Authors: Sara Sheridan
She continued talking as he passed her a glass of water. ‘I popped into Scotland Yard this morning, and there was an incompetent toddler in charge of the case. No sign of anyone in real authority. We need to just get on with it.’
‘Really?’ Vesta said. ‘Because everything I can think of winds up with Lindon being innocent. Open and closed.’
‘Yes. He was. But who’s guilty, Vesta? There’s that to consider. And where is poor Rose? We can’t help Lindon today, not really, and if we clear his name one day or the next, it doesn’t make much difference, with all due respect. But we could save a girl’s life. That means something.’
Vesta’s eyes were hard, but she nodded slowly. Mirabelle had authority. Her judgement had always been good in the past. Another day wouldn’t make much difference. Mirabelle was right about that. ‘All right. What do you want to do now?’ Mirabelle tried putting some weight on her twisted ankle.
It felt a little better and her head had cleared. ‘Belgravia. We need to make some house calls. Ones that look social. It’ll be better if I’m on my own.’
‘Single-handed?’
‘It’ll be easier, Vesta.’
‘No. I mean with only one hand?’
Mirabelle laughed. ‘Yes, single-handed.’
‘I hate not being able to help. Not being “acceptable”.’ Vesta sagged in her chair. ‘Can’t make social calls in bleeding Belgravia. Can’t get a room in a hotel without some receptionist checking it’s all right. It’s just can’t, can’t, can’t. I’m fed up with it.’
‘Could be worse, sugar,’ Charlie soothed. ‘Where I come from they string you up for sitting on the wrong bus. Take it from me, England ain’t so bad. The food’s pretty lousy and they stare in the street, but I like it here. We can drink in the same bars as the white folks, not just play the music and clean the floors.’
Vesta sighed. ‘Hmmm, what am I supposed to do while you’re in Belgravia?’
‘You said you were coming with me,’ Charlie objected.
‘Dinner. Dancing. Jazz. I want to take you to Feldman’s. Remember?’
‘Go on,’ Mirabelle smiled indulgently. ‘That’s a super idea. Work and play, Vesta! You might dig up something. See if you can find anyone else who was at Mac’s on Thursday night. Someone saw something that will make sense of it, they just don’t realise it. And keep an eye out for Barney. I’ll meet you in Brighton tomorrow morning. We’ve got the office to run as well, remember. Besides,’ the thought occurred to her, ‘we can hand it all over to the police down there and let them pass it on to the Yard. That might give whatever we find out more credibility. Tonight I’ll dig around where the toffs are and try to get something for McGregor – as far as the Met are concerned he’s the guy who caught Lindon.’
‘And you don’t want me to do something with a map? Try to figure out where Rose is?’
‘How can we? We have no idea where she might be. I’ll poke about at Harry’s family home on Wilton Crescent. If I come up with anything then we’ll get the maps out. Now, off with you! You and Charlie deserve to have some fun.’
‘I bet you haven’t even eaten,’ Vesta sulked.
‘That’s where you’re wrong! I had pie and mash for lunch,’ Mirabelle said proudly. It was almost true. She’d had a whisky while she pushed the food around her plate.
We’re all detectives in life.
It got dark a little after six and there was a nip in the air. The capital’s doctors, solicitors, businessmen and bankers crowded the first-class carriages arriving from all directions into London’s main stations – Victoria, Paddington, King’s Cross and Euston. A row of taxi cabs snaked from Victoria onto the main road, ferrying passengers home. Not everyone used the train, but petrol could be hard to come by if you were travelling very far out of town, and for many it was simply more convenient to make their way up and down by rail. Since the war more of the upper class worked for a living – everywhere from the BBC to the Bank of England – and in areas like Belgravia the traditional rhythm of the city had changed as people converged en masse on the capital ready for business the next day. There were certainly more cars on the road this evening, Mirabelle noticed, as she took a route by the palace. The neighbourhood felt occupied now. Occasionally she heard the strains of music or children laughing. Twice she passed footmen walking dogs.
As she headed towards Belgrave Square rooms were being prepared for their occupants’ return, the first-floor windows were glowing yellow, and the chimneys were smoking. Mirabelle glanced along the sweep of Wilton Crescent and paused for a moment in front of the lamps at the entrance to Harry’s house. She thought better of ringing the doorbell. Instead she made her way to the rear, to Wilton Row, where the mews houses ran along the back of the crescent. The garage directly behind the Bellamy Gore house was marked by Harry’s now familiar green Aston Martin, parked on the cobbles. He was home. After a quick look round Mirabelle opened the boot: the jacket was gone. She stood back to survey the rear of the house at a distance. There were several lights visible on the second floor, all bedrooms – it looked as if the whole family was in residence.
Mirabelle regarded her high heels. The only way forward was to find out what Harry was up to and that meant going inside. The best way into the Bellamy Gore house was over the back wall but that could be tricky – and painful. It felt as if she had been sneaking around all day but then sneaking around was the only way she stood a chance of uncovering what was going on. She decided that the best way to get onto the property was to scale the smallest garage in the row and make her way into the Bellamy Gores’ back garden from there. Using a rubbish bin to stand on, shoes in hand, she hauled her frame onto the asphalt roof and then with surprising steadiness limped along and dropped as gently as she could onto a rhubarb patch. She put her shoes back on and crept towards the French windows that faced the lawn. The old-fashioned door catch Sipped open easily.
The room was dark, and the atmosphere stuffy. The place smelled vaguely of wet dog. Squinting, Mirabelle could make out a tray on a stand with a half-finished jigsaw and beneath it a basket with knitting needles protruding. She whistled quietly – she’d broken into the day room and would be relatively safe from intrusion. The family were bound to use the drawing room upstairs before coming down to dinner. Silently, she congratulated herself on keeping her nerve. On her way up the garden and even when she entered the house her heart had scarcely stirred. She was glad she’d got over her earlier panic and grinned as it occurred to her that she was now practically a cat burglar. Being in the field was more enjoyable than she’d expected. She moved to the door, making sure the coast was clear as she slipped into the hallway and proceeded silently up the carpeted stairs. On the bedroom floor she checked through the keyholes. The smallest room to the front was empty. It housed a single bed and a desk, beside which the blue jacket lay on a chair. She entered. It was vital she work quickly. Mirabelle checked the poacher’s pouch but it was empty. She eyed the fireplace. There was a pile of ash far larger than she would expect. The fires here would have been lit no later than four in readiness for the Sunday-evening return of the house’s occupants. She kneeled in front of the grate and peered at the detritus. The ash had retained a vague shape. It lay in stripes as far apart as the crisscross pattern of the silver threads of Rose’s evening gown. He had burned it here. She was on to him!
Spurred on, Mirabelle turned her attention to Harry’s desk. There was an address book, nothing notable inside, and some notepaper. A pamphlet by T.S. Eliot was this time marked at ‘The Rum Tum Tugger’ by another bookmark from the second-hand bookshop in Marylebone. The drawer to the left contained a schoolboy jumble of pencils and geometrical tools. The one on the right contained a single brown manila envelope with an embossed crest on the flap and a red cross jotted on the rear. Her curiosity piqued, Mirabelle emptied its contents onto the desktop. Two slim celluloid negatives wafted out. She held them to the light. They were pictures of two girls dressed as nymphs next to a waterfall. Perhaps this was where the indiscernible offcuts in Harry’s room in the club had come from. The images were too small to see clearly, and it wasn’t until she carefully returned them to the package that she realised the envelope also contained prints. The photographs were jammed in so tightly against the back sleeve they hadn’t automatically fallen out when she turned the envelope upside down. Mirabelle pulled them out and gasped. One of the models was Didi Blyth. There was no doubt about it – right down to the blonde pixie-style haircut. The girl was topless and showing a great deal of thigh. Mirabelle didn’t know the other model, but she was certainly very similar to Didi, though she had mousy hair and a slightly plumper figure. The girls’ eyes, however, were strikingly alike. Was the other model in the photograph Lavinia?
‘Oh, Harry, you are a dog!’ Mirabelle whispered.
Working in a methodical fashion and staying absolutely calm, Mirabelle opened the wardrobe and checked for hidden compartments. She looked under the bed and lifted the rugs. Obviously, she hadn’t expected to find Rose here – a house full of family servants would be an impossible hiding place – but she felt disappointed. There was still no indication of Rose’s whereabouts. At least she knew what he’d done with the dress even if she hadn’t yet figured out why.
Checking the hallway, Mirabelle slipped back down the way she’d come, darting into an alcove as she heard a door open on the first floor. It would soon be time for the household to dress for dinner. In the downstairs hallway there was movement. She waited. A black spaniel puppy lolloped up the staircase and barked in her general direction. She kept stock-still and simply stared at the little creature.
‘Come along, Pong,’ said a female voice. ‘Up you go! Up, up, up!’
Pong hesitated, sniffled and continued on his way upstairs, immediately followed by four of his siblings. One started to make its way towards Mirabelle.
‘Polly! No! Go up!’ the female voice insisted and a hand appeared to guide Polly upstairs.
Mirabelle held her breath. She waited until the hallway was quiet again and then smoothly slipped out of the shadows, down to the entrance hall and into the day room. She shivered as she opened the French windows and proceeded into the garden. A cold fog was descending. She felt proud of herself. She’d spent less than ten minutes in the house – a professional job. You simply had to get into the right frame of mind for these things. She’d managed at least to gather a little more information. Mirabelle wondered momentarily what she would have done had she been caught and assured herself that she would have thought of something. She’d made it to the garage roof when she caught a flash of movement in the lane. It would never do to be caught now! Prostrate against the asphalt she peered over to see what was going on below and was delighted to see Harry approaching his car. He flung the brown manila envelope she had just seen onto the front seat and the engine roared into life. As the car disappeared in a cloud of exhaust fumes, Mirabelle lowered herself carefully onto the cobbles. She brushed her coat with her gloved hands to remove the small leaves that were clinging to the tweed. Somehow her hat had stayed firmly in place.
Harry was in the annoying habit of disappearing just as she got close, she noted. But she was building up a picture – not an entirely pleasant one, but a picture nonetheless. She turned towards the main road with the revelation that, really, she was beginning to enjoy snooping and, better still, she was becoming accomplished at it. Relief flooded through her. She was going to find Rose!
She strode out as best she could in the direction of Paul Blyth’s house on Upper Belgrave Street. Surveillance work, after all, was about following one step after another. Figuring the whole picture out would simply take more information. Lavinia Blyth, now Mirabelle came to think of it, was involved in rather too many of Harry’s activities. Was the girls’ father aware that his daughters had posed for Harry, she wondered? If he had found Lavinia’s outing to a jazz club unacceptable, heaven knows what he might do if he discovered the photographs in Harry’s possession. Daughters who modelled half-naked, even in the style of a Titian painting, were not socially acceptable. There was no question that Paul Blyth couldn’t hope to marry his girls well if it were discovered. The links between the Bellamy Gores and the Blyth girls seemed set to prove pivotal to what had happened to Rose. The families lived in a close-knit world, and now there were at least two major connections between them. It was unlikely that was coincidence.
Mirabelle turned onto Upper Belgrave Street and noticed that Paul Blyth’s house was now occupied. The lights on the first floor were on. Still feeling confident, Mirabelle decided to check the rear. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought. She looked at the little houses that made up the mews. There was copious wrought ironwork that appeared to have escaped melting down during the war. It would act, she decided, like a climbing frame. It made for a more difficult climb than she’d had at Harry’s because here there were two storeys, but still, possible. She began to scale the front of the building and then carefully and with some effort she hauled herself over the top. At this stage it almost felt routine.
From this vantage point, the house seemed busier at the back than it had at the front. Smoke poured from every chimney and there were lights blazing along the bedroom floor. Where might she gain entry though? Unfortunately, unlike the Bellamy Gores, Mr Blyth had not installed French doors. Here, it was more like a back yard, probably used only by the staff, with a vegetable garden and a long washing line. The only door was at the bottom of a staircase that led to the basement. Through the barred windows Mirabelle could make out a bustling kitchen – a cook stood at the range, Blyth’s dusty old butler was readying bottles of burgundy for dinner and a maid was peeling potatoes dejectedly at the table. There was no chance of getting in unseen by that route.