The Woman Who Was Not There

by Jennie Melville

‘She may talk if she wants to. She’s going to be all right. She lost a lot of blood but we’re making that up.’ The nurse, a very young woman but professionally cool and gentle, smiled down at Fanny. ‘Responding nicely.’

  It’s the response that pleases her so, was Charmian’s reaction. A good patient is a successful patient, one who responds as expected. Nothing personal.

  ‘Fanny,’ she said, ‘who did this to you?’

  There was no answer, so she tried again. ‘Is there anything you can tell me? Anything you saw, anything that would help us identify your attacker?’

  Murderer, she almost said, except that it seemed Fanny was not about to die. Granted that she was an old lady and that the wounds and loss of blood might not enhance her chances of long life, but she was not going to die today.

  The local detective sitting by her bed, a gentle, dark-haired girl who had introduced herself to Charmian as Detective Peggy Lane, said that they thought the attacker might have been frightened away by something or someone before finishing off his job.

  Fanny kept her eyes closed for a few seconds, then she opened them slowly. ‘Don’t know, smell, stink, tried to see … Black. Looked like …’ She seemed to gather strength. ‘A black abbess.’ She closed her eyes, and a faint smile moved her lips. ‘I was one myself once.’

  ‘And what that meant,’ Charmian said afterwards, ‘ I don’t know.’

  ‘An abbess was a woman who ran a brothel; or a procuress,’ said Dolly Barstow briskly. ‘A piece of eighteenth-century slang. Not in current use, as far as I know. Fanny’s a special case, of course.’

  ‘Yes. She was one.’

  The two women were talking in Charmian’s office. Charmian had made coffee, which they were drinking. Rewley was out on other business but had left a message saying he had heard of the attack on Fanny, and where did that leave the search on Waxy House? At the moment, Charmian did not know, but she had sent most of the men away, leaving one man on duty and the search to start again the next day.

  ‘I don’t suppose she called herself an abbess. But she appears to be using the idiom. I suppose she knew what she was saying?’

  ‘She was only half-conscious, but she seemed rational enough, and she wanted me to know. Why black?’

  ‘Fits in with the visitor who probably killed Doby,’ Dolly pointed out. ‘ She was wearing black. And walking badly.’

  Charmian hesitated. ‘The Met you were talking to haven’t picked up any more information about this visitor, presumed killer?’

  ‘One thing more: they’ve located a second taxi driver who picked up a person meeting the description and took the fare to Waterloo railway station. He too complained about the smell left behind in his cab.’

  ‘Smell?’

  ‘Oh yes, you won’t have got that report yet. I heard it on the telephone and I think it’s now been faxed to you. The first cab driver said the limping fare left a stink in his cab … The second said it was like dead fish.’

  Charmian said slowly: ‘It links up with something Fanny said.’

  ‘About the limp?’

  ‘No, I don’t think she got a chance to see the feet … No, she muttered something about a smell.’

  ‘You’ll have to speak to her again.’

  ‘I will do as soon as I’m allowed. She’s not too well, you know. I can’t bully her.’

  ‘Poor Fanny,’ said Dolly. ‘I can’t bear to think of her alone in that hospital.’

  ‘You’re hardly alone,’ said Charmian absently. ‘Crowded with nurses and doctors taking tests all the time. Not to mention the other patients.’

  She took her cup of coffee to the window. Outside it had ceased raining and a few patches of blue had appeared in the sky. ‘ We’ve got to find Alicia Ellendale.’

  ‘I get the impression,’ said Dolly, ‘that although the South London boys are being very professional in their investigation of the murder of Doby, they really think it’s up to us.’

  ‘Alicia Ellendale, where are you?’ said Charmian from the window.

  She turned as a fax came fussing through. Dolly stood up.

  ‘Might be the latest from the dashing sergeant.’

  Charmian gave her sharp look. Dashing, indeed. ‘Get it, will you?’

  When the several pages had come through and the machine had gone quiet, Dolly picked up the sheets; she skimmed through them. ‘Yes, it’s what South London is giving us. May not be all they’ve got, and it’s more or less what you know already … Wait a minute … here’s one last item.’ She raised her head. ‘Here it comes: it’s about the second cab driver, the one who delivered his fare to Waterloo. The fare used a stick getting out of the cab, but the driver didn’t feel inclined to help, having taken a dislike to her.’ She looked at Charmian. ‘On account of the smell, I daresay. We really must work on what that smell was … He stopped and checked on the inside of the cab at the first possible moment, and found that the fare had dropped a rail ticket on the floor. He forgot to tell the sergeant at first. The sergeant thinks he was hoping to sell his story to the press but, being disappointed, was willing to pass the information on.’

  ‘The ticket?’ queried Charmian, with impatience. ‘ Pass it here, please.’

  ‘Return ticket to Windsor,’ said Dolly. ‘ Over to us, isn’t it?’

  ‘As soon as Fanny is allowed visitors, I’ll be in there,’ said Charmian. ‘I suppose Drimwade will have one of his men there, but I want to be the first to ask questions.’

  It was some time since she had undertaken the first questioning of a victim of attempted murder, but she was determined to do so now.

  Twenty-four hours passed, hours in which the enquiry into the death of Arthur Doby and the hunt for Alicia Ellendale proceeded without producing results.

  But Fanny was recovering speedily. She was moved out of the intensive care unit into a private room. She lay back on her pillows, astonishingly cheerful. As she said, a good blood transfusion does wonders for you; look at Dracula.

  And she was certainly not alone. Visitors flowed in as soon as they were allowed. The police, of course, were there all the time, in the silent presence of one or other of the officers of Superintendent Drimwade.

  Ethel and Paulina together with Dorie got in first. Insisted on it as close friends, and with Dorie putting on her act of being a welcome guest at the Castle, they managed it with an ease that surprised even them. Dorie said if knowing HM (which she did, she wanted them to recognize) hadn’t worked, she was prepared to put on her medical manner and say she was head of surgery at St Bede’s. She had played that in a soap and knew the manner to a T.

  They came with flowers and fruit, and although Fanny could not eat easily and the scent of the flowers was too strong for her, she was delighted to see them.

  Since she could not talk much either, they did it for her.

  ‘My filming was a big success,’ said Dorie, who always thought her own news was what counted. ‘I shall get a nice lot of residuals.’

  ‘Hands, was it?’ asked Ethel, who regarded it as her duty to cut Dorie down to size every so often.

  ‘No, no, I was presenting the product. A new little luxury … You’ll see it on the screens. It’s going to be test-marketed in the south.’

  Paulina patted Fanny’s hand. It was she who had brought the flowers, and Ethel the fruit. ‘You poor thing, so awful for you. You shouldn’t go out at night on your own.’

  ‘It wasn’t night, it was morning,’ Fanny managed with difficulty. The knife had missed all vital organs, but her throat ached.

  ‘And so much violence around.’

  Eagerly they discussed the killing of the coach driver, Arthur Doby, in his home in London.

  ‘And, of course, it must connect with that poor woman whose foot was found … now where is she, one has to ask?’

  ‘And now you,’ said Ethel.

  ‘We don’t know that the person who attacked Fanny is the one who got Alicia Ellendale.’ Paulina put her hand protectively on Fanny�
��s.

  ‘And who probably killed Doby,’ went on Ethel. ‘Likely though, isn’t it? Mind you, the police don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Thick lot.’

  The policewoman sitting tactfully in the corner moved her feet at this bit of conversation, but they ignored her.

  ‘We must stir them up,’ said Dorie.

  ‘You’d better work your connection with the Queen.’

  ‘No, Ethel.’ Dorie was dignified. She knew that Ethel was envious of her continuing career, even if the new product soon to burst open the southern counties was only a new form of chocolate drinking powder. Anyway, not babies’ nappies or tampons, Dorie told herself, I’ve haven’t touched those. She ignored the secret little voice inside her which said and too old, far too old. ‘I meant Fanny’s friend, Charmian Daniels.’

  ‘She’s been nothing but trouble,’ said Ethel. ‘I reckon she brought this on our poor Fanny.’

  ‘She’s Lady Kent,’ answered Dorie, who always knew these things. ‘Her husband is a knight.’ Not a peer, not a baronet, nothing inherited (life peers were better avoided), but meritorious all the same.

  A nurse put her head round the door. ‘ You’ll have to go now, ladies, the doctor’s coming.’

  Which was a lie, but she knew how much her patient could stand. And Dorie was well known to her by sight. An exhaustion all round, that one, she thought. And the fat one who had brought oranges and apples, which she might have guessed the poor patient could not eat. Only Paulina with flowers passed her private good-for-a-patient test.

  Mr Grange did not call at the hospital in person, but after talking on the telephone to Charmian, and consulting the hospital authorities (he liked things done with due formality and the correct protocol), he sent Edward Underlyne to the ward with a bunch of flowers, and the orders just to enquire.

  Edward soon discovered that Fanny was now in a small room, but he thought his orders held good so he handed the flowers over to the nurse on duty.

  ‘How is Miss Fanfairly?’

  ‘Recovering well … Needs rest, of course. I’ll put the flowers in water for you. She has another lovely bunch but these are even nicer.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Edward had chosen them himself: pink roses, which he thought neither bridal nor funereal, not blood red.

  ‘Popular lady.’

  ‘She has a lot of friends.’ And an enemy as well, Edward thought, but did not say so. He wondered where Frank fitted into this picture and if he had visited Fanny. Probably not, he thought.

  On his way out, he passed a couple of men walking towards Fanny’s room. They walked side by side like a pair of yoked but badly matched oxen. He did not know their names but thought he knew the faces.

  This surprising pair of visitors came from Leopold Walk. Having discovered that Fanny was allowed visitors, Harry Aden and Christopher Fenwick came together. Christopher had flowers and Harry a bowl of fruit.

  Fanny was propped up on her pillows, resting quietly but feeling the pain of the wound in her throat. The stitches were stiffening in the skin and underneath both muscle and ligaments were bruised.

  They introduced themselves, but Fanny already knew the names if not the faces. The fat one and the thin one, she decided, Laurel and Hardy, except she did not feel they were comedians. The thin one had an interesting face, lined and drawn, but the fat one, although he looked jovial and good humoured, also gave the impression of forces underneath which might not be so jolly.

  No doubt her state made her sensitive.

  The fat one led the conversation. ‘We thought we ought to offer you our sympathy and good wishes as neighbours, or neighbours-to-be. You will be living in Waxy House?’

  He really wants me there, thought Fanny, always responsive to a man who showed interest. ‘I’m thinking about it,’ she said, sniffing the flowers. Her nose puckered; she was sensitive about smells now as well, no doubt about it.

  ‘I don’t know if I’ll be living in it. You know what it was? A kind of a brothel. It may not be the right house to live in.’

  ‘Decisions are difficult,’ said Chris Fenwick. He had a deep, husky voice, not without appeal. ‘Life’s difficult.’

  ‘Dying is worse,’ said Fanny with decision. Having come so close, she felt she was an expert on the subject.

  ‘Your voice is bad today Chris,’ said Harry Aden.

  ‘Just a virus, I don’t think I’ll infect you, Miss Fanfairly.’ Chris Fenwick bent towards her politely. ‘Don’t want to lose our new neighbour before we’ve really got her.’

  ‘As I said, I haven’t decided whether to live there or not. It needs thinking about. I may sell.’

  ‘You’d buy, wouldn’t you, Harry?’

  ‘On the spot. I want to expand.’ Harry Aden smiled. He might have gone on to say more but Fenwick interrupted him.

  ‘Think twice about his offer, Miss Fanfairly,’ said Chris Fenwick. ‘Do a bit of bargaining … I could help you there.’ He said it with humour, but Harry did not smile back. Chris did not want him to have Waxy House, he could tell.

  They don’t like each other, Fanny thought, not really. She closed her eyes gently, indicating it had been kind of them to come but it was time they went. ‘Most kind,’ she murmured, feeling regal.

  The door opened slowly and Charmian Daniels put her head round it.

  ‘Nurse said I could come in to talk to you, Fanny. But I’m afraid it means turning you two out.’

  Fanny held out her hand. ‘Come in, come in.’ She gave the two men another smile but did not offer to introduce them. Her professional life had trained her never to name men. Especially to a policeman. In any case – her experience, again – the police always seemed to know any names that mattered.

  Charmian did not disappoint her. ‘Ah, gentlemen, an embassy from Leopold Walk.’

  ‘Just a courtesy call to a new neighbour.’ Harry Aden was smiling at her, his plump face divided into two by the width of it, which made you realize he had a large mouth which showed his teeth and might not be as friendly as one hoped. ‘Got to get back … My mother will have lunch ready.’

  ‘Oh, mothers,’ said Fanny agreeably. ‘I remember my mother fussing if I was late for a meal. Late for anything.’ She hardly remembered her mother, in fact, and had left home as soon as she could, but she always agreed with men; it was part of the job. She smiled at Chris Fenwick.

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t have to bother,’ said Harry Aden. He gave a little laugh, ‘His wife’s away.’

  ‘On holiday?’ asked Fanny with false sympathy. She was a stupid wife, though, to leave this one. He was attractive and interested in women, she could tell that. Her skin, bones and other more intimate parts of her anatomy informed her of his attractions.

  ‘Business,’ obliged Chris.

  ‘Busy woman,’ said Harry Aden. He made for the door.

  ‘What did they want?’ Charmian asked as the door closed behind them.

  ‘They came to see me,’ said Fanny, not unproud.

  ‘That too, but what else.’

  Fanny examined her hands, looked at her nails, which had been broken in the attack as she had defended herself. ‘I’ll need a manicure. My clothes, too … all blood … Will I get damages, compensation?’

  ‘In time. Yes.’

  ‘Can I sue my attacker?’

  ‘We have to find him first. Or her.’

  ‘A strong her,’ said Fanny with some feeling.

  ‘Some women are strong.’

  ‘I’ve strong legs, good thighs, one of my assets, and I’ve always known what to do with them.’ She gave a throaty laugh.

  ‘Come on now, Fanny.’

  ‘Saved me. I could fight with me legs. Women can.’

  It was probably true, Charmian thought.

  ‘I think they came to see if I would sell Waxy House. That and other reasons,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘I’m sensitive at the moment, always have been, but something like this makes you more sensitive. And I felt that they wanted to ask questions. They migh
t have done so if you hadn’t appeared.’

  It was possible they had got wind of the plan to search Waxy House. Charmian had always regarded Mr Grange as a leaky vessel.

  ‘Funny pair,’ said Fanny. ‘Coming together like that, one fat, one thin. They didn’t seem to have much in common.’

  They had a woman in common – Charmian remembered Frank Felyx’s gossip – Fenwick’s wife.

  ‘How much do you remember of what happened? I suppose you’ve had the local CID in asking questions.’

  The policewoman in the corner, who had sat stolidly through the Leopold Walk invasion, looked at Charmian.

  ‘Leave us alone for a few minutes, please,’ said Charmian.

  The girl hesitated, then left. ‘ I’ll be outside.’

  ‘They haven’t asked any questions,’ said Fanny.

  ‘I bet they’ve wanted to.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be too ill.’

  ‘And are you?’

  ‘I’ve got a rotten headache, and it hurts where the knife went in, but I feel more myself today.’

  Tough old bird, Charmian thought. At death’s door one day and flirting with two men the next.

  ‘I don’t remember much at all, except what I said … Black, you know. Dressed in black.’

  ‘A woman? You used the word abbess.’

  ‘Did I?’ Fanny frowned. ‘I wasn’t myself …’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know why I said that now. I must have sensed something.’

  Charmian said: ‘What were you doing out at that hour? Not your usual style.’

  Fanny kept quiet. ‘I dunno,’ she said vaguely. ‘Can’t remember now. It’s gone.’

  ‘Come on, Fanny. Drimwade is going to press you on that. Your landlady says you had a telephone call. Does that have anything to do with getting you out so early?’

  ‘Oh …’ Fanny took as deep a breath as her wound allowed. ‘OK, all right … the call was from Frank.’

  ‘Frank Felyx?’

  ‘I don’t know any other Frank,’ said Fanny irritably. ‘ He said he wanted to talk to me. Or did he say he had something to tell me? Now that I honestly can’t remember.’

  ‘I can ask him,’ said Charmian. She sneezed.