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There were plenty of places where the detritus hadn’t been cleared – years after the initial strike. On some sites no one had any idea what to build. They’d reconstructed the old viaduct on the London Road and the Odeon cinema when they had been hit. Out here where the railway line had been destroyed one night during an air raid, the ground was still strewn with bricks though the train tracks were long repaired.
    ‘So,’ McGregor asked, ‘what do you reckon about our Mr Gillingham?’
    Mirabelle sighed. ‘If you’re going to slit someone’s throat you’ve got to be a committed killer. You’ve got to be harbouring a grievance or be commissioned by someone harbouring a grievance. I don’t know, Superintendent, but Joey Gillingham was in Brighton very early and the racecourse isn’t open today. So either there’s a woman involved – and a man would slit the throat of his wife’s lover, so I’d rule that out before anything else – or he was onto something connected with his work. Something dangerous. The second seems more likely – no one tonight associated Joey with women. No one had even seen him with one.’
    ‘You think he was murdered over a betting scam? Match fixing?’
    Mirabelle nodded. ‘Perhaps he just owed a lot of money to someone particularly nasty. But then, even if you owe an awful lot of money a creditor doesn’t usually kill you. They’re not going to get their money back that way. It’s far more likely they’ll have a hard man beat you up – perhaps break a leg or a couple of ribs. Isn’t that the way?’
    ‘You would know,’ McGregor teased. ‘Miss McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery.’
    Mirabelle ignored the joke. ‘Anyway, Joey Gillingham didn’t die by mistake because a heavy went too far. Whoever killed him meant to do it. And I keep coming back to the fact that he was a journalist. So, my guess is that he was onto something, perhaps a betting scam, like you say. The racecourse or the boxing ring. Lots of the men tonight had taken tips from Joey. He had a sense of who was going to win and he was generous with his hunches. If I were looking into it, I’d check the racecourse and the bookmakers. Does it remind you of when we first met?’ she said and immediately wished she could take back the words.
    Two years before, just after McGregor bagged the Superintendent’s job, Mirabelle’s boss, Ben McGuigan, had gone missing at Brighton racecourse. He’d discovered a money-laundering operation which had ultimately cost him his life.
    McGregor smiled shyly. ‘Well, a love affair aside, Mr Gillingham’s editor didn’t know any reason for him to be in Brighton by eight this morning, so I reckon you’re right.’
    Mirabelle shook her head. ‘The editor wouldn’t necessarily come clean. Justice for one of his stringers might not be his top priority. If Joey was in Brighton on a story, the paper would want to put another reporter onto it, not have the police all over everything before they had the chance to get their headline.’
    McGregor considered this. ‘Fair enough. And, of course, the reason Gillingham died might have been in the room with us tonight. Someone might have wanted to stop him getting to the fight.’
    Mirabelle shrugged. ‘It’s more interesting, isn’t it, why he was in Brighton so early? It doesn’t make sense. That’s where the mystery lies. For my money.’
    The Superintendent had to concede she was right.
    They had made it as far as the front. The sun was sinking below the horizon in a gorgeous peachy glow. As they passedthe pier the strings of illuminations turned off, and the jetty plunged into darkness. The Kingsway was quiet tonight and the only pedestrian they saw was a policeman on his beat. They didn’t speak again until McGregor pulled up at The Lawns.
    From the front seat Mirabelle glanced at the long black windows of her flat on the first floor. ‘I don’t suppose there was any clue in his death mask?’
    ‘I only saw him on the