Footsteps in the Blood

by Jennie Melville

They had found another body.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunday, October 15

  The sober and respectable citizens of Windsor, Eton and Merrywick took the discovery of another body with shock. They felt a sense of outrage. The murder of Nella Fisher had been absorbed with interest and some pity, but after all, she came from Cheasey and everyone knew about Cheasey. However, the death of WS Margery Foggerty was received in respectful silence since it was known that the police lived different lives and might face different pressures. A lot of people (although none of those who had known Marg herself) assumed it must be suicide. But when the bones were uncovered in the earth of what had once been a meadow, there was an unpleasant sensation. Not exactly alarm, but a feeling that this should not be happening here. The inhabitants of Merrywick felt a particular distaste for murder on their doorstep: it might lower the value of property.

  Some people, of course, frankly enjoyed it.

  Old Mrs Beadle, one of the few truly old inhabitants of Merrywick, since she had lived all her life in her cottage and seen the building of the smart squares and terraces on what had been farmland, found it an entertainment beyond her expectations. A television crew had arrived to film the scene, a radio car was parked, apparently permanently, outside her door, she had fed the crew tea and they had interviewed her. Not that she had much information – although plenty to say – but she reckoned she must have been living in her house when what she called ‘ the first corpse’ had been buried.

  The time it took for a dead body to be stripped down to bone varied according to all sorts of factors, such as the nature of the soil, the way it was buried and the activity of animal and bacterial life upon the flesh. The police Forensic team was working on that aspect of the enquiry, as also on the question of the dead person’s identity. But the neighbourhood gossips were not waiting on official stories.

  Rumour said that the corpse was male, had been dead at least eight to ten years, possibly longer, and had been wearing flared jeans. The fashion-conscious dated the burying by that detail of styling.

  No one as yet knew how he had been killed, and even the sex of the victim might be open to doubt because a widely circulated sub-rumour suggested it was a woman. Another rumour hinted that there might yet be other bodies to be found. But rumour did not know everything.

  Asked to name some other old inhabitant who could be interviewed, Mrs Beadle offered up Eddie Dick of the Keyright Employment Agency for whose parents she had worked in what she called ‘ the old days’. She still did his laundry for him, although he dabbed a few bits out himself, although better if he didn’t, she added sardonically. But Edward Dick puckered his lips and declined to say much. Not good for business. In any case, even if he had been living there at the time of the burial in what had been, if his memory served, a field full of cows, he had not witnessed it and he hoped he did not know the dead person.

  In Cheasey there was plenty of guarded comment about the death of Margery Foggerty, known as she was there and not liked.

  ‘Asking for it, I reckon,’ said Ginny, the hostess of The Grey Man.

  ‘Asking for something any rate,’ agreed her partner, their exact relationship being a mystery and a cause for speculation among the customers. They slept in separate rooms, both wore wedding rings and in certain lights did look remarkably alike. Twins, someone said. There were occasional jokes about cross-dressing. Did they or didn’t they? There were no ready answers.

  ‘Seen Jake lately?’

  It was a loaded question. He was keeping a low profile, not exactly hiding but not putting himself around. He had been briefly taken in and questioned by the police and then released without a charge. No evidence, you couldn’t hang a man on talk, not these days as his lawyer had pointed out smartly. Not that anyone got hung. Fifteen years inside at the most.

  About the skeleton there was public silence. In private it was possible that names were being bandied about. A certain percentage of the population of Cheasey went missing every year: usually for thoroughly understood motives like debt, threat of police prosecution or desertion of a spouse. Death was not usually suspected but could always be imagined. Cheasey could imagine anything. Almost every family group in Cheasey had one or two absentees but the Fisher-Rivers-Waters-Seaman clan had several. They would be hard put to recognise some of them by now.

  There was no reason to believe the skeleton came from that neighbourhood at all.

  Why not London? The police opinion was wide open. Three days had passed without any strong body of opinion being formed about the bones. There was no connection, both Inspector Elman and Chief Inspector Father believed, between the skeleton and the murders in Merrywick except place and the timing of the discovery. The two men were meeting in the Incident Room in River Walk, where the investigation into the two murders, now seen as one case, was being conducted. It was Sunday, but it was a working day. They were short of staff and short of resources. As usual.

  Consequently the mood in the MIRIAM room was not happy. Why bones as well? was the feeling.

  ‘Another one of those coincidences,’ grumbled Elman. ‘No other connection. All the same, an odd little item they turned up with the bones. Wonder if he really wore it and why.’ He was interested. ‘A bit naff,’ he said, almost wistfully, ‘Ought to help identify him.’

  Father refused to be drawn. The skeleton represented just a nuisance he could have done without, a complication in a life already complicated by life, work and Marg Foggerty’s letter. Bones were an undesired extra.

  The bones might never have been found if it hadn’t been for the blood on the grass,’ said Father. In his heart he blamed Charmian Daniels for the discovery. ‘ Could have rested there for ever otherwise.’ He wished they had; his CID unit already had three major crimes to investigate: the murder of Nella Fisher, the shooting of Sergeant Margery Foggerty and the theft of the illustrious emeralds. He did not need some long-dead male to put a name to.

  Although it was true that the theft of the Duchess’s jewels (mainly hers, but oddly enough the Duke had lost almost as much – Father owned no jewellery himself, not even a cufflink) had been handed over to a Metropolitan specialist team, he had been obliged to offer back-up help. Thus he had lost Sergeant Bister, who, while still giving nominal assistance to the local investigation, was happily assisting in the hunt for the lost necklace, tiara, and brooch, the full parure, in short, as he was learning to call it.

  ‘Pity Marg didn’t get round to finishing her letter,’ said Elman, probing his boss a bit. ‘ Might have helped.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Father thought she’d written enough and wished she hadn’t written as much as she had done. She could have left him out.

  ‘No idea, I suppose, of what she was going to say?’

  ‘None.’ Father stumped round the table and picked up his coat. ‘Come on, Fred, you know what Marg was like. She put herself about a bit. After Bert took off. Went round all of us at one time.’

  ‘Toned down a bit lately,’ observed Elman.

  ‘Agreed, but there it is. I don’t know what she wanted to tell me. Don’t think I’ve spoken to her for months.’ Although they were about to have a talk on the matter of her possible bent behaviour. Possible? Now he knew about the flat in Spain and the money in Jersey, there was no doubt. ‘But I’m sorry she had to go in that particular sort of way.’ Murdered, he meant, but wouldn’t say the word. He had liked her, hadn’t been able to help it. But that was long ago.

  He put on his coat. ‘I’m off. Keep me posted.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘I’m going to the opera tonight, on Sunday too. Charity do, y’see,’ he said gloomily. ‘Black tie and all. Not my style but the wife wants it. Smart occasion and all that. Everyone there.’

  Elman was sympathetic, knowing that Ellen Father nourished social ambitions and that Father tried hard to keep her happy.

  ‘You’ll enjoy it,’ he said, ‘when you get there.’

  ‘Want to bet?’ and the Chi
ef Inspector departed with slow steps. Father was overworked and under pressure and getting too much media attention, and somehow for this too he blamed Charmian Daniels. She always seemed to pick up publicity.

  This was not how Charmian saw it. She had observed her photograph in the daily papers without pleasure. One and all they had used the same snap as Nella had had pinned to her wall. It might be the only one they had, or it might be that someone had got wind of its appearance in the Fisher case, you could never be sure with the press, they could be devious. Or it might just be coincidence.

  But as with Inspector Elman, she did not like coincidences and she was not pleased to be splashed on the front pages with the headlines that she had discovered a body. Not even true. She had found some blood which led to the discovery of a body, and then some bones.

  The bones had no connection with the death of Margery Foggerty and Nella Fisher, as far as could be established, but Margery and Nella had been killed by the same gun. At the moment no one knew whose hand had pulled the trigger but it was a fair assumption that same hand had caused both deaths.

  The good thing was that Kate was no longer a suspect. Instead, her father had stepped into her place.

  He was being quietly hunted through all his usual haunts but so far without result. Either his friends and drinking companions were very loyal or they knew nothing. A surveillance was kept on Wellington Yard, which infuriated Annie who could observe the watch from her windows.

  Charmian had several heavy days of work in London, which inexplicably raised her mood and made her feel better.

  To cheer up Kate and her mother, Charmian had invited them both to a concert performance of Ariadne auf Naxos in the Castle. The Waterloo Chamber was full, but when Charmian had finished looking at an elegant portrait, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, of one of the conquerors of Napoleon (she thought it was the Prince Regent himself, who had certainly never been on the field of Waterloo but had nourished the fantasy that he had fought there), she turned her head to see Dolly and George Rewley sitting across the aisle.

  Dolly gave her a self-conscious smile.

  ‘I didn’t know George was coming tonight,’ whispered Kate. ‘He didn’t say he’d asked Dolly.’

  ‘Dolly may have asked him.’ If so, naughty Dolly, she thought, Weren’t you going to leave Kate and George to each other?

  ‘Mmm.’ Kate did not sound convinced.

  ‘Don’t let it spoil the evening.’ Charmian repressed a slight smile. Much as she loved her Kate, it might not do the girl any harm to realise that George Rewley was not her sole property. She was inclined to regard her men as parcels to pick up and put down as she pleased.

  On her left, Annie looked up from reading the programme. ‘Who’s the man?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘You know the one I mean. Across the aisle.’ Charmian told her.

  ‘Ah,’ Annie nodded. ‘He’s that one.’ The orchestra had finished tuning up and was preparing itself for the overture. ‘Dolly I know, of course. Attractive girl, isn’t she?’

  ‘Very.’ Dolly looked blooming tonight in a vivid red dress.

  ‘Also a copper. Do you think they are here to watch us?’

  ‘No.’ Charmian shook her head. ‘Don’t be paranoid, Annie.’

  Annie looked unconvinced. Like daughter, like mother, thought Charmian. Quite naturally, they thought of themselves at the centre of the stage.

  ‘Not everything is about you. This is an evening out, Annie,’ she said firmly. ‘Enjoy it.’ She needed to enjoy it herself, the appointment with the specialist was coming up fast and she was nervous. She feared the surgeon’s probe. Not because of the pain, there wouldn’t be any, it was just a look-round, no knife, no stitches, but for the feeling of invasion.

  Also, there had been someone in her garden last night. A rosebush had been torn up and thrown out into the road.

  Another invasion.

  All three women were uneasily aware that many eyes were on them. Charmian Daniels was a public figure, and Annie was known to many because of her distinction as an artist, she was famous in her way. Kate had a lot of young friends. So they couldn‘ t hide. As a group, Charmian thought, they were brave to come out together. She saw Annie put her chin up and concentrate on the music.

  Bravo, Annie, she thought. I hope Jack deserves you. But certainly I do not deserve him. She had kept from Annie the news of Jack’s violent appearance in her life. There are things you cannot say to friends.

  The overture finished, and Ariadne paced her lonely island. A woman deserted by her lover. Too late, Charmian remembered the plot. She glanced at Annie who appeared perfectly calm; she was able to separate art and reality.

  The opera is short, although the part of Ariadne is an exacting one. Richard Strauss had no mercy on his performers. But Helena Asherton, a young singer, triumphantly delivered her two exhausting arias, one after the other, and at last was carried up to Olympus by Bacchus in a chariot of stars.

  Well, it might suit some women, Charmian decided, as she came down to earth herself after the soaring music, but possibly not me. Heaven, for me, does not mean transportation by a god-man.

  She leaned across the aisle and spoke to George Rewley. ‘I’ve got a table for dinner in the Donjon. Join us.’

  George hesitated. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Oh come on, we won’t discuss the case.’ Or cases.

  The Donjon in St Julien’s Tower had been converted into a restaurant for the benefit of the concert audience, and if you stayed eating long enough then you might see the performers come in for supper.

  Charmian had procured a large round table in the middle of the room. Everyone else had to pass them to get to their tables, so there were plenty of greetings. Annie was taking it well, smiling at her friends, and Kate was rising to her feet to hug and congratulate Helena Asherton. They had been at school together, but Helena had pursued her career with rather more single-minded devotion than had Kate.

  ‘Join us, Helena. There is room, isn’t there, Charmian?’

  ‘Of course.’

  But Helena had her own circle of fellow performers to eat with and after a shy confession that she would be singing the same role at Glyndebourne this summer, she moved off to another part of the room.

  ‘I wonder she can even talk after those two arias,’ said Kate.

  ‘Yes, it is hard on the voice. But I expect she knows how to protect it.’

  Over the cold chicken in cream and garlic sauce, Dolly said to Kate: ‘ I didn’t know I was coming till the last minute.’

  ‘Oh?’ Kate’s eyes flicked towards George Rewley who was talking away happily to Annie.

  ‘My mother meant to come with her new husband, but he had to fly off to Strasbourg so she sent me the tickets. I didn’t want to sit on my own so George obliged me by coming. He knows more about Richard Strauss than I do.’

  The promise of not talking about the case was kept through the first two courses of the meal, but while waiting for coffee they began. Annie started it.

  ‘Come on, we can’t not talk about it. Be unnatural. I know you are looking for my husband,’ she gave George Rewley a hostile stare. ‘You’re all after him. Come to that, I’m looking for him myself. Jack, come home!’ She drained her glass and filled it up again.

  ‘Watch it, Annie,’ warned her daughter. When Annie drank it was always wine and she could drink too much.

  ‘Well, that’s how it seems to me.’ A little belligerency was creeping in.

  George Rewley kept silent, well aware of the difficulty of his position. A detective in love with the daughter of a suspect. But he was encouraged by the look in Kate’s eyes. He could read a promise in them.

  ‘I agree with Annie,’ said Dolly Barstow suddenly. ‘We should talk about it. We’re all in it together.’

  The trouble with working in a relatively small community was that inevitably you got to know some of the actors in a crime. If Dolly looked around the room she could see a man w
ho had been involved in a fraud case and been lucky not to go to prison. There was Freda X, better not name her and she wasn’t really Freda, who had been running a call-girl service and gone to prison, only to emerge better dressed and more prosperous than ever. Dolly could only speculate what the new business venture was but it was said to involve Japanese money. And serving a table was a waitress who had probably poisoned her lover. He was a chef in the restaurant where she had worked. Not dead, of course, but he had had an uncomfortable day or two.

  No, Dolly thought, she knew too much about everybody. Mind you, everyone was here tonight. Present also at the concert and now dining in the same room were Lady Belvedere, widow of a famous general, Biddy Maincox, straight out of her TV soap rehearsal and a variety of City magnates with their spouses.

  A crowd of new arrivals was just being seated across the way. Among them Charmian saw CI Father in company with a pretty, sturdily built woman in a strapless dress. He’d seen Charmian and her table of friends but was pretending not, he probably was not pleased.

  ‘The second Mrs Father,’ whispered Dolly in her ear.

  ‘What happened to the first?’

  ‘Couldn’t stand the life. Went on a Caribbean cruise and never came back.’

  The waiter brought a large pot of coffee and put a dish of chocolates in front of Charmian. Across the way CI Father was frowningly trying his cold cucumber soup; he stirred it doubtfully. Soup ought to be hot, not cold, and it should be brown or red in colour, not pale green.

  Charmian took a chocolate. ‘All right,’ she said, giving way to the silent pressure. ‘Let’s talk. I’ll begin. It’s like a plant, this case is growing.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Annie reached for her wineglass which was empty and she looked around crossly.

  ‘And it is doing so in well defined stages,’ said Charmian. She did not pass the wine to Annie. ‘ The first stage was when the girl Nella Fisher arrived with the story of threats to Dolly and Kate.’

  ‘We know a bit more about her state of mind now,’ said Dolly.