Ethel put down her cup and Paulina stopped halfway through a mouthful of cake; this was better food and drink.
‘My goodness. Murdered or suicide?’
‘Accident, perhaps,’ said Paulina, reluctant to think so.
‘Charmian wouldn’t say, but I don’t believe it was an accident.’
‘Suicide or murder, then.’
‘She said it would be in the papers … But this is in confidence, mind. And about the search. Keep it quiet, please. Mr Grange knows, so Charmian says. She seems to have got in touch with him. It should have been me first, but he won’t say anything.’
But Mr Grange was already on the telephone to his friend, the accountant Bertie Bacon in Leopold Row.
‘There’s going to be a search of Waxy House. By the police. I thought you’d be interested.’
‘I am. Do you know why?’
‘No, but I don’t like the sound of it. There was something said about antique coins, a sort of probing.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Bacon thoughtfully. ‘I took an interest myself once. Not for some time, though.’
‘Well, there it is. I thought I’d just mention it. It is my duty to advise Miss Fanfairly to give consent.’
‘You couldn’t do anything else.’
‘No. She hasn’t yet agreed formally, which will be necessary. But I think I’ll ask to be present … as her representative.’
‘Good idea. I’ve been worried about that house for some time, you know I have, and wondering if I ought to say anything. But you don’t like to drop anyone into it.’
‘No. Well, it’s out of our hands now. But this is in confidence, you understand, just to you.’
‘Of course, of course.’
But Angela Bishop, uneasy about her grandfather, had picked up a bit of the conversation. In the evening she would question Edward Underlyne and although he would look serious and say he could not talk about professional matters, he would in the end tell her all he knew.
In confidence, of course.
Meanwhile, Mr Bacon, after some thought and headscratching, said: ‘Just out for a few minutes, Angela.’ And he walked down the street to talk to the computer wizard, Harry Aden.
He told him that the house next door was going to be searched. And was he still a member of the Numismatic Society?
Harry Aden said no, he wasn’t, he never had been, although he knew about it and he’d be glad if it would be remembered he was not and never had been a member, and thanks for the news about the other.
Then he sat at his screen and, pressing the right buttons, was soon able to read the local police computer screen and then, with what he picked up there, to concentrate on the Metropolitan CID and see what he could learn about the death of the man Doby.
Should he talk to his architect neighbour? he asked himself. Maybe, maybe. All this was confidential, and he would have to think about it.
He always had to remember Fenwick’s wife. He never forgot her.
Frank Felyx had no computer screen to read, but he still had a few friends in the Windsor outfit, and in no time at all he knew as much as anyone of what was going on.
And he knew that now Doby was killed (and his friendly informant had given him a broad hint that he had better have a good story about his movements), then he was back as a suspect for the death of Alicia.
In fact the only suspect. And they did not yet have Alicia’s body.
By nightfall Charmian had received a first report from the CID team dealing with Doby’s death.
She was not surprised to learn that he had not long been dead when she had discovered him, or to know that he had died from a massive loss of blood. You could smell the blood in that room. Nor was it unexpected to learn that the forensic evidence suggested he had not struggled. Or not much. Taken unawares, they thought.
But she was surprised that the neighbour next door had said that she had seen a woman calling on the house early that morning and that the woman had a bad limp.
No, worse. More of a hop, skip and a jump with the help of a stout stick.
Part Two
The Woman Who Was There
Chapter Eight
Thursday
Evidence, on tape, delivered to Charmian Daniels, Head of SRADIC, in Windsor.
This is the evidence of Jean Barley, widow, aged fifty-eight, living at number five, Draper Street.
I live next door to where the killing took place. Number five, as numbers go that way, is near the top of street, with a good view of it all. I live on the top-floor front. Since I am disabled, I sit at the window a good deal, just looking out and waiting for things to happen.
No, I cannot move without help. My home help comes in twice a day, to get me up and put me to bed. Meals on Wheels gives me my dinner. Yes, I have got a wheelchair in which I can be wheeled around to the bathroom but I cannot get into it on my own … Well, as to what you are suggesting, I have to wait. You learn to manage. Anyway, I’m not allowed to drink much, and believe me sitting around all day is constipating to say the least, so the trouble is all the other way.
Yes, I do read a good deal. I was a librarian before my troubles, but I keep an eye on the road. Not much gets past me. For instance, I saw you arrive, Sergeant, and I think you slipped in the mud and fell over. That patch of pavement always seems to be perilous.
You swore, too, if I’m not mistaken. Yes, I notice things.
This morning I was sitting at the window, I had had my breakfast and I was reading The Times and listening to the radio.
Yes, indeed, as well as looking out of the window I can do three things at once.
It was after ten-thirty. I can tell from the radio programme I was listening to – it is a programme for women and always starts at that hour. You can find it in the radio programme in the paper if you wish to check. The programme was about abortion and the rights of women: it very often is. You believe me, right.
It was the last item before the news on the hour, so it would be about ten to eleven. In the morning, of course in the morning. Do you think I don’t know night from day? I know you have to check and be careful, but this is ridiculous. In fact, I think you’re doing it on purpose to throw me.
I looked out of the window to see a taxi drawing up, and this woman getting out.
Long black dress, long full coat over that, and a scarf over the head … No, it didn’t look odd, they all dress like that now. No, I couldn’t see her face.
But I could see the way she walked … hopped, really, dragging herself along, poor soul. With a walking stick, too.
And she went in next door. No, I didn’t see her leave, because my niece came in then and various personal matters were attended to.
No, my niece saw nothing, but you can ask her. I’ll give you her address: Mrs Armstrong, three Chancellor Road, Lewisham, and it’s very good of her to come as often as she does because it’s quite a bus ride. I pay, of course.
Yes, the woman in black could summon another taxi, there’s a rank not far away, and she may have had a mobile phone, many people do have. And anyway, there’s a telephone box not many yards down the road.
That is what I saw. I swear it.
A comment added on the tape by the Sergeant: WPC Mary Carter was with me at this interview, and both of us believed the witness. She seemed an accurate and honest observer. Mary says she knows her and it is well known that she sees everything.
A real turn-up this, isn’t it?
Chapter Nine
Thursday and Onwards
Charmian set up her plans like a military operation. She asked Drimwade to provide her with a search party and equipment. It might be necessary to lay on strong lighting, so she would also need an electrician with his gear. Distantly she felt she could hear a cross Superintendent Drimwade gnashing his teeth and complaining about the expenditure. They would have to negotiate the budget, sharing it between them, always difficult.
And she told Rewley she would want him there. Mr Grange, Fanny’s solicitor, h
ad requested that he should attend, and Fanny took it for granted that she should. Dolly was to stay in the office and receive and collate such news as should come through. It was sparse at the moment. She could not say she was being kept in the dark, but there was a feeling of things being held back.
To Dolly, Charmian said: ‘Find out how she got to the house.’
‘Well, we know it was a taxi. No news in that.’
‘They must know more by now. Where the taxi came from, where the passenger was picked up. They must have got the driver by now. Make them say. I get a whiff of obstruction in the air.’
Can obstruction smell? Dolly asked herself, but early next morning she did what the boss wanted. Amos and Jane were out of the office, dealing with all those cases that Charmian had, for the moment, put aside. They were biding their time, hoping to pull in a big result (say on the Ambrodine Fraud case) so that they could say to Charmian, look what we did while you were otherwise occupied.
Dolly was on the telephone early in the morning, well before nine o’clock, trying to contact Sergeant Edwards. After some difficulty – where was he? – she got him.
She recognized his cheerful, give-nothing-away style.
Oh yes, they’d interviewed the taxi driver. As a matter of fact, he’d done so himself. The man had come forward. What he had to say was simple: he had picked up the passenger at New Cross Gate station. Having just dropped a fare there, he was glad to pick up another at the unlikely spot.
Dolly was thoughtful. ‘Did he wait and take her back?’
‘No, another bloke got that job. He sounded pleased.’
‘Why?’ asked Dolly.
‘The first driver said there was a stink in the cab … Like someone dying in slow time.’
‘Quite a description.’
‘He was that sort of chap. Some cab drivers get that way, it’s life on the road that does it.’
‘And what about the return trip?’
‘We haven’t traced that driver yet, but we will. It’s early days.’
‘Try harder,’ said Dolly; she was beginning to like the sergeant.
‘Come up and help me. My guess is that she rang from the box down the road and got the local car hire … The number’s in the box.’
‘Haven’t you asked?’
‘Of course. They’re asking their drivers as they log in—’
‘They keep records of calls, I presume.’
‘Not as carefully as they ought to,’ he said regretfully. ‘Come up and have a word … Of course, it might not be them. There’s another outfit used a lot round here with a base at Waterloo. Now meet me there; we can attack them together and then we can have a meal. There’s a couple of nice little eating places I know.’
‘Let me know when you have a result,’ said Dolly with a laugh, putting down the telephone.
‘Will do, a pleasure … And you’ll let me know if you have any useful thoughts about the coin collection business.’ He got it in quick before she rang off.
So he had noticed, Dolly thought. Clever bugger. She might go and have a meal if the opportunity arose. He seemed interesting and her life felt very empty at the moment.
And she had to admit that if the London end was being canny with information about the murder of Doby, she and Charmian had kept their tongues quiet too.
Mostly Charmian, she told herself; her responsibility.
Late morning, still busy when the telephone rang, she felt like ignoring it; but, ever dutiful, she picked it up. She had had a bad cold for days now and she was sneezing as she did so. For a second or so her sneezes kept time with the telephone rings. ‘Hello. Inspector Barstow,’ she said, her voice husky.
Fanny was not an early riser, as most of her friends knew, so she was surprised but not displeased to be called to the telephone at an hour that felt like dawn to her. In fact it was between eight and nine o’clock. Definitely dawn time to her.
Her landlady banged on her door and said there was a call for her, and to hurry on down, please.
Fanny had no telephone in her room, so any calls received or made had to go through the more-or-less public telephone in the hall downstairs. There was a box and you were trusted to pay for your calls … Fanny was very honest. She had made up her mind that when she sold Waxy House, then she would buy herself a mobile phone. She fancied the idea of lying in bed making a call – most of her life had been centred on bed, and she saw no reason to change her ways.
She thought it was Mr Grange. She knew he wanted to see her and she had an appointment. She guessed he got up early; businessmen did, didn’t they?
‘Hello … Oh, is that you, Frank? I didn’t recognize you at first.’
Frank said he wondered if she would come to have breakfast with him. He wanted to talk, something he had to tell her.
‘Oh, can’t you do it now, Frank? You do sound bad …’
No, he wasn’t ill, a bit upset, perhaps, he had had some bad news …
Neither of them mentioned the death of Arthur Doby of which Fanny was aware but preferred to ignore.
‘The Peacock Hotel? Yes, OK, then.’ The Peacock was a luxury hotel into which Fanny rarely ventured. ‘Just give me time to get dressed.’
It was raining hard when she emerged. She held up her umbrella, put her head down into the nasty wind that was whipping up, and turned towards the Peacock. She was planning her breakfast. Orange juice, coffee and cream, an omelette, perhaps; she had heard the Peacock did great omelettes, and then a croissant or two. Fanny liked her food.
She stepped along happily. She liked Frank, even if she didn’t always trust him. You couldn’t trust a policeman, could you? And he was certainly behaving oddly. But she had learnt to be open minded about men: you had to take them as you found them, and take what was offered. Even if it was only breakfast.
She turned the corner, past the big supermarket, which was just opening for the day, crossed its car park and went past the narrow alley next to it.
The Peacock was very close, she could see the roof.
As she got to the opening of the alley a hand was clamped over her mouth and she was pulled backwards into the dark passage.
Her umbrella fell away as Fanny struggled. She kicked with her feet, twisting and pushing, desperate to get free or at least get a look at her attacker.
‘No breakfast for you today, Fanny,’ murmured a voice. ‘You’ll be a bloody corpse lying here in the alley. Better to have done it in the house, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.’
Fanny kicked hard with her high-heeled shoes.
‘Bitch,’ came the murmur in her ear, ‘ but now comes the knife.’
Mr Grange and Charmian waited for Fanny in Grange’s office. They waited; Fanny was late.
She was very late.
Presently, it came to them that she was too late.
Edward Underlyne, who had been working outside, brought in coffee. Sexism was not accepted in the Grange office; the staff made the coffee and carried it around on a strict rota. The only person exempt was Grange himself – sexism was not allowed but concession was made to ownership. Mr Grange was the senior partner. Indeed, the only active partner. The others, T. Grange and B. Grange, were either sleeping or dead. W. H. (William Harry) Grange was the one who counted.
Edward handed Charmian her cup of coffee and offered her sugar, which she refused but with a smile. He was a good-looking lad and he knew it; he was used to getting smiles from ladies of all ages. He thought she was attractive and smiled back, but he would have done that anyway, being a polite boy. He knew who she was, because Angela had talked about her. He wondered if he ought to tell her that Angela was very worried about her grandfather, Frank Felyx, who seemed to be drinking too much and eating too little. But he didn’t speak. Not really the occasion.
Presently he was back. ‘Telephone call for you, Miss Daniels.’ He knew she was Her Ladyship, but he also knew not to call her Lady Kent, since she did not use the title professionally.
Charmian was
surprised. ‘For me? Here?’
William Grange pushed forward his own telephone. ‘ You can take it here, or private elsewhere.’
‘I’ll take it here.’ She grabbed the receiver. Grange gave Edward a nod. ‘Switch it through.’
It was Dolly Barstow, with a short, quick message. ‘ Fanny Fanfairly has been found with stab wounds in an alley just off the town centre. She’s in the Slough Road Hospital and her condition is poor.’
‘Who found her?’
‘A postman taking a short cut home after his morning delivery. Otherwise she might be dead already. She’s lost a lot of blood.’
‘Thanks, Dolly. I’ll get round there.’ Charmian looked at Mr Grange. Better take him too – there might be a need for a last will and testament. Alicia Ellendale, Arthur Doby, and now Fanny. This looked like
being one death too many.
Except that perhaps Alicia was not dead after all.
Fanny lay quietly in the intensive care unit of the Slough Road Hospital.
The hospital was a large brick building which had been built as a workhouse by Victorian philanthropists. It had been constructed solidly and it would have cost more to knock it down than it had done to reconstruct the inside. It had been cleaned, repainted and new wards had been added. Recently it had received a great deal of expensive new equipment, but its past was not forgotten by the locals, who did not like it as much as they should have done. The intensive care unit was highly rated within the profession.
Fanny was hooked up to various tubes; she was one among several others, equally quiet. Not the only casualty of life. She had her eyes closed but as Charmian came up to the bed, she opened them. Her lips parted as if she wished to say something, but nothing came out.
Charmian took her hand gently. ‘All right, Fanny, don’t try to talk. Don’t do anything that you don’t feel up to.’ She turned, towards the nurse who had come in with her.
The Woman Who Was Not There Page 13