The Woman Who Was Not There

by Jennie Melville

  ‘He could have killed you,’ said Superintendent Drimwade from the corner of the room, where he was sitting bolt upright in a hard chair. ‘ I thought we’d lost you; you don’t know what you looked like, slumped on the grass.’

  Charmian put her hands to her bruised throat. ‘ I’d taken the precaution of having two officers close at hand, that was no accident. And I was sure you would save my life.’ She smiled at him.

  ‘If I could have got there in time.’

  ‘Alicia Ellendale was missing – I was looking for her, alive or dead – but I realized early on that there was another missing woman. The woman who wasn’t there. Caroline Fenwick, Chris Fenwick’s wife. She was spoken of but never seen. Away, I was told.’

  Drimwade coughed. ‘I’ve been talking to Harry Aden. He says that he believes she had discovered her husband’s connection with the numismatists’ porno group and was in touch with Arthur Doby, which may have been why Doby was killed.’

  ‘I think Doby was about to tell all he knew to the police,’ put in Dolly Barstow. ‘And there was certainly an attempt to make him out to be the murderer by planting Alicia’s shoe in the bus station … The sergeant thinks Doby was worried about his part in it … Bringing those working girls to Windsor for what amounted to execution.’ She sneezed.

  ‘Bad cold you’ve got,’ said Charmian.

  Drimwade went on: ‘Aden thinks she was going to tell him, and he believes she had begun to suspect her husband’s part in the disappearance of the women. Maybe she went into Waxy House itself. Aden knew she was scared and he thought at first that she had simply run away, from him as much as anyone. He didn’t like that.’

  ‘I don’t think their relationship was as platonic as he made out,’ said Charmian. ‘I did notice the bed in the shed. And it had been used, even if the blankets were rolled up. If Fenwick knew that, and I guess he did, it may have been one touch of revenge to put his wife in the freezer. A nasty touch of irony. Alicia, poor soul, had to have her feet severed before he could get her in.’

  ‘Aden says that Caroline was a very good architect and her husband depended on her professionally.’

  ‘But not sexually, and she knew what he was from her joke to Frank when she was buying the big black overcoat – for her husband. She knew he was going to wear it.’

  ‘None so mixed up as folks,’ said Drimwade. ‘I wonder why he left a sovereign in Waxy House. I mean it gave us a clue, something to follow up.’

  ‘I can understand that. It was his sign; a sovereign and he was the ultimate sovereign. Like most of these killers he wanted to be known … Possessed, and not by the Devil like the Son of Sam, but by something holy.’

  ‘Very strange to bring the girls down from London. I think we’ll need to go into the numismatist group more thoroughly to see what we can find there. Doby brought them down, for pay, no doubt, and the girls were paid. Recruited in London and he offered good pay to them, I daresay.’

  ‘Half before and half afterwards … Only there never was a second payment; they were dead. And he probably took the first payment back as well,’ said Rewley. ‘And an architect too.’ He sounded sad; he had always admired architects. ‘But I suppose his profession explained his cleverness with Waxy House.’

  Charmian nodded. ‘I realized pretty soon that an architect would be interested in Waxy House. The whole place fascinated him and, of course, he had to try to keep Fanny out, he couldn’t have her in there finding what he had been up to. Perhaps he wouldn’t have turned into what he was if he hadn’t known Waxy House.’

  ‘Isn’t it odd,’ said Dolly, ‘ that no one picked up what a strange, mad person he was? One shoe with a foot near Runnymede, not well hidden at all, easily found, as it turned out, and then one in the bus station. Odd, you know.’

  ‘Worried me,’ said Charmian. ‘But I think he half wanted to display that foot and shoe, needed it found, somehow. Psychosis, I suppose. The other shoe, like the sovereign in the house, both could point at Doby, whom he hated. You have to remember we’re talking about a seriously disturbed man.’

  Dolly nodded. ‘And why did he go for the London working girls? What about the locals?’

  Charmian had a sudden and vivid picture of what had gone on: the girls brought from London, not often because after all even Fenwick did not desire death all the time and perhaps Doby had to find a girl who would travel. Perhaps it went with the moon, she thought, or his hormone levels. Hamlet knew a thing or two about the ups and downs of madness. Fenwick must have been normal, if you could call it that, some or most of the time. But getting madder as he enjoyed death more. Doby must have begun to wonder. Well, they knew he had done, hence his death. Did Doby ever see inside Waxy House with its dust? And did Fenwick enjoy the dust as part of his macabre pleasure? He only used the basement for the real stuff.

  She became aware that the others were waiting for her to speak. ‘I suppose he fancied playing an away game,’ she said. ‘ Perhaps a London girl did him down. Alicia could have told a tale there, I expect. I imagine she acted as a bit of a go-between before he killed her. Maybe she was going to talk. We might get something out of Frank there, if he’ll talk. I guess they had a relationship.’ She added quickly, ‘Frank may have guessed a lot at the end, but he’s no killer, and there is no reason to believe he was involved in any way.’

  ‘He’ll need to talk a bit, though,’ said Drimwade. ‘And I’d like to know why no one suspected Fenwick.’

  ‘Aden did eventually,’ said Charmian. ‘And as for what other people noticed, well, it’s not all that strange. The Yorkshire Ripper seemed a nice, ordinary bloke, and probably even the first one, Jack the Ripper, must have done. He was never picked up, anyway. Unless someone tucked him away in a private asylum. I suppose Fenwick was over the top towards the end. He’ll be found unfit to plead, I guess. I blame the house. It played the same part that working in the cemetery did for the Yorkshire Ripper, triggered something deep inside. It has a lot to answer for, that place. I shall never forget the smells.’

  Dolly said: ‘Smells were important all the way through. Dave Edwards has let me know that there is forensic evidence from both the cabs that Fenwick used to travel out to where Doby lived. Flecks of dried fish glue. He used it to stick layers of extra soles on his right foot to build up the shoe so the left one had to limp. He wasn’t going to cut off his foot or make himself too uncomfortable, he just made one leg longer.’ She wondered if Alicia’s other foot would ever turn up? Buried or eaten in the river by a rat. She shivered. And went on: ‘Fanny says she never knew who it was who attacked her and she isn’t sure why it happened.’

  ‘He wanted her out of the way. That was why he tried to frighten her with those tricks with dolls, moving them around. She was gullible there, but you have got to hand it to her; she’s going to turn the place into a museum, all the keener now she knows how valuable the dolls are, and she hopes to get the tourists in. Adults only, of course.’

  ‘That ought to bring them in,’ said Dolly. ‘Waxy House, the House of Sex and Death. She can’t fail.’

  And the house sign, two shoes, each with a severed foot, thought Charmian.

  Copyright

  First published 1996 by Macmillan

  This edition published 2015 by Bello

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  ISBN–978-1-4472-9639-3 EPUB

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  Copyright © Jennie Melville, 1996

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