The Woman Who Was Not There

by Jennie Melville

  Silently, Edward calmed the girl; she submitted to drinking another cup of coffee, then she washed her face and repaired her make-up. Supported by the affectionate young man, she set off for work.

  He saw her almost to the door of Bacon, Accountants, waited until she had gone in, then walked away to his own office.

  When he got there he had a few quiet words with Mr Grange, whose judgement he trusted. He omitted the story of the axe and the tree.

  After he had gone to his desk to get on with his work for the day, Mr Grange scratched his head, then had a quiet word on the telephone to his old friend Bert Bacon.

  ‘Just thought you ought to know what’s blowing up. Poor girl, she might need protection.’

  Bert Bacon listened to what he was told and murmured that Angela was a good girl and he would see she was looked after. In his turn, he had a conversation over a drink at lunch with his neighbour, Christopher Fenwick, the architect. He had a plate with a thick sandwich in front of him, and Christopher, tall and thin and gloomy, was eating fish and chips.

  ‘So there it is … Nasty business it looks like being. I’m sorry for the girl. Harry Aden next door to you calls her the best looker around here.’

  ‘He’d know,’ said Chris Fenwick, eating three chips.

  Bert, who was short and stout, looked at him with envy. ‘You never put on weight and you eat all those chips.’

  Chris murmured something in his defence about his wife being away.

  ‘I don’t know how you manage with her gone so much. Live out of the deep freeze, I suppose.’

  Chris said that was about it. He in his turn did not need to pass on any of the news to Harry Aden, because Harry already knew it. The two men met that evening as Harry was getting into his car to drive home. He was believed to be a bachelor living with his mother, but not much was known about his private life, although he was always well informed about other people despite the fact that he was deaf and getting deafer.

  Took gossip in through his skin, thought Chris Fenwick sourly. He had no love for his neighbour, although he did not show it.

  Harry Aden was big all over, covered with flesh and with a lot of black hair on his arms and his face. He walked with a rolling gait and heavy tread. The earth trembled beneath him. Behemoth on foot, but a whizz at the computer.

  Harry addressed himself to Chris Fenwick. ‘I’ve got some news for you, or perhaps you know it already: the street’s got a new inhabitant … The place next door to me.’

  ‘Oh, there.’

  ‘Yes, oh, there … We all know what it was, is still, I suppose, although it must be rotting away quietly. A kind of national monument in its way. It’s been inherited … Miss Fanny Fanfairly.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  Harry Aden gave a throaty laugh that started in his ample belly and moved upward. ‘Yes, the gender queen.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ah well, her trade, don’t you know. We don’t have to worry about her sex.’ Another laugh. ‘We all know the trade she was in.

  Still turns a trick, I expect, when it suits her, age no barrier and all that.’

  Vulgar sod, thought Chris Fenwick. ‘ I don’t worry about sex,’ he said as he got into his own car to drive home to the house he had designed for himself in Merrywick, the colour scheme of low-key white and grey.

  ‘Oh well, right, you married men. I do, all the time, I thought we all did.’

  He watched his neighbour start the car and drive away, before taking himself off to the bungalow on the edge of Cheasey where he lived with his mother, who worshipped him. He called her Mumsy and she called him Sonny. Or sometimes grizzly bear. ‘ Your voice would shatter glass, Mumsy,’ he said to her, fondly. ‘But eating people is wrong, remember that.’ He slapped her broad backside, ‘We have good literary authority for it.’ As if I would, she had protested. ‘Well, you take little nibbles,’ he had answered. ‘We all do at times.’ And some take great big bites. Steak and kidney pie night, it would be, it was always so this day of the week.

  Smashing girl, that Angela, he’d seen her. Shame if she should be in any trouble because of that dodgy old grandpa (he no more cared for Frank than Frank did for him). He’d keep an eye out for her and see if she needed cheering up.

  No one cheered a girl up more than old Harry, he told himself. You stayed permanently cheered if you were lucky.

  Chapter Five

  That Evening

  Unexpectedly Charmian enjoyed her dinner in London. It was always comfortable in her husband’s club, like dining in a soft brown leather womb. Not a womb that necessarily welcomed a female form but which behaved always with impeccable good manners.

  As she had foreseen, her husband and his male guest talked to each other and later withdrew to a secluded alcove in the library (where no one ever came to read as far as Charmian had seen), leaving Charmian to entertain the wife. She was called Irene and she was tall, elegant and spoke excellent English. She had opted for English with an American accent (‘ so attractive for a woman’), while her husband had chosen English with a faint hint of Scotland. Sensible of him, Charmian thought.

  A pretty woman, blonde and soignée. The hair was a bleach job, Charmian decided, but well done. She wore long dark earrings and had the slender white neck to do them justice.

  And she had perception. ‘You are under stress,’ she said. ‘Tension, I can feel it. Your job, I guess, you have a bad case.’

  ‘You know what my job is?’

  She gave a little half-bow. ‘Of course.’ And a smile. ‘You are a distinguished police officer.’

  Of course. The pair had done their homework. But was it truly professional to let it show?

  ‘Yes, a bad case.’

  ‘Do you pray?’

  ‘Not much.’ Charmian was surprised.

  ‘You should.’ Irene was fingering a crystal drop that hung from a gold chain round her neck. Her voice was serious. ‘In this case if no other. I heard a note in your voice when you said “bad”. You meant it.’

  Charmian said nothing, because she did not know what to say.

  ‘It does not matter what you pray,’ said Irene. ‘Only that you do it. The force, the power may be there for you to use.’

  ‘I’m surprised you should say that.’

  Irene smiled. ‘You thought I was an atheist because I was Russian? No, we are a deeply spiritual people.’

  I’ll be glad when Humphrey comes back, Charmian thought. ‘Someone may be doing some praying,’ she said, thinking of Fanny. Humphrey, come and rescue me.

  Irene seemed to think this would be enough. She nodded her head so that the crystal moved and glittered. ‘If she who prays is close to the case then that would suffice.’

  ‘I’m not sure how close to what worries me she is, not sure of anything … But yes, it would be a woman.’

  ‘She might be in some danger,’ said Irene appraisingly. ‘It would depend to whom she prays and how. There are many sources of energy, from some of which she might need protection.’

  Charmian’s own prayers were answered because her husband soon reappeared, his conversation satisfactorily concluded judging by his expression, and the evening ended.

  Charmian drove them home, her husband saying he was tired.

  ‘So am I, exhausted.’

  ‘You looked lovely in that dress, though.’

  ‘It is good, isn’t it?’ Charmian looked down at the soft chiffon draped over her knees as she drove. ‘Of course, chiffon is such a flatterer, especially this rich dark colour.’ Although she kept her eyes firmly on the road ahead, she was pleased with the compliment, which was deserved. She was spending more on her clothes and hair than ever before, casting aside the relative austerity of her youth.

  There was not much traffic on the motorway so they made good time to Windsor. On the way Charmian recounted the details of the case: the missing woman, who Alicia was … ‘Don’t know much about her yet, but I mean to find out;’ the finding of the fo
ot, the dragging into the case of Frank Felyx, now obviously in a foul temper; and then the puzzle of Waxy House.

  Humphrey’s eyes were closed, so perhaps he was asleep, but presently he answered. ‘ Take it slowly, don’t get emotional, and protect yourself.’

  Charmian was silent for few minutes, digesting this advice, which was more or less what Irene had said in a kind of code. ‘That’s not very specific,’ she said, eventually.

  ‘The best I can do,’ he opened his eyes, ‘and specific enough about protecting yourself.’

  ‘You think I need to?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  This conversation is going round in circles, she thought, just like this traffic roundabout. But I know what he means and it’s why Drimwade landed me with the investigation: all inquiries involving a copper whether retired or not are fraught. No one comes out of it smelling sweet, least of all the investigating officer. I knew this, and yet still I wanted to do it. Why?

  Not because of any strong feeling towards Frank Felyx himself, whom I regard as an awkward, difficult man; a certain feeling for Fanny, and a definite sympathy for the missing, presumed dead, and certainly footloose, Alicia.

  But mostly because it was a challenge, and I cannot resist a challenge.

  She glanced down at her sleeping partner. ‘ Love you, friend,’ she said under her breath. In her complicated relationship with Humphrey, at times like this what she valued most was his friendship. Friendship you could rely on, other aspects of a relationship were more volatile, could melt away; there one day, gone the next. But not friendship.

  ‘I’m just going to take a look at the house in Leopold Walk … Check up on Fanny.’

  She thought Humphrey was still asleep, then she heard him laugh: ‘Wouldn’t mind a look myself. I’ve got a faint memory of an old great-uncle of mine talking about Waxy House … I’m not saying he frequented it, although I wouldn’t be surprised; he was up to it all right. One of those old bachelors that Edwardian England seemed to produce in quantity, with enough money to enjoy his life and not work too hard at it. He was very very old when I remember him, but lively enough in his mind even if his legs didn’t work well.’

  ‘What did he have to say?’ They were approaching the turn to Leopold Walk.

  ‘Trying to remember … Can’t recall how the subject came up, something to do with the history of Windsor and Eton, I think. I was at prep school in Windsor. I must have been learning about it.’

  ‘Did he live in Windsor?’

  ‘Great-Uncle Palliser? Rather – grace-and-favour apartment. He used to walk every day across Eton Bridge, when he could still walk, that is. He’d been a King’s Scholar, he was bright enough.’

  ‘So what did he say?’

  ‘More promise than performance, as far as I remember, and then he giggled … He was a great giggler, that’s what I chiefly remember about him. I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but I was willing to make a guess.’

  ‘I bet.’ And I was living in suburban innocence at the time. Of course, I wouldn’t have been eight years old. Charmian was younger than her husband. ‘Sounds as if he went there.’

  ‘A dropper-in rather than an habitué, that would be Great-Uncle’s style. I don’t think he ever got deeply involved in anything. Or anyone. There was a story of a broken heart in his youth, but personally, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Poor old chap.’

  ‘Don’t believe it, he was as happy as could be. And I ought not to be rude. He left me a very desirable Poussin drawing. He did know about pictures.’

  ‘Is that the one with writhing muscular limbs, the saint being martyred with little cupids in the background?’

  ‘Saint Erminia. Probably she did not exist, and putti, not cupids. Putto, singular. And don’t mock, it’s about our most valuable possession and when we both retire we can sell it and live in comfort.’

  ‘I notice you keep it in a dark corner in your dressing-room,’ said Charmian, slowing down the car.

  ‘That’s to preserve it. Light is bad for a seventeenth-century drawing.’

  They were outside Waxy House now. The street was empty but rain shone on the pavement. All was quiet. Humphrey looked out of the car window. ‘Going in?’

  ‘Not on your life.’

  ‘It’s smaller than I thought. I suppose I imagined it on a grander scale. This is a cosy little place.’

  ‘Think so?’ She laughed. ‘ Well, we contrived a dressing room for you out of nothing. Houses can expand amazingly if you push.’

  ‘Well, I use the word in fun.’

  There was no sign of movement, but Charmian fancied she could see a glimmer of light from an upper room which must be one of Fanny’s candles. Hope she doesn’t burn the house. Sitting up, wrapped in her rug, asleep but prepared to swear she never dropped off.

  Charmian backed the car down the road to turn for home. ‘ I thought you’d want to look in the window.’

  ‘Not me, I prefer the pleasures of the imagination …’ He put his hand on her knee. ‘In most things.’

  Charmian laughed and drove home. It was still well before midnight.

  At midnight, a group of three tiptoed round the corner into Leopold Walk. There was no need to go quietly because there was no one about, but the theatricality of it pleased them. Dorie, Ethel and Paulina had come to check on the safety of their friend Fanny. They had just finished an exciting game of dummy whist and sleep was far away; Ethel had suggested calling on Fanny in Waxy House.

  ‘I told her it was a damn silly thing to do,’ said Ethel, ‘but would she take any notice? No.’

  ‘I call it brave of her.’ Dorie had wrapped herself in a thick, dark cloak. ‘Especially as she’s probably scared stiff. I’m glad it’s stopped raining.’

  ‘I don’t think it has quite.’ Paulina was never optimistic. ‘ It’s because she’ll be frightened that we’ve come to cheer her up. We mustn’t stop, though, I don’t like to leave the dog alone too long.’

  ‘He never notices whether you’re there or not.’ Ethel was peering through the glass of the door, which seemed to have got dirty again.

  ‘He does, of course he does. Dogs do.’ Paulina moved up behind Ethel. ‘Can you see her?’

  ‘No.’ Ethel drew back. ‘Nothing to see. I suppose she’s there?’

  ‘Oh, of course, Fanny wouldn’t lie to us.’

  ‘She might have gone home. Silly fool, better if she had.’

  ‘No, she’s still there. She’d have told us.’ Paulina was looking through the glass. ‘ You can’t blame her for wanting to protect her property. It is her house.’

  ‘That’s not why she’s here,’ said Dorie. ‘She’s fascinated by what she thinks she’s got there.’

  Paulina looked at Dorie with inquisitive raised eyebrows. ‘What?’

  ‘The forces of darkness, spooks, possession, call it what you like. She doesn’t think wax figures walk on their own, something does it for them, she wants to know what.’

  ‘Putting her nose into things best left alone,’ said Ethel. ‘And I don’t think it is just that, either, it goes back to the call on Frank Felyx, in my opinion.’

  ‘But he shut the door in her face, they didn’t speak,’ said Paulina.

  ‘They might have done or they might not. He could have said a few words to her all the same.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘What’s going on all around us? What’s being talked about? The missing woman, her shoe, her foot.’

  ‘But Waxy House and the missing woman … That’s two different stories,’ protested Paulina.

  Dorie said: ‘Ethel’s right, she’s got something. People make the connection.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I do, Paulie,’ said Dorie with a sigh. ‘It’s just what I feel.’

  Ethel had put her face to the letterbox, the better to call through it. ‘Fanny, Fanny,’ she hissed. ‘Come on, Fan, this is Ethel, your friend who wants to
know if you’re all right.’

  She turned round. ‘Dead silence, she’s not answering.’ She tried again. ‘Fanny, Fanny …’ Getting no response, she sighed. ‘You try, Dorie, your voice carries better than mine does.’

  ‘It’s training,’ said Dorie, stepping forward briskly. She bent down. Her voice was lower but she projected it well. ‘Fannee, Fannee …’

  ‘D’you think she’s dead?’ asked Paulina.

  ‘Oh, shut up.’ Ethel was stern.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Dorie sat back on her heels, she was the most nimble of the three and could sit on her heels; training again. ‘ I can hear something, I think she’s coming.’

  ‘Oh, please God, it’s not a wax one coming,’ said Paulina, giving herself a frisson of delicious horror.

  Through the door came a voice that was unmistakably Fanny’s. Low, furious. ‘Go away, mugwumps, you’re spoiling everything. Hop it, push off, go away.’

  Into the silence that followed, Ethel said: ‘She doesn’t deserve to be helped. Come on, let’s leave her to it.’ She took Paulina’s arm and started to walk away.

  ‘Spoiling what?’ asked Dorie, as she followed. ‘She’s a mystery, our Fanny.’

  Inside Waxy House, Fanny leaned against the wall, her breath coming fast. ‘I am not frightened, I am not frightened. I will not be frightened.’

  Early next morning Charmian drove her husband to Heathrow then she turned her car back to her own office, where she would meet Dolly for their visit to Frank Felyx. He did not know they were coming and, taken unexpected, he might be easier to interview.