A New Kind of Killer, and Old Kind of Death

by Jennie Melville

The next man threw his flour so that it landed near the terrified girl.

  “Hey,’’ she called out. “Mind me.’’

  Silently the procession of twenty moved on, each throwing something. By the time they had left the floor was covered with rice, flour and dried beans.

  The girl stood there, covered in a pale dust; she put her hand to her hair and it came away covered in flour.

  “I look like a bloody sponge cake,’’ she said; and then burst into tears.

  By midday, the main science buildings were ringed by a shuffling single file of students through which any person wishing to leave or enter any building had to push. In addition there were a number of far from silent onlookers.

  At twelve minutes past twelve the Dean arrived and requested the students to retire. They ignored him.

  At twelve-thirty the police arrived in the shape of an Inspector and one constable. The Inspector spoke to the students. Like the Dean, he asked them to go. Wordlessly, as if to a prearranged plan, they marched, still in single file, off-stage. And it was a stage. This was a production, no mistake about it.

  At two-thirty half-a-dozen clean and well dressed students, three boys, three girls, presented themselves at the door of the Senate Room and pushed past the scandalised University Beadle to confront the assembled Senate. Then, in loud unison, they put their demands:

  “We demand student representation on the Senate.

  “We demand student participation in the appointment of professors.

  “We demand the right to take part in drawing up the syllabus and the lecture programme.’’

  “It’s us they’re after,’’ said the Professor of Biochemistry. “I can see the writing on the wall. And it’s the work in the Giralt Lab they’re out to ruin. They’ve got the idea that Armishaw’s group are working on germ warfare.’’

  “And are they?’’ someone asked tartly.

  “Well, no, not specifically,’’ he said, with a weary note in his voice. “Anyway, we can’t let them get away with this. I say we should send the ringleaders down.’’

  “We’ve got to handle them carefully,’’ said the Senior Tutor in Social Science.

  “Firmly,’’ said a scientist. “ Make it plain we say No, and No, and No.’’

  “I don’t see why we shouldn’t go some way to meeting what they want,’’ said another voice.

  “No. We can’t discuss it now like this in any case.’’

  But the students had not waited to be rebuffed. Already they were leaving. At the door, one turned and said in a clear voice:

  “You have one month.’’

  A round aviary crowded with small birds stood in the park between where Charmian lived and the University Library. She often lingered here to admire the gay creatures. Seen close to, she didn’t like birds much, she thought they had bright mindless eyes, but darting about in coloured profusion they were charming.

  She stopped there now, noticing, just as Alda had said, how many wild birds swarmed all around. It was odd, somehow.

  “Admiring the birds?’’ said Don Goldsworthy, coming up behind her.

  “I’m no St. Francis.’’ She put up a protective arm as one fluttered near. “ I’m not sure if they don’t frighten me a little.’’

  “You look tired,’’ said Don. He said it charmingly. It didn’t come across as something depressing. Instead, she felt noticed and liked.

  “Headache,’’ she said.

  “Come and have some coffee.’‘’

  “Yes.’’ It seemed a good chance to observe him. She did have a headache, too. She had stayed up late, too late, and worried too much.

  She went into Don’s room and sat down, stiffly, on the edge of a chair, while he prepared the coffee. There was no fuss: he had a thermos of hot water and he had two mugs and the coffee was instant. He looked round at her. Their eyes met in sudden intimacy. Anyone seeing them then would have wondered which way their relationship was heading.

  “Come on, relax,’’ he said. “ I’m a friend, aren’t I?’’

  Charmian shrugged. “That’s just it. Are you?’’

  “I’d like to try to be.’’

  Charmian drank her coffee and let the tension in her head relax a little. She wasn’t in any real doubt about the cause of her headache. It wasn’t staying up late. She was worried and uneasy.

  “I didn’t like what I saw round the bonfire last night. I haven’t liked what’s happened today,’’ she said. “And in a way, I thought you did.’’

  “No, I didn’t like it. But I understood it. But it was negligible, I tell you.’’

  “And is that supposed to cheer me up?’’ said Charmian. “ What you’re saying is that there could be worse.’’

  “I’m trying to act like a friend,’’ he said with a smile. “You know, set you straight, show you around. Let you see the scene.’’

  “Well, thanks for the coffee. I feel better now.’’

  It was true, her headache was lifting. “ I ought to get back to work. I want to go into the University Library. Tell me, do you have a job finding the books you want?’’

  “I’m a scientist, remember. I don’t read books.’’

  “I think they hide the books on purpose,’’ brooded Charmian.

  “I thought it was people you read in your job, not books,’’ said Don. There was no doubt about it, she thought, he was testing her, and in a slightly ironical kind of way.

  “I do both,’’ she answered.

  “It’s not making you happy,’’ he said.

  “No. The books and the people I’m reading aren’t happy ones.’’ She met his eyes brightly; she could test him a little. He scowled. But of course it was a cheat really, she was pretty certain she didn’t need to test him, she knew. You are, she could have said to him, pretending to be one thing, and really being another. Shall I call you student? Or actor, intriguer, liar, would-be arsonist? Yes, I really suspect you of being all those, and what you want to burn is a world. Your world, mine, but never mind about that.

  He looked very knowledgeable, as if he had everything weighed up. She decided to let him into some secrets of this world.

  “I had an early morning cup of coffee with a pupil,’’ she said, enunciating the words very clearly, so that he wouldn’t think the observation was slipping out by chance.

  “Oh yes,’’ he said warily; he was as sharp as a fly.

  “One of my class of policewomen. You know about them?’’

  He nodded. “ I do.’’

  “One of them came round today because she’s worried sick. And she’s right too.’’ Charmian frowned. “It’s a strange little story.’’

  “Can I hear it?’’

  “Oh yes. This policewoman, who is a West Indian by the way, is keeping a large school in this district under watch; they have a drug problem there. That’s one worry and there’ll probably be more. But the whole school has a bad feel to it; she’s worried and specifically about the evidence that a really dangerous person is loose in the school. Certain teachers, always young women, have had threats of violence written in chalk on the blackboards in their classrooms. One of them, the prettiest and youngest, had her coat slashed where it hung in the cupboard. She’s frightened for her life now.’’

  “Sounds as if she need be,’’ said Don, after a thought.

  “And that isn’t the worst. A really nasty booby trap was set up. Someone unscrewed a door, the door to the woodwork room, by its hinges, then put it back in position. If a child had gone rushing into that room without looking, the door would have fallen forward, possibly killing him. Fortunately, it was spotted.’’

  “So what’s she doing, your policewoman friend pupil?’’ he asked.

  “She’s watching the boy she believes it must be,’’ said Charmian.

  “Will that help?’’

  “It’s the first step. And she’s told me.’’

  “And what will you do?’’

  “I shall tell her that with a violent si
ck creature she may have to take violent action,’’ said Charmian coolly. “ I shall tell her that violence calls out violence and is sometimes the only cure. At the moment she’s sympathetic to this boy, but I shall tell her to stamp that right out. For her, it won’t do. She’s got to be on the outside.’’

  “And that’s what you’d do?’’

  “Oh yes, that’s what I’d do.’’

  “There speaks the gendarme.’’

  “You forget, I am a policewoman, I’m not a doctor. I’m the one holding the balance, not making the cure.’’

  “You’re tough.’’

  “It’s my job,’’ said Charmian. “In my job you keep emotion right out of it, and get on with it. The girl, Ann, knows that. And I shall tell her something else,’’ said Charmian in a tone of cool deliberation. “I shall tell her that I think she’s moving into a position of danger herself.’’

  “Why are you sweating?’’ asked Don suddenly.

  “I suppose because I’m frightened too.’’

  She went downstairs again on her way back to the Library and on the way out she collected her letters.

  There was one from her husband. He was at an Interpol meeting in Hong Kong. Love and love and love, his letter said.

  There was a book catalogue, which she put aside.

  The third letter was in a plain envelope, her name scrawled on hurriedly. Clearly it had been delivered by hand. The writing paper inside had a printed official address at the top and a typed statement that it was from Dr. Margaret Phillips.

  Underneath it said briefly: ‘ The consensus of opinion at the moment is that you are right about Alda. She died from a blow on the head. In the circumstances we had better regard it as murder. A report goes to the police.’

  Charmian tucked the letter in her handbag and walked on. Whereas just before she had been hot, now she was cold. She shivered.

  “Yes, I’m frightened all right,’’ she said.

  She felt just as though an ugly strange face had just peered over her shoulder.

  “Eddie,’’ she said aloud, as if it was his face and she had suddenly recognised it.

  “In the circumstances,’’ said Charmian urgently on the telephone to Dr. Phillips, “ I’m quoting you. ‘ In the circumstances’ you said to me in your note about Alda’s death. What did you mean? What were the circumstances? Do you mean what I told you about Eddie?’’

  “No.’’ Dr. Phillips sounded surprised. “No, not that. Simply that the blow on Alda’s head must have been a violent one. And from the placing, not likely to be due to a fall. In other words, it’s not easy to think of an accident that matches. But it may not be murder. There’s a sort of question in my mind.’’

  “Thanks,’’ said Charmian. “ But there’s none in my mind. It is murder.’’

  A practical point occurred to her.

  “Wait a minute. What about the funeral? Will that be postponed?’’

  “No.’’ Dr. Phillips was decisive. “I’ve spoken to the police and the magistrate about that. There’ll have to be an inquest, of course. But it’ll be quick and brief. The police will ask for an adjournment. The funeral will go ahead. The sister in Canada has been telephoned and has given her consent.’’

  “Yes,’’ agreed Charmian, sadly. “We must get Alda buried.’’

  Charmian went back to the Library and worked hard. She knew how to concentrate, but she also knew that underneath her thoughts were preoccupied with Alda. And also, somehow, because the two had become intertwined with Eddie. Whoever Eddie was.

  But Eddie was back. She had Alda’s word for it. Her dying words. And dying people always spoke the truth, didn’t they?

  At lunch time she tried to get a message to her friend and colleague Grizel back in Deerham Hills but she was told that Grizel was “out’’. This presumably meant out on a case. But she knew that if Grizel had had anything about Alda Fearon she would have passed the news along. So there was nothing there.

  Emily Carter was hunched at a table in the Students’ Union, eating a cheese sandwich and drinking coffee. Without thinking, Charmian joined her.

  “Oh, it’s you,’’ Emily said, not looking up.

  “How could you tell?’’ Charmian was surprised.

  “I know the sound of your feet.’’

  “Oh.’’ Charmian was disconcerted. She looked down at her feet.

  “Think I could live beside you for two years and not know the way you walked?’’ said Emily. She pushed her hair back and studied Charmian. “You look sour, I feel sour. That makes two of us.’’

  “I’m not sour. Just considering various possibilities.’’

  “That is being sour.’’

  “And what’s biting you? Here, wait before you tell me.’’ Charmian went away and came back bearing a tray with a sandwich like Emily’s and a bowl of soup. There was a dish of ice-cream too.

  “You ought not to eat that gooey stuff,’’ said Emily morosely. “You ought to watch your weight.’’

  Charmian raised her eyebrows and bit into her sandwich. “You watch your weight and I’ll watch mine,’’ she said.

  Emily put some more sugar in her coffee, stirred it, and looked at Charmian defiantly. Charmian looked back. Then they both laughed. “Go on,’’ said Charmian. “What is it?’’

  “Cotton,’’ said Emily. “I have to prepare a specimen lesson on cotton as for a class of eight-year-olds. It’s a test. Not everyone has to do a test like this, just some of us.’’ She seemed half proud, half rebellious at the obligation placed on her.

  “Why you? What did you do?’’

  “I spoke up in a discussion. I was bright about cotton. So I got cotton. Someone next to me got rubber. That would be worse, I should think.’’ Emily drained her coffee. “I tell you what,’’ she confided. “After so many years of not doing any, work’s strange.’’

  “It’s the first time I heard you say those days in Deerham Hills weren’t work,’’ said Charmian, surprised. “ Hard labour was how you usually made it sound.’’

  “Mental work, I mean.’’ Emily put on a pair of heavy horn-rimmed spectacles. “My brain was going to seed. Mental work is what counts after all.’’ She smiled seraphically. “And I just hope that’s what my husband thinks as he washes the dishes, cooks the food, and cleans up after the kids. My mother’s only there in the week, you know. Saturdays I go home, but Sundays he’s on his own. The day of rest.’’

  “You look delighted.’’

  “Well, we always agreed to share our burdens equally. And now,’’ said Emily with pleasure, “we’re sharing them.’’

  Her marriage had always been a sort of war; she and her husband seemed to enjoy the battle. One side was either victorious or in full retreat. Occasionally an honourable peace with unbearable conditions was signed by both high contracting parties who were each secretly anxious to see the seeds of war comfortably sown again. You could count on battle being joined afresh before the moon had grown old. It wouldn’t have been everyone’s idea of marriage, thought Charmian.

  “And what’s your worry?’’ said Emily, over her big spectacles, which seemed indeed to impede her vision rather than aid it.

  Charmian looked round the room, crowded with students. They all seemed harmless enough. But if she said to Emily there are some of my worries, Emily would think she was mad. Also Emily would talk. Nothing in the world, she knew, would stop Emily spreading a good story and improving it as she went. Even her discretion was alarming. Like the time she’d been so discreet about Charmian’s friendship with the victim of a murder that Charmian nearly got accused of the murder herself.

  “What do you suppose they’re talking about?’’ whispered Emily. “Going to blow us all up? I’ve heard they’re going to make a particular set at us mature students.’’

  “I should forget that,’’ said Charmian. All around her students were eating, giggling and shouting. There was even one girl on a corner knitting. Of the hundreds crowded into this room a
bout twenty might have genuine political convictions and of that twenty one might be dangerous. One was enough, though.

  “We didn’t look like that in our day, did we?’’ said Emily. “Not that our day’s so far behind. I’m not that old. I’m only thirty. I feel ninety sometimes. And you’re even younger. Still,’’ said Emily, returning as she usually did to the point from which she had come, “we didn’t look like that. There is a difference, isn’t there?’’

  “I don’t mind, though, do you, Emily?’’

  “Oh no, I spend all my time trying to look like it myself.’’

  Charmian nodded. Her own hair was growing longer each day, and her skirts shorter.

  “There is a difference though,’’ went on Emily, “and I know what it is. It’s thighs. Thighs. Now this lot really enjoy showing their thighs, don’t they? It’s all a question of erogenous zones. To you and me, some of these thighs we see around now all the time look pretty alarming, but to these young things they’re obviously very provocative. Now we were the brassiere generation.’’

  “I don’t know what I was. Not as brave as you, Emily.’’

  “I’m not brave.’’ Emily was surprised.

  “Yes, you are. You don’t look behind you, anyway.’’

  Emily gazed at her thoughtfully. (“I always said that girl had a secret sorrow,’’ she had recently written to her husband. “ Don’t you worry about her,’’ he wrote right back. “ You worry about me. The cat’s sick again and so am I.’’)

  Now Emily wrapped her thoughts up and tried to read her friend’s face. Telepathy came easily to Emily.

  “Is it true that Alda Fearon was murdered?’’ said Emily suddenly. “They’re all saying it. That’s what’s worrying you?’’

  “That’s just a little bit of it,’’ said Charmian. “I suppose I have about three separate worries at the moment.’’

  “Besides your own private life,’’ said Emily. “ Honestly I’m very sympathetic. Well, I’ve got to go.’’ She stood up and started to move away.

  “Emily, what about the baby?’’ said Charmian, but Emily only waved and shook her head, so perhaps there wasn’t going to be one. Or it might only mean Emily didn’t yet know.