‘I wasn’t really doorstepping you,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve been telephoning but there was no answer and you don’t seem to have an answering machine.’ She showed him an envelope addressed to him.
‘I was going to leave you a note.’
Watts peered at her.
‘I know you, don’t I?’
‘I was at the press conferences you gave at the time of the Milldean incident.’
‘And you were there the night it happened. Yes, I know that.’ He sounded impatient.
She held his look. Had he been the kind of boss who didn’t suffer fools gladly? How had his staff regarded him?
‘I mean you’re familiar to me aside from that,’ he said.
‘My name’s Kate Simpson.’
It only took him a moment.
‘William’s daughter.’ Watts smiled. ‘My God – I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you straight away.’
‘That’s OK – you haven’t seen me for a couple of years.’
Watts smiled.
‘Local radio is a bit small beer, isn’t it? Couldn’t he get you a better job?’
Anger flared in her eyes. Tight-lipped, she said:
‘I didn’t want and don’t need his help.’
He studied her for a moment then stepped aside.
‘I’m sorry – I’m a bit distracted by some news I’ve just received. Do you drink wine?’
She followed him down a narrow corridor made narrower by piles of boxes neatly stacked along one wall.
‘Books,’ he said over his shoulder as he turned left into a small sitting room. ‘Nowhere else to put them.’
The sitting room had a sofa and a desk. Bookshelves lined every wall, filling any available space, making the room even smaller.
She sat sideways on the sofa as he collected wine and glasses from the kitchen. She gestured at the books.
‘I didn’t expect you to be such a reader.’
‘Maybe you have the wrong stereotype of a policeman. Maybe you’re reading the wrong crime fiction.’
‘Is that what these are?’ she waved at the bookcases. ‘Crime novels?’
He shook his head.
‘I’m not a great fiction reader.’
‘You have some thrillers here, though. Victor Tempest.’
She pointed.
‘They’re my father’s, actually.’
He handed her a glass of pale white wine and sat down beside her. It was a two-seat sofa and awkwardly intimate. He didn’t seem to notice.
‘About this project-’
‘About the money?’
‘It’s local radio…’
‘So no money.’
She flushed.
‘But being on the radio…’
He looked into his wine. She flushed again. He had done so much national radio and TV that there was nothing at all in it for him. She was aware she was out of her depth.
‘What’s the case?’ he said in a kindly voice.
‘The Brighton Trunk Murder of 1934. The unsolved one.’
He put down his glass.
‘I don’t think so.’
Kate put her glass down too.
‘I think you were a scapegoat.’ He seemed startled by the sudden change of topic. ‘And I assume my father railroaded you.’
‘That’s not over yet.’
‘Why won’t you help me?’ she said, leaning forward over her knees.
‘It’s not what I’m good at.’
She knew she wasn’t hiding her disappointment. Her face always showed her emotions, however much she tried to mask them. But if he noticed, he didn’t respond.
‘Do you miss being a policeman?’
He nodded slowly.
‘It’s what I always wanted to be.’
‘Family tradition?’
He hesitated, she assumed because he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to share personal things with her.
‘Crime is.’ He smiled faintly at her bemused expression. ‘My father wrote crime novels. Still writes them, though his type is rather out of fashion now. No serial killers or pathologists in them.’
‘I think my grandfather was in the police.’
‘He was. He made chief constable, like me.’
‘I never knew him – he’d died long before I was born.’
Watts nodded.
‘Does your father live round here?’ Kate asked.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I was just wondering if he might want to get involved with this – I was going to get a crime writer – and a father and son working on the case together…’
He shook his head and took another sip of his wine.
‘He lives in London, but we wouldn’t work well together. Even supposing he were interested – which I know he wouldn’t be.’
‘I’ve got all these files that were thought lost or destroyed. I’ve photocopied a set. Please say you’ll help.’
He stood and walked to the window, looked out at the back of the Elizabethan house across the courtyard.
‘Aren’t they police property?’
‘Apparently the police aren’t interested in them.’
‘Drop the documents off and I’ll have a look. I’m making no promises, though.’
‘The photocopies are in my car – shall I get them now?’
I watched Kate Simpson drive off, then hefted the box of photocopied documents back into the bungalow. Sarah was standing in my bedroom doorway.
‘I didn’t realize you were going to invite her in.’ There was irritation in her tone. ‘I felt weird skulking in your bedroom’
‘Sorry – I recognized her. A family friend. Kind of. It was strange seeing her again.’
I looked down at the box I was holding.
‘Could you hear what we were talking about?’
‘Those files – somebody phoned me about them the other day.’
‘You’re the one who wasn’t interested?’
‘It was a misunderstanding.’
She indicated her half-empty wine glass.
‘Do you think she noticed the presence of a third glass?’
I shrugged.
‘She’s a radio journalist, not Sherlock Holmes. Bright, though.’
I put the box down.
