11

Fate was dealing from the bottom of the pack.

It was nine fifteen by the time Mirabelle made it back into town. She unlocked the door and leafed through the mail. With Big Ben sick there was a dearth of payments coming through. It would be a quiet day but there might be more details about Señor Velazquez in the early edition of the Argus. Vesta, she noticed, had left her mark – a greasy stain in the shape of a slice of cake on the blotting paper covering the desktop. Still, the geranium was in pride of place, back on the desk and looking distinctly perkier, the soil now moist and the leaves wiped down and glossy. A note was propped up by the sink: I have news, it read.

Mirabelle set off down the hall towards Halley Insurance. She was, she realised, looking forward to seeing Vesta. It was remarkable. Mirabelle hadn’t looked forward to seeing anyone for quite some time. She knocked on the door and peered into the office. Vesta had clearly been expecting her. She was perched beside the fireplace with a long brass fork in her hand.

‘Toast?’ she asked as Mirabelle came inside. ‘No butter. I got cinnamon or jam, or both.’

‘A cup of tea will be fine,’ Mirabelle assured her.

Vesta looked shocked, as if Mirabelle had declined elevation to the peerage. Mirabelle was clearly lonely, and in Vesta’s opinion she’d never bag a fellow looking like a half-starved foal, no matter how captivating her long legs and huge hazel eyes. ‘You sure you don’t want something to eat?’ she asked quizzically.

‘Absolutely.’

The girl sighed loudly and propped the toasting fork against the wooden mantelpiece. ‘Well,’ she said, rallying, ‘I can’t wait to hear all your news. And I have to tell you what I found! You’ll die!’

Mirabelle smiled as it became apparent that Vesta could wait long enough to exchange her news to fuss over the kettle, fill a teapot, open a box of biscuits and light a cigarette with a slim gold lighter.

‘How did you get on?’ She pushed the biscuit box across the desktop and inhaled deeply as she finally settled down.

Mirabelle sank into a chair. ‘Well, it’s a mystery, all right.’

Vesta leaned forward. ‘Do tell,’ she breathed.

Mirabelle sighed. It was nice to have someone to share things with. She lifted the teacup to her lips and sipped. ‘Firstly I think when Romana left London she knew she wasn’t coming back. Her sister is vile. Completely unaffected by the death – absolutely stone cold. I don’t mean to shock you but she runs a prostitution ring up in London and God knows what else. Wealthy clients. That kind of thing.’ Vesta looked not the least bit taken aback by this information so Mirabelle continued. ‘And the doctor she was staying with is involved. I don’t know why. Drugs? Abortions? I have no idea. Except that there’s an astonishing amount of money floating around – he tips five-pound notes. And now there’s another body. A client. And he tips generously, too. These people have money to spare and plenty of it.’

Vesta took a draw on her cigarette. ‘Another body? That’s two in two days. Shit. That’s a lot of dead bodies all at once.’

‘He died yesterday. At the Grand Hotel. The papers say it was natural causes. I’m interested because they picked a cheap coffin for her and an expensive one for him – despite all the money. I can’t work that out. I mean, if your sister and her child died ... well, it seems very odd. Perhaps they hated her. Also, so far no one has seen the girl’s body. Not even the undertaker.’

Vesta considered this. ‘Oh, I’d say she’s dead all right. I did a little digging myself yesterday.’

‘Vesta! You were supposed to stay in the office!’

‘Oh, I stayed! I was here until after six! When I read that file I got to thinking about the life policy. I know a girl at the Prudential. She used to work at this agent who wrote cover for us on upmarket cars – Bentleys and Rolls-Royces. Anyway, she moved. She works in life insurance now. I wanted to ask her about how that would work – you know, the policy your client had. She checked for me. The Prudential are the biggest underwriters in the country. Turns out, they issued the policy on Romana. Not just Romana, but her sister, Lisabetta, too – they both took out cover and named each other as the beneficiary. The policy is just over a year old – so this is before Romana got pregnant. Before she moved to the country even. So why did she name her sister and not her husband? There could be reasons, of course, but how many wives would do that? Anyway, then the Pru charged an excess because Romana was abroad, and abroad is more risky so covering her life was more expensive than covering Lisabetta’s. Romana objected – said she was definitely moving to London, but the husband was Russian and the British wouldn’t let him in. Six months later and, bingo, she gets back to the Prudential. Would they forgo the excess now, please, because she’s pregnant, the husband’s dead and she’s moving to London after all.’

Vesta sighed. ‘You know I have a lot of experience with people filling in forms. Everyone thinks they’re unique, but, really, anything that doesn’t fit in the form, that isn’t standard, well, my experience is it’s either a lie or a problem. When I heard that little story there were too many questions and it was all too damn convenient. Romana Laszlo, lied, I reckon. Through her teeth. And that husband of hers is another dead body, now I come to think of it. I’m surprised the Prudential haven’t sent an investigator. Probably the only thing stopping them is that Lisabetta has a policy, too. Let’s say they killed her – for the money. And that old guy in the hotel – they killed him as well – either for more money or because he knew something – too much. Is that crazy?’

Mirabelle considered the information. The girl hadn’t done a bad job. ‘It’s about money, then,’ she mused.

‘I think, you know, I could do with something savoury,’ Vesta paused to stub out her cigarette. She rummaged in the desk drawer beside her and drew out a Cadbury’s tin with the legend MILK CHOCOLATE FANCIEs on the top. Inside there was a square of Cheddar cheese wrapped in a slip of greaseproof paper and some biscuits in a bag from Sainsbury’s on St James Street. Rationing didn’t seem to impinge at all upon Vesta’s diet.

‘Mr Cadbury wouldn’t approve,’ Mirabelle pointed out.

‘What Mr Cadbury doesn’t know about what goes on in his boxes won’t hurt him,’ Vesta roared.

Mirabelle stared at her. ‘That’s it, Vesta,’ she said. ‘That’s bloody it. We have to look inside the casket. I mean, that’s the only way to really find out. She could have died in childbirth or she could have been killed for this insurance policy. No one’s seen her body except them. If she was killed there will be marks or wounds or something and we’ll know. We’ll have evidence we can go to the police with. I thought perhaps Cobb had seen her, but he hadn’t. No one has. But it’s the key to the whole thing. We’ve got to examine her.’

‘Eugh,’ Vesta pushed the tin away, ‘that’s put me right off.’

Mirabelle ignored the comment, continuing. ‘I can’t go to the funeral. They saw me yesterday at the surgery. Oh, God, it starts in half an hour.’ Mirabelle checked her watch. ‘They haven’t seen you, though. You’ve got to do it, Vesta.’

Vesta eyed Mirabelle with suspicion. ‘That sounds dangerous. People are dropping like flies round this Lisabetta character. Shouldn’t we just call the police? I mean, that’s their job.’

‘There’s no time for that – the body will be under the ground by lunchtime and then the police won’t take it on without something concrete. All we have is a lot of suspicion – circumstantial details. Nothing definite that’s criminal. They won’t dig her up on a whim! You’ve got to go, Vesta. If they’ve killed her and you see the body we can go to the police with something real – something we know for sure. No one will trouble you at the funeral. You can say you’re from the Prudential.’

‘They might be murderers!’

Mirabelle was already pulling Vesta’s midnight-blue coat from its hook on the back of the door. ‘Don’t be silly. If you hurry you can find out what’s what before they even get there. Look, it’s broad daylight and you’re in Brighton. Besides, I know the priest. Father Sandor. No one will hurt you with him there. He’s a war hero. Any problems, you can count on him. Get to the funeral. The Sacred Heart. Norton Road. Somehow or other, you have to check. It’s our last chance to get any reliable information on how she died.’

Vesta heaved a sigh. ‘How am I supposed to look inside a dead woman’s casket? Oh, and a little dead baby in there, too. It’s horrible.’

‘I don’t know. Just try. It’s your duty. Something bad is happening, Vesta, and there’s no one else to find out what it is. And if she did die in childbirth, which I doubt, at least we’ll know and we can let it go.’

Vesta looked sadly at the abandoned tin of cheese and biscuits but she pulled on her blue coat. ‘My boss might keep irregular hours but he isn’t going to stand for this if he finds out, you know,’ she said, half sadly and half to make it clear that the coffin breaking was not going to be a regular occupation.

‘I know. Mine, too,’ Mirabelle replied. ‘And Mr McGuigan will be back tomorrow. He’ll take over. Big Ben will work it all out and he knows lots of policemen. Unless you know a reliable policeman we could go to now? Someone on the straight?’

Vesta rolled her eyes. ‘Snowball’s chance in hell.’

‘Well,’ said Mirabelle, ‘if we can only find out enough of what happened, Ben will deal with it for us. It’ll be far easier. And we’ll have real evidence. I’ll cover here, and if your boss shows up I’ll tell him you weren’t well and nipped out to the chemist. How long does he normally disappear?’

Vesta shrugged. ‘Depends on how much money he’s got.’

‘Well, leave it to me,’ Mirabelle promised.

As Vesta reached the door she halted in her tracks and spun round. ‘You know anything about cars? I got a guy coming at half ten to cover his new Ford. It’s one of those rotten Zephyrs – brand new and due on order any minute. 1951 registration and custom white paintwork – flashy! He’s all excited and we get good commission on those fancy vehicles. Look after him for me, will you? Just get the licence details and write down his insurance history. I’ll ring him back with the quotation when I get in.’

‘Sure thing,’ said Mirabelle and wondered how Vesta’s lazy idiom had managed to get inside her head.