Hathaway steepled his hands.
‘She was filming there. Perhaps you should be talking to the film people – and whichever actor was shagging her.’
‘I think you’re mixing up your years, John. She was filming there in 1968 but disappeared in 1969.’
‘That right?’
‘That’s right. Your father had premises at the end of the pier.’
‘An arcade and a shooting range, yes.’
Watts grimaced. Hathaway looked towards him.
‘Do you think we could assume we’re all adults here, Mr Hathaway?’
‘John. I thought we agreed on first names.’
‘John. You know what we’re asking. Was this something to do with your father?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘You can see our problem here. Your father was a known gangster. Elaine turns up in a bucket of cement, which tends to exclude the notion she committed suicide or was killed in a crime of passion-’
‘My father was not a gangster.’
Watts laughed.
‘OK, clearly we’re not all adults. Maybe it’s because we’re talking about your dad and that reduces you to infantilism. Do you want to call your blond bimbo for your potty?’
Hathaway measured Watts with a long look. Watts was up for a fight. Perhaps Hathaway sensed that.
‘It’s a long time ago, John. Your father is dead. We just want closure for Elaine.’
‘Closure? If only life were like that.’
‘It can be,’ Watts said.
‘Really? How’s your life since those people were shot in Milldean?’
Watts started to speak then stopped.
‘Things are going down the pan,’ Hathaway said. ‘It’s back to the old days. There was a moment, just a moment mind, when this city could have been great. It could have been among the great cities of the world. But no, small minds and local greed won out. I’m from a local family but I hate that this city is run by local families. Jesus, we have a leader of the council so thick he has to have somebody write a synopsis of committee reports so that he can understand them.’
‘There’s a rumour you were behind the firebombing of the West Pier.’
‘Really? And there’s a rumour you and Sarah Gilchrist are still fucking like rabbits. Care to comment?’
Watts flushed.
‘It’s not true.’
‘There you go, then. Rumours. What can you do with them? As I was saying, things are going down the pan. The Geary plan for the Lord Alfred Centre is gone – and there are a number of villains past and present who are grateful those foundations aren’t going to be dug up. Brighton Centre, that fucking seventies eyesore, that, if I was going to firebomb anything, would be top of my list, is now not going to be refurbished. And the West Pier, of course.’
‘We’re just trying to find out about Elaine.’
Hathaway leaned forward.
‘I know you won’t believe this but I am a sentimental man. An emotional man. Over the years I’ve thought a lot about Elaine. I’ve imagined her safe in some ashram all this time or living in Australia or America, settled with a family.’
He rubbed his face.
‘But here she is in the ocean under the West Pier in a block of cement.’
Tingley and Watts glanced at each other, then both focused on Hathaway.
‘It’s a sea, not an ocean,’ Watts said. ‘And where her remains were found I’m not sure that even constitutes a sea, it was so near the shore. More like the basement of your dad’s place really. But thank you for your time. We can see you’re upset. Perhaps we can come back on another occasion to discuss her diary.’
Hathaway raised his head.
‘Her diary?’
‘Oh yes. Didn’t we say? It goes up, presumably, right to the day of her death. She was a good writer. Lyrical. Factual too, though. Very factual.’
‘How have you got it?’
‘Now that’s a funny story. You probably thought you’d cleared her place out after you killed her.’
Hathaway stood.
‘I didn’t kill her.’
‘Really? Didn’t take some cold-blooded revenge when she went off with these actors? Didn’t see it as a slight on your manhood?’
‘I’m not like that.’
‘She was living in a flat owned by your father, wasn’t she?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Yes, you do. Forty Kemp Street. Next door to the house where Mancini killed his mistress in the 1930s, though they renumbered the street to stop the ghouls gawking at the house. The second Brighton Trunk Murder. Famous in its day. He did it and got off. Remarkable. He confessed to a newspaper early in the sixties. You might remember.’
‘I do, actually. And my father remembered him doing a music hall show in the late thirties and forties in very poor taste. It was based around killing women – sawing them in half, that kind of thing. Played on the same bill as Max Miller. You’re too young to remember Max Miller.’
‘I’ve seen the statue in town.’
‘My father’s favourite. He was that cut up when Miller died. Could quote his act almost word for word. Did not a bad impression, too. “I was on this narrow ledge. Very narrow. And coming the other way was this beautiful girl. Very beautiful. So beautiful, I tell you, I didn’t know whether to block her passage or toss myself off.”’ Tingley smiled. ‘ “’Ere, you’ve got a dirty mind you have, mister.” ’
‘Not a bad impersonator yourself, John,’ Watts said.
‘You should have heard my Peter Sellers doing Laurence Olivier reciting A Hard Day’s Night.’
Watts frowned.
‘You had to be there. In the sixties, I mean.’
‘I thought if you remembered the sixties you weren’t really there?’ Watts said.
‘Exactly my point, Bob, exactly my point. You’re asking me these questions but how am I supposed to remember?’
‘You’re not doing too badly,’ Tingley said. ‘We know where Elaine lived because she was a civic-minded young woman. She registered to vote when she was twenty-one. Her name showed up on the electoral register for the property. We can’t find you, though. Not so interested in politics? Or wanting to keep under the radar?’
Hathaway had a far away look on his face.
‘I remember the diary. Used to carry it with her everywhere. Always scribbling in it. She had a thing about Anais Nin.’
Hathaway looked at their blank faces.
‘I had no idea who she was either. Wife of a businessman in Paris, wanted to be a writer. Hung out with Henry Miller – the dirty writer? His lover apparently. Her husband was loaded and she took his money and slept around. Nice. Did the rounds, though, I think. She wrote porn herself – you know, female porn. Arty farty. And she kept this diary. There were volumes of them – must have been millions of words. All about her and what she was up to in Paris. Elaine was doing American studies and I think three of these volumes were part of her reading list. Anyway, Elaine started to keep her own diary in this big book. More like a series of big books, actually. How have you got hold of it?’
‘Cat woman came to our rescue,’ Watts said with a grin.
Hathaway looked from one to the other.
‘I’ve no idea what that means but I assume the diary is how you ended up with me.’
‘Actually, no. It was through the band you were in – the three-piece suite.’
