Witching Murder

by Jennie Melville

  ‘Classic police work as laid down by Chief Superintendent Charmian Daniels? Where to?’

  ‘I have an address.’

  In fact, she had several.

  Josh Fox had an address, another address, a brother and a sister but no wife, he had a mother still extant, he even had another name. He could be set in a context.

  But, as yet, not for Charmian or Dolly Barstow. For them he was floating free, they needed to anchor him.

  The police computers, of course, are full of details about all sorts of citizens of the United Kingdom. You get your name on one just for living at the wrong address (once raided for drugs, never mind if you did not live there then) or for buying a car that had been stolen, and of course you did not know, but Mr Fox was adept at keeping himself out of computer files.

  Confident in himself and in his anonymity, he was surprised when he felt the blow on the side of his head. His attacker had a hand on his shoulder and was wrenching him round. Stronger than he’d suspected.

  ‘Look here—’ he started to say.

  He debated fighting back, but that was not good business, was never good business. A blow on his cheek got him before he could do anything about it.

  He staggered back.

  Elm Street was a very new and still raw shopping precinct. Charmian thought she would be surprised if anyone knew anything about anyone. No long-standing friendships among shopkeepers here.

  A big chain store was flanked on one side by a dress shop advertising a sale. From the look of the window the sale had been running for some time and was probably quietly heralding the closure of the shop for dresses and its reopening as something else. There was a shoe shop with, next door to it, a small jewellers. Between the shoe shop and the jewellery shop was a white door with a small brass plate on it. The plate was dull and unpolished.

  J. FOX

  Nothing else. There was a bell on the side of the door and a knocker. Charmian tried both but got no response.

  She wasn’t sure if she had expected one. On the whole she thought not.

  The jeweller surveyed her over a glass case of golden ornaments, studying her with caution. She looked harmless, even respectable, but these days you had to be sure. And she didn’t appear to be buying.

  No, he had not seen Mr Fox, would not really know Mr Fox by sight if they met in the street.

  Yes, Mr Fox did have visitors, or he believed so, they rang the bell and were admitted. More than that he did not know. He heard a telephone ring there.

  No, he had no idea if Mr Fox was there now.

  Charmian went back and rang the bell again. No one came. She stood looking, and frowned.

  She thought she detected a small smear of blood on the white paint by the door handle.

  Chapter Ten

  By the early afternoon, Dolly Barstow was anxious to talk to Charmian. She telephoned the house but got no answer at first. Finally Kate answered the call. No, she had no idea where her godmother was, nor did she know when to expect her back.

  ‘I’m going out myself. Hairdresser. I’m trying that friend of Charmian’s.’ Kate tossed her long mane of expensively cut hair. The Italians, she thought, were best for long hair, but she would try this woman that Charmian thought so good.

  ‘Andrea Barker?’ Dolly knew all about Beryl Andrea Barker and her criminous career, having gone to some trouble to find out, but she was not among those allowed to call her Baby. Miss Barker had taken part in at least two episodes of Charmian’s professional life, she was both friend and informer. ‘She’s good.’

  Her own hair needed attention, she ran a hand over it. She was near enough to Kate’s age to share her own strong feelings about hair, but otherwise the two young women were unalike. Dolly had settled cheerfully into a career with a firm structure up which you crawled or jumped: she meant to jump. Kate was a wanderer, a perpetual student, a pilgrim always looking for the next holy shrine to worship at. Dolly lived in a neat, quiet flat which she owned. Kate chose to be homeless, perching with whomever would give her space. They were almost two different species, as if homo sapiens was trying out variations to see which would last better in time and space.

  The other side of the coin was that the two women liked each other and cared about Charmian Daniels who had befriended them both. They did not discuss her behind her back, her presence was strong enough, even in her absence, to put a stop to that, but now Dolly spoke.

  ‘How is she?’

  Neither of them would mention the hand trouble, although both knew.

  ‘What happened to her was bad, and the trouble is she won’t admit how bad,’ said Kate soberly. She had known violence and death in her own life, been capable of it as well, she knew what violence could do to you. ‘It’s screwed her up.’

  ‘Do you think so? She’s enjoying the chase at the moment.’

  ‘I wish it wasn’t a witch hunt. It brings in all sorts of things she’d be better without. It’s why I am giving a hand.’

  It was amazing, Dolly thought, how often the word ‘hand’ crept into the conversation.

  ‘You know what I think,’ went on Kate, ‘it’s a pity Humphrey is abroad and the sooner he gets back the better. Straight sex is the answer.’

  ‘Kate, you! I don’t think you are a feminist at heart. You are an old-fashioned married woman.’

  Kate laughed. ‘Any message for Charmian? Anything I can tell her?’ she probed hopefully.

  ‘I mustn’t be too explicit, but I’ve spoken to Mr Dix of Blood and Sons.’

  ‘The estate agents in Merrywick?’

  ‘Yes, just tell her that, and also that something else has turned up at Twickers. I can’t say more. Say I’ll telephone again.’

  And Dolly tried later, got the answering machine but left no message. She had more to say than a machine could manage. She wanted both advice from Charmian and to share with her something that might, or might not, be a joke.

  She was telephoning from the hall in Alexandria Road. In the CID Incident Room for the investigation into the murder of Vivien Charles it sometimes seemed as if Vivien was the least important person in this puzzle. She had become an enigma built into a murder mystery, but who had already, willy nilly, contributed her blood and certain physical specimens now in bags and frozen.

  Birdie Peacock, Winifred Eagle and Caprice Dash occupied a line of chairs in the hall. They sat in a row and hated each other. They were getting on each other’s nerves. As well as this specialised, personalised, name-taped hate, there was a more general hate for everything and everyone in the room. They had been given the privacy of a screen but the noises of telephones ringing, voices muttering away in reply and the bustle of people coming and going was clearly audible to them.

  They hated each other because they were being blood-tested and they hated the whole set-up in Alexandria Road because it was where they were being tested. If the ill-will of witches could work the whole room would have gone up in smoke. Possibly the whole town. If witches’ blood had any power then the young woman who was drawing it up in a syringe would have been reeling away in horror instead of speaking to each in turn with a calm smile as she swabbed each arm. That was how strongly the women felt.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said to each arm, never looking at a face, ‘ you won’t feel anything, and I don’t need much blood.’

  A small quantity was taken off into a tube, neatly labelled, signed and dated. Somehow to each witch lady it seemed insult added to injury that they should have to admit to having owned what was taken from them.

  ‘May it curdle,’ thought Winifred Eagle. ‘May it destroy all it comes in contact with, may it turn into a million milling, writhing worms as she works with it.’ That would give this confident, white-coated figure the creeps. But it wouldn’t happen. It was occurring to this professed white witch that you couldn’t turn your colours and become black just as it suited you. Her curses had no power.

  Caprice said nothing as she presented her arm, and tried to feel nothing. She w
ould be very surprised if her blood helped any investigation. Not if she could stop it.

  Birdie Peacock told the technician that she was a blood donor and could supply the name of her blood group, but the information was not demanded of her. They must do their own analysis she was told.

  The young woman was bland and uncaring, she really preferred her donors dead.

  ‘Just wait a minute, ladies,’ she said. She reported back to Dolly Barstow, who was working at a desk in the corner. ‘Do you want them? They are in a rotten mood. I don’t think they appreciated coining here.’

  Dolly shook her head. ‘They can go. You’ve got two more bloods to take?’

  ‘That’s right. After which I’ll get back to the lab. You want the results quickly, I suppose?’ She was used to Dolly Barstow.

  ‘Even quicker,’ said Dolly with a smile.

  She turned over the report she had in her hand of the break-in at Twickers. She wrinkled her nose. Not nice. But many things were not in police work. Nor in laboratory work, for that matter.

  ‘You’ve got that other specimen?’

  ‘I have.’ The technician was cool.

  ‘Will it give you the blood group of the donor?’

  ‘With luck.’

  Dolly was apologetic. ‘ Not a nice job for you.’

  ‘You get used to it.’

  All the chairs were empty now and in a few minutes Josh Fox arrived to fill one. He had a great bruise down one side of his face which had drawn blood.

  Dolly observed him with interest. That’s a nasty wound. He wouldn’t have shown himself around with that if he’d had any choice. All the same, he’s being very obliging, he’s come here. I wonder what that means, if anything.

  Josh Fox was dealt with quickly and soon departed, pretending not to see Dolly Barstow.

  ‘He looks as though a visit to a first-aid clinic wouldn’t do him any harm,’ Dolly thought, but she felt pretty sure he was not going to go.

  This case was like a sardine tin: when you opened it up, you were surprised how much it held inside.

  She reached out a hand to the telephone to try to reach Charmian once again, then she drew it back. Better wait now till she had something on the blood groups.

  Last of all, by appointment, Mrs Flaxon came in to have her blood tested. Just in case, they had said. But Denise was not worried, she knew no blood of hers had been shed in that house in Dulcet Road.

  ‘I’m not a bleeder,’ she told herself. ‘Not a weeper, either. Any blood I had to shed was shed when I lost my husband. Vivien Charles wouldn’t get any blood out of me, no one could.’

  However, the technician did extract a few drops, she was good at her job. ‘Your veins are very hard to get at,’ she said, when her task was accomplished. ‘Thank goodness, they’re not all like you.’

  Charmian Daniels drove away from Elm Street, leaving Slough and its shopping centre behind her to find the area in Hatton Woods where Vivien had worked. She had to fill out her picture of the victim. Vivien Charles had had a life before she came to live in Merrywick, a strange move in itself.

  Know the victim, Charmian told herself, and you are that much closer to knowing the killer.

  This was not true, of course, of a random, ‘ by chance’ killing, when the murderer might not even have met the victim before the violent moment of murder. But all the indications were that the murder of Vivien was deliberate and planned.

  Hatton Woods was a busy district well on the way to Central London with several large office blocks lining the main road. It looked clean, prosperous and anonymous. The offices had enormous car parks, there was a tube station not far away and a sign post indicating the way to the railway station, romantically and misleadingly called Hatton Woods. There wasn’t a tree in sight. But it was impossible not to hear the drum of heavy traffic on the two motorways that looped round the area. No one lived in Hatton Woods, you came here to work then got away as soon as you could.

  Accordingly there were very few shops but several fast food bars where you could grab a sandwich or a hamburger roll together with a carton of coffee and eat while you talked. Or even while you walked, Charmian saw at least two people munching long thin rolls full of something that smelt savoury as they walked through the streets.

  Charmian sought an empty spot to leave her car, in a side road by the railway station which was otherwise dedicated to a frozen food depot. She saw a traffic warden pacing the street, a large lady who seemed to be eyeing Charmian hopefully. But she had found a parking meter into which she had fed the necessary coins so she was able to smile back. She could have pulled rank, explained she was a police officer on duty, but she wanted to be anonymous. The woman had not recognised her. Good. ‘ You know you’ve only got two hours, dear? It’s restricted parking.’

  Charmian nodded. ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Just saying. Lot of pressure on parking round here.’

  Perhaps something official in Charmian’s manner came through because the traffic warden gave a quick nod as she turned away. Charmian did the same, so they marched smartly in opposite directions.

  It must look like a dance, thought Charmian, as she walked away. Come on now, laugh at yourself, this is a chance. Two human animals, strange to each other, meet, declare their territory then take a neutral stance, and part.

  She found the office building in which Vivien had worked. It was one of the smaller places on Furnival Street which itself was a passageway between two arteries: Kingsway North and Kingsway South.

  Cay-Cay PLC, the firm which had employed Vivien, appeared to occupy all three floors of the building. A fine brass plate (beautifully polished and no blood on it) displayed their name outside the big glass doors, behind which stood a uniformed doorman. A small fountain played in the marble hall beyond. Whatever Cay-Cay did in the business world it looked well placed. It either had money or could borrow it.

  On the other side of Furnival Street was a wine bar which promised glasses of Bordeaux and Chablis. Charmian crossed over the road, noting that although a very new area the roadway had been artistically cobbled to look old. The wine bar, called Nathanial’s, was painted dark green both inside and out, deliberately cave-like. Deep red tiles made a cool, hard floor. The Bordeaux was served in thick white glasses whereas the Chablis came in a thin green glass.

  The place was about half full, with several people standing along the bar and a few couples eating at the tables which lined the walls. There was a pleasant cool smell of wine.

  Charmian ordered Chablis, and asked for a telephone.

  The barman nodded towards the back. ‘You’ll find one there in the corner.’ From his detached manner, she decided he was not Nathanial, if indeed that gentleman existed at all. ‘It’s quiet enough there.’

  She dialled her own number so that she could listen to her answering machine retailing her messages. A routine one from her office, and one from someone trying to sell her double glazing for her windows. A call from her mother reminding her that it was her sister’s birthday next week. (She forgets mine, why do I have to remember hers? Charmian reacted, but then Jess had always been the one her mother protected, while Charmian had been the ‘bright’one who could look after herself.) And Dolly’s brief messages.

  Charmian drank her wine, ate a sandwich and refused the conversation of another Chablis drinker on the next stool, who was bored and looking for some interesting company. Any other day and she might have taken him up on the offer but today she was working.

  Early afternoon inside the Cay-Cay building was a time of quiet. Unnatural quiet. The air conditioning kept the temperature cool, the darkened glass on the windows created an air of false tranquillity. Charmian felt it to be false because people hastened through the halls with tense faces and lowered but anxious voices.

  She herself was inspected by the Chief Personnel Officer, a tall, blonde woman wearing dark glasses and a sincere smile, both of which seemed to be part of her professional equipment. A small red notice on her
desk said she was Bridget O’Neill. Two police officers had already visited her, asking questions about Vivien Charles, but her training prevented her showing surprise or, for that matter, any emotion at all at seeing yet another one. But no doubt, over the years in her job, she had learnt blankness was for the best.

  ‘I had very little contact with Vivien myself.’ She consulted a file in front of her. ‘ In fact, she left very shortly after I arrived here. Vivien worked in Presentations. She was PA to the Deputy Head, Roger Armitage.’

  ‘Can I see Mr Armitage?’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t, no. He’s no longer with us, he works in the States now.’ Since this was clearly not going to satisfy Charmian, she offered: ‘You can see the other girls in Presentations.’

  She showed Charmian to the lift. ‘ Was it anything special you wanted to know about?’

  Who she went to bed with, that’s all. ‘Just feeling my way,’ Charmian said blandly.

  Bridget pressed the appropriate button. Charmian wondered how Miss O’Neill got about in those spectacles in this dark world. Perhaps they had tiny little holes in them through which she really looked. Her smile never shifted. ‘ Presentations, third floor, room A.’

  What did they present in Presentations in Cay-Cay? Charmian wondered as she sped upwards in a dusky lift.

  There was more light on the third floor as was no doubt necessary for those preparing Presentations, although of what, except that it appeared to involve time and money, Charmian had no better idea when she left than when she had arrived. Somehow, in the carefully modulated atmosphere of Cay-Cay, such direct and brutal questions like What do you do? and How does it make money? seemed too coarse. Clients were probably too subdued to do more than sign and accept what was on offer.

  But she steeled herself to be direct to the girls with whom Vivien had worked, amidst a bank of winking amber screens, and found that in their rest-room, where the light was brighter and the fittings less expensive, it came easy.

  There were two of them, one dark-haired and plump, and the other taller and thinner with carefully tangled fair curls. They were both married and showed no surprise at her questions.