Baby Drop

by Jennie Melville

  He led the way forward and held back the curtain of the tent. ‘It was pretty murky up here by the time we found her, so we decided to leave her here overnight and do the measuring and photographing this morning.’ The ground was squashy with mud and layers of wet leaves under foot, their shoes sank in.

  Charmian looked down at the body. ‘I see why you wanted me here. Yes, that’s Amy Mercer’ She turned away. She had expected to meet Amy again, but not like this. ‘What happened to her face?’

  ‘There wasn’t much attempt made to bury her, and there’s wildlife up here. Been a hungry winter, I’d say,’ he said, turning away. ‘Might have been a fox at her, we’ll know more later on.’

  ‘And exactly how she died?’

  ‘That too. But you’re sure it’s her?’

  ‘Oh yes, there’s not much of the features left, but enough, and the hair. Yes, I recognize her … That looks like an apron, what I can see of it.’

  ‘Yes, she appears to have been wearing an apron when she died.’

  —She must have gone straight from my house. Or been dragged away. No wonder she never had time to put everything away in the kitchen. Either she had got in touch with her killer from the house, or she had been followed. There had been a look on her face, perhaps she had telephoned and made threats to someone? To whom?

  ‘She worked for me, just that one day, I tried to get in touch, she gave me her phone number but now I know why she never answered … It may have been because she was working for me that she was killed.’

  Feather waited for her to go on. ‘I had talked to her about seeing the girl Sarah running up and down Peascod Street, and although I definitely didn’t offer her the chance to work for me, she assumed I had, or pretended to … I think she still wanted to talk to me.’

  ‘Did you believe her story?’

  ‘Not exactly and now I am sure she was lying, but she wanted to draw attention to herself … she had something to say, and that was perhaps why she was killed.’

  ‘It could be the motive.’

  ‘I think her killer may have come to my house and that Amy left with him.’

  It was damp inside the tent and full of the smell of death. Charmian remembered the woman at the checkout desk in the supermarket, and the way she had sat talking over a cup of tea. Or had it been coffee? She remembered the bright, hopeful face of Amy as she had reported for work.

  She came to me for help, she wanted to tell me something, and I let her down.

  ‘You couldn’t have stopped her being murdered,’ said Feather, who seemed to read her thoughts. He covered up what was left of Amy Mercer. ‘Let’s go back … the photographers and the forensic lads are waiting to do their stuff, but I wanted you to see first. Don’t blame yourself.’ It was his habit to say this to the relatives of victims of one sort or another of violence. The words came easily to him.

  ‘I could have tried harder.’

  ‘I suppose you have no idea what she wanted to say?’

  ‘No, she talked about the girl, and her aunt and working at Chantrey House. She may have been leading up to something. Sussing me out, maybe, to see if I was the right person to tell.’

  ‘Given time, you could have been.’

  But there had been no time.

  ‘Like some more coffee, Miss Daniels?’ He had never called her Charmian, he might have to call her Lady Kent but that would be it.

  ‘No, I must get to my office … I had an interview with William Madge last night. I think he wants to talk to you. He ought to in my opinion.’

  Feather grinned. ‘Yes, I heard he’d been phoning me. Wants to tell me that he knew Joe, I expect. But I knew already. And I’m waiting for him. If he hadn’t wanted to come, I would have gone for him.’ He had sent a police constable to check the house last night, no harm meant, just to frighten Madge a little.

  ‘You sound really angry.’

  ‘I am angry. Been quite a figure in my life, William Madge. Head of this and president of that … a figure in the town. He could pull strings, perhaps he tried to pull a few of mine.’

  —And perhaps you let him, thought Charmian. A little pull, anyway, and now you are ashamed and angry.

  ‘I’m telling you: a white van was seen here, where the body of Amy was dumped, for I won’t use the word buried, buried it was not, just dropped here like a bit of rubbish. And a white van was parked in the road overlooking the rough ground where Joe was buried.’

  ‘So you know about that?’

  ‘Certainly I know, I take it you do too? Well, William Madge drives such a van, and I’m going to take him in for questioning and have that van examined for forensic traces.’

  ‘I’d like to question him myself, if that’s all right by you. Will you ask him about the girl, Sarah?’ she said. Feather nodded, he would, of course, the two investigations into Joe’s death and Sarah’s disappearance had become one. And were now joined by a third: the death of Amy Mercer. ‘But you can have first go.’

  Her office was empty when she got back, Jane and Amos had gone about their own business. She searched around for the spectacles which she sometimes wore when no one was about for close work – to use her grandmother’s term.

  She sat back, reminded of that difficult old lady who had been old when Charmian was born. Contemporary grandmothers were young and jogged and swam or wrote poetry or best-sellers, but Charmian’s grandmother had been professionally old. Also somewhat frightening. She frightened me, at any rate, and Charmian went to work. Work blotted out a lot of grief and pain and worry. At this moment it did not succeed in wiping out Humphrey nor Kate, but it did for Grandma. Deleted you, Gran.

  It was a quiet day in which she got through a great deal of paperwork, she didn’t stop for lunch, intent on clearing the backlog. The telephone stayed quiet, and she kept her head down until hunger drove her out to the delicatessen round the corner to buy a sandwich. When she came back, the tuna and mayonnaise on her lips, the telephone was ringing. Would she like to come across to the Incident Room?

  A misnomer now, Incident Room, she thought as she approached on foot. Incident Suite would be more like it. Dan Feather was standing outside, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘He came in of his own accord and I’ve been keeping him waiting. He’s in that state that he would confess to killing Jesus Christ if I gave him the opportunity.’ Feather was full of bitter mirth. ‘I respected that man, all right I knew the way he went on, but he was good to my family when I was a kid, and I liked him … Now …’ He shook his head. ‘Poor old bugger, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Yes, I do, he’s doing the crying for us both. He’s beating his breast because of the scandal and the what will people say syndrome, but I swear he’s enjoying it too, the old creep.’ He ground out his cigarette and deposited it neatly in a rubbish bin. ‘Still, the state he’s in, I’ll get him to tell me how he killed Amy Mercer, the boy, and what he did with the girl.’

  Charmian wondered if she ought to stop Feather handling the questioning in this mood. A childhood idol had been toppled and he had been forced to face facts that were painful.

  He read the doubts in her face. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t go over the top, and you’ll be watching, ma’am. But I’ll get him, he’ll confess.’

  But Feather was wrong. William Madge talked freely about his relationship with the boy Joe. He had seen Joe about the town, he was vague on exactly where, but gave ground when Feather pressed him.

  ‘The old bus station, not the new one, but the one in Fleming Road, kids hang around there. Alma Park, that was popular, I have a dog I walk there.’

  ‘Useful dog,’ commented Feather sourly. ‘What is it, a poodle?’

  Madge flinched. ‘A little corgi bitch.’ Then he went on searching his memory: ‘The amusement arcade in Pennyroyal Street, yes, they met there once or twice.’

  ‘Usual places, don’t think I don’t know them,’ said Feather and Madge inclined his head in submission. ‘And then?’

  ‘I gave him a mea
l, he was always hungry, a little money … I don’t think he lived in the town, or not all the time, he took a bus to Slough and once to Hounslow, he had places.’

  He had driven him out into the country, yes, Joe could have walked to Lady Grahamden’s from where he left him, but he would not confess to killing Joe. He did admit to knowing Totty Bow who had offered to tell the story he had told, money might have changed hands, and Totty in his turn and at William’s request might have got at another fellow … Yes, the bank clerk who came in and said he had seen Sarah.

  Charmian could see Feather grinding his teeth. ‘And you still say you did not kill the boy?’

  ‘No, no, and no.’ And then he went silent.

  Feather suspended the interview at this point and took Charmian outside. ‘ We’ll have a go at him about the girl. Do you want to try? I don’t think I’m doing too well.’

  ‘Do I mention Amy Mercer?’

  ‘Up to you. But I thought of holding her in reserve until the forensics are in. She was strangled by the way. Probably been dead about thirty-six hours or so when we found her.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  William Madge admitted he knew the girl child Sarah by sight. Of course he knew her, the family were old customers. They had been customers for generations.

  But he had no more knowledge of her beyond the family connection. He rapped the words out with unusual force. ‘No more knowledge.’ The accusation had steadied him and given him renewed strength.

  However strongly she pressed him and long as they went on, he gave no ground. He had not touched, abducted, or killed Sarah.

  ‘She was a quiet, decent little thing, I liked her. She needed looking after, anyone could see that.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ said Charmian.

  He shrugged. ‘Children do need looking after, tender and loving care. Loved for what they are, not for what you think they should be. You should enjoy what you get.’

  Charmian studied his face. ‘Go on with that, tell me some more.’

  In a way, he now had the upper hand. ‘I cannot,’ he said decisively. ‘That is your job.’ He put his hand to his face and gently touched the left eye as if it hurt him, he gave a little grimace, but he never took his other eye off her face. ‘But I got you those details and I can tell you that the engraving was paid for by Betty Crisp who was a servant at Chantrey House.’

  ‘I didn’t do any better than you,’ said Charmian afterwards. She was tired and dispirited. ‘But he knows or thinks he knows something about the child.’ She would have gone on to tell Dan Feather about the locket and what she now knew of what historians call its ‘provenance’, but he was being summoned to the telephone.

  ‘I’ll hang on to him for a bit longer. Wait until we get the info on his van … And I’ll hang on to Totty Bow too. There’s bound to be something I can charge that one with.’ Feather was still confident as he hurried away. ‘ I’ll keep you informed.’

  Charmian walked back to her car, her limbs felt heavy and she sat for a long minute at the wheel before driving off. She was almost too tired to bother with driving, so she opened the windows and drove with the cold, damp wind blowing in her face.

  William Madge had been telling her something with that long direct one-eyed look but she didn’t know what.

  Instead of driving straight back to Maid of Honour Row, she returned to her own office, where tomorrow’s work was already assembling itself on her desk as if it grew there like an organic growth without the help of human hands.

  She made herself some coffee, abstracted a chocolate biscuit from the furtive supply that Amos kept there, and sat thinking.

  On the walls about her was the library of medico-legal books she had assembled, next to a few books on English history, and a whole row of Hodge’s Notable British Trials. Novels and poetry she kept at home.

  Somehow she felt as if she had been bludgeoned. She moved along the red row of trials, chocolate biscuit in her hand.

  Some nasty cases: the trial of Mrs Maybrick for poisoning her husband when she probably had not done, and the trial of Adelaide Bartlett for poisoning hers, a death of which she was almost certainly guilty. The trial of the Stauntons … very nasty, the simple-minded girl had been starved to death. Then there was Constance Kent who had killed her little brother, or said she had done, but perhaps her father was the real murderer.

  She went back to her desk, finished the coffee, and sat thinking.

  She knew what she had, and William Madge had given it to her: she had the locket.

  To her, in the beginning, the locket had been associated with the bones of the dead baby. A locket left there as a memento with the buried baby.

  The locket was old enough, but now she thought about it the clothes of the young woman whose photograph was in the locket did not quite match the age. When that photograph had been slipped inside the locket, the locket itself had already been old.

  Old Lord Grahamden had given that locket to one of his servants, Betty Crisp. That servant had passed it on in her turn. And as the century had turned onwards, a girl’s photograph had been inserted. The photograph and the locket were not of the same age. From what Charmian remembered of the clothes and hairstyle, the girl in the photograph had been young and pretty in the decade before the First World War.

  The baby had been buried before she was born.

  Yet she herself, if still alive, could be someone’s grandmother or great-grandmother. She was probably dead.

  But someone had worn her photograph. And lost her photograph.

  It wasn’t buried with the baby, but it was buried near Joe. Lost near Joe.

  Charmian looked down at her hands. ‘ I was trying to find out who the baby was. Perhaps I will discover through another route, but the locket had nothing to do with the baby.’

  Jewellery gets lost all the time, nothing can be taken for granted. But there was the locket and there was Joe.

  You had to make a connection. There was an arrow pointing towards him, and then the arrow pointed onwards to Chantrey House.

  She leaned back. She ought to tell Dan Feather, but that could wait till tomorrow; he might have more positive evidence against William Madge by then. Something detached like forensic traces from Joe and Amy on or around William and his possessions.

  And William might have had his own reasons for lying about the locket.

  She drove home, and there was Humphrey’s car. He was there, truly there.

  She ran into the hall. ‘Darling, you’ve come home.’

  Humphrey appeared at the kitchen door, he had Muff in his arms. ‘ Here I am. I was cooking something for dinner. I brought it with me.’

  ‘How are you, tell me?’ She looked up at him. ‘They’ve shaved your hair.’

  He put Muff down and came up to her. ‘ Only a strip and they wanted a closer look, my hair got in the way … I’m all right: the last scan cleared me of a benign brain tumour, they had already ruled out malignancy. I am to have medicine for high blood pressure, I will certainly have to wear spectacles, and I may get a bit cross-eyed.’

  Charmian gave a small, horrified sound.

  ‘Joke,’ he said gently.

  They spent the night in each other’s arms. Humphrey slept the happy sleep of someone who has come in out of the dark. Charmian dreamt, another nightmare, and this time there was an old woman in it.

  Whispers from the Past

  The old voice had lost some of its softness but was anyone listening to her? ‘Now hear what I say, will you? Listen to me, dearie, and see you make the girl listen.’ The old voice sounded cross. ‘She looks at me but does not hear.’ But the child did hear.

  ‘Ye canna be too young to learn the good ways. You must instruct her and it’s never a day too young. Keep herself clean, untouched. Good girls don’t have babies.’

  ‘But you did, Mistress Niven, didn’t you, although you don’t like to talk about it now. We don’t hold it against you.’ But this was not said aloud just b
reathed beneath by the woman who held the child on her knee. No one thought the worst of Granny Niven for that little episode in the past. Village communities in Angus always had their little secrets.

  ‘What’s that you say?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing …’

  ‘She heard, she heard.’

  ‘She won’t remember, Granny Niven.’

  But the child did.

  ‘She’s over young to hear what you say, Granny Niven.’

  Sarah Allen had been forced to leave her serving position at a Westminster public house when she became pregnant: she suffocated her infant in the workhouse.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘ “A heavy weight has fallen upon my spirits, and the sadness that gathers over me, will yield to neither hope nor reason.” ’

  The Old Curiosity Shop

  Charmian was up at first light, bits of her nightmare still hanging round her shoulders as if she was wearing it like a veil, it was wispy and torn but still there, inducing a sense of fear. How could phantoms walk through her sleep at night?

  She took a look at her sleeping companion: Humphrey was lying on his side, one arm outstretched. ‘Oh darling, darling.’ It was all she could find to say, waves of love swept over her, wiping out the nightmare. She knew how important he was to her.

  She crept downstairs unwilling to disturb the sleeper; she moved about the house, tidying the debris of yesterday. They had eaten soup and sandwiches on a tray by the fire; the tray was still there, the empty wine bottle and the glasses on the floor. They had talked and talked and then gone to bed.

  She deposited the dirty china and glass in the machine and began to run it through, closing the kitchen door so that the noise would not travel. Muff sat on the kitchen window sill, lashing her tail and demanding food. Fed, she disappeared on an errand of her own.