England Expects

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘My cousin Denny’s hard of hearing.’ Bill grinned and held up the list he’d made. ‘And Miss Gillingham moves her lips when she reads. I caught four horses’ names for meetings taking place this weekend. I’ll nip down and get a racing paper, and we can search them out, eh?’

  Mirabelle smiled. It had been such a miserable day – thank heavens for Bill. There was something indomitable about him. ‘You can lip-read?’

  ‘I learned to do it with Denny when we were nippers. I got the makings of a corking accumulator here. Ten bob each and we’ll walk away with a small fortune – if you’re game, ladies?’

  ‘Let me fetch my purse,’ insisted Mirabelle, reaching for her handbag. ‘This one’s on me.’

  While Bill was away the women relaxed. It seemed odd somehow to get back to normal so easily. Vesta closed her eyes. The office felt right. When she opened them again Mirabelle was leaning across her desk.

  ‘It’s over, I promise,’ she said quietly. ‘I shall let the troubles of strangers be. At least I’ll try to. I can’t believe that I didn’t realise you were there. I should have looked after you better. I apologise.’

  ‘No. I sent you home,’ the girl pointed out. ‘I won’t do that again. It’s not as if anyone else noticed, is it? Not even Charlie.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s a downside to being so independent. Are you going to tell him?’

  ‘And scare him half to death? No. No, I’m fine.’

  ‘If you need someone to talk to . . . later, I mean,’ said Mirabelle awkwardly.

  ‘I know.’ Vesta held her friend’s eye. ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

  The sound of footsteps hammering on the linoleum outside broke their conversation. Charlie burst into the office. Delighted, Vesta jumped from her chair straight into his arms. Charlie looked surprised. ‘Are you all right, Miss Bevan?’ he said, peering over Vesta’s shoulder.

  Mirabelle looked up. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And the other lady?’

  ‘She’s gone home. She’ll spend the summer with her mother, I expect.’

  ‘But you didn’t . . . I mean, you weren’t hurt, were you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. We got out long before there was any trouble. It seems to me there was a falling out of thieves after we left the building. I’ve spoken to Superintendent McGregor and he’s said he’ll keep our presence at a very low profile. I’d be obliged if you’d do the same. And this is for you.’ Mirabelle handed back the key to the suite. ‘Thank you. As it turned out, it was a life-saver. It’s Vesta who’s had a tough afternoon. It’s Vesta you need to look after.’

  ‘Baby?’ Charlie asked, putting the key in his pocket.

  ‘Just paperwork,’ she said. ‘It’s Friday afternoon, Mr Lewis, and we have relaxing to get on with.’

  ‘Well, let’s get to it, honey.’ Charlie grinned.

  Vesta turned to Mirabelle. ‘All right?’

  Mirabelle nodded. ‘Off you go. Have a lovely weekend. That’s what it’s all about.’

  Vesta reached for her jacket. Charlie helped her to slip it on. While his back was turned, Mirabelle mouthed ‘Marry him’ and demonstrated the relevant finger on her left hand.

  ‘Friday night is our night in, Miss Bevan,’ said Charlie, oblivious. ‘I’m going to cook up a storm.’

  Vesta linked her arm through Charlie’s. Then she turned towards him. ‘I’ve got something to talk to you about tonight.’

  Mirabelle could swear the girl almost purred. It was a sound she was very glad to hear. I’ll look forward to hearing about this on Monday, she thought. And to seeing the ring.

  ‘Baby,’ she heard Charlie say as the couple disappeared through the door, ‘I could talk to you all night. What’s on your mind?’

  A fine drizzle was dropping gently on The Lawns when Mirabelle opened the curtains in her bedroom the following morning. On the pebbles three children in wellington boots were carrying plastic buckets up and down from the water’s edge on some kind of mission. Mirabelle watched them for a few minutes and then took her umbrella from the stand to walk up to the bus stop.

  ‘Overcast,’ said a woman who was already waiting. In a plastic mackintosh and fur-lined ankle boots she was taking no chances. It was a comment that required no reply.

  On the bus, the air was heavy with cigarette smoke and damp clothes. There was an air of general gloom as if the week of good weather had been a clerical error that had now been resolved, turning out in no one’s favour. A large puddle was forming outside the greengrocers and the bus splashed through it.

  At All Saints in Patcham Mirabelle disembarked. Down the road, a cloud of steam was rising from the bakery’s chimney. She put up her umbrella and turned in the opposite direction for the church. Inside, a small congregation had formed. Ellie Chapman wore a navy coat. She was clutching a handkerchief in one hand and a single pink geranium in another. Beside her, Vi stood with her arm around a man to whom she looked so similar that he had to be her brother. Their coats were streaked by the rain. Half a dozen older ladies in an array of squelchy summer hats stood around silently. Mirabelle joined them, nodding in Ellie’s direction.

  The vicar referred to neither Captain Henshaw’s confession nor the parentage of Mrs Chapman’s youngest child. Nor did he refer to the fact that he was burying a murder victim. Ellie sobbed into her handkerchief as she threw the geranium into her mother’s grave, and Mirabelle smiled as Vi reached out and touched her sister’s arm, only for a moment, but still. These were the people who were left, Mirabelle thought. Perhaps it was better that they knew everything now. At least they might understand more about each other and try to build something out of their broken secrets.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Miss Bevan.’ Ellie shook Mirabelle’s hand at the door, after the service.

  ‘If you ever need anything . . .’ Mirabelle found herself saying.

  ‘Thank you,’ Vi grinned, her hand on her swollen belly.

  Their brother had a firm grip as he shook her hand. That was a good sign. Perhaps the Chapman children would be all right. The funerals that would take place next week would be more difficult. Mrs Henshaw must be distraught, she thought, and for that matter, angry.

  She raised her umbrella and stepped out. A slight breeze had started. It blew the drizzle sideways. Mirabelle raised her eyes to see if anyone was waiting at the bus stop. That was always a sign that the service was due. And then she saw him. He had parked just along from All Saints and was standing beside the car with his hat pulled down. He raised a hand in greeting.

  ‘Miss Bevan,’ Superintendent McGregor said. ‘I thought I’d find you here. I wondered if you’d like a lift or if I might take you to lunch.’

  Mirabelle reflected. She had nothing else to do. ‘It’s a miserable day,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘But we’re alive,’ McGregor parried.

  ‘What will you do about that horrible place?’ Her voice was low. She had been thinking about it.

  ‘I’ll kick it upstairs, that’s what,’ McGregor said. ‘That way the creepy so-and-sos will have to deal with their own. And I’ll tell them if they don’t, I’ll alert the press. But my job’s to solve the murders and that’s all but done, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t expect you’ll ever find the man in black, you know.’

  ‘Exactly why I put Robinson on the job. There’s no point in wasting valuable manpower. No, it’s over, thanks to you, Mirabelle.’

  ‘Well, we’re even then,’ she smiled, taking his arm as he opened the car door. On the front seat there was a brown paper parcel.

  ‘To say thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You didn’t have to.’ Mirabelle slipped inside and laid the parcel on her knee. It felt strange to be treated like this.

  McGregor skirted the car, put down the umbrella and climbed into the driving seat.

  ‘You saved my life,’ he said.

  ‘What on earth else would I do?’ She didn’t want to appear ungrateful. ‘Shall I open it?’

  He
nodded. She pulled aside the string and the paper parted. Inside, a small bottle of perfume nestled next to an envelope.

  ‘Shalimar,’ said Mirabelle. ‘Thank you.’ Perhaps it was time to try something new. In the midst of life we are in death, the vicar had said. Maybe there was no mystery, no secret to everything. Maybe there was only this.

  ‘I hear it’s difficult to get these days. Even in Burlington Arcade,’ McGregor said.

  Mirabelle smiled. So McGregor had found Fred’s hideaway. Of course. She picked up the envelope and flicked it open. Inside were two tickets.

  ‘I hope you like tennis. It’s the Championship at the All England Club. It started this week, but the tickets are for the final next weekend. We could drive to Wimbledon, if you like. They mix a fantastic fruit cup, I hear.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were interested in tennis.’

  ‘We don’t play much in Scotland, but I like to watch. Not a Fred Perry among us. Maybe one day. It’s an American tipped to win.’

  ‘Yes, there’s a Danish contender, too, isn’t there?

  ‘McGregor shrugged shyly. ‘Hungry?’

  Mirabelle nodded. She thought she could manage something. ‘Thank you, Alan.’

  ‘I know a place with an open fire,’ he said and started the engine.

  Questions for readers’ groups

  1. In the digital age what can really be secret?

  2. How have women’s roles changed since the 1950s? What progress has and hasn’t been made?

  3. If you were Vesta would you marry Charlie?

  4. What is the difference between history and nostalgia?

  5. How long did the shadow of World War II hang over the nation? Does it still?

  6. Is Elsie’s murder more or less shocking than that of Joey Gillingham?

  7. Would you rather live in Britain in 1953 or today? Would the answer to that question be the same if your skin was another colour?

  8. What most successfully evokes the 1950s for you? The tastes, the sounds, the smells, the fashion? What makes a story feel as if it is from an earlier era?

  9. Is Superintendent McGregor worthy of Mirabelle?

  10. What are the ethics around making a vow of loyalty to the freemasons or any other organisation? Do those ethics hold if the vow of loyalty is to a monarch? A country?

  Author’s note

  I write novels, which are, of their nature, fictional. I love writing and, just as much, I love undertaking research. It’s part of a writer’s job to be nosey about everything. However, it should be noted that I made up this story and although many of the places I mention are real and some of the storylines have a sound historical basis, there is, for example, to my knowledge, no cavern beneath the freemasons’ Brighton premises (only a basement) nor, indeed, is there a large underground wine cellar running below Downing College. There were, however, a series of scandals involving freemasons who were employed in our judicial system (magistrates, judges and policemen) in Brighton in the 1950s and, in fact, beyond that date. So, the world I describe is, I hope, real (or real enough) but the actual story – well, I’m a novelist.

  Many thanks are always due. So, to Jenny Brown, my tireless agent, to the many at my publisher who give Mirabelle a platform from which to dive into bookshops, libraries and that high-tech swimming pool that is the world of digital books. Thanks to them she is waving, not drowning, swimming not sinking (thank heavens for that). Special thanks to Vikki and Alison – fervent wavers of pom-poms in Mirabelle’s cause. And to Julie Fergusson and proofreader Nancy Webber. Around the world there are many dedicated event organisers and I’ve spoken up and down the country about Mirabelle and her adventures (oftentimes to accompanying tea and scones – what a good idea). Thank you for your dedication to your audiences at book festivals and reading groups, libraries and in bookshops and, well, anyone who brings people together so they can read. I also want to give a special shout-out to those bookshops who have taken a chance on me by stocking the books and recommending them. You are at the coal face of our industry and have made a huge difference. I try to visit as many bookshops as I can – if you’d like me to come and visit yours please get in touch and I’ll do my best. Thanks also to Creative Scotland who have been supportive of my career over the last few years and have funded travel and research on a number of occasions – including for this book in particular. In my personal life I can only say again that my family are amazing. They put up with all my madnesses (for writers are cookie, one and all). Thank you to my wonderful husband and daughter, and also my parents (both Mirabelle stalwarts), my brothers and sisters-in-law and their kids. (‘Did you really write those books?’ one of my nieces asked me recently. ‘Yes, I did,’ I replied, trying to look both competent and mysterious.) And lastly to all the readers – from those who get in touch online and off, to those who curl up with a book and wouldn’t dream of letting me know. Writing Mirabelle’s stories is a pleasure because of you. Readers are so much more important than, well, just about anything. I can’t say it enough – thank you.

  The quotations and misquotations used to open each chapter are taken from the following sources: ‘If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story’ Orson Welles; ‘Murder is always a mistake – one should never do anything one cannot talk about at dinner’ Oscar Wilde; ‘It takes a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious’ Alfred North Whitehead; ‘My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me’ Winston Churchill; ‘Boxing is show business with blood’ David Belasco; ‘The secret of getting ahead is getting started’ Mark Twain; ‘These little grey cells. It is up to them’ Agatha Christie; ‘Investigation may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and solving a problem to the day of birth. To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it’ Mao Tse-tung; ‘Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight in cleverness’ Thomas Huxley; ‘Happiness is an inside job’ William Arthur Ward; ‘Charity begins at home but should not end there’ Thomas Fuller; ‘Friendship is a slow ripening fruit’ Aristotle; ‘Trust not too much to appearances’ Virgil; ‘Man’s loneliness is but his fear of life’ Eugene O’Neill; ‘The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity’ Anatole France; ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ traditional; ‘Freedom and justice are twin sisters’ Friedrich Ebert; ‘There is no substitute for hard work’ Thomas Edison; ‘I would rather trust a woman’s instinct than a man’s reason’ Stanley Baldwin; ‘Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned’ James Joyce; ‘Perhaps there is no agony worse than the tedium experienced waiting for something to happen’ Lance Loud; ‘We feel free when we escape – even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire’ Eric Hoffer; ‘Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey at a mild season through a pleasant country in easy stages’ James Madison; ‘Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare’ Dale Carnegie; ‘If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair’ C.S. Lewis; ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ traditional; ‘To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved’ George MacPrentice; ‘Trust everybody but cut the cards’ Finlay Peter Dunn; ‘It’s only in love and murder that we still remain sincere’ Friederich Durrenmatt; ‘Our antagonist is our helper’ Edmund Burke; ‘I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice’ Abraham Lincoln.

  The Mirabelle Bevan Mysteries

  Brighton Belle

  1951. Brighton. With the war over and the Nazis brought to justice at Nuremberg, Mirabelle Bevan (Secret Service backroom girl, retired) thinks her skills are no longer required. After her lover’s death she retires to the seaside to put the past behind her and takes a job at a debt collection agency run by the charismatic Big Ben Mc
Guigan. But when the case of Romana Laszlo – a pregnant Hungarian refugee – comes in, Mirabelle soon discovers that her specialist knowledge is vital. With enthusiastic assistance from insurance clerk Vesta Churchill, they follow a mysterious trail of gold sovereigns and corpses that only they can unravel.

  London Calling

  1952, Brighton and London. When seventeen-year-old debutante Rose Bellamy Gore goes missing in a seedy Soho jazz club the prime suspect is black saxophone player, Lindon Claremont, the last person seen talking to her. Under suspicion, Lindon heads straight for Brighton and his childhood friend, Vesta Churchill who works with Mirabelle Bevan, now in charge of McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery. When Lindon is taken into custody the two women dive into London’s underworld of smoky night clubs, smart cars and lethal cocktails to establish the truth.

  England Expects

  Which you’ve just read . . .

  And the fourth: British Bulldog

  1954. Brighton. London. Paris. When an old wartime associate of Mirabelle’s leaves her a bequest, there are strings attached. The dead man had unfinished business from his wartime days – business that somehow involved the love of Mirabelle’s life, Jack Duggan. Unwilling at first but increasingly intrigued by what Jack was up to, Mirabelle soon leaves the offices of McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery behind and finds herself caught up in a shady world of post-war politics and shameful secrets that her establishment friends would far rather forget.

  Here is a taster.

  6.45 p.m., Monday, 15 February 1954

  Mirabelle snapped out the light at McGuigan & McGuigan and locked the office door behind her. Even in the sheltered hallway her breath clouded the freezing air as she took the stairs down to the deserted street. It had been a cold winter though Brighton had not had to cope with the snow some counties were experiencing. The weather had been front page news in the national papers since before Christmas. On East Street the sky was heavy. It had been dark since five o’clock. Mirabelle often worked late, especially at this time of year when there was little to go home to. She looked up and down the street, her fingers already numb inside her brown silk-lined leather gloves. If she walked back along the front she’d reach her flat on The Lawns more quickly, but the seashore could offer no protection from the biting north-easterly. Sizing it up, she turned towards town. The streets were silent, the lamplight hazy over the damp pavements. The smell wafting from the fish and chip shop on the corner was tempting but Mirabelle resisted.