England Expects (12 page)

Chapter 15

Freedom and justice are twin sisters
.

O
ut in the sunshine, looking west along Freshfield Road, Mirabelle checked her watch. It was still early. The warm air felt fresh in contrast to the smoky cafeteria. Thinking that Bill and Vesta wouldn’t be in the office for at least another hour, Mirabelle headed for the bus stop. The road was getting busier now. People were on their way to work, and kids, chucked out after breakfast, would soon be heading for school, she thought, as she crossed to the shady side to wait. If Joey’s sporting activities were hardly shrouded in mystery, Elsie’s were quite another matter. Mirabelle contemplated these as she got onto a bus that was heading away from town and found a seat on the lower deck. The windows were open and there was a pleasant breeze as the vehicle headed away from the centre towards Patcham.

Mirabelle had been here before. She thought of the little village as the last reaches of north Brighton – a jumble of pretty stone houses, some of them half-timbered. The scale and the colours were a contrast to the grand stucco Georgian properties in the centre of town and open fields stretched beyond the last cluster of houses. On instinct, she made for the bakery, which was doing a brisk trade. The bell at the door chimed as customers came and went, punctuating the sound of traffic outside. The shelves were already half-empty and there was laughter from the back room. As she
entered, Mirabelle cast her eyes across the remaining coconut fancies.

‘Can I help you, love?’ A man in a white coat looked over the counter.

‘Actually, I’m looking for directions. Elsie Chapman’s house?’

The baker smiled. ‘She’s just off Church Hill. It’s a five-minute walk. Turn off at the top and look for a black door with geraniums. Ask anyone when you get up there. She won’t be in though. Up with the larks, Elsie. I didn’t see her this morning, come to think of it. Maybe she was in a rush.’

‘Thanks,’ Mirabelle said, deciding not to tell him what had happened. The jungle drums, it seemed, beat faintly in Patcham.

The house, when she got there, was as described – two glossy black tubs of bright pink geraniums sat by the door and a shiny brass plate was engraved with the family name. The road was quiet. Mirabelle paused. She hadn’t been sure if there would be anyone at home. From inside, however, there emanated the sound of two women angrily shouting at each other. Whoever they were, they were having a proper scrap. Mirabelle took a deep breath, considered this unexpected turn of events and rapped on the door. Then she stepped back and waited.

The shouting stopped dead. A few seconds later the door opened to reveal a heavily pregnant girl. She was no more than twenty-one, blonde and glowing with robust health. ‘Yes?’ she said.

‘My name is Mirabelle Bevan. I’m terribly sorry to disturb you, but I was with Mrs Chapman yesterday. When she died.’

In the hallway a thin pale girl with dark hair appeared behind the rosy apparition. ‘You were with Mummy?’ she said.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Ellie,’ the pregnant woman snapped. ‘You’re not her baby any more. You’re a grown woman. Stop calling her that.’

‘She was my mummy,’ Ellie objected, ‘and I’ll call her whatever I want to.’

The pregnant woman glared at Mirabelle. ‘Well?’ she said, but the other girl pushed forward.

‘Honestly, Vi, show some manners. Please, Miss Bevan, come in.’

Mirabelle slipped past Vi and followed Ellie into the front room. Inside, it was sparsely furnished but clean and tidy. There was a vague smell of violets. On the mantelpiece was a framed sepia print of a man in uniform. In another print, the same man was pictured with a strikingly pretty young woman with a wide easy smile. Mrs Chapman had been a stunner. Mirabelle wondered fleetingly if when she was older, people would wonder if she had ever been beautiful. At what age, she pondered, did that spark disappear?

The girls had evidently been going through the contents of a box file at the table: what looked like birth certificates, books of ration coupons and a tatty old bible. Beside it there was an old tea canister, half full of coins: Mrs Chapman’s savings, Mirabelle guessed.

‘I’d offer you some tea,’ Ellie said, ‘but my sister and I haven’t got ourselves organised yet. We don’t have any milk, I’m afraid.’

‘Please, it’s quite all right,’ Mirabelle replied. ‘I came to offer my condolences and to see if there was anything I could do to help.’

‘How did you know our mother exactly?’ Vi pulled up a chair and sat down, motioning to Mirabelle to do the same.

‘I didn’t know her, really,’ Mirabelle admitted. ‘I was at the lodge in Queen’s Road when she collapsed.’

Ellie’s face crumpled as she began to cry. ‘I had to identify her body. I was the first here, you see. I came down from London. I can’t quite believe it, even now . . . I’m sorry.’ She sniffed.

‘For goodness’ sake, Ellie, pull yourself together. I’m her daughter, too, and I’m not causing a fuss. You’re not the little
favourite any more.’ Vi didn’t offer her sister a scrap of comfort. ‘It’ll all go three ways – not that there’s much to split – and there’ll be no more trying to make you into a lady, that’s for sure. You’d better give up that fancy course of yours and get a proper job. Not so high and mighty now, are you? Not so high and mighty when she’s not here to pay for everything.’

Mirabelle shifted uncomfortably as Ellie sobbed and Vi stared into the empty grate of the fireplace, quiet for a moment in her triumph.

Then Vi perked up. ‘Bobby will be here later and we can finish up. We’ll pay the undertaker for when the police release Ma’s body and we’ll close up the house and hand back the key and that will be that. It’s not much to show for a life, I’ll grant you. But then Mum was hardly a society figure. Why she was so keen on you being posh I’ll never know.’ Here she paused as if she’d only just realised they had a visitor. ‘We’re waiting for our big brother, Bobby, you see.’

Mirabelle nodded. There was an awkward silence during which it appeared Ellie had shrunk in the face of her sister’s tirade. The girl had such thin wrists, Mirabelle noticed, and her eyes were circled with dark shadows. Mirabelle felt tremendously sorry for her. The attack had appeared unprompted. It was always telling to see how people behaved in a crisis. When Mirabelle’s parents died she had been only nineteen and she had felt hopelessly alone. She remembered wishing she had someone to share her grief – a sister, a brother, a cousin. Looking at Ellie and Vi she realised having siblings wasn’t always the way only children imagined. This, she realised, must be worse than not having a sister at all. She was about to say something to lift the atmosphere when the silence was broken by a knock at the door.

Vi got to her feet. ‘Who the blazes is it now?’ she said and left the room.

Mirabelle passed Ellie a clean handkerchief from her handbag. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sure your sister doesn’t mean it.’

Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘No. She does. Every word.’ She blew her nose. ‘We’ve never got on. Mummy was good to me. Better than she was to the others. That’s the problem.’

‘Will you give up your course now?’

‘I don’t expect so. Mummy paid the fees in advance and I can use whatever I get today to pay for my digs until I’ve got my secretarial certificate. They say we’ll get jobs easily as long as we make the typing speeds. It’s only another month or two, and my landlady’s a decent sort. I’m sure it will be fine.’

‘Your mother would have been proud of you, then.’

The girl smiled gratefully. ‘She was proud of me all the time, no matter what. But she said if I could get a job in London it’d be for the best.’

Mirabelle could hardly blame the girl. If her life in Brighton had been peppered with the kind of outburst she’d just witnessed, she’d want to get away, too.

There was movement in the hallway and the muffled sound of the front door closing as Vi returned, leading a tall, smartly dressed man into the room. His hair was slicked back and he ran his hand over it after he removed his hat. His dark eyes were solemn.

‘This is my sister, Ellie, and Miss Bevan, an acquaintance of our mother’s,’ Vi introduced him. ‘This is Mr Grillo.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Mr Grillo. His accent contained only a hint of an Italian past. ‘I came when I heard about what happened. Time like this, it’s only fair. Your mother was a good client of mine. I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘A client?’ Ellie asked. ‘What do you mean, a client?’

Mirabelle said, ‘Mr Grillo is a bookmaker, isn’t that right, Mr Grillo? Your mother, as I understand it, had some skill with the horses.’

‘You could say that.’ Tony Grillo nodded gravely. ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’

Vi laughed harshly. ‘Mum? Really?’

‘I heard your mother was a country girl,’ said Mirabelle, watching Vi closely.

Ellie joined in enthusiastically. ‘That’s true. She was born on a sheep farm. She told me stories about it when I was little . . .’

Vi shot her sister a venomous look. ‘How charming,’ she spat.

‘Well, your mother had an eye for the horses all right,’ Mr Grillo brought the girls back to the point, ‘however she got it. She laid an accumulator bet at the course and now it’s come off. She said she wanted the money to go to her youngest.’ He reached into his inside pocket. ‘Seventy-five quid,’ he said, pulling out a sheaf of white fivers.

It was a small fortune. Vi’s face lit up. She stepped forward and snatched the money out of Mr Grillo’s hand. ‘That’ll help with the funeral expenses,’ she snapped, shoving the banknotes into her apron pocket. ‘And Mum’s estate will be split fair and square between the three of us, thank you. I’ve got two kids and one on the way. It’s only right.’

Mr Grillo’s eyes remained still. ‘I’m only telling you what she said. Those were her wishes. It’s up to you whether you respect them or not.’

Ellie stood up. ‘Well, there’s plenty for all of us, isn’t there? Seventy-five pounds. It’s a lot of money.’

The girl was absolutely decent despite her sister’s unpleasantness, Mirabelle noted. It was nice to see.

‘It’s very kind of you, Mr Grillo, to deliver this money to Mrs Chapman’s children.’ Mirabelle smiled. ‘Do you require some kind of receipt? Or should we look around for Mrs Chapman’s betting slip – surely you must need something?’

‘It’s all right, lady. Elsie’s bet with me for years. I couldn’t
just let it go, could I? Cash makes a difference at times like these.’

Ellie sank down onto a chair and stared, as if she was running through all the times her mother had paid her bills and suddenly understood where the money might have come from. ‘It makes a huge difference, Mr Grillo,’ she said. ‘And we’d never have known. It’s very honest of you to pay up like this. Thank you.’

Tony Grillo put on his hat. ‘It’s my way of paying my respects,’ he said and turned to go.

Mirabelle waylaid him. ‘Mr Grillo, I wonder if Joey Gillingham laid bets with you, as well?’

Mr Grillo’s eyes flickered from Ellie to Vi. The girls had settled now. The money appeared to have quashed Vi’s temper. For her part, Ellie sat on the edge of her chair, perfectly composed, waiting to hear Mr Grillo’s reply.

‘Joey Gillingham? Sure,’ he said, ‘he bet with me from time to time. Did you know him, Miss . . . ?’

‘Miss Bevan. I know his sister. She’s concerned that he might have outstanding bets. The police, you see, have mislaid his notebook, and his betting slips were inside. As his heir, Miss Gillingham wants to claim whatever he’s due.’

‘I’ll check my book.’

‘You can find me at McGuigan & McGuigan on Brills Lane.’

‘Ben’s old office?’

Mirabelle nodded. ‘I was concerned we would need the slips. Because they’re bearer bonds, aren’t they? It seemed to me a matter about which someone in your profession might be particularly careful.’

Tony Grillo’s eyes momentarily sought the ceiling. ‘I’ll look into it,’ he said as he tipped his hat at the Chapman girls. ‘Well, I’d best be off.’

Vi accompanied him to the door and Mirabelle fell into step. He wasn’t getting away that easily.

‘I wish you the very best,’ Mirabelle said to the sisters as she stepped into the sunshine behind Mr Grillo. The door closed behind them.

No shouting came from Mrs Chapman’s house. Mirabelle hoped the girls would manage to clear up their mother’s affairs without any more fighting. She turned. The street was deserted apart from a sports car parked on the other side of the road. Tony Grillo didn’t move. Mirabelle was suddenly aware of her fragility, her slim build compared to the bookmaker’s bulk. She composed herself.

‘I imagine you don’t really need to check your notes to see if Mr Gillingham laid a bet with you. It seems to me a gentleman like you would probably remember if he’d money outstanding. You know every penny you’re carrying, don’t you, Mr Grillo?’

‘Correct.’

‘And you don’t pay out, I imagine, without a slip. Not ever. Do you?’ She smiled.

Tony Grillo nodded and turned his attention towards the car. He pulled the key from his pocket. ‘Miss Bevan, I’m not going to tell you why I gave that money to those girls so don’t bother asking.’

‘Mr Grillo,’ Mirabelle held her ground, ‘I don’t imagine for one moment that the money came from you. Mrs Chapman didn’t lay an accumulator, did she? And certainly not one that netted her that much money. Might I ask if you’re a freemason, Sir?’

Tony Grillo let out a let out a low chortle, like an engine turning over. ‘Oh, I like you,’ he said. ‘You’re fantastic.’

Mirabelle folded her arms. ‘Well, are you a member of the freemasons? Do you attend meetings at Queen’s Road?’

Tony Grillo crossed the street. He unlocked the car and leaned on the driver’s door. Mirabelle noticed that the window was down. The bookmaker might have locked the vehicle but he clearly wasn’t afraid anyone might steal it.

‘We Italians got our own little club, Miss Bevan. I’m not a freemason. I’m not even sure they take Catholics . . .’

‘As I understand it, the brotherhood is entirely non-denominational,’ Mirabelle interjected.

Grillo chortled again. ‘Is that so?’

‘But it was a freemason who paid you to come here today, wasn’t it? Might I ask if the gentleman had any distinguishing features? Might I ask if he had only one leg?’