I fell on him, my body a dead weight, and that was it. Except that the one man who seemed to have a bit of savvy was now standing over me, pondering where his bat could do most damage.
It was clear that this was nothing to do with the altercation in the pub. These guys had been sent to deliver a message. A message I wasn’t wild about receiving.
I scrabbled around and grabbed the bat of the man I was lying on. I brought it up just as the other bat came down. The thwock of contact was hard and loud, and I felt the impact shudder down my arm.
The man above me was now off-balance so I snaked around, swivelled at the hip and my outstretched legs swept his legs from under him. He fell backwards, abandoning his bat to break his fall with his arms, keeping his head off the tarmac.
I looked around to see if there were more roughnecks waiting to tip in. Seemed not. I launched myself on to him, pinning him to the ground.
I hissed in his ear:
‘You gonna tell me the message you were supposed to deliver?’
He struggled but I was pinioning his arms.
‘Back off,’ he gasped.
‘Fuck you,’ I said.
He shook his head, breathing badly.
‘That was the message. I was to say you had to back off.’
‘Who’s the message from?’
‘Me,’ a voice said, as someone knocked me unconscious.
EIGHTEEN
‘ S ome people are crap at delivering messages,’ Tingley said, standing by my hospital bed.
‘That’s not how I see it,’ I mumbled, wincing as I tried to sit up.
‘Well, as I understand it, you don’t know who sent the message and you don’t know what the message was since they knocked you unconscious.’
‘The medium is the message,’ I whispered. I couldn’t get my breath.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ I coughed. ‘Presumably they would have left the message had they not been disturbed.’
I’d regained consciousness in the car park to find a gaggle of people crowding around me. Racegoers who’d disturbed my attacker. The two thugs still standing had hauled the two on the floor into a white van and sped the wrong way out of the car park.
After I vomited on their shoes, the racegoers had given me space. Someone had called Ronnie, the community policeman, and he had got me into hospital in Haywards Heath. I’d been kept in overnight in case I had concussion from the whack on my head. This morning the doctor had decided I was probably OK.
‘I could have told them that last night,’ Tingley said. ‘You and your hard head.’
‘Somebody got the number plates, but the van will be stolen or the plates will be cloned,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t get a look at the man who said the message was from him.’
‘Did anyone else?’
‘Apparently not – baseball cap pulled low – you know.’
‘At least for once it was the appropriate headgear,’ Tingley said.
After a moment I smiled and gingerly touched the lump on the back of my head.
‘I’ve got stuff to tell you,’ Tingley said. ‘But not here.’
‘I’ll be discharged later this morning.’
I winced again.
‘Let’s meet at The Cricketers.’ Tingley said. ‘But soft drinks for you.’
‘Will I like what you have to say?’
Tingley waggled his hand.
‘Etsy ketsy,’ he said.
‘Which is Greek to me,’ I said.
‘I’ll see you at one.’
Gilchrist and Reg Williamson were on their way to Lewes Prison to take a new statement from Gary Parker.
‘On the direct orders of Sheena Hewitt, eh?’ Williamson said as they drove out of Brighton. ‘The deal must have been done. Wonder what the scumbag is being offered.’
‘I don’t know, Reg. There isn’t much room for manoeuvre.’ Gilchrist was excited, as she hoped Parker might have some real news for her.
‘You’re kidding, Sarah. They’ll go the temporary insanity route, he’ll be put in some country club loonie bin, get tested in a couple of years and come out in three.’
‘Well, he was under the influence of a lot of drugs,’ Gilchrist said.
‘The guy’s a scumbag born and bred.’
‘Reg, can I ask – do you think those awareness courses you’ve taken have been working?’
Ten minutes later, Gilchrist was tending to agree with him.
Parker was looking even unhealthier than the last time she’d seen him. His face was puffy and sallow, almost green, and his eyes were sunk into their sockets. His mouth was even filthier too.
‘You know what I discovered?’ he said. ‘I discovered that poncey people like cock and twat as much as the rest of us.’ He sniffed. ‘Actually, they love it more.’
Parker’s solicitor was sitting beside him. He was a harassed man in an ill-fitting pinstripe suit. He stared at the table as Parker was talking.
‘Is that your news?’ Gilchrist said. ‘Next you’ll be telling me there are gays in Brighton.’
Parker sniggered.
‘Well, it’s arse bandits I’m talking about. Easy money to be made down at Black Rock. Fucking perverts turning up, cock in one hand, roll of twenties in the other.’
‘You’re saying you’ve been a rent boy?’ Gilchrist said.
‘Stick it up your tight arse. I’ve kicked their fucking heads in, pissed on them, then taken their money is what I’ve done. Easy bloody money.’
Gilchrist’s mind wandered for a moment. Black Rock was where the head of the Trunk Murder victim had been found, then lost again. Then and now there were posh apartments above. Now there was also a lot of nocturnal activity in the bushes below. It was a well-known cottaging place, but Gilchrist hadn’t heard much about gay-bashing there. She guessed it was the closet gays who were being attacked. They weren’t going to report it.
‘What has gay-bashing got to do with Little Stevie and the Milldean thing?’
Parker started jiggling his leg but said nothing.
‘I thought we were supposed to be moving forward in this meeting.’ Gilchrist addressed herself to the lawyer. He adjusted his glasses on his nose and looked from her to Parker. Parker didn’t know which nervous tic to focus on. He was actually quivering. Gilchrist knew he was being given methadone and other medication to help his withdrawal from the cocktail of drugs and booze he’d been living on for years.
Parker chewed at his finger.
‘Bloke I was at school with. Bunked off school with, really. We was mates. Turns out he takes it up the bum. Likes chugging it too.’
‘Little Stevie.’
Parker looked at Gilchrist.
‘You’ve got a mouth on you – bet you’ve chugged a few in your time. Will you chug me?’
‘Mr Parker,’ the lawyer said quietly.
‘That must have messed you up,’ Williamson snarled. ‘Your mate being gay. Did you bash him?’
‘I give him one up the arse is what I did. Fucking poof.’
