England Expects (18 page)

Chapter 22

All life is chance
.

A
t his desk at Bartholomew Square, almost two hours later, Superintendent McGregor sipped his tea. He’d been there since early doors. The Gillingham case was going nowhere, but Henshaw’s suicide had kept McGregor up late, staring at Elsie Chapman’s file. The connection between Mrs Chapman and Joey Gillingham was tenuous but the dead woman’s connection to Henshaw was easier to define. Like the team at McGuigan and McGuigan, he had deduced a long-term affair and an illegitimate child. Still, it seemed, somehow, too cut and dried for his liking.

The night before, when he finally went home, sleep had evaded him so he got up, dressed in the half-light of dawn and dragged himself back into the station where he sat at his desk trying to piece things together. He’d come to the conclusion that too many pieces of this puzzle were missing and the pieces he had, though they certainly tied up into a nice neat parcel, somehow felt unsatisfying. He was missing too many motives and far too much background information. To say that the masons were secretive was an understatement and, for that matter, discretion was a byword for anyone who might know anything useful at the track. With Henshaw’s suicide, the case was panning out to look depressingly domestic, though if he could figure out how Joey Gillingham fitted in that might change. McGregor’s instinct told him that all three deaths were interconnected, but none of the evidence seemed to point that
way. Except for Mirabelle’s convictions, and they counted for something. Increasingly these days he found himself wondering what Mirabelle would think.

McGregor read Gillingham’s file one more time. When he stayed in Brighton, Gillingham had roomed in a small boarding house on Tillstone Street that was convenient for the racetrack and the boxing club. The proprietor had no connection to Elsie Chapman, the racecourse or the boxing and by his own account was not a mason.

‘I follow the football,’ the man had said, trying to be helpful.

‘What’s on the slate today, Sir?’ Robinson asked cheerily as he breezed into the office at nine.

McGregor looked up. The fact that Henshaw had died on Wellington Road’s patch was obviously set to make things difficult. The fact that the old man was a mason was going to make it even more so. Perhaps, McGregor reasoned, Robinson might be able to help with that, though whether he intended to or not was another matter. He decided to apply some pressure.

‘Sit down.’ McGregor motioned towards the vacant chair on the opposite side of his desk.

Robinson looked perplexed. The Superintendent was not in the habit of inviting him to the table. He bobbed nervously. ‘Sir,’ he said, putting a hand on the back of the chair.

‘Sit,’ barked McGregor.

Robinson looked at the desk as if it might be booby-trapped. He glanced at the door, hoping for rescue. None came, so he sat down, crossed his legs and then uncrossed them.

‘You heard what happened last night?’ McGregor checked.

Robinson nodded. ‘It ties it all up, doesn’t it?’ The inspector sounded positively cheery, or hopeful at least. ‘Elsie Chapman, I mean. It sounds like old Henshaw took her death hard. So, that’s that.’

McGregor put his hand to his chin. His eyes flashed. ‘No, Robinson, it’s not. It’s far too tidy is what it is. You knew Captain Henshaw, I assume?’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘Good. Did you know about this affair of his? When he was alive.’

‘No, Sir.’ Robinson’s voice was flat. ‘Of course not.’

‘Did Captain Henshaw seem the type to you?’

‘The type?’

‘Suicide risk? Murderer?’

Robinson’s eyes sought out his shoes. ‘No, Sir. Not exactly.’

‘He was some kind of office holder, wasn’t he?’

‘I couldn’t possibly say, Sir.’

McGregor leaned over the desk. He realised his accent made it easier to sound threatening. The English, at heart, were nervous of the Scots. He suppressed a smile. A lad from Davidson’s Mains was considered soft at home but exported to England he became a hard man. McGregor wondered what the inspector would make of a real Scottish tough nut, should he ever come across one. In the meantime, he thought, he’d have to do. He kept his voice steady and low. ‘I swear to God, Robinson, if this membership of yours impairs my investigation I’ll have you demoted. Masons or no masons. I’m not asking what the poor bugger did in this little club of yours, I’m asking about his status, that’s all. Now, Brother Henshaw – some kind of office holder? Long term?’

Robinson nodded slowly.

‘Organisational skills?’

Robinson nodded again.

‘A logical sort, who saw things through?’

Another nod.

‘Not the kind of fellow then who might kill his lover in order to avoid exposure one day – presumably to save embarrassing his wife and his order – and then, less than twenty-four
hours later, expose the whole damn affair anyway by jumping off his own roof?’

There was a sharp rap on the office door and Sergeant Simmons’ face appeared.

‘They’ve turned up a suicide note,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d want to know.’

Robinson looked smug.

‘What did it say?’ McGregor’s voice had an edge.

Simmons shrugged.

‘It came in the first post to the Chief of Police over at Wellington Road. Turns out he and Henshaw were friends. Well, I suppose they were both in the brotherhood.’

‘I want to read it.’

A glimmer of a smile passed across Robinson’s face. At Wellington Road there were no senior officers who didn’t regularly attend meetings at Queen’s Road. Simmons sucked in a long breath. His concerns were more organisational. The two police stations were separate jurisdictions.

‘It might be tricky. I don’t know if they’ll release you the evidence. You know the way things stand.’

‘If we’re looking into Mrs Chapman’s death, the two cases are contingent on each other. We’ll need to work with Wellington Road, or try to. It’s a bloody circus, this.’ McGregor snapped shut Joey Gillingham’s file and stood up. He reached for his hat.

‘Come on, Robinson,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s busy. The quickest way to cut through the red tape is to go over there.’

Robinson looked round as if the Superintendent might have been speaking to someone else.

‘Well, look lively,’ McGregor chivvied him as he strode out of the office. He was enjoying baiting the poor man. ‘I need you to drive.’

Motoring through the sun-dappled streets McGregor could hardly believe there had been three murders in two days here –
or at least that’s what there had been if he was right. Brighton looked picture-postcard pretty. He wound down the window and took a deep breath.

The station desk was manned by a young constable.

‘I’m looking for Sergeant Belton, son.’ McGregor flashed his warrant card. The lad could not have been much more than nineteen years of age and fresh out of National Service if his haircut was anything to go by.

‘Yes, Sir.’

McGregor breezed past him with Robinson lagging behind. They were halfway up the hallway that led to the detectives’ offices before Belton caught up with him.

‘Morning, Sergeant. I think you’ve got something for me,’ said McGregor.

Belton looked as if he had been caught off guard. ‘How on earth did you know?’ He sounded genuinely mystified.

McGregor grinned. ‘Actually, I don’t know nearly enough yet. But if we’re going to get to the bottom of this we need to work together. I can’t be doing with all this cloak-and-dagger nonsense, whatever the damned jurisdiction.’

‘We were going to ring you.’ Belton sounded wounded. ‘I just thought that giving them a fright would make a lesson of it. That woman rides roughshod over the rules. She’s only been here for three hours and she’s already tried everything. How did you find out?’ Belton let out a defeated sigh. ‘I’ll get one of the lads to take you down, Sir.’

‘Down?’

‘To the cells. Miss Bevan might be your lady friend, but that doesn’t put her beyond the law.’

‘Mirabelle?’ McGregor made an abrupt about-turn, his mind veering off all thought of Captain Henshaw’s suicide note. ‘What the blazes has she done now?’

‘I told her not to leave Brighton. Yesterday she was at the
scene of a break-in. And between that and being up at the lodge when the second murder took place . . . She left town almost immediately after I told her not to. She’s a woman who needs a firm hand, Sir, if you don’t mind me saying.’

McGregor laughed. ‘You’re a braver man than I am, Sergeant. She’s been asking for me?’

Belton nodded.

Downstairs the constable unlocked the door. Inside the cell there was the familiar oily smell of incarceration that the scent of the women hadn’t quite cancelled out. Vesta jumped to her feet. Mirabelle was standing underneath the small window. She looked particularly pale, he noticed. She nodded curtly. Robinson put his head round the door and grinned widely. McGregor waved him off.

‘We’ll talk down here,’ he said. ‘Robinson, see if you can turn up that note, will you? I’ll be up in a minute.’

McGregor left the cell door half-open. He waited, listening to make sure they were alone. He motioned for the women to sit on the bench and took his place on the other side of the tiny room. It looked as if the graffiti on the wall behind Mirabelle was emanating from her head like a storm of angry thoughts.

‘We have to stop meeting like this.’ McGregor couldn’t help himself.

Vesta grinned. She was relieved to see him. ‘The sergeant told us not to leave town,’ she said. ‘But we were onto something.’

‘Onto something?’

‘Yes.’ Vesta took a deep breath and was clearly about to tell McGregor everything.

Mirabelle put up her hand to silence the girl. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said.

McGregor shrugged. ‘Least I could do,’ he replied, his eyes in no way betraying that he was at Wellington Road on another matter entirely.

‘There are two things.’ Mirabelle got straight to the point.

‘First, Henshaw’s death. And second, what exactly did Mrs Chapman die of?’

McGregor took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. She was quite a woman and, now he came to consider it, somewhat rude. ‘Normally I ask the questions,’ he said.

Mirabelle stared. ‘It’s quicker this way,’ she said flatly.

McGregor nodded curtly. In this, he had to admit, she was probably right.

‘All right, have it your way. But then you have to answer my questions.’

‘Of course.’

‘Henshaw jumped some time in the early hours this morning, according to the pathologist. Eleven till one is the range they’re quoting. His body was found by his wife. She had been out playing cards. Of course, whether he jumped at all is another matter. I’ve sent Robinson to turn up the suicide note. It arrived this morning in the post. Current thinking is that Henshaw killed Mrs Chapman because she threatened to expose their love affair, but having done so he was consumed by guilt. I have my doubts. Henshaw, as I understand it, lost his leg at Gallipoli. During the recent war he worked in Armaments – costings and the like. He volunteered. My sense of him is that he was a resilient chap. Straightforward enough apart from this affair with Mrs Chapman. He may have loved the old dear, but if he was tough enough to kill her – if – then I guess he’d be tough enough to see it through. Which means I just don’t buy it as suicide. Quite apart from anything else, if he was to make the last post, he’d have to have put the letter in the box well before he topped himself. Hours before, in fact. That’s unusual. I’ve never heard the like.

‘Which brings me to Mrs Chapman . . . The coroner’s report is in. He rushed it through. A favour for the brethren, I expect. The old woman’s stomach contained a slice of toast
with honey (no butter), three cups of tea (milk and a good deal of sugar) and the contents of several laburnum pods. The last of these, obviously, killed her. Laburnum’s readily available, so it’s not much of a clue. There must be at least a hundred trees scattered round Brighton and its environs, all in full bloom at the moment with plenty of pods ready for the picking.’

‘That’s the pretty tree at the Royal Pavilion, isn’t it?’ Vesta cut in. ‘The yellow one?’

Mirabelle took in this information slowly. ‘There,’ she said. ‘That proves it. Elsie was definitely murdered. And I think Henshaw was, too.’

McGregor looked confused. ‘I don’t suppose you know who did it?’

Mirabelle shook her head. ‘Not yet. I had a suspect in mind but the timing doesn’t make sense. Especially considering this suicide note. Whoever did it, though, my suspect will be delighted. Henshaw was troublesome for them and if he hadn’t been killed already he was definitely in their frame. There’s been a lot at stake, you see. More than we originally reckoned.’

‘Who’s your suspect?’

‘Well, there’s more than one. They’re not from Brighton. Masons. This whole freemasonry lark is strange. None of them seems to know what the others are doing. It’s another lodge – a different crowd entirely from the lot at Queen’s Road. I haven’t quite figured it out yet. But two of them, anyway, are definitely from Scotland.’

McGregor crossed his arms. ‘Mirabelle, you know I’m going to have to warn you off. Three people are dead. None of us knows yet who did it, but whoever they are, they’re extremely dangerous. Look where you’ve ended up. If I get you out of here will you please go back to Brills Lane? Honestly, I’m half-tempted to leave you here. I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

There was silence.

Then Vesta piped up. ‘I’ll make sure Mirabelle doesn’t get
involved. I’ve had enough. You’re right, Superintendent. We shouldn’t be poking our noses into this. We’re sorry. Aren’t we, Mirabelle? Really, we are.’

McGregor glanced at Miss Bevan. Her demeanour was cool. She got to her feet, slipping her handbag over her forearm as if it was a shield.

‘I don’t want you to get hurt, Mirabelle. Or God forbid, end up dead.’

Mirabelle looked McGregor straight in the eye before glancing at her watch. ‘We’re late for work,’ she said. ‘And, of course, I’d be obliged if you’d release us. Not that we’re under arrest, I hasten to add.’

‘And you’ll stay in your office?’ the Superintendent checked.