British Bulldog
Authors: Sara Sheridan
Praise for the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series
‘Mirabelle has a dogged tenacity to rival Poirot’
Sunday Herald
‘Unfailingly stylish, undeniably smart’
Daily Record
‘Fresh, exciting and darkly plotted, this sharp historical mystery plunges the reader into a shadowy and forgotten past’
Good Book Guide
‘A crime force to be reckoned with’
Good Reads
‘Plenty of colour and action, will engage the reader from the first page to the last. Highly recommended’
Bookbag
‘Quietly compelling … plenty of twists and turns’
Shots
First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2015 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.
Birlinn Ltd
West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
Copyright © Sara Sheridan 2015
The moral right of Sara Sheridan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978 1 84697 325 3
eBook ISBN 978 0 85790 849 0
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library.
Typeset by Hewer Text (UK) Ltd, Edinburgh
This story is dedicated to my Paris helpmates:
Lorne, Lucy and the incomparable Molly. Your
patience with my being a novelist is an amazement.
My, did we trail around the Marais.
The past is never where you think you left it.
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
Contents
Prologue
A thing is not necessarily true just because a man dies for it
.
6.45 p.m., Monday, 8 February 1954 Brighton
M
irabelle snapped off the light at McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery and locked the office door. Her breath clouded in the freezing air as she took the stairs down to the deserted street. It had been a cold winter and the weather had been front-page news in the national papers since before Christmas. Further north the winter skies were crystal clear and there was heavy snow, but it felt like a long time since the clouds had parted in Brighton. An unrelenting dampness had settled over the city. On East Street the sky was forbidding. It had been dark since five o’clock. Mirabelle often worked late, especially at this time of year when there was little to go home to and the office was busy with post-Yuletide commissions. She looked up and down the street, her fingers already numb inside her silk-lined leather gloves. If she chose the route along the front she’d get back more quickly to her flat on the Lawns, but the seashore could offer no protection from the biting northeasterly that cut through the city like a shard of ice. Sizing it up, she turned towards town. The streets were silent and eerie, the lamplight hazy over the damp pavements.
On Duke Street she realised she was being followed. A man carrying a briefcase fell into step behind her. She could hear
the segs on his heels clicking on the paving stones, his pace distractingly out of time with her own. She crossed the road, making for North Street, and hazarded a quick glance over her shoulder. The fellow was wearing a dark woollen coat with the collar turned up and a bowler hat. The outfit was respectable enough but she couldn’t quite make out his face. Near the corner she loitered, peering into the black window of a ladies’ outfitters and hoping he’d pass. He did not. In fact, disconcertingly, he headed straight towards her. Mirabelle stiffened. She wished she was carrying an umbrella – the ideal everyday weapon for seeing off an assailant. Instead she concealed the office keys in her clenched fist in case she had to strike and run. Endeavouring to stay calm, she reassured herself that if she had to she could probably wind him and get away. The man tipped his hat and smiled.
‘Excuse me, but are you Miss Bevan? Miss Mirabelle Bevan?’ he asked pleasantly.
His voice was educated, cultured even. Mirabelle relaxed a little, though she kept the hidden keys turned outwards. Looking up and down the street, she could see no one else in either direction. The shop fronts were dark, flecked with fine drizzle, caught in movement by the buttery streetlight. She took a moment to examine the man who had addressed her. He was of slight build and sported a moustache. His neck was muffled by a dark scarf and he seemed somehow rather keen. Mirabelle wished someone else was nearby. It wouldn’t be the first time a man who owed money to one of her clients had tried to accost her in the street. Further down the road, the door of a pub opened. A watery wash of light leached onto the stone paving and a tall figure in a shabby jacket lumbered out. He turned the opposite way without even looking in Mirabelle’s direction.
‘I’m Miss Bevan,’ she admitted.
‘I didn’t mean to alarm you,’ the man smiled again. ‘I intended
to call at your office but there’s a good deal of snow up north and my train was delayed. I thought I might as well have a look anyway to get my bearings, and then I saw you leaving …’
Now she took a closer look at him, she realised he didn’t look like a man who had reneged on a debt, failed to pay his rent, or run up an outstanding bill in a boarding house or any other Brighton establishment. These things could happen to anyone, but you got a nose for people. So what on earth did he want? Occasionally Mirabelle and her colleagues branched into more interesting cases, deserting debt collection for private investigation, but when a special case arose it generally didn’t come their way by commission.
‘We’ll be open again at nine sharp,’ she said. Business was business.
‘Yes. I see. Only I’m not here about the collection of a debt. It’s a more personal matter.’
‘You’ve had a wasted journey, then. We don’t take on that kind of thing, I’m afraid.’
The man nodded. ‘That kind of thing’ meant evidence for use in the divorce courts.
‘No, quite. But I don’t mean personal to me, I mean personal to you, Miss Bevan. My name is John Lovatt. I’m a solicitor.’ He held out his gloved hand.
Mirabelle pocketed her keys and shook it, her hazel eyes unwavering as Mr Lovatt continued. ‘The thing is … oh, I didn’t want to tell you this way, here in the street, but, well, here we are. You’ve been mentioned in a will. You’ve been left a rather unusual bequest. Is there somewhere we might go to talk? And have a drink, or dinner perhaps? It’s been rather a long day.’
Chapter 1
A little resolution is all that is wanted to bring matters to a happy conclusion
.
T
he dining room at the Grand was the obvious choice. Mirabelle hadn’t liked to direct Mr Lovatt to the little café where she sometimes ate with Vesta, her office clerk and business partner. The place seemed too scruffy for the solicitor, though the food was tasty. ‘Good honest chuck,’ Bill Turpin, the office’s roving debt collector and third member of the team, called it.
As Mr Lovatt rounded the corner onto Kings Road, Mirabelle realised that she hadn’t been to the Grand since the previous year, when there had been a series of grisly murders in one of the penthouses. Mirabelle had come close to being one of the bodies, though no one knew that – at least, no one who would tell.
As the doorman stood to attention, they swept inside. Mirabelle caught sight of herself in a gilded mirror as Mr Lovatt negotiated his way round the exotic potted palms that had recently been installed in the hotel’s hallway. She couldn’t help noting that next to him she looked as if she was one half of a married couple. Now they were in the light she could see that his coat was well-cut navy cashmere and his shoes were handmade – old but nicely maintained. Mr Lovatt was a gentleman.
‘I’m not really dressed for dinner,’ she said, looking down at her tailored green tweed suit and fur-lined ankle boots.
‘Now, now,’ Mr Lovatt scolded good-naturedly as they handed their coats to the bellboy. ‘You look fine.’
The waiter showed them to a table and Mr Lovatt ordered for them both.
‘Chicken pie,’ he said decisively, scarcely reading the menu, ‘and I’ll have a gin and tonic. Is that all right for you, Miss Bevan?’
Mirabelle nodded. Gin was only her second choice, but the chicken pie sounded appetising. It was good warming food to keep a body going through the chill – better than she would have had at home, where all that awaited her was a tin of soup and a fish paste sandwich. The tailing off of rationing had had little effect on Mirabelle’s diet.
As the waiter left there was an awkward silence. Mr Lovatt fiddled with the gold signet ring on his right hand. It was engraved with a shield – perhaps a family crest, Mirabelle thought. She fixed her gaze on the salt cellar, not liking to ask who on earth had died. Mirabelle had been orphaned at a young age. Her mother and father had both been only children and their parents were long gone. She had no family. Mr Lovatt took out a silver cigarette case and offered it across the table. She raised a hand to decline. Lovatt shrugged, then tapped a Dunhill on the box’s engraved lid and lit up. It appeared the situation felt awkward to him too.
‘Where did you travel from?’ she asked at last. That at least might furnish a clue.
‘Durham.’
That explained the delayed train. A good three hours north of London, County Durham and its neighbours had seen the worst of the snow. However, the information didn’t enlighten Mirabelle about anything else.
‘My client became acquainted with you some time ago, as I understand it.’
Mr Lovatt paused as if waiting for confirmation.
‘You’re going to have to tell me his name,’ she said. ‘I don’t have the least idea who it might be.’
The waiter arrived with two cut crystal glasses. The ice clinked. Mr Lovatt let it settle.
‘Bradley. Matthew Bradley,’ he said. ‘He died just before the weekend – Friday night, in fact. I came as soon as I could.’
The name didn’t sink in for several seconds. Mirabelle stared blankly at the solicitor. Then it came to her.
‘Do you mean Major Bradley? Bulldog Bradley?’
Lovatt nodded. ‘You seem surprised.’
‘I am,’ Mirabelle admitted. ‘He was so young.’ Bradley had been her age, or perhaps slightly older.
Her mind flitted back to wartime London. It was nearly ten years since the peace, but her memories still felt fresh. She had met the major twice when he was debriefed late in 1942. Bradley was an escapee. He’d been captured in enemy territory two years earlier – in the weeks after Dunkirk. The Germans confined him to a prisoner of war camp from where he became a serial escapee, and, once he got back to Britain, something of a celebrity. In one particularly energetic run he’d broken out three times in as many months before he finally found a route home.
When Mirabelle ran into him all those years ago he’d been visiting someone in the office down the hall, and later that week she had happened to see him again in a club. The men and women who worked in the government offices – the Whitehall set – stuck together when they went out, though of course no one discussed what they were working on. That night the party had been in Soho. There was a magic show and music, and the major danced with one of the secretaries. She was a plump young thing with auburn hair and watery blue eyes – not the type of girl in whom a man like Bradley might have been expected take an interest, but still. Mirabelle remembered how the major’s gaze had seemed too blank as his fingers
lay squat on the curve of the girl’s hip. Escapers were the cream of the crop. Fewer than one in a hundred of those captured, Jack had said. Mirabelle’s boss had a fondness for calculating percentages.
‘You’re a bona fide hero,’ the pale-eyed girl had cooed.
Dressed in mulberry silk, Mirabelle had caught the words in a lull as the band paused before launching into a swing number. She saw Bradley stiffen, his shoulders moving upwards, his face mostly in shadow.
‘Not at all,’ he had replied. ‘Escaping is ninety per cent luck. All it takes is a sleepy guard or a door left unlocked. All the good men get sent to the front – the ones manning the camps don’t have what it takes. Ten to one they’re useless. If you wait your chance you’re bound to get out.’
Perhaps all men liked explaining the odds, Mirabelle mused. If nothing else Bradley was at least modest. She knew perfectly well that it took a good deal more than just an inattentive guard to get out of a Nazi prisoner of war camp. The girl simpered as the music got going again but Mirabelle thought the major’s eyes darkened even more after the conversation. His blank expression had scared her.
‘I haven’t seen Major Bradley in ten years – more than that,’ she said to Lovatt. ‘It was when I lived in London. I only met him briefly. I don’t think I even knew his Christian name until now. Matthew, did you say?’
‘Well, he seems to have remembered you, Miss Bevan. He even knew you were in Brighton.’ The solicitor reached into his briefcase and took out a buff cardboard file. Reading from the sheaf of papers inside it, he went on, ‘“To Miss Mirabelle Bevan of McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery, Brills Lane, Brighton, I bequeath the remainder of my estate on the condition that she accepts the terms contained in the enclosed envelope.”’
He extracted a sealed envelope from the file and pushed it
across the table. The skin on Mirabelle’s forearms prickled. This felt somehow dangerous. Had the major had her followed? Who knew she was here? Although recently, of course, there had been one or two high-profile cases after which her name had been mentioned in
The Times
.
‘But I hardly knew the chap,’ she protested.
Mr Lovatt picked up his gin and eyed the woman opposite him. He decided she was not at all unattractive – well dressed and nicely self-contained. It was interesting, he thought. Usually the first question asked by someone who had been left an unexpected bequest was how much. Miss Bevan seemed too shocked to grasp the reality of her windfall. She was about to become if not a very rich woman, then at least extremely well shod.
‘Do you know what it says?’ she asked, eyeing the envelope.
Lovatt shook his head.
Mirabelle slipped the butter knife through the seal. Inside the letter ran to three pages. The paper flashed between her fingers, showing off her well-manicured nails, painted scarlet by Vesta only the day before. The words crowded together as she unfolded it. Somehow it felt as if this piece of paper was a passport into another world. She didn’t want to read it. Why on earth am I in such a panic, she thought. Usually I’d be curious.
The waiter returned holding two steaming portions of chicken pie with cabbage on the side and small boiled potatoes that rolled against the rims of the plates. Gratefully, Mirabelle paused. Controlling her racing thoughts, she returned the letter to its envelope and slipped it into her handbag.
‘I’ll read it later. In private,’ she said. ‘It seems disrespectful to tackle it over dinner.’
Lovatt picked up his fork. ‘Very wise. I can call on you tomorrow at your office to discuss the matter further, if you like. That should give you time to consider.’
The relief showed in her face.
The pie smelled delicious. At the next table there was a burst of laughter as someone told a joke. Lovatt stared at Mirabelle as she speared a piece of cabbage. He wondered if she was ever going to ask him about the money – Bradley had died one of the wealthiest men in Northumberland.
Apparently she wasn’t.
‘Have you visited Brighton before?’ she asked as she looked up. This, Lovatt decided, was most refreshing. Miss Bevan was genuinely unusual.
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I am looking forward to seeing the pier tomorrow. It is renowned, is it not? Brighton Pier?’
‘I always recommend the Aquarium to visitors.’ Mirabelle smiled.
It was only later, as she slipped the key into the door of her flat, that she recalled the only other piece of information she knew about Major Matthew Bradley. There was a rumour he had specialised in Escape and Evasion at M19. The department had perfected the art of supplying escaped prisoners of war on the Continent with what they needed to escape confinement, outrun their pursuers and, for that matter, avoid capture in the first place.
More than two million compasses and an impressive number of maps had been distributed throughout Europe over the course of the war. Bradley was an obvious recruit – he had, after all, been something of an expert by the time he got home. Unusually for a fellow with a desk job, it was at M19 he’d acquired his nickname. He’d believed there was always a way out and that a chap only had to find it. ‘Get out quickly and keep going,’ she’d heard him quoted. That certainly had the ring of the solid young man who’d decried the camp guards rather than admit his own bravery. Why on earth had Bulldog remembered her? Worse, why had he come to find her like this – from beyond the grave? The whole thing had an ominous, gothic feel.
Mirabelle shuddered. It was as cold inside the high-ceilinged flat as it was outside. She decided to go straight to bed. Grabbing a bottle of whisky as she passed the drinks cabinet, she poured a slug into her bedside glass. Then she dived under the covers and waited for the bed to warm up before removing her coat, hat and gloves and dropping them to the carpet. The cornicing cast shadows down the wall. Taking a deep breath, Mirabelle drew the envelope from her handbag. With the whisky in one hand and Major Bradley’s clear cursive script in the other, she curled sideways into the milky light of the bedside lamp and began to read.