Mirabelle felt mortified. ‘Oh heavens,’ she cut in. ‘I’m so sorry. What a stupid mistake. I mean, we need more women doctors. I apologise.’
Uma stood to one side, shielding the plants as she waved Mirabelle through.
‘Come in,’ she said as Ellen spun on her heel and led the way.
‘My, your garden is beautiful,’ Mirabelle tried. ‘What a display. What did you mean about the plants? Not hurting them?’
‘We’re medical people, Miss Bevan.’
It flashed through Mirabelle’s mind that Father Grogan had been killed using strychnine, though she was sure the poison was difficult to make. It came from tree bark, if she recalled correctly, and would require a larger glasshouse than the one in place here. She would need to check.
As they rounded the side of the house, she smiled. The garden felt exotic – almost like some kind of dream. Dr Simpson hovered at the back door. ‘Uma’s been very upset,’ she said. ‘Since Father Grogan died. That’s why I didn’t let you in this afternoon. And we were busy. She wasn’t expecting you.’
‘Stop talking about me as if I’m not here, Ellen.’
The doctor relented and Mirabelle moved across the doorstep as if by default. Inside, the carpet – she noticed – was red, woven in an ornate pattern. On a beautifully carved coffee table sat a copy of Narayan Sanyal’s Bakultala P. L. Camp and an album of black-and-white photographs open at an Indian street scene. The low sofas were scattered with cushions of Indian silk edged with thick strips of brocade.
‘This is lovely,’ she said. ‘So colourful.’
Ellen closed the doors and languidly glided across the room. A large yucca plant in a bronze, hand-beaten pot grew as high as the cornice.
‘We brought everything with us when we left,’ she said. ‘Everything we could. Would you like a drink?’
‘Yes, please. Scotch if you have it.’
The doctor tidied her hair, slipping a stray lock behind her ear. She poured a Scotch and topped up the two gins with tonic that already lay on the table. Uma sank on to the cushions and wrapped her fingers around her glass.
‘Where did you live?’ Mirabelle asked, looking around.
‘In India? How many places do you know in India? How many could you point out on a map?’ Ellen’s tone was facetious.
‘Not many, I suppose.’
‘Delhi. We were just outside Delhi.’
‘In 1948? At the time of the partition?’
‘We left a little before. We ran a clinic. It’s how we met each other.’
Uma made a tutting sound, as if telling Ellen to be quiet. Mirabelle waited, but neither of them said anything else.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I have some questions about what happened at the children’s home the other day.’
Uma nodded. ‘All right.’
‘What time do you finish work normally?’
‘About seven. When the children go to bed. Most weeks I cover the night shift a couple of times. But I wasn’t on shift the night that Father Grogan died.’
‘Night shifts must be tiring.’
‘Most medics do them,’ Ellen said. ‘It’s normal for us.’
‘On the day Father Grogan died were you at the home later than normal, Uma?’
Uma nodded.
‘Why?’
‘They were arguing. We all stayed. It was an odd situation.’
‘So the father came to pick a fight with Sister Taylor? Is that what you’re saying?’
Uma nodded again. ‘I suppose so,’ she said and sipped her drink.
‘Do you know what they argued about?’
‘No.’
‘That’s my problem. I can’t figure it out. Sister Taylor had come to see the father before Vespers at the church, you see. They had already spoken, yet afterwards he went down to the home to pick a further argument with her. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘I don’t know why he came. I was there but I didn’t hear anything other than the shouting.’
‘But you stayed.’
‘We all stayed.’
‘Where?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m trying to place everyone. Where did you stay? Where did they fight?’
‘They were in the office,’ Uma said slowly, as if reasoning her answer. ‘Nurse Frida, Nurse Berenice and I were in the hallway. We were concerned about the children, you see. The upset.’
‘And then Father Grogan left?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Sister Taylor?’
‘Shortly afterwards. She had been crying, I think. She was pink under her eyes.’
‘You have a lovely cat.’ Mirabelle changed tack. ‘I saw him this afternoon.’
‘Ginger?’ Uma’s eyes lit.
‘You like animals?’
‘Always have.’
‘Do many patients visit you at home?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When I was at the door this afternoon, Ellen said “it’s not Uma’s fault”, as if she knew why I had come. As if it was common. Do many patients come to see you at home?’
‘That’s not what I meant!’ the doctor interjected. ‘Poor Uma has been upset, that’s all. She’s been blaming herself.’
‘Why would it be your fault?’
Uma’s finger pawed the glass. ‘It isn’t.’
‘She’s too conscientious, that’s all.’
‘And you like gardening?’
Uma nodded. ‘On my day off. It’s relaxing. I’ve always liked plants. And gardens.’
‘It doesn’t make sense to me. What happened to Father Grogan.’
‘Does murder ever make sense?’
Mirabelle sipped the whisky. She felt alert. ‘Yes. Almost always,’ she said crisply. ‘Even if what makes sense is somebody’s passion – something that is essentially nonsensical. But I can’t see whose passion might have killed Father Grogan. That’s my stumbling block. I feel there’s more to it.’
‘More?’
‘Is somebody blackmailing you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw you kissing. In the garden.’
Ellen rolled her eyes. Uma averted hers.
‘I saw the man who came this afternoon. After I’d left,’ Mirabelle kept pressing.
Ellen sprang to her feet. ‘That’s enough. Look, you can’t come in here and ask about that kind of thing.’
‘What kind of thing?’
‘We have a right to privacy. The law in this country doesn’t cover our particular perversion, Miss Bevan. As it is we live together, we share my name – because having a white name is easier – and the postman and the grocer and all the people we deal with assume we’re Dr and Mrs Simpson – a man and a woman – and that’s just fine. So if you want to go public and tell the neighbours, fire ahead.’
Mirabelle shook her head. ‘I’m not threatening you. I merely asked if someone else might be.’
‘Uma didn’t kill Father Grogan.’
‘But, Uma, do you know who did?’
Uma put down her glass. ‘Ellen is right. I’ve told you what I know. I’m just a nurse. That’s all. I think it’s time you left.’
Mirabelle took a moment, putting down her glass slowly and gathering her things. ‘And you don’t have any idea what happened to Sister Taylor?’
Uma didn’t reply.
‘Did you know her well?’
‘Quite well, I suppose,’ the nurse said quietly.
‘They’re painting her as a murderer at the police station. I didn’t know the sister but I don’t think she could have killed somebody. That’s my sense of her. That she was a moral person.’
Uma shrugged. ‘Do we ever know anybody?’ she asked. ‘I mean, really know them and what they’re capable of?’ She pointed at the door.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, we can’t tell what somebody will do. What they might be like in difficult circumstances. I can’t help you, Miss Bevan. I’m sorry.’
Mirabelle left through the hallway this time. The cat was asleep under a radiator. As the front door closed behind her, she decided to walk back to town. Far off she could hear a church bell chiming. She counted carefully. It was eleven o’clock. As she turned down West Drive she glanced back at the house. Mirabelle hadn’t had a home for a long time – not a real one, not since Jack. Places and people didn’t mean so much to her these days, but she could still recognise love when she saw it. And the women kissing in the garden would have done anything for each other. Maybe somewhere, just beyond her reach, out there among the jungle plants, there was a motive. She just had to think things through. As she set off southwards she realised she wasn’t tired, but both of those women, it came to her, were exhausted. And she didn’t know why.
Chapter Fifteen
Between men and women there is no friendship possible
Chris had said his place was just round the corner from the Old Ship Hotel – a mews. Half an hour later, back towards the front, Mirabelle walked past the closed shops circling the area to the rear of the hotel building. This close to town there weren’t many flats, and this late at night most upper floors above the shops were in darkness. Her heels echoed on the paving stones. At the top of the road a man stumbled out of a pub, still serving after hours. He was singing some terrible army song she vaguely recognised. She hung back until he had turned the corner at the top of the street and silence descended once more. It must be near here, she thought. She just had to be methodical.
It didn’t take long in the end. Brighton boasted a labyrinth of interconnected alleyways where the horses and carriages of the wealthy used to be housed. Now the stables were garages mostly. Some boasted two storeys with an old hayloft over the stable. This one was on a dead end just off Russell Road. As Mirabelle turned off the main street, the cobbles she stepped on to were not as regular as usual. The alley had not been well maintained and individual stones were raised, like teeth in an uneven smile. There was a huge pothole at one end and, at the edges, in the absence of a pavement, moss furred the stones. On a rainy night it would be treacherous in heels but luckily it was dry.
Mirabelle set off. Only two of the garages had been converted into living quarters, she realised. The rest housed cars, by the look of them. A tower of empty oilcans was piled beside one door. Another had glass panes fitted in a vertical line, some of which had been smashed, leaving a chessboard effect of ragged, dark spaces. Of the two houses, side by side, one was currently occupied. The sound of a gramophone playing music emanated from it, along with a thick wash of light where the curtain hadn’t been fully drawn. This gap illuminated a slice of the cobblestones and the front door, which was newly painted in British racing green and bordered by three chipped terracotta pots of dry-looking rosemary. The high tone of a woman’s laughter cut into the night air over the music. Mirabelle positioned herself so she could see through the crack in the curtains. Inside, the walls of the mews had been plastered and painted pale pink. A man and a woman were playing cards at a table with a half-empty bottle of rum beside them. She felt a buzz of relief and turned her attention to the mews next door.
The house was in darkness but, as she got closer, she could make out that the nameplate said Dr C. Williams in engraved script. She trailed her fingertips over his name. Ahead, there was a parking area, she realised, just the right size for Chris’s car. It was bounded by two largish boulders. Double-checking over her shoulder that there was nobody to see, she put up her hand to block out the light from next door and peered through the doctor’s window. Inside, it was pitch black, and the most she could make out was the vague shape of furniture. Clearly, he was working late.
She considered using her SOE lock picks to gain entry, but decided against it. Chris wasn’t a suspect and, despite her exploits climbing walls and fences only an hour or two before, she knew she should extend the respect she’d demand from him if the tables were turned. If he’d broken into her flat, she’d be furious, so instead she leaned against one of the boulders and waited. She told herself it was because she wanted to know about the dead body, but the truth was far more complicated. She wondered when she’d turned into the kind of woman who would behave so brazenly. She tracked her progress. It had been coming a long time. It was after McGregor. After she’d met Lali. It was probably the moment Chris kissed her the day before. It felt as if she had changed.
It was almost midnight when the car turned the corner, its lights blinding. The engine cut out as it pulled up abruptly in the spot between the boulders. The lights dimmed and Chris opened the door. Then he spotted her.
‘Hello,’ he said. He sounded weary.
‘I’m not here because I want …’ Mirabelle’s voice trailed. ‘It’s only …’ she tried again and failed, cursing herself for not planning something to say that would make sense of her presence. She’d had time, after all.
He laughed, keys dangling in his hand. ‘Red rag to a bull, I suppose, telling you that my place wasn’t up to much. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I could use a nightcap. How about you, darling?’
Inside, he threw his keys on to a side table and snapped on a lamp. He had not underplayed his housekeeping skills.
‘It’s clean,’ Mirabelle said hopefully as he closed the door and directed her towards a comfortable-looking sofa upholstered in chocolate-brown velvet.
‘I have a woman who does. She sorts out my clothes and cleans the place. I’m not tidy, that’s the thing.’
Mirabelle cast her eyes over the piles of papers and magazines and decided that was an optimistic understatement. Some of the sheaves of printed paper were comprised of copies of the Lancet. Others were piles of salmon-pink racing newspapers. There were several of these and beside them a tottering tower that seemed to be solely made up of issues of the Financial Times – a different kind of wager. Chris was a man who liked taking risks, she decided with a frisson. And a man of science, too.
She felt herself relax. The place might be untidy but it felt familiar – it put her in mind of her own flat before fire had engulfed it a couple of years ago and Vesta had redecorated. Her old drawing room had been peppered with several piles of the Argus. She had found herself unable to fling them away. Afterwards, one of the firemen had told her off – they’d been a fire risk, he’d said, as if the blaze that had started had been her fault, which it wasn’t.
Chris extracted a green bottle of spirits from the sideboard. He moved to what might loosely be termed the kitchen area and put his hand on two cut-crystal glasses, pouring generous measures of honey-coloured liquid.
‘Thank you.’ She warmed her lips on the whisky.
‘So, you like crosswords, I take it?’ Chris’s tone was familiar. He was teasing her.
‘You think it’s just any puzzle? I knew Father Grogan. I have a duty. I’m the one who found his body.’ She knew she sounded earnest, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘And you’re here because …’
‘I didn’t want to go home,’ she admitted. ‘I find you confusing. Or maybe intriguing is a better word.’
Chris sat next to her on the sofa. She felt her skin prickle. ‘Good,’ he said.
He stroked her hair and ran his hand down her cheek. ‘It’s late,’ he whispered as he kissed her neck.
‘I don’t want to go to bed with you. Not yet,’ she replied.
It flashed through Mirabelle’s mind that, once, a prostitute had told her that her favourite clients were doctors. They knew what to do, the girl had said. Chris seemed to fall into that category. He removed the whisky from her hand, and pinned her wrist to the sofa. She could feel how strong he was. For a moment, she let herself go and kissed him. Then she pushed him away. He put up his hands in surrender.
‘I wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘But I want you to know that you’re the most attractive woman I’ve ever met. I thought it the moment I saw you.’
‘On the floor of the lavatory, covered in bruises, unconscious and next to
a dead man.’
‘Yes. Even then.’
She took his hand. He lay his head on the back of the sofa and let out a sigh.
‘Tired?’
‘A little. It’s not easy.’
‘Did you come straight from the post-mortem?’
He laughed. ‘Yes.’
‘The gangster?’
‘How did you know?’
‘They were talking about it – along the front. I followed you. I was curious.’
‘Followed me?’
How long do you think he’d been dead?’
Chris’s brow furrowed. ‘Do dead people turn you on, Mirabelle? Is that what it is?’
‘No.’ She sounded shocked.
He seemed to accept her answer, though for a second she doubted it herself. Jack Duggan. Alan McGregor. Now Chris Williams. She was certainly fascinated by danger.
The doctor took a sip of whisky. He leaned back, put his arm around her and began to talk about his night. ‘It’s difficult to tie down the cause of death sometimes, that’s the thing. He had a bad heart, poor bastard. It’s not surprising. He was overweight and his liver was in a state. Do you mind me talking like that?’
‘Not at all. It’s interesting. Didn’t he drown?’
‘There wasn’t any seawater in his lungs. Not a drop. And he went into the water days ago. Water corrodes evidence. He looked a little like your friend, come to think of it.’
‘Father Grogan?’
‘Yes. His skin was livid. It’s the water again. I can’t tell how he died. Not yet. It feels like a heavy responsibility and they rely on me to figure out as much as I can. But there was nothing obvious. Nobody caved the poor guy’s head in, stabbed him or shot him. That much I can rule out. I’ll run more tests tomorrow.’
Mirabelle slipped off her shoes. The heels toppled with a dull clunk on to the carpet. She put down her drink. ‘Tomorrow’s hours away. The morning, I mean.’
‘Well, if we’re not going to bed.’ He loosened his tie. ‘Let’s not talk about all this Jerry Bone stuff – it’s grim. Let’s just lie here.’ He reached to turn out the light. In the dark she curled around the length of his body and he kissed her forehead. The moon cast a slice of light across the room. A window open somewhere let in a thin shaft of fresh air. She breathed in the smell of him – the faded trace of an expensive cologne, a tinge of metallic sweat and the sting of whisky fumes. It had been a long time since she’d been held like this.
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