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spirit of London but it’s a very grey place.
    Trains went up and down to London till late at night but on a Friday most of the traffic came from the capital and consisted of weekenders looking for a break by the seaside. Even in this weather there were plenty of people who wanted to escape the smog and spend a couple of days in the brisk, clean air of the Sussex coast. Mirabelle hovered in the main concourse of the station pulling her coat around her to keep warm. It would do no harm to go up to Victoria and have a look around. She owed that much to Lindon at least. Despite what London’s finest had decided she was convinced that the young saxophonist was not responsible for Rose’s disappearance. She wasn’t even convinced that Lindon had been the last person to speak to the girl. The intriguing thing was that no one appeared to have discovered what had happened to Rose. Mirabelle wondered if McGregor’s friend, Chief Inspector Green, had charged Lindon and, if so, with what crime.
    The six o’clock train was almost empty. Mirabelle settled into a seat in a first-class carriage, folded her gloved hands on her lap and stared out of the window. It was difficult to discern anything in the dark as Brighton receded. The glass reflected a mirror-bright image of the empty carriage and a woman who kept checking her slim gold wristwatch. Mirabelle made herself stop looking at the time.
    The prospect of London still made her jumpy. It had been a long time since she’d lived there though the place abounded with wartime memories, many of them painful. She hadn’t been back since the previous spring but some of her happiest reminiscences were of this time of year. It had been in the winter that her love affair with Jack had started. With a jolt she realised it was ten years since they first got together. It seemed a very long time. They met when she was taking notes at a War Office meeting. There had been heavy snow that January, and the secretary who usually took the minutes had been stranded somewhere out of town. Jack took Mirabelle for a drink afterwards, and they had both immediately known they’d be together. It was like falling under a spell.
    ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to lie about it,’ he had said. ‘I’m married.’
    Mirabelle hadn’t panicked. ‘Oh, I see.’
    When he’d kissed her later, he’d tasted of Glenlivet. ‘I don’t want to rush you,’ he whispered.
    But Mirabelle hadn’t felt rushed. Being with Jack had been right from the very beginning – the most natural thing in the world. It had surprised her.
    ‘I hope your place isn’t too far away,’ she had smiled. She cherished the image of Hyde Park covered in white and those first chilly midnight trysts trying to keep warm in Jack’s shabby flat during the blackout. For some reason, one frosty morning walking in to work not long after the affair started had particularly stuck in her memory. Jack’s cheeks were pink and his eyes kept alighting on her face as they made their way up the Strand past the big white building with the clock.
    ‘They’re calling it Big Benzene,’ Jack quipped.
    It was the headquarters of some oil company. The clock face was larger than Big Ben’s. During the war it had seemed ridiculously Sash and almost un-British but the building had gone up well before the breakout of hostilities. The Strand was busy with silent commuters on their way to work. It was ten to eight and not yet properly light. Mirabelle and Jack had been up most of the night.
    ‘I could do with some breakfast,’ he said.
    They were out of coupons. That happened sometimes at the end of a run when they had to rely on the office canteen and stick to non-rationed items. When they got in, Jack fetched scalding chicory coffee with hot milk he’d managed to blag and some bread with margarine. They’d scoffed it secretly – no one could know about their fledgling romance. No one ever knew about it in the end – not one other soul over the whole