Stone Dead Read online

  ‘The handkerchief wasn’t valuable,’ Charmian had said.

  ‘Oh yes it was.’ Deast was clear. ‘Daisy Winner’s child stitched her name on that handkerchief. Daisy valued it mightily.’

  Superintendent Hallows cleared his throat. ‘This meeting of the officers investigating the disappearance of the women has been called because I think all of us feel frustrated at the lack of progress.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Dolly muttered under her breath, ‘my team have been working round the clock.’

  ‘Nothing,’ said the Superintendent, ‘seems to be happening.’

  Inspector Chance said, in a loud, clear voice: ‘I have something to announce: Amanda Warren’s body has been found.’ He opened a file of papers which he had on his lap. ‘Her body was found in a thicket on Fletely Heath. Place called Dragon’s Hill.’ He looked across to Charmian. ‘No dragons, though, local historians say it was Dragon’s Hill, a Celtic or earlier place name. She had been hidden but not very thoroughly, and our impression is that she was meant to be found. How did she die? I expect you are asking, and this is why I wanted to tell you myself and not telephone or fax you: to my mind it is another piece of information to keep quiet. For the moment.’

  He paused.

  ‘Get on with it,’ muttered Dolly under her breath. Charmian heard and shrugged. Sid Chance always liked to be dramatic.

  ‘Her head was in a plastic bag, the sort you get groceries in. It was tied tightly round her head. But it was not suicide, because her hands were tied behind her back and her feet were likewise tethered.’

  There was a moment of silence while they took this information in.

  He had more to tell. ‘She died from suffocation. The bag may have been intended to kill her, but it may also have been used to keep her quiet … a knife had been used on her, she’d been cut up.’

  ‘Where? Where were the cuts?’

  ‘Around the breasts, on the throat and around the genital area … I suspect she felt the pain.’

  There was silence in the room.

  Another lovely case, thought Charmian. I think they save them up for me.

  ‘Sex comes into it,’ said Deast. ‘Don’t you think, Sid?’

  ‘Yes, and we’re looking around at all our locals, I can tell you.’

  ‘Any clues from the plastic bag?’ asked Charmian.

  ‘It was one from a local supermarket where she had been seen shopping the day she disappeared.’

  ‘So it could have been her own bag?’

  ‘Probably was. Forensics have it and are working on it. I’ll see you have what they come up with. If anything.’

  ‘Is the bag important?’ asked Deast.

  Silly question, thought Charmian, when we know that we will know a whole lot more about the killer and the victim.

  ‘Yes,’ she said suddenly, and to her surprise, loudly. ‘Yes, I reckon it is important.’

  Although at that moment she did not know why, just a feeling she had. Call it an intuition.

  ‘And now we know we may be looking for more bodies, not missing women, I suppose that helps.’

  Across the room, she met George Rewley’s eyes, sad and thoughtful. He had said days ago that the women were dead, had to be, he said. What else was this but a dance of death?

  ‘Perhaps it’s the Horseman again,’ said Deast.

  ‘But this is women … he never attacked a woman.’ But Chance looked thoughtful.

  ‘He was expressing some very nasty thoughts about women when we put him away.’ Deast did not look at Charmian, since she had been named with some feeling by the Horseman. ‘And he’s out now. I am going to be keeping a pretty sharp eye on him.’

  ‘You do that.’ Charmian acknowledged that it made some sense. The Horseman was her local, in a way, since he came from Cheasey. Not popular there, since Cheasey folk, although inclined to crime and violence, liked horses.

  The meeting ended with their usual agreement to keep all parties informed of developments. A bit like one of those European summit meetings where the leaders are all smiles, and nods, meaning nothing. Although in this case, it probably did mean an honest agreement since all the parties knew it needed a pooling of information to catch this killer. Charmian’s position of head of SRADIC meant that normally she saw everything.

  As she drove back with Dolly Barstow, she said: ‘This serial killer, if that’s what he is, seems determined to remain anonymous.’

  ‘Well, you don’t expect a printed name card.’

  ‘No, of course not, but sometimes the killer can’t help taunting the police with messages and calls. It does happen.’

  They both knew it did.

  ‘Not this one,’ said Dolly.

  George Rewley and Dolly Barstow had been seconded from SRADIC to investigate the missing women. Superintendent Bowser from the local CID had so much on with a string of violent break-ins in Windsor and Merrywick, coupled with the usual security problems in Royal Windsor, that he had been glad of help. He found it less irksome to get help from SRADIC, with whom he had worked in the past as a lowly Inspector before his promotion, than to call in the Met.

  It might be that the abductor of the missing women came from the Big Smoke, but he wanted to be the nominal head of the outfit that caught him. There were big promotions ahead in the reorganization soon to take place: Hallows was about to retire, and he intended to be in the queue for the head of an important unit.

  And if they failed, and the perp was never found, then his hands were clean. Nothing to do with him, busy on other matters.

  ‘Rewley thinks we will never catch this one.’

  ‘George Rewley is constitutionally depressed,’ said Charmian.

  ‘True, but he’s very often right.’

  I may be able to keep out of this one, thought Charmian, just let Dolly and Rewley get on with it.

  The bookshop opened on time with the champagne party for invited guests in the early evening. Shoppers could come in, if they liked, and if they wanted to buy a book, good luck to them, but drinks were served in the inner room.

  Birdie and Winifred had worked hard, and were still at it as party hour approached. Winifred was in an upbeat, positive mood while Birdie was anxious. Her witch’s factfinding antennae were out, and not foretelling good.

  ‘Crime has to pay,’ said Winifred firmly. ‘We must see it does.’

  ‘Frostie was right, we do need publicity.’

  ‘We shall get it.’ Winifred polished a glass and looked out of the window at the garden where the builders were busy on the new garage and storeroom. All they seemed to be achieving so far was a hole in the ground.

  In spite of the caveat on the drinks, the party soon spread into the shop where the bell on the big glass door announced the arrival of invited guests and shoppers alike. In about equal numbers as far as Birdie could see. Was that good or bad? she asked herself.

  The white witches settled in the area of the books on witchcraft and allied subjects. Frostie appointed herself in charge of the handout of champagne. She could see Winifred was eyeing her balefully from across the room, but she did not interfere. One just trusted that the champagne held out.

  I think it’s going well, Birdie told herself. Yes, I really think it is.

  A photographer from the local newspaper asked for a picture, please, and Birdie and Winifred posed politely, side by side with smiles. Frostie got into that one too, but Winifred edged her aside.

  ‘Do you do spells and that sort of thing?’ asked a young reporter from the newspaper, a pretty fair-haired girl who would obviously go far, although Winifred suspected not in the newspaper business.

  ‘Not exactly spells,’ said Winifred gently, ‘ but we show people how to help themselves. Through nature, you know.’

  ‘Are you naturists then?’

  ‘No, my dear, that is something else again,’ said Winifred even more gently, although she suspected the girl knew exactly what she was saying.

  A tall figure, in flowi
ng red and gold, suddenly materialized at Birdie’s elbow. Yes, materialized, that was just the word. First, she wasn’t there, then she was.

  ‘Victoria Janus,’ the woman said, holding out a hand. ‘You got my card? Promotions and publicity is my business. Crime is my speciality, several publishers and TV producers use me.’ She turned round: ‘Don’t let the photographer go, I have a famous dead crime writer with me, back from beyond you know. Marvellous publicity for you.’

  Birdie stared and was silent. Not so Winifred. ‘ No thank you,’ she said with dignity.

  ‘Of course, I shan’t charge you for this first manifestation. On the house.’ She was jovial and fluent. ‘Don’t go away, dear,’ she said over her shoulder to the journalist. ‘Lovely story here. I have Ellery Queen here to talk to those interested in reading crime. Let me give you my card, you may find it useful.’

  Victoria Janus raised her hand in command. ‘Come in now,’ she called to the door.

  A thickset figure, large about the middle, two arms, three legs and two heads, one spectacled and pale, the other florid and friendly.

  ‘Ellery Queen,’ Victoria said. ‘Over the other side, he became what nature had always intended, Siamese twins, so-called. Smile for the camera, please, El, dear, both of you.’ She held out her hand to the advancing figure of Winifred. A glass of champagne … lovely.’ Then she turned back to Ellery Queen. ‘That’s enough for the moment, love, we have to remember this is a freebie, back to the car.’

  Winifred stood erect. ‘What is this rubbish?’ She did not have a glass of champagne in her hand.

  ‘Publicity, my dear,’ said Victoria. ‘Now you have got a lovely basinful of it. And that was just a beginning. I can bring you a visitor from over there every week for about a month, for a thousand … pounds, of course. Isn’t it a pity that lovely thing the guinea went out? So just pounds, money well spent. I could do Ian Fleming for you, a lovely lady.’

  ‘Woman,’ said Birdie; even she knew better than that.

  ‘Yes, such a lovely sophisticated woman, late fifties style, they don’t come like that now … Oh yes, dear Ian, Nell as she is now, had a sex change when he got across, it happens sometimes, St Francis was just the same so I am told, although I have no contact there. They usually feel the better for it, and know it is RIGHT.’ She had managed to get a glass from somewhere. ‘ Now what do you say?’

  ‘I’m tempted,’ whispered Birdie.

  ‘Fiddle-de-dee,’ said Winifred. But her eyes gleamed: she had always been adventurous. ‘ Go through to the back, Miss Janus, and we will have a talk … of course, your terms are ridiculous.’

  Victoria Janus bowed graciously, allowing Winifred to see that her gleaming black hair was a dye job and in need of retouching.

  As she disappeared into the inner room, Charmian came in. Winifred embraced her and Birdie fluttered up to plant a kiss on her cheek. Charmian hugged them both. She was fond of the pair of them, they had been good friends to her.

  ‘Who’s the chap sitting outside in the car?’

  ‘Ellery Queen.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Winifred explained briefly about Victoria Janus; she kept her tone neutral. Charmian had known them long enough to know that they attracted strange characters, some genuine, others not.

  ‘Strange things happen when you cross over,’ said Birdie, in an earnest voice, ‘we cannot know.’

  ‘Even stranger when you cross back,’ said Charmian. ‘I hope she doesn’t bring Jack the Ripper next time.’

  ‘Just writers of detective fiction,’ said Winifred. ‘Much safer.’

  ‘Where is she, this promoter of the dead?’

  ‘In the inner room. Come and meet her.’

  As they went in, there was a sound of shouting in the garden. ‘It’s the builders,’ said Winifred, ‘ probably falling into that pit they are making.’

  But the shouting went on. Charmian walked towards the window, and as she did so, she passed Victoria Janus. She looked at her with a frown, then walked on. Somewhere beneath that torrent of hair was a face she had seen before. It would come back to her.

  But the shouting was increasing in volume.

  Winifred had the window open.

  ‘What on earth are you making that noise for?’

  The builder’s labourer was a young man with bright red hair and pale blue eyes. His face was white.

  ‘It’s a coffin, miss. There’s a coffin where I’ve been digging.’

  Chapter Two

  ‘They bury them deep here,’ said Frostie, looking down at the grave. ‘And they pack them in, two at a time.’

  The whole of the celebratory champagne party had surged out into the garden to see the grave, in Birdie’s case carrying a champagne bottle as well. There was no holding them back.

  ‘It’s getting easier to die,’ muttered Charmian, looking at the stone coffin. ‘Must be, because two are buried together.’ It was an idle, champagne-induced joke, which she instantly pushed aside.

  Frostie gave her a look. ‘ I just said so.’ She quaffed a draught of champagne. ‘Well, I never. Now this is publicity for you, Birdie.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Birdie was uncomfortable. ‘Oh dear, not quite what one wanted, though.’ She turned to Charmian. ‘Will we have to get the police? Will there have to be an investigation?’

  ‘Depends how long they have been buried,’ said Charmian.

  Her practised eye had seen at once that not only were there two bodies in the coffin, one on top of the other, but there was a decided difference between them. Not what she would have expected.

  Frostie gave a short laugh, more of a hoot than a guffaw. Charmian felt sure she had noticed the same thing about the two bodies.

  Birdie and Winifred moved up to stand beside her. ‘ Thank goodness you are here,’ said Winifred. ‘You can guide us on the right path.’

  Charmian looked down at the grave. The stone coffin had the air of being very old. Immemorially old, older possibly than either of the bodies. There had been a lot of burying around here in the past. Some places declare themselves as homes for the dead; there could have been Roman, old Anglo-Saxon bodies here, a plague pit even. The gallows had been nearby but the hanged felon was not buried in stone, flung into an open grave more like it. The stone coffin had been meant for a person of quality. She looked at the scrolls carved out of the stone on the sides of the coffin. There was no great stone top, you could look straight into the coffin. Yet there must once have been a lid. Possibly those broken pieces of stone also in the hole had been the lid. The coffin was an enigma in itself. That when examined, it could be dated, she had no doubt. This in turn might assist in unfolding the mystery of the two bodies.

  ‘The two bodies are of very different ages,’ she said. ‘ The one underneath, well, could be any age, it would need to be carbon-dated, but you can see for yourself it is a skeleton. Bones.’

  The skull which could be seen poking out from under the other body, as if pushed aside, stared up at her through its hollow eyes. Male or female, she did not yet know.

  Charmian shifted her gaze from the ghostly stare; she concentrated on the body on top. There was no doubt of the sex here. The form was still unmistakably that of a woman. A full cotton skirt covered the lower part of the corpse. It had once been red, probably a bright red, but was now a muddy grey with blotches of colour. The top of the body was unclothed.

  The head and neck were enveloped in a plastic shopping bag.

  Charmian stepped back smartly. Well, well, it hadn’t been a complete waste of time coming to the witches’ celebration.

  Beside her she heard Birdie draw in her breath sharply, and say, in a shaky voice; ‘Oh, Win, shall I? …’ She felt Birdie touch her arm.

  Winifred Eagle drew Birdie away. ‘Not now, dear. Let Charmian alone while she gets on with this.’

  There was silence in the circle of witches and friends who stood well behind Charmian now. She had moved closer, much closer than anyone else
to the edge of the grave.

  She turned to Winifred: ‘Winifred, telephone the local police, tell them what has been found, and ask them to send the appropriate officers. A police surgeon will have to come here too.’

  ‘Not much need to prove this pair are dead,’ said Frostie.

  ‘All the same, it has to be done.’ Charmian repressed her irritation at the woman’s comment – she could not like Frostie Fisher – and kept her voice level. ‘Tell them that I would like Superintendent Hallows to meet me here.’

  ‘Right.’ Winifred hurried off. The rest of the witches stood in a group, not knowing whether they should go or stay. They wanted to stay as it was so interesting, and after all, they would all have to make a statement to the police, wouldn’t they? They stayed.

  Charmian moved towards the two workmen who stood on the edge of their excavations, smoking and silent.

  ‘Help me down the hole, please.’

  ‘Are you sure, miss? It’s mucky.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  They looked at each other. ‘Right, Keith,’ said the foreman.

  Keith leapt down into the pit, and got ready to receive Charmian, and the foreman helped her scramble down. To their suprise, she managed it neatly enough.

  She knelt beside the coffin and, fingers in a handkerchief, gently raised a corner of the plastic bag to look underneath.

  The face was still that of a young woman who had been pretty. Charmian could see the neat bones.

  She replaced the plastic, and drew back. It was for the police surgeon and the pathologist and the forensic boys to do the rest.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ she murmured to the face, ‘and I don’t believe anyone would find you easy to recognize now. Your mother or your lover, maybe … If he didn’t put you here.’

  She held out her hand so that the foreman could give her a pull out. ‘You all right, miss?’ Charmian nodded. ‘ You’re braver than I am, and Keith here. I don’t think I could have taken a look.’

  Charmian said that she’d done it before and although it was never easy you learned how to cope.

  He looked at her with respect. ‘ You a doctor, miss?’