England Expects

by Sara Sheridan

‘Absolutely,’ Professor Marsden agreed. ‘She’s tirelessly exacting.’

  ‘Accuracy of that nature is costly in so many ways. And now it’ll cost you.’ Mr Laidlaw’s voice had become almost sing-song.

  ‘It seems to me our business is almost concluded, Mr Laidlaw.’ Daphne’s tone was clipped. ‘I’m only seeking assurance that justice will be done and I’ve requested that since the beginning. This isn’t a game, and I can’t imagine what you’re trying to say.’

  ‘Imagine this,’ the Scotsman said ominously.

  He drew his arm around Professor Marsden’s throat, almost casually, and then began to throttle him with great force. The professor’s eyes betrayed his complete surprise. He spluttered and his skin flushed. He hit Laidlaw’s forearm repeatedly and then rose in his chair, trying to ease the pressure on his windpipe. None of which was any help.

  Daphne jumped to her feet.

  Laidlaw’s voice remained calm, his tone even. ‘Your father’s life will cost you, young lady. What would you say was a fair amount? In such matters it’s traditional to call it evens. And as for any idea of justice . . . You’re not so worried about that any more, are you?’

  ‘You won’t kill him. I don’t believe you.’ Daphne clutched the thick leather handle of the little suitcase without removing it from the table.

  Laidlaw laughed. It sounded like a train rumbling. ‘That’s entirely up to you,’ he said, tightening his grip so that a gurgling sound came from the professor.

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ Daphne shouted. ‘Stop it!’

  Laidlaw looked as if he was quite at ease. ‘I can make it take any time I like. Strangle a man with your hands and your grip gets tired. But use the crook of your arm like this and it can go on for a very long time. Just enough air . . . and yet not quite enough.’

  He loosened his grip as if to illustrate the point. Professor Marsden slumped into the cushions though his neck remained firmly held in place. He tried to say something but he couldn’t get it out. His lips were covered in spittle and he hadn’t the strength to form the words. He wheezed horribly as he gulped at the air. His fingers grasped at the Scotsman’s elbow, trying to insert a barrier between Laidlaw’s arm and his bruised neck.

  ‘P-p-please,’ he spluttered, his eyes on Daphne.

  Laidlaw tightened his grip again. The man was all muscle. The professor’s back arched as if he was having a seizure. ‘You see,’ the Scotsman said slowly, as if this was a conversation over a point of theory at dinner, ‘you probably thought I brought your father because, well, who knows what you thought? There’s no love lost, is there? Not between a silly little girl and her daddy. Oh so clever, but not quite clever enough. Desperate to be part of the club. Jesus, I despise masons. They think they choose their calling but what they don’t realise is that you have to be chosen. Their little club means nothing. Are you really prepared to see him die, Miss Marsden? Here, right in front of you? Your daddy. Your dear daddy? Killed over the matter of a few thousand pounds that isn’t even yours by right? I don’t think you want to live with that. Push the suitcase across the table, there’s a good girl.’

  Daphne’s eyes hardened. She turned as if to go, touching Mirabelle’s arm lightly and casting her eyes on the handbag in which she knew the gun was secreted. But Mirabelle’s senses were tingling. There was more going on here, she was sure of it, and she didn’t want to show her hand too soon. There were three men in the suite. She looked round as the professor made another gurgling sound. She couldn’t quite believe Laidlaw would really kill him.

  ‘Mirabelle!’ Daphne pawed at the handbag’s catch.

  Mirabelle shook her head and drew it away. The gun would raise the stakes. It was a last resort. ‘Give back the money,’ she hissed. ‘Do as he says.’

  Daphne turned in fury. ‘No,’ she spat. ‘I don’t care if you kill him. I’m not giving it up.’

  Laidlaw tightened his grip with renewed effort. The professor tried to scream but no sound came out of his mouth. His face was contorted now, puce – so grotesque and desperate he looked like a different man. A dying one.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ Laidlaw said, like a little boy taunting a little girl in a playground. His eyes were vicious. He wasn’t going to back down.

  Daphne released the handle of the case. ‘All right. All right. Keep the stupid money,’ she said as she pushed it over. ‘For God’s sake, Mirabelle, why didn’t you . . .’

  But her words were cut short as Laidlaw let go the professor’s neck, long enough for Professor Marsden to relax very slightly and for Daphne to think she would have the opportunity for recrimination. Then the big Scotsman pounced. There was a loud, horrifying click and Daphne screamed as her father fell sideways. There was no question he was dead. It happened so quickly, Mirabelle thought. This man was insane. There would be no reasoning with him. All of a sudden she realised that he had never had any intention of the professor surviving the deal. He had been playing with Daphne and now he’d turn on her. He didn’t intend the girl to leave this room, and nor by association did he intend Mirabelle to get out either.

  ‘You haven’t a clue, lassie,’ Laidlaw spat. ‘You have no idea who you’re dealing with.’

  ‘You . . . you . . . said you’d let go of him,’ Daphne stammered. ‘You said.’

  Laidlaw sneered. ‘You said. You said. And you turned out to be a Daddy’s girl. What a crying shame. I was curious. You must be disappointed in yourself. All your grand ideas and independent talk came to nothing, didn’t it?’ He stood up and straightened his cuffs. ‘You can never tell how people are going to react when the chips are down. Especially women. You lasted longer than I expected, I’ll give you that. But I was always going to kill him. No one can know, you see. That’s the thing. You didn’t really think we’d cut you in and cut him in and, oh, your friend as well, and everyone walks away knowing? We haven’t survived all this time by pussyfooting around.’

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flick knife. Mirabelle acted quickly this time. She pulled out the gun, aiming carefully. ‘Stop right there,’ she said firmly.

  Laidlaw raised his eyebrows but he didn’t move. ‘I didn’t expect that,’ he said without putting down the blade. ‘Miss Bevan, it seems you’re an enterprising woman.’

  Daphne grabbed the suitcase.

  ‘Leave that,’ Mirabelle directed her. ‘Go and check the other rooms. There should be three men here. Someone hasn’t come out yet. Concentrate, Daphne.’

  Daphne put down the suitcase reluctantly and slipped past her father’s body, deliberately turning her face away. She opened the bedroom door. ‘No one in here.’

  Laidlaw addressed Mirabelle. ‘So English,’ he said in his lilting accent.

  ‘I thought that someone from an ancient order would be more,’ Mirabelle grasped for the word, ‘dignified.’

  Laidlaw grinned. ‘Did you now? Well, you got that wrong. Where I come from, guns are considered too easy. We keep our secrets, and when we kill people we like to do it hands-on – the way of the ancients. I’m going to be very hands-on with you, Miss Bevan.’

  ‘I don’t intend to kill you,’ said Mirabelle. ‘If you come any closer I’ll shoot you in the leg. Call it soft if you like, a bullet in the leg is painful enough.’

  Laidlaw grinned widely. ‘I’m beginning to like you,’ he said.

  Daphne disappeared into the second bedroom. ‘There’s no one in here either,’ she called.

  ‘But if you think a bullet in the knee will stop me, you’ve another think coming, woman,’ Laidlaw growled before launching himself at Mirabelle. Without hesitation, she let off a shot. Daphne screamed and rushed back into the room. Laidlaw stumbled but kept coming towards Mirabelle. She let off a second bullet, this time into his thigh. He roared, cutting at the air with his knife. She was only six inches out of his reach and everything was moving too quickly. She reached out and slammed the man’s arm as hard as she could, hoping he’d drop the weapon.

  ‘I don’t wa
nt to kill you. Put that down.’

  Laidlaw paused for a moment and then lunged. Mirabelle fired a third bullet and as the man went down he grabbed hold of her ankle. She fell and the gun dropped from her hand, spinning out of reach towards the door. Laidlaw still wouldn’t stop. He pulled himself up, crawling on top of her, hauling his body into position, reaching out to grab the weapon. She could sense the whisky on his breath and the weight of him pressing down.

  ‘Was it you who killed Gillingham?’ she said, trying to fight him off. ‘Was it you who slit his throat?’

  He gurgled. It was, she realised, the sound of him laughing. She could feel his blood wet on her legs as he slid upwards. ‘You’re some woman. You’d never think it to look at you.’

  He let the gun be, instead drawing his blade and placing it on her jugular.

  Mirabelle felt the cold metal sting. I’m going to die, she thought. She’d hoped for it before, in an abstract way, but now the moment was here she found herself regretting the sunny day she’d never enjoy and her morning cup of tea with Vesta. She suddenly wanted to be in the office at Brills Lane. ‘Did you kill Joey Gillingham?’ she said.

  ‘Aye.’ Laidlaw pushed his face close to hers. ‘I killed him. Truth is, I enjoyed it. I always enjoy it. No one ever notices. Wear an old suit and keep your mouth shut, and you look just like everyone else, eh? Stay calm and don’t look back. You’re all soft down here, the lot of you. Where I come from we fight for everything we’ve got.’

  ‘And Henshaw?’

  He shook his head.‘Naw. The lodge did that one. I would have killed him though. He deserved to die. He was set to sell out his brothers over that woman. You never fake a suicide. Bloody amateurs. They just make more work, someone has to clean up after them, and all the buggers want is further in, further up.’ Laidlaw slumped, seeming heavier now, as if his sins were weighing him down. She could feel his breath warm on her neck and when she looked up, he was staring into her eyes. ‘Nice perfume,’ he murmured.

  Mirabelle had to stop herself from squirming or trying to kick. It wasn’t going to help. Laidlaw smiled. Somewhere he’d found a reserve of energy. He pressed his lips to her mouth and kissed her hard. Mirabelle bit him. She tasted blood.

  ‘Jesus!’ he shouted, pulling back, ready to slash.

  I hope Vesta marries Charlie, Mirabelle thought, trying to ignore the word that came into her mind. Goodbye.

  And then the shot rang out. It sounded as if it came from far away though it couldn’t have. No marksman could be that accurate, let alone a girl who’d never used a gun before.

  Laidlaw’s head swung to one side, or that’s how it seemed. Then his body weight suddenly doubled. Mirabelle tried to take a breath. He was half on and half off her. The side of his head was gone but she didn’t dare look. Above, Daphne seemed ten feet tall. The gun was in her hand and she was shaking violently.

  ‘That’s four shots,’ said Mirabelle as she crawled from underneath Laidlaw and scrambled to her feet. ‘Someone must have heard them. If nothing else, one of the guests will ring reception and someone will come up.’

  There was a smear of blood on her leg and a spray on her fingers. Daphne started to sob uncontrollably. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I should never have done this. I didn’t know they really existed. I mean, I’d read about the Scottish order . . . It didn’t occur to me that they’d come looking. I thought Daddy’s lodge would deal with it – Uncle Johnny and his friends in Holborn. I didn’t think he’d end up dead. This is all my fault.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Mirabelle. The girl wasn’t making any sense. Her eyes flicked across the room to the bundle of letters.

  ‘I wrote them. I wrote the stupid things. I found paper from the period – the real thing – and I made my own ink. I left them where I knew Mrs Chapman would find them so the discovery would look more genuine. I did it to get money. It wasn’t fair, you see. It wasn’t fair. And now Daddy’s dead and we’re both going to hang.’

  Mirabelle’s mind was racing. ‘It was all a con,’ she said as it fell into place. ‘But then they weren’t going to pay you, anyway.’ She grappled with the catch on the suitcase and opened it. With frantic fingers she felt underneath the notes on the top. Sure enough, the case contained about two hundred pounds and a lot of blank paper. That was how things were after the war. Everything was empty. People expected something for nothing and none of it was real. Mirabelle looked at Professor Marsden’s body and Daphne who had sunk to her knees with tears streaming down her face. What a stupid, pointless waste.

  Jack always said that you could never tell anything about an agent until their life was threatened. You could train people. You could equip them. You’d think they’d act one way or another. But until they were on active service you never knew what they’d actually do when they got into a tight spot.

  Mirabelle’s outrage quickly dissipated as she realised she had to get Daphne out of the room now. They had to get away.

  She left the girl heaving for breath on the carpet and checked the last bedroom. Her chest felt constricted and she was struggling to breathe. Did they have McGregor in there? She opened the door. Inside, tied to a chair, a man sat slumped. The third man. She bent down to see his face.

  ‘Mr Tupps,’ she said out loud. ‘Thank God.’ She immediately felt guilty. He was dead, of course. She tried to restrain the rush of relief. A dead body should never be good news, she chastised herself, but at least there was still a chance the Superintendent was alive. She grabbed the chair and manoeuvred it into the sitting room, removing the rope that was holding Mr Tupps in place so that he flopped onto the carpet. Then she wiped the gun meticulously and put it into the old man’s hand so at first glance it would appear that he had shot Laidlaw. It was the best she could do. It would take the police a while to figure out the sequence of events.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘I think he’s the man who killed Elsie. He’s the man to whom Laidlaw dished out your justice, Daphne.’ The girl looked as if she might be sick. Mirabelle continued. ‘He thought he was being loyal to his lodge – protecting it – when he got rid of Elsie and then Captain Henshaw. Then Laidlaw came along and pulled rank on him.’

  Mirabelle grabbed the fake letters and arranged them in the grate so that the flame would catch. She picked up the heavy lighter from the table and twisted it open to drip some fluid onto the thick paper.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m getting us out of here,’ Mirabelle said, turning the lighter round and setting the papers alight. Then, she fed the fire with the rope that had held Mr Tupps in place. Next she looked Daphne over. ‘You’ll do,’ she said. ‘As for me,’ she scrab-bled inside her handbag, found a handkerchief and cleaned Laidlaw’s blood off her leg and her hand, throwing the stained handkerchief onto the fire. It was blazing now.

  ‘Well. Come on,’ she said, picking up the suitcase.

  ‘I don’t want the money any more,’ mumbled Daphne forlornly.

  Mirabelle grabbed the girl by the fingers. ‘Come on,’ she repeated, pulling the key from her pocket just as the hammering started on the door. ‘Getting caught won’t help anyone.’

  ‘Is everything all right in there?’ a voice shouted. ‘This is hotel security. Open up.’

  Cool as a cucumber, Mirabelle unlocked the door to the dining room. Checking behind her only once, she dragged Daphne like a reluctant toddler out of the room.

  ‘Daddy,’ the girl mouthed.

  ‘You can’t do him any good now,’ said Mirabelle.

  Then the women slipped away, locking the door behind them. They crossed the dining room and left through the door on the other side, cutting through the second suite, which brought them to the public corridor, around a corner. They could hear banging on the door of Laidlaw’s room and raised voices. Then silence as the security guards must have used the skeleton key. Mirabelle led the way downstairs to the next floor, into the service lift and pressed B1 as Charlie had told her. In
the kitchens they walked silently out of the back door and into the sunshine. It didn’t feel as if it could possibly still be early morning, but around them Brighton was oblivious of what had happened in the last few minutes in the penthouse suite at the Grand. For most people the day was just starting. Church bells chimed nine o’clock further up the hill.

  Daphne was pale and shaking.

  ‘Come on,’ Mirabelle chivvied her. ‘We need to go to my office. Then I have to find my friend, the policeman.’

  ‘Is he still missing?’ It was as if the girl was drunk and couldn’t quite grasp what was going on.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mirabelle, ‘but I think I know where he might be.’

  Daphne put up her hand to stop Mirabelle from speaking. Then the girl leaned over and vomited onto the pavement. ‘Things always go to my stomach,’ she said. ‘That’s what my mother says.’ She started to sob again, realising that her mother was newly widowed and she was fatherless. She looked up. Somewhere on the upper floors, Professor Marsden’s body was being poked and prodded. The police were being called. The men were putting out the fire Mirabelle had set and wondering what had been burned. ‘The irony is, I get a thousand pounds a year in Daddy’s will. I didn’t mean it to go this way,’ she said earnestly. ‘You have to believe me. Really, I didn’t. We didn’t get on but . . .’

  ‘No one meant it to go this way,’ said Mirabelle sharply. ‘Laidlaw thought he’d be the one walking away. But if we turn ourselves in, you’ll be charged with fraud and perhaps manslaughter. Part of me thinks you should be charged. Part of me thinks I should be charged, for that matter. At the least I’m an accessory. If I had used the gun earlier perhaps I might have saved your father and we’d have two dead bodies up there rather than three. I suspect, though, once we’d gone into the room we didn’t have many choices. But now we do. I’m choosing to find McGregor and I’m taking you out of here to thank you because you saved my life.’

  ‘They couldn’t lock me up for killing him. Not after what he did to Daddy. Not after what he was about to do to you.’