Bright Young Things

by Jane A. Adams

  Interesting, Henry thought.

  ‘And one shoe was missing, but was only a little further along the shoreline, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, one of the ladies said she saw it fall on to the shingle. That beach is mostly shingle, as you know, but here and there is a line of sand exposed and this chap, whoever he was, he had left his footprints in the sand. But they were already filling with water, so of no help to the investigation. And the shoe was in danger of being washed away. I had to fish it out of the waves.’ He frowned, and then said, ‘And that was the other funny thing I noticed. Pretty shoes they were, black patent, but Chief Inspector, Sergeant Hitchens, I do not believe those shoes to be hers.’

  ‘And why is that?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘Because she had tiny feet, sir. She was a slight little lady, as you’ll see when you view the body, and the shoe had fallen from her foot because the shoe was too big. I could have slipped a finger between her foot and the heel of the one she still wore. Whoever put those shoes on her feet made a mistake. She would not have put them on herself for they were definitely not her own.’

  Henry raised an eyebrow. That also was very interesting. The constable had little more to say after that and so they took their leave.

  ‘With each detail the mystery deepens,’ Mickey commented. ‘So was the dress hers, I wonder, and is our constable right about the hair clips? Is it significant that she wore no other jewellery? Had that been taken from the body, stolen perhaps after death? Though from what I’ve seen of the photographs, the bag itself was well made and of value.’

  ‘We should ask Cynthia about the hair clips,’ Henry said. ‘Though I do know that Cynthia has hair clips to hold such bands in place, or simply to fasten her hair. From what I remember they are usually in pairs. They are also usually paste; they sparkle well but have little value.’

  The premises of the undertaker who had first taken charge of the body was back along the promenade, in the opposite direction. Mr Jamieson was waiting for them in his office. He was a tall, thin, grey man: grey hair, grey eyes and pallid skin. He looked, Henry thought, like an ideal fit for his profession. His liveliness of manner belied this. Although his face at rest was lugubrious, once he began to speak and smile there was a brightness in his eye and a flush to his cheek. It was, Henry thought, as though a corpse had suddenly been suffused with blood. Mickey produced the photographs that Mr Jamieson had taken and laid them out on the table.

  ‘We are grateful you had the presence of mind to do this,’ Mickey told him, ‘and we were wondering if you had any other impressions you might add to the images you captured.’

  Mr Jamieson steepled his fingers and surveyed his work with a look of great satisfaction. ‘I have been a keen photographer for most of my life,’ he said. ‘Landscape and portraits mostly, but we keep a camera here so that we can record the work we do for our poor unfortunate clients. Sometimes after a long illness they arrive looking, well, less than their best, and if the funeral is to have an open casket then it does not seem right that their poor relatives and friends should remember them disfigured. I record what remedial work we do as an aide memoir.’

  ‘And an advertisement,’ Henry suggested.

  ‘We are very proud of the work we do here.’

  Henry murmured uneasily that he was sure they were. He remembered viewing his mother’s corpse just before her funeral and thinking that the woman in the coffin looked nothing like her. Hollow-cheeked and sunken-eyed, she was not as he wanted to remember her. Their father had burnt every picture, or so he thought, in a final act of cruelty. Cynthia, of course, had managed to rescue three. Later their father had discovered one and beaten Henry’s sister with great viciousness, but the two remaining photographs had stayed hidden, Henry keeping one and his sister the other. The memory he had of his mother was therefore from a time when she was young and beautiful and happy. He doubted any undertaker could have done anything to have made his mother look more acceptable or more like her. He realized that his mind had wandered and that Mickey was asking another question.

  ‘Did you look at the contents of her bag?’

  ‘No, oh no. The constable suggested, and I agreed, that we should not disturb anything. I photographed what I could because I thought it would be important, but we disturbed nothing.’

  ‘And the police surgeon – he simply confirmed death?’

  ‘Yes, he was here within minutes. There was nothing else he could do. He confirmed that the young woman was dead and wrote the certificate, noting the time of his visit and his statement that life was extinguished. The body was still loose and flexible, there was no rigor mortis, and I very much doubt that it had occurred and then passed. My guess would be that the poor unfortunate was just recently dead. I suggested that the doctor take a temperature but he said that she had been in the water so there was little point.’

  ‘It might well have been useful,’ Henry agreed. ‘From what we understand the girl had not been in the water for very long.’

  Mr Jamieson nodded solemnly in agreement, as if decrying the professional inadequacies of the police surgeon. ‘The knot is strange,’ he said, pointing to the photograph where he had taken a close-up image of the knotted twine that tied the girl’s evening bag to her wrist. ‘I cannot identify it but it looks elaborate. Not the way someone might simply knot a cord to tie up a parcel, or a joint of meat.’

  Henry looked closely and was inclined to agree. He saw Mickey make a note of this. So far, Henry thought, they had a lot of odd little details to examine, any one of which might give them the lead they required to find who had left the body on the beach and the identity of the large man.

  The undertaker had little more to add. He mentioned that a local newspaper had been in touch and asked him for a statement, which he had made. He told them also that a national newspaper had telephoned looking for his observations and asking about the photographs that it seemed they knew he had taken. It was obvious that he was wondering if he might benefit from this and Henry gave him a look that silenced and froze the man.

  Mickey gathered up the photographs, put them back in the murder bag and they walked back slowly to Cynthia’s house. The appointment for the post-mortem was set for that afternoon so they might as well return to Cynthia’s for lunch, and for Mickey to collect his belongings and Henry to pack a case; that way they could go straight to London from the mortuary.

  ‘This is an odd one,’ Henry said. ‘It is nonsensical. It is as though someone deliberately set out to pile mystery on mystery.’

  ‘But we will get to the bottom of it,’ Mickey said confidently.

  Henry glanced at his sergeant. Mickey looked content, happy even, now that the status quo had been restored and he was carrying the murder bag for Detective Chief Inspector Henry Johnstone. Henry smiled. The truth was that he was beginning to feel tired and there was still a lot more day and a lot more business to attend to before he could rest. He was not yet fully restored and his arm and shoulder ached abominably. He stuffed a hand into his pocket so that his arm did not hang so heavily and the pain in his shoulder was relieved a little. But that apart, that and the tiredness, he did feel better. Better for being busy and useful and in the company of his friend, Henry thought.

  Vic

  The first time he saw her, Vic had been smitten. Then he had seen that look in his employer’s eyes and had known this girl meant trouble. Trouble far greater than Vic knew how to deal with. However Vic might feel, his boss had chosen this one and Vic had better stand aside. Vainly, he had tried to distract Ben, but once he had a notion in his head there was very little anyone could do to pull him back. The only thing Vic could do under those circumstances was to go along with what he wanted. Ben was a little crazy in the head, had been ever since he’d come home, ever since Vic had brought him back from the front in 1917. Ben’s father had known this only too well and that was why he had employed Vic to be his shadow, to tidy up after him, and while the old man had been alive this had worked. Most of
the time. Since Mr Caxton passed away there had been a change. Ben had no one but Vic to say no to him now and Vic was, in Ben’s eyes, just his employee. Vic no longer had Mr Caxton’s authority to rely on. Ben saw Vic as his to order about and his to control. Except that Ben didn’t know anything about control. Not in any real sense, especially not when it came to himself. And besides, Vic didn’t usually want to be the voice of restraint. The truth was he had initially enjoyed the game just as much as Ben ever did, and though the glamour of it had worn a little thin of late it was still hard to resist.

  It was ironically this little touch of craziness that had drawn others to him. A kind of charisma, Vic thought. Or old-fashioned glamour. It was what had brought him admiration, envy, promotion back in the day and which, after he had been wounded and sent back home, had a kind of ruthlessness added to it, fed by anger. No, Vic thought, fed by rage at what Ben saw as the injustice of it all.

  Vic watched him that night, watched Ben watching this girl, this Faun Moran. Good family, money, beauty, though she was younger than the women Ben was usually attracted to. She was possessed of the same kind of wild free-spiritedness Ben would recognize because he had shared it once upon a time. That old combination of glorious exhilaration and a little craziness had transmuted to become a twisted thing.

  Vic had watched as Ben crossed the room to where the girl was dancing, Cuban-heeled red shoes swivelling on the tabletop, beaded dress twisting and swirling around the slender body, the contra rotation reminding Vic for a moment of a dog that had just emerged from water and was shaking itself dry.

  The music ended with a flourish and the girl took a bow, laughing, her pretty face flushed and lightly sheened with sweat. She looked for a hand to help her down and Ben was there, palm outstretched. Vic had held his breath. Ben’s gloves hid the scarring on his hands but not on his face. Would she recoil? Would she fail the test?

  But the girl called Faun Moran just took the outstretched hand, stepped down upon a chair, then on to the floor. She took her hand back and smiled happily at him and then turned and was swept up into the dancing crowd as the band struck again. Ben watched her go and Vic watched Ben and his heart flipped a little as he saw the look in his employer’s eyes. This, he had known, would not end well. Not for the girl, anyway.

  FOUR

  The mortuary was at the Royal Victoria Hospital and by two o’clock that Wednesday afternoon they were surveying the body. Mickey was aware that his boss was feeling the strain and hoped that Henry would be able to sleep on the train as they headed towards London. He knew that Henry did not find post-mortems easy and had suggested that they remain only for the preliminary examination, collect the poor young woman’s possessions and have the rest of the report sent to them. There was in truth little reason to delay.

  Mickey was slightly annoyed to find that the girl had already been undressed and her clothes folded neatly and left on a bench at the side of the white tiled room. He wanted to know if the clothes had fitted her as badly as the shoes. The shoes stood beside the dress and he picked one up, crossed to the body and tried it on the foot.

  ‘Our constable was right,’ he commented. ‘The shoes are too big.’

  Henry had unfolded the dress and was examining it carefully. ‘It’s heavy,’ he said, weighing the dress in his hands. ‘The beading is exquisitely done, the label is French. It is difficult to tell if the size is hers,’ he added, looking pointedly at the mortuary assistant.

  Mickey set the shoe down beside its fellow. ‘Was she wearing stockings?’

  The mortuary assistant had the grace to look shamefaced and shook his head. ‘No, sir, just what you see there. No stockings.’ He rallied a little and then said, ‘And no mark of garters on the legs, so they had not been removed. Seems to me like the young lady had just not put them on.’

  Mickey nodded briefly and examined the underclothing more carefully. Silk, he thought, and again of excellent quality. It was cut in that way that made things stretch – what did Belle call it? On the bias, that was it, which he knew made it more expensive. Belle had described some of Cynthia’s clothes that way and how clever it was and how extravagant in terms of fabric. ‘But the underclothes are too big too,’ he said. ‘That might not be noticed with the dress because the beads would make it hang more closely to the body, but the underclothes … it seems to me they are made for a plumper and taller woman.’ He could see from Henry’s expression that his boss agreed.

  ‘But if you want to dump a body, why dress it so extravagantly?’ Henry asked. ‘It seems so unnecessary. So …’

  Mickey watched as his boss searched for the word. ‘Showy,’ Mickey said simply. ‘Well, whoever it does belong to, I can’t see them being too pleased when they found out it was missing. And what woman would agree to having a costume like this used to dress a corpse?’

  ‘It is an interesting question.’

  Mickey folded the clothes and placed them in a brown paper bag, then put that in the murder bag. They turned their attention to the evening purse that had been tied to Faun Moran’s wrist. The contents were unexpected. A party invitation from six months before with Miss Moran’s name on it. It was for the Belmonts’ party, he noted, the one she had supposedly left in Everson’s car and been driven to her death. A business card with her father’s office address. A small comb, ivory, engraved with flowers. A silver powder compact and a lipstick.

  ‘An odd assortment of objects,’ Mickey said. ‘It suggests she attended the party and has not touched or at least not emptied this bag since.’

  The bag itself was of a fine quality, the chainmail fluid and delicate and undoubtedly silver. The frame of the bag was enamelled with little butterflies. The chain was also unusual, in that it looked like a braid or a twist, and when he crossed to the body and examined the wrist Mickey could see where it had been twisted around and left marks in the flesh. The original intention had probably been that this should be enough to hold the bag in place and then whoever had done it had second thoughts and tied it more firmly with twine.

  He came over to where Henry was examining the string with its elaborate knot. ‘At least this has not been untied,’ he said. ‘The knot is still intact.’

  ‘I couldn’t undo it, sir,’ the mortuary assistant said. ‘So I’m sorry, sir, but I had to cut the string.’

  ‘Well, thank heavens for small mercies,’ Henry muttered.

  The mortuary assistant knew he was in the doghouse, Mickey thought, but really hadn’t got a clue why. The surgeon who was carrying out the post-mortem arrived at that point, and after introductions he began his preliminary examination and Mickey announced their intention to leave before the post-mortem was complete. The surgeon seemed unconcerned at that.

  ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious to me that the cause of death is a broken neck,’ he said.

  ‘But did someone break her neck, or was it accidental? That’s the question,’ Mickey told him.

  ‘And it may well be one I cannot answer. The neck is broken. I will examine the throat for bruising, but unless there was very rough handling it’s unlikely I can say definitively one way or another.’

  And with that, Mickey thought, they would have to be satisfied.

  A little later, on the way to the train station, Henry said, ‘Why was she not dressed in her own clothes?’

  ‘That is a leading question,’ Mickey agreed. ‘Though perhaps we should also ask why she was naked when she died, as presumably she must have been if someone had to fully redress her.’

  ‘True,’ Henry agreed.

  ‘I suppose if the clothes were larger, they would have been easier to put on. Women’s garments are something of a mystery to most men. You watch a woman get dressed and she wriggles her way into things. A deadweight is much harder to dress, that’s for certain.’

  ‘So do we think the man dressed her?’

  ‘That we can’t know. But she certainly didn’t dress herself.’

  FIVE

  Wednesday 8 January into
Thursday 9 January

  It was the first time that Henry had stayed overnight in his London flat since he had been injured. He had returned to his home only once to collect things he needed, but otherwise the flat had been cleaned once a week by a woman his sister had engaged for that purpose and who posted his mail on to him, also weekly. He supposed now he ought to prepare for moving back.

  He pushed the door open, shifting letters out of the way with his foot and then bending to pick them up. He flicked through them as he walked through to his living room, switched on the electric fire and then went through to the kitchen to turn on the gas rings. The flat was chill and cold and felt unloved, and for that he was sorry. With his coat still on he sat down in what had always been his favourite chair and stared out of the window with its view of the river.

  His mail turned out to be a mix of bills and circulars. The last time he had returned to the flat had been a few days before Christmas. He had been in pretty rough shape at the time. The manservant his sister had sent with him to drive and to help him up the stairs had been terribly concerned that he might pass out, Henry remembered. It had been mortifying, directing someone else to pack his clothes and sort out the possessions he wanted to take back to Cynthia’s, and he had been profoundly relieved when the task had been finished and he had been driven home. And Cynthia’s place had been home, he realized. He had ceased to think about these few rooms as somewhere he belonged. So how did he feel about that now? Henry still wasn’t sure. He had brought a couple of newspapers on the way home. Mickey had been enthused by news of Australian cricketer Donald Bradman. Apparently his 452 not out was a record for his innings in a match against Queensland. Henry was not especially interested in cricket, but he noted the daily score of murder and violence in his home city and read with some cynicism that the second Hague conference on German reparations was still sitting. What good would it do to bleed a country white, Henry wondered, when there was already social unrest and overwhelming poverty for so many? If anything was guaranteed to sacrifice the peace then surely this was it.