London Calling

by Sara Sheridan

  Mirabelle extended her condolences, gazing straight into Mrs Claremont’s eyes. At least, she thought, she got something good out of this terrible mess.

  In the silence Vesta’s mother regarded Mirabelle. This well-dressed lady was not what she had had in mind after all the trouble Vesta had landed in last year. She’d envisaged someone far more racy.

  ‘Come back with us,’ Vesta insisted.

  Mirabelle shook her head. ‘I need to lie down. Why don’t you stay on for the weekend, Vesta? I’ll look after the office tomorrow. You take some time off.’

  Vesta managed a smile. She looked a little tired, Mirabelle thought. Perhaps she hadn’t slept well.

  ‘Yes, stay, Vesta,’ Mrs Churchill boomed, liking Mirabelle more every second.

  ‘Perhaps just for the weekend,’ Vesta agreed. ‘I’d like to hang out with some of Lindon’s friends.’

  Mirabelle gave the girl a hug. ‘It was lovely to meet you all,’ she said.

  As she walked up Horseferry Road, Mirabelle took Eddie’s package from her handbag and tore a corner of the brown paper. Inside, there was a set of lock picks. Cheeky bugger. She slipped them into her bag.

  ‘Mirabelle!’ a voice called.

  She turned. Detective Superintendent McGregor was jogging towards her.

  ‘Oh, were you inside? I didn’t see you.’ Mirabelle realised suddenly that she was glad he’d been there.

  ‘I stayed at the door, but I wanted to see everything,’ he admitted. ‘Nasty business. Wanted to come and pay my respects, I suppose. We turned him over, after all, and I knew it would mean a lot to you, and to Vesta, of course. Are you all right, Mirabelle?’

  ‘I got into a scrape and injured my collarbone,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Green told me. You really ought to be more careful. Clerkenwell in the middle of the night! What were you thinking? Are you going back down to Brighton?’

  Mirabelle felt her heart sink. She didn’t have anywhere else to go. ‘Yes. Later.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you fancy some lunch? We could catch the train together afterwards. It’s a treat to be up in the big city. We could make a day of it – go to the Savoy – if you’re up for it.’

  Mirabelle smiled and McGregor put out his hand to hail a cab. It was only as they set off that they saw the news boards.

  THE KING IS DEAD. Mirabelle felt suddenly as if she was a very small speck on a huge map.

  McGregor asked the driver to stop and spoke to a news vendor. The morning editions had missed the announcement but the afternoon editions were on their way. McGregor returned to the taxi and removed his hat. ‘Poor Princess Elizabeth,’ he said.

  ‘Queen Elizabeth,’ Mirabelle corrected him.

  McGregor was taken aback. ‘A girl? And at her age? That’s a lot to take on.’

  Mirabelle looked back down the street. The fog was clearing. The Claremonts and the Churchills were heading in the opposite direction – she could just make out the outline of Mrs Churchill’s dark coat. She could have asked for more, she realised, much, much more. But it was too late now.

  ‘I’m sure Her Majesty will be fine,’ she said. ‘She has good people looking after her.’ It was over. There would be no more inquests and no more enquiries. It was time to get back to normal, whatever normal was. Mirabelle took a deep breath. Sometimes it was difficult to let go. ‘So, Detective Superintendent,’ she smiled, ‘shall we push the boat out? Lunch is it? Why don’t we treat ourselves and go to the Savoy.’

  Questions for readers’ groups

  1. Was Vesta’s family what you might have expected?

  2. What is the modern equivalent of a Soho jazz club?

  3. Should Mirabelle have settled with Eddie Brandon on the Claremonts’ behalf ? Would Vesta have?

  4. How has racism in Britain evolved since the 1950s?

  5. Is pornography a crime?

  6. Is the past another country?

  7. Do you have a favourite character in London Calling? What attracts you to that character?

  8. What evokes period?

  9. Is patriotism a good enough reason?

  10. Can any man live up to Jack Duggan’s memory?

  Author’s note

  Writers of novels live in a strange world where what’s made up is as important as what’s real. It’s not always easy for the people around us! Thanks are due to my husband Alan and my daughter Molly, and the rest of my lovely family and friends who indulge my hare-brained ideas, administering strong coffee and encouragement by turns. On top of that, I have a sterling professional team from Jenny Brown Associates and from Polygon – realists with notions, every one. A special thanks to my editor, Alison Rae, with whom I giggle a lot, and to Jenny Brown, my intrepid agent, who deals! Thanks are also due to the many, online and off, who’ve taken an interest in what Mirabelle and I get up to. I hope you enjoy this one as much if not more than the last …

  Follow Sara @sarasheridan and Mirabelle @mirabellebevan Like Sara on Facebook: facebook.com/sarasheridanwriter www.sarasheridan.com

  The quotations and misquotations used to open each chapter are taken from the following sources: ‘Society has the teenagers it deserves’ is from ‘Like its politicians and its war, society has the teenagers it deserves’ ( Joseph Priestley); ‘A scout is never taken by surprise’ is from ‘A scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens’ (Robert Baden-Powell); ‘I’m not against the police, I’m just afraid of them’ (attributed to Alfred Hitchcock); ‘Dogs are my favourite people’ (Richard Dean Anderson); ‘Manners are love in a cool climate’ (Quentin Crisp); ‘Sometimes I miss the spirit of London but it’s a very grey place’ (Clare Forlani); ‘The best thing for a case of nerves is a case of Scotch’ (W.C. Fields); ‘It’s not always the cold girls who get the mink coats’ (source: me, Sara Sheridan from The Pleasure Express, said to me once in conversation by Professor Neil MacCormick); ‘Be careful going in search of adventure – it’s ridiculously easy to find’ (William Least Heat-Moon); ‘Difficulties show a person what they are’ (Epicetus); ‘Friendship doubles joy and divides grief ’ (from ‘Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief ’, Swedish proverb); ‘Jazz is black classical music’ (Wynton Marsalis, but also Roland Kirk – no one seems sure who said it first …); ‘True genius resides in the capacity for evaluating uncertain, hazardous and conflicting information’ (from ‘True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous and conflicting information’, Winston Churchill); ‘Be ready for opportunity when it comes’ has been said in different ways by many people, but I like ‘The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes’ (Benjamin Disraeli); ‘Home is birthplace ratified by memory’ (from ‘Home is one’s birthplace, ratified by memory’, Henry Anatole Grunwald); ‘Anyone singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help’ (Mahalia Jackson); ‘People don’t go to church to find trouble; they go there to lose it’ ( James Brown); ‘All you need is a tiny foothold and the rest will take care of itself ’ (Branford Marsalis); ‘No party is any fun unless it is seasoned with folly’ (Erasmus); ‘The key is to let go of fear’ (Rosanne Cash); ‘Love is a game that two can play and both win’ (Eva Gabor); ‘An ill thought leaves a trail like a serpent’ (from ‘An arrow may fly through the air and leave no trace; but an ill thought leaves a trail like a serpent’, Charles Mackay); ‘Go where there is no path and leave a trail’ (from ‘Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail’, Ralph Waldo Emerson); ‘We’re all detectives in life’ (from ‘You’re right on the money with that. We’re all like detectives in life. There’s something at the end of the trail that we’re all looking for’, David Lynch); ‘Chess is ruthless’ (from ‘Chess is ruthless: you’ve got to be prepared to kill people,’ Nigel Short); ‘Experience is the most brutal o
f teachers’ (from ‘Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn’, C.S. Lewis); ‘Expectation is the root of all heartache’ (attributed to William Shakespeare); ‘The team with the best players wins’ ( Jack Welch); ‘Every normal person is only normal on the average’ (from ‘Every normal person is, in fact, only normal on the average’, Sigmund Freud); ‘We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows’ (Robert Frost); ‘From infancy on we are all spies’ (from ‘From infancy on we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few’, John Updike); ‘You can do a lot if you’re properly trained’ (from ‘It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained’, Queen Elizabeth II).

  More Mirabelle anyone?

  The first in the Mirabelle Bevan series, Brighton Belle, is set in 1951 in Brighton.

  With the excitement of the war over and the Nazis brought to justice at Nuremberg, Mirabelle Bevan, ex-Secret Service, moves to the seaside to put the past behind her. She takes a job as a secretary at a debt collection agency run by the charismatic Big Ben McGuigan, but when confronted by the case of Romana Laszlo, a pregnant Hungarian refugee, Mirabelle discovers that her specialist knowledge is vital. With enthusiastic assistance from the pretty insurance clerk down the corridor, Vesta Churchill, Mirabelle follows a mysterious trail of gold sovereigns, betting scams and bodies to a dark corner of Austerity Britain where the forces of evil remain alive and well.

  A taster of the third in the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series, England Expects, follows …

  18 June 1953, Brighton

  Joey Gillingham got off the train and checked his watch. He had plenty of time. Walking out of the station, he angled his hat so he didn’t have to squint. It was another scorcher. The paving stones radiated heat, and Brighton felt slow and sleepy compared to Fleet Street. Joey tucked his newspaper under his arm and headed for Cooper’s. Then he remembered the new place and turned off to have a look. Three girls, no more than twelve years old, meandered down the road, giggling and sucking on ice lollies. Orange liquid dripped down their fingers. Joey smiled. Oxford Street was quiet. The new sign glinted in the sunshine: Seymour’s Barber. The glare obscured the shop interior from easy view, and he poked his head through the open door. Three black leather chairs trimmed with chrome sat in front of three mirrors. The only nod to the old butcher’s shop that was there before was the heavy block at the back, now displaying advertisements for Brylcreem.

  Joey shrugged his shoulders and entered. Why go all the way along to Cooper’s on Baker Street when this new place looked good? The shop was cool inside. It took his eyes a moment to adjust.

  ‘Morning, Sir,’ said the dapper, white-coated barber.

  ‘Shave and a trim,’ said Joey. ‘I ain’t got long.’

  ‘Certainly, Sir.’

  The barber looked like he could land a decent right hook – he had the shoulders for it. But his eyes were too kind to make any kind of boxer. It was, Joey always said, a pitiless profession.

  The barber motioned Joey towards the first chair and offered his customer tea.

  You never got that at Cooper’s. It was a smart move. Not long off the ration, tea still felt like a luxury.

  ‘All right, yeah.’ Joey hung up his hat, pulled the newspaper from under his arm and settled down. ‘Short back and sides,’ he instructed. ‘None of your Teddy boy nonsense.’

  The barber grinned. ‘You ’eard about that, then?’

  ‘A mate told me,’ Joey said.

  ‘I can do you a military cut if that’s what you’d prefer, Sir.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  Joey checked his byline. When he saw his name in print it always reminded him of his English teacher at primary school. The bitch said he’d had no facility for words. ‘I don’t know what will become of you, Joey Gillingham. All you care about is sport,’ she had sniffed, lips pursed. Joey smiled to himself. Well, he’d done all right so far, thank you very much, Miss Prentice. More than all right. Joey Gillingham boasted several thousand readers a day, or at least the Express did. And he was about to up his game. In an hour he’d be on to the story of his life.

  ‘Crack this one, Joey, and there’s a bonus in it,’ his boss had promised.

  Joey liked the money but more than that he liked the recognition. ‘Investigative journalist’ sounded better than plain old ‘journo’ or ‘sports reporter’. An investigative journalist wasn’t a hack.

  The barber swept a spotless napkin around Joey’s suit, tucked it into place and began to comb Joey’s hair. Every customer was important to a new business.

  ‘Right. Tea,’ he said and disappeared into the small back room to boil the kettle.

  ‘Milk and one, if you got it,’ Joey called after him. Joey didn’t see the other man sliding through the open shop door. This was a particular irony because Joey was known to be unforgiving when a boxer didn’t see a knockout punch or a striker failed to anticipate a tackle. ‘You gotta be on your guard,’ he always said. ‘Gloves up.’

  The man moved quickly and silently, picked up a cutthroat razor, and without hesitation smoothly sliced Joey’s throat. Blood spurted across the napkin, and Joey slumped in the chair. The assassin coolly took off his jacket – blood had splashed onto the sleeve – folded it over his arm, dropped the razor into a glass of blue fluid on the old butcher’s block and walked out of the shop into the sunshine.