Baby Drop

by Jennie Melville

  ‘I take my oath that the bones are not Bronze Age or Iron Age or Saxon or Norman …’ He didn’t go on through the centuries but stopped. ‘Get on with getting it up’ – he began to move away – ‘ and then I will have the bones in the lab and give them a look. After which, you shall know all I know. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ Feather nodded to his team.

  ‘But I’m giving priority to the dead boy,’ said Drake in a dry voice. ‘Isn’t that where we started?’

  ‘Not altogether, I’m not forgetting that I started out by looking here for a little girl.’ This time, Feather looked at Charmian.

  ‘Well, it was my idea, I admit.’

  ‘And I’m going to have to ask what gave you that idea?’

  ‘I was talking to someone in the Clinic over there.’ She nodded. ‘That person had seen something. A person, movement at night.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll let you have the name.’ Kate would have to face the questioning. ‘A very sick young woman in bed in a room that overlooks this ground. You’ll have to go carefully with her. Will you have to tell her about this infant burial?’ And yet Kate could be tough, no one knew that better than Charmian. But about children, tiny infants, she was, at this moment, sensitized.

  ‘I won’t ask questions till she has someone with her. Her husband or nurse, or you.’

  ‘Not me, better not me.’

  ‘And I won’t need to mention the baby, that burial took place years before she was born in all probability. Satisfied?’

  Charmian nodded.

  Charmian remained, fascinated by what she saw, unable to stop looking. It was not the first time by a long way that she had seen the dead unveiled, but she had never seen anything so small and fragile, so human and yet remote, exposed to her eyes before. It seemed an intrusion, she shouldn’t be watching, the little creature should be left undisturbed in its sleep.

  But still she watched.

  The soil was brushed away from the bones and a pallet brought up to insert underneath so that the bones could be removed without disarticulation. They were like archaeologists, these men. Every so often, worked stopped for a photograph to be taken.

  She didn’t want to stay, there was work to be done, and she ought to be back in the office, but something held her there.

  Three deep this case was now: it had started with a missing child, who remained missing, and now there was a dead, murdered boy, and hard by his burial place a much, much earlier death.

  The sun had come out and the sky was clearing, with that clearing a wind had sprung up.

  Something caught her eye in the earth, an edge of something that caught the light. One of the policemen saw as soon as she did and bent down to see what it was. He didn’t touch it, but with a gloved finger cleaned the earth away. She saw an oval object, not much bigger than a man’s thumbnail.

  A small gold locket lay in the earth. As the earth fell away, there was mud on it but the locket looked untouched by the years. Gold does survive, she thought, perhaps when life on this planet has gone, gold will still be twinkling away among the ruins.

  Feather came over to them. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Looks like a bit of jewellery, a locket,’ said the man who had retrieved it; he was moving the locket gently towards a plastic bag.

  ‘I’d like to see inside it. Does it open?’

  ‘Might be a bit stiff. Jammed up with earth.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He handled it carefully, but there were unlikely to be fingerprints, and if there were, then wasn’t the owner of the fingers likely to be dead these hundred years or more?

  ‘Later, when you’ve finished examining it, I’d like to see it again.’

  ‘Of course, ma’am.’ Feather was always particularly polite to her when he thought she was being interfering. She was interfering now.

  ‘I wonder if it would open now? I’d like a look.’

  ‘We’ll try.’ He was being polite again, as both parties recognized. But he wanted to look inside himself. Putting plastic gloves on his hands, he tried to open it, but he was clumsy and the little object slid between his fingers down to the ground. ‘Damn,’ then he looked apologetically at Charmian. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I should have said the same myself.’

  He picked it up but it slid away again. ‘It’s got a life of its own.’ Then, as he touched it a third time, the locket opened quietly of its own accord. Feather held it in the palm of his hand for her to see.

  Inside was an oval photograph, faded to sepia brown. Not the picture of a baby as might have been expected, but of a young girl with hair down her back, held back in a big bow. She was wearing a sailor dress with a big collar, that was all you could see, head and shoulders only here. So faint was the image that it was impossible to see much of the face, but there was a young, hopeful pose to the head that was touching.

  Charmian’s eyes met Feather’s, and she saw that he was as moved as she was; she liked him for that.

  ‘Not the child then.’

  ‘No.’ He considered. ‘The mother?’

  ‘Could be. Should help with the age of the skeleton. The dress of this girl is late last century or early this: Edwardian style, possibly. Sailor suits were the thing then for both sexes.’

  Ever cautious, Dan Feather said: ‘If it relates to the baby at all. It might simply have been lost. It wasn’t round the child’s neck as far as I could see.’

  ‘But close, very close.’ In fact, when they first saw it, the locket had been some inches away, but Charmian was reluctant to give up the connection. ‘It may have been moved slightly, an animal, some earth movement above, anything like that.’

  ‘We haven’t had an earthquake in Windsor recently,’ said Feather. ‘A big fire, yes, and some floods but no earthquake.’

  ‘Inspector …’ a voice hailed him from across the turf.

  ‘Better go,’ said Feather. ‘Excuse me, ma’am. I’d better get back to the main game. This is just a side affair, probably never discover who this baby was.’ And after all this time, does it matter? was what he meant. ‘The main game is the dead boy and the missing girl. I’m not forgetting her. The search will go on here, thoroughly, just in case. But I reckon that activity your friend saw must be about the dead boy, burying him perhaps, but that doesn’t seem likely since he’d been in the ground more than the one day. Not long but longer than that. Probably just checking up.’

  ‘Probably,’ agreed Charmian. ‘Yes, that must have been it.’

  She considered going in to see Kate again, but decided against it. Kate would start asking questions which she did not want to answer. So she went back to her office and answered letters, checked files on the computer, and read several faxes that had come in and which issued different orders from different government offices, some of which were mutually incompatible. As head of SRADIC, she had several jobs, one of which was secret.

  At the end of the day, she drove home. No news from Feather, Rewley, or Professor Drake, but with dead bodies you couldn’t hurry, and the professor, who was a slow worker, usually had a silent queue awaiting his attention. ‘First come, first carved,’ he had once joked with the mordant humour of his breed. But she thought that Dan Feather would put pressure on him to hurry, and if he didn’t, then she would. She had her channels.

  Public opinion might do it first. The news was already out in the town.

  BODY OF BOY FOUND, said the Windsor Clarion.

  She switched on her car radio and heard the local station asking: Is there a killer loose? A boy is found dead, a young girl is missing. Do we protect our children?

  And the answer to that is, I don’t know, thought Charmian, as she swung the car into Maid of Honour Row. Probably not in the right way. Little Sarah had been loved and protected but she had gone all the same.

  Outside her house was a large car. A Rolls, long and gleaming. It was exceedingly beautiful but very large and took up too much parking space so that Charmian herself (as probably had several of her ne
ighbours) had to drive past home and find another slot round the corner.

  Who owned the car? It’s Humphrey, he’s come back and brought the Queen to visit. No, this car was silver, suave and elegant, and the Queen’s cars were maroon, that difficult colour between brown and red.

  This car was chauffeur driven, or at least he was sitting, hatless and shoulders hunched over the wheel, in the front where chauffeurs sit. A tall, slim, grey-haired woman was in the back; she opened the door and got out as Charmian approached.

  Her hair was white, not grey, a beautiful white without a hint of yellow and no blue tint. A raincoat swung from her shoulders over a leaf-brown cashmere jersey and tweed skirt. No pearls, no rouge, no lipstick. She must be in mourning.

  Oh God, Charmian thought, I know who she is.

  The woman approached, held out her hand and looked Charmian in the face. ‘Miss Daniels? I was waiting for you.’

  ‘I thought you were.’

  The hand was still extended, Charmian took it and received a cold, hard grip in return. She could feel the bones beneath the skin.

  ‘I am Lady Grahamden. You are looking for my granddaughter, Sarah. May I come in?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Charmian started to lead the way to the house, then looked back at the car. You didn’t ask chauffeurs in, did you, unless you had a really big place with a servants’ hall, then they had tea and hot food, but there was something about that back that troubled her.

  Lady Grahamden saw her looking. ‘Oh, we’ll leave him there for the moment.’

  That was that then. ‘Right.’

  The hall of her small house was mercifully tidy, although Muff the cat was sitting on the stairs looking baleful. Lady Grahamden came in, saw the entrance to the sitting-room and the door to the kitchen and chose the kitchen. This too was in order, Charmian was not an untidy person but she usually left the house in a hurry.

  ‘What is it you want, Lady Grahamden?’ It was quite a name to get your tongue round.

  ‘I wanted to see you, to look you in the face.’ She did just that, putting on a pair of pale horn spectacles which somehow graced her face. She stared silently through them, not owlishly but with a sharp blue gaze, then took them off. ‘Yes, you are an honest woman.’

  Charmian put her handbag and document case on the kitchen table with a thump, she felt she could easily quarrel with Lady Grahamden. Muff, who associated kitchen noises with food, mysteriously appeared on the table too.

  ‘I’m not the only person looking for Sarah, possibly I’m the least important. There is a whole police force at work.’

  ‘A team is only as sharp as its leader.’

  And you’re too sharp by half, my lady. ‘An investigation doesn’t work like that,’ she said politely. ‘A picture is put together, built up. Bit by bit, everyone adds their bit.’

  Lady Grahamden ignored this sally, only partly true in any case. ‘I want you to stop the hunt. Stop looking for her. While there is publicity she won’t come. When you stop, then she will.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She has run away before and come back. Been somewhere and come home again. Biddy knows.’

  ‘You mean she hides somewhere? That she has another home? Like a little cat?’ Charmian was astonished at the information thrown out like this, as if it was a weapon, which it possibly was, but aimed at whom? She was sure that Feather knew nothing about it. ‘I’ve not been told of this. Her mother did not say anything.’

  ‘Biddy knows.’

  ‘If Mrs Holt knew she should have told us. But if the girl has been missing before, why has she not been reported missing before?’

  ‘You must ask her mother that.’

  ‘I will, don’t worry, and so will Inspector Feather.’ And expect some good answers.

  ‘I think Biddy knew she would come back on those other occasions.’

  ‘And why not this time?’

  Lady Grahamden was silent. ‘I think it’s because of the doll.’

  ‘And what does the doll mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I think.’

  ‘Did you know of these other episodes?’

  ‘Not at the time. I learnt later.’

  ‘Who did know?’

  ‘Her mother, of course. Ask Biddy, see what you get. She knows more than she admits.’

  I believe you there, madam. ‘Who else?’

  ‘Her father.’

  Charmian said: ‘This takes some thinking about. I can’t accept what you say without checking. No one could. And meanwhile, you do understand, don’t you, that if you are wrong, the child may be at risk?’

  Dead already, Feather judged, and he had experience.

  ‘I understand that,’ said Lady Grahamden quietly, sadly. ‘There is always a risk in life, but let things go quiet, let the child rest.’

  ‘Do you know what you are saying?’

  No answer. But a tear came into the blue eyes. ‘A loved child,’ she murmured. ‘A love child, but a loved one.’

  A picture of the skeleton came into Charmian’s mind, she saw that other dead love child.

  ‘Where is the father?’

  ‘Outside. In the car.’

  Thought so. ‘Why didn’t he come in?’

  ‘Oh, he’s ashamed of me. All my family are ashamed of me. My mother and father were, all my husbands were, in the end. I’m too direct.’

  ‘I think he didn’t come in because you didn’t ask him, Lady Grahamden.’

  ‘Yes, you’re direct too. I said you were an honest woman. No, I didn’t ask him because I didn’t want him, but he can come now. And he is ashamed of me.’

  Charmian went to the door, and beckoned to the driver. But he was already out of the car.

  He came in to the house bringing air and movement with him, perhaps he always hurried. He focused on his mother, saying: ‘Just heard it on the car radio: the body of a boy has been found in a bit of open ground.’

  Lady Grahamden’s high colour could not fade because it was artificial but she blinked. Not something she wanted to hear.

  ‘I thought it might be Sarah when they started in on the announcement. But it’s a boy.’

  Then he looked at Charmian. ‘Sorry, Miss Daniels. One way and another I am in a state of permanent anxiety.’

  He was tall, with a shock of black hair, he had a charming voice, was charming altogether.

  ‘Peter Loomis.’ He held out his hand, his handshake was hard like his mother’s, but warm where hers was cold.

  Rewley was out, gathering information about this man. Was one of the things he would bring back that he was a man of enormous charm?

  He did not look like a man who might have murdered his wife, but then Charmian knew from experience that killers came in all shapes and sizes and with all conditions of ugliness or beauty. Lady Grahamden returned doggedly to the subject she was interested in. ‘It’s very sad, but has nothing to do with Sarah.’

  It was clear that she was about to embark upon her thesis again, but Charmian took charge of the conversation. ‘You know why your mother came here? That she wants the search for Sarah to be given up.’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded.

  ‘Do you agree?’

  ‘Not altogether. But she may have a point.’

  ‘Clearly it’s not what Mrs Holt thinks: she called the police in.’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to Biddy.’

  Someone is going to. Charmian held up a restraining hand to Lady Grahamden who was trying to break in.

  ‘Your mother says the child will come back if we stop searching. That’s a hard story to believe.’

  ‘You have to know the background.’

  ‘I intend to.’ Once again she held back Lady Grahamden who was trying to continue with her version. ‘You tell me what you think.’

  ‘Hold on, Mother,’ said Loomis, in a tired voice. If he wasn’t ashamed of his mother, he had sounded as if he had had enough of her. ‘I don’t know of my own knowledge
as they say in the law courts, because I haven’t been around, nor as close to my daughter as perhaps I should, but I have been told that she has gone off once or twice and then come back unscathed. Just little wanderings, children do that sort of thing, take leave for the day, I did it myself.’

  ‘Family thing, is it?’

  Loomis looked hurt. ‘Children have their escapades, perhaps Sarah has. My mother thinks she’s frightened now and she’ll come back when things quieten down. Hiding, you know. Got a little secret hideaway. I’m not saying it’s the case, but it could be.’

  ‘It’s been some time, too long surely.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’

  ‘And you will know that Mrs Holt says she went off with a man. Was collected by him, that doesn’t sound as if the child wandered off on her own.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. That’s what Biddy says.’

  ‘Are you saying she’s lying?’

  ‘I don’t say anything. Speak to her … please.’

  It was the second time he’d said this.

  ‘Your mother says that Mrs Holt called the police because of the doll. Do you know about that?’

  ‘I know about the dolls.’

  ‘I’ve seen them. She had plenty.’

  ‘We all gave them to her, it was what she wanted, she wanted one for every day of the year. She didn’t quite get there.’ He sounded sad.

  Charmian was suddenly tired of the pair of them and wanted them to go. She had said nothing to them about the other buried child, the baby, nor was she going to, it needed a bit of privacy that baby before the world started talking about it.

  Muff yawned, stood up, went to the refrigerator where she began to rattle the handle. She was good at dismissing people.

  Peter Loomis read the signs. ‘Come on, Mother. Let’s go. You’ve said your piece.’

  Charmian showed them to the door without a word. Lady Grahamden shook her hand. ‘Goodbye, my dear. Here is my card, come and see me. I think we should understand each other.’