‘He did, indeed.’ The dog looked up and moved his tail gently before going back to his bowl.
‘I don’t want you to think we sent him. It was entirely his own idea.’
Charmian looked at the dog. ‘I believe you.’
‘Of course, we are mainly vegetarian eaters, he may have sensed it.’ Yes, he had, decided Charmian.
‘What’s he doing now?’ Winifred took over.
‘Eating.’
She put the telephone down and faced her husband.
‘I expect we’ll all have a very happy life together,’ he said. ‘ That was Winifred, was it? Thought I recognized her voice, there’s a metallic overtone that comes across. Not always, but sometimes. I bet she put him up to it. In a witchy way.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to think it.’
‘Go on. They’re more ruthless than they look, that pair.’ He eyed the dog’s length. He’s not sleeping on the bed.’
‘I don’t suppose he’d want to, he doesn’t look that sort. I wonder where he comes from?’
‘Dr Harrie. They came together.’
‘I didn’t mean that exactly. Wonder where Dr Harrie got him?’ Charmian studied the now sleeping dog. ‘Not the sort of dog you go and buy. Animal refuge perhaps. He doesn’t look as though he has a high price tag.’
‘They may have lived together since he was a puppy.’
‘I think they just joined up together and Harrie took him on. Company. Or window dressing.’
‘That’s a funny thing to say.’ Humphrey was just beginning to realize that there was more to this conversation than talk about a dog.
‘What sort of a person was Harrie? You were at school together.’
‘Just my prepper,’ protested Humphrey. ‘I hadn’t seen him for years. Just saw his name occasionally in the Old Boys’ Mag that comes once a year. You always look for the people you used to know.’
‘Do you indeed?’ asked Charmian, amused.
‘It’s human nature,’ protested her husband. ‘ Why are you so interested?’
‘Let’s just see what we get if the man’s body turns up.’
‘Perhaps he was just joking in his note … No. Come to think of it, Harrie wasn’t the type to make that sort of joke. He may have wanted to get shot of the dog, although it’s a rather underhand way of doing it, and I don’t remember him as being like that. No, if he hinted that he was going to depart this life, then that’s what he meant.’ He shook his head. ‘I must say you are taking it very calmly. Can’t he be stopped?’
‘There is a search under way, we may find him in time.’ She finished her wine. ‘I’ve got a bit of paperwork to do. Won’t be long.’
She went up to her office where she sat at her desk; turning over the papers in a bright yellow file.
After a while her husband came up the stairs, and up to the desk. He touched her gently on the arm.
‘You’re worried about the Dingham woman, aren’t you? And Dr Harrie, and the two girls who were killed. Not like you, Charmian, you always keep control, don’t let things get on top of you.’
‘Things are a bit mixed up.’
‘No, love, you’re just tired. Come to bed.’
‘Yes, you’re right. I’ll just tidy these papers up and then I will.’
‘Go and have your hair done tomorrow,’ said her husband as he walked away. ‘It always helps a woman, that’s something I’ve learned. Noticed it over the years.’
Charmian laughed. It was newly washed but he hadn’t noticed that.
‘That nice little blonde you go to.’
‘Oh, you noticed that too, have you?’
Baby, a nice little blonde? Oh, yes, and many other things besides.
He put his arms round her as she got into bed, she was cold. ‘You’re cold and shivering.’
‘Not now,’ she said, hanging on to him.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. Bad thoughts.’
‘You’re not going to say, are you?’
‘No, not yet.’
She began to feel warmer. Sleepily, she said, ‘ Not hair, nails, I might book myself into Baby’s for bright green nails.’
‘And if you do, I might throw you out of bed … Where’s that dog?’
‘Asleep in the kitchen.’ She was nearly asleep herself now.
Outside, there was a soft pad pad as the dog came up the stairs and disposed himself to sleep outside the bedroom. It was always wise to sleep near to those in charge of household matters. Like food for instance.
He had already worked out who was boss in this house: her.
Baby was always first in the salon in the morning to check that the cleaners had left everything immaculate. She had a good team of workers but experience had taught her that you had to check. Nothing was worse for an early client than to come in and find yesterday’s hair left in a basin. And since the salon was not far from one of the local TV stations, there were sometimes very early clients, some of whom Baby saw to herself. One or two of them liked a bit of privacy as well, which was why they came with the dawn and in some cases preferred to be attended to in a curtained alcove rather than in the open room. Both sets, TV or private, of what she called her ‘early-morning ladies’ were always well informed so that Baby usually knew more of what was being said, rumoured and laughed at even than Charmian.
Joan Dingham had been one of her recent early-morning ladies. Even on her first visit she had declined using the curtained alcove, she had said she had had enough of being closed in, and had had her hair done in the open room.
I may not like you, Baby had thought, and I don’t, but you are brave. Tough too, to have done what she had done, lived through the punishment years, and now come out into the daylight. It might be dangerous daylight, there were plenty in the world outside who were full of ill will towards her.
Lou, too, usually came early, but this was because for years she had worked in the offices of a local firm not far from Baby’s salon and could have her hair washed and dried on her way to work. She too valued the fact that the salon was almost empty at that time. In the early years she had been shy about showing her face because she was Joan’s sister, but she had got bolder.
No one had ever asked Pip what he had endured as the son of a killer, it was simply recognized that he had to endure it. He couldn’t hide, life always found you out in the end. So he had survived, treating life cautiously, waiting from day to day to see where it bit next. Baby knew that Lou had supported him through all this and that they loved each other.
‘Poor kid has no mother and no father,’ Lou said over some coffee as her hair was being dried that morning. ‘Not to count, with Joanie in prison and his father off into outer space for all I know, disappeared before he was born. Never seen again. So it’s all been up to me.’
‘You’ve done a good job, Lou,’ Baby said. Give credit where credit is due was a law with her.
She had to stop then because the phone rang.
‘Hello Charmian. Want to make an appointment?’
Lou listened.
‘Right, let me look in the book. This morning, about nine. Let me know, if you can, if you have to cancel.’ A long acquaintance with Charmian had taught Baby that she often did have to cancel. ‘I’ve got some lovely new colours … Yes, I have got green, but I don’t think it’s quite you.’ She went back to Lou. ‘People always surprise you, there she is, that lovely lady, no longer quite young, asking about green nail varnish …’ She shook her head.
Lou looked at her own nails, immaculate but unpainted. ‘Prefer natural myself … Have you still got Diana with you?’
Baby admitted cautiously that she had. ‘Can’t turn her out, not yet.’
‘What’s she up to?’
What she’s up to is dying, Baby wanted to say, but instead she just gave a shrug. ‘Who knows? Nothing.’
‘Oh, come on, you know she’s always up to something.’
‘Nothing she’s told me about.’ This was not quite t
rue. Baby passed over their joke about staging a robbery which Diana might have been serious about.
‘She’s always short of money,’ said Lou.
‘Yes, but who isn’t?’
Lou was silent while Baby put the final touches to her hair, and sprayed it with lacquer. ‘She’s been in touch with Joan.’
‘I thought she had.’
‘Joan doesn’t like her, and that’s an understatement.’
‘I don’t know why. They’ve got a lot in common.’ Not something you should say to Joanie’s sister, but there, she’d said it.
‘Diana told Joan she was going to write a book about her. Her crimes, her guilt and her life. Very publishable. Diana said she was going to include a chapter about herself but it was mostly to be about Joan and Rhos. She said she knew something that had been a secret and she was going to put it in the book. That would be the selling point. It would make a great deal of money.’
‘I suppose it would.’
‘No suppose about it: serial rights, TV rights, film rights, and possibly foreign sales. Joan was furious …’
‘Seems reasonable.’
‘She was planning a book herself, she wants the money for Pip. It’s why she wants to do this university course, so she’ll write a good book, not just popular trash. She thinks that Diana chummed up with her when they were inside together for a bit to get information.’
‘Sounds like Di,’ Baby admitted, there was nothing altruistic about Di. Diana was dying, but she still might want the money. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because Diana says she knows a lot that never came out, more than Joan has ever admitted, and she’s going to put it into the book.’
‘How could Diana know more than Joan?’
‘Perhaps she does know something,’ said Lou, ‘ or she may just have a good imagination.’
‘Sounds dangerous,’ said Baby lightly.
‘Could be. You and I have been good friends, Baby, haven’t we?’
Baby nodded without saying anything. Was she a friend?
‘I’ll tell you something that I wouldn’t tell anyone else: Joan is angry but she’s also frightened. Think about that and what it means.’ She stood up. ‘You’ve got my hair just right. Thanks.’ She picked up her bag. ‘Look, do try to tell Diana to back off.’
Baby put out her hand and gripped Lou’s arm. ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, don’t just go. What do you mean?’
‘Just warn Diana.’
And Lou was off, out of the salon and into her car. She gave Baby a wave as she drove off.
Baby went back into the salon, heated up what was left of the coffee, then sat down to consider what had gone on. The salon was beginning to fill as more of her assistants came into work, gossiping and laughing, and the first clients arrived. Bobby had the morning off.
‘Hello, Megs,’ she said as the top stylist hung up her coat and prepared to start work. Megs was christened Cressida but years of being called Mustard and Cress had forced her to change her name.
‘Isn’t it a lovely day?’ Megs was touching up her eyeshadow, red was the new colour this season which gave her a flushed look as if she had been in a fight. She was reputed to be a good fighter and at least one lover had crawled away to nurse a broken nose.
Baby looked out of the window. ‘It’s raining,’ she said morosely.
‘I know,’ said Megs, ‘but I’m happy.’ She stared out of the window at the rain, now pouring down with hail as well. ‘Fucking lovely, isn’t it? Rain on a bare bottom.’
Baby sat up straight and glared at her. Baby was broadminded about what her stylists did in their spare time (she worked them so hard that they had precious little energy left, but Megs had stamina), but at work they were expected to be ladies. Like air hostesses.
‘Watch your tongue, Megs.’
‘I’ll wash my mouth out with hair mousse,’ said Megs with a giggle. She wriggled into her pretty grey overall and sped off, favourite ivory-handled hair brush in hand. ‘What I do with that brush in my own time is my own business,’ she said over her shoulder.
‘Mind your step, Megs,’ Baby called after her.
She would like to have given Megs notice to leave on the spot (and not for the first time), but Megs was surprisingly popular with many clients, and not, as might have been expected, with some of the men who came in, but with the elderly women. Megs and a blue rinse seemed to meld.
Baby finished her coffee, making the decision to talk to Diana, and then talk to Charmian Daniels when she came in for her manicure. She always found a talk with Charmian restored her sense of humour.
‘Laugh at the black patches, girl,’ she instructed herself as she went up the stairs to her flat. ‘That’s what you’ve always done and that’s what gets you through.’
And if it wasn’t strictly true, you could always have a good laugh on the way.
‘Di?’ she called. No answer. Which meant nothing. Diana never answered unless it suited her. She was in the bedroom applying eyeliner. No sign of her packing and going away, Baby noted. In fact it looked more like she was settling in.
‘Sorry I couldn’t answer. No can do when putting on liner … Get it all crooked.’
Baby gave a closer look. ‘ What colour is it?’
‘Gold. I reckon I deserve gold.’
‘I heard from Lou that you are out to get gold too.’
Di gave her a sharp look. ‘So what did she say? No, don’t tell me, I can guess. That sister others is paranoid, you know that. Joan’s killed before. Do it again, I daresay, if she got the chance. I suppose you can get a taste for it.’
‘So you’re not going to write a book about her?’
‘Is that what Lou said? Joanie will have fed her that line. She hates me, you know. Nothing to do with any book. I’ll tell you what it is: where we were, in prison, you had to take sex where you could get it, and I turned her down. She couldn’t forgive me.’
Baby looked at the half-made-up face with one eyelid decorated with a hoop of gold and the other naked.
‘If you say so.’
‘I do say so.’ Di grinned. ‘And I had better luck than she did. Every single time.’
Baby turned away. ‘I never know whether to believe you or not.’
‘Oh, come on, love, we’re old friends, comrades in arms, you’ve been good to me.’
Baby sighed and smiled. Di could always get round her. ‘Yes, well, look after yourself. Where are you off to now?’
Diana pulled a face. ‘The hospital. A session. I do have them, you know.’ She added. ‘ It might take a long time. I might be there all day, you never know.’
‘Right, I’ll leave the door unlocked.’
‘Thanks, Baby. I won’t forget how kind you’ve been. Meet you in the golden wood.’
It was a joke between them. Once, a long long time ago, they had both been in a pantomime. They had been the Babes in the Wood.
‘Picking golden leaves off the tree,’ rejoined Baby. ‘Happy days.’
‘Want me to drive you to the hospital, the car’s outside? It’s quite a walk.’
‘Thanks, but no. I want the air.’
Charmian looked down at her nails. Not green. That had been a joke, but something stronger than her usual pale pink.
Later that morning she had a committee meeting in London which for once she was reluctant to go to. Usually she enjoyed meeting some of the other committee members. Even if the meeting itself was dull, which it could be, it was an opportunity to pick up the gossip of the wider scene in London. All information was useful in her job. Today though, Windsor interested her more.
The inquest on the two girls was today. Separate inquests but on the same day. She herself was not going but Dolly Barstow would be there, and probably Rewley as well. She would get back from London in time to hear what had happened. What could be expected was that both inquests would be adjourned to a later date.
She enjoyed the committee meeting more than usual, being initiate
d to the local story doing the rounds which this time concerned a prominent television presenter, who was reputed to be besotted with his dog.
‘What? You don’t mean …’ queried Charmian, genuinely surprised.
‘Yes, every which way,’ her informant declared. ‘It’s not that big a dog either. A Jack Russell terrier.’
‘But what about the dog?’ demanded Charmian.
‘I don’t think it’s been asked. But it’s a bitch of course. It’s thought he is hoping to breed a hybrid.’
‘A bastard breed,’ said Charmian dryly, recalling the man’s appearance: short legs and a long sharp nose. ‘A kind of Jackie Russell.’
On the way home, she decided against telling Humphrey either about the story or her joke. He was fond of Jack Russell dogs, had talked about having one, and might not find it funny.
Both Rewley and Dolly Barstow were back before her, sitting at their desks looking industrious which, as Charmian observed to herself, you could easily do tapping at the keys of a word processor and summoning up the internet for this information or that. Were they really waiting for her? And if so, why?
Dolly came to her room first, knocking on the door, then entering briskly.
‘Inquests adjourned. No new date set. The two youngsters who found the Siddons-Jones girl said their piece. They admitted they had gone there to meet her, that she was getting them some tickets for a gig. They weren’t pressed on that, although you could tell the coroner didn’t believe them but had decided to go easy on them. Don’t know why.’ She raised an enquiring eyebrow at Charmian.
‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Well, the coroner was old Lady Ferguson and she’s usually pretty canny.’
‘And the second inquest?’
‘Even less to be learned really. The woman who found the body told her story, how she saw a foot and investigated … Lady Ferguson was gentle with her too. But I don’t think anyone believes she did more than that. She had her dog with her and he barked so she looked to see what was worrying him. She’s a tiny little creature, and the dog is the size of a cat. Hard to see either of them up for murder. I know you can’t tell but …’ Dolly shook her head. ‘Frankly, anyone could get into that area at night to hide a body.’
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