England Expects (5 page)

Chapter 6

To investigate a problem is to solve it
.

S
uperintendent McGregor would not normally have taken the call. An old lady having a stroke was hardly an investigative priority when you had a journalist with a slit throat on your hands. He’d made good progress today. Gillingham’s sister had arrived from the family home in Gravesend to identify the body. She had made a statement to the effect that the previous week her brother had a big win on the flat at Brighton. Miss Gillingham was a blowsy blonde whose hands were covered in flaking skin – a misfortune that had not discouraged her from painting her nails pillar-box red. She said Joey had been winning a good deal of late and quoted with ease the details of some of his successful bets. McGregor mentally calculated how large Gillingham’s debts would have to be for this good fortune not to alleviate them. It seemed unlikely, on balance, and the Superintendent shifted his expectations of the motive for Gillingham’s murder accordingly.

‘He wanted to buy a house up west,’ said Miss Gillingham. ‘He said he was going to find a nice girl and settle down proper. He was saving up.’

While she didn’t know the name of her brother’s bookmaker, she had certainly memorised details of his winnings, which if the figures worked out as she claimed, was not an inconsiderable amount.

‘This week he laid five pounds at five to one to win on the two-thirty at Derby and that came in,’ the girl dictated as if by
rote. ‘And another fiver at eleven to two on the four o’clock. We need to find the betting slips for those two. They’ll be in his notebook. And he’s got more coming up. Joey’s good at picking winners. He keeps the slips inside the cover with a paperclip. They’re mine now, Superintendent. I’m his heir and I want to claim the money.’

‘What notebook?’ McGregor asked.

Miss Gillingham frowned. ‘He always carries his book. In his jacket pocket. Joey never goes anywhere without it. He noted down everything. I want that notebook back, Superintendent. All his tips are in there – the form for the weeks coming up. Joey wrote down everything.’

Miss Gillingham pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. It was canary yellow with a line of tiny black cats cavorting along the edges. The memory of her brother’s note-taking was seemingly too much to bear as her face crumpled and thin rivulets of mascara dripped down her cheeks.

McGregor took a deep breath. If Joey Gillingham had been carrying a notebook it constituted missing evidence. ‘We didn’t find anything like you’re describing on your brother’s body,’ he admitted. ‘I can have them go through his things again.’

The Superintendent knew there was no point in this – apart from reassuring the crying woman. Gillingham’s pockets had contained a roll of banknotes, some coins, a return ticket to London, a pencil stub, a house key and a packet of Player’s cigarettes. Nothing else. Why hadn’t he considered this? The girl was right. Joey had been a journalist. In all likelihood the assassin had removed the item from his body. And that altered matters. It provided a decent motive, especially now that it seemed Joey wasn’t in the red. Maybe whatever Gillingham had written down had proved important enough to see him killed.

‘What kind of information did your brother take down, Miss Gillingham?’ he asked. ‘I mean specifically.’

The girl stared. ‘I don’t know. Everything. Odds. Tips. Interviews. Quotes. Anything he could use.’

It was at this point that the call from Queen’s Road came in.

‘It’s a suspected stroke, Sir, and that Miss Bevan is there,’ Sergeant Simmons reported.

McGregor nodded. Simmons was right to inform him about Mirabelle’s presence. The rate of corpses piled around that woman was astonishing. If someone was ill in her general vicinity, it would be best to check it out. He arranged for Simmons to finish the paperwork and have Miss Gillingham dispatched back to the railway station in a police car while he set off for Queen’s Road.

The lodge wasn’t far and the walk would afford him time to think. As he passed through the double doors at Bartholomew Square he wondered what Joey Gillingham might have noted that was worth killing him for? It had to be some kind of scam, and that meant the racecourse was the most likely place to turn up information. There was a meeting at Freshfield Road later that week. McGregor made a mental note to ask around and put together a team to work the bookies.

In the meantime, in the glare of the midday sun, the Superintendent worked through the options. He was so busy thinking things through that as he turned onto Queen’s Road it took him several seconds to realise that there was an ambulance parked at a strange angle to the kerb. McGregor’s mind shifted. This was his priority now. He could see that the front door had been left slightly open and he crossed the main road quickly, pausing on the doorstep for only an instant before he pushed the door wide to investigate the shady interior. He stepped inside, through the hallway and into a room to the rear. There, several figures were gathered around a writhing body with a straggle of unnaturally bright hair. A fresh-faced medic with a First Aid cross on his arm was trying to bring the woman round by slapping her face with some vigour.

McGregor tried to work out the layout of the building. This room faced westwards, and the placing of the windows meant it was impossible for it to be overlooked. It was set out for a meeting. What on earth was Mirabelle doing here, he thought as he watched her on her knees intent on helping the medic. Vesta sat hunched on a chair. Beside her, an old man with a wooden leg was straining to see. He looked upset. The medic struck the woman again and the older man flinched.

‘Come on!’ the boy admonished the twitching body. ‘Wake up!’

‘Is that really necessary?’ the old man snapped.

The woman’s cheek was scarlet.

‘She’s taken something, don’t you see? It’ll be too late by the time we get her to hospital. We’ve got to wake her up and get her to vomit,’ the medic explained, lifting the woman’s eyelids and making his diagnosis. ‘I’ve got an emetic and a stomach pump in the van.’

Captain Henshaw’s eyes hardened. ‘It’s too late,’ he spat. ‘Can’t you see that? Don’t you have any experience at all? How would you like this kind of treatment if you were dying? People you don’t know crowded round?’

‘We’ve got to try, Captain Henshaw.’ Mirabelle’s voice was steady. ‘You can’t be sure.’

‘I’ve seen enough people dying to know when it’s too late,’ Henshaw puffed. So far, objecting to the intrusion had proved useless and the old man was clearly livid. ‘Making the old girl sick won’t help.’

The medic wasn’t listening and as his plan of action unfolded, Henshaw realised that he was about to make the woman vomit here, in the meeting room of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Sussex. It was an eventuality that the old man hoped to avert.

‘Could you fetch a bucket, do you think?’ he asked Vesta. ‘There’s a wastepaper bin next door, where we were sitting.’

‘Sure.’ Vesta sprang to her feet, nodding to acknowledge McGregor as he stood in the doorway.

No one else had noticed the policeman. Captain Henshaw sighed, his leg rigid before him as, without waiting for Vesta to complete her mission, the medic pulled open the woman’s mouth and inserted his fingers into her gullet, with a cheery, ‘This might make her sick. If not I’ll fetch the flush kit from the van.’

Captain Henshaw looked up and finally noticed the stranger at the door. From his seat, he put out his hand as if this might arrest the man’s progress. It had been a morning of intruders, and as far as he was concerned McGregor had wandered in casually off the street.

‘You can’t come in here, old chap,’ he said with conviction, tearing his eyes away from the medical procedure and directing his attention to the Superintendent.

‘Police.’ McGregor pulled out his warrant card.

‘These are private premises,’ Captain Henshaw explained. ‘That’s the thing.’

McGregor ignored this comment and the captain did not push the point. After all, the room already contained several people who patently weren’t masons and really shouldn’t be here.

‘Who is she?’ McGregor nodded towards the prone figure.

‘Mrs Chapman. She’s our cleaning lady,’ said Henshaw, misty-eyed. ‘Poor old girl. She’s had it.’

Mirabelle raised her eyes and caught McGregor’s glance before turning to the captain. ‘And you allow that kind of thing, Captain Henshaw? Women in your meeting hall? Even if they’re staff?’

Captain Henshaw shrugged. ‘Mrs Chapman is not one for idle gossip. She’s worked here for years. I was only a novice when we first took her on, fresh from my service days. The place has to be kept clean.’

Mirabelle’s eyebrows rose. Then she returned to helping the medic by holding Mrs Chapman’s head. So far Henshaw was right. The old woman was unresponsive. The twitching and moaning had all but stopped.

‘I’ll get that kit,’ the medic said, rising to his feet.

But before he could, Mrs Chapman’s body took a startlingly deep breath. It sounded as if the woman might suck the air out of the entire room. Her back arched violently, and then she fell back. Mirabelle had a sudden vision of an equation being solved, as if everything had found its natural balance. The room felt peaceful. She laid her hand on Mrs Chapman’s glove just as Vesta returned, apologising for taking so long, with a small wastepaper bin.

The medic checked the woman’s pulse. ‘Well, that’s it, I’m afraid. She’s gone.’ He pulled a sheet from his pack to cover the body. Vesta put the bucket on the ground with a decisive bang.

‘I knew,’ said Henshaw regretfully. ‘You can tell, you know. I’ve seen the whole system collapse like that before.’

‘Really, Sir?’ said McGregor.

‘The trenches, my boy. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but the front line at Constantinople was a good approximation of torture in a fiery pit. A regular Bruegel. Mrs Chapman was done for. I could tell by the way she was moving. All you people achieved was to make it worse for the poor old thing.’

Mirabelle let go of Mrs Chapman’s hand. If she was dying she knew she’d rather that the people around her tried anything to bring her back. She motioned the lad to wait for a moment as she checked beneath the eyelids.

‘Her pupils are dilated,’ she said. ‘Most irregular.’

‘We’ll do a post mortem,’ McGregor cut in. ‘I was told it was a stroke.’

‘A stroke. Well, I can tell you now,’ said Mirabelle, ‘this poor woman didn’t die of a stroke. She was poisoned. Her pupils
and all that fitting – it’s nothing like a stroke. I think her heart gave out in the end.’

‘You’re right. She’s definitely taken something,’ the medic confirmed as he smoothed the sheet covering Mrs Chapman’s frame. He dropped his voice. ‘Poison for sure. Some women find it hard these days. Was she a widow?’ The lad directed the question to Captain Henshaw.

‘She was. Her husband was in the RAF. Air Sea Rescue. He was a career serviceman, but it’s been over ten years since he died. That was right at the start of the war. But . . .’

‘It’s tough on the widows. The grief can take them any time. We see a bit of that, these days. A lot of women reckon it’s easier just to take something and pop off. Sudden, like. I’ve seen it before.’

‘In the middle of cleaning a room?’ Mirabelle sounded outraged. ‘If you’ve taken hemlock you don’t polish the silver till you go. Look, the poor thing is wearing polishing gloves and her cleaning uniform. It’s not logical. If you miss someone so badly you can’t go on, you curl up in a ball before you kill yourself. You want to be private. Quiet. Close to them. You do it somewhere that means something. You don’t go to work and decide to kill yourself while you’re in the middle of a domestic task. You disappear from the world, don’t you see?’

An uneasy feeling crept over Mirabelle’s heart. Did it sound as if she knew too much about the mind of a suicidal woman who had never got over a bereavement?

‘This lady was poisoned,’ she finished. ‘She didn’t kill herself. I’m sure of it.’

‘Some toxins take a while to work.’ The medic defended his corner. ‘She could have popped something hours ago and thought it hadn’t taken. Then perhaps she perked up, came into work and was struck sudden.’

Mirabelle looked dubious. She turned to Captain Henshaw. ‘You say she’s been employed here since 1918?’

‘As long as I can remember,’ he said sadly. ‘Twice a week. Mrs Chapman has always been very reliable. She cleans the Pavilion, too. For the council. That’s how we found her – I mean, when we first took her on. Perfect arrangement, really. She was part-time for them and part-time for us. She’s a country girl – a hard worker. They recommended her highly and they were right.’

‘But Brighton Pavilion’s been closed for years,’ Mirabelle pointed out. ‘Ever since the war.’

Captain Henshaw was becoming annoyed. ‘It’s a former royal residence. It has to be maintained. And what the blazes has it got to do with you? Nosey parker. I knew the minute I saw her there wasn’t any hope.’

‘Perhaps I could walk you out, Miss Bevan, Miss Churchill.’ McGregor decided to take charge before the witnesses came to blows. It was standard procedure to separate people as quickly as possible. Besides, he had questions of his own for Mirabelle and Vesta. As he directed the women towards the door, the phrase ‘herding cats’ came into his mind. ‘Miss Churchill,’ he motioned.

Captain Henshaw watched Mirabelle and Vesta fall into step. ‘We need to have Mrs Chapman’s body collected, don’t we? By an undertaker. The old girl deserves some respect now, at least. I’ll ask the caretaker to telephone.’

‘Leave all that to me, Captain Henshaw,’ McGregor said firmly. ‘I want to speak to Miss Bevan for a moment, but I’ll see to Mrs Chapman. If she’s been poisoned, this is a potential homicide scene. I’ll send for my boys. We’ll be as quick as we can but we’ll need to keep the body in situ for a while, I’m afraid. And we’ll need to interview anyone else who was in the building this morning, too. So, please ask the caretaker to make himself available.’

Henshaw exhaled sharply. ‘I’m going to phone the Chief of Police. This room is sacred. I don’t think you understand.’

‘I understand perfectly well, and the Chief won’t say any different.’ McGregor called the old man’s bluff, though Mirabelle thought she detected a shade of uncertainty in his voice. ‘If the woman was murdered, we’ll need to inspect everything. Don’t touch anything you don’t have to,’ he insisted as he held the door open for Mirabelle and Vesta. ‘The medic will need to stay here, and if you could fetch the caretaker I’ll interview him next.’