The Thing Itself

‘It can be handled,’ Gilchrist said. Watts said nothing. ‘It can be handled,’ she repeated.

‘I wasn’t thinking that,’ Watts said.

‘What, then?’

‘Killing someone is a hell of a thing to deal with.’

‘You and Tingley don’t seem to have any problems.’

‘I can’t speak for Tingley,’ Watts said shortly. ‘What can you do for her?’

‘Sorry I said that,’ Gilchrist said. ‘We should meet.’

‘Of course,’ Watts said. ‘I’m on my way to Brighton.’

‘Not just about this. We’ve found Bernie Grimes.’

The mist swallowed the old man.

SIXTEEN

Bob Watts walked along the towpath from his father’s house to Hammersmith Bridge. He’d run the distance there and back at six that morning. Now he passed the odd dog-walker as joggers passed him, but for the most part he was alone with his thoughts.

Not long before his father had fallen ill, Watts had confronted him about his womanizing past. Watts had realized that William Simpson, his erstwhile friend, was his half-brother. Kate Simpson was his niece. He had been puzzling over when — or whether — to tell her. Now was certainly not the time.

He was aware of the screeching of the parakeets high up in the canopy of trees that arched over the path. Escapees, it was said, from some 1940s film made at Twickenham studios. He saw a grey heron, neck elongated, standing still as a statue in the shallows.

He took the tube to Victoria just in time for the fast train to Brighton. He’d left his car at the station a couple of days earlier. He’d forgotten where, of course, but after five minutes’ wandering he located it.

There was an old Archie Shepp CD on the stereo. Goin’ Home, with Horace Parlan on piano. Watts liked dissonance in music. Anarchy, really. That’s how he’d first got into Shepp and his crazy tenor sax. But this was sweet, old-time blues, more Ben Webster than Ornette Coleman. He turned it up loud as he drove to the hospital.

Gilchrist was waiting for him in the foyer. They hugged briefly, awkwardly. Since their brief fling, he knew she felt as unsure as he did about how to be with each other.

She took him in to see Kate Simpson. Her face was broken and bruised.

He thought she wouldn’t want any man near her, but Gilchrist nudged him forward and Kate raised a shaky hand for him to take. Tears welled from her eyes as she held his hand fiercely for a moment before her grip relaxed and her eyes closed.

‘The drugs,’ Gilchrist murmured.

Watts clenched his jaw.

They hugged again when they parted half an hour later. Gilchrist had filled him in on Bernie Grimes and the south of France. Watts was fired up about that but mostly he was thinking of Kate Simpson. Her broken voice. The cuts and the swellings. The tears welling from her eyes as he held her hand.

Watts had been living in an odd little house in the centre of Brighton for a couple of months now. It was one of a handful of cottages around Brighton that had been built by French prisoners during the Napoleonic wars. It was local flint and brick that had then been tarred black. It was on a terrace of four houses, the other three built to match a couple of hundred years later. It was three storeys high but very narrow. It had a small front garden and a private courtyard at the back. The view from the front was of a narrow walkway and the side wall of the Royal Mail sorting office.

It was a ludicrous choice for a big man as it was cramped with low ceilings, but Watts realized he was punishing himself. When his marriage had broken up, he’d first chosen to live in a horrible bungalow. Now this.

When he let himself in, the landline was ringing. It was his wife, Molly, phoning from Canada, where she’d gone to get a perspective on the things that had happened between them.

Molly was his home. He recognized that now. Recognized too that he had totally fucked it up. Not because of his one-night stand with Sarah Gilchrist. Long before then. When he was busy turning his wife to drink and away from him.

He shook his head. He was trying to process what Molly had told him.

‘I’m not coming back.’

She had been staying with her sister in Canada.

‘Well, I guessed that,’ Watts said. ‘I told you it wasn’t necessary. The funeral will be pretty low-key.’

‘I’m not ever coming back.’

Watts thought for a moment.

‘That’s coming straight to the point,’ he said.

‘I’ve met someone.’

‘Oh.’ It was all he could manage.

‘Actually, I met him years ago. A neighbour of my sister. I’ve seen him every year for the fortnight I come here. We don’t communicate the rest of the year. He was married, I was married. Nothing happened between us.’

‘I’m sure,’ Watts said, unsure whether he was being sarcastic.

‘He’s a widower now. We want to try to make a go of it.’

‘I thought we were going to try to make a go of it.’

She was silent for a moment.

‘There’s so much I can’t forgive you for,’ she said. ‘Not just screwing that woman. So much else.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s a wonderful romantic story you’re telling me. A fortnight of romance every year for — how long, did you say? Fifteen years?’

‘Fourteen. Yes, it is.’

‘Doesn’t seem quite so romantic from where I’m sitting, of course. The person you were actually married to all those years. What are you going to say to the kids?’

‘They’ve known about David for months. They fully support my decision.’

Watts bowed his head.

‘I didn’t realize how distant my children were from me.’

He slumped on the lumpy sofa. He was trying to remember that he had once been a chief constable, used to making major decisions. Now he just felt overwhelmed by his father’s illness, his wife’s abandonment, the attack on Kate.

‘Ah, Jesus,’ he whispered, pressing his fists into his eye sockets.

SEVENTEEN

Laker’s Milldean plan had been vague at best. It had evolved. He’d had half a dozen coppers in his pocket for years. There was a gap-toothed git, Connelly, from Haywards Heath, who was rotten to the core. He brought a mate on board. Philippa Franks was easy — people with kids always were. Finch couldn’t be relied on so he had to go — rolled up in a blanket and chucked off Beachy Head. The other copper whose grass had passed on the information couldn’t be relied on either.

Laker had been sitting in the back of the car when his men did Finch. The one Laker had done personally, though, the one he’d enjoyed doing, was the deputy chief constable in his poncy little beach hut in Hove. It was necessary. Guilt was written all over him. Laker had simply strolled in through the open door and the poor sod had virtually handed over his gun and begged to be put out of his misery. Laker had shot him in the temple, stuck the gun in the dead man’s hand and got out of the hut just ahead of the stream of blood.

Other people, though, just never learned.