City of Dreadful Night
Peter Guttridge
MAIN CHARACTERS
Sarah Gilchrist -
Detective Sergeant, Brighton police force
John Hathaway -
Brighton crime boss
Kate Simpson -
Radio journalist
William Simpson -
Government fixer and Kate Simpson’s father
James Tingley – ex-SAS soldier and security adviser
Donald Watts -
Novelist (writing as Victor Tempest) and Robert Watts’s father
Molly Watts -
Robert’s wife
Robert Watts -
Chief Constable, Brighton police force
Reg Williamson -
Detective Sergeant, Brighton police force
‘The City is of Night; perchance of Death’
The City of Dreadful Night (1874) by James Thomson (B.V.), not known for laughs.
‘Brighton – the City Beautiful’
Sir Herbert Cordon, idealistic creator of much that is good and much that is bad about Brighton.
Just about balances out.
PROLOGUE
BRIGHTON GAZETTE, SATURDAY, 23 JUNE, 1934 GHASTLY FIND AT BRIGHTON BODY IN TRUNK WOMAN CUT TO PIECES SCOTLAND YARD’S TASK
Brighton was shocked early in the week by the news of a particularly horrible crime which came to light with the finding of the nude torso of a woman in a trunk at Brighton Central Railway Station, and the discovery of the legs in the King’s Cross Station Luggage Office.
The grim discovery was made on Sunday evening, 17th June. The trunk was forced open after there had been a complaint to the police that there was an offensive smell coming from it. The naked remains of the woman were found inside. The head, legs and arms had been sawn off. The trunk had been deposited on Wednesday, 6th June.
Clue of Letters
The remains were wrapped in brown paper and tied with window cord. On the edge of the paper, written in blue pencil, are the letters ‘ford’.
Scotland Yard was called in to deal with the ghastly affair, in conjunction with the local police. Chief Detective Inspector Donaldson and Detective Sergeant Sorrell at once came down and set to work after a long conference with the Brighton Chief Constable, Capt. W. J. Hutchinson.
It was at first thought that the woman was about forty years of age, but later Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the country’s leading forensic pathologist, gave as his opinion that she was in her twenties and certainly not more than thirty years old.
Legs found at King’s Cross
There came a startling development on Monday evening, 18th June, when detectives from Scotland Yard visited King’s Cross station and in the Left Luggage department found a suitcase which contained the legs missing from the Brighton body.
The suitcase at King’s Cross was deposited on 7th June, the day after the trunk was deposited at Brighton. The attention of an attendant at King’s Cross was drawn to the case by the odour.
The Inquest
The proceedings only lasted two minutes before Mr Charles Webb, the Deputy Coroner, adjourned the enquiry until Wednesday, 18th July, at eleven o’clock.
Mr Webb summarized the events of the past few days since the body was discovered. Referring to Sir Bernard Spilsbury’s examination of the previous day, Mr Webb said there were no marks or scars on the body by which it could be identified. The cause of death was not known.
ONE
I will not screw up.
Detective Sergeant Sarah Gilchrist repeated the sentence to herself like a mantra. She was determined to do everything right. Aside from anything else, she refused to give Finch the satisfaction. He was boorish about women police officers at the best of times, but when it came to them taking part in armed response operations he was positively Neanderthal.
For the same reason she was determined not to show her fear. All the way here in the van he’d been coming on Mr Machismo whilst she’d been trying not to vomit.
John Finch was now at least out of sight around the other side of this seedy house as Gilchrist crouched in its rubbish-strewn back garden, her pistol clenched tightly in her fist. She was anxious but determined, trying to stay focused – on her breathing, on the job in hand.
Three officers were crouched beside her. Two more were poised beside the back door, the battering ram hanging from short leather loops between them. There were police marksmen in upstairs rooms of the houses immediately behind her.
They were all waiting for the word in their earpieces to signal the start of the operation.
In her anxiety, Gilchrist’s physical discomfort loomed large.
It was a hot, humid evening; beneath her body armour she was dripping sweat. Her knees were aching from the crouching, her thighs and calves were feeling constricted. One of the team, possibly her, had trodden in some dog shit. The stink made her want to vomit even more.
She felt heavy, weighed down, sinking into the soft earth beneath her boots. Yet in a moment or two she would have to surge forward and go through that back door at the gallop.
Her unit’s job was to secure the ground floor of the house. The kitchen was the other side of the back door, then there was a passage with first the dining room and then the living room off to the right. On the left, the staircase to the first floor faced the front door. The other unit would come through that door at the same time and head for the first floor and its target.
The target had entered the house at eight p.m. carrying bottles in a plastic bag from the local off-licence. He was reported to be upstairs in the front bedroom. He was reported to be alone.
This would be Gilchrist’s fourth armed home arrest but she was more anxious than she’d been on her
