‘Mirabelle Bevan.’
‘Mirabelle Bevan,’ the girl repeated into the mouthpiece. The groan from the other end was audible and the receptionist’s cheeks coloured. ‘But I already said you were here,’ she hissed. Vesta grinned. Mirabelle pretended to examine a collection of framed front pages mounted over a bench to one side. The girl hung up.
‘He’s not there, actually,’ she said, unconvincingly.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mirabelle replied. ‘Come along, Vesta.’
‘No.’ The girl got to her feet. ‘Please.’
But the women had already passed into the stairwell. On the second floor, the newsroom was even more deserted than the last time Mirabelle had visited. She wondered how these people managed to produce a daily newspaper when it appeared the office was constantly understaffed. At a desk at the back of the room, Reuben Vinestock was engrossed writing shorthand into a spiral-bound notebook. He did not look up even when Mirabelle passed through the wooden swing gate between the glass panels. When she had almost reached him he finally noticed. Nervously, he ran his hand through his hair and the familiar scent of pomade rose on the air.
‘Oh God,’ he said.
‘This is my business partner, Mrs Lewis,’ Mirabelle introduced Vesta.
Reuben gave a half-nod. ‘How do you do?’ he sounded defeated – worse than that, resigned.
Vesta replied with a wide grin and decided that this was far more fun than staying in the office on Brills Lane.
‘Look, Miss Bevan, I’m sorry but I’m just not up to talking about all this . . .’ Reuben broke out. ‘It was bad enough when Dougie died, but now George is gone too.’
‘That’s exactly why I want to talk to you, Mr Vinestock. Specifically, I want to ask you about George Highton’s will.’
Reuben folded his arms across his chest. ‘I don’t know anything about George’s will.’
‘I do. Mrs Lewis procured a copy.’
‘How?’ Vinestock spluttered. ‘Poor George’s body can’t even be cold yet. What you don’t seem to understand is that Dougie was my friend, Miss Bevan. Actually George was too. We knew each other through work but still. I’ve lost two people this week. Have a bit of respect, won’t you? I’m not your errand boy and I don’t understand what your interest is. You’re just being nosey. It’s none of your business.’
‘Two men have been murdered. One was killed while I lay sleeping in the flat directly beneath him. My interest, as you put it, is that I want to understand what happened. Don’t you?’
Reuben heaved a sigh. ‘Of course.’
‘I wondered if you might be able to shine a light on why Mr Highton left so few material goods compared to his friend. Dougie Beaumont’s estate comprises a portfolio of stocks and part-ownership of his car. But the truth was Highton was a partner in the car too, along with Michael Crowe and yet his share isn’t stated in his will. Officially, Mr Highton left practically nothing.’
Reuben shifted. His arms came down. ‘That’s none of your business,’ he said. ‘And none of mine either. Besides, I don’t see what bearing it has.’ Then, after only a moment’s pause, he relented. ‘How did you manage to get hold of George’s will anyway?’ he asked.
You could knock people, Mirabelle thought, but you couldn’t change their basic nature. Reuben Vinestock was a journalist through and through and his gaze was fixed hard on them.
‘Tell him,’ Mirabelle said.
Vesta took a deep breath. She was, after all, admitting to breaking the law. ‘I have a friend in the solicitor’s office where Beaumont and Highton lodged the documents,’ she admitted. ‘I paid for the wills, or for copies of them.’
Reuben looked disapproving or, Mirabelle wondered, was that a look of admiration? It was difficult to tell. She continued. ‘The wills state the same London address. They were signed on the same day earlier this year. Though Mr Highton stated he had significantly less to leave than he in fact did. That surprised me. Had he come into his money suddenly, Mr Vinestock? He had a substantial amount of cash on him the night that he died. When I met him, he didn’t appear to me like someone who was on his uppers.’
‘He wasn’t. I mean, you’re right he had a share in Dougie’s car for a start.’
‘And that was worth something?’
Reuben nodded. ‘Yes. It cost a fortune to keep the thing on the road. It’s not cheap to attend race meetings and tour the Grand Prix circuit, but Dougie placed regularly enough that there was prize money. Also, George made a fortune betting on him. He knew when Dougie was having a particularly good day and when track conditions favoured him. He was practically psychic about where he’d come in. More recently, the car had other backers too. Beyond the ownership. They were interested in . . .’
‘The renovation to the steering column?’
‘Yes. I mean if you patented something like that, if it worked, that is, there would be money. Pots of the stuff. They had high hopes.’
‘So Highton should have had means?’
‘George always had means. He was good with money. Ever since I met him.’
‘Both wills also have the same beneficiary. They leave everything to Mrs Beaumont.’
‘Dougie’s mother?’ Reuben sounded incredulous. ‘Really?’
‘Was Highton close to her?’
Reuben shrugged. ‘George was part of the family. He was a grammar school boy. He didn’t come from a wealthy background. But I suppose Mrs Beaumont was as close as he had to a mother. His parents died in the Blitz – in 1941, I think. His dad was in the Home Guard. After they’d gone, the Beaumonts took him in until he got called up. Mr Beaumont pulled some strings to get George a commission in a decent regiment. We didn’t talk about it much. To be honest, I try not to think about the war.’
Mirabelle paused. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, gently, ‘it’s just these details are important. Did you ever see Dougie and George with Mrs Beaumont?’
‘Now and then. They felt sorry for her, I think. I mean they cared for her, of course, but she was just so hopeless. If they left her everything, maybe it’s some kind of joke.’
‘A joke?’
‘I don’t mean that exactly.’ Reuben leaned against the desk.
‘It’s only, they used to rag each other about how hopeless Mrs Beaumont was. She was proud of Dougie and she always looked the part, but she didn’t have much . . . self-confidence. She couldn’t always follow what was going on. I mean, with his career. I never saw her make a single decision. She just turned up and floated along with whatever was happening. Mind you, it can’t have been easy for her. He probably knocked any sense of competence out of the poor woman early on.’
‘Who?’
‘Elrick, of course. All families are different. I mean, from the outside, you’d think the Beaumonts had everything. But Elrick Beaumont is formidable – a real powerhouse. Anything going on, you could be sure he had a hand in it. He was a kind of tyrant, I suppose. Dougie hated the old man and worshipped him at the same time.’
‘But I thought Dougie was the one who bailed the family out.’
‘He did. But no matter what how far he got, how much he did, he’d never abandon his mother and sister. I think he wanted his father to be proud of him too. It was tangled, I suppose, and he hated himself for it. I lost my father, Miss Bevan. It’s difficult to imagine someone wishing theirs away . . .’
‘But Dougie Beaumont did?’
Vinestock nodded. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘He didn’t say as much but the old man was hard on him. He was hard on everyone.’
‘So he was a bully?’
‘Yes.’ Vinestock’s shoulders rolled slightly. ‘I know he beat the boys when they were younger. Dougie had a scar he was self-conscious about where the old man had had a go at him with a horsewhip. I think that’s one reason they were away so much. If it wasn’t France or Italy, it was Nairobi. I joked with Dougie that was why he had to be the fastest. To get away from his dad.’
‘Sounds as if they were scared
of him.’
Vinestock considered carefully before he replied. ‘Fear is relative, isn’t it?’ he said slowly. Mirabelle wondered what Vinestock had seen. What he’d escaped from. ‘On balance, I’d say they were scared. I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
‘I knew it,’ Vesta cut in. ‘You don’t have to nudge a Tory far till you find a Fascist.’
Vinestock laughed. ‘Politics is a bloody business, Mrs Lewis. And that being the case, Elrick Beaumont has certainly found himself suited to it. He went straight into the Commons in ’45 and found his feet, even under Labour. But I wouldn’t go quoting Mr Bevan on the subject of the Conservative Party in here.’ He smiled at Vesta. ‘This is the Telegraph. We’re Tory through and through.’
Mirabelle was thinking out loud. ‘Dougie saved the whole family,’ she pondered.
Reuben’s eyes lost their focus. He sighed. ‘I didn’t know them then. The first time I met George was in here a couple of years ago. The first time I was invited to the family house it was already renovated. Dougie said it was in a real state when they were kids. They used to have buckets in the nursery to catch the raindrops. It seems crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, in Belgravia. But it’s good when a family sticks together. I mean, that’s what families are supposed to do. George said Dougie was buying himself a happy family. But he wasn’t, really. It wasn’t lack of money that was the real problem.’
‘Was Elrick happy about his son’s career?’
‘He isn’t a man I’d associated with the word “happy”.’
Mirabelle tried to imagine what it would feel like for Dougie Beaumont – afraid of his father and trying to attain his approval while living a life between his respectable family home, the lights of the racing circuit and the grubby world she’d touched upon of seedy parties and secrets. To traverse so many roads, in so many different guises he must have been a good actor, she thought. Maybe they both were – Highton and Beaumont together. Perhaps the things they got up to were an escape. Increasingly, there was something sad about a life on the racing circuit. Something desperate. They must have held their secrets close, the two of them, thrust together.
‘There aren’t any women in here,’ Vesta commented, looking around. ‘I mean, apart from the girl on reception.’
Reuben Vinestock smiled. ‘The Telegraph doesn’t run an advice column, Mrs Lewis.’
Mirabelle felt Vesta stiffen. That wasn’t going to help. She turned her attention back to the matter in hand.
‘Mrs Lewis and I are interested in where they lived,’ she said. ‘I mean the address at Bleeding Heart Yard. Dougie and George lived there together, didn’t they?’
‘Yes. They had a lot of parties.’
‘I’d like to see it. I wonder, might you be able to help?’
Reuben considered for only a moment. Then he went to a desk a couple along from the one he was occupying. He opened the drawer and took out a key on a piece of string. ‘George kept a spare in his desk, he said. ‘I want to be clear – I’m doing this for Dougie and George. Not for you. Do you understand?’
It was a ten-minute walk to Bleeding Heart Yard or at least it was ten minutes given that Reuben kept up quite a pace. Mirabelle and Vesta fell in behind him, walking north towards Farringdon. As they got further away from the Thames, the streets bore fewer scars of being heavily bombed though in places there was still a strange mixture of tall, new buildings and vacant lots between the offices, shops and pubs. Mirabelle thought there were other areas of London where George Highton might have chosen to live, even if this part of town was convenient for the office. Still, journalists worked irregular hours, she reasoned, and it was cheaper around here than setting up home in Chelsea, Fitzrovia or Belgravia, where she might have placed Highton and Beaumont if she’d had to guess. It was also less visible. Did Elrick Beaumont know that his son and his lover kept a hideaway? Was this place another of their secrets?
Reuben turned down Ely Place – a grand stretch of Georgian buildings with an ancient church installed at the end. Beyond the church, the street was cut off by a high wall, but to one side there was a gate built into the brickwork. Reuben pushed it open and, as the women stepped over the threshold, the scale of the architecture became immediately more industrial. He took the key from his pocket and halted at a Georgian warehouse. From the roof there was a winch for hoisting heavy goods up to a large wooden door that looked perilous to open.
‘Here?’ Mirabelle checked.
‘Doesn’t look like anyone lives here, does it?’
‘No.’
‘The top floors are rented by Pastorelli and Rapkin, you know, the instrument makers. Compasses. That kind of thing. They have a workshop up there.’
‘And Dougie and George lived in the bottom two floors?’
Vinestock nodded.
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘How odd.’ Mirabelle spoke under her breath as she took in the exterior of the building. An old-fashioned iron gaslight hung useless over the front door. The windows were shuttered on the inside, the place closed up. As Vinestock turned the key in the lock and pushed his way inside, the door caught on a scatter of letters that had accumulated on the mat. Reuben snapped on the light and picked up the mail, sorting the correspondence into a pile. Inside, the hallway was narrow and dark, lit only vaguely by a long dirty window at the head of the stairs. Reuben turned into the sitting room. ‘I thought George owned this place,’ he said, opening the shutters. ‘But given what it said in his will, maybe he just rented it.’
‘Wow.’ Vesta breathed out audibly. The air felt heavy, the room long abandoned, though it was furnished exquisitely and far beyond what might be expected of the architecture. Hand-painted wallpaper set off ornate furniture. Over the mantelpiece, silver candelabra sported an array of beeswax candles in different stages of use. Shelves of leather-bound books covered an entire wall, most of them, Mirabelle noted, sporting titles – cricket and rugby. A pile of ash in the grate was only the start of the dilapidation. To one side, a table was shrouded in dark velvet cloth that had collected a cobweb down one side.
‘He spent most of the year in France,’ Reuben said by way of explanation, or perhaps excuse. ‘I don’t know if he had even come back here yet. What are we looking for?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mirabelle admitted.
She walked out of the room and leafed through the letters that had arrived for George Highton – a few bills and a postcard from Monaco that simply said ‘When you are next here we will drive up to the hills. M’. Along the hall she cut into a second, smaller room. It clearly served as a kitchen although there was only a tiny hotplate to indicate the room’s function. On the oak table several opened bottles of red wine had turned to vinegar, releasing a tangy scent. There was no food – not even a tin of soup – although a trail of rock-hard breadcrumbs on the dresser betrayed that someone had once eaten here, albeit untidily. The air of dilapidation continued upstairs – an unmade bed framed by a wrought-iron bedstead with dull brass knobs, a pillow abandoned on the floor and a suit hung in a wardrobe with its door wide open. The shoulders of the pinstriped jacket were peppered with pale dust. Vesta shuddered. It was easy to imagine a ghost living here. She could almost feel one.
‘I thought George Highton was in London last week,’ she said.
‘Well, it looks as if he didn’t come home if he was,’ Mirabelle chipped in.
‘He was at work, though. I saw him. He came into the office after Dougie died,’ Reuben insisted. ‘Before he went on the tear.’
The last room was a makeshift bathroom. These warehouses must have originally had outdoor privies, but George Highton and Dougie Beaumont were perhaps fastidious in such matters. The bathroom had been fitted relatively recently – a modern suite in canary yellow ceramic was plumbed into a box room at the front. The contrast immediately reminded Mirabelle of the bright blue sofa in the front room at the Beaumonts’ house – a splash of modern colour slightly out of
place. A heavy, patterned curtain obscured the window overlooking the street. Mirabelle pulled it back. Beside the bath there was a plate piled high with unused bars of soap, as if to taunt the rest of the house with the spectre of cleanliness. Mirabelle picked one up. It smelled faintly of sandalwood. Beyond the bath there was a mahogany cabinet built into the wall. She opened the cupboard door. It creaked. Inside there was an array of treasures. Small icons, shimmering with gold paint interspersed with candlesticks and a carved burr snuffbox in the shape of a hedgehog. On the bottom shelf, in easy reach of the bath, there was a cut-crystal bottle of Italian aftershave and a cut-throat razor with a mother-of-pearl handle. Mirabelle’s eye was drawn to a small clock in a leather case tucked into the corner.
‘That’s odd,’ said Vesta. ‘I wouldn’t keep a clock anywhere near the bath.’
‘There’s nothing here. I’m not sure what I thought I’d find.’ Mirabelle motioned the others out ahead of her. ‘Does that suit in the bedroom belong to George?’
Reuben peeked back into the other room. ‘Yes. I think so.’
‘Can you pick out anything here that belonged to Dougie?’
Reuben paused at the head of the stairs. ‘Nothing personal.’
Mirabelle paused. She faced him head-on. ‘Had they fought, Reuben?’
Vinestock shifted. He took almost a full minute before he spoke. ‘They had a blazing row at Le Mans. I don’t know what it was about. Guys sometimes just fight with each other. Brothers fight, don’t they?’
‘Was that the last time you saw them together?’
‘No. They headed up to a Grand Prix afterwards. That was quite something. After that they went back to France but I couldn’t say if they were together, you know.’
‘And they got on during the race?’
‘Seemed to.’
‘Did you see them together since?’
Operation Goodwood Page 19
