Brighton Belle (21 page)

As she switched off the engine Lisabetta inspected herself in the mirror. She tossed her head and gave an open grin. It was the kind of display she seemed able to switch on and off at will
– a show of a carefree girl having light-hearted fun. Then, as the expression dropped away, a cold determination returned. Leaving the keys in the ignition she disappeared back into the
house. A minute later she returned and stowed two bags in the boot before mounting the steps again and closing the front door behind her.

I wonder why the doctor didn’t bring out the cases. It’s hardly very gentlemanly, Mirabelle thought. Her heart raced. Lisabetta was getting away! If she let her go, they might never
find her again. Bert would send down her things on the first train and after that it was anyone’s guess where she’d end up. A sense of tingling outrage spread through Mirabelle’s
body. What about Sandor? If she lost track of Lisabetta how would she ever find him? Carefully she got up and ran across the pavement, before ducking behind the body of the car to shield herself
from sight of the house. If Lisabetta had to wait for the first train why was she leaving so early? There were still at least a couple of hours before dawn broke. Surely those two bags – both
quite small – couldn’t contain everything she wanted to take with her. No, Mirabelle realised, Lisabetta was on her way somewhere else. To see Manni perhaps? Or even Sandor.

Mirabelle peered into the interior of the car. It was upholstered with dark leather – two seats at the front and three behind with a deep carpeted indent. Without thinking too clearly, on
impulse, she opened the door and slipped into the back, curling up behind the driver’s seat. It was, she thought, just as well she’d worn black. A minute passed. Mirabelle shifted
– it was hardly a comfortable position. Then she worried. What could be seen from outside? Was her initial reckoning right? Her heart stopped. She squirmed around so that only her dark
clothes could be seen from the outside, hiding her pale face and hands. Then she heard the front door of the house creak and slow, heavy steps approach the car.

The passenger seat swung open sharply and Mirabelle caught a glimpse of Lisabetta manoeuvring something bulky into the front seat. She was carrying it over her shoulder. As she positioned it
into place Mirabelle realised it was the doctor’s body. His hand, in a smart driving glove, dropped onto the handbrake. Lisabetta had clearly administered the chloroform.

‘There, there,’ Lisabetta whispered as she pushed the doctor’s limbs into a sitting position. He was dressed in the same buff trousers and tweed jacket he’d worn when
Mirabelle had had her consultation. Lisabetta was crooning, as if he were a child. ‘There you go. Into your car. Such a lovely car.’

There was an ominous pause.

‘Eric, have you left this car to someone?’ Lisabetta slapped the doctor and a sharp crack rang out. She bent over him now like some dark angel bent on her purpose. ‘Eric! Do
you have a will?’

The doctor stirred and sat up blearily looking around in complete incomprehension.

‘Do you have a will, Eric?’ she repeated.

‘No,’ he slurred. ‘Never got married, you see. No family.’

‘Pity.’

He squirmed, trying to get up, but it was no use. Chloroform left you woozy for a while and Lisabetta was already administering another dose. He tried to push her off as she held the
handkerchief over his mouth but he didn’t have the strength. As he fell back heavily into the seat Lisabetta clicked his door closed.

Mirabelle twisted, trying to get as comfortable as possible. Once Lisabetta was in the driving seat she mustn’t move an inch. Her face contorted with fear as the door on the driver’s
side opened and Lisabetta took her place.

‘So,’ she said, switching on the engine, ‘where shall we go, Eric?’

The doctor was out cold but Lisabetta chatted as if they were off for a holiday in the country. ‘If I can’t have your car, I might as well wreck it. Drive it into the sea. Or at
least you can!’

Mirabelle’s heart somersaulted.

‘A little bit psychopathic? Perhaps sociopathic? Ah, such diagnoses! Have you been laughing at me, Eric? I do hope not.’

The car pulled away from the kerb. Stripes of light and shade flickered over Mirabelle as the Jag moved in and out of the amber pools cast by the streetlights. Then Lisabetta turned left onto
the front.

‘I’ll tell that horrible little maid of yours that you had to go up to London unexpectedly,’ Lisabetta explained. ‘I packed everything you would have taken for a couple
of days. They won’t suspect a thing until it’s far too late. There are a couple of dangerous corners along the coast. Not on the direct route to London but not so far away. I’ll
be back before they even get up. I’ll say I’m going up to town myself. “Dr Crichton went up to London in the middle of the night,” I’ll say. “An emergency. He
took the car.”’ Lisabetta laughed. ‘London is such a dreary city. It smells. I swear! It’s time for somewhere completely new, Eric. And I have so many grateful clients in
Buenos Aires and Santiago – and sunshine. I’d like some sunshine!’

The Jag purred as she speeded up. The car glided past the Grand Hotel and then the pier. Mirabelle was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to get out before Lisabetta wrecked it. There was
nothing she could do but hope. Once the town was passed it was impossible to tell in which direction they were moving until at last Lisabetta stopped. She pulled on the handbrake, switched off the
engine and slipped outside. Mirabelle waited a moment and then decided to raise her head. It was a risk but she couldn’t simply stay hidden. The car might go over a cliff any moment. Hardly
able to breathe she rose slowly and peered out of the back window. It wasn’t a cliff top at all. Lisabetta’s figure was receding over a waste ground, past a row of derelict houses.
Mirabelle sighed with relief and nudged the doctor sharply. ‘Come on!’ she said, giving his shoulder a shake. ‘She’s going to kill you! You have to wake up!’

The doctor didn’t move. Mirabelle looked around frantically. There was nothing here. No one to help. She opened the car door and slipped outside. Across the wasteland Lisabetta let out a
stifled scream of what sounded like frustration. Mirabelle took in the details. It was open scrub. About fifteen minutes from town, she calculated. This was the place they had been looking for!
This must be where Sandor was being held!

‘I’ll come back,’ she whispered to the doctor’s comatose figure as she crept away, low across the landscape.

Sure enough there was an outhouse – in fact, there were three or four dotted across the scrubland, two stone-built and another couple, more like small wooden sheds. And, she thought,
it’s warm here. Vesta had mentioned that. Then she heard Lisabetta’s gun fire. Mirabelle panicked and rolled the last few yards in a scramble towards the main outhouse. The walls were
warm to the touch. She sneaked towards the open door and peered inside. It was a foundry. A proper smelting fire was built in the middle of the makeshift space. Some of the embers had lit up where
Lisabetta had disturbed them by firing her bullet, presumably in temper. Lisabetta was on her knees in front of some makeshift cupboards. She was searching for something, swearing under her breath.
‘Always like this at the end,’ Mirabelle heard her grumble. ‘Pah!’

She clearly didn’t find what she was looking for and Mirabelle only just managed to pull out of the way as Lisabetta burst out of the building and picked her way over to a hut nearby. The
door was open. ‘Pah!’ Lisabetta said again as she gave the interior a cursory check. Then she moved on, clattering through the door of another of the little storage units.
‘Ah,’ she said delightedly, finding something she was looking for at last, ‘at least you are still here. Perhaps you might like to take a drive in the moonlight, yes?’

The woman was clearing her path, wiping her slate clean – this would be the time to destroy all and any evidence. If Lisabetta took Sandor with her it would be difficult to rescue him,
especially if she used the chloroform. Desperately Mirabelle looked around. Back towards the car she could just make out a tabby cat picking its way across the scrub. She picked up a stone and
threw it hard, hitting soft fur. The cat yowled and scrambled out of the way. Mirabelle raised another stone and fired again, this time felling a tottering pile of earth and small rocks that rolled
down a small incline. It sounded as if there was someone moving near the car.

Lisabetta turned, abandoned the hut and strode back towards the road to see what had made the noise. It wouldn’t take her long to ascertain that the doctor was still unconscious and there
was nobody around. Mirabelle didn’t hesitate. She sprinted towards the hut and grabbed the crouching figure inside.

‘Come on, Sandor,’ she said, adrenaline pumping through her system. ‘We have to get you out of here.’ She slit the thin bonds with her flick-knife and pulled him outside.
‘This way,’ she whispered.

They headed to the rear of the foundry, crouched down and then Mirabelle peered towards the car.

Lisabetta, having found nothing awry and the doctor still out cold, was making her way back. In temper she jerked the hut door aside and then howled as she found it empty. She darted outside.
The scrubland looked deserted and there was no way to distinguish footprints on the rough muddy ground. She made a quick calculation and then ran back towards the road to search for the
escapee.

‘People would normally make for the road,’ Mirabelle explained, keeping her voice low. ‘The other way there are only houses. She’ll assume we’ve headed for the
street and made a run for it – you’ll see.’

And then Mirabelle gasped. In the moonlight it was clear that the figure she’d rescued wasn’t Sandor at all. The figure was female – a slender girl. A series of possibilities
rushed through her mind.

‘Are you Romana Laszlo?’ she asked, but, before the girl could reply, Mirabelle realised that she’d seen her before.

‘Who’s Romana Laszlo?’

‘Of course,’ Mirabelle whispered as it fell into place.

She checked around the edge of the wall. Lisabetta was cursing from the direction of the street. The car engine fired and the women saw the reflection of the headlights in the night sky as
Lisabetta turned the vehicle and cast the beams over the scrubland. The two women fell back and froze in the darkness of their hiding place. A rabbit sat up on its hind legs, unable to move in the
glare of the beam. It was difficult to breathe and impossible to move but Mirabelle realised that by creating light Lisabetta had blinded herself to the things she might otherwise have been able to
pick out in the darkness. After a minute or so she seemed to have concluded that the girl had made her escape in the other direction. The beams turned back to the road and she drove away. As the
noise of the engine receded Mirabelle surprised herself by thinking fleetingly of Detective Superintendent McGregor. He’d tried to stop her going anywhere near these people. Well, he
couldn’t get his way now. She smiled with quiet satisfaction before she spoke.

‘You’re one of Lisabetta’s girls, aren’t you?’ Mirabelle kept her voice low. ‘The one who went upstairs with Señor Velazquez.’

Delia had stayed alive because her instincts had always been good and she had always trusted them. She’d fought when she had to fight; she’d hidden when she had to hide. She’d
traced the Candlemaker all across Europe and done what she had to do to get close enough to kill him. She just hadn’t got away fast enough. Nonetheless she still trusted her instincts.

‘Yes, it was me,’ she admitted, ‘though I’m not one of Lisabetta’s girls any more.’

Mirabelle checked the road – the sound of the car was fading. ‘We should wait here for a while to make sure the coast is clear.’

They sat, listening in silence and checking in all directions, until Mirabelle nodded and the women slipped inside the foundry. The girl was filthy and bedraggled. She ran to a bucket of water
in the corner and cupped the liquid in her hands speaking as she drank. ‘Thanks,’ she said, and once her thirst was slaked she carefully washed her face and her hands.

Mirabelle looked around. There were some cans of soup on a shelf behind the door. ‘Are you hungry?’ The girl nodded. Mirabelle opened a can and carefully laid it on the hottest
embers. Then she sat beside the fire.

‘Who did you think I was?’ the girl asked as she sat down by the fire.

‘I was looking for a friend – a man. But when I saw you I thought you might be a girl called Romana Laszlo. It was foolish of me. She was supposed to be Lisabetta’s sister.
I’ve been searching for her but, well, if she existed at all, she’s practically a ghost.’

‘I’ve never heard of her.’

‘I don’t think anyone has. It’s just, when I found you, well, I wondered.’

‘Ghosts can be tricky,’ Delia smiled. ‘Very demanding. Are you army? Police?’

‘No. My name’s Mirabelle Bevan.’ She held out her hand. ‘I work in a debt collection office.’

The girl didn’t falter. She took Mirabelle’s hand and shook it firmly. ‘I’m Delia Beck.’

‘Your name is German, Miss Beck.’

‘I am German,’ Delia said evenly. ‘Well, I was.’

It occurred to Mirabelle that this was the first time anyone involved with Lisabetta had admitted to their nationality. She said nothing and stirred the soup.

‘Do you know where we are?’ Delia looked out the door across the scrubland.

‘Brighton, or just outside it,’ Mirabelle said. ‘Why did they bring you here?’

Delia lifted a tin spoon and tasted the heating soup with some relish. ‘They found me at the train station – I wasn’t quick enough to get away. I hadn’t realised
she’d come for me. Stupid, of course. I’d spent the day shopping and was getting the train back to London. Then they turned up. Lisabetta was furious. At first she thought it was an
accident and was just angry that I’d left. But, well, I still had the syringe in my purse. It was very quick – they put me in a car and brought me here. They were going to kill me, I
expect, but I’d still have done it no matter what. I’d do it again tomorrow. He deserved to die.’