“You can get coffee in there,’’ said Chris hopefully.
“You can’t drink it,’’ said Charmian, striding on.
“That’s what I like about you,’’ muttered Chris. “ You make me so welcome on this walk.’’
They walked on in silence, better humoured with each other than appeared from their conversation. Chris was always good-natured, and Charmian began to like her more as she knew her better.
“Why did you come here, Chris?’’ she asked.
“I didn’t come. Like the torso in the coffin, I was sent.’’
Charmian nodded. Ambition had sent her south to make a career where it seemed the chances were good.
“But why did you join? I mean you don’t seem …’’ she stopped.
“You mean I don’t seem the sort? I am in a way. I’m a good strong girl.’’ She was amused. “ It’s in the blood. My dad
and my grand-dad and my brother. I thought it was better to be a policeman than to cook for one.’’
“You can end up doing both,’’ said Charmian.
“And then, too, I was delicate as a child. You wouldn’t think so to look at me, would you? But I was. And then when I got better, stronger, I suppose I wanted to do something to show I was grateful.’’
Charmian was silent, and a little ashamed. You could never be sure with people. Chris was a subtler, finer person than she’d thought, and her motives in joining the Force a little better than Charmian’s own, which had been plain ambition.
“So, if you look at it one way, you can say I had no choice,’’ went on Chris. “But does one ever have? I mean you start out on a certain course and you’re at A and you’re looking at B and then you’re at C and D before you turn round. Where’s the choice in that? Just keep moving and don’t think about it, I say.’’
“That’s the way it was with the woman in the coffin,’’ said Charmian slowly. “ She was dead and she had no choice.’’
Chris stared at her as if she found this a puzzling statement.
“And perhaps that was how it was with the man who killed her; he had no choice either.’’
“Maybe.’’
“Oh, that’s it,’’ said Charmian with mounting excitement. “ He sent her here because he had to.’’ She repeated, “ Had to.’’
“You’re the detective,’’ said Chris.
The woman in her coffin could have gone anywhere, but she had come to Deerham Hills. This was not just chance. She had come to Deerham Hills because she had to come. It was a necessity of her death. There was nowhere else in the world she could have gone to … with safety to her killer.
“It’s a good idea,’’ said Charmian, slowing down. For a moment her thoughts had excited her. But where, after all, did it lead? To another dead end. It was a grim joke.
The two women walked silently side by side. They passed a man and a girl, also walking together and talking. They went apparently unnoticed. This was their second meeting; it was as anonymous as their first.
“I’m not saying anything about it. I don’t act as a judge. No right. I suppose you’d say no right.’’
“Many people in history …’’ began Brigitta.
“Oh, shut up about history,’’ he said angrily.
The girl moved away from him. They were both uneasy with each other.
“Not that I think my sister was a good woman. No. I rather think not. The way she’s lied, cursed, left home, come back—no, I’d hardly call her good.’’
“My sister is good,’’ said Brigitta sadly.
“When you find her,’’ said her friend, who was not her friend, who was nobody’s friend, least of all his own.
“See that girl?’’ he said suddenly. “And that one?’’ She looked and nodded. “They’re both police. I know and now you know. But they’re not watching us. Know who they’re watching? They’re watching each other.’’ He started to laugh.
Charmian’s attention was drawn to him by his laugh. Still talking to Chris, telling her again what a good idea she had had, she took note of the man and the girl. They were now getting into a dirty old black car, whose number she observed and noted. She watched them drive off in the direction of Abbot’s End. The car number had been noted by the constable who had made the tentative inquiries about Ralph Smith.
She could see the two talking to each other as the car swung round. The girl was listening.
“How strong are your nerves?’’ asked Ralph Smith to the girl, suddenly. He was driving badly. “I might have something to show you. I don’t know really, but I might. How much could you stand to see?’’
In the station Charmian asked permission from Inspector Pratt to have the man Ralph Smith watched.
“All the time?’’ he asked, frowning. “ You want a lot.’’
“To begin with he might be the man with the gun.’’
“And?’’
“Something in his attitude to the girl he was with is wrong. Unnatural. I don’t like it.’’
“And so we watch him?’’
“I think it might frighten him,’’ said Charmian slowly. “I want him to be frightened. He frightens me.’’
Chapter Eleven
The woman in the coffin was still unidentified. And this in spite of a massive effort. There were so many missing women in the British Isles and she could be any one of them. They knew a number of women she was not (including Rose Chapman) but were no nearer to who she was. She might never be known.
As day after day went by this began to seem her most likely fate. But the police machine still had to keep on trying. And although they might never discover who she was, still they might succeed in finding out who had killed her. No one ever knew who was the victim in the Blazing Car Mystery, but Rouse was hanged for him all the same. You didn’t need a name to claim your revenge.
At this time, the police, dogged and pessimistic, were handing out no prizes either to themselves or to other people. Every case was like a bag with a hole in it. Facts could drop out through that bag and be lost for ever. Every policeman knew this and it was what gave him ulcers, but there was no way out. The hole was always there and you had to find it and repair it quickly while you could still hang on to the facts. If you could do this you ended up with a file marked ‘ Open’ hanging around for far too long on someone’s desk, till the dust got on it and it was put away. Neither experience was exactly enjoyable, but it was a way to make a living and there was no denying a certain sort of person got a satisfaction from it.
To the three girls sitting in the one small room suspended like a cage over the entrance hall of the police station, news of developments sometimes filtered through and sometimes came with a rush. For the best part of a week all three did nothing but check the manufacturers of shoes to see if they could find out if they could at least identify the woman’s shoes. They were a rather striking pair, dirty and stained now, but they had once been of pale fine leather.
The only thing the girls discovered was that the shoes had not been made in this country.
“Italian made,’’ said Charmian, pushing back the hair from her face.
“Plenty of Italian shoes sold in this country,’’ pointed out Grizel. She had temporarily abandoned home and baby for full-time work. As always she looked pretty, good-tempered and happy.
“These look good ones,’’ said Chris with authority. “ She’d had ’em a long time, but they were good.’’
It was one more tiny little fact, like the quality of her underclothes which were cheap, new and English made, and the size of her stockings, which were large, that were building together into a heap.
So far they knew that she was a woman between eighteen and twenty-five. She had probably been about five feet five inches tall, and plump. They knew she had been a blonde (but perhaps she had dyed her hair black or red?), her hair had been naturally straight, but for all they knew she might have curled it.
They were looking for a middle-sized plump girl with fair straight ha
ir, but if they ever caught up with her it might turn out that what she had actually looked like to her friends was a tall, thin girl with curly black hair.
Three hundred and eight missing women were accounted for in the process of the search.
Five hundred and two addresses of women whose whereabouts were unknown to their relatives were traced. Hardly any of them were grateful and several were embarrassed: some were downright angry.
Rose Chapman’s photograph appeared in the daily press at this stage of the search. It was not clear, never was to be clear, exactly how it got there. But it appeared with her name and the statement that she was missing. Unluckily it was an excellent photograph and characteristic of Rose, who was smiling and looking happy.
Charmian saw the photograph of Rose Chapman in her newspaper in the morning, and beyond a vague surprise that she should pop up again, gave the matter no further thought.
The first report on the life of Ralph Smith for which she had asked came in and claimed her attention. She read:
He appears to be living a normal life at work and at home. It has not been possible to search the house because of the constant presence of the mother. An unobtrusive look round the garden and garage by a detective constable on the pretext of looking at water mains showed nothing we could really use. Paint in the garden shed. A gun, of a type which could be used to fire plastic pellets, found in the garage. No pellets, and the gun could be explained by his known hobby.
There has been no shooting in Deerham Hills since our attention was drawn to him.
Either he knows we are suspicious and is acting clever, or he has some other reason for stopping. He has once in this period met the blonde girl (about whom investigations are proceeding. He drove her into the country and stopped by a field. They stayed there for thirty minutes and then drove back.
“Three cheers for Ralph Smith,’’ said Chris, who was reading it over her shoulder. “He’s getting out into the country. It’s more than I am.’’
“You wouldn’t like him,’’ said Charmian absently. She and Chris were alone and Grizel had gone back home. She wasn’t working that day. It was the end of a hard week.
They drank some coffee in silence.
“Any news?’’ said Chris, meaning anything private and personal.
“Not from me,’’ said Charmian, who had had no telephone call, no letter from New York. “My only caller is Grace Chancey. She remains constant. She rings up and laughs at me every night.’’
“Is that all? Just a laugh?’’ asked Chris, alarmed. “You want to watch her. She might do you some harm.’’
The next day Grizel was in again.
Charmian’s main duty that day was to take an elderly couple in to see the body and see if they could identify it as their daughter. They thought it might be their Marlene.
She took the mother in first to see the body. Usually she took the father, but the old man seemed so frail she doubted if he was up to it at all. She doubted if either of them were. But they seemed determined to do it.
“You don’t need to go in,’’ she said, sensing a hesitation.
“I haven’t come because I expect to enjoy it,’’ said the woman sharply.
“I was only trying to spare you.’’
“This isn’t the first place I’ve been to, or the worst. You can’t afford to be squeamish if you want to find someone.’’
“No,’’ admitted Charmian.
“Dad and I have been everywhere. I may be more experienced than you think. Have you ever been inside a morgue in France?’’
“No.’’
“Then don’t talk about sparing me.’’
They proceeded inside in silence. The covering was drawn back and the woman gazed. She took it slowly and carefully, not rushing things.
“No,’’ she said eventually. “ It’s not my girl. Can’t be.’’
“I’m glad,’’ said Charmian.
The woman did not reply. Perhaps she was not glad, perhaps she had got to the stage where any answer was better than none.
“Come on, Dad,’’ she said to her husband, who was sitting apathetically on a chair waiting for her. “It’s nothing to do with us.’’
Charmian walked away. Terrible as the interview had been it was no better or any worse than any of the others. Each had their own peculiar pain.
It was by no means her first charge of this sort; she had already superintended a number of such visits and had heard about others.
“I think some of them come for the ride,’’ said Chris angrily.
Twenty-nine identity visits had been paid to the body. As a result of these visits six persons had identified the body in genuine error as the body of four different women.
Subsequent checking revealed easily that the body could not be the body of any of them, three of whom were demonstrably alive and the fourth of whom had been buried two months ago.
On the next day Grizel was out again—the baby was sick. Otherwise it was a day like any other.
There was a new short report on Ralph Smith:
He had another meeting with the girl. Once again he drove her to the same field, parked the car, and they sat there, looking at the field. Neither got out.
But it was not a day like any other in the life of Rose Chapman. For her it was a unique, unrepeatable day. It was her last day of life.
When her photograph appeared in the newspapers it was seen by her landlady in the house where she was living with her lover. Her landlady, who did not hate Rose or love her, or indeed have any strong emotions about her at all, but who acted apparently without any motive that anyone could ever turn up, sent Rose’s address and new name to her husband, care of the newspaper which obligingly passed it on. As soon as Leonard Chapman received it, he was given the day off by his employer. Everyone was being very obliging except to poor Rose.
Len Chapman and Rose came face to face again after weeks of being apart.
“Oh, Len,’’ said Rose, taken by surprise. “ How fat you’ve got.’’
It was a silly remark upon which to end one’s life. Mrs. Burton, that savourer of deathbed anecdotes, would have appreciated it, but Len did not. He may not have heard it. He hit Rose one blow with his clenched fist on the side of her head. It was enough.
On the next day Grizel was back and the baby was better and it looked as though the hole at the bottom of the bag that was the case was as big as ever and, if anything, getting bigger.
“Still think you might leave the Force?’’ asked Chris that day. Her life and a half was still absorbing her.
“Yes.’’
“I don’t think so somehow.’’
“That’s the sort of thing you’d know,’’ said Charmian, labouring over a pile of notes she was setting in order and typing.
“It’s the sort of thing I’d know.’’
“Everyone’s always talking about leaving in this place,’’ observed Grizel. “If it’s not Pratt, it’s Charmian. Now he’s stopped saying it, she’s started. The only person who never talked about it was me. I just left.’’
“Only you’re back,’’ pointed out Chris.
“That’s the way it goes,’’ agreed Grizel amiably.
“There’s a rumour going around the town, you know.’’
“I’ve heard it.’’
The rumour in Deerham Hills now was that a local business man was concerned in the murder. They didn’t go so far as to put a name to him. But almost anyone could point at one or two possible runners.
“She’s too keen, you see,’’ said Chris, watching Charmian. “In a minute she’s going to get up, put on her coat and go out. I can read it. I don’t know where she’s going but it’ll be work. With me, perhaps it wouldn’t be work, but with her it’ll be work.’’
“Perhaps you also know where I’m going?’’ asked Charmian, standing up.
Chris shook her head. Grizel smiled.
“Just to have a cup of coffee,’’ said Charmian, absently.
Charmian went into Spinola’s, which was empty except for the owner. (If he was the owner. People said that the real money had come from his wife and that her family kept a tight hand on things.) She sat down at the counter, near the big mirror. From this seat she could see everything inside the shop and a good deal in the street outside. Peter himself usually stood here, and she could understand why.
“Coffee,’’ she said. “No milk.’’
He gave it her cheerfully. He was always in good spirits, although perhaps he had nothing much to be happy about with a business that stayed small and a wife who had got fat. Mrs. Spinola was probably the fattest woman in Deerham Hills. She too stayed cheerful.
“All alone?’’
“All alone, Peter.’’
“Not too alone, eh?’’ He always flirted with her a little. He had been in plenty of trouble in that way, poor Peter. Perhaps he needed the business to tether him to his wife.
“I’m married now, you know.’’
“Oh well, that will keep you happy.’’ He spoke politely (it would be rude to be sharp about marriage seeing that she was just married) but without conviction. When Charmian laughed, he too laughed.
“You don’t look well, Peter,’’ she said suddenly. “ Been sick?’’
“It’s been a bad time,’’ he admitted. “ Had a little infection. Cut myself. Something got in. Had to leave everything to my wife. Can’t work in a food shop with an infection, can you?’’
“I thought I hadn’t seen you.’’
“You could have seen me around all right. I had plenty of time on my hands, I can tell you. I was just loafing about.’’
So he had decided to come right out with the story of the weeks he had idled away. The weeks when he might have met a girl and killed her.
“All alone, Peter?’’
He looked at her, and decided to be honest. To this decision he added the thought that he need not, after all, be completely honest; he could censor.
He sighed. “ There was a girl. If I didn’t tell you someone else would. But she’s still alive and well.’’
A Different Kind of Summer Page 10