Whoever Has the Heart

by Jennie Melville

  I stood there waiting to see if she rang the bell and remembering Lady Mary. As she departed, I had put my arm round her.

  ‘Are you all right? Is it all right?’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said, with a wry smile.

  Not good, I thought, not good at all.

  Only Kate and Rewley remained. Kate curled herself on the window seat and stared out.

  Rewley said: ‘There’s something to tell you. I was watching when Damiani and Mary arrived. I saw his face, I could read what he said. He said to her: “Keep your mouth shut and follow what I say. Do that and we shall be all right.”

  I considered. ‘Not very loving.’

  ‘No, not a very loving look on his face. And as he rang the bell, he said: “ I wish I had never come to this damned house.”

  ‘Rewley,’ I said. ‘Go and look in the outside cellar. Tell me what you think of some stains on the floor and wall. See if you think it’s blood.’

  ‘Is it likely to be?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just take a look … Would you mind?’

  He knew an order when he heard one.

  He said quickly, ‘I’ll go down and see what I make of it.’

  Kate and I sat in a temporary peace. Muff reappeared. She sidled up beside me and I stroked her head. Then Rewley returned. Quiet as always, he waited until he could see me alone. There was no doubt in my mind about his abilities, he would go straight to the top, he knew how to do things.

  ‘I had an inspection. A couple of very battered rusty fire extinguishers, looking a health hazard. And yes, there are stains, and I would say they were blood.’

  I waited for him to say something more. ‘Have to get it checked,’ he said. ‘ May be something, may be nothing.’

  ‘Chloe Devon had a piece of paper with my name and address on it in her pocket,’ I said. I felt aggrieved.

  He was well informed as ever. ‘ I had heard.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The word got around.’

  ‘I’ll tell Clive Barney about the cellar,’ I said. ‘Damn, damn and damn.’

  Perhaps Humphrey was right: I should never have moved into this house. Of all my friends, he was the one who had not yet rushed to see me.

  Chapter Eleven

  I telephoned Clive Barney myself to tell him about the possible blood stains. Better to be straight with it, I thought.

  He took it calmly. ‘Could be anything, animal blood most likely. But worth a look.’

  Then I telephoned Humphrey. No answer. And again. Still no answer.

  I was alone in the house now, except for Muff.

  I don’t mind being alone as a rule, in fact, in many ways I prefer it, but tonight I would have liked Humphrey to be there, making up the fire so that it blazed, then eating dinner with me.

  He came eventually, tired and not willing to talk much. He was sympathetic about my accident without seeming much concerned. It dawned on me that I had already dwindled into a wife.

  A dangerous position to be in, as everyone knows.

  Next day was a working day. I limped but was otherwise fit. Muff also seemed to have recovered, although she was not as hungry as usual.

  I was made aware that a police team had been in my cellar, scratching around. When I got back home that evening I saw the signs. They had sealed the door and barred off the stairs. Eventually I got a message that nothing had been removed but samples had been scraped and photographs taken.

  Interesting and significant, I thought.

  That day, before leaving for the country I had called at Maid of Honour Row, where no great progress had been made that I could see; rather the reverse, the poor little house looked worse. The house was in a mess, with builders’ ladders and equipment all over it. I stood in the middle of my sitting room there while I wondered if I would ever move back. Then I packed a box of china to take back to Brideswell.

  I had a passenger too. My friends, the Windsor white witches, Winifred Eagle and Birdie Peacock, with whom my dog Benjy usually lived (he preferred it), had gone off for a Conference on Natural Healing in Bath, and Benjy was in my charge.

  He liked a car ride so he travelled hopefully. Round his neck was a label inscribed by Winifred saying: I have not had my walk today, please give me one. I looked anxiously out of the window, a thick mist hung over the valley in which Brideswell lay, and these narrow lanes took some navigating. It would be very easy to miss the Brideswell turn. But there it was, and I took it gratefully. The mist seemed heavier here, the trees were completely shrouded.

  It was with some relief I drew up outside my house. There it was, sitting firmly in the village street as it had done for two hundred years. I unpacked the car, allowed Muff and Benjy (not natural friends) to get to know each other again. Then I took Benjy for the walk Miss Eagle had requested.

  I walked down the street, already darkening. It looked like rain again now as the mist grew even thicker and wetter. Benjy ran ahead, sniffing joyfully. This was good, he was saying, this was what a dog liked. The damp air had thickened into a fog which hung over the roofs, wreathing spirals of cloud over the trees, obscuring the vista of the church at the end of the road.

  Benjy shot ahead of me and trotted into the churchyard, where he began to bark, high excited yelps.

  I stood at the gate calling him, then I saw someone staggering towards me down the path. As I looked, the figure slid to the ground.

  I bent over the form, a man, lying face down on the earth. The back of the head had been hit, I could see the bone and blood. Gently I turned him over. The face, too, was covered with blood, blood had poured down

  over the front of his chest, soaking his sweater. Beneath the blood

  I could make out that the face itself had been gouged. Sliced.

  The hands had been cut as well, in exactly the same way.

  In spite of the damage, I knew I was looking at Thomas Dryden.

  He had not been rendered unrecognizable. If that had been the

  intention of the killer, then it had failed.

  I sat back on my heels.

  A noise, a thick uttering. Behind the bloody mask, he was speaking.

  ‘One of them was murdered.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Ellen Bean was standing on the pavement outside the church. ‘Heard the dog,’ she said.

  ‘Anyone would.’ I had Benjy tethered close to me, but he was wailing now like a lost soul, his excited barks having given way before the conviction that something alarming was afoot.

  She patted his head, then walked past me towards the churchyard.

  ‘Don’t go on,’ I said sharply.

  Ellen ignored the order, she marched in and was lost to sight in the mist. For the first time I noticed she was wearing a thick tweed cloak and carrying a stick as if prepared for trouble.

  She was soon back. ‘ So they got the poor devil.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘He, she, or it,’ said Ellen. ‘They. Figure of speech.’ She gave me a sharp stare. ‘You look terrible. I’ll go down to the Incident Room and tell Clive Barney.’ She had it all off pat, even to Barney’s name. She’d probably had several interesting talks with him. Offered to read his future or identify the killer.

  I gathered myself together; I hooked Benjy on to a spur on the iron gate so that he could not follow me. ‘Tell him to call an ambulance urgently. It’s just possible …’

  She gave me a startled look and, to her justice, scuttled off at once. I heard her say: ‘Oh, my dear Lord.’

  I took a deep breath; I was frightened, an emotion I do not usually allow myself, but there was evidence of such terrible brutality in what I had just seen. But I knew what I had to do and I went back into the churchyard to kneel by Thomas Dryden. I took his hand to feel for the pulse. The flesh was still warm and I thought I could feel a very faint throb beneath my fingers.

  A little blood was bubbling from his lips which I wiped away. I whispered in his ear.

  ‘Help is coming,’ I said. ‘H
ang on. Just hang on.’

  Was he trying to speak again? To say something more? I wanted to spare him the agony of trying.

  ‘I heard,’ I said. ‘ I heard: one of them was murdered.’ I wanted to spare the agony of speech but I had to know more. ‘Who? Who was murdered?’

  From between his lips came another bubble of blood. A breath seemed to move between his lips. I put my head close so that I could hear.

  ‘Fire,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘Fire.’

  ‘Fire?’ I wondered what he meant, or even if I was hearing correctly. ‘ Who did this to you? Can you say?’

  But there was nothing more. Only those tears of blood around his eyes and the seepage from his mouth. His lips relaxed, perhaps he was gone. But no, still that ghost of a pulse.

  Ghosts, I thought, sitting back on my heels, if there wasn’t a ghost in Brideswell already, then there would be after this act of slaughter. A bloody weeping ghost.

  Ellen came running back, I heard Benjy give a small bark as she sped past. Behind her came the heavier tread of Clive Barney.

  I hadn’t expected him.

  Barney acknowledged me with a slight nod, then he bent down over Dryden. ‘What’s this then?’

  ‘As you see,’ I said. ‘I found him. I don’t know how he got here or how this happened. But he didn’t do it to himself.’

  Barney grunted a no. He shook his head. ‘Ambulance is on the way.’ He stood up and took me aside. He acted from a delicacy I had not expected.

  ‘He may still be able to hear, wouldn’t want that. Is he still alive?’

  ‘Just. Barely.’

  ‘They’re the worst injuries I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some. They look deliberate too. No accident.’ He added: ‘Don’t think

  he’ll make it.’

  ‘Can’t be sure.’

  ‘Has he said anything?’

  I hesitated. ‘I can only tell you what I think I heard.’ I told him.

  Barney repeated my words back to me. ‘“ One of them was

  murdered.” And then “Fire” … was it really fire?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sounded like it. Might have been almost anything:

  iron, ire, wire.’

  ‘And he couldn’t say how he was attacked?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Pity.’ He took a pace away from me and then swung round. ‘ It

  has to be connected with the other business.’

  He made it a question, he wanted my opinion.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘But what he said: “One of them was murdered”. What the hell

  does that mean?’

  No answer there. I had none to give. ‘ We might find out.’

  ‘We might. We ought to but will we?’ He added shortly: ‘Not

  much joy on the Chloe Devon killing. We’re sweeping the village,

  all the males, but no go.’

  He turned back to kneel by Dryden’s body. ‘I think he’s gone.’

  I could see the lights of the ambulance approaching, hear Benjy’s

  bark. ‘Do you believe in evil?’

  He answered promptly. ‘Yes, sure. Seen plenty of it.’

  ‘There’s evil in this village.’

  Clive Barney hesitated before he answered this time. ‘That’s not

  like you, ma’am.’ I could see he did not know how to handle it.

  Not like the tough-minded careerist Charmian Daniels whom we

  all know and love to hate, he meant. ‘I don’t see it that way,’ he

  went on. ‘When we get the killer, if we ever do, then we will find

  he had a good practical motive for the whole lot.’

  Ellen and the two ambulance men came hurrying up the path.

  One of them had a large torch that doubled as a lamp.

  ‘Dear God,’ said one of them when he saw Dryden.

  If I believed in a God, I thought, other than a sort of demonaic

  figure that might suit Ellen Bean’s demiworld, I would lay this day and its exhaustions at his feet and say: ‘You deal with this.’ As it was, I said: ‘I’ll go in the ambulance with him.’

  ‘I’ll take you in the car,’ said Barney, quickly. ‘Follow behind.’

  ‘I’m going in the ambulance.’ If anything was to come through those bloody lips, then I wanted to hear.

  ‘I really shouldn’t, miss,’ said the paramedic with the lamp. He was dealing expertly with Dryden. ‘No room.’

  ‘I’m not miss,’ I said bleakly. ‘I’m a senior police officer, and I am coming.’ I saw Ellen on the path, her eyes bright and intent. ‘Take the dog,’ I said. She looked surprised but nodded, and unhooked Benjy from the gate.

  But when I was in the ambulance, crouched to one side, and I saw how they had an oxygen mask on that torn-up face, and drips attached to his arm, saw how he was gagged and fettered, I realized that Thomas Dryden would not, could not utter.

  Do doctors realize, I asked myself as I leaned against the side of the ambulance, how like the victims of medieval torture their bound-up, tied-up, muzzled patients look?

  My energy drained away, I slumped on the floor, spent. No notice was taken of me as the ambulance sped through the mist, I was just extra luggage.

  Then Dryden moved. Perhaps the oxygen was sparking something inside him. He dragged at his mask and knocked at the oxygen tank at his side, almost seemed to be pushing away.

  He wants to die, I thought, he’s had enough. He’s signalling he wants out and we won’t let him go.

  I took his hand. ‘I should like to have known you,’ I said. ‘I shall remember you.’

  A team of nurses and doctors was waiting for the ambulance. I stood aside, watching. I was aware of, but took no notice of, the arrival of Clive Barney in the police car. He positioned himself just behind me; he had one or two acolytes with him.

  There was a flurry of activity inside the ambulance, and then suddenly, it was all over. The doctors emerged to stand talking and the nurses walked away. As one of the doctors turned round, a tall, fair young woman with strong bones, I realized I knew her.

  ‘Rosie.’

  She looked at me with surprised recognition. ‘Hello.’

  I had met Rosie Meadows when she was dealing with a murder at the Prince Consort Hospital in Merrywick near Windsor. She had been a young houseman, assisting one of the surgeons at a time when I had been investigating a murder in the hospital car park.

  ‘I’m senior casualty officer,’ she said.

  ‘Rosie, what’s going on?’ Or not going on, the ambulance was closing the doors and moving away with Dryden still inside. I suppose I knew what it meant deep down inside me, but I wanted someone to put it into speech, and doctors sometimes prefer silence.

  ‘Dead on arrival,’ said Rosie. She shook her head. ‘We don’t admit them then … they go elsewhere.’

  I could pinpoint the moment of Dryden’s death: the second after he had hit the oxygen bottle. Perhaps he had already been dead and it had been nothing more than a spasm of the dying organism. But it had looked deliberate, aimed. I believed with his last energies he had aimed at the oxygen flask. Perhaps it reminded him of something.

  ‘I know the place you mean.’ At that moment I did not wish to name the mortuary. I looked for the Chief Inspector, but he had already withdrawn to his car where he was talking on the telephone. I knew what he was doing: making arrangements for the police surgeon and the police pathologist to view Dryden’s body.

  ‘Is he one of yours?’ she asked. ‘I mean the dead man?’

  ‘In a way,’ I said. ‘I found him.’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked at me speculatively. ‘Would you like to tidy up? There’s quite a bit of blood on your face. You weren’t hurt yourself?’

  I looked down on my hands. Dried blood there too. ‘No, nothing like that. Yes, I’d like to wash.’

  ‘You look as though you could do with a cup of coffee,’ Rosie said as she led the way. ‘And I know I could. Been on dut
y all day.’

  In the wash room she handed me a clean towel. I studied my face which was streaked with dark blood. I even had some dark thick clumps of something in my hair. I did the best I could with soap and hot water.

  ‘I could let you have some lipstick and powder,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Don’t bother. I’ll take the coffee, though.’

  I didn’t have to wonder about Clive Barney, he had gone off to get on with all the questions. He might never get the answers but he would be asking the questions.

  As she poured the coffee, Rosie said thoughtfully: ‘ He was certainly done over, never seen anything quite like his injuries, not even in a car-crash death.’

  ‘What killed him? Could you tell?’

  ‘I’m not sure, not easy to make a good examination in the ambulance, but someone gave him a mighty bash on the head … I don’t know about the other injuries whether before or after. I’ve got a sort of notion that his injuries were done in stages. Bit by bit.’ She saw my face and said quickly, ‘He probably wouldn’t have been conscious … would have come and gone.’

  I put some sugar in my coffee in desperate search of energy. ‘ I believe he may have managed to walk even after all that he had done to him.’ I did not believe he had been attacked in the churchyard, but had made his way there.

  ‘Oh, you can walk with a head injury. Sometimes … I had met him, of course.’

  I was surprised. ‘You had?’

  ‘Oh yes, his wife was often in and about collecting specimens or delivering them … she worked in the Nuttin Research Institute down the road. It’s a microbiological research centre. We help each other out on occasion, specimens, checks, that sort of thing. He collected her sometimes. That was before she drove into the back of a lorry on the M4 and killed herself. They brought her in here. We get plenty of crash victims, being so near all the motorways, but it’s always a shock when you see a face you know.’

  ‘Was she a scientist?’

  ‘No, secretary, but she was one of those women that the whole administration depends on. Capable, you know, and hard-working, and would do anything. A bit highly strung and inclined to imagine things, but a good sort, I liked her. Pretty too.’