Revengeful Death

by Jennie Melville

  ‘There was a car crash, in south London, Blackheath; her brother was driving too fast down the hill, it curves, apparently, and a child, a boy, was about to cross the road. Mary March rushed forward and grabbed the child. Saved its life. But her brother swerved and hit another car, and his passenger, a girl, was killed.’ She frowned. ‘There’s more to it than that, but I haven’t quite grasped it.’

  ‘It’s your job to grasp it.’

  ‘It’s a question of reading between the lines.’

  ‘So read.’

  Dolly frowned again. ‘Mary March King, as she was then, was attacked in the street, not mugged but hit; her house was daubed with muck of various nasty types; she got anonymous letters. She did complain to the local police but they couldn’t pin it on anyone. She said someone was after her. They didn’t believe it. One school of thought said she was making it up, doing it to herself.’

  ‘There are people like that,’ said Charmian, also frowning. ‘And I am half inclined to believe she’s one of them.’

  ‘Her brother went to prison, by the way.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘She defended him stoutly in court, said the accident was not his fault. Nor hers … But he was driving too fast and with his arm round the girl. He had also been drinking, not a lot but enough to show.’ Dolly shook her head. ‘I feel there’s more to it, but no one seems to know. Or to want to say. Mary herself got more and more aggressive, attacked a police officer for not helping her, got a few days in custody where she got madder and more violent, and finally got some psychiatric help. Read on from there, nothing more to say.’

  ‘Except for Mary March, who says someone is after her. And we have this body she found.’

  ‘I do have a contact, a friend who worked with me once, and is now with the police division that covers that area. She’s not CID but she sees all the files and knows everything.’

  ‘Useful woman – get hold of her.’ Charmian finished her drink, picked up her bag. ‘I’m off home. I don’t think we shall get any further tonight.’

  ‘I haven’t got very far with Gina Foster,’ said Dolly. ‘All I know at the moment is what I found in her bio in Artists – that she trained at RADA, won a prize for her character acting – the Eliza Bartomly prize – that she’s done a bit of TV work, a stint at the National, nothing much. And she started the Trojans a few years ago, since when they have travelled round the country bringing drama to schools and villages whether they wanted it or not. And reading between the lines I don’t always think they did want it much. Does it on a shoestring, apparently. Nothing personal there. I couldn’t get at her today, she was up most of the night working with Headfort so she was sleeping it off. He likes her, I think.’

  ‘He likes most attractive women.’

  ‘True.’ Dolly laughed, reminiscing.

  ‘Nothing personal, you say. But remember, she knew Mary March before Windsor – they lived in the same part of London. Dig away.’

  ‘She might know more about March than she’s admitted,’ said Dolly. ‘Hard to know what to make of March.’

  ‘She has teeth, that woman,’ said Charmian with conviction. She locked up the cupboard where she kept her drinks – although it would be a brave soul who stole from Charmian Daniels – cast a last look round her office as she always did, and departed.

  Gina, she thought as she drove home, Gina Foster: was that her real name? Actresses often changed their name, didn’t they? I was right to put her at the bottom of my table. She links up. Not guilty herself, but a channel.

  Then she laughed, and drove faster. Faster than she should have done through the winding, narrow Windsor streets. Faster than the law allowed, but no police officer (not that there seemed to be any around) would stop her. She was known.

  Murder cases are solved by slogging away and checking and using what forensics can do for you – which was not always what you wanted or expected. But some person had to be there in the background, thinking, analysing, reacting to people. And drawing cladograms.

  Her husband was at home, glad to see her and in the kitchen preparing their evening meal, a task he now took pleasure in; and he was a better cook than his wife.

  ‘Had a good day?’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘ No, I can see you haven’t. You have that look.’

  ‘And what sort of look is that?’

  ‘Thin – yes, a thin look.’

  ‘Just hunger. What are you doing?’ There was a cautious note in her voice. Humphrey was inclined to be inventive in his cookery.

  He considered. ‘A kind of a curry … yes, more of a curry than a risotto … but you’ll like it.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And I’ve fed the cat and walked the dog.’

  ‘Thanks, you are an angel.’

  ‘No, just a good housewife … I went round to see Rosie, just details about our lunch, shall I drive her up or will we meet there, et cetera. Met all the Trojans. Do they always go around in a bunch? A nice lot, though.’

  Humphrey, whose career had been orthodox in the extreme, and his work often so secret and his contacts so highly placed that he did not talk about them, seemed to be taking to bohemia with enthusiasm.

  ‘I think I might go on a tour with them; I could learn a lot.’

  ‘You could indeed,’ said Charmian, taking up a stick of celery and biting on it.

  ‘Not in their van or the Rolls, wouldn’t be room; take my own car. And, of course, losing one of them, they need a replacement.’

  ‘So they do,’ said Charmian, thinking that the pragmatic toughness – you could almost say hardness – of the English upper classes was amazing. But Humphrey was a nice man, kind and courteous even to his wife. ‘And how was Rosie?’

  Humphrey considered. ‘ To be quite honest, I think she’s enjoying it. She always likes being in the thick of things and now, of course, she is.’ He took a taste of his brew on the tip of a spoon, frowned, then added a touch of curry powder. ‘The Trojans are all at sixes and sevens at the murder of the boy. Harmless, they say he was, not even particularly talented, but hardworking and good. They think he must have wandered into the flat on his publicity tour and got into the middle of a quarrel or a fight, or possibly there was an intruder in the house, and he got stabbed.’ He sipped again at his concoction and nodded to himself. ‘I think that’s quite likely, don’t you?’

  ‘They don’t know the half of it; said Charmian, remembering the cut in Pip’s chest and the removal of his thymus gland.

  ‘But you do. And you’re not saying, even to me?’ He raised an eyebrow.

  When she told him the details, he sat at the table and looked across at her. ‘ Not nice, not nice at all. No. You couldn’t call it a common murder, could you?’

  They never are, Charmian thought, all odd in their way. She never called anything a common murder: it seemed to demean the dead.

  Her husband went back to his cooking. ‘We can eat in the kitchen if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not.’ It was what she had always done before she married. If she remembered to eat a meal at all, didn’t just make a sandwich and a cup of coffee. It would have been good coffee, however; she had her standards. While, with any luck and a little planning, her sandwich might have been filled with smoked salmon.

  Humphrey was still troubled. ‘It’s hard to believe that poor chap, doing his best to promote the Trojans in Windsor, just wandered into the flat and got murdered, yet that seems to be what happened.’ He was laying out china and silver on the table with brisk, assured movements. ‘I suppose it’ll all get tidied up in the end, all the details will fall into place.’

  ‘No, they won’t; there’s always some questions left over.’

  They sat facing each other over the dish of rice and vegetables which was delicious: spicy and hot without being overpowering. There was probably garlic in it, Charmian reflected, which she and all near her would regret tomorrow because of the after-smell. But

  what the hell, tonight it was good.r />
  ‘You don’t like Mary March,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘She doesn’t like me.’

  ‘A serious fault,’ said Humphrey gravely.

  Charmian laughed.

  ‘It’s good to hear you laugh, you’ve been very twitchy lately.’

  He looked at her with affection. There was something worrying

  her but if she didn’t want to say, then he was not going to press. ‘I wonder what the Trojans are doing now?’ she said aloud, as

  they went to bed. ‘ Talking it over, grieving for their friend, angry

  because it would mean the show would not go on. Secretly glad

  of the publicity?’

  ‘That’s a very cynical view.’

  Gina Foster, Emma Gill, Shirley James, Joe Dibben, Albert Fish.

  How much guilt was to be weighed up in that list? After all,

  they were the only people in Windsor who knew Pip. Which one

  of them killed him? Or was it all of them?

  No, she would not accept this notion; this was not an Agatha

  Christie movie.

  She frowned; there was some ghost here to exorcise, but she

  could not put a name to the phantom.

  Gina was still at the bottom of Charmian’s diagram of

  relationships, but no doubt other arms would stretch to link up. She leaned back on her pillows, picking a book to read. Charlotte

  Yonge tonight, The Clever Woman of the Family. Humphrey was

  lying by her side, eyes closed, but not asleep.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  He opened his eyes. ‘Not really thinking, just enjoying being

  alive.’ He reached out a hand to her.

  She put down her book and turned towards him. ‘Put out the

  light. Sometimes I like the light on, but not tonight.’

  Darkness seemed safer for lovemaking with all this death around.

  Walking around the dark Windsor streets that night, which was moonless and misty, the murderer meditated that there was always someone around available and ready to be killed.

  The first killing had been by chance. The young man had walked in … those two front doors never closed properly, an open invitation … and the knife had been there, ready, not for him but for another, and he tried to grab it.

  Hurt me; the killer looked down at his hand, still with a small wound. He shouted too, frightened the boy.

  So the knife went into him. Well, naturally, deep in. Taking out the little organ had been a brainwave.

  Another victim, just one more, please.

  A couple of possibilities had already come along, but were rejected. They were young men, and a woman was desired.

  There must be no talk of a serial murderer. This was quite another matter, this was no serial murder, it was a serious murder, a demonstration murder, an academic murder if you like, since it was to teach. Time to get on with it, anyway, no hanging about now, the ultimate was on the move like a lamb: the bleating of the lamb excites the wolf.

  A marvellous sense of liberation swept through the murderer. No lamblike victim for me: I am Mowgli, the wolf man. I have soft paws, but jungle – watch out.

  Windsor seemed nothing like a jungle to Mariette Lane. This was not her real name, which was Marian, but her party name, her going-out name. One day she might grow into it and use it permanently. After she was married, perhaps? Marriage was the magic step which could transform a Marian into a Mariette. Or the stage, becoming an actress, television really, that would be the way. She knew she could do it.

  Mariette and her best friend Dinah Jones had been to the cinema in Slough. They stopped for a coffee afterwards which was possibly unwise, but Mariette was excited and wanted to talk.

  ‘I’ve decided that I really am a performer, and I’ve made a start; she had said grandly. ‘Just a start; you have to make a start.’ She was fifteen, nearly sixteen. Time to begin.

  ‘You are a goer.’ Dinah was impressed. ‘I wouldn’t have the nerve.’ She admired Marian (she did not know about Mariette) and modelled herself upon her. They had been friends since infancy. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Might have – going to call again.’ Then they got a bus to Windsor with no trouble, where Dinah caught another back to Cheasey. But Mariette missed the last bus to where she lived on the outskirts of Windsor. She stood by the bus stop for a while, hopefully – she was a hopeful girl – then decided to walk. It was not too far. But she was sensible, and stopped at a nearby telephone box to tell her parents what she was doing.

  ‘Won’t be long, Dad, it isn’t far.’

  ‘I’ll start walking to meet you. Don’t talk to anyone.’

  ‘Right, Dad, thanks.’

  Mariette started to walk down River Street and her father, somewhat delayed by a search for his spectacles, without which he was no good to anyone, man or beast, set out too. They should meet about halfway in Pardoe Street even if he was a bit slow. ‘Don’t take the dog,’ urged his wife.

  ‘She needs a walk …’

  ‘She potters and you potter.’

  But he took the dog. Couldn’t get out without Timmy – the dog knew his rights and a late-night walk was one of them.

  Mariette walked fast, but it was a nice night even with no moon and she had a dream going, which the film had added to, in which she was wearing a very short couture dress and carrying the newest kind of bag. She was on a plane, or was she just landing? Or maybe she was stepping into an open car. Yes, that was it …

  She came up to another bus stop at which someone was standing, so perhaps a bus was due.

  ‘Hello, it’s Marian, isn’t it?’

  ‘Hello.’ She was surprised. People seen out of context are often hard to recognize.

  ‘Late for you to be out, isn’t it?’

  ‘Missed the bus.’ Perhaps she let surprise come into her voice.

  ‘No, I didn’t miss the bus. Just stopped here to light a cigarette …’

  Mariette nodded. She was finding it hard to hang on to being Mariette at this moment, but she would have to give it up when she met Dad, anyway.

  ‘I’ve got the car round the corner, I’ll give you a lift. Bit late for you to be out.’

  ‘My father’s walking to meet me.’

  ‘That’s all right. You tell me which way to go and we’ll run across him.’

  Mariette had a sudden alarming picture of Dad ‘run across’, his pleasant plumpness squashed in the road.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She let herself be led, follow the leader, to where indeed the big old car was parked in a dark cul-de-sac, but there were lights still on in the houses opposite. She got in, sat in the front seat. Then she jerked; ‘ Oh, I’m sitting on something.’ She reached to feel. ‘It’s a pair of jeans. I sat on the buckle of the belt.’

  ‘Oh, just shove them aside.’ And the car was backed out. There was a light in the house overlooking the little road, so there was life around. At the moment.

  The car was moved out and they drove off. Fast. A mite faster than Mariette had expected.

  After a bit, she said politely, ‘A left turn here would be best for me.’

  ‘Don’t worry, this is a bit of a short cut …’ She would find out.

  It was such a long, dark short cut that Mariette went rapidly back to being Marian. A frightened Marian.

  ‘I think you’ve taken the wrong turn, this is behind Wavertree Factory.’ Wavertree, no longer making cough sweets, had been shut and closed for a year or two. More. She was scared.

  The car stopped. ‘Wrong move. Not to worry, I’ll turn the car and get us out. Let me just put my arm …’

  Marian felt the pressure on her shoulders; she jerked her head backwards so that the carefully piled-up beehive of her hair fell down.

  ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.’

  Was she being laughed at? Surely not. Dad was going to be very cross if they missed each other. ‘What do you mean?’

  A h
and touched her face, moved to her throat. ‘Oh, what soft hands you have.’ Hot hands too. She hardly knew what she was saying but she knew this was danger.

  ‘The better to smooth your hair. To wind it round your soft neck.’

  She tried to keep her head. Make a joke of it, that was best.

  ‘Be careful, you might joke me; no, choke me.’ Suddenly the face seemed so close. As the blood was cut off from her brain, Marian began to be several different people: she was a slave girl in Rome, she was lost in a stone tomb, wrapped in sere cloths. She shot forward in time to be someone wearing a hood; she was a girl lost in the wood. ‘Ahhhh, oh, what big teeth you have.’

  ‘The better to eat you with, my dear.’

  If those were the last words she was destined to hear, a quotation seemed the best idea. You needed to say something, this being an academic murder, and besides, no original words came to mind.

  By the small hours, Marian’s father was at the police station telling them that his daughter was missing. He had the dog with him; both were footsore and weary. ‘The wife’s at home, waiting, in case Marian comes in.’

  He did not say ‘ comes home’ or ‘comes back’: inside himself he knew that this was not going to happen. He had gone through a war, so he knew the feel of death when it was hanging around.

  The sergeant who spoke to him suggested that he go home, try to sleep; his daughter would probably come back in the morning or even later that night. It was the way it usually went.

  Marian’s father was having nothing of that. He sat there until he was given a seat in a police car: dog in the back and with a policewoman beside, they toured central Windsor.

  It was a quiet town at night; they did not find Marian.

  In the morning, the girl delivering the newspaper to Mary March found a body arranged on the steps leading to her front door.

  There was a note attached.

  THIS IS THE ONE FOR YOU AS PROMISED.

  Chapter Six

  ‘So what are the police doing?’ Mary March confronted Charmian. She turned to look out of her sitting-room window. ‘Apart from stopping me getting out of my own home.’ She answered her own question. ‘ The usual sort of thing, I suppose, proving the poor corpse dead, which was clear at a quick glance; photographing, measuring, sniffing around like dogs.’