Dead Again

by Jennie Melville

  Dolly had taken the order calmly, and Rewley had pointed out that he was already at work trying to find links between the two dead girls and was in fact speaking from his mobile in a coffee shop they might have used. ‘Not much else open when I started out,’ he had said, sharply for him. ‘I am trying to work out the approach.’

  ‘I have one that might help,’ and Charmian gave him the Mercury address.

  Dolly was at the local university checking on who had given a large party the night before last, who had paid for the room and, if possible, who had gone to it. Her hopes were not high about the guest list. Her own university days were not so far away that she did not know about gate crashers. You didn’t call them that any more – just extras.

  Rewley was on his way to the Mercury offices to talk to Ellen Dane. Ellen would like Rewley, thought Charmian. She would find him interesting and attractive, perhaps even plan to write an article on him, and find out later that he was ruthless. Charmian herself had learnt to be wary of Rewley. But she respected his intelligence and was pushing for him to be promoted to Chief Inspector, as the C1D link between the home force and the Met. The way things were going all the CID forces were going to be interlinked.

  Dolly Barstow would stay because her social life in Windsor and the county pleased her. One day she would marry, and marry well because it would be for money and position, and then she’d be off. The only protection Charmian had against guilt feelings when she harboured such thoughts about Dolly, who was a friend, was that she sensed Dolly was eyeing her own job.

  Ambition, ambition, she thought. Watch it, Dolly, I haven’t gone yet.

  Meanwhile, Charmian made use of the ambitions and energies of her two assistants. She worked them hard.

  Charmian finished giving all the files a quick read through. The forensic report on the first murdered girl, Dr Harrie’s granddaughter, made painful reading. She hoped he would never see it. She had been cut about, with a sharp pointed knife, possibly before she was dead.

  The palms of both hands had been scored with a cross.

  Charmian turned to the first forensic report (there would be another, more detailed report later) on the second victim, so far nameless. On the right hand of this girl a cross had also been scored. At this point, she heard Dolly return from her visit to the university.

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘A name or two, nothing as formal as a guest list, but the girl who hired the room and said it was her birthday party is called Freda Mercer, she’s a postgraduate and lives out in Slough, I have the address and I plan to go there. The party had caused a bit of trouble because of its size and the noise they made but Mercer saw the place was left tidied up and paid the fee for hiring it, so no one is too cross with her.’

  ‘Did you ask the people who let the room to Freda about Fiona Greenham?’

  ‘Yes, the name didn’t register, nor did Ellen Dane’s but I didn’t expect it to, I mean the woman simply let out the room and took the money. Freda Mercer is, in fact, Dr Mercer by the way.’

  Charmian groaned. ‘Another one.’

  ‘Yes, so I’ll be off to see her. Anything from Rewley?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I expect Ellen Dane is fancying her chances with him, she looks like a girl who strikes out, but I could tell her she is wasting her time. Rewley keeps work and pleasure strictly separate.’

  ‘Don’t go yet. I want your opinion on something.’ Charmian drew out the relevant pages of two reports on the victims, and watched Dolly’s face as she read.

  ‘Same killer,’ she said, as she looked up. ‘That was suspected, wasn’t it? Certainly makes it clearer.’

  ‘Yes,’ Charmian nodded then pushed across one of the white folders. ‘This comes from the Dingham cases. Take a look.’

  Dolly gave her a questioning look as she took the file, and this time she read more slowly. There was more to take in with four cases. Some of the pages were yellowing after twenty years spent sitting in the folder. Dolly read with care and she went back to re-read some passages. Then she sat back. ‘ Well, similar cuts on the hands of the victims. Might mean something to Dingham, although she never said what as far as I know.’

  ‘But what does it mean now? To us.’

  ‘Could just be copy-cat murders, it happens.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Charmian, taking the folders back. She was troubled. ‘But I want to know why.’

  Rewley came in at that moment. ‘Got some names from the girl. She knew a few of the people at the party, and she knew the chap she took to it. I know him too for that matter: he’s a police constable, graduate entry. I’ll look him up. I’ve made a list of the names she gave me and I’ll work on her for more. She knows some more. She’s given us a carefully sanitized list of people who wouldn’t care one way or another if we got their names.’

  ‘Did she know Freda Mercer, the giver of the party?’

  ‘Slightly, she says. Somewhat more than slightly, I think, but I’ll find out.’

  ‘Do that, but meanwhile, take a look at these.’ She pushed the folders towards him. ‘I’ve marked the places I want you to read.’

  Dolly poured some coffee for all of them while Rewley read. He was a fast reader, flipping the pages over quickly.

  ‘I see why you wanted me to read and compare. The cutting on the hands in these murders does resemble those in the Dingham killings. I didn’t know about them, by the way. I was still at school and, although I read about them, I don’t remember much of the detail. I don’t even know if the fact about the cutting on the hands was in the papers.’ He started to drink his coffee. ‘You think it’s a deliberate copy?’

  ‘Could be. But why? And why now?’

  ‘To celebrate Joan’s release from prison?’ he said lightly. ‘Could be.’

  ‘Some joke,’ Dolly was not amused.

  ‘Did I say it was a joke?’

  Charmian finished her coffee, then stood up. ‘I don’t know the score, but I know what I am going to do next. I am going to see Baby.’

  She debated silently which of them to take with her.

  Baby lived above the shop and on this day of all days she wished she didn’t. She could smell the day approaching with enormous speed like a train. She put her hand to her aching head – the result of her own party for her so-called friends: Joan Dingham and her acolytes, or disciples, if you could call them disciples. Disciples who could talk, laugh and drink champagne.

  I’ll never be a disciple, Baby told herself, although she did admit to feeling some of the others’ strange attraction to Joan, and she had certainly had her share of the champagne. But to be fair, although Baby had provided the champagne and the room for the party, Lou Dingham had insisted on paying.

  It might have been thought odd that the party to welcome Joan had not been held where Lou lived, but it was what Baby would have expected. The sisters always kept their own place what they called ‘private’, which meant only what suited them. This had led to difficulties for the police investigating them who had tried to get evidence that matched her up with the profile of the killer they had put together. The police had had to get all sorts of special warrants and orders: the Dingham home was definitely not one you dropped into.

  ‘We feel safe with you, Baby,’ Lou had said, on thanking her as they left. Joan hadn’t said anything.

  The hairdresser’s salon was already open and working. This was because Baby encouraged clients working in the shops and offices around her to come in for an early-morning wash and blow dry, or a trim, and why not have a manicure while your hair dried? Start the day looking good was her slogan. She had it painted on a silver banner across her window and it was printed on all her business cards and invoices.

  The early appointments were popular, but, of course, it meant that Baby herself, not by nature an early riser, had to get up too and come into the salon. You didn’t get discipline in your staff if you didn’t follow the rules yourself. That was a disadvantage, although one she bore bravely; t
he advantage was that she, too, could have a cut and a blow dry at the beginning of the working day and look good. Appearances mattered to Baby. And, of course, her own appearance – as an advertisement for the salon – was good for business.

  She had male clients, too. Old and young, all colours, an ethnic mix.

  This had not surprised her, it was not due to luck but to her own planning: she had taken great pains in putting together a staff of highly attractive as well as efficient hairdressers of both sexes, because her clients had a variety of sexual inclination. Baby was not a prude and was by nature open-minded on such matters. Her chief assistant, a man called Bobby, had a succession of lovers, beautiful boys some of them, most of whom came in to get their hair trimmed here. She kept her prices moderate (although not cheap) so that no one felt overcharged. Naturally, by the time a client had had a manicure or a facial massage, and some of the ‘special’ lotion for the scalp the bill was not low. But the atmosphere was elegant and so comforting – it was surprising how many people needed comforting, as Baby well knew – that no one complained.

  Charmian was a client, but not one who seemed to need comforting nor did she offer comfort or bring in a lover although Baby would have been delighted if she had. For many reasons she liked to keep on the right side of Charmian, and to have had a handle in knowing a weakness, like a lover, would have been useful.

  Baby had made a modest advance to Humphrey one day when he had collected Charmian, by way of getting in the back way (she tittered when she said that to herself, really, Baby!), but he had said he always got his hair cut at the club and thought he got a good short trim.

  Baby asked Bobby if everything was going smoothly or if there were any problems. And when he said not, but he would need a little time off, just a teeny teeny half hour or so, at lunchtime, and did she feel all right, because she looked a little bit off, Baby nodded her head, muttered something and shut herself in the office.

  ‘All that drink,’ Bobby had murmured to himself as he combed out a client’s hair. ‘Smell it on the air the minute you come in the front door.’ To the client, he said, ‘ Just a little spray, dear? Our pine one is very good, such a lovely smell.’

  In her office. Baby checked the day’s post, drank some coffee and swallowed a couple of aspirins.

  Her party still hung over her emotionally as well as physically. It had been a happy enough occasion on the surface, welcoming Joan, moving among friends. But there had been undercurrents. Baby had rated these as just her imagination, but no, there was conversation going on underneath the surface, jokes that meant something, though not to her. She had felt uncomfortable without knowing exactly why. So she had drunk more than she should have, not alone in that either, hence the headache.

  But it was only as the party was breaking up that she had caught a snatch of conversation that her champagne-happy brain had almost edited out, but which came back to her now in the cold light of morning.

  Diana’s name had come into it. Diana King, it was hard to believe anyone still hated her.

  Baby finished her coffee, took another aspirin, as the first ones weren’t working, and told herself she was not going to think about the party and Joan Dingham and what she had heard there.

  She was not pleased when a telephone call from Charmian Daniels told her that she was on the way over to talk to her. She knew Charmian’s ways well enough to know that it had come via her mobile and that she was probably almost here.

  But why?

  She put on some lipstick and smoothed her hair. When she looked out of the window, she saw Charmian had arrived. She had a man with her. She recognized Rewley, although being a respectable business woman now, their paths had not crossed. In the old days, she would not have minded if they had since Rewley possessed just the kind of tough good looks that she fancied. He was also just the right number of years younger than she was to turn her on.

  But somehow Rewley and Charmian Daniels arriving just at this juncture did not seem like good luck. Not chance, either. Something lay behind it.

  Baby had her own bravery, she took a deep breath and walked out to face them.

  ‘Hello, nice to see you. Two shampoos and blow dries, is it?’ She put her head on one side as she studied Rewley. ‘I’ll get Bobby to do you, Inspector, if you don’t mind waiting till he’s through with his present client … Inspector Rewley, isn’t it?’

  Rewley agreed politely, but said he didn’t really want a haircut.

  ‘Somehow I didn’t think so,’ said Baby with a sigh, feeling her headache come back with renewed force. ‘So what is it you two want?’

  Charmian suggested they go into her office. She could see that several of the clients were watching, and would be listening too.

  ‘Can’t you talk to me here? I’m not going to be arrested, am I? Joke,’ added Baby hastily. ‘ No, no, come along into my office, it’s bad for business to have the police here.’ How was it, she asked herself, that although both Charmian and Rewley were well dressed and acting politely, you could tell they were police on business? ‘You spoil the colour scheme,’ she added half to herself, although that was not strictly true since Charmian wore a dark grey suit and Rewley wore a dark blue one and the colour scheme of the salon was chic and up to date navy blue and grey. No silly pastel. Pink was out.

  Following their reluctant hostess into her office, Charmian noticed the aspirin bottle on the table. Baby saw the look.

  ‘Headache. We had a party last night for Joan.’

  ‘I didn’t realize you knew her that well.’

  ‘I don’t. I did it for Lou – she asked me if I would set it up. I didn’t realize that she meant it to be here, but somehow that was how it ended up. I’m weak, you know, that’s how it is. I let people push me around.’ She was pulling out chairs for them. ‘Sit yourselves down. Lou paid up, of course. Lou always pays her debts, every penny. She wanted to add twenty pounds, but I wouldn’t have it. Didn’t want a tip.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘A hundred now,’ said Baby with a grin, ‘that would have been different.’ Suddenly she felt better. ‘Well, what is it you want? You didn’t come, fully armed …’ she cast a flirtatious look at Rewley ‘… just to wish me luck.’

  ‘You must have heard about the body of a murdered girl found on rough ground.’

  ‘Not too far away from here,’ said Baby with feeling.

  ‘The dead girl had hinted to another girl at a party that she was your daughter.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just a hint, a suggestion, but it sounded to me as if she meant you.’

  ‘I haven’t got a daughter.’

  ‘No,’ said Charmian, thinking that not everyone admits to what they haven’t got. Or might have. She kept her tone modest, moderate and quiet.

  Baby rightly and instantly interpreted this as meaning: I don’t have to accept that statement, I might believe it or I might not.

  Charmian looked toward Rewley, then nodded. He produced a photograph.

  ‘Will you look at this? It’s a picture of her.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. Why should I?’

  ‘To see if you know her,’ he said gently. He held the photograph up in front of her. ‘It’s a drawing of her.’

  ‘When she was alive?’

  ‘Yes.’ He had to assume this.

  Baby took a quick look, then turned away. ‘No, don’t know the face.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Baby just shook her head. She didn’t speak.

  ‘I need to establish who the dead girl is.’

  ‘Surely that’s easy enough.’

  ‘Not as easy as it might be.’

  ‘You can have whole police teams working on it … Scientists and doctors, I read the papers, watch TV, I know what you can do.’

  ‘There has to be somewhere to start. You may be it. Why did she imply she was your daughter?’

  Baby just shook her head again. She didn’t know anything and wasn’t goi
ng to know anything. That was her classic, safe stand.

  And who can blame her? Rewley thought.

  Charmian took a deep breath: now comes the bad bit. ‘I want to suggest that Inspector Rewley and I take you to see the dead girl… You might know her then.’

  ‘You mean look at her? Dead, frozen … They put them into some kind of freezer, don’t they?’ Baby’s tone was horrified. ‘You can’t ask that of me.’

  ‘I’ll be with you – we will both be with you.’

  ‘And she can’t spring out and grab me. You don’t have to tell me, I know that. You think I’ve never seen a dead person, well, I have. When Di first went missing and we all thought that someone had got to her and killed her, I went to identify more than one dead body. It was never her. I ought to have known her better, wherever Di turns up dead it won’t be in someone’s bottom drawer.’

  Baby felt better now she had got all that out and thought she might be up to going to see this dead girl after all. One dead person is not that much different from any other, she told herself. Some of the ones she had viewed had not died at all prettily, not at all.

  ‘All right, I’ll do it. But if I faint and break a leg, then I’ll sue you for damages.’

  That was the authentic Baby, thought Charmian. The one you didn’t get to see very often but always knew was there.

  ‘We’ll see you don’t fall. Rewley will hold you up.’

  Baby slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘I don’t have to walk there, do I?’

  ‘Rewley is driving us.’

  ‘You’re a good driver, are you, Inspector?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Baby smiled at him. ‘ Right, I’ll sit in the front next to you then. I shall feel safe there. Protected.’

  ‘And who’s going to protect me?’ murmured Rewley.

  Baby’s smile sweetened. She could keep this game up for a long while yet. Or, at any rate, as far as the hospital.

  She was quiet as they walked into the hospital. After a few paces, she stopped. ‘ Why am I doing this? I don’t have to do it.’