A New Kind of Killer, and Old Kind of Death

by Jennie Melville

  Shirley seemed to be crying, but they were dry quiet tears.

  “Can’t you manage a tear for Mrs. Banks? You killed her because she was a threat to you. By then you suddenly had a new future, a prize and promise of a job in Fleet Street opening up before you. Poor old Mrs. Banks, she hadn’t done anything but be a decent landlady, but that was enough.’’

  “What are you going to do?’’ said Shirley.

  “I’m not going to do anything. I think you’ve already done something. I thought so earlier when I remembered the bottle of morphine you have. My problem is that I’m just not sure which way you were going to jump.… I think you don’t like me very much.’’

  “No,’’ said Shirley.

  “So I’ve been wondering which glass would get the morphine. Yours Or mine? I gave you the opportunity to put it in my glass. Did you?’’

  “Wouldn’t you like to know.’’

  “I think I do know.’’

  “Why don’t we both drink?’’ said Shirley. “ Drain the glass up. A sort of Russian roulette?’’

  There were about level quantities in both glasses and both women drank them quickly.

  Then they waited.

  “I’m all right,’’ said Charmian. “What about you?’’

  Shirley got up and then walked stiffly away.

  “You were ferocious,’’ said Don.

  “That’s what I got you here for,’’ said Charmian, now slowly turning her attention to him. “ To bear witness that I’m ferocious.’’

  “How could you let her walk off like that if she’s dying?’’

  “I’ve been crueller than you know. Or kinder. It’s sometimes hard to know which is which. I may not know much about writing the news but I know more about psychopaths. The person who gave Shirley that bottle was a liar and an hysteric. I doubt if there was anything poisonous in it at all.’’

  Shirley went home and spent what she imagined to be her dying hours in composing a short but powerful article on herself and her situation.

  “I didn’t mean to kill her. When Alda saw Freddy in his lodgings that day, he was anxious and came to tell me. I’m not sure if she’d really recognised him, but he was convinced she had done. He went to where she lived; I followed him there; he was hanging about the garden. I knew there’d be trouble. She came out and saw him. She knew him then, all right. Suddenly, I knew if I didn’t stop her she’d uproot my Fred from the tiny precarious hold on peace he had and would ruin his life all over again, just as she had before. I hit her on the head with the gun and she went down like a log. I thought I’d killed her then. It was terrible when we met next day. Terrible and yet wonderful because she seemed to have forgotten everything. Everything. And when she really died it didn’t seem like my fault at all …

  “About Mrs. Banks, I think I was mad at that point. I’d lost Freddy anyway, there was nothing left but just a chance to try for success in a life of my own, it was even offered, and then I realised that Mrs. Banks, if she talked, could take it all away from me. She only had to tell Charmian about the relationship between Freddy and me.’’

  Shirley paused, seeking to fashion her justification in words at once innocent and falsely naive. Inside she knew that the blow on Alda’s head had given her immense satisfaction and had been an act of anger and revenge. If this was being a murderess, she was a murderess.

  When she finished it, she knew it was the best thing she had done. She was surprised to feel how strong this emotion could be when she was dying. After she had posted it to her two principal newspaper markets, she sat down to wait to die. It was just about then that she realised she was not going to die. She was standing by the door thinking about it when two policemen arrived to question her.

  In fact, Shirley wasn’t to come out of it so badly. Her article when it was published was much praised, and although she had eventually to serve a life sentence, her imprisonment was made tolerable to her by the thought that she had a future when she came out. Nothing was really wasted, provided only you could stay alive to profit from it.

  Alda Fearon, Jean Banks and Priscilla Duval had no future.

  The short university term, nine weeks, was approaching its end. Charmian had wound up her class of policewoman cadets. (Nancy was getting married and leaving.) She herself had packed a big pile of books to read in the vacation. Don had already left.

  She finished her work and went to stand by the window. The University, like all institutions, would survive this set of vicissitudes and stagger on to welcome the next generation and the next, eventually forgetting the people like Charmian who had witnessed the beginnings.

  From the window she could see a flock of little birds pecking at the ground. These were the same birds on which Alda had commented. Charmian knew now that what drew them here was a particular type of insect the ground was full of. So there were the birds. Behind the birds, insects. Behind the insects, what? The newly turned soil? The warmth of the central heating complex, the food refuse? Always behind a situation another causing it, and behind that another. So it went on.

  Behind Alda’s death, a woman who hated Alda. Behind the woman who hated, the man she had loved, and behind their love, hate again. One thing pressed on another till it seemed as if you could never get clear.

  Charmian returned to her work table, feeling oppressed. She had a future, but where did it lie? Sometimes it wasn’t easy to be sure.

  She had written a long account of events to her husband, but so far, to her surprise, there had been no reply.

  There was a sharp double tap on the door.

  “Come in.’’ That knock had a familiar sound. She straightened herself at once.

  Her husband stood there.

  “Hello,’’ she said. “I didn’t expect you. I thought you were still in Hong Kong.’’

  “I came straight over. Next jet out. My business was done, anyway.’’

  “It was lovely of you to hurry home.’’

  “Do you think I’m running any risks?’’

  Charmian stared.

  “With any young man, however brainy and endearing? Not on your life.’’

  “Well,’’ began Charmian in protest.

  “No.’’ He held out his hand. “One false move out of you and you won’t even get back here next term.’’

  Charmian opened her mouth, but he went on.

  “I’m beginning to think Emily Carter was right for once.’’

  “Emily?’’

  “When she said motherhood first, career afterwards.’’

  Charmian looked very surprised and then began to laugh.

  Copyright

  First published 1970 by Hodder & Stoughton

  This edition published 2015 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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  ISBN–978-1-4472-9602-7 EPUB

  ISBN–978-1-4472-9600-3 HB

  ISBN–978-1-4472-9601-0 PB

  Copyright © Jennie Melville, 1970

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  author of this work has been asserted by her in

  accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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