The Woman Who Was Not There

by Jennie Melville

  ‘Oh?’ Charmian raised an eyebrow. It was for her to say what they might become involved in, not Dolly.

  To her surprise, Rewley said: ‘Yes, I’m with you there.’ He looked at Charmian. ‘It’s a missing-person case: a woman came by coach, for a day trip, but didn’t catch the coach back and hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like one for us.’ Charmian frowned. ‘We have some supervisory authority, we check, but we don’t initiate.’

  What she means, Dolly thought cynically, was that SRADIC does not interfere. Didn’t it, though? She could think of several cases where Charmian had certainly interfered. She was clever about finding an excuse, as a rule, and sometimes she just pulled rank.

  ‘The case has been taken on by the local unit that works on missing people; it’s very efficient. They’ve spoken a second time to the coach driver and to some of the passengers. The coach driver found he could remember a little about the missing passenger. He was probably lying the first time round, didn’t want to get mixed up in anything, but when pressed he admitted they had chatted a bit. The woman, Alicia Ellendale was her name – probably not her real name, or that’s what I’ve heard – this woman said she was going to have a look round the town and visit a friend.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The word is going round, not confirmed because mouths are buttoned up tight, that the friend is a policeman.’

  ‘Anyone we know?’ asked Charmian. A tingle was running up and down her spine.

  ‘A name has been mentioned. He’s attached, or has been, to the Cheasey outfit.’ Rewley took a breath. ‘Frank Felyx. He’s just retired. Done his thirty years.’

  ‘Have they spoken to him?’ Frank? she was thinking. He’d seemed relaxed and matter of fact when she had spoken to him.

  Rewley shrugged. ‘ From what I’ve heard, he slammed the door in their face.’

  ‘Really? Literally?’

  ‘No, not literally, but wouldn’t talk much, kept his lip buttoned and said he was retired.’

  ‘What’s known about this woman?’

  Rewley looked at Dolly Barstow. ‘Your ball, Dolly.’

  Dolly was crisp: ‘This is what I was told: she is a woman of about forty, probably older but doesn’t look it. Medium height, bright blonde hair, almost certainly dyed. She was wearing a red suit with a lot of gold jewellery.’

  ‘Where did this description come from?’

  ‘The coach driver for one, and the neighbour in the block of flats in Hammersmith where she lived.’

  ‘Anything known about her?’

  Dolly looked at Rewley. Your ball this time, her face said.

  Rewley spoke with his usual precision: ‘The Met, who always know everything’ – there was a mild irony in his voice – ‘say that she ran a small but profitable stable of high-class ladies …’ Rewley did not use the words ‘ toms’ or ‘tarts’, which some of his colleagues mouthed so juicily, but said: ‘Top-quality whores … Had been a working woman herself.’

  ‘Wonder why she wanted to call on Frank? Pity he won’t talk, that’s not wise.’

  ‘He’s always had a temper,’ said Dolly. ‘I don’t know him well, but I’ve noticed that.’

  ‘How did Frank’s name come in? Did she proclaim it aloud on the bus?’

  ‘The coach driver says she named him.’

  ‘Odd.’

  Charmian looked down at her hands; a manicure would not come amiss, but she never wore rings when working. ‘ Blonde hair, red suit, gold jewellery. Must be plenty like that shopping in Peascod Street. Anything else? Any distinguishing marks?’

  ‘The neighbour said she had a foot operation a year ago. She had an extra toe, and she had it cut off, but you could see where it had been. A kind of stump, apparently.’

  ‘So we shall know her if she takes her shoes off?’ Charmian was sardonic. ‘ I wonder what her connection with Frank is and why she trumpeted it?’

  ‘They may have met in the way of business,’ said Dolly, not without amusement.

  ‘Yes.’ Charmian accepted it. Why not, after all? ‘I wonder if she knows Fanny Fanfairly?’

  ‘Likely enough,’ said Rewley. ‘Anyway, we can ask Fanny. She won’t shut the door in our face.’

  ‘It isn’t, as yet, anything to do with us,’ Charmian reminded him. ‘Anything odd strike you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rewley promptly. ‘This is just a missing person; she’s not been gone long and yet there’s an enquiry. That’s unusual.’

  ‘A lot of unusual things going on at the moment,’ said Charmian.

  Their eyes met in contemplation of Fanny Fanfairly and Waxy House. Dolly saw the look.

  ‘Fanny certainly knows Frank,’ said Charmian.

  ‘What is this?’ asked Dolly.

  ‘Fanny, oh Fanny, if you know our Fanny, then you know how she’s given to fancies, little fantasies. She’s inherited a house which she thinks is haunted. No, not exactly haunted.’ Charmian frowned. ‘To do her justice, it is a strange house, with wax figures in it, all women. The figures had a use. A playhouse, a private brothel. It may have been rented out, let out, or used for private parties. Out of use for years,’ she went on. ‘Now it’s bequeathed to Fanny and she has the idea that the figures have got life in them.’ Charmian stopped, pausing for breath. ‘They move. Or one of them does. On the stairs, she swears she’s seen it.’

  Dolly shook her head. ‘Is she mad? Do you take it seriously?’

  ‘I have to … Oh, not the way she tells it, but I have the feeling that something is wrong in that house. Or in her inheritance of it.’ Charmian looked at Rewley. ‘You feel the same.’

  ‘In a way.’ His voice was cautious. ‘I took a look myself, inspected Leopold Walk, peered into the house. It’s a dusty old place and the wax figures must make it creepy. There’s a wrong feel about it all.’

  ‘And you’re not imaginative,’ said Dolly mockingly.

  Rewley did not answer for a moment. ‘ You can sense evil in a house without being imaginative.’

  ‘And you did?’

  ‘There’s a rotten smell about it, built into it.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were such a puritan. It sounds as though it might have been quite fun in its way, not everyone’s taste but not harmful, not like making use of a child, or a woman, for that matter.’

  ‘Take my word for it,’ said Rewley. ‘Whatever there was of fun about that house, it’s not there now.’

  Across the room Charmian’s fax machine was spelling out a message, but the trio turned to other business and she did not walk over to read what was coming through.

  Angela telephoned Edward Underlyne that morning. He did not like being telephoned at work, and he let her know it.

  ‘You shouldn’t do this, Angie, not professional.’

  ‘I pretended I was a client.’

  ‘They knew you were not. Don’t you think the girls on the switchboard don’t know your voice?’

  ‘I made it husky.’

  Worse and worse, thought Edward. ‘ What is it? Why couldn’t you have told me at breakfast?’

  ‘I hadn’t spoken to Grandpa then. And you didn’t eat any breakfast, remember?’

  ‘So you’ve phoned him? Come on, get on with it.’

  ‘Grandpa was very strange on the telephone, wouldn’t really talk. I think he may be ill … I’m going round at lunchtime. Will you come with me?’

  Edward hesitated. ‘Well …’ He had been intending to go for a drink and a sandwich with a colleague. The colleague was a power in the firm and Edward wanted to stand well with him. Also, as Angela had pointed out, he had eaten no breakfast, and he was hungry already.

  ‘Come on, Eddy, I went with you when your mother lost the cat because you said you needed a woman. Now I need a man. Grandpa may need man’s talk.’

  Eddy groaned at the prospect of discussing an old man’s prostate or bladder trouble, or worse, but he liked Frank and he owed Angela. ‘All right. I’ll meet you in his street.’
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  Frank’s house was not too far away from Mr Grange’s office. Edward, having less far to come, was there as Angela came hurrying round the corner. Cross and hungry, still he was pleased to see her, happier for the sight. He did love her and that made him say damn inside, because love was a complication and he had no idea how she felt about him.

  Now she flew at him, hugged him, and dragged him down the road. Wordlessly.

  Frank’s house, neat as always, was quiet. Angela rang the bell. No one came. She rang again, this time hanging on to the bell.

  Edward stood back from her, looking up at the silent windows. ‘He’s out.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I just don’t think so.’ She leaned down to shout through the letterbox. ‘Grandpa, it’s Angela.’ There was a

  pause, then she turned to Edward. ‘He’s coming, I can hear.’

  The door opened and Frank Felyx stood there. He was neatly

  dressed but his eyes were red, as if he had been crying. He looked

  like someone who was moving into darkness.

  ‘Grandpa,’ said Angela, moving towards him, but Frank held

  out his arm to stop her.

  ‘Go away, Angela, leave me alone. I just need to be alone.’

  ‘Grandpa—’

  ‘No, just let me be …’ He was already closing the door. A copper

  did not like being under suspicion of murder. ‘Thanks, Angela, but

  no, no, you’ll hear all about it in the end.’

  The door closed. Quietly, even gently, but decisively.

  Edward put his arm round Angela. ‘Come on, Angie, come away.’

  She was half crying. ‘What does he mean? What’s wrong?’

  Edward walked her down the road, still holding her. ‘I don’t

  know, love, but we’ll find out.’

  Not good news, he thought; bad news always hurries itself, and

  Frank knows it.

  On that same day, after her period of silence, Fanny Fanfairly had made up her mind. She knew that her trio of friends would be round to see her that morning and would want to know what she had done, if anything, about Waxy House. She knew herself to be innocent of wrongdoing, but she was a good guesser, and she smelt evil. She had thought it over and had been spurred to action by some other news from a friend in London. She knew where to go. Or so she decided: ‘I’ll call on Frank … He knows things I don’t. And perhaps I know things he doesn’t … What shall I say to him? Frank, I have news today that disturbs me.’

  And that very morning, just as Dolly and Rewley were leaving, Charmian walked over to her fax machine to check the messages. Among the flow of mundane matter was one item which stopped her.

  She looked across the room to where the other two were collecting their papers before they left.

  ‘Don’t go, you two, you must hear this: a shoe has been found on the riverside near Runnymede. There was a foot in the shoe, cut off at the ankle. The foot has the stub of one extra toe.’

  Chapter Four

  Tuesday

  So that was how it was. They had Alicia’s shoe with her foot in it, but no Alicia.

  It was without surprise that before Tuesday morning was over Charmian was intercepted leaving a meeting by a polite message asking if she had time to talk to Superintendent Drimwade. Newly moved to the area, he was a man she did not know.

  Would she come to his office?

  Yes, she would, and now.

  Drimwade was a tall man with very fair blond hair and a pale skin. Charmian, who liked to know who was who and what they had done, knew his career had been distinguished. He had the reputation of being clever, sharp, yet gentle. In manner, he appeared to be so, but she knew enough about life to remember that he must also be tough and ruthless underneath to have carved out the career he had done.

  She was not sure she liked him, but she had learned to work with people she did not care for and whom she suspected did not like her either. Drimwade was probably such a one, but he was extremely polite.

  ‘You can see our difficulty? Frank Felyx is a longtime serving officer with a good record, he knows everyone and has many friends. We gave him a retirement party, but now …’ He held out his hands. ‘ We have to question him in what may be a murder inquiry.’

  Charmian said nothing, waiting to see what he would say next.

  ‘Let’s have some lunch. I took the liberty of ordering some sandwiches and coffee to be sent along, and I can hear it arriving.’ He opened the door to the corridor.

  He came back carrying the tray himself, probably a characteristic piece of behaviour, Charmian thought.

  ‘Have you tried talking to him?’ she offered.

  ‘Sent a man round, someone he knew, in a friendly kind of way … Frank shut the door in his face.’

  ‘I see your problem.’

  ‘He’s not doing himself any good,’ said Drimwade, pouring coffee. ‘We want to keep it as friendly as we can.’ He handed her a cup. ‘Milk? Sugar?’

  ‘Black, please.’

  ‘From what I’ve heard, and I don’t know the man well, it’s not like him.’

  Drimwade held out the plate of sandwiches. ‘Of course, we could ask the Met for help. They’re already covering the London end, naturally. They questioned the coach driver. But the light is shining on us: we’ve had several missing woman cases in this area over the last four years.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘Phyllis Adams, Jane Fish, Mary Grey and Kathleen Mace; not all were local, all were working girls although one was just a college kid working in her spare time, or the other way round, studying in her time off, but they went missing in Windsor. Names written on my heart like Mary Tudor, and the rest on files … I’m not saying there is a connection, probably not, but I can see why the Met are pushing this one at us.’

  He shook his head. ‘All in all, we really want this handled at home, kept private, but it’s tricky, for the reasons I’ve mentioned.’

  ‘No one wants to do it,’ said Charmian bluntly. She accepted the coffee he held out to her. ‘So it’s my outfit that’s chosen.’ She did not make it a question.

  Drimwade nodded, quiet. ‘We would give all help.’

  While keeping your own heads down, Charmian thought.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

  That was not the answer he wanted and she could see he was not pleased. ‘ Of course, just let me know as soon as you can.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be quick.’ Like now, Charmian said to herself; she meant that SRADIC should do the investigating, but let him wait.

  ‘One thing puzzles me …’ she probed. ‘An adult usually has to go missing for a long time without a search being made. If it ever is. But London seem to have been enquiring almost from day one.’

  ‘They wanted her found. They weren’t too explicit about their reasons, but I gathered she’d been helping them get a line on some characters they wanted to know more about: a case on the go.’

  So Alicia, apart from any other profession, was a police informer. Bullied into it, probably, because of what she was.

  ‘Is it likely she was killed because of what she knew?’

  ‘They think not.’

  Might be true, might not. Charmian said: ‘You will let me have the information you have? Thanks. We’ll take it on, of course.’ She stood up. ‘I don’t have the resources for a large-scale interview-and-question survey, which might be necessary.’

  ‘We’ll give you any help we can.’ He was following her to the door.

  ‘If I want anything, I’ll ask. And you’ll clear it with London? I don’t want any trouble there.’ The Met could be very helpful, and could also be the opposite. Good relations were essential.

  ‘I will. That’s agreed.’

  Charmian went back to her office to think things over. The place was empty: Amos Elliot and Jane Gibson were out, although a pile of papers on Jane’s desk suggested some activity. Dolly Barstow and George Rewley were out and about also, and even Charmian’s secretar
y was absent.

  ‘Now where has she gone?’ Charmian asked herself. A note on her desk informed her that her secretary had taken a shopping hour and would be back soon. Meanwhile, Charmian would find on her desk the latest faxes and a new report from the Home Office.

  Neither Dolly nor Rewley could be reached on their mobile phones, so Charmian sent a message on each of their pagers, then settled herself down to the routine matters, but all the time her mind was ticking over on the subject of Alicia Ellendale’s right foot.

  What a name. It couldn’t be her real one, it had to be assumed, a working name for a working woman, you might call it. But where was the rest of her?

  Dolly phoned in, and Charmian decided what she would say to her and then to Rewley.

  ‘Dolly, I want you to come with me first thing tomorrow to see Frank; we can both talk to him. Meanwhile, go round to Superintendent Drimwade and get copies of all relevant reports, and so on.’

  ‘What about the work I have on hand? The fire in Purely Street?’

  ‘You’ll have to keep that going too.’

  Oh, thanks, boss, Dolly thought. ‘ Shall I get the papers for Rewley too?’

  ‘No, he can get his own. I want him to strike up a good relationship with Superintendent Drimwade. We need it.’

  ‘They already know each other, but I wouldn’t call it a love match.’

  ‘He’ll have to do the best he can. If he fails I’ll send you in to bat.’

  ‘Great,’ said Dolly, under her breath.

  ‘Meanwhile get those reports and read them up by tomorrow. Meet me here by nine, no later.’

  ‘Will do.’ Dolly rang off muttering to herself that she had had no lunch and had meant to go out to a friend’s party tonight. That now looked off.

  But she liked working with Charmian, who was a good though demanding boss. Charmian had been lucky too: her career, although it had known moments of turmoil, had been upward all the time and it was Dolly’s hope that a little of the luck would rub off on her. She was just coming through an unhappy love affair with a fellow officer, which had never had any future, really. Charmian had told her that it wouldn’t work and it hadn’t.