Revengeful Death

by Jennie Melville

  Mary March interested her also. She had entered the flat where she found the body because she was worried about the child. But was she telling the truth?

  Who was this Mary March, and why was she frightened of a policeman?

  First thing tomorrow for Mary March, she told herself.

  But Mary March got in before her. She was there and waiting for her in the outer office when Charmian arrived next morning.

  Charmian gave her secretary, Florence, a bleak look. You’re supposed to keep visitors out, the look said. Florence was new and inclined to be nervous. She started to speak but was stopped by Mary.

  ‘I’m Mary March.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes, you know who I am. I found the body of that man – I want to talk to you about it. You are in charge of the case.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘If you think anything is hidden in this town, you’re mistaken. Have a word with HM, she’ll tell you otherwise. The man who delivers the milk to your assisant Dolly Barstow has excellent hearing, almost too good really, and he’s a friend of the man who delivers my post. That’s one way the word gets round. There are others.’

  ‘I’m not sure I believe that.’

  ‘Oh, I saw you looking at the house,’ said Mary irritably. ‘I knew what it meant. I know what you are.’

  Charmian said nothing; she wished she knew herself. Still, mustn’t blame Mary March for her own worries. And they might come to nothing.

  ‘A power lady. It’s your sort of case. But that’s not it.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘I have something to tell you.’ She fished around in her coat pocket to get a piece of paper. ‘It’s this, it came to me. Put through the door.’ She watched Charmian’s face as she read. ‘It’s personal all right. For me.’

  Charmian read the note, then she raised her eyes to Mary March. ‘Nasty. Can you make a guess who wrote it?’

  ‘The person who killed that man in Alice Hardy’s living room.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It came very soon after the killing, before anything was in the newspapers or on the television. He knew when he wrote it. He or she.’

  ‘You say yourself that there is a good news service round here.’

  ‘He isn’t the milkman,’ said Mary with asperity. ‘I’ve had some man at my door already. Press, I thought, but it could have been him.’

  ‘Perhaps you wrote it yourself.’

  ‘I did not.’ Mary was not angry, but she was short. ‘You’ve got the paper with the threat. You can test it for prints and so on. Of course, you won’t find anything.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Wore gloves and didn’t breathe – he’s clever, this chap.’

  Charmian nodded. ‘ Possibly … But let’s ask another question: why should you get this threat?’

  ‘I don’t know. I found the body and rescued the boy, perhaps that got up his nose. Or hers … But no, the time is too short. I reckon that note was written even before I found the body. That makes it personal, very personal. One of the reasons I brought it to you. The other is, I shall need protection.’

  ‘It may not be real. A joke.’

  ‘You’re not listening to me. Or thinking … Read that bit about the taster … You know what that’s talking about?’

  ‘You think you do?’

  Mary leaned forward. ‘I found the body, remember. I thought the heart had been cut out … But then I thought no, no that’s not right. So do you know what I did yesterday?’ She took a deep breath, and out of her pocket she drew a library ticket. ‘I went to the big library in Slough poly, as was … they have a medical school now. I sweet-talked my way in. I got out a book on the human body.’

  ‘Did you now?’

  ‘Yes, coloured pictures and all. I bet you’ve never done that – you wait for the experts to tell you. I was my own expert. That was the thymus that went … other name, the sweetbread. That’s when you eat it.’ She moved her face even nearer to Charmian. ‘That’s what he meant by a taster … He’ll have mine next time. If he can. But that’s not all, is it? The writer of that letter knew. Capital letters. He knew what was cut out of the dead man.’

  ‘I accept that,’ said Charmian, still studying the letter. If you could call it a letter. A scrap of paper with an unpleasant message, a threat.

  ‘And I feel I’ve been followed. Yes, I think I have.’

  A woman with fantasies, Charmian thought. Hard to know what is true here and what she imagines. Of course, imagination can hold a truth. She said nothing.

  Mary March leaned forward to get her words across with more force. ‘You are completely at a loss. You don’t know who the dead man is.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I don’t either, I never saw him alive. I don’t know the killer, but he knows me and I shall work on that. If he knows me, I might get to know him.’

  Mary March was a formidable woman. But she had a good face, with delicate, harmonious features and big dark eyes. Well-cut hair, Charmian noticed, make-up a bit casual this morning, but after all she’s had a rough time. She takes care about her appearance: the soft pleated skirt was a good tweed and the suede jacket worn with it was expensive. A button was hanging loose, though. She looks after herself, but there’s a bit of disorganization inside. Well, we all have periods like that. I’m having one now myself, Charmian thought, but this is worse. I sense it.

  ‘You know,’ Mary went on, ‘I was very miserable, deeply depressed, have been for weeks. I have my reasons. And then when I found the body, then I was …’ she hesitated. ‘Sick in my soul. Finding the boy turned my mood: I knew then that you have to fight back, but I can’t say I was in a fighting mood, exactly. But when I read that note I knew I could fight and would. We all get betrayed sometimes, don’t we? I am not going to be turned into someone’s fried lunch.’

  If you did but know, thought Charmian, we are sisters under the skin.

  ‘How is the boy?’ Mary asked from the door.

  ‘With his father. Well, I believe.’ Physically well. Happy? she was not so sure.

  ‘You should have left him with me.’

  Their eyes met. Charmian felt the power in Mary March. This is a kind of duel, she told herself, and one I might not win. Then she shook her head; this is ridiculous, it’s right what she said, I am the power person here. ‘I’ll get this letter tested and will let you know the result. Which may be very little.’

  ‘He’s a pig, this man,’ said Mary March. ‘A pig. And if anyone is going to do any eating, it’s going to be me.’

  ‘Don’t make a joke of it.’

  ‘Joke? You think I’m joking?’ She came up close to Charmian and opened her mouth. ‘Look at my teeth.’

  Two rows of shining, sharp-edged teeth were revealed. Charmian noticed that the incisors in front were long and sharp, with a slightly serrated edge.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m not a cannibal. I shan’t swallow him, I shall spit him out.’ The door banged behind her.

  Charmian looked down at her hands. I didn’t handle that very well, she told herself. The woman March was upset and I made her worse. I should not have done. Watch yourself, Charmian, you could be in trouble. She took a deep breath. Then she used her intercom. ‘Florence: bring me a cup of very strong coffee. Black.’

  Chapter Two

  Charmian drank her coffee, hot and black as delivered by Florence, while wondering if she would ever be the same woman again after her brush with Mary March. There was some profoundly unsettling quality about the woman.

  Brush? She corrected herself: more of a duel, and might become a battle. And where do battles happen except in a war?

  She drew her telephone towards her; she must find out more about Miss March, this was a woman with a background. Not exactly a past – that sounded Edwardian, hinted too much of sex – but a woman to whom something had happened. You didn’t spring out of the womb like Mary March, life groomed you into i
t.

  When her assistant, Dolly Barstow, came into the room, Charmian put the problem to her.

  ‘What makes a woman aggressive?’

  ‘Meeting it herself,’ said Dolly promptly, thinking that there was more than a touch of aggression indeed in Charmian. She understood it, though, because a rumour about Charmian’s future had just reached her and she told herself that aggression was the best way to meet it. Charmian had always been a fighter. She also knew the name of Charmian’s possible replacement: Amanda Hill, a real bitch and nowhere near the quality of Charmian. She was not a threat. People were always saying how good Charmian Daniels was, not how good SRADIC was. The powers that be didn’t like it. That was the word, anyway. ‘Does for me, at least. Who is it?’

  ‘This one frightens me. Mary March – she found the dead man rolled up in a carpet.’

  ‘Oh, that one.’

  ‘You know about her?’

  ‘Word has got around. Not with your picture of her, though. Jack Headfort liked her, thought she was gentle and compassionate. Not that Jack is much of a judge. Rumoured to be on to his second divorce. I suppose any woman who didn’t throw a brick at him would count as gentle and compassionate.’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t gentle with me.’

  ‘Must be shock. Finding the corpse with the thymus extracted, wouldn’t care for that myself and I’ve seen a few. Wonder where that thymus is? In someone’s deep-freeze?’

  Charmian said: ‘ Mary March has had a threatening letter, suggesting she might be ready to be eaten. “ Tasted”, was the word.’ She passed the letter, protected by a plastic envelope, across.

  Dolly read it silently, then looked up. ‘Well, no wonder she’s aggressive. She’s terrified.’

  ‘She is. Yes, I think she is. She says a man came to her door, but she turned him away. I want you to find out everything you can about Mary March: where she comes from, how long she’s lived in Windsor, what she does for a living, if anything – she may have private money.’

  Dolly nodded. ‘If you want it.’

  ‘I want to know who her friends are, if any, where she gets her hair done, what she eats … everything. And, most of all, what has happened in the past.’

  ‘Is there something?’

  ‘I’ll swear to it,’ Charmian said. ‘Get Jack Headfort to help you.’

  Dolly scowled. She and Jack Headfort were rival players in the promotion game, and he was ahead at the moment.

  ‘He has the back-up, Dolly: the people, the support staff. We don’t have that, not in that order.’

  ‘You’re getting personal about this,’ reproved Dolly.

  ‘No, not really.’ Then Charmian corrected herself. ‘Well, possibly, but I do need to know about her. If that note is genuine, in no way a joke …’ She looked down at her desk, and then out of the window. ‘Which I don’t think it is, then the person making the threat killed this unknown man. And that person must have some reason for planning to kill Mary March. And in her background there must be a reason. When I know the reason, then I’ll know him.’

  Mary March had said the same thing, and although she had the feeling that they would not agree on much, on this they did.

  Mary March was thinking about Charmian at that moment. She was one of those women you did think about, she decided, not necessarily with pleasure but she caught hold of your mind. Good-looking woman, and knew how to choose her clothes. That dark blue trouser suit was becoming. She had long legs, of course, which helped. Mary herself was tall and appreciated that quality in others. In the end, one always admires oneself, she thought sardonically. Some men always marry their own face – she could think of several notable examples, her own father included, although since both her parents had died young, her only evidence was old photographs. Now Charmian, she thought, was clearly the child of kind, encouraging and long lived parents. Not rich, though. She had not the air of one born to money.

  Now how can you tell that? Mary asked herself; I can, she told her inward mentor, by the care she takes of her shoes and handbag. Well polished, old but not scuffed. Wonder what she’s like at home? Charmian would bear investigation. She might have a go at it herself.

  Mary went to the window to see what police activity was going on across the road. Unmarked police cars were parked on yellow lines up and down the road, irritating all the inhabitants of Marlborough Street who wanted to park there themselves. A uniformed constable stood outside the front door and all the curtains of the Hardy apartment were drawn.

  Must be dark inside. Mary’s own thoughts were on the dark side. She had tried for anonymity in Windsor, aimed to bury herself in the local population so she could live, in a quiet way, her own life. But it hadn’t worked.

  Although she didn’t know why, she had an enemy. A killer. A killer with some nasty tastes.

  I don’t intend to be one of his tasty bits, she grunted to herself. We’ll see about that. She had amused herself by a fierce joke to Charmian, a mistake probably to joke with a police officer, they have no sense of humour. But to herself she had to admit to a savage truth in her joke. Violence was not alien to her.

  She looked out of the window: no one there except a fat woman in a long cloak strolling down the road. She couldn’t see the face.

  On an impulse, she telephoned the police headquarters – she had memorized the number – and asked to speak to Chief Inspector Jack Headfort. To her surprise, she was soon put through.

  Jack Headfort was brisk but polite; she liked his voice and continued to like the man.

  ‘How’s the boy?’

  ‘Fine. I’ve seen him again. He’s with his father.’

  Mary was terse. ‘The child needs looking after.’

  ‘I thought he seemed well and happy but the social worker is keeping in touch.’ He got the feeling that Mary thought little of social workers. Met one too many, perhaps. ‘The father would like to thank you in person for what you did.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Ungraciousness in person, Mary told herself, but it couldn’t be helped: if you sought anonymity you had to be consistent. She liked the child, felt she could even have loved him, but there was no need to see the father.

  ‘What about Alice Hardy?’

  Jack was quiet. ‘No news there yet.’ A search was being made all over the country. Railways, buses alerted. But nothing. ‘She’ll be hiding with a man,’ Edward Hardy had said drily. ‘Her usual way: a man and a bottle. She’s not into drugs.’

  ‘I did see her running away, you know. I don’t think you believed me.’

  ‘No, just thought you could have been mistaken. I’m not handling the case now, Miss March.’

  ‘I know that … word gets around. I called on Charman Daniels, showed her a threat I had had.’

  ‘I heard about that.’ He did not say that the note was now in possession of the police forensic lab where it was being examined. But not much was to be expected. No fingerprints.

  ‘I ought to have protection.’

  ‘I’m sending a man round to check your security at home and to give advice. When will you be home?’

  ‘All day.’ It was beginning to rain heavily and the woman in the great cloak was proceeding slowly along the other side of the road, getting nicely soaked. Mary gave a shrug. Silly cow.

  ‘I think I’ll come myself. Although I’m not in charge, I am still assisting.’ I’ll probably do most of the donkey work if I know Madam Charmian and Dolly Barstow. ‘And I would like to talk to you.’

  Also since SRADIC has instructed me to find out all I can about you, Miss March, it seems a good idea to see you at home. Photographs, books, the odd letter lying about, even odd possessions, all can tell me something. I might find out why you’re frightened. You were frightened even before this note came through your door. Or perhaps you’ve had one before? Bears thinking about.

  We have a young male body whose blood group we know, whose DNA is open to us; we have his fingerprints, and he has been photographed from every poss
ible angle. He may have been ill.

  But we do not know his name. Or what he was doing in the Hardy house in those strange clothes with a painted face.

  What we do know is that you found him. You are, Miss March, a vital witness.

  He looked down at his desk; his telephone was already ringing. ‘I can’t say when exactly, Miss March, because things are boiling up here, but I’ll try to come this morning.’

  ‘I’ll be looking forward to talking to you.’ And I shall do a quick tidy-up too because, much as I like you as a man, you are also a policeman, and you will be looking around to see what you can see. I have met policemen before.

  She tidied up slowly. However careful you are you miss something. Life had taught her that much.

  In the process of tidying an already tidy room, she patted the head of the battered old doll and took the small, fragile, cut-up little doll, whom she had always identified with herself, from the cupboard and smoothed down her skirts. ‘ I love you now, little one. Forgive me if I cut you up in the past. Wouldn’t do it now.’ She felt they forgave each other.

  Headfort was there before she expected him. She met him with a smile, offered coffee or a drink if he preferred.

  ‘Coffee, please.’

  But although she was willing to tell him all over again how she had found the body, and how much she liked the child, about herself she said less.

  Yes, she did feel that someone was after her, but no, she did not know why. Did there have to be a reason? Was it not true that some of the most brutal crimes seemed arbitrary?

  ‘Sometimes that’s so,’ he had to admit, wondering what to make of her. Her eyes had gone wild, but her voice was quiet. He had not got much to tell Charmian as a result of this interview, except that he liked her. But give him time – the police had ways of finding things out.

  As he left he caught sight of a soft old leather diary, the sort that he had seen one day in Smythson’s in Bond Street, a twenty-year diary. Dark brown leather with the initials in gold.

  Mary March saw him looking. But it was nothing, she told herself. If he picked it up and read it, he would get no good out of it. Just little scribbles from the past.