Four Days in October

Chapter Five: Day Four (Tuesday)

Chapter Five: Day Four (Tuesday)

Mirabelle fell asleep that night as soon as her head touched the pillows. She was woken by the sound of running water: Leon having a shower bath. 

Opening her tired eyes, she looked around the room and realised that it was broad daylight - it was morning, and she must have slept for hours. She tried to rally her thoughts, and remembered that this was the last day before the General Election. Perhaps this would be the last day that she and Leon would have to protect Maria - if the Communists' allies were defeated tomorrow, the Communists would lose their influence in Britain and they might even have to leave the country. I do hope that will happen! she thought. I wish that Maria didn't have so many enemies! 

She remembered that she still had to go through the evidence that she and Leon had collected yesterday. So much to do, and here she was lying in bed! She sat up and reached for her handbag, pulling out the notebook she had used the previous day, and began to look through the notes she had made and the copies of the lists of contacts given to her by Michael, Tanner and Sergei, refreshing her memory of what they had said. Flicking on to the last page, she stopped in astonishment: what she had thought was a list of contacts was a message. From its style of address, she guessed that it had been written by Sergei: 

'Beautiful lady (the message ran), I am amazed to see you in the company of the cold-hearted assassin Gonsalez. Take care, beautiful lady, he will kill you as he has killed so many. If you want to understand this, you must go to the sign of the single rose on the hill tomorrow at noon.' 

'What?' she exclaimed. Leon put his head around the bathroom door. 'What is wrong, carina?' he asked. 

'Someone wrote a message on my notepad yesterday. I think it was Sergei.' Mirabelle held the notebook out to him. Leon stepped over to take it from her, and examined the page. 'Yes, that was Sergei,' he said. 'I've seen his handwriting before. I tracked him down - he was involved in trafficking women out of Russia and into Britain and France for manual work and various immoral purposes. I shot his brother and three of his co-workers, but Sergei escaped.' 

'What happened to the women?' asked Mirabelle. 

'Some wanted to return to their homeland, but many did not, and some were not fitted for any suitable work. In the end we found places for all of them, but it was a very difficult case. The one thing I can say is that whatever their situation now, it was far worse in the hands of Sergei's brother.' Leon looked again at the note. 'This is certainly intended as a trap, but it might help us capture more of that gang.' He became thoughtful. 'You should not go, darling, but we'll need a female decoy - perhaps the women police officers can help.' 

'We can talk to Meadows,' said Mirabelle quickly, before he could develop his plans any further. 'I'll go and have a shower,' and she got out of bed and hurried to the bathroom. 

She found that she was still feeling sick, just as she had the previous day, and began to be anxious that she was sickening for something. Stiffen your sinews, my girl, she told herself, you'll never be a success as a Just Woman if you can't stay out all day without feeling unwell. Pull yourself together! She had her shower and hurried her preparations so that she was only five minutes behind Leon going downstairs. 

George and Raymond were already eating breakfast; Leon was sipping coffee, waiting for Mirabelle to arrive. George greeted the fourth member of the Triangle with a smile and a question: 'Did you enjoy your outing to Rhyl?' 

'It was wet,' answered Mirabelle. 'But we did catch up with the people we were looking for.' 

'Was it worth going all that way?' Raymond asked Leon. 'You could have sent Digby.'