by Carola Dunn
‘It’s not coming down as hard,’ Tom said peaceably.
What could be seen of the sky through the trees was now light grey instead of dark grey. Leaves still dripped and occasional cascades descended on them, but as they emerged into a grassy glade, it was obvious that the worst was over.
A wide ride, more cart-track than bridleway, entered the clearing at an angle to their path. Muddy ruts filled with water suggested that it was occasionally used by vehicles. The ruts crossed the clearing and ran into the woods opposite. The footpath petered out, as if, having brought its followers to the glade, it abandoned them to decide for themselves which way to go.
‘That way.’ Elliot pointed at a caped constable standing on the edge of what looked like an unbroken wall of greenery.
They altered course to trudge in his direction.
‘Blimey,’ said Tom, at Alec’s side, ‘I’d’ve left the perishing dog to find its own way home.’
‘It can’t be as bad as it looks from here. Someone had already lugged three bodies through, remember.’
‘’Less they came from the other side,’ Piper suggested.
‘Nah,’ said Elliot, ‘Inspector Gant reckons it’d be impossible.’
‘Ah,’ said Tom, at his most inscrutable.
They reached the cross-track. Alec stopped to study the ruts.
‘Horse and cart,’ said Tom, ‘not a motor vehicle. The most recent, at any rate.’
‘Yes, a heavy one. And we won’t get much more than that after all this rain.’
‘You reckon it’s how the bodies were brought here, Chief?’ Piper asked.
‘More likely than that someone carried ’em one by one over his shoulder from the lane,’ Tom responded. ‘That’s quite a way.’
‘But let’s not jump to conclusions. The cart may have nothing to do with the case. We don’t even know whether the three burials took place at or near the same time. The report I was given was singularly uninformative.’
‘They didn’t, sir,’ said Elliot. ‘What I heard is, the doc says the one the dog found is not too old, maybe a week or thereabouts. Then the one they found when they started searching, that’s more like a few months. After that, they started looking for more and they found a sort of dip, like, where the ground had settled, but they hadn’t hardly started digging – just enough to be sure there really was a body – when the chief constable heard about it and called in the Yard, sir, so they stopped.’
The mild irritation Alec had been feeling about the inadequate report blossomed into fury. This was essential information that he should have been given by the detective in charge, not by a uniformed constable who happened to know. Naturally DI Gant was annoyed at having the case taken from him, but such unprofessional conduct was inexcusable. At least, he’d better have an excellent excuse, such as having dropped dead on the spot.
Elliot was not to blame. With difficulty keeping his voice even, Alec thanked the man. Tom, well acquainted with both protocol and his chief, shot him a shrewd glance, but the constable just looked pleased with himself.
‘Piper, follow the tracks in both directions. See if there’s anything else they can tell us, and get any measurements you can.’
‘Right, Chief.’
The stretch of grass from the ruts to the waiting constable showed nothing more than the trampling of a great many police boots. Beyond him the trampling continued, with broken branches and crushed shrubs thoroughly obliterating any marks the murderer might have left.
With a sigh, Alec acknowledged to himself that the past few days of torrential rain probably had destroyed anything useful long before Detective Inspector Gant arrived on the scene.
They followed the trail, winding between trees for twenty yards or so. It ended at a fallen beech, one of the once-coppiced monsters, stretched out like a stranded giant squid. It couldn’t have been downed more than a year or two ago because some branches were still putting out new growth, reaching upwards. Where the shallow root system had torn out of the earth, the soil was disturbed. Seeds of many different plants had sprouted; grasses, bracken, rosebay willowherb and some small shrubs.
Amid this evidence of vigorous life gaped three ominous trenches.
CHAPTER 2
Shortly before eleven, Alec telephoned from Epping police station to say he was about to leave for home. Daisy waited up for him, of course. And of course Mrs Dobson had left a hefty snack for him, regardless of his instructions.
Sitting with him in the dining room while he ravenously disposed of a beef and horseradish sandwich, Daisy shared his Thermos flask of cocoa. She was dying to know what had kept him so late, but she refrained from asking. For once, her discretion was rewarded.
Alec sat back, nursing his mug of cocoa in both hands. ‘We were out at the site till it got too dark,’ he said. ‘The local man, the detective from Chelmsford, left as soon as he heard we’d been called in, and he took all but a couple of constables with him, including their spades and shovels. Not merely to Epping, but all the way to HQ in Chelmsford. I had to send to the Yard for some of our own people and equipment, and you know how happy that’s going to make the super.’
Daisy had had her own clashes with Superintendent Crane. One never could tell what would set off an explosion, and Alec had not always been on her side. It was a subject better avoided.
Suddenly she realised the implications of the need for digging tools. ‘There were more than three bodies?’ she asked, aghast.
‘No, no! Or at least, we didn’t find any more. DI Gant’s men had only dug down far enough to be sure there was a third body. Thank heaven they weren’t buried very deep.’
‘If they had been, they probably wouldn’t have been found. All the same, it must have been quite a job to bury three victims! Do you think there was more than one murderer? Or perhaps he had an accomplice.’
‘It’s much too soon for any theories. But the local medico says one – the one that was found first – has been there for no longer than a week, one for several months, and one for at least a year.’
‘Ugh!’
‘It was rather ugh. The two later ones, anyway. Not much left of the first, poor beggar, what with foxes and badgers and—’
‘Darling, must you?’
‘You asked. They left most of the bones, luckily, or we might never have realised he was there. The murderer must have covered over their diggings each time he brought a new victim.’ He yawned. ‘Come on, time for bed. I’ll have to be up early.’
‘You must be awfully tired.’
‘Not too tired,’ he said with a grin, and kissed her. ‘Chief inspectors don’t have to do the actual digging.’
‘How lucky I married a chief inspector!’
At an ungodly hour in the morning, Daisy got up in time to go downstairs in her dressing-gown to bid him goodbye. The sun was shining with the promise of a perfect June day.
‘Better take your umbrella anyway,’ she said. ‘You never can tell. Do you think there’s the slightest chance of clearing up the case in time to go to Belinda’s sports day?’
‘Very little.’
‘I’d better write and warn her, then if you can it’ll be a nice surprise, instead of a nasty one when you don’t turn up.’
‘You’ll go anyway?’ he asked a trifle anxiously. There were still occasional moments when he couldn’t quite believe she loved Belinda like a daughter, not a stepdaughter.
‘Darling, of course. I wouldn’t let her down for the world. I’ll stay the weekend, as we planned, and take her out to lunch on Sunday. Melanie and Sakari are going, too, so we’ll have a lovely hen-party.’
Alec laughed. ‘In fact, I’d be thoroughly in the way.’
‘Well, now you come to mention it …’ she teased. ‘No, never! We’d just do different things if you were there.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
He put on his hat and opened the front door, then turned and said thoughtfully, ‘One curious circumstance you might want to ponder, but you must p
romise not to mention it to another soul.’
‘I promise.’
‘The most recent body had a piece of paper safety-pinned to the jacket, and the other two have safety-pins in the same position, though the paper’s disintegrated. It’s a bit tattered but as far as we can make out, it says, Justice! Revenge! with exclamation marks included.’
‘I’ll think about it. Written, or one of those with cut-out words stuck on?’
‘Cut-out letters, pasted in two semicircles, to form a circle. It’s pinned over his heart, and he was shot right through the centre.’
‘Good gracious! I wonder what it means?’
‘So do we. And you, as a writer, seem to pick up almost as many odd bits of information as do we coppers. Perhaps it will ring a bell with you if it doesn’t with us.’
‘Not immediately, but I’ll let it stew in the back of my mind.’
‘If ever I heard a mixed metaphor, that was one!’
‘I’m always careful when I’m writing an article. Are all three of them men?’
‘They are. And that’s all you’re getting out of me. I’ll ring if I’m going to be late again.’
Daisy stood on the front porch to watch him go down the steps, across the street and down the path through the communal garden – it would have been a typical London Square if it hadn’t been a Circle. Since she had learnt to drive and the Met had acquired more police cars, he often left their Austin Chummy for her use. The Hampstead Tube station was only a couple of minutes’ walk and took him direct to Charing Cross, a few minutes’ walk from New Scotland Yard.
But she didn’t want to drive alone all the way to Saffron Walden, she decided. She’d ring up Sakari later and beg a lift.
Alec turned at the fountain and waved to her. She waved back, then hurried into the house and closed the door. This wasn’t the sort of neighbourhood where women stood on doorsteps in their dressing-gowns gossiping. Fortunately, having discovered Daisy was the daughter of the late Viscount Dalrymple, the neighbours tended to make allowances for the peculiarities of the aristocracy. All except the Bennetts, at the bottom: they had undoubtedly trained their field glasses on the Fletchers since the moment the front door opened.
Daisy enjoyed living in Constable Circle, but the nosy, gossipy Bennetts were definitely a fly in the ointment.
After breakfast she went to the kitchen for her daily consultation with Mrs Dobson, to settle the everlasting question about what to have for dinner when they didn’t know whether Alec would be eating at home or not, and if so, at what time. They sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea each, a procedure that would have shocked Daisy’s aristocratic mother quite as much as it had shocked her middle-class mother-in-law.
Then she took Oliver, Miranda and Nana for a walk on Hampstead Heath. Mrs Gilpin insisted on going, too; more, Daisy suspected, because she enjoyed the cachet of being nurse to twins than because she still thought Daisy incompetent to look after her own children for an hour. At least, now that the children were walking part of the way, Bertha was left behind to get on with the endless mountains of ironing. Once they were safely away from the road, Nana was let off the lead and the twins lifted down from their double pushchair. Nurse sat down on the nearest bench with this symbol of her pride parked beside her, while Daisy walked on and the dog and the twins ran and tumbled on the grass about her.
And all the time she was turning over in the back of her mind the strange target found on the body of the murdered man. It must represent a target, obviously, but what was the significance of the words pasted round the edge? Justice! Revenge!
‘Mama, carry!’
Daisy picked up Miranda and turned back. Oliver clutched her skirt, whining. Nurse, whose eagle eye had never ceased to watch, came to meet them. Mrs Gilpin could be a frightful wet blanket, but Daisy was very much aware she could never manage without her.
They returned to the house, where Nurse Gilpin dealt efficiently with the children and the pushchair. Daisy settled with a cup of coffee on the chair in the hall, and dialled Sakari’s number.
The Prasads’ butler, acquainted with Mrs Fletcher, admitted that Mrs Prasad might indeed possibly be available to speak upon the telephone.
‘Daisy?’
‘Good morning, Sakari.’
‘My dear Daisy, good morning to you.’ Sakari’s rich voice, with its precise accent, conveyed as usual a hint of amusement. ‘I trust you have not rung to tell me you are unable to attend the coming ordeal. I count on your support.’
‘Darling, when it comes to sports, it’s no good relying on me. I was always a hopeless duffer. I could never remember the score and the rules were all Greek to me.’
‘Then perhaps I shall be able to assist.’ She chuckled. ‘I have been taking Greek classes for some weeks.’ The Indian woman was an inveterate taker of classes and attender of lectures on all subjects under the sun.
‘How brave! The alphabet’s impossible, for a start!’ Daisy’s school for young ladies had not considered it wise to tax female brains with Latin and Greek.
‘Indeed not. Compared to Hindi, the alphabet is very similar to your own. Unfortunately, I do not believe it will be of any assistance when we are watching our children run up and down the school field.’
‘I don’t think they’ll actually be playing games, just running races, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand.’
‘I am much relieved. But you are not going to desert us, are you?’
‘No. Alec almost certainly won’t be able to go, though. I could drive myself – or go by train, I suppose – but I wondered whether you might have room for me in your car?’
‘But yes, of course! As long as you do not intend to bring with you the twins and the nanny and the nurserymaid and the dog?’
‘Belinda would love to see the twins, but it’s just too complicated.’
‘Good. Melanie comes with me, but neither of our husbands is free, so there will be plenty of room. What fun! I will pick up Melanie first, as she lives so close to me, and then we will come to Hampstead for you.’ They arranged a time. Sakari went on, ‘I am so glad that Elizabeth and Belinda are at school with Deva. She would not have settled so happily, I think, without friends from home.’
Daisy was touched. Sakari seldom alluded to the difficulty of being a dark-skinned person in a pale-skinned, prejudiced society. Before Daisy met them, Melanie, in her unassuming way, had done her best to introduce the Prasads into her own circle in St. John’s Wood, with middling success. Important as he might be in diplomatic circles, the fact that Mr Prasad was a high official at the India Office – one of a very few native Indians – and cousin of a maharajah bore little weight in suburbia.
‘We are so glad,’ Daisy said, ‘that you found the Friends’ School to be a welcoming place for Deva and that Belinda chose to go, too.’
‘We do not tell relatives at home that boys and girls share lessons and eat together. It would be considered very shocking.’
‘It’s not exactly commonplace here. Neither Alec nor I would have thought of sending her to a Friends’ School, let alone a co-educational one, but it suits her very well. What’s more, she’s getting a much better education than I did. The children are actually encouraged to think for themselves! Her last letter was full of some science experiment she’d done in Mr Tesler’s laboratory. We never did any science.’
‘You should come to a few lectures with me. You could write articles about them.’
‘That’s a good idea. I’ll think about it. If only I knew in advance when Alec’s going to be away in the evening.’
‘Is he involved in something complicated and exciting now? Or has he merely gone off to the other end of the country?’
‘Just outside London, but complicated and possibly exciting. He told me more than usual because he can’t see any possible way I could get involved in the investigation.’
‘Do tell.’
Daisy pondered for a moment. ‘I’d better not. Alec swore me to
secrecy on some of it, and I can’t be certain which bits he’d mind about. There’s bound to be something in the evening papers, though.’
‘What if they don’t name Alec as the man in charge? How will I know which is his case?’
‘Unless the police really make an effort to hush up the details, it’ll be the sensation of the day. Even if there’s only a mention, you’ll know because, as I said, it’s just outside London. North-east, to be more precise, and close enough for Alec to come home for the night.’
‘I shall buy a newspaper,’ Sakari vowed.
Alec had taken the Chronicle with him. Daisy had every intention of reading an evening paper, but she didn’t get round to it. She was busy finishing off an article on the Crystal Palace for her American editor at Abroad magazine. She had told Elsie, the parlourmaid, not to disturb her, and to take a message if anyone rang up; unless it was Alec wanting to speak to her. At some point in the afternoon, Elsie crept in and left a cup of tea and a couple of digestive biscuits beside the typewriter, but the maid was far too proud of her mistress’s literary attainments to interrupt by drawing her attention to the fact.
When Daisy typed the last full stop, leant back and stretched, she discovered the empty cup and plate, so she must have eaten and drunk without noticing.
She rolled the sheets out of the typewriter, sorted the carbons from the wad and distributed the typed pages between the three piles on the desk. The top copy was for her editor, the second for her files and the smudged third for emergency salvage. Nana had been known to chew up articles carelessly left about, though not since she was a puppy. But the twins were reaching the age where tearing paper to shreds was lots of fun.
Alec came home at half past six. By then Daisy had visited the nursery, taken Nana out in the Circle garden, and was back at her typewriter dashing off a note to Mr Thorwald to accompany the article.
‘Hello, darling,’ said Daisy as Alec came into their shared office, and set his attaché-case on his own desk. ‘I’m glad you’re home early – but you’ve brought work to do?’
