23

Conscience is a still, small voice, not a loudspeaker.

Mirabelle crouched behind the hedge and peered across at the house on Second Avenue. Upstairs a light had come on, first in one of the upstairs bedrooms and then in a second. Lisabetta and the doctor were up and about. The street was absolutely silent now. Mirabelle waited patiently, wondering if perhaps she should sneak over and look through the windows. If only she had a pair of binoculars ... After about fifteen minutes she resolved to make a circuit of the gardens. She slipped across the road and down the side of the house. The lights were still out at the rear so it looked as if none of the staff had been roused by whatever Lisabetta and the doctor were up to. As she came round the other side of the building the front door opened and light from the hallway flooded down the path.

Mirabelle flattened herself behind a camellia bush and peeked between the leaves. She saw Lisabetta stride briskly down the front steps and turn up the road. She had changed out of her nightwear into forest-green woollen slacks and saddle shoes with a pale peach cashmere sweater. Her hair had been combed and pinned with an ivory clip to keep it in place. Mirabelle considered what course of action to adopt from her vantage point and decided to let Lisabetta almost reach the top of the road before she followed, but Lisabetta did not get that far. She turned into a lane at the end of the block. Mirabelle knew it was a dead end: just a row of garages and old stable buildings. Sure enough, less than a minute later, she heard a car engine start. Lisabetta drove the doctor’s Jaguar back down the road and parked it in front of the house. It was difficult to see in the street – one or two of the lamplights were out – but darker was probably better in the circumstances.

As she switched off the engine Lisabetta inspected herself in the mirror. She tossed her head and gave an open grin. It was the kind of display she seemed able to switch on and off at will – a show of a carefree girl having light-hearted fun. Then, as the expression dropped away, a cold determination returned. Leaving the keys in the ignition she disappeared back into the house. A minute later she returned and stowed two bags in the boot before mounting the steps again and closing the front door behind her.

I wonder why the doctor didn’t bring out the cases. It’s hardly very gentlemanly, Mirabelle thought. Her heart raced. Lisabetta was getting away! If she let her go, they might never find her again. Bert would send down her things on the first train and after that it was anyone’s guess where she’d end up. A sense of tingling outrage spread through Mirabelle’s body. What about Sandor? If she lost track of Lisabetta how would she ever find him? Carefully she got up and ran across the pavement, before ducking behind the body of the car to shield herself from sight of the house. If Lisabetta had to wait for the first train why was she leaving so early? There were still at least a couple of hours before dawn broke. Surely those two bags – both quite small – couldn’t contain everything she wanted to take with her. No, Mirabelle realised, Lisabetta was on her way somewhere else. To see Manni perhaps? Or even Sandor.

Mirabelle peered into the interior of the car. It was upholstered with dark leather – two seats at the front and three behind with a deep carpeted indent. Without thinking too clearly, on impulse, she opened the door and slipped into the back, curling up behind the driver’s seat. It was, she thought, just as well she’d worn black. A minute passed. Mirabelle shifted – it was hardly a comfortable position. Then she worried. What could be seen from outside? Was her initial reckoning right? Her heart stopped. She squirmed around so that only her dark clothes could be seen from the outside, hiding her pale face and hands. Then she heard the front door of the house creak and slow, heavy steps approach the car.

The passenger seat swung open sharply and Mirabelle caught a glimpse of Lisabetta manoeuvring something bulky into the front seat. She was carrying it over her shoulder. As she positioned it into place Mirabelle realised it was the doctor’s body. His hand, in a smart driving glove, dropped onto the handbrake. Lisabetta had clearly administered the chloroform.

‘There, there,’ Lisabetta whispered as she pushed the doctor’s limbs into a sitting position. He was dressed in the same buff trousers and tweed jacket he’d worn when Mirabelle had had her consultation. Lisabetta was crooning, as if he were a child. ‘There you go. Into your car. Such a lovely car.’

There was an ominous pause.

‘Eric, have you left this car to someone?’ Lisabetta slapped the doctor and a sharp crack rang out. She bent over him now like some dark angel bent on her purpose. ‘Eric! Do you have a will?’

The doctor stirred and sat up blearily looking around in complete incomprehension.

‘Do you have a will, Eric?’ she repeated.

‘No,’ he slurred. ‘Never got married, you see. No family.’

‘Pity.’

He squirmed, trying to get up, but it was no use. Chloroform left you woozy for a while and Lisabetta was already administering another dose. He tried to push her off as she held the handkerchief over his mouth but he didn’t have the strength. As he fell back heavily into the seat Lisabetta clicked his door closed.

Mirabelle twisted, trying to get as comfortable as possible. Once Lisabetta was in the driving seat she mustn’t move an inch. Her face contorted with fear as the door on the driver’s side opened and Lisabetta took her place.

‘So,’ she said, switching on the engine, ‘where shall we go, Eric?’

The doctor was out cold but Lisabetta chatted as if they were off for a holiday in the country. ‘If I can’t have your car, I might as well wreck it. Drive it into the sea. Or at least you can!’

Mirabelle’s heart somersaulted.

‘A little bit psychopathic? Perhaps sociopathic? Ah, such diagnoses! Have you been laughing at me, Eric? I do hope not.’

The car pulled away from the kerb. Stripes of light and shade flickered over Mirabelle as the Jag moved in and out of the amber pools cast by the streetlights. Then Lisabetta turned left onto the front.

‘I’ll tell that horrible little maid of yours that you had to go up to London unexpectedly,’ Lisabetta explained. ‘I packed everything you would have taken for a couple of days. They won’t suspect a thing until it’s far too late. There are a couple of dangerous corners along the coast. Not on the direct route to London but not so far away. I’ll be back before they even get up. I’ll say I’m going up to town myself. “Dr Crichton went up to London in the middle of the night,” I’ll say. “An emergency. He took the car.”’ Lisabetta laughed. ‘London is such a dreary city. It smells. I swear! It’s time for somewhere completely new, Eric. And I have so many grateful clients in Buenos Aires and Santiago – and sunshine. I’d like some sunshine!’

The Jag purred as she speeded up. The car glided past the Grand Hotel and then the pier. Mirabelle was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to get out before Lisabetta wrecked it. There was nothing she could do but hope. Once the town was passed it was impossible to tell in which direction they were moving until at last Lisabetta stopped. She pulled on the handbrake, switched off the engine and slipped outside. Mirabelle waited a moment and then decided to raise her head. It was a risk but she couldn’t simply stay hidden. The car might go over a cliff any moment. Hardly able to breathe she rose slowly and peered out of the back window. It wasn’t a cliff top at all. Lisabetta’s figure was receding over a waste ground, past a row of derelict houses. Mirabelle sighed with relief and nudged the doctor sharply. ‘Come on!’ she said, giving his shoulder a shake. ‘She’s going to kill you! You have to wake up!’

The doctor didn’t move. Mirabelle looked around frantically. There was nothing here. No one to help. She opened the car door and slipped outside. Across the wasteland Lisabetta let out a stifled scream of what sounded like frustration. Mirabelle took in the details. It was open scrub. About fifteen minutes from town, she calculated. This was the place they had been looking for! This must be where Sandor was being held!

‘I’ll come back,’ she whispered to the doctor’s comatose figure as she crept away, low across the landscape.

Sure enough there was an outhouse – in fact, there were three or four dotted across the scrubland, two stone-built and another couple, more like small wooden sheds. And, she thought, it’s warm here. Vesta had mentioned that. Then she heard Lisabetta’s gun fire. Mirabelle panicked and rolled the last few yards in a scramble towards the main outhouse. The walls were warm to the touch. She sneaked towards the open door and peered inside. It was a foundry. A proper smelting fire was built in the middle of the makeshift space. Some of the embers had lit up where Lisabetta had disturbed them by firing her bullet, presumably in temper. Lisabetta was on her knees in front of some makeshift cupboards. She was searching for something, swearing under her breath. ‘Always like this at the end,’ Mirabelle heard her grumble. ‘Pah!’

She clearly didn’t find what she was looking for and Mirabelle only just managed to pull out of the way as Lisabetta burst out of the building and picked her way over to a hut nearby. The door was open. ‘Pah!’ Lisabetta said again as she gave the interior a cursory check. Then she moved on, clattering through the door of another of the little storage units. ‘Ah,’ she said delightedly, finding something she was looking for at last, ‘at least you are still here. Perhaps you might like to take a drive in the moonlight, yes?’

The woman was clearing her path, wiping her slate clean – this would be the time to destroy all and any evidence. If Lisabetta took Sandor with her it would be difficult to rescue him, especially if she used the chloroform. Desperately Mirabelle looked around. Back towards the car she could just make out a tabby cat picking its way across the scrub. She picked up a stone and threw it hard, hitting soft fur. The cat yowled and scrambled out of the way. Mirabelle raised another stone and fired again, this time felling a tottering pile of earth and small rocks that rolled down a small incline. It sounded as if there was someone moving near the car.

Lisabetta turned, abandoned the hut and strode back towards the road to see what had made the noise. It wouldn’t take her long to ascertain that the doctor was still unconscious and there was nobody around. Mirabelle didn’t hesitate. She sprinted towards the hut and grabbed the crouching figure inside.

‘Come on, Sandor,’ she said, adrenaline pumping through her system. ‘We have to get you out of here.’ She slit the thin bonds with her flick-knife and pulled him outside. ‘This way,’ she whispered.

They headed to the rear of the foundry, crouched down and then Mirabelle peered towards the car.

Lisabetta, having found nothing awry and the doctor still out cold, was making her way back. In temper she jerked the hut door aside and then howled as she found it empty. She darted outside. The scrubland looked deserted and there was no way to distinguish footprints on the rough muddy ground. She made a quick calculation and then ran back towards the road to search for the escapee.

‘People would normally make for the road,’ Mirabelle explained, keeping her voice low. ‘The other way there are only houses. She’ll assume we’ve headed for the street and made a run for it – you’ll see.’

And then Mirabelle gasped. In the moonlight it was clear that the figure she’d rescued wasn’t Sandor at all. The figure was female – a slender girl. A series of possibilities rushed through her mind.

‘Are you Romana Laszlo?’ she asked, but, before the girl could reply, Mirabelle realised that she’d seen her before.

‘Who’s Romana Laszlo?’

‘Of course,’ Mirabelle whispered as it fell into place.

She checked around the edge of the wall. Lisabetta was cursing from the direction of the street. The car engine fired and the women saw the reflection of the headlights in the night sky as Lisabetta turned the vehicle and cast the beams over the scrubland. The two women fell back and froze in the darkness of their hiding place. A rabbit sat up on its hind legs, unable to move in the glare of the beam. It was difficult to breathe and impossible to move but Mirabelle realised that by creating light Lisabetta had blinded herself to the things she might otherwise have been able to pick out in the darkness. After a minute or so she seemed to have concluded that the girl had made her escape in the other direction. The beams turned back to the road and she drove away. As the noise of the engine receded Mirabelle surprised herself by thinking fleetingly of Detective Superintendent McGregor. He’d tried to stop her going anywhere near these people. Well, he couldn’t get his way now. She smiled with quiet satisfaction before she spoke.

‘You’re one of Lisabetta’s girls, aren’t you?’ Mirabelle kept her voice low. ‘The one who went upstairs with Señor Velazquez.’

Delia had stayed alive because her instincts had always been good and she had always trusted them. She’d fought when she had to fight; she’d hidden when she had to hide. She’d traced the Candlemaker all across Europe and done what she had to do to get close enough to kill him. She just hadn’t got away fast enough. Nonetheless she still trusted her instincts.

‘Yes, it was me,’ she admitted, ‘though I’m not one of Lisabetta’s girls any more.’

Mirabelle checked the road – the sound of the car was fading. ‘We should wait here for a while to make sure the coast is clear.’

They sat, listening in silence and checking in all directions, until Mirabelle nodded and the women slipped inside the foundry. The girl was filthy and bedraggled. She ran to a bucket of water in the corner and cupped the liquid in her hands speaking as she drank. ‘Thanks,’ she said, and once her thirst was slaked she carefully washed her face and her hands.

Mirabelle looked around. There were some cans of soup on a shelf behind the door. ‘Are you hungry?’ The girl nodded. Mirabelle opened a can and carefully laid it on the hottest embers. Then she sat beside the fire.

‘Who did you think I was?’ the girl asked as she sat down by the fire.

‘I was looking for a friend – a man. But when I saw you I thought you might be a girl called Romana Laszlo. It was foolish of me. She was supposed to be Lisabetta’s sister. I’ve been searching for her but, well, if she existed at all, she’s practically a ghost.’

‘I’ve never heard of her.’

‘I don’t think anyone has. It’s just, when I found you, well, I wondered.’

‘Ghosts can be tricky,’ Delia smiled. ‘Very demanding. Are you army? Police?’

‘No. My name’s Mirabelle Bevan.’ She held out her hand. ‘I work in a debt collection office.’

The girl didn’t falter. She took Mirabelle’s hand and shook it firmly. ‘I’m Delia Beck.’

‘Your name is German, Miss Beck.’

‘I am German,’ Delia said evenly. ‘Well, I was.’

It occurred to Mirabelle that this was the first time anyone involved with Lisabetta had admitted to their nationality. She said nothing and stirred the soup.

‘Do you know where we are?’ Delia looked out the door across the scrubland.

‘Brighton, or just outside it,’ Mirabelle said. ‘Why did they bring you here?’

Delia lifted a tin spoon and tasted the heating soup with some relish. ‘They found me at the train station – I wasn’t quick enough to get away. I hadn’t realised she’d come for me. Stupid, of course. I’d spent the day shopping and was getting the train back to London. Then they turned up. Lisabetta was furious. At first she thought it was an accident and was just angry that I’d left. But, well, I still had the syringe in my purse. It was very quick – they put me in a car and brought me here. They were going to kill me, I expect, but I’d still have done it no matter what. I’d do it again tomorrow. He deserved to die.’

Mirabelle knelt beside the fire. ‘You mean that you killed Señor Velazquez?’ she said slowly, piecing it together. ‘Not Lisabetta.’

‘Oh, yes. That man had done ...’ Delia hesitated, her voice very low, ‘... extremely bad things. He was a monster. Not that Lisabetta cared.’ Delia’s eyes were clear and her voice was steady. ‘Will you arrest me? I’m not afraid of a British jail. Or the death sentence. It was justice and I’d be proud to die for that. Did you take part in your country’s war effort, Miss Bevan?’

Mirabelle’s blood ran cold. This girl was quite extraordinary. ‘Are you saying that man was ...’

‘Yes. He was SS. He was a Commandant. Are you going to arrest me? Civilians can do that here, can’t they?’

Mirabelle thought she might sink into the ground. She’d left all this behind or, at least, she thought she had. Now it felt like standing on a precipice with Auschwitz on one side and Nuremberg on the other. She shook her head. ‘I only want to talk to you,’ she said under her breath. ‘I have to find out what they’re doing. I’m looking for my friend, Sandor. He’s a priest. Hungarian. Have you seen him?’

‘No,’ Delia shook her head, ‘I’ve never heard that name or seen Lisabetta with a priest.’

‘May I say that you don’t seem like a murderer, Miss Beck.’

Delia shook her head sadly. ‘I had to,’ she said. ‘It was just him. The courts can have the rest but I lost my people ... my family.’ She faltered. ‘If you’d ever lost someone, you’d understand.’

Mirabelle shuddered. It wasn’t a decision she’d ever had to take. Jack’s death had been bad enough. ‘So, no more on your list?’

Delia smiled wryly and shook her head.

Mirabelle thought for a moment. She had the sudden realisation that Delia was what Jack used to call ‘a door’. You use the door, get the information you want and then you lock it behind you. Mirabelle wasn’t going to turn in anyone for killing an SS Commandant when only a few years before she had been training and equipping people to undertake that kind of mission. Any Nazi officers left evading the courts at this stage of the game deserved whatever came their way. Jack had taught her well and she kept her eye on the ball. She’d go through the door all right. ‘You know what they’re up to, don’t you? You know what’s going on. What Lisabetta is doing.’

Delia nodded. ‘It’s about washing them clean, Miss Bevan. Money. Papers. That’s what Lisabetta does. She’ll do it for anyone. Even someone like him. Plenty of people want to cross the new borders. Plenty of people want to get out: SS, collaborators, turncoats. I waited for him. I let her pick me up in Amsterdam and then came to London to work. I knew he’d turn up eventually. She’s the best and he’d want the best. They’d never have caught him. It was up to me.’

‘And so you know all about Lisabetta’s operation?’

‘Lisabetta is very good at moving people around, if they’ve the money to pay her. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It isn’t. But she gets them out and she’ll make the trip a pleasant one – the attention of men, women or children if they prefer. Champagne and caviar. A nice painting or trips to the theatre. The money makes me sick. But she washes them clean again – them and whatever they stole!’

‘So she’s laundering money. All the coins?’

Delia took a mouthful of soup then reached inside her shoe to draw a guinea from the lining. ‘Yes. Made from Nazi gold. Like this one. I took it from him. A coin for the hangman. They all have gold and loot. She legitimises it for them. And then there are the paintings, the statues, illegal currency and God knows what else. People are nothing if not inventive when stealing the treasures of the dead.’

Mirabelle’s mind was buzzing. Of course that’s what Lisabetta was up to. Of course. It was time to close the door. ‘Miss Beck, if the police catch you they will charge you. The best thing would be for you to leave the country immediately. It makes no difference whether the old man died of natural causes or not. You need to get out as soon as you can. And if you still have your weapon you need to dispose of it.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I haven’t lied,’ Mirabelle said calmly. ‘I’m Mirabelle Bevan and I work in a debt collection agency. I used to be something else. Someone else. Like you, I suppose – people are so different in wartime. No one gets to be ordinary. Not really. This is the end of your war, isn’t it, though? I do hope so.’

‘I suppose it is,’ said Delia. ‘I’ve been running a bit later than everyone else.’

‘Well,’ said Mirabelle, ‘I suggest we clean you up and get you to a train station – a small one, this time. You shouldn’t use the main stations, you know. Never. It might even be sensible to catch a bus up to town. If we get you to London, can you take it from there?’

‘Yes, thank you. I have an Irish friend there who can help. I want to go to America. That was my plan.’

Mirabelle picked up a poker and jabbed disconsolately at the embers as she considered. Then she noticed at one edge there was a tiny corner left of something that had been burned. It was distinctive – a buttonhole in the shape of a little cross on starched white cotton. It was Sandor’s dog collar. He’d been here.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘we have to leave.’