Baby Drop

by Jennie Melville

  Muff had got there before her and was sleeping happily upon it. ‘Off.’ She deposited Muff on the floor and went downstairs.

  A pile of post on the mat, the newspaper, and in the kitchen some stale coffee still there from yesterday. She considered making a fresh ’pot but decided to use what Amy Mercer had left behind.

  No sign of Amy as yet; but perhaps she didn’t mean to come every day. ‘ Suits me,’ Charmian decided, as she warmed up the coffee and buttered a rusk, she could tell already that today was going to be a stale coffee and cold rusk kind of day and you might as well start as you will have to go on. Muff came loping into the room with a gentle, cross-eyed look and drooping tail, as if her day was now going badly too.

  Before anything else, there was one thing to be done, one telephone call to be made.

  Charmian tapped out the number of the clinic where Humphrey was, and asked if she could speak to him. She had to wait a minute before an answer came back and then it was a refusal. No, it wasn’t possible just yet, but she could leave a message?’

  ‘When can I talk to him?’

  Another gap, another off-stage consultation, this time the answer was more pleasing to her: late this afternoon would be a very good time.

  Half exasperated, half relieved, he wasn’t dead, didn’t appear to be dying, was clearly undergoing tests or treatment of some sort, but they could speak later.

  She felt better, more forgiving, more hopeful as she put the receiver down. People like Humphrey were never seriously, mortally ill, they were indestructible, that was what she liked about him, he wasn’t going to die. She drank some more coffee and waited for the caffeine to produce its usual uplift. Even stale, lukewarm coffee was better than nothing.

  Presently she felt better. No one was going to die. The graveyards were full of the careless and the unlucky, she did not intend to let Humphrey join them.

  Without meaning to she had signed herself up on his side, all misgivings gone.

  He was going to live, whatever happened, whatever the diagnosis, he would survive, she was willing it. Someone else could go in his place.

  She rang back: ‘ I’ve changed my mind, I will leave a message. Just say: “Love from Charmian.” ’ Then, before anything else, she went to see Kate. Going, as she said to herself, her radical, egalitarian streak, product of a Scottish working-class background showing itself, from one expensive place of sickness to another. For neither Humphrey‘ s London clinic nor Kate’s hospital was free. As she drove there a sense of urgency came over her, it was so sharp that it was akin to fear.

  So it was a relief to see that Kate was up, dressed in a loose wrap which hung from her now very thin shoulders, but wearing make-up and striding around the room with almost something of her old manner.

  ‘Darling child, should you be doing this?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m allowed. Movement is now decreed.’ She spoke gaily, cheerfully. ‘Mum’s coming in later, so give me strength.’ There was a bright red spot under each cheek. ‘I am absolutely empowered to walk around and be active.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do, I do. Ask Sister Peters, she’s the boss figure round here.’ I might do that, thought Charmian.

  ‘How do I look?’ Kate swirled round in front of the very small looking-glass on one wall. The yellow robe was pleated from the shoulders, an angel could have sung of joy in it. Without doubt it had come from a major couture house, probably in Paris.

  ‘Lovely, darling,’ said Charmian doubtfully.

  ‘Anny sent the robe and she will want to see me in it.’ Sometimes she called her mother Anny, said in slightly ironic affection. Of her two warring parents, she probably loved her father most. ‘Might take her mind off the fact she didn’t approve of this pregnancy anyway. Well, it’s a baby now, you can’t really call this bump a pregnancy, it’s gone beyond that. Pregnancy is latent, this is bloody obvious.’

  She was talking too much, her eyes too bright, her voice too loud.

  Sister Peters swung into the room with a tray, on which was a glass of water and a round pill on a saucer. ‘ Come on, my dear, sit down and take this pill.’ She offered the pill, smiled at Charmian, and took Kate’s pulse all in one smooth professional motion.

  Charmian wanted to ask: And how is she really? But she knew she wouldn’t get a straight answer so better not to ask.

  ‘Terrible day, isn’t it?’ went on Sister. ‘I’m going off duty soon and Sister Johannes will be on in my place.’

  ‘She’s the Dutch one?’ said Kate.

  ‘You like her, and I’ll be back this afternoon. You’ll see me then. Now I expect you two would like some coffee, I’ll send some along.’ As she left, she fired the first warning shot: ‘ Don’t stay too long, Miss Daniels.’

  I ought not to talk about death and murder, but I must, thought Charmian.

  She made conversation and watched Kate’s face until the coffee arrived. Twitchy and too flushed.

  When the coffee came, she poured a cup for Kate, then took her own over to the window to look out.

  The area of the two burials had been covered with yellow plastic and a solitary policeman still stood on guard under a tree. So Dan Feather had not abandoned the site? Work was still in progress, he hadn’t mentioned that fact.

  She sipped the coffee as she stared out. You could see the road easily enough, and, it being winter, the bare trees did not obscure the view. A police car was parked at the kerb, clearly visible even through the mist.

  ‘You can see the road,’ she said aloud. Aware and slightly guilty of what she was doing.

  ‘Of course, you can. I told you so.’ Kate bit into a biscuit. ‘I saw the yellow car. I haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘Did you see anyone in it?’

  ‘You’ve been talking to Dolly … You know I actually feel hungry again, that must be good. Yes, I think there was a woman sitting there. Looked like one. There’s a kind of female way of sitting over the wheel, isn’t there?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ observed Charmian. ‘ He or she was driving, then?’

  ‘Oh yes. Sat there, looked out, then drove away … Never stayed long. The van was parked longer …’

  ‘You never mentioned the van.’

  ‘I thought I did … said a van, didn’t I?’ She was losing interest, tiring, her godmother decided. She was no longer touched by the shadow of death outside as she once had been, she moved on, further and further into her own future.

  Charmian kissed her and said goodbye. ‘I’ll call again tomorrow.’

  ‘I hope you don’t run into my mother on the way out.’

  ‘I hope not too.’ Anny was her oldest and best friend, but she didn’t feel ready for her just at this moment, you had to be strong to take a fall with Anny. Anny about to become a grandmother was a formidable figure indeed, and not one you could laugh at, a sense of humour not being one of Anny’s strongest qualities. She was a very good artist, whose work, both in oils and watercolour, commanded the respect of critics and a high price in the market, but even here she was taken seriously and made no jokes. If she did your portrait, you had to watch what you said.

  She had offered, nay commanded, to do Charmian. But Charmian had said: ‘No, thank you, Anny, I don’t think our relationship could stand it. Either you’d quarrel with me, or I would quarrel with you.’

  ‘We’ve often quarrelled.’

  ‘So we have. And don’t tell me that you want to do me because I have an interesting face. I would not take it as a compliment.’

  Anny had laughed. She could laugh at herself sometimes, she knew what she was like, knew that life had spoiled her, and did not make excuses for herself.

  Nor for other people, so Charmian was grateful that she did not run into her dear old friend Anny on the stairs or on the way to her car.

  She drove straight to her own office where work for the day had already started. Amos Elliot was standing by her desk on which he had just placed a pile of folders. He grinned at her, he was a che
erful young man with a broad smile. ‘Here you are, ma’am, today’s contribution.’

  ‘Thank you.’ They were always polite to each other in this office and Charmian was so now even though she felt depressed at the size of the pile. Reading, reading, and rereading reports and surveys, which made up a lot of her work these days, necessary valuable work, but she liked to be active, out in the field, doing the real task of investigation. Then she pulled herself together; what she did at SRADIC was valuable and just as much detection as gathering evidence on the doorstep.

  ‘I’ve done all that bit,’ she said silently to herself as she hung up her coat. ‘That’s in my past.’ For ever in the past? came a question deeper down, you interfere, go out looking and always will do, you are doing it now. What about the dead baby’s bones?

  ‘Nothing much there,’ said Amos, patting the pile. ‘All ticketyboo, but one or two other cases fizzing along nicely.’

  Every office needs a joker, even if you feel like shooting him on occasion, and Amos did this service here. Charmian thought that unconsciously she had probably chosen him for this very gift. He was also very clever and sharp, and very good looking but she would hate to think that was a factor.

  ‘Quieten down, Amos,’ said Jane Gibson from the door. Jane was sturdy and quiet, the antithesis of her colleague, but they matched and complemented each other. She had none of his flair, his capacity for seeing at once a gap in the evidence in a case, a crucial flaw that the initial investigating team had missed, but she could patiently and doggedly repair the hole. Amos might plant a waving flag by an omission but it would be Jane who knew what to do or even if there was nothing that could be done, and that a case must either fall by the wayside or start again. Many a CID team had cause to be grateful to her, and the Department of Public Prosecutions most certainly had. Jane loaded herself with work and bore the load without complaint. She would go high, perhaps higher than the brilliant Amos.

  These thoughts moved through Charmian’s mind as she sorted the papers.

  George Rewley, who was a generation ahead of them, and who had qualities neither of the two shared, might very well end up top of the heap. Once he and Kate had their baby and their life settled down, then she ought to smooth his way to working in the Met. He needed a bigger pool to swim in than she could provide.

  She would miss him, and Kate, but life had to move on. After all, she would be marrying, her life would change, it was exciting even if alarming too. Lady Kent it didn’t bear thinking about, all her radical feeling rose to the surface, she would never use the name professionally.

  ‘Doesn’t look too good about the missing girl,’ said Jane in a sober voice. ‘I think she’s had it, poor kid. No more sightings, I never trusted them, and I hear the response to the TV appeal was meagre.’

  ‘Pity.’ They were looking for a dead body now.

  ‘Bit more on the boy, Joe, however, witnesses coming forward here and there, admitting to seeing him.’

  ‘Under severe prompting,’ said Amos with a grin.

  ‘Yes, not very reputable gentlemen some of them.’

  ‘Although it’s amazing how high up the social scale pederasty can go.’ And Amos started the national anthem.

  ‘Shut up, Amos.’

  Charmian shook her head.

  Amos laughed. ‘My joke, I just like to smite the social structure every so often.’

  Jane said in a severe voice: ‘You’re paid to support it.’

  ‘I do, I do. In my way.’

  ‘There are ramifications in this affair that we can’t see as yet,’ said Jane. ‘You know, the families, the names.’

  They were both old enough to remember the Loomis murder case, and they were interested, they thought there must be a connection but they couldn’t see how.

  ‘No one can.’ Charmian wondered if any of them had given enough weight to this factor.

  They knew about Lady Grahamden, she was much photographed and she was celebrated for her wealth and position, the local papers made much of it. They were doing so now in a quiet style, aware that they had to be cautious as Emily Grahamden had efficient lawyers with the money to pay them.

  ‘I wonder if who they are, the family connection is keeping people quiet,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘Sure of it,’ said Amos.

  Jane was more cautious. ‘I’m not so sure. Might draw people in to talk. Not everyone loves Lady Grahamden … and this does involve a child, people like to help.’

  Not helping much in this case, thought Charmian.

  ‘I heard on my way in that there was a search going on in Warrior Woods.’

  Warrior Woods was an ancient piece of woodlands on a hill beyond Windsor, near the village of Parsons Green. You could take your pick on what Warrior was meant: Celt, Anglo-Saxon, Dane, or Norman.

  Charmian was surprised. ‘That’s some way off. Must have a strong lead to go that far.’

  ‘Got the full equipment out there, so I’ve heard.’

  ‘Digging?’

  Amos nodded. ‘Digging.’

  The news quietened them all for the moment.

  ‘Sickening, isn’t it,’ said Jane, ‘when you hear of a kid going that way? God, I hate this job sometimes. Glad it’s not me out there at the dig.’

  Amos kept quiet, no jokes now, they both knew that he had been at such a dig. One year ago, before joining Charmian’s outfit, he had worked with a team investigating the disappearance of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Deborah Hendon had been missing for thirteen weeks before her body was found, hidden near a hedgerow in a Berkshire field.

  ‘It wasn’t so much the stench,’ he burst out, ‘although that was bad enough and I wasn’t prepared, but the utter disappearance of all human identity. Nature had just taken over and was converting her for its own purpose, she’d just become a food for a lot of other organisms.’

  ‘Shut up, Amos,’ said Jane again, but this time she said it with sympathy.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, ma’am.’

  ‘Let’s all have some coffee. I can smell you’ve got it brewing, Jane’—and then go away both of you and let me get on with work, was the unspoken addition.

  Amos took the hint, disappearing through the door, and not coming back. Jane came in with some coffee for Charmian.

  ‘Forgot to say: a message on the pad from yesterday. Came in late in the afternoon. I should have told you but I forgot. Sorry. Mr Madge telephoned. He would like to see you as he has something to show you. Or tell. Both, I think.’

  ‘I’ll do something about it. I have a lunchtime meeting in London but I’ll go into the shop on my way home.’ But before that I will have telephoned Humphrey. Or, with luck, have received a call from him myself. Perhaps even here.

  Jane still hesitated. ‘Mr Madge said he’s been thinking of telephoning you for days. He didn’t leave a message because he wanted to talk to you. He sounded agitated.’ She still stood at the door as if there was more to say.

  ‘Did he mention what it was about?’

  ‘A locket. Something about the locket. He’s a strange man.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Well, everyone knows him. You used to see him at jumble sales and sales in private houses, picking over the bits to see if there was anything worthwhile. He has a marvellous eye. He used to teach my mother in Sunday school, but she never had any trouble. Some did. Boys mostly, nothing really much … thought I’d just mention it.’

  The words were not quite a surprise to her, she had information like that filed away inside her, but she had learnt not to draw it out into the world of friends and neighbours unless it was necessary.

  She drank the coffee, then bent to her work. She could hear voices in the next room for a time, then they fell silent.

  She stopped work and sat there thinking, hard, painful thoughts with a dark picture behind those thoughts.

  She always dressed for London in a certain kind of way, a dark suit, very quiet but elegant, silk in summer, fine wool in winter.
Her meeting in London, in that office off Bond Street, close to an exceedingly smart art gallery, was short. At such meetings, as always, she received certain information and in her turn, she passed some back. This side of her work was not pleasing to her, she did not like the insights she got into the lives of others whose privacy was thus invaded. Unknown to them, as well, in some cases. They might be security risks, she was never sure.

  She was never quite certain, either, at what point in her relationship with Humphrey she realized that he had information on her and had had before they met, and for all she knew, might be continuing to receive it. The observer, observed.

  She had a shrewd idea that if she so cared she could obtain information on Humphrey, and in some of her angrier moments she had considered doing this, but it is not how you behave to someone you love.

  Before leaving London, Charmian made her way to the Royal Hotel in Piccadilly, ordered some tea, and used the telephone to call the clinic where Humphrey still was. He answered at once, and cheerfully.

  ‘Hello. I knew it would be you.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘You’ll see me tomorrow, I’ll come straight to Maid of Honour Row … as to how I am, I feel splendid and very optimistic.’

  A coldness cut into Charmian: if you were optimistic the implication was you could have been pessimistic. ‘You’re sure?’

  He caught the wobble in her voice. ‘Yes, cheer up, the gods here give judgement tomorrow. You’ll know.’

  ‘I shall look forward to seeing you,’ she said gravely.

  ‘And what about you, your day?’

  ‘Meeting in London. I’m going to see Mr Madge the jeweller, he’s been doing my ring … And I’ve been asking his advice about a bit of jewellery, a locket, that might hold a clue to the poor little bag of bones that was found near the dead boy. If it hadn’t been for Joe, they would never have been discovered.’