Windsor Red

by Jennie Melville

  ‘Is it to do with Humphrey?’

  ‘No,’ she said quickly. And yet it was, and she knew it, and as she spoke, Anny knew it too.

  Anny shrugged. ‘I see I am right. Is he in love with you? Or you with him? Is that it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must need someone.

  ‘Speak for yourself.’ In matters of sex they had never seen eye to eye.

  ‘I’m not convinced.’

  ‘Nothing like that. Don’t ask any more, please, Anny.’ They had arrived at Anny’s stall just a pace or two ahead of the Princess and her party, who were still at the next stall, but in time to see Jack waver forward to the Princess with hands outstretched.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he made a deep swaying bow, lost his balance and went over.

  He got to his feet quickly. When drunk Jack was nimble and very determined. He still had it in mind to attack the royal presence. Charmian got her arm round him and jerked him back, just in

  time. ‘Don’t be such a fool.’

  ‘Let me go.’ Jack tried to drag away.

  Anny had moved to the front of her stall protectively, as if this

  was what really mattered.

  A plainclothes policeman appeared from the bushes behind the

  stall and put a heavy restraining hand on Jack who was still sending

  out an incoherent stream of protests.

  ‘Not going to hurt her. Just ask her. Kate’s still missing. People

  are forgetting. Need help.’

  Between them, Charmian and the security man got him round

  the back of Anny’s stall to where her car stood.

  ‘Thanks.’ Charmian got her breath back. ‘Don’t make anything

  of this. He didn’t mean any harm. He’s just drunk.’

  The royal party, protected and impervious, had finished its

  purchases at the stall next door to Anny’s (the Women’s Institute,

  jam and shortbread), and led by Molly Oriel were moving on.

  Anny stepped into position with a smile. Jack was still mouthing,

  but silently, from the rear of the car, and making no attempt to

  escape. They ignored him.

  Charmian said: ‘A good thing you turned up. Didn’t see you.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not meant to. We’re all about. I’ve got several

  colleagues pretending to be a tree.’

  Charmian gave Jack a look. He had gone quiet. ‘He’s harmless.’

  ‘I know that.’ He was brisk, dismissive. ‘ I’m not worrying about

  him.’

  ‘Who does worry you then?’

  He laughed. ‘Well, let’s say I am not worried about old ladies

  with thermos flasks and their knitting.’ He moved into the

  background. ‘Keep your friend under control, though.’

  Charmian returned for a look at Jack who was slumped in sullen

  silence, eyes half closed. He opened them to deliver a sour glance,

  then turned away.

  Charmian got into the car, and sat there with him.

  ‘What’s up, Jack? Something is.’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Something more.’

  He did not answer but gave one of his rolling groans as if he was sorry for himself and meant to go on being sorry for himself.

  ‘You’re a fool, Jack.’ Charmian was irritated, as she always was with Jack in this state, no sympathy from her. ‘A bloody fool to do what you did just now.’

  This got under his skin as she had meant it to. ‘I know something you don’t know.’

  ‘Probably you do. So what?’ She wanted to bang his drunken head. She had never been able to stand drunks.

  ‘I get about. Meet people. Have drinks. Talk. People talk back.’

  ‘I know that, Jack.’ Every friend of Jack and Anny knew it, knew his habits, how he sought out his favourite pubs, visiting one after the other in a determined but haphazard way, like a dog looking for the right street corners. You could never count on him being in any particular pub, but in one of them he would be, picking up casual drinking friends to whom he then gave a devoted if transient attention. He had his hours, largely shaped by the licensing laws. Out of those hours, if he did not fancy to drink alone, or Anny had her eye on him, then he had what he called ‘his club’. No club. He kept a bottle with a friend who had a shoe-shop, and together they would often share a reviving nip. They had nothing in common except a feeling that a drink shared made a bond. But that was the way with all Jack’s drinking friends. You could never see why he liked them or even if he did.

  Anny, who knew and resented every one of them, called them Jack’s doggy friends.

  Now a doggy friend had obviously spoken. Come up with something that Jack longed to talk about but feared to do so. Charmian was a safe receptacle.

  ‘This chap, a policeman, not a high-up like you, ordinary chap, but he gets to know things.’

  Someone with a minor desk job, Charmian speculated, but at the centre where information was passed around. Such a man would hear the gossip.

  ‘Go on, Jack.’

  ‘Found another suitcase. A man’s this time. Aha, you didn’t know that.’

  ‘No, but I’m not surprised.’ Two dead people, two cases.

  ‘And the man’s case has been opened, sorted over with a bloody hand. Blood on the clothes inside. Been grouped. Same group as the man’s limbs, so it’s probably his blood. Chap didn’t know the type for sure, but thought it was A. Not Kate’s.’

  ‘Well, that’s good.’ Or was it?

  ‘But it is Harry’s. Saw his blood donor card. Remembered.’

  ‘Still a common group,’ said Charmian thoughtfully.

  ‘It’s his all right.’ Jack spoke with conviction, as if he had had a message that could not be denied. ‘His case, his blood. So the other one has to be Kate’s. I was wrong about the clothes.’

  ‘I’m not sure if you were.’ His first spontaneous reaction might well be the truest one. Unconsciously, he had known, not the clothes, maybe, but his daughter’s taste. What he had really been saying was: Those are not the sort of clothes Kate would choose.

  ‘All right. Say I wasn’t wrong. Where does that leave us?’

  It was a valid question.

  Three people dead perhaps? Another woman as well as Kate? I won’t think that, she said to herself.

  ‘Leave it to me. I’ll be able to find out more, Jack.’

  He turned away with a shrug. She knew more or less what the shrug meant: We have left it too long already.

  At Anny’s stall the royal party, having paused politely to allow some photographs and to talk to some children, had arrived and were being welcomed by Anny, pale and tense, but in control of herself.

  She motioned to Charmian: ‘Come and help me.’ She was more nervous than she looked.

  As Charmian came forward, Anny said under her breath:

  ‘Thanks for that. I could kill Jack.’ Then she caught Molly Oriel’s eye and moved smoothly forward.

  Five minutes later Anny looked flushed and pretty, her troubles momentarily behind her.

  ‘Made a sale: the yellow lion with the orange beard, and half a promise to look in at the London show.’ For the minute, just for the minute, she had forgotten Kate.

  Then the memory came rushing back. ‘What was that with you and Jack? When you were sitting in the car.’

  So she had watched.

  ‘Just talk. Let him tell you.’

  Anny looked at her suspiciously. ‘I hate it when people know something I don’t.’

  ‘We all do.’

  ‘It’s about Kate, of course. Not much else you two would talk about.’

  It was true Jack and Charmian had never had much in common, but they had learnt how to behave to each other.

  Then Anny’s mood lightened. ‘I’m glad the Robertsons have got their baby back. But did you know he had chicken-pox too? Poor little soul.’

  A crowd s
urged around Anny’s stall, she was suddenly in business. A royal visit has that effect.

  Charmian left her to it and strolled off, ready to enjoy a woodland interlude. She needed a breathing space, just to be ordinary for once, not watching people, being suspicious.

  The Fair was taking place in a bosky hollow in the Great Park, tall trees curving overhead, almost meeting, with wooded vistas behind. Along one avenue was a distant view of a house, white, glimmering in the sun, romantic.

  The ancient hunting ground of English kings was turned now into gentle parkland, as poised and arranged as if Capability Brown himself had set it out. Nature was imitating art copying nature.

  Hustle and bustle spread itself up and down the clearing. The merry-go-round had started to swing. Charmian could see a swan slowly revolving with a small child stuck to its neck. Behind the swan a wooden horse rose and fell with a gondola coming into sight behind. Two children sat knee to knee in the boat. With the two children was Laraine, knees hunched up under her chin, a set smile on her face. She was not enjoying the ride.

  Behind the gondola swung a red London two-decker with room for one inside, and two on top. With a boy and a girl was Nix.

  Yvonne was in the next vehicle, a train dragging two wooden carriages with GWR painted on them. She was shepherding four youngsters. They looked happy and so did she.

  Laraine came into view again then, anxiously rubbing the skirt of her best suit. Something had stained it. Perhaps from the ice-cream cornet her fellow passengers were eating.

  From behind a tree, Charmian studied the scene.

  Elsie and Rebecca were not far away. She was not surprised to see them there too, standing side by side in company with an elderly woman of friendly appearance, who was just drawing a large thermos flask from a basket. Miss Macy, no doubt of it, Yvonne’s old teacher and friend. She was surrounded by a bunch of children. From a distance they looked normal happy children, but one or two were sitting down as if they felt happier near the ground and one boy was wearing heavy surgical boots.

  Here they were then, with their group of disabled children, kindly helping to amuse them. Baby, she noticed, was not there. Baby had a real gift for virtuously not doing anything she did not wish.

  But the others? Why were they here? It was a scene to provoke thought. Yvonne she could understand. Even Nix. Elsie and Rebecca counted for nothing. They were just padding.

  But Laraine? Laraine did nothing without a purpose.

  She stared at Charmian, and Charmian could read the message, defiant, arrogant, bold: There you are, pig, and here am I. Make what you can of it.

  ‘I could read it as well as if she’d said it aloud,’ Charmian told Harold English later that day.

  ‘Mustn’t get too imaginative,’ he said. He found Charmian Daniels’ free flights into fancy alarming; she had done it once or twice in their short acquaintance and it was not his style at all. But he had been told to trust her and so he did. ‘I think the time has come for a case conference,’ he said. Strictly speaking, it was for Charmian to ask for one, but he doubted she would.

  Nor did she. ‘No, I’m not ready.’

  ‘You are not required to present a thesis to us. But I’d say you’d got enough to talk about.’

  Doubtfully, she said: ‘ I know who; I think I am beginning to think I know what. But I do not know when or why. I have to know why.’

  Harold English said to himself that was her all over. He thought the important thing was when.

  The problem of the recidivist women and the case of the carved up bodies, which might or might not have a connection with Kate and Harry, started to move at almost the same moment, as if some hidden string bound the two together so that a tug at one pulled at the other. Whether this was chance or not, only time would show.

  Charmian took the advice of Harold English and called a conference. In matters of this sort, she felt he knew what was what. It was her first experience of work in such a sensitive area. One did not, he was implying, hang about.

  The conference was held, as before, in London with the same people present. Afterwards, Charmian, although she had taken careful notes, found that because of the unpleasant events of later in the day, she had very patchy memories of what went on.

  Humphrey presided, if that was quite the word for such an informal meeting over sandwiches and drinks. All the same, he definitely had his hand on the wheel and meant to guide their little ship into some port or other.

  Charmian spoke and they listened to her.

  ‘And so you’re convinced that there is a definite plan?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘My informant,’ Beryl Andrea Barker, ‘ had always implied it.’ Nothing definite. Hints were more in Baby’s line, but she knew how to get her message across. ‘She was sure enough to get in touch with me.’

  ‘Borne out by our local contact,’ said Humphrey. ‘ He really put his finger on it. Interesting the way things have built up. You’ve been in touch?’

  Charmian nodded. She did not amplify it, she was in frequent contact and Humphrey must know this fact.

  Harold English cleared his throat. ‘You’re well placed there for a quiet talk.’ So she was, Charmian thought.

  ‘So what do you conclude? What’s the project?’ Humphrey looked at her.

  ‘Wish I knew for sure. I don’t think they know themselves. No, let me correct that. I don’t think the upper echelon and the lower of that group know the same thing. I believe that Yvonne and Rebecca and Elsie believe they are planning a demo in support of all women prisoners, something like that. I would say that children came into it somehow and that they were looking over the Great Park as a venue.’

  Humphrey seemed relieved. ‘That doesn’t sound too dangerous.’

  ‘That’s their notion. I think the other two, Nix and Laraine, have different plans. I think Nix is out for blood. One way or another. But Laraine … Somehow there is money in it for Laraine. She would do anything for enough cash. I don’t think any deal would be too dirty for her.’

  ‘You sound as though you admire her.’

  ‘Not admire, no.’ No, there was a coldness, a selfishness about Laraine that cut into you. ‘But respect as a force, yes. She’s formidable.’

  Humphrey said: ‘We can’t risk leaving her on the loose now we know she had contact with a possible IRA connection.’

  ‘Yes, she’s the paymaster.’ Charmian had in front of her a list of the investments which the group had in various building societies. They had not after all used false names. As she had guessed, some were considerably richer than others, with Laraine being the best off.

  ‘The man Delaney is being watched, I take it? We know where he is and what he is doing?’

  A voice from the back of the room, a small dark Welshman who represented another security department: ‘He’s behaving normally. Even driving the kids to school. Too bloody normal for my liking.’

  ‘We’ll have to take them all in.’ Harold English spoke up. ‘Find an excuse. Shouldn’t be difficult.’

  ‘What about the man?’

  ‘Take him in too.’

  A dead silence fell on the room.

  Charmian heard her own voice. ‘ No. That will bugger things up. If we do that, then we will never find out what was planned. And it could happen later. We have to hang in there and find out. Now.’

  ‘You got away with that,’ said Harold English. He said it half admiringly, half doubtfully. ‘Seems dangerous to me.’

  ‘Oh, Humphrey will see the security side is wrapped up.’ No one doubted that. ‘And the other way would be the greater risk.’

  ‘Yes, he’s on your side.’ It was said appraisingly, thoughtfully, as if the matter had been weighed up and found to be so. Charmian never doubted that it had been and by others than Harold English.

  ‘Humphrey doesn’t take sides. But he had to trust me on this and he did.’ Besides, he had put her into the job, he owed her loyalty.

  ‘Worked with him before, have yo
u?’

  She nodded. That case wouldn’t bear talking about. Not by her, anyway, because Humphrey’s own son had been involved and he was dead now.

  ‘Give me a lift back, will you? My wife drove me in but she kept the car to go and see her mother.’

  He had an endlessly convenient wife, Charmian thought, who was always out of the way when he wanted her to be.

  ‘Of course.’

  He tucked his bulk comfortably into her car. ‘As long as you’re sure what you’re doing with these women. I’d like a look at them myself. I never seem to get that.’

  ‘Oh sure, who’s sure? But I think I can find out. And as for seeing them, I’m meeting them in the bar of the Rose and Garter this evening. Come and take a look, but don’t let them see you. They know a policeman when they see one.’ She added with helpful malice: ‘Bring your wife if she’s back.’

  ‘What are you going to do with them?’

  ‘Take them for a group photograph at Joe King’s photographer’s shop across the road.’

  Harold English looked at her and decided she meant it.

  ‘Has it struck you that they might be stringing you along?’

  ‘I’m sure that they think they are.’ Or those among them that did any thinking. ‘But Beryl Barker, Andrea,’ she added out of respect for Baby’s feelings, ‘ was clear that something major was planned. And I have a lot of respect for Barker’s instinct for self-preservation.’ Her intuition had told her that there was something brewing within the group that would spell danger to Baby if she didn’t put herself in the clear.

  ‘There’s a note in your voice as if you sympathise with them.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘Understand, then?’

  ‘Not that either. Wouldn’t dare. Empathise a bit, perhaps.’

  Even with Laraine. One of those hard women who, in the end, hurt themselves more than anybody.

  He decided again that she meant what she said.

  As they sped across flyovers and down the M4, passing slower traffic and avoiding hold-ups, he said: ‘That other business. You asked me to see what I could get on the man Harry.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He hasn’t been sighted. Nor the girl Kate. But a bit of background … He’s been in and out of hospital more than once after violent incidents. People seem to bash him somehow. One of those people.’ There were such, as all policemen knew. ‘Got a fair amount of money, though. That’s interesting. Inherited wealth.’