Charmian demanded to speak to the editor.
‘The editor is not here yet, this is Ellen Dane, I am a reporter.’
A very junior reporter, Charmian thought, who would move on as soon as she got the chance. Percy was a good editor, careful and meticulous, no one could say he was zestful, or full of original ideas, or a man with his foot on the ladder, but coming from his stable you were well trained.
‘Can I help you?’
Charmian speedily announced who she was and what she wanted and heard a quick intake of breath and a moment of silence.
‘I want the original drawing of the murdered girl that appears on your front page and I want to know where you got it.’
Ellen Dane said nervously that she couldn’t do that, not without Mr Clubb’s permission, and he wasn’t
‘He isn’t there,’ said Charmian. ‘I got that the first time. I shall send someone round.’ She added deliberately, ‘In fact, I might come myself. Let the editor know.’
Humphrey shook his head at her. ‘Sadism.’
‘Well, I’m not going to be pushed around. Not that Clubb can push anyone, but his reporter hasn’t grasped that yet. She will. The last one did.’
She was dressed and was contemplating the breakfast which Humphrey had prepared, toast, scrambled eggs and coffee. He said he liked a good breakfast, which Charmian did not and probably could not cook, and he had added a curl or two of crisp bacon to his own plate, when the telephone rang. It was the editor of the Mercury.
‘Clubb here, I am told you want me.’
‘It’s about the picture of the murder victim you have on your front page.’
‘Oh yes. I thought it might help in establishing her identity.’
He talked like that, which was probably why he had never got to a big London daily. She had been in his office several times so that she could imagine it now: his desk neat but piled high with papers and folders; he himself dressed in jeans and a checked shirt, although he was too fat and too old for such clothes.
‘I will send someone for it.’
‘I can fax it to you.’
‘I want the real thing. How did you get it?’
‘It was hand delivered. We thought it was a joke or a phoney likeness but I sent Ellen round to the hospital to see if she could get a look at the dead girl.’
She obviously had done; she must be tougher than Charmian had thought. Not everyone fancies a late-night trip to the mortuary.
‘We didn’t plan to use it till the last minute or else, of course, we would have got in touch with the investigating team. Would have done today, anyway.’
‘I’ll get a message to Inspector Parker who is in charge of the investigation. He will send someone down.’
It was likely that Parker had handed over the case to another officer since his prime responsibility at the moment was Dingham. It would be some time before she earned the right to a first name again. That time might come, if she remained a good girl.
‘I have offered to fax it to you, although I am not sure if it would fax well, the paper is thin.’ Clubb was fussing.
‘No, I want the original.’
Why was he so nervous? Charmian asked herself. She had once almost had him arrested for hanging on to a vital bit of evidence in a fraud case. He wouldn’t risk that again.
Neither would she, for that matter, since her pressure tactics then had been the tiniest bit phoney, not to mention hard to carry through if she had had to do it. But sometimes a threat was enough as it had been then. He was not a brave man.
‘You shall have it. I hope it wasn’t wrong of me to use it? I thought it might help. We didn’t use the first picture. Thought about it but decided against it. It was more unpleasant, not just the face, you know, but the body as well.’
Charmian, who had been dressing and applying make-up while she spoke on the telephone, put down her lipstick. She had a bright red upper lip and a distinctly paler lower one.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Pinckney Heath victim. It was a drawing of her or at least the sender claimed it was. Didn’t I make myself clear?’
‘No, you did not.’
Clubb started to make a muttered apology.
‘Hang on there,’ said Charmian sharply. ‘I am coming to collect both pictures.’
She sat thinking, lipstick in hand.
‘What’s up with your face?’ asked her husband, interested. ‘I like matching lips far better.’
Charmian finished her lips. ‘I was thinking.’
‘Somehow I guessed that. About the dead girl? Am I allowed to ask?’ Charmian had been strict with herself when she married. Some information was confidential and restricted. Even her husband was not to be told.
But in this case, it was hard not to talk to him. She trusted his discretion.
‘This is just for you to know.’
He put a finger on his lips. ‘Not even to the cat.’
‘The editor of the Mercury has a drawing of the girl found dead on Pinckney Heath.’
‘Not your case,’ said Humphrey.
‘The style makes it probable it’s by the same artist, if you can call him an artist; the picture of the Windsor victim is rough enough work.’
‘You’re angry,’ said Humphrey.
‘Wouldn’t have been involved if it hadn’t been for the Greenham’s daughter being named and if Dr Greenham had not been Joan Dingham’s supervisor.’
‘But that’s not why you are angry?’
‘You know me too well. No, I am angry at the way the editor sat on the letter saying a picture would be coming. Perhaps two pictures. Both vital. Pictures one and two as the sender fancied. The text was composed of words cut out of the local paper. He ought to have handed it over to the investigating team. The killer might have been traced and this second death avoided, if the killer of both girls is one and the same.’
‘Wonder why he didn’t hand it in? Not like Clubb. He belongs to my club in Egham. A decent chap.’
‘I mean to find out.’
It’ll be down to money and circulation figures, thought Humphrey, those are Clubb’s twin worries. He was going to use the pictures somehow.
‘She was a joker, that girl.’ Charmian pulled a comb sharply through her hair, then stopped, it had looked better before she had touched it. ‘Baby and Bibi, and then the poet dad and the mum that passed over.’
‘You mean she deserved to die? Not like you to be vindictive.’
‘No one deserves to die that way.’
She kissed his cheek, grabbed a coat and departed.
There was a lot of anger floating around in Charmian today, he thought.
Once in her car and driving towards her office on the further side of Windsor, Charmian picked up her phone.
‘Dolly, I want you to join me at the Mercury offices.’
Dolly was dressed, eating what passed for breakfast in her life, a banana and some roughage. ‘Early for a press call.’
‘I want to intimidate someone.’
‘I think you can do that on your own.’
It was true. Charmian when angry, and even when not, could be formidable.
‘It always helps with the press to have a witness.’
Does it? thought Dolly. So I’m a witness am I?
Because she drove faster and lived nearer to the Mercury offices in Merrywick, Dolly was there before Charmian and sitting in her car at the kerb waiting.
She watched Charmian arrive and get out of her car. Now, should I tell her that her lipstick is crooked? she wondered, and decided not. Definitely not.
Charmian saw her as she got out of her car, nodded at her, and together they moved towards the Mercury offices.
From her desk by the window, they were observed nervously by Ellen Dane (this was her pen name, not her real name), who had been told by Clubb to be his early warning system.
‘She’s a monster that woman Daniels when she gets going, and I want to know as soon as she arriv
es.’
Ellen knew Charmian by sight, she had seen her at a prize-giving which she had covered for the paper at which Charmian had spoken. She admired Charmian and, covering fashion for the Mercury, knew that the suit she was wearing was Armani. Wrong colour for her, though.
‘Come on, girl, get on with that report.’ The editor had his own way of showing his nerves.
‘She’s just arrived, Mr Clubb.’ Ellen listened. ‘That’ll be the lift coming up now.’
It was an old building and the lift announced its arrival from floor to floor. A warning not without its uses.
‘She’s got another woman with her,’ she announced; she could see through the glass.
‘Who is it?’ Clubb was standing up, studying himself in the mirror, smoothing his hair back and adjusting his spectacles.
Another detective, I expect,’ said Ellen. ‘Nice haircut. Alfredo, at a guess.’
She was the product of a smart girls’ school, and every so often her accent and her carefully casual, absent-minded but expensive style of dressing, irritated her boss.
‘For God’s sake, try to drop that debby accent and stop being so upper class.’ He went back to his desk to sit down, the editor at work.
Ellen was hurt. ‘It’s just the way I am.’ She was the daughter of a wealthy banker and a former stage beauty, now retired into private life, but Ellen wanted to be independent.
‘Sorry.’ Clubb took a deep breath. He fancied her, hard not to, she was vibrant with life and hope, but the existence of a wife with a wardrobe of matching shoes and handbags collected over twenty years held him back: he had learned to admit defeat.
The lift had arrived at their floor, the doors opened with a metallic sound, and the office doors opened. They were never locked during the day, this was a newspaper after all and should always be wide open to the world.
In spite of the secrecy maintained by the police and the prison authorities, Clubb was a competent journalist who had his contacts, especially in academic and literary circles, whom he kept well watered, so he had known before most that Joan Dingham was coming to study at the local university, he even knew which subjects she would be studying. He had been planning a special article on her which he had been working on alone. Charmian Daniels, never an easy lady to deal with, however, might have other ideas, so above all, he must not alienate her. It might still go ahead. Brilliant he might not be, but dogged and persevering he was. Dr Greenham he knew, at least by sight, but he must find a way of meeting Joan Dingham. She was said to be willing to meet the press and TV crowd. All this was talk among the media hacks but it seemed to be true.
He stood up as Charmian and Dolly came in.
‘Do come in, sit down. It’s Inspector Barstow, isn’t it?’ He managed a smile for Dolly and exerted himself to draw up chairs. ‘Would you like some coffee? Ellen, make us some, could you?’
Ellen, glad to disappear, made for the door. But she knew her turn was coming. Yet after all, she told herself, I didn’t do anything. But sometimes not doing was worse and this looked like being such an occasion.
‘Can I have the drawings, please,’ Charmian asked.
‘Drawings.’ He looked around. ‘Now where are they?’
‘I don’t suppose you have lost them,’ said Charmian bleakly.
‘Oh, no, no.’ He fumbled, pulling at papers and blotters. ‘They’re here somewhere.’ He drew a folder from under a pile of books on his desk. You couldn’t say he had hidden them but if he had not been obliged to produce the pictures, he would not have minded. ‘Voilá.’ He held up a thin blue folder.
Ellen came in with the coffee just as he laid it in front of Charmian.
Charmian opened the folder and took out the drawings, placing one to the left, the other to the right. Then she sat looking at them.
‘The one to my left is the Pinckney Heath girl, isn’t it?’ A question needing no answer. Clubb nodded. ‘She was fairly badly cut up, I didn’t know that. I’ve met her grandfather.’
‘Haven’t had that pleasure,’ mumbled Clubb.
‘If you could call it that. I hope he hasn’t seen this drawing.’ Not a question, but a statement.
Clubb poured out two cups of coffee which Ellen handed around. ‘Not from us,’ he said firmly.
‘Us?’
‘Ellen here.’
Charmian looked at Ellen. ‘Yes, we will have to talk.’
Dolly moved across to look at the pictures. She drew her lips down. ‘Obviously a killer who likes to cut up his victims.’
‘So how did you get hold of these pictures?’
Clubb looked at Ellen. ‘I found them,’ she said.
‘How did you find them?’
‘Outside my door. On the mat. I have a basement flat in Waterloo Street.’
There was silence for a moment while Charmian stared into the girl’s face.
‘Not both together?’ Charmian’s voice was cold.
‘No. One after the other.’
‘That’s a very strange thing. Didn’t you think so yourself?’
‘Yes,’ said Ellen.
‘Any idea how it happened?’
Ellen looked at her hands. ‘I went to a party, one of those university parties. I was shouting my head off about how much I would give to get my hands on something about the Pinckney murder – I’d write it up, perhaps make it into a book, get a telly programme out of it. Next day, the first picture was on my doorstep.’
‘And you did not hand it over to the police team?’
‘Privilege of the press.’ But Ellen’s face was flushed. ‘All right, it was wrong. And the second picture … well, we knew that one had to go to the police.’
‘We?’
Clubb spoke up, ‘ I am more to blame than Ellen, I take responsibility. I wanted to use the pictures … The first one, I thought we could hang on to, see what happened, where the police investigation got to. It didn’t seem to get anywhere, I think you must agree there.
‘Not my case,’ said Charmian tersely. In fact, she agreed but was not going to say so. She could even understand the entrance (in what she thought of as fancy dress) of Dr Harrie and his dog. There was something about the title of Dr in this case that she found oppressive: Dr Harrie, Dr Greenham… clever, well-educated, good-hearted men no doubt but they worried her.
The editor of the Mercury had known that she had nothing to do with the first murder case, even Daniels was not everywhere, and he would have preferred she had nothing to do with the second one, but she seemed to have walked into it.
He bowed his head, by way of acknowledging that he had been in the wrong without actually admitting it. Safer. You could never tell what trouble words could bring you. ‘The second drawing … well, I knew then the police must have it.’
‘But the newspaper had it first.’
‘I was going to send it round.’
‘I hope that is true.’
He felt like bowing his head again, because, in fact, it was not true. Finders are keepers in the newspaper world. But he had not taken legal advice (the Mercury could not afford it) so he was on uneven ground, might trip up.
‘I will leave that for the moment, Mr Clubb.’
He did bow his head at that: he might be a friend of her husband, meet him in the club, take a drink with him, but Charmian was not showing friendliness. A lot was implied in that phrase ‘for the moment’ and none of it comforting.
Charmian turned to Ellen. ‘I am going to ask you to write down the names of all the people at the party who might have been listening to you.’
‘I might not remember,’ said Ellen quickly.
‘Oh, come on, you’re a journalist. You’ve got a good memory. Names and descriptions, please. And, of course, who gave the party and where it was.’
‘In the university,’ said Ellen, feeling wretched. ‘ One of the big common rooms.’
Charmian did not give an inch. ‘Good, so you’ve remembered that much. It’s a start. And you had an invitation, someon
e asked you.’
‘I just dropped in, you know how it is: you hear about a party.’ She shrugged. ‘If you’re in the mood, you go. Take a bottle and join in.’
‘All-night party, was it?’ Dolly spoke up.
‘Might have been, I didn’t stay that long.’
‘Meet any people you knew?’
‘Some.’
Dolly looked at Charmian, who said, ‘Let’s have a list – we’ll put a star by them because they knew you and where you live.’
‘Yes, can do,’ said Ellen.
Clubb, who had been quiet but watchful, interrupted. ‘Now is that all? We’ve got work to do.’ Don’t bully us, was what he was really saying. We are the press and have our own liberties and powers.
Charmian tucked the folder containing the drawings under her arm. At the door, she said to Ellen, ‘Do you know a girl called Fiona Greenham?’
Clubb shuffled the papers on his desk.
‘I don’t know, don’t recognize the name … Might know her if I saw a photograph.’
As Clubb got up to show them to the door, he upset his cup of coffee which he had not touched. Ellen leapt forward to help him.
Charmian and Dolly escaped while he was mopping up.
On the stairs, Dolly said, ‘Did you believe all that?’
‘She wasn’t telling all the truth.’
‘He was protecting her.’
‘Or she was protecting him,’ said Charmian. ‘I’ve met her before.’
‘I wondered about that.’
Dolly was surprised. ‘Did you?’
‘The way you looked at her. She didn’t know you, though.’
‘No,’ Dolly was opening her car door. ‘And I can’t remember where I met her. But when I do, I’ll let you know.’
‘I expect it was at a party,’ said Charmian, straight-faced.
Chapter Four
Charmian had a neat pile of two white and two blue folders on her desk which she was working through one by one, hardly raising her head. Her secretary was dealing with routine matters. Charmian had sent Dolly and Rewley out.
Dead Again Page 6