Footsteps in the Blood

by Jennie Melville

  He lived above his own premises, Keyright Employment, which was two doors down from the grocer’s, so he had not far to go.

  As he let himself in, he reflected that he must have the girl’s address on his files and that this might be information the police would want, but no doubt they had their own means of finding out where she had lived. She had told him her name was Ella Waters, although he later discovered that this was false.

  He poured a bowl of milk for the dog and started to boil an egg for his own breakfast. Coffee came out of a jar and was easy. He had looked after himself since his mother died, finding a simple pleasure in the task. She had been a good cook, he was a poor one, but he liked his own food. He liked burned toast (which he got regularly every morning), hard-boiled eggs and lukewarm coffee.

  Later that day, having put in a routine appearance in his office, he invented an excuse and drove to Nella Fisher’s address, a backstreet in that undiscovered country between Windsor and Slough. It had once been a swamp, avoided by Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans alike, only to be pioneered by the Victorians. There he stared, in what, he shamefacedly admitted, was idle curiosity, at the outside of the house.

  All seemed quiet, although there must be some police activity going on inside. It was a nice little house, even if somewhat neglected and in need of paint. He had no idea what conditions Nella had lived there or how many rooms she had had the use of. A bedsit, probably, Nella – or Ella – was a natural inhabitant of bedsit land, and might even have graduated to being completely homeless altogether or the inhabitant of a cardboard box.

  Probably just as well she died, he thought. Nothing to look forward to but down.

  Nearly three weeks after this, when the inquest was over and Nella’s body released to be buried, the door of her room was still locked and the key in the police’s possession.

  But Charmian had got the use of it. She had been in the room once before, the day following the funeral, but she had not lingered. To get a key had required several telephone calls and some careful negotiation.

  Now she wanted another look round.

  She had permission to take an interest in the case. The phrase ‘active interest’was not used, but the powers-that-be had no illusion that Charmian’s interest would be anything less, but there was a tacit warning to her to be tactful.

  She owed this permission to her friendship with Chief Inspector Father, who trusted her, and to the further fact that she had been offered the position of head of a special unit, newly created within the Force, and that it was desirable she accepted. A certain pressure had been put on Father from above.

  Permission to stand in on the investigation into the death of Nella Fisher was a sweetener to Charmian to accept the new post. Of course, she wasn’t allowed to prowl around on her own, she had a kind of watcher with her. But she had pulled more strings to get George Rewley.

  Only afterwards did it strike her that maybe he too had been pulling strings to get that position for himself. He liked Kate Cooper, he liked her a lot.

  Sergeant George Rewley, a colleague of Dolly Barstow’s, had met Kate in Charmian’s house over a year ago, and for some months their friendship had rolled along merrily, but then he had been called away to work with a drug control unit in the North of England, handing on advice and techniques, and when he came back somehow he had found it hard to get on terms with Kate again. She seemed to have drawn away. Not a man to stay around where he was not welcomed, he had thrown himself into his work and tried to forgot her. Since they were a small CID force and he was in close contact with Dolly Barstow this was not easy, as he was obliged to hear talk of Kate, especially after their move to adjoining flats. He knew Dolly was curious about the split between them but she never asked questions.

  Just a well, he told himself, because I wouldn’t know the answer. He was usually good at reading between the lines, the unspoken conversations, the words that didn’t get uttered. He had lost the knack with Kate Cooper. Perhaps he had liked her too much.

  Now he stood with Charmian in Nella Fisher’s room in the little sidestreet between Cheasey and Slough, geographically close to Eton and Windsor but socially a world apart.

  They had met as if they had been working together for days, just a casual nod and ‘Shall we get on with it?’ from Rewley and a nod in response from Charmian.

  She looked particularly unsmiling.

  ‘How’s Kate?’ he asked as they plodded up the stairs. The house, a rented one, was currently unoccupied. The young married couple who had illegally sublet a room to Nella had moved out in a hurry when she was killed. No rent had been paid on either side for some time. The landlord was looking for them.

  ‘All right. Back home.’

  ‘Bearing up?’ He felt he had to ask.

  ‘Being Kate. Things seem to wash over her sometimes.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Bister kept her a long while for questioning, but the gun she handed over was not the gun that killed Nella so there wasn’t much they could do but let her home.’ Charmian added, ‘Also her mother had laid on a team of very expensive lawyers.’

  ‘I know that too.’

  ‘And Jack, you know Jack?’ Jack was Kate’s father. ‘He went down and threatened to beat up Bister if they didn’t let his daughter alone. He was drunk, of course. I don’t know why they didn’t arrest him.’

  ‘CI Father wanted to but Bister said it was beneath his dignity.’

  Charmian added, ‘ The leather bag with the gun seemed to have held a second object which looked alarmingly gun-shaped. Kate says it was some toilet article. But I know Father has having the whole object gone over for forensic traces.’

  Rewley looked amused. ‘All he’s found so far is talcum powder. And tobacco.’

  ‘Just tobacco?’ asked Charmian, meaning no drug traces of any sort.

  ‘Just tobacco. That’s why he let her go.’

  He opened the door of Nella Fisher’s room. ‘Here we are.’

  ‘What a fug, still smells, doesn’t it?’ Charmian wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Yes, she smoked a lot. Pot as well as virginia.’ Rewley went over and opened a window. ‘Not a girl who took a lot of care of her things,’ he said as he looked about him.

  They both stood silent for a moment, absorbing what they saw. Experienced police officers, both of them knew how important those first impressions of a room, a murder scene, or a person were. Sometimes you got a flash of insight.

  ‘I’d like to get some sort of idea of Nella Fisher,’ murmured Charmian.

  The room had been untidy before the police team moved in to search and they had not improved things, emptying drawers and leaving the cupboard door swinging. The wall beside the bed was stuck with posters, pictures cut from magazines and scribbles of dates, addresses and telephone numbers. Nella had used it as a kind of jotting pad.

  ‘They didn’t find anything, though,’ said Rewley. ‘Nothing to help, that is. The late young lady kept no written records. No diary, no notes of whom she’d met and no letters.’

  Charmian stooped to pick up a sweatshirt – it was torn but clean. ‘You wouldn’t expect it, would you?’ she asked, moving round the room. She stepped over a pile of jeans and skirts, clean again even if creased.

  ‘I’d expect a few letters,’ said Rewley.

  ‘Listen, I’ve had countless girls like Nella through my hands in my working life and they are not girls who write letters or get them.’

  ‘I’d have expected her to have a bit of paper around – remember, she was a girl who tried to get herself educated – but there’s nothing.’

  Charmian stared at him. She went to a table by the bed.

  ‘She’s got pencils, though,’ said Rewley, following her gaze. ‘And a biro.’

  ‘Are you telling me this room was searched before the police got here?’

  Rewley shrugged, ‘Could be.’

  ‘What do Bister and Father think?’

  ‘They haven’t told me. But I wouldn
’t be surprised if they think what we do that someone’s had a look-see all on their own.’

  ‘Mm.’ Charmian sat down on the bed to consider. ‘And do they think Kate was the searcher?’

  ‘They will do if they can match a few prints.’

  ‘I hope Kate hasn’t been here,’ said her godmother thoughtfully. She looked round the room, which was small and narrow. It contained nothing but a bed, a table and several chairs, with a cupboard against the wall for clothes. There were no faculties for washing or cooking, except a sink into which no water ran, so Nella must have shared the kitchen and the bathroom with her landlady. A mug with a sediment of what had once been coffee suggested that she did. Oddly, the sense of Nella was strong in the room and Charmian found herself thinking, Poor girl, poor girl.

  Rewley went over to the window through which a fresh breeze was blowing together with a burst of rain. ‘We are both fond of Kate, but do we both get the impression that Kate is not telling us all she knows?’ He drew down the window with a bang.

  ‘Yes,’ said Charmian.

  ‘Any idea what she’s keeping to herself?’

  ‘None. And I didn’t know you’d spoken to her.’

  ‘On the telephone,’ he said. ‘And she was not forthcoming. What about Dolly, she have any ideas? She’s as close to Kate as anyone at the moment.’

  ‘Dolly is on her knees thanking Providence she was away that night when Nella was killed and so keeping her clean.’

  Charmian went over to the table where Nella’s few household chattels were laid out: a knife and fork, two spoons, both plastic, the sort that come with bottles of medicine, and a small coloured tin that had been used as an ashtray by the look of it.

  ‘And do you get the impression,’ said Rewley, ‘that our Dolly has something on her mind that she isn’t talking about?’

  It was a shrewd comment, and Charmian, who knew something, if not everything, of what was worrying Dolly, said nothing.

  ‘So she is,’ said Rewley.

  He was skilled at reading faces and body movements. The only hearing member of his family, he had learned to lipread as they did, and to respond to almost imperceptible body movements. He had developed this skill at first as a kind of game, and now, as an aid to his profession. He kept quiet about his ability but word got around. He caused some alarm and even awe among his fellows, who seemed to attribute extrasensory powers to him, none of which he would have claimed for himself.

  ‘She’s talked to you,’ he said.

  ‘Not said a lot.’

  Rewley laughed. ‘If it’s what I think it is that’s worrying her, she wouldn’t. Caution is our Dolly’s second name.’

  Charmian was surprised. ‘I don’t know if I want to go over this.’

  ‘I doubt if Dolly suspects me of being on the take.’

  ‘So you do know what it’s about.’

  ‘Just guessing.’

  But with Rewley, guessing was brought to a fine art. It was more than just guessing, he had a way or arriving at a conclusion having noticed the markers on the path before anyone else.

  Charmian wondered what signs he had detected. Probably the same as Dolly. And if Dolly Barstow and Rewley, then who else? Dolly was no doubt wise to be both nervous and on guard.

  ‘Does Dolly think this murder has something to do with that business?’

  ‘The idea has occurred to her,’ admitted Charmian, picking up one of the spoons. ‘And she doesn’t like it.’

  ‘She thinks that the man whom Nella claimed was threatening her and Kate, and whose identity she was prepared to divulge on payment, was a bent copper who killed Nella because she was a threat?’

  ‘That’s it. And she isn’t too keen to talk about this theory.’

  ‘Don’t blame her.’

  Charmian got up and moved closer to three photographs stuck on the wall where Nella could have seen them as she lay in bed.

  One was of Kate with her mother which had appeared in a local newspaper. They were standing together at an exhibition of Annie Cooper’s painting and pottery. It was a good photograph of them both, and Kate was easily recognisable.

  The second was of Dolly Barstow. This too had been cut from a local newspaper, Charmian judged. From the look of it, and the woman on the platform with her, Dolly had been photographed giving a talk to a local women’s group.

  Next to these pictures was one of Chief Superintendent Charmian Daniels, leaving court after having given evidence. She had appeared particularly well groomed that day, and looked a forceful, elegant figure.

  ‘If someone searched this room, they didn’t touch the picture gallery,’ said George Rewley. ‘ Want them taken down?’

  ‘No, but I’d just like to know why I am there.’

  ‘Because you knew the other two?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Charmian turned away. ‘That picture was taken after I’d given evidence in a porn case.’ A big case, she had got a lot of publicity, because she had caught a really nasty ring of pederasts and child abusers. She had started getting obscene letters and porn in the post herself after that.

  ‘It’s a good photograph. Want to look around any more?’

  ‘No, I think I’ve seen all I want to.’

  Rewley shut the window, locking it into position. ‘I don’t believe anyone has been into this room taking things out. Doesn’t feel like it somehow. Maybe she kept any letters somewhere else.’

  ‘Where, for instance?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I’ll enquire around. But she might have been the sort that throws all letters away.’

  ‘Not the impression you get from this room, is it? Oh well, let’s go. Come round to Dolly’s tonight. I’ll see Kate is there as well. We can talk.’

  On the way out, she trod on something that was sticking out from under the bed. She picked it up. It was a blood donor’s card. Nella’s name and the date of her last attendance at the hospital were inscribed. She had given blood on an afternoon not long before she had died.

  It told her more about Nella Fisher than anything else she had seen. An empty room, but not an empty girl.

  A girl with some heart. An eye to the main chance, not very clever, but she was struggling, and trying to offer what she had.

  Chapter Four

  Earlier on Friday, October 6

  Dolly Barstow had seen, and got her hands on, a copy of the outline of Nella Fisher’s last two days which had been put together by Sergeant Bister’s team. He had thought this survey important as establishing where she was and what she was doing. In his method of work he liked to know the victim’s movements. Ten to one, he used to say, the victim and the murderer will have met in that period. It gives you a start.

  You needed a start with Nella, Dolly thought. The girl had had a restless few days.

  She ran her eye down the page. Just a catalogue, really. Not much flesh on the bones.

  The day before she died, Nella had taken a bus ride to Windsor. It was not known what she had done there, but the driver of the small local bus, which ran in a shuttle around the town, remembered that she had got on the bus at the Merrywick-Slough roundabout, just before the motorway junction, and had ridden in with him as far as Peascod Street where she had alighted. She had waved to him and said ‘ See you on the way back,’ but he didn’t remember seeing her again; still, he had gone off duty at midday in any case. The relief driver did not remember seeing Nella who could have walked back to Cheasey, or hitched a ride. Her lodging was midway between the edge of Slough and Windsor, on the bus route to Merrywick and just in the postal district of Cheasey. She had never moved far from home.

  There were a couple of sightings of someone who might be Nella Fisher later that day. A family taking their children for an outing reported seeing a girl who answered to her description in the tea-room of the Windsor Safari Park, She was weeping but refused any offer of help. Didn’t need any, she had said. Rebuffed, The Sadler family, mother, father and two children, had gone away. Strangely enou
gh, weeping girls are not uncommon so it may not have been Nella.

  On that same day, she had also popped into the polytechnic in Windsor for some food (she still ate in the canteen there in spite of having been turned out twice), then used her library ticket, taking out two books. They were found in her room after her death. Poetry and a novel by Thomas Hardy: Tess of the d’Urbervilles, a tragic story of the death of a young girl.

  In the evening of that day, she had, if the observers were correct, drunk in several local pubs. How drink and drugs and a feeling for Thomas Hardy went together in the same girl was something that puzzled Sergeant Bister. No. Dolly Barstow, however. Poor kid, she thought. On the next day, which was September 17, the day of her death, she had taken the shuttle bus into Windsor once again.

  She had been observed walking over Eton Bridge.

  She had gone into an antique shop in the High Street.

  She had been seen looking in the window of a bookshop.

  She had walked to Merrywick and visited the Keyright Employment Agency where once again she was turned away. No job for such as she. But did she really want one? The owner, who was getting seriously fed up with Nella, doubted it.

  Then she had walked back to Windsor and taken a train to Staines and then come back again. Since there seemed no reason for this journey there probably was not one, just filling in time. She had managed not to buy a ticket so no money had been spent. She had so very little of that and precious little time either …

  She must have walked back to Merrywick because, of course, on this day she called on Kate Cooper once again.

  And in the evening of this day, or possibly in the early morning of the next, she had been shot.

  The post-mortem examination, when carried out, had revealed that she had died from just one shot which had penetrated the brain. Most of the bleeding had been internal. She had been a healthy young woman of some sexual experience, but she had never had a child.