The Woman Who Was Not There

by Jennie Melville

  ‘Thank you for telling me. I thought it might be something like that. So you saw who left the shoe?’

  Angus nodded without speaking.

  ‘And what did this person look like?’

  ‘In black, all in black.’

  And this was all Charmian could get him to say. ‘ Right, we’ll leave it there, Angus, but I might want to talk to you later, in case you remember anything more.’ She saw him flinch. ‘Do you think this person saw you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I understand why you’re frightened and why you wanted to run. We all want to run sometimes, Angus.’ She stood up, moving towards the door. Distantly, down the road, she saw Angie leaving Mr Bacon’s office. ‘ I expect your father will want you now, Angus. He’s probably ready to leave.’

  Angus hung back. ‘I don’t want to be alone. Dad’s got to be out tonight, he’s on call.’

  ‘He won’t really chain you to the bed.’

  He managed to smile. ‘No, of course not. He thinks it’s funny to joke like that. But I don’t want to be on my own.’

  Charmian put her hand on his shoulder. ‘ I would take you home myself, if I could. But I have an idea.’

  Still keeping her hold on him, she stood outside the van as Angela approached. She knew Angela, and Angela knew her; they had met once in happier days in Frank’s parlour.

  She waited as the young woman came up. ‘Hello, Angie.’

  Angela, surprised and cautious, said hello back.

  Charmian put her arm round Angus’s shoulder protectively. ‘ If you’re not doing something else this evening, Angela, could you look after Angus …? Let him come home with you? I’ll see he’s collected.’ She looked down at Angus.

  Angus and Angela had been eyeing each other with the caution and suspicion of two animals meeting for the first time. But Angela smiled first, and then Angus smiled back.

  ‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘ But what about Dad?’

  ‘I’ll settle it with him.’

  Angela asked, ‘Do you know where I live?’

  ‘I do.’ Charmian had, in fact, been collecting a dossier on Frank and his family, just in case. She knew about Edward Underlyne. She had realized for some time that the chain of communication around Frank and Leopold Walk was quick and effective.

  But she no longer feared Frank Felyx. She had other prey in mind. And Frank, in his devious way, had been useful.

  ‘A lot’s been happening here,’ she said to Angela. ‘I expect you noticed.’

  ‘Couldn’t miss it.’

  ‘No. Well, thanks for what you’re doing. It’s Angus Cairns, by the way. And, Angus, this is Angela Bishop.’

  ‘Miss Bishop.’ Angus gave a little bow.

  ‘Angela will do.’ She held out her hand. ‘Let’s get walking.’

  ‘Look after yourselves, both of you,’ said Charmian. ‘He’s a good boy, and he writes poetry.’

  They watched Charmian disappear into Waxy House, where she waved to them from the door. Angus saw his father in the recesses of the hall but decided to pretend that he had not.

  When the two of them reached the flat where Edward was already cooking supper, Angela introduced Angus to him.

  ‘He writes poetry,’ she said. ‘Angus, you can wash your hands and hang your coat up in my bedroom. Bathroom next door.’

  Angus, who knew a dismissal when he heard one, prepared to disappear, but before he went there was something he must say, he was burning, bursting with the weight of it. He could have told Miss Daniels, but she had shelled information out of him as if he was ripe and this last, hard little nugget had refused to move. But it must move. Angela looked kind.

  ‘Can I talk to you?’

  ‘Yes, sure. After supper.’ She turned the television set on. ‘Here, after you’ve washed you can watch this. I’ll call when supper is ready.’

  Angus hesitated. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘Where did you get him?’ asked Edward over the fried onions. ‘Risotto, Underlyne-style tonight, by the way.’

  Angela explained. ‘And Eddie, this isn’t an Edgar Allan Poe story we’re in, after all. No, it’s Wilkie Collins: the Widow in Black.’

  For she, like a lot of other people, had heard the rumours. But Edward had heard them too.

  ‘No, Wilkie Collins is too matter of fact. There is something definitely ghoulie and ghostie about this business: I think it’s more Sheridan Le Fanu.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Hours Now, Not Days

  Charmian entered the hall where figures in silhouette against the harsh strong lights cast grotesque shadows, angular and twisted. Waxy House had never known such lighting in all its history: it was built for lamplight and the soft flicker of gas.

  She saw Dr Cairns’ sturdy silhouette grabbing his bag while muttering about collecting his son and getting away to another appointment. ‘Done my bit. It’s for the pathologist to take over now. Not much to work on, though, with that poor little bag of bones.’

  Charmian interrupted him to let him know where Angus was. The reaction was not friendly. A huffing and puffing, she called it to herself.

  She was unmoved. ‘He needed company. You said yourself you have to be out.’

  ‘I have a meeting to go to.’

  ‘You can pick him up on your way home.’

  Cairns muttered something about trouble, a shop and shoes. He sounded both angry and resentful. He was the injured party, his voice said, even if his actual words did not.

  ‘And if he wanted shoes, running shoes, trainers, to run in, you might have to ask yourself why he wants to run,’ said Charmian tartly. Beastly little man. He wasn’t little in size but he was little in spirit. Still, being a parent, a single parent, was difficult, she had to recognize that. Not that he would admit as much. He probably thought if the boy said thank you and ate what was given him, then the father was a good father.

  But to her surprise he stood outlined against the door, then muttered something resembling a thank you. It was only a mutter but it sounded grateful.

  ‘Angus is a poet, you know,’ she said. ‘May be a good one, or he will be in time, and poets need special treatment.’

  As he went out, Cairns turned and pressed her hand; she felt embarrassed, but pleased. She had done Angus a good turn. She only hoped that happiness, if it came his way, would not stop him writing poetry. Poets seemed to need the stigmata of pain.

  She was so abstracted that she banged into Drimwade, who had been standing at the bottom of the stairs talking to Rewley, and, as she now realized, listening to every word she had said to Dr Cairns.

  She took a deep breath and smelt the old smell of Waxy House that had so puzzled her on the night spent here with Fanny, that aroma of old decay with an overtone of dampness. Mould, it might be, but something else as well, it might almost be disinfectant. She sniffed again, trying to ignore the smell of tobacco smoke and work out the constituent parts.

  She thought about that very smell … Surely there had not been a whiff of tobacco smoke on that disturbing night? Not there at first but silently seeping in. It needed thinking about.

  ‘Nice to have the fresh air blowing through,’ she said, noticing it was Drimwade who had been smoking, pushing the stub of his cigarette into a small tin box and looking guilty. ‘No criticism of your cigarette,’ she said. ‘I used to smoke myself.’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t do it. Bad for the lungs, bad for the heart and ruins your sense of smell.’ He looked around. ‘Am I mistaken, or is there an unusual smell in this house?’

  ‘Yes, I noticed it myself on other visits, even a bit stronger today.’

  ‘Coming from under the floorboards, where they’re up,’ said Rewley tersely. ‘You need good noses in this job.’

  He was right, of course. Smells were important in this case, in which Doby’s killer had smelt so strongly. Of fish, was it. Not a good idea to have a cold, like Sergeant Edwards in London. A passing thought about Dolly Barstow shot through her mind on
ly to be pushed aside with amusement. The sergeant had fancied Dolly, and it might be that Dolly had a like feeling for the sergeant.

  The first wax figure was carried out of the ground-floor dining room.

  ‘We’re bringing out the girls,’ said a joking voice, followed by a loud voice commenting on the genital equipment of both male and female models, which was, it appeared, surprisingly detailed in its delineation, only visible when the clothes were lifted.

  I must have averted my eyes, Charmian decided, I never noticed. Wonder if Fanny did. ‘Be careful with those figures. They’re valuable,’ she ordered.

  This was followed by an even coarser request from below not to knock off any of the sticking-out bits.

  ‘Who’s looking after these figures?’ Charmian asked Drimwade. ‘And where are they going?’

  ‘I’ve got someone from Madame Tussaud’s. Very interested, he is. Calls them of great historical interest: Apparently there were several such collections that he knows of, but this and one in Paris and another in Rome are the only surviving collections. He had read about this collection in memoirs and letters of the time but they were vague about where it was. So he was pleased to find out.’

  So Fanny might make a go of a museum. ‘I think more than a few locals knew.’

  Drimwade was silent. He was one of those who had known, as was Frank Felyx; word got around. But obviously people in more sheltered circles like academia were slower to pick up place names.

  ‘And the inhabitants of Leopold Walk knew,’ she went on.

  ‘They only work here, don’t live here, but yes, I guess they knew. Stories get handed on. I’m surprised they didn’t try to get in.’

  This time it was Charmian who was silent. Did he know what he was saying? But he was both sharp and devious. He might be saying it on purpose to see how she reacted.

  ‘I’ve been wondering that myself,’ she said.

  ‘You’d think the next-door neighbour, the computer chap, Mr Aden, would have wondered.’

  ‘Of course, computer experts stay close to the screen in my experience.’

  ‘I’d put Aden down as an inquisitive fellow.’

  ‘So would I,’ said Charmian. She realized that Drimwade was recalling the list of members of the coin collectors club. Did he knew that Frank Felyx’s nickname for Aden was Daddy Christmas? He probably did. Frank might have been quite free with it. Free with a lot of odds and ends of information, she reminded herself; he kept popping in this little scrap and this little nugget.

  Her eyes met Drimwade’s in a silent communion so that she realized with a shock that he was thinking as she did.

  From above came a crash. ‘Oh, there goes that lovely. She’s kicked over a chair, that’s the trouble with being as stiff as a board.’

  ‘Fancy her, do you?’ called out another voice.

  ‘Not me, no, like a bit more movement in the legs.’

  Involuntarily, Charmian remembered Fanny’s comment that she had always had strong legs; clearly good working equipment in her profession.

  She was reminded of Bernard Shaw’s play: Mrs Warren’s Profession. Considered mighty shocking in his day but his first big success, which said something. It was still done today, but it no longer shocked. She could do with a mind like Shaw’s, sharp and penetrating, on a case like this one. She ought to read the play again; she couldn’t remember what he really thought of Mrs Warren’s profession, probably praised her for earning a living.

  Then the thought of that puritanical figure stalking round Waxy House amused her.

  One by one the waxworks were being carried out, each decently covered in a white shroud. Even thus covered they did not look dead, however: a leg stuck up here, an arm thrust out there, and the round curve of a bottom stood out as she was carried upside down. No lewd comments were made as they passed her and Drimwade, but she fancied that they were repressed and would burst out afterwards.

  She moved up the stairs, Drimwade following. Rewley seemed to have disappeared.

  The rooms, never large, looked smaller with the furniture pulled into the centre so that floors and walls could be investigated.

  ‘There’s a kind of rank feeling to this house,’ said Drimwade suddenly. ‘And I don’t just mean the smell,’ he added with force.

  They had come up level with the big looking-glass on the wall. Square and solid in its gilt frame, it covered a large area of the wall on the staircase. Charmian could see her face in it, slightly distorted by the old glass. It was probably valuable; it looked antique.

  The face in the mirror as it stared back at her looked tired and strained, pale, with hair untidy, not like a woman in command of anything. Drimwade, as he came up behind her, appeared as a sturdy countryman, a man out of a Shakespeare comedy. Comedy, mark you, she thought, not a tragedy. A Midsummer Night’s Dream rather than Macbeth.

  One of the policemen conducting the search, carefully white-robed so that the house was protected against him, came up the stairs.

  ‘I want this big looking-glass taken down. Now,’ said Charmian.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. At once.’ He turned away to get another searcher. The glass was heavy and would take some moving.

  At last Drimwade allowed himself to put the question he had been bottling up all this time. ‘ What is it you are looking for, Miss Daniels? What do you expect to find?’

  There came a shout from below. Rewley called: ‘There’s something here below. It needs looking at. Come on down.’

  Charmian ran down the stairs. Rewley was standing at the door to the dining room. A line of floorboards had been pulled up; they followed the angle of those in the hall beneath which the body of the baby had been hidden. ‘Very rotten,’ explained Rewley, ‘the whole area here is treacherous, which is why these boards were pulled up. Could have gone through and broken a leg. But look down, through the underpinnings … You can just see it – there’s a room below.’

  ‘I thought there might be,’ said Charmian. ‘I had a hunch.’ She knelt down to study what she could see. Not much, but an electric bulb strategically placed showed a patch of stone-flagged floor. She could see nothing else, so she stood up. ‘All these houses of this age had a basement … It was probably the kitchen.’ She moved, dusting her hands on her skirt; she was past caring what she looked like. She smiled at Rewley. ‘Good for you, finding it.’

  ‘But how did anyone get down to it?’

  ‘Let’s wait and see,’ she said.

  Rewley accepted this enigmatic remark, but Drimwade, looking over his shoulder, said: ‘I think you’re wanted upstairs … that looking-glass. They must have it down.’

  ‘Possibly. Or moved if not down.’

  Now what does that mean? thought Rewley.

  The man responsible for moving the looking-glass stood with his hand on it.

  He put his fingers behind the gold rim and pulled. The looking-glass swung away.

  Behind was a narrow flight of steps.

  ‘It’s a door,’ he said. ‘Leads on to a staircase.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Charmian. ‘The back stairs. They had to be there.’

  Rewley, Drimwade and the young policeman were crowded behind her, trying to get a look.

  ‘Let’s go down,’ she said.

  Rewley produced a torch. ‘We’ll need this. Let me go first.’

  ‘You go first if you wish … but you won’t need the torch. If you feel around, you’ll find a switch, a nice modern switch.’

  With some amusement she watched Rewley, his hand in a plastic glove, reach to the wall inside on the right of the door; he muttered something and then the staircase was lit, dimly but adequately.

  ‘It wouldn’t do to have it too bright,’ said Charmian. ‘People would see, and that was not desired.’

  ‘But what was it used for?’ asked Drimwade over her shoulder.

  ‘I don’t know that it was used much, but it was handy, a good thing to have in the circumstances.’

  ‘What circumstances?’r />
  She ignored that. ‘And it was certainly made use of to frighten Fanny and me on the night we spent here.’ She gave Rewley a little push. ‘ Down you go and I’ll follow.’

  They all trooped down the stairs.

  At the bottom they found a square, stone-flagged room with streaky whitewashed walls, some patches cleaner and whiter and damper than others.

  The old familiar smell was strong; she could work out some of its constituents now: new plaster, then fresh distemper, and mixed in with it the smell of disinfectant. Carbolic powder, by the smell. A hint of tobacco smoke … At last she had picked up the element that had worried her. Whoever used this room, and for what purpose, had smoked in the process.

  She thought she could understand why, because underneath the smell of plaster and disinfectant was a scent more sickly. She observed that the wall had an uneven look to it.

  ‘Someone has been using the house, coming in this way and going up the staircase.’

  ‘I think so.’

  Rewley had been looking around the room. ‘How did he, or she, get in?’

  ‘I expect there’s a key to the front door, but it’s not the entrance used as a rule by the killer, although he, or she,’ Charmian added carefully ‘ must have made use of it when …’ again she paused, ‘any other visitors were brought in. They walked in.’ She was beginning to build up the picture for them. She looked up the walls, walking around. ‘ I’ve been thinking about that. But up there is a grille in the wall.’ She pointed to a high point near the ceiling. ‘The earth has risen around Waxy House over the years … If you go outside, that grille will be about garden level and I’m sure it’s less rusty that it looks. It could be lifted out and a person – man or woman, as you rightly say – could drop through.’ She studied the wall. ‘Two footholds there as well; you could get out as well as in. It’s not far; this is a low-ceilinged little room. Must have been hell for the original poor slavey who lived in it. Slept in it as well, I guess.’