Indian Summer

by Sara Sheridan

  Sara Sheridan was born in Edinburgh and studied at Trinity College, Dublin. As well as writing the popular Mirabelle Bevan Murder Mysteries, she also writes a set of historical novels set between 1820 and 1845, the latest of which was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Award 2017. Fascinated particularly by female history, she is a cultural commentator who appears regularly on television and radio. She also writes commercial non-fiction, including the 2017 tie-in book for the ITV series Victoria and, in 2018, an imagined female atlas of Scotland.

  Sara tweets about her writing life as @sarasheridan and has a Facebook page at sarasheridanwriter.

  Praise for the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series

  ‘Mirabelle has a dogged tenacity to rival Poirot’

  Sunday Herald

  ‘Unfailingly stylish, undeniably smart’

  Daily Record

  ‘Fresh, exciting and darkly plotted, this sharp historical mystery plunges the reader into a shadowy and forgotten past’

  Good Book Guide

  ‘A crime force to be reckoned with’

  Good Reads

  ‘Plenty of colour and action, will engage the reader from the first page to the last. Highly recommended’

  Bookbag

  ‘Quietly compelling … plenty of twists and turns’

  Shots

  The Mirabelle Bevan Mysteries

  Brighton Belle

  London Calling

  England Expects

  British Bulldog

  Operation Goodwood

  Russian Roulette

  Indian Summer

  Copyright

  Published by Constable

  ISBN: 978-1-472-12710-5

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Sara Sheridan

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Constable

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  About the Author

  Praise

  The Mirabelle Bevan Mysteries

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Author Note

  Acknowledgements

  ‘All things are only transitory’

  Goethe

  Prologue

  All things are only transitory

  Brighton, 10.15 p.m., 7 May 1957

  He hated the sound of a woman crying. Always had. In this situation it seemed unprofessional for the girl to do so. They had wrapped the body in a green sheet that would do as a shroud but he’d have to wait to remove it until the residents of the street had gone to sleep. That was the problem with the light nights – civilians stayed up later. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket to spark up a cigarette but the nurse, still comforting her friend, scowled at him so violently that he reluctantly replaced the gasper in the silver case he’d bought the year before from a stall on Portobello Road market and fumbled it into his jacket. He checked his wristwatch and crossed his arms. Another half an hour would do.

  At length, the nurse bundled the other, younger woman away with a handkerchief on loan and the assurance that she should go home now. He listened to the sound of their goodbyes, the front door clicking behind the snivelling woman. When the nurse came back into the room she sank heavily into the chair at the desk and sighed.

  ‘It was bad luck,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘That’s all.’

  The nurse nodded. ‘It goes that way sometimes,’ she replied. ‘Did she have any family?’

  How was he supposed to know? ‘We’ll see to it,’ he said vaguely, and momentarily the nurse looked alarmed. A grin spread across his face. ‘You think we’re real bad guys.’

  ‘You are bad guys,’ she said. ‘In different circumstances this poor girl mightn’t have died.’

  ‘Don’t bother with the sob story. You get paid.’ He hated it when people blamed him.

  The nurse’s eyes flashed. ‘You see to it she has a proper burial.’

  ‘Sure I will,’ he snarled, thinking that he might risk leaving now just to get out of here. Early or not. This nurse had some lip on her. ‘I know what I’m doing. What kind of a monster do you think I am?’

  The nurse didn’t reply. Instead, she opened a leather-bound logbook and examined its contents. ‘I’m going to do my rounds,’ she said. ‘Don’t let me keep you.’

  Chapter One

  How paramount the future is when one is surrounded by children

  Brighton, noon, Saturday 21 September 1957

  The summer had been so warm that people had come to rely on the weather, and for months had hardly had to think twice about organising a picnic on the beach. The crowds started early even on weekdays, flocking to the front in a flurry of polka-dot cotton. Music from the wireless floated over the hot air, cut by the sound of motorbike engines zipping along the seashore. Children ate ice cream, lapping like thirsty puppies. The long windows of Mirabelle Bevan’s flat had been open since the heatwave started so she could catch the slightest breath of cool air coming off the sea.

  For a month now the staff of McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery had been anticipating a break in the weather. Every Monday since the end of August, Vesta had announced that soon it would be too chilly to walk into work with the pram and that she would have to make other arrangements with Mrs Treadwell, the woman who looked after nine-month-old Noel H. Lewis while Vesta was at work. Noel had arrived on Christmas Day the year before and was, Mirabelle felt, a regal sort of baby. There was something serious about him that she liked. His grave eyes had appraised the world unflinchingly when she had visited Vesta in hospital on Boxing Day.

  Vesta loved her son with a ferocity that scared her. She believed herself to be an easy-going sort of person but in matters of Noel’s welfare she was uncompromising. Mrs Treadwell, a mother of seven and grandmother of eight, was a doughty woman whose services were bought by a fee paid weekly in cash augmented by rock buns and sponge cake baked by Vesta’s husband, Charlie. Familiarity with all matters pertaining to the upbringing of children had not lessened the
seriousness with which Mrs Treadwell took the task. She called the baby ‘Mister Noel’. Once, when she had been questioned about minding a coloured child by a shop assistant, she had insisted on making an official complaint to the manager. She came to the office to pick up Noel at 9.30 sharp every morning.

  But today was the weekend. Mirabelle gathered her thoughts. She stretched underneath the covers and smiled. She had slept in. Slipping over the edge of the bed, she drew back the long curtains and noted several people were ensconced on the pebble beach on the other side of the road – a man who had taken a dip was drying himself with a thin blue towel and a group of children were squabbling over something in a small zinc bucket. One woman sat in a deckchair knitting, with a green Thermos flask at her side, while several more ladies basked on colourful towels, enjoying the sun, the ripples of gossip around them practically visible from Mirabelle’s vantage point on the first floor. Normally, she would have sat and watched, but today Mirabelle turned away from the window and glanced at the clock. She needed to hurry. Vesta and Charlie were having a party – a barbecue in the American style to celebrate Charlie’s birthday. ‘A taste of home, baby,’ Vesta had promised him, indulging her husband, who only occasionally missed his hometown Detroit.

  Mirabelle was running late. She swept up her hair, pinned it in place and opened her wardrobe. She’d bought a few new frocks as it became apparent that the good weather would last the whole summer, and now she perused the clothes on the rail, choosing an elegant red cotton dress with a cinched waist which, she decided, she would team with a wide-brimmed straw hat. She had turned to lay the dress on the bed when her attention was drawn back to the people outside. There was a rhythm to a crowd, she always thought, and it changed when the child fell. The other kids scattered along the beach, boys in shorts, their tanned legs a blur as they ran away.

  The man drying himself didn’t take any notice as the little girl on the pebbles slowly picked herself up and smoothed down the skirt of her sea-green summer dress. She clutched something in her hand. Mirabelle peered. The child’s skin wasn’t as dark as Vesta’s – more a nut brown. Her hair had been braided in pigtails with navy ribbons tied at the end. Mirabelle could just make out the tears running down her cheeks and a splay of gold sweetie wrappers that showed between her fingers. A woman offered sympathy, but the little girl waved her off. Grasping the bucket, she limped up to the grassy verge where she climbed on to one of the benches, carefully unwrapped a sweet and popped it into her mouth.

  Mirabelle scrambled into her dress and appraised herself in the mirror before emerging into the sunshine. She slipped on her aviator sunglasses and turned along the main road before hurrying away from the sea. Her best chance of buying flowers for Vesta and picking up a taxi were both in the vicinity of the rank on Church Street. It would be fine, she told herself. She was set to be fashionably late.

  She’d forgotten about the little girl when six hours later a taxi dropped her back at her door. It had been a hectic afternoon. Charlie’s friends had brought guitars and a saxophone and one of the neighbours had turned up with a fiddle, so everyone ended up dancing in Vesta’s garden to a strange but palatable mixture of Irish folk music and jazz. Mirabelle had enjoyed catching up with Vesta’s mother, Mrs Churchill, and Vesta’s friend Marlene, the nurse who had delivered Noel. ‘Best promise I ever made good on,’ she said, rocking the baby when she finally managed to extract him from Mrs Churchill’s ample bosom. ‘Yanks. Everywhere,’ Marlene rolled her eyes. The party had been fuelled by iced bottles of beer, and by sausages and mustard. ‘You darkies have got it good,’ Mirabelle heard one of the neighbours say cheerily. Vesta had just smiled. Several locals still wouldn’t speak to her in the street. At least the man was friendly. By the end, Noel lay fast asleep, a plump little bundle smelling of sour milk and sunshine as Mirabelle kissed him goodbye. ‘See you on Monday,’ she said.

  Mirabelle had lived on the Lawns for years, but she never tired of watching the wide, ever-changing expanse of sea and sky. Now the late afternoon light was buttery and the air rich. As she got out of the taxi, she noticed the little black girl was still there, sitting on the bench. The beach was almost clear. The picnickers had gone home for the night. Two dog walkers exchanged pleasantries as their pets sniffed each other close to the surf and, further along, a teenage couple held hands, staring out to sea. The boy put his arm around the girl’s shoulder. There was no denying that though the air was still warm, you could feel autumn coming once the sun began to sink.

  Mirabelle’s heels sounded on the tarmac. She hesitated beside the bench. The little girl had twisted the empty gold sweet wrappers into rings, which decorated her plump fingers. She couldn’t be more than ten years of age, probably less, and, Mirabelle suppressed a smile, her feet didn’t reach the ground. Close up, the girl was very pretty. The child stared straight ahead as Mirabelle watched her. Considering the attention a young black child was bound to get, Mirabelle couldn’t blame her.

  ‘Are you staying to watch the sun go down?’ she enquired kindly. ‘The sky looks lovely when it does.’

  The girl nodded gravely but didn’t reply.

  ‘Have you spent all day on the beach?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘I saw your friends run off earlier. Have you been here all that time on your own?’

  The girl looked up. ‘They’re not my friends,’ she said. Her accent sounded almost cockney, but not quite. There was a hint of something longer on the vowels. ‘They’re sick like me, that’s all.’

  ‘Goodness me, you don’t look poorly. I’m sorry if you’re not well.’

  The girl turned her head and Mirabelle watched as a fresh tear ran down the child’s cheek. She looked round but there was nobody else to help. ‘Here you are,’ Mirabelle said, reaching into her handbag for a cotton handkerchief.

  The girl wiped her nose. ‘I didn’t expect it to be like this,’ she said.

  ‘Haven’t you been to the beach before?’

  ‘Not the beach, silly. England.’ The child’s tone was insistent.

  ‘Right,’ said Mirabelle. It seemed there was nothing for it. ‘Well, where did you come from?’

  ‘Jamaica.’

  ‘Jamaica looks exotic in photographs. Paradise.’ Mirabelle checked the slim gold watch on her wrist. It felt as if the conversation had somehow taken too serious a turn. ‘Do you think your mother will be concerned that you haven’t gone home? It must be tea time.’

  The girl sighed as if Mirabelle was a fool. ‘Mum’s not here. She’s in London, see.’

  Mirabelle considered. ‘You can’t be in Brighton on your own.’

  ‘They sent me for my chest.’ The girl coughed, as if demonstrating the efficacy of her respiratory system, or lack of it. ‘I’m supposed to get the sea air.’

  ‘I like your rings,’ Mirabelle tried.

  ‘Mum sent me sweets,’ the girl replied, her jaw tightening.

  ‘I see. And did those boys try to take them?’

  The girl swung round. ‘Yes,’ she said, her tone imbued with wonder that someone might have noticed.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you didn’t let them bully you.’

  The girl’s head dropped. ‘I’d have shared if they hadn’t been so nasty,’ she said. ‘I only managed to hold on to a few.’

  Mirabelle reached inside her handbag. Charlie had pressed a slice of cake on her, wrapped in a thin napkin. ‘Here,’ she offered the little package. ‘You must be hungry. You’ve been here all afternoon and it isn’t fair. They got away with your sweeties. Some of them, anyway.’

  The child glanced at Mirabelle as if this small kindness was incomprehensible and she had to check this lady in the glamorous red dress was real. ‘Go on,’ Mirabelle gestured as she sat down. ‘It’s Victoria sponge.’

  The girl broke the end of the slice and slipped it into her mouth. She ate slowly, Mirabelle thought, for someone who must be hungry. At the end she carefully picked every crumb off the napkin before folding it
neatly and handing it back.

  ‘Good,’ Mirabelle sounded satisfied. She looked past the child at the zinc bucket. ‘What’s in there?’

  The girl gave half a shrug. ‘Nothing.’

  Mirabelle peered over the lip. There was a tiny slip of sand and some water, four white pebbles and a scatter of crab shell. ‘They killed it,’ the girl’s voice broke as she started to cry again. ‘That’s worse than the sweets. I’m not playing with them any more. They smashed it to pieces. Poor little thing.’

  ‘Well, that’s horrible, but I think we should return the body to the water, don’t you?’

  The girl looked unenthusiastic.

  ‘You can’t carry around a dead crab,’ Mirabelle pointed out. This garnered no response. Mirabelle sighed. ‘Come on – we’ll give the little thing a decent burial.’

  The girl nodded.

  The two of them got to their feet and made their way on to the pebbles. It was tricky for Mirabelle in heels but she picked across the uneven surface down to the shore. She wasn’t quite sure why she was doing this. She really wasn’t interested in children.

  ‘I don’t have any candles,’ the girl said. ‘I don’t have flowers or anything.’

  ‘It will be all right. I promise.’

  Mirabelle looked around and found a discarded piece of cardboard, part of a packet of biscuits. She folded it to make a makeshift platform that could pass as a grave of sorts. ‘Here,’ she said. The girl reached into her bucket and brought out the crab. ‘You have to say prayers.’ She sounded nervous.

  ‘Right.’ Mirabelle solemnly cleared her throat and tried to conjure the kind of words you might hear at a funeral. ‘Back to the sea, oh lord, we commend this precious creature to your care. Amen.’ She gestured vaguely and the little girl pushed the crab on to the gently rolling water. The tide took the offering out a little way, then the cardboard disappeared under the surface. Mirabelle wondered if this might worry the girl, but the child had already emptied the bucket and rinsed it out in the salty water. She seemed far better, though her sandals were scuffed and the left one had got wet.