Brighton Belle

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘Were you going to or coming from Manni Williams’ stall?’

  ‘I was going to ask Mr Williams if he remembered seeing Ben. He placed at least two bets with M. Williams the day he disappeared, didn’t he? I saw the slips in the wallet you showed me. Then I found some more from a few days before that. In the wastepaper bin.’

  McGregor eyed her once more. What was she so het up about? There was a flash of passion in Mirabelle’s eyes beyond what you’d expect from someone idly investigating the disappearance of a work colleague. Was she romantically involved or did she know something?

  ‘This is where Mr McGuigan was last seen, isn’t it?’ Mirabelle explained. ‘Unless you have another lead I don’t know about. That’s what you were asking Mr Williams, wasn’t it?’

  The policeman stubbed out his smoke. Manni Williams was dangerous – he’d probably knocked off McGuigan for a start – and this woman, a complete amateur, was blundering around. Either she was incredibly brave or she simply didn’t realise how murderous the criminal element could be when their backs were up against the wall. ‘You’re unusually observant,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m looking for McGuigan. I’ll keep going till I find him. This is a matter for the professionals. You’ve been reading too much detective fiction if you think this is something you can handle, Miss Bevan. Ben didn’t want you involved. That’s why he told you he was ill. To keep you out of it.’

  Mirabelle didn’t lose a beat. ‘He was investigating something here, wasn’t he, Detective Superintendent? A betting scam?’

  McGregor nodded slowly. ‘Yes, he was working for a member of the racing board. They hadn’t called us in because they didn’t have any evidence. Ben had been charged with using the utmost discretion in his investigation. He had been doing so for two or three weeks before he disappeared. I am extremely concerned for Mr McGuigan’s welfare.’

  ‘I think he’s dead too,’ Mirabelle admitted sadly.

  McGregor’s eyes lifted and he became distracted by something in the distance. He scrambled in his pockets for a small pair of binoculars and Mirabelle followed his line of sight. There was Dr Crichton and another man with a military bearing, a jolly expression and a huge camel-coloured jacket. Manni bent down and shook the man’s hand with fervour as a grin spread over his face. McGregor and Mirabelle both leaned forward on the rail to watch.

  ‘He’s got a lot of legitimate high rollers all of a sudden, that guy,’ McGregor said. ‘Turns out we’ve had him on our books for one thing or another for years but Manni Williams has always been strictly small-time. Then, over the last eighteen months, the little toe rag has made a fortune and paid out a fortune, all at once.’

  Dr Crichton’s companion handed over some money and Manni gave him a chit.

  ‘But I can’t see what he’s doing that’s wrong,’ Mirabelle said. ‘He’s licensed to take bets, isn’t he? You can’t fix every race. It’s just not possible.’

  ‘Yes, I can’t work it out either. The books tally, too. Bets are scrutinised by the authorities but one of the board here at the racecourse had a funny feeling about what Williams was up to. Seems odd to say in these surroundings but the man had been too lucky and this board member was sure there was something going on. Thing is, most of the people betting with Williams had been coming to the races for years, knew their stuff and were all above board. Thing is, he’s paying out more or less as much as he’s taking in – he’s just hauling a fairly small and strangely regular profit. It doesn’t make sense as a scam. But the profits – well, let’s say, it’s practically a steady wage and a good one. That’s unusual. He’s on the fiddle somehow. I can’t yet see how many people are involved – he has a lot of legitimate clients – but his books don’t look like any other bookie’s set of accounts. The detail is way too steady.’

  ‘So that man betting now could be legitimate?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ McGregor replied. ‘Well, I hope so. In fact, they’re probably both legitimate. One of those men is Brigadier General Spence and the other, if I’m not mistaken, is Dr Eric Crichton – I didn’t expect to see him here. And that’s part of the bloody trouble, pardon my French. The damned Chief of Police bets with Manni Williams these days. He’s got every respectable punter going. That’s why the board called in Big Ben McGuigan. They needed someone who could be discreet.’

  ‘So Ben was gathering as much information as possible to see if the bets Williams was actually taking tallied up with what he presented for inspection in his books?’

  ‘But now both he and the information have disappeared. Whatever he was up to, he rattled Manni’s cage good and proper. But I don’t know why.’

  For an instant Mirabelle considered telling McGregor about Ben’s coded notebook but decided against it. There was no doubt in her mind that whatever was inside the ledger would illuminate the scam but the police making progress on what happened to Ben could be dangerous for Sandor – as fatal even as if she’d told McGregor that she knew Ben’s body was in Romana Laszlo’s grave. This was all tied up somehow and until she could work it out or at least get Sandor to safety she had to keep it to herself.

  Dr Crichton and the Brigadier disappeared into the crowd and McGregor put his binoculars back in his pocket. It was then that he noticed for the first time that Mirabelle Bevan had extraordinary hazel eyes. The observation worried him. His mother always said he had terrible instincts about women. So far she had been proved right several times. McGregor had never married – never even got close. He lived for his work. There was nothing like getting your teeth into a really good case. This was moving from a missing person’s investigation into something more complicated and dangerous and there was no point in involving this beautiful woman – she was only a secretary, after all. To uncover what was going on with a nest of thieves like this one, you needed a lot of tenacity and the will to upset people. She couldn’t be any help.

  ‘It’s back to the office for you, Miss Bevan, I’m afraid. You leave this to me.’

  McGregor motioned to a uniformed constable and gave some instructions. Mirabelle was escorted off the premises, into the back seat of a police car and, after fighting through the traffic all the way down the steep hill back into town, she was dropped, unceremoniously but safely, on the corner of East Street and Brill Lane. It was humiliating. The constable even sat there with the engine running to make sure that she went inside.

  19

  When you are fighting for your life you cannot be governed by Queensberry Rules.

  When the office telephone rang Vesta jumped to answer it immediately, almost knocking over the thin wooden desk. ‘Sandor, is that you?’ she said, tears already welling up.

  ‘Yes.’ His voice was calm but it still sent shivers right through her. She tried to sound even and clear, as if this wasn’t shaking her up. She pictured Mirabelle, with her seemingly glacial nerves, and tried to imagine what that must feel like. Still, Vesta felt herself wavering. ‘Are you all right?’ she managed.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have they fed you? Did you drink something?’

  ‘I’m fine, Vesta.’

  ‘I’m sticking to the plan. Don’t worry. They will let you go.’

  A heavy sigh crackled down the wire and, just as it did, Vesta heard a metallic hammering noise in the background. It sounded, somehow, dangerous. Where was he? What were they doing to him? Vesta panicked. ‘Are you all right? You’ll ring tomorrow, won’t you? I’ll worry myself to death otherwise.’

  There was a hesitation while, she supposed, Sandor caught the eye of whoever had let him use the phone. In the interim there was more hammering. It was a curious sound – almost industrial. Definitely a hammer hitting metal – something along the lines of a blacksmith shoeing a horse.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ she asked.

  Sandor ignored her, replying in a measured tone, ‘It’s fine. I’m all right. They’ll let me call again at one o’clock tomorrow but now I have to go.’

  When the receiver clicked, Vest
a dissolved into tears. What was happening was huge and she couldn’t quite reconcile Sandor’s down-to-earth tone with the vastness of the events. They were holding the priest against his will. She had been held for a few hours at most but he’d been captive for more than a day now. It already felt like forever and insurance payouts could be a lengthy business. Vesta stared at the map, fiddled with her papers and didn’t stop crying until Mirabelle came through the office door. The older woman slipped off her racing hat and hung it up. Vesta’s eyes were red and her cheeks were damp. There were soggy tissues scattered across the desk and all over the map upon which she had been trying to work.

  ‘He called then?’ Mirabelle said.

  ‘One o’clock. Exactly.’ Vesta sniffed. ‘It’s more difficult than I thought...’

  Her mother’s words echoed through her mind. ‘Real life, young lady, is tough,’ she had said. ‘Consequences, mademoiselle. Con-se-quences.’ Well, Vesta understood about consequences now. Sandor was trapped. He might die. And yet he’d sounded so calm. How did he manage that? The normality of it was the strangest thing. Vesta felt suddenly terribly glad that Mirabelle was back. If nothing else it would distract her from dwelling on the conversation and the vision she had of Sandor tied up in that hut in the dark.

  ‘Did you find anything at the racecourse?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Mirabelle sank into the chair opposite. ‘Lots of interesting things. M. Williams is Manni, Lisabetta’s sidekick at the hotel. The place is crawling with police looking for Ben. He was investigating whatever betting scam it is that Manni is running – something that ties in with those figures in Ben’s notebook. The police haven’t worked it out yet and, to be honest, it might take them a while – Ben was onto it for a fortnight and he hadn’t cracked the case. I can’t see how Detective Superintendent McGregor will be able to work any faster. I saw Dr Crichton there, too. They’re thick as thieves. Actually, they are thieves somehow – all this money is coming from somewhere and it’s definitely not legitimate. Perhaps they’re part of this betting scam. Though McGregor says it’s a small but regular profit which doesn’t sound like five-pound tips and gold sovereigns to me. Anyway, after that I came back.’ She hesitated. She didn’t want to admit that McGregor had dismissed her like some stupid schoolgirl. ‘So,’ she changed the subject, ‘what did Sandor say?’

  Vesta blew her nose. ‘He’s fine, I think. I did exactly as you said. It’s just difficult. We have to get him out of there.’

  Mirabelle moved closer and applied herself to the important task of extracting detailed information. ‘Did he mention anything about the temperature?’ She drew the map towards her across the top of the desk and flicked the crumpled tissues to one side.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did he say if he was hot or cold?’

  ‘No, should I have asked him?’

  ‘No. No prompts.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘No prompts. You let him volunteer the information. Would he have been able to say something if he’d wanted to, do you think?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. He just kept saying that he was all right and he’d ring again tomorrow. Are you worried he’s going to catch a chill or something? Because, really, I think that’s the least of our worries, Mirabelle.’

  ‘No. It means they haven’t moved him. If he says he’s hot he’s closer to home base. If he complains he’s cold then he’s further away. Or thinks he is. If he didn’t mention it and you think he could have, he’s at the same location.’

  Vesta’s jaw dropped. ‘You people,’ she started, ‘don’t you know someone who could help us? Someone at the department? Sandor used to work there and ...’

  Mirabelle looked paler than usual. ‘I could ring,’ she said, her voice very flat. ‘Things change in two years but I’m sure I could ring. The thing is that it’s a police matter. No one at the department owes me anything – never did. It doesn’t work like that. So, most likely, they’d simply refer it on to the police. I don’t want to endanger Sandor. Or Romana come to that – we haven’t had a trace, not a scrap of the poor girl. I’m scared she’s locked up somewhere, with or without her baby. She might be dead, of course, but you never know. Sandor did an amazing job during the war, but the department,’ she hesitated a moment, unsure quite how to put it, ‘is very focused on catching the criminals they are after now. They have a job to do.’

  It was one of the toughest things. Jack had been delighted when Sandor turned up in London. He’d thought the priest was dead. The truth was that he’d left him for dead. Afterwards he’d felt guilty about it but in the same position he’d have made the same choices with any field agent. He’d made those choices many times before. It was all about the bigger picture. Whoever had taken over at the department that wouldn’t have changed. One Hungarian priest in his fifties, ex-informant or not, was expendable. Sandor was only caught up in an insurance scam – it wasn’t a matter of national importance, no matter how vital he’d been to operations during the war.

  ‘I don’t think they’d be interested, Vesta. It’s just not their area.’

  Vesta cast her eyes up to the corniced ceiling. ‘So Manni is laundering money?’

  Mirabelle shrugged. ‘Yes, I think that’s what’s going on. Part of it, in any case. These people have a lot of paper money and I’ve seen a few tips in gold coins. They can’t put sovereigns through at the racecourse, of course. I think that Ben would have copped it if they tried! But Manni can certainly launder paper money – fivers and so forth. And what McGregor said about his regular profit – well, that’s his fee. Probably quite a good one.’

  ‘And Ben was monitoring it.’

  ‘Yes, that makes sense. It fits. And it explains why they killed him. There’s been a lot at stake here. More than we thought. The figures are high stakes.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘Well, the same thing, really. We don’t care about the money, do we? We have to try to find Sandor and Romana, too, if she’s still alive – wherever they’re held. We’re the ones who care about them the most. It’s down to us.’

  Vesta nodded slowly. Then she drew her finger across the map as she realised she hadn’t told Mirabelle about the hammering she’d heard during the call. ‘Thing is, I might have something. There was a noise in the background when Sandor was speaking.’

  Mirabelle smiled. Vesta was noticing things now – she was picking it up. ‘Good. So what kind of noise? What did you hear?’

  Vesta sat up straight. ‘I think it was a blacksmith. That’s what it sounded like. Metal being hammered. A high tone. Not in the same room or anything, but nearby. But there’s nothing on the map. I’ve checked it over already. I’m not a complete idiot, you know! There are only two blacksmiths in practically the whole of Sussex – I got out the telephone directory and everything. They’re miles away – at least half an hour’s drive from Brighton. So then I checked through factories. Anyone manufacturing, but that doesn’t happen down here much. We’re by the seaside and it isn’t industrial not fifteen minutes from the office, anyway. By the time you get that, it’s inland and miles away.’

  Mirabelle’s face broke into a grin. ‘You’re doing really well.’ She reached out and touched her hand. ‘You’re doing amazingly. Now, what about garages? Ships’ chandlers?’

  Vesta’s eyes lit up and she picked up the directory, which she’d let drop to the floor by the desk. ‘Garages. Garages with workshops. Boat yards. Of course.’

  They set to it and the afternoon passed quickly. Shortly after five o’clock it occurred to Vesta that she had been working on the phones, checking different locations for almost four hours and not so much as a sip of tea had passed her lips. Their investigations uncovered that there were three working garages that fell into the zone. One was closed over the race weekend but the other two were open. Vesta had called and made enquiries. All the ship’s chandlers were too close to town to have been the starting point of her journey.

  ‘Mind
you,’ she pointed out to Mirabelle, ‘the noise might just be some bloke working on his own car or boat or whatever in a private garage. The place we were held could be somewhere completely residential. Just because there’s a noise doesn’t mean that we’ll find the right outhouse because of it.’

  ‘I know,’ Mirabelle replied, ‘but we have to try.’ She had seen too many cases of people coming through against the odds to give up. Vesta had no such experience to inspire her.

  ‘And you’re going to check out any place we find?’

  ‘Oh, not just me. It’ll take two,’ Mirabelle said emphatically. ‘We need each other, Vesta. You’re coming with me. And there’s something else. More important, I think. We’ve got to go back to Second Avenue. It’s the hub of everything and our best chance of finding out where they’re keeping him. Romana died there. Lisabetta and Dr Crichton are living there. And Manni has at least visited. Tonight, first we’ll try to find Sandor anywhere that has a good chance of a hammering noise nearby. But if we don’t strike it lucky, we’ll wait till really late, break into Second Avenue and search the doctor’s study. It’s the best tactic I can think of. There’s got to be something that will give us a lead – an address book perhaps or a key. If they have a different property somewhere else, there must be a record of it – a lease perhaps or a letter.’

  ‘But ...’ Vesta started to object.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Mirabelle, raising her finger. ‘We’re housebreaking and that’s it.’

  A ghost of a smile passed across Vesta’s face as the plan sunk in. Breaking in? she mouthed. Mirabelle was turning out to be increasingly surprising the more she got to know her.

  At the end of the day the women locked the office and walked down to the front. Crowds of daytrippers were congregated near the pier and those who weren’t going into or out of the pubs – mostly engaged in flirting – were queuing for fish and chips. The air smelled salty and delicious, the aroma of batter in hot oil wafting across the pavements on the spring breeze that came off the ocean. There was a holiday atmosphere on the front for the first time that year – a precursor to the long hot summer of visitors when the beach became crowded and there was mayhem on the pier.