Come Home and Be Killed

by Jennie Melville

  ‘You see we didn’t really know anything,’ explained Charlie. ‘We only guessed. And we went this way and that. Moments we thought Kathy innocent, moments we thought Mumsy and Janet were dead. Rob was always apprehensive; he was sure they were dead.’ Then Charlie heard from the police that they had the two women in hospital, that they were alive, if barely, and Mumsy had made a statement accusing Kathy. ‘I got this up to Rob straight away,’ said Charlie. ‘The police were half sceptical, Kathy had a good reputation, they had to check but from then on we knew!’

  It was all of a piece, thought Charmian as she took notes and statements, once you knew the people concerned. Granted their particular natures and backgrounds it was inevitable. There was Kathy, sullen and possessive, unable to endure the two other women, longing to have her home all her own, and boiling it all up inside her until it was past bearing. There were Janet and Mumsy, kind but a little obtuse, not realising how they were getting on Kathy’s nerves. There was Robert, kind and willing, but a little dense, and Charlie, used to chancing his own arm.

  A crime compounded of possessiveness and secretiveness and jealousy. Yes, and of love, too, because Kathy had loved her home, and Robert and Charlie both loved and were beloved.

  A decent enough set of people taken alone, but a set that should never have been left together.

  Charmian had a vivid inward picture of the house; small, red-roofed, white walled on the outside, trim and fresh and sweet on the inside. But ordinary, usual, everyday. Could anyone feel as strongly as all that about a house?

  But Kathy had.

  There was plenty of evidence that many in Deerham Hills would understand that feeling. Television sets, furniture, motor cars. Were you nearer an ape or an angel if you felt strongly about a house or a television set asked Charmian? And had to decide you were nearer an angel.

  When Emily got home she found her front garden swarming with noisy little boys. Maybe there were only seven of them but it seemed like thirty. They sounded like thirty.

  Her husband was standing in the middle scowling. The baby on the other hand was screaming with excited pleasure. The little boys were trundling it up and down in the garden wheel barrow.

  Emily pushed open the garden gate and her husband turned round at once.

  ‘Emily,’ he said sternly, ‘what are these?’

  His wife’s face looked happier at once. ‘ Oh them! They’re just my boys.’

  He tapped his chest. ‘Emily, I am your boy.’ He pointed to his son, ‘He is your boy.’

  ‘No need to be jealous. They’re only my pre-Wolf-Cub Group.’

  The boys were scuttling round the garden looking more like maniacs than before, all except one who was quietly digging a deep hole.

  ‘I’m not jealous, Emily, I’m desperate.’

  ‘Oh, they won’t be with us long. Only a couple of hours.’

  He shuddered. ‘All seven of them? Two hours?’

  ‘What you don’t seem to realise,’ said Emily over her shoulder as she rounded them up, ‘is that some people have to live with seven children.’

  Charmian sat down and picked up her telephone. She spoke to Johnny Lambert.

  ‘Why don’t you marry Angie?’

  ‘Because she’s married already. Merchant seaman. Deserted her.’

  ‘There’s divorce.’

  ‘You can’t divorce a man when you don’t know where he is,’ said Johnny bitterly. ‘No. We’re stuck. And now the whole town knows, thank you.’

  Charmian passed over his anger. ‘There are ways. Come up here and talk it over.’

  She sighed as she put down the telephone. That anyway was a problem she could do something about.

  Sarah came in to see Charmian. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I wanted you to know. I’m taking Harry away for a little holiday. Well, business as well, we’re going to New York and then flying on to Jamaica. Ideas and contacts for beach clothes, and sun as well.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Charmian. But she was wistful. That friendship would never be the same. Oh, they’d try. But Sarah would never forget. She’d forget that she’d once mistrusted Harry, but she’d never forget Charmian had known and had indeed been the cause.

  Charmian looked out of the window. It was raining in Deerham Hills and way across the other side of the hill a crime of violence was taking place, a girl being attacked, a car crashing.

  It was predictable. It was all in the statistics.

  Sooner or later she would have to deal with it. She took a deep breath and went back to work.

  Copyright

  First published 1962 by Michael Joseph

  This edition published 2015 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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  ISBN–978-1-4472-9584-6 EPUB

  ISBN–978-1-4472-9582-2 HB

  ISBN–978-1-4472-9583-9 PB

  Copyright © Jennie Melville, 1962

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