‘Threats to whom?’
‘That would be telling – because that’s where that delicate balance comes in.’
Tingley made a stop sign with his hand.
‘Are you going to be specific or are we going to go round in circles again?’
‘I can’t be specific -’ Tingley started to get out of his chair – ‘but I know a man who can.’
Tingley sat back, aware the man behind him had moved nearer.
‘Multiple threats,’ Tingley said. ‘That doesn’t scan at all.’
Hathaway shrugged.
‘You have a better theory?
‘I’ve got a question. If what you say is true, who is bumping off all the police?’
Hathaway wagged a finger.
‘That would be telling.’
‘And who threatened William Simpson’s daughter, Kate?’
‘William Simpson. Now there’s a name to conjure with.’
‘Well, show me the bloody rabbit in the hat, then.’
Hathaway took another handful of chips.
‘I don’t believe you one little bit,’ Tingley said.
Hathaway chewed. He had strong jaws and ate quickly.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I think you need to talk to a government department I know you’re familiar with. They’ll have the skinny.’ Hathaway wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘I have a number you should call.’
Anna opened the door to my father’s house. She was slim and petite with badly bleached blonde hair and a pale face. There were dark rings under her eyes but she smiled cheerfully when she saw me and led me upstairs into the sitting room. He was by his broad bay window, feet up on a stool, half-hidden by the wings of his big chair.
My father didn’t get up as I walked over but he watched me, his head tilted, and gave a little smile. He indicated the wingback chair opposite his.
‘Is Anna getting you coffee?’
I nodded.
‘You’re becoming a regular visitor.’
I sat and got straight to it.
‘We’re investigating the Brighton Trunk Murder,’ I said.
‘Gives you something to do, I suppose,’ my father said. He dabbed his mouth with a white handkerchief. I looked at the liver spots on the big hand, the thick purple veins, the fingers bent to the side by arthritis.
‘Who was she, Dad?’
‘A tart. Violette somebody. Man who did it got off, God knows how. Mancini also known as Notyre. Went round the music halls after he got off doing a show where he sawed a woman in half. Very bad taste. Used to brag to people how he’d done it and got off. Publicly admitted it later – thirty years after – in the press.’
‘Not that murder,’ I said. ‘The first one. The one the police never solved.’
‘That lass. Found her legs in London, rest of her in Brighton. With them two murders Brighton got a new nickname: the queen of slaughtering places.’
‘That’s right. You were a policeman then, weren’t you? Alongside William Simpson’s dad.’
My father had scarcely talked about that phase of his life. I didn’t know until I was well into my twenties that he’d even been a policeman.
He turned his head to me awkwardly. It seemed like it was on a stalk, his body still facing forward. Looking both robust – the shoulders and the paunch – and puny – the bony wrists and the scrawny neck.
‘A bogie, aye. That’s a part of my past I prefer not to recall. Didn’t want that life but in those days you did what jobs you could get. The police force is just like any organization. They use you then they cast you off.’ He looked at me. ‘You know that now.’
‘Why did you leave?’
‘No advancement if you weren’t from the officer class. Lot of tedium, boredom.’
‘I thought you were forced to resign.’
He looked straight ahead. He made an odd clicking noise in the back of his throat.
‘It were thought best.’ He nodded, forming extra chins with loose folds of skin around his jowls. ‘Good thing I did. Best thing I did. It got me started writing, introduced me to a new way of life.’
‘You did well.’
‘I did well by you and your mother. Made your life possible.’
‘Why did you resign?’
‘Tuppeny ’apenny stuff. Nowt worth bothering about.’
‘You were under suspicion for the Trunk Murder?’
‘Don’t be daft. Why would you think that?’
‘Mum said you had an eye for the ladies.’
‘Seems you inherited it.’
My dad had a fierce stare and when I was younger it had freaked me out. Even these days I usually couldn’t hold it. However, my dad looked down first, at his clasped hands, mottled with age.
‘You know the secret of getting women?’ he finally said.
‘Good looks, money and power?’
‘I didn’t have any of those things. No, what you look for is someone good looking who’s obviously insecure. She’ll probably have a certain way of walking, she’ll touch herself on the hips or sometimes on her breasts. She’s both sensual and insecure. Sow that wind and you’ll reap a whirlwind right enough.’
‘Dad, I’m not sure this is a proper conversation between father and son.’
‘But you think accusing your dad of murder is proper?’
‘I was just trying to find out. Secrets and lies, Dad – they get in the way of proper relationships.’
‘I can imagine murder would too. Don’t pontificate at me, Bobby. The genre I write in is predicated on secrets and lies. Usually family ones. But then at the end the secrets are revealed, the lies exposed.’
Anna came in with my coffee. My father watched her leave the room then turned back to me.
‘Graham Greene was a suspect, you know.’
‘Graham Greene was suspected of the Trunk Murder?’
‘One of dozens, but yes. One of his fancy women shopped him.’ He saw my quizzical look. ‘He used to bring them down to Brighton at the weekend. Stayed at the Grand. That’s when the razor gangs were around on the prom and up at the racecourse.’
‘ Brighton Rock?’
‘Yes, though that didn’t come out for a few years – just before the war. I knew a maid who worked at the Grand. Told me the disgusting state he and his girlfriend of the moment left the sheets in.’ He looked at me again. ‘Apparently the famous writer was a back-door johnny. Can be a messy business.’
I felt squeamish hearing my dad talk about such things. I pushed away the thought of his sex life with my mother.
‘How did that make him a suspect?’
‘He was having nightmares about taking taxi rides with a woman’s body in a trunk. A cast-off lover telephoned us.’
‘Did you interview him?’
‘No – too delicate a task for a junior. I was on guard in the interview room, though.’
I nodded.
‘That’s the first time you met him. Did you talk about the case when you met him later?’
‘I told him at the Foyle’s lunch I’d been a policeman in Brighton in the thirties and he brought it up.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Said he’d been questioned then asked me the same thing you keep asking me – did we know who did it?’
‘And did you reply to him or were you as enigmatic as you are with me?’
My father pursed his lips but said nothing. I leant over and put my hand over his. It was impulsive but I also
