Revengeful Death

by Jennie Melville

  Later that day, Jack Headfort called on Charmian Daniels in her office to hand over some papers connected with the case. Legal procedures had to be followed even among close colleagues, and Charmian was one who liked to follow rules.

  ‘Files B2 and E11, ma’am.’ Both knew that he could have sent them by a messenger or, if he had to bring them, leave them with her secretary in the outer office, so Charmian guessed he wanted a word with her.

  ‘Thank you, thank you for bringing them in.’ She put them on her desk for later study. One of the files would contain all the details of the forensic examination of the young man’s body. The important facts had already been told to her, but she might pick up some ideas from the details. ‘Anything to report?’

  ‘Mary March rang up and asked about the boy. I thought what she really wanted was to talk to me. So I went round to see her.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Whoever Mary March is, I don’t think she’s Mary March. I saw a diary on her desk – not the right initials. I couldn’t read them for sure. Could be MK.’

  ‘She might have been married once.’

  ‘Possibly. I’d like to read that diary.’

  ‘You don’t think she’s the killer?’

  ‘No, she was looked over pretty carefully at the scene and there was no blood on her, and no weapon. She was also very distressed. Of course, she would be if she had just killed the man and extracted his thymus. No sign of that on her either.’

  ‘No.’ Charmian thought of those teeth and gave a shiver. Mustn’t be imaginative.

  ‘And besides, she was genuinely upset about the boy and he showed no signs of fear of her. He clung to her, in fact. If he saw the killing, as I believe he did, surely he would have turned away. He had the chance.’

  ‘Was she fierce to you?’

  ‘Fierce? No, quiet and gentle … except at the end,’ he hesitated. ‘When I mentioned the threatening note … her eyes.’

  ‘I got worse.’ Charmian did not go into how Mary had acted.

  ‘Was she laughing at you?

  Charmian considered. ‘Yes, I think she was laughing at me … I didn’t appreciate it. I think she was challenging me.’ She pushed the thought aside. ‘Anything else?’

  No …’ he hesitated. ‘Except I feel I know her face. Seen it somewhere.’

  ‘Try and remember. Or rather, don’t try, just wait and let it surface.’

  ‘She’s a bit of a beauty, or you feel she would be if she would relax; she needs to relax into beauty.’

  ‘I allow you that touch of poetry, Jack,’ said Charmian, ‘ but don’t start to fancy her before you find out if she’s a killer, because she could have gone home, had a bath and changed all her clothes before going back and telephoning the police.’ Unlike Dolly, Charmian felt some sympathy for Jack Headfort and his love life; her own had not been without trauma.

  ‘I don’t think she’s that.’

  ‘A person who gets a threatening letter – or two – has usually done something to win the medal.’

  Push off, Jack, was what she wanted to say further, I’m busy; but she could tell he still had something to say. Or ask. Except that asking did not come easy to Inspector Jack.

  ‘I’m sorry for her, although I expect, as you say, she has asked for it.’

  Now come on, Jack, be professional – this is work, don’t get involved.

  But he was involved. It seemed to have happened to him whether he would or no. Perhaps his love affairs were always like that. He would be better off with someone like Dolly Barstow, at the moment clear of attachments, having thrown off poor sick Jim Towers who had decided to leave the force and take another degree. Medicine, this time.

  Headfort picked up her thoughts. ‘ I just think she should be allowed to see the child,’ he said stiffly. ‘I believe the child might talk to her, tell her what happened. We might learn a lot.’

  ‘You’ll have to clear it with the father. He might want to be there too.’

  ‘Better not, I think.’

  ‘And clear it with the social worker and the child psychologist … You’ve got the woman from the Maudsley, haven’t you?’

  ‘Lucy Lockit, we call her. Decent sort, though, and the kid seems to like her. But he still doesn’t talk; what he knows is indeed locked away inside him.’

  ‘Well, see if your idea works and he talks to Mary March. He might even know who she really is.’

  Police workers should not have private lives, Charmian thought as she watched him depart, but unluckily they seemed to have more than most, as their private world tangled with their work. She herself had a happy marriage and, at the moment, an unhappy husband.

  Humphrey did not fancy retirement. Unlike some of his friends he had no large estate to go back to and manage, not even an allotment. He was not writing a book or nursing an illness; he was fit, energetic and bored. Retirement, which had looked so good from the outside, was empty inside, like a wine bottle from which you have drunk hugely and now wish you had not drained.

  Breakfast that morning had had a draining quality too. ‘ Gillian has offered me a job at the Castle,’ he had said, ‘something to do with the park …’ He meant the Home Park. ‘But I don’t think I was meant to be a park keeper.’

  ‘Start a new career, a new life.’

  Humphrey looked thoughtful as he picked up the marmalade jar. ‘What as?’

  ‘Write your book.’

  ‘The only interesting things I could write about are covered by the Official Secrets Act.’

  Not quite accurate; he had a fund of memories and tales, not all true, but all diverting.

  ‘I’ve always fancied being an actor. I might try for the stage – the classical stuff.’

  ‘You’re a bit old for Hamlet, love.’

  ‘I was thinking more of Yorick.’

  Alas poor Yorick, she was opening her mouth to say, But he is dead, when she stopped herself.

  Humphrey smiled at her over the marmalade jar. ‘I could do the skull bit really well.’

  Charmian poured them both some coffee. ‘Let me talk to Rosie Church then.’

  Rosie Church, herself an actress of some fame, not working much now, alas (they only want such Young Faces on the TV), ran a lodging house for the profession in Barleymow Street. Her friends loved her dearly.

  ‘Good idea; I like Rosie. While you’re working, I can take Rosie out to lunch.’

  ‘She likes the Savoy,’ said Charmian drily. ‘She meets so many old pals there. But the Connaught or the Ritz will do.’

  As she sat at her desk after Jack Headfort had departed, she reminded herself that she must ring Rosie to warn her that a luncheon invitation was on the way.

  The routine of work absorbed her. She had a committee in London on the following day, where she must present a report which she had only partly prepared. Do that first, she told herself; there’s more in the world than a dead body with a painted face.

  After the report, she had to interview a colleague who had a complaint to register about his senior, and upon whom she was supposed to exercise diplomatic skills so that the affair went no further. Both men were very senior and the press would have fun when it got to them. She was to see that it did not get to them.

  No lunch that day, not even a sandwich at her desk. No communication from Dolly Barstow and nothing more from Mary March. Or about Mary March from Chief Inspector Jack Headfort. But since he was occupied with at least one other case due to come to court, Charmian was not surprised.

  At last she opened the file on the unnamed dead man. Very young man, she discovered as she read the report.

  He was probably under twenty, six feet tall and underweight for his size. He had been wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt … Well, it had been white before it was covered with blood. White trainers on his feet. A dark blue cloak had hung from his shoulders. He still had it on when he died.

  His hands were long and thin with traces of the face paint under his nails.

  Charmi
an studied all the photographs of the body in death, but she spent longest over the face.

  Not because, like Jack Headfort with Mary March, she thought she had seen it before – she knew she hadn’t. But he did remind her of someone. It needed thinking about.

  She thought about it while she put some letters on tape, and faxed a copy of her report to a number in London, which would eventually make several dozen copies before suppressing it altogether and denying it had ever existed. It was that sort of report on that sort of subject and tomorrow, when she delivered it to the relevant committee, each member would have read it and would be ready to deny having seen it.

  But it was her job, and afterwards there would be drinks all round. The meeting was at an august London club where you could count on the quality of the wine. Being a cold day (one had been forecast), they would probably drink Madeira. The pale, dry sort, not the dark sweet wine you drank with cake.

  The dead boy was not yet buried, and would not be until the inquest was over. No date set for it as yet. He was now freezing quietly in a chambered compartment.

  She rang the mortuary, named herself and said she wished to see him. Yes, she was coming round now.

  The bleak marble halls in the basement of the hospital where the morgue lay were not welcoming, but Dr Baynes, who was in charge, was an old friend.

  ‘Hi there. Nice to see you again.’

  It was, ‘ again’, since many dead bodies had been viewed by her there.

  ‘Sorry to bother you.’

  ‘No bother. You’re not the first. Had a woman in today saying she wanted to see him. Claimed to know him.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Well, maybe not know. Claimed to have seen him before.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Mrs King; not quite sure I believed her,’ He was thoughtful.

  Mary March, thought Charmian. Perhaps she was Mrs King – the initial matched the one on the diary.

  ‘I didn’t let her in, of course. Not just to view. Can’t have casual droppers-in. Bad enough with the press.’

  He was talking as he led her through the anteroom.

  ‘Good-looking wench, though.’ He pushed open a door and a familiar smell of disinfectant and death floated out towards Charmian. ‘Something worrying about her; only I can’t put my finger on it.’

  ‘Did you get an address?’

  ‘Said she was staying at the Happy Eater: I thought that was a sick joke.’

  ‘It probably was.’

  ‘Here you are then.’

  With his usual gentleness and quiet, he drew the body from its cold container. He was a man who respected the dead. He drew back the covering from the face.

  Charmian looked down. The discolorations of death were there, but the paint had been wiped away and she saw a young, thin face.

  ‘May I see the hands?’

  ‘Of course.’ He uncovered them. These too had been cleaned. ‘The nails had a deposit of colour under them. Bit of dirt too, he’d not had a good wash for some days. Not a vagrant though, poor fellow.’

  ‘Thank you for showing me.’

  ‘No idea yet who he is?’

  ‘Still working on it.’

  ‘A good face,’ said Dr Baynes.

  ‘Yes, even in death it has some expression. Bones of the face, I suppose, and the shape of the mouth.’

  ‘More lined than you would expect.’

  She nodded. ‘ Must have been an expressive face.’

  What are we both saying, she thought as she walked to her car. A young man who used his face to show his feelings? Is that all?

  So what am I thinking? That he was an actor?

  Charmian’s two young assistants, Amos Elliot and Jane Gibson, were also on their way to view the body because they liked to be up front with everything and everyone. They saw her as she got near her car, observed her at a distance.

  ‘I wonder what our boss is making of this case?’ Amos admired Charmian, so he was always anxious to read her mind. That way he could pick up tips. Of the two he was probably the more ambitious.

  ‘She’s got a great eye.’ Jane admired her too but was more careful. This was another woman after all, and Jane was always a rival. She had picked up some rumours about Charmian: she was either to be kicked upstairs or retired. Idle rumour or the truth?

  ‘Oh yes, she’s the tops.’

  They were a bright, ambitious pair.

  ‘Which is why I joined her team!’ said Jane.

  From her car Charmian telephoned Rosie Church.

  ‘Hello, darling.’ Rosie was always affectionate and cheerful.

  ‘Rosie, I have a favour to ask.’

  ‘Ask away. As long as it isn’t a room for a night. I’ve got a wagonload of travelling actors in the house. Landed on me last week. Have any travelling actors ever come your way? They go around in troupes. This lot travel in a Rolls and a van. No, they are not rich, all dirt poor I’d say, but they need big strong cars to take all of them and their stuff.’

  ‘Can they all get in?’

  ‘Several of the Trojans use motorbikes, when they have to.’

  ‘I want you to see Humphrey,’ said Charmian abruptly.

  ‘Love to, darling. Almost my favourite man.’ There was quite a list.

  ‘Come to dinner.’

  They fixed a day, tomorrow, and a time, not too early. They were both busy ladies.

  Chapter Three

  I have to reshape myself, Rosie said; this is my midyear resolution, a new chapter … She was cheerful about it. Dinner with Charmian and a consultation about Humphrey, whom she admired, would assist her reshaping. Her lodging house was profitable but she longed to get back to the performing arts. She might keep her place going, but there was another such establishment in Windsor, run by the Neederly family, where visiting performers took rooms when working in Windsor, so she would not be missed. It was time for a career move. She felt better at once.

  Rosie was usually cheerful; it was a real cheerfulness, in no way assumed. It sprang from a resolute spirit and a personal self-confidence. She had her darker side, of course, but those lucky enough to be her friends valued her a great deal.

  For her part, Rosie appreciated being a friend of Charmian Daniels. I am a woman of no importance, she wrote in her diary, but that woman, who certainly is important, likes me. No one knew that Rosie kept a diary; she called it her secret friend. ‘ Diary,’ she wrote, ‘ I am dining with Charmian tomorrow evening. She wants me to help her husband. Dear diary, I have my own problem. Should I say something to Charmian? How can I? I’m not his mother … He is so like Francis was, that’s what worries me; that same look as of an immaculate conception. All the same … He looks a natural-born victim, as Francis was. Someone will do you in one day, Franky, I said to him, and it just might be me.’ But no, it had been an Iraqi mine in the desert.

  There was a ghost in her life and he was about to be dug up. Resurrected, as it were. (There was another young soldier in whom Rosie took a more than loving interest. A natural killer he was, too, but only in a professional way.) ‘He was a soldier boy, I’ve always had a weakness for soldiers.’ She might have added: for young ones. ‘He was one of the soldiers who march through Windsor twice a day from the barracks to the Castle wearing grey in winter and bright red in summer.’ Her fancies embarrassed her so that she kept them from Charmian, who sensed that there were things she did not know and was cautious in her trusting of Rosie: so far and no further.

  The likeness of the dead young man was taken by a local artist. The artist, a teacher at the art college, had been used in this way before. He was a careful, neat worker and could be fast when pushed. And he had been pushed this time.

  A day passed in which Charmian attended another meeting in London, and Mary March quietly went on with her life. She did not forget the horror of what she had seen, nor did she cease to regret that the child had not stayed with her.

  ‘Not likely, of course,’ she told herself. �
�Parents, even rotten ones, always have rights.’

  In any case, she had to go down to Charmian’s office where she gave a statement about what she had seen to Dolly Barstow, Charmian’s senior assistant. She thought Dolly looked at her warily, an approach she expected from a police officer. Especially a female one.

  ‘No, I did not know the dead man, but I could hardly see his face.’ I tried to see him yesterday, though, in the mortuary, and was turned away.

  Dolly silently showed her a drawing. ‘As he might have been in life.’

  Mary stared at the picture in silence too. It was a careful line drawing of a young face, good bones, a thin mouth, as you could tell. Brown hair, cut short. ‘No, I don’t know him. Never saw him before, poor chap.’

  Dolly withdrew the picture. She stood up and smiled.

  Mary rose to go; she knew a dismissal when she got one. ‘Where’s your boss?’

  ‘Busy,’ said Dolly.

  ‘I bet she always is.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘She didn’t like me.’ You don’t like me, I probably smell wrong.

  Dolly ignored the remark, although Charmian had let her know how difficult she had found Mary March.

  ‘The picture of the dead man will be in the newspapers and on the television.’

  ‘I’d like to see your boss again.’

  ‘As I said: she’s busy.’

  ‘I rescued the child. I saw the mother, who probably killed the man, running away. Have you found her yet?’

  Dolly was silent. They were puzzled and anxious about the continued failure to find Alice Hardy.

  ‘That means you haven’t. A dead man you can’t identify and the murderer getting away. I think the child would speak to me, tell me what he knows. He knows the killer all right.’ Mary looked hard at Dolly Barstow. ‘I suppose the doctors and social workers say leave it to them and don’t press the child. Well, they are wrong, take it from me. He wants to talk and would be the better for it.’

  Mary swept out, walking home through a dusky afternoon. Her follower, whom she had not noticed, was not on duty that day. On her way back to Marlborough Street, she did not pass Charmian Daniels going the other way, nor did she pass the killer, all unknowing, nor suddenly see the truth about the child. Life did not work that way with her.