Baby Drop

by Jennie Melville

  The technicians were obviously being very busy. Let them go on with it. Dan Feather needed all the help he could get.

  He had Joe, who was dead, who had been in contact with Sarah, but he still had no idea where the child was nor who had abducted her, if that was what had really happened, or where she had been taken.

  Charmian sat there eating and thinking: they were looking for a hideaway that was grey and stony and probably damp. Not a very agreeable place to live in, not nice at all, poor Joe. And where was it?

  Her mind toured Windsor and its environs. Well, there was one place.

  Try the Castle. In that great structure there must be many secret recesses, called cellars or dungeons, where a boy could hide. Or be hidden. It would not be easy to get in, of course, but it might be managed. She doubted it, yet it could not be ignored.

  She got up and went to the telephone which rested on a shelf in an alcove in a corner near the kitchens. Waiters came and went while she dialled. They knew her, she often ate here and very often used the telephone.

  First she dialled her answering machine at home to hear if any call had come in from Humphrey. Nothing, no message.

  Then she called Feather at his home. She was surprised to find he was there and that he answered the telephone himself so promptly.

  ‘Just an idea,’ she said. ‘Try the Castle.’

  He understood what she meant. ‘I had thought of that myself, but I can’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s not a question of believing.’

  ‘Right, I know that, it’s a question of doing. I’ll see what I can do. It won’t be easy, you know what they’re like in there. In the first place they won’t accept any living creature could have got in and hidden, and secondly they won’t let us in to look … although I have wondered sometimes if we wouldn’t find a few mislaid tourists wandering round trying to get out.’ He had allowed himself a joke.

  Charmian went back to her wine and her slice of chocolate cake thinking about Feather, who had a question mark over him: he was a great team player who belonged to several clubs and fraternities in the town to whom he would give loyalty. Supposing one of the members, say a revered, wealthy, and established figure in the association and in the town, could be suspected in connection with the death of Joe and the loss of Sarah …? She wouldn’t call Sarah’s absence more than loss at the moment, she couldn’t bear to consign the child to her grave.

  Supposing all this, would Feather admit it?

  In the end, yes.

  But he might keep quiet for as long as he could, investigating himself but not passing the word around. Damn you, Feather, she thought, that is exactly what you would do, and it is why I am not trusting you here.

  It worked both ways, as she knew. He didn’t trust her either, of course, but her role as head of SRADIC, with her own investigatory powers, made her powerful. He could not ignore her.

  Out of her file, she pulled the photograph of Sarah; several copies of this had now been made to hand out to the investigating team, it had also been used on the TV presentation.

  She studied the child’s face, hoping for a stimulus to thought, but nothing came. Strange child, with her army of little dolls, one for every day of the year and all alike. Perhaps a lot of children would develop an obsession like it if they were not constrained by the rules of parents and school. Or possibly it came from the mother.

  So what did Sarah’s doll collection say about Biddy? It was hard to know what Biddy was like normally; now she was a pretty but dishevelled slightly drunken hysterical woman who had lost her child.

  But I might be like that in her position, thought Charmian. Only I believe I would be roaringly angry as well and I see no anger in Biddy, just a kind of acceptance, and I find that worrying. Did she blame the father? He had been checked by the police; he had been staying with friends who testified for him.

  Biddy had fallen in love with a man who was married, and who had been charged with murdering his wife, she had had his child, made what looked like a marriage of convenience with Simon Holt, who appeared to have left her. Not a lucky lady.

  But she had always had money and was out of the same social drawer as Peter Loomis, you could tell that by the way she spoke, by the way she dressed, and even by the way she got drunk. She knew the ways of her social set and in her own manner she conformed to them.

  It might be worth talking to Lady Mary Erskine about Biddy, that lady had been very quiet lately.

  You drew me in, Mary, asked me to see her, trusted in Biddy then, now perhaps you do not. I’m thinking about that. What’s happened that you know and I do not?

  She considered telephoning Lady Mary this instant, but a fat man with a Filofax in his hand was wedged by the phone talking away fiercely. He edged closer to the instrument and mouthed into it. He wasn’t moving away in a hurry. Just for an instant, she had Rewley’s gift: ‘Darly, darling,’ the man said. Love talk then, and going slightly wrong?

  She took out her diary, looked at the next day’s events, and chose one gap in which she would speak to Lady Mary Erskine.

  The watchful waiter smiled at her, pretty lady but hard to read, and poured her some more wine from the carafe.

  As Charmian drank her wine, she noticed a couple of young women dining together in a table across the room. They were laughing together, one wearing a soft silk shirt and the other girl, whose face she could see and vaguely recognized, was wearing a thick tweed suit and looked hot in it.

  I know that back, thought Charmian, I think I even know the silk shirt, I know the hair cut and the set of the shoulders. Then the wearer turned round and gave a smile and a wave. Dolly Barstow.

  Dolly got up and walked across. ‘Come and join us?’ She looked at the table. ‘Bring your wine and have coffee with us. We’ve just got to the coffee stage.’

  Charmian picked up her glass and motioned to the waiter; he carried her chocolate cake over for her. ‘ I didn’t see you till just now.’

  ‘I saw you come in, but I didn’t know if you’d want company.’

  Dolly glanced at the scatter of papers on the table. ‘I could see you were working.’

  Charmian pushed everything back into the file. ‘Not getting anywhere. A lull seems indicated.’ She followed Dolly to the table where the other woman smiled up at her.

  ‘You know Alice? Alice Braddon.’

  ‘I know we’ve met, but I can’t remember where?’

  Alice had a cheerful, round face. ‘No reason why you should … I came up to you after one of your talks and asked a question.’

  ‘Dr Alice Braddon,’ said Dolly. ‘Alice and I were students together. I was the plodding one and she was the clever one.’

  ‘Not that way round at all,’ said Alice.

  ‘I can’t believe Dolly was ever a plodder.’ Dolly was as sharp as a needle but kind with it, a rare combination in Charmian’s experience. She valued Dolly accordingly. She studied Dr Braddon: she took in the alert brown eyes, the strong hands, and made her guess. Not a Doctor of Philosophy, she decided, too young for a Doctor of Literature for such were usually old and grey after a lifetime labouring in the arts, probably not a Doctor of Theology; she opted for medicine. ‘Do you specialize?’

  ‘General practice, but I do several clinics in pediatrics.’

  Yes, that was right, thought Charmian. Alice would be a reassuring and comforting presence to child and mother.

  ‘Alice has just had a paper accepted by the BMJ so we’re celebrating. She’s also divorcing her husband, so we’re celebrating that too.’

  ‘Only thing to do,’ said Alice brightly.

  Charmian drank some wine and watched while the waiter brought the coffee. Sign of the times, when she’d been their age it was the wedding you celebrated, not the divorce. She might have said something to this effect had Dolly not given her a sharp look. So Alice minded, was probably unhappy, not really being bright and gay about it all and Dolly was helping her.

  ‘What’s the article about?
’ she asked, seeking the safe comment.

  Alice produced a copy of the British Medical Journal and put it on the table. ‘ Not in this issue, some months ahead, but it’s called “Some Congenital Diseases in Children”.’

  ‘And it’s brilliant,’ said Dolly firmly.

  Charmian finished her wine, and picked up her coffee cup. Might be why there was the divorce, some husbands couldn’t stand brilliant wives. No, I must not think like that, she told herself firmly, it’s sour and sexist. However, she thought she knew what she was talking about, having spent all her working life in a world where brilliant women were rare and not specially welcomed.

  Still, she thought with some savage ill humour, it could be said that not many of her male colleagues were brilliant either.

  She drank her coffee, which was strong and bitter. I am in a rotten mood, I must stop being like this. She smiled to herself. And I have known men who were honest and solid and I do know a few who deserved to be called brilliant. But, after all, what is that word brilliant? A much overworked term that ought to be forgotten.

  ‘Why the smile?’ asked Dolly.

  ‘I was just thinking that I had worked with some good men … don’t ask why.’

  ‘I think I can see the train of thought,’ said Dolly drily. She had seen some prejudice, although she had not suffered from it herself: she was canny and knew where to put her feet. But Charmian, older, bolder, and less careful, had felt conflict and been hurt by it.

  ‘I’m not shouting about it.’

  I’m standing on her shoulders, Dolly remembered. She’s fought some of the battles from which I benefit. And she’d had it rough; Dolly herself had never had to kill anyone in pursuit of her duties, Charmian had, and come close to being killed herself. There was one or two lines round her friend’s eyes that came from those battles.

  Alice saw the look that the two other women exchanged and saw amused trust in it. Women did let you down less than men, she summed it up, but then perhaps you committed less to them.

  ‘Alice and I did think of celebrating with champagne,’ said Dolly, picking up something of her friend’s mood. ‘But we decided that would make us too high, so we settled for a good Italian red because we wanted to feel cheerful, but solid somehow too.’

  ‘And is there anything that you are celebrating?’

  ‘I don’t know if celebrating is quite the word, but I do feel happier about one thing. I went to see Kate just before coming out tonight and she is so much better.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  Alice obviously knew all about Kate. ‘I think she’s over the worst, but people do fluctuate, you know. Emotion does come into it.’

  ‘I think we may have made it worse for Kate in the way we all hang about her.’

  ‘She’s obviously much loved.’

  ‘She is,’ said her godmother. ‘Good about Kate and thanks for telling me. There’s been a bit too much going on in my life at the moment and I don’t know if I’ve been concentrating on Kate in the right kind of way.’

  ‘The missing child? Kate did get hooked on Sarah, it was bad luck that the body of the boy was found where it was. She made it something to do with her.’

  ‘She saw something,’ said Charmian. ‘She saw a person there. I don’t think she saw the boy being buried, no one seems to have seen that particular episode, but I believe she saw the killer looking at the grave. I didn’t tell her of that idea, but I didn’t have to … It was in her mind without me prompting her. There is something else I’d like to ask her but I don’t know if I can. I feel I’ve dragged her into enough as it is.’

  ‘You didn’t do any dragging. It just happened. What is it you wanted to ask?’

  ‘About a car she saw, about its colour.’

  ‘I can answer that for you: she saw a yellow car. She told me, she’s been talking quite a lot about it. I’d say it was on her mind. The car was yellow, a dirty yellow.’

  ‘So not a new car?’ The car in the video was yellow, old, and dirty.

  ‘And she thinks there was a woman driving it.’

  ‘I’m surprised she could see all that … it wasn’t close.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s imagination.’

  ‘I don’t want to think that, it might be useful.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she said to Alice. ‘If you have a scan or they take a bit out of you to test and the result is bad, it’s malignant or whatever, do they whisk you in and operate straightaway?’

  Alice looked surprised. ‘ No, not as quick as that. Not unless you are already under anaesthetic, that can happen sometimes, to certain cases. No, you get time to arrange things.’

  Oh good, so Humphrey hadn’t been dragged into the maw of some operating chamber without her knowing. He was out there somewhere, perhaps not even ill at all, and he would be in touch.

  Alice looked discreet (if slightly surprised at this last question), so Charmian decided it was safe to talk cases in front of her. Besides, she wanted Dolly’s opinion.

  ‘It looks as though the boy whose body was found, Joe, had been in contact with Sarah Holt, although we don’t know where she is or had been, but forensics found traces of her, hair, possibly clothes, a bit of one of her dolls.’

  ‘It doesn’t actually prove they were together … he may just have rubbed against traces she left behind.’

  ‘True enough … it’s a link though. And it seems that the boy had been living or imprisoned in somewhere that left grey dust, stony traces on his skin and clothes … From where? I wondered about the Castle.’ She gave Dolly the report to read then sat looking at her.

  The waiter waved the wine bottle over their glasses. ‘No, I won’t have any more. I have to drive.’

  ‘No.’ Dolly raised her head from her reading. ‘No, not the Castle. I know there are good Victorian precedents for children, chimney sweeps and so on, hiding away in the Castle, but that was then, this is now. Besides, one child might get in, but two? No.’

  There was a calm lucidity about Dolly’s words that carried conviction.

  ‘Yes, you’re right. It was just an idea.’

  ‘Try a church or a chapel.’

  Or even a grave. But no, that could not be, Joe had been buried in the earth, near to the remains of the long dead baby, and had known no other grave.

  The papers from her folders spilled out on the table between them. ‘Is that Sarah?’ Dolly picked up the photograph. ‘I don’t remember seeing it.’

  ‘Yes, her mother provided that for me.’

  ‘I heard the TV interview went well but no feedback so far.’

  They nodded at each other. ‘Takes time.’

  Alice had picked up the picture of Sarah. She was examining it with what Charmian recognized as a professional look; she was noticing certain things, checking other points, frowning. Then she put the photograph down, and drank some more wine. A splash of red fell upon the white tablecloth.

  ‘So?’ questioned Charmian. ‘You had an assessing look, as if you’d made a judgement.’

  ‘Not quite that. But I was thinking …’ She paused. ‘I was thinking that just from that look, you know, she was very close to being a Very Odd Child.’

  It was Charmian’s time to frown. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just a phrase we use … some children do have a look, eyes, features, it can be intangible but real, which sometimes reflects physical or mental abnormality. You learn to see it and read it. Then you try to find what lies behind it.’

  ‘And you see that here? In the child’s face?’ Charmian picked up the photograph and looked at it. Sarah looked back at her, a sad, peaky little face whose eyes did not look at her squarely.

  ‘Well, I can’t be sure from a photograph, of course. I’d know more if I had actually seen the child face to face. But even then it is not always easy. You just get a sensation.’

  Those gentle dark eyes would study a face and pass judgement. Kindly done but with the ruthlessness of the professional, which applied to her
, Charmian, too. It was called ‘doing your job’.

  Charmian took the photograph back and stowed it away. ‘We may never know now. What’s the outlook for these odd children?’ If Sarah had been one, poor child.

  Alice shrugged. ‘Many different causes, some worse than others, but in general the prognosis is not good.’

  That means really bad, Charmian thought. She wondered what were the right questions, if any, she should ask, and settled for silence.

  Alice got up. ‘ Just go and powder my nose.’ She was taller and thinner than she had looked sitting down, not older but younger and more vulnerable. She stalked off, a kind of defiance in her walk. She didn’t look at the waiters who parted on either side of her as she went.

  Charmian said: ‘Does she frighten you, your friend?’

  Dolly laughed. ‘She’s a love. Don’t let her frighten you. Not about the child, she was snapping out a comment, just looking … we’ve had a bit to drink, the two of us, it may not be a fair judgement.’

  ‘I don’t know what to make of it, whether it has any importance in the case or not.’

  ‘You could ask the parents …’

  Not a prospect I relish, thought Charmian. Saying: ‘Is your missing child defective in any way?’ Supposing they don’t know, supposing it’s not the case? ‘Probably not a good idea just at the moment. I’ll wait.’

  Alice was making her way back to the table, she really was remarkably pretty as well as all else.

  ‘Thanks for cheering her up.’

  ‘Did I?’ Charmian was surprised. Alice seemed thoroughly in charge of her life and everything about her, infants, patients, and adult women detectives, not the sort of person Charmian could cheer up, even though she had guessed the girl was in need of it.

  ‘She’s not as jolly as she acts. She loved that husband, the louse.’

  ‘Oh, really? Well.’

  ‘And don’t say we all make mistakes.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to, I was going to say that if you have to make a mistake it’s as well to make it when you are young, and she is young.’