The Last King of Brighton

EIGHTEEN

Watts met his father in a pub at Kew tube station, a couple of miles from his Barnes home. Donald Watts, aka Victor Tempest, best-selling thriller writer, womaniser, husband, all-round bastard. Through a wall of windows they could see on to the platform where crowds waited for tube trains that took their time arriving.

His father was looking frailer than the last time he’d seen him, some six months earlier, but still darned good for ninety-seven.

‘Got a job yet?’ Donald Watts said.

‘Sort of.’

His father looked at him. One eye was watering. He reached in his pocket for a cotton handkerchief and dabbed his eye. Watts took a sip of his wine. It tasted corked but he took another sip anyway.

‘It’s about Brighton in the sixties, Dad. Skeletal remains have turned up near the West Pier. I wondered if there was anything you could remember about those times.’

‘Giddy times. Paisley shirts. Men wearing silk scarves knotted at the neck. Kipper ties. Or was that the seventies?’

‘You were friendly with Philip Simpson, the corrupt chief constable.’

‘We’d been in the force together back in the thirties.’

‘He destroyed the Trunk Murder files. Don’t you think that’s odd?’

‘Oh, you’re back on the Trunk Murder again. How are these remains connected?’

‘They’re probably not. I went off at a tangent. This is a woman with her face punched in as best we can tell from the skull. I was just intrigued by the destruction of the files.’

‘What year?’

‘1964.’

Donald Watts nodded.

‘Thirty-year rule. Standard thing to do.’

‘It seems to have been virtually the first thing he did. An unsolved crime.’

Watts’s father shrugged his bony shoulders. He wiped his eye again.

‘Did you know Charles Ridge?’ Watts said.

‘Of course – he was another one. He’d been in ten years or so when I joined. Moved through the ranks. We were part of the same social circle in the fifties, early sixties.’

‘And you stayed friends with Philip Simpson. I don’t remember meeting him.’

‘He died of cancer – 1969, I think. You were but a bairn, as was William.’

‘We found the remains of a skeleton in a block of cement. The old Chicago waistcoat – feet in a tub full of concrete.’

‘Cement shoes, eh? And you think I did that too?’

‘Of course not. We’re trying to figure out what was going on in Brighton in the sixties. You knew Dennis Hathaway. Went to his parties. Did you ever meet a young woman called Elaine Trumpler?’

‘Never. Dennis Hathaway. Good parties. And he liked my books.’

‘You know he was a villain.’

‘I was aware of him hoping to take over from Charlie Ridge, the ex-chief constable and his merry men – you knew about that?’

I nodded.

‘Charlie had been in the force since 1926 – he joined at the time of the General Strike. Then Philip Simpson came along.’

‘You knew they were bent?’

‘Most of them were bent back then.’

‘You?’

‘Not particularly. You know my crime.’

‘Selling stories to the newspapers.’

Donald Watts shrugged.

‘That was about it. A few backhanders but that was part of the system. Charlie refined it. Took over the whole bloody town. Controlled the abortionists, took a percentage from the brothels and the arcades.’

‘From when?’

Donald Watts looked at his son. Grinned. He looked vulpine.

‘Clever boy.’

There’d been a society abortionist based in Hove who’d been suspected of committing the Brighton Trunk Murder. Watts’s father had sent a French girlfriend of his there who may have been the murder victim.

‘You mean, was the phony pharaoh, Dr Massiah, one of his?’

‘Did Ridge protect him at the time?’

‘From the investigation into the Trunk Murder? We’ll never know that now, will we?’

‘Dammit, Dad, don’t do this again. Do you know?’

‘I had my suspicions.’

‘What about Simpson destroying the Trunk Murder files?’

‘I told you that was at his discretion – the thirty-year rule.’

‘There were thousands of statements. Numerous people accused.’

‘What is it you really want to know?’

‘Everything.’

Watts’s father took a long pull of his beer and stared out at the departing tube train.

‘I think you think I know more than I do know.’

‘Telling me anything you do know would be a start.’

Donald Watts scratched at his cheek.

‘My memory isn’t what it was. Perhaps you’d be best reading the rest of my memoir.’

Although Simpson’s father had admitted he had written the fragments of diary Kate Simpson had found, he had not mentioned the existence of anything further.

‘You sod,’ his son said.

Gilchrist met Watts on the seafront.

‘We have a hit from a classmate of hers who was also her flatmate for a time. Claire Mellon. Want to come with me?’

Watts nodded. She drove him up to Beachy Head. They spoke little in the car. She found that awkward. He didn’t seem to notice.

‘I’ve been here before,’ Gilchrist said, looking up at the slope of the cliff edge and the house above it. ‘Woman who lost her cat.’

‘The cat in the burned-out car?’ Watts said.

‘The very one.’

During their investigation of the Milldean massacre they had traced a car used to dump a body off the Seven Sisters to a burnt out hulk at Ditchling Beacon, all thanks to the remains of a cat that had disappeared from Beachy Head.

The house on the cliff top was a converted lighthouse that had been moved back a couple of hundred yards some years before because of cliff erosion. A slender, upright woman answered the door. Gilchrist remembered how the woman’s grace had made her feel lumpen the last time they’d met.

‘Hello – we’ve met before,’ Gilchrist said.

‘Not something else to tell me about my cat, I hope?’

The woman smiled. She was as elegant and graceful as before as she led them into her pristine living area. Watts looked around.

‘Lovely,’ he said.

‘ Grand Designs thought so, though Kevin was worried about our budget and our timescale.’

Gilchrist and Watts both looked blank.

‘TV programme? Never mind.’

‘It’s about Elaine Trumpler.’

‘Yes, Elaine.’ She ushered them to her white sofa. ‘A wild child if ever there was one. Would you like green tea or, in the circumstances, some herb?’ She saw their expressions. ‘Just joking – sorry. What is it you want to know about her?’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘After your call, I gave this some thought. Sometime in 1969. We lost track of each other when we stopped being flatmates and because she was filming for a long time, and then there was her townie boyfriend, of course. Then she took off for India.’

‘Whoa – you’re saying a lot there. She was filming?’

‘She was in several films being made in Brighton. Oh! What A Lovely War. On A Clear Day You Can See Forever.’

Watts and Gilchrist both looked blank.

‘There were quite famous films at the time. First one directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, second by Liza Minnelli’s father? Filmed on the West Pier and along the seafront? Anyway, she was a speaking extra. She wanted to be an actress – sorry, I think women call themselves actors now as they don’t want to be seen as adjuncts.’

‘Were you an extra?’

‘For a couple of days. I was one of Vanessa Redgrave’s suffragettes. But dance was my thing and I was going up to London for dance auditions, so couldn’t do more.’

‘And this townie boyfriend?’

‘She kept him very secret, though I met him a couple of times. Great-looking but kind of straight, you know. I only met him early on but they were together for a couple of years after that. We kind of thought they’d gone off to India together.’

‘Even though he was straight?’

‘Well, he wasn’t exactly Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper but everybody was going to India. Mia Farrow went out there and she was married to Frank Sinatra around that time. We all talked about going to India and we were mostly well-brought-up middle-class kids.’

‘You weren’t worried about her?’

‘At the time? Hard to remember, but I think all of us were rootless. People disappeared off all the time so it was no big deal.’ She tilted her head. ‘Should I be worried now? I’m a bit scatty – I realize I didn’t actually ask why you wanted to know about her.’

Gilchrist told her about the remains. Claire Mellon put her hand over her mouth.

‘How awful. Poor, poor Elaine. How did it happen?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Did she say any kind of goodbye?’

‘Not that I recall, but at the time that was cool, you know? We were accepting of whatever people did. If I’m honest, that’s largely because we didn’t really understand what was going on, so we adopted this air of coolness.’ She shrugged. ‘We were just kids – far less mature than the kids these days.’

Mellon offered names of other students who were close to Trumpler. Gilchrist wrote them down.

‘And this townie – do you remember his name?’

‘No. I remember the name of his band, though. The Avalons.’

‘Why does that stick in your mind?’

‘The King Arthur thing, you know? Except I remember Elaine telling me the bass player used to work in a furniture warehouse and it was the name of its most popular three-piece suite. We laughed about it.’

‘And you don’t even remember his first name?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t. But he’s still around Brighton sometimes.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve seen him a couple of times in that bar in the marina – the Asian-looking one.’

‘The Buddha?’

‘I think that’s the name. I’m pretty sure it was him. Much older now, of course, but aren’t we all?’

‘You didn’t speak to him?’

‘To say what? Elaine and I weren’t that close, my life went in a totally different direction, and I’m not in the least interested in him. What’s to say? The older you get the more memories you want to forget – don’t you think so, ex-Chief Constable?’

Back in the car Watts rubbed his hands.

‘The local history archive in the library will have old newspaper cuttings so we can find out who was in The Avalons,’ Watts said. ‘I’ll get down there. I’ll dig out what I can find out about the West Pier then too.’

Gilchrist dropped him off beside the Royal Pavilion. As he walked through the gardens into the museum he was thinking about his parents living in Brighton at that time. Watts had been born there in 1968.

He walked through the gallery, skirting a gaggle of schoolchildren rushing from object to object then scribbling in their notebooks. Watts went upstairs and headed into the local history unit.

Gilchrist had scarcely reached her desk when Claire Mellon rang.

‘Hello, it’s the cat woman.’

‘Cat woman?’ she said, dropping down into her seat.

‘Claire Mellon from Beachy Head?’

‘Sorry, yes. How can I help?’

‘I remembered after you’d gone that I have something of Elaine’s. She left it by mistake at my flat after a heavy night and I hung on to it. Over the years I could never quite bring myself to get rid of it in case she turned up again. I dug it out of the attic then forgot to give it to you. Would you like it?’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s her diary.’

Gilchrist sighed.

‘I’ll be right back.’

Half an hour later Watts phoned Gilchrist on her mobile as he walked past the statue of Max Miller beside the Pavilion Theatre. He couldn’t raise her nor was there a facility for leaving a message. He walked on to the end of the street. He was hungry. Carluccio’s was to his left but he was fond of a little bodega next to the Coach and Horses. A Spanish family had opened it a couple of years before to sell produce from their Spanish estates, but they also sold glasses of wine and tapas. It was tiny, with scarcely room for the six small tables they crammed in.

Settled there with a glass of tempranillo and little plates of manchego and chorizo stew, he phoned Gilchrist again. This time she replied.

‘You’ll never guess what I’ve got,’ he said.

‘You go first,’ she said.

‘You’ve found something too?’

She arrived twenty minutes later, by which time he’d ordered paella and frittata and more wine. Gilchrist had the diary with her. It was big – A4 size.

‘It’s full,’ Gilchrist said. ‘The last entry is dated Easter 1968. Just about to go off on holiday with her guy to Greece. There must be another diary after this.’

‘Does she identify the townie?’

‘No,’ Gilchrist said, licking her fingers, ‘but it does refer to going to see the band the night before the last entry.’

‘It’s OK. I found some press-clippings about the band. There’s even a photo.’

‘Does it name the band members?’

‘It does.’

‘And?’

‘Does the name John Hathaway mean anything to you?’

‘Bloody John Hathaway.’

She gobbled some more frittata.

‘This is great. I’m starving.’

‘I noticed.’

He pushed the other plate over.

‘I’ve already fed my face.’

‘Do you think he killed her?’ she said between mouthfuls.

‘His dad owned that end of the West Pier,’ Watts said.

‘Where the remains were found. Looking bad for Johnny boy. But is he known as a killer?’

‘He’s known as being above the law,’ Watts said. ‘And every one of his generation got his hands dirty at some time or other. Every one.’

‘I remember checking his file before. He’s never been down for anything.’

‘No. Nor done time. And that’s unusual. But he’s dirty. We know he’s dirty. Maybe this is the leverage you need.’

‘I’ve got enough on my plate without going after a crime kingpin.’

‘I’ll take Tingley with me,’ Hathaway said. ‘Boys’ night out.’