Revengeful Death

by Jennie Melville

  The new case and that of Pip’s murder were better centred on the Cheasey side because of the mounting publicity. The environs, Cheasey being Cheasey and not much loved, kept visitors away.

  ‘We can’t separate the two cases,’ Charmian had said that morning as she rang Headfort and told him Dolly Barstow would be accompanying her to his office. ‘They are linked.’

  ‘There is a similarity in the method of killing,’ Headfort had said cautiously.

  ‘They are linked by Mary March.’ Charmian was succinct. Mary March was also being taken to him in Cheasey.

  At Charmian’s request, Jack Headfort conducted the questioning of Mary March. ‘You can take over,’ she said to him as they arrived. ‘She likes you, I think.’

  Headfort gave Charmian a wary look. ‘Seen no evidence of that.’

  ‘Trusts you, then. She doesn’t trust me. You’ll get more out of her. I think she’ll talk to you.’

  Mary March, hunched over in her chair, eyes on the floor, showed no sign of wanting to talk at all.

  ‘This interview will be taped,’ Jack Headfort said to Mary politely. Dolly Barstow was in charge of the machine. Charmian sat, withdrawn in one corner of the room. ‘Do you want your solicitor to be present?’

  It was now early afternoon. Mary March had been kept hanging around for several hours. Muddle or on purpose? Jack Headfort acknowledged elements of both. Charmian Daniels wanted the pressure kept up on the woman. But it had taken time to identify the blood as the same group as the dead girl’s, and to show that the hair came from her head. Torn from it by a rough grasp.

  He asked her again if she wanted her solicitor called.

  ‘No. Haven’t got one.’

  ‘I can get you one.’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust one chosen by you. Get on with it.’ Mary March cast a baleful look at the corner of the room. ‘I don’t want her here.’

  The Chief Inspector chose to ignore this; he had often felt the same way himself about Charmian Daniels, so to a certain extent he sympathized with Mary March. Perhaps she was more victim than aggressor. What did they have on her, after all? Blood on the garage door, strands of pale hair that matched the girl’s, and the sad fact that she had found one dead body and then another had turned up where she lived.

  Delivered there, she had said, pointing to the note that had been delivered also.

  ‘What about the blood?’

  ‘No idea.’ She showed no expression. ‘Don’t ask me. Put there by someone. From the photograph you showed me the blood and hair were round the bottom of the door. On the wood. Not likely the girl put them there herself.’

  ‘I agree. So who did?’

  ‘The person who killed her, of course.’

  ‘Seems a strange thing to do.’

  ‘Not if you want me to look guilty.’

  Headfort ignored the jibe that the police had put the blood on the door.

  ‘It’s like a tumour inside me, growing all the time.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Guilt.’

  ‘But you say you’re not guilty.’

  ‘I’ve been gifted with it,’ she said sourly.

  The idiom was strange to Jack Headfort. ‘Given it, you mean?’

  ‘Well, more than that – been infected with it. I will never shake it off now, it’s mould, soon be growing all over me.’

  Jack shook himself like a dog shaking off the rain; he was trying to clear his mind. ‘ Correct me if I get it wrong, but what you are saying is this: that someone, the killer one presumes, planted the blood and hair to incriminate you.’

  Mary shrugged. ‘What else?’

  ‘The same person who left the note saying: This is for you?’ Jack Headfort sat back in his chair: ‘There is a dichotomy here, a contradiction, don’t you see? This person both implicitly confesses to being the killer by delivering the girl’s body, and yet implicates you.’

  She stood up. ‘I’ve had enough, I’m going.’ Then, in ringing tones: ‘ This is none of I.’

  They had to let her go after that. Jack Headfort turned to Charmian.

  ‘Is that a quotation, what she said? That bit about “none of I”?’

  Charmian was abstracted. ‘Yes, I think it is,’ she said, only half listening.

  ‘Where from? Shakespeare?’

  ‘I expect so … I want to talk to the girl’s father.’

  ‘He’s here, been here most of the time. He went home to see his wife … took the dog back, and then came to us again. And stayed. He says he is going to stay until we have some hard news.’

  Dolly Barstow looked from Jack Headfort to Charmian. ‘Might take some time, judging by the faces on you two.’

  ‘It’s not going to be easy.’ This from Headfort. ‘Have some tea? I could do with a cup.’ He had provided himself with an electric kettle which he switched on.

  ‘Is there any water in that?’ asked a sceptical Dolly.

  ‘Always,’ he said firmly. From a cupboard he produced three mugs and a packet of tea bags. ‘Sorry about the mugs, I prefer a cup and saucer, but there are limits to my housekeeping. And some of my colleagues don’t know what a cup is for.’

  ‘Milk?’ Dolly stuck at it.

  ‘Milk.’ He shook it since it was in a packet and not a jug, but indisputably liquid.

  ‘“Kept a long age in the deep-delved earth”?’ asked Dolly. ‘And where does that quote come from?’

  ‘I don’t know but it sounds like Keats. They were into that kind of pseudo-archaism – blame it on young Chatterton, and yes, the milk does call itself long-life.’

  ‘“It was cool’d a long age not kept”,’ said Charmian … the true, the blushful Hippocrene, poor Keats. ‘And stop showing off, you two. I want to get on to the girl’s father. Stay here, both of you: he’s met you, it might make it easier for him.’

  ‘I only spoke to him briefly,’ said Dolly. ‘ I had met Marian, I felt I ought to say something to him.’ She looked at Jack Headfort. ‘You questioned him.’

  Headfort nodded. ‘I was brief. To be honest, he was in no state then.’

  Tom Lane, Marian’s father, was a man of sturdy middle age, with a crop of thick ginger hair and freckles to match, but he was tired and wretched. ‘She’s dead, that’s all I can think about.’

  In wretchedness, he was inclined to be aggressive. His wife was at home, weeping; he was out here fighting.

  He refused tea. ‘No, thank you. I’m awash. I’ve done nothing but been offered mugs of tea since I got here. You lot seem to think tannin is the answer to everything. I tell you, if I drink at all now, I’ll need something stronger.’

  Charmian murmured something about wanting to talk to him. What she really meant was to observe him, take in what she could. Was he telling the truth?

  ‘I haven’t got more to tell than I’ve told already.’ His voice was tired but still angry. ‘ Marian rang up, said she was walking home and would I meet her. I said yes.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘After eleven but well before midnight. She’d been to the pictures with her friend Dinah Jones, and had missed the last bus … You can ask her.’

  ‘We have done,’ said Jack Headfort.

  ‘They’d be busy talking, those two, I’ve heard them at it, and didn’t notice the time. She’s been late before.’

  ‘Often?’

  ‘No, just once or twice – she didn’t make a habit of it. I had walked to meet her before and I thought it would be the same this time.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘ I set off; we should have met about halfway, in Pardoe Street …’ He stopped talking.

  ‘You didn’t think of taking the car?’

  ‘The dog wanted a walk.’

  ‘You do have a car?’

  Tom Lane jerked his head up. ‘Yes, I have got a car, but it was in dock … ask the garage.’ He sounded even angrier. ‘Charley Winkler’s garage on Mount Hill.’

  Jack Headfort nodded quietly. He made a note.

  ‘I know wh
at you’re getting at,’ said Lane.

  ‘I’m not getting at anything.’ Charmian kept her tone gentle.

  ‘Probably not, probably not.’ He was not soothed.

  ‘I want to get a clear picture … Is there anyone that Marian was likely to have met and stopped to talk with? Any names you can suggest?’

  ‘He’s asked me that already.’ Tom Lane nodded towards Headfort. ‘I don’t know what to say; she wasn’t the sort of girl to talk to strangers.’

  ‘So she must have known her killer?’

  ‘Seen him, anyway – trusted him.’

  ‘Or her,’ said Charmian.

  Tom Lane looked surprised. ‘I never thought of a woman.’

  ‘We have to cover every possibility,’ said Dolly quickly.

  ‘She was such a bright girl, full of what she was going to do with her life.’

  ‘I know.’ Dolly nodded. ‘ She came to a talk I gave once on women in the police force.’

  ‘Yes, she thought of that as a career. I wasn’t in favour, dangerous, I thought.’ He gave a sad little laugh like a cough. ‘But I would have backed her. Anyway, she went off that, thought of being a racing driver … I don’t know why, a boyfriend perhaps, and I was going to give her driving lessons for her next birthday. Her mother has only just learned, so it was in her mind.’

  Charmian nodded. ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘But her latest was to be an actress. Only yesterday …’ He looked round the room; had it been yesterday? All his days had run together. ‘She told me she had got a bit of encouragement …’

  ‘Oh?’ Charmian was alert. ‘From whom?’

  He frowned. ‘Did she say? What did she say? Some outfit … had a Greek name.’

  ‘No, not Greek,’ said Charmian. The Trojans again, she thought: so what does that indicate? ‘But I know what you mean.’

  They did not keep him long after that, and under Dolly’s gentle persuasion he agreed to be driven home. They would keep in touch with him. He knew that, didn’t he?

  Gina again then. Charmian withdrew from her briefcase the sheet of paper with the cladogram on it. She added Marian to it, a new branch but with a link to Pip.

  ‘This is a funny business for sure,’ Dolly said as she came into the room, having delivered Tom Lane to a police car with the warning to the driver to see him safely inside his front door, and to have a word with his wife if that could be done tactfully.

  ‘What’s the wife like?’ asked Charmian.

  ‘Dazed at the moment, poor woman. She’s been badly hit and I think the doctor has given her a sedative. She’s been questioned, but very gently.’

  ‘I ought to see her myself.’

  ‘Do you think Mary March killed the girl?’

  Charmian thought about it. ‘I can’t be sure. Maybe.’

  ‘Is she mad, do you think? She gives the impression of being seriously disturbed.’

  There was a silence, then Charmian said in a slow, thoughtful voice: ‘She is a woman to whom something terrible has happened.’

  ‘Do you mean the hate campaign she talks about?’

  ‘No, I think there was something earlier still, something we don’t, as yet, know about.’

  Charmian had these moments when she seemed to see further in the dark wood than Dolly did.

  ‘If you say so.’ Dolly took a look into the future. ‘This may not be the last killing.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ It echoed a feeling Charmian had herself.

  ‘There have been two killings in quick succession; the notes suggest there’s more to come. I think we have to believe the writer.’

  ‘And if the writer is Mary March?’ questioned Charmian.

  ‘Then I guess she would do one more killing to come through on her promise.’

  Charmian fiddled with the file of papers on her lap. ‘But we’re watching her now. She would find it difficult.’

  ‘And if Mary March is not the perpetrator, but is, as she claims, the ultimate victim, then she may be next.’

  ‘Yes, I’m thinking about that too,’ said Charmian. She stood up: she was often restless when she was thinking. These were the occasions when, in the past, she would have smoked a cigarette. You didn’t do that sort of thing so easily now. Or she didn’t.

  ‘Someone had better go down to the girl’s school – you preferably, Dolly.’ Charmian looked at the Chief Inspector. ‘ Find someone to send with her. Someone whose judgement you trust.’

  ‘It’ll need two.’

  ‘It will. Which school is it?’

  ‘Daringell Comprehensive.’

  Charmian nodded, she knew of it. ‘You may get something helpful from there. And of course, there’s the girl she was out with that night.’

  Dolly nodded. ‘I’ll do what I can … And the theatre contact?’

  ‘Yes, that’s interesting. Must be Gina Foster. I’ll speak to her myself. This isn’t a questioning I’m going to delegate. I want to see her, and watch her while I ask questions, not forgetting she’s an actress and knows how to put on a mask.’

  Dolly looked at her, frowning. ‘You suspect her?’ She sounded surprised.

  ‘No, I’m not saying that, Dolly. I don’t know whom I suspect. I’m floundering, so I’m looking all around me, but Gina is beginning to pop up more than you would expect, isn’t she?’

  Dolly continued to show doubt. ‘Coincidences do happen.’

  ‘That’s the easy road, Dolly, not one we can take. It’s not one any investigating officer can take. Everything has to be questioned.’

  I know that, Dolly thought, but she accepted the rebuke even if it was undeserved. Charmian was edgy. Mortality, she thought, that’s what it’s about, her own mortality. Mine too, I expect, from the look she’s giving me. You can’t help thinking about death if you see as much of it as we do. Never an easy death either.

  But Dolly was mistaken about the look. Charmian was thinking of Gina. She was beginning to realize that questioning Gina would not be easy: she would do well to prepare her questions with care.

  Prepare her own appearance too. Gina took life casually, but as an actress she was always ready to present a prepared face to the world.

  The Trojans knew about the second killing. They were shocked and passionately interested. There was also a touch of relief. They had been the people closest to Pip, the only friends he had in Windsor: they could see the wind of suspicion blowing their way. But this new killing, terrible and sad as it was, surely made the wind blow in another direction because they had not known Marian. This was the majority feeling, of Joe and Shirley and Albie, but they were trying not to show it out of deference to Emma’s feelings. Emma had wept herself into a sort of peace. She was going about her work, preparing for the part allotted to her for the next play: Twelfth Night, secreting herself in the public library in Queen Street where she studied background material. The others did not see her much, which suited them because there was a repressed, unexpressed belief that this love affair of Emma’s was moonshine. It had not happened.

  Gina was keeping quiet, reserving judgement on her reactions to the new killing which was causing her some problems at the moment.

  ‘I don’t see Pip having this relationship with Emma. It’s not like him.’ Shirley pursed her lips.

  ‘He was quiet about things,’ said Joe.

  ‘Not secretive, though.’

  ‘Living and working in a small group like us, it’s better to be discreet about relationships.’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s not possible,’ persisted Shirley. She shook her head. ‘There are some things you can’t hide. And especially in our world. I mean we notice.’

  ‘You’re not accusing Emma of lying?’

  ‘Not lying: fantasizing. I’m not saying she hadn’t got a strong feeling for Pip – he was a lovely man. But he wasn’t the same way about her.’

  ‘Oh shut up, you two,’ said Gina.

  Shirley’s attention was diverted to Gina. ‘I suppose we’ll have to s
tay around until after the inquest,’ she hesitated. ‘And the funeral.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Gina irritably. ‘I expect we could go on to our next date. It’s only Henley, not far away. We could get back without trouble. But I don’t know, it’s not for me to say. The police will tell us.’

  ‘We’re booked in with Rosie for the rest of the week anyway.’ Joe was practical, as ever.

  ‘And we can’t leave Emma, she won’t leave, she’s thinking about Pip.’

  ‘Not that she seems to want us,’ said Shirley.

  ‘Now you’re being acid, Shirl.’

  ‘Shut up, you two,’ said Gina. She began to stalk around the room. In Rosie’s establishment there was a large ground-floor sitting-room which the lodgers were, in Rosie’s cheerful words, ‘free to use’. Not quite free, as Shirley had pointed out, since the big gas fire was on a slot and required pound coins to pour out badly needed heat. Now she went over and put two coins in. She was shivering. ‘ I’m worried. You say we’re out of it now because we didn’t know the girl.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I did know her.’

  After a careful pause, Shirley said: ‘How was that, Gina?’

  ‘She came to see me; found out where we were, I don’t know how, and talked to me, here, in Rosie’s, about her ambitions to act …’

  ‘Does that matter so much?’

  ‘I’m in the frame, don’t you see?’ There was a note of desperation in Gina’s voice which surprised her friends. ‘I knew Pip, I knew Mary March, and now I’m the one with contact with another victim.’

  ‘Just don’t kill Mary March,’ said Shirley lightly. Joe tapped her on the arm and shook his head.

  ‘That’s not funny,’ said Gina. ‘I feel caught … like a cat in a cage.’

  ‘Or a cat in a basket …’ Joe was laughing. ‘A dead cat.’

  ‘What’s so funny about that?’ demanded Gina.

  ‘It was the start of the tour – we all met at Waterloo, remember?’