Operation Goodwood

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘Bevan. No. You’re quite right.’

  ‘Are you undergoing . . . treatment for anything? Based here, I have very few female patients. Tell me, is there anything I ought to know?’

  ‘If what you are tiptoeing around, Doctor, is whether or not I’m pregnant, then most emphatically I am not. I suspect I am suffering from shock though. It’s silly, really.’

  Mrs Crowe laughed and sat down eagerly on a chair to the side. She had the air of a schoolgirl, despite her smart outfit. ‘There, Desmond, Miss Bevan will have none of your Dublin pitter-patter, the long way around.’ Behind them the door opened once more and an older lady carrying a tray of tea things came in and deposited them on a side table. Her shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal forearms as sturdy as prize hams and Mirabelle caught a faint whiff of bleach as she leaned over. ‘Let me,’ Mrs Crowe insisted. ‘Please.’ She poured the tea as the housekeeper turned out of the room.

  ‘You said you had a shock, Miss Bevan?’ Dr Coughlan pressed.

  Mirabelle felt foolish. After all, on an RAF base the doctor had no doubt seen terrible accidents and, if he had been stationed here for very long, he’d have tended men who’d flown wartime missions and not returned. ‘I don’t want to make a fuss. Really, it’s nothing. You’re very kind.’

  ‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.’

  Mirabelle paused before she relented, telling herself that he was a doctor, after all. ‘I was in a fire in the early hours of Sunday morning. The brigade rescued me and I’m fine, really, but for some reason it keeps coming back into my mind. I’ve noticed a few times and just ignored it – chaps smoking on the train and so forth – but then in the Bader Arms the fire in the grate suddenly spat and I felt awful. I couldn’t think of anything else. It brought the whole thing back and I expect I passed out. The next thing I knew I was here. It’s silly, really.’

  Mrs Crowe delivered a strong cup of tea into Mirabelle’s hand and Mirabelle sipped it. Perhaps everyone had been right all along – the tea certainly made her feel better almost instantly. Mrs Crowe on the other hand appeared suddenly all nerves. She perched on the corner of her seat, a cup in her hand.

  ‘Where was the fire?’ she asked.

  ‘It was upstairs from my flat. In Brighton.’

  ‘The Lawns?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh no.’ The girl’s hands began to shake and she deposited the cup and saucer on to the floor.

  ‘Enid?’ Dr Coughlan crossed the room and slipped his fingers on to Mrs Crowe’s wrist to check her pulse. ‘It’s clearly a day for it,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘Are you a journalist?’ Enid snapped in Mirabelle’s direction.

  ‘No,’ Mirabelle replied. ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Because that just isn’t on. It isn’t on, you know.’ Mrs Crowe extracted her wrist from Dr Coughlan’s grasp and instead took hold of his hand. ‘That’s where Nug died, Desmond. That’s when Nug died. On Saturday night, or Sunday morning, in his flat in Brighton.’

  Dr Coughlan’s blue eyes fell unblinking on Mirabelle, demanding an explanation. ‘Well, Miss Bevan?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to alarm you. You are Mr Beaumont’s sister, aren’t you? Enid. I recall the name now. I’m sorry if I gave you a fright.’

  Enid’s stare was unforgiving. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not a journalist. Nothing like that. Your brother bought the flat upstairs from mine. I had no idea he was even there that night. I feel guilty about it. The thing is that since the fire I have found myself compelled . . . well, I just want to know a bit more about him. I almost died and it seemed odd that I had no knowledge of Mr Beaumont, what with him being a neighbour. I had seen him race once, you see. At first when it looked as if he had killed himself, well, one can’t help but have tremendous sympathy for someone so very unhappy. Later, when I heard he had been murdered—’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Enid cut in. ‘The police only told us this morning.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. I’ve been helping with their inquiries,’ Mirabelle stumbled. ‘I found out yesterday. I’m so sorry. I’m really not explaining terribly well. It’s only that it happened just upstairs, you see. I was there that evening. I must have slept right through it – his death I mean. It’s been dreadfully unsettling and rather on my mind. I knew your brother was to be interred at Chichester so I came to have a look and then I heard he drank sometimes at the Bader Arms, so I came here to get a sense of him. And then the wretched fire scared the wits out of me. You see, I’m far too hopeless to be a journalist, Mrs Crowe. I’m sorry – you’ve had enough on your plate this week, I’m sure, without me blundering in.’

  Enid nodded, accepting this haphazard explanation. Dr Coughlan squeezed her shoulder. ‘Now then,’ he comforted her. ‘I think what we have here is a coincidence. After all, Miss Bevan couldn’t possibly know Dougie’s car was coming in today.’

  Mirabelle paused. ‘Mr Beaumont’s car?’

  Enid appeared to deflate. Mirabelle had a sudden vision of her as a schoolgirl with her hair in plaited pigtails. She seemed too young. Nonetheless, she shooed off the doctor and picked up her teacup. Dr Coughlan peered towards the tray and passed round the plate of sandwiches. Enid waved away the food but Mirabelle took one gratefully – most people complained about Shipham’s paste, but she liked it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Enid shifted in her seat. ‘You don’t blame Nug, do you, Miss Bevan?’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I think I might blame him. You know, if I had almost died in a fire that he had somehow caused. I’m sorry that I accused you. My father warned us that there might be press interest. He is in the public eye so he is aware of that kind of thing and Dougie, after all, was quite well known.’

  ‘It must have been a terribly trying couple of days for you, Mrs Crowe. Were you close to your brother?’

  ‘Yes. Of course I was. I looked up to him. It is terribly strange being here without poor Nuggie.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean “here” in any existential sense.’ She smiled sadly. ‘It’s just I only ever came to Goodwood to see him race. It’s a relief in a way that it turned out he didn’t kill himself. Suicide – really. When the news first came through, it was just so awful, and even my husband looked at me strangely, as if he was waiting for me to top myself too. People think it’s a weakness and they worry it might run in the genes.’

  ‘When did you come up?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Ah – the glasses that Kamari returned to the bar.’

  ‘Yes. We put on drinks for the base commander and a few of Nug’s friends from the village. Everyone has been tremendously kind.’ Here she was interrupted by the sound of an airplane engine flying low overhead and she paused and sat up. ‘That’ll be the car.’

  Mirabelle cast her eyes to the ceiling. ‘You mean it’s being flown in?’

  ‘Yes. From France. That was why Nug came home this week,’ Enid replied. ‘They use old transport planes to deliver racing vehicles internationally. When Goodwood’s on, sometimes it feels as if it’s raining Bugattis. One of us had to deal with it – the bally thing was always going to come back – so here we are. Daddy is tied up in London. Mummy wouldn’t be able, you see.’

  ‘Yes. I delivered my condolences to your mother.’

  Enid’s eyes narrowed. Oblivious, Dr Coughlan took another sandwich from the plate and ate it in one. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I pronounce you a lot better, Miss Bevan. I can prescribe sleeping tablets, if you’d like. Or something for your nerves? A little morphine works wonders.’

  ‘Thank you, but I think I just have to get on with things,’ Mirabelle replied. Jack had always said ‘worse happens at sea’. He wouldn’t have taken pills if he’d fainted though the truth is he probably wouldn’t have fainted in the first place. She put down the teacup and slowly got to her feet with the sinking feeling that somehow
she had let down the side.

  ‘All right?’ Dr Coughlan checked and she nodded. Then the three of them collected themselves before passing through the cottage’s dark hallway and into the street. Outside, the sky had clouded over and looked as if it threatened rain. The gates of the base were only a couple of hundred yards away and Mirabelle fell into step with the doctor and Enid Crowe – it was the right direction for Chichester. The guard on duty scrambled to attention as they approached the barrier.

  ‘I hope you have a safe drive back to Brighton,’ the doctor said.

  ‘I haven’t driven in years,’ Mirabelle admitted. ‘No. I shall walk back into Chichester and catch the train.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Coughlan turned, suddenly insistent, understanding dawning. ‘I can’t have that. I assumed you must be in a car.’

  ‘I’m fine, really.’

  ‘No,’ he took Mirabelle firmly by the arm. ‘It’s miles, for heaven’s sake, and you only just came round. Tag along with us. I’ll see if I can get a driver from the base to take you. I insist, Miss Bevan.’

  Enid said nothing. She doesn’t like me, Mirabelle thought. Still, she could understand that. To Enid it must seem strange that Mirabelle had come here, on some kind of quest, looking for traces of a man she’d never met.

  ‘A lift into town would be most welcome.’ She smiled.

  The guard saluted as they passed through the gate. The base was large – a mixture of brick and prefabricated huts. From the direction of the runways the hum of engines surged towards them and the air was scented with an odd mixture of airplane fuel and the aroma of overboiled soup that was being served in the canteen. Tangmere had been a key airfield in the final months of the war. D-Day wouldn’t have gone as smoothly without the men who had worked here. Two airmen in a jeep passed on the road and the throaty sound of men laughing emanated from the mess.

  ‘What will happen to Mr Beaumont’s car?’ Mirabelle asked.

  Enid continued to look straight ahead. ‘I don’t know exactly. My husband is interested in cars, though not to the degree Nug was. Poor Nuggie – he was obsessed.’

  ‘I heard he was planning some renovations.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll implement his design for the car,’ she sighed. ‘I mean, that’s what he would have wanted. Michael said he thought that might be for the best and Daddy seemed quite keen. I don’t care, to be honest. I’d just like all this to be over. I suppose the main thing now is that we find out who murdered my brother. And that we bury him.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mirabelle said. ‘Of course.’

  Ahead of them, Kamari appeared from one of the prefabricated huts. He must have spotted the group’s arrival.

  ‘Oh hello.’ Mirabelle sounded cheery. Kamari grinned. Neither Dr Coughlan nor Enid acknowledged the man’s presence. It struck Mirabelle as extraordinary how perfectly pleasant people behaved entirely differently according to the colour of another person’s skin. After four years working alongside Vesta, she had ceased to be shocked by such behaviour but she still felt outraged by it. Mirabelle found bad manners rankled her – probably too much. Kamari fell in faithfully behind Enid Crowe. The party halted at a brick building that must be the officers’ mess.

  ‘See to it that Miss Bevan is given a lift back to Chichester, will you? To the railway station,’ Dr Coughlan ordered him.

  Kamari’s eyes slid towards his mistress, who nodded in confirmation, before she held out her hand towards Mirabelle to say goodbye.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re feeling a good deal less groggy, Miss Bevan,’ she said.

  ‘Oh much better,’ Mirabelle said, as she shook her hand. ‘Thank you so much for your help. If Kamari hadn’t been there I hate to think what might have happened. It was very kind of you to take an interest when you must have so much else on your mind.’

  Kamari gestured to show Mirabelle the way, just as the sound of screeching tyres suddenly ripped through the social niceties. Dr Coughlan stepped back as a Land Rover swerved on to the side of the road in front of him and pulled up sharply. Mirabelle did not immediately recognise the driver, who was wearing sunglasses and had his shirtsleeves rolled up – which was notable as the autumn weather was fine but not exactly warm.

  ‘I’m in time, am I? I didn’t want to miss it. Is the car here?’

  Enid stepped forward. ‘George,’ she said. ‘We hardly expected you.’

  George Highton removed his sunglasses and pecked her on the cheek. ‘Why not? I have to protect my share, don’t I?’

  A man appeared at the door to the mess and Mirabelle recognised Enid’s husband from the photograph on Mrs Beaumont’s mantelpiece. He reached out to shake George Highton’s hand and simultaneously clapped his arm around the other man’s shoulder. These were people who knew each other well.

  ‘You might have let us know, old man,’ Michael Crowe said.

  Highton’s eyes were bloodshot. The smell of raw alcohol was palpable, not only on his breath but seeping out of his pores. He seemed lankier than the last time Mirabelle had seen him – taller and slimmer, as if his grief had stretched him. Still, she thought, I hate to think what I looked like two days after Jack died.

  ‘I better fetch my jacket,’ Highton said, looking back at the car.

  Enid walked across and laid it over her arm. ‘Don’t worry, Dingo, I’ll get it for you,’ she said, as the men entered the mess.

  Mirabelle felt momentarily glad that George Highton hadn’t recognised her. It would be another awkward thing to explain to Enid Crowe, who was collecting herself once more on the doorstep.

  ‘Goodbye, Miss Bevan,’ Enid said, her tone marking her, if not an MP’s wife, then an MP’s daughter.

  Mirabelle could not for the life of her think of a way to engineer staying on. ‘I’m so very sorry for your loss, Mrs Crowe.’

  She turned away with Kamari, who appeared to know exactly where he was going.

  ‘Mr Beaumont’s car has arrived then?’ she said cheerily.

  Kamari’s grin was immediate. ‘It is a beautiful car, missy. Beautiful.’

  ‘Where will it be kept?’

  ‘Mr Crowe has seen to that. It’s going to a friend’s garage.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s what Mr Beaumont would have wanted.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Did you meet him?’

  ‘Mr Beaumont? Sure. I’ve worked for Mr Crowe a long time. When I was a boy, and Mr Beaumont was first stationed in Nairobi, he used to spend the weekend at Old Mrs Crowe’s place.’

  ‘Gosh. In Kenya?’

  ‘Oh yes. He liked the monkeys. He used to play with the monkeys and Old Mrs Crowe would go crazy. “You can’t play with those monkeys. You’ll encourage them into the house.” But Mr Beaumont still played with the monkeys. He used to feed them and once he got an old monkey drunk.’

  ‘Was this when he was in the RAF?’

  ‘Yes, miss. Mr Beaumont was a flight lieutenant.’

  ‘A pilot?’

  ‘Like Mr Crowe. The master keeps a plane at Nairobi airport and the two of them liked to fly it. One day Mombasa for dinner. Another day round Kilimanjaro. They went all over the place.’

  ‘And you look after Mrs Crowe too, do you?’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ his grin, impossibly, seemed to widen even more, though his eyes were grave, as if this was a particular responsibility.

  ‘It must have been very nice for them, as friends, I mean – Mr Crowe and Mr Beaumont – when Mr Crowe married Mr Beaumont’s sister.’

  ‘When the master met Mrs Enid it was true love. Dinner at the Muthaiga Club and then on safari.’

  ‘And when they got married they brought you to live in London. How do you like it?’

  The sides of Kamari’s mouth slid into an unaccustomed straight line. ‘In my country now, it’s no place. The Mau Mau have ruined everything,’ he said, passionately.

  ‘The Mau Mau?’ Mirabelle recalled the uprising in the papers but she was curious as to what Kamari might say about it. It was odd,
she thought, she’d expected him to make a joke about the weather and instead he had become angry.

  ‘What would the country be without the white men? We owe them everything and the Mau Mau are killing people, Miss Bevan. They are bad, bad men. We have to bring back order. We must do whatever it takes.’ The poor man looked so tearful Mirabelle wondered if he might actually cry.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said.

  Kamari appeared about to say something more, but then he pointed towards a line of three jeeps that were parked down the side of an office block. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure you get a good driver. Some of the chaps are crazy. They think they are in an airplane, when really they have got their tyres on the ground.’

  Mirabelle laughed. ‘That’s the last thing I need today,’ she said. ‘Really I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

  Kamari disappeared inside the building and Mirabelle waited. She wondered what was being discussed inside the officers’ mess. Still a little shaky, she didn’t feel she could go back over and ask George Highton what he’d removed from Dougie Beaumont’s bedroom the morning after the fire. Perhaps this was enough for today. It was odd, though, she thought, that Enid Crowe had said that the main thing was they caught the person who had killed Dougie Beaumont. The girl had clearly been fond of her brother and of course her desire for justice was bound to be marked. That was the way Superintendent McGregor thought of the case too – he was focused on finding the person who had done this horrible thing. That was the traditional approach. The police way. Who not why. When not how. But it occurred to Mirabelle that the issue wasn’t catching the culprit – that was only part of it. The main thing, without question, was finding out why Dougie Beaumont had been killed. That would uncover everything.

  Chapter 10

  True friends are a sure refuge

  Mirabelle was surprised to see the office lights were still on when she walked down East Street. She hadn’t intended to drop in to work on her way back to the guest house, but somehow it was as if she was on automatic pilot when it came to choosing a route home. She lingered on the pavement and checked her watch. It was just after six o’clock. Perhaps there had been a problem.