Baby Drop

by Jennie Melville

  ‘No one forgets what you’ve been through, Mr Peter,’ said Mousie with dignity.

  ‘I don’t think we need fear the police,’ said Lady Grahamden. ‘Anyway, not the fat one. I’m not so sure about the woman.’

  ‘He’s not fat, Mother. Just large.’

  The three walked out into the dusk to where the big old Rolls stood in the drive.

  ‘We are taking that, are we?’ asked Peter. ‘Why not my car?’

  ‘A Rolls always commands respect,’ said his mother.

  ‘Which of us is going to drive?’

  Mousie volunteered. ‘I will if you like.’ She had her own battered car.

  ‘No, certainly not. A Rolls is a man’s car to drive.’ She looked at her son.

  ‘I always intended to drive.’ He was drawing on his gloves. ‘ Why don’t you get a chauffeur again.’

  ‘I can’t afford it.’

  ‘You always afford what you want, Mama.’

  ‘I can drive her ladyship as well as anyone,’ said Mousie. ‘She can always ask me.’

  The three of them walked out on to the gravelled drive which curved in front of the house. The big car was already there waiting for them. Peter locked the house, checking that the alarms were switched on, and glancing across to the old stables where Mrs Moucher lived.

  ‘How’s Moucher?’ he asked, reminded of her husband’s existence. His was a secret absentee presence as he was a merchant seaman.

  ‘Away at sea.’

  He was always away at sea, Peter had long surmised that Mrs Moucher could only tolerate a husband who was away a good deal. Perhaps it worked that way for Moucher too. He might prefer the North Sea or even the Arctic Ocean to home with his Mousie.

  ‘Any particular sea?’

  ‘The Caribbean. It’s a cruise.’

  He helped the two women into the back of the car before taking the wheel. He sat for a moment, his hands cold and tense and yet sweating. He dreaded what lay ahead.

  The video and seeing Biddy and seeing Biddy watching the video. He knew this was going to be painful for her. ‘I’ve let you down, Biddy, and been cruel to you and there’s every chance I’ll do it again.’

  She brought it out in him, with that soft, passive way of hers. The child, Sarah, had something of the same manner in her too, God help her.

  He shuddered, he couldn’t help it.

  ‘Get on with it, Peter,’ came from behind. No shuddering there, just grim and utter determination to face what must be faced and see it through.

  He got on with it.

  It was a short fifteen-minute drive to Biddy’s house, the Vinery, through dark lanes, with the smell of cattle on the air, and there was Biddy, waiting for them at the door of her house, quiet but tense, waiting as ever for the blow, which was always hanging over her, to fall. It fell daily, she survived it to wait for the next one. She was buttoned wrongly into her coat, and her hair was untidy. He looked at her with love and sadness.

  He stopped the car and waited, not getting out. Biddy stood where she was.

  ‘I don’t want to come.’

  ‘Help her, Peter’ Lady Grahamden opened the door. ‘Sit in the back with us.’

  ‘Come along, Biddy. You must come. We are going along to watch a video to see if Sarah has been captured by some pervert. That seems to be what the police are suggesting.’

  ‘There was no need to say that, Peter.’

  ‘On the contrary, there is every need. We might as well know what we are facing.’

  Helped by Peter, or pushed along by him, because it felt like being pushed, Biddy got into the car where she disposed her body, legs and arms to be no trouble to anyone, carefully not touching Lady Grahamden. Whether Sarah was dead or not, she knew she herself was, and had been for some time now.

  Peter drove off, hoping that Biddy was not too drunk, she had certainly been at the bottle, for which he did not blame her, but it gave him the uneasy feeling that she knew more about the disappearance of his daughter (because Sarah was his daughter, however he had acted) than she was saying.

  ‘I didn’t kill my wife,’ he said inside himself, ‘but no one’s ever going to believe me, especially now.’

  And really, sometimes, he hardly believed himself.

  He parked the car, squeezing the Rolls in between two police cars and into a slot marked For the Use of the Chief Constable. He took some pleasure in doing this, knew there would be trouble and didn’t care. The dark Rolls had a regal look, perhaps they would think it was the Queen.

  He led his trio of ladies towards the room indicated to them, then stood back to let them walk in first. Always the gentleman.

  The room was over-full with the police team and the technicians setting up the video. He saw Charmian Daniels in one corner. She would not be one of his believers. He wondered what Biddy had told Lady Mary Erskine and what Lady Mary had told Charmian. Nothing good.

  He remembered Lady Mary’s voice as she cornered him at the Castle party, soft but cold and clear as she could be when angry. No angel herself, her own record not unspotted, as he would like to have pointed out: ‘ I don’t believe you killed your wife, and you know I don’t believe it, but you damaged Biddy, perhaps for ever. She will never settle to her marriage with James while you are around. And it’s James she loves, get that? Not you.’

  There are darker truths here than you know, Lady Mary.

  He caught Charmian’s eye. Just as well you can’t read my thoughts.

  But to a certain extent, Charmian could. No lip reader like Rewley or extra-sensorily aided, like her friends the white witches, Charmian was a good guesser.

  She saw a man who was angry, uneasy, and uncomfortable. He won’t be any good to us. I suppose he will look at the video but I doubt if he will see it.

  She knew from Lady Mary that he was as successful a merchant banker in the City as a man can be who has good connections but has stood his trial for murder, and was as popular there as a man can be with the same reservation as before.

  It wasn’t her show, Dan Feather was managing it, so she sat back while he got Lady Grahamden and Mrs Moucher and Biddy Holt into their seats. No one took any notice of her, which was how she wanted it, she sat back, ready to observe.

  ‘There’s no hurry, we can take our time and run the film backwards if we want, and freeze it as we want for you to get a good look … The image varies, of course, some shots are better than others … But where we are lucky is that it’s in colour. Most outside videos are black and white. This one isn’t.’ He was being jovial.

  The room went quiet as the video was played. Charmian watched the screen but also watched the watchers.

  There was Peascod Street on a late autumn afternoon with street lights coming on, shoppers came into view, then disappeared. A cyclist walked his bike. A dog shot across the screen and disappeared. Two women were caught full face. A figure, a young man, walking forward, he seemed to be approaching someone.

  Totty, his back, his face as he turned.

  Then a boy somehow sliding into view.

  Feather said: ‘Freeze it there.’ He let the image sink in. Mrs Moucher said nothing, nor did Peter Loomis. Charmian thought that Biddy had closed her eyes. Only Lady Grahamden reacted.

  ‘Anyone there you recognize?’

  Silence.

  ‘Now there’s a face … the young man, does he mean anything to you?’

  Lady Grahamden and Mrs Moucher looked, then turned to each other. A shrug seemed to pass between them. ‘No.’ Lady Grahamden answered for them both.

  ‘Mrs Holt?’

  Biddy hardly looked at the screen before shaking her head.

  ‘Mr Loomis? What about you?’

  ‘Never seen him.’

  Not one of them admitted to knowing him. Dan Feather was not too discouraged since he would have been surprised if they had. Totty did not move in their social circles.

  Then he asked to look at the boy.

  Lady Grahamden surveyed the face. ‘ Not a
good picture, is it?’ Nor was it, the boy had turned aside and was seen in profile.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Feather took it slowly: ‘We think a boy called Joe, surname hard to establish.’ In his short career it appeared that Joe had had several names.

  Lady Grahamden studied the frame. ‘Dead?’

  ‘Dead.’ Feather nodded his head and let his hands move together in vague benediction. ‘Dead, m’lady.’

  There was a moment of silence. Then he said, and now he was asking the question to which he really wanted an answer, ‘Look to the right of the boy. Do you see a girl? A young girl. We think she might be Sarah.’

  ‘But she has her back to us.’

  ‘Try … Mrs Holt, does this say anything to you?’

  Biddy hardly took a look. ‘That is not Sarah.’

  ‘Are you sure? Please give her a good look … What about the clothes?’

  ‘Those are not Sarah’s clothes.’

  Feather turned to Lady Grahamden. She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Mrs Moucher?’

  ‘Too thin and tall,’ she said succinctly. ‘As to clothes, can’t say.’

  ‘Mr Loomis?’

  Peter stared at the screen. ‘ I’ve got an idea that I’ve seen the boy, but probably not … as for the other child, no, not Sarah.’

  Charmian asked Dan Feather to move the film on. The boy and Totty were still there, the boy looking in a shop window, but the girl seemed to have disappeared. A car moved down the road.

  Charmian stared at the car which was strong yellow. She was recalling something about a yellow car. Hadn’t Kate said something about seeing a yellow car from her window? A car in Flanders Road, overlooking the graves of Joe and the baby?

  She thought about it as she moved to speak to Biddy. ‘ I’m sorry about this, it must have been a strain for you.’

  Biddy nodded without speaking. She had said so little the whole time and never seemed to take in what was going on in any sensible way. But she was there. She had come and she managed a half smile for Charmian.

  ‘Come on, Biddy,’ said Peter. He put his arm round her. ‘Come on, Mother, Mousie. Sorry, Inspector, not been much use to you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Feather as they left. ‘ I never expected a lot but I had to try. I’ve still got to get Amy Mercer to have a look. Didn’t want to call her in the same time as the family. You’ve had your word with her, haven’t you? Thanks for coming yourself.’

  ‘I was interested.’ Was this the time to tell Feather that Amy had joined her household, even if on a temporary basis?

  ‘Get anything out of it?’

  ‘They loved the child,’ Charmian said thoughtfully. ‘Sure of that’

  ‘Quiet about it, though. Didn’t see a tear, did you?’

  ‘Some people just cry inside.’ She knew about that way of life, she thought.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘The car. I have a witness who saw a yellow car parked in Flanders Road within the period when the boy was buried.’

  ‘Yellow cars aren’t so common,’ said Feather thoughtfully. ‘We’ll follow it up. See if the scientific lads can bring more details on the video. Car number would be handy.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it?’ said Charmian, with amusement.

  ‘Might not mean anything.’

  ‘No.’

  But he was resolute. ‘I’ve got others to ask: the headmistress of the kid’s school, the mothers of other children at the school, Amy Mercer. Oh yes, haven’t forgotten her, don’t think it. She might have something to say. After all, she’s given tongue already. She might not be the best witness on the scene, but she’s worth having in. Sometimes it’s the least likely person who comes up with just what helps.’

  ‘Oh, I agree. You think it’s one of them, don’t you?’

  ‘I think they’re nursing a little secret amongst them, and I bet you do too. The mother’s story is rubbish.’

  ‘You think it’s the father.’ It was a statement, more than a question.

  ‘No, I’m reserving judgement. My team favour him. On a scale of one to ten he scores five. That’s because they don’t like him. If they could get a motive or a bit of evidence against him, his score would go right off the board. But that’s just how they feel.’

  ‘I’m worried about the mother, I agree, her story can’t be true. Whether we believe Amy Mercer or not. If she’s telling the truth, it alters the picture.’

  ‘Oh, I suppose someone around the town saw the child and thought she was a desirable little object and got hold of her somehow. And we might never find that person.’

  ‘Is that what you really think?’

  He shrugged. ‘It happens and you know it. We have our monsters like everywhere else. Got nice faces and good houses and smart cars, some of these monsters.’

  ‘I hope he’s found then.’ It had to be a he, it usually was, and sometimes, horribly, more than one.

  ‘Come into my room and have a cup of coffee. Or a smoke, if you do smoke. I daren’t myself, give in to one and I’d want a hundred. I was an eighty-a-day man.’

  His room in the adjacent building was small but tidy, no surprise to Charmian who had already got him marked down as a tidy man. She sat down, accepted coffee, and waited. He was up to something.

  Feather was making up his mind to be generous, she’d get to know anyway. ‘Got some forensic evidence that links Joe and the girl. Several blonde hairs that match with some of hers as taken from a hairbrush in her home, some scraps of cotton and wool that might have come from her clothes. Colour and fabrics are right. And there’s something else …’

  He paused while Charmian waited.

  Then he burst out, irritated. ‘In his pocket, the head of one of those damned dolls.’

  So Joe and Sarah were linked after all, no doubt there. And Totty Bow? Was he a killer, or just an innocent lad who was passing by?

  ‘What about Totty?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno,’ said Feather, now justifiably irritated. ‘I’d like to get him.’

  It was hard to imagine that Totty was the prime mover and killer, someone else, bolder and more wicked, was in there too. Was it possible that Dan Feather guessed or even knew this? And wasn’t saying anything? She looked at him and wondered. He was keeping the lid on something.

  ‘Good luck with Amy Mercer,’ said Charmian as she left. ‘She was in my house this morning. Cleaning. I seem to be employing her.’

  When she got home, Amy had long since gone. The house was shining. Charmian felt that she was lucky, and Muff too for she had been fed and was now asleep in her basket.

  A slight untidiness was Amy’s only fault, she had left out the vacuum cleaner and had gone away leaving a duster and a tin of polish on the stairs.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘ “I can’t go and live in no nicer place,” replied Jo. “They wouldn’t have nothing to say to me if I was to go to a nice innocent lodging. Who’d go and let a nice innocent lodging to such a one as me?” ’

  Bleak House

  No Humphrey, no telephone message. No Muff, not even a mouse stirring in the house or a bird fluttering in the chimney. The house in Maid of Honour Row was clean, polished, and empty.

  Charmian felt empty too. Only one thing to do when you are in this mood: go out and eat something disgustingly rich and full of calories. Afterwards you could repent.

  She showered, hoping all the while that the water splashed round her to hear the telephone or to hear a cat miouw. Nothing, so she threw aside her working-day clothes which were usually dark and unobtrusive because it was, after all, a man’s world in which she operated, and although the men in it liked a dolly bird look with long flashing legs and bright skirts as well, if not more, than most men, they did not expect it where they worked. Sex had better be neutral there. Charmian paid lip service to this prejudice: her clothes were dark and if you didn’t recognize a Jean Muir jacket or a Jasper Conran skirt, then she had the last laugh. She put on a
pair of expensive jeans from Milan which were looser than fashion decreed but she could not bear to squeeze herself into them like a teenager. You had to know when to stop. She brushed her hair and cleaned her face but reapplied some lipstick and maybe it was a touch brighter than she wore during the day: these Italian jeans demanded some uplift. That seemed to be it. Then she went back at the last minute to apply a healthy spray of French scent, Shalimar, so with a cotton bra from Marks and Spencer (the best), and English shoes, and American lipstick (the best too), she was international.

  She took with her under her arm a file of photographs and reports which she planned to read over dinner. Then she took herself off to the nearby Italian restaurant.

  But first, she put out cat biscuits for Muff and a bowl of milk, and then with one last look at the silent telephone, she was off.

  She was eating melon and Parma ham while she read the forensic report on Joe. She intended to eat pasta with a good deal of cheese, salad, and a rich pudding, and consume a carafe of wine. Tomorrow, if necessary, she would go hungry.

  On the table before her she had the details of what had been found on Joe’s body and on his clothes. A single hair and some microscopic threads of fabric that might have come from Sarah’s clothes had been taken from his jacket, and from his pocket the head of a doll and several sweet and chocolate papers.

  A handwritten note attached to one sheet informed her that the textile traces would be compared with the uniform pinafore that all children of the school that Sarah had attended wore. A match looked likely.

  Well, that could be done, let them get on with it. She was certain it would prove positive. Those two children had met, dead or alive.

  She forked up a well-filled envelope of ravioli, it tasted good. She turned to another page: there were several pages and various columns of figures, this was all about the stone fragments and dust that had already been noted on Joe’s clothes.

  Not brick dust, it seemed, so nothing to do with any sojourn under the brick railway arches. These arches had been inspected and scraped for specimens, compared with what was on Joe, struck to his clothes, in his hair and on his skin, and there was no match.