Free The Last King of Brighton by Peter Guttridge

anything.’
    â€˜You don’t ask,’ she said.
    â€˜I don’t like to intrude.’
    Now, he said:
    â€˜I know more than you think.’
    His father snorted.
    â€˜You know her husband is in jail?’
    â€˜That doesn’t matter.’
    â€˜It will when he gets out. You think she cares for you?’
    â€˜I know she cares for me.’
    â€˜She’s scared of you,’ Hathaway’s father said.
    â€˜Scared of me? Me? That’s ridiculous.’
    â€˜OK, strictly speaking, she’s scared of me. As she should be. She disobeyed orders.’
    â€˜Orders?’
    Dennis Hathaway laughed.
    â€˜I know you’re a good-looking boy and you think you’re a little Casanova, but she didn’t just fall into you arms that first time.’
    Hathaway flushed.
    â€˜She was my birthday present to you.’
    Hathaway sat back. His mouth dropped open. Dennis Hathaway spread his hands.
    â€˜But that was meant to be the end of it. It wasn’t supposed to carry on. She went against my orders.’
    Hathaway’s thoughts were scattered.
    â€˜Why would she do that?’ he finally said.
    â€˜Because she’s an idiot and didn’t believe I would punish her.’
    â€˜I mean, why would she agree to sleep with me for my birthday?’
    â€˜Because I told her to. I knew you fancied her. I saw you gawking at her every time you came in the office.’
    Hathaway looked at his father’s hard face. He believed him.
    â€˜You mean she’s a—?’
    â€˜No, I don’t mean that.’
    â€˜But you have that kind of power over people?’
    Dennis Hathaway nodded.
    â€˜Oh yes,’ he said.
    Hathaway looked down at his sun-freckled hands.
    â€˜So when she carried on seeing me, she was disobeying you because she liked me.’
    â€˜I told you. The way she explained it to me, she was afraid of what you would do, or what you would say to me, if she stopped seeing you.’
    Hathaway clenched his fists.
    â€˜That doesn’t make sense. Where is she now?’
    â€˜She’s working abroad.’
    â€˜That’s her punishment?’
    Hathaway’s father tilted his head.
    â€˜Oh yes,’ he repeated.
    Hathaway thought some more. A look sometimes on Barbara’s face. The sorrow he’d noticed that first time. He was surprised at how quickly he could assimilate it. He looked at his father.
    â€˜Are you a gangster? Like the twins? Do you run Brighton?’
    Dennis Hathaway shook his head.
    â€˜The council runs the town.’
    â€˜I mean illegal stuff.’
    â€˜Crime? I’ll tell you who runs the crime in Brighton. The police.’
    Hathaway smiled uncertainly.
    â€˜I’m serious. Charlie Ridge, the previous chief constable, was utterly corrupt. Scotland Yard came down and made all our lives a misery. They arrested him, two of his CID officers and two members of the public. Tried to throw the book at them. Living off immoral earnings, taking bribes, running backstreet abortions, protection racketeering, robberies. He’d only been chief constable for a year but he’d been around Brighton for over thirty. God knows for how many of those years he’d had his nose in the trough. The charges only went back to right before he was made detective chief inspector in 1949.’
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜Ridge was acquitted, though the judge pretty much said he thought he was guilty. Said that unless there was a new chief constable, no court in future would be able to believe the evidence of the Brighton police. His CID men and one of the civilians were found guilty. Ridge got fired the next day but now he’s suing the police authority for unfair dismissal as he wasn’t found guilty of anything. And he wants his pension.’
    â€˜Was he crooked?’
    â€˜Of course. We paid him off same as everybody else. You had to or he’d close you down. As it was, as long as you paid, the