Twelve

Subsequently

Alone in her cell for a full day before being questioned, the Milk Bottle Murderer had plenty of time to contemplate both her past and her future.

Did she regret braining three people with milk bottles and then stabbing them in the chest and neck with the broken shards until they were dead? Well, no – partly because those three people were the poisonous Cedric Carbody, the interfering Andrew Inman, and the shameless Barbara Ashley; and partly because she was insane.

Had it been a tricky and messy way to dispose of one’s enemies? Hell, yes. She had ruined three pairs of perfectly nice court shoes.

Wouldn’t a gun have been easier? Definitely. But for Brenda Stoater, former headmistress of Lady Laura Laridae, there was a supremely obvious reason for using milk bottles as her weapon of doom: that her long-term inamorato, with whom she had once shared the romantic clifftop liaison that led to the tragic death of the schoolgirl Diana, was Mr Goodyear the milkman.

‘She was probably a bit mad from the night of Diana’s death onward,’ Twitten explained to Mrs Groynes on Tuesday morning. ‘She resigned from her post straight after the tragedy, of course, but no one suspected she had any direct responsibility for what had happened. It was clever of her to take up the profession of crossword-setting, though, once in civilian life. It was hiding in plain sight.’

‘Are they all mad, then? Crossword-setters?’

‘Oh, definitely. Mad but harmless. That’s quite well known.’

‘Fancy having a romantic liaison at midnight when you’re a milkman,’ reflected Mrs G, shaking her head. ‘He’d have had to get up again in four hours’ time.’

Naturally, the swift and efficient capture of the Milk Bottle Murderer had been eclipsed somewhat in the public’s mind by the sensational Bank Holiday happenings at the milk bar. When Twitten arrived at the police station first thing on Tuesday, he had to fight his way through reporters, none of whom cared about the arrest of Miss Stoater. Most of them were waving mimeographed copies of Mrs Groynes’s handy list of Metropole casualties. In the end, the national and international coverage of the event would be huge. By an amazing stroke of luck (or was it?), the newsreel camera crew that had come to Brighton to film the barbering contest was tipped off by a passing street-boy carrying a rolled-up comic. ‘Here, you lot,’ he yelled. ‘Get down the seafront! Shootings and all sorts! And I think I saw Diana Dors in a fur bikini and all!’ The cameras were thus able to capture the sensational footage of Inspector Steine in the House of Hanover Milk Bar, gun in hand, that later became iconic.

‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened,’ said Steine, with impressive dignity. (He had got his story straight by the time they arrived.) ‘This man was Terence Chambers and I shot him.’ The footage was such a success with the public that when a compilation of Pathé News 1957 highlights was screened nationwide at the end of the year, Inspector Steine’s ‘and I shot him’ clip was right in the mix with the launch of Sputnik, Bill Haley and the Comets playing at the Dominion Theatre, Harold Macmillan’s ‘never had it so good’ speech, and the momentous introduction of glove-puppet Sweep to the ever-popular Sooty Show.

‘Where did all the boxes go?’ asked Twitten, as he accepted his first cup of tea from Mrs Groynes on that Tuesday morning. All the surfaces that since Saturday had been heaped with the haul from Andy Inman’s bedroom were now – very noticeably – clear, tidy, and freshly polished.

‘Which boxes do you mean, dear?’

‘The ones with Officer Andy’s true-crime scrapbooks.’

‘Oh, no one wanted those messy things cluttering up the place, did they? I came back ’specially and got rid of them last night. Look!’ She waved a hand. ‘It’s like they never existed.’

‘Those scrapbooks were evidence, Mrs G.’

‘I know. But look at it this way: you’ve got your murderer, and she’s confessed, so the way I see it, those scrapbooks would only confuse matters.’

Twitten took a sip of his tea. ‘So I’m guessing they contained material that could incriminate you and your associates?’

‘Bleeding tons of it, dear.’

Twitten sighed. There was no point arguing. If the books were gone, they were gone. At least he’d preserved the Diana one. He would give it to Pandora.

‘Jammie Dodger with that cuppa, dear?’

‘Oh, that would be lovely, thank you.’

‘Here you are, dear. Take the tin.’

It was always strange when a case was solved. There seemed so much to talk about, so many questions to ask; but at the same time, if you were Twitten, you could usually work out a lot of it for yourself. For instance, it was clear enough in retrospect that absolutely everything that had happened over the Bank Holiday weekend on the sixth floor of the Metropole and at the House of Hanover Milk Bar had been contrived by Mrs Groynes with the intention of exterminating her rivals, pinning the atrocity on Chambers, ensuring he got shot immediately, and making Inspector Steine the hero of the hour. Twitten was not a cynic by nature, but he had learned recently one pragmatic life lesson: if it benefits Mrs Groynes, look no further for the cause.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me how long I was planning all this, dear?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Twitten, munching a biscuit. ‘I assume it was months.’

‘Bleeding months, dear.’

‘When did you type that list?’

‘Two weeks ago.’

‘Mm. Well, I’m glad you decided to give the inspector all the bally glory. You’ve made him very happy.’

‘Are you kidding? I didn’t do it for him. The last thing I need is for him to be replaced by someone with a bit of brain.’

‘I know, but—’

‘Him being safe in his job is essential to my continued success, dear!’

‘I know, but—’

‘The day he goes, I’m finished.’

‘I know, but what I’m trying to say, Mrs G, is that you’ve made him very happy nevertheless. So, unconsciously, I think you wanted to do a kind thing.’

‘Unconsciously? Me?’

‘Everyone has an unconscious mind, Mrs Groynes.’

‘Even me, dear? Are you sure?’

Twitten took another sip of tea. ‘Even you.’

For Sergeant Brunswick, Tuesday morning was even stranger than it was for everyone else. Usually he celebrated the successful close of a case in a hospital bed at the Sussex County, with a brown paper bag of South African grapes and a copy of the latest ABC Film Review, reading about Tony Curtis. It was very odd to wake up at home, uninjured, and then walk into town. Was he disappointed to miss both the arrest of Miss Stoater and the shooting of Terence Chambers? Not in the circumstances. The way he had handled Carlo, and delivered the boy back to his father unscathed, had given him the nerve to go home and raise a difficult subject with his auntie Violet. She finally told him everything. Today he felt as if a great cannonball of pent-up grief had dropped out of his body and rolled away.

‘Sergeant Brunswick, is that you?’

He was crossing North Street when it happened. He turned and saw a handsome woman in smart clothes. It was Mrs Thorpe, Twitten’s attractive widowed landlady who – if reports were to be believed – had set her cap at his lovely superior officer.

‘Good morning, Mrs Thorpe,’ he said, smiling. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes, please. If you wouldn’t mind.’ She hesitantly smiled back at him, but then, unable to maintain the gaze, looked down to search her handbag and produced a packet wrapped in greaseproof paper, tied with string. ‘Are you on your way to the police station? It’s just that the constable forgot to take his sandwiches this morning. I don’t suppose you could take him to them – I mean, take them to him?’

‘Oh, of course. His sandwiches,’ said Brunswick. ‘Don’t worry, madam. I’ll make sure he gets them.’

‘You’d think there would be a canteen, wouldn’t you? For all you strapping men!’

‘Um, yes. I suppose there ought to be. Thank you for the cake on Saturday night, Mrs Thorpe. That was very kind.’

‘Oh, my pleasure.’ She beamed at him, and then, instead of saying goodbye, she did something unexpected: she put a hand to her neck as if suddenly mildly flustered, or a bit embarrassed, or overwhelmingly sexually attracted, or possibly all three. Brunswick smiled again, waiting. He could feel his own face reddening too.

‘Was there something else, madam?’

‘Yes. I just wanted to say … Well, the constable. I just wanted to say, he’s very – he’s very young.’

Brunswick laughed. ‘Oh, I know! He makes me feel about a hundred.’

‘But it’s easy to forget. How young he is. He speaks without thinking. Anyway—’ She reached out a gloved hand and touched the sleeve of Brunswick’s raincoat. ‘I just wanted to say that, being so very young and new to things here, he’s lucky to have someone as manly as you to look up to.’

And on that bombshell, she turned and walked away on her classy high heels, leaving Brunswick clutching a packet of cheese and pickle sandwiches with the word ‘manly’ hanging in big letters in the air around him.

In terms of positive milk marketing, the opening of the House of Hanover Milk Bar had just one thing in its favour: Pansy the cow didn’t kill anyone. In all other respects, it was a disaster. The highly important Mr Hayes had no opportunity to announce his new national slogan; the beautiful Milk Girl barely escaped injury and disfigurement; Mr Henderson decided in the heat of the action it was now or never to tell Pandora he was in love with her – which merely shocked and upset her, and added to the ghastliness.

On Tuesday morning, Pandora woke to find a note had been pushed under her bedroom door. It was from Hendy, saying he was catching an early train back to London, wishing her luck in the future, and apologising for everything. She felt a brief pang, but that was all. There was packing to do. Her anxious parents were already en route from Norfolk to pick her up. And although they weren’t likely to arrive before midday, she vacated her room by ten o’clock: the impulse to put Brighton behind her was powerful.

Leaving Peregrine Wilberforce Twitten, however, was harder to contemplate. She kept picturing his arrival at the milk bar – running in just after Chambers was shot and then explaining everything. He had been so quick to see the bigger picture! From her own position under a table, Pandora could have sworn that the inspector had shot the man not knowing he was this famous Chambers person. In fact, didn’t he even try to deny it? Didn’t he keep saying at first that someone should arrest him? But the main thing was: everyone had been in confusion until Peregrine ran in waving a list of dead villains, when suddenly all became clear.

It was Twitten who’d looked after Pandora in the aftermath of the preventable riot. He had escorted her back to the hotel, and ensured she got a hot drink before going straight to bed. He had called her parents and explained that she was shaken but unharmed, and that she was – great news – giving up being the Milk Girl forthwith, and would never, ever, be asked again to pose as if milking a cow.

‘What I’m wondering myself, Professor Holden,’ he’d said on the telephone to Pandora’s mother, ‘is why everyone’s so obsessed with milk anyway. It’s all milk, milk, milk. But surely milk is just an opaque fatty bovine mammary secretion? I’m thinking of conducting some research on the subject, seeing how people react to calling a spade a spade, as it were.’

‘Ah, you are a loss to academia, Mr Twitten; I always said so,’ came the approving reply. ‘But it’s also possible that you think too much.’

Elsewhere the repercussions of the weekend were felt differently. At the BBC in London, for instance, no one noticed Susan Turner was missing for several days, thanks to the well-established institutional heartlessness. When she failed to return to work after two weeks, it was assumed she must be terribly ill, so her employment was terminated. At the House of Hanover Milk Bar, business boomed, thanks to the rich ghoulish seam in the British psyche. At the Royal Pavilion, the regular staff unlocked the building on Tuesday to find a number of barber’s chairs abandoned in the Music Room, but otherwise no sign that anything had occurred there. Outside, on the (former) Pavilion Lawns, the farmer loaded his cows on to trailers, leaving a scene of such devastation to those pretty gardens – churned-up mud, noxious puddles and denuded tree trunks – that for the next three weeks, veterans of the First World War would burst into tears when they saw it.

And at the Argus, all sleep was cancelled until further notice, with edition after edition hitting the streets.

‘A bit of a different fucking story now, Oliver!’ the editor chuckled, at least twice a day.

‘Suits me, sir!’ said the harassed reporter, barely glancing up from his steaming typewriter.

This was a fine example of how journalism works – as all the ‘Steine Must Go’ copy was subtly re-pointed to suit the headline ‘Brighton Knew He Had It in Him’. Thus, the incriminatory pictures of Steine eating-flaming-ice-cream-at-a-time-like-this were now captioned to show what a cool waiting-game he had played: the great policeman yet again calmly dipping a long-handled spoon in a tall glass while dangerous lowlifes gunned each other down. With the film of the Middle Street Massacre fresh in his mind, Oliver was able to draw detailed parallels with the events of the recent Bank Holiday, and also speculate on who would play the devilish Terence Chambers in the inevitable sequel (in the end, it was Richard Todd, cleverly cast against type; he won Best Supporting Actor at the British Academy Film Awards in 1959).

The biggest problem the Argus faced was what to call the milk-bar incident. It needed a name. On Monday evening, a brainstorming session in the editor’s office got rather heated. The chief subeditor was convinced there was mileage in wordplay on ‘deserts’ and ‘desserts’ (as in, ‘Top Villain Gets His Just Desserts!’) – but he was repeatedly howled down, and in the end, Oliver mentioned Twitten’s High Noon reference and ‘High Noon at the Milk Bar’ was agreed upon. The fact that the shooting had occurred at about a quarter to two was cleverly elided, and in later years nearly everyone who’d been present was happy to say that they’d noticed the hands of a non-existent wall-clock pointing precisely to twelve when Chambers entered and met his doom.

Back at the police station on Tuesday morning, Twitten and Brunswick sat at their desks, each drinking a welcome cup of post-interrogation tea, while Mrs Groynes bustled with her feather duster in the inspector’s office with the door open. Rarely in the annals of police work had an interview with a murderer gone so smoothly.

‘So she confessed to it all, is that right?’ Mrs Groynes called to them.

‘She did indeed, Mrs G,’ said Brunswick. ‘She’s been very co-operative. She isn’t sorry, though.’

‘No, she’s quite proud of the killings,’ agreed Twitten. ‘But then we have to remember she’s mad, which is a factor.’

‘Did you ask her why she did it?’

‘Oh, she told us without much prompting,’ said Twitten, ruefully. ‘It was all for lust, she said, and I’m afraid she didn’t spare the anatomical details. She might regret her confession when it all comes out in court. It will sound like stuff from a novel by James M. bally Cain.’

‘Blimey, Mrs G, you should have heard it,’ laughed Brunswick. ‘She looks such a lady! And there she is, swooning over Goodyear’s hairy arms and heroic war wounds! She’s abso-flaming-lutely potty about him.’

‘Poor woman,’ said Mrs G. ‘How are the mighty fallen.’

Twitten nodded his agreement. It pained him to see a clever person lose her mind through mere physical attraction. ‘It seems that when he used to bring his horse and cart up to the school – while Miss Holden and the other girls were ogling his son Graham from their dormitory windows, and admiring how the sun fell on his neck – Mr Goodyear would lug a crate of milk round to the kitchens and Miss Stoater would be lying in wait.’ He shuddered, and flipped open his notebook. ‘She’d be waiting in a baby-doll nightdress for a spot of wooing.’

‘Wooing?’ queried Mrs G, feather duster raised. ‘You sure that’s the mot juste here, dear?’

‘The sergeant and I were quite satisfied with wooing, weren’t we, Sergeant? Given everything else we were hearing.’

‘I’ll say.’

‘Anyway, of course one night they had this midnight wooing assignation on the cliffs, and Diana followed them in her daft plimsolls and slipped, and Miss Stoater was almost demented by feelings of guilt. She felt it was all her fault. She was just about able to bear it while she believed Mr Goodyear loved her with an equal, exclusive passion; in fact, she’s borne it for years—’

‘But then it turned out,’ said Brunswick, enjoying himself, ‘that he was wooing all over the place.’

‘Was he?’ gasped Mrs G in mock horror. ‘And him a milkman?’

Twitten nodded. ‘She found out two weeks ago that Mr Goodyear had not been faithful at all. He’d even been wooing young Barbara Ashley! And for Miss Stoater something snapped. Her guilt over Diana’s death finally overwhelmed her; also her terror of anyone finding out she’d been there and seen the fatal fall. Cedric Carbody was her cousin; he had always used her, without asking, as a source for his school-story parodies, and he had dropped plenty of hints that he had guessed precisely what had happened on the night of Diana’s death. He put the business of the slippery plimsolls in the broadcast that was repeated on Sunday.’

‘Nothing was sacred,’ said Brunswick.

‘Precisely, sir. And you remember the death-threat letter sent to him at the BBC, Mrs G?’

‘No, dear. You forget, I was mainly busy elsewhere this weekend, looking after my visitors.’

‘Of course. Well, Miss Stoater had written a letter to him a year ago – anonymously, and with purposely bad grammar, warning him to stay away from Brighton – but the BBC, being unbelievably heartless, never told him. Meanwhile Officer Andy had been openly investigating the unsolved case of Diana, and was tailing Mr Goodyear. And Barbara Ashley was Miss Stoater’s youthful rival, plain and simple.’

Mrs Groynes stopped dusting, and addressed the sergeant, smiling. ‘How does it feel to share your dead girlfriend with a bleeding Romeo of a milkman, dear?’

‘She wasn’t my girlfriend, Mrs G. We hadn’t even gone out.’

‘But you raise a very good point, Mrs G,’ said Twitten. ‘Miss Stoater told us that Miss Ashley harboured a strange – possibly unique – sexual preference for older men with firearm injuries, such as suffered by Mr Goodyear in the war.’

‘Did she now?’ said Mrs Groynes, head on one side. ‘Well, it takes all sorts.’

‘Yes, but unfortunately this interesting fact, which come to think of it might have helped the investigation, had never come up in the course of our inquiries.’

Twitten looked pointedly at Brunswick, but he merely pulled a face. In no circumstances would he ever repeat the eye-watering stuff Barbara Ashley had unleashed on him within minutes of their first meeting.

‘Are you sure she didn’t mention this unusual sexual preference to you, sir?’

‘To me? Are you joking?’

‘Even though you yourself are an older man, relatively speaking, with a history of being shot in the leg?’

Brunswick shrugged. There was no way he was conceding this point.

Mrs Groynes finished dusting in Inspector Steine’s office and came back in.

‘Do you know what I want to know?’ she said, as she collected their cups on her tea-tray. ‘I mean, this all fits together very well, I’m not saying it doesn’t. You deserve bleeding medals, the two of you. But I wonder if – and you’ll think I’m silly – I wonder if there was a special song or anything?’

‘Ah!’ said Twitten. ‘Thank you for reminding me, Mrs G. I did ask about that, and the answer is yes.’

Brunswick frowned. ‘Yes, what was that all about, Twitten? Asking her if Mr Goodyear ever sang to her? You completely lost me there.’

‘Oh, it was just something Mrs Groynes and I were talking about the other day. About how Graham always sang “If You Were the Only Girl in the World” in the shows at the children’s playground. We wondered why.’

‘That’s right, dear.’

‘Well, it turns out that he sang it because it was his father’s signature song. It was what you might call a family favourite.’

‘No!’

‘But if you recall, it was years ago that Graham used to sing it at the children’s theatre. Whereas Mr Goodyear whistles it to this day while out on his rounds – and Officer Andy, who had been following Goodyear Senior and observing him, worked out quite recently that it wasn’t just his favourite tune.’

‘No, dear?’

‘No. It was code!’

‘Code for what?’

‘I’m afraid it was Mr Goodyear’s way of asking the woman of the house, “May I come in? Is the husband out of the way? Is a spot of wooing on the cards?”’

‘Well, I never.’ Mrs Groynes was clearly impressed. ‘And did Officer Andy tell poor Miss Stoater that?’

‘He did. It was very cruel of him. He told her that every time Mr Goodyear would start whistling “If You Were the Only Girl in the World” outside certain houses, the front doors would open and he’d be ushered inside.’

‘Blimey.’

‘So, you see, that explains why, as he was dying of his wounds, Officer Andy tried to – er – oh.’ Twitten stopped, overcome with confusion. ‘Oh, crikey, sorry. What am I talking about? Sorry.’ He took a deep breath, while his mind raced. You’re not supposed to know about this! ‘So that’s the whole bally story, Mrs G. Could I have another of your lovely cups of tea?’

Brunswick looked puzzled. ‘You all right, son?’

Mrs Groynes raised her eyebrows. She looked amused.

Twitten bit his lip. ‘Sorry,’ he said again.

Brunswick was mystified. ‘Are you all right, son? You were just saying about the song explaining something about when Officer Andy was dying. But I don’t understand. Was someone else there?’

Twitten shot a look of panic at Mrs Groynes. ‘Um?’ he said. Unpractised in guile, he hadn’t the first idea how to get out of this awkward situation. Should he pretend to faint?

‘Um?’ he began again, his eyes swivelling. But Mrs Groynes stepped in.

‘Toasted teacake, Sergeant, dear?’ she asked, casually patting Brunswick’s shoulder.

The question hung in the air, and Twitten held his breath. Would it work? Would Sergeant Brunswick refuse, for once, to have his thoughts derailed by the offer of food?

‘Oh. Well,’ said Brunswick. ‘Thank you, Mrs G, a toasted teacake would be lovely.’ But Twitten could see that the danger hadn’t quite passed. Was that a flicker of a thought crossing the sergeant’s face? ‘But hang on, I was just asking—’

‘Dollop of strawberry jam with it, dear? I’ve got a brand-new jar. Tell you what, you can do the honours. There’s always a nice big strawberry on the top.’

‘Ooh, well, lovely, thank you. Strawberry jam!’

‘You’re very welcome, dear. And I’d say you bleeding deserve it after all you’ve been through.’

And thus was the crisis averted.

The disappearance of Buster Bond was finally confirmed on the Tuesday by the Ice Circus management, and Graham Goodyear officially stepped into his skates until the end of the run. Mrs Goodyear was aware of all the usual snide remarks about Graham nobbling anyone who stood in his way, but she knew the truth about her dear son: that he was a very nice person who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Naturally, speculation flew about what had happened to Bond. Those who knew about his unsavoury night-time activities supposed that he had been murdered by some local hoodlum whose girlfriend he had forced his attentions on.

Not for decades did the truth come to light, when Giuseppe Savoretti of the ice-clown troupe admitted on his deathbed in Old Naples, Florida, that one of his brothers had shot Buster Bond on the ice. Speaking to a reporter from the Naples Tribune, he explained that it had been a case of straightforward retribution. Bond was the man who’d ratted to the authorities about them using an underage family member in the act. When they found out, they killed him. Initially, Giuseppe said, Buster Bond’s body had been cunningly crammed inside the miniature fire engine used in their act, but they’d had to think again when the Russian woman’s poodles kept sniffing round it and barking.

Up at Hassocks, Bond’s landlady Mrs Lester was convinced that her daughter June had driven Mr Bond away – especially as June had packed a bag on that Saturday night and left for London with just her trophy for winning the beauty contest (a disappointing silver cream jug in the shape of a cow) and her worryingly short and effeminate boyfriend. But Mrs Lester could at least console herself that she had helped the police by identifying the woman who’d been tailing Officer Andy on the night that he died. It was her testimony to Twitten early on the Monday morning that had led straight to the arrest.

‘Officer Inman had just finished with Mr Bond’s car,’ she had told the sleep-deprived Twitten, ‘and Mr Bond had driven off. And then one of my neighbours came and told us about this misleading road-sign he’d passed on his way home. Officer Inman said it was probably kids that had turned it, but that he would set it right. It was only as he was leaving that I spotted a van following him with a woman at the wheel. And as it moved off, I could hear the rattle of milk bottles. It was unmistakably Miss Stoater from June’s old school.

‘June didn’t want me to come forward, but I knew I should have, and I’m only sorry I didn’t do it straight away. She has always been a very forceful girl! But are you sure you shouldn’t be in bed, Constable Twitten? You look terrible.’

When the Holdens arrived in Hove to pick up their daughter, Twitten was there, too. With all this darting around town for the past few days, he was seriously thinking of requisitioning a pushbike.

‘Blakeney! Is that you?’ he said, in surprise, as a small golden dog scampered up the path, then straight past him and up the stairs. It transpired that the Holdens had been travelling for an hour before realising that Blakeney was hiding under the back seat of their car. But once his presence was noted, his excited tail-wagging certainly brightened their journey. Before this, King’s Lynn had been the extent of the little dog’s travel ambitions. Cadging a lift all the way to the South Coast was beyond his wildest dreams.

‘Mummy!’ said Pandora, bursting into tears. ‘Please take me home. I want to go home.’

But the Holdens were tired from the long drive, and they were also intrigued to see Twitten again, and to hear his account of all that had happened. On their way to Brighton – stopping at little parades of shops – they’d become increasingly aware of the incident now widely described as ‘High Noon at the Milk Bar’. Had their daughter really been present when a notorious London gangster was shot dead? Who could have imagined that becoming the Milk Girl would expose her to such things? Thank goodness she was off to Oxford in a couple of months’ time. The blood-soaked revenge plays of Aeschylus and Euripides would seem positively tame by comparison.

‘You look so different with your short hair, Peregrine,’ said Pandora’s mother. ‘I wouldn’t have known you.’

‘No one seems to like it,’ he admitted. ‘Mummy actually let out a scream. But, as I said to her, my old schoolboy style would look bally strange with the uniform.’

All of them laughed except for Pandora. ‘Perhaps you’d grow it back,’ she said, ‘if enough people asked you to.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so,’ said Twitten.

‘What brought you here, though?’ asked Pandora’s father. ‘We were saying in the car, we’d had no idea where young Mr Twitten’s bizarre career decision had taken him. What made you choose Brighton?’

‘Oh.’ Twitten blushed. ‘It wasn’t a choice, as such, sir. I’m here because no one else would have me.’

The Holdens looked at each other. ‘Are you joking?’ asked Pandora’s father.

‘I’m afraid I’m bally serious, sir. I was transferred several times before I came here in June. At Scotland Yard I lasted less than a week.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Oh, it was my bally cleverness, of course! It kept making people uncomfortable. You see, I can’t help spotting things that my police colleagues have missed, and instead of being grateful, they get furious and annoyed, and refuse to work with me, or neglect to tell me where the lockers are, which is possibly the most hurtful thing of all. It’s human nature, apparently, but in my opinion it’s very small-minded and unconstructive, not to mention the bane of my bally life.’

‘So you’re here because Inspector Steine is a bigger man who appreciates your cleverness?’

‘Oh, no, sir! Hah!’ Twitten laughed at the very idea. ‘That’s hilarious, sir.’ The Holdens, shocked, exchanged glances.

‘No, quite the opposite!’ Twitten continued, cheerfully. ‘I annoy Inspector Steine, too, all the bally time. But fortunately he is very wrapped up in his own concerns, you see. That’s the difference here.’

Twitten was pleased to talk about this with people who would understand. ‘Inspector Steine is an inveterate solipsist, you see, which in a way is bally fascinating to observe at close quarters. Over the past weekend he genuinely thought that his own judging of an ice-cream competition was the most important thing going on!’

Twitten laughed again. ‘Also he has a phenomenal capacity for denial and self-deception, which of course is a bit disappointing in one’s superior officer, but at the same time his consistent obtuseness does help maintain a dubious status quo vis-à-vis the blatant criminal activity operating within the town, so, truthfully, it has its uses.’

The Holdens looked stunned.

‘Well, you’ve certainly chosen an interesting career, Peregrine,’ said Pandora’s mother, at last.

‘Thank you. But, ooh, I just thought. Have you finished your Cook Islands book, yet? Does Father have a copy? I’d love to see what conclusions you eventually drew from all that data.’

‘Oh, heavens, no,’ laughed Pandora’s father. ‘We’re still collating.’

Twitten tried not to betray how shocked he was at their glacial progress. He failed.

‘Cleverness takes many forms, Peregrine,’ said Pandora’s mother, gently. ‘It’s not all about quickness. But that’s what we used to discuss when you were staying with us, wasn’t it? If you don’t mind my saying, that’s where your own capacity for self-deception comes in.’

A few minutes later, Twitten waved them off – the Holdens, Pandora and the stowaway dog whose owner, back at the railway station in Norfolk, had been informed by telephone of his latest long-distance escapade. Twitten had given Pandora the Diana scrapbook and promised to visit her in Oxford. On parting, she begged him to stop addressing her as ‘Miss Holden’, and he shrugged and said he would do his best.

As he left the hotel, he noticed across the road a large advertisement with Pandora’s face on it – her cheeks shining with youthful energy as she raised a glass filled with white liquid. ‘You’ll Feel A Lot Better If You Drink More Milk’ it read. But this was the end of an era, surely? There had been High Noon at a milk bar, as well as a riot involving criminal damage. A herd of startled red-and-white ruminants had shockingly killed a young woman destined to be buried in an unmarked grave. A milkman’s frightful dalliances had led to the murder of three people who’d been slain by milk bottle. And as for the beauteous Milk Girl – she had gone home to Norfolk, never to return.

They hardly saw the inspector that day at the station, so busy was he in his newfound fame. Interestingly, the more he talked about the shooting, the more he seemed to have committed it while in full possession of the facts.

‘Of course, we knew about that pile of bodies at the Metropole,’ he said. ‘That’s why I shot him. Terence Chambers had, in an insane murdering spree, just butchered ten villains aged between forty-two and sixty-five, some of them with distinguishing marks, hailing from every corner of the country.’

In the office, when Twitten returned from saying goodbye to Pandora, he found Mrs Groynes with her feet up and a cigarette in her mouth.

‘Oh, good, it’s you,’ she said, not moving. ‘I have created a monster; can you imagine how that feels?’

‘You knew exactly what you were doing, Mrs G.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s true.’

Twitten sat down. Even after a full night’s sleep, he was still tired. ‘I just said goodbye to Pandora,’ he said. ‘It was bizarre. She burst into tears.’

‘She’s keen on you, dear. The sergeant said that girl from the BBC had a crush on you too. You ought to call her up. And you remember that posh girl Phyllis who was in the Brighton Belles? I hear she’s joining the bleeding police on account of you.’

‘That’s nonsense, Mrs G.’

‘You’ve got something about you, dear. I mean, obviously I can’t see it.’

‘Oh, please.’

‘All right, dear. Have it your own way.’

‘It was funny just now,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘I used to think Pandora’s parents approved of me, but when I merely outlined some of Inspector Steine’s personality faults – just stated what they were – they seemed horrified. I think they wanted me to praise him, just because he’s a man of superior rank.’

‘They’re fools, then.’

Twitten looked around. There was something missing. ‘May I have a cup of tea, please, Mrs G? When I came in you didn’t make me one.’

‘Oh, all right.’ She stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray and stood up, stretching. ‘Usual sugars?’

‘Yes, please.’

While he waited, he picked up a sheet of paper. It was a mimeographed copy of Mrs Groynes’s list, which was rapidly becoming a famous document. According to this, Norman Hardcastle, aged fifty-six, ran all criminal affairs in the North East, lived in ostentatious grandeur at the Hotel Splendide in Redcar, and (under the heading Miscellaneous) had a reputation as a ‘bleeding psycho’.

‘What’s so interesting about this list, Mrs G, is that no one’s asking who drew it up.’

‘I know.’ She put down his tea.

‘It’s even typed on Brighton Police Station headed notepaper.’

‘I know. I couldn’t resist it. But I just couldn’t risk them taking days and days to identify the bodies; I needed all the information to come out at once. And I have to say, you played your part in that, dear, so thank you very much.’

‘How many of them did you kill personally, Mrs G?’

‘Me? None. But I did help a bit by sowing discord and what have you. Giving them packs of cards. The septicaemia victim, obviously, was a separate case. Poor sod took care of himself.’

‘Fortunate that there were those newsreel cameras in town, and that they got wind of what was happening at the milk bar.’

‘Fortunate, did you say?’

‘Ah. I beg your pardon. Is the word “brilliant”?’

‘That’s nearer to the right word, certainly.’

‘And who was the man threatening you and Mr Chambers outside the hotel when I came along?’

‘One of my boys. I must remember to send him a turkey at Christmas.’

‘Why did you do it, though, Mrs G? Why did you want Chambers out of the picture so badly? I thought you used to be a team?’

‘He was losing it, dear. You need to be a bit mad in this business, but he’d gone bleeding loco. He’d started shooting family members just to see where they landed on the carpet.’

‘Gosh. Do you mind if I write to my father about that? He’d be bally fascinated.’

‘Be my guest, dear.’

‘Thank you.’

How easily they talked together, he and Mrs Groynes.

‘Will you move in on London now?’ he asked.

‘Oh, no, dear. I wouldn’t touch it. Imagine having to bribe the police! It’s hand over fist up there. That’s why Terry trusted me about going down to that milk bar and handing himself in. I said I’d fixed the inspector! I said he was in my pocket, dear. I said, he’s expecting you. I told him to say: I’m from the Metropole.’

She laughed at the naivety of a villain believing that the only way to fix a policeman was with money.

‘Down here I’ve not bribed the police once, dear! But Terry would never have understood how you can keep a trio of policemen in the palm of your hand just by supplying them continuously with tea and biscuits, dear – or buying them a life-saving sausage sandwich from time to time, or giving their daft careers a well-timed boost when they seem to be on the slide.’

‘And how did you get the inspector to do it? I assume you supplied the gun?’

‘Of course. I sent him a picture of Terry, and a note from a well-wisher saying that the man who presents himself and says I’m from the Metropole was prepared to kill because he cared so much about winning a bleeding ice-cream competition!’

‘And the inspector fell for that?’

‘Of course he fell for it.’

Mrs Groynes lit another cigarette, and blew a perfect smoke-ring. ‘He’s a very, very stupid man, dear. Or have you already worked that out for yourself?’

Brunswick took Twitten to the canteen that day, and ordered egg and chips twice while Twitten scouted for a recently wiped (i.e. still wet) table near a window. The place was busy with helmet-less police officers drinking tea and smoking; a few were playing cards. One or two nudged each other when they saw Twitten. Embarrassed, he looked away. He felt nervous. This was the first time he and Brunswick been alone together since the horrors of Sunday night in the Punch & Judy tent. An enormous bally scene was definitely on the cards, friendly egg and chips notwithstanding.

He supposed they would eat first and talk afterwards, but no, Brunswick launched straight into it before even sitting down. ‘Look, son,’ he said, arriving with a tray, which he proceeded to unload. ‘About storming out the other night, I shouldn’t have done it.’ He set down a plate of egg and chips, with a clunk. ‘It was unprofessional, leaving you on your own.’ A cup of tea was sloshed into the saucer. ‘I got upset, that’s all.’ Cheap cutlery cascaded on to the table. ‘So let’s put it behind us, all right?’

It was only after this performance, when Brunswick had sat down, that Twitten responded. He was well aware how blatantly the sergeant was avoiding eye contact, and he was having none of it. This stuff was jolly important, and needed to be talked about man to man.

‘It was my fault, sir. If you could just look at me for a moment, sir? I gave it a lot of thought afterwards and – could you just look at me, sir?’

But it was no use.

‘Bread and butter?’ asked Brunswick. ‘Salt and pepper?’

‘No, thank you. You see, if you would just—’

‘Red sauce? I could get you some. Hold on. I’ll go and—’

‘No, thank you, sir. Please don’t bother.’

‘Brown?’

‘No.’

‘Well, tuck in, son, before it gets cold. There’s a good lad.’

‘Of course, sir.’ Twitten picked up his knife and fork and tasted a chip. He immediately regretted refusing all the condiments.

‘Look, son,’ said Brunswick, stirring sugar into his tea and watching it swirl. ‘I know you’d probably like to yak about this till the cows come home, but I’d rather not. And you know what they say, son.’ At last, he raised his face and looked Twitten in the eye. ‘Least said, soonest mended.’

Twitten physically shuddered at this platitude: there was scarcely a saying in the English language he disapproved of more. But he governed his urge to argue and said, ‘Right, sir. If that’s what you want. We shan’t discuss it.’

‘Here, I forgot,’ said Brunswick, changing the subject and spearing a chip. ‘There’s a packet of sandwiches for you in my desk.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘I bumped into your landlady this morning and she asked me to bring them in. It was what made me think of doing this: bringing you here for your first canteen hot dinner.’

‘I do hope you didn’t say anything to her about what I told you? About her doomed romantic fixation?’

‘Of course I didn’t, Twitten!’ Brunswick pierced his egg, which was undercooked. ‘What do you take me for? But I think you’re right, though. About her. She called me “manly”, to my face.’

‘Gosh, sir.’

‘What age do you think she is?’

‘Forty-one. I checked the electoral register. She’s awfully nice, but she has a distinct weakness for gossip, so my advice would be to brush up a few anecdotes. She also loves anything to do with the world of theatre and film, so your subscription to Picturegoer will be a bally godsend.’

Brunswick finished his egg and chips, and pushed his plate away. And then, to Twitten’s alarm, he stood up and held out his hand for shaking. Aware that other people were watching, Twitten stood up too, and took it.

His mind raced. Was Brunswick at last preparing to apologise for not telling him about the canteen and causing the rift between them? Was he going to set things straight? Was he going to say, ‘You’re wrong, you know, son. I do like you, Twitten; I always have’?

‘Look, I’m only going to say this once,’ said Brunswick, quietly, as they shook hands. He seemed to be working himself up to some sort of declaration. Twitten gulped.

‘Thank you, sir. Say what?’

‘Look,’ said Brunswick. ‘This isn’t easy for me.’

‘No, sir. Of course.’

‘I wouldn’t do this for just anyone.’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘Well, you remember that acronym they taught you at Hendon about people being wrong about not knowing anything?’

Twitten frowned. ‘Do you mean WANKA, sir?’

Brunswick winced. ‘Shhh, yes, that’s the one. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I think those blokes at Hendon were having you on.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. It’s a bad word, son.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘A bad word?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why would they play a trick on me like that?’

‘I don’t know, Twitten.’ Brunswick patted him on the shoulder. ‘But is it possible they just didn’t like you?’

Then the sergeant picked up his coat, paid the cashier and headed for the door, leaving Twitten to resume his glorious first canteen meal alone.

Back in the office, he was gently opening Brunswick’s desk drawer and withdrawing the packet of sandwiches when Mrs Groynes came in.

‘You going back on your rounds later?’ she asked.

‘I thought I would, actually. After I’ve written my report.’

‘Good for you, dear.’

She whistled the tune to ‘Wunderbar’ while flapping her duster out of the window. For someone who had just ruthlessly eliminated eleven rivals in the world of organised crime, she was giving an excellent impression of a woman with nothing on her conscience. Twitten sat down at the typewriter and fed two sheets of paper (with fresh carbon paper sandwiched between) on to the roller. He took a deep breath, and cracked his fingers.

But before he could start, Mrs Groynes sat down.

‘I’ve been meaning to say, dear.’

‘Yes?’

‘You didn’t notice what happened today, did you? It was quite big, but it seemed to pass you by.’

Twitten frowned. He couldn’t think of any landmarks today besides, of course, visiting the canteen for the first time, taking the startlingly unguarded confession of a headmistress-cum-murderess, and discovering that even at his beloved Hendon he had been universally unpopular. A childhood chant kept running through his head: Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll go and eat worms.

But that wasn’t what Mrs Groynes was referring to. ‘It was that business over Officer Andy’s dying words, dear.’

‘Oh, that. Gosh, I did feel awkward, Mrs G!’

‘I could tell.’

‘You did brilliantly with your teacake ruse. But I don’t see how it was momentous. It was just bally awful.’

‘You covered up for me, dear.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes. You could have told the sergeant how I’d passed on that information to you – which I’d heard from one of Chambers’s underlings. You could have used it against me, but you chose not to. You made a choice, dear, and I saw the whole thing written on your face.’

Twitten cast his mind back. It was true that he hadn’t spoken up, but had he made this so-called choice to support Mrs Groynes? Surely not. ‘He wouldn’t have believed me, Mrs G, that’s all. And I wouldn’t have known where to start.’

‘That’s all? Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I mean, I think so. Gosh, I hope you don’t think I was colluding with you, because I wouldn’t bally do that.’

‘Perhaps not consciously, dear.’ She twinkled at him. ‘But as a clever-clogs of my acquaintance recently said to me, everyone has an unconscious mind, dear. Even you.’

She let this sink in for a moment, and then – with the consummate skill he had always admired – changed the subject. ‘So you’ve been to that bleeding canteen at last, then?’

‘Oh, yes. The sergeant took me. We had egg and chips.’

‘And how was it? Did it measure up to expectations?’

Twitten pulled a face. ‘Truthfully? I’d rather not say.’

‘I bet you wouldn’t. But go on. There’s nobody here but us chickens.’

‘Well, truthfully … it was bally awful.’

Mrs Groynes laughed. ‘So it turns out you hadn’t missed anything all these tragic months not knowing about it?’

‘No. In my opinion, only someone with very low self-esteem and a profound abandonment complex would derive any comfort from it whatsoever.’

‘As bad as that!’

‘I was about to explain this to Sergeant Brunswick, but unfortunately he decided to leave. I’ll certainly tell him if he invites me there again, though.’

‘Will you, dear?’ Mrs Groynes looked at him with genuine delight. ‘You’d say that to him, after everything that’s passed between you?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘That’s my boy,’ said Mrs Groynes, patting him on the back. She lit a fresh cigarette.

Twitten began to type, but then stopped. He had thought of something.

‘Ooh, but I meant to say, Mrs G.’

‘Yes, dear?’

‘Something good did come out of all the painful and divisive revelations of the past few days.’

‘What’s that, then?’

‘I located my locker!’

She smiled.

‘And I can’t tell you how bally useful it is!’

She reached for her mop.

‘Good for you, dear,’ she said, as she started to swab the lino. ‘Bleeding well good for you.’