‘Mind explaining what’s going on?’ asked Marchant. ‘Why you sent me racing across town to interrupt this young lady’s morning.’

  ‘Don’t you recognize her?’ I asked.

  ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘Rachael,’ I said, prompting her. She turned to face Marchant and took off her glasses, shaking her hair a little, as she did. She beamed at him. The inspector looked at her for a few moments, then began to blush, redness filling his face from the chin up, like beer being poured into a glass. He turned away from her.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I thought I knew all the tarts in Brighton.’

  ‘I’m from London,’ she said. ‘Just moved down.’

  Marchant ignored her and continued speaking to me. ‘I suppose I should congratulate you on finding her. But it doesn’t explain why you sent us rushing over here.’

  ‘I thought she was dead. I thought Tremaine had killed her.’ I looked directly at Rachael, not attempting to disguise the edge in my voice. ‘Seems I was wrong.’

  ‘Tremaine?’ Marchant’s voice showed that he still didn’t understand, whatever his suspicions.

  ‘Like he killed Ingram – and O’Connor. Like he was going to kill me.’

  ‘You’ve got proof?’

  ‘I sent it to someone, but I’m sure they’ll let you in on it eventually.’ He grimaced. It was much the same line that Tremaine had spun him, emphasizing how lowly he was in the true scheme of things. I didn’t enjoy his discomfort as much as I’d expected.

  ‘Who the hell is Tremaine?’ Rachael’s voice cut through our conversation.

  ‘Holsworth,’ I replied.

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘How long have you known him?’ I asked.

  ‘Not long. Only since I moved down here. But he pays well.’ Marchant raised an eyebrow. ‘Not for that,’ she snapped. ‘Not for himself, anyway. He just pays people to … help him out.’

  ‘Like you helped him out by telling him I was on to Ingram?’ I suggested.

  She nodded. ‘That’s right. Yesterday, after you left. I didn’t think it mattered, but he was furious.’

  ‘Yesterday?’ Marchant pounced on the word. ‘But Ingram died yesterday. How could Tremaine have organized it so quickly?’

  ‘He’s a man who plans ahead,’ I explained. ‘He cut the suicide note off the bottom of a letter he’d received from Ingram. That must have been earlier in the week. Even when he killed O’Connor, he knew he might have to pin it on Ingram eventually.’ As I spoke, I studied Rachael intently, looking for some reaction but there was none. Either she already knew, or she didn’t much care. Marchant was more responsive.

  ‘Tremaine killed O’Connor?’

  ‘Yes, didn’t you know?’ I put my hand to the side of my head. The pain was almost gone now, but it was worth reminding him – everyone – of the reason I might have forgotten to convey this vital point to him.

  ‘But he was in London … with you. You saw him.’

  ‘That was Ingram.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been. His dabs were on the photographs – his, yours and O’Connor’s. No one else’s.’

  ‘He only gave you some of what I gave Ingram. Ingram only touched a few of them, the top ones. When Tremaine took them off him, he made sure he handled the rest and then gave them to you. Made sure he’d given you a set of his prints on that coffee cup too.’

  Marchant’s lip curled a little. He’d thought he’d outsmarted Tremaine on that point. ‘And what did he want to kill O’Connor for, anyway?’

  I began to tell the whole story from the beginning, though there could have been a dozen places to start. I kicked off with Tremaine’s gambling debts and the fake spy rings he used to squeeze money out of his department. Along the way I mentioned where Rachael fitted in, and gave her the chance to confirm or deny what I said. She corrected me on a few details, but broadly I’d got it right. Even then I couldn’t be sure. She was being cagey, judging what I’d guessed and offering nothing further. I finished with Tremaine’s telephone call to her that morning. She corrected me; he’d come round in person. I considered for a moment whether the truth was that he’d actually woken up here, but she’d already denied that aspect of their relationship. I wondered why I even cared. He’d asked Rachael to call me and pretend she wanted to meet me at the Duke of York’s. From there, Marchant knew the rest.

  ‘And you’ve got evidence for all this?’ he asked.

  ‘Most of it’s gone to Tremaine’s superiors – anything concrete. But you can always ask the people I spoke to. And you should be able to get O’Connor’s notebook off Dudley, if he’s not destroyed it. A search of Tremaine’s place wouldn’t go amiss, but I don’t think that one’s down to you.’

  ‘You know where he lives?’

  ‘They will, though God knows how much he’s been keeping from them.’

  ‘You think this one can tell us any more?’ He nodded towards Rachael. Her eyes flashed with anger at being talked about rather than to.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘Why would Tremaine take the risk? He knows how much her loyalty’s worth.’

  ‘I’ll still have to take her in.’

  She was outraged. ‘Why? I’ve done nothing illegal.’ She relented a little. ‘Nothing serious anyway. You don’t waste your time locking up tramps like me down here, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Marchant, as if with a bitter taste in his mouth. ‘Not usually. But when we’re done with you, probably best you get on back to London, don’t you think?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m gone.’

  I felt suddenly exhausted. I’d been on my feet since we’d got here, but now it took me only a couple of steps to collapse into an armchair. I leaned my head back, gazing at the ceiling, my mouth hanging open.

  ‘You all right, Woolf?’ Marchant’s concern sounded genuine.

  ‘Migraine,’ I muttered.

  ‘My wife gets headaches. Terrible sometimes.’ There was always someone – a wife, a relative – someone that meant they understood what it was like. But they didn’t.

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’d best get home. There’s nothing more for me here.’ I meant it.

  ‘I’ll get one of the boys to give you a lift.’

  ‘I’ll take him, Governor,’ said Purvis.

  I managed to stand, without feeling too shaky, and walked towards the door.

  ‘Send my regards to your mum, Charlie.’

  I turned and looked at Rachael. It was hard to know what she really meant by that. Hard to understand anything about her. I let my emotions flood through me for a moment, imagining that I could rescue her from Marchant’s interrogation, from her whole filthy lifestyle, and imagining her gratitude for it. Then I pushed such thoughts away. Better to end it here, quickly. Even then, I couldn’t be cruel. ‘I will,’ I said, with an attempt at a smile. I turned to Marchant. ‘And let me know when you catch him – Tremaine. If you catch him.’

  The inspector looked at me, then at Rachael, then at me again.

  ‘They haven’t told you?’

  *

  The following day was Whit Sunday. My night’s sleep had been long and deep and I awoke utterly refreshed, as always after suffering an attack. It was as sunny as it had been yesterday and I picked up where I’d left off, collecting my equipment and jumping on to a tram that took me down to the Old Steine. From there it was only a minute’s walk to the Palace Pier.

  The gruesome news didn’t seem to have deterred the tourists. I shouldn’t wonder if it didn’t actually attract a few of them, at least to the station where it had all happened, and once there they’d be fools not to sample the joys that the rest of the town had to offer. I wondered whether it was an accident or suicide. Tremaine had known the game was up, but he always seemed to plan ahead. I’d have expected him to have a stash of money somewhere, and a forged passport. Enough to start again abroad. Surely he must have seen that train approaching and, even with the carriages going past him on the other track, he could have pressed himself against the tunnel wall and kept himself safe. They’d have little alcoves in there, I imagined, where workmen were supposed to shelter when a train passed by.

  But if Tremaine had meant to end things quickly, he’d done a poor job of it. The driver didn’t see him, not before the collision, nor after. Tremaine wasn’t killed outright. He was caught up in the coupling and dragged along, too low down to be visible from the cab. The driver must have wondered what was happening as he pulled into the platform at Brighton – all those passengers standing there, waiting, their faces one by one turning to expressions of horror as they saw the mess that was hanging off the front of the train.

  It stopped short of the buffers. There was nothing unusual in that; they were just for emergencies. A couple of the station porters jumped down to try and help. He was still alive, even then, and conscious, but not really coherent. They pulled him free and laid him on the platform. He died before an ambulance could get there. There were no last words, nothing about the Morlocks and the Eloi. But he’d been right: in the end the Morlocks had got him. We’d got him.

  ‘Oh, please, Billy. It’s only five bob.’

  I looked up. They were studying my sign.

  ‘You could get a photo for less.’

  ‘But this is more, you know, personal.’

  ‘A photograph could never do justice to a face such as yours,’ I interrupted. It was a line I used a lot, and it could mean different things to different customers. In this case the compliment was genuine. She was pretty, so there wouldn’t be much for me to alter.

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Billy, tilting his head towards the chair and assuming an air of generosity. ‘Anything for you.’

  She sat down with her hands in her lap and an excited smile on her face. Her eyes twinkled. She looked a bit like Deanna Durbin. I knew I’d have to change the hat, though. The hat was all wrong.

  I began to draw.

  Acknowledgements

  While so many people have helped me both directly and indirectly with my writing career, there are a few who require particular recognition for their help with Late Whitsun. I’d like to thank my agent, John Jarrold, for his ongoing support and Katie Piatt for her insight and feedback. Chris Horlock is a Brighton local historian who provided countless details both through his books and to me directly. Thanks also to Mark Yexley for help and support with marketing and publicity. Peter Lavery deserves enormous gratitude for editing the whole thing and transforming what I was trying to say into something that makes coherent sense. Finally, I’d like to thank Helen Casey for repeated proof-reading and advice, and simply for being able to live in the same house as me when I’m writing.

  Coming Soon …

  If you enjoyed Late Whitsun, get ready for the next two Charlie Woolf mysteries.

  The Stalactite Man

  The body must have been there for six months, strung up amongst the girders that support the West Pier. As the rain dripped from the walkway above it deposited its minerals, caking the dead man’s flesh in a stony shell. That’s why the newspapers christened him the ‘Stalactite Man’.

  Charlie Woolf recognized him. His name was Harry Waverly. It can’t have been very long before his death that he’d come to Woolf’s office with the offer of a job. All he needed was someone to act as a witness when he opened a parcel – just in case it contained something … illegal. The parcel’s contents were as much as surprise to Waverly as they were to Woolf: a pair of cufflinks and a birthday card.

  Woolf never saw him again and wouldn’t have made a connection with the body under the pier if the papers hadn’t printed a description of those distinctive cufflinks. He goes to the police to identify the body, but he could have saved himself the effort – half a dozen others have already come forward. Harry Waverly was surprisingly well known.

  Woolf sets out to solve the crime, but before he can get very far his problems are doubled. Within a week another murder takes place, this time in London. On the face of it there’s nothing to connect the two deaths, but one thing stands out: in both cases the victim was Harry Waverly.

  To Muddy Death

  Charlie Woolf may be a private detective, but he trained as an artist. Neither profession makes him much money, but he takes what work he can get. And you can’t turn down a job if it’s a favour for your mum. An old friend of hers – Edith Ward-Grosvenor – has fallen on hard times. She needs to sell a family heirloom; a landscape by the renowned English artist Sir John Everett Millais. But the painting has a sentimental value too. Can Woolf make a copy – not a fake, merely a duplicate – so that something can still hang in pride of place above the mantelpiece?

  Woolf makes the copy, but signs it with his own name – he has no desire to be accused of forgery. The sale of the Millais goes ahead, but that’s not the end of the story. Just a few days later Edith is found dead, drowned in the brook at the bottom of her garden.

  In the dead woman’s house, the painting is still hanging. Woolf has no doubt that it is his own work, but the original has vanished. As he examines the copy in detail he sees that there has been one slight alteration. Woolf’s signature has been replaced with Millais’s own.

  Charlie Woolf embarks on a search for the missing painting, confident that when he finds it, he will find Edith’s killer too.

  About the Author

  Jasper Kent was born in Worcestershire, England in 1968. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and went on to study Natural Sciences at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, specialising in physics.

  Jasper has spent over twenty years working as a software consultant and trainer in the UK and Europe, whilst also working on writing both fiction and music. In that time, he has written the Danilov Quintet, comprised of the novels Twelve, Thirteen Years Later, The Third Section, The People's Will and The Last Rite. In addition, he has produced the short stories The Sergeant and the General, Ben and The Tangled Web, and the plays Beside the Kitchen Table and Comin’ Thro the Rye.

  He lives in Brighton (well, Hove, actually) with seven rats called Masha, Olga, Irina, Star, Aura, Bugby and Beau, a dog called Bilbo and a person called Helen.

  Find out more at www.jasperkent.com

  or email info@jasperkent.com.

 

 

  Jasper Kent, Late Whitsun (Charlie Woolf Book 1)

 

 

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