Brighton Belle (11 page)

‘Mr Cadbury wouldn’t approve,’ Mirabelle pointed out.

‘What Mr Cadbury doesn’t know about what goes on in his boxes won’t hurt him,’ Vesta roared.

Mirabelle stared at her. ‘That’s it, Vesta,’ she said. ‘That’s bloody it. We have to look inside the casket. I mean, that’s the only way to really find out.
She could have died in childbirth or she could have been killed for this insurance policy. No one’s seen her body except them. If she was killed there will be marks or wounds or something and
we’ll know. We’ll have evidence we can go to the police with. I thought perhaps Cobb had seen her, but he hadn’t. No one has. But it’s the key to the whole thing.
We’ve got to examine her.’

‘Eugh,’ Vesta pushed the tin away, ‘that’s put me right off.’

Mirabelle ignored the comment, continuing. ‘
I
can’t go to the funeral. They saw me yesterday at the surgery. Oh, God, it starts in half an hour.’ Mirabelle checked her
watch. ‘They haven’t seen
you
, though. You’ve got to do it, Vesta.’

Vesta eyed Mirabelle with suspicion. ‘That sounds dangerous. People are dropping like flies round this Lisabetta character. Shouldn’t we just call the police? I mean, that’s
their job.’

‘There’s no time for that – the body will be under the ground by lunchtime and then the police won’t take it on without something concrete. All we have is a lot of
suspicion – circumstantial details. Nothing definite that’s criminal. They won’t dig her up on a whim!
You’ve got to go,
Vesta. If they’ve killed her and you
see the body we can go to the police with something real – something we know for sure. No one will trouble you at the funeral. You can say you’re from the Prudential.’

‘They might be murderers!’

Mirabelle was already pulling Vesta’s midnight-blue coat from its hook on the back of the door. ‘Don’t be silly. If you hurry you can find out what’s what before they
even get there. Look, it’s broad daylight and you’re in Brighton. Besides, I know the priest. Father Sandor. No one will hurt you with him there. He’s a war hero. Any problems,
you can count on him. Get to the funeral. The Sacred Heart. Norton Road. Somehow or other, you have to check. It’s our last chance to get any reliable information on how she died.’

Vesta heaved a sigh. ‘How am I supposed to look inside a dead woman’s casket? Oh, and a little dead baby in there, too. It’s horrible.’

‘I don’t know. Just try. It’s your duty. Something bad is happening, Vesta, and there’s no one else to find out what it is. And if she did die in childbirth, which I
doubt, at least we’ll know and we can let it go.’

Vesta looked sadly at the abandoned tin of cheese and biscuits but she pulled on her blue coat. ‘My boss might keep irregular hours but he isn’t going to stand for this if he finds
out, you know,’ she said, half sadly and half to make it clear that the coffin breaking was not going to be a regular occupation.

‘I know. Mine, too,’ Mirabelle replied. ‘And Mr McGuigan will be back tomorrow. He’ll take over. Big Ben will work it all out and he knows lots of policemen. Unless you
know a reliable policeman we could go to now? Someone on the straight?’

Vesta rolled her eyes. ‘Snowball’s chance in hell.’

‘Well,’ said Mirabelle, ‘if we can only find out enough of what happened, Ben will deal with it for us. It’ll be far easier. And we’ll have real evidence.
I’ll cover here, and if your boss shows up I’ll tell him you weren’t well and nipped out to the chemist. How long does he normally disappear?’

Vesta shrugged. ‘Depends on how much money he’s got.’

‘Well, leave it to me,’ Mirabelle promised.

As Vesta reached the door she halted in her tracks and spun round. ‘You know anything about cars? I got a guy coming at half ten to cover his new Ford. It’s one of those rotten
Zephyrs – brand new and due on order any minute. 1951 registration and custom white paintwork – flashy! He’s all excited and we get good commission on those fancy vehicles. Look
after him for me, will you? Just get the licence details and write down his insurance history. I’ll ring him back with the quotation when I get in.’

‘Sure thing,’ said Mirabelle and wondered how Vesta’s lazy idiom had managed to get inside her head.

12

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

F
ather Sandor entered the vestry to change into the appropriate garb for the funeral. This set him thinking about his encounter with
Mirabelle. The poor woman had been troubled, clearly, and he had wanted to comfort her. Now he realised that his need was personal – selfish even. Mirabelle Bevan was the only connection with
his former life that had surfaced in the six years since he’d come to Brighton. The horror of what he had witnessed, the bodies piled in the woods, the starving Roma children, the sunken-eyed
Jews, the decimation of the countryside held no romantic attraction for Sandor. He was glad the war was over. The SS men he’d ministered to in Paris had been at once the most evil and most
tortured souls he’d ever encountered. These days Father Sandor was glad to live in uninteresting times though he followed the War Crimes Tribunals in the newspapers as they tailed off and the
war seemed to recede. England suited him. Still, now Jack was dead, aside from dusty notes in a file, it was likely that only Mirabelle knew exactly what he’d done for the Allies. There was
something about that which was still important to him. He wondered if he was succumbing to the sin of pride. He must pray.

Sandor slipped into his vestments and checked his watch. The doctor had said it would be a small funeral. They only wanted something simple. ‘Poor Romana, she didn’t know a soul here
apart from Lisabetta and me. We’ll see her off,’ he’d instructed with a boyish expression.

The sealed coffin had arrived the night before and the gravediggers had prepared its stand. Father Sandor turned the iron handle on the vestry door to enter the church. As he did every day, he
swore to buy some oil and see to the creaking catch. Every day he forgot by the time he reached the altar. Today he stopped on the way and scooped up a prayerbook from the shelf beside the front
pew. Sandor knew the funeral service by heart but he usually held a book anyway. It gave him something to do with his hands. The gravediggers were coming at ten sharp. They’d carry the coffin
outside then.

As he approached the altar Father Sandor stopped. There was a plump black woman in a long dark coat with her back to him. She seemed frozen as she bent over the coffin so he hadn’t noticed
her immediately. As Vesta turned and smiled, her teeth shone in the gloom of the church.

‘Father,’ she said, ‘this coffin is closed. I had hoped to pay my last respects properly.’

‘Did you know Romana?’ Father Sandor asked gently.

‘No, not really. I’m from the life insurance company,’ Vesta replied. ‘The Prudential. We sometimes attend.’

‘I see. The coffin arrived closed.’

‘Is that normal?’ Vesta enquired.

‘Sometimes. Look, this isn’t a good time, Miss. The poor woman’s sister will be arriving any minute. She has lost not only a sister but a nephew as well. Please show some
respect.’

Vesta cast her eyes to the ground. This encounter was not going well. ‘You’re Father Sandor, right?’

‘Yes.’

Vesta leaned towards him conspiratorially ‘Well, I’m a friend of Mirabelle,’ she whispered.

Sandor felt himself standing up straighter. ‘Mirabelle sent you?’

‘She’s kind of my boss,’ Vesta replied, ‘if you see what I mean.’

‘You need to see inside this casket?’

Vesta crinkled her nose. ‘Uh-huh, that’s what she wants me to do.’

At that moment there was the echo of high heels and Lisabetta appeared on Dr Crichton’s arm in the doorway of the Church. She was wearing a tight-fitting black suit with slingbacks and a
tiny black hat made entirely of feathers. Vesta took a step back and hung her head. Lisabetta was carrying a white handkerchief that stood out against her mourning garb and she sniffed repeatedly
as she walked towards the front of the church.

‘Father Sandor,’ she said, staring at Vesta with naked interest. ‘Who is this?’

Vesta stepped forward with her hand held out. ‘Vesta Churchill. Prudential Insurance. Our condolences on the death of your sister.’

Lisabetta nodded gracefully but did not touch Vesta’s outstretched fingers. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her eyes lingering, taking in every detail. ‘Romana had only recently
arrived here. She knew few people in England and none in Brighton save myself and Dr Crichton. I’m afraid the funeral is only for us.’

‘I understand,’ Vesta said. ‘You’d like me to leave?’

Lisabetta brought the handkerchief to her nose. Vesta noticed that Dr Crichton touched her arm very slightly and stepped in. ‘I think what Lisabetta means is that this will be a very
humble funeral. Please don’t feel you have to stay out of a sense of duty.’

‘I’ll stay,’ Vesta said firmly. No one looked at her like that. It had been an inspection and an insult all at once. ‘I’d like to.’

The coffin bearers arrived and the little party proceeded outside to the churchyard. There was no sign of rain as they walked between the gravestones to a newly dug plot. Sandor nodded at Vesta
and opened the book at a random page. He began the funeral service while Lisabetta sniffed quietly and Dr Crichton hovered protectively over her tiny frame.

‘Our sister, Romana, came from a tiny village. A village I knew well. She travelled a long way and was poised on the verge of taking on the new role of motherhood with all that has to
offer a young woman. It was an exciting time and tragically the Lord took her in her prime. We commend Romana and her dear child now to the earth.’

Here he began to talk in what Vesta at first thought was Latin but quickly realised was Hungarian. Lisabetta held the handkerchief to her face and kept crying. Dr Crichton’s face froze.
After a minute or two the Hungarian gave way to what sounded like a prayer. Vesta bowed her head. The coffin was lowered into the ground and Lisabetta threw in a clod of earth.

‘I will organise a nice headstone,’ she sniffed, ‘perhaps black with gold lettering.’

‘Not now,’ Dr Crichton put his arm around her. ‘Don’t worry about that now, my dear.’

Sandor led the party to the church. The gravediggers hung back. They would fill the plot when the grieving relations were out of sight. Despite the fact that mourners often threw in a handful or
two of earth or even some flowers, there was something about actually watching the top of the wooden box disappear that made mourning women inconsolable. It was the custom to wait for everyone to
leave before the men with the spades finished the job.

‘We will go home,’ Lisabetta announced and reached out regally to shake Vesta’s hand. Dr Crichton discreetly disappeared to fetch the car.

‘A tragic loss,’ Vesta said. ‘We lose fewer women in childbirth nowadays. I’m so sorry your sister had to be one of them.’

‘She had a little boy, you know,’ Lisabetta volunteered. ‘He was dead when he came out. She always said she’d name a little boy Dominic.’

‘Awful.’

Lisabetta touched Sandor’s arm lightly. ‘Thank you, Father. Such a comfort.’

The car pulled up at the kerb and Crichton leapt out to open the door.

‘Do you always come to the funerals of your clients?’ Dr Crichton asked as Lisabetta ducked into the front seat.

Vesta shook her head. ‘One in four,’ she replied in a matter-of-fact tone, before adding, ‘and she was so young and it seemed such a shame. We pick out anything unusual. Did
you know her well, Doctor?’

‘Not as well as I know Lisabetta. Romana had only just arrived.’ He closed the door. ‘She lived in Paris until her husband died recently. Poor Lisabetta is alone now. Utterly
alone.’

Vesta noticed that Lisabetta did not appear to be the kind of woman who ever had to be alone if she didn’t want to be. She couldn’t work out if it was only jealousy of the other
woman’s beauty but she didn’t like her one bit. That was unusual – Vesta was in the habit of giving everybody a chance and the poor woman was bereaved after all. She and Sandor
waved as the Jaguar drove away from the front of the church.

‘Come along,’ Sandor said without taking his eyes from the road as the receding car turned the corner. ‘We will stop them filling in the earth.’

Back in the graveyard the diggers were smoking a shared cigarette before they started.

‘Please, gentlemen,’ Sandor asked them, ‘could you give us some privacy?’

‘You want us to leave it open, Father?’

‘I will shovel in some earth myself when Miss Churchill is finished. Come back after lunch and you can do the rest.’

The men sloped off between the graves.

‘Have you known Mirabelle long?’ Sandor asked.

Vesta shook her head. ‘Two days. You?’

‘About ten years,’ Sandor admitted. ‘I knew her during the war.’

Vesta had been a schoolgirl when Sandor was sneaking details of Nazi campaigns through the Vatican’s channels.

‘Mirabelle is a very brave woman,’ Sandor said. ‘An intelligent woman. The man she worked for is buried here. She loved him, I think.’

He nodded at a grave set beside a cypress bush. Vesta, her interest piqued, walked over and read the carved sandstone: JACK DUGGAN 1900–1949. MISSED GREATLY BY HIS DEVOTED
WIFE MARY AND DAUGHTERS LILIAN AND ISLA

Mirabelle was turning out to be more and more interesting. She didn’t seem the type to get involved with a married man.

‘Did he love her back?’ Vesta wondered out loud.

Sandor shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but bravery does not always necessarily mean battle.’ He drew out a Swiss Army knife from the folds of his
vestments. ‘Keep a look out,’ he said and dropped silently into the open grave.

Vesta looked around. The church was silent and the graveyard empty. There was nothing to look out for – the churchyard was quieter than a rainy Monday in Margate. Her stomach was churning
but Sandor was so matter-of-fact that it was far easier than if she was alone. In fact she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to manage this without his help. She stared at the priest
taking the screws out of the coffin lid. The cheap wood was easy to work and it wasn’t long before the top was loose.