England Expects (10 page)

Fred didn’t say a word, and Mirabelle let the idea hang in the air for a few moments before she asked her second question. ‘Joey had a notebook, Fred. It’s missing.’

‘Now that’s interesting.’

‘Joey’s sister, Ida, is a client of the firm where I work, McGuigan & McGuigan. She’s asked us to recover his notebook. It contains racing tips and betting slips. Miss Gillingham believes the police removed it from Joey’s body for that reason – for their own profit.’

‘The Old Bill?’ Fred snorted. ‘Nah.’

‘Why not?’

‘It couldn’t have been a random snatch, that’s why. If Joey’s book’s gone missing whoever nicked it must’ve known him or at least known a bit about him. If a policeman took the book off his body after the fact, it was a sneak crime – opportunistic like, wasn’t it? No point in that.’

Mirabelle cocked her head to one side. ‘But surely it was worth some money? Everyone who knew Joey seems to have got a good tip from him.’

‘Yeah, he tipped winners all right. But you couldn’t get that kind of information by nicking his notebook. No blighter would be able to read it. Joey’s notebook was written in code – something he’d come up with himself. You wouldn’t have known what was in the notebook unless you knew Joey and even then you wouldn’t be able to read it without knowing the cipher. Who nicks a notebook full of gibberish on spec? No one.’

Mirabelle rested the contents of the paper bag in the crook of her arm. ‘Now that
is
interesting,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Fred moved to open the door. The warm breeze that entered was enticing, as if the outside world was calling her away.

‘There’s been another body,’ she slipped in before she left. ‘A Mrs Chapman. She was a cleaning lady in Brighton but she liked the horses. I think there’s a connection.’

‘Throat cut?’

Mirabelle stood half in the warmth and half out of it. It was a strange sensation. Neither here nor there.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Mrs Chapman was poisoned. But there’s a connection. There has to be. I just don’t know what it is yet. She was an odd-looking old soul. She dyed her hair bright red. Have you ever seen her?’

‘I’ll ask around. And, Miss Bevan, I meant what I said about Mr Duggan. He wouldn’t want to see you alone. He adored you, he did. Loved you to pieces. And he’d want you to be happy.’

Mirabelle stiffened. Outwith his spying activities, Fred said whatever came into his mind or at least whatever he thought was right. It was sweet of him to notice her sadness and to try to help, but as she walked into the sunshine and gestured goodbye with her free hand she couldn’t find the strength to reply. He was right, of course, but how did you let go of someone as perfect as Jack? Someone as good. Someone who had been taken away so unfairly. It was an impossibility. Not a day went by when Mirabelle didn’t wish she was gone, too. Except occasionally when she found a case to distract her. And even then she missed him. Casting a long summer shadow as she instinctively turned for home, Mirabelle waited until she was out of sight before pulling a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbing away the tears that were rolling down her cheeks.

Chapter 13

The greatest virtue is curiosity
.

10 p.m., The Lanes

I
t was getting dark by the time Vesta left the pub. The smoky atmosphere was overwhelming – from her place by the makeshift stage she could barely make out the door. The pub was packed and the music jumping. In a side room, away from the band, a few people had cleared the tables and chairs so they could dance. In a dark corner right at the back, couples didn’t so much move to the music, as smooch to it. By contrast, at the bar a line of men in suits drank steadily with their eyes fixed on the musicians, taking in every nuance.

Charlie had been at his drums now for almost two hours, lost in the rhythm. He’d stay there until long after closing, Vesta thought, as she headed uphill through the balmy half-light and away from the excitement. The syncopated rhythm dogged her as she made her way up the street. It lapped like warm water at her ankles, trying to tempt her back, but something was on Vesta’s mind and she’d decided to see what she could do about it. As she passed the Royal Pavilion the air cleared of music, and the only sounds were occasional passing cars and snatches of conversation as people walked towards the front. Above her, the palace’s onion domes were silhouetted in the failing light and she couldn’t help wondering if Daphne was curled up inside, wrapped in a blanket and watching the news on her television set. It seemed an odd way to
spend a summer’s night, but Mrs Agora had become attached to her television and watched it every evening. Perhaps it became normal – less of a treat – once you got used to it.

‘It’s a comfort,’ the old lady insisted. ‘I know I’ll get square eyes, but I don’t mind,’ she chuckled. Occasionally Vesta caught Mrs Agora humming a theme tune from
Café Continental
as she cleaned the communal hallway or came through the front door with her basket of shopping. That said, the old girl still tuned into the wireless for George Elrick, whom it was impossible to overtake in her affections. ‘
Housewives’ Choice
,’ she said contentedly. ‘He’s got such a lovely voice. There’s no one quite like dear George.’

Continuing up the hill, Vesta reassured herself that this little trip was hardly out of her way. The street gradually emptied. A tabby cat padded along the warm paving stones of the main road and then cut up an alleyway, bounding over a stretch of wall. The smell of lilac floated across Vesta’s path, vying with those of fried food and car engines.

At Queen’s Road Vesta loitered on the corner. All but dark now, an amber glow seeped from behind curtained windows on the upper floors of several of the buildings. Bedsits, she thought. The shops were closed now. At last she let her eyes fall on her destination. The lodge was lit by a white light over the entrance and the pane of glass in the front door betrayed a dim illumination that warmed the dark wood of the hallway. By contrast, the windows of the reception room where she’d sat earlier that day were black. She’d been thinking about this all evening ever since the idea occurred to her. There had to be more information to be got from the lodge – in the shock of Mrs Chapman’s death the women had missed a trick. It was easy to overlook people in service. That must be why the butler usually did it in the detective novels that Mrs Agora so enjoyed. In real life Vesta knew what she needed was more information. She walked across the road, took a deep breath, rang the
doorbell and waited. As the caretaker emerged from the door at the rear of the hall, her stomach lurched. Just do what Mirabelle would do, she told herself, and took another lungful of air.

The man peered through the glass and then opened the door tentatively. ‘What do you want?’ He squinted along the empty pavement. ‘Where’s your friend?’

‘I’m on my own tonight, Mr Giles.’

‘That’s Mr Tupps to you, young lady. Mr Giles Tupps.’

‘Mr Tupps. Of course.’ She hovered awkwardly. Having been rude enough to get the man’s name wrong, it felt diffcult to continue.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘It’s late. I’m closing up.’

‘I’ve never seen anyone die before, Mr Tupps,’ Vesta blurted. ‘Mrs Chapman was my first. I have some questions. I thought you might be able to help.’

‘Me?’ The caretaker’s eyes widened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You must have known Mrs Chapman better than anyone. That’s what occurred to me. You’ve both worked here for years, haven’t you? And I thought that probably you had, well, experience. You seemed like you did. Like you knew things. You’d seen it all before?’

The old man nodded slowly. ‘I seen plenty of people die.’

‘In the war?’

‘In the Great War, yes. This time round, I was a warden. Up in London. I seen folks die there, too. We moved back down after the peace, see – I was born here in Sussex. Lots of places didn’t see a single bomb. Not us. I got a cousin up north said he wouldn’t have guessed there was a war at all. But we was hit hard up the Smoke – harder than down here and all. Everyone dies, don’t they? You just got to hope it’s quick. You best come in,’ he gestured, standing back to allow the girl to pass.

‘Won’t they be bothered? The freemasons, I mean?’

‘There’s no one here, love. I’m just finishing up. Why don’t I get on the kettle? We can have a cuppa.’

Vesta opened her handbag. ‘I have these,’ she said, pulling out a small paper bag. ‘They’re Jelly Babies.’

‘Well, I never. I haven’t seen them in a while. Peace babies we used to call them.’ A hint of a smile played around his lips as he reached into the bag. ‘Sweets are off the ration, then? Nobody’s offered me a sweet in years. Very nice of you, young lady. I don’t mind if I do.’

Vesta followed the old man downstairs. At the back of the hallway there was an unsettling display of unsheathed swords that Vesta hadn’t noticed before. She stayed close to Mr Tupps as he opened the door to the back stairs. The lights were on in this part of the lodge. The kitchen was tiled floor to ceiling with pale green crackle-glazed tiles. The room stank of stale wine bottles and cigarette smoke. There wasn’t any food to be seen. The old range was so pristine it looked as if it had never been used. Mr Tupps put on the kettle as Vesta looked around. Two deep Belfast sinks were plumbed in below the barred windows that overlooked the back of the building. The garden was little more than a yard from what Vesta could make out, but it was cultivated, and not with the fruit and vegetables that were customary. Mr Tupps, it seemed, had been growing flowers. Eerie white and yellow trailing fronds sprouted luminous in the blue moonlight and seemed all the more exotic for it. They almost covered the back wall. She sat at the kitchen table as Mr Tupps made two cups of tea and plonked one down in front of her.

‘Get a fright, did you?’ he asked.

Vesta considered this. She’d only seen Mrs Chapman at the very end, but that final moment when death took her hadn’t exactly been shocking, more unexpectedly mundane, like an engine cutting out. Death, she thought, ought to be more of an occasion, more dramatic. ‘It seemed too easy,’ she said quietly.

Mr Tupps nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said and took a noisy slurp of tea. ‘I know what you mean. You think people are tough. That death should be impossible. And then it just lands. Like snow. The long silence. You’d think she was frail, poor Elsie, but she wasn’t. And still, she switched off in the end,’ he clicked his fingers, ‘just like that. You had a question, you said?’

‘I’m sorry. You must have answered a hundred today. I mean, what with the police.’

‘That didn’t take five minutes, girl. They wanted Elsie’s address and her next of kin. The fella asked me if she had any enemies. Elsie Chapman – I ask you.’

‘What was she like, Mr Tupps?’

‘I’ve known the old girl for thirty years,’ he said. ‘Longer. I knew her before the war even when we was just kids. She was in with the bricks here. Been cleaning for the lodge since she was a slip of a thing. I still see her that way, like she’s sitting at that table, right where you are now, having a cuppa. Four lumps she took – after the first war and before the second. Funny. She struggled when the sugar ration came on. She never got used to the taste. Complained it was bitter every time but she still drank it. She was sweet, Elsie – sweet enough herself, I used to say. When she was younger she had her pick, you know. Elsie had admirers even after she was married. I don’t approve of that, course. I never looked at her that way. Still, after a while you don’t look at people at all any more. You’re too young to know about that, but you get a feel for a person. You recognise your friends by their atmosphere and Elsie had a good atmosphere. You knew what she was about. When her looks faded it didn’t bother me none.’

Vesta thought about Charlie. The way he felt. If she closed her eyes he was as easy to feel as he was to visualise. She wondered if his smell would change over the years – the trace of tobacco and baking bread that lingered on his skin. ‘Is that love?’ she asked.

Mr Tupps sat back in his chair. ‘Elsie!’ he hooted. ‘I didn’t love Elsie. Don’t be ridiculous. Oh, she was a looker all right, in her younger days. Diffcult, I think, for women who’ve relied on that, when they get, well, past it. But I was never in love with her. Hang on, you ain’t thinking of me, is you? You got a fella in mind?’

Vesta nodded regretfully.

‘Soft on him?’

‘Yes. He’s asked me to marry him.’

Mr Tupps lifted his cup in a toast. ‘Well, you get on with it, girl. It’s institutions like marriage that are most important when it gets down to it. You get on with it, I say. Best days of your lives, those days. My missus always said that. And it’s my missus I’m in love with. Been that way since the first day I saw her. At church. It’s still that way and she’s been dead five years.’

‘I met Charlie in a church.’ Vesta smiled. ‘Or, at least, a church hall.’

‘Well. There.’ Mr Tupps settled down as Vesta tried to haul her mind back to the matter in question.

‘Mrs Chapman liked the horse racing, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah. Elsie’d have a flutter. Her kids are grown and gone, and with Arthur dead she could do whatever she liked. The kids are the next of kin, of course. Two up in London and one girl married a fella from Eastbourne. They’ll have told them by now, I expect.’ He sighed. ‘She liked the gee-gees. It’s a bit of excitement, isn’t it? That’s what she used to say.’

‘Did she win?’

‘Sometimes. She was brought up on a farm so she could read a horse. When she won she sent the money to her youngest girl. Elsie always said she didn’t need nothing herself. It was just a flutter, like. But she wanted to help little Eleanor. The girl is studying to be a secretary. Elsie was proud of that.’

‘So she went to the racetrack, did she?’

Mr Tupps sucked his teeth. ‘I dunno about that. Sometimes, I think. More’n that she read the form in the paper and then if she fancied she’d lay a bet with a fella she knew. That was more like it. Under the counter. She was a surprising old bird.’

‘Did she read the
Express
? Mr Tupps, did she know Joey Gillingham?’

‘Who?’

‘The journalist who died on Monday? He wrote the racing column in the
Express
. Do you think Mrs Chapman had ever met him?’

Mr Tupps shook his head. ‘I met him,’ he said. ‘Not formally introduced, like, but I seen him a few times. Not at the races. Freshfield Road is too big – it’s like Euston Station these days, what with the new stand, and I don’t go often. No, I met him scouting the boxers. Up at the church club. I don’t think Elsie read the
Express
. She was more one for the proper racing papers. She loved horses. As far as I know she never came across the fellow and, like I said, I only met him a couple of times, myself.’

‘Are you a religious man, then, Mr Tupps? If the boxing was at the church hall, I mean?’ Vesta held out the bag of sweets to encourage him to keep going.

‘Yeah.’ The caretaker took a green Jelly Baby and held it up. He bit off the head. ‘The church is all I got now. It’s the institutions that endure. That’s the thing. So I’m here all week and there on Sundays. The war sent you one way or another, didn’t it? The Blitz. Where was you when the war was on? Where do you come from, then?’

Vesta wasn’t sure how to answer this question. The old man was expecting her to say Jamaica, she supposed, or Barbados. Somewhere black. The truth was she’d been born and brought up in South London but somehow the Blitz had only grazed her childhood. She’d played on the bombsites. She’d known what was going on. There were nights they’d slept in a shelter
or even in the Tube but somehow Vesta’s mother had always made it into an adventure. When they heard a bomb going off, Mrs Churchill would rock her children in her soft, strong arms and say, ‘It’s only a thunderstorm. When we go outside, everything will be fine. You’ll see.’

Vesta didn’t recall being scared. Not once. ‘I’m from Bermondsey,’ she said, ‘I was just a kid during the war. I didn’t notice it much.’

Mr Tupps cocked his head. ‘I was in the East End, and we was hit hard, what with the docks. South London got it almost as bad. Buildings down and fires all over. You didn’t get evacuated then when you was a nipper?’

‘No. My mother didn’t want us sent away and what with being, well, black . . .’ Now she thought about it, of course, her mother had kept her at home. It struck her what an amazing job her mother had done – looking after Vesta and her brothers and never letting them feel intimidated. The class size at school had shrunk till it was only a few black kids and one or two of the poorest white ones, whose parents hovered on the fringes at church or occasionally at the school gate as if they were ashamed. Vesta’s father had been stationed in Yorkshire. He had come home every three months for the weekend. Vesta popped a sweet in her mouth and tried to explain to Mr Tupps. ‘Black people aren’t accepted. Not the same way. We stayed at home.’

Mr Tupps stared at her. ‘That’s not right, is it? You can’t help the colour of your skin.’

‘The thing is,’ Vesta steered herself back to the reason she had come to see the old man in the middle of the night, ‘people didn’t seem to care about Mrs Chapman because she was only a cleaning lady. The Superintendent didn’t care about her. And the woman down at the Pavilion. But I knew you would. And Captain Henshaw did, too – he was upset. He wanted some privacy for her, I expect. He knew she was a goner.’