Death in the Garden

by Jennie Melville

  One headline on a yellowed newspaper cutting fascinated her:

  TEENAGE SWEETHEARTS IN DEATH TRAGEDY

  That round young face could not be Tim’s but certainly was, she recognised him. There was a bigger picture in another newspaper.

  The word ‘murder’ appeared for the first time on the next cutting. Edwina read seriously, gravely, not feeling that she was prying into Tim’s secret but was being instructed into something she must know. An initiate being led into an inner circle.

  BOY LOVER STRANGLES SWEETHEART stood out ill big letters. JURY’S VERDICT: GUILTY OF MURDER?

  I’m not miserable or frightened or despairing as I read these, said Edwina to herself. Certainly not.

  Well, that’s a lie to start with. I am reading this stuff with a pain so extreme I cannot yet feel it.

  Would it be better when the pain started? It would be more like life, anyway.

  Better than dying. She would have to hang on to that thought, because she doubted now if Tim had agreed with it. He must have thought a lot about dying. In every possible way, causing death and being dead.

  She went over what she had learnt: Tim had killed a girl he had been going with, he had strangled her, his motive was not clear, but the act had been deliberate if not premeditated. It may even have been that.

  Tim had been young, but not so very young, old enough to go to trial, receive a judgement and serve a prison sentence.

  Old enough to do all that and still young enough to come out, be educated, turn into a lawyer, and to meet her.

  The factor of the child entered in now.

  Tim would never have killed me, she thought.

  The rest of the papers fell out of the packet. These were not newspaper cuttings but written in Tim’s own hand.

  Tim would never have killed me, she had said.

  But the writing on the papers told another story.

  There was her own photograph and attached to it, or at any rate falling out of the envelope very close to it, a piece of writing paper with a scrawl: I’m so frightened that I might kill her. I have done it once. Why shouldn’t it happen again, and there might be no stopping it.

  These words appeared again on another piece of paper: There might be no stopping it.… I am not mad, though.

  And alas, he wasn’t, thought Edwina. She couldn’t say he was, she had known him and he had not been mad. That would have been an easy way out.

  There was a bit more to read: I ought to clear out.

  Nothing more, but that was enough. Enough to open up perspectives in the mind. To ask yourself if a death might not be an accident but contrived?

  Of course, people who said they were going to clear out didn’t always kill themselves.

  At the back of her mind was yet another thought that she was unwilling to formulate, telling herself that life was not like that. All the time lately she seemed to be telling herself what was normality and what was not, because she felt the approach of dark shades.

  There was life, and there was death, and there might be life after death, but you did not want to think of it walking down the street after you.

  She put the papers neatly back in Tim’s box, but did not drag the box back under the table. Instead she left it where it was.

  It was impossible not to think about it, though, and after a bit Edwina gave up the attempt to work and went out to the kitchen to make some coffee. The place was as casually untidy and yet as efficient as everything in Kit’s life seemed to be. The coffee tin was not labelled but it was next to the coffee machine. No milk, but some dried cream if you wanted it.

  Edwina took a mug of coffee back to the sitting room. It was a small joy in her life at the moment that coffee tasted good again. Sipping the coffee she sat thinking about Tim. How little she had really known him. But she felt no anger (although that might come later), just pity and a sense of freedom. She was truly on her own now with the child and it was better so.

  There was something else she had read in Tim’s archives. She went back to the box, took out the envelope and opened it up again.

  At the bottom of the second piece of paper, scribbled in pencil as if as a bitter afterthought, were the words:

  Why can’t they leave me alone?

  Edwina put everything back and returned to her coffee. No, we didn’t leave him alone, she thought sadly. She blamed herself. With her strong-minded friends and her gallery dedicated to the art of women, she had been too much for Tim, she could see that now. ‘What a threat we are, no wonder we are resented. Hated even, in some quarters.’

  Inevitably it was a troubled, restless day. She made some necessary telephone calls, received one from Lily and her father in Italy and persuaded them not to return. ‘Who told you where I was?’

  Lily laughed. ‘Kit, of course. He cares, Eddie.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh, you sound so neutral.’

  ‘Better that way, Lily.’ Kit’s chances had never been lower. ‘ Well, I don’t know. You get things wrong sometimes, my friend.’

  ‘I know that too.’

  ‘Look after yourself. Love from us both, you know that,’ and she was gone, her light cheerful voice departing on a high note. Edwina’s father never spoke himself on the telephone if he could help it.

  Kit arrived home early, but tactfully preceded himself by a telephone call.

  ‘Didn’t want to alarm you.’ He had brought home flowers, some wine and some cold food from Harrod’s Food Hall, and tossed across her letters which he had collected from Dougie at the gallery.

  ‘This is your home, damn it.’

  His eyes took in the box left freestanding in the room.

  ‘Ah … you found them.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Read them?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You shouldn’t have read them.’

  ‘You left them there for me to read.’

  ‘I thought it wise,’ he looked at her, ‘to give you the choice.’

  ‘There was no choice.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.… I’m sorry, Edwina. I’d like to spare you everything, you know that. Want to talk?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’ One day perhaps.

  He went out to the kitchen. ‘ I see Mrs Vicars came. Not a bad old stick, is she? Give you some coffee, did she? I told her to make you some toast, you don’t eat enough.’

  ‘I eat plenty.’

  He appeared at the door wearing a neat blue apron more like a fishmonger than a butcher. ‘Melon with Parma ham? And then smoked turkey? I’m rather fond of it myself. And I make a good salad.’

  ‘Lily telephoned. Said you told her I was here.… I’m surprised you knew where to find them, thought they were touring.’ She was idly examining her letters: one with a Deptford postmark caught her eye.

  ‘Oh, we keep in touch.… They worry about you.’ Kit had obviously been keeping Lily and her father accurately informed of what was going on. He called from the kitchen, ‘Clear the table, I’m coming in with the food.’

  They had a comfortable meal; she surprised herself by eating.

  ‘Coffee. I’ll go and make it. Stay where you are.’ He was pleased with himself.

  While he was gone she bundled all her letters into her lap and began to open them. A bill, a receipt, a letter from an old customer hinting at a commission. Then she allowed herself to open the letter from Deptford.

  Mignon Waters had put her best red hat on and written her letter con brio; she had really enjoyed herself, feeling that she had a foothold in a world she had enjoyed once and might enter again, the world of fashion and art, so superior in every way to the one she at present inhabited.

  Dear Madam:

  [She had discovered Edwina’s name, but chose not to use it

  although, illogically, it would be on the envelope.]

  On the matter of the gentleman who was enquiring after

  you. It may have been that I was more than a little

  discourteous to you on that occasion. I was not quite


  myself. It was the anniversary of the day my dear husband

  died.

  [Let her think I celebrate his death with bad temper,

  decided Mignon, pushing her red turban from above one

  eye.]

  The gentleman left behind him an umbrella which since it is

  an expensive article I am anxious to restore to him.

  The name engraved on it is T. Croft, so now you know

  him, madam, as I am convinced he knows you. On this

  matter perhaps we can now come to terms whereupon I

  will hand over the umbrella. Address as above.

  [The red turban slipped again on one side, making Mignon

  look like a panto pirate. Not money but a foot in her door,

  she told herself. Before I die I am absolutely determined to

  do something very worldly and very bold, and this looks

  like my chance.]

  Edwina read the letter, then read it through again, more slowly.

  ‘All right in there?’ called Kit. ‘You’re very quiet.’

  ‘Fine, absolutely fine.’ Edwina put the letter back in the envelope and the envelope in her pocket.

  In the kitchen Kit shrugged: whatever it was, she was not going to say now and he knew better than to press. She’d had so much to absorb, poor girl, better let her stay quiet.

  I am safe enough here, Edwina thought. And then: Or am I?

  Chapter Thirteen

  The clinic in Ladybird Lane seemed to change its nature every time Edwina went there, while remaining essentially the same. A paradox perhaps created by her own mind.

  But the truth behind it was that although the essential décor remained the same with the scuffed plastic chairs, the margarine-coloured paint and the posters on the walls about the dangers of smoking and not wearing your seat belt, the clients and the medical staff were always different. You never saw the same doctor twice and rarely the same nationality; they never knew your name and you never knew theirs. Their advantage was that they had a card and case history with your name on it and you did not. But bad luck to you if they got the wrong case history. You were right to speak up and identify yourself but not encouraged to do so. During her first few visits Edwina had nourished revolutionary views of doing something about it and had even discussed it with a few other like-minded and pregnant souls, but since she never met them again, and inertia and an acceptance syndrome (now to be recognised as part of the package you picked up when you started on this business, along with depression, anxiety, fear and bursts of downright joy and happiness), had set in, she had done nothing about it.

  Revolution was ticking away at the back of her mind now as she sat on a hard chair and waited for her appointment; she had waited an hour already and no real sign of movement in the queue. There ought to be a game called Waiting for the Consultant, she thought, then decided that, of course, there was and they were playing it now.

  But her thoughts had a darker strain to them now. She had not yet replied to Mignon Waters’s strange letter but some response she would have to make. The woman was an eccentric, no doubt of that, but there was some hard fact in the letter.

  Never mind how Mignon Waters had got on to her, she now had an umbrella with Tim’s name on it in her possession. There had been such an umbrella but how it had got to Deptford was a question to be thought about. Did it mean anything at all?

  A voice broke into her thoughts. ‘How do you get on with the exercises?’ It was her neighbour, a small, dark, anxious-looking girl; still very young.

  Edwina collected herself. ‘I don’t do them.’

  ‘Oh! Don’t do them?’ The girl’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, you are brave. I wouldn’t dare not. I do mine. My husband does them with me. Does yours?’

  Edwina shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh you are lucky. I wish mine wouldn’t. He does them better than I do.’

  ‘He’s not got the bump you’ve got.’

  The girl giggled; her anxiety lightened a bit. ‘He’s getting quite a turn, a kind of false pregnancy. He says it’s wind. Is this your first?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Me, too. I’m terrified. Are you?’

  Edwina thought. ‘Underneath, yes, I believe I am.’

  ‘Oh good, that makes me feel better. I can’t stand these cows who say they’ve never felt better and it’s life’s most wonderful experience. If that’s their best I’m sorry for them.’

  Edwina considered again. ‘I should think seeing its face might be a pretty good moment.’

  ‘Yes, and counting everything to see it’s all there. Does that bit worry you – it being normal?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Me too. Still I’m all right so far.’ A more tactful girl than she appeared, she did not ask if Edwina was. ‘But I think it’s better not to know too much. I’d rather be like my mother was, not knowing everything. I shan’t ask what sex it is. If you’ve got to go through all that, I think you deserve a surprise at the end.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like surprises,’ said Edwina.

  A nurse appeared at the end of the corridor. ‘Mrs Matthews, Mrs Matthews, you are not wearing your robe. Will you go and change at once, please, Doctor wants you.’

  Mrs Matthews gave Edwina an anxious look and fled, muttering apologies and excuses all round.

  ‘You next,’ said the nurse crisply to Edwina. ‘Get yourself ready, please.’

  In the cubicle allotted to her, Edwina sat on the stool in the corner and allowed her thoughts to surface.

  The man who had been asking after her, her pursuer as she felt, had been carrying Tim’s umbrella; the man who might have been following her on the way to her own flat two nights ago had been wearing clothes that reminded her of Tim.

  Fantasy? Imagination? Seeing what you want to see? But that was rubbish. Tim was dead.

  Or was he? All right, let your mind go free, indulge in a nightmare. Tell yourself that Tim did not die in a car crash in Inverness, was not dead and never buried.

  He had loved and run because he feared he might kill her. Now he was back and after her.

  That was the horror story.

  It was a nightmare she could summon up in her mind but hardly bear to talk about. Who could she tell?

  Not Kit, she decided, nor Cassie nor Alice, her closest friends, because there was another element in this horror story that she was making up for herself out of bits and pieces, and that was that this undead Tim might have murdered two other people. The deaths of Luke Tory and Miss Dover seemed an inextricable part of the problem. Somehow they fitted in and were part of it all.

  The pieces did not match, though, it was like trying to make a mosaic out of the wrong-sized bits of stone: you had the cartoon for the complete picture, but the bits you were handling were all wrong.

  Unconsciously she had come to the same conclusion as the police investigating team. They were not privy to Edwina’s horror story but they had one of their own: they were pursuing a perfectly orthodox investigation and were getting results; they thought they could see the murderer’s face, but they were becoming aware that they had something very queer on their hands.

  As with Edwina, the pieces of evidence did not feel right in their hands.

  As the double police investigation team worked on, it came to focus on a possible name; thus they were able to direct their attention purposefully to the past history of one person. This person had attracted attention by being in everyone’s life, crossing all paths. Digging into the character’s past brought confirmation of what they suspected from strange places. And Edwina and her adversary were now seen not to be, as thought, an irrelevance, but there at the very heart of the killer’s life. A life now seen to have moved in and out of unlikely places.

  ‘Talk about church and state,’ joked one senior police officer. ‘Prison and pulpit. Theatrical business, isn’t it?’ By which he meant that in his opinion publicity had been desired, because this was a revenge killing, a
nd revenge could be like that.

  They thought they had a murderer’s name because this person was in every frame bar one and might yet prove to be in that, too. But evidence and proof was another matter. The bite, ah the bite, had let them down.

  The odontologist who was providing forensic back-up was having his own thoughts on the subject. He clung to his belief. He recognised that the teeth marks did not, after all, appear to lead towards the killer. Or, to put it differently, because the police team thought they had a good idea of who it was, the marks did not tend to confirm it. He was beginning to form an idea about it; he thought he might know which way to turn their thoughts to show them how the marks could be used to identify the murderer.

  He communicated something of this in a discreet way to Sergeant Bill Crail who was a friend; they often met for a drink after work. Bill Crail had a restless and enquiring mind, he was a worrier, a happy worrier, who enjoyed his worries and saw the point of them: they pushed you forward. He was inclined to think, too, that he might have made a good forensic scientist. He might leave the police and take a belated science degree. If he was going to get anywhere permanent with Cassie (but did he want to?) he would probably have to do something with his career.

  As he looked at the plaster models of teeth on the bar table in front of him, the grins of his suspects without their faces around them, he was speculating that he could see where the solution might be, both to the bite problem and the perceived gap in their questioning net. Without knowing it, his mind was running on parallel lines with the odontologist. The same solution might plug both holes. Or it might turn out to be just one hole. A hole in the tooth: joke, he told himself.

  ‘Just pop over to have another word with that theatre troupe. Here today and gone tomorrow, that lot.’

  ‘I might come with you. I’ve always been interested in stage make-up. From the technical point of view.’ He thought that if he had not been a scientist he might have made a good policeman. Too late now. The odontologist gathered up his specimens and put them into his case, amongst others the assembled grins of Canon Linker, Bee Linker, Cassie, Alice, Edwina.