Operation Goodwood

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘There didn’t seem any point. I mean, it was suicide.’

  McGregor’s voice was flat. ‘You should have said something, Mirabelle. Withholding evidence is a misdemeanour. Not that I’m entirely surprised.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The superintendent removed his flask from Bill’s desk and slipped it into his pocket. ‘You always withhold evidence. You’re just not very . . . open.’

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘Of course I’m angry. If you’d told me this earlier, then I’d be further on. And instead I’m lumbering behind you like a fool and I’ve spent all day trying to figure out something that I ought to have known since yesterday. Dougie Beaumont was murdered. Do you understand? If you met a fellow trespassing in his flat it’s important. And if what you’re trying to tell me is that the victim was queer but that doesn’t have anything to do with it, well that simply holds no water. You know it’s the perfect motive, one way or the other.’

  ‘You’ve already decided it’s the motive and I don’t necessarily agree.’

  ‘What’s this man’s name – Beaumont’s lover?’

  Mirabelle froze. If she gave McGregor what he was looking for, he could arrest George Highton – not only for taking the material from Beaumont’s flat, but for soliciting or sodomy or gross indecency, or whatever the superintendent made up his mind to put on the charge sheet. It was clear he had already as good as decided Highton was guilty and, even if his workmates at the Daily Telegraph were understanding, McGregor blundering into an investigation would mark, if not the end of the poor man’s career, at least a large dent in it. It didn’t seem fair when poor Highton had just lost his lover and still retained the presence of mind to try to save both their reputations. ‘Can’t you take it on trust?’ she said.

  ‘Of course I can’t take it on trust,’ McGregor snapped. ‘This man returned to the scene. He might be the murderer. If there was incriminating material in the flat then he’s the only person so far who has anything even approaching a motive. Even if he isn’t guilty he’s the person most likely to know what actually happened. You know, you’re lucky he didn’t assault you. He could be a killer for heaven’s sake, and you disturbed him at the scene. I’ll have to bring him in for interview.’

  ‘I wasn’t in any danger. You’ve got this all wrong, Alan. Look, if Beaumont’s lover was the murderer why didn’t he take the material with him when he perpetuated the killing?’

  ‘That’s for me to investigate. I’m the policeman and this is a promising lead. You have to tell me who it is.’

  Mirabelle took in a breath. McGregor might be right – George Highton might have had something to do with the murder, but the superintendent wasn’t the least bit open-minded and for Highton the stakes were high. ‘I don’t have to tell you anything when you’re this angry. In fact, I won’t tell you – you’re trying to bully me.’

  She waited to see what McGregor would do. It crossed her mind that he was within his rights to arrest her for withholding evidence. The superintendent’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Why don’t you ever make it easy?’ He spat the words. ‘This is just like you. You won’t give a thing. Not information. Not anything. It’s as if there’s part of you that closed down during the bloody war. Sometimes I think there’s part of you that’s missing. What happened, Mirabelle? What is it that’s made you so cold?’

  Mirabelle heard herself breathe out. A soft ‘Oh,’ escaped her lips. Her heart shifted in her chest at the same time as her brain stopped thinking in words. She couldn’t be sure if the pause lasted only a moment or longer but however long it went on, McGregor glared as she stood stock-still, her fingertips tingling. When she finally managed to form a thought, it chilled her. Was this what McGregor had thought of her all this time? Her resolve hardened. Well so what if she wasn’t a pushover? So what if she had some mettle and didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve? She had done everything she had done for the best. For king and country.

  ‘I’m not going to give you the man’s name,’ she said slowly. ‘You’re not thinking straight.’

  The superintendent seemed to suck his fury into his chest. ‘Right,’ he said as he swept out of the office.

  Mirabelle waited. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she had blacked out as she leaned against her desk. She stood motionless, listening as the superintendent slammed the door on to the street. The sound felt somehow final. All at once, the office felt too empty. She stood there, trying to get over the feeling that she was reeling, falling from a great height with no one to catch her. Then, slowly taking possession of herself, she picked up her bag, snapped off the light and slipped into the hallway to lock up. It was shady outside, the shadows crisscrossing as they fell on the stairs. She hesitated at the bottom before she stepped on to the pavement, turning in the opposite direction to the Arundel. There was an unassuming little boarding house just off the front in the direction of the Lawns. She passed it almost every day. She’d book herself in there.

  Chapter 8

  Every day is a journey

  The next morning when Mirabelle arrived, McGuigan & McGuigan was a hive of industry. After a mostly sleepless night, she slipped behind her desk and got on with opening the mail alongside Vesta. Between them the two women brought the ledgers up to date and filed the paperwork. The electrician called to pick up the new keys to Mirabelle’s flat so that he could check the wiring. Bill embarked on his rounds at ten o’clock and after that, bent over their desks, the women barely spoke until it was time to switch on the kettle at eleven.

  As the hands of the clock clicked into place, Vesta pulled three home and housekeeping magazines from her shopping basket and laid them on Mirabelle’s desk. ‘These are for you to have a look at. If you see anything you like let me know and I’ll include it in the renovation. I’m really not sure what to do with the kitchen. How do you feel about yellow?’

  Mirabelle eyed the little tower of printed paper. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I don’t spend much time in the kitchen.’

  The sound that emanated from Vesta’s lips strongly resembled a stifled snort. Mirabelle ignored it. Instead she passed over one of the brown boxes she’d picked up the day before in London.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s a present to say thank you. I really don’t know how I would have managed without you, Vesta.’

  Vesta’s grin lit up. She scrambled to rip the paper aside and gasped when inside, wrapped in tissue, she found one of Madame Vergisson’s creations – a beautifully cut wisp of black satin fashioned into a slip with intricately embroidered lace straps. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s gorgeous.’ She ran her palm over the material and held it against her clothes, looking down to inspect her figure. ‘It’s so delicate. I love it.’

  ‘I hoped you would.’

  ‘Thanks, Mirabelle.’ Vesta turned back to making the tea. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to pry but Charlie said you and the superintendent were dancing the other night in the Cricketers. He said you were smoking.’

  ‘I don’t smoke. Neither does Superintendent McGregor.’

  Vesta giggled. ‘No. It’s jazz slang. You know.’ She put on an American accent. ‘Smoking.’

  ‘Oh.’ It surprised Mirabelle how far her heart sank. She had spent several hours the night before, sitting in the dark telling herself that at least she had seen the real stuff the superintendent was made of. She had managed not to cry. ‘Well, Mr McGregor enjoys his jazz.’

  Vesta stirred the tea in the pot. She tapped the spoon decisively on the side before pouring. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mirabelle.

  ‘No, really, Mirabelle. What happened?’

  ‘It’s a murder. Dougie Beaumont was murdered.’ This, she decided, was easier than answering the question and it was, at least, part of what had happened.

  Vesta placed the cups carefully – one on each desk. ‘Gosh,’ she said, considering this development. ‘So did someone set the ho
use alight deliberately?’

  ‘It seems that way. Superintendent McGregor will let the family know today.’

  ‘I had best keep Mr Timpson informed.’ Vesta sipped her tea. ‘It doesn’t change what we have to do but I’m sure he’ll want to know. That makes it arson, doesn’t it?’

  Mirabelle nodded. ‘I wonder how the Beaumonts are taking it,’ she mused. ‘The poor boy’s mother was devastated as it was. I’m not sure if it makes things better or worse, to be honest – whether he did it himself or someone killed him. He’s dead either way.’

  ‘Does McGregor have any idea who did it?’

  Mirabelle shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  Vesta flipped through one of the magazines. ‘I suppose you’ll probably prefer something more old-fashioned for the kitchen.’

  ‘Yes. I should think so.’

  Vesta nodded. ‘All right,’ she said.

  Mirabelle shuffled the papers on her desk. She cast her eyes over the pile Vesta had been working on. ‘If it keeps up like this we’ll need to take on someone else, won’t we?’ She picked up the paper on top of the pile next to her.

  ‘Another collector? Or someone on the office side?’

  Mirabelle shrugged. She leafed through the papers Vesta had been processing. ‘It’s going to be difficult for Bill to get around everything. It’s not only Brighton and Hove any more, is it? Look, this job’s in Bognor Regis.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have taken that one normally, but it’s a tidy sum. It’ll make it worthwhile Bill rattling up and down the coast. Bognor is only an hour away.’

  Mirabelle read the letter. It concerned a hotel that hadn’t paid for a large order of beer and spirits. The sum had been outstanding for months. The correspondent said McGuigan & McGuigan had been recommended by a brewery outside Brighton that they had helped with a similar problem the year before. ‘Bognor Regis? I might take this one myself.’ She removed the paper from the sheaf.

  ‘Mirabelle, what is going on?’ Vesta demanded.

  ‘I’m finding it difficult to settle down,’ Mirabelle admitted.

  ‘The other night was such a shake-up and I can’t quite find my feet. Maybe a run along the coast would be good for me.’

  Vesta eyed her friend dubiously. ‘I could ring the doctor, you know.’

  ‘What on earth can the doctor do? No, I’m sure some fresh air will work wonders. It just might take a little time,’ Mirabelle said as she reached for her hat.

  She chose to sit on the south side of the train in order to get the best view. The coastal route stopped at Shoreham, Worthing and Littlehampton before it pulled into Bognor Regis. However, when the train ground to a halt, Mirabelle did not disembark and remained seated in her first-class carriage. What she could see of the town looked down-at-heel. On the way in she had spotted several boarding houses that were shuttered, their gardens overgrown. The glimpses afforded of the sea between the buildings appeared similarly unpromising. Brighton could manage outside the summer season because it was big enough and places like Shoreham were scenic, with its little harbour dotted with pastel sailing boats at anchor. By contrast, Bognor was shabby. Mirabelle sat back in her seat and fiddled with the edge of her glove. She didn’t like lying to Vesta. The ticket inspector opened the carriage door.

  ‘Chichester next stop, madam,’ he said cheerfully.

  It was only twenty miles, not many minutes, before she stepped on to the platform and asked for directions. Outside the station, the streets were busy. Chichester wasn’t only a cathedral town but a market town too. Mirabelle set off smartly past the humdrum shops on South Street, wondering what exactly it was she wanted to find as she slipped past the housewives with baskets over their arms. A man in an ecclesiastical dog collar dotted into a shop to pick up a wrap of tobacco. A little girl waited for her mother outside the butcher, loitering in the doorway with a terrier at her heel, the dog sniffing hopefully. A van stopped to make a delivery to a shoe shop but Mirabelle found herself disinterested in the wares on display. Quite apart from the cathedral, which she had already ascertained lay further on, there were church buildings here and there – a deanery and a little chapel. She peered down Canon Lane where three men in black were engaged in conversation as they walked slowly along the wide paving stones. A chicken that had escaped from its coop perched on a rough stone wall and clucked contentedly as they passed.

  Mirabelle continued past the City Cross and the cathedral appeared on the left opposite the Dolphin Hotel. The scale of the building was impressive, but then cathedrals were constructed to make an impression. A peal of bells emanated from the half-ruined bell tower, on cue, as Mirabelle took her bearings. You always entered through the door on the west side of a large church – that was the public way in. As she crossed a stretch of grass, there was a whisper of music on the air – snatches of an organ and a choir singing from the hymnal – children’s voices. Stepping over the threshold the music grew louder, echoing round the impossibly high ceiling. Taking her bearings, Mirabelle inspected the body of the cathedral. It stretched so far that you couldn’t see to the end of it and it struck her that Mrs Beaumont could be justifiably proud that her son would end up somewhere so grand. No one would need know Chichester had been the family’s second choice and now, of course, no one need think that the bishop was doing the Beaumonts a particular favour. Dougie had been murdered, which was both a tragedy and a crime, but not one that reflected on either the poor boy’s state of mind or the state of his soul.

  She slipped into a pew. The choir was singing ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’. To one side, next to a pale, carved medieval tomb, she made out a plump deacon, who was conducting the singers mustered in one of the chapels. The deacon drew circles in the air as if he was nipping the music into place. As he turned to the right she could see his round face contort, not singing, but mouthing the words to the children. He seemed utterly taken up by what he was doing. At the end, he held his first finger and thumb high overhead and, as he brought them together, there was perfect, high-ceilinged silence. One of the children coughed. The deacon paused, waiting for the echo to fade. Then he stepped backwards.

  ‘Almost.’ He kept them hanging. ‘We are getting there. Yes.’

  To say that the choir relaxed at this pronouncement would be an overstatement, but Mirabelle felt their relief. The group seemed to widen a little as shoulders came down and the children breathed out. The group was made up of youngsters of many ages but – she squinted – the youngest surely couldn’t be older than seven or eight years. The deacon shuffled his papers. ‘Well, that’ll do until Friday, Prebendalians,’ he said. ‘Practise the staccato in the first hymn, that’s the main thing.’ He let out a trill to demonstrate. ‘Love of God. Don’t forget.’

  The choir shifted as they moved off in an orderly fashion and, murmuring, disappeared through a mahogany door into the cloisters. From above, the organist emerged, his steps echoing on the stone floor. Mirabelle reckoned the boy was perhaps seventeen years old. With a folder of music under his arm, he moved to join the others.

  ‘Peter,’ the deacon pounced. ‘A minute, if you will.’

  Peter approached.

  ‘You know what I’m going to say. The legato, Peter.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’

  ‘Let it breathe, boy. Let it linger.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll mark the music.’ He scurried away.

  Mirabelle wondered why churches always smelled the same – the musty scent of hymnals and wooden panelling. They were perpetually dim – even here where the windows were the length of several storeys. She got to her feet, her steps echoing as she walked down the aisle.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  The deacon turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wonder if you might be able to help me. I want to find out the details of an upcoming funeral.’

  The deacon’s face settled into a solemn expression. ‘What is the name of the deceased?’


  ‘Dougie Beaumont.’

  The man hesitated. It was only a fraction but it was enough to convey his discomfort. ‘That service will be family only, I understand, miss.’

  ‘Mirabelle Bevan.’ She held out her hand. ‘I was Mr Beaumont’s neighbour.’

  ‘Ah, I thought you might be . . . We have had a few enquiries about where to send flowers. Mr Beaumont appears to have had a number of ardent fans in the area. Not only females,’ he added awkwardly. ‘Nothing like that.’

  Mirabelle did not explain Dougie Beaumont’s proclivities. ‘I expect that I’m rather too old for that kind of thing,’ she said dismissively. ‘No. I live downstairs from poor Mr Beaumont. The fire brigade rescued me on the night he died. I’m the lucky one, I suppose. I keep thinking about it. I didn’t know him, you see. He moved in only a short time before he died. I paid my condolences to his mother and—’

  ‘I don’t really deal with this kind of thing,’ the deacon cut in as he shifted from foot to foot. ‘A couple of the other fellows are far more adept . . . really they have me here for the music. The bishop is very keen on music in the cathedral, and art too, of course. I can find you a verger if you’d like to talk to someone. You know – emotionally.’

  ‘Ah.’ Mirabelle was surprised she had said so much – maybe it was to the good that this man wasn’t someone who was terribly interested. ‘Well. Anyway. It’s a lovely church,’ she said. ‘The choir sang beautifully.’

  ‘The cathedral has a school. A music school. Why don’t you come to the vestry? I’ll see if I can find someone to show you round.’

  ‘No. I’m all right. Really.’

  It seemed strange now that she had come all this way. The funeral would probably be delayed, after all. McGregor wouldn’t release the body as quickly now it was clear Beaumont had been murdered. She wondered if the bishop even knew yet that the death certificate would state murder, not suicide.

  ‘Mr Beaumont’s favourite racetrack was nearby, I understand.’ It was something to say.