England Expects

by Sara Sheridan

  Vesta’s eyes flashed at the implication, but she managed to bite her tongue. ‘When was Mrs Chapman here last?’

  ‘Yesterday. She arrived at eight thirty in the morning and left at four.’

  ‘Is there anything poisonous she could have come into contact with in that time?’

  Daphne considered. ‘You mean, might she have accidentally ingested poison while she was here? Well, there’s lead paint in some of the rooms, but she’d have to have licked the walls for that to have an effect. And there’s none in the Yellow Bow Rooms, before you ask. Some of the cleaning fluids are probably toxic, and the stuff I use to treat woodworm definitely is, but she was cleaning carpets the last few times she was here so she was only handling carpet shampoo. So, no, there’s nothing poisonous that she could have swallowed inadvertently unless she ate some of the mushrooms that are growing where the wood is rotten. She wasn’t stupid. And, in any case, if she’d done that, she’d have been ill yesterday – that kind of thing is pretty immediate. I don’t think she was poisoned here. Honestly, are you sure the old girl didn’t just eat a dodgy sandwich before she popped off? If she was poisoned at all.’

  Vesta shifted uncomfortably. Mirabelle’s steady gaze held Miss Marsden’s pale eyes without blinking. She wondered if anyone really cared about anyone else these days. Things had changed a good deal since the war.

  ‘Mrs Chapman died in a fit on the floor of the lodge on Queen’s Road. Her heart gave out and she stopped breathing about an hour ago. I was holding her head,’ she said. ‘Her pupils were dilated. She was frothing at the mouth and then she fell unconscious. That isn’t caused by an iffy sandwich, Miss Marsden. That’s chemical poisoning. That’s deliberate. It’s strange that you don’t appear to care. The poor woman was probably murdered.’

  ‘That’s unfair. It isn’t that I don’t care about the old stick. Of course I’m sorry she’s dead, but if it’s murder, isn’t it really a police matter, Miss Bevan? I mean, if Mrs Chapman was poisoned they’ll find out how when they do a post mortem. I still don’t understand what you’re doing here. Not really.’

  Mirabelle ignored the girl’s comment. If the fact that she had been present when the old lady died didn’t explain her presence adequately there was little she could add. She changed tack. ‘And she hadn’t come into money of late?’

  Vesta got up from the sofa and wandered to the door of the darkened room. She peered past the slave figures. ‘She doesn’t know, Mirabelle. Miss Marsden doesn’t pay attention to insignificant details concerning insignificant people. Servants, that is.’

  Daphne rolled her eyes. She flicked another Camel out of the carton and lit it. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if Mrs Chapman had suddenly come into money. But she turned up for work so she can’t have come into that much money, can she? Look, I’ll show you her apron if you like – her dusters and whatnot, if you care so much.’ The girl’s voice was sarcastic now. ‘She used a cupboard at the other end of the building. They’re the only things she kept here.’

  Mirabelle and Vesta turned towards her in absolute unity. ‘Yes,’ they chimed together.

  Vesta grinned at Mirabelle. ‘Maybe we’re both busybodies,’ she said.

  The Pavilion might have been on a small scale for a royal palace but it felt labyrinthine. Daphne lit a storm lamp and set out along the gloomy corridor once more. It was clear she had expected the women to refuse her offer.

  At the far end of the hallway there was a concealed door that was flush with the sweep of the wall. Daphne opened it. The light from the storm lamp sliced into a void of pitch black. Mirabelle could just make out some chipped paintwork and a stone floor. Compared to the ornate decoration of the public hall this corridor looked positively monastic, though it smelled less damp. There was perhaps less to rot away.

  ‘The servants’ side of the operation,’ Daphne explained. Their heels echoed now they weren’t walking on carpet. ‘No one wanted to see the staff at work, so there are passages to keep the business of the house out of the way.’

  Mirabelle heard Vesta tut in the dark. ‘So they had everyone sneaking around?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daphne continued breezily. ‘You see it all over the place. Like most stately homes, the Pavilion is really two houses intertwined – the service house and the royal one. Buckets of coal and housemaids were kept off the corridors. In some houses they had the servants move entirely underground, but this place already had its foundations in place when George took it over. Over a hundred people lived here – residents and staff . . . Now it’s only me.’

  She led the way into a pantry. Mirabelle could just make out a wall of pale wooden cupboards behind a plain scrubbed-pine table. Lifting the lamp high Daphne opened one of the doors and continued. ‘I think this room was for the footmen. It’s convenient for the front doors and the hallways. The rest of the cupboards are empty. This is the one Mrs Chapman used.’

  Mirabelle peered inside as Daphne held up the lamp. A grey apron with posies of lavender printed onto the fabric hung on a solitary hook. To one side there was a feather duster, a pile of rags and a bucket. The cupboard smelled faintly of bleach. Mirabelle reached in and checked the pocket of the apron. It was empty.

  ‘Nothing much to see.’ Daphne’s voice was drenched in told-you-so.

  Vesta, however, fell to her knees. Beyond the main beam of light, the bottom of the cupboard was lined with something. She reached in and pulled out some tattered sheets of paper, holding them up to the lamplight. The sheaf was patterned with newsprint and stiff with dirt. There was an indent and smears of mud where Mrs Chapman must have placed her outdoor shoes.

  ‘It’s a racing paper,’ Vesta said triumphantly, reading the text sideways. ‘From May this year. Well, well. Our Mrs Chapman liked the horses. That has to be how she knew Joey Gillingham. We’ve found the connection.’

  Chapter 12

  Loneliness is but fear of life.

  That evening, when Mirabelle locked the office door, it was almost seven o’clock. By five, everyone else had been ready to leave. Bill wanted to chase up information about Joey’s notebook on his way home and Vesta was being picked up by Charlie. The young couple planned to go for a walk in the evening sunshine before it was time to disappear into the maze of the Lanes and Charlie took his place at his drum kit. All afternoon there had been snatches of music from the direction of the pier – songs from the American hit parade, Mirabelle guessed. The notes rose high on the heat and seeped into the houses, flats and offices opposite the seashore and just behind. Vesta’s ankle beat out the rhythm, one high-heeled shoe dangling from her foot as she kept time.

  ‘We’re going to pick up fish and chips.’ The girl checked her vermilion lipstick in the mirror of a compact her mother had given her when she left home three years ago. Much of the inlaid diamanté had fallen out and the design of intertwined roses on the surface was scratched. As she got up to pull on her red coat she turned. ‘Won’t you come with us, Mirabelle? It’s such a gorgeous evening.’

  ‘Come on, ladies.’ Charlie checked his watch. ‘There’ll be a queue at Shackleton’s by the time we get there – best fish and chips in town.’

  This started a debate with Bill who swore by Bardsley’s, especially for the haddock. The extra walk, he said, was worth it.

  Mirabelle sighed. All this banal talk meant nothing. Two people were dead. ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said and waved them off. ‘I’ll finish here.’

  As the door closed and the sound of footsteps descended to the street Mirabelle could still discern the tenor of Vesta’s voice, the men a bass line below her, debating the quality and quantity of chips in their chosen establishments and the merits of salt and vinegar in differing proportions.

  Alone at last, Mirabelle leaned back in her chair and shut her eyes. God, she could do with a whisky. She had spent most of the afternoon trying to piece together the jigsaw that had landed on her desk. As yet there was too much that was uncertain, and Bill’s intermittent comments a
nd Vesta’s fanciful attempts to construct a whole picture out of what could only be described as intriguing scraps had made it diffcult for her to focus. Jack always said a good agent had to keep an open mind and stick to the facts. There had been times when Vesta seemed to wilfully ignore not only one but several facts simply to make a theory fit. Perhaps that was why the girl was so good with paperwork. She could make connections between people and events that seemingly weren’t connected at all. It had stood her in good stead when she worked at Halley Insurance down the hall, and even here at McGuigan & McGuigan the skill proved occasionally useful even if it wasn’t what was required at this stage of an investigation.

  Mirabelle considered Joey Gillingham, his notebook and his sister on the one hand and Mrs Chapman, her interest in horse racing and her cleaning duties on the other. After almost two hours, there were still only two things that appeared to hold the murders together – the masons and the horses. The nub of the matter, she realised, might be either of these or, indeed, both. Certainly, the journalist and the cleaning lady had connections at the racetrack and possibly at the lodge. But they had died so differently. A murderer usually killed by one method or another – slitting a man’s throat was quite a different matter from poisoning an old woman. Perhaps it indicated two separate murderers who may or may not be working together.

  Mirabelle pulled on her summer jacket, turned the key in the lock and walked down the stairs and onto the street. Outside, the air was still thick with the heat of the day and there was a palpable air of excitement in the streets. She pulled out her sunglasses and began to walk up East Street. This was not her habitual route home but she had a call to make.

  Bypassing Bartholomew Square police station and casting only a cursory glance at the dark window of Detective Superintendent McGregor’s office, she disappeared into the lanes beyond the Victorian edifice. In the sunshine the ramshackle buildings looked more like the remains of a medieval village. The sounds of heated discussions and gales of laughter emanated from the pubs.

  When Mirabelle first arrived in Brighton these streets were the narrowest she’d ever seen. In places the russet pantiles of one house kissed those of another across the cobbles. These, however, weren’t the smallest lanes in Brighton. This way and that, passageways the width of a garden gate snaked off, and now Mirabelle disappeared down one. There wasn’t enough room for two people to pass. Where a pedestrian encountered anyone else they had to slip past sideways. There was no proper pavement either, just a rough stone gutter down the side of the beaten earth.

  Mirabelle kept her eyes down. It was easy to trip on the uneven surface. She didn’t like to think what it must be like at night – the street lighting at either end didn’t extend over the pathway. But that was why Fred had decided to locate himself here – tucked conveniently out of the way, only accessible once you knew where to go. The passage was used by drunken old men out of their minds on Blue Billy – a lethal mixture of methylated spirits and Brasso – and by young lovers looking for somewhere to go in the half-light on their way home. The police rarely came here.

  About two thirds along, Mirabelle stopped. To the left there was a row of tiny cottages – all but one abandoned. This, she knew, was far too picturesque a description – the cottages were slums. The wooden frames of the filthy windows were split and rotten, and the doors were spattered with mud as high as the handles. The roof had caved in on one, and the stench from privies concealed behind the facades pervaded the air. Mirabelle slipped her sunglasses into her bag and knocked on the green door.

  The man who opened it was more dapper than might be expected. In his early forties, he wore an immaculate white shirt tucked into a pair of tweed trousers and stood six foot in his well-polished brown brogues. The scent of aftershave, a breath of sandalwood, emanated from his person. His eyes brightened when he saw who was standing on the doorstep.

  ‘Miss Bevan.’ He stepped back, running his hand over his greying hair. ‘Please come in.’

  Mirabelle glided over the threshold. Inside, the room was lit by three gas lamps. The atmosphere was dank, as if the summer sunshine had never penetrated the cottage. Mirabelle couldn’t see the walls because there were boxes piled as high as the ceiling. In fact, the room was almost full. Apart from a few passages between his illicit stock and a small area he’d cleared so he could sit down, the place was at full capacity – all of it black market.

  ‘Fred,’ Mirabelle nodded in greeting, ‘good evening.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you.’ Fred smiled. ‘You’ve come for a bottle of malt?’

  Mirabelle shook her head.

  ‘I ain’t got more of those chocolates, I’m sorry to say.’

  The chocolates had been for Vesta’s birthday. She perched on the edge of a pile of boxes that appeared to contain tinned orange juice on the bottom layer and behind her a loosely woven basket of fresh eggs.

  ‘Well, perhaps I will take some Glenlivet if you have it, Fred, but it’s not really what I came for.’

  Fred disappeared among his stock. ‘I got lovely bottles of French perfume. Shalimar,’ he called. ‘Diffcult to come by. You can’t pick up this stuff even in Burlington Arcade these days.’ He peered from behind the boxes but Mirabelle shook her head. She wore Chanel. Always had.

  ‘Stockings, then? Silk. Fine gauge. American.’

  Mirabelle’s eyes fell to her calves. She hadn’t worn stockings today – not only because of the weather, but because she was running out and didn’t want to waste what she had. It mattered less in the good weather. Or perhaps her standards were slipping. She considered this as she enquired how much they were.

  Fred appeared holding a bottle of whisky which he laid on top of a wooden packing case cum shop counter. ‘Daylight robbery, of course,’ he grinned, revealing toothy gaps in his smile. ‘You need a nice fancy man to see you right, Miss Bevan. You shouldn’t be paying for all this yourself. Mr Duggan wouldn’t have wanted you to be on your own.’

  Mirabelle froze. Fred was one of the very few people who knew about her affair with Jack. He’d been one of Jack’s agents in the early days. Jack always said he was a survivor. ‘Fred’s the cream,’ he said. ‘It’s effortless for him. He’ll always rise to the top, doesn’t matter where you put him. War or no war, Fred’ll always do all right.’

  When Fred had gone missing in the south of France in 1942 Jack had refused to give up on him and, sure enough, he surfaced seven months later, arriving back in England off a ship from Bilbao. In an attaché case he carried a German code-book he’d picked up in mysterious circumstances and in a leather trunk he’d smuggled a nine-year-old Jewish boy who had been orphaned.

  ‘I couldn’t help myself,’ he’d said with a beaming smile. ‘Now you’re gonna want to debrief me, aintcha? The old Marylebone Hotel, eh? Well, let’s get on with it. You best check I’m not a double agent now I’ve a kid to look after.’

  He was irrepressible. Some of the situations Fred had faced might crush another man, but Jack said he was an ideal agent – solid as they came. And despite his Cockney accent he spoke French as if he’d been born there.

  When Fred turned up in Brighton earlier that year, Mirabelle wasn’t surprised he was pushing goods on the black market. He’d always had that edge – right and wrong were relative to him, not absolute. He was some kind of magician. That’s probably how he’d survived. She’d bumped into him coming out of a pub on the Lanes.

  ‘Miss Bevan!’ he’d greeted her delightedly, as if the last time he’d seen her had been a jolly social occasion perhaps a week or two before. ‘I didn’t know you was in Brighton. How’s Mr Duggan? Has he made an honest woman of you yet?’

  It had been diffcult to tell him about Jack’s death but what else could she say when he asked after his old spymaster?

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘You come and visit me. I got a place just round from the Black Horse. Past the pub and turn down this little path you’d miss if you didn’t know it was there.
Ignore the tramps – they ain’t no real bother. Green door. I got whatever you’re after.’

  If she hadn’t known him from her wartime days she’d never have considered it. As it was, Mirabelle had wanted to buy Vesta a box of chocolates for her birthday and a bottle of nice whisky for herself. The truth was that she missed the antiseptic taste of a clean malt. The whisky generally available was an anodyne blend that scarcely tasted like the malt Jack used to drink. What really drew her in though was the connection to her old life. It was diffcult to resist. She’d known Fred for years – far longer than anyone else in Brighton. In 1940 – thirteen years ago now – Jack had taken Fred and Mirabelle for a drink in a hotel on Berkeley Square just as the Dunkirk fiasco had erupted. When every other Allied soldier was coming back to Blighty, Jack dispatched Fred in the opposite direction. The drinks had been their way of saying goodbye. Jack hadn’t seemed to mind letting Fred know about his affair. He’d introduced Mirabelle as his best girl and she had blushed. After all, there wasn’t a polite name in English for ‘mistress’.

  ‘You make a nice couple, don’t ya? Bet you keep it a secret, eh? Mrs Duggan and all. I got a wife myself,’ Fred admitted. ‘We don’t get on neither. Still, you gotta make things work the best you can.’

  Now Mirabelle directed her gaze to the bottle of whisky Fred had left on the counter. She wondered what had happened to Fred’s wife. Not that she’d dream of enquiring. Fred seemed perfectly happy, but then he always had.

  ‘I’ll take three pairs of the stockings,’ she said. ‘And it isn’t Glenlivet in that bottle, is it?’

  Fred winked at her. ‘It’s the nearest I’ve got, Miss Bevan. From Speyside. Straight up. I’ve been drinking it myself – you know I love a tipple and there’s nothing like Scotch. This one’s cask strength. It’ll knock these stockings off.’ He giggled good-naturedly as he leaned down and took three packets from inside a tea chest and laid them beside the bottle. ‘You got to add a finger of water to open up the taste. When you do, it’s lovely. Now would you like it or not?’