Footsteps in the Blood

by Jennie Melville

  Pity about tomorrow because she had a date.

  She had a kind of boyfriend. Platonic, naturally, she was off the sex stuff. Although they played a kind of game that was sexual in origins. Had to be.

  She was never completely sure if he liked ‘ dating’ (he preferred that Americanism, not sure if she did herself) a policewoman. But it might be that she was about the best he could do. After all, not every woman, probably not many at all, would play the game the way she did. Having initiated her into it, he would not want to start all over again with someone else.

  As a matter of fact, she enjoyed the game. She’d always liked a uniform. Just a bit of artifice, after all, and she had enjoyed amateur dramatics in her day. No starring part ever, just a walk-on or a few lines. But now she had a leading role.

  Well, there had to be a reason why she had been attracted to rum. But after all, you never really knew why you fell into things.

  The game they played didn’t go on all night. After they’d had dinner (they always had dinner, probably the only time he ate much), they reverted to being themselves and talking normally. Always plenty to talk about.

  She had really enjoyed their little evenings. But she’d had the last.

  Time hanging on her hands as it always did just before a journey, she decided to start a letter. To put her point of view, how it had been for her. Women didn’t always get much of a chance to do this, and if she went to prison, and it might come to that although she hoped not, she certainly wouldn’t get much chance there.

  She knew Tony Father better than some, had known him for a long time. She would write to him. Dear Tony, she began.

  When the doorbell rang she was surprised, considered not answering the door, but in the end she opened it. He was there. In costume.

  ‘Oh Colonel Vanderpest,’ she said coyly. This was her joke name for him. ‘I wasn’t expecting you. Not dressed like that. I didn’t know you.’ Which was a silly thing to say, because she obviously had. ‘And why are you wearing that great shiny rain cape? Officers don’t wear those.’

  ‘It’s raining,’ said the Colonel gruffly. ‘Mustn’t get the uniform wet. Shan’t get another. Or not easily.’ From underneath the big cape came a muffled bark.

  ‘Got Trixie with you, have you?’ It was said without pleasure, Marg was not a dog-lover. ‘ She must be stifled under there. Come in now, but you mustn’t stay long. Things to do.’ She waved her hands in the air. ‘ My God, that cigar’s a bit rank. It‘ll kill you yet. I didn’t think Eisenhower smoked cigars.’ She usually flattered him. He liked to be thought of as a four-star general and he often took on the role of Eisenhower, or General Marshall or that chap who got sacked by the President. ‘Or you going to be Patton tonight? He was a real killer now.’

  Killer diller, she said to herself. Killer diller.

  Chapter Ten

  The early hours of Thursday, October 12

  After her appointment in Wimpole Street, Charmian went to her office where she worked late into the evening. Then she walked round the corner to her favourite Italian restaurant to eat a solitary supper. She liked Italian food and Italian wine, both were generous and warm like their country of origin. She only ate Chinese or Indian food under protest.

  I’m a European at heart, she told herself as she sipped some Orvieto, and waited for the minestrone to appear. You had to wait for your food at Aldo’s, that it was its only drawback. The proprietor, Maria, a middle-aged woman from a London-Italian family of long standing, claimed it was because all the food was freshly cooked, and sometimes this was probably true, although not always. Charmian knew for a fact that Maria bought in her puddings and rich cakes, because she had seen the van delivering them. Continental Gourmet Foods, Staines, Middx, it had said.

  Maria, a stout but short lady with curly black hair, put down the soup. ‘Black pepper? Parmesan?’

  Why do the Italians think that the British want gratings of black pepper on everything, Charmian thought. But they do, so perhaps we eat more of it than the rest of Europe. She said no to the pepper and yes to the Parmesan cheese.

  ‘You look pale tonight,’ said Maria. She knew exactly who Charmian was and precisely what her rank and status in the police was. Maria operated an excellent intelligence network through her numerous relations, all of whom had lived in this part of London for generations but who went home to the same village in northern Italy for a holiday every summer. They had British passports and cockney accents but the blood link ran strong. Every time the family party went home they brought a youngster back with them and repatriated an old one with his pension rights to enjoy his retirement in a better climate. Occasionally, a pensioner who preferred English television or had married an English wife refused to go. Maria would be one who would not go, she had a husband who worked for British Airways, she had a daughter doing well in the City, and a son who was a schoolteacher. She was too dug in to leave, although never feeling English.

  ‘Just tired,’ said Charmian.

  ‘You work too hard. It is bad for women.’

  Bad for our looks, thought Charmian, catching a glimpse of herself in the wall mirror, not a trace of lipstick and hair a mess. ‘Bad for everyone,’ she said.

  ‘My daughter also works too hard. You will never a get a husband, I say to her, but I think she does not want one. She has a big flat, a smart car and lots of expensive clothes, she says a husband would be a luxury she cannot afford.’

  Charmian drove home, deliberately taking a route that took her through Cheasey. There was quite a lot of night-life in Cheasey, as she remembered from past years. She noted a police car and an ambulance with a flashing blue light outside the Youth Centre in Addison Street; such a scene was about average for the place and time of night. Always trouble at the Youth Centre. The big disco club in Oxford Road was going strong with flashing lights inside and out but was otherwise peaceful. They had several good bouncers who kept things under control.

  She drove past The Grey Man. Lights out there, and all dark. But slipped into the carpark at the side was a long, flashy-looking car that she would take a bet belonged to Jake Henley. Might be worth checking. Rewley could do that for her later if she got the number. She slowed down but found she still could not read the registration number.

  She stopped the car at the kerb and walked across to see. It was dark in the carpark, a deeper pocket of shadow where the car stood. She bent forward to look.

  As she did so, the car door opened and Jake Henley got out. ‘Ah, the lady detective.’ He advanced a pace. ‘ Looking for something?’

  Charmian stood her ground. ‘ Cars parked in the dark beside The Grey Man are always worth looking at. Why were you sitting in the car?’

  ‘Thinking, darling. I do think, you know.’

  Someone somewhere had told her that Jake was an educated man, had had a year at university before going into crime. Or going back into it; the records suggested that he had been a practised criminal from about the age of eight. Prone to fits of sudden violence too.

  ‘You must have plenty to think about.’

  ‘If you mean the offer, none too delicately put to me by Elman, that if I confessed to killing Nella Fisher, he would see what he could do for me, I didn’t have to think about that. No, ma’am.’ His tone was savage, ‘You’re not going to fit me up with that one.’

  She doubted if the worldly and cautious Elman had made any such blunt offer, but something had obviously been said. Charmian did not move. To have taken a step back would have looked like retreat, to have taken one forward would have been interpreted as aggression.

  They were close enough for her to smell the drink on his breath. Stalemate, she thought. Stupidly she had got herself into a position which she would have warned the youngest recruit to the force to avoid. Never go into anything, she would have said, without knowing the way out. Strength for strength, she was no match for Jake Henley if he wanted to try anything. When it came down to it, men were stronger than most women.

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nbsp; He stretched out his hands, not touching her, but extending his fingers stiffly like rods as if he wanted to ram them into her body. Her friends, Winifred Eagle and Birdie Peacock, had taught her that this gesture warded off a foe. But Charmian doubted if Jake was into witchcraft. With him it was a straight gesture of animal hostility. He hated her.

  They stood there for a moment, looking at each other. Eye contact was dangerous with a man about to attack, she knew that, but she was held.

  Then the police car from the Youth Centre passed down the road, light still flashing. The moment was broken. He gave her an exit himself.

  ‘If you will just shift your car, I can back out,’ he said. ‘ You’re blocking me.’

  Silently, Charmian turned to her car. I lost that one, she thought, and was furious. I would like to have hit him, she acknowledged. If he had touched me I would have had an excuse to hit him hard.

  She watched Henley back his car out, swing it round and drive off in the opposite direction, much too fast.

  Charmian drove more sedately towards Merrywick and thence home.

  A mile of open farmland with cattle-grids, followed by the parkland of a mansion now the property of a soap company, stretched between Cheasey and Merrywick. The moon was up and the night clear. She drove fast through a landscape of magical beauty, silvered and quiet.

  Then the road curved and she was in Merrywick.

  People went to bed early in Merrywick but there were lights on in some windows. It was interesting, she thought, that however late you were out, there was always someone still awake. A few insomniacs in Merrywick. Kate and Dolly not amongst them, she noted, all lights out in 33A and 33B Didcot Square. It was possible, of course, that Kate was in Wellington Yard with her mother. And where was Jack?

  As she drove past the small parade of shops which curved in a half-moon opposite the church, she saw a man walking his dog on the grass border.

  But he wasn’t walking. He was standing between two flowerbeds and was staring down at the dog. He seemed to be looking around him in bewilderment, rubbing his hands up and down his jacket as if to clean them.

  As she got closer she saw who it was: Edward Dick, the owner and manager of the Keyright Employment Agency. She did not know him well, but they had met once or twice.

  She stopped the car. ‘ What’s wrong?’ He looked at her but did not answer. She saw that he was shivering, but not with cold. It was a warm if damp night.

  ‘Don’t get out of the car,’ he said, his voice thick. The dog lifted its head and howled, one long sad note.

  She ignored this order. ‘What’s wrong with the dog?’ Without waiting for an answer she knelt down by the animal to see for herself. The dog, it was a dog, not a bitch, a little spaniel, was breathing heavily.

  She lifted up one paw which was stained with blood. ‘He’s cut himself. There’s blood on his paw.’

  Edward Dick grabbed the dog and clutched it to him, it was still making whimpering noises. ‘No, not cut. Stood in it. Stood in blood. I was just bringing him out for his little walk. I’m out twice a night, you know.’ He looked down at his feet. ‘I’ve stood in blood. Now you’ve knelt in blood.’ He was just managing to keep his voice steady. ‘There shouldn’t be any blood there, you know. I don’t know how it got there.’

  Charmian stood up. He was quite right. A circle of blood now stained her long pleated skirt where she had knelt on the earth. There must be large patch of blood on the grass, although it was difficult to see in the shadows from the moon and the streetlights. She put her hand on the grass; it felt wet, but that might be from the rain earlier in the evening. When she looked at her hand, she saw there was blood on her fingers.

  The dog had walked in it, she had knelt in it, and Eddie Dick had wiped it down his coat, and now she had it on her hand. They were all stained.

  ‘It might be from an injured animal.’ She looked around the grass on the roadway, but there was no sign of one. The little spaniel seemed unharmed. But another injured animal could have crawled away to die. On the other hand, it could be human blood.

  ‘Go back home, Mr Dick,’ she ordered. He looked sick, but the blood was not from him, nor from the spaniel, who seemed to rejoice in the name of Henry. ‘And I will look around.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do what I say, please. Just leave it all to me.’ She knew he lived over the shop and they were standing just in front of the Keyright office. He must have been on the point of going home when he and Henry walked into the blood.

  When he had reluctantly obeyed her, she marked out what seemed to be the area of bloody grass with stones gathered from the flowerbeds. Then she picked up her car phone and called the main station on the Didcot Road. The blood might be anything, it might be nothing, but she wanted to know.

  She sat on the grass verge until the patrol car arrived, then she pointed out the blood and explained what had happened. One of the uniformed policeman studied the grass. ‘Looks as though someone or something has stood here or been placed here and bled. The grass is dented a bit. Doesn’t look heavy enough or big enough for a body.’ He added: ‘Not a big body or a whole body.’

  ‘Shut up, Jim,’ said his companion.

  ‘Just thinking,’

  ‘It might be something. Hard to say, ma’am,’ said DC Jimpson. He knew Charmian of course. ‘But I’ll mark out the area and cover it with a bit of plastic and report what I’ve done.’

  ‘There’s more blood over here. Traces, anyway,’ called the other man, DC Thomas, who had moved further afield. ‘And here.’

  ‘Right, I’ll mark those too.’

  It was beginning to look more serious.

  ‘Can’t do much more, ma’am, until morning,’ he said.

  ‘Leave you to it,’ said Charmian, as she drove off, leaving behind her what appeared to be one of those little mysteries that might be solved or might not, leading either to something or to nothing.

  She was reasonably content with the way things were going. The picture was that Margery Foggerty had killed Nella Fisher, probably in a panic. A stupid crime. Charmian had only met Foggerty briefly, but she had seemed a stupid woman. Jake Henley was on the loose, and not a nice man, but that was a problem that could be dealt with. If he was a threat to her, then she knew how to look after herself. Jack Cooper, she thought, was a nuisance, no more, he would turn up again. Kate was in the clear, thank goodness, she loved Kate.

  Early morning reveries, whether happy or troubled, are not usually good indicators of the true position. Charmian knew this fact as well as anyone, but private worries apart, she was optimistic.

  As she drove through the back streets of Windsor to Maid of Honour Row, she passed, unknowing, the room in which Jack Cooper lay abed. He had got himself a room in the house of a drinking companion who was glad to help out a pal, and might ask the same favour himself one day if the wife ever came back. She had left in a huff three weeks ago but might return any minute now. Meanwhile Jack was in the spare room where he lay looking at the ceiling and not sleeping. In this after-midnight hour, insomniac and with a bad headache, he was thinking how he hated Charmian Daniels and what a nuisance she was in his life. His legs twitched as if they wanted to go for a walk. Should he get up and go bang on her door? Bang on her head. Bang … He lay there fantasising. His friends’ dog, a nice little mongrel bitch, who had taken a fancy to Jack who was better at taking her for walks than her master, lay across his legs and moaned, whether in pleasure or pain Jack could not decide.

  Charmian drove on, parked her car and let herself into her warm, safe house, unaware of how close she had come to destruction that night.

  When morning dawned, the trail of blood was seen to stretch across the grass and then to stop. In daylight it looked as though something or someone had been dragged across from the direction of a row of houses and flats to the west of the shopping area.

  The police decided to do a house-to-house enquiry.

  Chapter Eleven

  Daylight o
n Thursday, October 12

  The young detective constable, his breakfast still in his mouth, who was pacing the grass as he checked for blood traces, discovered that the splatters of red carried on towards the pavement in front of the row of houses and flats – called Merrywick Parade – that lay just beyond the row of shops. It was all grass here, with a few shrubs and old trees because only ten years ago this had been open country, part of a farm. He half remembered it from boyhood. Cows, he thought, and once a circus camped out here, with lions in cages, and rotting meat they left behind to stink the air. He remembered the smell vividly.

  On the pavement he thought he saw the traces of a bloody footprint. Beyond that, nothing.

  ‘Someone walked in blood here. Then whoever it was went on the grass, either dripping blood or carrying something that dripped blood.’

  Perhaps a butcher going home. Sick joke, no, he didn’t mean that, wipe it out. Someone carrying an injured animal? Or a chap who had been out shooting and had pheasants or rabbits slung from his bag. That would drip blood. There was a bit of shooting in the woods and fields around.

  Not at night, said a sceptical voice inside him.

  He marked out the largest area of blood, which he covered with a piece of plastic. After this, he drew a map on which he indicated all the spots where blood had been found. Then he took careful samples from several sites and sealed the envelopes. If it wasn’t human blood that would be the end of it. And possibly even if it was – unless a body or a victim turned up.

  He was anxious to do a good job, having only just transferred from the uniformed branch.

  There didn’t seem to be any more blood around. That was the end of it. He had done all he could.

  Jimpson looked at his colleague who was pacing along the road towards him. ‘ Found anything?’