The Woman Who Was Not There

by Jennie Melville

  ‘So …’ Drimwade spoke for the first time. ‘What was the purpose of the gymnastics? What was the room used for?’

  ‘The smell is a bit of a clue, to my mind,’ said Charmian. ‘Anyway, over to you. Open up the walls, go in where it’s rough, that’s my advice … Dig up the floor.’

  Charmian sat in the police van, drinking coffee while she waited for news from those dismantling the basement. The demolition gang, she called them to herself. Drimwade and Rewley came and went.

  Presently Rewley appeared silently in the door of the van. He nodded. ‘You knew what we would find?’

  Charmian stood up. ‘Say that I expected it. How many?’

  ‘One, so far. But there are indications of at least two other bodies down there.’

  ‘I’m coming to see for myself.’

  ‘It’s not pleasant.’

  ‘I’ve seen dead bodies before.’

  Rewley was quiet for a moment, then he said: ‘There’s something horrible here … The first woman may not have been dead when she was walled up.’

  Rewley led the way down the stairs. The room was now lit by a harsh, strong light, in which the searchers, their white suits neat and tidy, looked ill at ease, as if it was their fault what they had uncovered.

  Another police surgeon had been called in, one not known to Charmian, and a pathologist had already arrived. Drimwade had been efficient. His face looked white and tired; the bright light drained everyone of colour.

  ‘Dr Greenwade and Dr Ambrose,’ he introduced them politely.

  The two men of science were talking quietly to each other, but they stopped their conversation as Charmian walked up to the body.

  The first, for there would be others, was embedded in the wall, like an erect mummy. Not mummified, though, the flesh still on the bones, recognizably a woman’s face with a flow of slack hair. The skin was mottled blue and black, with here and there patches of mould.

  ‘We think she’s bound to the wall, or she would fall forward.’ said the pathologist, Dr Greenwade, a young man with bright red hair and a cheerful face. ‘Indications of a belt round the waist … leather or rope. And something attached to the back of the neck. Fixed to hooks in the wall, I guess.’

  ‘Needs time and some skill.’

  ‘Yes, a practical chap, or chapess,’ he added with careful political correctness. ‘Wouldn’t take strength, just skill.’

  ‘Getting the body in here would take strength,’ said Drimwade. ‘Poor soul, I expect she was a pro.’

  Charmian said: ‘ I don’t think the body was pushed through that little window.’ She nodded towards the wall. ‘I guess she walked in, thinking she was just on the job.’ Charmian moved to the middle of the room and looked around her. ‘ The killer has a key to this house, must have. An exit and an entrance, two ways in and out.’ She nodded towards the further corner of the room: ‘Another body there, I think.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Dr Greenwade. ‘And another under the floor, to the right of where you’re standing. In this light, you can see the stone flags have been raised. Burial there would not present the same technical difficulties as the wall.’ Then he said: ‘But I think this killer must have liked the idea of walling the victim up. Kind of medieval, isn’t it?’

  Or a gothic horror tale, Charmian thought. Mrs Radcliffe or Horace Walpole.

  ‘Yes?’ she encouraged Greenwade.

  ‘I can’t be sure, of course. I’ll know more when I’ve had a look at the lungs, but I can see plaster dust up the nostrils and blood around the fingernails of the right hand.’ He pointed to the one hand uncovered. ‘She may well have been alive when she was walled up.’

  A moment of silence followed. ‘Makes you sick, doesn’t it?’

  ‘We will hope not,’ said Greenwade. ‘ I shall know more when I do a full investigation … And she may have been unconscious; the movement of the hands could have been involuntary.’

  ‘It’s not an old person, anyway.’ Charmian had been studying the face. ‘This is quite a young woman.’

  Drimwade nodded towards the excavators. ‘Better get on with it … You won’t stay, Miss Daniels?’

  ‘I think not.’ No good purpose could be served by being there.

  ‘It’ll take all night, I reckon.’

  He was showing her to the stairs and then the door, and for once she was glad to go.

  Rewley followed her out and towards her car.

  ‘There’s one thing we know about this killer. He, or she,’ Charmian added carefully, ‘must have strong hands.’

  While all this activity had been going on in Leopold Walk, Angus Cairns had enjoyed his evening with Angela and Edward. His father had telephoned and agreed that he could spend the night there on the camp bed in the sitting room.

  Made brave by all this, knowing he was not to be alone in the house but was here with two people who were being kind, he managed to tell Angela what was on his mind.

  He sat up on the camp bed, in a striped pyjama jacket belonging to Edward (the trousers were hopelessly too big and not worn), holding a mug of Ovaltine, and told Angela.

  ‘I saw, you see. I know what the person looks like.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Angela, drinking Ovaltine herself.

  ‘In black, with a bit of black stuff round the head so I could only see the eyes glistening.’

  ‘Would you know this person again?’

  ‘Might do … She’d know me.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘I thought it was a woman … The feet, you see. I could see high-heeled shoes.’ Angela thought. ‘Tell you what. In the morning we’ll go and see

  an old police officer I know. See what he thinks.’

  One last question. ‘This person,’ she asked. ‘Tall or short?’

  Angus considered. ‘ Tall for a woman, very tall,’ he said finally.

  And on this bisexual note, the matter was left.

  Angela settled Angus for the night, then went in to see Edward,

  who was also in bed. She told him what she had said to Angus. After she had left him he was worried. Was it a good idea to

  go to Frank Felyx? He found himself thinking it was not.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Final Hours

  There was a message from her husband on the answer-phone when Charmian got back to her house.

  ‘Sorry not to be back …’

  Well, I had noticed you weren’t here, Charmian thought.

  ‘But …’

  Wasn’t there a philosophical argument that said buts are constitutionally iffy? She had read it somewhere and it had struck her as a memorable phrase, destined to prepare you for life’s disappointments. In other words, after a but look out for something you don’t wish to hear.

  ‘But this planning meeting looks like going on to the small hours, and then I have a follow-up tomorrow morning so I’ll stay overnight …’

  Planning what? She was never allowed to know. (Although, possessing her own channels of information, she could often guess.) I have my problems too, she thought.

  ‘See you tomorrow evening.’ She turned off the machine at that point. She was not sure what tomorrow evening would bring for her. Bodies and bodies, by the look of it.

  She fed the cat, drank some milk, ate a sandwich of dry cheese, and went to bed. The cat came with her, pointing out wordlessly that the damp and chill of the night demanded a warm bed. Cats are not selfish, Charmian decided, as she eased herself round the firm, striped body, they just don’t think of other animals.

  She had meant to lie in bed to do some serious thinking about the bodies in Waxy House. Was Alicia going to turn up among them there, or was she still limping round in a homicidal rage?

  And if Alicia was not the killer in black – because surely she could not be – then who was? Male or female?

  Frank Felyx was a nuisance, if no more, she decided as sleep began to soften her thoughts. He knew or guessed more than he had told her. She would like to take him in for quest
ioning and shake some answers out of him. Not allowed, of course, and Frank as a former police officer knew all the tricks anyway.

  The cat began to snore, there was something soothing about the soft, rhythmical sound. Charmian drifted into sleep.

  Soon she was dreaming. One of those dreams when you stagger beneath a load of luggage to catch a train which always recedes before you. There were the usual complications: it was, after all, a bus she was meant to catch – a coach, really, with Day Trip to Royal Windsor on the front. And, goodness, there was the Queen with a dog sitting in the front seat, smiling graciously. And that was Arthur Doby in the driver’s seat; grinning through his skull. How had he become fleshless so soon?

  The forensic experts would be able to explain that quick peeling away of the flesh. She was coming awake. For a moment she was awake; Dolly might have something to tell her from the forensics, although she could not remember why she thought that, and if, indeed, she did.

  She fell back into sleep.

  The Queen was no longer on the bus, and Charmian had once again lost her luggage. No, there it was on the coach. Except that it had turned into a set of little coffins. She had to retrieve the coffins, get the right bodies in the appropriate boxes and see they were named and buried decently. This was her job. She looked down at herself; she was covered in a long black robe which would make running for the coach difficult. If she had the feet for it. Something funny there too.

  The bus drove away before she could get on it and Charmian woke up, thoroughly and completely this time, with that hollow feeling you get after restless sleep.

  A grey dawn was crawling into the sky.

  As if to welcome her into the day the telephone rang. It’s Humphrey, she thought at once, and, with the dottiness of those just roused from a nightmare, thought, he’s ringing up to say he’s dead. Had an accident, is dying. Reason was coming back. Probably not Humphrey at all.

  It was Rewley. ‘It’s early, I know, but the digging is over in Waxy House and I thought you’d like to know: the count is four bodies, all women. Two walled up, two in the floor.’

  ‘How were they killed?’

  ‘It looks as though they were strangled, by a cord in each case.’

  ‘How long have they been dead?’

  ‘The pathologist has to work on that side of things. He’s got a lot of work all at once, but he guesses the last dead was about a year ago and the first possibly six or seven years. There may be some forensic details that will help.’

  Charmian had been digesting all he had to say. ‘So Alicia Ellendale is not among them?’

  ‘No, on the evidence of the feet, they can’t be Alicia. In any case, with the exception of one woman, who may have been the first killed, they were all younger women. Probably, although obviously we don’t know yet, they are Phyllis Adams, Jane Fish, Mary Grey and Kathleen Mace.’ He was reading the names out from a list in front of him. ‘There’s a lot more work to do.’ Suddenly he sounded exhausted. ‘And I need hardly tell you that by now there is a sizeable media contingent camped out round the corner. They can’t get into Leopold Walk itself owing to the precautions that Drimwade took. I’m only frightened that they’ll find the back way in.’

  ‘There is one?’

  ‘Yes, a network of tiny paths at the back through an ancient alley. The alley is old enough but the paths I should guess go back before the Normans … Run over the four back yards and onwards into what is now the brewery. It would be interesting to have aerial photographs to see if one could pick them up again, going towards the river and the Home Park.’

  Charmian listened patiently, letting him run on. She knew Rewley in this mood; it was a mark of his fatigue.

  ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Have a hot bath, breakfast and then get back to it. Shave, too; I’m beginning to look like the Old Man of the Woods.’

  ‘And Drimwade?’

  ‘He was still there. Can’t bear to let go,’

  The cat had jumped off the bed and was scrabbling at her arm. Breakfast time.

  ‘I don’t think it’s just that with Drimwade,’ said Charmian slowly. ‘He really minds, it’s got under his skin. I like him more than I thought.’

  And he likes you, Rewley said to himself. Not that you’ve noticed. ‘He’ll hang around,’ he said aloud.

  ‘Thanks for ringing, Rewley.’ She pushed the cat away from her arm. ‘I’ll be down there myself. But first I’m going to do as you do: hot bath and breakfast.’ She was surprised to feel hungry. ‘I’d like to think we were getting near the end of this affair.’

  ‘It feels more like the beginning.’

  ‘The dead do speak quite loudly sometimes.’

  ‘This lot will have to shout,’ said Rewley as he rang off.

  Fanny was sitting by her bed in the small side ward where she had spent all the time since she was attacked, in company with a young woman who had undergone some mysterious operation either to improve her fertility or do away with it altogether, Fanny was not clear – she found the medical terms tossed across to her too hard to fathom. In her day, you either had them or you didn’t, you didn’t exactly leave it to nature but interference was modest. This girl did a lot of sleeping; hiding from the world was Fanny’s diagnosis. She felt sorry for the young husband when he visited, as he did regularly.

  She was surprised to see Charmian walk in. ‘You’ve only just caught me. Good job you weren’t any later, I’m going out today. Home.’

  ‘It’s not much after nine,’ said Charmian.

  ‘They get you up and out early in hospital. Always did and still do, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.’

  ‘I’ll drive you home if you like.’

  ‘No need, the girls are coming. Dorie, Paulina and Ethel.’

  She sounded smug. ‘Taxi.’

  ‘Ah.’ Too much to hope that that trio would not have heard about the bodies in Waxy House and be prepared to pass the news on with speed. ‘There are certain developments that you ought to know about, but perhaps this isn’t the time.’ Fanny still looked very fragile.

  Fanny arranged her skirt. ‘You don’t know much about hospitals and nurses if you think that I haven’t already heard that there’s been a body found in Waxy House.’

  Charmian looked away.

  ‘More than one body, then?’ said Fanny sharply. ‘Sometimes I can read you like a book. Well, really, it is my house.’

  ‘All right, Fanny.’

  ‘Trying to shield me. Don’t bother.’

  For answer, Charmian laid two lists in front of Fanny.

  Phyllis Adams

  Jane Fish

  Mary Grey

  Kathleen Mace

  J. Birthday

  T. Candleman

  S. Claus

  ‘Any of these names mean anything to you?’

  Fanny studied first one list and then the other. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’ Then she relented. ‘Well, I might have known Kathleen Mace – not sure, but I could have done.’ She pushed the paper away. ‘She called herself something else then, not one real name among them, you can always smell it. I can, anyway, so much experience. Was my profession, after all.’

  ‘I guessed that.’ Charmian too had her experience. ‘What about the other list?’

  Fanny gave her back the list. ‘No comment. As they say.’

  ‘Well, that’s something. Thank you.’ Charmian picked up the two sheets. ‘I think you have told me something.’

  ‘Oh well, yes.’ Fanny heaved a sigh. ‘Perhaps there was a name there that meant something.’ She pointed. ‘That one. But only because Frank joked about it once.’

  ‘Frank Felyx.’ Charmian was wrathful. ‘He’s everywhere. Do you know that in seventeenth-century France there was a man called ‘l’éminence grise’, the grey excellency. He was behind all intrigues, pulled all the strings. I’m beginning to feel that Frank is our éminence grise.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Fanny. ‘Although I haven�
�t the least idea what you’re talking about.’ She looked about her with amusement. ‘One of the nurses on night duty said that she had heard there was a severe risk of infection from the house. Of course, she didn’t know it was my house.’ Or did she? Fanny considered the possibility. People could be so envious of a property owner. ‘ She said she’d heard a rumour that there was a plague pit in the garden, but that’s rubbish.’

  ‘There is no plague in Waxy House and no danger of any infection except of wickedness.’ She bent down to kiss Fanny’s cheek, on which a light dusting of rouge had already appeared. Fanny was certainly on the mend. ‘I’ll come round to see you later, Fanny. Goodbye.’

  ‘It’s the white coats on the coppers doing the digging,’ Fanny called after her. ‘ Of course they make people think there’s something infectious.’

  Charmian did not answer this gambit. Fanny was sophisticated enough to know that the white garments were to protect the remains being dug up from the diggers and not the other way round. Forensic science demanded that no particles be passed around like chocolates.

  Otherwise, what Fanny had said was supported by the crowd at the end of Leopold Walk. Not much could be seen by them because big screens had been set up around the house precisely to stop unseemly gaping. Inside the barriers the proprietors of the three business houses of Leopold Walk were conferring. Charmian guessed they were wondering whether to take a holiday or start business for the day. Mr Bacon was talking away to Chris Fenwick, who was listening with a frown, while Harry Aden was staring straight ahead, not paying much attention but not looking cheerful. In fact, not one of them looked cheerful, and quite right, Charmian thought. Two of them were suspects and one of them was due for some heavy questioning. Drimwade had already reported that the movements of all three on the day of Doby’s death were hard to check: Bacon had been out, alone, viewing a country property so that he had left in the early morning; Chris Fenwick had been working, on his own except for his drawing board, and Harry Aden had only his mother to testify where he was. She was a biased witness.