The Last King of Brighton

1964

On New Year’s morning 1964, Hathaway was in bed with Barbara when his parents came home from Spain. Hathaway was dimly aware of a car pulling up outside, then the front door slamming, but he was otherwise engaged. Only when he heard his father bellowing his name did it register.

‘Bugger,’ he said, rolling off Barbara so abruptly she cried out. Hathaway put his hand over her mouth.

‘It’s my dad.’

Her eyes widened.

‘Get rid of those dancing girls, Johnny boy,’ his father boomed, his footsteps heavy on the stairs. He rapped on the bedroom door. ‘You’ve got about ten seconds to chuck them out the window.’

Hathaway scrambled out of bed and scrabbled for his trousers, his erection still evident. Barbara pulled the blankets over her head.

‘Just a sec, Dad. I’m not decent.’

‘What’s new?’ his father said through the door.

Hathaway looked wildly round the room, saw Barbara’s jewellery on a chair by the window. He started towards it but his father threw the door open.

‘Johnny boy.’

His father strode in, a big grin on his face, looked his son up and down. He wasn’t a tall man – maybe 5’ 9” – but he was big across the shoulders with a barrel chest and his presence took up space. He moved towards Hathaway, scanning the room as he did so. He noticed the jewellery on the chair. He stopped and looked over at the bed.

‘Dad,’ Hathaway said, flushing. ‘I wasn’t expecting you home. Is Mum with you?’

His father ignored him. He looked back at the jewellery. Took a step and picked up Barbara’s necklace. His jaw tightened.

‘Dad, why didn’t you phone?’

His father’s look singed him, then swept to the bed. He took two strides, still holding the necklace, and grabbed the blankets with his other hand.

‘Dad,’ Hathaway said, now more startled than embarrassed.

There was a moment’s resistance, then his father tugged the blankets off Barbara. She lay curled up tight, her head pushed into the pillow, but as the cold air hit her she uncurled and turned to look at Dennis Hathaway. Hathaway could see panic in her eyes but her voice was calm when she said:

‘Hello, Dennis.’

His father’s face was savage.

‘Mr Hathaway to you,’ he said. His voice was ice.

Barbara couldn’t wait to get out of the house. Hathaway tried to calm her but she was having none of it. His father had gone downstairs and was with his mother in the kitchen when Barbara rushed out of the front door. Hathaway rested his head against the door for a moment then went to the kitchen.

He could hear his mother talking then laughing loudly.

‘That Ena Sharples. She’s a one. She bullies Minny Caldwell so.’

‘Mum?’ Hathaway said, coming into the kitchen and finding his mother alone.

‘Hello, dear,’ she said. She was standing by the sink, washing her hands under the taps. No water was running. She laughed. ‘I do like the Beverly Hillbillies, don’t you?’

‘I thought you were with Dad.’

‘Your father’s out in the garden somewhere. It looks lovely in the snow, doesn’t it?’

Hathaway was surprised at his mother talking and laughing to herself, but he was in such turmoil that for the moment he just accepted it.

‘It’s Z Cars later,’ she said. ‘Though I prefer Dixon of Dock Green myself.’

Hathaway hadn’t seen his mother for nearly six months but she gave the impression they’d been together just a moment ago. She was nut-brown and wearing a yellow summer dress underneath her fur coat.

‘Do you want to take your coat off, Mum?’

‘No thanks, Johnny. It’s a bit parky. I’ve been used to exotic climes.’

She said the phrase ‘exotic climes’ proudly, as if it were a foreign expression she’d mastered.

Hathaway stood awkwardly.

‘OK, then,’ he said, unable to think of any other comment that would meet the situation.

Hathaway spent the rest of the morning in his room. At lunchtime his mother called him down.

The family ate in the dining room, looking out over the snowy garden. His mother had cooked a gammon, with all the trimmings. His father sat at the end of the long table – it could seat eight – glowering and monosyllabic. His mother dithered.

At the end of the meal Hathaway’s mother went in the kitchen to do the washing-up. Hathaway had offered to do it but his father said he wanted a word in the living room.

‘Put some Matt Monro on,’ Hathaway’s mother called from the kitchen.

Hathaway’s father did so, then brought over to the sofas a bottle of whisky and two glasses.

‘Canadian Club. The best whisky in the world – according to the adverts.’

‘Dad, about Barbara-’

‘I don’t want to talk about her,’ his father said, the ice back in his voice. ‘I want to talk about you.’

He chinked their glasses.

‘I know I’m not educated,’ his father said, ‘but I’m guessing that the fact you’re hanging around the house all day means you decided not to go on to take your A levels.’

‘It’s the school holidays, Dad.’

‘Oh – that would be it. So you are doing your A levels?’

Hathaway’s cheeks were burning from the whisky, a drink he wasn’t used to.

‘No.’

According to IQ tests at school Hathaway was above average intelligence. He liked learning stuff. And reading.

‘More books,’ his mother would say when he came home with yet another pile. ‘Haven’t you got enough books?’

But he couldn’t settle at school. The teachers drove him potty.

‘So you’re financially dependent on me?’ his father said.

Hathaway put his glass down. The whisky really burned.

‘The group is doing pretty well.’

His father rolled his whisky round in his glass.

‘As I said.’

‘What do you mean?’

Hathaway’s father didn’t seem to hear.

‘Let’s change the subject,’ his father said. ‘I’m afraid your mum’s got worse.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘She’s going through the menopause – her hormones are all over the place. Big change – it can send some people mental.’

‘You’re saying mum’s mental?’

‘Not exactly – and I hope just for the time being.’

‘What does the doctor say?’

‘He’s given her some tablets. Valium. Brand-new on the market. Tells me it’s a wonder drug.’

‘I heard her talking to herself in the kitchen.’

‘All the brightest people do,’ his father said cheerfully. ‘Usually because they find they’re the only people worth talking to.’

He saw Hathaway’s face.

‘Don’t be worried. She’s fine, just a bit… irregular.’

His father topped up their glasses then gave his son a long look.

‘What?’ Hathaway said.

‘There’s real money to be made in the pop business,’ his father said.

‘If we can hit the top ten,’ Hathaway said.

‘With me, you berk.’ His father saw Hathaway’s look. ‘Yes, a proper job. Have you any idea what I do?’

‘No – but I have been wondering lately.’

The doorbell rang. Hathaway’s mother answered the door. It was Sean Reilly. His father stood and shook hands with Reilly.

‘You’re looking fit.’

‘You too.’

Hathaway stood awkwardly and also shook Reilly’s hand whilst his father poured another whisky.

‘Irish, I hope,’ Reilly said.

‘Irish-Canadian,’ Hathaway’s father said, handing the glass to Reilly.

They all sat.

‘Son, as you may know, not everything I do is exactly above board. But then I don’t know an honest man who doesn’t try to fool the taxman if he can. I’m no exception.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ Hathaway said, though he really didn’t know anything about tax.

Hathaway’s father and Reilly exchanged a look.

‘I thought you might want to join the family firm. It would be management-level entry for you, so to speak.’

‘Yeah, but, Dad, I’ve got a job. The group.’

Dennis Hathaway looked at his son for a moment.

‘We’re going to go all the way.’

‘I’m sure you are, son, I’m sure you are. But, in the meantime, help your old man out a bit. You’d get a proper salary. Cash in hand, of course. And frankly the way you splash out on clothes and the latest gizmos you can always use money.’

‘I don’t know, Dad. What exactly would you want me to do?’

‘Nothing much at this stage. But I just wanted an in principle agreement with you at this stage.’

‘An in principle agreement?’ Hathaway said.

His father laughed.

‘I heard the leader of the council say it once. I’ve no idea what it means.’

Hathaway’s mother and father had decided on a welcome home New Year party that night. ‘Invite your friends,’ his mum had said, but none of the group was on the telephone and he didn’t have any friends locally. He didn’t think the invite included Barbara.

Caterers arrived late afternoon. Hathaway went up to his room whilst they took over downstairs and thought about what to say to his father about Barbara. He hadn’t imagined there would be a problem, even though Barbara worked for the family business.

The family business. He wondered exactly what else that business entailed.

The party was a boisterous affair. Hathaway was surprised that his parents, after a six-months absence, had got so many people there, on New Year’s Day, at such short notice.

As usual, the women gathered in the kitchen whilst the men stayed together in the main rooms. There were loud voices but also lots of murmured conversations in quiet corners. The Great Train Robbers were a main feature of conversation among the men.

Hathaway observed his parents’ guests as if for the first time. There were a number of hearty but tough-looking men, bursting out of their suits.

He was standing by the radiogram helping his father change the record when Reilly came over.

‘The twins are here,’ Reilly murmured. Dennis Hathaway looked over the heads of the people around him.

‘Better treat them like royalty, I suppose. Who’s that with them?’

‘McVicar. Nasty piece of work from some south Peckham slum.’

‘Come on, Johnny,’ Dennis Hathaway turned to his son. ‘Time you met some big-time villains. They think.’

Hathaway looked over at the two stocky men in identical, boxy grey suits. He’d seen their photos in the newspapers, usually surrounded by cabaret people or minor film stars. He followed his father and Reilly over.

‘Gentlemen, an unexpected pleasure.’

‘As we were down here,’ one of the twins said, though Hathaway didn’t know which one was which.

‘This is my son, John,’ Dennis Hathaway said.

McVicar looked him up and down.

‘Tall, ain’t he? Hope you’ve killed your milkman.’ He laughed loudly. Dennis Hathaway smiled thinly, the twins not at all. Hathaway smiled politely but had already taken a dislike to the man.

‘So you’re down on business,’ Dennis Hathaway said. ‘If there’s anything I can help you with…’

The twins just looked at him.

‘Right, then, let me introduce you around.’

‘Before you do that, please allow me to say hello,’ a voice said.

They all turned to look at the tall, slender man who had just arrived, accompanied by a much broader man of similar height. Both men were in their fifties, Hathaway judged, and both wore sports jackets and slacks.

‘Chief Constable, glad you could make it,’ Dennis Hathaway said to the thinner of the two. ‘Gentlemen, this is the newly appointed Chief Constable Philip Simpson, who has brought law and order to the whole of Sussex after the bad behaviour of our previous chief constable, Charles Ridge. These men are-’

‘They hardly need an introduction. I even know Mr McVicar there – by repute that is.’ The chief constable indicated the man standing beside him. ‘This is an old friend – a bobby turned best-selling writer. Donald Watts – though you might know him by his pen name, Victor Tempest.’

Hathaway looked at the man with interest. Victor Tempest. He’d read a couple of his books. Pretty good thrillers.

‘So you served together?’ Dennis Hathaway said. Tempest nodded.

‘Back in the thirties.’ He pointed at Hathaway. ‘Neither of us much older than the lad here.’

The twins and McVicar were scowling at Tempest and the Chief Constable.

‘Couldn’t you get an honest job?’ McVicar said. He had a sneering way of talking. The twins remained expressionless. ‘Were you bent?’

Tempest was a few inches taller than McVicar. He reached out and placed his hand on the McVicar’s right shoulder.

‘Amusing bloke, aren’t you?’ he said.

Hathaway wasn’t sure quite what happened next. He saw Tempest give McVicar’s shoulder a little squeeze and the man cried out and reeled away, clutching at his upper arm. Tempest gave a nod in the general direction of the twins and Hathaway’s father, and made a beeline for a group of women by the window.

McVicar, flexing his right hand and still gripping his bicep, glared at Tempest’s back. Reilly took a step to block McVicar’s way as the London gangster started after Tempest. One of the twins put an arm out and flashed McVicar a cold look.

Hathaway saw that the chief constable had quietly separated from the group. Dennis Hathaway grinned and started to move away:

‘Enjoy yourselves, gentlemen.’ He glanced at Hathaway. ‘Come on, son, time you helped your mother in the kitchen.’

Hathaway’s father murmured to him as he led him away:

‘London hoodlums. No bloody manners.’

Hathaway got trapped in the corner of the kitchen by two of his mother’s friends, one of whom kept reaching up to ruffle his hair. His mum was chattering on, not really caring who was listening.

‘We were having a nice lunch when we heard the President had been assassinated. Terrible. Ever such a nice restaurant overlooking the beach. That Lee Harvey Oswald – how could he do that to such a good-looking man?’

Hathaway noticed McVicar in the kitchen doorway, ogling the younger women. He was still rubbing his arm.

When Hathaway went back into the main room he drifted towards Reilly and his father. They were standing with a small group of men that included the twins. They were talking about the Great Train Robbers. Hathaway had been following the reports avidly. Over the past few months a number of men had been arrested. There were nine in custody.

A Brighton man Hathaway vaguely knew was saying:

‘I saw the smudges in the paper. Didn’t do Buster any favours, mind.’ Hathaway remembered seeing the Wanted photo for a Ronald ‘Buster’ Edwards in the newspaper back in September. ‘But did you hear what happened to Gordon?’

Gordon Goody had been arrested around the same time.

‘He was lying low at his mum’s in Putney, then went up to see that beauty queen in Leicester. His smudge isn’t in the paper, his fingerprints are nowhere in the farmhouse. But the receptionist at the hotel where he’s booked a room to get his leg-over thinks he’s Bruce bloody Reynolds because of the glasses he’s wearing. She’s seen Bruce’s smudge in the paper. What are the bloody chances? And, of course, once the coppers have got their hooks in him, that’s it.’

‘They fitted him up?’ Dennis Hathaway said. The man nodded.

‘They were spinning his place when just his old mam was there. That’s not on. They did an illegal search in a room he was using over a pub and claimed to find paint from the farm on his shoes. They put it there, of course.’

The others in the group were all listening but nobody was commenting. Indeed, Hathaway was struck by their silence. McVicar suddenly barged in:

‘Who’s the nutty woman in the yellow dress in the kitchen? She’s got bats in her belfry, you ask me. Doo lally bloody pip.’

Hathaway’s father pursed his lips. After a moment’s silence, Reilly produced two cigars from his pocket.

‘Mr McVicar. You look like a man who enjoys a cigar. Come and smoke one with me. I want to talk to you about a bit of business. Outside, though – Dennis’s wife doesn’t mind cigarette smoke in the house but draws the line at cigars and pipes. Plus, it’s a bit more private.’

McVicar looked surprised.

‘Bit more freezing, too.’

One of the twins whispered something in his ear.

‘OK, then,’ he said to both Reilly and the twin. As Reilly led the way, the twins looked at Hathaway’s father. Did Hathaway imagine it or did the same twin who’d whispered in McVicar’s ear give the slightest of nods? Hathaway’s father excused himself.

The twins looked at Hathaway but didn’t say anything. Hathaway retreated to the kitchen.

The two women who had trapped Hathaway before were washing-up. There was a bag of rubbish beside them. Before they could snare him again, he picked it up.

‘I’ll take this out to the dustbins,’ he said.

They smiled and carried on chattering.

It was cold outside and slippery in the passage beside the house. He put the bag in the dustbin then walked down the passage to the back garden. Sean Reilly stepped in front of him, an unlit cigar in his hand.

‘Where’s McVicar?’ Hathaway said before he became aware of the grunts. He looked past Reilly to see his father, red-faced, kicking a shape huddled in the snow. He heard his father gasp between kicks:

‘You need… to keep… a polite… fucking… tongue… in your… fucking… head.’

Hathaway watched in horrified fascination as his father continued to kick McVicar. McVicar wasn’t moving. He wasn’t making any sound. All Hathaway could hear was his father’s jagged breath and the thud of his foot making contact with McVicar’s prone body.

‘He’s going to kill him,’ Hathaway said hoarsely.

‘Just a lesson in manners,’ Reilly said.

Dennis Hathaway only stopped when he ran out of puff. He finished by stamping on McVicar’s head then bent at the waist beside the motionless form and sucked in air. Hathaway could see the blood spreading in the snow. Dennis Hathaway turned his head towards Reilly without seeing his son.

‘Get this garbage off my bloody lawn.’

‘Dad,’ Hathaway called out. ‘What have you done?’

His father straightened up.

‘It’s all about respect, son. If there’s no respect, there’s nothing.’

‘But, Dad, look what you’ve done.’

His father looked down at the heap in the snow.

‘What? This?’ His father seemed puzzled. ‘This is nothing.’

But to Hathaway it was everything.

For the next few days, Hathaway was in turmoil. He’d seen his father angry often, but never the animal fury as he was trying to kick McVicar to death. And Hathaway had no doubt that’s what his father had intended. Hathaway was repelled by the violence. At the same time, he knew there was something in him that was drawn to that kind of barbarity. He knew he had his own dark places. He knew that if he allowed himself to unleash it, he had his father’s temper.

Then there was Barbara. He waited to hear from her but didn’t. He tried phoning her at the office on the pier but she was never there.

On the fourth day, he went to the pier. It was bright outside but the wind cut at his face like knives. He pulled the hood up on his duffel coat, even though he thought it made him look like a gnome.

The shooting gallery was boarded up for the winter but the amusement arcade was doing desultory business. Reilly was in the office with an unfamiliar woman. There were half a dozen paraffin heaters burning round the room. Two were on either side of the woman’s desk.

‘Your dad’s not here, John,’ Reilly said. ‘He’s in London. Gone up to see Freddie Mills at his club.’

Hathaway liked Mills. He’d never seen him box but he’d laughed at him in the couple of films he’d made. He’d met him with his father in Brighton. He’d even competed with him at the shooting gallery outside. Best of five. Hathaway had won but guessed that Mills had let him.

‘That’s OK,’ Hathaway said, ‘I was just passing.’

Reilly stretched his neck to look out of the window at the water, as if to ask, ‘Passing on to where?’ He smiled and indicated the woman at the other desk.

‘This is Rita. She’s taken over from Barbara.’

‘Hello.’ Hathaway forced a smile on to his face. ‘Has Barbara gone, then?’

Reilly nodded.

‘Got a job abroad,’ he said, looking down at his desk.

‘That was sudden.’

Reilly shrugged.

‘Opportunity came up and she took it.’ He stood. ‘The trial will be over soon.’

Hathaway knew Reilly was referring to the Great Train Robbery trial. It had begun at the end of January and nineteen people were in the dock. Others were still on the run with warrants out for their arrests.

‘Roger Cordrey is the only one who has pleaded guilty,’ Reilly said. ‘His mate Bill is going to get screwed.’

‘How come?’ Hathaway said, intrigued despite his upset about Barbara’s abrupt departure.

‘Cordrey is refusing to implicate anyone else and everyone else is pleading not guilty. Whatever Cordrey says about Bill Boal’s lack of involvement needs corroboration. But since everybody else is denying they had any involvement with the robbery, there is nobody to say he had nothing to do with it. Boal is screwed.’

‘You know him?’ Hathaway said.

‘From the racetrack,’ Reilly said.

Hathaway glanced at Rita and lowered his voice.

‘How’s that bloke? McVicar?’

‘He’ll mend. Eventually.’

‘Won’t he want to get his own back?’

Reilly drew him to the window. A flock of seagulls skirled in the gusts of wind. The sea was boisterous, huge swells rising and dipping.

‘People react to bad beatings in different ways, but more often than not it breaks their spirit. He was all mouth.’

‘You know the type?’

‘I’ve been around them most of my life.’

Hathaway went closer to Reilly.

‘Is my dad a gangster?’

‘You’d be best asking him questions like that.’

‘Would he answer?’

‘No idea,’ Reilly said.

‘Did he send Barbara away?’

Reilly smiled again.

‘You’d be best asking him questions like that.’