‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she said. ‘Something came up.’
Chris smiled. ‘Was it bottle-shaped?’
Mirabelle put down her cup. ‘It was McGregor. I was looking into something and he turned up. We had an argument. It wasn’t much of an argument, really. I suppose I didn’t take it well. Turns out, I’m a mess, and I seem to be losing all my manners. I’m sorry.’
Chris turned in his chair. ‘You don’t have to be perfect.’ He offered her his hand. She took it. Then he raised her fingers to his lips. ‘I would like to know what’s going on, though. If the field is cleared for battle, I mean. If you’re seeing McGregor that’s your business. Your choice. Of course. But please, tell me.’
Mirabelle felt her face contort as she started to cry. It felt as if she was stretched in all directions. It would have been easier if Chris wasn’t being so decent or if McGregor wasn’t involved. If she could just get a hold on things. She sobbed, gulping in air as the doctor wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kissed her forehead. He smelled of laundered linen and antiseptic with a whiff of aftershave, then he ran his hand down her thigh and pulled her towards him and kissed her deeply. She felt herself slipping away but fought it, pushing him off. He put up his hands. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she managed to get out. ‘It’s as if the world is too slippery and I can’t get a grip on anything. That’s what it’s like.’
He pulled a laundered handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Start at the beginning. Go on. Tell me.’
Mirabelle blew her nose. ‘I came to Brighton because of a man. After the war. He bought this flat for me.’
‘Nice man.’
‘I loved him. But he died of a heart attack. He never even came to live here.’
‘And then there was the superintendent?’
‘Alan was different but we rubbed along. I suppose, being a policeman, he had a lot on his plate. We had a lot in common – cases, you know.’
‘I heard he took a bullet for you once.’
‘That’s true. He did. I thought he was one of the good guys but it turned out he was unfaithful.’ She remembered Rene sitting in the kitchen at Tongdean Avenue the morning before and the body of the man Mirabelle had seen murdered – the man McGregor had done nothing to protect. The man had been a murderer himself, but still. ‘I seem to be having some kind of crisis. It’s not only the men. I don’t want to make it all about that,’ the words seem to stumble as they crossed her lips.
‘I can see it’s been difficult. You’ve had to manage on your own.’
Mirabelle shrugged. ‘I have Vesta. I haven’t been completely by myself.’
‘Vesta?’
‘My business partner. She had a baby last year. A gorgeous little boy. It isn’t that there aren’t people around me. Usually I’m quite capable. We have our business, you see. We’re doing all right there. I have some money that I inherited when my parents died. And now and then something comes up – a case. And usually that makes me feel good – you know, to do the right thing. But now, the world just seems grubby. I can’t bear it. We fought, all of us, to make things right. And it hasn’t helped. Not really. You fought, didn’t you? Italy, you said.’
‘I was in the Red Cross.’
‘Not the army?’
‘No. That’s my dirty secret, I suppose.’
‘You saluted the other day. When I first saw you.’
‘I did.’
‘You’re a pacifist, then?’
‘I said I was, but the truth is I’m not sure. I just didn’t have the stomach for what was going on. The service seemed the easiest way to help. I had only just qualified. And afterwards … well, you get used to dead bodies, and going into the police was a sideways step. If I’m honest, I fell into it.’
Mirabelle nodded. She had never taken the easiest way, she realised. It wasn’t that easier options hadn’t presented themselves, but somehow they always required blinkers.
Chris stroked her hand. He toyed with her fingers. ‘McGregor is bang out of order – he should stay away from you if it’s over. How long have you been drinking?’ he asked.
‘Since I was eighteen. I used to drink gin and it. My mother drank that.’ She suddenly remembered ice, clanking against a thick-cut glass and thinking that sound was sophisticated. It had been the summer, she recalled. Drinks had been served on the lawn, under the trees. The sunlight had cast shadows.
‘I don’t mean when was the first time you had a drink. I meant, when did it become the way that you coped?’
Mirabelle felt her cheeks burn. It was shaming.
‘You can tell me. I’m a doctor.’
She laughed. ‘You’ve gone out of your way to come here. It’s kind of you but I’m not going to be the easiest way, Chris, if that’s what you’re looking for. I try to be good, but I’m not really. And I can’t stay out of things.’
‘Maybe I don’t mind taking the long road – the scenic route. Perhaps it’s time for a challenge. None of us is squeaky clean. Not a soul. You’re nice to be around. And, for the record, you’re allowed a drink or three.’ He got up and poured more coffee. Then he fetched the paper bag. ‘I bought fruit scones,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you have jam?’
Mirabelle shook her head.
‘Well, you need to eat something. Then I’ll draw you a bath.’
Mirabelle felt herself relax. Her worries seemed suddenly nebulous. The scone was warm as she bit into it. The doctor smiled.
‘I see people having a hard time all round, you know. The war’s over and they want to forget but they can’t – not everything. Not the good or the bad. Even people who came back and had a family to go to, or a career to pick up.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘I’m on my own. I’d only just qualified when I went into the army. I had nothing to come back to.’
‘You’re a good man.’
The doctor looked down. ‘There’s no such thing, Miss Bevan. I’d like to be good. Tell you what: you’re definitely a good-time girl. And more than that too. Come on, the doctor has diagnosed. Let’s get you up and about, eh?’
After a bath she pulled on a summer dress and a pair of kitten heels. She scrambled to find a twill scarf that would match – a blue one. When she came back into the drawing room, he had cleared away the breakfast things and was sitting at the table with his hands clasped in front of him.
‘You look nice.’
‘I should go to work,’ she said.
She was already late and the office would be unmanned. Vesta and Bill had the Hayward case to deal with.
‘I’ll give you a lift. But, before I do, I have something to tell you. I’m thinking of leaving Brighton.’
Mirabelle didn’t admit it to herself but she felt her stomach twist. ‘Where would you go?’ she asked as smoothly as she could manage.
‘Back to London. I finished my training in London. Guy’s. They were the best days of my life in some ways. I thought you could come with me.’
‘Me?’
‘I know. It’s quick. But I don’t want to lose you, Mirabelle. I was hoping you’d be my partner in crime. I might have turned in my notice already if I hadn’t met you. That’s the truth.’
‘London is only an hour away. I can come up for dinner. For weekends.’
‘I’m thinking of specialising. There are various opportunities. They’re short of doctors for this new NHS. There just aren’t enough of us.’
‘I see.’
Chris smiled. ‘You’re not the only one who feels in a mess sometimes, you know.’
‘What’s your mess?’
‘Oh no. We’re not going to cover that today. I’m the doctor, remember? And Mirabelle, you need to lay off the sauce for a bit. That’s my medical advice. Easier said than done, I know. But maybe tone it down, eh?’
This morning that seemed possible. ‘All right,’ she said as she reached for her hat and a jacket.
‘Have you got a bu
sy day?’ she asked, suddenly domestic.
Chris got to his feet. ‘Well, yes. Sometimes I wonder if what I do is actually helpful. I still have Bad Luck Bone on the slab and I am getting nowhere, poor chap.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘I can’t figure out how he died.’
‘Why not?’
‘Degradation,’ the doctor said. ‘It destroys evidence. I’d be able to tell if he was strangled but, to put it bluntly, his eyes aren’t there and his skin is compromised – he was in the water too long. I think strangulation is the most likely cause of death.’
‘But you can’t be sure?’
‘Not this time. I’ve run some tests on his stomach contents, just in case. They’ll come back on Monday. Come on. Ten thirty, eh? Not much of an early start.’
Outside, the front door banged behind them. The sun burned so brightly the sky seemed white with it. A beat bobby stood at the doctor’s car. Mirabelle’s gaze hardened.
‘Morning,’ Chris said cheerily.
The policeman tipped his hat. ‘Miss Bevan.’
‘Stop spying on me,’ Mirabelle hissed.
The man looked confused.
‘Get in, Mirabelle,’ Chris said. ‘I’d better get you to work.’
As the car pulled up on East Street, he took her hand.
‘Will you consider it? Coming to London?’
‘It seems rushed.’
‘It is, I guess. Needs must.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘When a woman says that she means no, Mirabelle.’
‘I don’t mean no.’
His eyes narrowed.
‘I don’t,’ she insisted. ‘It’s only that I have this,’ she nodded in the direction of the office.
‘An empire?’
‘And I don’t know you.’
‘I think I know you. Well enough, anyway. Will you think about it?’
‘All right.’
‘I was going to take a rather nice flat in Mayfair.’
‘Really?’
‘I’ve been saving up. I can look after you.’
Mirabelle turned to say it wasn’t about the flat or about money and she liked looking after herself, but as she did so, he pulled her towards him and kissed her again. She felt her knees weaken. It really was the most extraordinary thing. A policeman passed the car and nodded at the doctor as he sat back in his seat. A twinge of annoyance twisted in her gut but she decided not to say anything. As she disappeared through the doorway, the doctor started the engine; climbing the stairs, she could hear its roar as he drove to the bottom of the street and turned on to the front.
Upstairs, Mirabelle opened the office. For an hour she filed papers and took two payments that came in. The day felt more under control than it had. She thought it might be nice, when Chris moved up to London, to pack a bag at the weekend and join him for a few days. They could try it out, she thought. It would be good to be out of Brighton and not feel so consumed. Sometimes a place could become a trap. She hoped he’d accept that, as a start – a middle way. Then she thought about Bad Luck Bone, about whom nobody seemed to care – Jinty had been blithe about his death and in the Grapes it had only been gossip. She tried not to imagine what the doctor meant by the word ‘degradation’, but it brought too many memories back – bodies in the sea.
It was almost midday when Vesta and Bill arrived. They rolled through the office door on a wave of good cheer.
‘We got him,’ Vesta laughed. ‘Paid in full. Hayward.’ She swept her palms against each other, as if she was brushing the man right off.
‘Cash?’ Mirabelle couldn’t believe it. A success – at last.
‘It was a cheque, actually. But we stopped at the bank. His bank,’ Bill said sagely as he patted Panther. ‘Up on South Street. There shouldn’t be any problems with it clearing. I had a word with the cashier.’
‘What happened?’
Vesta took off her jacket. ‘Well,’ she started, ‘we got there. It’s a nice house. There was nothing to say they were in any financial trouble. Right enough, his wife was there. We made out as if we hadn’t known. He was out, you see. But what was best, is she was there with her mother.’
Mirabelle let out a giggle. ‘Mr Hayward’s mother-in-law?’
‘Yes. So we played it as if it was clerical error. Bill let slip he used to be a police officer and wasn’t wholly clear that he isn’t one any more. He said we were holding back prosecution because there had obviously been some awful mistake but that it needed to be cleared up quickly because it was in the system now. The mother was horrified. They phoned Hayward. He played along. He made out he was furious about the mistake but he told his wife to write a cheque immediately.’
‘So what was he playing at before?’
‘He just didn’t want to pay up, I guess. And it puts us ahead on the month. The client will be delighted. I’ll ring them once we’ve had a cuppa, shall I? Mrs Hayward was not forthcoming with tea and biscuits.’
Vesta put the kettle on to boil. Mirabelle sat at her desk. ‘Mothers,’ she said, vaguely.
‘Nobody wants to look bad in front of their mother. Do they?’ Vesta grinned. ‘Hayward’s lucky. My mother wouldn’t have bought the line about a discrepancy. She’d have known and she’d have killed me.’
‘Mothers,’ Mirabelle repeated, and then got to her feet. ‘Do you mind if I go out, Vesta? Just for a bit.’
‘Not at all. What is it?’
‘Only a loose end. Something I just realised,’ Mirabelle said as she reached for her jacket and tucked her clutch bag under her arm.
‘You no sooner come in these days than you go out again.’
‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ Mirabelle promised.
As she made for the door she noticed Bill’s shoes were scuffed. Odd – he was military trained like most men, and had years in the police force. Shiny shoes were a way of life for most like him. Still, he seemed cheery enough. Getting Hayward to pay up was a coup. Panther stared mournfully at her. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said, and took the stairs smartly.
Chapter Twenty-One
The best prophet of the future is the past
It was only a short walk to the Lanes but, when she got to the right street, Mirabelle couldn’t remember which was Nurse Frida’s house. The doors along the row were painted similar colours and the night before it had been dark. She pictured Nurse Frida walking ahead of her, but could only conclude that the correct house was one of three in the centre of the terrace. The houses all looked the same, with dark doors and chipped window frames, the glass panes obscured by lace curtains that in the bright sunshine seemed slightly grubby. The truth was that her head still felt muddled, despite the coffee, the aspirin and the scone.
She retreated down the street and looked around. Ahead, on the corner, the local pub had its door open. She started towards the gloomy interior. Inside, the floor was plain boards and there were no tables or chairs. Behind the bar a woman balanced on a set of steps and was polishing the face of a clock that was mounted over the gantry.
‘Hello, dear,’ she said as she looked Mirabelle up and down from on high. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m trying to find a friend’s house. She’s a nurse. She lives round here. I wondered if you knew her.’
‘There’s one or two nurses live locally, love.’
Mirabelle heard herself sigh. ‘Could I have a drink?’ she asked.
The woman climbed down. Her hair was arranged in a complicated series of folds that Mirabelle thought must have taken a long time and a whole packet of hairpins.
‘No unaccompanied ladies allowed, dear. Sorry,’ she said.
‘But it’s only the two of us here.’
‘Oh, I don’t serve any more. I’m just cleaning the place.’
Mirabelle put down her clutch bag on the bar. ‘It seems very old-fashioned,’ she said.
‘I know what you mean. It didn’t used to be that way. During the war, I served all the time. Alf was in the Home
Guard and I looked after the bar. Unaccompanied ladies were welcome – we had all the ambulance girls. Don’t know what we’d have done without them with so many fellas away.’ She checked over her shoulder. ‘I could do you a quick gin and bitter lemon, I suppose. As there’s nobody else in.’
Mirabelle nodded. She’d intended to order an orange juice, but why not? Chris had said, after all, that she didn’t have to stop drinking entirely. ‘Thanks.’
The woman pulled a glass from beneath the bar and poured a generous measure of gin, emptying a small bottle of bitter lemon into it. Mirabelle sipped. The drink seemed to give her clarity.
‘Your friend, then. The nurse. She got a name?’ the woman asked.
‘Frida.’
‘Melanie Gill’s girl?’
‘You mean her mother? I heard she lived with her mother.’
‘The father died at the beginning of the war. He was a common sort – and not in a good way.’
‘Really?’ Mirabelle encouraged the gossip. She took another sip.
The woman carefully folded the rag she’d been using to clean the clock and leaned on the bar. ‘He was in and out of trouble. In and out of work, too. All his life.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Labouring mostly. And God knows what on the side. He was the type for that too, I shouldn’t be surprised. And he had a temper. He was older than her – Melanie, I mean. She was a nurse in her day as well.’
‘I expect Frida takes after her mother, then?’
‘I expect so.’
An elderly man entered behind Mirabelle and cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable about walking in on two women.
‘Afternoon Vera,’ he said. ‘A pint would be nice.’
‘Right you are. Do you want another, love?’ Vera offered Mirabelle, easily slipping into the role required. ‘It’s a hot enough day.’
Mirabelle looked at the glass in front of her. It was almost empty. ‘Perhaps just one more,’ she said. She wanted to keep the woman talking.
‘Where’s Alf, then?’ the other customer enquired.
‘He’ll be here any second, I expect,’ Vera said cheerily. She pulled the pint with some skill, Mirabelle noticed, the head settling into a perfect line. The man pushed a coin over the bar. ‘I’ll get that for the lady,’ he said.
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