The shooting gallery was boarded up for the winter but the amusement arcade was doing desultory business. Reilly was in the office with an unfamiliar woman. There were half a dozen paraffin heaters burning round the room. Two were on either side of the woman’s desk.
‘Your dad’s not here, John,’ Reilly said. ‘He’s in London. Gone up to see Freddie Mills at his club.’
Hathaway liked Mills. He’d never seen him box but he’d laughed at him in the couple of films he’d made. He’d met him with his father in Brighton. He’d even competed with him at the shooting gallery outside. Best of five. Hathaway had won but guessed that Mills had let him.
‘That’s OK,’ Hathaway said, ‘I was just passing.’
Reilly stretched his neck to look out of the window at the water, as if to ask, ‘Passing on to where?’ He smiled and indicated the woman at the other desk.
‘This is Rita. She’s taken over from Barbara.’
‘Hello.’ Hathaway forced a smile on to his face. ‘Has Barbara gone, then?’
Reilly nodded.
‘Got a job abroad,’ he said, looking down at his desk.
‘That was sudden.’
Reilly shrugged.
‘Opportunity came up and she took it.’ He stood. ‘The trial will be over soon.’
Hathaway knew Reilly was referring to the Great Train Robbery trial. It had begun at the end of January and nineteen people were in the dock. Others were still on the run with warrants out for their arrests.
‘Roger Cordrey is the only one who has pleaded guilty,’ Reilly said. ‘His mate Bill is going to get screwed.’
‘How come?’ Hathaway said, intrigued despite his upset about Barbara’s abrupt departure.
‘Cordrey is refusing to implicate anyone else and everyone else is pleading not guilty. Whatever Cordrey says about Bill Boal’s lack of involvement needs corroboration. But since everybody else is denying they had any involvement with the robbery, there is nobody to say he had nothing to do with it. Boal is screwed.’
‘You know him?’ Hathaway said.
‘From the racetrack,’ Reilly said.
Hathaway glanced at Rita and lowered his voice.
‘How’s that bloke? McVicar?’
‘He’ll mend. Eventually.’
‘Won’t he want to get his own back?’
Reilly drew him to the window. A flock of seagulls skirled in the gusts of wind. The sea was boisterous, huge swells rising and dipping.
‘People react to bad beatings in different ways, but more often than not it breaks their spirit. He was all mouth.’
‘You know the type?’
‘I’ve been around them most of my life.’
Hathaway went closer to Reilly.
‘Is my dad a gangster?’
‘You’d be best asking him questions like that.’
‘Would he answer?’
‘No idea,’ Reilly said.
‘Did he send Barbara away?’
Reilly smiled again.
‘You’d be best asking him questions like that.’
FOUR
1964
Sean Reilly was at the Duane Eddy gig. He stood out like a sore thumb, smartly dressed and two decades older than anybody else. He was with a group of men at the bar.
The gig was in the Hippodrome. The group’s first taste of real dressing rooms. Duane Eddy didn’t hang out with them. Just said hello and shook their hands and went to his dressing room. Charlie was in awe. His backing band were British session musicians. They helped The Avalons set up their gear.
The ballroom was packed but with a potentially combustible mix of mods and rockers. The mods were on one side and the rockers on the other. The group came out and got stuck into some Buddy Holly then switched to rhythm and blues. Hathaway was glad they were on a raised stage as within ten minutes the first mod and first rocker had met in the middle for a fight. More a tussle really – punches and kicks but nobody went down. When they withdrew another three or four from each side started up.
The girls were all clustered right in front of the stage, a lot of them leaning on the stage. Hathaway saw Dan eyeing a couple up as he sang. He dance-stepped over and leaned into him.
‘Watch it – we don’t know who they belong to.’
When Duane Eddy came on the rockers made more fuss than the girls. Hathaway and the group clustered at one end of the bar. Reilly gave a little wave from the other end. Hathaway excused himself and went over.
‘Wouldn’t have thought this was your sort of show, Mr Reilly.’
‘Gentlemen, you’ve probably seen this young pop star around on the pier. He’s Dennis’s lad.’
The men around him all nodded and smiled.
‘Doing a bit of business with the proprietors. And a bit of behind the scenes wheeler-dealing.’
Reilly looked over as the latest groups of mods and rockers drifted into the centre of the hall and clashed.
‘It’s almost choreographed,’ Reilly said. ‘Which is the nearest anyone is going to get to dancing tonight, I think.’
‘Lot of blood,’ Hathaway said.
‘Head wounds bleed excessively, however minor the injury. No, this is quite restrained, I think. It could have been a brawl but it isn’t. Very neat.’ He looked round. ‘I see the bouncers have made themselves scarce. Sensible.’
He moved across to Hathaway and spoke directly into his ear. Hathaway got a whiff of whisky on the breath.
‘Recognize anyone on the left-hand side of the ballroom?’
‘To be honest we’ve been trying not to look at anybody on either side of the ballroom.’
‘Good policy when you’re in the middle. But take a look now, why don’t you?’
Hathaway did and almost immediately saw three of the Teds who had given them the beating in Seven Dials.
‘Those three guys over there – and these two heading back to them.’
Reilly nodded.
‘That little squirt and those two big fellas, and these two with bloodied knuckles?’
Hathaway nodded.
‘All right, then. You enjoy the rest of your evening.’
‘I want to go over,’ Hathaway said.
‘That would be foolhardy in the circumstances. Leave it for the moment.’
Hathaway looked from Reilly to Reilly’s men ranged at the bar.
‘What are you going to do?’
