A Cure for Dying

by Jennie Melville

  As they drove away, Dolly said, ‘You didn’t get much out of that.’

  ‘No? “ Rather beastly”. I got that at least. The father stopped me at that point. Did you notice?’

  ‘He would have stopped you before if the girl hadn’t started answering. I reckon he thought that would look worse.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘The kid looked blind in both eyes.’

  ‘Vividly put, Dolly.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s how you look after killing.’

  ‘Don’t pass judgement too soon.’

  ‘Sorry. She scared me that kid.’

  ‘If there has been any violence from her, I’d say it was over, wouldn’t you? From the look of her?’ Joanna had looked drained.

  She drove Dolly to her own car, left her then with a promise to telephone, and drove back to Maid of Honour Row.

  Remembering the threat to herself she considered parking outside her house, but decided to put her car to bed for the night in the garage. She was proud of her car, and inclined to cherish it.

  As she walked back down the street which was quiet and empty, she looked across the road to where a side road snaked away into the darkness.

  She stopped short, staring. Surely that was Lesley? She could see the bike resting in the road. But what was Lesley doing? Was she kneeling on the grass verge? Or was she hurt?

  Charmian began to walk across. ‘ Lesley, are you all right?’

  The girl was on her knees on the grass, because there was no pavement here. Behind Lesley was the broken fence of an empty old house with its neglected garden. It was soon to be knocked down and a block of flats put up in its place. Then the road would be paved and its charm gone.

  Lesley waved at her. ‘Come over here.’ Her voice sounded thick and distressed. ‘It’s an animal.’

  Charmian reached her side and stared down at a dark, furry patch that was no longer even animal in shape, except for the head and glazed eyes.

  ‘It’s another rabbit. But very dead.’ Another from the load dropped in the accident, one that hadn’t got to her doorstep, perhaps dropped here as an unwanted extra.

  ‘It’s horrible.’ Lesley was distressed. ‘Is that blood through there under the trees?’ She pointed at a gap in the fence through which you could see the dishevelled garden. ‘I’m going to look. Will you come with me?’ She held out a hand.

  ‘This animal has been dead some time,’ said Charmian, undecided.

  Suddenly they were caught in the glare from the headlights of a passing car. The pair of them were picked out in silhouette. The car slowed for a second as if the driver was looking at them.

  What must they look like? Decided, Charmian said, ‘Forget it, Lesley. This creature is well dead.’ She put her arm round the girl’s shoulders, they were shaking. ‘We’re all upset by the things that are happening, but we mustn’t let it get out of hand. Come back with me and I’ll give you a drink.’

  And have one myself, she thought, more distressed herself than she wanted to admit. Was there no end to nastiness?

  ‘But there might be something else there.’

  ‘I don’t think so. But I’ll look myself in daylight.’

  Whatever was there was going to be very very dead.

  Chapter Ten

  Faithful to her word, Charmian was out of the house early and across the road, studying the scene that had so distressed Lesley. Kate went with her, having been an interested observer of the steadying down of Lesley last night. Or, as she put it herself, ‘stiffening her sinews with strong drink’.

  Kate had been in the kitchen, drinking coffee and talking on the telephone. Kate did a good deal of telephoning. Now she was back home, she explained, she had a good deal of gossip to catch up with.

  When she saw Lesley and Charmian come in, she had put down the telephone and hastened to their assistance.

  ‘Don’t tell me, another murder.’

  ‘Not quite. Look after Lesley for me while I get us a drink. Then I’ll tell you.’

  But Lesley was already pouring out the details in an excited way, explaining and apologising in the same breath. ‘I am sorry for being such a nuisance, but it was so horrible.’

  Then Kate had offered coffee and sympathy to Lesley as Charmian poured out some whisky, and the colour came back into Lesley’s cheeks. Kate saw the girl back home, and was gone so long that she caused Charmian to remember her expressed interest in Johnny.

  ‘Nice bunch,’ Kate said, when she returned. ‘She’ll be all right with them, they’ll look after her.’ She studied her godmother. ‘You look done in yourself.’

  ‘It’s been quite a day.’

  ‘I’ll come with you in the morning.’ Then she tactfully took herself off to her room, from which she very shortly returned with Muff hanging over her arm like a furry lappet with bright eyes. ‘Here, you can have her. She’s just knocked over my bottle of scent.’

  A fragrant Muff sat down on the floor to wash her face. She smelt strange to herself, not nice at all. Where was that lovely fishy smell she had started out with?

  Charmian went to bed, to sleep lightly and to dream of knives, and blood and Frisian beards that were really holes, and holes that were beards, red ones, at that, all mixed up with death and Joanna.

  She was surprised but not particularly grateful to have Kate appear at her side as she left the house in the early morning.

  ‘You needn’t have come. I didn’t really expect it.’

  ‘I said I would, so I am. Besides, I’m interested.’

  The milkman delivering the early morning bottles gave them a surprised look, and a newspaper delivery boy shooting down the road on his cycle had to swerve to avoid them as they crossed.

  ‘Where were you last night?’ asked Kate, looking around her.

  ‘About here. Yes, there. I can see the animal.’

  Calmly Kate bent over the remains. ‘Not much to see really. Hardly more than a dead rabbit skin. I don’t know why Lesley got so worked up.’

  ‘I don’t, either.’

  In daylight there was nothing frightening, although the garden beyond was lonely and desolate enough.

  Charmian took a quick walk through it, but there was no sign that anyone had been there recently. The house itself was locked and barred.

  ‘Come on, Kate, there’s nothing here. I’ll give them a ring at Alexandria Road, and someone can come down and have a look, but I don’t think they will find anything. The rabbit, I suppose, might be one of the consignment that went missing on the way to the pub. Might have been meant for my doorstep.’

  ‘I suppose the joker who did it (not that I think it was a joke, godmother, far from it), might have thought one was enough.’

  Kate walked briskly back to the house muttering about orange juice and coffee, with perhaps bacon. Getting up early made her feel so hungry. Charmian stood alone for a moment, staring through to the deserted garden. Evil, wickedness could not hang around, and yet she felt a sense of malignancy, as if the blood that had been spilt was bad blood. Perhaps something terrible had been planned for her here.

  Charmian duly telephoned a message to the Receiver in the Major Incident room who took it without much enthusiasm.

  ‘Our computer’s gone down,’ he said. Like most other forces, they used the HOMES (Home Office Major Enquiry System) in which the computer network was a vital part. ‘We won’t have it back till mid-morning, so they say. But I’ll tell the Office Manager. If you say it is important, ma’am.’ His tone implied that he most certainly did not. But his not to reason why before a Chief Superintendent.

  ‘I didn’t say so, I just said it might be.’

  Later, from her London office, she telephoned Ulrika who agreed, Yes, she had consented to advise Brian Gaynor. It was an interesting case as she already knew. She had had perhaps a slight reservation whether it was entirely ethical of her to undertake the case when she had already heard details from Charmian, but she had decided it was permissible.

 
Ulrika could be maddening sometimes, thought Charmian. Of course she always meant to accept Brian Gaynor’s request, but she would have to have this great debate inside herself first. It was the German side of her coming out.

  ‘So you and I are to be on opposite sides of the fence.’ Possibly Charmian came out with it more sharply than she might have done.

  ‘But of course it is not like that,’ said Ulrika, in a predictably reasonable manner, calculated to irritate. Charmian recognised she was getting the professional treatment. ‘And why should you mind? But I sense you do.’

  ‘It’s a very emotional and tricky situation with the Gaynors as you may imagine. I can see it getting into drama. And I do not want there to be a scene, I don’t like scenes, especially between you and me.’

  ‘Doesn’t have to be a scene. Unless you want one.’

  ‘What makes you think I do?’

  ‘I think you are looking for a way to cut loose from me. To assert yourself.’

  There was so much truth in this, so much acute observation, that Charmian found it painful. Perhaps this was true of her in general, that as soon as she settled into a relationship, she wanted to be free of it. In retrospect, it certainly could have been true of her marriage, which had lasted and yet not lasted until her husband’s death. She had always blamed the alienation on her career, her ambitions, but perhaps it had been her own character. Ulrika caused her to ask if she had nurtured the ambition itself as a route out; if her career had been an excuse and not a reason.

  A sudden rush of thoughts like this is not easy to handle. At this point Charmian would have liked to withdraw from the Gaynor case, but she knew her job and suggested, with more docility than the alert Ulrika (who knew exactly what she was about, and rather enjoyed prodding her friend) had expected, that Ulrika telephone Brian Gaynor and set up a meeting.

  Soon; she had a sense of urgency.

  ‘This evening?’ It was not an easy day, she had two committees and a report to write but she would push to get away. ‘I’ll try to finish early and come out to Fletcher’s Cottage between six and seven if that suits. What do you think?’

  ‘See what I can do,’ promised Ulrika. ‘I have a full case load today, also a lecture to medical students in the late afternoon. They will all be asleep after playing rugger. Maybe I will let them sleep on. I will ring you back.’

  Charmian found herself waiting for the call. She was glad when she was drawn out from a committee to hear Ulrika say that Brian Gaynor had agreed to the evening appointment. Mother and daughter would be ready to see them both.

  ‘Thank goodness.’

  ‘Are you uneasy about them?’

  ‘There is a bad feeling in that house. I don’t like what they might do to each other.’ What they were doing, what they had done.

  ‘Do you suspect the parents of ill-treating the child?’

  ‘If I was sure of my ground, I would have acted at once. No, it’s not as simple as that. Both mother and child bear bruises.’

  ‘The father?’

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t seem the type.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘He’s not a killer,’ said Charmian, who had not liked Brian Gaynor, but thought she had got his measure. An intellectual tough, who must be an aggressive and alarming counsel, but who loved his family and provided for them well. Of course, love could be violent and terrible, one always had to remember that fact.

  ‘In a family you cannot always be sure who will kill whom,’ said Ulrika.

  It was a warm day in Windsor, one of the hottest in that hot summer. Brian Gaynor had taken his son to school, then proceeded to his London chambers to consult with his clerk. Some cases might have to be postponed, others handed over to other counsel. It was a mark of his state of mind that he even considered doing this; he was not a man who gave up work lightly. Annabel had been left in charge of Joanna, and Annabel herself was under the gentle supervision of Tommy Bingham. It was Annabel’s belief that she was looking after Tommy, who had been ill, but the truth was the reverse.

  ‘It’s very decent of you to have us here, Tommy,’ Brian had said before he left that morning.

  ‘Glad to do it.’

  ‘Don’t let Joanna make a nuisance of herself.’

  ‘She never does. I like her. A bright child.’

  ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with her intelligence.’

  ‘Anyway, she’ll be mostly out with the stable lads, if I know her, and what could be healthier than that?’ They were both men who thought that the open-air life and the noble animal, the horse, promoted a healthy mind.

  ‘I’m thankful they put up with her.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got some decent lads.’ Tommy referred to them all as lads, regardless of sex. The term indicated status rather than gender. ‘And they seem fond of me. Couldn’t have been better when I was ill.’

  ‘You’re a good employer. You deserve it.’

  ‘Doesn’t always follow. Don’t always get what you deserve.’

  ‘True enough.’ Brian was getting himself out of the house by degrees. Coat on, brief-case checked and ready, car keys out. ‘Don’t let Annabel fuss over you. I know she’s longing to. She doesn’t get enough to do now the children are grown up.’

  ‘A girl who looks like Annabel can fuss me as much as she likes,’ said Tommy Bingham stoutly. He had always had an eye for the ladies, and although he couldn’t do much about it these days, he still enjoyed a pretty face.

  The morning passed quietly. Annabel received from her husband the message about the evening’s appointment with Ulrika Seeley and Charmian Daniels. She pulled a face, but undertook to have Joanna there as arranged. And yes, they had both recovered from the effects of the sedation. Joanna looked quite bright.

  She herself had a headache, which she did not mention, but cooked a light lunch for them all, finding her way around the strange kitchen with quiet skill. Tommy read The Times, then worked on accounts at his desk. He had given up smoking on his doctor’s orders, so he sucked peppermint humbugs and groaned at intervals at the price of feed and farriers. He was a rich man, but he had a frugal nature.

  Joanna read one of the books she had brought with her. After lunch, she politely asked her host’s permission to go out into the stables.

  ‘By all means. But they’ll be pretty busy out there.’

  ‘I can help them.’

  ‘Right you are.’ He watched her depart, neat in clean jeans with a white shirt. ‘Very knowledgeable about horses for her age,’ he observed to Annabel.

  ‘Oh yes, she’s fine with horses.’ Too fine, thought Annabel, who did not have the same feeling for horses that her husband and daughter shared. But she had to admit that Joanna worked hard at school and did not fail there. She kept her end up, whatever she had in mind for her life, and Annabel wondered sometimes what this was. There was an enigma locked up inside Joanna that she could not get at. It was fair to say that it maddened her.

  Tommy eyed her. He was sensitive about women, especially good-looking ones. But any woman, like any horse, would get good treatment from Tommy.

  ‘You’re not too keen on this woman coming this evening, are you?’ He took Annabel’s silence for assent. ‘Can’t say I am myself. Although the one we saw the other day seemed a nice enough woman.’

  After his illness he had become alive to changes in the atmosphere around him. Smells, the taste of food, sounds, all struck him harder. Emotions also. Now he felt as if something strange had come into his house with the Gaynors. They were his old friends, he had known Brian from a boy, Annabel since her marriage and the children since they were born. They were nice children, the boy clever, with his father’s logical mind, and the girl a taking little creature. Perhaps too much in the stables at present, but she would get over that; girls always did. And as for being mixed up with murder, nonsense! So why did he have now the very strong feeling that he was in what he called ‘ a situation’?

  In the first place, little as he liked to a
dmit it, murder had come sailing close to the Gaynor family. You couldn’t forget the girl killed in their garden. It was why they were here, in his house. He had invited them.

  So if there was ‘a situation’ then it was his own fault.

  More troubled than he would have admitted to either Brian or Annabel, he went to the window of his sitting-room to stare out at the stable-yard. The sky was darkening with a belt of clouds coming in from the west while a yellow haze suffused the sun.

  He might have a word with Joanna herself. Or with Lesley, she was a sensible girl, a nice girl with a practical nature and marvellous with the ponies. Originally he had given her the job because he knew her father. The old boy had taken his Latin in hand when he had to cram a bit to get into Oxford. No one learnt Latin today. He could see Lesley now going into the tack-room, walking with her long, graceful stride. He had a soft spot for Lesley, another thing he would never be ready to admit, liking her almost as though she were the daughter he had never had.

  Lesley turned round, saw him at the window and gave a smile. Then she disappeared inside the tack-room.

  No sign of Joanna, but she’d be there somewhere.

  He turned back into the room. ‘Look at that sky,’ he said. ‘ There’s going to be a storm.’

  Darkness visible began to crowd into the room where he sat with Annabel. After a while, she saw he was dropping off to sleep. She sat quietly with him for a time, then climbed the stairs to Joanna’s room.

  Finishing her day surprisingly early, because of a cancelled committee meeting, Charmian decided she would go to see Millicent Ward’s family. It might be wise to have spoken to them, to see what information they had to hand on, before she saw the Gaynors. She needed all the ammunition she could get. And then she was ashamed of herself for thinking of her interview as a battle.

  She went to her car, parked in a neat underground bay, so handy for her office, as befitted an officer of her seniority. To have a parking slot at all in this city was a privilege.