A New Kind of Killer, and Old Kind of Death Page 3

  Something pressed itself against her ankles, rubbing back and forth. With amusement she looked down. A huge black cat was rubbing himself against her legs. This could be Alda’s cat.

  “Hello, Billy.’’ Billy remained silent. “ Perhaps you aren’t Billy.’’ She gave him a pat. “Puss, your coat is wet.’’ Her stockings were wet too where he had been rubbing against her.

  Charmian rang the bell, which was labelled A. Fearon. The bell rang loudly enough for her to hear it, but no one came. She rang again. Still no answer.

  “Come on, Alda,’’ she murmured. “ Let you and I have a little talk about what skeletons are in what cupboards.’’

  The door in front of her had a big round brass handle which tempted her to touch it. She put out a hand. To her surprise the door at once yielded before her.

  She walked in. Before her was a small carpeted hall. But it was in darkness, only lit by the brightness from under two doors.

  For a moment she stood there.

  “Alda,’’ she called. “Alda?’’

  She moved forward one step, and became aware that she was standing in water.

  She put down a hand to touch. It was warm water. Warm water was covering the carpeted floor.

  “Alda, Alda,’’ she called strongly.

  Led by the noise of running water, Charmian pushed open one of the doors. She saw a brightly lit and empty bathroom with the overfilled tub dribbling water. She turned off the tap.

  Now there was no sound in the apartment at all. She pushed open the second door. The sitting room was brightly lit, tidy and perfectly empty. There was a book and a pair of spectacles neatly placed on the table by the fire as if Alda had put her reading aside and risen to draw her bath. There was only one other room left and that had to be the

  bedroom, but it was in darkness … She stood on the threshold

  for a moment, bracing herself to put on the light.

  The bedroom was large and square, dominated by a huge bed

  of the sort that had lately sprung back into fashion.

  The cat ran from behind and leapt on to the bed.

  “Get down,’’ said Charmian.

  On the bed lay a dressing gowned figure, reclining naturally,

  curly black head upon the pillow, as if deep in sleep.

  But the stillness was absolute.

  “Oh, Alda, Alda,’’ said Charmian.

  The dead man had arrived at the mortuary and a report had been written on his death.

  He had died from natural causes. His heart had given out. Years of taking the hard stuff had destroyed its natural resilience. Such was his condition that he could have died at any time.

  But he had died the day he did because a great strain had been placed on his failing heart. Judging by the state of his shoes, it seemed as though he might have been running. And running.

  “Well, he’s stopped running now,’’ said the man who rolled up his clothes and meagre personal possessions into a neat bundle.

  But it wasn’t true. His feet were to go running on and on.

  Chapter Two

  Rain fell steadily for twenty-four hours after Alda died. Charmian went about her work, glad she had little time to think, but underneath she was brooding about her friend. How had Alda died? She wanted to know.

  “She died from natural causes.’’ Alda’s own doctor, who was also the University doctor, finally told Charmian the news himself. He spoke sympathetically. “ We’ve done a post-mortem. That is, I didn’t actually do it myself, but a colleague, Dr. Margaret Phillips. She had a cerebral haemorrhage. She may even have had a brain abscess forming,’’ he said thoughtfully.

  “I can’t believe it,’’ cried Charmian. “ She seemed so well.’’

  “Did she? No headaches?’’

  “Well, yes, I think she did complain of one on the day the Chancellor was installed.’’ But anyone could have had one then, thought Charmian. I might have had one myself.

  “Any irritability?’’

  “Yes,’’ said Charmian reluctantly. Alda had shown some signs of temper. “ Yes. She was irritable.’’

  “Well, there you are.’’ He spread out his hands.

  “But surely there’s a history to that sort of thing? More than just a touch of headache and a sign of temper. Wouldn’t there have been something showing over a long period?’’

  “Not necessarily.’’

  “All the same, I wish I could have done something. I wish I could have done anything.’’

  “You’re a bit jumpy yourself. This has been a shock to you. Would you like me to give you something?’’ He was so used to handing out sedatives to the nervous students who came his way that he made the offer automatically.

  “No. No, I’ll be all right. Anyway, thanks for coming and telling me.’’

  “I just dropped in.’’ He was unmarried and lonely. His job was new to him, he was still building it up, there was time on his hands.

  “There is something you could do,’’ he said, apparently with some reluctance.

  “Yes?’’

  “Miss Fearon’s possessions have to be packed up. I spoke to her sister on the telephone.’’

  “She can’t come?’’

  “She lives in Canada.’’

  “Oh.’’ Charmian considered. “I’ll do it. What about the furniture and stuff like that?’’

  “The sister is contacting a firm of furniture storers and removers. You just have to do the personal things.’’

  “I see. The sister sounds a practical type.’’

  The doctor was silent.

  “I didn’t realise Alda was so alone,’’ went on Charmian.

  “Did you know her well?’’

  “I knew her better once,’’ said Charmian.

  “I think she must have had some friends,’’ he said cautiously. Charmian gave him a sharp look, wondering if he meant anything. He didn’t amplify the remark.

  Charmian crossed the great square of grass (campus, you’d have called it in America) around which all the University buildings gathered. A big hand-written notice had been tied to a tree. “Watch this spot,’’ it said, and again “ Watch this spot.’’ Her own residence was at the western corner. There were plenty of students about, but she didn’t know any of them. For the first time she felt lonely and a little homesick. She wanted to see her own house, her own husband. She would even have welcomed the sound of Chief Inspector Pratt’s somewhat hoarse tobacco-laden voice. Her friend and colleague Grizel had informed her that he was once again attempting to give up smoking as a result of one of his periodic panics about lung cancer. This was his third scare; Grizel reported that his temper was fierce. “ He’s barking away like a sea lion,’’ she had said last night on the telephone. The two women telephoned each other regularly.

  “I wouldn’t even mind if he barked at me,’’ Charmian had said. She was wistful for the sounds of home. Even the shouts of Emily Carter, her neighbour, as she struggled to control her brood of children and animals, would have been pleasant to her.

  “Well, watch out,’’ said Grizel. “ You might be nearer to home things than you think.’’

  “What’s that?’’ said Charmian. “ No, wait. I’ve got something I want to ask you. I told you about Alda Fearon?’’

  “Yes. But I never knew her.’’

  “Did she have any sort of trouble? Are there any stories?’’

  “Well, I told you I never knew her.’’

  “No, but someone might know. Ask around. I want to know.’’

  “I’ll try and find out. Goodbye.’’

  “Wait a minute, what was that you said before? About me being nearer home things than I thought? What did you mean?’’

  “Just wait and you might find out,’’ said Grizel, with a hint of a giggle.

  Charmian, preoccupied with her thoughts on Alda’s death, had almost forgotten this conversation as she crossed the grass to her own room. She certainly wasn’t thinking of Emily Carter. />
  Someone cannoned into her at the corner by the Library, sending her staggering and scattering her books.

  “Emily! Good Lord, Emily!’’ she cried. “What are you doing here?’’

  “I’ve been here longer than you actually,’’ said Emily; Charmian couldn’t see her face as she picked up her books, then Emily straightened up, looking flustered. “My term began three weeks before yours.’’

  “Your term? What term? What are you doing?’’

  “I’m taking the teacher’s training diploma at the Department of Education here,’’ said Emily. The look compounded of triumph, surprise and apprehension so characteristic of her appeared on her face. Apprehension was needed in Emily’s life; she had to be perpetually on the alert for the next hole she would fall into. And she always fell. But no one had a greater skill at picking herself up and staggering on. Emily was the perfect survivor.

  “I can’t think of you as a teacher, Emily. What will you teach?’’

  “Well, I’m not quite sure yet,’’ said Emily cautiously. “I took an honours degree in English once. Before I was married and had children.’’ Emily made it sound like the golden age.

  “Who’s looking after the children?’’ said Charmian. After all, there were five of them now. Five children, three cats and two dogs, one of the latter her own gift.

  “My mother,’’ said Emily. “ She’s looking after them. She’s very efficient. They won’t like that.’’ Emily always spoke of her family as Them and They, as if they were a collective enemy waiting to attack. So they were, in a way.

  “What does your husband think?’’

  “Oh, he’s all for it. He says I’ll make a good teacher.’’ Emily frowned. “The only thing is I don’t know if the college will let me go on.’’

  “Getting bad marks?’’ said Charmian with sympathy.

  “No, I’m doing all right. Only, I may be pregnant.’’

  “Oh, Emily,’’ said Charmian.

  “It’s no good saying, Oh Emily. Taking all those pills isn’t just like taking Smarties, in spite of what they say. And I thought I ought to give my system a rest; after all it’s dampening down all sort of fires, isn’t it? And Jim was away on a course, only then Jim came back and said …’’

  “Oh, don’t go on, Emily,’’ broke in Charmian, who was constantly embarrassed by Emily’s willingness to inform her all about not only the births of her children but their conception as well.

  “You don’t look so well yourself,’’ said Emily, obligingly stopping in her saga. “ What about you?’’ Another thing about Emily was the way she watched for signs of multiplying in her friends.

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind,’’ said Charmian hastily.

  “Yes, you must have. Is it true they’re going to have a student revolution here?’’

  “Where did you hear that, Emily?’’

  “Oh, around. They’re all saying it.’’

  “I shouldn’t worry,’’ said Charmian.

  “I’m not worrying. A revolution could do me nothing but good. I’m working to establish Parent Power right now,’’ said Emily brightly. “Bye.’’

  “Goodbye.’’ Charmian watched Emily go. From where she stood she could see, although apparently Emily could not, that Emily was heading straight for a group of students and would hit them any minute now. They parted neatly at the last minute to let Emily through.

  One of the students saw Charmian and walked towards her. It was the boy who had the room next to her, the boy from Berkeley, California. He was no taller than she was (Charmian was a tall girl) but muscular and sturdy. He had a young, bright-eyed face, but his body had none of the gawky uncertainty of youth.

  Charmian looked at him questioningly, as if asking his name.

  “Gordon Goldsworthy,’’ he said reluctantly, as if his name was the one blot on his brightness. “I get people to call me Don.’’

  Charmian waited.

  “I’m sorry about Miss Fearon. I only just heard. She was a real help to me, getting me fixed up with somewhere to live. I saw you talking at the party the other day.’’

  “Yes, she would be kind,’’ agreed Charmian.

  “It was her job, of course, but it was more than that with her. She helped. It took me some time to adapt after I got back from California. I was two years at Berkeley, doing my Master’s degree.’’

  Charmian nodded. As a matter of fact, she knew.

  “I didn’t really want to come,’’ he went on.

  “It was a good time to change, I suppose,’’ she said.

  At once he looked surprised and Charmian could have kicked herself. “ Yes, it was,’’ he said. “ I did change subjects then.’’

  Yes, and you chose one that would be sure to get you a research place here, thought Charmian.

  “I wanted to work near my girl friend,’’ he said with a smile.

  “Is that the pretty fair girl?’’

  “Yes. Lulie. She’s German. A Berliner.’’

  “I’d never have known it from the way she speaks.’’

  “Just a little from the way she looks, don’t you think? But she’s practically bilingual, is Lulie.’’

  “And what about the tall boy with spectacles?’’

  “Old Van? He’s Dutch. From Leyden. He’s just about my best friend; Lulie’s too. To tell you the truth I’m always afraid she might go over to Van.’’ But he smiled confidently.

  “You are an international lot.’’

  “That’s the way it is now.’’ He looked alert, amused. “Come in and visit next time we have a session. My leisure’s a bit erratic, you know how scientists are.—I’m in and out of the laboratory at all hours—never can leave it for long, but we have fun. Tomorrow?’’

  “No, not tomorrow,’’ said Charmian regretfully. “I have some people to see.’’

  He gave a slight bow and waved her on. He might, just might, have been very politely laughing at her.

  The second meeting of the group of young policewomen that Charmian was to teach took place two days after Alda’s death. Although Charmian didn’t feel like going, she went. Life had to go moving on, even if Alda was out of it. This was the first time one of her own group of friends had died. It was true that as a young policewoman the girl who had started training with her had been killed, but that had been in a car accident. And later another friend had died from a fall while climbing. But both of these had been terrible mishaps. This death had been natural. Natural causes, the doctor had said.

  She pushed the thought aside and faced her group. They were just settling themselves into their chairs. Half a dozen girls, but only two of them really interesting.

  “You won’t need notebooks,’’ she said. She was trying to make these occasions informal, discussions rather than a lecture by her. But some of the girls clung to notebooks and pencils, desperately anxious to take notes as if to prove to themselves they had really heard what she said. “ I have a typed synopsis of what I say to hand out to everyone at the end.’’ Frowns relaxed on several faces and one plump girl gave a relieved, endearing giggle. Charmian liked the look of her, but doubted if she’d make a policewoman. But there were two who were good. She looked for one smooth dark head and found it; then one curly fair head and found that too, sitting near each other as always. Friends or rivals, she was never quite sure. They eyed each other cautiously and there was a reason for this, of course.

  “How do I know what I’ve heard unless I’ve written it down,’’ muttered a girl in the front row. Charmian thought she wouldn’t make a policewoman either. You had to have a little more confidence in yourself than that.

  Charmian started. “Last week we discussed together the tasks that make up a policewoman’s round, not all of them the sort you expect when you start off training. I told you that one of the first jobs I did when I started was to shampoo the fleas out of a family of baby squirrels. That was a comic job, and last week when I told you, I laughed. I didn’t tell you then that the
squirrels were connected with the murder of an eight-year-old. You wouldn’t have laughed then, any more than I did when I washed them. The truth is you can’t afford to laugh too much in this job, any more than you can afford to cry. You’ve got to keep emotion right out of it. And that brings me to what I want us to discuss this evening: the preparation of yourself for your work.’’ She put a slight emphasis on the word discuss: she had already noticed a tendency on the part of this group to sit back and let her do the talking.

  “Could we have the window open?’’ The clever fair-haired girl had made the request with a smile. She seemed to feel the heat. Her dark-haired friend or rival frowned; she of course did not. It was always that way with them. If one smiled the other frowned. Nothing obvious, just this constant faint reaction to each other which must mean something.

  “Yes, do,’’ Charmian smiled too. “ It is hot in here.’’ The window was opened and at once a burst of noise came into the room. “Oh dear, shut it again,’’ said Charmian hastily. The room she had been allotted for this group hovered uneasily between the world of the police and that of the University, just like Charmian herself. It was a small corner room in the annexe to the main city police station and it abutted on the field used by the University Physical Training department. Charmian met her group on Wednesday afternoon. Every afternoon, so it seemed, there was also going to be a rugger match.

  The dark-haired girl got up and closed the window and the class got under way again. Charmian had plenty to say and she said it forcibly and well. She was speaking out of her own experience, displaying the authority and ease which had begun to come to her lately. The awkward ambitious girl who had started out on her career was disappearing, hidden inside this new Charmian, only to reappear at times of stress. Charmian knew she was still there and occasionally sent down a word of comfort and assurance to the shy self she knew still lived inside her.

  After she had finished talking, she took a glass of water and drank it thirstily. She was worried in case she had been talking beyond the capacity of most of her audience. They were good girls and they had the build to make policewomen but she wondered about the brain. Only the dark-haired girl and the curly one remained and they seemed to be waiting for her. These two were bright, no doubt about that.