Footsteps in the Blood

by Jennie Melville

  The sergeant thought about it, considered Charmian’s rank, her friends and her influence, then said yes.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Charmian to the two young women. Tell me what happened.’

  Four weeks ago, in early September, although it seemed longer, the girl, who called herself Nella Fisher, but was later discovered to be called something quite different – in fact, to have several names, layers of names, you might say, each possibly with a different personality, but for the purposes of this case was Nella Fisher for ever, rang the bell of Kate Cooper’s flat.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Kate Cooper.’ Kate did not know the girl, so she held the door cautiously, only half-open, not inviting the girl inside. She had met some strange characters in her somewhat adventurous life, and this might be one of them. The girl had long fair hair which was falling across her face so that she had to keep brushing it away. A narrow, pale face with dark-brown eyes. The colour of the eyes, so dark, did not match the paleness of her skin and hair, as if she had somehow managed to bleach all colour out of them, leaving only her eyes untouched. She was wearing tight jeans and a baggy shirt. It had been raining, it was the wettest autumn on record, everyone was going around rained on, but this girl looked damp and bedraggled beyond anyone.

  Like a little lost cat that can’t get in from the rain, thought Kate.

  With a rush of compassion that surprised her, she said: ‘You’d better come inside.’

  And the girl was in, silently, without another word. Just like that little cat that didn’t wait for a second asking.

  She offered her name: ‘Nella Fisher.’ Her voice was quiet, the vowels and consonants carefully shaped, as if her natural speech might have been quite other.

  This slight falseness came across to Kate Cooper, who frowned.

  She doesn’t look dangerous, thought Kate. I’m certainly bigger and stronger than she is. Just why do I feel apprehensive then? Distantly, she seemed to hear her godmother warning: Kate, what did I tell you? Look before you leap. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘You. I want to talk. Something I want to tell you.’ She was looking around her. ‘This your place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kate had painted the deep-yellow walls herself and, stippling and marbling being no longer fashionable, had invented a kind of wavy, dragged effect that gave an added dimension to the walls so that the corners seemed to melt into an apricot distance. It made a good background for the black chaise-longue from Milan. So far, except for three big black leather pillows on the floor and a tall green plant on a marble stand, this was all the room contained.

  ‘It’s pretty good.’

  ‘Most people think it’s weird.’

  They don’t know, do they?’ The girl took one small step into the room, not venturing too far. ‘Besides, you’ll be adding to it.’

  ‘Probably not.’ Kate was cool. ‘ So what is it?’

  ‘I don’t know how to put this, but here goes: I think you’re in trouble, and I can help.’

  Kate absorbed the information silently. ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘A man. He’ll rush you if he can. Jump on you.’

  ‘You mean he’ll rape me?’

  ‘Not sure exactly what he’s planning. Or how he’ll do it. I’m not sure what he’s planning.’

  She was repeating herself too much, thought the sceptical Kate. She didn’t look drunk or high on anything, but she certainly seemed to be on a fantasy kick. That was how Kate saw it.

  ‘Has he got in touch with you? Had any messages, any telephone calls?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  The little cat face took on a thoughtful look. ‘Not even sure it’s you he’s after. It might be that other one. The police one.’

  ‘Dolly Barstow?’ The name was bounced out of Kate’s lips in her surprise.

  ‘Is that her name? Yes, her then.’

  ‘If I believe you – and I’m not inclined to – tell me, who is this man?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure if I can tell you that yet. But I’m working on it. Might take some money.’

  ‘Ah.’ Kate thought they were getting somewhere. ‘I don’t buy goods at the door. You’d better go to the police. Tell them what’s worrying you. They’re better at sorting that sort of thing out.’

  If there was anything in it, which she doubted.

  ‘The police?’ The girl laughed. They’ll be the last people to go to.’ She strode to the door. ‘OK, so you won’t listen. More fool you, you might regret it, but I’ll be back. You can pay me then.’

  After she had gone, closing the door quietly behind her, Kate went to the window to watch her leave.

  But like all little lost cats she had disappeared into the undergrowth and was not to be seen.

  She had to have gone somewhere. There was a belt of trees and shrubs surrounding the block of flats and she must have gone into those.

  Unless she had gone to Dolly Barstow.

  Dolly answered the telephone at once, which was so like her, she never wasted a minute. ‘Yes? I’m washing my hair, so be quick. I’m dripping all over the carpet.’ Dolly took her hair and her possessions seriously. Not having been born rich like Kate, she knew they had to be paid for and might not easily be replaced.

  ‘You might be going to be called on by a lunatic. If your doorbell rings, ignore it.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Who is the lunatic?’

  ‘A girl, calls herself Nella Fisher. I thought she was like a little lost cat looking for a home. The name mean anything to you?’

  ‘No, nothing.’ But she did not have the names of all the local lunatics on her personal computer, and there were always new lunatics coming in. ‘What does she want?’

  ‘Money, I think,’ said Kate thoughtfully.

  ‘And what’s her message?’

  ‘That I am in danger from a man. Or it might be you.’

  Next day, September 8, when Dolly came home from work, she found the girl, sitting, her back to the wall, by her front door. The same jeans, the same shirt but with a sweater slung round her shoulders. Today was dry but cold.

  Dolly stared at her, trying to get her measure. ‘ Yes?’ she said carefully. ‘What do you want?’ Not a lost cat, she thought, more like a little cat that has been out hunting and caught something but is not sure how welcome home it is with its prey. A nervous cat?

  ‘To talk to you.’ The same gambit as with Kate, Dolly noticed. ‘I’m Nella Fisher.’ She stood up, thin and undernourished-looking, her fair hair straggling unbrushed down her back, but she had put some lipstick on and her hands were clean. ‘To warn you. There’s someone after you. A man. You are his obsession. I’m almost sure it is you.’

  Dolly did not open her door and ask her inside. She’d be in like a flash, Dolly judged, and maybe hard to get out again. Although I could pick her up and carry her, she thought.

  Instead she laughed. The girl didn’t like being laughed at. Cats don’t.

  ‘Don’t laugh.’

  ‘Nella, this is good advice I am giving you: go away and don’t come back. You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.’

  The girl took a step away. ‘That’s a threat.’

  Dolly shrugged.

  ‘You police are all alike. Well, watch yourself, that’s all I can say.’

  The next day she was back again. This time sitting in Kate’s car, left unlocked as usual.

  ‘You’ll do. You’re the one with money.’

  ‘And that was it?’ Charmian asked.

  ‘Then,’ said Kate. ‘ I didn’t give her any money.’

  She came back again on September 11, Kate explained, and told the tale that she worked part-time in a pub, where she had heard two men talking. They had talked of a third man, a man obsessed with a woman. From what they said, she had identified the woman as either Kate or Dolly.

  Nella said she knew the men by sight, and needed money so that she could drink where they drank and follow them about an
d identify the man that was dangerous. She would not consider going to the police; she said they would be worse than useless. Kate said she hadn’t believed all this, but hadn’t known what to make of it, except that the girl seemed desperate for money.

  So that was the story and now it was a wet October and she was dead.

  Dolly and Charmian looked at Sergeant Bister sitting quietly in the corner, taking it all in. ‘So what did you think it meant?’ asked Charmian.

  ‘You tell me,’ said Kate. ‘Nothing probably. I thought she was a liar. A fantasist. People do make up tales, get to believe them. The silly thing is, I was getting to like her. She called on you for sympathy and somehow I couldn’t help showing it. She knew it, too.’

  Dolly said: ‘I didn’t like the police innuendo, but it probably meant nothing. I agree with Kate that the girl was a liar.’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sergeant Bister relax his shoulders a little. ‘I didn’t like her, by the way. She was never going to win me over, but with me I don’t think she was trying. She said I was going to be the victim, but Kate was the one with the money.’

  ‘I would never have given her any,’ said Kate. ‘Anyway, then it all happened.’

  The girl had come back the next day, and the day after, and every day for almost a fortnight. On the last occasion Kate, returning home, had found her busy at her own front door.

  ‘I thought she was trying to get in. Pick the lock or something. I thought she had a knife. She had something sharp in her hand.’

  Sergeant Bister got up and went to the window to look out, as if disassociating himself from what was being said inside this room.

  Of course, he knows it all anyway, Kate thought. I’ve told the tale to him already. He’s heard it all.

  Kate liked his style. Tom Bister was an attractive man, but they were not meeting as she would have chosen.

  She went on with her tale. ‘She shouted at me. I thought she was going to attack me and I gave her a push. She fell down the stairs, still shouting, and then she ran away.’

  There had been witnesses. The postman delivering a parcel to a flat on the floor above, a florist with a bunch of flowers.

  The postman had testified that Kate had shouted she would kill the girl if she came back. She had a gun and would shoot her.

  ‘Did you say that, Kate?’

  ‘I might have done.’ Kate had a temper and had been known to show violence. ‘And she had cut my hand. I was bleeding. I was very angry.’

  ‘Had you been drinking, Kate?’

  ‘No, certainly not.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘No.’ Kate was vehement. This did not mean that Charmian believed her any more readily, but it meant she accepted the statement for what it was worth at the moment. Private questioning could come later, when Sergeant Bister was out of the way.

  ‘So Nella went away?’

  ‘Yes, I saw she wasn’t really hurt by the fall and I thought that was the end of it.’

  Only it was not.

  Next morning, September 18, Nella Fisher had been found on the lawn in front of the flats, shot dead.

  Her blood and brains oozing out on to the grass.

  ‘Did you have a gun, Kate?’

  In his corner, Sergeant Bister stirred in his self-imposed silence.

  ‘I did have one. I bought it in India last year.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I was frightened of snakes.’

  ‘Do you have a licence?’

  ‘No.’ Kate looked unhappy. ‘ Didn’t seem important.’ Charmian made an irritated noise. ‘ What sort of gun, was it?’ Sergeant Bister looked interested.

  Kate sounded flustered. She stumbled her words. ‘I don’t know … I didn’t really look.’

  On that next morning the girl had been seen by a local resident out walking his dog. She had been found just a minute before which was his bad luck because otherwise he would never have seen her, she was hidden by the bushes.

  ‘I always wondered what happened to her when she was away from here,’ said Kate. ‘What she was like when she was on her own. Where she went.’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ asked Charmian quite savagely. ‘ She went home. Home was one room on the outskirts of Slough industrial estate. Not a prime residential area. She had a bed, and a table and sink, no bath, no lavatory, they were down the hall. She had photographs of you two stuck up on the wall.’

  Kate looked surprised.

  ‘Also one of me.’

  A rare, vivid shot of Chief Superintendent Charmian Daniels looking well dressed.

  In the silence, Sergeant Bister stood up. My turn now, his stance said silently. He didn’t need to speak.

  Kate said in a voice which she was controlling but could not prevent sounding nervous: ‘I’ll do this on my own, please, Charmian.’

  ‘Kate,’ began Dolly.

  ‘You too, Dolly. There’s coffee in the kitchen.’

  In the kitchen, Dolly said: ‘All this may not be what it seems.’

  ‘Go on. Coffee with milk or without?’ Charmian listened as she poured the coffee.

  ‘I wasn’t quite straight in there when I said I didn’t accept the police innuendo, and that she was a liar. She may have been, but I think she did know something.’

  ‘You’d better explain yourself, Dolly.’ Charmian felt that tight feeling at the pit of the stomach that told her she wasn’t going to like what was coming.

  Dolly wandered round the kitchen, cup in hand. She too was nervous. ‘I hope this kitchen isn’t bugged.’

  ‘Come on, now.’

  ‘Joke.’ She drank some coffee. ‘Well, here it is. For some time now, and for various good reasons, I have thought that we have a bad apple in the barrel here.’

  ‘Are you talking about police corruption?’

  Dolly nodded, without saying any more.

  Charmian said in the most unfriendly tone that Dolly had ever heard from her: ‘And these various good reasons?’

  Dolly said: ‘Can we go into that later? All I want to say now is that I think I may be the only person with direct, seen-with-my-own-eyes evidence.’

  Charmian studied her face, checking it for conviction, for sincerity. She liked Dolly, trusted her, but this was dangerous talk.

  ‘You mean you saw something or someone?’

  ‘With my own eyes.’

  ‘So you have a name?’

  For the first time, Dolly hesitated. ‘I think so.’ She flushed a little. ‘I could explain all this better later. Not here.’

  She nodded towards the next room, indicating Sergeant Bister.

  ‘And you think this Nella girl knew? And that was what she wanted paying for?’

  ‘Yes. I was the one threatened. She more-or-less told Kate the victim was probably me. A policewoman, she said that. And I have been prowling around certain quarters, I may have been noticed. Probably was. I have felt threatened.’

  ‘Even before she spoke to you and Kate?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dolly nodded. ‘But I thought I was imagining it.’

  ‘And you think she was killed because she knew something and was going to tell you? To shut her mouth?’

  Dolly shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  Charmian put her coffee cup down. It didn’t taste so good now, as if Kate had made it that morning and let it stand, slowly gathering heat and bitterness.

  From the window she could see the rain hitting the trees, making the leaves bend downward.

  ‘I wonder why she wanted paying?’ she speculated. ‘Did she look mercenary to you?’

  ‘Look? Who knows about looks? She looked a loser. Yes, I think she did need some money. I thought she might be on drugs. Have a habit that needed keeping up, but the pathologists say no, she was clean.’

  ‘What did you make of the girl?’

  Dolly considered. ‘She’d been around. She had a kind of used-up look. But I sensed ambition.’ She shook her head. ‘Or a strong emotion of some sort. Something was powering her.’

>   Charmian turned back from the window. ‘ Damn Kate for having a gun.’

  Dolly gave a half-smile. ‘That’s Kate.’

  ‘You can’t blame her, she’s been spoiled. Look at her parents. I admire her mother, and respect her work, but her father must have been difficult to grow up with.’

  Annie and Jack had had a difficult marriage. On and off, sometimes quarrelling, sometimes together. Annie had always had more money than Jack.

  ‘You know he made a pass at me at a party?’ Dolly said.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Laughed. He hated it.’

  Charmian poured some more coffee and went back to the subject in hand. She had slapped Jack’s face once herself. Of course, Annie did not know. Or did she?

  ‘All the same, Kate’s gun cannot have been used to shoot the girl.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Dolly.

  ‘As soon as it’s examined that will show up.’

  ‘The sooner the better in that case. Neither of us enjoys being under suspicion of murder.’

  ‘It can’t be anything to do with you,’ said Charmian.

  ‘You’d be surprised how it rubs off.’

  Charmian drank the coffee and listened for sounds from the next room. She could hear Sergeant Bister’s deeper tones, but could not make out what he was saying, and once or twice she thought she heard Kate laugh.

  Laughter seemed unlikely in the circumstances, but that seemed to be what she heard. Yes, there it was again, a low rumble from Bister and a short laugh from Kate.

  Dolly could hear it too and didn’t seem to like it. Kate was just sure enough of herself and her attractions to think she could get away with things with Tom Bister.

  Charmian didn’t like the laughter either and she frowned. Sometimes you didn’t know where you were with Kate.

  But the Kate she loved couldn’t have shot that girl, whatever the provocation. In the past Kate had been capable of showing violent anger, but she had matured and grown wiser. Her character had seemed to become as lovely and graceful as her looks.

  No, it was impossible to think of the mirthful, vibrant girl who had shared her house in Maid of Honour Row for a season as a killer.