The Morbid Kitchen

by Jennie Melville

  He took the coffee without a comment and drank it down apparently without noticing, leaning against the sink unit.

  ‘I was surprised to see you in that photograph. I’d have known you, though.’ Although she had not, at first.

  ‘Sometimes it seems a long while ago since that young man sat there in a row and I have thought he was dead, but he is still there inside and he came alive today.’

  Dolly put her hand on his: ‘You would tell me if I could do anything?’

  ‘That child had to be avenged.’

  ‘I never think revenge is a good thing,’ said Dolly.

  ‘I said avenge, not revenge.’

  ‘But they come together, don’t they? Hard to tell one from another.’ Perhaps one should leave avenging to the gods, she thought. If they are around and interested. Once or twice she had felt that they were, and actively intervening.

  He didn’t answer directly, but what he said related to the finding of the photograph. ‘ Daniels, she’s a good friend of yours?’

  ‘I don’t see so much of her since she married.’

  ‘But you work in her unit SRADIC, she’s a power-puller, isn’t she? George Rewley, he’s with you. He’s a high-flyer as well.’

  ‘I don’t know if he still is.’ We have both been lamed by the same arrow, Kate’s death. Or were we both getting to the point beyond which we could not go, and her death just marked the spot?

  He finished his whisky, stood up and took a deep, slow breath. ‘I’ll push off. Thanks for everything. You help me more than you know.’

  I know, Dolly thought, what you don’t know is what it costs.

  She walked to the door with him. ‘You know, I think of those people in the photograph, Dr Yeldon, Harry Fraser … Nancy herself, she’s gone now, she came under suspicion. The postie, he’s not in the picture, he was under suspicion a bit because he talked to the children, dead now. Maisie Nisbett, the Baileys, the rest … they make a kind of circle and hang around.’

  Dolly stood there with the door open, he was halfway through before he turned round. ‘ I’ve changed my mind. Can I stay?’

  ‘Of course you can … Come on.’ She put her arm round him and led him back inside the house, giving him a hug of sympathy … Charmian, she apotheosized with a sigh, in case you are thinking of me, which you probably are not, this is not a night of love.

  As it happened there was a street party that night of the circle which Dolly had named, the friends of Alana, or as much of it as remained. At that time Dr Yeldon and others did not know that Emily was missing.

  The party was not in the street because of the inclement weather but it was held in Dr Yeldon’s sitting room, a large room with a conservatory off it. He was a good gardener but age and increasing infirmity had pushed him to gardening indoors, hence the greenhouse.

  A street party was Dr Yeldon’s name for it, he was old and allowed that sort of joke, but it was more truly a group of people who had lived through the first horror and now felt a need to meet and talk about it. The first gathering of these people had been called a street party because several of those who came to it had lived in River Street, where Dr Yeldon still lived, or close by. But all of them had either worked at Bailey’s School or had some connection with it.

  ‘We were more in number then,’ said Dr Yeldon, looking around the room while his wife poured coffee for them. Mugs. She had moved with the times and knew that mugs were the thing. He picked up a sheet of writing, yellowing somewhat with age, from his desk and studied it. ‘Some are dead, and others have moved away.’

  He put on thin, wire-framed spectacles which had now, as his granddaughter told him, become chic again, to run through the list.

  ‘Archie Rose and his daughter,’ he looked towards them with a smile. ‘ Both here today … How’s the arthritis, Archie? And Fanny, don’t get too thin, will you?’ Fanny was a photographic model but it was her hair and hands that got photographed, you never saw her face or body, but Fanny liked to keep trim, just as her father still gardened. Harry Fraser … here you are, Harry, just as you were that day, and Eleanor too.’

  ‘We liked the child,’ said Eleanor, who usually spoke for them both. ‘A great little dancer.’

  Dr Yeldon went on: ‘Then there was that dear old chap the postman, not with us any longer … I never understood why he got suspected.’

  ‘Because he talked to Alana,’ said Mrs Yeldon, in her firm, crisp voice. ‘Dangerous child.’

  ‘He talked to them all. It’s a sad world where if you are kind to a child, you are suspected of abuse and worse.’

  ‘It is a sad world,’ said Mrs Yeldon. ‘But he’s out of it now.’

  ‘And then there was the young policeman … he came to talk to us that day.’

  ‘Just looked in,’ said his wife.

  ‘Just looked in, yes. But it was good of him to come. He was moved, one could see that.’ He adjusted his spectacles, which his wife claimed he used as his worry object. ‘I don’t think we saw him again, although I may forget, I know I am forgetful, but I understand he has had several promotions. I saw his name mentioned in connection with the recent dreadful discoveries.’

  ‘Towers,’ said his wife. ‘Inspector Towers.’

  ‘So HE IS STILL AROUND.’ Billy Yeldon managed to make it sound like capital letters. His wife looked alarmed.

  ‘I never liked him,’ said Eleanor Fraser, suddenly and unasked. ‘Too intense.’ Nor was she a great admirer of Mrs Yeldon. Both having been dancers, there was some rivalry. Maud Yeldon had accused Eleanor of not conducting herself properly while in class and Eleanor had replied with counter-accusations of her own.

  ‘Now, Nelly,’ began Mrs Yeldon. ‘ I shall have to remind you …’

  ‘You keep your secrets, Maud, and I will keep mine.’

  Another woman came into the room. ‘Sorry I am late.’ Maisie Nisbett, now married and Mrs Halliday, was thin and eager. ‘I just couldn’t seem to get cleared up today and you can’t go out leaving dirty dishes. Auntie is coming, she’s slower than ever this evening, but she’s just behind.’

  Mrs Nisbett propelled herself through the door, not so much slow as large, Eleanor Fraser thought.

  Behind her came a cluster of others of the ‘street party’, neighbours who lived in this part of Windsor, between the Castle and river, and who had come to the original street party out of interest and compassion. Mrs Alice Otter, widow, Brian Underwood and his wife Mattie, Dr Englehart and his girlfriend Susie. The last two had not been part of the first meeting but had been asked because Dr Englehart taught sociology at the local university and Susie was a lawyer.

  Mrs Yeldon had finished handing round the coffee; she was beginning to mutter advice to her husband in a quiet voice: ‘Get on with it, Billy.’ She sounded angry.

  Dr Yeldon considered whether they should open with a prayer but on looking at the people assembled there, he decided that they were a pretty secular roomful and better, as his wife was suggesting, just to get on with it. He liked to take her advice because she was a powerful woman.

  ‘Here we go then, you know why we are here.’ He braced his shoulders for the attack; it felt like going over the top as he looked at his audience, eyes wide, expecting something good from him, except for Dr Englehart who looked sceptical and Susie who looked neutral. ‘Last time, when Alana died in such a horrible way, we met to pledge ourselves to help find her killer. Then it looked as though the teacher, Margaret Drue, had killed her and fled. We said we would look for her. I know that we did, several items came from you of possible sightings. But gradually they tailed away and I realized, you realized, that we were not going to find her.’ He paused to see if he had their attention. ‘But now she has been discovered, dead. With a child’s head on her lap. How did this happen, I ask myself. Is it a revenge killing?’

  ‘We don’t know that it’s Margaret Drue,’ said Dr Englehart.

  ‘But we think so.’

  ‘Only guessing it’s Margaret Drue. Don�
��t really know. It may not be.’ He added: ‘In fact, there’s a rumour going round that it isn’t her.’

  Dr Yeldon appeared discomfited, he was not used to being questioned, but he was an honest man. ‘Well, I’ll just have to start thinking about that.’

  The door opened for Eddy Bell. ‘ Come in, Eddy. Glad you could make it …’ He looked round the room. ‘Eddy didn’t attend our session last time …’

  ‘I was still at school,’ said Eddy.

  ‘But this time, taking the circumstances into account, it seems right he should be.’

  ‘Couldn’t get Big Albert. Once he’s finished for the day, he likes to get off on his own.’

  ‘And Emily?’

  ‘Haven’t seen her. Honest, I never really tried, Doc. We’re not that close. She employed me but that’s about it.’

  The door opened again for Winifred Eagle to come in.

  ‘Winnie – how did you know?’

  ‘I have my channels,’ she said with dignity. In fact, Mrs Yeldon had told her, but why say so? (‘ Come and stop my old boy making a fool of himself,’ she had said, ‘he can’t do anything, we can’t do anything, couldn’t before, but he says it is a necessary human gesture.’) ‘Birdie can’t be with us, we have been expecting a visitor who has not turned up.’ Emily in fact. ‘She remains at home, in case.’

  ‘Stop talking like the Queen,’ said Billy Yeldon irritably, ‘and be normal. You’re welcome if you behave.’

  With dignity, Winnie said: ‘ I always behave.’

  ‘And remember I am Church of England. No witch work.’ The two had crossed on this issue before. As a man of science and a church warden at St Mary’s, the doctor would have no necromancy.

  Over the coffee mugs the discussion went on, but nothing, to Dr Yeldon’s disappointment and to his wife’s total unsurprise, of interest came out. With sympathy, she saw him pucker his lips. Poor old boy, he did try to get a result, he watched too much TV detection, life was not like that. She knew the difference between fantasy and reality, as he had done once, but he dreamed too much now.

  He was taping all that went on in this room, she knew it, but she wondered if the rest of the party knew it. Wasted tape, she thought, still it doesn’t cost much. Poor old boy, she mustn’t be bad to him. He was one of those she would protect.

  Nevertheless, as was later understood, something important was said at the evening, on which, as it ended, someone laughed.

  As they broke up, they gossiped. And there was a laugh. ‘Saw you talking to Emily,’ said Eleanor Fraser to Eddy. There was iron in her voice.

  ‘Oh come on, Nelly,’ said Maud Yeldon with irritation. ‘ What does it matter?’ Don’t gossip, she meant.

  ‘Didn’t I, Eddy?’ persisted Mrs Fraser.

  Eddy shuffled his feet. ‘Oh well, yeah, we talk.’

  ‘Over coffee in the Coffee Pot in Ship Street?’

  ‘Oh well, just a cup, old schoolmates after all, but we aren’t out of …’

  ‘The same social class?’ said Winifred Eagle.

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’ Eddy shifted in his chair.

  ‘She looked upset,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Nelly!’ reproved Maud Yeldon.

  Eddy got up to go. ‘I dunno about that. Course, we found that body and the head, that wasn’t good news.’

  ‘Come on, Eddy, you’re a poor liar. What was it?’

  Eddy looked as if he would like to have claimed he was a very good liar but thought better of it. ‘She thought someone was after her,’ he said grudgingly, but truthfully, this had been it. ‘I mean that’s what she said.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Dr Yeldon.

  Eddy was silent for a moment. ‘Didn’t say. I think it was a woman.’

  There was an instant of silence, everyone had heard. Eleanor Fraser looked surprised, and not best pleased, at what she had got; Mrs Yeldon shook her head and looked grave. Winnie Eagle said nothing, but the dark thoughts she had already been nourishing about Emily’s nonappearance were reinforced.

  ‘We have to tell the police.’

  ‘I came past where she lives,’ said Dr Englehart’s Susie, who had taken more interest than she had previously owned to; she had come this evening on purpose to listen to this group. ‘And I saw signs of police activity.’

  Dr Yeldon stood up, his face eager. ‘We must go to them. At once.’

  His wife took him in hand. ‘No, Billy.’ She was firm. ‘They clearly know what there is to know already. The police are there. You just heard.’

  ‘I am glad I have the tape of our meeting. It is testimony, is it not?’ he said, in a tired way.

  ‘You let the police get on with it.’ And much good might they do, she had little respect for them. Superintendent H. G. Horris, and the doubtful young policeman, now Inspector Towers, she had taken pains to learn their names. She was worried though, it didn’t sound good. She did not like the idea of the police fussing round.

  But she did not say this aloud, putting all her skill and tact into speeding her guests on their way. When all the party had left, she urged her husband to bed and to sleep; she was worried by his anxious face. You got strokes looking like that. It was in her mind to destroy that tape of the meeting. She didn’t like it. Billy was too innocent for his own good and did not understand the dangers of what he did. ‘Let me have that tape, dear, and stop worrying and go to sleep.’

  ‘I can’t go to sleep now.’

  ‘Don’t worry. The police won’t go to sleep.’ She smiled, but they could be blinded.

  Jim Towers was asleep, but dreaming badly. Heads were rolling all around him, eyes open, tongues wagging.

  H. G. Horris was asleep; he was not dreaming because on a pad by his bed he had made notes of his thoughts, and followed this by mapping out his morrow.

  The investigating team was already in place, dealing with the dead body; in spite of the interference (in private he used a coarser word) of SRADIC, or possibly with the help of it, the identity of the woman would be established.

  Then they would find out how she came to have the child’s head. How and when she died would emerge, and possibly from that he would evolve where. And by whose hand. Not from suicide, the medical evidence made that clear, even if he had thought so for a moment.

  The head and its condition puzzled him, but an answer would come. No fear there, they could be brilliant the scientists. He did not depend on them, but by God, they could be useful.

  The body of the woman was now with the pathologists, the forensic boys were hovering too. The mortuary was her home at present, and would be for some weeks. But there would be an inquest; even if it would have to be adjourned, he was prepared.

  Tomorrow morning, as his notes told him, he would visit the Incident Room, speaking with several of the officers; each day he would choose different ones, in what he hoped was a spontaneous manner but which his subordinates accurately assessed as being on a plan, not alphabetical, they thought. So possibly by age. Or even by the colour of the eyes.

  Then he would go back to the office where he would read all reports, faxes and print-outs. Then he would summon Jim Towers and suggest he took some leave, he had plenty due to him. Or he could call in sick.

  The bloody room and the absence of Emily, if she was still not there, was a problem he would deal with as need arose. Before he went to bed, he sent a message to the Incident Room telling them to send a team round there in the morning and be ready for him.

  Confident in his professional life, convinced that he would outlast the brash newcomer SRADIC, secure in his private life (although unsuspected by him, this was about to burst out), Horris slept peacefully. His private life, which he kept private, he conducted with more licence than was guessed at.

  George Rewley was not asleep, not even in bed, not even thinking about bed, he was walking the streets of Windsor, which he had done many a night since the death of Kate.

  Windsor, as well as being a royal town, was a quiet, respectable one; if anything
violent took place in the streets like vandalism or any affray, it was usual to say: ‘Oh they came from Cheasey’ – that outpost of villainy, or Slough, or Hounslow, or even London. There were rough customers about Windsor at night, but there was something about Rewley’s figure, walking, walking, which repelled any idea of attack even from those high on drink or drugs who might have thought of it.

  However, on this night, the night when Emily’s room had been emptied and bloodstained, he was walking with a practical reason: he was looking for his informer, who had let him down.

  Charmian had deliberately set him to check a series of mundane, boring cases of corruption in a certain local office. She had no intention of involving him in the Flanders Road affair because of the child. No one could stop him thinking about it, though. He had not been in Windsor at the time of the original murder of Alana. If he had been, and if Charmian Daniels had been there, then he thought they would have made a better job of it. He had got out the case records from the original report, read through all the statements, all the questioning of witnesses, all the forensic and medical evidence, and come to the conclusion it was a botched job.

  He couldn’t explain why: everything had been done according to the rules, all done as it should be done, no looseness exactly, but a complete lack of imagination, as if no one mind had ever got to work on the case. It was a team effort which did not come to life.

  He had taken it slowly, over a period of days; he did not neglect his other work, boring as it was. Chosen to be so, he knew Charmian well enough to work that out. He also suspected that one of the reasons the files he needed on the child’s death were not always available to him was because she was studying them. It would be in character, it was what she would do.

  At the end of one day’s work, Rewley had closed the files, and gone to drink coffee in the canteen. Two nights ago now.

  So that was how it was, he thought. The police team seemed obsessed with Margaret Drue on account of her record. It had to be her. Several of them had known her briefly, or seen her around the town and not liked her. Probably she was not likeable, although the evidence of Nancy Bailey was that she was a good and efficient teacher.