Sergeant Brunswick was not the only fan of Harry Jupiter’s in Brighton. Young Ben Oliver – late of the Brighton Evening Argus – had grown up reading Jupiter’s reports, and had long hoped to emulate the great man’s illustrious career as a crime reporter. The decisive moment was when he read the account of the acid-bath murder. From that day forward, to write something half as compelling as the Half-Set-of-Dentures story became his life’s ambition.
Oliver’s family had expected him to join the thriving family grocery business; instead he started as an office boy at the Argus with a view to working his way up. And now he felt awful. It was his fault that Jupiter had come to Brighton and been struck down by some unknown hand! Hadn’t he called the Clarion and instigated this regrettable train of events?
Oliver had many qualities that would one day make him an excellent newspaperman: he was literate, quick, dogged, shameless, insensitive to atmosphere, a whizz at punctuation, hard to intimidate, and looked good in a hat. During his short and uncomfortable interview with the bullying Jack Braithwaite, he had displayed excellent pugilistic qualities – parrying well, then getting his opponent helpless against the ropes, before neatly delivering a killer punch. There was just one fatal flaw in Oliver, from a professional point of view: he had a conscience.
Arriving at the Royal Sussex County hospital on that rainy Friday morning, Oliver shook his umbrella, and rescued from inside his damp raincoat a small bag of grapes. A nurse directed him to a ward on the second floor, where for five minutes he was emphatically denied entrance – on account of its not being visiting hours. But having shown his press credentials to the right person (at last), he entered the squeaky-floored male ward where the strong odour of urine was masked only lightly by carbolic, and found the great journalist awake in his bed – in borrowed pyjamas, with a thick white bandage round his head – perusing a newspaper with an expression of total bewilderment on his face.
‘Who are you?’ said Jupiter. While the memory had gone, the personality was gloriously intact. ‘What’s the big idea?’
‘It’s all right, sir, you don’t know me.’
‘I don’t know anybody. I’ve banged my head. Are those for me?’
Oliver handed over the grapes. Jupiter – characteristically – failed to thank him, took them and started eating them.
‘The thing is,’ Oliver pressed on, ‘I’m a journalist, like you, sir. I mean to say, not exactly like you. But I am a journalist, and the thing is, I want to find out what happened to you.’
Oliver realised he was blushing. He was beginning to wish he had rehearsed this better. Why did every word out of his mouth sound so bumbling and stupid?
‘I’ve read everything you’ve written, you see. When you were awarded your honorary Silver Truncheon for services to law and order, I cut the story out of the paper and pinned it to the back of my bedroom door. I do hope you remember your Silver Truncheon, Mr Jupiter. You’re the first civilian ever to receive one.’
Jupiter sighed, and nibbled a grape. It was depressingly clear that no truncheon, of whatever unsuitably weighty element, could impress him much at this moment. ‘Look, man, why are you here?’
‘Because I think I can help you. And I brought this.’
He produced a slim hardback, dog-eared from multiple readings, published by the Clarion’s own book imprint. It was entitled, You Couldn’t Make it Up: Fictional Murders Re-examined by the Greatest Brains of Scotland Yard.
‘Do you recognise this book, Mr Jupiter?’
‘No. Not at all. I’m a hopeless case, apparently. But it seems to bother other people more than it bothers me.’
‘Well, it’s not one of your major works, I suppose, but it’s one of my favourites. In here, you see, on page twenty-five –’
Oliver opened it at the page and held it out. Jupiter sighed, and didn’t look.
‘In here, you see, you challenge Graham Greene and his subsequent film-makers over the murder of the character “Fred Hale” at the beginning of Brighton Rock.’
Jupiter was becoming impatient. ‘Look, man, whoever you are –’
‘It’s where Pinkie murders Fred on the ghost train on the Palace Pier and shoves his body into the sea.’
‘So what?’
‘Well, it all happens suspiciously quickly, you see. And it’s not exactly clear how it’s done. In the film, the train is rattling along, and Pinkie leers in Fred’s face, and Fred is terrified, and there are screams from all sides, and then they approach a section where the train goes over water, and then there’s a push!’
At the word ‘push’, there was a tiny flicker of recognition in Jupiter’s expression; the merest flinch.
‘And when the carriage comes back out, there’s only Pinkie in it, and Fred is gone.’
Jupiter put down the grapes. ‘I wish you’d go yourself.’
‘People are beginning to speculate about what happened to you yesterday, Mr Jupiter. It’s my theory that you were on the ghost train trying to test this fictional murder from Brighton Rock when you yourself fell through the gap and into the sea!’
Oliver had expected more of a reaction to this excellent detective work. He got nothing.
‘So, what I have to find out is, were you alone, or did someone push you?’
‘Look I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.’
‘Because I have always admired you, Mr Jupiter. Because it’s a Brighton story and I’m a Brighton boy. But also because I have asked witnesses on the pier what they remember, and I think the person responsible for your fall must have been Inspector Steine of the Brighton Constabulary! And if only we could get your memory back, sir, such a sensational story will get me my job back on the Argus.’
* * *
At the police station, Steine was celebrating the clearing-up of the two murders with a cup of tea and a slice of cherry Genoa. He had no idea that an interfering turnstile man, with keen observation skills, had just landed him in serious doo-dah.
This written confession from Jack Braithwaite was terrific. It accounted for everything, provided you didn’t examine it too closely. To be strictly honest, there were a few details in this excellent document that made even Steine raise his eyebrows: for example, the choice of intended suicide method being to cut one’s own throat with a sword, while violently knocking over furniture. But looking on the bright side, Steine was glad he couldn’t place himself imaginatively inside the mind of a person as vengeful and murderous as Jack Braithwaite. Not being able to comprehend the warped and disgusting mentality of criminals was, after all, probably what kept him sane.
The cherry Genoa made him think of Brunswick (it was the sergeant’s favourite cake). Steine reflected on the many happy mornings he had spent with Brunswick, down the years, both of them eating cherry Genoa, with the sergeant carefully picking out the cherries to eat at the end, and begging, ‘Permission to go undercover, sir!’, while Steine tried not to stare too longingly at the accumulating pile of sticky loveliness on Brunswick’s plate, and said no.
It was a very satisfactory relationship, all in all. Young Twitten, on the other hand – well, what a hopeless young constable he was. He had spent so little time in the station in his first week that even his bakery preferences (one of the first things any policeman learns about another) were as yet completely unknown.
‘No, I haven’t seen either of them for days,’ said Mrs Groynes, dusting, interrupting his reverie. ‘I’m sure they’re doing their best, dashing about following clues, interviewing innocent suspects, getting trains to Victoria without proper authorisation, visiting banks in the City, bothering their counterparts in the North of England, uncovering conspiracies, and who knows what else – but won’t they be in for a bleeding great shock when they get back here with their fancy theories and bits of so-called evidence – and there you’ll be, dear, holding the whole solution on one piece of paper! I can’t wait to see their crushed little faces, can you?’
Inspector Steine nodded, happily. The sight of a crushed little face was always gratifying, somehow. The idea of Twitten’s crushed little face was somehow especially pleasant.
‘And all done without leaving my desk, Mrs Groynes. I am like a truth magnet. I sit here patiently, quietly, and the truth just seeks me out.’
‘Exactly. Well, that’s why you’re the famous one, you see. That’s why you get Policeman of the Year. Doesn’t Mr Braithwaite actually say as much in his letter? I’m sure I saw something about you being brilliant in there somewhere.’
Steine demurred. ‘He was a self-confessed murderer and suicide, Mrs Groynes. But yes, he does say some rather kind things about me.’ He looked round. ‘Where is everybody?’
Mrs Groynes dragged a bucket of soapy water into his office, creating a small flood, and started mopping.
‘Any news of Mr Jupiter in the hospital, dear?’ she said.
Steine winced. He moved his fountain pen from one side of his desk to the other.
‘Don’t you think you should visit him, dear?’
‘Visit him? Oh, no.’ Steine didn’t like the sound of that. ‘As I’ve explained before, Mrs Groynes, he was trying to kill me.’
‘But why was he?’ She pushed the mop towards his feet, and he had to lift them.
‘I tell you, Mrs Groynes, I honestly don’t know!’
* * *
It was a horrible day for a Maisie-hunt. Aside from the steady rain, a stiff wind was bowling huge grey-green waves ashore, and smashing them against the shingle, sending up high arcs of cold salt spray – nearly all of it landing directly inside the collar of Brunswick’s raincoat while he waited for Ventriloquist Vince beside the seafront bandstand.
Why hadn’t they arranged to meet somewhere warm and sheltered? Why not in Luigi’s, across the road, where he could be drinking a warming frothy coffee from one of those Pyrex cups and saucers while the wind shook the awnings outside and the rain squalled, comfortingly, against the windows?
Of course, the last time he’d been in Luigi’s – a painful memory! – he’d been with Maisie. He had treated her to a banana split, and she’d urged him to put sixpence (his last until payday) in the jukebox, so that she could do a dance to the latest Bill Haley, with her full blue skirt flying out, and her ponytail bobbing. Everyone had looked at her. She’d been wearing a thin red belt to match her red shoes, he remembered. A short, tight sweater and a little spotted scarf.
And now he had a horrible vision of Maisie’s body lying broken and wet in a dark alley with the rain falling pitilessly upon it. He had a vision of her being attacked by a gang of men and shouting desperately: ‘Jim! Help me!’ He saw her following some unknown man with a scar on his cheek up the staircase in the Metropole, giggling and stumbling after one too many port-and-Tizers. He felt sick. All these fates had always been on the cards for poor Maisie – a teenaged temptress who, thanks to shockingly inadequate parental supervision, consorted with members of the criminal fraternity while openly flirting with a policeman.
By the time Vince arrived, Brunswick was weak with anxiety and guilt. It is true to say that, at this moment, any urgent duty to uncover the identity of Jack Braithwaite’s wicked murderer had been utterly displaced in Brunswick’s mind.
‘Vince, at last. Tell me what you know!’ he demanded.
Vince looked as wet and worried as he did himself. ‘She no go home last night. I go off my ruddy nut, mate.’
‘Where was she last seen?’
‘She went to Hippodrome! You promised a take her, you ratbag ponce policeman, but you ruddy left her –’
‘I know, I know. I said I was sorry!’
‘Did you? That’s not what she –’
‘Look, I said I was sorry!’
‘So she go again, thass what! First person who ask! Thass the kind a girl she is!’
The rain fell harder now – so hard that, what with the wind, Brunswick and Vince had to shout to be heard.
‘Who with?’
‘What you say?’
‘Who did she go with?’
Brunswick was praying it was with one of the many girlfriends Maisie never stopped chattering about – Janet with the droopy eye from school, or Hazel next door with the calipers, or Maggie from the fish shop.
‘Some slim-slimey bloke,’ yelled Vince.
‘Oh, no.’ Brunswick pictured Maisie in the queue for the Hippodrome once more, giggling and poking her tongue out, while alongside her stood a shadowy, menacing figure in a black hat, playing with a flick-knife in his pocket.
‘Name of Twitty,’ yelled Vince. ‘I never see him afore.’
Brunswick pulled a face. Twitty? What sort of a name was Twitty?
‘You know him?’
‘No.’
‘Thass funny coz he say he know you.’
Brunswick gasped. ‘Not Twitt-EN?’ he said.
‘Twit-man, Twit-face, Twit-twat, something. About twenty- two years, she say. Like a toff, mate. And she go off with this ruddy ratbag Twit-features last night and then – thass it! No more Maisie! Oh, MAISIE!’
Brunswick’s mind was racing. Twitten? As far as he was concerned, Twitten had been off the radar for at least thirty-six hours, ever since witnessing a shooting at extremely close range. He had discharged himself from hospital without any kind of treatment and had not been seen since. He was almost completely unknown. He might be capable of anything.
‘Tell you what, mate!’ yelled Vince, as if reading Brunswick’s mind. ‘I kill whoever done this. If my Maisie hurt, I knock his ruddy brains out!’
‘And I’ll help you,’ said Brunswick, grimly. ‘Oh, Maisie,’ he groaned.
‘Maisie!’ yelled Vince, as if hoping she could hear him.
‘Maisie!’ they yelled together, setting off in the rain. ‘MAISIE!’
* * *
There are many people who, after being struck unconscious by a professional hench-person in a London banking establishment and then transported to Brighton by van and left in a cupboard in a police station with a stolen fur coat tickling their face, would simply have given way to self-pity.
‘Poor me!’ they would have thought. ‘I have made a number of classic errors when dealing with an experienced criminal, and now I am going to die because I bally well know too much.’
But Twitten did not think he had made any errors, and he also didn’t believe he was going to die. Being in this cupboard was proof enough that Mrs Groynes had different plans for him. True, her burly henchmen had been a bit rough when they bundled him out of the Albion Bank and into the van, but to be fair, they probably didn’t know any other method of bundling.
So although it’s hard to believe, finding himself now in this pitch-black enclosed space without a lot of air, unable to move his arms or legs, Twitten felt relatively chipper. After all, he was here because he’d been right, and there could be no better consolation than that. He’d been right about the Aldersgate Stick-up being connected to Crystal’s assassination; he’d been right about Mrs Groynes being a wicked criminal.
When he was finally in a position to expose her, how foolish the sergeant and Inspector Steine would feel! How they would cringe, and kick themselves! They had doubtless trusted her with all sorts of sensitive information over the years. How diminishing to Inspector Steine that Mrs Groynes had engineered every part of the Middle Street Massacre, from the shooting of young Frankie Giovedi right through to the stopping-for-ice-cream that ensured no one got out alive. And that was another thing: this blanket deception had been going on for years at the police station, whereas Twitten had penetrated the truth in just a matter of days!
He wondered if he should try to make a noise, in the hope of rescue, but decided rather to wait and see what happened. If he interfered with Mrs Groynes’ master plan, someone might panic and hurt him. No, for the time being, he would just practise shallow nose-breathing, try not to wriggle, or to dwell on the highly disturbing fact that his clothes had been changed while he was unconscious.
Instead, he would use the time to compile a mental list of every single law and subsection under which Mrs Groynes would eventually be charged. So far, including all the conspiracies and frauds and possession-of-weapons (as well as the robberies and murders), he could count seventeen major infringements, with a maximum combined sentence of 245 years (plus, of course, hanging).
* * *
There was no trace of Maisie anywhere. Her droopy-eyed best friend hadn’t seen her for a couple of days; the girl in the fish shop became hysterical at the news that she was missing, and in her distress, accidentally burned her hand on a saveloy.
More significantly, however, there was no trace of Twitten either. At the station house, where he was supposed to be lodging, they had seen nothing of him. They had taken delivery of his suitcase, and that was all. In the absence of any other leads, Brunswick asked to see the suitcase, which had been left neatly on Twitten’s allocated bed, with its thin white pillow and standard-issue brown blanket.
‘Can I open it?’ he asked the station-house sergeant, who had accompanied him.
‘If I stay here and watch you, I don’t see why not. What’s he gone and done, then? He’s only been in town five minutes.’
Brunswick shrugged and opened the young constable’s suitcase. It contained a few clothes, a threadbare teddy and a lot of old, filled-in I-Spy books (heavily annotated in pencil by an infant hand), inside one of which was tucked a letter from ‘Big Chief I-Spy’ to the fifteen-year-old Peregrine Twitten, thanking him for pointing out mistakes in one of the earlier titles.
‘Bit of a clever-clogs, is he?’ laughed the station-house sergeant, perusing the letter.
‘You could say that,’ said Brunswick, folding it and returning it to the book.
At the bottom of the suitcase were more books, all about crime. Brunswick was starting to entertain doubts that Twitten could be the man he was after. The teddy, in particular, had given him pause. But then he noticed that among the books were a couple written by Twitten’s celebrated father: Inside the Head of the Law Breaker and Behind the Eyes of a Killer. He remembered his conversation with Twitten about ‘criminal psychology’. He also remembered something Steine had said to the young man, which had seemed uncalled for at the time: You might just be a clever imposter with a uniform from a theatrical costumiers. What if there was actually some truth to this accusation?
So despite the fact that an agitated Ventriloquist Vince was waiting for him around the corner in the famous Brighton Rock tea shop, Brunswick paused to have a look. Interestingly, Behind the Eyes of a Killer fell open at the chapter ‘The Psychopath Personality’. Ten minutes later, the station-house sergeant said, awkwardly, ‘Want to take that with you, then? I can write you a chit.’ And Brunswick, not looking up, said yes.
* * *
What few of these people know, at this stage in the day, is that in a few hours they will have a common destination. They seem to be going their separate ways, but they are not. In the evening, they will all convene at the Hippodrome, where a daring and dramatic showdown has been planned in quite some detail for their benefit. Getting them all there is no picnic, however, even for a mind as devious and manipulative as that of Mrs Groynes.
Constable Twitten is the only individual who can be physically shifted (by the van-and-henchmen method again) to the desired location: everyone else will have to be tricked or lured. Luckily, Inspector Steine is an easy task; Mrs Groynes already has a foolproof plan for him. Meanwhile Sergeant Brunswick will be given a last-minute tip-off by Stage Door Albert that Twitten is hiding there; and poor Constable Twitten will wake up to find himself in Jo Carver’s old dressing-room, still tied up.
So much for the scope of Mrs Groynes’ clever plots. We then get into areas beyond her control, where chance might play a part. For who else might conceivably turn up at the Hippodrome tonight? Will Penny Cavendish rush there from her multiple curtain calls at the Theatre Royal, to tell Bobby she loves him, and beg him once more to turn himself in? Will Ben Oliver and/or Harry Jupiter make the Hippodrome their evening destination for unpredictable reasons of their own? And finally, will the hard-done-by fugitive Jo Carver make an appearance, with bloody vengeance in mind?
For the time being, we are in the dark. But as each of our characters will be drawn, inexorably, towards the Hippodrome, it is important to emphasise that there is nothing slapdash, or airily improvised, or coincidental about all this. Mrs Groynes knows most about what will happen tonight, of course, but – while she would hate to admit this – she does not know quite everything. Meanwhile Twitten knows more than the others, but who will believe him? Sergeant Brunswick knows quite a lot, but will it be relevant? And Inspector Steine knows nothing at all, but will anyone be surprised?
* * *
Back at the station, however, Inspector Steine was aware of something unusual going on. He kept discovering Mrs Groynes using the telephone, and then breaking off as if caught in secret activity.
‘At the Hippodrome?’ he heard her saying, the first time, quite loudly. He was sitting at the desk in his own office, but could hear her through the door. ‘At seven-thirty, you say? You want me to get the inspector to the Hippodrome for seven-thirty? Yes, but how am I supposed to do that – oh my good gawd, he’s coming, I’ll call you back again, dear.’
And then, as he entered the outer office, she randomly picked up her own handbag and started polishing it intently with a duster.
Steine didn’t know what to make of this, so he asked for a cup of tea, took another slice of cherry Genoa and went back into his own room.
Half an hour later, he heard her pick up the telephone again, so he went straight out, and she quickly put the receiver down, saying, ‘Wrong number, dear! Chinese laundry!’
The next time he heard the telltale receiver-lifting, he decided to listen at the door – forgetting that, standing there, his silhouette would be plainly visible to Mrs Groynes through the frosted glass. And what he overheard was thrilling. After asking the station operator for a London number, she kept her voice low and secretive, but everything she said was still clearly audible.
‘Of course I’ve seen the programme, dear!’ she exclaimed. ‘I know it has to be a surprise! But he could come in at any minute!’
Steine gulped. What was this? What programme? What surprise? He pressed his face to the glass.
‘I know, I know. They go in all innocent, thinking they’re going to be a guest on the Sooty Show or get their ears syringed or something, and then out jumps Eamonn Andrews with the big book, saying, “Geoffrey Beverley Wildebeest Steine, This Is Your Life!”’
Mrs Groynes noted with satisfaction that the outline of Steine behind the door had stopped moving. She had especially enjoyed the Wildebeest bit.
‘Oh, I wish Sergeant Brunswick was here,’ she groaned. ‘It was him you discussed all this with in the first place, I suppose? But I don’t know where he is, and I’m not sure – look, I’ve got to be straight with you, dear, I’m not sure I can manage it. I’m just the charlady. And I had plans for the evening, and now you want me to drop everything and get the inspector to the Hippodrome without him suspecting? Look, I won’t do it, dear. It’s beyond me. He is bound to be suspicious; he’s not an idiot. So that’s that, I’m sorry.’
Steine closed his eyes. There was a little pause, as if Mrs Groynes was listening intently to the person on the other end. In fact, she wasn’t even bothering to hold the receiver to her ear. Steine strained to catch what was being said.
‘What? His mother? You’ve got his mother coming?’
‘Mummy?’ whispered Steine.
‘From Kenya?’ she said. ‘He hasn’t seen her for how long?’
There was another agonising pause.
‘Oh, all right then,’ she said, at last – and, gratifyingly, saw the figure of Steine sink to a crouching position, in relief. ‘But I can’t be held responsible if he smells a rat, dear. It’s just not in my nature to dissemble.’
She then pretended to hang up and marched straight to Steine’s office door. He had to dash awkwardly back to his desk and pick up a pen.
‘Inspector, dear?’ she said, standing by the open door. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, flustered.
‘I thought I heard a commotion.’
Steine pulled a face. ‘No, not in here. I’ve been sitting here all along.’ There was a pause, while he pretended to be wondering what commotion the charlady might have heard. ‘Was there something, Mrs Groynes?’
‘Look, dear, yes. It’s a bit of a long shot, and just say no if you like, but I’ve got a spare ticket for the Hippodro—’
‘Well-I’d-be-delighted,’ said Steine, slightly too quickly.
Mrs Groynes held her head on one side.
‘Are you sure, dear? You’re not suspicious that I should ask you?’
‘Suspicious? Why should I be? I would love to come with you, that’s all.’
‘To the Hippodrome? This evening? Dancing girls and such like?’
‘To the Hippodrome this evening, yes, lovely, dancing girls, a marvellous idea. I can’t think of anything better.’
Mrs Groynes pulled a face, as if she couldn’t quite believe how easy this had been.
‘All right then, dear,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d have to work harder to persuade you.’
‘No, no. No need.’
‘Right then. If you want to go to the Hippodrome all that much, dear, we’d better go and do it.’
* * *
At the hospital, Oliver was quietly reading to Jupiter from his book about fictional murders, and Jupiter was deliberately not listening, staring out of the high window at the dark and thundery sky, when the doors to the ward banged open, and a Metropolitan policeman of high rank (and even higher demeanour) strode into the room, his shiny boots squeaking on the linoleum, his peaked cap tucked officiously under his arm.
It was the famous Deputy Chief Inspector Peplow of Scotland Yard, responding to the devastating news of Jupiter’s plight with a slightly belated mercy dash. To give him his due, he would have arrived sooner, but it had taken a little time to rally his team from Pathé News: cameraman, lighting man and director. While Peplow made his entrance, it was the youthful director (in a donkey jacket, glasses and roll-neck sweater) who had the job of arguing with the ward sister about being allowed in to film.
‘My dear Jupiter. Dear fellow! Dear friend!’ Peplow boomed. ‘I came as soon as I heard. Well, I came, in fact, almost as soon as I heard! I’ve got an ambulance outside to transport you to London. We’ll get you the finest specialists and have you back at the Clarion in no time. And if you don’t recover, you’ll still feature in your very own newsreel, so how about that as a crowning achievement to a brilliant career?’
Peplow waited for a response. Jupiter peered at him.
Peplow introduced himself to Oliver; the reporter (impressed) politely reciprocated. Jupiter looked on without interest. At the door, a man with a tripod tried to push his way in, but it resulted only in an unseemly scuffle with the nursing staff, which made Jupiter roar with laughter.
‘He doesn’t know who you are, sir,’ Oliver explained. ‘He doesn’t even recognise his own writings. I’ve talked to him about acid baths, and the Kennington Butcher, and even Brighton Rock, but there’s not a flicker.’
‘So how do you think this happened?’ demanded Peplow, brusquely. ‘And by the way, we might have to repeat this conversation for the cameras in a minute, but they don’t record sound, so you won’t have to worry about what you say. I find that reciting “The Walrus and the Carpenter” gets me through this sort of thing quite well, but of course you can make your own choice. As long as your lips move, it’s fine.’
Oliver tried not to be overwhelmed by this whirlwind intrusion.
‘My theory, sir, is that he was taking the opportunity of the trip to Brighton to check the details of the ghost train murder at the beginning of the film Brighton Rock, as detailed in this book.’
He handed the open volume to Peplow, who scanned the pages quickly.
‘Ha! That sounds like Jupiter, all right! Detail, that’s always been his guiding principle. Detail! And if there isn’t enough actual detail, make some up! Or perhaps I shouldn’t say that.’
‘But it went wrong somehow, you see,’ Oliver continued. ‘I think he got into a tussle with his companion on the ghost train, who unfortunately pushed him into the water – and he struck his head on the way down.’
Peplow sucked his teeth. ‘Now, I noticed you were careful to say “his companion”?’
‘Well, that’s the thing, sir. I have reason to believe it was Inspector Steine of the Brighton Constabulary.’
A great smile spread across Peplow’s face. He loathed Steine quite as much as Steine loathed him. Steine was known within Peplow’s department at Scotland Yard as the ‘FBB’ or ‘Fluky Brighton Bastard’ – and Peplow himself had started it. It was unbelievable how pure luck could elevate a person of such meagre talents. ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘Oh, that’s perfect. Poor old Fluky. Comeuppance at last. That’s wonderful.’
How bewildering this all must have been to Jupiter is hard to imagine: a self-important man in uniform bursting into the quiet ward and then reciting a children’s poem about oysters across his bed. The noisy camera whirred for at least an hour, taking shots of Peplow walking in with hat on and hat off; Peplow in earnest poetic conversation with the young reporter; close-ups of all three of them, and of a pretty nurse imported from a nearby baby clinic.
Bewildering for Jupiter, but exciting for Peplow. The dash from London – with the clanging of the ambulance bell, and the flashing light – was going to make a very decent little film, demonstrating the caring nature of the Metropolitan Police. The hold-up on the journey – while they filmed the right shots of the ambulance speeding past a South London milestone saying, ‘Brighton 53 miles’ – had lost them only two or three hours. But now, a thought occurred.
‘Can we take him back to the ghost train before heading to London?’ Peplow enquired, looking round for approval. The film crew definitely liked the idea, but Oliver was the only one who could speak for the medical opinion.
‘The doctors do think that if Mr Jupiter could return to
the scene, the memory might return – but it turns out they won’t let anyone remove him who isn’t next-of-kin, and for some reason his wife isn’t co-operating. In fact, when she heard what had happened, she immediately went on holiday. Also, apparently, the Pier has its own by-laws and –’
‘Oh, we can get round all that,’ said Peplow. ‘Now, what do you say, Jupiter? Fancy that ghost train again?’
‘I’m quite happy here,’ said the patient, truthfully. ‘It’s raining. And I wish you’d go away. And I wish you’d stop calling me Jupiter.’
‘He shouldn’t be moved,’ a nurse piped up.
‘I’ll telephone the office,’ said another.
‘He’s right. It’s raining,’ said a third.
‘Leave me alone,’ said Jupiter.
But Peplow got his way, as he always did. Within half an hour, the hospital authorities had conceded, and Jupiter was made to dress in his old suit – wrinkly and misshapen from its dip in the sea – and be taken in a wheelchair across the rainy hospital forecourt to the waiting vehicle with London number plates – making the journey three extra times, for the sake of different camera angles.
‘To the Palace Pier!’ said Peplow, as he and Oliver clambered into the back alongside Jupiter.
Oliver, for all his qualms about the value of this exercise, appreciated the way the senior policeman was allowing him to stay involved. In the ambulance, he thanked him.
‘Not at all, you’re doing very well,’ Peplow said. ‘These film bods make everything a bit complicated, but the resulting newsreels are always top notch, and they’re seen by everybody. And you can write about this, presumably? Sell a piece to a newspaper?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Well then, good! The Times would be nice, for a change. But I’m not going to tell you how to do your job!’
And so they sped to the Palace Pier, on a mission to jolt Harry Jupiter’s memory back.
Had Inspector Steine known what was happening, he might have been very anxious. His arch-enemy was poised to uncover what he’d done. An ambitious young reporter was poised to expose him. But he didn’t know any of this, so he cheerfully spent the rest of the day with pen and pad listing everyone who might have been rounded up to talk glowingly about him on This Is Your Life.
Was it too much to hope for Princess Margaret? He didn’t think it was.
Back at the Pier, Peplow brooked no denials from anyone. He and his film crew, and Jupiter and the reporter, took themselves straight to the ghost train, despite by-laws, despite pier regulations, despite protests from angry uniformed men and despite the continuing rain. And while Peplow made suggestions for shots, and pretended to interview the ticket seller in his flat cap (‘“If seven maids with seven mops, Swept it for half a year,”’ he asked the startled man, ‘“Do you suppose,” the Walrus said, “That they could get it clear?”’ ), Oliver talked gently to Harry Jupiter, who seemed nervous and unhappy.
‘I’m sure you don’t have to do this, sir. What are you remembering?’
‘Brighton Rock?’ said Jupiter, with an effort.
‘That’s right, sir! Brighton Rock.’
On account of the pouring rain, there were few legitimate riders on the ghost train, so the operator was happy to keep the carriages still for half an hour while the cameraman set up his lights, and someone held an umbrella over Peplow and Jupiter, and finally a tight shot was taken, with Peplow smiling broadly in anticipation of success.
‘Do another one?’ said the director. ‘You never know.’
So for the next shot, Peplow looked depressed. For the one after that, he put his arm round Jupiter and looked caring. For the final one, he larkily put his hand to his mouth and pulled a face, as if scared of what was to come.
‘Right, off you go,’ said the director, and the carriage trundled off inside, through the thick curtain and into the dark.
What actually happened once the carriage was out of sight, no one will ever precisely know. It was only Ben Oliver who had any misgivings about the possible outcome. Everyone else believed that Jupiter would come out of the ghost train with his memory restored, and Peplow the big hero of the day. But unfortunately, there were other possibilities.
All that is known for certain is this: when the carriage returned to view, with the camera and lights in place to film it (‘Ready, everyone! Now!’), it was empty. The newsreel of that empty carriage rattling into view, in the rain, became one of the great hits with cinema audiences of 1957. People gasped in horror. Women sometimes fainted. That last shot of the two men sitting so awkwardly in the little carriage – the famous newspaperman looking depressed and miserable with his head in a bandage; the star of the Metropolitan Police with his hand to his mouth, pulling a funny face – lived long in people’s minds.
Rounding off the newsreel was an interview with Inspector Steine of the Brighton Constabulary. It was filmed a few days after the horrific events, and took place at the entrance to the Pier, on a bright morning, with purposeful holidaymakers in stylish sunglasses queuing for the turnstiles behind him.
Steine’s performance was perfectly judged. He was solemn, steadfast, reassuring. He said that a) the whole episode was deeply regrettable, almost unimaginably tragic; and that b) the gap in the Pier was being filled in forthwith, to prevent any more such accidents. What was cut was Steine going on to say that c) DCI Peplow had sadly brought it all on himself by his arrogant behaviour in bypassing proper procedures in a town where he held no jurisdiction, d) there had been a real and irresponsible risk of electrocution and fire with all that filming equipment being used on a wet day on a wooden structure, and e) he personally blamed that damned book Brighton Rock, because apparently it encouraged such irresponsible mock-violent behaviour on a moving fairground attraction and led to terrible misunderstandings, sometimes involving blameless people of high rank.
When the filming was finished, the crew thanked him and started to pack up their gear. They were not to know that Steine might also have added f) that he was himself miraculously off the hook, and actually in a better position than he’d ever been. Fluky indeed. With Peplow conveniently out of the way (and having died so needlessly – and so stupidly – in the line of duty), Steine was now not only free of two very serious charges – grievous bodily harm (Offences Against the Person Act, 1861) and absconding from the scene of a crime – but a pretty safe bet for 1957’s popular-vote award for Policeman of the Year.