‘They were warned, weren’t they? Elrick Beaumont and Michael Crowe. They knew what was going to happen and they covered themselves. And you too, Kamari.’
Kamari let this pass, only for a beat. Then he burst out, ‘He was going to free them. He was going to let the Mau Mau go. It was weakness. Stupidity. He deserved to die.’
Mirabelle bit her tongue. Telling Kamari that she thought Dougie Beaumont had displayed both empathy and bravery would not help. ‘What about George Highton? You were at Goodwood with your master the night he died. Do you know who killed him?’
‘Get out!’ Kamari stepped forward, gesturing ahead of him, as if he was herding sheep desperately along a track. ‘You’ve no right to come here and ask stupid questions.’
‘So you know that too.’ Mirabelle didn’t flinch.
Vesta couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘It’s one of Michael Crowe’s golf clubs, isn’t it? That’s the murder weapon. One of the clubs you were practically wrapped around in the car. Which club was it? Which club did he use?’
‘Mr Crowe is a gentleman,’ Kamari spat. ‘And he has an alibi. Go away.’
‘Mr Crowe is in custody and will probably go to jail. But you’re right, I don’t think he killed George Highton,’ Mirabelle snapped back.
Vesta swung round. ‘Why?’
‘Kamari knows why, don’t you, Kamari?’
They waited. Kamari raised his eyes. He seemed panicked. ‘I did it,’ he said in a rush. ‘I killed him. I waited till he left the house, I took one of Mr Crowe’s clubs and I hit him hard.’
‘Ha! I’ll fetch the superintendent,’ Vesta sounded triumphant. ‘He’ll have to let us in now. You hold him here, Mirabelle.’
She turned and stalked on to the paving stones as if she had achieved something. Mirabelle waited. She had more experience.
‘Which club?’ she asked.
‘I cleaned them. There is no proof.’
‘How many times did you strike him?’
Kamari’s eyes danced as he thought about it. He couldn’t answer.
Mirabelle pushed him further. ‘What did you do after you’d killed Mr Highton, Kamari?’
‘After?’ It took him a moment. ‘I cleaned the golf clubs. Then someone found him. I knew they couldn’t prove it was me.’
She raised an eyebrow. He was the worst liar she had encountered in a long time. Still, it couldn’t be easy in his second language. She continued to humour him. ‘All right. Why did you do it? If you killed Mr Highton, you must have had a reason. He wasn’t interested in exposing what the British were doing in Kenya. So what was your motive? Why did you kill him?’
Kamari stuttered. Then he managed to get out, ‘He was a bad man.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was very bad.’
Kamari backed away. From his vantage point at the door on to the garden he could see the house. A flicker of distress crossed his face. He glanced past Mirabelle, but discounted that as an escape route. Then he took off in the only direction open to him – down the lawn. Mirabelle followed, clattering through the back door and past a maze of laundries and pantries and the kitchen. A scullery maid, who couldn’t be more than fourteen, collided with Mirabelle in the corridor. The poor girl apologised, curtsying as Mirabelle rushed ahead. She clattered up the service stairs and at the top came out into the hallway. Up here, the house was silent. She looked left and right. Behind her, the stairs stretched to the upper floors. The building was huge and he could have gone in any direction. Then the doorbell rang and she spun round. Through a long pane of glass beside the entrance, Mirabelle caught a glimpse of Vesta hovering on the doorstep. She momentarily considered letting her in but Vesta would make a lot of noise and, no doubt, require an explanation. She didn’t have long to make a decision. The butler would be coming.
Casting her eyes around the hallway, she counted seven doors. The ones to the left were closed, and, she guessed, at least two of them must lead to the drawing room where Mrs Beaumont was being interviewed by the superintendent under the glassy gaze of the stuffed heads over the mantel. Her instinct led her to the right, past the stairway. Then she heard a noise – a creak – almost as if the house had shifted in confirmation. She followed the sound. At the front, the door to the first room had been left ajar but it was unoccupied. Next along, however, the second door opened on to a study lined with leather-bound books. An oil painting of a family member was mounted in a wide gilt frame over the fireplace. Kamari wasn’t here. It took Mirabelle a moment to realise what was out of place, what had made the noise. It was a fire. But it wasn’t in the grate – instead someone had stacked a few logs on a tiger-skin rug in front of the mantelpiece. Underpinning the little tower was a stack of papers that were kindling. Already flames were licking their way from the papers to the wood.
As if in a nightmare, Mirabelle grabbed a velvet cushion from one of the chairs and began to beat out the nascent flames, but the material must have been highly flammable and the cushion began to emit smoke as it caught alight. She dropped it in horror, her heart racing in panic. Then, as she spun round, trying to decide what to do, she noticed Enid Crowe sitting perfectly still at the desk. She had changed out of the clothes she’d worn earlier and now wore a large diamond pendant over a dark green blouse. The stone was huge and looked faintly ridiculous. Enid smiled and, as she moved her head, Mirabelle spotted diamond earrings too, glinting in the light from the window. She wondered how she had missed the fact that Enid was there – perhaps she had sat so still that she hadn’t stood out. Mirabelle wondered if that was the problem. Enid had never stood out.
‘Miss Bevan,’ she said, putting down the fountain pen with which she had been writing before she froze. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I am looking for Kamari.’ Mirabelle’s eyes darted towards the fire.
‘Kamari?’
‘Yes.’
‘I haven’t seen him. He’s usually in the garage or the kitchen. Cook spoils him rather. Doughnuts and so forth.’
‘Mrs Crowe, this fire.’ Mirabelle felt her palms becoming sticky. The smoke was beginning to cloud and she coughed as she struggled to think straight. ‘I’m sure we should put it out.’ She stamped on the cushion.
‘Do you think it will damage this house? This precious house? The house it turns out we’ve all been selling ourselves for. This house that is so important my father will let my brother die rather than lose the money it takes to keep this bloody house on the right side of the bottom line.’
Mirabelle’s mouth was dry. ‘I was rescued from the fire,’ she said.
Enid stood up and banged her fist on the leather desktop. ‘And nobody told me, of course. My own husband. My father. Nobody told me because I don’t matter.’ A tear trailed down her face.
‘I think I’d be angry, just as angry as you must be,’ Mirabelle tried. She wondered if she might be able to rouse the butler. The fire hadn’t spread on to the tiger skin and there was still time, if they caught it now, to put it out without too much fuss. She cast around and strode over to a drinks tray. She picked up a soda siphon and emptied it on to the glowing heart of the little blaze.
‘I can’t believe what they made of me,’ Enid spat, ignoring what Mirabelle was doing. She picked up a piece of paper from the desk and inserted it into an envelope. ‘You know, when we were little we had a nanny. I don’t know how they paid for her but she was lovely. We called her “Ina”. Nug was terrible at talking. He only ever used short words right up until he left for school. I suppose she might have been Georgina or something. Regina, maybe. Nanny used to sit me on her knee and we’d look out of the nursery window and she’d say “Right over there is Buckingham Palace, can you see it over the rooftops? Now you tell me, how could everything not be well?”’
‘Buckingham Palace,’ Mirabelle repeated as the soda dribbled out. The fire was burning in a ring now. She had succeeded in quenching the flames at its centre but the burning papers had spread outwards to the edges of th
e pelt. The hairs were starting to singe. Mirabelle stepped back. She wasn’t sure if she had done the right thing. After all, the fire appeared to be getting larger. Her heart was hammering ten to the dozen.
‘When we went to the park, she always told us, “We didn’t see anyone today we liked better than ourselves.” Sweet, that, isn’t it?’ Enid sniffed. ‘Except I don’t like us any longer, you see. Why did you want Kamari?’
Mirabelle struggled to control the fact she was shaking. Enid seemed so nonchalant.
‘Kamari confessed,’ she managed. ‘He said he killed George Highton.’
‘That was sweet of him. But it isn’t true. It would never do to have a whipping boy.’
Mirabelle’s eyes met Enid’s. ‘But . . . Do you mean, you killed George Highton?’
Enid couldn’t speak for a moment. Tears welled up and she struggled. ‘Poor Dingo,’ she said. ‘I thought he’d done it. I thought he killed Dougie, you see. That stupid letter . . .’
Momentarily, Mirabelle’s attention was diverted from the fire at her feet. ‘You mean the blackmail letter?’
‘Yes. I found it in his jacket pocket that afternoon. Well, you were there, weren’t you? When I lifted his jacket. When he first arrived. I read it straight after that and I just assumed. God, never assume. That’s good advice, isn’t it? Well, I assumed George had sent the letter to Dougie – they were having a spat you see, and the stupid fools kept threatening each other. He wanted a hundred and twenty pounds he said Dougie owed him. Or else. I really thought he’d done it.’
‘So you picked up one of your husband’s golf clubs.’
‘Yes. That night. After dinner. I waited on the driveway. I knew George would end up stumbling back to the hotel. I said I’d never forgive him and he had time to say “What for?” before I hit him. I didn’t see how awful it was. It was dark and I was in such a state. Afterwards, when they brought his body inside, I saw what I’d done.’
‘And you put a hundred and twenty pounds in his pocket.’
‘Yes. Money in his pocket and the stupid letter in his hand. I thought that was why he’d killed Nuggie. For a hundred and twenty pounds. How ridiculous. What the hell was I thinking?’
‘But your father and your husband covered for you?’
‘It was the first time ever that I was important, as it happens. They didn’t tell me, of course.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘That I was completely wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong. George had that letter cos he’d taken it from Dougie’s things – he hadn’t wanted the police to find it. He knew it made him a suspect. But he didn’t kill Nuggie.’
‘Do you know who did?’
‘No. But they knew it was going to happen. That’s what I can’t get over. I mean, Michael took me out for dinner and we went dancing and I couldn’t understand why because normally he never spends any time with me unless he has to, but he knew Nuggie was going to be killed and he wanted an alibi. If I’d have known, I’d have driven straight down there and helped him fight the bastards off, whoever they were.’
‘You wouldn’t have succeeded, Mrs Crowe, if you don’t mind me saying.’
‘How do you know? Turns out I’m a murderer. And you wouldn’t have expected that.’
The burning logs shifted slightly at Mirabelle’s feet and one tumbled to the side, landing against the leg of a table.
‘Well,’ Enid said, ‘I hope you find Kamari. Tell him I appreciate what he said, but it really isn’t necessary.’
‘But . . .’ Mirabelle watched as Enid stalked out of the room. ‘Mrs Crowe,’ she tried to call her back, but then she was distracted as another log tumbled and there was a shower of sparks. She almost tripped over herself in the scramble to get out of the way. Shaking, she bravely picked up the edge of the tiger skin and rolled it over on itself, kicking it to put out the flames. ‘Help,’ she shouted. ‘Fire!’ But no one arrived and she just kept going, frantic with terror. Eventually, exhausted, she fell to her knees, her stockings smudged with smoke. Tears wet her cheeks. It felt like the night of the fire over again, though this time she had stamped it out to a smoulder. She’d saved herself. The poor tiger was a soggy mess. The papers that Enid had decided to burn were all but unreadable. Recovering her composure, Mirabelle leaned against a deep leather chair, gasping. She wondered if she might faint but it wasn’t like it had been at Tangmere. She felt herself rally as she crossed to the window that overlooked the garden and opened it to let out the smoke. Too late to help, there was the sound of footsteps and the butler appeared and, behind him, Vesta.
‘Madam.’ He sounded bemused. ‘There is smoke in the hallway.’
‘Yes. I put out a fire,’ Mirabelle explained. ‘Mrs Crowe set one, you see.’
She was about to ask for Superintendent McGregor, when there was a shriek from outside and, in front of the window, the flash of Enid’s form fell past, only a couple of feet in front of her. The sound of the girl’s body landing on the grass made Mirabelle flinch. Vesta rushed forwards. For a moment everything was too still, not least Enid Crowe’s broken body. A smear of blood spattered the large diamond at her throat. Her legs were splayed.
Mirabelle thought she might vomit. ‘Oh God. I should have stopped her,’ she whispered. Her eyes moved to the desk. Had Enid been writing a confession? Before she could gather herself to say anything, McGregor and Mrs Beaumont rushed into the study.
‘I said not to let them in,’ McGregor snapped at the butler and then, as he moved forward and saw the body on the grass, he turned and tried to shield Mrs Beaumont. He was too late. The poor woman put her hand over her mouth.
‘Enid,’ she said blankly.
Mirabelle had a sudden sense of Mrs Beaumont being entirely alone in this grand house. Everyone had been taken from her – her son and daughter were dead, her husband and son-in-law were in custody. And George was gone. She was the last Beaumont left at liberty. It seemed there was always a woman who had to pick up the pieces. The butler moved forward and tried to guide her to one of the chairs but Mrs Beaumont waved him off.
‘Borman, I shall need to speak to his Grace at Chichester,’ she got out with barely a sniff. Then she turned towards Mirabelle. ‘At least I know what to do this time,’ she said.
Epilogue
Change in all things is sweet
Six weeks later
Mirabelle stared at the slate grey sea out of her long window. Behind her, the flat was all but perfect. Vesta had even replaced the paperbacks in the hallway. The air still smelled of fresh paint. Mirabelle wished she could be as easily renovated as these few rooms. She pulled a mohair wrap around her shoulders – it was cold today, but she didn’t want to light the fire.
Beside the sofa there was a newspaper – the Daily Herald – not her usual choice. She had been buying it every day, but Reuben Vinestock’s article had not appeared on its pages nor had his regular column turned up in the Daily Telegraph. His absence felt eerie. After a fortnight, she had phoned his office only to be told that Vinestock no longer worked at the paper and that they had no forwarding address. Still, she had continued to buy the Herald. Not to do so felt like giving up on him, but she knew she would, soon. She would have to.
Today’s headline was about Elrick Beaumont’s constituency where a by-election had been called. It looked as if the Labour candidate might win – the poor Conservative who was standing in Beaumont’s place must have found it an uphill struggle to counter the accusations of Tory corruption, which had been levelled by the Herald’s political correspondent. Mirabelle read the articles at a remove. That was how she felt about everything these last weeks. Removed. The day she had returned from London she had written an anonymous letter to the editor of The Times but she had no proof about the Mau Mau or for that matter about Reuben, and the letter had not been published or even acknowledged.
As the light faded from the sky, there was a rap at the door. She snapped on one of the side lamps and went to answer it. McGregor stood
on the doorstep holding a bunch of lilies. Mirabelle shuddered. Lilies reminded her of death – the smell of them.
‘House-warming,’ he said.
She gave a smile, just a small one, and put the bouquet on the table by the door, motioning him to come in.
‘Vesta did a good job,’ he said, looking around as he took off his coat and hat. ‘It’s nice here. You’d hardly know, would you?’
Mirabelle did not reply. Instead, she motioned towards the tantalus of whisky on the drinks trolley. McGregor nodded. She poured them both a dram and added a splash of water. McGregor held up his glass in a silent toast and she clicked hers against it.
‘I wish you’d left it to me,’ he said. ‘I hate to see you like this.’
Mirabelle savoured the peaty taste. ‘I dream about her almost every night, Alan. Falling like that. The terrible noise of her landing.’
It was the most she’d admitted to anyone. Vesta and she had come to an uneasy agreement to say nothing about what had happened. The office had been uncharacteristically silent since they got back, the tension of checking the Herald the worst part of the day. They had failed to help anyone. That was the worst of it.
McGregor said nothing. Instead, he put his arms around her and Mirabelle sank into him. She had no idea how long they stood there. It was good that he was a patient man, sometimes, at least. When she pulled away he took her hand and kissed it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She moved forwards and pressed her lips to his. The taste of the whisky was familiar and it felt comforting. She pulled him closer, clinging on tightly.
‘I want you to stay with me,’ she said.
McGregor didn’t hesitate. He lifted her into his arms, carried her to the bedroom and laid her on the icy quilted satin. Mirabelle pulled him down towards her as he undid the buttons on her blouse and took in the brassiere that Madame Vergisson had sent only the week before. Ivory silk, tailored to fit. He looked at her as if to check that this was really what she wanted. Mirabelle nodded. She didn’t want to think about it any more. She didn’t want to think about anything. Even if it was only for this evening. Slowly, she wriggled out of the blouse. His eyes danced across her skin as it emerged. She took off her skirt too. It had been a long time. Too long. McGregor loosened his tie and leaned in to kiss her again. Then he slowly removed his jacket and trousers. Lying down beside her, his skin smelled familiar, the brush of his five o’clock shadow was comforting on her cheek. Mirabelle ran her foot down his leg as they kissed, wrapping herself around him and giggling that he still had his shoes on. She kicked lightly to flick one heavy brogue on to the floor. McGregor pulled back. She stroked his chest.
Operation Goodwood Page 26
