The Morbid Kitchen

by Jennie Melville

  ‘She can’t know much about it.’ Charmian sipped her champagne, appreciating what she had been given: Lady Mary always offered good drinks. She claimed to be poorer than ever since her marriage, but she had settled comfortably into her grace and favour apartment in the Castle, earned by some nameless appointment. Nothing about her looked like poverty – but it’s all relative, Charmian told herself, she might miss the gold plate and the family diamonds.

  ‘You’d be surprised what she knows. Reads everything.’

  ‘You are not cheering me up.’

  ‘Just warning you. What do you think, Humphrey?’

  Humphrey answered calmly: ‘I think you are doing this on purpose. Don’t bait my wife.’

  Lady Mary laughed. ‘Still, she does want to know about the murders. She’s interested, I am myself. I was in France at the time of the child’s death, improving my French, so I didn’t hear about it at first, but I knew Nancy afterwards when she used to drift around the place like a ghost. She was a ghost really, the school was her life, and when that went, she went with it.’

  ‘What was she like?’ Charmian was curious. ‘I can’t put together any clear picture from talking to the younger sister Emily.’

  ‘I liked Nancy, what I knew of her, a gentle, kind woman. I never met the younger girl, but I gather she was a wild one, and as for her father …’ Lady Mary shrugged. ‘You hear tales, a bit of a bully.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have been running a school for young children if he was like that,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘But he wasn’t, it was Nancy’s school.’ Lady Mary always stood by her friends. ‘There was a bit of talk that old man Bailey had done the killing; a lot of people wanted it to be him, it would have been kind of neat.’

  And the police investigating team had hoped it was him too; Charmian had read the reports in the file on Alana’s death, a file which was still open. But he had been proved to have been elsewhere at the time the child had died, or at least no one had been able to prove he had been anywhere near here. Nor was there any forensic evidence. In fact, forensics had not been helpful at all. There were traces of wood, fabric and paint on the child’s clothing which did not seem to have come from the school, but with nothing and no one to match them against they had been of no value. Police regrets all round.

  ‘No, it wasn’t him,’ she said aloud.

  ‘And then, the Drue woman went missing and her past came out and she seemed the obvious person. Is it true she’s been found with the head of the girl? There have been all sorts of stories.’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Charmian in a neutral voice.

  ‘Oh, don’t give anything away, but it’s interesting. You can’t blame HM. Do you think Drue was killed in revenge? But the head? How did that get there?’

  ‘Someone put it there.’

  ‘But where was it?’

  Charmian shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  Humphrey said: ‘Perhaps Margaret Drue had it by her, Nielsen kept bits and pieces of bodies around him.’

  Lady Mary moved away, aware that she had drained out what information she could. ‘What a horrible picture you draw … Now remember you will be summoned and be ready.’

  ‘Do I curtsey?’

  ‘No, we’ve all done that once as a body and yours will be taken as done, even HM likes to relax sometimes.’ She moved away with easy graceful steps.

  ‘Do you think she meant it? About the Queen, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, difficult to tell with our Mary. But you will soon find out.’

  ‘The Queen’s not looking my way.’

  ‘It’s not done like that. If you are wanted, you will be summoned.’

  ‘Like Queen Victoria’s chair,’ said Charmian. ‘I’ll just be there.’

  The room where Lady Mary was giving her party had great arched windows looking over an inner courtyard bordered with stone walls which looked as though they could withstand a siege. A long time since that had happened, even King John had preferred to ride out to Runnymede rather than face the barons here. The great fire of last autumn had not reached Lady Mary’s apartments.

  The room was not over-large but Lady Mary seemed to have filled it with handsome furniture and fine pictures. Presumably these were family stuff unless she had raided a museum. Or perhaps the Castle loaned them out to her? Heaven knows, from Charles I onwards they had been great collectors, and the cellars were reputed to be full of masterpieces which came out in turn.

  The guests matched the furnishings, being not young and of the best quality. Perhaps it was obligatory in the royal presence, Charmian mused, for all the women to have the same sleek hair-style, well under control, and to have dresses of heavy silk from a good couture house, and a little jewellery but not too much. More latitude was allowed to the men in the matter of hair and beards, but a good tailor seemed necessary. Shirts too must follow certain rules as to colour and length of cuff, with which it was better to wear a regimental tie if you could claim one, as most of those here could do.

  She gave Humphrey a quick look. Yes, he was following the rules. She ran an uneasy hand over her hair. She, alas, was not.

  Humphrey touched her arm. ‘You are about to be summoned.’

  When she came back, she said to Humphrey: ‘Well, she really wanted to talk about the difficulty of keeping horses in good form in bad weather. Most of that went to that man with a bald head standing next to her.’

  ‘That’s the Marquess of Anstruther, he breeds horses, breeds everything. Do you know he’s got five sons and three daughters? Go on, didn’t you get your turn?’

  ‘Oh yes, HM said that at least two of her ancestors had been beheaded and she was interested in heads … She said it was thought to be a noble way to die, reserved for upper-class prisoners. Better than hanging.’

  ‘Granted the technical expertise of early executions I expect that is true.’

  ‘Painless, she said.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘You needed a good axe-man, but a really important prisoner could ask for the man he wanted. Or she could, I suppose HM was thinking of Mary Stuart.’

  Later she said: ‘It would be wrong to say that the Queen solved the case, but she put me on the right track.

  She said thoughtfully: ‘“Of course, there is usually a good practical reason for an execution.”’ In the case of her ancestors, Charmian recalled, it had been to get them out of the way. Some people are too dangerous to be allowed to live.

  Their conversation was pleasant but short. Charmian provided all the details about the finding of the body and the head which she felt ready to pass on to her sovereign, and found to her amusement that the Queen was well informed. She must have read all the newspapers with thoroughness. Of course, the jump season was over and the flat racing had not really got under way, there was a hiatus, an interesting murder on one’s own doorstep filled it in. One was interested but not amused.

  ‘Well, and how was that?’ asked Lady Mary, coming up to them where they stood in the window embrasure while Charmian collected herself. ‘ Ordeal by fire over safely?’

  ‘I think so. Easy really, I just answered questions.’

  ‘Shelled you like a pea, did she? That’s the usual style.’ She began to move away. ‘Forgive me, duties to attend to.’ They saw her at her door, giving a neat bob and making royalist noises.

  ‘We can go now,’ said Humphrey. ‘I booked a table at Holy Joe’s and I’m getting hungry.’

  Holy Joe’s was the Italian restaurant on Church Square which was owned by Joseph Saneta who said he was Italian but whom Humphrey, who always knew these things, said was Maltese. It was a good restaurant where you could trust the wine. Charmian and Humphrey ate there often.

  The real name of the restaurant was the Padovani, but no one seemed to accept that Joe had come from Padua, nor did he ever claim it, while Humphrey also said that Sliema was a much more likely birthplace. The Padovani was in a narrow three-storey house with a few tables and a b
ar on the ground floor, a narrow staircase which led past the kitchens which were sandwiched between ground level and the top floor where were the choicest tables. There was a basement room leading out to a paved garden where you ate in summer. Humphrey and Charmian being favoured patrons were led to a good table by a large window.

  ‘You order … I want to make a telephone call.’

  Charmian took herself off to an alcove on the stairway where she could hear noises from above, below and from the kitchen. In many ways the Padovani was a strangely arranged place but it flourished because the food was good.

  Once more she dialled Emily’s lodging house. This time the girl herself answered.

  ‘Emily, I don’t think you should stay where you are, on your own, I want you to go to some friends of mine. Birdie Peacock and Winifred Eagle, they live in the close just behind Maid of Honour Row, so you will be near me.’

  There was silence.

  ‘I don’t know if you know them, but they are good friends of mine and nice women, you will like them.’

  ‘I don’t know them,’ said Emily; she did not sound pleased at the idea. ‘Well, I’ve met them but not to really know.’

  ‘They are very open-minded and liberal in their ideas …’ Charmian did not want to go into details about the two, whose lifestyle was indeed hard to describe, but of their goodness of heart and charity she could be sure. Integrity of their own kind, too. ‘ I think you’ll like them. They have all sorts of interests.’ An understatement really, but she could go into it more later.

  ‘I have heard about their ways. I think Nancy went to one of their sessions on health and nature when she knew she was ill … Didn’t cure her, though.’

  ‘No, they have never claimed to be able to cure illness.’ Warts, maybe, but not death, and death is what your family seems richly infected with.

  ‘Thanks for thinking about me.’ Emily sounded polite but far from grateful. Her voice was strained, rough, as if she had been crying or shouting. ‘But I won’t go. Thanks all the same.’

  ‘I don’t want you to stay where you are. Once the press find your address, and they will, they will be camping out on your doorstep. It’s not safe.’

  ‘I think they are here now, or they have been. I hid in the loo,’ said Emily without much interest. ‘ I don’t feel threatened. What danger can I be in?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a feeling I have. There is a killer out there and you know it. You probably know the killer without realizing it. Or putting a name or a face. Do it for me, please, Emily.’

  There was a silence, before a grudging yes. Goodness, the girl sounded odd.

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  I don’t know about that, thought Charmian. ‘Look after yourself.’ But the line was already dead.

  ‘I have ordered,’ said Humphrey, ‘taking advice from Joe who said the fish is best tonight. Also his new soup to start … You had better eat, you’re getting tired.’ He touched her hand.

  ‘No, not tired. But worried. I think that girl Emily might be in danger.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ He was watching her face where he saw strain. She was puzzled, not like his Charmian who usually saw life so clear.

  Charmian drank some soup, which was rich and strong. ‘I don’t know. I just have this feeling of something wrong, and I have learned to trust those feelings when they come.’

  ‘So what have you done?’

  ‘I have sent her to stay with Birdie and Winifred … I hope I’ve done the right thing. But time will show.’

  Humphrey looked at her, assessing her thoughts. ‘ They can look after themselves,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I think they can.’

  ‘But I wish you hadn’t got into this case in such a personal way.’

  ‘I couldn’t help it. I am involved in a personal way. Margaret Drue seems to have sent me a plea for help. She must have known she was going to be killed and tried to get a message to me.’

  ‘Tried? What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m guessing that she was imprisoned somewhere before being killed. I didn’t know her but a number of people who knew me also knew her.’ The hairdresser, Beryl Barker, and the two witches. ‘And they may not have been the only ones, I leave out the Queen and Lady Mary but there could have been others. I was getting a lot of publicity about then, name and face in the papers. A scrap of paper with my name and face may have been all she had by way of a message.’ It was an unpleasing picture and not one she cared for.

  She could talk freely to her husband, and she usually did so. He complained that she kept things to herself too much, but the truth was that she talked more freely to him than to anyone outside her professional team.

  ‘It’s a very terrible case and still building up. Dolly has come back with hints of child abuse, and Rewley,’ she paused to think about Rewley, and sighed, ‘ He is delivering an informant, sex unknown, who is talking of more human remains …’

  Her husband poured her some more wine. ‘ Come on, cheer up. You’ve had worse cases. Just keep out of danger yourself, will you please?’

  ‘Oh, I’m in no danger.’

  ‘You’ve said that before …’

  Charmian shrugged. ‘It’s only what comes with the job … And don’t say, but now my job is being your wife, or you will be the one in danger.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘I know it, forgive me.’ She bent forward and put her hand on her husband’s. ‘Let’s talk about the house and where we are going to live. How would you feel about staying in Maid of Honour Row? I have to admit I am fond of it.’ And it suited the cat, although better not mention that.

  ‘I like it too. Not everyone can claim to have witches for neighbours.’

  The waiter approached. ‘Madam, the instrument in your coat pocket …’

  Charmian rose to her feet. ‘ Oh God, my bleeper. Sorry everyone. Why did I bring it?’

  Why indeed, thought her husband, watching her go to the telephone. Because you are you, that’s why.

  She was some time coming back.

  ‘It was Dolly … she’s picked up some news. The body in the basement is not that of Margaret Drue. It’s an unknown woman …’

  Humphrey looked at her silently.

  ‘And that is not the worst of it … Emily is missing.’

  ‘But you’ve only just spoken to her.’

  ‘She has not gone round to Winnie and Birdie … All right, perhaps there hasn’t been much time. But the door of her room was open, no sign of her in the room, and there is blood all over it.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘What does it mean?’ He was asking the question to slow her down; he thought she was driving far too fast.

  ‘It means that Margaret Drue might be still alive and has attacked Emily.’

  ‘That’s jumping to a conclusion. Two conclusions: one about Drue and one about Emily.’

  ‘I’m thinking aloud. You needn’t listen. Anyway you asked the question.’

  That was true. ‘Where are we going?’ he said, looking out of the car window. He knew she shouldn’t have been the one to drive: this was not the way back to Maid of Honour Row. Home might be where the heart is, as his dear love had said earlier this evening, but it did not seem to be the place where she often rested.

  ‘To Emily’s lodgings, of course.’

  ‘Do you hear that noise? It’s me groaning.’

  Dolly Barstow was standing outside the lodging house; she was deep in talk with a tall, fair-haired young man in jeans and a sweatshirt, student uniform, but she was keeping an eye out all the same, and saw Charmian at once.

  ‘I thought you would still be around. What made you come here?’

  ‘Just curious, and a mite worried about the girl. Hello, Humphrey. Dragged you along too, has she?’

  ‘I am a willing victim.’

  Dolly was already leading the way in. ‘It’s a mess in there, you won’t like what you
see.’

  ‘It was a mess before. I suspect it’s always a mess.’

  Charmian was right behind Dolly. Into the room on the right, the door unlocked. Behind them, Humphrey moved more slowly, not sure if he ought to be here or not. This was local police business and probably even his wife and Dolly were pushing it a bit, SRADIC being something else again.

  The same thought occurred to Charmian, who looked to observe at least the appearance of the rules; she didn’t want to get across Superintendent Horris more than she need. He was famous for his iron moods. It must be time for one to descend upon him; he was no lover of women in the force, women in authority, which he was inclined to equate with women interfering.

  ‘Whom have you told about Emily?’

  The answer she expected came at once. ‘Jim Towers. He’s coming round. He may have told HG, depends how important he thinks it.’

  Charmian took a deep breath, and ran through the categories of those whose absence required investigation. ‘ Well, Emily is not under the age of sixteen, she is not mentally or physically impaired. Nor is she a senile old lady. Nor has she been gone long. On the other hand she has been touched by a murder and you say there is blood, which puts her in the class of involuntary disappearance. I would call that more than interesting at least … And about the identity, or non-identity of the body?’

  ‘He told me. HG is screaming.’ Superintendent Horris had famous rages but his screams were silent, audible only through the grinding of his teeth the better to bite you with. It gave Charmian some pleasure to think of the redoubtable Superintendent wearing his teeth down. ‘He had a holiday fixed for the end of next week, and he thought he’d be able to tidy the body in the basement up neatly, and get off. He fishes, you know.’

  ‘What a shame,’ said Charmian falsely, then with more truth: ‘Good luck for the fish.’

  She paused on the threshold of Emily’s room; the handsome young man had somehow got in front, was standing in the doorway, listening to all that they were saying.

  ‘Thanks,’ Charmian said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’ She took it from Dolly’s friendly manner to him that he had been. ‘I spoke to you on the telephone earlier, didn’t I? Right, we can manage now.’