London Calling Read Online Free PDF Page B

face. When he said ‘they think it’s him’, she realised, he meant that he did too. She swirled the whisky around her glass and tried to sound casual.
    ‘Really? Do you know why? They must have evidence.’
    ‘Witness statements. More than just one or two from the sound of it. Turns out there was another girl with Miss Bellamy Gore and she’s made a statement. According to her she last saw the girl in Lindon’s company. They left the club together. These upmarket types! Lavinia Blyth! Rose Bellamy Gore! Very la-di-da! Anyway, I’ve met the investigating officer a couple of times – Chief Inspector Green. He’s a good man. I can leave him a message and try to get some more information for you, though of course by now he might not get it till Monday. Looks like your boy wasn’t being completely honest.’ Mirabelle ran through this information before commenting.
    ‘Lavinia Blyth?’ she said.
    McGregor grinned. That was what he liked so much about Mirabelle. She listened to everything – no detail was too small for her attention.
    ‘Yes. Mayfair girl. Belgrave Terrace or Square or something. What these highly respectable girls were doing in Soho in the middle of the night … Well, at least that type makes a reliable witness.’
    ‘I think the Blyths live on Belgrave Street,’ said Mirabelle.
    ‘Not the Pimlico end, of course. They’re up by the square. Unless they’ve moved.’
    McGregor nodded. Mirabelle was always surprising. That was one of the other things he liked. ‘I might have known. You’re acquainted with her then?’
    ‘Oh, I know her father. He worked with … I knew him during the war.’
    McGregor hesitated. It was a touchy subject but he wondered about Mirabelle. She gave so little away. ‘So how did you meet him? What did you do, Mirabelle, when the war was on?’
    Mirabelle knew her standard response of ‘Land Girl’ would not cut any mustard with McGregor. He knew her too well by now.
    ‘Nothing much,’ she said, sipping her whisky. It would be easier, she thought, to deflect the attention back onto the superintendent. That generally worked with men. ‘What did you get up to?’
    McGregor smiled shyly. Was he blushing?
    ‘Well, actually, nothing much either. I was stuck in Edinburgh hoping they weren’t going to bomb Leith Docks. That’s where I was working. We didn’t see much of the Blitz. Most of the planes were heading over to Clydeside and passed us by, thank God. But still they dropped a couple. There was one that blew the front off a grocer’s shop one night and brought down a couple of tenements. A few people died. Terrible. I … wasn’t conscripted for military service,’ he stuttered, feeling awkward. ‘I tried a couple of times but they wouldn’t have me.’
    McGregor stopped. His gut was churning. It had been a while since he’d felt the need to explain what he’d done in wartime but something about Mirabelle kept making his thoughts return to those six years and how guilty he felt for not actually fighting. Now he’d told her the army hadn’t taken him she would know there was something wrong with him.
    ‘I’m glad you didn’t do something amazingly heroic,’ McGregor admitted. ‘I always feel like an idiot because I stayed at home. The Guard isn’t the same. You can volunteer all you like but it’s not a patch on what some men went through in action.’
    ‘Everyone did their bit,’ Mirabelle soothed.
    ‘It’s probably how I ended up in the police force.’ McGregor finished his whisky, glad to have got what felt like a confession off his chest. ‘At least these days I get to do people some real good now and then … What are you up to this weekend? Fancy going to the Regent? Alastair Sim’s in Scrooge .’
    Mirabelle breathed in the scent of the last drop of whisky in her glass. If Lindon was in police custody she had other plans. ‘I’m sorry, Detective Superintendent, I can’t. I’m going to London.’

Chapter 5 
Sometimes I miss the