Six

It was late morning on Saturday before the people of Brighton were fully aware of the Milk-Bottle Murders.

On the front page of the Argus was the sensational headline ‘Murder by the Pint – Three Slain by Killer Milk Man’, and alongside unflattering library photos of the three victims, a picture of Pandora Holden fainting at the feet of a cow on the railway-station concourse. ‘Is Brighton the new milk-bottle murder capital of Great Britain?’ asked an alarmist editorial (answer: almost certainly). On an inside page a Brighton milkman, aged forty-nine, gave his reaction to the news, declaring that this was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, except for the day his horse had turned around without warning and bitten him on the face.

Meanwhile, for anyone whose life’s work was the promotion of milk in a positive light – such as the conscientious Mr Henderson, escorting the Milk Girl – murder by milk bottle was a PR challenge beyond anything ever anticipated at the monthly board meetings. To put things in perspective, in both June and July the main subject for discussion at Milk HQ had been how to stop blue tits sticking their heads through the foil tops and filching all the cream.

In the visitors’ lounge of the comfortable Balmoral Hotel in Hove, Henderson and Pandora took it in turns to stare in horror at the newspaper and then let it drop in their laps. Finally, Pandora spoke.

‘Should we go back to London, Hendy?’ she asked, gently.

Henderson put a hand to his face. ‘I’m thinking, Miss Holden. Give me a moment.’

‘Should we still go ahead with the beauty contest?’

‘I’m thinking!’ His voice was shaking slightly. ‘Please. I just need to think.’ But in truth, he wasn’t planning what to do. His thoughts were merely running to the new campaign slogan (slightly adapted): Drinka Pinta Deatha Day, Drinka Pinta Deatha Day. He found it strangely comforting.

The shock reverberated through the town. At his AA control post, Mr Hollibon read the account in the paper with a Weights cigarette dangling unlit from his lips.

At Mrs Thorpe’s in Clifton Terrace – where the paper was delivered every lunchtime – the lady of the house let out a cry of horror and nearly lost her footing in her fancy feathery mules. ‘Oh, Constable! Is this why you left so early this morning – without breakfast?’ she gasped.

Barbara Ashley’s father went out to buy the paper, but when he saw the headline on the placard, he couldn’t go through with it. He told his wife he couldn’t find one.

Gerry Edlin, at the railway station, bought the paper, neatly folded it and tucked it under his arm before lightly hopping aboard a cross-country train, his hat tipped suavely to one side. He had left a charming note in his dressing room at the Hippodrome, excusing himself for a few days and implying that that his beloved father in Devonshire was unwell. Of course, his life-preserving flight from Brighton was completely unnecessary (Terence Chambers was in town for different reasons), but on the plus side, he did it with great panache.

In Rodolfo’s barbershop, the customers quickly put two and two together about the morning’s visit from the police to the flat upstairs, and were too excited to sit still, resulting in painful nicks to their necks and earlobes.

Meanwhile, at the Ice Circus, the skaters – including local boy Graham, who had now turned up, but not including Buster Bond, who remained unaccounted for – gathered round in the dressing-room corridor while the poodle lady read the articles aloud in a strong Russian accent.

True to form, Inspector Steine had issued an official press statement that had perfectly missed the mark in terms of reassuring the public.

If murderers are choosing to use bottles of milk as deadly weapons, I’m afraid the police are powerless to stop them. I need hardly point out that bottles of milk are everywhere. Unlike guns or knives, they can be found on every doorstep. But what I would say to an anxious public is this: if you spot someone brandishing bottles of milk, do not stop to ask, ‘Excuse me, my good man, what do you think you are doing?’ Run away as fast as your legs can carry you, shouting the words: ‘Murder! Murder! Police! Help!’ Unless of course he is a milkman carrying out his professional duties.

By the time Twitten and Brunswick returned to the station with all of Officer Andy’s scrapbooks and photographs, Steine was perusing the file of letters helpfully brought from London by Susan Turner – and also enjoying the splendid cup of tea she had made for him in Mrs Groynes’s pot. This young woman was very impressive in many ways, it seemed – not just in her mastery of railway timetables.

‘But what I don’t understand, Miss Turner,’ Steine said, indicating the quantity of hate mail, ‘is why that producer of yours continued to employ that loathsome man, when the listeners clearly despised him.’

They had sorted the letters into degrees of aversion to Cedric Carbody: from slightly disliking him (one out of ten) to actually threatening his life (ten out of ten). The majority of the letters were sevens and above.

‘But everyone who appears on the wireless gets complaints written about them,’ she explained. ‘It’s quite normal.’

‘Is it?’

Steine was startled. Was she saying that his own talks attracted such poisonous responses? How was that possible?

‘May I ask, do you mean everyone in the literal sense?’

She smiled. ‘I’m afraid so.’

He sat back in his chair. ‘Good heavens.’

There was a noise from outside the door, which was then flung open.

‘We’re back, sir,’ said Brunswick, puffing from carrying boxes of evidence up the stairs. ‘We had to stop on the way to take a roll of film into the Polyfoto shop in Western Road. Oof, this is heavy.’

Steine watched with amused interest as Brunswick held back the door with his left leg while straining under the weight of three heavy boxes, stacked higher than his head. It looked quite difficult to manoeuvre them through the doorway.

‘What is all this, Brunswick?’

‘Mostly scrapbooks, sir,’ he replied, awkwardly, over his shoulder. ‘It turns out – oof, sorry, sir – that Officer Andy was a bit of a busybody when it came to the world of true-life – oof, hang on – of true-life crime.’

‘There’s a strong link to the beauty contests, sir!’ called Twitten, who was out of sight, waiting to bring in the rest of the boxes. ‘We might have cracked the case!’

‘Well, be that as it may, that’s too many boxes to carry at once, Brunswick. You’ll hurt yourself.’

‘Yes, sir. We summoned a police car to bring us here. I hope that was all right, sir.’ Brunswick was beginning to break out in a sweat. ‘Sir, I don’t suppose you could—?’

‘Let me help,’ said Susan, springing up.

‘Oh, yes, that’s a good idea,’ said Steine. ‘Would you mind?’

And thanks to Susan simply holding the door open, the boxes were finally delivered without mishap, and the two out-of-breath officers rewarded at their desks with cups of tea of such outstanding quality that it was instantly understood between them that Mrs Groynes must never, ever, know.

And then they brought Steine up to date with their discoveries, while he twiddled a letter-opener and nodded. At the end of their account, he sighed.

‘So what you’re saying,’ said the inspector, ‘is that our killer is trying to cover up the rigging of beauty contests, even though I assured you from my extensive personal experience as a judge that such rigging does not and cannot take place?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Brunswick, and then frowned. Was that what they were saying?

Twitten stepped in. ‘But I think, sir, it might be immaterial whether contest-rigging actually occurs.’

‘Immaterial, how so?’

‘It’s more that if people start saying the contests are fixed, and casting doubt on them, it undermines confidence, in which case there are dangerous people who stand to lose a lot of money; they might act with disproportionate violence. Would it help, sir, if we referred to it as alleged contest-rigging?’

Steine considered this. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Do that.’

‘Well, sir, we know that Barbara Ashley talked about this alleged contest-rigging rather too much. It was virtually the first thing she said to Sergeant Brunswick, who was a complete stranger to her.’

‘That’s true, sir,’ Brunswick chipped in.

‘We also know that Cedric Carbody was banned by his agent – a very shady character named Tony Sayle – from attending the contests any more. Sayle’s given reason was that Carbody was too cutting in his comments to the contestants – but what we’re learning about him is that he was cutting all the time. This man used to make small, untalented children run crying to their mummies, sir.’

‘Did he?’ Steine was shocked.

‘I’m afraid so, sir. For failing at Highland dancing and so on.’

‘What a swine.’

‘But also, he was a liability. Anything he learned in confidence he might use as the basis for comic material. Do you remember what Lady Pru said, Sergeant Brunswick? She said that with Cedric Carbody nothing was sacred.’

‘She did say that, sir,’ agreed Brunswick.

‘So perhaps the real reason for the ban was that he was starting to ask awkward questions. As for Officer Andy – well, sir, our friendly AA man had apparently been hanging around the stunning June Jackson, and taking pictures of her. As it happens, his reason for tracking her was nothing to do with her career as a model and beauty queen: he was obsessed with this, sir.’

Twitten reached for the fat scrapbook labelled ‘Diana’ and handed it to the inspector.

‘It’s an unsolved case from nineteen fifty, when a twelve-year-old girl at Lady Laura Laridae fell to her death from the cliff in front of the school. This June Jackson, now a beauty queen, was a contemporary of the dead girl, and also one of her best friends. Andy knew Diana personally, apparently. Hence his interest.’

‘So there isn’t a link to the contests with him?’

‘No, not a direct one. But what I’m thinking, sir—’ Twitten stopped, glanced at Brunswick, and corrected himself. ‘What we’re thinking, sir, is that possibly Officer Andy took a picture this week of Miss Jackson that would have incriminated someone such as Sayle, sir, and was seen doing it.’

Steine looked out of the window. He knew he ought to congratulate his men. To find out so much about the victims in the space of just a few hours was impressive. But on the other hand, he had always upheld that the true measure of good policing was his own magnificent handling of the Middle Street Massacre, and this was negligible by comparison.

‘So why the milk bottles?’

‘Don’t know, sir; it’s unclear,’ admitted Brunswick. ‘Except that so many of the contests are related to dairies. You remember how Miss Ashley objected to being called a Lactic Lovely.’

‘And who do you think, specifically, is behind the murders?’

‘Well, everything seems to point to this beastly Tony Sayle, sir,’ said Twitten.

‘All right. But before you go arresting him, take a look at this, please,’ said Steine. ‘It might be – as you like to say, Constable – significant.’

He handed the death-threat letter to Twitten, who held it out so that the sergeant, still engaged in drinking his tea, could read it as well. It was so graphically anatomical in its threats that Brunswick, caught mid-sip as he read the worst part, spluttered and choked, and needed to be patted on the back. The writer warned Carbody that he should never show his face again in Brighton. The only line that bore repetition was the somewhat clue-heavy opening: ‘I saw what you done at the children’s playground that time.’

‘Gosh,’ said Twitten. Was this a hint at very dark matters indeed?

He turned to Susan. ‘Miss Turner?’ he said, making her jump with surprise. Everyone seemed to have forgotten she was there. ‘Miss Turner, is this the letter you said you should have told the police about?’

‘Oh. Yes. That’s the one.’

‘May I ask why you didn’t draw it to their attention?’

‘Oh.’ She gave this some thought. ‘I suppose because it’s not BBC policy. I mean, it’s hardly our responsibility, is it?’ It was clear she had worked long enough at the BBC to absorb its defining trait as an employer: institutional heartlessness. From the Corporation’s point of view, if Carbody was attracting death threats, that was entirely his own concern.

‘Was Mr Carbody even aware of the letter’s existence? Did you show it to him?’

‘Probably not. Think of the risk. If he’d taken it badly, it might have endangered the smooth running of a very popular programme, leading to the disappointment of millions of listeners.’

‘I see.’ Twitten looked at the letter again, where the writer threatened to cut out Carbody’s tongue, slice him open down the middle and then gut him like a fish. ‘You think he might have taken this badly?’

‘The best policy when dealing with artistic or theatrical types is to encourage them all the time,’ Susan continued. ‘You have to assure them constantly that they’re brilliant and popular, otherwise they sink into a state of despondency that affects their performance. Our job is to keep them up, up, up!’

‘Well, I honestly don’t know what to make of this, sir,’ Twitten admitted, handing it back. ‘It doesn’t fit the beauty-contests theory, certainly. But the murders are so strongly linked by the milk-bottle method – and this letter doesn’t relate in any way to Miss Ashley or the AA man. True, the children’s playground was where Miss Ashley’s body was found, but I don’t see any other link. What do you think, Sergeant Brunswick?’

‘Oh. Me?’ Brunswick cleared his throat to cover his surprise at being asked his opinion. ‘Well, son, what do I think? I think it can do no harm to investigate the beauty-contest angle further.’ He addressed Steine. ‘Sir, permission to attend tonight’s beauty contest and question Miss Jackson and Mr Sayle?’

‘Very well. Permission granted.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘But no undercover stuff, posing as a security guard.’

‘No, sir.’

Steine seemed satisfied. ‘It’s good to see results from you two working together.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Twitten.

‘Which was at my own insistence, if you recall.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Steine placed the death-threat letter back into the file, and then – instead of dismissing them – folded his hands and looked briefly out of the window. Twitten and Brunswick exchanged glances. As experienced Steine watchers, they knew he was about to speak to them in a serious manner. He might even address them – ignoring the presence of Susan Turner – as ‘men’.

‘I suppose you haven’t had a chance to read today’s paper?’ he asked, at last.

‘Not yet, sir,’ said Brunswick. ‘We were too busy with the boxes.’

‘Well, men, I’m afraid I have to tell you something rather grave. They are calling Brighton the milk-bottle murder capital of Great Britain.’

Twitten started to laugh, but stopped when Steine held up a hand. ‘This isn’t funny, Twitten.’

‘No, sir.’

‘I think I kept the reporters at bay for a while, but mark my words, they’ll be back. As far as the press is concerned, with the Bank Holiday on Monday, the town is expecting its largest crowds of the year; meanwhile it also has a deranged killer slaying people seemingly at random, using the nearest weapon that comes to hand. The press will whip up panic in the streets. So, I need results quickly, men. The sooner we can solve this case and apprehend the culprit, the better for us all.’

‘We’ll do our best, sir,’ said Twitten.

‘You can count on us,’ said Brunswick.

Susan Turner smiled encouragingly.

‘Good.’ Steine got up to go back into his own office, and was then apparently struck by a thought. He remembered what Susan had said about keeping people up, up, up. Did it apply to managing policemen as well?

‘Um … but there is something else.’ Steine waved a hand at them, and they looked back with attentive but puzzled expressions. ‘Look, men, I just wanted to say … well done. That sort of thing. Well done on what you’ve achieved so far.’

‘What, sir?’ said Brunswick. He was stunned. In seven years working for Inspector Steine, these were words he had never before heard.

‘I said, well done, both of you.’

‘Gosh, sir,’ said Twitten, pleased. He nudged the sergeant to add something, but nothing came out beyond a small strangulated sound.

‘Thank you very much from both of us, sir,’ said Twitten. ‘It means a lot – in fact, I think Sergeant Brunswick is quite moved.’

‘Is he? Good grief.’

‘No! No, I’m all right, sir,’ said Brunswick, quickly, with his hand to his face.

‘Good. Because we certainly don’t have time for anything like that. I’ll just say, up, up, up! And carry on.’

At the Metropole Hotel, all ten regional delegates for Monday’s conference had arrived by Saturday lunchtime, and were safely ensconced in light and roomy suites overlooking the sea. In many ways, the weekend was proceeding according to plan, and yet Terence Chambers was still annoyed. He had promised these people a raft of tawdry, illegal seaside entertainment – much of it too unsavoury to name – but now, with the outbreak of high-profile murder in the town, it looked as if they would be confined until Monday to their rooms. Naturally, Chambers focused his anger on Palmeira Groynes. She had assured him Brighton was the right venue for the summit. She had promised to have everything under control. And now she had let him down.

‘Milk bottles, Pal?’ he said quietly to her now, as she walked into his room at midday. He was seated in an armchair wearing a short maroon dressing-gown. On his wrist was a gold link-bracelet, and his thinning hair was combed back with Brylcreem. The Brighton paper, its pages in disarray, was on the floor. A henchman hovered behind him.

‘Calm down, Terry,’ she said, perching on the arm of a smart little settee. She was dressed in a rose-pink sleeveless dress with tailored matching jacket. It was astonishing how feminine she could look when she threw off the dowdy charlady disguise. Just removing the thick grey army socks made a world of difference.

‘It’s some nut with a grudge,’ she went on. ‘Look at the M.O., dear. Talk about pathetic.’

Chambers regarded her, then looked down admiringly at his own fingernails, which had just been manicured. Part of what had always given him the edge in the hoodlum business was this practised air of suppressed, pent-up violence. He almost never swore, and he disapproved of his henchmen doing it. It was as if, the more he kept the violence down, the more of it there was available when he really needed it. Everyone knew that the more softly Chambers spoke, the more likely he was to jump up, drive a fork into your neck and then watch you bleed to death.

‘Pal, what do I care who done it?’ He smiled. ‘All I care is that I’ve got a dozen mugs here in their best whistles all scared to put their boats out of doors.’ (Terence was very fond of cockney rhyming slang. When he said ‘whistles’ and ‘boats’ he meant whistle and flute = suit and boat race = face.)

‘I know. It’s a bleeding shame. But look, Terry, in a way it’s good for us.’

He folded his arms. ‘I don’t see that,’ he said.

‘It really is.’ Mrs Groynes sounded firm and in charge. She had learned how to stand up to Chambers after the war, when they had been in the same East End gang, specialising in the raiding of city banks and bullion vans – and then, later, when they lived together without getting married. She knew all about the soft voice and the reasonable manner. And she made a point of never talking to him in the vicinity of cutlery of any kind.

‘Listen, it just so happens I’ve been directing all their attention for Monday on to a bleeding milk bar, dear. I admit this Milk-Bottle Murderer bloke wasn’t in my plan, but we can’t ignore him. We have to adapt to prevailing conditions, don’t we? If something interferes with the plan, make a new one. You taught me that.’ She gave Chambers a meaningful look. ‘You’ve got to trust me, Terry – or else, well, you know …’

‘Or else what, Palmeira?’ Chambers asked. The hoodlum behind him stiffened and reached for his waistband.

‘Oh, for gawd’s sake, Terry. I meant or else send everyone home, dear.’

This was clever. As they both knew, sending home those ten mugs in their pricey whistles would entail a tremendous loss of boat. Plus, more importantly, Chambers would fail to get the support against the Americans he desperately needed. A moment’s thought, and all objections to staying until Monday had been dismissed.

‘No, no,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘All right, you win.’

‘Good,’ said Mrs Groynes, standing up to leave. ‘’Coz I got my barnet done ’specially.’ It was a rare pleasure for Mrs G to be able to talk cockney with a fellow speaker. (Barnet fair = hair.)

‘But stay where you are, Pal, there’s something else,’ said Chambers. ‘I’ve got a little job for you.’

‘What’s that, then?’

Chambers turned to the young man lurking in the background and summoned him forward. ‘Nicky, tell Mrs Groynes here what happened on the road down last night.’

She frowned. Why would an incident on the road to Brighton have anything to do with her?

‘Well, I ain’t drove this way before, OK?’ said Nicky. His tone was both defensive and agitated. Mrs Groynes sensed trouble.

‘So, like I say, I don’t know the road. And I was bringing that Geordie ’Ardcastle from up North; picked him up from Euston, like Mr Chambers told me, and drove him the rest of the way. And this ’Ardcastle, he’s never been south of Leeds, he says, so he don’t know the bleeding way neither. So we’re only a few miles from here and there’s this signpost.’

‘A signpost?’

‘Yeah. It points off the road, like where the road forks, but it’s a proper signpost so I follow it, don’t I? It says “BRIGHTON 10 MILES”, so I turn off and follow it!’

Mrs Groynes was aware that Chambers was staring at her intently, as if he suspected her. She pulled a face at him. She genuinely had no idea where this unusual travel anecdote was going.

‘Well, it’s a trap, innit?’ said Nicky.

‘What do you mean, a trap?’

‘A trap, like an ambush. We follow this road for a bit, and it’s narrow, and I keep saying, “This don’t look right, Mr ’Ardcastle; we should turn round.” And then there’s another fork and another sign to Brighton, but the road gets proper narrow down there and we get to this dead end, just a village pond, and I say, “I’m turning round; there’s something fishy about this,” and then these kids – a bunch of kids – jump out of the bushes, dressed up like Red Indians, shouting and whooping and whatnot and firing catapults at the car.’

‘It was kids, Pal,’ sighed Chambers. ‘Kids playing Cowboys and Indians.’

‘And the stones are hitting the car, and I’m trying to turn round, and Mr ’Ardcastle only gets out his gun!’

‘What?’

‘And he opens the window and he fires it!’ Nicky was by now quite worked up, but was doing brilliantly. Not only was he telling the story well, but, cognisant of Chambers’s feelings on the subject, he had shown incredible restraint in not resorting to the intensifier ‘fucking’ fifteen times at least.

‘So I finally get the car turned round and I’m shouting at him, “Don’t shoot! Stop ruddy shooting!” And the kids have all run off, wailing and screaming and diving for cover, and I drive back up the road as fast as I can, and then when we get back to that first signpost, by the main road, there’s something going on.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Wait for this,’ said Chambers, raising an eyebrow.

‘For a minute I think it’s a different place. ’Coz earlier, there was just this signpost, right? But now there’s this scene, with one of them AA Land Rovers sitting there, and a bloke in uniform laying on the grass by the side of the road, covered in glass and blood, and a van driving off in the direction of the town!’

‘Oh, my God, that was Officer Andy,’ gasped Mrs Groynes. ‘So you were there, Nicky?’

‘Yeah. Well, I wish I hadn’t of been.’

‘What sort of van was it?’

‘A small blue one, I don’t know. I only saw it for a fuck—’ He stopped and corrected himself. ‘I mean I only saw it for a blinking second!’ Nicky was quite distressed. For a young man who had volunteered for a life of violence in the pay of a notorious hard man, it was interesting how shaken he was by this encounter with a dead body. It was also plain to see that the instinct to swear was becoming overwhelming.

‘Anyway, I don’t know why, I stop the car. Mr ’Ardcastle’s yelling at me to keep going, and threatening me with the gun! But I think I see the bloke move, so I don’t know, I tell ’Ardcastle to shut up, and I get out. And what do you know, the bloke isn’t quite dead.’

Nicky had been speaking with his head down. Now he raised it and found that his audience was agog.

‘So I says to him, “Who done this, mate?” And he puts a hand up, and I leans in close and he whispers in my ear.’

‘And what does he say, dear?’

‘Ugh!’ Nicky’s entire body gave way to a massive spasm. ‘That’s the point, ain’t it? He don’t say nothing. He fucking sings.’

‘What? No.’

Nicky looked at Chambers. ‘Sorry I said fucking, sir. It slipped out.’

‘That’s all right, Nicky,’ said Chambers, magnanimously. ‘Tell her about the singing.’

‘Well, it was just faint, like, but it was dead creepy. It’s been giving me nightmares, I tell you.’

‘What did he sing?’ asked Mrs G.

‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can, boy,’ said Chambers, patting Nicky on the back. ‘Just one more time. Go on. Tell her like you told me.’

So Nicky took a deep breath and sang Officer Andy’s last words for Mrs Groynes, complete with racking gasps and simulated death rattle. At the end, a shudder went through all three persons present.

‘So I says, “You need to explain that a bit, mate” – but all the light’s gone out of his eyes, so what can I do? I jump back in the car and drive here as fast as I fuck—’ He stopped. ‘I mean, as fast as I can.’

There was a thoughtful silence. Nicky looked for guidance to Chambers, who waved at him to sit down.

‘What do you make of that, then?’ said Chambers.

‘Good gawd,’ said Mrs G.

‘The point is, Pal, my boy was never there.’

‘Oh, that’s understood, Terry.’

‘Nicky arrived here with the bloke’s blood on him.’

‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’

‘So if the police get any reports of gunfire in some country village …?’

‘I get it. Don’t worry, dear. I can handle all that, piece of cake.’ She turned to Nicky. ‘But as for this swan-song, what the bleeding hell am I supposed to do with that?’

At the offices of the Brighton Evening Argus, young Ben Oliver knocked on the editor’s door.

‘What?’ was the shouted response. But when the reporter put his head in, his boss said, warmly, ‘Ah, you, good. Come in, then, lad.’

Fred Ackerley, who hailed originally from Yorkshire, was a hardened newspaperman who had made a considerable mistake in assuming the editorship of a paper in the balmy south of England. It was not the most comfortable fit. Ackerley loathed the namby-pamby donkey shows and la-di-da celebrities-outside-nightclubs stuff: it was no accident that his favourite film was Billy Wilder’s gritty and cynical journalism drama Ace in the Hole.

But despite his open contempt for the town whose paper he was running, and for most of his own staff, Ackerley found he was daring to put faith in young Ben Oliver, who seemed to have good instincts, and whose most outstanding quality was not taking no for an answer. Oliver had managed to wrest a statement from Inspector Steine. He had also written the front-page story and got the angle right first go: that the murder victims seemed to have been randomly targeted; that the killer might strike again at any minute; and that everyone in Brighton should live in mortal fear of the innocent-looking milk bottles in their own larders and refrigerators, or risk expiring in a pool of blood, milk and shattered glass.

‘Good stuff, Oliver,’ the editor said, happily holding up the front page. ‘Is Brighton the new milk-bottle murder capital of Great Britain? Bloody fantastic. And the wife wonders why I don’t retire and keep whippets. How’s that police source of yours, then? Constable Twit-twat.’

‘Twitten, sir. He’s proving difficult to get hold of today. But I wouldn’t call him a source. When we worked together last month, I’d say Twitten used us quite as much as we used him.’

‘Ah, but we doubled our sales, lad.’

‘Well, that’s true. Anyway, the thing I wanted to talk to you about, sir, is Inspector Steine.’

‘Steine? What about him?’

‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while.’ Oliver took a deep breath. ‘I’d like the paper to run a campaign.’

‘To say what?’

‘To say Steine Must Go, of course.’

His attention caught, Ackerley folded his arms. ‘I’m listening.’

‘It seems to me that these murders provide us with a perfect opportunity, you see, because if the Brighton Police can’t even solve a crime committed with a milk bottle—’

Ackerley waved at him to stop. ‘Hang on, lad; hold your horses. On what grounds must Steine go? I don’t understand. Steine’s a very well-loved public figure.’

‘Oh.’ Oliver realised he had started in the wrong place. ‘Sorry, sir, I thought everyone knew. The thing is, he’s completely useless as a policeman.’

‘Is he? Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘But doesn’t he win awards? He was even on What’s Your Game? last night. Mrs Ackerley and I agreed he was a bloody breath of fresh air. And Mrs Ackerley used to be lady president of the Hebden Bridge Frank Muir Appreciation Society.’

‘Inspector Steine has a lot of luck, sir. It’s hard to explain, but things just tend to turn out well for him. Like the Middle Street Massacre, for example. I mean, that was a terrible piece of policing, but it was the blasted making of him!’

The editor narrowed his eyes. ‘Has he pissed you off in some way?’

‘This isn’t personal, sir.’

Ackerley chuckled. He reached into his desk drawer for a packet of cigarettes. ‘Believe me, it wouldn’t bother me if it was. A personal vendetta can be a beautiful thing in our line of business.’

‘No, really, it’s not personal, although I have to admit it does annoy me that someone so ineffectual is held in such high regard. But I’m not the only person who’s thinking this way.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I happen to know that there’s a major reassessment of the Middle Street Massacre being written right this minute by one of Fleet Street’s top crime reporters, Clive Hoskisson of the Mirror, sir. It’s going to appear in his next book. So I would propose that we at the Argus get in first, linking it to the inspector’s inevitable failure in the milk-bottle case, and make it clear that on the day of the Massacre, Steine could have caught and brought to justice forty-five villains, and instead he took his men for an ice cream.

‘As a direct result of this negligence – and it was negligence – forty-five men killed each other. And yet, instead of being called to account, Inspector Steine got credit for supposedly clearing up local crime!’

‘So you want the Argus to tell its readers that the Middle Street Massacre was – what? A disgraceful bloodbath?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’ll think about it. He’s a popular man, lad. That film of The Middle Street Massacre is still playing somewhere every week in this town. But on the other hand, well, I don’t like the sound of that Hoskisson fella leaving us to follow in his wake like a bunch of ninnies.’

Oliver waited while his editor fully absorbed the obnoxious idea of a despised Fleet Street newspaper breaking the story. No one in journalism wanted to look like a ninny.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s see how this milk-bottle investigation works out. If Steine doesn’t get results soon, well …’ Ackerley trailed off, eyes narrowed, as he weighed up the various pros and cons, newspaper-wise, of destroying Inspector Steine’s reputation.

‘You were saying, sir?’

‘What? Sorry, lad. I was just picturing the front page. The Argus says, Steine Must Go: Brighton Police a Laughing Stock for Too Long. Oh, yes, all right. If they don’t get results on these murders soon, lad, let’s do it.’

‘Really, Mr Ackerley?’

‘Yes, really. Let’s crucify the ineffectual bastard.’

Back at the station, at 2 p.m., Twitten excitedly turned the pages of the ‘Diana’ scrapbook for the umpteenth time. He was alone. Brunswick had headed back to the ice rink to pin down Buster Bond, and Steine had gone to Luigi’s to reassure himself about the proper, non-violent applications of the ice-cream scoop, and perform his final taste test. It occurred to Twitten that the inspector’s lack of proportion in regard to the Knickerbocker Glory competition was both a help and a hindrance where the current investigations were concerned.

Susan Turner, meanwhile, had left at the same time as Brunswick, ostensibly to catch a train back to London, but actually with less fixed intentions. Back in London was a modest room in Camden with net curtains and a small scarlet geranium on the windowsill. In Brighton there was life, noise, a sea breeze wafting heady smells, and an exciting homicide case whose every detail she had just been privy to.

‘Please don’t mention to anyone what you heard here today, Miss Turner,’ Twitten had said to her as she left.

‘I was very glad to help, Constable.’

Twitten noticed she was pink in the face as she said this, but couldn’t account for it. Perhaps she was coming down with a summer chill.

‘I was very glad,’ she added, ‘to help you.’

Brunswick pulled a conspiratorial face at Twitten, who ignored it. ‘Well, goodbye, Miss Turner,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘There’s bally well mountains of stuff to do.’

Outside, Brunswick had said goodbye to her as well, but added in a kindly way, ‘It’s not a good idea to pin any romantic hopes on young Twitten, miss. It’s like water off a duck’s back with him.’ And then, having dropped this bombshell, he’d struck off for the Sports Stadium, with Susan trailing a few yards behind. As far as he was concerned, she’d gone back to the railway station, and then home.

In West Street, she’d just lost sight of Brunswick in the crowds when something happened: a man, appearing out of nowhere, thrust a ticket to the matinée of the ice show into her hand.

‘What’s this?’ she said, puzzled. ‘It’s not mine, I’m afraid. Is it yours?’

‘You can have this if you want it, love,’ the man said. ‘I just heard Buster Bond’s not skating today, and he’s the only reason I came.’

‘Are you sure? Can I pay you?’

‘No, dear. Forget it. Have a nice time.’

Normally, she would have refused, but this was not a normal day. There was something in the air, she felt. As if her life was changing; had already changed, in fact. So she accepted the ticket graciously and joined the queue to go inside.

Knowing none of this, Twitten was glad to be alone with his thoughts at last. It was true that he and Brunswick had made laudable headway with the case, but was it possible things had progressed too quickly? Had he been too hasty in assuming this beauty-contest connection? The discovery of Officer Andy’s dangerous hobby of stalking big-name criminals opened up so many other possibilities; likewise the death threat to Cedric Carbody should not be dismissed.

And at the heart of the case was the method. Hadn’t Mrs Groynes advised him, quite forcibly, on a previous occasion that it was a waste of time working out motives if the method didn’t make sense? A London agent with famous clients might have a serious reason to silence all three of these victims, but why would he kill them with milk bottles?

He was just thinking about all this – and staring blindly at an image of the Milk Girl – when Mrs Groynes came in. She looked so different in her smart pink costume that he physically started in his chair.

‘Only me, dear!’ she laughed. ‘I was just out having a tiddley at the milk bar, and I thought, I know, I’ll see if I can be of any help to that young constable of mine! So how goes the case, then, dear? And what the bleeding hell is all this toot cluttering up the place?’ She indicated the heaps of boxes.

‘They came from Officer Andy’s sister’s.’

‘Well, you’ve done her a favour, that’s for sure. She’ll be dancing a jig to be rid of these.’

Then she noticed something else: telltale cups and saucers left around on the desks.

‘Here, have you been interfering with my teapot?’

‘No, of course not, Mrs G. The girl from the BBC made us all a cup. It wasn’t nearly as good as yours.’

Placated, Mrs G sat down and picked up a scrapbook from the file. Then she set it aside. It was obvious she had come here to tell him something.

‘Look, dear. This is awkward. I’ve got some information for you, but the trouble is, you can’t tell anyone where you got it. And I’d get into boiling hot water myself, come to that, if anyone knew I’d told you. So, what do you think?’

‘Does this information concern the murders?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘No, dear, it concerns who’s got his hand up Sooty’s backside. Of course it’s about the bleeding murders!’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, Mrs G. I just wanted to be clear. So I’m assuming this information comes from a criminal?’

‘Yes. And for a lot of reasons he can’t come forward.’ She considered. ‘A lot of reasons.’

‘Oh, lumme. But he’s not the killer?’

‘No.’

‘Would this information help me identify the killer?’

‘Not exactly. It’s not quite as good as that. Ooh, and I ought to mention there’s a bit of a quid pro quo attached.’ She indicated how small the quid pro quo would be by putting thumb and finger very close together. ‘Just a tiny bit. Like that?’

‘Oh, Mrs G!’ Twitten was shocked. ‘You know I can’t agree to that.’

‘Not if it helps you solve the case and possibly prevent another murder?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you’re a fool to yourself.’

‘So be it, then. But in any case, Mrs G, I’ve got a very good working thesis already, which the sergeant and I are going to follow up as soon as he gets back from the Ice Circus. Have you heard of Tony Sayle? He’s a London theatrical agent and impresario, who’d been harassed by Barbara Ashley for his part in rigging beauty contests. And by all accounts, he’s a man who’s very hard to stand up to.’

‘And you really think this poofy agent is the sort to kill people with milk bottles?’

Aside from the gratuitous ‘poofy’, this question went straight to the heart of Twitten’s own doubts, but he hardly had time to answer before there was a knock at the door, and a small man in a white suit came in. He had a neat moustache and wore a Panama hat, and also carried a cane. He looked, for all the world, like Hercule Poirot, but smaller.

‘Hello, we’ve never met,’ he said, in a high voice, extending a hand to Twitten, and ignoring Mrs G. ‘I’m Tony Sayle, Cedric Carbody’s agent, and I demand to know what you’re doing to find his killer. And I warn you, if you don’t tell me everything at once, I’ll scream.’

He presented such a freakish figure that Mrs Groynes let out an involuntary ‘Ooh-er’ and started laughing. ‘I’ll leave you to it, dears,’ she said, collecting up the cups and saucers and piling them on a tray.

Meanwhile, the tiny Mr Sayle drew a large white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and used it to flick dust from a chair before sitting down.

Half an hour later, Twitten’s working thesis was in ruins, yet when Mrs Groynes came back with the washing-up done, he seemed strangely relieved.

‘He obviously didn’t do it, Mrs G.’

Her eyes twinkled. ‘You think not?’

‘I mean, he obviously didn’t club anyone to death personally. He couldn’t bally reach! But I don’t think he had any motive, after all. Barbara Ashley wasn’t the only person whining about unfairness in the beauty contests; he says he’s got box after box of letters from disgruntled losers.

‘On top of that, the prize money is negligible, apparently – did you know the winners get two guineas at most, and a fashionable swimsuit alone can cost three pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence? He does represent Miss Jackson, but only because she pretends to be his girlfriend. But the main thing is, he loses a fortune with Cedric Carbody’s death. He was on a twenty-five per cent cut! And Mr Carbody had just been signed up to appear in a new programme on ITV. Mr Sayle was planning to back a West End show with the proceeds and put Miss Jackson in it.’

‘You don’t seem too upset, dear,’ she observed, ‘that your working whatsit has collapsed.’

‘No.’ This was odd, but true. ‘I’ll just have to bally well start again, I suppose. Sergeant Brunswick will be disappointed, though. The inspector said “Well done” to us both earlier and the sergeant nearly broke down in tears.’

‘Well, if you want my advice, stop a bit to think about it first this time. About the bleeding method.’

Twitten shrugged. That was exactly what he’d been trying to do. ‘But it’s hard to read anything into a method that no one’s ever done before,’ he said. ‘As far as precedent goes, there isn’t one. Ergo, anyone could have done this.’

‘No,’ said Mrs G, firmly. ‘Not anyone. Ergo the bleeding opposite, dear. This method speaks volumes about the person who did it.’

‘Does it?’

‘Of course. It eliminates nearly everybody! I mean, for a start you can rule out anyone who’s got a smidgen of power or influence. They’re all out.’

‘Are they?’

‘Yes! Most of them have never even touched a milk bottle! Then you can rule out anyone who’s ever committed violence before, as well. This is someone who thinks of himself as a nobody – in fact, you might well be looking for a woman, dear; that would fit. Women kill their husbands all the time with rolling pins and frying pans, and people laugh. But think about it. A rolling pin or a frying pan is, I grant you, just the blunt instrument a woman is likely to have convenient to hand. But when she uses it to kill, dear – when she lashes out with it – it feels right to her, do you see? She hates that frying pan as much as she hates that hubby. I bet if you stepped in and gave her a gun or a crossbow instead, she’d be much less likely to use it.’

Twitten had to admit this made a lot of sense, although he flinched at how blithely Mrs G had reached for the idea of a crossbow.

‘So who would hate bottles of milk that much, Mrs G?’

‘Ah, that’s for you to find out. I can’t be doing everything for you, can I? I’ve got things of my own to do. But look, this information I mentioned. I’m sorry, dear, I do have to tell you. But obviously you can’t tell anyone it came from me.’

‘Listen, Mrs G—’

‘No, I’ve made my mind up. Forget about the quid pro quo.’

‘No, wait—’

‘Shhh, dear. So it involves a van seen driving away from the scene of Officer Andy’s killing. A small blue van.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘I’ve already explained. I can’t tell you.’

‘But—’

‘But listen, dear. This person who saw the van, he also heard Officer Andy’s bleeding last words. He said to Andy, “Who done this, mate?” And do you know what Andy did, with his dying breath? He sang!’

‘He sang? Oh, please stop. Unless you can tell me who told you this—’

‘He sang the first line of a popular song, dear, and then he croaked. And what do you think the song was?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Twitten. ‘Please don’t tell me.’

‘Oh.’ She grimaced. ‘If you say so, dear. My lips are sealed. I’ll be like Dad and keep Mum, how’s that?’

This was an agonising situation. It might be a very important clue. But if it came from a criminal who would never agree to testify, courtesy of Mrs Groynes who would never admit she had passed it on, what bally use was it?

But on the other hand, how could Twitten resist?

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Tell me!’

‘Good decision, dear.’ Mrs Groynes leaned forward and attempted – in muted tones – the same ghastly, last-gasp impersonation she’d heard from young Nicky. ‘“If you [cough, wheeze] were the only [wobbly voice] girl in the world; and I [groan of agony] were … the only … boy … [trailing off, silence]”.’

She leaned back in triumph, her arms folded. ‘How about that, then? And don’t tell me you aren’t bleeding intrigued by that, dear, because who in the world wouldn’t be?’