Stone Dead

by Jennie Melville

  ‘No, she’s a copper,’ said Keith. ‘I recognize you now. Saw you on TV.’

  Fame is being on TV, thought Charmian. ‘You’ll see plenty of us around in a few minutes.’

  They looked at her, surprised.

  ‘You don’t think that body walked there.’

  ‘A girl was it?’ asked Keith.

  ‘I don’t know. Not old anyway.’ Not judging by the skirt and the shoes. High-heeled sandals, they were. They had a new look as if she hadn’t worn them much. Hadn’t had the chance, Charmian thought, more moved than she wanted to admit. She chanced her arm. ‘Yes, I think she was just a girl. Now, that’s it for the moment. Stay here.’ She began to move away. ‘ I’ll see you get some tea sent out to you.’

  ‘I ought to phone my wife to tell her I’m going to be late,’ said Keith.

  ‘You’ve got a mobile?’ She knew he had, she could see it sticking out of the jacket slung across the wheelbarrow.

  ‘It’s Dad’s.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ grunted Fred. ‘You use it, you usually do.’

  Charmian began to walk away. ‘And don’t say too much.’ And perhaps I should ring my own husband, he is patient and puts up with my irregular timing because he knows it’s a career demand, but there are limits and there have been signs lately that Humphrey is reaching his.

  The guests, invited and uninvited (surely no one had asked that woman in the feather hat? She looked more like Sloane Street and Ascot than a crime bookshop) had retreated towards the back door of the shop and formed a circle around Birdie and Winifred.

  Winifred seemed to be giving a talk. ‘No one here need be worried, we have a protective shield over us. I placed it there myself earlier this afternoon.’

  ‘Was that a premonition, Miss Eagle?’ said a voice from the outer circle.

  ‘You could call it that … or a kind of insurance. So you can get off home and not worry. Or stay for a cup of tea and a look at the books. We are open for sales by the way. Miss Peacock, Birdie to all, will be on hand.’

  Charmian interrupted her without compunction. ‘Get the ladies inside, please, Winifred. The police will want to see them.’

  ‘What – all of them?’

  ‘All of them.’

  Winifred reflected that delay should be the opportunity for some good sales so she urged her captive flock forward with a smile. ‘Come inside, ladies and fellow witches, and if the champagne is finished then there shall be some tea.’

  ‘The workmen would like a cup,’ said Charmian, remembering her promise.

  ‘Don’t they always,’ said Winifred. ‘ Birdie, dear, put the kettle on, the big one …’

  ‘Mugs, mugs,’ muttered Birdie, as she moved off. ‘ Fortunately we have plenty of them since the last junior witches seminar.’ Young, probationary witches liked tea in great mugs, she had discovered, whereas mature witches went for cups in flower-patterned bone china. Odd, Birdie had thought. There was a good supply of tea, herbal, China and Indian, and some goat’s milk. Or low fat dried for those who could not stomach the organic sort. She couldn’t herself and she never told Winifred, but she kept a secret jug of Jersey cow’s milk at the back of the refrigerator. Winifred never looked inside, leaving what she called ‘the comestibles’ to Birdie. Starve if it wasn’t for me, Birdie said happily to herself as she watched the kettle come to the boil. It was wicked to do so, but she had to admit that the discovery of the bodies had cheered her up. It seemed to her a sign that the bookshop would do well, was meant to do well.

  There was still that other matter though, she looked forward to telling Charmian when she could get at her.

  Charmian was about to go into the shop to telephone her husband when Dr Mason the police surgeon arrived, and hard on his heels a detective sergeant. Mull by name and known by sight to Charmian, he had the task of organizing the Scene-of-the-Crime team.

  ‘Don’t know why you needed to call me out,’ grumbled Dr Mason, giving the pit a quick look, then jumping down. Anyone can see that that pair are dead and have been for years. Centuries,’ he added, looking at the skull. ‘The one underneath anyway.’

  ‘We had to call you out, sir, sorry,’ said Sergeant Mull, not a man easily moved from the path of duty. ‘Obliged.’

  ‘Well, there you are, they are dead. Can I go now?’

  Fred called across the open pit. ‘Dr Mason, now you’re here, could you give me something for my back?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t, come into the surgery like you always do.’ And grumbling, Dr Mason got out of the pit and took himself away from the dead – and from his alive and demanding patient. If he could afford it he would leave the NHS and go into private practice.

  ‘Shouldn’t think there’s much need for Forensics, here, would you say, ma’am? Photography yes.’ Then Mull remembered who he was talking to and that this was a woman of power, and went quiet.

  Also, he could see the head of the photography unit Inspector Maiden and Superintendent Hallows coming down the garden. And behind them the slim figure of the young woman he had known as Dolly Barstow for several hopeful years but never got further than the odd smile. But he always hoped. And what was she doing here anyway?

  Charmian told the three of them how she came to be here and what had happened.

  ‘So you came for a party and ended up at a wake,’ said Hallows. ‘I heard about the party. Chief Superintendent Freeman and his wife were asked. His wife is a friend of one or both of the women. They go about together, don’t they?’ He made it sound a dangerous pursuit. ‘Anyway, he couldn’t come so I don’t suppose she came on her own.’ Freeman was famed for keeping out of trouble, although should there be trouble here? Hallows was not sure, but he sensed it.

  ‘She could be here somewhere,’ said Charmian.

  ‘Anyway, you were, ma’am.’

  ‘Just one of those chances. I suppose you could say it was lucky I was here and that we had that meeting this morning.’

  Hallows nodded. He had been talking, now he had gone into silent mode. He never said more than he had to, life had taught him the wisdom of it. Moreover, he had the knack of looking as if, had he said anything, it would have been exceedingly wise. His rapid rise in the Force had been due to this. ‘Hallows is canny,’ they said.

  ‘Perhaps I am making too much of the plastic bag over her face.’

  Hallows walked across to the grave to look down on the stone coffin. Then he turned and came back. ‘No, I don’t think you are, ma’am. I think there’s a link to the dead woman that Sid Chance has on his list. We’ve got another Miss X.’

  ‘We’ll need to find out who this one is and how long she’s been dead.’

  ‘No so long as the one underneath, that’s for sure.’

  Dolly Barstow spoke for the first time. ‘I don’t know about the dating of the skeletal figure, I suppose we shall find out, but I think the stone coffin could be older than either body.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Charmian queried.

  ‘It just looks it. There is a very archaic air to the carved pattern on the sides. It could be Roman.’

  ‘Did the Romans get here?’ asked Hallows.

  ‘They got everywhere they could, didn’t they? There might have been an estate here. Even a temple. I reckon it could be Roman.’

  ‘Yes, I thought that,’ said Charmian.

  ‘This was a place of public execution.’ Hallows reminded her that he took an interest in local history.

  ‘Yes, but the hanged didn’t get put away in a handsome coffin. Anyway, all the hanged were dug up decades ago and reburied elsewhere. Somewhere out Cheasey way, I heard,’ said Dolly.

  Appropriate, thought Charmian, but she didn’t say so – her thoughts were occupied with the later tenant of the tomb.

  A plain ambulance was manoeuvring its way in through the big back gate where the two workmen were already being interviewed, giving a lively version of events judging by their gestures. Sergeant Mull and Inspector Maiden had advanced towards the amb
ulance which would presently take the two sets of remains away. Mull was hoping to hand over to Sergeant Yardley when the shift changed in order to get away and meet his wife for a dinner party they’d been invited to.

  Dolly Barstow came across to her as they walked back into the shop where the witches and visitors were drinking tea.

  ‘It is important, the stone coffin,’ Dolly said, ‘ because the person, man – it is probably a man, I think, because of the strength needed – or say a very strong woman … that person has to be someone who would know about the coffin. Someone interested in the history of the place, or someone who could dig around.’

  ‘That’s you and Superintendent Hallows at the moment.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, ma’am,’ Dolly went on doggedly. ‘Or a builder or an archaeologist.’

  ‘Fred and Keith? Digging up what they had buried … No, I swear it was a surprise to them.’

  ‘Well, I trust you to know.’

  ‘And it wasn’t a surprise to you, although I can’t say about Tommy Hallows.’

  Dolly laughed. ‘ I’ll explain some time why it wasn’t a surprise to me.’ And she walked ahead of Charmian into the house, through the back room where Birdie was filling a teapot and into the shop itself. ‘Nor maybe to Tommy Hallows.’ She never called him Tommy to his face, nor did many people. It was thought that even his wife called him Mr Hallows, probably not Superintendent was the current view, or not in bed.

  ‘I suppose Sid Chance will be beaming in any minute,’ said Charmian.

  ‘Yeah, unless he does it all on e-mail.’ Dolly smiled at Birdie. ‘Hi there, Miss Peacock, got a cup of tea for me?’

  Birdie gave them a nervous smile, opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, then shut it again. She reached into the cupboard and seemed to mutter something about it having to be a mug if they didn’t mind.

  ‘It’s all right, Birdie,’ said Charmian. She always felt protective about Birdie Peacock, although it was probably unnecessary because Birdie had told her more than once that she had her own ‘protector’ always ready to be summoned when the right words had been uttered. Perhaps Birdie hadn’t uttered them. ‘Don’t worry too much. I am afraid you will have the police team – photographers and forensic people – working around here for a while yet, but the bodies will be away soon.’

  ‘It’s not the bodies,’ said Birdie, ‘we all come to that, don’t we? It’s the human end and just as it should be, the earth needs us to replenish it; it’s the feeling when the death’s not right.’

  Once again she seemed on the point of saying something more when Winifred Eagle put her head round the door. ‘ More tea required, Birdie.’ She saw Charmian and waved. ‘Come and have a cuppa, dear.’ She shot towards the shop. ‘ Excuse me if I rush, people are just buying and buying.’

  ‘She’s happy,’ said Dolly succinctly.

  They followed Winifred into the shop, which was crowded; Charmian saw that Mrs Freeman was indeed present: she was talking away to Frostie Fisher from whom she seemed to be buying a book. Frostie will take over the shop, if the other two are not careful, thought Charmian. And then, no, she remembered the power that the two of them could exert when they chose. She had met more than a touch of it herself in the past and wondered where it came from.

  Charmian found herself drinking a mug of tea without being clear where it came from. Dolly too was drinking tea sitting on the window sill studying a book.

  ‘Trial of Florence Maybrick, I’ve always wondered about her. I think she did it, killed her husband with arsenic. What else could you do then if you wanted to get rid of your husband? Divorces were hard to come by. Now Lizzie Borden, there’s one who murdered her parents. I’ve heard Birdie talk about her. Who else?’ She put the book aside. ‘Why are Victorian crimes so much more interesting than ours today?’

  ‘Distance lending enchantment, I suppose.’

  ‘Innocence and guilt are harder to be sure about, I suppose, if a hundred years lie between us and them. There’s some people think that Richard III didn’t murder those little princes.’

  ‘Innocence and guilt are always hard to be sure about,’ said Charmian. ‘You know that, Dolly.’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’

  They were surveying the room and the room was certainly surveying them, quietly, over the teacups. It was a well-dressed, prosperous looking crowd. You could always tell money by shoes and handbags, Dolly reflected. Hair too, but less easily because haircutting had improved so much in the last decade. She ran her hand regretfully over her own short bob. She didn’t get to the hairdresser as much as she should, whereas most of this crowd looked as though they had just come out from beneath the hairdryer. Hand-held, of course.

  Was there a difference between the invited guests who were either crime story addicts or white witches with an eye for a good dowsing rod or first-class crystal pyramid, and those other shoppers who had seen a free drink and just dropped in for a taste?

  She thought she could see a difference: shopping bags. The invited guests had the expensive handbag dangling on a chain over the shoulder or looped round a wrist, whereas the shoppers had plastic bags from well-known stores.

  When did baskets go out? Dolly asked herself. Her mother had carried one when she went to buy food but Dolly herself had never had one and she doubted if even her mother did now. Her mother kept up with fashion and if in the bookshop now would probably have lined up with the white witches …

  And Dolly had the feeling too that in one of her rougher, tougher moods, for Mum had been a strong-minded lass from Fife before she married a banker, she would have lined up with the small, select, black witches section about which Birdie and Winifred were being so discreet. A good selling line, though, Dolly was prepared to bet.

  She could not, at that moment, identify a black witch, but she saw Charmian move over to talk to a large woman with a froth of brightly coloured hair, too bright to be in any way natural. Perhaps it was a wig. The woman had her back to the room so that Dolly could not see her face, but whoever she was she was talking to a smartly dressed woman in black. Too smart and worldly for Windsor, Dolly thought, where tweeds and a nice silk shirt or a plain silk suit, if the weather was good were considered elegant dress.

  There was a purposeful air to Charmian which suggested that this was not just a social encounter.

  Dolly would have liked to follow her, but she had the feeling that Charmian wanted to do this on her own. She stood back watching as a detective constable, Kim Fraser, she thought, went round the room taking names and addresses while weeding out those who had nothing of interest to offer from those who might have seen or heard anything useful. Very few, Dolly thought, as the room emptied.

  She could see Charmian’s face, reading on it a look of familiar intensity. She liked Charmian, and admired her: she had achieved exactly the sort of career that Dolly meant to earn for herself, but she could be formidable.

  She smiled at Charmian, who saw the smile, and responded with a quick nod.

  Now did that mean come over and join in? Or keep out? After considering, she drew into a quiet corner behind a shelf of books, drew her mobile out, and dialled Charmian.

  ‘Hello, Dolly here. Do you want me over there with you or not? I couldn’t read the signal.’

  ‘No.’ Charmian left it at that, for a moment. Dolly waited. You never prompted Charmian or you got something sharp back. ‘Go round the room, see what you can pick up, and then find Birdie or Winifred and ask about the person from whom they bought the place. Get what they know. Probably more than they will say; there is a strange feeling to the house. I heard them say so. The smell, Birdie said. I can’t smell it.’

  ‘Right,’ said Dolly. Probably imagination. All old houses smelled, didn’t they? Over the decades houses naturally build up their own smell, some more pleasant than others. It was life you smelled really.

  She sniffed the air: to her, the room smelled of light scent and powders and tea, but that was the present company. Th
ey were nearly all women of an age to feel the need to cover their cheeks with delicate creams and soft colours. Since they were, none of them, as far as she could see, poor, they could afford the expensive stuff which smelled good. It was amazing how the cheaper scents and powders had the stronger smell. In cosmetics, as in much else, she reflected, subtlety cost.

  Philosophic thoughts such as these in her mind, she trawled the room, picking up snatches of conversation here and there.

  ‘I met the most powerful warlock in Oxford the other day … he’s promised to look in on us.’

  ‘You’d expect an Oxford warlock to be powerful,’ fluted another voice.

  ‘A Glastonbury man is more powerful,’ said someone else with emphasis. ‘ We need one.’

  ‘We have one,’ said the first speaker, ‘although not here today. Winifred can be very sexist.’

  ‘Why don’t we advertise for one. You know, on that page where people advertise for partners. White witch, still young, athletic, looks for partner of like faith.’

  She moved on to hear a voice proclaiming that she preferred crystal to a pendulum, you got more out of a crystal … and another woman saying that the only bore about being a white witch was that you couldn’t divorce. Against the white lore.

  A certain rationality there, Dolly thought, reaching to stroke the sleek black cat, but many were mad comments.

  And some madder than others:

  ‘I would like Birdie and Winifred to be more open-minded about publicity … more of a spread.’ Dolly recognized the speaker as a fellow inhabitant of Merrywick, thus well able to afford the delicate odour of rose that floated around her. ‘Why can’t we have a carnival, invite people. With sideshows … dogs, cats.’

  ‘A cats’ carnival?’ The woman she was talking to was younger and dressed in a more rangy style. Dolly was almost sure she was a local reporter egging on the other woman to more and more absurdities to make a good story which she would then print. ‘What do you think, Rose?’ Rose had her name woven into a filigree gold and diamond brooch so it was easy to identify her if you got close enough.