The Morbid Kitchen

by Jennie Melville

  ‘What will you do now about your informer?’ she asked Rewley.

  He shrugged. ‘ Just wait. Not much else I can do.’

  ‘You will have to tell HG … not that there’s much to tell …’

  ‘He or she had a kind of seamless face, I suppose that was the mask.’ Rewley frowned. ‘It wasn’t a mask, of course, but something painted on like a clown only more so. Plaster white … A disconcerting face, I found myself looking away, as you do with a scarred or malformed face … I wasn’t sure what was underneath that face.’

  Charmian let him go on without interruption.

  ‘I have a feeling about the person inside that face … the voice with all its changes might be the clue … There is a biography in that voice.’

  ‘That’s quite a speech you are making,’ said Charmian drily. Rewley always had insights, perhaps it would be wiser to let him go, waiting for his informer, trawling in what information he could. H. G. Horris might be grateful.

  Rewley looked at her as if she might say something on that point, but she took a sideways step. ‘You are not the only one with an informant … only mine gave a name. Dr Yeldon telephoned to say he wanted to talk to me, to tell me something.’

  ‘He knew the school. He was the school doctor.’

  ‘I know. His name was in the file.’

  ‘I wonder what he wants. I can tell you something, he knows about Emily being missing, he was round at her place last night. Late. Somehow he had got to know there was trouble and went there to ask.’

  ‘And that was when you got the wreath?’ Charmian looked at where Rewley had placed it on her desk. ‘I suppose it had better go to HG for inspection. There might be fingerprints but I doubt if they will help. I’d say it was lifted from the crematorium or a cemetery and the funeral had been a few days ago.’

  They drank some more coffee, then Rewley went off. Charmian dealt with some routine tasks, made a few telephone calls, received several, then cancelled a visit to London.

  Humphrey was already in that city, he had left early with a cautionary word to her before he left. ‘ Keep out of the Bailey affair, leave it to Horris. I don’t like the feel of it, I think you might regret getting mixed up in it.’

  He saw her face and gave a groan. You aren’t going to take any notice, are you?’

  ‘I can’t, I am in it, it’s the job.’

  ‘Look at what you’ve got: a murder years ago in horrible circumstances of a child, unsolved, but the police think they know the killer but they can’t prove it; the suspect has disappeared or at any rate they don’t find her. It’s a bodged up job, and there’s probably a reason for that if you can find it.’

  Charmian looked at him gravely. ‘Precisely why I am interested.’

  ‘Not precisely, if you are being honest, but emotionally … Now the child’s head has been discovered with a dead woman, and now the girl Emily, who was not a pupil at the school but whose sister owned it, has taken herself off.’

  ‘Or been taken.’

  ‘As you will. It’s all a bloody business and I’d like you out of it.’

  ‘Not a hope.’

  They had parted lovingly; it was amazing how domestic fondness grew on you.

  At the door he had paused again; ‘You had a telephone call early this morning? I heard the name Yeldon.’

  ‘Dr Yeldon wants to talk to me.’

  ‘Then let him. He’s a good man. What he wants to say must be worth hearing.’

  She had given him an extra warm kiss and told herself she might and might not. Probably she would have put Dr Yeldon off, but life and Winnie Eagle arranged that she did not.

  They entered together, Miss Eagle first, the more apologetic figure of Dr Yeldon second. Charmian had advance warning of their arrival from the flustered voice of her secretary in the outer room, the words ‘Miss Daniels … Must not disturb …’, followed by Winifred’s commanding ‘Nonsense’. No one said ‘Nonsense’ like Miss Eagle, she came over like one of the stronger and most articulate ladies in a Shaw play. Indeed, Charmian had wondered if she had been an actress in one of her earlier manifestations. She claimed to have had several lives, and there were times when Charmian came close to believing her. Hearing her clear tones today uttering the words ‘Justice and Priority’, she could see her as Lady Britomart, say, or even St Joan; and seeing her march through the door in her tweeds and knickerbockers, Charmian felt she might have been George Bernard Shaw himself in one of those lives. But did the time-scales match? How old was Winifred? Impossible to tell.

  ‘Charmian!’ As Winnie swept in and Dr Yeldon slid in after her, Charmian thought: No, not Bernard Shaw but Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. ‘I need to talk to you and Billy here feels the same. We are concerned about Emily, we have both heard that she is missing.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you would have heard.’

  ‘After all, you did ask us, Birdie and me, to look after the girl, I feel I can claim an interest.’

  ‘But you haven’t come just to say that.’

  From where she sat, Charmian could see down the street where Dr Yeldon’s car was parked with Maud Yeldon sitting in it like a sergeant-major. Poor Dr Yeldon, between Winifred and his wife, his freedom for action must be limited. From what little she had seen of Maud Yeldon, she found her alarming.

  ‘My wife didn’t want me to come, she thinks I am fussing. You won’t find her, she said. They are too clever for that.’

  ‘She said that, did she?’

  ‘Yes, however she drove us here. I don’t drive any longer … little trouble with my eyesight.’

  And Winifred uses a broomstick, of course.

  ‘Last night we had a meeting of all those who still remember the school and the terrible events there. The Bailey family had and still has friends, even if the only ones of them left are Emily and a cousin in Scotland. She has her own importance and significance.’ He was being wordy and Winifred shifted irritably in her seat. ‘If it hadn’t been for her, the basement room might never have been opened up. Not for many more years, I don’t believe Emily would have done it alone. My belief is that a prohibition was laid upon her by her sister. I think she promised.’

  ‘You think so?’ Charmian said absently.

  ‘She more or less said so to me when I charged her once with leaving the house to decay when so many people are homeless.’

  ‘Wonder that place did not have squatters in it.’ Winifred put in her piece.

  ‘I believe they did for a few weeks once … Young couple with a child … moved out when they heard what had happened there.’

  ‘About Emily,’ said Charmian. ‘I know nothing more. Superintendent Horris is the man in charge. He may tell you more.’ Or he may not, Horris not being one to pass on information.

  ‘I went round to the house last night, our little meeting had heard there was police activity … No one was there but a very offhand young man. I came back and I told my wife that I could not leave it there.’

  And he was not going to if he could help it, Charmian could see as much. She looked at Winifred.

  ‘We cannot, you know,’ Winifred said. ‘ Birdie and I are doing what we can … meditating, trying to tap into Emily’s mind … Birdie was up all night, she is resting this morning, which is why she is not with us now.’

  ‘No message came through?’ said Charmian with sympathy; she had had experience of Birdie and her mind messages, they worked better with dogs than humans and she had twice got a message that Benjy was parked outside a bitch’s house in Woodside. Not so good with cats, in fact no good at all, cats seemed to be what Birdie called ‘ naturally thick-brained’, impervious, in other words.

  ‘No message, just a sensation of discomfort, evil,’ said Winnie gravely. ‘Which is why I am here now. The girl is in trouble, she may be in pain.’

  Charmian thought about the blood. Very likely Emily was suffering, she thought. She might be dead or dying. How long did it take you to make up a loss of blood?

  Winnie
looked at Dr Yeldon with meaning.

  ‘Yes, it is why I am here too,’ he said. ‘At our meeting last night …’ he broke off in a way which Winnie for one plainly found maddening. ‘Yes, it is certainly heavy on my mind.’

  Winnie said briskly: ‘Come on, Billy, out with it, or I will. You aren’t in medical practice now, dealing with a matter of confidence.’

  Billy Yeldon plunged in: ‘At our meeting, Eddy Bell said that, told us …’

  ‘Under pressure from Eleanor Fraser,’ put in Winifred. ‘I wouldn’t call him keen to tell us.’

  Charmian waited patiently.

  ‘Eddy told us that Emily had told him that she feared for herself … she thought someone was after her.’

  Charmian absorbed the news, and looked down at the virgin blotter on her desk. She favoured a strong red blotting-paper and these days of word-processors and faxes, fewer and fewer letters arrived on it to be blotted.

  Emily had probably been justified in her fears.

  ‘So who was after her? Did Eddy say?’ Or would he say, if Charmian herself questioned him? What sort of a witness was he? Better tell H. G. Horris too.

  ‘Didn’t say … but we think, I think, that it might be Margaret Drue.’

  There it was again, that name, that figure in the shadows.

  ‘We know that she is not the dead woman … word has got around. I take it is right, this story that it is some other person? But a woman?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charmian.

  ‘Not identified?’ This was Winifred.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Charmian.

  ‘Maybe never?’

  ‘I think that is unlikely.’ This was the professional police line always and, give or take a few unlucky corpses, true.

  ‘Of course, I expect you know a lot you are not telling us.’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  Outside, she could see Maud Yeldon get out of the car to pace up and down the pavements. ‘ Your wife is getting impatient.’

  ‘Born that way,’ said Winifred. She stood up. ‘But I suppose we should go … Come on, Billy, we’ve done what we came to do … told Charmian and stirred things up a bit.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you came to do?’

  ‘It is occasionally necessary,’ said Winifred with dignity. ‘And a citizen’s right.’

  And a witch’s absolute necessity, Charmian thought, stirring things up.

  ‘But there is one other thing …’ Here she offered to Charmian her crocodile smile, testimony to the skill of her dentist. ‘Billy, this is for you … the tape. Hand it over.’

  Dr Yeldon began to fumble in his pockets. ‘ Not this one, nor that … where did I put it, Winifred? Perhaps I gave it to Maud.’

  ‘Heaven help you, Billy,’ said Winifred with detachment.

  ‘Ah, here it is. I have it.’

  ‘What is this?’ Charmian took the tape from him. It was a home production, she could see that much.

  ‘It’s a little thing I do,’ said Dr Yeldon with a seraphic smile. ‘ I like to have my tape-recorder for important occasions … I picked up the habit in the surgery when it was sometimes very valuable to be able to go back and listen to the patient’s voice and description of his or her symptoms … All confidential, of course, I destroyed them at the proper time. I picked up odd noises as well that could be useful in knowing what was going on in the surgery,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Amazingly sensitive some of these machines … I suppose you could call it bugging the surgery,’ he ended wistfully. ‘Is that illegal?’

  Charmian shook her head. ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Get on with it, Billy,’ said Winifred.

  Thus prompted, Dr Yeldon said that what he had handed over was a tape of their meeting. He thought she might like to have it, to hear for herself what Eddy had said about Emily’s fears, and judge. ‘Winifred says that Eddy is a liar, I don’t think he is.’

  ‘A bit of one,’ said Winifred.

  Charmian looked at the tape: Street Party, it said, with yesterday’s date. ‘If you think it important, then Superintendent Horris should have it.’

  ‘Not approachable,’ said Billy Yeldon. ‘ You are. There is that man Towers, but then he is part of the scene to my mind.’

  A shrewd observation, Charmian thought.

  ‘And not too stable,’ said the medical man, giving judgement. ‘Sorry to say it but I think so.’

  Shrewd again, Charmian thought, but she did not comment.

  ‘Right, I will listen to it, and let him have it. Agreed? And I will talk to Eddy Bell myself.’

  In a secret, gleeful kind of way, she knew she did not mind interfering with HG.

  Maud Yeldon was still pacing up and down.

  Winifred stood up. ‘Let me know when you hear anything about Emily.’

  ‘Certainly. I’m sorry I dragged you and Birdie into it.’

  ‘Don’t be silly I knew the girl. Glad to help. Hope she turns up.’ She added bluntly: ‘And in one piece.’

  Charmian watched them leave, and stood at the window to see all three of them drive off, Maud Yeldon driving. A memory stirred. ‘Knew her once. Think I did,’ she mused. ‘It’ll come back.’ Memory worked like that, you couldn’t switch it on at will but when you were least expecting it, then there the missing answer was.

  She took the tape out to her secretary. ‘Get this copied, then give me the copy, and send the original round to Superintendent Horris in the Incident Room. Put a note in with it to say that Dr Yeldon left it with me, because he thought I might be interested.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Daniels, straight away.’ She had a pleasant voice this new girl, Charmian thought, and nice smile.

  ‘And the wreath … have you sent it round to the Superintendent for inspection?’

  ‘I rang him up and he said to send it straight round to the Forensic Laboratory … he was going to there himself, but he doesn’t expect anything from it. Thinks it just a silly joke by someone.’

  ‘Right, I’ll have the copy of the tape when it’s ready.’

  She went back into her own room to deal with the routine stuff already piling up. Two anxious and not totally normal men on my hands, she thought as she signed letters. Jim Towers, and George Rewley, both for different reasons not quite themselves.

  It was late afternoon when HG telephoned. ‘Didn’t get much from that florist wreath … don’t suppose you expected it, but the lab boys have found nothing except traces of other flowers. Nicked from a grave somewhere, they think, and so do I.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘I’d say some bugger’s silly joke, but it has to be someone who knew Emily Bailey was missing, so the jury is still out on that one. If I have any great thoughts I will let you know. Do the same for me, will you?’

  ‘Unless she sent it herself.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘A weird scenario if so, but the whole thing is weird. Are you serious?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  She heard him draw in a breath, and there were noises off: men talking, telephones ringing. He was back in the Incident Room.

  ‘I can tell you something: the child’s head …’ Yes, that had been worrying her … ‘It had been kept under refrigeration. Frozen, in short.’

  ‘Boiled first, then refrigerated?’

  ‘The other way round, he thinks. Probably done in the stove in the Bailey basement. Yes, not nice, is it, but the heads that the old public hangmen boiled in the Morbid Kitchen and then put on display were cooked with various salts in the water. Our Joey, whoever, hadn’t got such. Or didn’t know how. But did have a freezer. That’s modern times for you.’

  ‘I wonder why it had to be kept?’

  ‘Who knows? Just for company, maybe. That’s what they say, isn’t it?’

  ‘And where?’

  ‘That’s the question. Find that out and we will be on the way to a lot of answers, but the forensics are going to try for traces of where it might have been. So let’s keep hoping. By the way, thanks for the tape,
I haven’t played it yet.’

  ‘I don’t know what use it will be.’

  ‘Worth a try.’ HG was being very jovial for him. ‘One other thing: it seemed that the body of the woman had been in situ maybe in the cupboard, probably elsewhere, somewhere she got wood dust on her, for years. She was dried, a mummy, because of the conditions there.’

  ‘Do you mean she was there when the Baileys boarded up the room?’

  ‘No, probably not. Because I had the boarding checked and although Eddy Bell had made a fair hash of it with his chisel, it looks as though it had been taken down and put up again more than once.’ He added by way of explanation, ‘Marks on the wood, holes, scrapes, that sort of thing.’

  ‘That is interesting. Good work, HG.’

  ‘It’s not exactly a big step forward, but it sort of fills in the picture. Oh, one other thing: I have sent Jim Towers on leave. He came in today looking a total wreck and I sent him off.’

  Charmian absorbed this news. ‘You probably did the right thing.’

  ‘I know I did.’ HG did not mention Dolly Barstow, but he certainly knew of the relationship. ‘You will get all the reports and all in the regular way of business.’

  ‘I have been pondering on the identity of the woman whose body was found,’ she began.

  ‘Nothing on her body of much help,’ said the Superintendent cautiously, ‘ except the newspaper cutting with a picture of you and the message. It suggests certain things.’

  It does indeed, thought Charmian, apart from the fact she knew my name. If the message was a message and was meant for me. ‘Can I come round and talk to you?’

  ‘Certainly, ma’am.’ HG was suddenly more formal. ‘ Delighted to have you. Or I could come to you?’

  ‘I’ll walk over to the Incident Room.’

  It was a warm afternoon and she wanted some air. The path of the Incident Room (now transferred from the van outside the old Bailey house in Flanders Street where it had started out) lay across one quiet back road and into a paved yard. The yard was full of parked cars through which she threaded her way.

  Once you have seen one incident room, you have seen them all, she reflected as she pushed open the door, yet each does have its own peculiar flavour.