Windsor Red

by Jennie Melville

  ‘So they could be anywhere? Is that what you are saying?’

  ‘Have money, could travel.’

  Her speed increased.

  ‘You’re in a hurry.’

  She slowed down a little. ‘Sorry, am I driving too fast? I have something I want to do before I see the Girls.’

  ‘Oh?’

  With a sideways look, she said: ‘I’m going to see a doctor.’ He decided she meant that too.

  Policewoman Dolly Barstow was looking for a doctor too. Len had come across with his list of names of those who might have given certain advice to the baby kidnapper. Dolly had known she would get it, but he had been tougher than she had expected and she had promised discretion. Her idea of discretion was an immediate call on the most likely doctor.

  As she drove to the chosen address she passed a van-load of her colleagues coming back from the farm where the two cases had been found. Almost her heart bled for them, they were working like dogs down there, turning everything over, and finding nothing so she’d heard. No bodies, not a clue, just farm muck and mud. And it was raining.

  Without knowing it, she passed Charmian Daniels heading towards home after depositing Harold English at his house. Neither woman observed the other.

  Charmian had one call to fit in before trying to find Dr Amanda Rivers at home. She had a message for her ‘contact’. He was an easy man to meet.

  ‘Just to tell you that I am getting the group photograph you wanted. You may have it tomorrow.’ The Girls had raised no objection; it was wanted for her thesis. ‘That as well,’ she told herself.

  There was never any need to say much. In an underground kind of way these two understood each other. They were not friends but they might have been very much more. There were destined to be shocks ahead.

  ‘I may remember something else if I see them all together.’ He was a man of many parts who might have encountered any one of the women in his career at various points. It was interesting he still felt himself a law enforcer.

  He had a strong sense, he informed her, of natural justice. He hated to let people get away with things.

  ‘I shouldn’t think you did very often.’ ‘Not if I can help it.’ He gave Charmian an assessing stare. ‘If you don’t mind me

  saying so, you look knackered. Stay for a coffee.’

  ‘Better be off. I’m on a hunt.’ Uneasily she passed a hand over

  her hair. Certainly it could do with some attention, but not now. She chose to walk and not drive to the street where Amanda

  Rivers lived. The girl had to be there this time.

  She walked down the street. It was quiet and still, the rain had

  stopped but the pavements were wet. All the little houses turned

  a blank face to the street.

  There was someone outside Dr Rivers’ house when she got there,

  another woman. She was banging on the door, but she turned

  round as Charmian came up, and whether Charmian recognised

  her or not, Dolly Barstow knew whom she was looking at.

  She stopped her onslaught on the door. The house looked even

  more neglected than when Charmian had been there before.

  Abandoned was the word, Charmian thought.

  ‘No answer?’ she said.

  Dolly shook her head.

  ‘Tried the hospital?’

  ‘I came from there.’

  Charmian went to the ground floor window and stared inside.

  The room had a dead, unchanging air to it as rooms do when they

  have been unused for some time.

  ‘She’s not there.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I don’t think she’s anywhere,’ said Dolly.

  They stared at each other in understanding of the same dark

  truth.

  They had started from different directions and had followed

  different paths but they had arrived at the same spot at the same

  time.

  ‘My view too,’ agreed Charmian. ‘ I think she’s dead.’

  Neither of them knew that on that day a farmer in Oxfordshire had discovered the remains of two bodies in a wood on a part of his farm which touched the Oxford to Banbury road. They were mere torsos and had been there some time.

  Later that day, some wag asked: ‘And were they sun-tanned?’

  Chapter Nine

  WINDSOR WAS A SMALL TOWN , a royal town, a town where rumours and tales spread on the wind. Someone once said it was like Cranford with a crown on. It was a town which usually had in it someone who knew more of the inside story than anyone else did, and in this case the person was Charmian.

  She knew more of what was going on and said less. What she learned did not make her less fearful for Kate and Harry, but more.

  Because of their involvement with Amanda Rivers, both Dolly Barstow and Charmian had to make statements to the officer in charge of the torso case, Chief Inspector T. Bossey. They did so, both of them, the day following the discovery of the bodies. Or what was left of them.

  It was a chill, bright hard morning, more like a day on the east coast of Scotland where Charmian came from than the damp Thames Valley. But rain was predicted before evening.

  Tom Bossey was polite, but he wanted to know what had been going on. In pursuit of that information he was prepared to be ruthless.

  He was a man whose face had always the appearance of a gentle interested smile. Underneath he might be feeling quite different but you would never know. Charmian had been alerted by kind colleagues to this fact, so she knew what to expect.

  ‘So?’

  ‘No, nothing to do with the work that brings me here.’ She found herself unexpectedly nervous. ‘A personal interest. I am a friend of Mrs Cooper. Kate Cooper is my godchild.’ Which you assuredly know already, she thought. ‘Dr Rivers is … was a friend of Kate’s. I thought she might know where Kate was.’

  ‘At that time you had not suspected that Dr Rivers herself might have been the victim of violence?’

  ‘I had begun to wonder … I suppose the clothes in the case that was found were hers?’

  ‘It looks as though they might be.’

  Clearly he was not a man who parted with any information easily. Their eyes met.

  ‘Kate Cooper must have lent her the case for her holiday. Also the bathing suit.’

  ‘I’m hoping to find that out,’ said Tom Bossey. Far away and long ago there had been a French ancestor for Tom. He claimed descent from a French divine called Bossuet, and traces of that formidable man’s genes could be held accountable for the hard strain in him. Or so he liked to think. His colleagues just said Tom could be a right bastard.

  ‘So it was just chance, you and Barstow turning up on the doorstep at the same time?’

  ‘Coincidence.’ All the time she had been waiting with Dolly Barstow afterwards she had been uneasily aware that the girls were already assembling to have their likenesses taken. In the event they had gone off and had it done on their own, showing an initiative that she wondered at. What was Laraine up to? ‘And you both realised at the same time that the house was empty?’

  ‘Had been for far too long. I had been there once before.’

  Looking for news of Kate. Which she still did not have. Where was Kate? Some place for which a case and clothes were not necessary. Or somewhere you did not know you were going. She just had to hope it was not a grave.

  ‘I’d like to know where Kate Cooper is,’ she said to Tom Bossey. ‘I’m worried about her.’

  ‘I think we all must be,’ said Tom Bossey gravely.

  ‘Has anyone checked whether the man Harry Jackson has or has ever had a house somewhere?’

  To which he might have had a key, and to which Kate and Harry might have gone, or Kate alone, or Harry alone. There were those permutations to be considered.

  Tom Bossey considered what she had to say, and answered obliquely. ‘ He is a violent man, and Miss Cooper in conjunction with him
appears to show violence as well, but there seems no reason why these two, whether together or separately, should commit two violent murders.’

  ‘We’ll have to find them.’

  ‘I think you can take it that we are now looking hard.’ Then he added: ‘Not only because Miss Cooper may have very important information about Dr Rivers that she ought to tell us, but for her own sake. Whoever the killer is, he or she may want to find Kate Cooper too.’

  ‘You say she?’

  ‘I am ruling nothing out. But we really know very little yet. It’s all to do.’ In fact, he knew less than he was letting her know. Time enough for that, he told himself.

  Yet the discovery of the two bodies was no secret for long. With some speed a provisional identification was made of the female torso. From the age and the bony structure of the woman it looked as though it was Amanda Rivers. There were no helpful scars, but Amanda Rivers had borne no scars. Nor Kate for that matter. A young colleague from the hospital (not Len) came down to the mortuary to give a quick look, swallowed, shrugged, and said: ‘Yes, it could be.’ It had seemed best to let a medic have first look.

  Her parents were informed of the finding of the body and the reason for thinking it might be their daughter. They lived in the South of France, but would be arriving as soon as possible. They had something to say. Amanda had gone on holiday with the man she expected to marry: Dr James Cook. Yes, she had certainly arrived in Rhodes, they had had a postcard. When she had not arrived back at the expected time they had thought she was staying on, although it was unprofessional and unlike Amanda. Yes, they had been worried, and of course they were apprehensive. But not of death, not of murder, not of this.

  Dr Cook’s partner had a look at the other body. He didn’t know what to say, but muttered an acceptance that it looked like Jim, but it was hard to tell and he was no expert. No, James Cook had no close kin.

  To a question he said: Yes, he certainly had wondered what Jim was up to, the locum had been tearing her hair to get on to the next job, but he had been perplexed, wondering what to do, not wanting to harm Jim’s career, he was a fine doctor. One more day and he would have informed the police.

  ‘He wouldn’t have,’ said the young policeman taking the statement. ‘Too cagey. He was waiting for things to happen without him having to do anything.’

  Long before formal identifications could be made, everyone was saying the bodies could be matched to the missing limbs and that it was possible that they belonged to two doctors, lovers and fellow workers. These two people had been missing without anyone realising the significance of their absence.

  They had flown out of Heathrow together, stayed in the same hotel, enjoyed their holiday, caught the correct flight home, landed at Heathrow and never been seen again.

  Somewhere between Heathrow and Slough it looked as though they had died, and their limbs and bodies dispersed.

  Dolly Barstow’s interview took place much later than Charmian’s. This was due to her own arrangement. She had considerable powers of procrastination, learnt at the large and powerful comprehensive she had attended, and she really had to have a word with Len Lennard before letting that pig Bossey talk to her.

  She sat there, looking at his gently amused features and wondering what the genes had to do with it or if he was just a freak of nature. She was one of the few in the local force whose education allowed her to know who his ancestor Bossuet was. Yes, it was possible that the tutor to the Dauphin had fallen into some affair at the court of Louis XIV and thus permitted his blood line to get through to the next generation. Even for a bishop it must have been extremely difficult to remain a virgin in those social circles.

  If you managed to hold on to thoughts like that, why you could deal with Tom Bossey more bravely.

  ‘You were doing what exactly, Detective Barstow?’ The smiling face did not alter, possibly could not, the structure of the bones not permitting it, but his tone was tough. ‘Not a friend of Dr Rivers, were you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor of Kate Cooper’s?’

  ‘Never met her.’

  ‘So what took you down there?’

  ‘I was off duty,’ said Dolly cautiously.

  ‘A little private investigation?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it that.’

  He remained silent. Silence was something he was good at, so that to break it you found yourself hurrying into speech.

  ‘I had an idea about the kidnapped babies,’ said Dolly boldly. It was all right for her to say this. ‘Just don’t mention me,’ Len had ordered.

  ‘Come on then. Out with it.’

  ‘The missing babies had been breast fed, but there did not seem to be any likely female suspect.’

  He seized on the word. ‘You’re not suggesting a man could breast feed?’

  ‘No, of course not, although when I was researching I found there is work going on to help men bear a child.’ She enjoyed saying that, it was just the sort of concept to appal Tom Bossey. ‘Nourishing the foetus on the stomach wall,’ she added with pleasure.

  ‘Oh, so you did research, did you?’

  Dolly nodded, so she had. In her own way. ‘I discovered, what I hadn’t known, but it is apparently an accepted medical practice, that you can induce a flow of breast milk in a woman who hasn’t had a child. I thought you had to have been pregnant and given birth, but it seems the glands can be stimulated by massage and such to produce milk.’

  Silence again.

  ‘So you see it would considerably widen the field of women to consider. But it would only be begun on a doctor’s advice and in special circumstances.’

  Tom Bossey looked as though he was glad to hear it.

  ‘I was looking for the doctor. I had a list of names and I was working through it.’

  ‘So your arrival there had no connection with severed limbs? You were not investigating that, privately or otherwise?’

  ‘No. It was just a coincidence.’ Then she added, even more bravely, ‘But I still think I would like to see Dr Rivers’ list of patients.’ And her case notes, but they belonged to the Health Authority, didn’t they, and would probably need an Act of Parliament to be unveiled. But there were ways.

  ‘I will pass on your suggestion,’ said Tom Bossey.

  With surprise, Dolly Barstow realised she was being praised. Through the agency of Dolly and Dr Len Lennard the news spread smartly throughout one segment of Windsor society. The hospital could talk about nothing else.

  Within twenty-four hours the news was everywhere.

  Charmian, whether she desired to be or not, was a disseminator of news. Because of her it was going to spread through Wellington Yard from Anny and Jack to Jerome and from him to Elspeth (who was back at work looking pale and tired) and from her to the wholemeal breadmaker and round the corner to the Robertsons, whose boy was better, but not willing to say very much yet. He was thinking about it and would tell his mother if he remembered anything new. It was all part of his illness now and he didn’t care to dwell on it; besides, he had only seen her back and all he could say was that she was old but not very old. That could mean anything, as Bessie pointed out. ‘He thinks I’m pre-war and I’m not forty yet.’

  There was relief, mixed with an undercurrent of something deeper and less pleasant, in the Coopers’ household. Charmian had told them what she knew of the bodies and their identity at the end of a long and unpleasant day. Until then she had managed to avoid Anny and Jack. But they had to know. So she told them on her way up to bed.

  ‘Not our Kate,’ said Jack.

  ‘It could never have been,’ said Anny quickly.

  ‘You weren’t so sure.’

  ‘In my heart I knew she was too sensible to get mixed up with anything like that.’

  ‘Do you think there’s a choice? Do you think that other poor girl wanted to die by violence?’

  ‘It’s a question of character.’

  ‘Or your stars?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anny s
eriously. ‘Something like that. I see now that wherever Kate is, she is in control. That’s what she is, someone who stays in charge.’

  ‘Her godmother is worried. She doesn’t say so but I can tell she is.’

  ‘It’s a professional preoccupation with her,’ said Anny angrily. ‘You and Charmian talk together too much these days.’

  ‘I haven’t said a word to her for days.’

  ‘But you claim to know what she thinks.’

  ‘She’s worried about Kate, of course she is. I’m worried. So are you if you’d admit it.’

  ‘Kate is not dead,’ said Anny in a loud voice so that Charmian upstairs in bed heard it.

  ‘No, she is not dead, but where the hell is she? And what has her part been in all this?’

  ‘So we are back to thinking Kate a murderer, are we? I won’t believe her capable of that.’

  ‘Since she has known that man I have not known what she is capable of,’ said Jack quietly. ‘ There is such a thing as folie à deux, you know.’

  Upstairs Charmian was thinking much the same. Muff sat on her bed and looked at her with a gentle gaze. Silence and contentment spread around Muff: she had the person she loved best, on whom she depended for all comfort and company, safe by her side, so she was happy. She moved to a better position on Charmian’s arm so that she could anchor her victim more certainly and began a confident purr.

  ‘Push over, cat,’ said Charmian, but in such a soft and loving voice that Muff felt no real threat. ‘Why did I ever get into this business, Muff? Why did I come here? Well, I know the answer to that one. Ambition. I thought it would be that major step forward my career needed at this stage. And after all, what else have I got, puss?’ She put aside all thoughts of Humphrey and whatever he might represent and that other man to whom she felt strangely drawn. ‘And so it may yet, puss, so it may if I pull it off and I mean to, my dear.’ Her hand went out to stroke the cat’s soft head. ‘But what am I going to do about this other business? The one that comes so close to Kate? I seem to have blundered into that one. What shall I do about it, because I have an idea, puss, just something I have seen.’