The Morbid Kitchen

by Jennie Melville

  ‘It is my house,’ he said, not with reproach but with the emphasis of one who was not going to be overlooked.

  ‘You won’t go away then. Talk to you later.’

  ‘Emily was a friend.’

  ‘Then I shall certainly want to know all you know about her disappearance. If that is what it is. She may be back any minute.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, swinging away. ‘ You take a look at the room.’ Over his shoulder he said: ‘Just to get in first, in case you had any dark thoughts about me, I don’t beat women up and I was out with friends, and she was here when I left.’

  Emily’s room had been untidy when Charmian had seen it earlier, but there were signs of upheaval. Drawers were open and their contents thrown around, her cupboard door was open with the clothes tumbled on to the floor, not that she had many. ‘ Not a dressy girl, our Emily.’

  ‘Unless she’s taken them with her.’

  Charmian surveyed the room. ‘You think this is just a sign of hasty packing? You could be right … What about the blood? Where is it, by the way?’

  Dolly pointed to the wash basin hidden behind a half-drawn curtain. ‘There … and she didn’t just do that shaving.’

  A pool of blood was congealing at the bottom of the basin where the waste pipe was plugged with a sponge soaked in blood. Red splashed the sides of the basin, the looking-glass above and the wall around.

  ‘Wonder what blood group she is,’ said Charmian thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it is human blood? Well, we shall find out.’

  ‘You don’t sound very sympathetic.’

  ‘I’m irritated with her. I knew something was going to happen and I tried to get her away. She was difficult about it.’

  Humphrey had been wandering round the room, looking at the confusion of books and papers on the floor but carefully not touching anything.

  Emily had her work desk in the window where the light was better; this too was in some disorder but it may have been how she kept it because the notebook was open and the pen laid across it as if she had just put it down. Various photographs, one of Emily, a younger Emily, with a dog; one of an older woman whom he took to be her sister Nancy. Some holiday snaps, children on a beach, and on the wall to the right of the desk, a photograph of an elderly man. Her father? Next to this was a large group photograph. Two rows of youngsters, sitting neatly, legs together, hands folded on the lap. Girls in neat starched dresses and boys in linen tunics over short trousers.

  ‘Those were the days, reminds me of my pre-prepper.’

  Around the children stood the teaching staff, two women beside Nancy and a youngish man. It had not been a large school. In the background there were several other women who might be teachers or part of the domestic staff, a healthy looking man, feet akimbo, who was perhaps the gardener, and another, more delicate looking.

  ‘Art or music?’ Humphrey wondered aloud.

  He didn’t touch the photograph, but he went close. ‘What’s this?’

  The two women came over. ‘That’s a rhetorical question, I take it? A school group. I’m surprised she had it because she showed no signs of liking the school and she was not a pupil there herself.’

  ‘She’s in the picture, though.’ Dolly was looking over her shoulder. ‘There she is, that tall streak with long plaits next to Nancy. And that’s their father, the grumpy chap in tweeds standing at the back … I suppose that’s why she has it. Family portrait, maybe the only one she has.’ Wrapping a tissue round her fingers to protect the frame, she picked it up. ‘ Don’t know any of the others, though. Margaret Drue must be among the teachers … Wonder if one of the kids is Alana?’

  She turned over the picture. A sheet of paper was pasted on the back with names written on it, roughly aligned with the adult figures.

  ‘I was right: that’s papa, that’s Nancy … there’s Margaret Drue. The woman next to her is Madelaine Mason, not a name I know. That’s Maisie Nisbett, she’s still around, works in the police canteen, nice woman … oh look, that’s Dr Yeldon, retired now but you still see him at everything, he must have been the school doctor … Harry Fraser, Archie Rose, don’t know them.’

  Jim Towers walked into the room while Dolly was still intent on the picture which she had now turned over to look at again. ‘Who is this chubby fellow, sitting there so neat in a dark suit with his hair cut short?’

  She held it out to Charmian who gave it a quick look, then smiled. ‘If you don’t know, then you’d better guess.’

  Jim Towers had seen it. ‘ Oh you’ve got that photograph. Got one myself. I must see where it is, haven’t seen it for yonks … Yes, that was me. I was the school’s Friendly Policeman. It was a new trick then; I used to go in every so often and talk to them about crossing the road safely and not talking to strangers.’

  ‘Take a look at that photograph, will you? Is Alana one of those children?’

  He did not answer.

  ‘She must be, mustn’t she?’

  He seemed to gather himself, settling himself in his skin. ‘Yes, let’s have a look. I won’t touch it, Dolly, you hold it up … Mind you, I might not know her face.’

  Oh I think you will, Charmian watched him. He did not take overlong as his eyes moved down the rows.

  ‘I think this is her. Pretty sure.’ A small delicately featured face with a crest of curly hair.

  ‘Sitting next to you?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s how I remember her.’

  ‘Pretty little creature,’ said Charmian sadly.

  Jim Towers looked into the past. ‘No, no she wasn’t really, not pretty, but she had expression and liveliness … She might have been beautiful one day.’

  Humphrey, who was looking out of the window, said: ‘Two police cars drawing up, and one black car.’ The cavalry had arrived.

  H. G. Horris had come with a formidable show. He was not pleased to see Charmian already there, together with Dolly Barstow, whom he called her acolyte, and his own Inspector Towers, all, as he said to himself, bloody hobnobbing. There was also present a man whom he did not know, although he guessed he could put a name to him. But he decided to be halfway polite.

  ‘Evening, ma’am.’ He ignored Dolly and the stranger. ‘See you got here, Jim.’

  Towers nodded. ‘Just arrived.’

  ‘Ah …’ The Superintendent looked at Charmian. ‘I was here earlier, looked in on my way home.’ She did not mention Dolly, but he probably guessed that Dolly had told her and that Dolly had passed the news on to Jim Towers. ‘Don’t want to interfere but I am worried about the girl.’

  ‘Don’t like a girl who has just turned up a dead body in her old home to go missing myself. And certainly not in a welter of blood … Where is the blood, by the way?’

  He was moving round the room. ‘ Messy young woman by the look of her, doesn’t keep the place sparkling clean. Nor tidy … Ah, there’s the blood, we don’t know it’s hers yet.’

  He finished his perambulation of the room. ‘It’s a nasty sight and not what I’d want to come home to, but we don’t know that the girl is missing, do we? In fact, she isn’t, not yet. She has hardly been gone for more than an hour or two as far as I can make out. I can’t say I like it, but it seems a bit early to start crying murder.’ He turned to Charmian. ‘ Now my idea is that we have a word with that young man who is sitting on the stairs, tell him to look out for her and let us know at once if she comes home, and that we lock the door … I take it it does lock? … and go home ourselves. We can see in the morning. What do you think?’

  Charmian looked at Dolly Barstow, and Dolly responded. ‘I’d like to stay on a while, and see.’

  ‘I agree to talking to the landlord,’ said Charmian. ‘What’s his name, by the way?’

  ‘Arnold. Trevor Arnold.’ Dolly had got all the facts together. She had an idea she was protecting Jim Towers, although from what, she was not clear. Without meaning to, she gave him a smile, but he did not smile back. Turning to catch Superintendent Horris’s inte
rested eyes, she thought that wise.

  ‘Let’s get Arnold in then,’ said Horris. And to Charmian: ‘You taking an interest in this, ma’am?’

  ‘Personally yes, I’m bound to, since I was there with the girl when the body and head were found, and my name was on the body, but professionally …’ she shrugged. ‘That very encounter complicates it. I think I shall take advice.’

  ‘As far as I am concerned, ma’am,’ he threw his arms out wide, ‘you can sit in on everything.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You will have heard that the body is not that of Drue? Teeth and blood group all wrong. Drue fortunately was well documented. So now we have to find out who we have got.’

  ‘There are some names on the back of that photograph,’ said Charmian, pointing.

  Towers handed the photograph, still with the piece of tissue that Dolly had used, to the Superintendent, but without supplying the information that he was there in the picture himself.

  ‘You connect her with the school, do you?’ said HG absently, as he first looked at the photograph, then turned it over.

  ‘You have to, she is connected, she is in the house.’

  ‘There is that connection certainly.’ He was probably grinding his teeth this very minute.

  ‘And the head,’ pointed out Charmian. ‘The child’s head was virtually in her lap.’

  He nodded. ‘ I wasn’t forgetting. It is Alana, that’s a definite identification, teeth and blood group again.’ He was reading the names, then flicking back to the photograph. ‘Drue, so that’s what she looks like. Eleanor Fraser, I know her, not changed a lot, Madelaine Mason, can’t place her face. Maisie Nisbett, only a youngster then, she will have changed.’ He looked up and smiled, revealing a quality of charm that did not often appear. ‘I get what you are saying: the dead woman might be one of these. Not likely but it gives us a start. You and I both know what you need is a start. Get a name, check it, it’s wrong, but it gives you an idea, you can move on from there. Identification, motive, means, opportunity.’ He gave Charmian a wry look. ‘It seems it’s not clear how long that body had been a body, when she was killed. I’ve asked for an answer quick.’

  ‘Yes, it’s important. But the newspaper cutting gives some indication, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Well, there again, it may not. You didn’t have a chance to handle it, but it was not dead off the press and had been folded, and kept folded. There are traces on it that forensics are working on.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me.’

  ‘You’d like to be kept informed? Of course, I know you have channels …’ he carefully did not name them, but she knew whom he meant.

  ‘Just ask Inspector Towers to keep me posted,’ she said smoothly.

  ‘Ah yes, Jim,’ he looked towards the door where Towers and Arnold had not yet appeared. ‘He’s taking his time … I may have to let Jim have a bit of leave.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s involved too, you see … That was his face in the photograph, wasn’t it?’ He could frame a question like an accusation. ‘Living portrait.’

  Across the room, Humphrey was sitting talking to Dolly who was watching the door for Jim Towers.

  Arnold was in the room first, with Towers behind. ‘I went up to have a shower. I didn’t know you wanted me. When I did want to talk to you, I got pushed out.’ He gave Charmian a reproachful look. ‘I’m not Emily’s keeper, just her landlord. She pays her rent, I’m happy.’

  ‘You a student too, Mr Arnold?’ HG was bland.

  ‘I’m doing a PhD and I also have a junior lectureship.’

  ‘You didn’t hear or see anything to explain why Emily might have gone off?’

  ‘No. She was here earlier, because I saw her and spoke to her. She doesn’t go out a lot in the evening, but she’s free, she does what she likes, nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Still, she doesn’t often stay out all night?’

  ‘She might do, I don’t check. I don’t think so though, if you want me to say. But I don’t know where she had gone now, she could be back any minute and not thanking us.’

  ‘No idea either about the blood? You didn’t hear anything? Noise, shouting, anything?’

  ‘No, I was out at first, then playing music, so I wouldn’t hear a noise unless it was very loud. I live on the top floor and I was having a Wagner evening, you don’t hear much above The Ring.’

  ‘Anyone else in the house?’

  ‘I have one other lodger, but he’s away.’ Arnold hesitated, then said: ‘Emily’s been in a very dodgy state, moodwise. Worried about her house. She didn’t want to sell it, but she was getting pressure on that. She had some hang-up about the house, she said it ought to be left empty and drop to bits … I suppose that might happen now.’

  Horris looked in question at Charmian, who shrugged. ‘Thank you then, Mr Arnold, we’ll leave it there. I’ll tell you what we are going to do: we are going to lock up this room and come back tomorrow and you are going to tell us if Emily comes back in the night.’

  ‘You mean I’ll have to stay awake all night?’

  ‘I think she will wake you if she wants to get in,’ said Horris drily. ‘Right?’

  ‘You don’t think she will come back?’

  ‘Perhaps not tonight. I am keeping an open mind. You do the same.’

  They left the room as it was. The door was locked, and Horris pocketed the key. ‘He’ll have another one, landlords always do.’ He gave Humphrey a smile which said I know who you are and you know who I am, no introduction needed, and you agree with me about landlords, eh?

  At the door, Charmian found herself near Jim Towers and not near the other three, so on the pavement outside she said in a low voice: ‘I find it strange when you liked the child Alana so much that you lost that photograph.’

  He hesitated, then said: ‘I think my wife burnt it.’

  He moved away then, to speak to the Superintendent, while Charmian considered what she had heard. In a way, it confirmed what she had thought, that Jim Towers was a complicated man caught up in a complex matter.

  Dolly came up to say goodbye. ‘So it goes, eh?’

  And what does that mean, Charmian asked herself. ‘We will talk tomorrow. And try to find out what Rewley is up to.’

  ‘Will do,’ and Dolly walked over to where Jim Towers was getting into his car.

  HG had finished with Towers and left him to Dolly. ‘I’ll see you get all you want, ma’am.’ He gave Charmian something between a bow and a salute, but he had a knowing air. I’ll show you, it said. Then he nodded to her husband. ‘ Goodbye, Sir Humphrey.’

  As they drove away, Humphrey said quietly: ‘Was that policeman Horris being offensive to you?’

  ‘No. He was only protecting his territory.’

  Lions did it, cats did it, and so did policemen. She had done it herself when necessary. It went with the job

  Chapter Six

  Dolly Barstow and Jim Towers drove away from the lodging house where Emily’s blood, if indeed it was her blood, still lay untouched awaiting forensic tests tomorrow. They drove in separate cars but arrived together outside Dolly’s house. It seemed better that way.

  ‘Have you told HG?’ she asked.

  ‘Told him that my wife has thrown me out? No, and I shan’t until I have to.’

  ‘He’s bound to find out.’

  ‘Which is why I won’t bother telling him.’

  They were standing outside the house while Dolly locked her car and looked for the house keys.

  ‘Come and have a drink.’ She looked at his face, drawn and tired, with a kind of quiet misery behind it. I don’t make this man happy she told herself, but perhaps no one could. She went on trying though and the sex was good. ‘You don’t have to go, you know.’

  He nodded, ‘I know, my love, but I will. It’s better.’

  Towers had moved himself into a one-room flat on the road to Cheasey; it was not elegant but it was clean, reasonably comfortable and cheap. He still h
ad a wife and child to support, together with the mortgage on the family home, there was not much left.

  Dolly too had moved recently. After Kate died, she found she could no longer bear the flat they had once shared. So she had found a small house on the edge of the Great Park; it was a longer drive to work but she knew none of the neighbours and none of them knew her. It seemed a time for anonymity.

  They walked into the small hall which was still crowded with tea-chests of her possessions so far unpacked. Two months had passed since moving day, and they were still there. Sometimes Dolly thought she might move away again without the chests ever having been emptied.

  ‘Come into the kitchen while I make some coffee. And give yourself a drink … there’s whisky over there. Should be some clean glasses.’

  The kitchen was fitted with a dishwasher which Dolly had never opened. Every morning she rinsed out one cup and saucer and one plate, and left them to drain. All the other meals were taken in the police canteen.

  A small laundry abutted on the kitchen with all automatic equipment in the way of washing and drying. Dolly threw in her dirty clothes as they came off and when she had run out of clean ones, then she switched on the washing programme. Once or twice she had been obliged to go out and buy new supplies of pants and bras when even this small chore had been passed by.

  I’m getting to be a slut, she told herself. Tidy though, a tidy slut.

  ‘Will you have a drink?’ Jim was pouring himself a drink.

  ‘I’ll have coffee. Do you want some as well?’

  She poured him a cup anyway, noting with relief that he was not taking a big draught of whisky. If he wasn’t going to stay she didn’t want him driving home with a heavy whisky load on an empty stomach. Trouble could follow there. If she had had any food in the house except for a grapefruit and an aged lemon, she would have fed him. Not even cat food, there being no cat.

  How unlike Charmian, successful, married, happy, and a cat owner … I was on the way to all that … she looked at the kettle while it heated, seeing her distorted image in it … but I seem to have lost the knack. Where am I going now?