Ten

Sunday night

By arrangement, Sergeant Brunswick arrived at the House of Hanover Milk Bar at 10 p.m., and looked about for Twitten. No one there. Was he the first? Had Twitten forgotten to come? Brunswick’s spirits lifted at the thought.

‘Over here, sir!’ came Twitten’s voice.

Brunswick huffed. ‘Where? I can’t see you.’

‘The Punch & Judy booth, sir.’

Brunswick turned to see the red-and-white striped canvas tent used every day by Ventriloquist Vince. It looked strange silhouetted against the darkly glinting sea, its colours drained; it was weird, especially, to look at it and hear no terrifyingly aggressive shouting from a Greek-accented man with a swazzle in his mouth. Vince’s show was as essential to the cheerful family Brighton seafront experience as the cockle stalls, the ice creams and the deck-chairs. No day was complete without the Whack! Whack! Whack! of Punch’s stick against the head of his puppet-wife, with accompanying X-rated cries of ‘I fucking kill you Judy, you brass! I not fucking joking!’ and ‘Help! Help! I dying! I dead, mate. Punch, you bastard, look what you do, I fucking dead!’ But now, in the dark, all was quiet. The lifeless Punch & Judy theatre just rustled in the breeze, and Sergeant Brunswick shuddered.

‘Inside the tent, do you mean, son?’ he called, uncertain, hoping the answer was no.

‘Yes, sir! Inside the tent. Although I think Mr Vince prefers the word “booth”, doesn’t he, sir? Hold on, sir.’ There was a pause, and a scuffling noise, and then Twitten’s face (with helmet) appeared in the Punch & Judy performance space. ‘Here I am. I’m standing on a little stool.’

Brunswick crunched his way across the shingle, sighing. Despite his provident nap this afternoon, he still felt unprepared for an all-night session with Twitten. In fact, he was feeling pretty low. In the past couple of days, despite all the dashing about, he’d had a surprising amount of time to reflect on matters thrown up by the case. And in particular, it was the image of Officer Andy’s bedroom-cum-crime-archive that dominated his mind’s eye. He kept remembering Miss Inman opening the door, saying, ‘I suppose you ought to see this.’ And then those piles of scrapbooks in that darkened room; the smell of newsprint and fish-glue; the sheer unpleasant ghoulishness of it all.

Both he and Twitten had gasped aloud when they first saw inside the room. But while Twitten had rejoiced in the scrapbooks as a fabulous source of potential clues, the whole thing had depressed the hell out of Brunswick.

‘Why?’ he kept asking himself. Here was an AA patrolman who led a helpful and fulfilling life, rescuing stranded motorists. His was a simple, heroic existence that entailed, among other things, driving a beautiful brand-new Land Rover. His relationship with the motoring public was entirely enviable: when Officer Andy arrived at the scene, people literally cried with relief; when he left, they said, ‘Our hero!’ This man was, therefore, in all important respects, the opposite of a policeman, and had no need whatsoever to contaminate his life with the horrors of crime. But in his spare time, what did he do? He not only compiled private case files, but took the train to London and trailed after dangerous villains.

When you are a policeman, it’s important to believe you are shielding the rest of the world from the need to know about evil and crime. When you find out that someone like Officer Andy actually wants to know this stuff – well, what’s the point of it all? What is the flaming point?

‘I just thought it was a good idea, sir,’ Twitten continued, as the sergeant approached. ‘I asked Mr Vince if we could use his Punch & Judy theatre for the stake-out tonight, and at first he swore a lot – and I mean it was truly bally shocking how much he swore. There were a couple of words I’ve honestly never heard in my life. But then I showed him a ten-shilling note and it was like a miracle, he completely changed his mind. The thing is, sir, it gives a very good view of the milk bar through the little eyeholes, and it will also protect us from the wind. The only trouble is, it’s quite dark and stuffy in here and there’s a lot less room than I expected.’

‘How do I get in?’

‘Round the back, sir.’

Brunswick opened the flap at the back of the booth, and ducked inside. In the gloom, he could make out – aside from Twitten – two low stools, some binoculars and a holdall. Then the flap closed, and all was blackness.

‘What’s in the bag?’ he said, as he settled himself on one of the stools, hugging his raincoat around him.

‘Well, it’s quite good news, sir. There’s a flask of tea and a packet of ham sandwiches, and two big slices of Victoria sponge wrapped in a tea towel. Mrs Thorpe insisted I bring it all. She was very concerned about us both being out all night, but I have to say, sir, she was particularly concerned about you.’

‘Really?’ said Brunswick. ‘Why me?’

‘Well, I don’t fully understand the reason, sir, but she talks about you quite a lot.’

Brunswick tried to picture Mrs Thorpe. What mainly came to mind was the elegance of her Clifton Terrace house, and its panoramic view.

‘You seem to have made a very good impression on her while investigating the Braithwaite killing, sir.’

‘Oh.’ This was nice to know.

‘She baked the Victoria sponge herself, and she said, Tell your lovely Sergeant Brunswick I wouldn’t want him to go hungry.’

‘Blimey, did she?’

‘Yes, sir. Her exact words.’

‘She said lovely?’

‘Oh, yes. And not for the first time.’

‘I’ve only met her twice!’

‘I know.’

‘Well, thanks, Twitten. That’s really cheered me up.’

‘Oh, good. And I’m sure the cake will be terrific.’ Twitten bit his lip. He felt the need to add something. ‘But it does make me wonder, sir.’

‘Wonder what?’

‘Well … it’s a bit awkward. But since Mrs Thorpe obviously doesn’t stand a chance of your returning her feelings, would you like me to explain to her that you’re really only interested in younger and brassier women, so she shouldn’t waste her time?’

‘What?’ Brunswick was horrified. ‘No, of course not. And what are you talking about, brassy? For God’s sake, Twitten, what’s wrong with you?’

In the darkness, Twitten pulled a face. ‘But you do prefer younger women, sir. I mean, it’s bally obvious. You went quite peculiar at the beauty contest last night, and none of the contestants was older than twenty-one.’

‘Yes, I know. But—’

‘And Maisie on the seafront is only nineteen.’

‘Yes.’

‘And as for Barbara Ashley—’

‘Look, just don’t say that to Mrs flaming Thorpe, all right? Just say thank you for the sandwiches and the Victoria sponge!’

It was strange, being in the dark like this. You would think, by now, that their eyes would have adapted, but in fact they could make out virtually nothing. Both of them listened intently for a while, as fast footsteps approached the milk bar, and then passed by.

‘What are we expecting to happen, Twitten?’

‘To be honest, I’ve no idea, sir. Whoever is conducting this campaign against the milk bar has vandalised the place in most of the usual ways already. Mr Shapiro told me they had to throw away all the ice cream today because of the threat of ground glass! I suppose the worst case would be someone setting the building on fire. But I still don’t believe the attacks are about genuine opposition to the business, sir. I think someone wants an excessive police presence here tomorrow afternoon just to ensure that we’re not somewhere else.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that, but the inspector has stepped up the numbers again.’

‘Has he? Crikey. He keeps doing that.’

‘I heard at the station. He telephoned in this afternoon. He’s got virtually every copper in Brighton protecting the milk bar’s grand opening now.’

Twitten sighed. ‘Then whoever is behind this, their fiendish bally plan has bally worked.’

It occurred to him that now was the moment to tell the sergeant everything he’d learned today concerning the case, and the death of Diana. He should perhaps also tell the sergeant about what the Argus was planning. On top of which, he needed urgently to ascertain whether Brunswick had questioned Graham Goodyear. But the more he shared this tiny blind space with the sergeant, trying to talk normally, the more he choked on the one subject he really wanted to discuss with him.

‘Sir,’ he said. ‘There’s something I need to—’

Brunswick interrupted him. ‘Here, have you still got your helmet on?’

Twitten put a hand to his head to make sure. ‘Yes, sir. Why? I’m on duty, sir.’

‘Well, take it off, son. If you like.’

‘Oh, thank you, sir.’

Twitten removed the helmet and stowed it under his stool, and again, they sat in silence, despite having so much to talk about. Obviously, they should be planning what to do in the event of a dastardly saboteur turning up with a gallon of paraffin and a box of Swan Vestas. Obviously, they should be discussing the progress of their milk-bottle-murder investigations. But there was something so unusual about sitting here in the pitch dark, with a light sea breeze rustling the canvas, and the faint noise of fairgrounds and seafront traffic, and a jazz quartet on the West Pier, and above all the promise of delicious ham sandwiches, that Twitten decided it was now or never.

‘Sir,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid there’s something I need to talk to you about. Something personal.’

‘Really? Here, is it about that Milk Girl of yours? I could tell she liked you, son. The way she couldn’t stop talking! Peregrine this; Peregrine that. She’s mad about you, if you ask me. But in my view, you’d be better off with that Susan Turner girl; the cup of tea she made us was flaming out of this world.’

‘I agree, sir. Hard to put one’s finger on it, but that tea was bally outstanding. But it’s nothing like that, sir. It’s about – well, it’s about the police canteen.’

‘Ah.’ Brunswick slumped on his stool. What could he say? He had known this moment would come.

‘Yes. I found out, you see.’

‘Ah, so you’ve found out about …?’

‘About its bally existence, sir, yes.’

‘Ah.’

‘The thing is, sir, I saw you coming out of the building this morning, talking about kippers with a fellow officer, and I put two and two together.’

‘Oh. Well, look—’

‘Up until then, I didn’t know there was a police canteen, you see –’

‘No, I suppose you—’

‘– because you never mentioned it, sir. And of course there’s no sign on the building, but no one else mentioned it, either, not anyone, not even Mrs Groynes, so presumably not telling me was a sort of station joke that I was the unconscious butt of, and everyone’s been laughing at me for nearly two months, ever since I arrived.’

‘Right. Well, give me a chance here—’

‘For nearly two months, sir.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve been bringing sandwiches!’

‘I know.’

Twitten waited for Brunswick to expand on his replies, but he didn’t. The darkness between them remained impenetrable.

‘The thing is, sir, I’m very hurt. I’ve been thinking about it all day. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve also made great strides towards identifying the Milk Bottle Murderer, and found out quite a few other significant things, such as that the over-promotion of milk is currently on such a preposterous scale it should be challenged in Parliament, especially now that it’s actually killed someone, but all day I’ve been turning it over in my mind, you see, sir – turning over in my mind the simple, undeniable fact that you just don’t like me, sir.’

‘What? You can’t—’

‘It’s all right, sir. It’s an inescapable inference, and we all have to face up to inescapable inferences when they present themselves. And, luckily, I have a logical mind. I ask myself why you would keep such basic information from me, when it’s the sort of thing you would normally tell a new recruit on their first day. I mean, casting your mind back to your own first day, sir, I expect someone took you to the canteen at lunchtime, didn’t they, and bought you a cup of tea and showed you the ropes? And it was a bit intimidating to go there on your own at first, but then it quickly helped you feel that you belonged. As I say, it’s a sort of automatic protective instinct to make a new person feel more at home.’

Twitten paused. He was aware he had the sergeant’s full attention. ‘So the logical deduction of your not doing that in my case, sir, is that you didn’t like me from the start, and never grew to like me subsequently, and you’d rather I didn’t feel like I belong, because then it would be more likely I would leave.’

‘Look, son,’ said Brunswick – but then stopped. He really had no excuses.

‘I don’t expect you to apologise, sir, but I felt you should know that I know – if you see what I mean. I had been thinking, after our work together yesterday, that we made a bally good team despite our personality and background differences, but now I know about your keeping the canteen a secret all this time, I realise I’m just not the sort of man you want as your constable. And I do understand that. It’s been painful for me, but giving it some thought, I realise you would be much happier with a constable who was less well educated, or showed less initiative, and was from your own social class, or – if I may say so, sir – even lower.’

Brunswick didn’t know what to say. How he wished the conversation had carried on being about Susan Turner’s sensational cups of tea.

‘I went to see your auntie this afternoon, sir.’

‘What?’

‘I said, I went to see your auntie, sir.’

‘At the flat? But I was … How dare you do that? Now look—’

‘You were asleep in your room, sir. I’m sorry. We made sure not to disturb you. But I just wanted to find out more about you, and identify where in your past this hostility towards me might spring from. Your aunt very kindly told me about all you did in the war, which sounds jolly harrowing, sir; and how you lost your parents when you were young; and how good you were at school.’

‘You had no right to talk to my auntie, Twitten. And as for the death of my parents—’

‘I suppose not, sir, but I felt I had to get to the bottom of a few things. In particular, I thought it would be helpful if I could explain this irrational compulsion of yours to go undercover, sir, which puts you in danger and usually doesn’t achieve very much, and also angers Inspector Steine and often results in your being shot in the leg. I had a theory about your having such extremely low self-worth that you actually, deep down, hope to be killed.’

‘Low self-worth? What are you flaming talking about? I can’t believe this!’

‘The technical psychological term is low self-esteem, sir. But I didn’t want to burden you with it since it’s not really in common parlance.’

‘Common what?’

‘But the point is I was right, sir! Once your auntie told me how your parents left you in a children’s home and went to live in Worthing without you, and then died later on – well, then the whole death-wish thing made a lot of sense.’

Brunswick’s head was spinning. ‘They what?’ he said. ‘They went to Worthing? That’s all wrong, Twitten. They died in a rail accident.’

‘I mean, it’s bad enough being orphaned, but such abandonment – it’s virtually textbook, sir! And it perfectly explains your general tendency to self-sabotage, such as – well, case in point, such as your futile romantic interest in younger women.’

‘Oh, shut up, now! Shut up about that.’

‘The thing is, sir, such beautiful girls are bound to reject you, aren’t they? But that’s what you want – don’t you see, sir? Because rejection is what you think you deserve!’

Twitten paused. He remembered now that Brunswick’s auntie had whispered, I know you want to help, dear, but whatever you do, don’t tell Jim that his parents left him. He knows they’re dead; he doesn’t need to know they ran off. But it was too late now; and it had been far too important a fact to omit. And after all, it’s always better to know the truth, surely?

‘But I notice it’s me doing all the talking, sir, which is hardly fair when I’m asking you to explain why you don’t like me. Would a lovely ham sandwich and a cup of tea from the flask help things along? Sir? Sir? Where are you going, sir?’

In one swift movement, Brunswick got up, opened the flap and went outside. This was more than he could stand – and more than he should be expected to stand. Low self-esteem? His own social class, or even lower? His mum and dad had left him? Hands thrust in his raincoat pockets, he bowed his head in misery and anger, and marched towards the sea. How many times, all through his life, had he revisited the moment of that door shutting, and him calling, ‘Mummy! Come back, Mummy!’ – and his auntie assuring him, every time, that it wasn’t a proper memory; it had never happened? But he knew what he had heard. We’ll be all right now, Doris, without the kid. That’s what he’d heard his dad whisper outside the door. He had not imagined it. It was true.

‘Sir?’ called Twitten, lifting the flap and peering out. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ But Brunswick was nowhere to be seen.

Pouring the tea into a couple of cups (not easy), Twitten did wonder briefly if he had spoken out of turn. But on the other hand, how often was there a chance like this in life for a proper heart-to-heart? The sergeant was a patently unhappy man, whose limited understanding meant he would never fathom the source of his misery without this sort of expert intervention. What Twitten had just explained to him might take years to emerge in weekly psychoanalysis: looked at purely economically, the sergeant had just been saved a fortune. ‘He’ll thank me for this eventually,’ Twitten said to himself. ‘When he comes back, he’ll definitely thank me.’

But Brunswick didn’t come back. An hour passed, and the traffic and jazz-band noises grew fainter. The wind dropped. Seconds ticked by. Dogs barked. Twitten drank both the cups of tea, but resisted the ham sandwiches for as long as possible, applying his brain to various important unresolved questions, such as why Graham Goodyear would have wanted to kill those three people; what to do about Ben Oliver’s upcoming article condemning Inspector Steine’s role in the Middle Street Massacre; what Mrs Groynes was up to (because she was usually up to something); and whether talking so frankly to Sergeant Brunswick about his deepest formative emotional injury had been entirely motivated by a dispassionate desire to help.

At half-past twelve, Twitten consumed half the ham sandwiches. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t make him feel any better about himself. Crikey, what had he done? He had said unforgivable things to Sergeant Brunswick just to get his own back! And at one o’clock, when Brunswick had still not returned, Twitten ate the rest of the sandwiches, with a little tear rolling down his cheek.

At two o’clock in the morning, Twitten woke from a light doze to hear a voice outside.

‘Constable, are you in there?’ It was Mrs Groynes.

‘Yes! Yes, I am!’ He was so pleased to hear her voice, he nearly burst into tears.

‘Can I come in, dear?’

‘Oh, please do, Mrs G. Come round the back.’

As she entered, it was hard to resist the urge to jump up and hug her – which was odd, of course, given who she really was, and what she was capable of.

‘Now, what on earth’s happened here?’ she said. ‘I thought the sergeant was supposed to be here with you, guarding this place, but he was in the bar at the Metropole earlier, looking like he’d seen a ghost, poor man, and ordering French brandies three at a time.’

‘Oh, crikey. Is he all right now?’

‘Search me. He left. But what happened here? Did you two have an argy-bargy?’

So Twitten told her what had been said between himself and Sergeant Brunswick at the start of the evening. He hoped, throughout his report, that she would make an effort to reassure him. But from her horrified exclamations of ‘Oh, no!’ and ‘You didn’t!’ and ‘The poor, poor sergeant!’ it was all too clear what she thought about it.

‘Well, one thing’s for certain, dear. He’ll never forgive you for saying all that.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘What the bleeding hell were you thinking?’

‘I don’t know. At the time, I was so pleased that I’d diagnosed what was wrong with him, psychologically speaking, that I didn’t stop to consider how the information, after a lifetime of comforting denial, might come as a shock. But now I keep thinking, what if I was just paying him back for hurting my feelings over the matter of the canteen?’

Twitten wanted her to reassure him on this point, but she didn’t. Instead, she settled on her stool, shaking her head. ‘A bit tight-fitting in here, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Twitten, miserably.

‘Not much air, neither.’

‘It’s horrible. I wish I’d never thought of it.’

‘Look. Do you want to know what I think?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Well, for a start, you’re not wrong about the sergeant wishing you were nothing like you are, dear. That was very perceptive of you.’

‘Thank you.’

She laughed. ‘I mean, bleeding hell, let’s face it. No one wants an arrogant little pipsqueak like you working under them, do they?’

Twitten swallowed. ‘No, I suppose not.’

‘So, yes, the sergeant would have loved to have some impressionable lad working with him – and he’d have taken that impressionable lad straight to the police canteen and bought him a veal cutlet and spotted dick on his first day, no question. And he is sad and moody and self-sabotaging, as you put it. You’ve got that absolutely right.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Those girls who let him go near them are just having a laugh.’

‘I know.’

‘But what about putting the shoe on the other foot, dear? What about you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if you’re not his ideal constable, he’s not your ideal sergeant either, is he? And you make that plain enough. You act on your own initiative all the time, dear. I mean, personally, I enjoy watching your clever-clogs brain go through the motions. I enjoy our little chats. But the way you take no notice of the chain of command at that station is shocking, dear. It is just shocking. If you worked for me and behaved like that, you’d already be vanished, dear, encased in concrete with just a little bit of hair sprouting out the top.’

‘Ngh,’ winced Twitten.

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘Oh, crikey, Mrs G. I believe you.’

‘But the irony is,’ she continued, ‘you’re actually very lucky to have Sergeant Brunswick.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. He’s an experienced policeman, and a good man, with a heart of gold. But when it comes to investigations he’s always on the back foot, isn’t he, thanks to your constantly going off following that so-called bleeding initiative of yours.’

Twitten was stung. ‘We’d get nowhere if it wasn’t for my so-called bleeding initiative, Mrs G.’

‘Ah, well. You see? That’s what you really believe. But what if you’re wrong, dear? What if your faith in your initiative is actually the problem? What if it gets in the way of seeing things clearly – the way Sergeant Brunswick would see them if he got a ruddy chance?’

Twitten was glad it was too dark for him to see her face. He was having an appalling night.

‘Do you think I should leave the police, Mrs G?’ he said, quietly.

‘No, dear! Of course not.’

Twitten let out a strangled snivelling noise. ‘No one likes me!’ he wailed.

‘Oh, where are you? Come here.’ She reached out and found him, and put an arm around his shoulders, and rocked him gently while he composed himself. ‘I like you, dear. I told you that when I had you at my mercy, didn’t I? I said, I like you, Constable. And I keep offering to help you, don’t I? I wish I’d helped more with this milk-bottle palaver, but you wouldn’t believe what I’m dealing with right now, dear, elsewhere. It’s been a bleeding nightmare.’ She thought back to the Metropole, where five bodies representing most of the major conurbations of England were now piled in a heap in Room 608, and where Terence Chambers would be awake and sitting very quietly in his own room, moving not a muscle of his face.

A long sniff indicated that Twitten had recovered himself. ‘I’m truly sorry about what I said to the sergeant.’

‘I know.’ She sighed and took her arm away. ‘Better now?’

‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Gosh, what a strange night, Mrs G. May I ask you something?’

‘It depends.’

‘Has it been you drawing all this adverse attention to the milk bar over the past couple of weeks?’

‘Oh, that. Yes, of course.’

‘I knew it!’ As ever, it was nice to be right. ‘Are you planning to burn it down tonight?’

‘Oh, no. I need it to open tomorrow according to plan.’

‘Well, I suppose that makes sense. My guess is that you want all the police here, so they won’t be somewhere else?’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’

‘Right. So Inspector Steine doesn’t have to worry about being the judge of the Knickerbocker Glories?’

‘He’ll have a great day, dear. A special day. You mark my words.’

Twitten sniffed.

‘Oh, blimey, you’re not upset again, dear? Has it just occurred to you that no one’s ever shown you the bleeding locker-room either?’

‘You mean … You mean I’ve got a locker?’ This was too much.

‘Yes, dear.’

‘At the station?’

‘Yes.’

‘Somewhere I can put things I’m not using?’

‘That’s what lockers are for, usually.’

‘I don’t believe it!’ Twitten huffed and shook his head. ‘Look, I’m all right really, Mrs G. It’s just – well, you’re probably right. A bit. I do feel all the police work is up to me. And perhaps I shouldn’t think of myself as the only intelligent policeman in the town. But there’s so much I can’t tell anyone – or I can’t tell anyone except you! For instance, I found out yesterday that the Argus is planning to denounce Inspector Steine, saying the Middle Street Massacre wasn’t a triumph after all, but a débâcle! And I know I should do something to prevent it, but I don’t know what!’

‘Blimey. Do you know when they’re planning this article?’ Mrs Groynes sounded so keenly interested that he could picture the look on her face: the alert, calculating expression she didn’t bother to disguise when she asked at the station things like, ‘So you’re saying those silly bank vaults will be unlocked and unattended at what time exactly?’

‘This week, I imagine. I think Ben Oliver will hang it on the inspector eating Knickerbocker Glories all over town when there’s a dangerous killer on the loose.’

‘So Oliver will be at the grand opening?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s bound to be.’

‘Right. Good.’ She sounded pleased. ‘That’s even better.’

‘Better than what?’

‘You’ll see, dear. Leave this to me. Don’t give it another thought. And meanwhile, I’ve got nowhere else I’d rather be, so why don’t you tell me all about how the investigations are going? Did you find a person with no influence in the world who might be drawn to the milk bottle as a weapon?’

Half an hour later, Mrs Groynes sat back deep in thought. Twitten was relieved. Given how badly the night had gone so far, he’d expected her to poke holes in his logic, but she hadn’t. She seemed to agree that Graham Goodyear was a good suspect – aside from such awkward facts as that people always spoke very highly of him, and that he had no discernible motive.

‘It’s only really the song that points to him, isn’t it?’

‘It is, I’m afraid. And since I can’t tell anyone how I know about Officer Andy’s swan-song, I do need a solid case against Graham, but I don’t know where to start. I just keep trying to imagine myself back in that children’s playground theatre, with Graham singing, and the schoolgirls swooning, and so on. But whenever I ask Pandora Holden to think about it, she finds a way of turning the subject back to her and—’

Twitten stopped. There was a noise outside. Someone was walking on the shingle, apparently in the direction of the Punch & Judy booth. Twitten and Mrs Groynes both held their breath.

‘Twitten?’ said a voice outside. ‘Are you in there?’ It was Inspector Steine.

‘Yes, sir. Just a minute, sir!’ He spoke quietly to Mrs Groynes. ‘Shall I tell him you’re here?’

‘No, dear; I’ll go,’ whispered Mrs G. ‘Keep him talking out the front for as long as you can.’

‘Just a minute, sir!’ called Twitten again.

‘What do you mean, just a minute?’ demanded Steine. ‘Are you undressed in there, Twitten? Are you taking a bath?’

‘No, no, sir. Of course not. It’s just a bit untidy. And I’m afraid I took my helmet off. Also, there’s a flask and a holdall …’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. A holdall? I’m coming in.’

‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Round the back. But if you could just wait a moment …’

‘Nonsense.’

The canvas opened and – rather magically – when Inspector Steine ducked inside, Mrs Groynes had gone.

‘What on earth has been going on here tonight, Twitten? I just had Sergeant Brunswick at my house, very much the worse for wear, handing me his blasted resignation!’

‘I’m afraid the sergeant and I had a rather hurtful heart-to-heart, sir. It was all my fault.’

‘And why does that not surprise me?’

Twitten, seated back on his usual stool, tried to compose himself and concentrate on talking to the inspector. But what with the lack of sleep, and the perpetual dark, and the surreal one-in-one-out nature of the night so far, it was difficult. Was he going to have to explain the police canteen revelation for a third time?

‘It was about nothing, really, sir. I just happened to find out about the police canteen across the road from the station, and I’ve been here since bally June and no one had mentioned it to me, so I felt aggrieved.’

‘Well, Sergeant Brunswick is the one feeling aggrieved now, so how do you explain that?’

‘I believe I was tactless, sir. I used unfair psychoanalytical expertise to explain to him why he didn’t like me.’

Steine huffed. He hated hearing words like ‘psychoanalytical’; he also hated dealing with this sort of thing: settling disputes, or telling his men that his door was always open. Luckily, for the time being, something else Twitten had said had caught his attention.

‘Hold on, Twitten, are you telling me you’ve been in Brighton only since June?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good heavens, it seems like years.’

Steine got up, and then sat down again.

‘Look, Twitten. I won’t stay. I just came to say, make it up with Brunswick. That’s all. Make it up. Buy him an ice cream, I don’t know. Go and see one of his cowboy films with him, and pretend it doesn’t bore you to death. I’m sorry you didn’t know about the canteen, but if it makes you feel better, I didn’t find out about it myself for four or five years. I mean to say, why is it in a different building? Why isn’t there a sign on it, saying “Police Canteen in Here”? It makes no sense. So, has there been anything untoward happening here tonight?’

‘No, sir. Nothing.’

‘Good. Well, keep it up. I’ll be off.’

‘Yes, sir. Only …’ Twitten’s voice wobbled.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, sir. But, well, I’ve been in here for about five straight hours now, sir. And I don’t like to complain, but a lot of it has been quite stressful.’

Steine shrugged. He wasn’t sure what Twitten wanted him to do about it. ‘The nature of the job, I’m afraid, Constable. Did you put your helmet back on, by the way? I can’t see a thing.’

‘No, sir. I’m afraid I didn’t.’

‘Well, you have my permission to leave it off unless something happens.’

‘Thank you.’

Again, Steine appeared to be ready to leave. But, again, he didn’t go.

‘By the way, Twitten, before I leave, I heard a name the other day. I thought perhaps I’d run it past you.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I honestly can’t remember why it stuck in my mind, but I don’t suppose you know of a Brighton man of violence called Metropole Mike?’

‘No, sir. What does he do?’

Steine affected a casual laugh. ‘He scoops people’s eyes out, apparently!’

‘Really? That’s ghastly, sir.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Steine, thoughtfully. ‘Yes, it is. By the way, Brunswick said something about some lovely home-made Victoria sponge …?’

‘I ate it, I’m afraid, sir.’

‘Fair enough, Twitten,’ Steine said, standing up again. And this time, when he stood up to go, he went – leaving Twitten alone, on his stool, in the pitch dark, without his helmet on, thinking about how much more pleasant this night might have been had he stuck to the subject of how two young women seemed to be in love with him.

Just before dawn, a dog sniffed its way inside the Punch & Judy booth and curled up beside Twitten. He patted its head, and stroked its ears, and in the end decided its name was Blakeney – he was slightly delirious by this point. When the dog lost interest and left again after ten minutes, Twitten felt more bereft than ever before in his life.

And then, just at sunrise, there came the sound of footsteps on the shingle. This is it, he thought, sitting perfectly still with his eyes closed. If this is Sergeant Brunswick coming back to punch me in the face, or kill me, so be it, I deserve it. But then he heard the voice of Mrs Groynes calling, ‘Constable? How about some breakfast, dear?’ – and the flap was opened, and the gloom lifted, and there was a smell of hot tea and sausage sandwich, and he stood up and stumbled out of the tent, yelling, ‘Oh, Mrs Groynes! Thank God!’ as if he had been trapped down a coal mine for thirty-eight days, rather than just spending a slightly fraught sleepless night on a beach.

‘All a bit much, was it, dear?’ she said, handing him a cup of tea. She had borrowed a tray from a nearby transport café where they knew her well. (She co-owned it, as it happened, with Stanley-Knife Stanley. It came in handy for money laundering.) ‘Well, it’s all right now. I put four sugars in. How about a lovely sausage sandwich?’

‘That was the longest night of my life,’ he said, when he’d gratefully eaten his sandwich and drunk his tea, and they were both sitting outside the booth on a breakwater, in the cool light of the rising August sun.

‘What did the inspector want?’

‘Oh.’ Twitten thought back. It seemed so long ago. ‘I think he told me off a bit about the sergeant. Yes, he did. And then it was a bit strange: he asked whether I’d heard of someone called Metropole Mike. But I hadn’t. Have you?’

‘Metropole Mike? I don’t think there’s any such person. Sounds made up to me.’

‘Oh, well.’ Twitten hung his head and looked at his hands. ‘Thank you so much for coming back, Mrs G. I thought an all-night stake-out would be fun! But I can go home soon and get some sleep, I think. The regular police detail will be here from seven o’clock. And once this flipping grand opening is over, I can go back to thinking about the case.’

‘As to that, dear, I couldn’t sleep much myself, and I had a few thoughts. Do you want to hear them?’

‘Of course, Mrs G. I seem to be going round in bally circles.’

‘Well, first I thought about that song again. And it occurred to me that, from where Officer Andy was sitting on the stage, perhaps he’d connect the song not so much to Graham, who was up on the stage with him, singing it, as to the person in the audience he was singing it to.’

‘Gosh, that’s a good thought, Mrs G.’

‘I know. And who was there every week facing the stage, listening to Graham sing, and beaming back at him, do you think?’

‘I don’t know. Schoolgirls who were in love with him?’

‘Well, yes. But I wasn’t thinking of them.’

‘Cedric Carbody?’

‘Think again.’

‘His mum, perhaps?’

‘Bingo, dear.’

‘Graham’s mum?’

‘A woman who was famously dumped by a milkman.’

‘Was she?’

‘Oh, yes. Goodyear left her and went off with someone else. There was quite a stir about it at the time, because – and you’ll like this – Mrs Goodyear smashed a lot of milk bottles in her fury.’

‘So you think it might be her?’ Twitten was excited. ‘Mrs Goodyear, ambitious for her son, avenging any hurt to her darling Graham, and using milk bottles because she feels she has no influence in the world, and also because milk bottles represent a person who’s hurt her?’

‘I’m not saying it’s watertight, dear. There’s no blooming proof. But then I had another thought. Something’s been niggling me ever since those first reports came in of the three murders. Why was Officer Andy out at that dodgy signpost? I mean, he was exactly the sort of person to step in and put it right. He’d have been outraged that someone was causing inconvenience to the great British motorist. But how did he know about it? The controller in the AA office didn’t tell him on the radio, did he?’

‘No. I was there the whole time with Mr Hollibon. There were no calls.’

‘So who told him about that signpost? It wasn’t chance that his murderer found him there. So was the murderer lying in wait, or was Andy followed from his last job? You never talked to Buster Bond’s landlady up in Hassocks, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I’d forget about going home to sleep.’

‘What? No! I can’t, Mrs G, I’m very tired.’

‘Yes, you can, dear. Come on. One last push? If I were you, I’d get up to Hassocks at once.’