Inside there was the deposit of local newspapers and letters on the mat, which was to be expected.
Charmian pushed them aside with her foot. So no one had touched this collection, anyway. Not that she had the Horseman down as a housekeeper.
There was silence. She listened, moved up the stairs, but still could hear nothing. On the top floor there were three bedrooms and the bathroom. The rooms were neat and tidy, showing no sign of invasion.
She put her hand in the basin in the bathroom: bone dry. There was a bar of soap on the side of the bath which was cracked and old. No, it had not been used. If the Horseman had been here, then he had kept out of the bathroom. But even the Horseman had human, practical needs and unless he crept out to the bushes (not beyond her imaginings) he must have used the lavatory.
Perhaps there was one downstairs.
She tried to recall what the Horseman looked like: tall, long featured with bright dark eyes. Give him a mane, she thought, and I would be describing a horse.
A strong horse, a wicked horse.
Why do I have this loathing of the man? she asked herself. The answer soon came up: because he embodies everything I hate about the human race at its worst with its cruelties and pleasures. He was cruel to an animal that could not defend itself against the knife. The Horseman admitted he liked the thrill of pushing the knife in and feeling the flesh part. The blood that ran after that was an extra. The third course of the meal.
Dolly Barstow was calling her from below the stairs. ‘Here, in the basement.’ As Charmian hurried down the narrow stairway Dolly stepped forward. ‘He’s been here, I know he has. I can smell him.’
Charmian sniffed. ‘I can’t smell horse.’ She could smell the damp of the basement, a smell of apples which presumably were stored down here, and, possibly, the odd whiff of mouse.
‘Ma’am.’ Dolly allowed herself the plaintive formality. ‘Not horse. Joe washes. More than that, he likes aftershave and scented soap. He goes for the fruity smells … the time he walked past me in court, he smelled of orange. There’s a lavatory and basin down here and he’s left his smell.’
‘Apple,’ said Charmian.
‘That’s it, and there’s a tablet of soap in the basin. Applemint, it’s called, but I can’t smell the mint. Perhaps you have to wash in it to bring that out. He’s been here all right.’
‘Perhaps it’s a deodorizer, they can scent the air like this.’ Charmian looked around her.
‘Hell, no. It’s him.’
‘Not here now, though.’
Dolly shook her head. ‘No, he left. Guessed we’d find him here. Saw the wardens looking. Or heard them.’
Charmian walked into the small wash place which was in the corner of the basement, lit by a small window. She touched the soap. ‘ He’s not been gone long, because the soap has not had time to dry out and harden. Still wet.’
Dolly put her hand to it. ‘Damp anyway. Wonder why he scarpered? I mean in the first place, leaving his home, hiding here.’
‘He knew we were looking for him.’
‘How, though?’ Dolly was frowning.
‘He’s clever.’
‘Or someone told him.’
‘Who could do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dolly. ‘It’s a big old world, he’s got contacts. Bound to have. Especially in Cheasey, where they always seem to know everything. Pick up information by osmosis.’
‘They don’t love him overmuch there. They like horses, dogs, even cats.’ That was Cheasey: devils there, in many ways, but animal lovers. ‘ If you are right, and he was here, then he’s on the move again.’
Stating the obvious, Dolly thought, but boss figures have to do that now and again. ‘So where is he? Any idea?’
‘He left the place tidy before he ran off,’ said Charmian.
‘Kept it tidy, I expect, so he could always move on and leave no clues behind. He’d be careful that way. He wouldn’t think about the smell. People get used to their own smell.’
‘You sound almost as though you know Joe Davy.’
‘I’ve thought about him a lot, but I’ve only seen him in court and once, by chance, walking down Peascod Street. Some of the people there would have been ready to beat him up if they had known it was him, but dressed in neat clothes, he could be anyone. He clings to the place he knows, that’s the truth. He has a bit of money, I think, left him by his mother. Both parents are dead. Glad to go, I should think, with a son like that.’
‘Very likely,’ Charmian agreed absent-mindedly, still noting the real, strong anger in Dolly’s words. I dislike the man intensely, she told herself, but in a more impersonal way. Or did she? Perhaps he was the sort of man you longed to see hanged.
‘I wonder if he’s ever had any sexual relationships,’ she said as they walked up the stairs.
‘Doubt it. Unless it was with a horse. Maybe a horse turned him down and that’s what he has against them.’
‘Of a normal kind,’ said Charmian.
‘Never heard of it. Sex comes into it, of course,’ said Dolly.
There was a note in her voice which Charmian picked up. She said dryly: ‘Perhaps he’s more attractive than I guessed.’
‘No, no.’ Dolly was quick. And then: ‘Well, yes, there is a lot of power about him.’
Hmm, thought Charmian, she has felt some force or attraction emanating from him. I must think that over.
‘Let’s check those bushes for signs of him pushing his way through them.’
Once they were outside, Dolly turned back to look at the house. ‘I think he came out of that basement window.’
‘We’ll get Forensics to look in the house, see what they can find.’ Charmian motioned to the police car which was parked at the top of the hill. She told them what she wanted while she watched Dolly pushing through the bushes. ‘ You’d better check it’s all right to go over the house.’ She knew from experience that a forensic examination left formidable traces.
Dolly came back. ‘ Someone’s been through there and not so long ago either. He’s probably still in the Great Park, hiding somewhere. He won’t be able to do that for long, the wardens will soon flush him out. If it’s going to rain, he won’t like that.’
Charmian felt obliged somehow to answer but since she had no knowledge of what the Horseman liked all she could say was ‘ No.’ She said it again to herself, thoughtfully.
‘Might be something he fears,’ Dolly went on cheerfully. ‘He is obviously obsessional and people like that have strange fears.’
‘Yes,’ said Charmian this time.
She had never thought of the Horseman as a person, but as an element, a force, a wickedness, a bloody violence.
But as a person, you had to ask yourself why he did the things he did. A man with education, which she had been told he was, should not act so. That was the underlying thought. Wrong, of course; education did not protect you from the evil in you. Might even draw it out, through intelligent sophistry.
Dolly had pointed the finger at a sexual hang-up. Sex was certainly there in the background, but the specific cruelty he indulged in had an extra ingredient to add spice.
Horses were beautifully engineered creatures, with natural elegance of movement. It riled the Horseman, she thought, who must himself be awkward.
‘Not a good mover,’ she said aloud.
‘No,’ agreed Dolly, startled. ‘I believe he is clumsy. Sometimes looks as if he had one leg just a bit longer than the other. Deep irritation might be behind the killings, if he is the murderer.’
‘Have to be pretty deep,’ commented Charmian. ‘Must be something stronger, sharper.’
‘This killer is angry,’ said Dolly. ‘Perhaps he looks in the mirror one day, doesn’t like what he sees and goes out and finds a victim.’
They could both see the arrival of the forensic team. One police patrol car remained, the other had gone to join the searchers fanned out through the trees.
‘Let’s sit in the car.’ Char
mian had left if unlocked. Stupid, really, with a possible murderer around, but there was no one there but police.
‘Perhaps he’s like a jackal.’ Dolly was continuing with her psychological musing. ‘Looking for wounded prey.’
Louise Sherry had had a disability: not as clever as her peers. Was that what had attracted the killer? If so, what about the other victims?
Charmian too was coming to believe he was indeed the killer. Not proven, though, she reminded herself.
‘He’s running away,’ she said. ‘Who is he running away from?’
‘Us,’ said Dolly.
Charmian sat thinking. ‘Yes, he probably saw the first men searching the park. And he left his own house because the police were looking for him there. But why run? What really have we got against him? He could face us out.’
‘For a time. But we will get evidence. That’s what he’s frightened of. And of being shut up, he probably can’t bear prison. He’s been there and knows what it’s like.’
They were interrupted by the chief of the forensic team, Paul Laurie. ‘Thought you ought to see this.’ In his gloved hand, he held out a sopping wet piece of paper which he spread out on a clean, dry sheet of absorbent paper. ‘ Half flushed down the lavatory but I got it out.’
Charmian stared down, trying to make out the writing.
‘That’s the thing about this sort of ink: nothing rubs it out. He obviously knew that so he tried to flush it away. Burning is the only solution.’
‘He doesn’t like fire,’ said Dolly. ‘What is it?’
‘I thought it might have been important to him. Can you make out what it means?’
‘Not writing,’ said Charmian. ‘Lines. Give me a glove.’ She took the paper in her gloved hand from Laurie, turning it this way and that. Suddenly, she spoke decisively. ‘It’s a map. Hand drawn, set in a circle with a few names. I think I can read it.’ She pointed. ‘That’s an arrow, and it indicates a street. Unnamed but recognizable.’
‘Is it?’ Dolly was sceptical.
‘I think so: if this is River Road, then this one is Golden Lane, and we are on the way to Cheasey. And if we follow this curve to the big letter that could be a J, I think we come to the business that Victoria Janus runs. Either he made this map himself or someone sent it to him.’
‘Do you think he has gone to Victoria Janus?’ Dolly was still sceptical.
‘He may be, or has been there.’
‘If he is on the way, then we must follow. But could he walk there?’
‘He could have a car or bike in the big car park,’ said Paul Laurie. ‘ No problem there. Buy a twenty-four hour parking ticket and leave it. Come out in the night and buy another.’
‘I am going there. I don’t think he made that map himself. I think she did. I saw one like it in the shop, she was handing them out to all and sundry as advertisements. As you say, Paul, it was important to him and I want to know why.’
Chapter Eleven
There were four of them in Charmian’s office waiting for her to appear.
‘Not like her to be late,’ said Inspector Chance. ‘Still we’ve got some coffee.’
John Deast, who suffered from insomnia as well as indigestion, grunted and asked for some hot water to put in his coffee. ‘Bit strong,’ he muttered.
George Rewley went to get some. ‘Not too hot,’ called Deast after him.
‘Right,’ said Rewley. ‘Not too hot.’ And no, I don’t know what is keeping her. This question being implied but not yet asked.
‘That’s what coffee’s about: hot and strong,’ continued Chance, pouring himself another cup and taking a biscuit. You got good provender at SRADIC. Trust a woman for that.
He did not express this highly sexist remark aloud. He knew better than that: Charmian Daniels might have given him a bleak look but Dolly Barstow, had she been there, might have landed him one. Not in company, not with her boss looking, but a blow would have fallen on him somehow, somewhere.
He sipped his coffee and smiled. You never know, he might actually enjoy the blow.
Rewley came back with the hot water. ‘A telephone call from Inspector Barstow: she and Chief Superintendent Daniels are on their way. Be with us in a few minutes.’
Superintendent Hallows, who had been sitting quietly enjoying a short lull in his busy life, raised an eyebrow in query.
Rewley answered the unspoken question. ‘No. She didn’t say.’
This was not quite true: Dolly had told Rewley that after they had gone in search of the Horseman in the park they had sought him out at the establishment of Victoria Janus.
Charmian and Dolly were now on their way back to Windsor. Without the Horseman.
‘And no Janus either,’ said Charmian.
‘Funny that,’ Dolly commented. ‘I’d expect her to be there, managing the office.’
‘She has assistants.’
‘Wouldn’t think she’d leave them alone in case they turned into someone else.’
In a way, they had, Charmian thought. As they had walked into the Janus – what could you call it? Bureau? Doubles agency? – front office with its velvety padded chairs and sofa and the long front desk with three telephones, fax and a computer, two people were sitting with serious faces.
This may have been due to the constriction of false eyebrows and lashes and thick make-up.
A small badge on each breast proclaimed them as GDH and M Cole without saying which was which. Perhaps it didn’t matter.
‘Victoria Janus?’ Charmian showed her credentials. ‘We would like to speak to her.’ She recognized them as the twins who had been there on her last visit.
One of the Coles said ‘ She is out. We are minding the shop. We are old and out of print, and we were to go to a ’ 30s crime party in Islington.’
‘Oxford,’ said the other.
‘All right, Oxford, then, but we can’t go till Victoria Janus comes back.’ He handled the name carefully, formally, as if the boss demanded it.
‘We are academics, economists, social historians. I think we knew Lloyd George.’ This was the other one.
‘Bertrand Russell,’ said the first twin, glad to get something right. Or nearly right. ‘Or was it Lord Keynes?’
‘You wouldn’t have heard of us but we wrote some rather good detective stories in the ’30s. For money, of course. And it was quite a fashionable thing to do then. So we are told.’
On an easel on the shining desk was a photograph of Victoria Janus and a big card proclaiming:
VICTORIA JANUS. PC
‘So where is she now?’ demanded Charmian.
A shrug. ‘We are stuck with this.’
‘I am not sure if I know you,’ said Dolly who had been examining their tweeded, stiff, plump appearance. And I do read the odd detective story.’
‘You won’t find it easy to read us now, but we are in the British Library … I am very bored with this. We have a very good late night job lined up as Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins. It’s a stag night, and the pay is always good.’
‘Likewise the drink.’
‘Likewise the drink, but we will never get there now with Victoria letting us down like this.’
‘I think we should shut up shop and go.’
‘Do Oxford and then the stag night?’
‘Exactly.’
Charmian went to the window. It was shrouded with fine white muslin curtains but she could still see out. Cars lined the kerb but there were few pedestrians. It was a quiet district, admirably suited to a lookalikes bureau.
‘Any phone calls?’ she said swinging back to face into the room. ‘Did she go because she got a call?’
A shrug from twin to twin. ‘ She took a call. Said she was going to see an old friend who was in trouble.’
‘I don’t think she mentioned a friend,’ said the other twin.
‘But she did say trouble.’
‘Oh yes, trouble. You’re right there. I don’t think it really worried her, though. She had a call and she
went.’
‘Leaving you?’
‘She said she’d be back,’ said the first twin bitterly. ‘It’s taking advantage really, we’re performers, artistes, not office boys.’
‘Right.’ Charmian did not want to waste any more time. The Horseman was not here and there was no evidence he had thought of coming here.
He might have been the telephone caller.
‘If you are here when she gets back, then say I called. With Inspector Barstow.’
‘We won’t be here. Just going.’
Both twins saw her to the door. Dolly walked to the car.
The more talkative of the twins moved closer to Charmian. They would make a fine pair of Misses Taylor and Collins, she thought, with the right makeup and wigs. It was all in the wigs, after all.
‘Listen, I am more sensitive than my brother. I feel things. And I felt that our revered employer was not so happy to go off, I think she was surprised at the call and a bit nervous.’
‘Really?’
A nod of the head. ‘Nervous.’
Charmian manoeuvred the car out of a difficult bit of close parking. Another car had pushed its way in as if the driver didn’t care what happened to it. While Charmian edged the car out of the space, Dolly Barstow rang Rewley with the message that they were on their way.
When they were out and free, Charmian said: ‘Nervous doesn’t sound like the woman I knew. She thought she could do anything and laugh while she did it.’
‘She may not have been nervous, just anticipating something good.’
‘Like another killing with the Horseman?’
‘You’re jumping ahead there. Not like you. We don’t know if they know each other, let alone work at killing together.’
‘No, you’re right … still, there was the map.’
They drove on in silence, then Charmian slowed, reversed the car and turned back towards Slough.
‘What’s up?’ asked Dolly.
‘Nothing much. Just an idea that I want to check. Probably crazy.’
Craziness might be catching, thought Dolly, looking at Charmian’s intent profile. There was something about the Horseman that drove you to the edge.
Stone Dead Page 16