‘Yeah, well, I didn’t see them get in no taxi. That was Barney. And the girl’s friends, of course. I mean, one of them called the police, didn’t she? That’s what I heard. She’d seen everything and so had the white guy – Lindon and the posh bird leaving together.’
Vesta glanced through to the front room where Mrs Claremont was sitting on the sofa. She felt her heart sink as she took a moment to consider Tombo’s story. If it was true, Lindon had lied to her – but what innocent explanation could there be for doing that?
From the other side of the room, out of Vesta’s field of vision, her mother spotted the two young strangers beside her daughter. Her interest piqued, Mrs Churchill worked her way towards them and arrived like a liner coming in to dock, proprietorially linking her arm through Vesta’s.
‘Well, angel, who are these two fine young men?’
Vesta bit her lip. Tombo turned away to pour himself another cider. It was awkward explaining the connections, somehow. Charlie, however, rose to the occasion with a half-bow.
‘Mama,’ Vesta found her voice, ‘this is Charlie. He’s from America.’
‘Mrs Churchill.’ Charlie kissed her hand. ‘Let me introduce you to my friend Tombo.’
Tombo nodded.
‘And you two boys knew Lindon?’ Mrs Churchill checked.
‘We played with him, Ma’am. We’re both musicians.’
‘I’m on horn,’ Tombo confirmed.
‘What happened is a terrible thing.’ Mrs Churchill put her head to one side pensively.
In the front room someone started playing blues guitar. The rhythm spread through the crowd and one or two of the women swayed their hips and made appreciative noises. Tombo beat time on the side of the staircase.
‘We came to pay our respects, Mrs Churchill. That’s all,’ said Charlie smoothly.
‘I’m glad you fellas is here.’ She winked slyly at her daughter. ‘You’re both welcome. I’m happy to meet two of Lindon’s friends. We’re all going to miss him.’
‘Mrs Churchill,’ they both mumbled respectfully.
As she headed back into the sitting room a second guitar joined in.
‘I shoulda brought my horn …’ Tombo sounded wistful.
‘A man should never be separated from his instrument.’
The words filtered through Vesta’s consciousness and something clicked into place. ‘Did he say goodbye to you?’ she asked Tombo.
‘What?’
‘On Thursday night did Lindon say goodbye?’
Tombo snorted with laughter. He lifted his glass and stared at it as if he might find inspiration inside.
Charlie said, ‘When a man like Lindon has a deb on his arm, I mean when a man gets that kind of lucky, he doesn’t go back to say goodbye to his friends, Vesta. Lindon was leaving with a woman, and for him she was probably the woman of his dreams. A golden girl. He wouldn’t go back to the boys. He escorted her, you know.’ Charlie demonstrated escorting a woman with a flourish.
Vesta ignored him. ‘So he didn’t go back to the band?’
‘No. Of course not.’
The men were incredulous.
‘Well,’ Vesta frowned, ‘if he didn’t come over and say goodbye then he didn’t pack up properly, did he? I mean he wasn’t trailing his sax about with him, was he? He wouldn’t have taken it over to a group of people dancing. I’m right, aren’t I? So, what happened to Lindon’s instrument?’
Vesta wanted to catch Tombo’s reaction. A flicker of incomprehension passed across his gaunt face and then he remembered. ‘Barney picked it up. Yeah. You’re right. Barney sorted it all out. He had the case and everything. Said he’d keep it for Lindon.’
‘Thanks,’ said Vesta. ‘There. Well, when Lindon got down to me in Brighton a few hours later, he had his sax. Same old case I’d seen him with before. So, even if he left with Rose, Lindon went back to Mac’s to get it. He saw Barney again. He must have.’
‘Can’t have.’ Tombo shook his head. ‘I stayed till the end. I was there when they locked up after the cops had finished. Barney walked me as far as Piccadilly.’
Vesta ignored him. The story didn’t tie up. Tombo’s statement was Sawed. He wasn’t necessarily lying – he just hadn’t seen everything.
‘I need to go back into town,’ she said, pulling her cardigan over her shoulders.
‘Now?’ Charlie checked his watch. ‘The party’s only starting, sugar. Feels like it might go on all afternoon.’
‘You stay if you want to. But I have someone I need to see. And I’d like to have a look at Mac’s. Scene of the crime and all.’
Charlie loitered by the stairway as she looked for her belongings. ‘Hey, I’ll come with you,’ he offered. ‘You owe me the pleasure of your company at dinner, remember? Perhaps we can tie it all up at once.’
Chapter 19
The key is to let go of fear.
On the top floor of the Oxford and Cambridge Club there were several double rooms and three suites. The ceilings were slightly lower up here, but it was grand nonetheless. The hallway was painted a blue tone, and a narrow Persian rug ran the length of it. Mirabelle began at the far end of the corridor, noting gratefully as she passed each door that they had all been fitted with the same kind of lock. She bent her hairpin and inserted it into the lock of the first room. Getting the hang of how to pick the lock was tricky but she soon got a feel for the bolt mechanism and the door swung open.
The suite was vacant and enormous. The heavy cherrywood furniture looked as if it had been in place for a hundred years, and the place smelled of beeswax and lavender as if it had been freshly cleaned. Condensation clouded the windows – it was cold outside – and the fire had not been lit. Mirabelle moved on swiftly to the room next door and the next – getting in and out fast. Each bedroom was broadly similar.
As she closed the door of the fifth room a maid appeared in the corridor, dragging a heavy suitcase. Mirabelle closed the door smartly behind her and walked confidently towards the stairs as if she had a perfect right to be there. Then she sneaked back to continue her search, clicking the locks open one by one. Apart from the room the maid had entered, only one other had a guest in residence. There were no personal effects, and the bed had not been made up. Perhaps they had checked out.
Next floor down, Mirabelle realised that her hair pin was about to break. It might be worth procuring a proper set of lock picks, she thought. A basic set was small and would f it easily in her handbag. She would look into it. In the meantime she tentatively extracted a second hair pin from her chignon and prayed her hairdo wouldn’t suffer. Only four rooms on this floor had keys left on the board – so she only needed to check those ones. The first was empty; the bed sheets were tossed back. Mirabelle wondered fleetingly if this had been Didi’s room – she caught the faintest whiff of a perfume that seemed familiar from the day before. The next room was unoccupied, but the ashtray was full and none of the cigarette butts were smeared with lipstick. She deduced that the occupant had most likely been a man. A small decanter of sherry and two crystal glasses sat on a side table. In the bathroom there was a cutthroat razor. Harry Bellamy Gore struck her as a chap who’d want all the latest gadgets. Mirabelle had seen newspaper adverts for American Schick electric razors and the new safety model by Gillette. The blade on the marble washstand was hopelessly old-fashioned. She continued to the waste-paper bin, which provided two cigarette cards, an empty Dunhill packet and at the very bottom two shards of celluloid, cut from a roll of film. She picked them out carefully and held them up to the light. What could they be?
‘Do you belong to Harry?’ she murmured.
It was impossible to say. The plastic was definitely from a photographic negative, but the strips were too thin to be able to identify the main image. With a sigh Mirabelle turned her attention to the wardrobe. Inside hung a din
ner suit. She checked the pockets: a folded handkerchief (no initials), a few coins and a book of matches from a club in the West End called The Flamingo.
She sat at the dressing table and pulled open the drawer. Inside there was a Louis MacNeice book with no dedication on the flyleaf to identify the owner. A pristine paper bookmark advertising a second-hand bookshop in Moxon Street, Marylebone, was jammed into the spine at a poem called ‘Bagpipe Music’. Mirabelle snapped it shut. The sentiments of ‘Bagpipe Music’ would probably appeal to someone of Harry’s age and interests. That sealed it. Jazz was Harry’s thing.
Checking everything was as she’d found it, Mirabelle prepared to move to the next room when the distinctive sound of a key rattling in a lock cut through the silence. The rattle stopped for a second as Mirabelle realised the unlocked door would cause confusion to the room’s occupant. After a brief pause the key rattled again, turning the lock both ways, checking it was working. Mirabelle looked round frantically for somewhere to hide. Just as the door handle moved, she slipped inside the wardrobe and crouched beside the dinner suit, pulling the door closed behind her. In the dark her heart pounded and she could scarcely breathe. What if the occupant of the room had come back to change his clothes? What on earth had made her dart in here? Under the bed or behind a curtain would have been a far safer option. As her breathing steadied, she worried it was too noisy and then she forgot everything as someone entered the room. They passed the wardrobe and flung a key noisily onto the dressing table. The wardrobe was musty and cramped but it afforded one tiny shaft of light through the keyhole. Mirabelle edged silently towards it. The hole was so small she could see only three feet or so in each direction. A young man went into the bathroom opposite. He stood with his back to her and peed into the toilet. Mirabelle squinted. He was certainly of the right age to be Harry Bellamy Gore. His hair was dirty blond and as he turned she caught only a fleeting glimpse of his face, but it was enough to tell her that the occupant of the room was good-looking enough to have excited Charlotte the singer’s initial interest before his behaviour alerted her to the fact that he would not be a good bet as a steady boyfriend.
As he brushed past her field of vision Mirabelle heard the man light a cigarette, and then a rapid knock from the door to her left made her heart lurch.
‘Yes?’ the man called.
She strained to see but the visitor would have eluded her if Harry hadn’t named him and in doing so confirmed everything.
‘Miles,’ he boomed. ‘Is the car ready?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Good. I’ll need it shortly.’
Mirabelle noted that the boy didn’t say thank you. Her father had been a stickler for never taking anyone for granted, not even the staff. ‘You can tell a lot from someone’s civility,’ he used to say. It was easy for the young to be off hand. Especially someone as privileged as Harry.
‘I’ll come down in a while,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid there’s something else, Sir,’ Miles spoke evenly. ‘A lady was asking for you today.’
‘I haven’t got time for that kind of thing now, Miles. Just bat them off, eh?’
‘No, Sir. But this was an older lady.’ Miles cleared his throat. ‘She said she was your aunt, Sir. She asked for you by name.’
‘Really? Auntie Christina? Here at the club? I thought she’d be in Herefordshire.’
‘No, Sir. If you recall I saw both your aunts when I drove the ladies to your birthday party. This was not one of those ladies. I’d never seen her before.’
‘What did she want?’
‘She asked about your whereabouts, Sir. She asked if you’d be back. Then she ascertained that your vehicle was parked on the club’s premises.’
‘Describe her.’
‘In her mid-forties, I’d say.’
Mirabelle suppressed a gasp. She was in her late thirties! Miles clearly had poor observational skills. Perhaps he was so much in the habit of directing teenagers to Harry’s rooms that a woman closer to his own age seemed ancient.
‘She had brown hair and eyes. Well dressed – green tweed. Attractive enough. She was very businesslike. Asked a lot of questions.’
‘Certainly not one of my aunts then. Thanks, Miles. I’ll look into it.’
‘I thought you should know, Sir. And I should also say that she mentioned Miss Rose’s disappearance.’
‘What did she say exactly?’
‘She only mentioned it in passing. As if I ought to tell her where you were because of that. She was trying to locate you. Put a bit of pressure on me. She didn’t ask about anything else.’
‘But you didn’t tell her where I was?’
‘Not a peep, Sir. Of course not.’
Mirabelle heard the crinkle of a piece of paper being handed over. Harry, she guessed, was probably an excellent tipper.
‘You did the right thing in telling me, Miles,’ the boy said.
‘We don’t want anyone poking their noses into our business and ruining everything. Delicate operation.’
Miles moved past the wardrobe and then Mirabelle heard the door open and close. Harry remained in the room. She could hear him pacing up and down by the window muttering to himself.
‘Right. Could be bloody anyone.’ Here he let out a nervous giggle. ‘Crikey! We can’t have the police.’ There was the clink of crystal as he poured himself a drink from the decanter and then a cough and a splutter. ‘I need a real drink.’
He stomped across the carpet and lifted the telephone receiver to dial two digits for service. Mirabelle held her breath. How long was she going to have to stay in this wardrobe? There was a pause. She could just make out the sound of a distant ringing tone. No one answered.
‘Bloody hell!’ He slammed down the receiver. ‘Right. I’ll get it myself.’
Mirabelle was never so grateful as when she heard the lock turn. She heaved a sigh and pushed open the wardrobe door. Her hands were trembling. She quickly checked the room over before leaving.
The Bellamy Gore cousins had been close. Everyone said that. And Rose was missing. But the young man in the room didn’t appear to be in mourning or anything like it. His behaviour was erratic. That wasn’t the word. No, he’d been agitated. And he had considered that the police might be investigating him. Sometimes a person’s first assumption was very telling. It revealed how they perceived the situation. Why was Harry’s first thought the police? It was a sign that he felt guilty, surely. So what might Harry have to feel guilty about? Why on earth wouldn’t he want to speak openly to anyone who could help – the police most of all? Mirabelle realised he was just a boy. He had the accoutrements of adulthood, but something about him was still childlike. Harry was out of his depth.
Didi had called the Bellamy Gores inseparable. Now Mirabelle wondered. Her own young life had been lonely. She was the only child of two only children. When her parents died she’d felt utterly abandoned. She’d been the same age as Harry was now. The news had come to her by telegram while she was at college. She had been called to her tutor’s rooms and from there had gone back to London to arrange the funeral. It had felt like being marooned – she hadn’t only been orphaned but, worse, she felt completely bereft of anyone who cared for her, anyone who mattered. The family solicitor dealt with most things, and then it was as if a silence had fallen, muffling the world. It had been inescapable. Until Jack came along she’d had no one. And since Jack’s death there had been no one. Now, here was a young man whose most intimate childhood companion had apparently been abducted. In times like these one was consumed by grief and fear. One was desolate. One wanted help. Perhaps the boy wasn’t as close to Rose as everyone said. Worse, Mirabelle couldn’t allay the suspicion that perhaps he was involved in the girl’s disappearance. Her gut turned just thinking about the betrayal. In wartime people took action because of what they believed in. In pea
cetime people were driven by their private concerns. Had Harry turned on his cousin? Would a child do that? He had been a pornographer, after all. But, still …
Downstairs, Mirabelle took off her tweed jacket and slipped unseen into the Ladies’ Sitting Room where she closed the door behind her and sank into an armchair. Consciously she measured her breath, trying to recover her equilibrium, but the suspicions coursing through her mind touched a raw and painful nerve. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Poor Rose. Looking down she realised she was gripping a cushion very tightly. Her hands felt like claws. She tried to relax but adrenaline was still pumping through her system. She’d need a few moments to let it subside before she could decide what to do next. In the meantime, the Ladies’ Sitting Room would serve as the perfect refuge. Harry wouldn’t find her in here.
Chapter 20
Love is a game that two can play and both win.
Sitting next to Charlie on the tram was a strange experience. There was, however, not much choice if they wanted to get back into town. Of course, Vesta had a number of suitors. She was adept in the art of how to behave when she was being taken out. But the men she dated in Brighton never became part of her day-to-day life. They arrived in fancy motor cars and took her to places of their choosing – bars, restaurants, theatres and dance halls. She always flirted with them, which now she came to think about it was like slipping into a persona. She was herself in their company but a very specific version of herself. By comparison this man had just met both her parents and attended her family’s church. Now, sitting on the tram with him felt curiously domestic, almost intimate. They weren’t going out together, exactly – he was helping her or at the very least accompanying her, and for Vesta neither of these activities was normal. She could feel his leg next to hers and she found it difficult to meet his eye. He seemed relaxed on the other hand, and when he looked her way she blushed and felt awkward, fidgeting in her seat.
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