Her voice was venomous.

‘And are you really so arrogant, so egotistical, as to believe that the botched operation and everything that followed was just aimed at ruining you? Get a life, Robert.’

‘I had one. It was taken away from me.’

‘With not a little help from you. Nobody asked you to shag that little tart and wreck your marriage.’

She was right about my one-night stand, but I was convinced that I was briefed against by someone near the top of the political food chain, that the story of my affair was leaked to the papers. And the set-up was real, I was certain of that too.

I do hate corruption. And I do belief in truth in the large sense. I couldn’t bear the thought that there was corruption at the heart of the police force that I had led. But I had to be honest. Sure enough, I wanted to find out what had happened so that the truth would be known.

But most of all I wanted revenge.

I’d been to Chief Superintendent Charlie Foster’s funeral the previous day. It was a small affair. Perhaps the fact of his suicide put some people off. I’d driven over to the crematorium early but had held back until the last minute, then slipped in at the back. Sheena Hewitt was in the front row representing Southern Police and there were a handful of familiar faces from the station. Sheena was now Acting Chief Constable. It should have been my deputy, Philip Macklin, but since his role in the Milldean incident was under investi-gation, the police authority preferred to go with someone uninvolved in – untainted by – that investigation.

Foster’s son, a well-dressed man in his mid-twenties, gave a sombre valediction, although he did give a wan smile as he recalled his father’s passion for trad jazz. I left as the coffin went through the doors and into the flames to the jaunty sound of Acker Bilk playing some New Orleans strut.

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?’

‘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.’