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  ‘What about his voice?’

  ‘Oh, very ordinary. I couldn’t say he had an accent. An educated voice … I think,’ she added doubtfully.

  ‘Make up your mind,’ said Lady Grahamden.

  ‘It was.’ Biddy looked as though she might burst into tears. ‘ Not very educated but quite.’

  Charmian put down her empty glass. One step forward and two back; as Biddy offered more detail, so she seemed to tell less.

  ‘I’ll pass this all on to Inspector Feather. Unless you’ve told him already?’

  Biddy shook her head. ‘No, it just came out now. I hadn’t quite realized before. Things seem to disappear in your mind, don’t they? Like a dream, you know how that fades so quickly. You think you will remember for ever, and when you turn round it‘s gone.’

  What a witness, Charmian thought, the more she says, the less she tells, God help us if we have to depend on her in court.

  ‘Just think of anything you can that will help us in the search for Sarah. If no one is around to tell, then write it down. Keep a pad of paper and pencil handy and just get it down. Put it all there, never mind if you think afterwards it wasn’t all so, not how it happened, even made-up things can be helpful to the police. A lie can tell a lot.’

  Biddy stared at her with a set face, and Charmian realized she had gone just that one step too far. I did it deliberately, she told herself, she irritates me beyond belief this woman, I don’t like her, or is it that I don’t trust her?

  Did Lady Grahamden give a short, sharp exclamation? She couldn’t be sure.

  ‘I’m going to scream,’ Biddy said.

  Charmian stood up, but Lady Grahamden remained where she was. ‘ Slap her on the face. Once on each cheek,’ she said calmly. ‘That’ll stop her.’ And since Charmian showed no sign of doing this, and Biddy had started, she rose herself and delivered two stinging slaps on the face.

  Biddy went quiet and started to cry, not noisily but with quiet despair.

  ‘I’ve had practice,’ said Lady Grahamden. ‘Not the first face I’ve slapped. I don’t think you’ll get any more out of Biddy just now, she has these turns.’ Her voice was tolerant. ‘ She can’t help it and I don’t blame her. I feel the same myself but we didn’t scream much in my time, just gritted our teeth and got on with it. I don’t know, perhaps a scream makes more sense.’

  ‘I’ll let you know if there is any news of Sarah.’

  Lady Grahamden nodded, her face without hope as if she knew that good news there could not be.

  ‘Give my love to Humphrey, I hope he’s all right. I hear he’s been seeing that brain man at the Royal Oxford.’

  How can she know that when I don’t, thought Charmian. She stumbled a few vague words, as she left, not knowing what to say. Damn Humphrey, what have you kept quiet, and why?

  Outside there was now a car parked behind her own along the grass verge.

  As she approached, she saw Peter Loomis. He smiled at her. ‘I’ve come to collect my mother.’ He held out his hand. ‘Miss Daniels … Good to see you.’

  Nice manners, she thought, as might be expected, but better not to trust to them. She could see his attractions, but he looked thinner, greyer, the skin stretched tight over his elegant bones.

  Deep-set blue eyes.

  Empty.

  It often happened to those who had been through what he had. When it was over there was nothing left inside.

  Charmian looked aside for a second, it was too painful. So that was what they looked like, those who had been to the brink and come back.

  ‘She doesn’t drive?’ she said, for something to say.

  ‘Oh yes, of course, sometimes.’ He smiled. ‘She can do anything, my mother, when she chooses, even drive this beast of a car.’

  Of course, even the Queen can drive, one has seen pictures of her doing so, but she only does it when she chooses. Lady Grahamden was the same.

  ‘No news, I suppose?’

  ‘Nothing hard.’

  ‘How’s Biddy?’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Can’t expect it. I don’t go in, I set her off. Can’t blame her. She looks at me and sees Sarah.’ Charmian nodded, and got a sad little nod in return. ‘One or other of us got something wrong.’

  Peter Loomis went into the house, where his mother seized him in both her arms, kissed him.

  ‘You were talking to her, I saw you from the window, we can’t let her go on, we must shut her up.’ She tried to whisper in his ear. ‘We must stop her drinking.’ But Biddy heard.

  Peter put his mother gently aside, removing her hands firmly but with love. ‘Hello, Biddy,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘I’m afraid she suspects Biddy.’

  ‘I know she does,’ said Biddy. ‘I can see it in her eyes, she thinks I killed her or massacred her or abused her or something.’ The gin was making her voice unsteady.

  Peter took her in his arms. ‘Come on now, Biddy, steady on. I know how you feel, I’ve been there, you know.’ He stroked her hair, rough and uncombed. ‘ Come back with us.’ He felt a shudder run through her. ‘Well, go to my London flat.’

  ‘No, I must stay here. Just in case Sarah comes walking in. I feel as if she might.’ Biddy looked round the room. ‘Perhaps she’s here now.’ She dragged away from him and raised her voice: ‘ Sarah, Sarah? Are you there?’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Lady Grahamden. ‘This is going to be bad.’ Although it had always been bad and always would be. ‘Stop her, for Heaven’s sake.’

  Peter put his hand gently over Biddy’s mouth.

  Charmian sat in her car for a moment, she felt sick inside. She pushed all thoughts about Humphrey into the back of her mind where she guessed they would fester and eventually burst forth while she concentrated on Biddy. What was the matter with that woman that made her so uneasy?

  Meanwhile, all around her the case was growing like a great vegetable mass. Like a giant fungus, say, or one of those huge rhubarb plants that bring the skin up in blisters where they touch. She sensed this, could feel movement without realizing that she was helping the growing.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘The Law is an Ass.’

  Oliver Twist , by Charles Dickens

  She could be worrying about Humphrey – she had the feeling that they had parted as if they would never see each other again … she ought to be worrying about Sarah, but suddenly, as she made herself some supper, coffee and an omelette, she found she was once again brought to think about that long-dead infant whose bones she had seen given respectful burial.

  A telephone call came through from Dan Feather. He had various routine matters he wanted to pass to her, but he ended with what she suspected was his real motive for the call.

  ‘Just something to tell you: about the bones. There’s no investigation there, as you know, but we did photograph the bones, I’ll let you have them if you like.’

  ‘I would like to see them, please.’ She was always polite to Feather, he had patches of thin skin and she wanted good relations. ‘Can you send them round?’

  ‘Tonight if you like, drop them in myself … And one of the pathologists had a look at the bones, more from curiosity than anything else. He hasn’t exactly put in a report but he has added a comment to the photographs … the child, a female, poor baby, had an extra finger on each hand. Just thought you’d be interested.’

  ‘Anne Boleyn had an extra finger on one hand, I believe. Not lucky perhaps.’

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Feather said: ‘ No idea how the child died, probably natural causes my scientist said. But he also said the extra finger might have something to do with it … easy to neglect a child that wasn’t quite like the others. Especially if it was born out of wedlock and the mother was poor, might be just the factor that swung the balance.’

  ‘Yes, it did cross my mind. Poor little soul.’

  ‘Might not have had much of a life if she’d lived,’ said Feather. ‘Be dead now, anyway. Long since.’ />
  ‘I wish I knew more about her.’

  ‘I’ll see you get the photographs. I’ll just shove them through the door.’

  ‘I’ll be grateful. Nothing about the boy?’

  ‘No more just now,’ said Feather in a heavy voice, as if he found the thought troubling. ‘We’re really pushing out the boat there. He was smothered and someone knows who killed him. The forensics are doing what they can, but that takes time. I’ll be putting out a statement for the press later, and if you’ve got anything to add or suggest, ma’am, I’ll be grateful.’

  ‘I don’t know … Ask whoever is examining the body to see if the feet look as if he had been walking a great deal … He was wearing trainers, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a touch of excitement in Feather’s voice. And they were not what he had been wearing when he left the Home … Nor did they fit him … You may have something there. Thank you. Feet it is.’

  ‘And Sarah? Any news since we last spoke?’

  ‘I would have told you at once. Trying hard there too. As you are. Has Rewley brought anything in?’

  Charmian shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘How’s his wife?’

  ‘Up and down.’ And this was true, some days good, some days not. The doctors were beginning to hint that there was a psychological element there, but were too wise to say so to Kate, who would strenuously have resisted it.

  ‘It’s not true lightning doesn’t strike twice, is it?’

  ‘Never thought it was.’

  ‘There’s that family in trouble again, and I’m not as surprised as I might have been … I was on the Loomis case. Only on the edge, nothing important, just checking statements, but I had a chance to see him. Didn’t like him then, don’t like him now. We thought we had him, but his counsel was too much for us. He should have gone down.’

  ‘You think he was guilty?’

  ‘I do.’ Feather was clear. ‘Certainly do. We all thought there was more behind it than we picked up.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  Feather had no real answer. ‘It was just a feeling. He and his wife had quarrelled and she was a shrew if ever there was one. But no one thought that was why he killed her.’

  ‘Not even the jury.’

  ‘Especially not the jury,’ said Feather sourly. ‘ Motive or lack of it was what got him off. That and charm, he had such nice manners, even in the box. And I remember thinking when the verdict came in: “ But this won’t be the end of it.” I don’t know what I was expecting but I felt it …’ He had got drunk that night, drunk for him, which was not so very drunk. ‘But we ought to have got him.’

  ‘We don’t always get it right,’ said Charmian. She had never heard that Feather was the sort to get emotionally involved, but he had on this one. Something about Peter Loomis’ acquittal had rubbed a sore spot which was still unhealed.

  ‘—Charm the birds off a tree,’ she heard him mutter. Well, perhaps, but what had fluttered down had been vultures. She had a nasty feeling that some of them were professional vultures.

  With Dan Feather as First Vulture.

  It had been an interesting if slightly depressing conversation, which seemed to merit some more coffee.

  I am thinking about Humphrey, she told herself, stirring forbidden cream into her coffee. There’s a hole where he ought to be, but if he doesn’t tell me anything, what can I do about it? No letter, no message on the answerphone, silence. It was always painful when others knew more than you did about something close to your heart, and that seemed to happen all the time with Humphrey.

  It might be his fault, or more likely, all hers. She was used to bearing a burden of guilt in her relationships with men and she had to admit they were usually justified.

  Feather rang the bell, twice, loudly. ‘I shouldn’t stay.’ He handed her a folder. ‘ There are the photographs. Nasty business it must have been. I suppose the baby was dead when it was buried, you’ve got to hope so.’

  Charmian took the packet, resisting the temptation to open it straight away. ‘I wonder no one saw the burial at the time.’

  ‘That piece of land was much rougher and with more trees then … I’ve checked.’

  So he too was interested.

  ‘Where did you do that?’

  ‘Town records in the museum; they have photographs. Not of that site as such, but of the old barracks which are across the way and you can see the ground between the barracks and the old workhouse. It was a workhouse by that time. Perhaps someone did see and looked away … Like to think it couldn’t happen now.’

  ‘You and I know it could,’ said Charmian, thinking of the dead boy, Joe.

  ‘Not for the same reasons though, not because society is bloody-minded.’

  A bit of feeling there again, Charmian felt. She seemed to recall some story about his daughter having a baby.

  ‘Oh no, could never be like that now,’ she said quickly, and saw his eyes lighten.

  ‘There’s the boy, too. Different century but the way he was living was like something out of Dickens or Mayhew’s London Poor.’

  ‘Yes, wandering and lost.’

  ‘And there’s this.’ He produced a small packet. ‘It’s the locket. You seemed so interested, I thought you might like a look. I’ll have it back when you’ve done. We aren’t making a case, there isn’t one, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have it.’

  ‘I won’t keep it.’ She held the packet in her hand, it was heavier than she had expected. ‘What will happen to it?’

  He shrugged. ‘ I suppose it might go in the police museum sometime. Or even the Local History one in the Guildhall.’

  ‘One other thing … Meant to tell you, there’s going to be a TV slot about Sarah. Local and national news. I asked the mother, she said she couldn’t do it, so I am.’

  ‘You think the girl is dead, don’t you?’

  ‘Hard to assess on what evidence we have now. Not sure, sometimes I go one way, sometimes another, but most of the time I think if she was alive we would have found her by now. Or had ransom demands or some such. But nothing. Not even the usual run of false sightings, although they may come later. Just silence.’

  ‘What about the supermarket cashier, what she saw?’

  ‘That did give me pause for thought when I first heard about it, but you know what you thought yourself, you were doubtful, I saw her, spoke to her, but like you I did not know what to make of the woman. She’s not an ordinary liar, or the type that phones in false reports for a joke or for the hell of it.’

  ‘We’re calling in all known pederasts and child abusers, just in case. This applies to both the dead boy and Sarah.’

  The district had its usual share; Charmian let her mind run over a few names, not all men; Ed Marlow, Dennis Banter, MD, and more’s the pity. Mrs Eleanor Lean and Mr Lean, not a married couple but mother and son, James Flitter, dustman. Or he had been when she last heard, no doubt he had moved on. And a new name on the file, Teddy (Totty) Barnes. Or Bridge, was it? She had a good memory but it slipped sometimes. ‘I keep an eye on that list. But they’ve all been pretty quiet lately.’

  ‘You can’t tell, they’re worth a look, and sometimes it gives us a start, they know more than we do very often and will let something drop, we could get lucky.’

  He sat down and had a cup of coffee with her, absently stroking Muff’s head as he did so. He had come in saying he mustn’t stay but here he still was. In spite of the fact that he said his girlfriend was waiting for him, he seemed quite willing to carry on talking. He was a tall, thick-set man with deep brown eyes.

  ‘The electricity failed in the Incident Room,’ he said. ‘We’re using the old Records Room, and the wiring there needs replacing. Set us back, but we got through it.’

  She knew that room. It was one with all the Incident Rooms she had ever worked in: too small for all the men, women, and apparatus crowded into it. Smoke-laden air, although not so many smokers as once there would have been (SMOKI
NG CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH on every wall), and either over hot or too cold. Incident Rooms never got the temperature quite right and no piece of furniture ever seemed comfortable for the human body, yet in spite of the noise and occasional confusion, they were peaceful places in their way, because everyone in it was working to one known end. She had never thought that her presence in such a room kept the language restrained (nor did it), but her present rank did.

  ‘We could do with a new building.’

  ‘It’s promised.’

  ‘We all know what that means. This year, next year, some time, never. When there’s the money and there never is.’ He heaved himself up. Years ago he had been wounded in the leg by a man long since out of prison and playing football and his thigh still troubled him. He covered it well but you could tell. ‘Thank you for the coffee. I’d better get home; we’ve had my girlfriend’s daughter staying with us with her kid, and she’s off soon.’ He didn’t say more, but Charmian gathered that family life had its stresses at the moment.

  At the door, he gave her a smile, stood back so Muff could depart in her usual stately way (to come back through the kitchen window almost at once), and wished her luck.

  Luck with what? Charmian asked herself as she closed the door. With life in general or something in particular? She thought she remembered a gleam of something like sympathy in Lady Grahamden’s eyes. So what was all the sympathy for?

  Her professional life was always under attack one way and another. As a high-ranking woman police officer, and one running her own show in SRADIC, which gave her powers beyond the average (powers which she was well known to have negotiated herself and insisted upon), she could easily be sniped at. Dan Feather was always polite, she had thought of him as a supporter but he would probably know of anything in the way of trouble brewing up for her there. Yet Lady Grahamden knew nothing of her working life and cared less.

  There was one sphere, however, in which both might take an interest: her private life and relationships. And rumours did run around.

  She had an uneasy feeling that she had a part in a play but no one had told her the words. It wasn’t going to be a comedy.