Authors: Sara Sheridan
‘Which brings me to the last jewel in my crown before bedtime,’ Eddie interrupted. ‘The aforementioned cousin, Harry Bellamy Gore. Society chap. Gentleman about town.’
‘Good-looking, wealthy, debonair, owner of a sports car and hardly worth questioning …’ Mirabelle mused.
‘It’s too absurd. Our Harry has a record, albeit an unofficial one.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s quite sweet, actually. Harry was at Eton, of course, and, oh, it’s too marvellous. He’s a pornographer!’
Mirabelle choked on her cocoa. ‘
Harry?
’
‘Yes! Isn’t it a wheeze! In his schoolboy days. He was almost expelled although, of course, the Belgrave set stepped in. He was distributing dirty pictures – actually not so much distributing as, well, selling them. He’d got hold of photographs somewhere up in London and took a supply back to school. Ladies in negligees and some girls playing tennis in a state of unwholesome
déshabillé
. Apparently he made almost one hundred pounds and cleared out the annual allowances of several of his customers. He was only thirteen at the time! Quite the entrepreneur. Anyway, his parents sent him away for three months to Canada. The family have relations there.
He went back to Eton a reformed character the following term and it was all hushed up.’
‘The police weren’t called?’
‘Of course not. Housemasters at Eton would rather swallow their own tongues than get the constabulary involved. However, the legend lives on. I know a couple of ex-Eton chaps. And it does say something about his nature, I suppose. From the boy groweth the man and all that. He’s now at King’s reading art history and expected to go on to work at the National Gallery or similar. He’s especially interested in Renaissance sculpture, I hear. The human form is still his stock in trade,’ Eddie laughed. ‘All very amusing.’
‘Stop it!’ Vesta leapt up. She strode over to the window and peered out into the darkness, arms folded. When she turned to face them again her eyes were filled with tears. ‘Lindon is dead. This isn’t a joke! I don’t believe Lindon killed himself. I won’t believe it.’
Eddie lowered his eyes and took a sip of the brandy. ‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Mirabelle laid down her cup and saucer. She went over to Vesta and put an arm around her shoulders.
Vesta pulled away. ‘You didn’t think it was funny last year when Sandor died,’ she pleaded. ‘Lindon has two sisters and two brothers, parents and aunts and uncles. He might have been too young to save anyone during the war or anything like that but he was a decent guy and he has people who care about him. We grew up together!’
Eddie stood up. ‘I apologise unreservedly. I’m sorry. It’s a dreadful habit that people who work with difficult cases get into. It was a silly piece of information, it isn’t relevant to the case and I’m sorry I made fun of it. Your friend shouldn’t have died. It was disrespectful of me.’
Vesta sat down wearily.
Mirabelle was intrigued. Eddie had made quite some apology. Ex-SOE officers rarely apologised for anything. Their knee-jerk reaction was generally denial.
‘Thank you, Eddie. You’ve cut out our work for us. Well, my work, anyway.’
‘Good. Good.’ Eddie stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I’ll leave you to it. You know where to find me.’
He picked up his hat and pulled on his coat. ‘Ladies, I bid you goodnight.’
The door clicked shut.
‘I’m sorry, Mirabelle. I know he was only trying to help.’
‘No need to be. Do you think you’re going to be able to handle this?’
Vesta nodded. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Good girl. Come on, I expect we both need some shuteye. We’ve a lot to think about and a long day ahead of us.’
Be ready for opportunity when it comes.
There was a note under Mirabelle’s door next morning. Vesta would meet her in the evening. Outside, London remained grey. Mirabelle heard the bells of a church up on Piccadilly chiming for Sunday service and wondered if it was St James’s. It was a long time since she had been in a church. She’d stopped going in 1940, increasingly disillusioned by the spiralling death toll. Since then she’d only ever attended funerals and memorial services, of which during the war years there were too many.
Shaking herself from those dark thoughts, she filled a basin with hot water and washed her face. It felt late, maybe ten o’clock, but her watch had stopped overnight. She pulled on her clothes and hurried downstairs.
Time was marching on, so Mirabelle settled the bill and set out towards Westminster. London felt like a ghost town. The buildings here felt overbearingly grey and heavy. Down a side street round the corner from the Yard, a pub was just opening its doors. Mirabelle decided to duck in. Policemen drank in local bars and it seemed a good enough place to start. Besides, the walk had sharpened her appetite.
‘A sherry, please,’ she ordered. ‘And do you have anything to eat?’
‘We might manage a ploughman’s for you,’ the barman offered. ‘There’s always a roast on a Sunday but it’s not ready yet. It’s not so good neither, truth be told.’
Mirabelle smiled. ‘A ploughman’s would be fine. I’m heading round to the Yard. A friend of mine died there yesterday morning.’
‘That darkie?’
Mirabelle took a deep breath. ‘He was my friend.’ The barman ignored the remark and headed to the kitchen.
He returned with a plate of fluffy white bread and a sliver of buttery yellow Cheddar and laid a small glass of sherry in front of Mirabelle. In one corner of the plate a teaspoonful of chutney had been unexpectedly fashioned into a quenelle. The barman fished a pickled onion out of a jar with a long spoon and popped it delicately to the side of the meal, with a splash of dark vinegar.
‘Do you know Chief Inspector Green, at all?’ she enquired.
‘Miss, the reason the police drink in here is ’cause we don’t say a word.’
‘I’ve heard he looks terribly young. That’s all. I wondered what he was like.’
‘You need to make up your mind about that yourself. I’m sorry about your mate. I always dislike it when they kill themselves. Being locked up is hard on a man. A trial is better for everyone in the long run, isn’t it?’
Mirabelle sipped the sherry. ‘Does it happen often, do you know? People killing themselves in custody?’
The barman regarded the beer taps as if he was drawing inspiration from the metal plates. ‘Odd thing to ask. Whatcha getting at?’
Mirabelle tore off some bread and carefully placed a blob of chutney and a shaving of cheese on top. ‘It’s a genuine question. I’ve never heard of it before – someone dying in police custody. But you have.’
She popped the bread into her mouth and gave him a small smile as she chewed.
‘Well, it happens all right,’ said the barman slowly. ‘Not too often, but I heard of it. They generally, you know, hang themselves,’ he gestured upwards. ‘If a man’s had enough, he’s had enough, see. Plenty fellas would give up if they thought they was going down for a stretch quite apart from the guilt. That young darkie of yours killed a bird, didn’t he? Maybe it hit him all at once, what he’d done. You want anything else, Miss? It’s only I’ve got to get down to the cellar to see to this tap.’
‘Gosh – everyone assumes the girl is dead. No one’s even found a body. Do you think,’ Mirabelle continued smoothly, ‘you might manage a cup of tea?’
The barman looked nonplussed. ‘Kitchen’s not open yet,’ he said. ‘I can’t do nothing that involves cooking.’
Outside, Mirabelle headed towards the river. The plane trees were skeletal and the opposite riverbank formed a vague misty outline through the gathering smog. She turned left along the Embankment and then paused in front of the sign mounted on the stone wall: city of westminster. metropolitan police. The building loomed. The door was open. Mirabelle took a deep breath. This was where Lindon died. Further along the Embankment two police horses were making their rounds, the noise of their hooves echoing loudly along the otherwise empty road and across the water. It felt eerie. Had Lindon lost hope in this place? Vesta was convinced he had been murdered, but this morning it was easy to imagine someone giving up here. Even the entrance looked intimidating. Mirabelle braced herself and mounted the steps.
Inside, the desk sergeant was perched on a high stool. He was out of place, like a caricature of a country policeman. His cheeks were pink as summer plums, and his eyes sparkled. His uniform was immaculate, and Mirabelle reckoned he must be close to retirement. In the grey silence of the Embankment she had expected a shady ghostlike figure, one that might have presided over Lindon’s death.
Mirabelle gave him her most winning smile. ‘May I speak with Chief Inspector Green, please?’
‘No, Madam. He’s not available.’
‘A colleague perhaps? Someone involved with Rose Bellamy Gore’s disappearance? I have some information.’ The sergeant’s sharp green eyes sized her up. ‘Give me a moment, Madam.’
He disappeared into the back and returned a minute later with a fresh-faced youngster who breezed through the swing doors. The officer was in plain clothes, his outfit a pale jumble of worn tweed – a suit and tie but still, shabby in contrast to the desk sergeant’s orderly spit-and-polish appearance. The sergeant headed straight for his reception desk and the youngster stood alone. He didn’t look as if he’d been through a whirlwind exactly but he’d certainly endured a stiff breeze. His shoes, Mirabelle noticed, were scuffed. They looked as if they’d never been polished.
‘Madam?’
‘Are you C.I. Green?’
The boy laughed at the apparent ridiculousness of the question. ‘No, Madam. Chief Inspector Green isn’t in the station. I’m Constable Adler. May I get you a cup of tea?’
‘Are you working on the Bellamy Gore case, Constable Adler?’
‘Yes, Madam. Come this way. There’s an interview room we can use.’
If anything the boy was younger than Lindon. She realised that was probably why he had seemed so eager. He couldn’t be long out of training college. She was not, however, put off guard by his appearance. During the war some of the country’s sharpest minds had looked as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards. It was something SOE had joked about. The Nazis were not disposed to take advantage of talent that came in unconventional packages. Jack always said Britain wouldn’t have won the war without its eccentric geniuses – white, black, gypsy and Jewish. Unlike the opposition, all talent was welcome. However, this kid might not be cut from that jib. Mirabelle considered him. He had already made a mistake. He’d invited her in without knowing what she wanted or, for that matter, who she was. It might be that he was simply inexperienced. Whatever it was, his incompetence was a stroke of luck. And it was fortunate that the more experienced desk sergeant hadn’t intervened; no doubt thinking the smartly dressed woman would be no trouble and happy to let the boy get on with it.
‘Have you been working all weekend?’ she said.
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘So you were here yesterday?’
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘Gosh, you must be exhausted!’
Mirabelle followed the boy through several doors, down a corridor and into an office containing two desks and four chairs. A coat-stand leaned in the corner with two regulation mackintoshes hanging forlornly from its pegs. She took a seat and the boy went off to make them tea. Mirabelle looked round. She wondered where Lindon’s cell had been. Like most police stations, this building was a warren. Somewhere in here Lindon had given up or had been made to do so.
‘Where are the holding cells?’ she asked casually as Adler returned and handed her an over-full cup of milky white tea.
‘Downstairs.’
The tea was so weak Mirabelle wondered if he had administered actual leaves at any stage in the process. It wasn’t even hot. She sipped politely.
‘Is there something you’d like to report, Madam? Before we start, I need to take some details from you.’
Mirabelle decided on shock tactics. She sat back so she was open to him and then crossed her legs elegantly. He was expecting her to be uninvolved. She’d challenge that expectation.
‘I’m the woman who accompanied Lindon Claremont to the station in Brighton. I know Detective Superintendent McGregor. I convinced Lindon that he had to give a witness statement, as he was possibly the last person to see Rose alive. Detective Superintendent McGregor handed him over to you on Friday afternoon. When I heard he’d died yesterday I wanted to come in. I felt I had to.’
‘What is it that you want, Madam?’
‘I’m here to ask some questions about how Lindon died, Constable Adler.’
The boy hesitated. Mirabelle leaned forward. She did not break eye contact.
‘Well,’ he started, ‘it’s not usual procedure …’
‘I’m asking you how a person for whom I feel responsible died,’ Mirabelle pressed.
Adler took a deep breath and his eyes hardened. ‘All right, Mr Claremont hanged himself. The case will go to the appropriate authorities on Monday and there will be an inquest. You’re entitled to attend and to receive a copy of the report. It’s open to the public and all above board. Mr Claremont died here in Westminster so the Coroner’s Court is Horseferry Road. It’ll be held there.’