Baby Drop

by Jennie Melville

  When she was in the car, sitting back inside the Rolls like a queen, Peter Loomis said, ‘My mother isn’t mad, you know. She just sees things differently.’

  Charmian rested her hand on the car door. ‘I didn’t think she was mad, not at all, never.’

  She went back into the house where a hungry Muff awaited her. Not mad, coldly logical and rational. But I just don’t understand her reasons.

  As they drove away, Lady Grahamden settled herself comfortably in the back of the car.

  ‘I expect she’ll go straight to the police.’

  ‘Mother, she is the police.’ And to himself: I thought you wanted them to be told.

  ‘Yes, I know, I know, I meant the real police … Don’t make that noise, dear … She’ll tell them in the right sort of way. She struck me as a woman of great sensibility.’

  Peter drove on in a state of savage anger.

  I don’t understand her reason, or understand her. What’s she like underneath that manner?

  There was one way to find out. She picked up the telephone. About this time, before dinner, you could usually find Lady Mary at home, dressing to go out. She might answer the phone or she might not, depending whether she was actually in the shower or roaming round naked after it. She did answer.

  ‘Tell me about Lady Grahamden.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve got to her, have you?’

  ‘She’s got to me.’

  ‘Yes …’ There was a thoughtful pause. ‘Yes, it would be that way round. Let me just adjust the water or it will run cold before I get into the shower.’

  ‘I thought I could hear it.’

  ‘I like to spend a long while under it, boiling hot and then cooler. Relaxes me. Now about Emily … In the first place, don’t pay any bills for her or let her admire any of your precious objects or lend them to her. You’ll never see them again. She’s like Queen Mary in that, wants every pretty toy she ever sees. Noblesse oblige, only it means obliging her.’

  ‘Wouldn’t think of it. But she wouldn’t ask me.’

  ‘She might do. She’s got plenty of money, all that family has, but she prefers to use other people’s. The house is lovely, built round a small grey courtyard with a little chapel hanging on to it. I believe it was a small nunnery before Henry VIII got his hands on it, so it’s beautiful and genuine and madly cold and uncomfortable, not that she notices or cares. She comes from a long line of robber barons. Welch Marcher lords, Border chaps in Wales, take the hair off anyone. They had a place in Wales.’ A ‘place’ in Lady Mary’s idiom meant an estate with a great house upon it. ‘Sold that, I believe it’s a hotel now. She got most of the money. That said, she’s a great lady. Is this any help?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Well, where does she stand in this business of the missing child, and what sort of lies would she tell?’

  ‘No lies. Not always the truth either. As to where she stands, I can’t say but she loved Sarah, I think they all did. Even I did, she was lovable.’

  ‘Ever hear stories about her going on the wander?’

  ‘No, never, she was a bit young for that, a good quiet little creature. But a bit fey.’

  ‘The dolls, you mean?’

  ‘Oh, you know about that? Yes, that partly,’ said Lady Mary vaguely. ‘Just something I felt about her … I must go, darling, I’ve got to wash my hair as well as soak under the shower, and I must dry it and be out of the house in ten minutes and even then I am late.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Charmian couldn’t resist asking, Lady Mary went to such interesting and high-powered affairs that she was worth listening to, and she always knew which restaurant or club or bar was the one you actually went to as opposed to what the newspapers and journals thought was ‘ in’. Charmian didn’t live that sort of life herself but she liked hearing about it. Moreover all information was useful and she rather thought that Peter Loomis had the look of a man who did live that sort of life.

  ‘Rather boring really. A little party at Buck House and then the opera.’

  ‘Nonsense, you love it.’

  ‘Only in the Mews, the stables really, not exactly the State Apartments, but lovely people.’

  Lady Mary laughed and disappeared in a cloud of laughter like the Cheshire Cat.

  Lady Mary could lie with the best but never about her social activities. No need. She probably was going to the palace and no doubt the party was in a house in the Royal Mews and very nice. For a moment, Charmian felt envious: let all the party be bores and the opera poorly sung. Then she laughed and made herself some tea.

  Better not try to ring Kate or Rewley. No news was good news at the moment.

  There was a ring at the door, followed by a knock, and Muff sped from the table to the front. She knew who it was.

  ‘Oh, it’s you there.’

  ‘Surprised?’

  ‘No, not really. You come and go as if you had a magic carpet. Wish I had.’

  ‘The traffic from the airport gets worse and worse.’ That was the classic Humphrey non-answer, letting you know a bit but not too much. Automatic with him, she supposed, with all that Diplomatic and Intelligence training. Or had he just been born that way?

  ‘Not wearing the ring?’

  The ring was a kind of talisman with them, in the frequent disagreements or downright quarrels the ring was not worn, thrown into a drawer.

  ‘It’s being altered to fit me.’

  ‘Yes, Mama did have fat fingers.’

  ‘I wish I’d known her.’

  ‘Not sure you’d have liked her.’

  ‘She could manage you.’

  ‘That she could. Manage the county and that’s why you wouldn’t have liked her.’

  ‘You mean I’m the same? That I’m like her.’

  But he was too wary to fall into that trap. ‘No, not a bit. No one’s like you.’

  He stood there, tall, a bit thinner in the face than he had been a few weeks ago, hair neatly combed but escaping with a few feathery strands at the sides, going grey in a neat way, a well-remembered, much-loved figure.

  ‘Am I forgiven or are you still thinking it over?’

  Charmian frowned. ‘Nothing happened, you didn’t touch me. Just as well, because if you had, I would probably have broken your arm. But you thought of it, and I didn’t like that.’

  ‘I didn’t like it myself. We’ve been a tough lot sometimes, we Kents, and violent enough too, but never violent to …’ He stopped as if he didn’t want to follow that thought through.

  ‘To your women, you were going to say, weren’t you?’

  ‘Now I’ve made you angry again.’

  ‘You can be a damned patronizing bastard.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘I hate it when you swear.’

  ‘I do swear at work when I have to, and I can do worse. You’re a romantic if you think I can’t.’

  A muscle in his face jerked and Charmian stepped back, wondering what was coming. But he turned away, walked into the kitchen and sat down.

  ‘Sorry. I seem to keep saying that, but sorry it is.’

  Charmian sat down opposite. ‘You don’t need to, I can see I’m provoking too. Let’s wipe this all out and start again. I do love you and if you promise not to beat me, then I promise not to break your bones.’

  He laughed. ‘I’ll never beat you when you make me laugh.’

  Not much of a joke, but Charmian found it good to laugh. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Oh more or less,’ he said wearily. ‘It’s been a brute of a trip, hated bits of it, but not right to take it out on you.’

  But it’s what men always do, thought Charmian, and it’s why I’ve steered clear of marriage until now.

  ‘It’s not been too good here.’

  ‘No, I’ve heard about the Holt child being missing. I gather Mary Erskine got you into that.’

  ‘I might have been dragged in, anyway.’ She kept silent about the dead boy an
d the tiny skeleton, but noted that he had been in touch with Lady Mary of whom she was slightly jealous.

  Across the room she could see her face reflected in the wall looking-glass, her hair was untidy and she could have done with a touch of lipstick, she looked across to Humphrey who was white and tired.

  ‘War’s over,’ she said. ‘A truce is declared, we can fight again another day.’

  ‘And the day after that, if I know us,’ said Humphrey with a slight groan. ‘But yes, agreed. Battle honours will be awarded later.’

  She cooked a light meal, they drank a little wine and went early to bed.

  He was asleep before she had finished her shower. She looked down at his head on the pillow, his profile looked sharp and drawn.

  ‘Something wrong there,’ she said to Muff as she laid out the cat’s usual night refections. ‘And it just might be me.’

  Chapter Five

  The Old Curiosity Shop

  In the morning, before she left home for the usual routine work in her office at SRADIC, Charmian telephoned Inspector Dan Feather.

  Humphrey had left early, drinking a cup of coffee very quickly. ‘I’m off to London. Join me there on Friday, and we will have a weekend there, theatre if you like.’

  ‘Might do, try to,’ she had said, doubtfully. ‘Look after yourself. Are you all right?’

  ‘Just a headache, nothing much.’

  This was in her mind, a small question mark of worry, when she telephoned Feather. In a very few words, she told him the story that Lady Grahamden had retailed.

  ‘Check it. I’d suggest you see Biddy Holt yourself, you might get the truth.’

  ‘Right. You believed the old lady?’

  God knows what Lady Grahamden would have made of being so called. ‘I believed she believed herself.’ Conviction had been Lady Grahamden’s strong card. ‘You ought to see her too.’

  ‘Oh I will, but she’ll have to wait her turn. There’s a lot going on down here.’

  ‘Busy?’

  ‘You could say that. I can’t see either woman this morning, I’ve got another case on hand and I must prepare a report for the legal eagles, but I’ll set something up for this afternoon. I take it Lady G. might be difficult?’

  ‘No, if she wants to talk at all, then you will find her astonishingly easy. I suppose she was interviewed earlier?’

  ‘Only briefly, and not by me, she seemed not to have much to say.’ He was turning over the pages of a report as he spoke. ‘Yes, I see here that WDC Minors saw her and got very little. Slightly hostile, she thought.’

  ‘Then she’s changed her mind.’

  ‘I suppose she’s reliable,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so for a minute, but she must be heard.’ He muttered something that sounded like ‘Yes, but I’ll watch her.’

  Then she asked him if there was anything to report on the body of the boy. ‘What about the boy? Anything come through?’

  ‘As yet, not. Too soon. We’re not treating it as a part of the Sarah Holt case, so I am handing the inquiry over to Jim Dashland. But he’ll keep in touch with me.’

  ‘I’ll let you know as soon as something comes in. Don’t expect anything too soon, you know how it goes, might take time before we can establish who it is. If ever.’

  He would do what he said, Feather kept his word as she knew. But not a man to nag, so she had to stay quiet and wait. She was philosophical, detection was, she knew, made up of a good deal of waiting for information to come through.

  In the Incident Room set up in the big building on the London Road which backed on to the smaller building where her own offices were, there would be a small team at work, receiving and collating information. From what she knew of the cramped circumstances down there in the London Road, Sergeant Dashland would be tucked away in a small room close by with perhaps a team of two or three. She had worked in rooms like that herself in her early days, and knew exactly how inconvenient they could be.

  And what about the tiny skeleton? Not even a room and small team for that little creature. Dead too long, more of a historical study than a murder investigation.

  The boy was dead already, Sarah might not be, she had to get most attention.

  She spent the morning working, her door open so that she could hear her assistants, Amos Elliot and Jane Gibson, in the other room as they came in and out. At intervals they spoke to each other, passing on details of the work they were doing, but they did not speak to Charmian.

  It was late afternoon before the telephone rang and she heard Feather’s voice. There was not that clear, certain note in his voice that usually marked him. He was a man who made up his mind and stuck to it, but now she could pick up doubt.

  ‘Well, I saw them. Lady Grahamden first. She bucked a bit at being interviewed by me, said she’d answered all the questions that could be put, but of course I knew that wasn’t true. I also picked up the feeling that she not only expected me but wanted me. Or someone like me. Maybe she’d rather have had the head of the Force.’ There was a sardonic note in his voice.

  ‘So?’

  ‘She repeated more or less what she said to you; that the kid had a trick of running away and then coming back. She came across with it pretty quickly once she started which confirmed what I thought: she wanted me to know. So she should of course.’

  ‘Did you believe her?’

  ‘I dunno … Where did the kid go each time and where is she now? After all, she’s not very old, she can’t have a pile of money stashed away somewhere. Someone would have to be helping her.’ Or guarding her, or protecting her, but he didn’t say this aloud.

  ‘The man she was supposed to have gone off with?’

  ‘Could be. Anyway, dealing with the “supposed” bit, I went to see Mrs Holt. Relations between her and Lady G. are strained, I’d say.’

  ‘I expect they are.’

  ‘But close all the same. She didn’t sound surprised at what her ladyship had come up with. But said she’d got it wrong. That child did wander a little once or twice but never far and never stayed away over night. I don’t know which one to believe.’

  ‘You can check. The school, neighbours, friends.’ But, of course, he’d have thought of that simple act.

  ‘I’ve got one of my best women on the job now, she’s done a lot of work with children and knows the score. She can judge … I may say, she was very sceptical of both stories.’ He hesitated, then went on: ‘I can’t make up my mind whether they are telling the same story but telling it differently, or whether it’s the same truth seen through different eyes. Mrs Holt’s in a bad way, you can see it in her face, and the house is a mess. I tried to leave a WPC with her but she wouldn’t have it. Insisted she must be alone – I don’t like that. I don’t like anything about it.’

  ‘You don’t like them.’ It was a statement, not a question. She had clear vision of Dan Feather, tall, sturdy, disapproving, and looking as if he didn’t believe a word anyone said. He had probably made his feelings felt. ‘I don’t blame you, I can’t get them right. What are they?’

  ‘A loving, trusting family,’ he said with some bitterness.

  ‘There’s something about it I don’t believe,’ said Charmian. ‘And yet … there’s a substratum of some sort, whether of truth or lies.’ Like a rocky reef under water that you can feel without seeing. ‘They hang together even if differently about what the child did, or what they say happened.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what’s so horrible. The truth might be worse than the lies. What has been happening to that child?’

  ‘Who is still missing.’

  And who might be dead.

  The thought stayed with her for the rest of the day. She was cheered by a visit from Rewley. ‘I’m a messenger from Kate, she asks me to tell you that she feels a lot better, her temperature is down, and her spirits up. She’d like to see you when you have time and she thinks I ought to go back to work.’

  ‘So you did take some off?’


  ‘Only a day. Jane took over.’

  ‘Was a day enough?’

  ‘I think it was for Kate,’ he said ruefully. ‘ She loved having me there all day but I stopped her thinking. That was what I was there for of course, but she seems to have the idea that if she takes her mind off the baby it will die.’

  ‘Oh, so she’s back to that again?’ One of the more distressing aspects of Kate’s illness had been the terrible sense of personal responsibility for the survival of the child which sometimes made her breathe very fast in case it was running short of oxygen. Reasoning with her did not control this. ‘Not so much better then?’

  ‘Physically, I think she is.’ Rewley was dogged in his optimism. His way of dealing with the situation had been to be as cheerful as possible, where Anny had stormed and raged. ‘ She’s got Dolly Barstow with her and that always does her good.’

  Sergeant Dolly Barstow, now rapidly ascending the promotion ladder, had been a colleague of his, they had worked on several cases with Charmian before their ways parted. He admired Dolly and had been a little in love with her before he met Kate. Charmian knew this but she also knew the young women were friends.

  ‘Dolly’s good for Kate. How is she? Haven’t seen her for a while.’ Charmian admired Dolly, who was hardworking and very clever.

  ‘I saw her before I left. She’s fine.’ His face broke into the charming smile that made him so attractive. ‘She’s got a new bloke.’

  ‘Oh?’ Charmian raised a questioning eyebrow. The older she got the more she enjoyed a little gossip, shaming but true. And after all, people talked about her.

  ‘She didn’t say much,’ said Rewley regretfully. ‘No name given, I expect she’s telling Kate all about it now.’

  ‘I’ll visit Kate myself this evening.’ She fiddled with the pencils on her desk, wondering exactly why Rewley was here.

  ‘Dolly didn’t come empty handed.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You know what Dolly’s like … she picks things up, she’s a kind of magnet for odd items of information. Sometimes they mean something and sometimes they don’t.’

  Charmian waited. It was true, Dolly was usually good value.