slid into focus, Luke felt the unaccustomed thrill of a physical connection to the past. He had the strange feeling that if he looked down at his hands he would see fifty-year-old newsprint darkening them. More than once he unthinkingly put his fingertips on the screen and dragged them outwards, as if to enlarge the image. He was aware of, and embarrassed by, his reliance on touchscreens and digital media.
The Argus – or the Evening Argus as it had been then – was a daily local paper that led with national news, the local interest stories tucked a few pages in. Luke soon established a rhythm, reading the front page, learning to gauge the twist of the dial that would bring him to those crucial small-town pages, and then another, bigger twist to completely bypass the sports pages and the classified adverts at the back. It was slow going, and frequently he forgot the focus of his search, simply losing himself in the period. Matt Monro was in cabaret. The Concorde was offering tea dances for the over twenty-fives. The Graduate was still showing at the ABC. Mothercare had a sale on. A Brighton travel agent was the only one in Sussex offering package holidays to Sardinia. Local mothers were campaigning for more school places for five-year-olds. Brighton’s cyclists were a law unto themselves. A local heir had married a negress.
Grand and Nye were mentioned every now and then. In 1964, their club Le Pigalle was raided for illegal drugs. No charges were brought but this hadn’t stopped the paper printing a blistering editorial by the paper’s lead reporter, Keith Vellacott, on the new scourge of amphetamines. Arrests and fights at, or just outside, their nightclubs were frequent, and the people they attracted to Brighton were exactly the kind of people the town didn’t want. Luke imagined smoke issuing from Vellacott’s typewriter whenever Grand and Nye were mentioned apart from this one, happy story:
Evening Argus
Tuesday, 1 October, 1968
Headline: Local Tycoons Flog Vice Den
By Keith Vellacott
Champagne corks were popped across Brighton last night at the news that the notorious Brighton casino, The Alhambra, has been sold to an hotel chain. Rising from the ashes of an illegal fifties gambling den, the place was the site of violence as well as recently legitimised gaming. The Alhambra’s former owners, local businessmen Joss Grand and Jacky Nye, were unavailable for comment.
Of course even local papers in October 1968 had led with the Kray twins’ trial: here, the case was reported under the headline Jack The Hat Witness Lied . In world news, two American athletes had given the Black Power salute at the Mexico Olympics, and been forced to quit the games. An anti-Vietnam march had brought London to a standstill. The notorious politician Enoch Powell, still dripping crimson controversy from April’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ oratory in Birmingham, was due to make another speech about Britain’s economic future at Brighton Town Hall later that week.
Powell’s much anticipated visit warranted only a few inches in the Argus , nudged to a small corner of page seven on Tuesday 22 October. His visit and all other news were subsumed by the story of Jacky Nye, local crimelord, and his murder on the West Pier.
Every photograph Luke had ever seen of Grand and Nye accompanied the pages of reportage and speculation. The report itself was a disappointment, the content the same as the Cold Case Sussex story down to the letter, suggesting that whoever had written it was working from this source material and had been in possession of no newly uncovered facts. Luke felt, as he ploughed on through the familiar text, an echo of the frustration that detective John Rochester must have experienced.
There was an interview with the couple who had seen Nye’s prone body on the pier, and an appeal for the girl in the red coat. Luke’s conviction that it was Kathleen Duffy began to waver. The more he thought about it, the less inclined
The Argus – or the Evening Argus as it had been then – was a daily local paper that led with national news, the local interest stories tucked a few pages in. Luke soon established a rhythm, reading the front page, learning to gauge the twist of the dial that would bring him to those crucial small-town pages, and then another, bigger twist to completely bypass the sports pages and the classified adverts at the back. It was slow going, and frequently he forgot the focus of his search, simply losing himself in the period. Matt Monro was in cabaret. The Concorde was offering tea dances for the over twenty-fives. The Graduate was still showing at the ABC. Mothercare had a sale on. A Brighton travel agent was the only one in Sussex offering package holidays to Sardinia. Local mothers were campaigning for more school places for five-year-olds. Brighton’s cyclists were a law unto themselves. A local heir had married a negress.
Grand and Nye were mentioned every now and then. In 1964, their club Le Pigalle was raided for illegal drugs. No charges were brought but this hadn’t stopped the paper printing a blistering editorial by the paper’s lead reporter, Keith Vellacott, on the new scourge of amphetamines. Arrests and fights at, or just outside, their nightclubs were frequent, and the people they attracted to Brighton were exactly the kind of people the town didn’t want. Luke imagined smoke issuing from Vellacott’s typewriter whenever Grand and Nye were mentioned apart from this one, happy story:
Evening Argus
Tuesday, 1 October, 1968
Headline: Local Tycoons Flog Vice Den
By Keith Vellacott
Champagne corks were popped across Brighton last night at the news that the notorious Brighton casino, The Alhambra, has been sold to an hotel chain. Rising from the ashes of an illegal fifties gambling den, the place was the site of violence as well as recently legitimised gaming. The Alhambra’s former owners, local businessmen Joss Grand and Jacky Nye, were unavailable for comment.
Of course even local papers in October 1968 had led with the Kray twins’ trial: here, the case was reported under the headline Jack The Hat Witness Lied . In world news, two American athletes had given the Black Power salute at the Mexico Olympics, and been forced to quit the games. An anti-Vietnam march had brought London to a standstill. The notorious politician Enoch Powell, still dripping crimson controversy from April’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ oratory in Birmingham, was due to make another speech about Britain’s economic future at Brighton Town Hall later that week.
Powell’s much anticipated visit warranted only a few inches in the Argus , nudged to a small corner of page seven on Tuesday 22 October. His visit and all other news were subsumed by the story of Jacky Nye, local crimelord, and his murder on the West Pier.
Every photograph Luke had ever seen of Grand and Nye accompanied the pages of reportage and speculation. The report itself was a disappointment, the content the same as the Cold Case Sussex story down to the letter, suggesting that whoever had written it was working from this source material and had been in possession of no newly uncovered facts. Luke felt, as he ploughed on through the familiar text, an echo of the frustration that detective John Rochester must have experienced.
There was an interview with the couple who had seen Nye’s prone body on the pier, and an appeal for the girl in the red coat. Luke’s conviction that it was Kathleen Duffy began to waver. The more he thought about it, the less inclined
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