“Yes, day before yesterday. Without him knowing, of course. She’ll be back again. She’s fetching her things. He won’t notice. That’s one of the things she had against him. And can you blame her?’’
“Don’t bother about letting me know,’’ said Charmian. “It’s not important.’’
If Rose Chapman was back calling in her own house the day before yesterday, then she was not lying dead in a coffin in Deerham Hills. She crossed out Rose Chapman as a founder member of a club that now had hardly any members.
But it was too late for Rose now. She had said no goodbyes, left no messages, made no promise to return, but it was not her fate to be lost in the crowd. She would be heard of again. She was going to be found.
There was no future in her work in Midport now. Charmian knew it, but she had to stay there and persevere. It was late in the evening when she drove away and turned south for Deerham Hills.
In New York it would still be afternoon, not late even by the time she got home. A telephone call could easily be made in the hours between five and six, New York time. When you thought about it, this was the best hour in the day for a telephone call, not too early in New York and still not bed-time in Deerham Hills. Her spirits rose at once.
She drove carefully but fast. By eleven o’clock she was back in Deerham Hills. Although it was late, all the shops were brightly lit up in the town centre, and one or two were still open. Recently the big grocery store, Lubbock’s, had experimented with staying open until midnight three nights a week. This was one of the nights. And then the Laundry Shop, new to the town, was always open. It didn’t shut at all. Rumour had it that the shop was not prospering, so maybe one day soon it would be shut for ever.
One or two people were coming out of Lubbock’s, their arms full of groceries and a small figure wearing an old raincoat was gazing into the Laundry Shop. Charmian recognised Grace Chancey.
She stopped the car. “Isn’t it a little late to be window-shopping, Grace?’’ she called.
Grace swung round. “ I’ve been shopping,’’ she said. “ Not window-shopping. I bought things.’’ She had a bag tucked under one arm. “Anyway, you forget—I work there.’’ She tossed her head in the direction of the Laundry Shop.
“It’s still late. Want a lift?’’
“You’re always taking me home,’’ grumbled Grace, but she got into the car smartly enough.
“I don’t like to leave you wandering around,’’ said Charmian truthfully.
“Ha!’’ This was Grace’s last remark before they drew up outside her home. “How did you get on in Midport?’’
“How did you know I’ve been in Midport?’’
“D’you think you’re anonymous? You observe us. We return the compliment. We observe you. One of your old men told me.’’
Charmian’s ‘old man’was one of the sharp-eyed inquisitive group of retired men who met daily in the Library or the Bus Station in winter and the park in summer. They were her informants and had often passed on valuable items of news to her. She had known for a long while that the process worked both ways. What else could you expect?
“It was Willie Shore. He saw you driving out the Midport road and he told Tony Foss. ‘They’ve had a tip the dead woman came from Midport,’ he said, ‘ but she won’t find anything there’.’’
“I wish he’d told me,’’ said Charmian, but she was not seriously concerned. She knew that a lot of the stuff emanating from the group at the Bus Station was guess-work. A lot of things were said down there in the hope that afterwards the speaker might be able to turn round and say: “I told you so.’’ You had to pick and choose what you believed. Among such a flow of information much might be fake. “ Goodbye, Grace. Watch your step now.’’ She had dropped Grace at the corner of the road where she lived and she sat for a while watching the girl walk away.
Strange hour for the girl to be out shopping. But Grace was a character you needed to know.
There might be a telephone call for her when she got home. Cheerfully Charmian drove off.
Grace let herself into her home, banged the door shut and walked into the ground floor room she used as a sitting-room. A smaller room opened off it, which was her bedroom; the door was ajar. Grace threw off her coat and called out. Her voice sounded flat and weary.
“You can come out now, Phoebe, the show’s over for the night.’’
There was dead silence.
“They all think I’m crazy. I’m a grand little actress, aren’t I?’’
Still no one answered.
“If I didn’t do it the way I did, then they’d all think I’d killed you, Phoebe.’’
But there was no answering comment from the other room.
“Perhaps I have killed you, Phoebe, you’re silent enough.’’ Grace sat down in the chair where she had put her coat. “All right, you needn’t answer. Goodness knows I’m tired enough without having to talk to you, too.’’ She rested her head on the back of the chair. “Let’s make Daniels look a fool, shall we? She hasn’t really been kind to us. She doesn’t really like us, you know.’’
Back at her home Charmian put her car away and went to bed. The telephone did not ring.
In the centre of the town the lights went out in those shops that had remained open. Lubbock’s went dark. Even the Laundry Shop was dim. Charmian, as she spoke to Grace, had fancied that she saw a familiar face behind the glass, amid the whirling machines and spin dryers. It was there all right, looking amused and, considering the hour, watchful.
“Poor old Daniels,’’ said the owner of the face, a tall, heavy boy of about seventeen. “One day someone’s going to have to tell her. The way she walks into trouble!’’
Chapter Seven
On a hot damp day Deerham Hills police station was less pleasant to be in than on a hot dry day. The heat seemed to collect in little damp puddles that you either stepped in or walked through. People took off their jackets and loosened their ties (Charmian couldn’t do this but she kept combing her hair and refreshing her lipstick, which was her alternative); but they still felt like goldfish getting the Turkish bath treatment. Tempers were a little edgy. She could hear Pratt quarrelling with someone on the telephone. Anyway it sounded like a quarrel. Pratt’s chances of going on his cruise to Madeira seemed materially less every day. He never had any luck. Every time he booked a cruise a crime turned up. While Charmian had been in Midport yesterday, the gunman with the paint pellets had turned his attention to the Town Hall, peppering one or two eminent citizens on their way to a meeting there. He had not been caught. Charmian wondered what they were going to charge him with when they did get him. Midport itself had not helped provide an identity for the dead woman; they could hardly photograph her and put her picture in the papers, and ask people to come forward and identify her. Charmian herself had drawn up a description of the woman, and this had been flashed on cinema screens and publicised on hoardings and in the newspapers, but she did not expect any results. Or only very, very slowly.
The quarrel in Pratt’s room ended and there was silence. This allowed her to become annoyed at the noise made by Christine Quinn, her new assistant, who was laboring away at the table across the room. Chris was rustling the papers, scratching with her pencil, humming under her breath and thudding away with her foot on the floor at the same time.
“Any minute now the people underneath are going to come up and start complaining,’’ said Charmian sourly.
“What?’’
“At you making that noise.’’
“You know what’s underneath? Right down there below? The mortuary. They’re not in a position to come up and argue. Every police station ought to have a mortuary and we’ve got one.’’
“It’s not a mortuary,’’ said Charmian irritably. “ Only the first-aid room.’’
“In the event of a nuclear incident that is a mortuary,’’ said Chris, who knew everything. “You know it. I know it.’’ She added triumphantly: “ The whole ground floor is a
mortuary.’’ She glanced at her watch. “Two minutes to mid-day. I go off duty in another hour.’’ She lowered her head and went back to rustling, scratching and humming. The trouble with Christine was that as well as being a time watcher and a natural born irritant, she was also conscientious and hard working. Given a task, she finished it. You were offered no proper opportunity to express the anger building up inside you. “That’s why all the ground floor is made of stone,’’ she finished.
That was the other thing about Chris. Not only did she know everything but, sooner or later, she said it.
Charmian swung round so abruptly she knocked over a chair.
“Now you’re making a noise,’’ said Chris triumphantly.
Grizel hurried into the room and dumped a pile of papers and letters on Charmian’s desk.
“Can’t stop,’’ she panted. “I’ve finished all those notes for you.’’
“Thanks.’’
“I’ve left six shirts and a blanket washing themselves in a machine in the Laundry Shop.’’
“You’ll have to get back in eight minutes,’’ said Chris, who always knew to a second how much time was left in the hour.
“Guess who’s running the Laundry Shop now? New manager since last week.’’
“I don’t know.’’ But Charmian had the memory of a familiar face seen behind the shop window.
“Tony Foss.’’
“No!’’ Tony Foss had once been called the Al Capone of Deerham Hills. Certainly he was their most distinguished juvenile delinquent. Charmian liked him in spite of everything.
“They’re buying protection, that’s what. Last week all his gang were in there living it up, drinking coffee from the machine and playing pop music. One regular customer got a black eye and half the machines are out of action. Tony’s stopped all that now he’s boss. They only do what he says.’’
Chris looked disapproving. She hadn’t met Tony Foss yet and didn’t know his terrible charms.
“Tony’s honest in his way,’’ went on Grizel, gathering up some more work and preparing to depart. “I gather it was thumbs down at Midport? Yes?’’
“Yes.’’
“Pratt’s singing a new tune now. He says Abbot’s End.’’
Charmian was silent, remembering an earlier brush with Pratt that day. He had stopped her angrily on her way in.
“Here,’’ he had said. “ You’re in trouble again. I thought we’d got all that safely over these days.’’
Surprised, Charmian hadn’t answered.
“Do you think I like having people come up to me and say one of my own force is telling young girls to leave home and clear off to London?’’
“It’s not true.’’ Charmian found her voice.
“No. Of course it’s not true. I know it’s not true. But the point is you’re doing this study on missing girls, you’re full of it, but you don’t watch yourself. You give the wrong impression. And you make enemies.’’ He had said no more but stomped off, leaving Charmian shaken and angry.
Now she stared at Grizel.
“How do you know all this?’’
“I listened at his door as I came past.’’
“He doesn’t talk to himself yet, as far as I know.’’
“Tape-recorder. He shouldn’t have bought one.’’ Grizel made for the door. At the door, she stopped and looked back. “By the way, Tony Foss is pulling a long face about you these days.’’
“He is?’’
“I thought I should tell you. In my experience, when Tony looks that way, he’s either planning something bad for you or else he knows something nasty is going to happen.’’
“Tony’s got nothing against me at the moment, as far as I know,’’ said Charmian thoughtfully. Tony Foss hadn’t crossed her path for months, they had no hate on.
“You can’t always tell, can you? He is a sort of friend of Phoebe Chancey.
“Is he?’’
“He knows her, anyway.’’
“He knows Grace. She works there.’’
Grizel nodded.
“But wouldn’t he say?’’ asked Chris.
“Tony Foss probably doesn’t wish me any harm,’’ said Charmian. “But he isn’t going to do me any good either.’’
“You can’t blame him,’’ observed Grizel, temperately.
“I’ll watch out for him. Thanks, Grizel.’’
Grizel nodded again. “ What are friends for?’’ she observed sardonically, and departed.
Christine looked disapproving. Can’t you keep better control of your contacts, her expression said. What’s a policewoman for?
Charmian returned to her work. Little by little she was being edged into a position of danger. She half knew it, but she didn’t know from which direction it was coming.
“Why Abbot’s End?’’ Charmian asked. What had Pratt got on Abbot’s End?
But as it turned out Pratt had nothing on Abbot’s End. He was just guessing.
“I’m not looking for the woman there,’’ he said. “The search for her identity is routine now, no room for guesswork.’’
The machine was matching up her measurements and age against those of all the women missing throughout the country. London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield were all being asked to check. It was a pity they didn’t have her head. Midport had been worth a try but it hadn’t come to anything.
“I am going at it from the coffin angle. Why did it come to Deerham Hills?’’
Charmian shrugged. “Chance?’’
“I don’t believe in chance.’’
“For some reason it was easier than anything else.’’
“Yes. For some reaon. The porter who put the box on the train at Midport comes from Deerham Hills. Perhaps he isn’t as innocent as he looks.’’
“Perhaps Willie Burton the stationmaster isn’t.’’ said Charmian sceptically.
“Perhaps. You’ve got an idea there. Get up to Abbot’s End and check on the porter.’’
“Why me?’’
“Because they’re by way of being old friends of yours,’’ said Pratt, with a sudden smile.
“Don’t say he’s related to Grace Chancey?’’
“No. He’s got an old widowed mother and a sister who’s more or less always in trouble. Up for shoplifting in Lubbock’s last week.’’
“Don’t tell me—Rita Slack.’’
“Ruined by her name, I suppose,’’ said Pratt, practically making a joke. For him it was a joke.
“No, she’s not slack, not in that sort of way. She tries too hard, that’s her trouble. She’s always trying to raise her standard of living. So she was shoplifting for a set of balloon brandy glasses and a decanter. It turned out she’d already had a bottle of cognac, the day before.’’
“She’s got class,’’ admitted Pratt.
This is not a narrative of the excellences of police logic. There was little excellence and less logic in sending Charmian to Abbot’s End. Pratt was being methodical, human and optimistic. He was acting on the unacknowledged assumption that if you find two facts that relate it cannot be coincidence.
He had a porter in Midport and a coffin labelled Deerham Hills. These were his two facts.
Pratt was going the long way home.
“I won’t get anything out of Rita Slack, I can tell you that much,’’ promised Charmian as she left.
As she came back from her trip to the Slack household, vaguely disquieted and puzzled by her interview there, she met Christine Quinn on her way home.
Charmian looked at her watch. Only sixty minutes since setting out from her office to Abbot’s End. Time must be running backward.
“Any luck?’’
“No. Tell you later,’’ said Charmian absently, not annoyed at this further manifestation of Chris’s knowing-ness.
“Not the Slack boy?’’ Chris even knew the name.
“He doesn’t seem the sort,’’ admitted Charmian. “Rita now, that’s another question. She might have done it. But
why should she?’’
“Well, I’ve never met Rita but it isn’t entirely a woman’s crime.’’
“No. Not that Rita’s entirely a woman.’’
“What did she say that’s got you so worried then?’’ So Chris wasn’t only a know-all, she was percipient as well.
“Who? Rita? Oh, I didn’t see her. She wasn’t there. I only saw her mother. She treated me to quite a talk.’’
“Come on. Get it out.’’
“Nothing to get out. It was a dead end. Like Midport.’’
“Well, what?’’
“Too many dead ends,’’ said Charmian. “ It’s not natural. There’s not a flicker of life in this case anywhere.’’
“You’re more human than I thought at first,’’ said Chris with a laugh. “You get angry.’’
“What did you think at first?’’
“The first few weeks I thought you weren’t human. I’ll never stick it, I thought.’’
“I’m shy,’’ said Charmian suddenly. It was a confession she rarely made and only half believed.
The two women stared at each other.
“You got wet in the rain,’’ said Chris.
“It came down hard. And I had to talk to Mrs. Slack on the doorstep part of the time.’’
“I know,’’ said Chris sympathetically. “Don’t I know.’’
They were standing on the stairs within earshot of Charmian’s little room. Because the new police station was like a big glass box they had a bird’s eye view of a lot of other things too: Pratt’s head and shoulders (although oddly enough he couldn’t be heard from this spot whereas the tones of his voice if not the words could usually be heard all over this strange new building), the constable on duty in the hall, and deep, deep down in the building the shower-rooms and rest rooms which very, very few people ever had time to use.
“There was a phone call for you,’’ said Chris. “Personal.’’
Charmian’s face changed.
“Why, she’s quite pretty,’’ thought Chris who hadn’t, until now, admired Charmian’s face, thinking it too thin and taut.
“New York?’’ Charmian had begun to move up the stairs.
A Different Kind of Summer Page 7
