‘But you knew Mr Bone?’ Mirabelle checked.
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Was he a customer?’
‘Not mine. But yes and no. He was one of Davidson’s cronies. We have to have protection, Belle. It’s got to come from somewhere.’
‘So, Mr Bone provided protection, did he?’
‘Bone and others.’
‘You pay for that?’
‘Of course we pay for it. What do you think? It’s a good job this place is a little gold mine. I’ve got six girls working out of here. We’ve got it cosy. No blokes about ’cept the obvious ones. We look after each other. Listen, what’s on your mind? He wasn’t your fella, was he?’
‘Bone? No.’
‘Good. He was a tough nut. A bit of a bully, truth be told. And fat.’
Jinty sat down and stirred her cup of weak tea, adding several spoonfuls of sugar. She proffered the bowl in Mirabelle’s direction, but it was declined.
‘I took your advice, actually,’ Mirabelle admitted.
‘Really? I can’t remember what I said.’
‘You said that doctors were … you know, good lovers.’
‘I can see you with a doctor!’ Jinty sounded delighted. ‘Nice, is he?’
‘I don’t know yet. Dr Williams. Chris Williams. He works with the police. Don’t tell me he’s a customer.’
Jinty shook her head. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’
Mirabelle was surprised at her relief. It was Jinty last year who had told her about McGregor’s interest in one of the girls who lived here. The moment remained vivid in her memory. It had been horrifying.
‘I’m glad you don’t know him,’ she said.
Jinty hooted and then sipped her tea with a loud slurp. ‘So why are you interested in Bone?’
‘I was there last night, out for dinner with the doctor, actually, when his body washed up on the front. Right at the aquarium.’
Jinty turned up her nose. ‘Must’ve put you off your meat and two veg.’
‘Well, I wasn’t on the beach. Only nearby. But I looked up his address, saw he lived here and thought …’ Mirabelle’s voice trailed. What had she thought? Why had she considered this her business? The kitchen clock ticked past nine.
‘You’re just curious, that’s all,’ Jinty said sagely. ‘I think you have a bit of the wildcat in you, Belle.’
‘Maybe.’ Mirabelle smiled. ‘It’s been something of a week.’
‘Really?’
‘Mr Bone wasn’t the only death. I had a friend who died. Well, not so much a friend as an acquaintance. Father Grogan. I don’t suppose you know him?’ Mirabelle lifted the tea to her lips, not expecting a reply.
‘Course I do.’ Jinty’s voice was earnest.
Mirabelle felt her heart sink. ‘But he wasn’t a customer? He wasn’t, was he?’
Jinty laughed. ‘He wouldn’t be the first. What? Do you think they put on the dog collar and just switch it off? Like a light? Them Catholic ones ain’t allowed to marry or anything. I don’t know how they bear it.’ The girl eyed Mirabelle mischievously. ‘But, you’re right,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t a customer, the poor old fellow. A couple of the girls go to confession, you know. Once,’ she leaned in conspiratorially, ‘he tried to save one of them.’
‘Save?’
‘Her soul. I mean, you’d think that she didn’t know what she was doing. The devil had led her astray, he said. It quite upset her. She’d only gone to get absolved for not writing to her mother. What we do here isn’t moral but it is honest. The devil indeed!’
The kitchen door opened and a slim blonde girl slunk in and sank on to one of the chairs. She was all arms and legs, and didn’t seem able to settle until she put up her feet on one of the empty chairs and propped a skinny elbow on the table.
‘Tea,’ she declared, and reached for a cup.
Jinty poured. ‘This is Rene,’ she said. ‘Rene, this is Belle.’
Mirabelle stiffened. She felt her cheeks colour. Rene was the girl McGregor was involved with.
‘I’m exhausted,’ Rene said, barely acknowledging Mirabelle’s presence. ‘I mean, I’ve got a real menagerie at the moment. Georgie bought me more of that French perfume.’ She rolled her eyes though she sounded smug. ‘And I can’t fit them all in. I can’t, Jinty. Tanya said she’d take some of my bookings, but they don’t want her. You need to do something about it. It’s getting difficult.’
‘Better busy than quiet,’ Jinty said cheerfully, ignoring what Mirabelle took to be Rene showing off. Encouraged, the girl continued.
‘It’s just that there are limits. Mind you, Georgie is a sweetie. I told him I wanted some of those satin French knickers we saw the other day when we were up in London and he said he’d see what he could do. Meantime, I’m a wreck, I tell you.’
Doris trudged back through the kitchen door.
‘Make me some toast, would you Dorrie?’ Rene demanded.
The old maid put down the bucket she was carrying and made for a chipped bread bin on the side.
‘Is there any jam left?’ Rene continued. ‘I do like jam. Jinty’s mum sends it down but it goes, you know. Even the big pots don’t last long.’
Jinty smiled indulgently. Mirabelle realised she was gritting her teeth. She tried to relax her jaw.
‘Is it all just about what you can get from them? The men, I mean?’ She couldn’t help it. She hated the way her tones were clipped. She knew she sounded prissy.
‘Name of the game,’ Jinty cut in. ‘I mean, we give quite a lot too. Is that what put you off, Belle? The contractual nature of the job?’
Mirabelle shrugged. Everything in life was give and take. She knew the argument.
‘I don’t mean to judge,’ she said.
‘Oh, but you do,’ Rene leaned towards her, malice lighting her eyes. ‘It’s written all over women like you.’
‘What do you mean women like me?’
‘Old women. Bet your old fella can’t get it up any more, eh? There wouldn’t be a queue for you, would there, darling? Bet that stings a bit.’
‘Rene,’ Jinty cut in. ‘Stop it. Belle is almost one of us.’
‘Yeah. Not quite, though. What’s got into her knickers, anyway? I’ll have it away with whoever I like. And they’ll pay me.’
Mirabelle felt sick. What on earth had McGregor seen in this horrible girl? How could he have stomached her at the same time they’d been courting? The very same time … She pushed away the cup.
‘Well, it’s been nice catching up,’ she said.
Rene smirked. Jinty got to her feet. ‘Oh come on, Belle. Finish your tea. Go on.’
‘I feel like a drink. A proper one.’ Mirabelle heard the words cross her lips. She could be a good-time girl, she told herself. Certainly, she could.
Jinty laughed. ‘Well, I could do with one myself, truth be told. More than one to get me going today. That was a helluva shock last night. Tell you what, why don’t we nip down to the boozer on Dyke Road?’
Mirabelle’s eyes rose to the clock.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. There’s no rules for the residents of this house. I’ll get dressed. Teddy behind the bar is a doll. He’ll let us in.’
‘You two are crazy,’ Rene declared as Doris laid a green plate with a slice of buttered toast on it in front of the girl. ‘Dorrie,’ she complained, ‘Really. Is there no jam anywhere?’
Chapter Seventeen
It is never too late to give up our prejudices
‘You don’t need to look after me like this,’ Mirabelle insisted. ‘I’m not an old lady.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
Jinty had dressed quickly, just as she had promised. She looked, Mirabelle noted, like a young housewife, very much on the modern side. Extremely pretty. She’d chosen a pair of check trousers with a crisp white blouse and had teamed the outfit with navy shoes and a calfskin handbag with a polished steel catch. At the gilded mirror in the hallway, Jinty stopped and tied a large silk square, embl
azoned with a gold and red geometric pattern, over her hair. As the women walked through the front door, the girl drew a pair of sunglasses from the side pocket of the handbag and put them on.
‘What do the neighbours say?’ Mirabelle asked.
‘Very little,’ Jinty replied. ‘Most of them don’t realise. We’re discreet. Generally, we work out of the house. Hotel visits make up over half the business. You remember, don’t you?’
Mirabelle thought of the lost afternoon she’d spent with Jinty at a grand hotel down the coast. It had been more in the way of a party than anything else, although Mirabelle had left before Jinty had got down to what she had coyly termed, ‘the bad business’. The phrase had stuck in her head ever since.
‘Do you still do it … I mean, now you’re in charge?’ she wondered out loud.
‘I’ve got to keep my hand in. I’m saving up,’ Jinty declared. ‘I’m going to buy myself the sweetest little cottage in one of those dinky villages away from the sea. And a car. A Triumph maybe. Something marvellous. I learned to drive last year.’
‘That girl …’ Mirabelle started.
‘Rene? She’s all right. She’s a grafter. She just rubbed you up the wrong way.’
As they turned towards the main road, Jinty slipped her arm through Mirabelle’s. ‘Look, you can’t let little idiots like that annoy you. She’s young. She’ll learn.’
Jinty, Mirabelle noted, was not much older than twenty-five. ‘How much money are you making, Jinty?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Of course I know. Pounds, shillings and pence. But it’s none of your business.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’ve got a plan.’
‘Course I do. Another five years and I’ll be out. I’ll join the Women’s Institute and it’ll be jam and “Jerusalem” and the village choir. I bet you I’ll find myself a local worthy to get hitched to. There’ll be a sea of Chanel Number Five and an acre of apple pie. You’ll see.’
‘It must’ve been difficult last night. Doesn’t it worry you? The men involved with your house seem to die at an alarming rate.’
Jinty squeezed Mirabelle’s arm. ‘Of course it was difficult,’ she said.
‘Don’t you worry you’ll get arrested?’
‘We’ve got that covered. The coppers get their share. Don’t worry, Belle.’
‘You pay the police?’
Jinty raised her eyes as if Mirabelle was a fool. ‘Pay them. Entertain them. We’ve got to keep everybody onside. Besides, they’d rather we were discreet, working out of a house up here, private cars down to private rooms. Cooperating. Safe and all that. The last thing they want is even more girls hanging out in doorways around the railway station. Respectable Brighton is up in arms as it is. Rapes left, right and centre. Girls beaten up and most times nobody to prosecute. It happens all the time. They know they can’t stop us. It’s called the oldest profession for a reason. They’d prefer we were up here than down there and that’s that.’
Mirabelle suddenly recalled what it had felt like being with Jinty the year before. The girl was easy company, both pragmatic and direct. She recalled experiencing the sensation that anything was possible, though it had yet to assail her on this visit. Still, it was a quality the girl’s customers probably appreciated. And Jinty was right – the stories of the women in the doorways by the station were most likely very different.
The Grapes was closed this early in the morning. Jinty stood on tiptoes and rapped on the thick stained glass set into the heavily varnished, dark wooden door. She bent down and peered through the keyhole. Then she banged again. ‘Ah, here he is,’ she said, peering at the vague shape as she made out the figure of a man approaching through the glass.
The door opened. Teddy was about fifty years of age. He wore a striped blue shirt that was so heavily starched you could have taken notes on it with a pencil. His hair was pale ginger, peppered with white, and he sported the kind of wide, thick moustache that was long out of fashion. His face split in a grin when he saw Jinty. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Desperate times,’ Jinty declared. ‘I know you’re not open, but would you make an exception?’
Teddy checked the street, left, right and left again. The passers-by on Dyke Road appeared indifferent. ‘Come in.’ He ushered the women inside and locked the door behind them. The place smelled of unwashed glasses and stale cigarette smoke, like the kitchen at Tongdean Avenue but on a more commercial scale. Further towards the bar, he indicated seats that were shielded from the door by a wooden screen so that, if anyone peered in, they wouldn’t be able to see the women. There was a decided spring in Teddy’s step as he took his place in front of the gantry.
Jinty slid on to the green leather banquette and removed her sunglasses.
‘Well, ladies? What can I get you?’ He sounded flirtatious.
‘Gin and bitter lemon,’ Jinty said promptly.
‘Whisky for me, please,’ Mirabelle added.
He turned to fetch the order.
‘So,’ Jinty made herself comfortable, taking off her sunglasses and the scarf. ‘I still don’t know why you came. I mean, Gerry’s dead. Sure. But what’s it to you?’
Mirabelle couldn’t quite put her finger on it. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose I’m interested to know what he was like? Bad Luck Bone?’
Teddy’s gaze dropped. He fussed with the glasses and then became fascinated by the top of the bar. He drew a rag from the sink and slid it back and forth over the surface.
‘Bad Luck? He was a standard hood,’ Jinty said, ever matter-of-fact.
‘What did he do for you?’
‘He hung around. He made it known there’d be him to reckon with. Not only him, you know. They’re protection, if you see what I mean.’
‘On top of police protection?’ Mirabelle was trying to piece things together.
‘The police money is so we don’t get charged. None of my girls has ever been up in court. Me neither. Gerry and the boys see to the rest of the protection – it’s just a different kind of thing. A guarantee.’
‘Of what?’
‘Well, so that nobody decides to use one of us as a punching bag or, if they do, they regret it. A guarantee that nobody decides to rob the house safe or knock me off when I’m on the way to the bank. You know, all that stuff.’
‘Pimps, you mean.’
‘Pimps are different. They get a slice of the action. They’re in charge. Ernie was a pimp. Bad Luck and his boys take a standard fee. They’re protection is all. I run the house. It’s an improvement, don’t you think?’
Mirabelle nodded, indicating she understood the niceties. ‘Don’t they ever? You know?’
‘What?’
‘Overstep the mark?’
‘Yes. A few months ago, actually, Bad Luck turned up drunk and expected service.’
‘Often?’
‘Twice. I complained. You’ve got to hold your own. The house is an earner. They know that. We came to an arrangement.’
‘So how did he end up dead, do you reckon?’
‘Well, nothing to do with us, I’m sure. The guy had fingers in pies,’ Jinty waggled her hands in Mirabelle’s face. ‘And he had a difficult personality. There’s a lot going on in this town. I don’t know what you’re worried about him for. I mean, it’s Father Grogan you knew, isn’t it? Surely it’s more important to figure out what happened to him, poor fella?’
‘You never know what’s important until it’s too late,’ Mirabelle said wistfully as Teddy delivered the drinks. Jinty sipped her gin.
‘You heard about it, didn’t you Ted?’
Teddy nodded. ‘Talk of the bar last night. Course it was.’
Jinty turned back to Mirabelle. ‘I showed you mine,’ she said. ‘Go on. Tell me yours. You know you want to.’
Mirabelle nodded slowly. She started to talk about the Sunday before. She ran over the afternoon she’d spent, watching the children’s home and
the church, Sister Taylor’s unexpected arrival before Vespers and Father Grogan’s demise. Teddy hovered behind the bar, polishing glasses and clearing the beer taps. He poured blackcurrant squash into a pint glass and sipped it intermittently, with no pretence other than that he was listening to Mirabelle’s story. When Jinty finished her gin she motioned Teddy to bring another.
‘Well,’ she said when Mirabelle stopped speaking, ‘that’s far more intriguing than some hood buying the farm. The big issue is what on earth did Father Grogan go to the home for? It looks like it was that that killed him.’
‘Do you think so?’ Mirabelle eyed her second whisky as Teddy placed it in front of her. It was shortly after ten o’clock. It didn’t feel too early, but it should have done.
‘Absolutely,’ Jinty continued. ‘He can’t have been going to see Sister Taylor. I mean, he’d spoken to her already. She’d brought him the problem, hadn’t she?’
‘Problem?’
‘Sure. I mean, she was upset, you said. Something must have happened. She’d been at church that morning. Correct me if I’m wrong, but she’d been to church.’
‘Yes.’
‘And she was fine when you saw her straight afterwards?’
‘Yes.’
‘So we can assume that she got back to work. You left. Something came up. Whatever it was, she was upset about it, and she went to see Father Grogan for help or advice. The question is, what happened between lunchtime and Vespers to upset her? What was it that she thought he could help with? And then, what did he think he could do? He came down to the home the minute he was free. He came, I’d assume, to tackle this problem.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Definitely. The girls do it all the time – come to me with something that’s gone wrong. So there are a few options. Do you think it was personal and a matter of her salvation?’
‘Sister Taylor wasn’t Catholic. And if it was personal, I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted to bring him to the home about it. She seems like an orderly kind of person, from what I know of her. Private.’
Indian Summer Page 15