Authors: Sara Sheridan
‘Do you think he did it? Lindon?’
‘What kind of question is that? Are you with the Babylon, lady, or you just crazy?’
And with that he turned away.
Mirabelle scanned the room. There was no one she could make out who was likely to know any more about Lindon, apart from the band. She attracted the attention of a man to her right and motioned to the stage. ‘What time do they finish playing?’
‘They only just started, love,’ he said, swinging his hips.
‘That’s Len Williams. With any luck we’ll be here well beyond midnight.’
He slid his eyes down Mirabelle’s body and took a step closer. Mirabelle moved smoothly to one side before heading determinedly towards the barman. She’d give it one last try. The man didn’t move away quickly enough and she collared him.
‘I don’t think Lindon did anything,’ she shouted over the music. ‘I don’t care what people say. And I’m going to try to prove it.’
The guy put down the glass he was cleaning. His skin was pockmarked and even in light this low Mirabelle could make out the brown stains on his teeth. When he shouted, he practically growled. ‘I wouldn’t get involved, myself,’ he said, his eyes hard. ‘God knows what happened to that girl.’
‘Did you know her?’
‘She’d been in here. She’d been everywhere. Danced like a snake! I didn’t know her name till I read it in the paper. I’d keep out of it,’ he shouted. ‘You’ll get into trouble, asking questions about that darkie. You best be careful. Lots of the boys are jumpy.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Stands to reason.’ He leaned over the bar to make his point. ‘Young boy gets into trouble and the police are looking for any reason to shut down jazz clubs. The law don’t like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble, see. We ain’t had a raid here since 1947 and that’s the way we want to keep it – not like the boys in Soho. Nice lady like you ought to be heading over to the Feldman, if anywhere. Come here when you’re meeting a fella you can’t take home to your mother. Now, I suggest you leave it alone.’
Mirabelle decided to push him a little further – after all, this man knew Lindon. Why didn’t he seem to care? Did no one feel responsible for the people around them any more?
‘I don’t think Claremont did anything. I think he’s innocent. That’s why I’m asking,’ she tried to explain.
‘Guilt and innocence is one for the judge and jury, innit? He didn’t play here. Nice enough lad, but he’s none of our business. If you want to pursue it you need to go to Soho.’
Mirabelle shook her head. She wasn’t going to get any more here tonight. ‘All right.’ She squeezed her way back to the door.
The air outside was refreshing after the smoky atmosphere. Her ears rang from the music, and she shook her head.
The doorman stared at her. ‘You all right, Miss?’ Jazz occasionally overcame the ladies.
‘I’m fine,’ Mirabelle snapped. She could do without his solicitude.
Soho was about a mile away. The walk would do her good.
It’s not always the cold girls who get the mink coats.
As she headed up Shaftesbury Avenue, Mirabelle couldn’t help thinking it would never have been like that during the war. People would stick their necks out for justice and, more than that, they shared an empathy with anyone who found themselves in a fix. During the Blitz people risked their lives for complete strangers. They took in waifs and strays. They stood up for what they thought was right. During the war anyone who knew Lindon Claremont and believed him innocent would have been on his side.
She was amazed at how busy the city was and how many cars there were. At the traffic lights a queue of four identical Morris Minors sat revving their engines waiting for the signal to change. Rolls-Royces and Bentleys with chauffeurs waited outside the theatres. Paperboys were stationed on the street corners selling the last of the evening editions. Buses you could scarcely see into because of the thick fug of cigarette smoke flashed past, like clouds encased in red metal. The walk took less than fifteen minutes. The streets of Soho were packed with people. Windmill Street housed several pubs, restaurants and coffee shops in its narrow ramshackle buildings, most of which had survived the Blitz intact. London had rebuilt faster than Brighton, and Mirabelle noticed there were hardly any gap sites in this part of town. The city seemed to have healed itself, yet it had lost some of its wartime camaraderie.
There was no sign of Mac’s Rehearsal Rooms – not a notice or a light. Mirabelle checked the basements and the shadowy doorways, remembering that the Jermyn Street club had hardly advertised its existence and that Mac’s was an underground place and might be even harder to find. Most of the basement lights were out and the lower floors appeared to be restaurant kitchens or storerooms. There was no sign of a jazz club anywhere.
Mirabelle walked up one side of the street and down the other, listening. Windmill Street was relatively quiet, and the people going in and out of doors didn’t look like jazz types – not judging by what she’d seen at the Jermyn Street club. There was nothing for it but to ask. She sized up the premises that were open and made a decision, going into a café where three bored girls sat smoking cigarettes. Cups and saucers and a solitary grey teapot sat on the table. They turned hopefully but seeing Mirabelle went straight back to their conversation.
‘Excuse me, I’m looking for a jazz club along here – Mac’s Rehearsal Rooms?’
The youngest girl eyed Mirabelle’s outfit carefully. Mirabelle was aware that the dark green coat and the Sash of tweed they could see underneath it must make her look like a governess. By contrast the girls were wearing an array of brightly coloured tops in shades of orange and pink. They sported jaunty matching scarves tied at an angle and vivid matt lipstick. In the dark foggy night and the down-at-heel café they practically glowed.
‘You’re not exactly dressed for jazz,’ one of them said.
She had a point. Mirabelle sighed. ‘No,’ she admitted, ‘I didn’t change.’
‘Well, it’s not on tonight anyway, love. You’ll need to go to Feldman’s. Feldman’s is better for you in any case.’
‘What do you mean?’
The girl stared at Mirabelle. ‘It’s smarter, you know. More proper. For the older crowd.’
The girl’s candour made Mirabelle smile. The other two looked away, trying not to laugh as their friend dug herself into potential trouble.
‘I see.’ Mirabelle sank into one of the bench seats and out of nowhere a thin waiter with a crumpled white apron came to take her order.
‘A strong coffee, please, with milk. And whatever these ladies would like.’
The waiter didn’t need to ask. The girls shifted in their seats to face Mirabelle, all smiles. She had known they were working girls from the minute they opened their mouths. Their reaction to simply being bought a cup of tea confirmed it.
‘He’ll bring biscuits, you know. If he’s got any.’
Mirabelle nodded. ‘Good. Tell me, do you know a sax player by the name of Lindon Claremont?’
The girls oohed and aahed.
‘The nigger what killed the deb, you mean?’
The waiter put a plate of raspberry wafers on the table, a fresh pot of tea and a frothy coffee made with copious amounts of milk. He did not loiter.
‘Yes,’ Mirabelle said, ‘that’s exactly who I mean though I wouldn’t use the word nigger. It isn’t kind. This is your patch, isn’t it? I’m trying to find out what happened that night. I don’t suppose you know?’
One of the girls picked up a biscuit and another started pouring the fresh tea.
‘You ain’t a copper, is you, Missus?’
‘Friend of a friend, that’s all.’
‘You’re the friend of a coloured fella who used to play at Mac’s?’
‘Nah,’ one of them corrected the other, ‘she’s a friend of the deb, ain’t you?’
Mirabelle took a sip of coffee to give her strength. It was scalded but it helped. She fervently wished she hadn’t let Eddie buy her another whisky sour. It was only just after ten o’clock.
‘So,’ she ignored the question, ‘did you ever meet him? Lindon Claremont?’
‘Love,’ said the girl in orange, ‘I done more than that. He’s a customer, he is.’
Mirabelle grinned. The girl had probably been trying to shock her but that was all to the good. ‘So I’ve come to the right person.’
‘Oh no.’ The scarf around the girl’s neck fluttered as she shook her head. ‘I never talk about me fellas. Not even to my aunties or nothing. Not even to my mum.’
Mirabelle reached into her purse, pulled out a ten-bob note and laid it on the table. ‘Give it a try,’ she said. ‘I’d like to hear anything. Small details can be very important. Do you think he did it?’
‘Are you press?’
Mirabelle shook her head as the girl sized up the money and then picked up the note slowly before deftly popping it into her purse.
‘I was a bit surprised when I heard they nicked him,’ she said as she bit into one of the biscuits. ‘He didn’t seem the type. Bit useless, really.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought, too,’ Mirabelle said, brushing some crumbs from her lap.
The girls gawped.
‘Oh, I’m not a …’ They started laughing.
‘Thank gawd for that,’ the youngest girl said.
‘He doesn’t have a temper, Lindon. That much I do know,’ the older one continued. ‘He ain’t a beater or a slasher or nothing like that. No temper.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘A few months. Most of them nig nogs … Is nig nogs okay?’ Mirabelle shook her head solemnly. Above the table a picture of the King smiled down and from further up the café another one of Winston Churchill smoking a cigar and making the famous ‘V’ symbol was stuck up on pins. Both had been roughly cut out of magazines and mounted on card.
‘Well,’ the girl continued, ‘whatever you call them, mostly they don’t use white girls. There’s plenty of our blokes like a bit of chocolate. Best of both, you know. But Lindon was unusual for a darkie. He liked white skin. I charged him a bit extra to be honest, ’cause it’s kinky, ain’t it? He liked the contrast, he said. He liked the
idea
.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘So he might have been attracted to Rose, then?’
‘I’m sure! Did you see the picture in the paper? She was pretty enough. But, Lindon, he’s shy that way. Sweet. I don’t reckon he’s got a bad bone in his body – not really. He’d eat you out of house and home, let you buy him a drink – he’s a talker. With talkers it’s all going on in their head. But I can’t see him kidnapping someone or hurting them. He’s not that way. Once when he saw a bruise on me he got proper upset. That’s what I mean – he was sweet. Said he didn’t like to think of me getting bashed around and that. And he never laid a hand on me. If anything, he was too gentle.’
Mirabelle noticed that the only other customer in the café – a scruffy, very elderly man in a worn coat – was listening intently. She tried not to catch his eye.
‘You know the papers haven’t said that Rose was hurt? They just say she’s missing.’
‘Stands to reason, though, dunnit? That girl’s most likely done for. Face it.’
‘Yeah,’ the younger girl chipped in. ‘I mean, what else could it be? She’s out in a club, goes missing and doesn’t turn up for, well, it’s been a whole day now. Her mama and papa must be beside themselves. Them girls are like pearls, ain’t they? When did a deb ever go missing for a day, let alone overnight? She’s got to be hurt. Makes you shudder just thinking of it.’
Mirabelle nodded. The girl continued. ‘Well, there you go. And as soon as a darkie’s involved the Bill assume it’s him. Who knows, they might be right. Stranger things have happened, ain’t they? Maybe he was different from what he seemed. Maybe he had a brainstorm and went mad. Just ’cause we ain’t seen his temper don’t mean he ain’t got one.’
‘Nah.’ The other girls shook their heads.
‘Well, I want to find out,’ Mirabelle said firmly. ‘I want to find out what happened to the girl, of course, and I want to make sure they don’t fit Lindon up for it. I’m just not sure how to track things down. I’ll get there but I’m not sure yet.’
‘But the Bill got him, don’t they? I mean they must know what’s happened. Why’d they be out looking in the first place if something hadn’t happened? It’ll all come out.’
‘The thing is, the police don’t always think enough,’ Mirabelle said. ‘They don’t see through things.’ The girls nodded in agreement, as if this was a sage point that they had previously never considered.
‘And another thing,’ the older girl leaned in conspiratorially, ‘it happened fast. I’ll say that for them. I mean, how long does someone have to go missing before the Bill get involved? Longer than an hour, usually. Jesus, when Mary Grady got knifed in Peckham they took more time than that to turn up. No, something’s happened. They just ain’t saying what.’
It didn’t take long for the tea to run out and the biscuits to be finished.
‘I might try Feldman’s, after all,’ said Mirabelle.
*
The girls insisted on donating powder and thick red lipstick to help a reluctant Mirabelle paint her face.
‘I’m not sure I need this,’ Mirabelle tried.