Russian Roulette

by Sara Sheridan

  Chapter 19

  Silence is one of the great arts of conversation

  Mirabelle had her key in her hand, ready to open the door to McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery at half past eight the next morning, when she realised that Vesta was already inside the office. The sound of someone typing with great efficiency assailed her from halfway up the stairs. As she opened the door, the girl looked up.

  ‘You didn’t tell him yet, did you?’ Mirabelle sighed.

  Vesta’s eyes flashed. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘He must think I’m half mad. I keep starting, but I can’t get it out.’

  Mirabelle removed her jacket.

  ‘What are you doing here this early? Is there something on your mind?’ Vesta asked in a bid to change the subject.

  ‘I was going to leave a note on your desk. I’m going to London,’ Mirabelle said, deciding to hold back the salient details from the night before about Superintendent McGregor’s indiscretion. It wasn’t relevant. ‘I wondered if you’d mind looking into something while I’m away?’

  ‘Sure.’ Vesta had her notepad poised.

  ‘I suspect Billy Randall is lying to his wife. I don’t know what he’s lying about exactly, but he’s up to something.’

  ‘Oh no. And Vi’s expecting too. The snake.’

  Mirabelle wondered momentarily what Vesta might call McGregor. Then she hauled her attention back to the case. ‘I want you to ring Mr Randall’s employer and look into his hours. He works at the CVA factory. Near the cricket ground. You’ll have to say you’re from an insurance company making life insurance checks or something. See what you can turn up.’

  Vesta nodded and wrote ‘Prudential Life Insurance’ on the first sheet of her spiral-bound pad. People disclosed the most extraordinary amount of information over the telephone if they believed you were filling out a form. The women had remarked on this on several occasions.

  ‘And what will you be doing?’

  Mirabelle again restrained herself from replying that she would be wondering about McGregor’s sexual integrity. ‘I’m going to find out more about Helen Quinn,’ she said very definitely. ‘So far I haven’t managed to discover her maiden name. But yesterday I turned up a lead that she used to work in a clothes shop on the King’s Road.’

  Vesta nodded slowly. ‘So she must have left there about a year ago.’

  ‘It seems that way. I’m curious about where she came from. She’s the one who was murdered, after all. We know all about Phil Quinn, but Helen – well.’

  ‘Just gin and cards.’

  ‘And clothes,’ Mirabelle said. ‘And she’s the victim, poor girl. I think she deserves more attention. Vesta, maybe you should write to Charlie. I mean, if it’s too difficult to say about the baby . . . ’

  Vesta’s raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘I just feel so ashamed,’ she said, trying to control her emotions. Over the weekend she had burst into tears twice, out of the blue.

  ‘Ashamed of what, dear?’

  ‘It’s so uncomfortable. If I tell Charlie then I’ll have to tell everyone. And they’ll all know that we . . . you know.’

  Mirabelle leaned forward. She tried not to laugh. ‘You’re married,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if you’re in the position of having an illegitimate baby. Having babies is what married women are supposed to do.’

  ‘Well, it’s embarrassing. And my mother will be delighted.’ Vesta made this sound ominous. ‘Everyone will start expecting things. To be some kind of perfect mother. To stay, you know, at home. I let them down about that when I married Charlie and now this will bring it all up again.’

  ‘Charlie didn’t feel you’d let him down. I think you should trust him.’

  Vesta let out a heartfelt sigh. ‘I can’t face it.’

  Mirabelle shook her head, but she understood Vesta’s fear of bringing things into the open. She had considered visiting the Arundel on her way to the office this morning, but telling McGregor what was on her mind, or worse, having to actually ask him about his visits to Tongdean Avenue didn’t bear thinking about. Still, for Vesta it should be different. The baby, after all, was a good thing. ‘I wouldn’t worry about other people,’ she said sagely. ‘I don’t expect you to stay at home if you don’t want to. Actually, I hope you don’t. We need you round here.’ She got up. ‘The thing is, it’s going to become apparent. You’re better choosing your time than having Charlie notice. He will eventually.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Vesta fiddled with her pencil. ‘I know you’re right.’

  Mirabelle dusted down her coat. ‘Well then,’ she said.

  It was sunny in London – one of those bright-skied, spring days that lodge in the memory. Mirabelle was glad to be out of town. Briefly distracted by the newspapers on the stand at the station, she ignored the headline in the Argus in which McGregor appealed for information about the suicide case. Then she picked up and put down the Telegraph in which several society figures said they would miss George Forgie and that World War II could not have been won without him. She noticed Countess Marianna Iritsin had given a sorrowful comment on his abilities and said the world was a poorer place. Her eyes flickered back towards the Argus headline. What was it McGregor wanted to know? she wondered. What information was the superintendent fishing for? She realised the very mention of his name left her suspicious and she berated herself for that. There was a job to do that was more important than the way she felt.

  At Victoria, she caught the tube to Sloane Square and started searching for vestiges of Helen Quinn at the top of the King’s Road. She liked Chelsea – she and Jack had lived here in a run-down flat that he’d rented on one of the backstreets. Not too smart, not too shabby, he’d always said. The two of them had used these shops – Mirabelle had bought light bulbs at the hardware store and had taken advice from the butcher on how to spend her coupons, though the truth was that mostly she and Jack had eaten in the staff canteen.

  It occurred to her that she’d discovered a lot about Jack when she had visited Paris a couple of years before. And nothing she had discovered had stopped her loving him. Still, with McGregor these revelations felt different. Jinty’s words kept popping into her mind. What does it matter, she scolded herself, if he has or he hasn’t. It might well have been before they were attached, after all. But it did matter. It was about what kind of man he was. Only the other day, she’d turned down the opportunity to be unfaithful herself. If McGregor acted differently when the chance came his way, that meant something.

  Passing the grocery on the corner, Mirabelle turned her attention back to the case as if she was dragging a naughty puppy away from a bone. In this part of town, the first time she’d investigated anything at McGuigan & McGuigan, she’d broken into a flat on Cadogan Gardens and then a nightclub on one of the mews. It was comfortingly familiar somehow to be back and, it occurred to her, Helen Quinn had known these streets too. That felt like some kind of link. Had they both frequented the same bakery and walked in the same park? Different women at different times, living in the same place. It was something.

  Keeping to the left-hand side of the road, she began methodically to check the shops. Several maids were out with their shopping baskets over their arms, dipping in and out of different establishments. The smell of the bakery sallied pleasingly towards her. The scones had been particularly delicious in the old days. Mirabelle wondered if they still made them. Then she spotted the clothes shop. Oh yes, she thought. She had forgotten it was there – just on the arcade. Two dummies placed in the window sported wide cotton skirts for summer and silk blouses held in place by patent leather belts that fastened at the base of the spine. At the front of the display there was a tidily constructed pile of cotton and silk scarves – an array of colour that stretched around the corner. It hadn’t looked like this during the war. Mirabelle couldn’t see herself wearing any of these clothes. The display might appeal to someone more frivolous.

  Abandoning all thought of the scones, she opened the door. Behind the counter, a woma
n was folding a mauve woollen cardigan. She looked up.

  ‘Good morning, madam. Can I help you?’

  Mirabelle smiled. ‘I’m looking for someone who used to work here. Her name was Helen.’

  The woman’s eyes flickered. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid Helen is dead. She died, you see,’ she added unnecessarily.

  ‘That’s why I’ve come. I’m looking for information. I’m from Brighton. I work with the police.’

  The woman’s hands fluttered and a piece of white tissue paper sailed to the floor. As she bent to pick it up, the paper crinkled between her fingers. ‘Oh dear,’ she repeated. ‘The police.’

  ‘I wondered if you might be able to help. We don’t know a lot about Mrs Quinn’s life before she moved to the coast, not even her maiden name. That’s why I’ve come, you see. To fill in the details. Do you have any idea of the name she used when she worked here?’

  ‘Well, you’d find that on her wedding certificate, I expect.’

  ‘Yes. But I’m looking for more than that. It’s been difficult to find people who knew her, you see. So, do you know Helen Quinn’s maiden name?

  The woman looked serious. ‘Lindley,’ she trotted out. ‘She was Helen Lindley.’

  ‘Thank you. And did she live nearby?’

  ‘Further down, near the river. She used to get the bus.’

  ‘I was told she was an orphan.’

  ‘If you can call a grown woman an orphan. I’m an orphan too then.’

  ‘I mean, did she have any family? I heard there was an uncle who came to her wedding.’

  ‘I never met an uncle, but she only worked here. We weren’t bosom buddies. She rented a room from an old bloke. He took an interest, I think. He let her pay her rent late. Maybe it was him who came. They were quite pally.’

  ‘Do you know his name?’

  ‘No. I’m not saying there was anything untoward, either. She was fond of him, that’s all.’

  ‘Did Helen have any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘She never said.’

  Mirabelle sighed. It felt like wading through mud. Helen Lindley seemed as elusive before she married Phil Quinn as she was afterwards. ‘I wondered if you could think of any reason someone would have wanted to hurt Helen? It seems such a senseless crime. It’s been difficult to get a handle to.’

  ‘It was the husband, I heard. That’s what it said in the paper.’

  ‘Did she talk about him? I mean when she met him?’

  ‘Phil, wasn’t it? Yes.’ The woman chuckled. ‘She wouldn’t shut up about him.’

  ‘Did she seem afraid?’

  The woman laughed. ‘She was thrilled. Prince Charming, he was. Sent a car for her at the station when she went down. And look what goes and happens.’

  ‘We’re not sure it was Mr Quinn, that’s the thing. As I say, we couldn’t find out much about her life before she married. I wondered if you know anything about her that might have spelled trouble? Anything that might have followed her down to Brighton?’

  ‘Trouble? I mean, Helen wasn’t a goody-goody, don’t get me wrong. She liked a drink. But she was reliable. Just normal, really. They wouldn’t have kept her on here if she was trouble.’

  Mirabelle bit her lip. All the people involved in this crime seemed too normal. That was the problem. They were all getting on with their lives and then this happened. But violent murders never came out of the blue.

  ‘And boyfriends?’ she pushed. ‘Did she ever have a connection to a man who might have been part of a gang?’

  ‘Helen?’ The woman looked horrified. ‘Look, she went dancing. She liked a laugh and she was popular. I mean, there were plenty of young men who wanted to take her out. But she wasn’t a gangster’s moll, if that’s what you’re trying to say. I wouldn’t even say she was fast. She went down to Brighton cos she preferred it – sleepy by the seaside, she said. She was looking for someone who was just the opposite of what you’re suggesting. Well, that didn’t work out, did it? But she could have had something more exciting if she’d wanted. Teddy boys, they call them. Rockers? But that wasn’t her bag. She might not have been my best pal, but I won’t have you saying things about her. Helen was a decent sort.’

  ‘That’s the thing. It’s just a mystery,’ Mirabelle cut in. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You think you can understand murder? I’m sorry.’ The woman was getting into her stride. ‘There’s no possible reason for something like that. And it’s slander to say so. I’m surprised, you being with the police. You should know better than to cast aspersions on an innocent girl who got killed.’

  ‘We have to ask.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ The woman laid her palm on the mauve cardigan as if she needed to steady herself. ‘You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’

  The door opened and a cheery boy walked in, struggling with a large brown cardboard box. ‘Delivery, Ida,’ he announced.

  ‘Pop it down there,’ the woman instructed, indicating a space beside the counter.

  ‘Morning, miss.’ The boy somehow managed to tip his cap in Mirabelle’s direction.

  Mirabelle nodded at Ida. ‘I’ll go,’ she announced. ‘You said Helen lived near the river?’

  ‘Yes. Luna Street. Like the moon,’ Ida said. ‘Number nine.’

  Mirabelle walked down King’s Road past the World’s End pub and on towards Cremorne Gardens. When she’d lived in Chelsea with Jack, they’d directed their lives towards the Sloane Square end of the street, hardly ever turning in this direction when they got to the main road. The further she continued, the more dilapidated the buildings became and the more unfamiliar it felt. The brick Victorian and Edwardian apartment blocks sporting geometric facades disappeared, the artists’ mews trailed away and gradually Georgian houses, perhaps three storeys high, took their place. The railings that survived wartime requisitioning were rusted and the roofs ramshackle. Paint peeled from the windows and flaked over the sills. Helen Quinn had brushed up well, but where she’d come from was more or less a slum. A musty smell of rotting wood and ineffective plumbing seeped over the pavement. Looking up, several of the windows were missing and here and there a greying net curtain billowed through the gaps. Mirabelle asked a policeman for directions to Luna Street and he told her where to turn off the main road. As she did so, she noticed a group of three young girls, no more than ten years of age, giggling on the doorstep of the house next door to number nine. One of them clutched a grubby doll, moving it on to her shoulder to rub its back. ‘Come on, Isabel,’ she said. ‘Let’s have a burp, shall we?’ The other two girls collapsed in giggles against the door frame, only managing to pull themselves together as Mirabelle’s elegant outline came into view.

  Mirabelle smiled kindly and knocked on the door to number nine. ‘It’s open, miss,’ the girl with the doll said. ‘No one locks their doors round here.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Mirabelle waited. No one seemed to lock their doors anywhere – that was the trouble. She shifted her weight. The youngster moved her doll to the other shoulder. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I’ll get him.’

  She marched round the railings, opened the door and wandered into the thin, dark hallway, which stretched ahead. ‘Ed,’ she shouted.

  ‘Yeah,’ came a low voice.

  ‘It’s a lady.’

  ‘Tell her I ain’t got no rooms,’ the voice instructed.

  The little girl looked at Mirabelle and motioned with her hand to relay the information.

  ‘I’m not looking for a room.’ Mirabelle was beginning to feel out of her depth.

  ‘She’s not looking for a room,’ the little girl called.

  ‘Well, what does she want?’

  The girl’s clear blue eyes turned back.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ Mirabelle said. ‘I’ve come about Helen Lindley,’ she called. ‘I want to ask you some questions.’

  There was the sound of a chair scraping across a wooden floorboard and then a man appeared at the other end of the hall. ‘What?�
� he said. It was more a grunt than a word.

  Mirabelle took in his appearance. He was, if anything, shabbier than the house. His greying hair was slicked back, but his shirt, though open at the neck, was pristine. He looked as if he might have been a boxer when he was younger. There was something about the way he held himself. One of his eyes was veiled by a cataract.

  ‘Helen Lindley,’ Mirabelle repeated. ‘I came to ask some questions.’

  In the gloomy hallway, she only just made out a tear leak from the man’s bad eye and trickle down his pockmarked cheek. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Shoo, Sally.’ He motioned the little girl away. Sally turned reluctantly, peering at Mirabelle as she passed, as if her high heels were some kind of wonder. She didn’t take her gaze off them till she rejoined the group back on the doorstep. The man took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the tear away.

  ‘Close the door,’ he said.

  Mirabelle did so, immediately rendering the hallway so dark it took a moment for her vision to adjust. ‘I come from Brighton. I’m looking into what happened. It’s not official.’ She didn’t want to alarm the old man by mentioning the police. ‘I’m Mirabelle Bevan.’

  ‘I can make you a cuppa.’ He turned away before she could answer. ‘Come on.’

  The back room was some kind of kitchen, although the range was probably a hundred years old and showing signs of rust. A battered brass scuttle sat half empty beside it. ‘Ed Hodge.’ The man introduced himself, as he filled the kettle. The room contained only one chair – a filthy wing-backed armchair, which was positioned next to the stove. Apart from that it was empty – in a poor state even for a slum. Mirabelle had had to collect money from far nicer addresses.

  ‘Did Helen live here, Mr Hodge?’ she asked, as she cast her eyes around. The walls were streaked with smoke from the fire. The ceiling was yellow with decades of tobacco. The windows were grey with soot. Behind Ed Hodge there was a single shelf that contained a packet of tea and some milk, a solitary onion and a tin of Bird’s custard.