Revengeful Death

by Jennie Melville

  ‘You can get out if you want to, but later,’ was all the response she got from Charmian. ‘After Inspector Barstow and I have talked to you.’

  ‘Not much I can tell you, I was making coffee when I heard the paper girl scream … I went to look.’ Mary shrugged. ‘ I didn’t take more than a quick look, I can tell you. The body was stretched out on the front step, head up. Then I went to telephone you lot. Which made the second time lately.’

  ‘I am aware of that.’

  ‘Of course you are. I can see what you’re thinking. I didn’t kill her and I didn’t know her.’

  ‘You don’t have to know someone to kill them,’ said Dolly Barstow in a sombre voice. She had known the dead girl: she had gone to give a talk on ‘Women in the police force’ and the girl had come up to ask a question. It had been a shock to see her face.

  ‘You showed me the message that was left with her. Doesn’t that prove the death was aimed at me?’

  ‘It could do,’ agreed Charmian.

  ‘Or do you still think I am doing it all? Oh my God.’ Mary’s voice was raised in exasperation. ‘What does it take to convince you?’

  ‘We have to consider all the possibilities,’ Charmian shook her head. ‘We’re not aiming at you especially, Miss March.’ But you do seem to have a knack of being on the same spot as the bodies. Better not say that aloud.

  ‘I didn’t kill her, I didn’t kill her,’ said Mary March passionately. ‘I wouldn’t mind killing you, though.’

  ‘Thank you, you did mention it before.’

  ‘But I didn’t kill her. I never touched her. So your forensics won’t throw up any traces of me. Think about that.’

  ‘Tell me again what happened … About last night. Where were you?’

  ‘I was home, here. Trying to sleep, and with all that’s on my mind, I didn’t have much success.’

  ‘The body was placed on the steps here in the early morning … a police car passing this way at three o’clock didn’t see it. By six this morning the body was in position.’

  ‘And so?’ Mary March shrugged.

  ‘She didn’t walk here,’ said Dolly. ‘We think she had been dead for six or so hours by then.’

  Charmian said: ‘You say you were wakeful. Did you hear anything?’

  ‘Towards dawn I fell into a heavy sleep; I didn’t hear a thing until the screaming.’ She sounded sullen. ‘I don’t suppose the killer rang the bell.’

  ‘A car must have been used … Did you hear one?’

  ‘No, I’ve already said I heard nothing.’

  ‘Still … the sound of a car, you might have heard it and forgotten.’

  ‘If I did then I have still forgotten.’

  ‘Don’t be angry with us, Miss March.’

  ‘You’re only doing your job … that’s the next line, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you own a car yourself?’ Dolly asked.

  There was a silence. Outside they could hear voices and movement. The body was being moved.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mary March, breaking the silence. ‘ I have got a car.’

  ‘And where is it?’

  ‘I garage it in Riverside Road.’

  ‘When did you last use it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know … weeks ago. I don’t enjoy driving.’

  ‘But you still find it worthwhile to run a car?’ Dolly Barstow kept her voice quiet, but inside ideas were rolling. There was something about this woman.

  ‘You have to have a car, don’t you?’ It was not a question meant to be answered.

  Charmian held out her hand. ‘Let me have the key to the garage and to the car, please.’

  ‘I don’t see why I should. I’m not at all sure you have the authority to ask. I think I need a lawyer.’

  Charmian went to the telephone on the table by the window. She held out the phone. ‘ Call your solicitor now. If you don’t have one, I’ll give you a name.’

  Mary stood up, went to a drawer, drew out a bunch of keys which she threw at Charmian; they fell to the floor. Dolly Barstow bent down and picked them up. ‘Shall I take them, ma’am?’

  Charmian nodded. ‘ Get Jack Headfort to send someone with you.’

  Mary March said quickly: ‘Yes, and I want to go myself. Don’t want her planting evidence.’

  ‘As you like.’ Charmian was polite but cold. ‘You’ll have to wait, we haven’t quite finished here yet.’ She surveyed the room, magazines, a row of books on the shelf. ‘Read a lot, do you?’

  ‘Sometimes. If I feel like it.’

  ‘You seem keen on one author … a lot of the same up there.’ Charmian nodded towards the shelf.

  ‘I have my favourites, we all do. Even you, I should think.’

  Charmian gave her a bleak smile; she looked at Dolly, then stood up. ‘Excuse us just a minute, Miss March. Stay here.’

  ‘Nowhere else to go.’

  Charmian ignored this as she and Dolly withdrew to the outer hall. No one was about. The tenants of the upper two flats had been told, to their fury, to stay at home until questioned, and Charmian was not in a hurry about that questioning.

  She leaned against the door leading to where Mary lived. It was a big, heavy double door of shining mahogany, a good Victorian product. This had once been the drawing-room floor: the wood got cheaper as you moved upstairs.

  ‘If I smoked, I would have a cigarette now. Pass the time. There’s no hurry. Let her sweat.’

  ‘You don’t like her, do you?’

  ‘Oh, you’ve noticed?’

  No irony, please, not to me, Dolly mouthed but did not say. You only went so far with Charmian.

  Charmian half-apologized. ‘I know I’m being rough, but she gets under my skin.’

  ‘Same for me.’

  They looked at each other and laughed. They had known each other for some years and had worked together as friends. They could take their moods.

  ‘Shall we tell her what we now know about her?’ Charmian said thoughtfully. ‘ The big, new news?’

  ‘What have we got that’s so sensational?’ Dolly ran over in her mind what she had learned about Mary March King from her contact, Sheilah Lennox, in south London.

  Sheilah, after a little prompting to awaken her memory, had gone over the story they already knew: the accident, the death of the passenger, the trial, the brother going to prison and the sudden swing of feeling towards Mary March. ‘From heroine to hate symbol,’ Sheilah had said. She had been neutral on whether or not Mary March King did the dirty work herself, but underneath Dolly had detected a yes. Sheilah had given all she knew: one year at University College London, failed her exams; then worked in a hospital for a bit, then in a veterinary surgery; then got engaged and became a secretary. She had heard that the brother funded her as soon as he had some money.

  Dolly had heard that too.

  ‘You haven’t got it, have you?’ Charmian spoke quietly.

  ‘I saw that row of yellow-backed books in her room: William Webb, medico-legal crime novels. They make a fortune. A pseudonym, that much is known. I bet he’s her brother, I know he’s a writer … He was probably a doctor before he went to prison. Take that with her own educational and work background – she was probably trying to be a doctor and couldn’t make it.’

  Dolly pursed her lips as she began to see where Charmian was going.

  ‘She knows where the thymus is in the human body. And unless it’s diseased, you can’t see it in the young. Did you know? Do you even know what it looks like?’

  Dolly shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Nor do I, but she knew. God knows why she wanted it, but she did.’

  Dolly saw Charmian’s face; her eyes were veiled. She could look like that sometimes. ‘Not like you to be speculative,’ Dolly said.

  ‘I’m not being speculative.’ Then Charmian’s face relaxed and she laughed. ‘Well, possibly, but I think I have the truth there. Come on, let’s go back in. And ask her.’

  Mary March was standing in the window, looki
ng out. ‘ Busy scene out there,’ she said. ‘Second time round for Marlborough Street.’ She had a cup in her hand. ‘ Like some coffee, either of you?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I won’t poison you, you know.’ She looked under her lashes. ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t mind having a try.’

  ‘Just a few more questions, and then two of our forensic team will examine your rooms. Your hands too, and so on. I’m sure you understand the need,’ Charmian added politely. ‘I don’t want to put you under too much pressure, Miss March, I can see you’ve had a shock, but it really is necessary. You see that?’

  ‘Oh, I do.’

  ‘Inspector Barstow and I will put in the time talking to your upstairs neighbours, after which we’ll all go to your garage.’ Charmian was walking about the room as she spoke. She came up to the row of books.

  ‘Have a good look round here yourself while you’re about it,’ said Mary. ‘Help yourself,’ as Charmian reached out for a book.

  ‘Big best-seller, this one, wasn’t it? I read it myself.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Yes. Your brother wrote it?’

  ‘I’ve never denied it. I’m proud of him.’

  ‘He was a doctor, wasn’t he, before …’

  ‘Before he went to prison? Yes. He could have practised afterwards but he chose not to.’ Her tone was defiant.

  Charmian got on to her next question: ‘What did you study at university?’

  Mary was silent. Then she said: ‘I never finished the course. I failed the first year.’

  ‘But what was the course?’

  ‘Biology.’

  ‘If you hadn’t failed, would you have gone on to study medicine?’

  ‘I might have done.’

  ‘Judging by what we know of your choice of work later on, it seems likely. You see, we know all these things about you, Mary.’

  Mary shrugged and said nothing.

  ‘I know what you’re getting at,’ she said at last. ‘Anyone could see. Not subtle, Miss Daniels, or should I say your Ladyship? No, I couldn’t identify a thymus gland in the human body. I don’t think I would know sweetbread in the butcher’s shop.’ Which was a lie. ‘And as it happens, I am a vegetarian.’ Which was almost true. Liver was good for you, of course.

  As Charmian and Dolly left, Mary said: ‘ The dead girl … was she … was anything cut from her body?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for me to see the surgeon’s report before I can answer that.’

  When they were outside again, and the forensic team had swept in with their customary air of detached professionalism, Dolly said: ‘Did you believe her?’

  ‘I didn’t expect her to put up her hand and say yes, teacher.’

  ‘Somehow it didn’t seem to hit her as hard as I thought it would.’ Dolly was thoughtful. ‘She’s keeping something back, though.’

  ‘She always does, she’s tough,’ said Charmian. ‘Come on, let’s get on with it.’

  ‘Wait a minute, had the girl been cut into for her thymus gland?’

  ‘As far as I know, not,’ said Charmian. ‘But there was an incision in her throat … I don’t know any more yet, myself.’ She moved forward. ‘I wonder if we’ll get anything out of these people?’

  Dolly followed her up the stairs. ‘I thought Jack Headfort’s lot had already questioned them?’

  ‘First statements, yes. Nothing in them. All sound sleepers who didn’t hear anything untoward. They’ll be questioned again, but I want to have a look at them.’

  Miss Brand, who lived on the next floor, was plump, elegantly dressed and wide-eyed with interest. She was regretful that she had been asleep and heard not a thing; she gave the impression that she would gladly have stayed awake if she had known anything was about to happen.

  No, she had not got to know Miss March; she was regretful again. Miss March was a quiet, withdrawn lady and nothing passed between them except ‘ good morning’ or ‘good evening’ if they should meet on the stairs.

  She was glad to help, but could she go now, she had an important appointment?

  She gave her thanks and bowed them out, still regretful, with a smile and a waft of Dior’s Poison.

  ‘Wonder what Miss Brand does for a living?’ Dolly pondered. ‘That was an expensive smell and an expensive suit.’

  ‘She’s a lawyer – barrister, Southern Circuit,’ replied Charmian. ‘Jack Headfort got that much, it’s his sort of detail.’

  Dolly laughed: she knew that Charmian both liked and respected Jack Headfort.

  On the next floor, an aproned and harassed young mother said, with more fury than regret, that she had already answered questions, that it was terrible what had happened but she didn’t know anything. No, her husband was away on business and had been for three days.

  But she knew more about Mary March than Miss Brand. ‘She’s a good neigbour. She sat in once when I had to go to the doctor with the baby … Billy, that’s my son.’ Noises off testified to Billy’s existence. ‘Billy likes her and she brings him little presents. I think she likes boys … little boys, anyway,’ she added thoughtfully. She added hastily: ‘I don’t mean anything bad there. A nice liking – she was good with Billy, really good.’

  Charmian and Dolly walked down the stairs. Charmian had her comment: ‘Mixed picture of Mary March there, one of them liked her and the other one didn’t.’

  ‘I doubt if Miss Brand likes anyone,’ said Dolly.

  ‘Professional caution.’ They had reached the big double doors again. ‘Go in and get our victim; I’ll wait in the car.’

  Dolly paused. ‘ Is she a victim?’

  ‘Well, someone has to be in this affair, and I elect her’

  She watched as Mary March walked side by side with Dolly up the basement steps, led out this way to avoid the white drapes arranged over the spot where Marian had rested, glancing quickly at it and then being guided by Dolly through the yellow tapes keeping off the onlookers. For there were onlookers, more than a few.

  ‘No traces on her or the flat.’ Dolly spoke briefly to Charmian. ‘Clean.’ She could see that Charmian was not pleased by the news.

  After that, there was silence as they drove towards the side street behind Marlborough Street where there was a small row of garages. The car stopped at the kerb. Charmian got out, followed by Dolly and Mary March. A second forensic team had already arrived and was waiting.

  Charmian nodded at Dolly, who got out and handed over the keys. Mary March sat still as one of the forensic team took the keys in white-gloved hands, studied the garage door then unlocked it.

  Charmian got out of the car. Mary tried to follow but Charmian pushed her back. ‘ This is as far as you go.’

  ‘But you said …’ began Mary in protest.

  ‘I said you could watch us go in; you have done that, now the police car will take you back.’

  She walked away without a backward look. ‘That was a bit sadistic, wasn’t it?’ asked Dolly.

  ‘No, a kindness really. I didn’t want her watching.’

  Charmian took herself to the police van where she sat looking out of the window. Dolly had disappeared into the garage. Fidgeting around, Charmian dialled Jack Headfort’s mobile.

  ‘Charmian Daniels here.’

  ‘Recognize your voice.’

  ‘I think we may have something on Mary March.’

  ‘Our coincidence lady?’

  ‘Yes, it’s too much to think just chance brought her into contact with two bodies.’

  ‘Of course, she says they are part of a pattern aimed at her.’

  ‘Have you got anything from the note that was left this time?’

  ‘No fingerprints, but it has similarities to the other note or notes which she has handed over.’

  ‘Do you think she wrote them herself?’

  Headfort was silent. ‘You do,’ he said finally. ‘Not sure myself.’

  ‘All right, pass over that … Any news about the missing woman,
Alice Hardy?’

  ‘No, no one has seen her since Mary March says she saw her running away down Marlborough Street. Not a sighting. And of course, whatever the boy knows is locked up inside him. We can’t question him yet about his mother. I tried with Lucy Lockit and it was no go.’

  ‘Since Mary March says she saw her,’ said Charmian with emphasis. ‘If she did. If she’s still alive.’

  ‘Yes … I’ve thought about that too. So we’re looking for a body.’ He added: ‘To tell you the truth, I’m at a loss.’

  I like you, Headfort, thought Charmian, you’re honest. Not always open, always ambitious, but with flashes, as now, of honesty.

  ‘You know where my money goes,’ she said.

  As she spoke, she was watching what went on in the garage; Dolly had appeared. ‘Hang on, something’s happening here. No, I’ll ring you back.’

  Dolly had stopped at the door of the garage where she knelt down, and a white-coated worker joined her. Then they both stood up.

  Charmian got out of the van to walk towards them. Dolly raised a hand.

  ‘Nothing in the garage nor on the car,’ she said. As far as can be told at the moment, all clean. Right, Jim?’ She turned to the forensic technician.

  ‘Clean as a whistle,’ said Jim Dryden cheerfully.

  Charmian waited. ‘ But?’

  Dolly motioned towards the door. ‘You can see for yourself once you look: blood and hair on the garage door’

  Mary March, looking from her sitting-room window, knew what it meant when she saw a new police car arrive to join the contingent below. Jack Headfort stepped out. She was about to be taken down to the police station for questioning. More questioning.

  ‘Why me?’ she briefly asked herself. But she did not go on: some days have no answer to offer, she told herself, some days just have to be lived through.

  Chapter Seven

  Chief Inspector Jack Headfort had his divisional office on the Cheasey side of Windsor; the investigation into Pip’s death was being handled there as well as by Charmian’s SRADIC team. Certain matters were better delegated to him. Headfort was proud of his office, which was new and efficient; but he was ambivalent about his relationship with Charmian’s outfit. ‘She’s the brains and I’m the feet,’ he mocked himself, as he watered his sweet geranium; for a man who was rumoured to be on the point of divorce, he was housetrained and house-proud.