Footsteps in the Blood

by Jennie Melville

  ‘Nothing here.’

  The two young men consulted. The one who had been to the other end of the road and found nothing, said: ‘ What do we do now? Do we just stand here guarding that patch of blood you have so carefully marked out? Look proper Charlies, won’t we?’

  ‘We’ll report back and see what the boss says.’

  ‘Waste of time. Let’s just go back.’

  ‘Let’s both take one more look up the road,’ said the first young man. He was the determined one of the two. ‘We’ll attract attention.’

  ‘It’s the job. Come on, Tommy.’

  It was true. Already a few early risers had noticed them but had walked on, not without interest, but not lingering. Trains had to be caught. A man standing in his front garden openly staring at them, while a boy delivering the morning papers stood beside the postman watching them with wide eyes.

  ‘You do it, I’m going back to the car.’ DC Thomas returned to his seat at the wheel and stared straight ahead of him. If Jumbo wanted to be like that, let him.

  After a while, he turned to see what Jumbo was up to. Jimpson was standing with his hand on the gate of a house. Then he slowly walked up the garden path and rang the doorbell.

  DC Thomas watched. No one answered the door. ‘Gone to work, you silly sod,’ he said, settling back into his seat. ‘Or in bed. Wish I was.’ DC Jimpson was bending down and looking through the letterbox. Then he swung round and marched back to the car.

  He got in and sat down beside Thomas, ‘Get through to the boss,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  Jimpson held out his hand. His right palm had a dark-brown smear on it. ‘There was blood on that gate. I tried the house but no one answered. So I looked through the letterbox.’ He took a deep breath. ‘It smells. The house smells bad. Like dead meat.’ Memories of his boyhood came flooding back to turn his stomach. He steadied down. ‘ Radio back, Get hold of Bister. Find out who lives there. We’ve got to get in.’

  DC Thomas took him seriously. He spoke across radio: ‘Sarge?’

  Charmian, still ignorant of how close to a death she had been, prepared a large breakfast (how strange to want to be getting fatter when a large part of her life had been devoted to staying slim) and fed her cat Muff who had never had any inhibitions one way or another and believed that food was there for the eating.

  She ringed round the date of her appointment with the specialist on the wall calendar (the October picture of a huge, grinning ginger cat was cheering): only a week to wait. How speedy they had been. A bad sign?

  Last night, she had avoided her telephone and any messages the answering machine might have waiting for her, but now she ran them through.

  George Rewley spoke first, using his official voice: ‘We expect to be questioning a suspect in the Fisher killing tomorrow.’ Prudently, he did not name the suspect but Charmian knew he meant Sergeant Foggerty. ‘The prospect of clearing up the case looks good.’ There was a pause, then he said: ‘Thought you would like to know that I’ve seen Kate, she seems in a better mood, and she is moving back into her own place. I’m going round there to see her.’

  Kate got in next: ‘Just to tell you I will be back in the flat tomorrow. Dad’s been sighted in a bar in Peascod Street. No word from him to us, of course, but things are looking brighter. Dolly has hinted that they might have found somebody for Nella’s death. Hope so, I’ll ring tomorrow.’

  Finally, Dolly Barstow spoke. ‘Kate and I have had an almighty row. Sharp things said on either side, but as a result the air is now cleared and we both feel better. She really likes George Rewley and I can’t blame her for that. She will be back in Didcot Square tomorrow and we are going to have a drink on it. Talking of drink, I know, but Kate may not, that Jack is lodging with an old mate in East Windsor, and is drinking heavily. Seen walking someone’s dog. Not his own. Said to be in a bad mood, and making threats. Probably just drink, but better stay away from him.’

  Well, thanks, thought Charmian, tell me how. But she dismissed apprehension as she got herself ready for the day. Women react to what they wear. Men do as well, which is why they wear uniform of one sort to another so often; it makes them feel good to match other men. Now Charmian dressed for alertness and positive action. A black leather skirt made in Italy (she had good legs and could afford to show them), and a long cashmere sweater in bright red. She would be occupying her London office where it would be a hard-working day with committees, two meetings with colleagues, and a visit from an MP who wanted information. With him, she would have to be guarded, his motives were suspect. He was a man on the make.

  Muff followed her to watch the dressing process. A small operation in her youth had rendered her sexless, but Muff remained resolutely female. Actively interested indeed, since a tiny piece of ovarian tissue, of the type now possibly proving so worrying to her owner, had been left inside and several times a year caused her to be courted by a large circle of Windsor cats. It was thought she favoured several males, choosing not by looks but by some private, arbitrary taste of her own.

  Now she sat on the bed studying her mistress, although that was the wrong word, because she controlled Charmian rather than the other way round. On the bed was Charmian’s nightgown. She was ashamed of it really, no one ought to wear a nightgown so old that it was falling apart. It was good silk, she had bought it in Paris. Paid for it herself, no man had given it to her, and she had worn it happily for years. But the lace was threading apart and the seams disintegrating.

  Muff moved herself on to the silk and kneaded it with her paws, she put her nose down on it, purring. Her enthusiasm carried her away so that her claws caught on the lace and she got more and more entangled. As she struggled to get free, the silk began to wind itself around her throat. She was still purring, she was still enjoying herself, but she was shredding the silk. Her look grew serious as she got tied up in the silk and her back legs became hobbled. Then she caught Charmian’s eyes and screamed for help. Fury had replaced happiness in a flash.

  Charmian shook her head ruefully: ‘You and I are more like each other than we are both like men.’

  She disentangled the cat, now stretching out angry unhelpful claws, and shut the door on her. But she was amused. The ridiculousness of it all was part of life.

  I shall have to be careful, she told herself, or I shall start laughing again. She hadn’t laughed properly for a long while now.

  She tidied the house, said a soothing word to the cat, and sped off to London.

  Behind her in Windsor, events were moving in a way no one could have predicted. The telephone started to ring in her house in Maid of Honour Row. First Dolly Barstow, then Sergeant George Rewley, then Bister came on the line, and finally Inspector Fred Elman himself.

  But Charmian’s early work schedule took her to appointments outside her own office. She was not to be found.

  Inspector Fred Elman was a man who usually thought about himself first. He did it quite unconsciously, so naturally that even his wife did not notice what he was doing. What suited him just came first.

  Now, as he looked down on the dead body on the floor in the house in Merrywick Parade, he thought that he had been spared a long wait to interview someone who was not going to turn up. It was today they had been due to talk. Wouldn’t have been an easy interview.

  ‘Yes, it’s Marg,’ he said, turning away, more moved than he liked to show. ‘Who’d have thought she’d get herself killed?’

  He stood in silence for a moment, studying the scene.

  ‘No chance of it being suicide?’

  Sergeant Bister shook his head. ‘No powder marks and no gun.’

  Margery Foggerty lay on the ground in the hall, her face half turned towards the front door. The central heating had been on full power and her body had rested against a radiator, the heat of which had brought out the smell of death. It was sweet and strong in the hall.

  She had been shot once in the head and once in the chest. Either wound would have killed he
r. She had bled profusely and blood was everywhere.

  ‘Must have spouted out,’ said Elman. ‘Poor cow. What a business.’

  Bister, who had been on the scene early and spoken to the police surgeon who had delivered the unnecessary judgement that she was dead, said: ‘Hit an artery while the heart was still beating. The killer probably got blood on him. Or whatever he was wearing. That’ll be a help.’

  ‘Unless he was naked.’

  ‘Not this one,’ said Bister with conviction. Every so often that notion came up, started with Lizzie Borden, he thought, but he had never known a case proved.

  There were two suitcases in the hall.

  ‘She was packing to go away,’ said Bister.

  ‘I reckon,’ said Elman. ‘Running away. Did she kill the Fisher girl? Had she got a gun? Have you had a look?’

  ‘Looking now,’ said Bister briefly. ‘We’re tinning everything over.’

  ‘Wonder what type of gun killed her?’

  The two men looked at each other, they were both thinking the same thing.

  ‘We won’t know,’ said Elman, ‘until Doc Palmer does the PM and digs the bullets out.’ He was regretful. He liked Dr Palmer but no one could say he hurried himself. When questioned he claimed he was overworked.

  Bister, accomplished at reading Fred Elman, saw all this. ‘One bullet went wide and hit the wall.’ He indicated a damaged patch. ‘I’ve sent it off to Ballistics. Jim Gold is doing it.’

  ‘Good. A good chap, Jim, and a quick worker.’

  ‘I suggested Jim might like to compare it with the bullet that killed Nella Fisher,’ said Bister carefully.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Good,’ said Elman. ‘You’re right. I’ve never liked coincidences.’

  Elman was so cheered by this thought that he took Bister and George Rewley, who arrived at that moment, to the Royal Arms on the village green at Merrywick for a drink and a talk.

  ‘I could do with a drink. Come on, both of you.’ He liked both Bister and Rewley.

  Elman was more at his ease with men than with women, and George Rewley, who was better than most at reading the messages written in invisible ink, understood that between Margery Foggerty and Fred Elman there must have been a passage. Marg Foggerty was known to have the reputation of being one with the lads. Put herself about, as the saying goes.

  Elman had taken his place in the line-up and was probably somewhat ashamed of the memory. Alarmed, too. Women were powerful and threatening deities who could only be subdued by sexual force. A bad case of male unease. There was a lot of that in the Force.

  So he spoke of not liking coincidences. It was better than saying he didn’t know how to handle his feelings but wanted to do his best for Marg.

  ‘Poor old Marg,’ he said over his beer, thus reducing her powers one degree more by his pity. ‘She wasn’t a bad sort. Got into bad ways, that’s all.’ He took a deep draught. ‘I hope we get her killer.’

  Then his last mouthful of beer seemed to turn sour.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it, that Daniels should be the one to find the blood? She gets everywhere.’

  Sergeant Rewley preserved a tactful silence. Bister grinned.

  Elman stood up. ‘Drink up, I’ll get us some more.’ When he returned, he sat down heavily. It was a positive movement, indicating to Rewley that something was to come. It was not just a sitting down, it was a statement: Listen to me.

  ‘I expect you’ve heard the rumours about Daniels? You hear everything. She’s about to honour us with her presence.’ Elman did not approve of women in authority and Charmian had too much of that already. ‘ There’s going to be a reshuffle, a rearrangement. A regrouping, they call it. What it is, is a chance to get rid of those whose faces don’t fit. A completely new unit called SCRADIC is going to be created.’

  Bister wondered where Elman got his gossip from but guessed it was correct. He’d heard a bit himself. Rewley did not wonder because he knew: Elman’s wife worked in the secretariat.

  ‘And Daniels is going to be offered the number two spot. They like her face, you see.’

  ‘So we’ll have to be good boys and let her in on this?’ said Bister.

  Couldn’t keep her out, thought Elman. His spies had told him that Charmian might not accept the job. 5withering, was the phrase used, she being a Scots girl. Or was she bargaining for the top spot of all? That also was being speculated.

  The beer suddenly tasted flat and sour to Bister. Somehow he saw his chances of promotion altering radically. He had worked out the odds and now the odds had been changed.

  ‘I’d like it to be Jake Henley for this,’ said Elman in a brooding voice. ‘But I don’t suppose we’ll get him for it. He always slides away from things. Only once has he been inside and that was for a porn deal and even then he didn’t get what he should have done. Poxy judge giving him the benefit of the doubt.’

  Their drinking did not last long. Elman went back to the Incident Room in the church hall to see what new information, if any, had come in on the Nella Fisher case, and Bister went off to see what Ballistics were up to, while George Rewley took himself back to the house in Merrywick Parade.

  He was glad to see that the crowd of onlookers had diminished because of the rain, now falling steadily. Methodical samples were being taken of the grass where it was stained, and the larger area of bloody turf was marked out and carefully covered. Forensics were going to remove the whole top layer for examination in the laboratory. But blood being blood – and you could never tell who was HIV positive these days – they were being very very careful.

  In his experience, all scientists were very careful of themselves and Rewley for one did not blame them.

  As he entered the house, from which the body of Sergeant Margery Foggerty was just being removed, the telephone rang.

  The message was for him, and it was from Bister who had spoken to the Ballistics expert. The other bullet that had been found in the murder room had blood on it too, but probably too little to offer much to Forensics. So possibly the killer had been bit too, probably from the shot that ricocheted.

  But the crucial news was in his next sentence. The bullet had certain characteristics that identified the type of gun used. The gun which had killed Margery Foggerty was the same as that which had killed Nella Fisher.

  A revolver, of a type handed out to American servicemen during the war. A GI gun.

  Moving rapidly around her London circuit, it took some time for messages to catch up with Charmian. Interestingly, it was Dolly Barstow who got the news to Charmian first.

  Charmian was in the middle of one of her rare luxury lunches. Usually she ate nothing, or fish and chips in a police canteen somewhere. It all depended. But that day, she was eating with a journalist who wanted to interview with her. So the journalist, who had simple ideas and thought you could bribe people with food, had taken her to Langan’s.

  They were sitting waiting for a spinach soufflé to get itself blown up into a puff with hot air, when the telephone was put on their table.

  With the journalist listening avidly and making mental notes, Charmian took the call.

  ‘Listen, Foggerty’s been shot dead. And by the same gun that killed Nella Fisher.’

  It was the only news that could have taken her mind off her food. The case was wide open.

  Margery Foggerty had been dead for nearly twenty-four hours by the time Charmian Daniels walked in on the scene. Her body had been removed but the smell hung about and a bluebottle had appeared.

  Charmian flapped it away angrily. George Rewley watched her. Elman had left him in charge, Bister now being otherwise occupied – those jewels were keeping everyone busy – with the added brief to keep an eye on Daniels. Which he would have done anyway since he was now seriously in love with Kate, who was her godchild. Kate was back in her own flat and washing her hair. That was a good sign. A girl with clean hair is a good girl who will not run away.

  The bluebottle buzzed in her face. ‘Get
some fly spray,’ said Charmian fiercely, ‘It’s disgusting,’ Her skin was crawling. ‘Is there any other connection between this murder and Nella’s, except the gun?’

  ‘There is one other thing.’ Rewley led the way into the kitchen. ‘We didn’t see it straight away. I don’t know why. Too obvious, maybe.’

  On the table, scrawled in blood, was the word WOMEN. It had dried badly but it was readable. The writer had not needed to write BLOODY WOMEN because he had written in blood.

  For the moment, that was all and that was enough. Nella and Margery Foggerty were two islands, but the whole world of corruption and pornography spread out like a bridge, joining them up. Cheasey was a kind of archipelago floating on the moving crust of the earth towards them.

  Charmian surveyed the house, which had been photographed and searched and over which an exhausted silence now hung. A small army had been in there and had now passed on, leaving their mark behind them.

  Now the men were outside, dealing with the bloodstained grass where Charmian had first seen traces. She had started it all there.

  Edward Dick had been questioned and offered what he knew, which was not much. His spaniel dog, the questioner reported, carried no wound. Mr Dick had already despatched to the cleaner’s the jacket on which he had wiped his hands, for which you couldn’t blame him, the questioner added.

  The rain had stopped and the plastic sheeting had been removed. Two members of the Forensic unit were carefully peeling away the turf. They would go down a few feet to make sure they had everything, making a clean job of it. Slowly the grass was rolled back, and the dark earth was revealed. Another foot, still further down. The digging had disturbed something. Worms moved, brown and pink, insects hurried for cover.

  ‘Wait,’ Charmian knelt down. She could see a gleam of brownish-white. She touched it delicately with a pencil.

  A bone.

  She touched it again. As the earth fell away, other bones could be seen, clearly human. Fingers pointing upward, a circle of wristbones. A skull with empty eyes full of damp earth from which an insect crawled.