Russian Roulette

by Sara Sheridan

‘Helen lived upstairs. First floor. Nothing fancy,’ he said.

  ‘Were you related to her?’

  The man smiled, revealing several black teeth, a few yellow ones and some gaps. ‘I wish,’ he said.

  ‘I wondered if you’d attended her wedding?’

  ‘She wanted someone from her side. Lovely it was. A nice little pub with a room upstairs. She did well, did Helen.’

  ‘And did you keep in touch?’

  ‘No. She had a different life, didn’t she? Nice new husband. Nice new house. I understood.’

  Mirabelle thought about the Quinns’ house on Mill Lane with its new furniture and freshly painted walls. It was a million miles from this. The old man shrugged his shoulders as if he understood what Mirabelle was thinking. ‘And why shouldn’t she get on in life?’

  ‘She’d had it hard then?’

  ‘She was on her own by the time she came here. Lots of girls would have jumped on the first fella who offered, but not Helen. She had dignity. There were those who thought she liked the bloke she married cos he could give her everything, but she wasn’t like that. Don’t get me wrong. She enjoyed the house and she already had clothes. She could appreciate a nice set of threads, could Helen. But the thing was, she loved him. Phil, wasn’t it?’

  ‘They’ve charged Phil Quinn with the murder.’

  Ed Hodge shook his head. ‘That bloke served his country. He was stand up. I don’t believe it.’

  Mirabelle considered sitting down on the chair but decided against it. ‘I don’t believe it either,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to figure out what happened. Mr Hodge, was there anything you can think of, anyone unpleasant Helen knew from her time in London? Anything that might have led to what happened?’

  ‘There’s men round here who’d gut you.’ The old man’s tone was businesslike, as he poured water from the kettle into a badly chipped teapot and set it aside to brew. ‘Plenty of them. But they wouldn’t kill a woman who wasn’t their wife. Helen kept herself to herself the whole time she lived here. I was the only one she ever really talked to.’

  He looked around for a cup, his face showing a certain amount of confusion. Mirabelle was unsure if he just didn’t know where the cup might be or if he had truly not considered who might have murdered his friend. ‘What happened sounded bad,’ he said, almost under his breath.

  ‘The murder?’

  He nodded, rinsing the cup in the sink.

  ‘Did you read about it in the paper?’

  Ed Hodge shook his head. ‘I can’t read. One of the neighbours told me. One of the women popped in to let me know.’

  ‘Did they know Helen then?’

  ‘A little. She went to the laundry down the road. She met some of them there. She was good with clothes. She knew what to do with a stain. I miss her. I know that’s stupid. I haven’t seen her in a year. But still, knowing she isn’t in the world . . .’ His voice tailed off and the tear reappeared in the corner of his blind eye. ‘Do you know what happened, Miss Bevan?’

  Mirabelle didn’t want to describe it, but the old man’s cloudy gaze was impossible to dodge and she wasn’t going to lie. ‘I’m sorry. Helen’s death was especially violent. She was drugged. She was stabbed. We don’t know who did it. Didn’t the neighbour tell you the details?’

  Ed shook his head. ‘Just Brighton they said?’

  ‘Yes. In Brighton. At home. In her sleep.’

  Deciding the tea had had its chance to brew, the old man poured some into the cup and held it out. ‘Horror show, innit?’ he said.

  Mirabelle took the cup and sipped. She’d heard somewhere that tea was mildly antiseptic. She hoped so. Despite the old man’s efforts, the cup definitely wasn’t clean. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suppose it was.’

  Outside the window, the three little girls ran past in a jumble of pigtails. This was where Helen had come from and Mirabelle could see how it could feel like home. Still, no wonder Helen Quinn coped with everything life threw her way at Mill Lane. After Luna Street, anything would seem easy. ‘She made a friend down there,’ Mirabelle said. ‘I don’t want you to think she was unhappy or that she was alone. She made a friend right next door.’

  Ed Hodge nodded. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s all right.’

  Chapter 20

  Grit: courage, resolve, strength of character

  Vesta shut the office for lunch, but instead of wandering over to the café, she turned along the front. Mirabelle was right, she decided, as she took in the vista. She mustn’t prevaricate. Charlie was her husband and she’d have to bite the bullet. Distracted momentarily by the picture-postcard view, she noted the sky was the way you imagined it should be in springtime. The way a child might draw it. Then she turned off Kingsway and up the side of the Grand Hotel. At the service entrance, ahead of her, a truck was belching exhaust smoke. Vesta coughed. She hated feeling so uncommonly sensitive. She shifted to the other side of the door, as the cab opened, and a man jumped down and efficiently pulled out a couple of boxes of vegetables. In contrast to the fumes, the fresh scent from the boxes was a relief – clean cardboard mingled with turned earth and the green that grew from it. Vesta would never have believed she would be able to make out the smell of a cauliflower, but it had been a revelatory few weeks.

  ‘All right, chief?’ The delivery man’s eyes were focused on something behind her.

  Vesta turned. A young commis chef had appeared in the doorway.

  ‘All right,’ he confirmed. ‘Can I help you, miss?’

  ‘I’d like to see Charlie Lewis,’ Vesta said. ‘You know, the chef.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Lunch service,’ he replied. ‘They won’t let him out till after. Are you his lady friend?’

  Vesta nodded. ‘I only wanted a quick word.’

  From further inside the hotel there was the sound of shouting as if to demonstrate the high-pressure activity going on inside.

  ‘Lunch,’ the boy repeated as he took one of the boxes from the delivery man. ‘It’ll be done by half two.’

  Vesta checked her watch. She couldn’t leave the office for that long. And now she’d made up her mind to tell Charlie, she wanted to do it. The boy disappeared and the driver followed him. As the door banged shut, Vesta inserted her foot to stop it. She checked to see if anyone might have noticed, but the commis chef and the delivery man hadn’t checked behind them and there wasn’t a soul nearby. Above, the hotel towered so steeply no one looking out of a window would be able to make her out. Turning like a guilty child, she sneaked a peek through the crack – the passage was empty. Now she had to decide what to do.

  Vesta was always careful not to trouble Charlie at work or when he was playing jazz. She never asked him to come home early nor did she enquire where he’d been when he got home late. But this was an emergency. Sticking her courage like a pin in her lapel, she sneaked into the corridor.

  It was warm inside and the electric light felt heavy after the brisk spring sunshine, but the air sang with a cocktail of cooking smells, none of which seemed to upset Vesta’s stomach. It was a warren down here – laundries and kitchens, pantries and cloakrooms. With a sixth sense she was unaware she possessed, Vesta dodged the delivery man on his way back out, slipping behind a chamber maid’s trolley piled with clean hand towels and soap. Secreted no more than two feet out of the way, the man walked right past her. Once he’d gone, she followed the smell of baking like a hound on the hunt and, sure enough, she discovered the pastry kitchen and its Carrara marble worktops. This is where Charlie ought to have been. A tray of choux swans and a piping canvas filled with cream lay on the worktop, but there was no sign of either Vesta’s husband or his sous chef. Vesta peered at an elegant swan’s neck and, unable to resist, picked it up, dipped it into the cream and let it melt in her mouth. Charlie brought home cakes, pastries and bread almost every day, but they were never quite so fresh. Vesta moaned with pleasure and considered stealing the body of the swan – after all, what
use would it be now, without the rest of it? She recalled Charlie’s choux swans came with a glacé cherry and, with the swan’s body in her hand, began to search for one as a boy in chef’s whites returned to the room with an empty plate in his hand. He put it down on the worktop with a decisive click.

  ‘Oi,’ he said, ‘you can’t nick that. Them’s for afternoon tea.’

  Vesta felt herself blush. Then she grinned – almost as a defence mechanism. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Charlie Lewis.’

  ‘Chef’s busy.’

  Vesta regarded the swan in her hand, unsure what to do with it.

  ‘You might as well have it,’ the boy said, reading her body language. ‘I bet you didn’t even wash your hands.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Vesta eyed the swan. Somehow it didn’t seem right now to wolf it down. ‘Do you know where Charlie’s gone?’

  ‘Some woman,’ the boy replied. ‘In a suite.’

  ‘How long do you think he’ll be?’ Vesta wondered vaguely how much of her husband’s time at the Grand he spent with female guests in suites?

  ‘I dunno. She’s a tricky customer. She’s complained every meal – that’s what the front desk say.’

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Well, not our Victoria sponge, that’s for sure.’ The boy lowered his voice. ‘She said the jam was cheap.’

  Vesta took a sharp breath. Charlie’s jam was as good as the Women’s Institute ever produced, if not better. There was nothing cheap about it. ‘He won’t like that.’

  The boy chortled. ‘You bet he didn’t. Well, go on then.’

  Vesta tucked into the swan. ‘It’s very good,’ she said.

  ‘We always make half a dozen extra. Are you his missus then? Vesta, like the matches?’

  Vesta nodded. ‘Like the goddess,’ she corrected him. It was a line she used to use when she was single and frequented the dance halls. It seemed odd to be trotting it out again. These days everyone around Vesta knew her name, and once you were Mrs Lewis you couldn’t be quite so flirtatious as when you were Vesta Churchill, the black girl easily picked out of a crowd.

  ‘I‘ve heard all about you.’ The boy grinned.

  ‘Really?’

  Charlie never mentioned anyone at work.

  ‘Congratulations are in order, I hear,’ he said.

  Vesta felt herself reel. ‘What?’

  ‘Good news. About the nipper.’

  ‘But,’ she stuttered. ‘Charlie doesn’t know about the baby.’

  The boy eyed her. ‘What are you talking about? Made up he is. Over the moon.’

  Vesta climbed on to a high stool. ‘But how?’ she said.

  ‘Well, if you don’t know that . . .’ The boy’s eyes sparkled. ‘I thought you was married.’

  Vesta managed a disapproving look. This was exactly the kind of conversation she had been trying to avoid. Luckily, the boy didn’t linger on it. He started to separate a tray of eggs into two large bowls. The movement was mesmerising. She was going to ask him a question, but, before she could, Charlie stormed into the kitchen.

  ‘Hi, baby,’ he said and cracked what could only be described as an endearing grin. ‘You’ve met Henry.’ The sous chef saluted cheerily, between attending to the eggs. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Vesta slid off her seat. ‘I finally plucked up the courage to tell you that you’re going to be a father. That’s all.’

  Charlie leaned in and kissed her. He smelled of toffee and butter. ‘You’ll be a swell mum. About time, I’d say.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  Charlie turned to wash his hands. ‘I thought you were sick. You turned down those meringues I brought home. Twice. And then I realised it must be something on your mind because you went out before breakfast three days in a row. I kind of figured it out from there.’

  Vesta folded her arms. Was she really that transparent? ‘Well, if you’ve got any meringues left,’ she said, ‘I’d take one now.’

  ‘You want a coffee with that? The head chef has had a machine installed. He’s French.’

  Vesta shook her head. She couldn’t face coffee. It was one of the inexplicable changes in appetite the pregnancy had provoked.

  ‘Tea,’ she said. That was better.

  Charlie nodded at Henry and Henry took off.

  ‘I’ve been terrified of telling you for days,’ she admitted.

  ‘Terrified?’

  Vesta gave a little shrug and Charlie wrapped his arms around her. He kissed the nape of her neck. ‘It’s going to be wonderful. We’ll make a great family.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay at home, Charlie.’

  ‘So don’t stay at home.’ He shrugged. ‘Not a minute more than you want to, baby. We’ve got money, what with both of us working. We can get a minder. A nanny, you call them, don’t you? The way I see it, I’d rather have a nanny than a holiday, any day of the week.’

  Vesta smiled. She let Charlie do whatever he wanted, but in return he let her do the same. Most men would be horrified by the arrangement. ‘Nannies are for posh people. I wonder if there’s someone nearby. One of the neighbours? A mum who’d help out? Someone who’d enjoy it and appreciate a bit of extra cash.’

  ‘I’ll bet there is.’

  ‘People might not like it, Charlie. I mean, you know how they were before.’

  It hadn’t been easy for Vesta and Charlie when they had first moved to the suburbs. They were the first black residents on the block. Actually, the first black residents in over a mile. The local Conservative Association had sent a delegation door to door – not to speak to the Lewises, but to spread the word that voting Labour would only bring more blacks to the district. Things had settled now, but Vesta knew some of the neighbours were still unhappy. There was an old lady who hissed as she passed as if she was an evil spirit. Charlie had baked her a cake, but it hadn’t made any difference.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s up to us. You must have figured that out by now.’

  Henry returned carrying a small tray on the tips of his fingers. He laid down a teacup with the name of the hotel painted on it and a plate with two meringues. Charlie patted Vesta’s bottom and went back to work. Vesta picked up the cup. A smile spread across her face. ‘That was better than I thought it was going to be,’ she admitted.

  ‘Feel good?’ Charlie checked.

  Vesta nodded ‘What did the woman want? The one with the jam?’

  ‘I think she just takes exception to anything red.’ Charlie was assembling swans with impressive precision. ‘Russian,’ he explained. ‘And a countess, no less. Though Lenny on the front desk looked up her title in some book and he couldn’t find it. Anyway, we’ve got to keep her sweet. She’s spending a fortune up there.’

  The meringue crumbled as Vesta bit into it. ‘Intriguing,’ she said. The crust melted in her mouth. It felt like a long time since she had eaten with Charlie present. The changes in her appetite had been a guilty secret and she’d done her best to keep out of his way.

  ‘My money is on the fact that she just likes to complain,’ Charlie continued. ‘I took her up some Hartley’s in a silver dish.’

  ‘You never. Instead of your jam?’

  ‘I told her it was our premier boiling, reserved for special guests.’

  Henry beamed. Charlie let out a giggle. ‘She loved it,’ he said. ‘That’s the thing. Most of them have no idea. She is just the most horrible snob – when I went in she was running down our dining room, at the Grand. Said she couldn’t bear to have people watching her eat, as if anyone would even notice.’

  Vesta rolled her eyes. She drained the cup. ‘I better get back to the office,’ she said.

  Charlie raised a cheery hand and Henry bowed, sweeping the tea things away before returning to his eggs. ‘I’ll see you later, honey.’ Charlie waved. ‘Look after my eldest son.’

  Vesta felt herself blush. Peering down the corridor and feeling flustered, she turned in the
wrong direction for the back door and made for the service stairs. A waiter carrying a metal tray with a cloche on top eyed her as he overtook and she fell into step behind him. The stairs came out inside the hotel restaurant and she felt her heart rate increase. She hadn’t expected to be quite so visible. The waiter took off towards a table. It occurred to Vesta that everyone would look at her, but then she smiled to herself. This was the same ridiculous worry the countess had. Still, she had hoped to emerge into the busy hotel lobby. That’s what she felt like – a comfortable chair for a few minutes. The opportunity to watch people while she collected her thoughts. The Grand was like a maze. There must be another set of stairs, she decided, but it was too late now. Two women eating Dover sole put down their cutlery as she stepped on to the dining-room carpet. One whispered to the other. Customers at the Grand were not accustomed to dark-skinned women emerging from the swing doors. ‘Madam?’ a voice enquired from behind and Vesta almost tripped over her ankles as she turned. ‘Can I help you?’ a tall maître d’ leaned over. He smelled faintly medicinal.

  ‘I’m lost,’ Vesta explained. ‘I need to get to reception.’

  ‘This way.’ It felt humiliating, somehow, to be led out of the restaurant, still, she kept thinking of Charlie’s smile and how delighted he’d been. Then, out of the blue, tears welled in her eyes. She knew she was oversensitive at the moment, but still. The maître d’ held open the glass door with a flourish and she slipped past the menu board and on to the tiles of the main hallway, holding her chin up, in a vain attempt to hold back the tears. She made for a scatter of comfortable chairs, pulling her handkerchief from her bag as she took a seat. She’d done it. She’d told him. She settled down and waited as if in this first quiet moment there would be a thunderclap. But there was nothing, only tears and a feeling of power. Now Charlie knew and, more than that, he was delighted, Vesta didn’t feel afraid any more. She could tell her mother. She’d write this afternoon. The Churchills didn’t have a telephone and Vesta wasn’t keen to call the Kellys – the nearest handset – and have all the neighbours know at the same time as her mother. Mrs Churchill might take a few moments to adjust. After all, she had never been a grandmother before. Vesta took a deep breath and patted her stomach. Then she spotted them – Marlene and Marcus Fox coming out of the bar. Marlene was attired in a pretty spring dress and a hat fixed in place with a striking feather pin. Marcus laid his hand protectively on her shoulder. Vesta’s instinct was to sink back into the chair, out of the way, but, before she could, her friend waved.