London Calling (4 page)

Lindon looked frightened now.

Mirabelle forced herself to smile. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said.

‘The police are just trying to find Rose. You’ll be able to help them.’

Lindon looked beseechingly at her and then nodded before following Robinson into the corridor.

‘Do you think he was involved?’ McGregor asked.

‘He seems so immature, I doubt it.’ Mirabelle smiled.

‘He just panicked and assumed he’d be blamed, that’s all. I don’t think Lindon hurt Rose. Sometimes a story that isn’t completely consistent is a mark of the truth. Liars are too careful. If I were investigating I’d be interested in the club where he was playing more than anything else. He was warned, you see, before the police arrived. Would you let me know what happens? He’s a friend of Vesta’s – their families have known each other for a long time.’

McGregor nodded. ‘I could pop in later if you like?’

Mirabelle shrugged.

McGregor couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were even more hazel than he remembered. He liked that the tip of her nose had gone pink in the cold and that her green scarf was knotted symmetrically over the collar of her tweed coat.

Mirabelle got up, making to leave, and then turned at the last minute. ‘There was just one other thing I wanted to ask you, Detective Superintendent. I noticed an item in the paper this morning and wondered if you might help me to locate the person it mentions?’

‘Of course. If I can I will,’ McGregor volunteered. ‘Who is it?’

Chapter 3 

Dogs are my favourite people.

The force hadn’t let Constable Turpin keep Buster after the fight, and that had been the worst thing about the whole bloody business – far worse than losing his job. Constable Turpin loved dogs, and running the police kennels had been the perfect way for him to earn a living. Perhaps in a week or two he’d see about getting a puppy – a cross of one kind or another. A pedigree would be too expensive. Buster had been a pure-bred Alsatian – a first-class working dog with a lovely nature. Poor sod couldn’t help being German. Bill Turpin was convinced he’d done the right thing in defending the animal. Even now.

Bill had spent his time helping round the house in the weeks since his suspension. Now he’d actually been fired he’d need to sign on, roll up his sleeves and go looking for work. He’d joined the force fresh from the army when he came home in ’46 and had expected to be set till retirement. He’d trusted the police force and it had let him down. Now he found the array of possibilities spread before him on Civvy Street bewildering. Bill Turpin liked rules, discipline and routine. It was important to him to know where he stood – like one of the well-trained police dogs he’d spent the last six years looking after.

In the kitchen Mrs Turpin banged her baking tins as she cleared up the remains of a morning spent making bread for the week. The oven had been fired since early and now the whole house smelled deliciously yeasty. The produce of her morning’s labour was airing on racks over the pale yellow kitchen surfaces – rolls, bite-sized biscuits and tiny scones. Mrs Turpin and her side of the family pooled their rations and she worked her magic on them. Bill knew there was a stew in the oven – tripe and carrots in gravy. Two peeled potatoes sat in a pot ready to be boiled and mashed. When he’d asked what time it would be ready, Julie got a bit sniffy.

‘It’s not a stew, it’s a casserole,’ she insisted. ‘And I won’t be serving it till five so you can forget any nonsense. You should be out looking for work, Bill Turpin.’

Bill had decided to leave the business of job-hunting until Monday so instead he retreated to a comfortable chair by the tiled, green fireside. Normally he’d read the paper but he didn’t have the nerve to pop down to the shop to pick up a copy. He felt uncomfortable with the attention. The very idea of being on the front page of the morning edition made his skin prick le. They hadn’t heard yet about the
Argus
but whichever page the story ran on, one thing was sure: everyone knew. Actually everyone seemed to be on his side.

‘Ridiculous nonsense. The bloke was a coward, Bill. Good on you,’ they said. ‘Harming a poor animal that way – a police dog, too.’

Bill shrugged his shoulders. The scumbag had got ten years in Lewes for murder. It would only have been nine if the man hadn’t stubbed out his cigarette on Buster. He would never have done it if the dog hadn’t been muzzled.

‘Bloody stupid Hun beast,’ he’d sneered.

Bill wondered, not for the first time, what might have happened if instead of lashing out in temper and breaking the guy’s jaw, he’d simply loosened the muzzle and let Buster deal with the scumbag on his own. On balance, though, that would have been more risky – Buster might have been put down. Better that Bill simply lost his job. He’d find something else.

In the meantime, Bill stared out of the window and waited for the day’s wireless programmes to start. The street was quiet today. He was carefully adding coal to the embers of the fire when he noticed a lady who seemed vaguely familiar checking the numbers on the doors, hesitating and then approaching their house. Bill knew everyone round Lynton Street but he couldn’t place her. She was smartly dressed in a dark green coat and matching hat – a bit too expensive for a woman round this part of town. He wondered fleetingly if she might be from the newspaper. Surely they’d had enough of the story by now.

The knock on the front door was brisk.

‘Bill!’ Julie called from the kitchen.

She was probably elbow-deep in soap-suds. Bill opened the front door.

Mirabelle Bevan smiled kindly. ‘Detective Superintendent McGregor gave me your address, Mr Turpin,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

Bill Turpin looked promising, she thought. He stood square in the doorframe and didn’t smile, as if he was considering things seriously. He was tidily dressed and of medium height with meticulously combed blond hair in which a few streaks of white added gravitas. He looked as if he could handle himself – just as she’d expected.

‘I heard what happened …’ she started.

Turpin cut in. ‘I don’t want to say any more. What was in the paper today was quite enough, thanks.’

‘Well, yes, quite. It’s not even that I’m particularly a dog lover …’

A thin woman came out of the kitchen in a floral overall on a waft of lemon scent and the smell of fresh bread. Her hair was carefully pinned in a Victory roll. Now Mirabelle came to think of it, the whole house seemed rather old-fashioned.

‘Please,’ Mirabelle started. ‘I don’t mean to disturb you. It’s only that I wanted to offer you a job.’

Bill Turpin hardly shifted. ‘What kind of job?’ he said.

‘Debt collection. McGuigan & McGuigan. Corner of East Street and Brill Lane – the office is on the first floor. We need you to start on Monday at nine. It’d be the same salary you were on in the police force with a monthly commission payment on top of that if you make the targets. We’re overcome with debts to collect on behalf of our clients, Mr Turpin. We need an enforcer. Someone to make the rounds.’

A flicker of concern passed across Mr Turpin’s face.

‘Have you already taken another job?’ Mirabelle said.

‘He hasn’t and he’ll be there,’ the woman in the floral overall interrupted. ‘Thank you, Miss …’

‘Bevan.’

Bill turned to his wife. ‘But, Julie,’ he implored, ‘whatever shall I wear?’

Julie looked at him as if he was a mad man.

‘A suit will be fine, Mr Turpin,’ said Mirabelle. ‘This weather, of course, you need to be warm so wear something heavy. And shoes you don’t mind walking in. You’ll be out most of the day. There’s a lot of legwork. The collections are all over Brighton and in some of the outlying areas as well.’

Mrs Turpin’s eyes dropped to admire Mirabelle’s elegant high heels.

‘I always wore a uniform before,’ Bill said.

‘A suit is a uniform, in a way.’ Mirabelle’s voice was comforting. ‘When I saw your story, I knew you’d be perfect for the job. An ex-police officer knows how to deal with people and Detective Superintendent McGregor has given you a glowing reference. We just need you to take no nonsense and get the payments in. After Christmas is one of our busiest times. You look like someone who can handle himself.’

Bill nodded. Mirabelle could see that once he’d made up his mind, he’d be immovable. What she didn’t know was that Bill Turpin was already considering the possibility of taking a dog with him on the job. Something with a touch of Doberman Pinscher might be useful – a breed with a bit of backbone. It was another German dog, of course, but they were magnificent animals and could really stand their ground. This time he’d keep it on a lead but without a muzzle. Debt recovery, he knew, was a serious business. Still, it looked like he’d earn more than he had on the force – he’d hit whatever targets they liked.

‘Rightio, Miss Bevan. Thank you.’ He reached out to shake Mirabelle’s hand.

‘Glad to have you on board, Mr Turpin. See you on Monday, nine sharp.’

Chapter 4 

Manners are love in a cool climate.

By the end of the afternoon the paperwork was whipped into shape and a route had been prepared for Bill Turpin to start on. Vesta regarded the line of figures.

‘I added it all up. We’ve got more than five hundred quid to pick up next week. I hope this new bloke knows what he’s doing.’

She laid everything neatly in a pile next to the bank of pot plants that had incrementally built up over her time in the office. Vesta had decorated the place over Christmas – newspaper bunting and a jaunty sprig of mistletoe at the window. That was all gone now but the pot plants were in robust health and almost taking over the tops of the filing cabinets. One or two of them still had the vestiges of festive red ribbon taped to their pots. Things had changed since Mirabelle ran the office on her own – for a start the place smelled of Camp coffee and toast most of the time. It felt lived in.

‘Do you think Lindon will be all right?’ Vesta asked. Mirabelle smiled indulgently. ‘They’ll look after him.

McGregor said he’d keep us informed. Police business takes time. Well, we know that!’ She tried to change the subject.

‘What are you getting up to this weekend?’

Vesta kept up an active social life and many of her clients from her last job at Halley Insurance were still in touch. Car fanatics to a man, they made sure her weekends were busy with rallies and day trips up and down the coast followed by late-night meals in Sussex’s finest restaurants. This weekend, however, Vesta was staying in Brighton.

‘They still got
Scrooge
running at the Regent,’ she replied, inspecting her perfect pillar-box-red nails. ‘I love the organ music there. Alastair Sim is a darling. And it’s handy for dancing after. I might give ice-skating another go on Sunday – it’s just down the road. What are you up to, Mirabelle?’

Mirabelle wasn’t sure where her free time went. Saturdays and Sundays often seemed to disappear in one smooth movement that went from buying the
Argus
on her way home on Friday evening to taking a stroll along the Kingsway late on Sunday afternoon. Despite the occasional outing with Vesta to a concert or to a variety of, frankly, strange cafés of Vesta’s choosing where they tucked into mugs of tea and sometimes bread and dripping for a penny, she spent most of her time alone. Fridays could be difficult – she missed Jack most on the cusp of the weekend when they would have cooked dinner together and listened to the radio, curled up on the sofa.

‘I might do some reading,’ she said. ‘And if McGregor hasn’t got back to us by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll chase him up. I’ll give you a ring.’

Vesta gathered her things. ‘Thanks.’

‘Why don’t you get off early? I’ll finish up.’

‘Oh good,’ said Vesta. ‘If I catch the early bus there is this absolutely crazy old woman with a pink hat. She sings to herself ! That always cheers me up.’ She scooped up her coat, checked her make-up in a tiny compact and disappeared out the door, waving goodbye.

Mirabelle raised a hand in a parting gesture and wondered what had driven the woman with the pink hat over the edge.

Brighton was full of characters. During the summer there were the men who sold ice cream from bicycles, the children’s entertainers with strange bushy moustaches and beauty queens in polka-dot swimsuits. In the winter chimney-sweeps carried their brushes from house to house along the front and there was a succession of tramps who sheltered near the railway station and were moved on periodically by the equally familiar figures of policemen on the beat. Grubby children played in the streets of the city-centre slums throughout the year. The well-known faces of Brighton locals were like rhythms in a song to Mirabelle. Lately she had reflected wistfully if people even noticed her – a smartly dressed woman who came and went along the Promenade. Always alone. Never wearing black because she couldn’t bear to. Even when she smiled, her sadness was tangible. She felt a pang of regret and then pulled herself together. It didn’t do to feel sorry for yourself. Lots of people were far worse off. Everyone had lost someone.

No sooner had Vesta left the office than Mirabelle began to turn off the lights and collect her things. She clicked off the electric bar on the fire and watched as the orange glow died down. She was straightening her hat when there was a brisk knock at the door. Detective Superintendent McGregor shambled round the doorframe with the air of an eager puppy.