Footsteps in the Blood

by Jennie Melville

  ‘True,’ said Charmian, remembering her trip to the Fisher family in Cheasey. ‘ I think she wanted money and didn’t mind how she got it. But the threats she came out with, the story of a policewoman who was hated and threatened, and whom Dolly identified with herself, were not imaginary. Some muddled truth lay behind them.’

  ‘We all agree about that,’ said George Rewley.

  ‘Nella herself named Jack Cooper, how seriously, we don’t know, but she was aware that Kate had money.’ Charmian turned towards Dolly. ‘But, at that time, although she was keeping quiet about it, Dolly had seen something that made her look at Sergeant Foggerty herself as a suspect.’

  Dolly nodded.

  ‘So that was stage one. I was in the US at the time and knew nothing about it. Then Nella herself was killed. Not a policewoman, not Kate or Dolly, but the girl. That was just about the time I returned,’ Charmian looked at the faces round the table, ‘Am I getting the stages right?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Dolly spoke up in clear voice.

  ‘When Dolly told me about seeing Sergeant Foggerty with Jake Henley in Cheasey, I started to look at her seriously as a suspect. Foggerty came forward with a story of seeing Nella with her killer that could be interpreted as a confession.’

  ‘It could have been,’ said Dolly. ‘Seemed to be so to me.’

  ‘So we come to stage three. Foggerty herself is killed with the gun that killed Nella Fisher. And we find a skeleton.’

  ‘You’ll never find out who that is,’ said Annie. ‘A visitor from Outer Space, I say. Came to visit our planet and fell into a hole and got buried.’

  ‘I daresay identification will be difficult,’ agreed Charmian.

  ‘A male, in his early twenties, cause of death unknown, but I think we might get somewhere,’ said Rewley. ‘He wore a red wig. The remains of it were there in the earth. He may have been bald. I think that should help, don’t you?’

  ‘Well,’ began Charmian doubtfully. If it was a good wig, who would know what was underneath?

  ‘And the little finger was one joint short on each hand. Can’t be many of those around, can there?’

  ‘So what’s happening?’

  ‘The skull and the hands are going to an expert in London – the best for the job. She is going to reconstruct the face and the hands to see if anyone recognises him.’

  ‘Plus a red wig?’

  ‘Plus a red wig,’ said George.

  Life was a kind of circus sometimes, and he could never decide whether the victim or the police were the clowns.

  The Forensic team had mentioned to him one other little puzzle about the bones, but had nothing definite yet. He decided not to mention it.

  ‘Let’s call the skeleton stage three-and-a-half. And there may be no connection with the deaths of Nella or Marg Foggerty. Except that the blood led the way.’ Charmian looked around the table. ‘Have I left anything out?’

  ‘I know you don’t like me here, listening to all this,’ said Annie, still aggressive. ‘But I will speak up.’

  ‘Since you started the whole discussion, why not?’ asked Charmian.

  ‘I don’t think you are paying enough attention to Jake Henley.’

  ‘I don’t know what his motive for a double murder would be.’

  ‘He’s a criminal,’ said Annie doggedly.

  ‘Even criminals need a motive.’

  ‘He doesn’t. Not that one. From what I’ve heard, he likes violence. And he hates women.’

  ‘He’s certainly not my favourite man,’ admitted Charmian. ‘But he can’t be arrested just for that. It’s been tried and they had to let him go.’ Not for the first time, Jake Henley was walking free. What they needed, and did not have, was hard evidence. ‘A few facts are what is wanted.’ She looked towards George Rewley.

  ‘Before Tom Bister went off to look for the missing emeralds, he told me that he had so far got no positive leads from Forensics on the house in Merrywick Parade,’ said Rewley briefly. ‘If it was Henley he would be far too spry to leave any traces. And if he sent a contract killer the same applies.’

  He sat silent for a moment, then said:

  ‘But I don’t believe it was Henley. He’s a pro. Marg Foggerty was obviously about to leave the country, the sensible thing would be to let her go. No need to kill her. And I certainly don’t see him writing ‘women’ in blood on the table. He wouldn‘t bother.’

  You haven’t seen Henley’s face when he’s in a rage, thought Charmian.

  ‘Forensics take time,’ she observed.

  ‘Agreed. And anything could turn up. We’ll have to wait for it …’ He hesitated. He had had a bit of information that very evening and perhaps now was the time to pass it on. ‘One thing … the blood in which the word ‘women’ was written was not Marg Foggerty’s.’

  ‘So it has to be the murderer’s blood?’

  George Rewley hesitated. His friend in the laboratory had laughed when he had passed on the information, but now did not seem the time to share the full joke. If joke it was. ‘ It’s not Jake Henley’s blood,’ he said carefully. ‘ His blood group is known and it is not his.’

  ‘And the blood on the grass?’

  ‘Not Foggerty’s either.’

  ‘Another someone from Outer Space,’ said Annie, rising to her feet. ‘I’m off home to see if hubby’s back.’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ said Kate.

  ‘I’m walking,’ said Annie. ‘Can do and will.’

  As they all strolled towards the door, George said: ‘Oh and there’s a message on its way to you about that bottle labelled Vitriol. It’s not vitriol.’

  ‘Never thought it was.’

  ‘No, it’s a mixture of mineral oil and synthetic yellow colouring. Banana, I believe. You can buy the oil in any chemists and the colouring in any grocers.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like Henley, does it?’

  ‘No, he’d go for the real stuff.’

  Charmian started towards her car which was parked carefully under a light. She was always careful these days.

  ‘I’ll walk with Annie,’ called Kate. ‘See you tomorrow, George.’

  ‘Right.’

  Charmian approached her car. George Rewley came with her in a polite way. ‘Something I wanted to tell you. Better not said in front of anyone else. Marg Foggerty was writing a letter when she was interrupted. She tucked it under a blotter. We found it. If may have been why she was killed. She started a letter to CI Father. I’m not sure if it was going to be a confession. But it would have been a tale. She began: I have something to tell you, Tony.’

  ‘She called him Tony?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  Charmian stood still, thinking. The castle loomed above her, its walls silvered in the moonlight, so remote and old you could expect to see the ghost of old mad King George III looking down at you and still mourning the loss of his American colonies. ‘ No disrespect to Tony. I suppose she had known him a long time. But it’s interesting. He knows, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, sure. Not many other people do, though.’

  ‘Any chance he could guess what the story or confession was going to be?’

  Rewley shook his head. ‘No. I haven’t heard a word. But I wouldn’t.’ He was checking underneath her car. ‘ I hope you do this regularly yourself? Don’t want you blown up.’ He straightened up. ‘No, you’re all clear.’

  ‘Thank you, George.’ She started the car.

  ‘I’m thinking of getting a bike myself. You can’t plant a bomb on that so easily.’ He added: ‘I hear you’ve had a call from Vander?’

  ‘Yes. Know him, do you?’

  ‘Not to say know. Who does?’ George chuckled. ‘I’ve heard his work is so sensitive that he doesn’t even use his real name. He’s not called Vander at all. Come on, Dolly. Thanks for dinner. My turn next, I’ve got a new recipe.’ George was an accomplished and ambitious cook.

  They said goodnight, and Rewley came round to the door of Charmian’s car to close it. Com
mon courtesy, she thought. But he had something more to say.

  ‘About the blood. It’s a bit more complicated than I said, and it’s confidential. Not human blood at all. Animal blood. Not sure yet, what kind.’

  As she drove down Maid of Honour Row, Charmian noticed a car parked by her house. She drove past, studying it. Any sign of anything suspicious and she would drive on.

  But Sergeant Vander got out of the car and identified himself.

  ‘Do you have a dog, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, a Labrador.’

  ‘Golden? Quite small for the breed?’

  ‘Yes, but doesn’t live with me all the time, only some weekends. He lives with a neighbour. A friend, Birdie. What’s happened?’

  ‘A woman out walking a dog was attacked tonight in this road. She was hit from behind. She may have been mistaken for you. The dog was your dog.’

  Birdie, thought Charmian. My friend and neighbour.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Monday, October 16, to the early

  morning of Friday, October 20

  Charmian hurried to see her old friend, Winifred Eagle, in hospital. She had been unsure at first whether it was Winifred or Birdie Peacock who had been attacked, but a little thought had convinced her that Winifred was the woman who would be walking Benjy late at night. Winifred was the bolder spirit of the two.

  These two ladies were well known locally for various activities, ranging from supporting an Indigent Cats’ Shelter to organising a circle of white witches, although this latter organisation was in abeyance at the moment. Birdie was also something of a healer, while Winifred felt homeopathy was the better bet. They could both be relied on to offer advice and assistance to those in need, and even to those who were not. They were kind, energetic, helpful and meddlesome. But they were a package deal, you had to take them whole or not at all. Benjy loved them, as did Charmian, although she kept a weather eye open for trouble: she had seen them through various alarms and disasters, ranging from arson to murder and sexual harassment. Winifred had done the harassing. She had a powerful and not too carefully suppressed sex drive, surprising in a lady of her age and genteel appearance. ‘I don’t like men,’ she once confessed to Charmian, ‘so much as need them. Only one at a time, of course.’ But even this statement was delivered in a doubting voice, as if she might, one day, experiment on a larger scale.

  Accordingly, she was not surprised to be visiting Winifred Eagle in hospital. It could have been prison. But she was anxious.

  Winifred was in a small room in the George V Hospital. She was lying flat on her back with her head heavily bandaged. One eye looked bruised but she was talking away in a loud voice. Birdie sat by her bed; she was doing the listening, which was often Birdie’s fate when in company with her friend and landlady.

  ‘How are you, Winnie?’ asked Charmian.

  ‘Oh it’s you. Come round this side, I can’t raise my head. Move out of the way, Birdie.’ Birdie obediently stood aside. ‘You ought to be here instead of me, you know.’

  ‘Should I, Winnie?’ She had thought that herself. Straight away.

  ‘I went into your house to get Benjy’s drops.’ Benjy was taking a hormone prescription to promote his development, he had given them a little worry that way. ‘Doesn’t know if he’s a dog or bitch,’ Winnie had said trenchantly. ‘Came on to rain while I was inside, borrowed your mac, that old red one, knew you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Charmian.

  ‘Walked down to the cricket pitch, let Benjy run – he’s improving on those drops, by the way, he’s corning down nicely now – trotted back, hurried down the Row, It was raining heavily by then and I had my head beat. Mistake that, should have been looking, because I got bashed on the head. From behind.’

  ‘Oh Winnie.’

  ‘Not meant for me. His mistake. Thought it was you.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I am sorry, Winnie, dear.’

  ‘Any idea why? I mean, I think I have a right to know why I was nearly done in.’

  She had almost been killed. Charmian had spoken to the doctor before entering the room and it was clear that the blow had been hard and fierce. Only the fact that Winifred must have moved at the last moment had saved her.

  ‘Came very close,’ said Winnie; her voice was getting weaker but her temper remained fierce enough. ‘If Benjy hadn’t barked I would have been a goner. He chased right down the road, bless him.’

  ‘I don’t know why you were attacked, but I’m attending to it.’

  ‘Oh thanks.’ In a sardonic voice.

  Birdie said anxiously: ‘Don’t work yourself up, Win.’

  Winifred was her mentor as well as her landlady. They had been friends since girlhood and Winifred had always known best. Been the strong one. Birdie didn’t want to be left alone. Winifred must not die.

  ‘I won’t go, old girl,’ said Winifred. ‘ Not this time, anyway.’

  ‘Benjy’s doing quite well. I’ve got him in the car outside. He wanted to come in but I had to say no. They do let dogs in some wards.’ The geriatric ward, but Birdie would not mention that. ‘As comforters.’

  ‘Why not here then?’

  ‘You’re in Neurology.’ Charmian spoke up. ‘ It has to be kept sterile.’

  ‘You’re trying to frighten me, I’m not brain damaged.’

  ‘No,’ said Charmian soberly. But she nearly had been. The doctor had let her know that. Another fraction of an inch would have done it and the brain damage would have been mortal.

  ‘But I’ve got a terrible headache and they won’t give me anything for it. Or not yet.’

  ‘They’re coming,’ said Birdie. ‘Sister said so. On the way.’

  ‘It’s my head.’ The one unbruised eye was able to express what Winifred felt well enough. ‘The raincoat’s done for, though. Blood all over it.’

  A nurse appeared at the door with the drug trolley. Winifred’s long-awaited medication was about to be administered.

  ‘I’m afraid you two must go now,’ said the nurse.

  Charmian leaned over. ‘Win, before I go, anything you can tell me about your attacker? Anything you remember? It was a man, I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t know, I didn’t see. Ask Benjy, he was looking and went chasing off after him.’

  ‘He was a brave boy,’ said Birdie. ‘But I thought we’d lost him. Didn’t come back till late. Still, he was noble.’

  ‘Yes, but useless.’ It was a true judgement of Benjy and the way he always was. He tried but never succeeded.

  ‘You two ladies must go now,’ said the nurse, shaking out a tablet or two.

  ‘There is something,’ said Winifred. ‘He smelled of cigar smoke. I remember that.’

  As they left the room, they heard her protesting vigorously that she wanted a homeopathic remedy, or at the very least a natural herbal painkiller like feverfew, and to take those capsules away.

  Two days passed, three days. Normal working days in London, home to Windsor in the evening. Winnie Eagle was making a good recovery and was likely to be let out of hospital soon. The search for her attacker was going on, but so far to no avail. In the Incident Room at River Walk the investigation into the deaths of Nella Fisher and Margery Foggerty was grinding on, but if Elman and Father had any fresh leads, they were not saying. As far as Charmian was concerned, all was silence. Still, three days was nothing in an affair of this sort.

  All this time a quiet surveillance was kept on Charmian’s house in Maid of Honour Row, yet each day there was nothing for Sergeant Vander to report. No one was seen.

  Not even Jack Cooper. Least of all Jack, who was sought but not found. They had tracked him to the house of one companion but he was gone. The friend’s wife had come home and turned him out. Where he had gone no one knew.

  On the fourth day, Charmian kept her appointment with her specialist.

  Dr Evans, who was a pretty, plump young woman, was kind to her. It was part of her job to be gentle to frightened ladies and
she was exceedingly good at it. She had been frightened herself at least once which shaped her attitude. When you had worried yourself sick (and you a doctor) because there was blood where no blood should be, you knew how to respect another woman’s fears. Men could only guess, some might do it well, others much less so. Might not even want to do it well. Some women had claimed that male surgeons chose a gynie specialty because they wanted to dominate women.

  Marian Evans, whose mother had been a fan of George Eliot, knew exactly who Charmian was since she made it part of her task to find out what she could about the background of her patients. It all helped. She was building up her practice and meant to reach the top of her particular tree before she was forty. She had a few months left.

  She summed up Charmian even as she took her first notes. She didn’t make many notes because she had a hidden tape recorder which did the serious business for her, but a few notes reassured the patients.

  Professional woman. Tense, nothing remarkable in that. Lost weight recently by her own admission and by the evidence of the waistband on her skirt. No serious weight loss, though. Fine face. Good bones. Expressive, thoughtful.

  Hair and skin good. No sign of trouble there. You could tell a lot by a woman’s hair. This one went to a first-class hairdresser too, and had been there recently.

  Another excellent sign. Women were like dogs, really. Rough coat, rough hair, meant they were out of condition. Dr Evans had a Jack Russell bitch, who had just undergone artificial insemination, having been downright unwilling to couple with the chosen mate. Bitten him hard, in fact. Dr Evans meant to breed with her dog and then show the puppies. She would not deliver the litter, the vet could do that, there were limits. The bitch seemed in excellent health, but greatly to her surprise, Dr Evans was having morning sickness. You called that couvade, didn’t you?

  ‘Just go into an examination room. Nurse will help you slip into a robe.’ And out of that nice-looking Missoni sweater and skirt.

  Pretty woman, thought Charmian as she lay awaiting inspection in an apricot-pink shroud. Trustworthy.

  Gentle too, she decided a few minutes later. Small deft hands. She looked at the ceiling and thought of other things.