Bello:
hidden talent rediscovered
Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.
At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment, and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.
We publish in ebook and print-on-demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.
www.panmacmillan.co.uk/bello
Contents
Jennie Melville
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Jennie Melville
Dead Again
Jennie Melville, a pseudonym for Gwendoline Butler, was born and brought up in south London, and was one of the most universally praised of English mystery authors. She wrote over fifty novels under both names. Educated at Haberdashers, she read history at Oxford, and later married Dr Lionel Butler, Principal of Royal Holloway College. She had one daughter, who survives her.
Gwendoline Butler’s crime novels are hugely popular in both Britain and the United States, and her many awards included the Crime Writers’ Association’s Silver Dagger. She was also selected as being one of the top two hundred crime writers in the world by The Times.
Chapter One
‘We have a hermit living in the shed at the bottom of our garden,’ confided Birdie Peacock to Charmian Daniels, over the teacups.
‘A hermit?’
‘Yes, he moved in while we were away. We found him there when we got back.’
Winifred Eagle and Birdie Peacock had moved back to their small early-nineteenth-century house from the larger one in which they had started a white witchcraft and mystery bookshop when it was despoiled by dead bodies and murders. The bookshop still continued and indeed flourished, the publicity having brought in customers, but Birdie and Winifred had decided to move out.
The two friends, elderly but always well dressed with pretty jewellery, had been founder members of the White Witches of Windsor which met at irregular intervals to meditate and pray round an ancient oak in the Great Park, that old hunting ground of the Norman kings. After the meeting, if the weather permitted, they would have a picnic lunch with champagne. Charmian had been a guest once and had silently dubbed them the Champagne Witches.
Their lovely house had a large garden, the wild and wooded end of which almost melted into the Great Park where grouse, rabbits, squirrels and deer still roamed.
‘Do you mean a tramp?’ asked Charmian.
‘No, a hermit, someone who withdraws from the world to think, to meditate – a mystic.’
It sounded phoney to Charmian. And she noticed that Winifred, always the more cynical of the two, was keeping quiet.
‘Where did he come from?’
Birdie frowned. ‘He hasn’t said, but he did tell me he spent a bit of time on Pinckney Heath, there’s a nice little thicket there that he lived in. But it got wet.’
‘That would make meditation difficult.’
Birdie gave her a cautious look, sensing irony. ‘It’s marshy in bits.’
Charmian nodded. She knew Pinckney Heath. Two years ago a boy and a girl had been attacked there. The boy had been badly knocked about and the girl beaten. A torch had been found but their attacker, never. A few days ago a girl had been murdered there, Felicity Harrie. An unusual name which Charmian remembered although it had not been her case.
‘Are you charging him rent?’
‘No, of course not.’ Birdie was indignant. ‘ You don’t make a profit out of a holy figure.’
‘If you are sure he is holy.’
‘You feel it,’ said Birdie with conviction. ‘When you see him there is an aura.’
For a moment, Charmian was silenced. Then she asked, ‘How does he manage for food? Are you feeding him?’
‘No,’ said Birdie vaguely. ‘He manages somehow.’
‘Perhaps he catches a rabbit or a grouse in the Great Park,’ said Winifred sardonically.
‘I might give him some leftovers if I have cooked a lot of something …’ Birdie was a very good cook ‘… and, of course, I might throw a bone to the dog.’
‘Oh, there’s a dog too, is there?’
‘Yes, such a nice creature with charming manners and, as you know, we left the big black cat behind in the shop to watch for mice.’
‘How does the hermit manage with washing and so on?’ Charmian persevered with her questions.
‘That shed was fitted with plumbing, drains and electricity when my father lived here,’ said Winifred. ‘He was something of an astronomer and used it to watch the stars. He was always hopeful that he would see an alien force arriving.’
Charmian nodded. She had heard that Dr Eagle had been an eccentric figure. Rich, retired, well educated and mad had been the judgement passed on him by her colleague Dolly Barstow.
Charmian thought that Winifred and Birdie’s hermit must have done some careful research before moving in. Except, possibly, for one thing.
‘Hermits are Christians, aren’t they? Do you think he will mind that you are witches?’
‘White witches,’ said Winifred carefully.
‘White as driven snow,’ admitted Charmian. ‘But hardly members of the Church of England.’
‘I go to communion once a year,’ answered Birdie, ‘and Win goes to mass.’
‘Broadminded of you.’
‘It is an act of courtesy,’ said Birdie with dignity, ‘and once a year we invite Dr Masters and Father McKay to our service in the Great Park.’
‘But do they come?’
Birdie ignored this pleasantry. ‘And in any case, hermits often worship the gods of nature: the gods of the trees, the rivers, the winds.’
You had to admit, said Charmian to herself, that Birdie had quite a way with words.
There was a distant bark.
‘Oh, there’s Jim,’ said Birdie. ‘They must be back from their walk.’
‘They take walks then?’
‘Yes, Jim gets his walkies.’
‘Hermits can go for walks, can they?’
Birdie was reproving. ‘Dame Julian of Norwich, who was a famous hermit and mystic, lived in a nice little set of rooms in a garden where she received visitors. Hermits are not prisoners.’
There was another bark. Not a small dog, Charmian thought. ‘Can I be taken to meet your hermit?’
Birdie led the way through the garden, which got wilder as you went through it, with a belt of trees and bushes making a barrier before the shed. The shed itself was bigger than Charmian had expected.
‘This place housed my father’s telescope,’ said Winifred. ‘ I’m afraid we have always been an eccentric family.’
‘Nothing eccentric in that,’ observed Charmian politely. She had seen a portrait of Dr Eagle, who had looked charming, but yes, a little mad.
‘Except that he was watching the skies for the Martians to arrive,’ said his daughter.
Charmian absorbed this information. ‘I wish I had known him.’
‘He was a lovely man. A medical man, a physician. He went out to the Normandy landings with the Oxford-shires. They had a tough time – he was never the same again, my mother said. But fortunately, he had private means.’
Charmian interpreted this Edwardian phrase accurately as meaning he was rich. This too, Dolly had reported.
‘Unluckily, he spent a lot of his capital preparing for the Martians. He left them
a trust fund but it runs out if they don’t come within the next ten years, and meanwhile Birdie and I manage.’
Birdie, too, has some of her own private means, decided Charmian. Having known her dear friends for some time now, she had long since accurately assessed their income. They were not poor. Not by any means. And then, not everyone has a trust fund coming their way, provided the Martians don’t get it first.
Just then Jim the dog appeared through the bushes and stood looking at them with alert suspicion. He was a rangy, long-limbed collie with a touch of Alsatian. Intelligent and cautious but not unfriendly.
His master appeared through the trees. He was not what Charmian had expected of a hermit. He was a tall, slender man with red hair, his face shrouded in a thick beard; he was wearing dark spectacles and was dressed in neat, clean, blue jeans and a blue shirt. A gold cross hung at his throat.
The dog backed to stand protectively against his master.
‘I am Charmian Daniels.’ Charmian held out her hand. ‘My friends tell me you are living here in their shed.’
He nodded. ‘ They kindly permit it.’ He had a soft, gentle voice, accentless. It was impossible to place him by it either socially or geographically. ‘Nice ladies. Kind. I am resting with them.’
The unspoken implication was ‘Soon I move on’, but Charmian doubted it. Wondered, anyway – he was hard to read.
This was all he said and all it seemed he had to say as he turned away, his dog following him.
Charmian went back to Birdie and Winifred. ‘He seems harmless enough.’
Birdie drew herself up. ‘ Men of God like hermits can never be called harmless. You underrate him.’
‘I just meant that I don’t think he is likely to murder you in your beds.’
Birdie considered this and on the whole was not pleased. ‘Winifred and I were hoping that you and Sir Humphrey could come to a small party we are having next Wednesday.’ She caught Winifred’s eye. ‘Just drinks.’
‘I would like to come, but Humphrey is in America on a short visit – partly research, partly seeing his cousins.’
‘Oh, dear, and you couldn’t go?’
‘No, too busy. You know how it is.’
‘Oh, yes, of course, my dear. But I’m so glad you can come.’
When Charmian had gone, Winifred said, ‘ We are not having a party.’
‘No, dear, but I wanted to find out where Humphrey was.’
‘You’re a wicked one,’ said Winifred solemnly.
‘That woman is not happy, and it’s because he’s not around. She’s never herself when he’s away.’
‘Well, now we’ve got all the trouble of arranging a party.’ But Winifred did not sound too cross.
‘It’s time we had one, we owe it to ourselves. And remember: you are named Witch of Title this year, it’s up to you to entertain.’
When Charmian spoke to her husband on the telephone that night she said, ‘ You’d better come home soon or all my friends in Windsor will think you’ve left me.’
‘You mean Birdie and Winifred.’
‘Oh, they think it already. I could see Birdie studying my face and deciding I looked worried.’
‘And do you?’
After a pause, Charmian said, ‘There is a worry.’ She knew she was on a safe, closed line that could not be tapped. ‘ I have received instructions …’
On occasion, Humphrey reflected, his dear wife did fall into jargon. What she meant by instruction was that she had been given information.
‘Joan Dingham is being released for a month to live in Merrywick so that she can get used to the world outside prison and make arrangements to do a degree course at South Surrey University.’
Humphrey was silent, then he said, ‘Will she be safe?’
‘My job is to keep her safe.’
Joan Dingham was the most hated child murderer of the last three decades. Four children had been beaten, strangled and buried in boxes. The media had called her ‘The Silent Killer’ because after confessing her guilt, she never again spoke of it.
Charmian had insisted on having the detailed police files and photographs of the murders. She wanted to know everything there was to know. Not pretty reading. Four girls, in pairs, all killed within a few weeks of each other.
There had also been an earlier murder, a singleton, with some resemblance to the Dingham killings but the police never managed to tie it in. Still, it was there, on record, unsolved.
‘I can see she must be well hated. Can’t be many people who would want to be friends with a woman like that.’
That was innocent of Humphrey, Charmian thought, because the woman did have what she called friends. Charmian had been given the list:
Madge Fisher, school teacher, she had been a prison visitor.
Margie Wells, a librarian, who ran the prison library while serving her own sentence for fraud and reported that Joan had good taste in books.
Jeanie Bott, an old school chum, who still kept up with her. (Here Charmian had made a note that Jeanie was also a friend, or anyway knew, Beryl Andrea Barker, aka Baby.)
Three friends – not bad for a multiple killer.
Joan Dingham also had a sister, Lulu, or Lou, and a son, Pip, both of whom visited her and wrote her letters.
‘She’s got her circle,’ said Charmian, assessing the situation. She knew that even to these few Joan never spoke about the killings, although it was believed that she did talk to her sister. She had to have someone, Charmian thought. And I suppose I will have to keep an eye on them. In a case like this, you can’t count on anyone’s real motives and sympathies.’
‘Why you?’
Charmian shrugged. ‘I am trusted. Even the Castle trusts me.’
Humphrey acknowledged that his wife was successful and the Southern Register Documentation and Crime unit (SRADIC), which had been created for her nominally to collect, register and record all the documents of crime within the South Downs area, had been a powerful instrument in her hands. It gave her the means to check and interfere. She also had two excellent deputies in Inspector Dolly Barstow and the enigmatic Inspector George Rewley.
‘I suppose she will be using another name when she gets out?’
‘Maybe – even I don’t know that yet. She may insist on using her own. She looks different now, of course. And she will be bringing a minder from the prison.’
‘How long has she been inside?’
‘Twenty years.’
A lot of murders in those twenty years, including Pinckney Heath where Felicity Harrie’s hand had been cut with the shape of a cross.
‘Things have changed outside. She’ll never cope.’
‘They say she’s as tough as old boots,’ said Charmian gloomily. ‘She’d have to be.’
‘How many people have promised to kill her if she ever sets foot outside her prison cell?’
Charmian did not answer. ‘There’s been plenty of talk,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s hard to know your friends from your enemies in a case like this. I mean she’s said to have friends, but who knows if they are really friends?’
‘Never mind,’ said Humphrey. ‘I’ll be home soon. I’ll see she doesn’t get killed.’
Charmian was somewhat reassured, but she could not help wondering if the arrival of the hermit had not got something to do with the expected release of Joan Dingham.
But how could that be so?
And was he friend or enemy? Or someone who might secretly have signed a big contract for a book on her and was writing it all up?
You can become very suspicious, Charmian found, dealing with a case like this one.
When Charmian went to have her hair done at the hairdressers at the bottom of Peascod Street where Baby – Beryl Andrea Barker, retired criminal – held sway, she was surprised to hear Baby say, ‘So when is Joanie arriving?’
Charmian, head bent back over the basin as her hair was being washed, kept silent.
‘Oh, come on, I know and you know. Joanie is
on her way. A little outing for a good girl.’
Charmian gave in. ‘How do you know?’
‘Spent a month in the same nick, didn’t we, before I was moved on. I still keep in touch with some of my friends from there. Not her, though. She could be a surly cow.’
‘Really?’
‘Although charming when she chose.’ Baby applied herself to the rinse. ‘Never spoke about the murders, except the odd hint that she was put up to it by her partner, and that she herself was innocent. There were two of them in it, you know, and people wondered about a third.’
‘I did hear it said.’
‘Of course, we all know that in affairs of that sort, one partner in crime always blames the other. And who knows? Maybe it’s true.’ Baby studied Charmian’s face. ‘They never caught the other one – she killed herself first.’
‘I only know what I’ve read and been told.’
‘I bet you’ve got some thoughts on it, though. I always thought it was Lou, the other sister, naughty of me.’
‘Enough of all that. How are you?’ said Charmian, changing the subject. ‘ I must say the salon looks splendid since you’ve had it redone. Did you use Mr Duckett?’ This was the man who Charmian had recommended.
‘No, he turned out to be a mite expensive for a little hairdresser like me. No, John Chappell did it for me: rewired, repainted, helped with the colour scheme. He has very good taste. He’s got his own firm, Castle Decor, he calls it.’
And attractive to women, was Charmian’s interpretation, whereas Mr Duckett was fat and bald, a much married man whose wife did the accounts.
‘Has he worked for the Castle?’
‘I believe he did something, but not for the royal apartments.’
Charmian knew that if the Castle could use local firms they did.
Baby swept a comb through Charmian’s hair. ‘Not bad days for me really, although I’m glad I’ve put all that behind me.’ Crime, she meant.
‘Pleased to hear it,’ said Charmian, face muffled in a towel. She was never quite sure how much she believed in Baby’s virtue: a movable feast, she was inclined to think.
‘I’ve opened another salon, did you know?’ Baby got her tongue round the word salon with pleasure. She was enjoying her success.
Dead Again Page 1
