A Cure for Dying Read online

  They always bickered like this. It was part of the fun for them. There was not much fun otherwise for these two hard-working women. Miriam looked after her elderly and infirm parents while Flora had the strange burden of a twin sister who, as Flora put it, had given Flora all the brain they had between them and kept only too little for herself. ‘Not that there was all that much to start with for us,’ she said sadly. Emmy, her sister, came to every meeting, indeed was there now, sitting quietly in a corner apparently happy. She could not function without Flora’s presence. No one knew if Flora could function without her.

  ‘I hope that man won’t come,’ said Flora uneasily. ‘ That’s my only worry. I don’t like the way he looks at Emmy.’ Or the way Emmy looks at him, she might have added.

  ‘I don’t think we should admit men.’

  ‘We are open to all sexes.’

  ‘There are only two.’

  Flora turned upon her. ‘ That’s where you are wrong. I reckon there are about six. As soon as we admit there is a broad spectrum on either side of the divide, a lot of problems will disappear.’

  ‘Oh you do talk rubbish.’

  ‘It’s my fixed belief.’

  ‘All right. Which sex are you?’

  ‘About one and half to the left. I’m a betwixt and between.’ But Emmy was not. Emmy was definitely one sex. She had all the sex in their unit while Flora had what there was of brains. ‘ Thank goodness we’re only identical twins and not Siamese,’ flashed through Flora’s mind. ‘What would I have had to witness?’

  In the corner, Emmy stirred. She did not always direct her gaze at her sister, sometimes she looked up at the ceiling. She very rarely looked at Miriam for which Miriam was both grateful and yet irritated.

  Flora was still worrying away. ‘He’s quite an ordinary man. Not bad looking in his way. I don’t know why I don’t like him.’ But she did know: it was his intense interest in Emmy.

  ‘He’s only come twice. He may not come again.’

  ‘I think he will.’

  ‘There is something odd about him,’ agreed Miriam. ‘ I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there. Does anyone know his name or where he comes from?’

  ‘We could try and find out.’

  ‘Let our speaker get a look at him for us. She ought to know a wrong’un when she sees one.’ They both knew that clubs such as theirs attracted the strange ones.

  ‘We could do that. But I don’t suppose she can.’ He was so average, so anonymous, it was hard to believe the police knew him. ‘Still, we could offer her a look. What’s she like herself?’

  ‘You’ve got a photograph.’

  Flora shrugged.

  ‘Anny says she’s tall, well dressed and with red hair.’ Miriam and Anny Cooper were old friends, but did not always see eye to eye on all subjects.

  ‘You couldn’t tell size or colour from that photograph and to tell the truth, she didn’t look too good in it.’ Flora had got together a small publicity display which she would set out in the entrance hall on the night in question. She liked to do things properly.

  Afterwards there would be coffee. Real coffee, she told herself, and not powdered. ‘Not pretty at all.’

  ‘Anny didn’t say pretty. Attractive.’

  ‘But of course, the photo I cut out of the paper was very small and didn’t show her hair.’ It had been taken as Charmian had emerged from an inquest on a murder victim and was far from flattering to her.

  ‘How’s she getting here? Have you arranged?’

  ‘I have arranged.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Anny’s bringing her. Your friend Anny. Walking.’

  ‘You can’t park round here, that’s for sure.’ The lack of any parking-space outside their meeting-place was an old grievance, especially to Miriam.

  Flora had been thinking, going back to her old worry which might have nothing in it at all. ‘Tell you what: I’ll get names and addresses at the door. He’d have to put something down.’

  ‘Even if it’s a lie?’

  ‘Lies can be helpful.’

  She looked up and caught Emmy’s gaze. And don’t you know it, my girl, she thought. Emmy could lie in her own way when it suited her. Flora wondered sometimes if Emmy’s whole life was not a lie, in spite of what all the doctors said, and that inside her was a perfectly normal silent person conducting life in her own way. Flora felt suddenly tired. It was no fun being the front one in their tandem. For that was what she was and had been all her life.

  Charmian surveyed the crowded room in the Mcrrywick library as she began to come to the end of her talk. She had the enviable gift of being able to count her audience as she talked. Forty souls, not a bad total for a club like this. There were one or two hiding behind a massive row of potted plants, and she thought that someone had left during her slides. Either to start making the coffee or because of the nature of the pictures she was showing. They were a bit rough, especially the rape in the wood one. She just hoped she had got the level right. From a seat tactfully in the back row she saw Anny give her an imperceptible wink. Good, so she had got it right.

  She was on her last few words now and was already drawing her notes together.

  There was the man whom Anny had suggested she take a look at. No mistaking him. He was where Anny had told her he would be. He was sitting at the end of a row which contained Emmy. And Emmy, from her marked resemblance to Flora, they even wore identical clothes, she had no difficulty in locating. Both were dressed in pine green jersey suits of fine cashmere with neat little blue bows at the neck. Emmy wore pearls and Flora a set of amber earrings and necklace. Emmy was a sturdier, less pretty version of Flora, but with the same large pale grey eyes and soft fair hair. Interestingly, while Flora looked her full age of thirty, Emmy appeared to be at least ten years younger. Perhaps she would always look girlish.

  The man could have been anyone, but he was older than the two women. Middle-aged, spectacled, with greying hair that seemed to match his dark tweed suit, he looked like a business man. He had a bag at his feet as if he had dropped in on his way home from work. Perhaps he had.

  There were other men in the audience, but they were firmly anchored to wives or girl friends. He might be a journalist looking for a story, but as Miriam’s and Flora’s worry was that he always sat near to Emmy this did not seem likely.

  Unless Emmy was the story. Flora and Emmy together might be a story, they were quite a pair.

  Miriam stood up and made a speech thanking Charmian. She was a good speaker and enjoyed the task. Then she invited questions.

  After the questions, there was coffee, and finally Charmian and Anny walked home through the summer night.

  The roof of the Eton College Chapel was profiled against the sky on the one hand, and on the other they could see the solid mass of the castle. Then the path dipped and houses and trees crowded in. It could have been any town, anywhere in southern England.

  ‘I couldn’t make anything of the man,’ Charmian said to Anny.

  ‘Did you say so?’

  ‘Found an opportunity. I said I’d go on thinking. But I don’t suppose I’ll dredge anything up. He might be worth keeping an eye on.’

  She thought the club was the sort that might attract odd types.

  ‘He didn’t look dangerous.’

  ‘You can never tell.’

  ‘No.’ Anny accepted the judgement without argument. If anyone had cause to know this, then Charmian did. ‘ Miriam has his name now. Did she tell you? She took all names and addresses at the door this time.’

  ‘She wrote it down for me. He’s called Edward Pilgrim. Or says he is. And he has an address in Slough. Or says he does.’

  ‘You don’t believe him?’

  ‘Let me just say it will be interesting if he doesn’t.’

  ‘And if he does? If he’s genuine?’

  ‘He might be quite genuine, as you put it,’ said Charmian slowly, ‘and the more dangerous for it.’

  They crossed Eton
bridge, still crowded with visitors. There was never a day, not even Christmas Day in the rain, when this town was not crowded. On that day the Japanese tourists crowded in.

  ‘They’re a nice little outfit, doing a good job, and I wouldn’t want to see them run into trouble.’ Anny swerved to avoid two young men eating ice-cream. Large cornets topped with whipped cream and nuts. Her mouth watered. She would take one home and share it with Jack. Then she remembered her husband was no longer there: she had thrown him out a week ago. We’re not careful enough with husbands, Charmian and I, she told herself sadly, they’re an endangered species with us.

  ‘Flora and Emmy are an interesting case themselves.’ Charmian too had seen the ice-cream eaters, but was not drawn to them or what they were eating.

  ‘I know. I’m never sure if they are one person or two. I don’t think they know themselves.’

  ‘Mr Pilgrim might help them sort that out.’

  ‘You think so?’

  Sex would come into it somewhere, Charmian felt sure. At this point, their ways diverged. Anny turning the corner which would lead her to Wellington Yard where she had her studio, and Charmian taking a right-hand turn to her cosy little street named after the Maids of Honour of Victoria, Queen and Empress.

  ‘Heard from Kate?’ she asked, as they parted.

  ‘Picture postcard of St Mark’s Square saying she was drinking coffee in Florian’s. What about you?’

  ‘The same.’ Except it had been a card of a severely intellectual Bellini Madonna holding an elderly looking baby.

  ‘And Humphrey?’ Anny pursued the subject of Humphrey with the interest of one who was not herself happy in that sphere. When her marriage was intact, although shaky, she had been able to ignore him.

  ‘Oh he wants me to go to a polo match. I shan’t, of course.’

  ‘I believe the champagne is very good,’ said Anny, who had always been rich enough and sufficiently well born to know that sort of thing.

  Charmian walked on alone following a path that crossed a small park. She could have continued on the road, but this way was shorter. Pleasant too, beneath the trees on this summer evening. They were lime trees and their sweet, sticky breath floated down to her.

  It was darker than she had expected, crowded in here by the trees, but she walked confidently on.

  Behind her, she heard footsteps. She could see the street lamps in the road ahead. The feet came closer, moving fast.

  She was alerted, but not alarmed. Then a hand came round her throat and she was dragged back against a body. She could smell sweat. She dug her heels into the ground, simultaneously delivering sharp blows with her elbows into somebody’s ribs. She heard somebody draw in a sharp breath.

  ‘That’ll teach you,’ she thought. The grip on her neck had loosened so that she could jerk herself free. A fist hit her head hard, knocking her against a tree trunk. She was just conscious of a body, head hooded, dressed in dark clothes.

  Charmian was a strong, muscular woman, and she had been trained in self-defence. But this called for attack. She was angry. She gathered herself together. She stuck her hand with two forefingers extended into her attacker’s face. Then with all her force, she jammed her knee into him. She got a scream in return.

  Then she turned and ran towards the lighted street. She ran until she reached Maid of Honour Row.

  Les was just wheeling her cycle into the garden next door. She stopped at once.

  ‘Miss Daniels, what’s happened?’

  ‘Someone tried to grab me in the park.’

  Lesley looked at her in horror. ‘Your face!’ She was dabbing at Charmian with a piece of tissue, making noises of sympathy.

  ‘I hit a tree.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have a black eye.’

  ‘I’d like to think he feels worse than I do,’ said Charmian with satisfaction. ‘But thanks for the help. I’ve been giving a talk.’

  ‘Yes, I know I was there.’

  ‘I didn’t see you.’

  ‘I was behind a potted plant stand. I know Miriam. I use the library. You were great.’ Her voice trailed away, her face whitening.

  ‘What is it?’

  Les swallowed. ‘It’s all this blood.’ She held out her hands, patchy with red stuff. ‘ It’s on you, too. Are you sure you’re all right?’

  Charmian examined herself. Yes, she had blood all down her pale shirt and on her arms. ‘It must be from him.’ She must have hit his nose.

  Les leaned against the garden railing, her eyes closing. Charmian put an arm round her. ‘Come on in.’

  Inside her house, pushing aside an interested cat, she poured some brandy for the girl and took some herself. While she drank, she reported the incident to the local police.

  Her name was known, she got action and efficiency. All the details were taken at once. The incident was not brushed over.

  ‘I’d like to have brought him in myself, but I don’t think I could have done it.’ She was remembering the strength of that dark figure.

  ‘You did the right thing. Could you identify him?’

  ‘He was masked. But he smelt.’

  ‘If anything occurs to you, just let me know. Every little helps.’

  ‘Could be the flasher I reported the other night. They do turn to action in the end.’ Not always but sometimes. Should she give them Mr Pilgrim’s name? She decided not to at the moment.

  ‘Agreed.’ The CID officer on duty that night was making notes. ‘I’ll pop in and see you tomorrow if that’s all right. Come myself. Sergeant Wimpey can come tonight if you like.’

  ‘Tomorrow will do.’

  ‘Let you know at once if there are any developments. I’ll put out an alert. Keep the bloody clothes. The blood may come in handy for matching.’ With luck.

  Charmian returned to Les, who seemed better. Then she saw the girl to her own front door. Two women supporting each other, was how she saw it.

  She saw Lesley back to her home. Johnny opened the door. Charmian explained what had happened. ‘There was a bit of an incident. She’ll explain. She’s all right.’

  Johnny made sympathetic noises. ‘I’ll look after her. Come on in, Les, you’re not fit to be out on your own.’ He looked flushed and excited himself, which Charmian put down to the Duke of Wellington.

  Back in her own house, Charmian stripped off all her clothes and took a bath in scorching hot water. Then she felt better.

  Before going to bed, she packed up the stained shirt and skirt in a plastic bag. In the pocket of the skirt was the tissue with which Lesley had cleaned her face. Tomorrow she would hand over the clothes to the CID.

  She opened the window to let in the soft sweet wind, an unmurderous night, not a killing air.

  But across the river, a creature was dying, a pool of its own blood staining the earth. Victim of a somebody, killed to fill a hole in that somebody’s life.

  Chapter Two

  Early in the morning, two days later, while Charmian was still asleep, a young girl, Joanna Gaynor, whose mother knew Miriam and Flora and who might have been at the meeting in the library, except that it was her yoga night, let herself out of the house where she lived with her parents and small brother. She wheeled her cycle round the side of the house and pedalled off to feed, water and groom her pony which she kept in a field about a mile from her home. In the winter he lived, expensively, in a stable at livery, but in the summer he preferred, or so Joanna thought, to roam free in the fields by the river. But he needed daily attention and she was the one to give it. Her mother was allergic to horses and her father was a hard-working lawyer whose home scarcely saw him. He was good at paying bills though, and Joanna’s pony was his birthday present to her. The brother did not care for horses and was saving up for a model aeroplane.

  Joanna liked these morning expeditions when the air was warm and still. On cold and wet days she would have preferred to hide in bed, but she was a conscientious child who carried out her commitments. It had been part of the contr
act: she got the pony, but she looked after it. She had a slightly guilty feeling because yesterday she had missed going. Guilt and Joanna were constant companions, it was the way she was built. She had hardly needed an excuse.

  Anyway, she was fond of Traveller, her pony. He had a personality, bland but obliging, that appealed to her. He never hurried but he always got there. She knew he was not a human being, but she preferred him to some who were. Her French teacher, for instance, and her cousin Beverly who was too clever by half. And others, whose presence in her life was darker and whom she preferred not to think about.

  A bus passed her and she waved to it, then got a wave herself from the milkman on his rounds. Not many people about at this hour, but these two she saw every morning. They were punctual and so was she. So, for that matter, was Traveller, who already had his head over the gate on the look out for her. The arrival of Joanna meant the arrival of some of the little snacks he liked for his breakfast. Traveller enjoyed his food.

  ‘Hi, boy.’ Joanna liked it that she never had to call Traveller to her. She knew it was cupboard love but still she enjoyed it. It was a kind of love and there wasn’t all that much in Joanna’s life. She had cast for herself the role of least favoured member of the family and took a quiet pleasure in playing it. She had deliberately chosen for herself the bedroom over the garage as a way of declaring herself an outsider. It also gave a certain freedom for early morning trips such as this. People did not have to hear her go.

  Joanna, prudent, careful child, padlocked her bike to the gate and went in.

  The field had another occupant besides Traveller. It was home, winter and summer alike, year in, year out, to an elderly grey. The kind of horse Joanna called a Dobbin.

  Dobbin was not an elegant horse, whatever had been the case in the past, and always looked down at heel. Dobbin had no visitors, and little attention. Joanna knew that the horse was left there as an intended kindness rather than being put down, but she felt more was needed.

  ‘Better to have the poor brute shot,’ her father had grumbled. Joanna did not agree, she recognised an act of charity, but it was not enough, and did what extra she could. She was not exactly Dobbin’s friend. It was very hard to be a friend to that old pale dejected figure, but she kept an eye out.