A Cure for Dying

by Jennie Melville

  She leaned back on her heels. ‘It’s one in a series,’ she said, it may have its differences, but it’s one of a kind. We’ve got a serial murderer here. Not private, personalised hate, but anyone will do.’

  ‘What about the threat to you?’

  ‘In spite of that. I am the exception that proves the rule.’ She stood up, brushing earth and grass from her skirt. ‘And you are wrong about there being no message. There is one.’

  ‘Where?’

  Charmian pointed to the tree where the jeans were strung up. ‘There, there is the message, a hole spelled out in clothes not written paper.’ A hole which signified something to the killer, a hole which the killings were, in some way, filling.

  Wimpey looked sceptical. She could see he did not believe her. He had never really believed in the hole. He had not seen the scribble as a hole, just as scribble.

  A scribble was a scribble was a scribble.

  She was irritated. He didn’t believe her, and she felt it was because she was a woman. Wimpey too! She’d thought better of him.

  ‘Well, we’ll see. When this killer is caught, you’ll see I’m right.’

  It’s a lock and key, don’t you see, she wanted to shout. The hole is the lock and the killing is the key. The image of the Frisian beard had faded from her mind for the moment, but she had not forgotten that it had once seemed important to her.

  Wimpey was silent, thinking he would settle for just catching this one. Theories and justifications could come later.

  ‘I think we’ve got a psychotic; I’m with you there.’ He added. ‘Also, I think you ought to take care yourself.’

  ‘Oh yes, about the bunny.’ And she told him about the label attached to the rabbit. ‘ Looks as though we owe the Queen.’

  Again, she detected a sceptical look cross his face. What did that look mean?

  All he said, however, was, ‘Drive home a different way, and park the car outside your house.’

  It was what he might have said to his wife, or his daughter, but he should not, Charmian felt, have said it to her. Professionally she was more than his equal. She was also older, but she understood he meant to be protective rather than patronising.

  They stood aside as preparations were made to move the body. Still no movement from within the house, but an unseen hand had drawn the curtains in the living-room.

  ‘I wonder what’s going on in there?’ Charmian wondered aloud. ‘I’d like to know.’

  She followed Sergeant Wimpey’s advice on taking a different route home because he stood at the gate to watch, thus making it difficult for her to do anything else. Turning, as she did, up the road, enabled Flora, Nancy and Emmy to see her while Charmian flashed past pretending she did not know they were there. A little of her bile was thus relieved. A bundle of crossness, put together because of a man, and deposited, she was ashamed to admit, on her fellow women.

  The group looked at her sadly. ‘She might have told us what was going on,’ complained Flora.

  Inside the house Annabel Gaynor was glad to let her husband take charge. Sometimes she resented his managing ways, now she was glad to be protected.

  She avoided looking at Joanna, on whose cheek a soft bruise was spreading. ‘I did that,’ Annabel told herself. ‘I hit my child.

  But I had to hit her. I had to wipe that look off her face. Brian didn’t see it, I did. Joanna liked what she was looking at.’

  At the memory of what they had both seen, she felt sick. Millicent was so young, so innocent in her own way, and they had destroyed her. If she hadn’t been in their house, surely she would not have been killed? ‘I left her strawberries when she really wanted to eat raspberries. I thought of her in terms of food, brie and pickle sandwiches, fruit and cream. She was a lot more than that, even if I couldn’t see it. And now she’s dead.’ It was somehow the Gaynors’ fault. Or more her fault than anyone else’s. Guilt sat heavily on Annabel’s shoulders.

  She tried not to think about Millicent’s parents. It was not parents’ day. Especially not mother’s day. Could you fear someone to whom you had given birth?

  She shook herself. What was she saying? Joanna was just a child who had had a bad shock, a very bad shock indeed. Anything else was her own imagination, after all, she too had been shocked, and she had slapped Joanna to ward off the attack of hysteria she had read in her child’s eyes. A slap was the recognised therapy. She’d been more than a bit hysterical herself. Brian had been calm enough, but then murder was a money-earner to him. But thank God for that calm which was erecting now a protective stockade around his family. He knew exactly how far the police could go in their questioning.

  Suddenly she wondered if that very protectiveness was not an admission that something was terribly wrong in this family. Brian was so very very clever, you always had to remember that. She looked across the room at him, and saw that he had his clever face on. She hated that face.

  The policeman, Chief Inspector Merry, was asking them all questions about where they had been that evening, and the times when each had returned. He had asked Annabel when Millicent had arrived, then asked her if she could think of any reason that had taken the girl out into the garden where she had been killed.

  None of them could or did help him. There had been no noise, no alarm, Millicent had not screamed or called out. Just gone quietly into the garden to be killed.

  ‘I was asleep,’ said Joanna, shrinking against the protective figure of the father. In her nightdress with her hair in plaits, she looked vulnerable and childish.

  Mark sat squarely on the sofa next to his mother and said very little at all, even when asked questions. Just yes or no. He didn’t appear frightened, just dazed and uncomprehending. Annabel confirmed that he was a very heavy sleeper.

  ‘I’m one myself,’ said Chief Inspector Merry, with apparent sympathy. ‘And you just sat there working when you came in, Mr Gaynor?’

  ‘Yes. I was tired. I had had a heavy day. I made myself a drink and sat there reading my papers and waiting for my wife to come in.’

  ‘But you were alarmed that the children had apparently been left on their own?’

  ‘I was cross,’ said Brian shortly.

  Nothing was said about the affair of the slaughtered pony, which for Annabel, and perhaps for Joanna too, was the beginning of this terrible affair, but there was no doubt it was in the mind of Chief Inspector Merry. Annabel could feel him collating the facts.

  The policewoman, a clever girl called Dolly Barstow, leaned forward. ‘Joanna, how did you get that bruise on your face?’

  Annabel sat very still. Joanna raised her hand and touched her cheek tenderly; she looked at her mother.

  ‘I did it,’ said Annabel, in a loud clear voice. ‘I slapped her because I thought she was going to be hysterical.’

  ‘Joanna,’ asked the policewoman. ‘ What about those scratches on your hands? Where did they come from?’

  Joanna held out suntanned hands, muscular and thin, on the backs of which were several parallel scratches. She stared at them in apparent surprise. ‘ I think I must have got them this evening grooming my horse.’

  She might have done, thought her questioner, or she might not.

  Dolly Barstow felt she would like a closer look. They could have been scratches from someone’s fingers.

  ‘No, I remember,’ said Joanna, with an air of believing what she said. ‘I was playing with the stable cat.’

  Annabel could see Brian gathering himself together to put an end to this questioning. It would only be a delaying action. In the end they would have to go through this process over and over again with the police. You couldn’t stop it.

  ‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’ she asked Chief Inspector Merry wearily. ‘I think I would.’ It would keep her awake, but she wasn’t going to sleep anyway.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said the policewoman, rising with her, either to watch her or protect, Annabel was not sure which, but she knew she would rather have been alone.

>   As she filled the kettle, she wondered about that other policewoman, Charmian Daniels. She was all for women protecting women. The water began to boil while Annabel pondered if Miss Daniels could be of any help.

  Charmian was thinking about the Gaynors as she drove home. If I can get the mother on my side, then I may be able to have a session with Joanna. She knew Ulrika would say she must see them all together, as a family unit. But that was the way Ulrika worked, she herself would have to do the best she could. She guessed that the father, in whom all the trouble might lie, would raise difficulties.

  Obeying Sergeant Wimpey’s advice, which she admitted to be wise, she parked her car under a street lamp, checked the front of her house, then let herself inside.

  The doorstep where the rabbit had rested had been cleaned up by the police. A stain remained, not everything could be washed away at one attempt. In the morning she would scrub it herself. She stood for a moment letting the events of the day run over her, the good bits and the bad. Then she went to her bedroom, stripped off all her clothes, threw them into the laundry basket and stood under a hot shower, letting the water rush over her. That dealt with the day.

  Drying her hair, she saw the minute hand on the clock by the bed tick up to the hour. Although so much had happened, it was not so very late. She could still hear sounds of life from next door.

  Ulrika never went to bed early. Night was a time for working, she said. Charmian belted her dressing-gown round herself, drank some cold milk, checked that Muff had food and drink (she was dozing on the bed, in fact) and picked up the telephone.

  ‘Ulrika?’ It might be that the current lover was in residence, in which case Ulrika would not have answered the telephone so readily. Six rings and no answer and you knew to put the receiver down. She did not know the name of the present incumbent, nor had Ulrika ever mentioned him, but she retained a strong belief in his existence. Not here tonight, however. ‘Can I talk, or is it too late? Or perhaps you are working?’

  ‘Thinking, just thinking.’

  ‘I can give you something to think about. There has been another murder.’ Quickly she gave Ulrika the details about the murder, and not only the murder: telling her about the rabbit and the threat to herself first because that was how it had happened to her in time, but presenting the facts as dispassionately as she could. ‘In the Gaynors’ garden. Their child-sitter.’ One really could not call either Joanna or Mark babies, they were not infantile. ‘Do you think that significant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But of what?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘Certainly it does. What you think becomes part of it.’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. I find it hard to accept that a girl like Joanna could do two murders.’

  Ulrika did not commit herself to what a girl like Joanna could or could not do. ‘ We shall have to see.’

  ‘And then there is the man.’ She told Ulrika about the figure that had followed her. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Perhaps the girl and a man,’ said Ulrika lightly.

  ‘And what about the rabbit on my doorstep? What does that mean?’

  ‘You will have to decide that for yourself.’

  Ulrika gave one of her attractive, baffling laughs. Charmian recognised it for a kind of finial. There was no more to be said for the moment.

  Charmian put the receiver down, half amused, half frustrated, this was always the way with Ulrika. She offered you questions where you asked for answers. But when you thought about it afterwards, you realised she had shown you the way to the answers.

  She sorted out one of her favourite books, Keats’ letters, to read in bed to soothe her to sleep, but she had no sooner placed it on the table with the lamp turned on when the front-door bell rang.

  Keeping the door on the chain, she said, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Johnny and Lesley. We’ve come to see how you are. We know there’s been trouble, we saw the police car.’

  ‘Come in then, and I’ll tell you.’ A strictly edited version, she said to herself.

  ‘We know a bit,’ said Johnny, following Lesley and Charmian into the living-room. ‘We saw a policeman doing something to your doorstep. I thought it might be your cat, then I saw her at a window. So I knew she was still alive.’

  ‘It was a dead rabbit. I suppose you could call it a kind of billet-doux.’ She had decided to tell it with a light touch, she didn’t want to alarm them. Lesley looked tense as it was. She said nothing about the threat to herself. Leave that out.

  Johnny looked grave. ‘There’s a nutter around.’

  ‘Yes, I think you all ought to be careful. Especially the girls.’

  ‘We usually go around as a group.’

  ‘Lesley doesn’t.’

  ‘True.’ He turned towards Lesley. ‘Watch it, Lesley.’

  ‘I will. Believe me, I will.’

  ‘No more coming or going late at night on your own. One of us will come with you.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s that bad,’ protested Lesley.

  Charmian said gently, ‘ It may be. Better take care. There has been another murder. Another girl.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the Gaynors’. In their garden. A girl who was with the children for the evening. You’ll read all about it in the papers tomorrow, I expect.’

  ‘So that’s why you went out again,’ said Johnny. ‘ I saw you go. We would have come round before, but you were on the telephone.’

  ‘How do you know I was on the telephone?’

  ‘Oh, our telephone always gives a little chirrup when you start a call. Something wrong with the line, I expect.’

  ‘Can you hear my calls?’ She was alarmed.

  ‘Never tried. I don’t suppose so.’

  I watch them and they watch me, thought Charmian. We all ought to be the best of friends.

  ‘If you are all right and there’s nothing we can do, then we’d better be off,’ said Johnny. His eyes fell on a large framed photograph of Kate, looking her most radiant. ‘What a beautiful girl.’

  ‘My god-daughter. She’s in Italy at the moment, but you will probably meet her when she comes back.’ In fact, if Kate has anything to do with it, you certainly will. ‘Thanks for calling, you two. I appreciate it.’

  She closed the door behind them, grateful to have such good neighbours, but glad to be on her own. She collapsed into bed, and was asleep before she had read a page. Muff was there before her, eyes closed, nose buried in her paws, snoring gently.

  Charmian awoke to a sudden, strong sense of a presence in the house.

  She sat up, muscles tense. She remembered that she had not put the chain on the front door. Daylight filled the room. Muff had disappeared.

  Then she realised she could smell coffee. Tying herself into her dressing-gown, she sped down the stairs.

  Kate appeared at the kitchen door. She was wearing white jeans, a soft blue shirt and a sweater. ‘ Let myself in quietly. Good job you hadn’t got the chain on the door.’ She came over and kissed her godmother. ‘ Sorry I disturbed you.’

  Charmian got her breath back. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘My flight was delayed, got in after midnight. I hitch-hiked from Heathrow.’

  ‘Kate! The risks you run.’

  ‘I’m here, godmother, aren’t I?’ She went over to the kitchen stove from which came the smell of coffee. A bag of croissants from goodness knows where was on the side. ‘I know how to look after myself. I’m the condom generation, remember? Coffee?‘

  ‘I hope you are.’ She accepted the coffee, and the two women sat facing each other at the kitchen table. Muff was on the floor eating an early breakfast.

  ‘I didn’t expect you.’

  ‘I sent a card. Probably get it next week. The Italian post office had a little strike. They have them all the time.’

  ‘It’s lovely to have you back. You look good, Kate.’

  ‘How’s
that gorgeous lad next door?’

  ‘Is that what brought you back? He thinks you are beautiful.’

  ‘I must work on that.’

  The telephone rang in the hall. Charmian went to answer it. Kate watched her thinking that a call so early must mean trouble. She was very protective, without admitting to it, of both Charmian and her mother. On the table she saw a book on polo. A new subject for her godmother; she was interested in polo herself. Aesthetically, of course, not with any intention of playing. Men and horses in motion looked so beautiful.

  Charmian heard Wimpey’s voice, it sounded gruff and tired – early morning and no sleep tired.

  ‘Sorry to wake you.’

  ‘I was up.’ He had probably not been to bed. ‘So what is there?’

  He took an audible breath. ‘First, we never caught up with the chap who might or might not have been following you.’

  ‘I never expected you would.’

  ‘But on that road leading out to Merrywick we found hoof-prints on the grass verge. And droppings. Could be, just could be, that was the way he went. Or how. Had a horse tied up somewhere, ready for escape. Couldn’t follow the prints very far, though.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘And it’s been raining since, damn it. Got some casts of the prints, fortunately before they were washed away.’

  This road, a mere unmade-up track really, was a short cut to Merrywick running from the bridge and behind Eton High Street. There were meadows on either side behind low hedges.

  ‘Thanks for telling me. It’ll bear thinking about.’

  ‘Not quite all.’

  ‘No?’ Somehow she had known that much. He had more to tell her. ‘Anything to do with the hoof-prints?’

  ‘No, not directly.’ He paused, ‘Another body has been found. I don’t know many of the details yet, but there is one. Out on the Slough road, beyond Merrywick. A girl as before, same sort of killing as before.’

  ‘Ah,’ she was trying to take it in. Two in one night was going it.

  ‘Only difference, she’s been there some time. Perhaps a week.’

  She felt defenceless, at a loss, with nothing to say.