Dead Again Read online

  ‘Tell them nothing,’ said Charmian. ‘Let’s wait and see.’

  ‘So I told them.’ He poured himself some coffee. Under his own careful tuition, Charmian’s taste in coffee had improved. This was good Java. ‘They didn’t believe that, of course.’ He took a long drink. ‘Neither did the hermit. Passionately interested he was, but not saying a word.’

  ‘Who is that man?’ demanded Charmian irritably.

  ‘A liar, to begin with.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Dolly with interest.

  ‘It wasn’t chance that brought him to the shed in the witches’ back garden. He knew where he was going.’

  ‘I wondered about that,’ said Charmian, ‘and I thought Winifred did too.’

  ‘He probably sussed the place out before he came to Windsor,’ said Dolly.

  ‘Wonder why he was there?’ said Humphrey. Then he answered his own question. ‘It’s more comfortable than Pinckney Heath.’

  ‘Something to do with the murder of his granddaughter,’ said Charmian.

  Dolly almost choked on her coffee. ‘He’d never suspect the white witches? Not Birdie and Winifred. Although they have been mixed up in some funny business in the past. Look at the bodies in their bookshop … not their fault, goodness no, but there they were, close to it. They attract crimes, I think. Do you suppose it’s being witches that does it?’

  ‘I think it’s what’s known as being a focus for trouble, but I don’t know what causes it, except I think those two have got it.’ Charmian was half laughing. ‘I suppose I’m a focus for trouble myself.’

  ‘Not you,’ said Humphrey. ‘It’s just your job, your métier, your profession, that’s different.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, I’ve sometimes wondered if I chose my profession, as you kindly call it, because of the way I was.’

  ‘Someone has to tell Baby,’ said Dolly. ‘ Take her to see the dead girl. It could all be a mistake.’

  ‘That’s a task for the uniformed branch,’ said Charmian. ‘Inspector Parker will sort that out! Joan Dingham arrived this morning so he can’t send Emily Agent to speak to Baby.’

  ‘You don’t want to do it,’ was Humphrey’s comment. ‘ Can’t say I blame you. Still …’ He looked Charmian in the eye.

  She sighed. ‘ Yes, I know, I’ll be there … but uniformed must be there too.’ She put the cup of coffee down. ‘ In fact, I’ve already set it up: I phoned through to Central, told them to send an officer tomorrow to take Baby to the hospital. I’ll be there to meet them.’

  ‘Supposing she says she hasn’t got a daughter, never had a daughter and the girl is nothing to do with her?’ said Dolly.

  ‘And supposing she says Fiona is lying?’

  Dolly nodded. ‘Yes, that could be. But what an interesting lie.’

  ‘What an unlikely lie,’ said Charmian. ‘Think about it. No, Fiona wasn’t lying.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Dolly, who liked events to be crystal clear, even if it was nothing to do with her. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘We’ve a choice: either the girl was killed because she was Baby’s daughter – father unknown, or at least unknown to me – or because she had that envelope in her pocket and the killer wanted to kill Fiona Greenham.’

  ‘And supposing it was neither of those two motives?’ said Humphrey. ‘Sometimes I think you two women like to play intellectual games. What about Dr Harrie’s granddaughter? Perhaps this death is one more in the chain.’

  He whisked the empty cups away from them and into the dishwasher. ‘Come on, off to bed. These problems will still be there tomorrow.’ He looked at Dolly. ‘Want to stay the night? The bed’s made up, I’m a good little housekeeper.’

  ‘No, thanks for the offer, but I’d better get back. Got to look after the cat.’

  She took herself off, driving away into the night to the small house in Merrywick where she lived at the moment: she never seemed to stay anywhere long. Too much money, was what Charmian said, she could pick and choose.

  ‘Has she got a cat?’ asked Humphrey.

  ‘Don’t know who or what she’s got there,’ said Charmian. ‘There’s usually a changeover and I’m usually a man or two behind.’ She spoke absently, occupied with thoughts of the dead girl.

  Identity, identity, identity.

  Why had no family claimed her?

  Dolly did have a cat, a thin striped creature who was asleep on her bed. ‘You’re all I have at the moment,’ Dolly said half sadly, half with relief. ‘It’s a quiet life, but a comfortable one. I think I’m a spinster by nature, really. Not a virgin, but a spinster. An unmarried woman sitting in the sun spinning. Only I spin stories about death.’

  There was no message on her answering machine and no e-mail. ‘All right, you’ve gone for good,’ she said, studying her computer. ‘Just as well really, another policeman and a medical one as well, it would never have done. Still, James is a nice name, but there was never any chance I would marry you (not sure if that was what you wanted) or have your child. I shall remember you with pleasure, though maybe not with pride. And we will meet professionally.’

  Dolly crawled into bed beside the cat who did not wake up. She closed her eyes and listened to the cat snoring but found sleep hard to come by. She was tired but could not sleep. All that coffee that Humphrey had poured out.

  No, not the coffee, but Felicity Harrie and now this new victim, both murdered, almost certainly by the same person. Definitely murdered by the same person in her book. Same method of killing, manual strangulation, the body just left around to be found, cuts on the body, with vaginal assault. Felicity had been similarly attacked vaginally, although with lesser penetration. And both girls about the same age.

  She could ask James more about the medical details, she could talk to him about the case, that was professional business.

  ‘Dr Farmeloe,’ she could say, ‘ what is your opinion of these deaths?’

  Two murdered girls. What had they got in common to make them victims? Dig around, girl, she told herself, dig around.

  No answer came.

  Her sleep was restless, with the faces of the dead girls moving in and out of her dreams, but towards morning she slept heavily coming to with a jerk.

  She went straight to the phone. ‘Charmian? Listen, check if there is a link between the two girls, there must be one.’

  Charmian and Humphrey slept better than Dolly but were up earlier. Charmian took the call from her. ‘Yes, I thought of that,’ she said calmly, ‘and have already initiated a search. Rewley is working on it. I left a message on his answerphone.’

  ‘They might have known each other.’

  ‘Yes, I thought of that, too.’

  Dolly felt abashed. ‘Just an idea,’ she apologized. ‘Sorry to get you up.’

  ‘We’re up. Been up for ages.’

  They had had to be because the boy who delivered their papers, they took a range from The Times to the Mirror, had come hammering on their front door when the sun was just rising. Behind the boy was a girl. She, too, was carrying a sack of papers.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ Charmian yawned. She reached out to take the papers. She didn’t mind getting up early but it had to be from choice. To be summoned by a banging on the door was not what she enjoyed. Also, surely it was almost an hour earlier than usual?

  Humphrey, of course, had not stirred.

  Now she was more awake, she thought she knew the boy. ‘We met yesterday.’

  ‘Sort of met. I’m Peter Robb and this is Amy Fraser. We found the dead girl last night.’

  ‘Evening, really,’ said Amy, popping out from behind him. ‘It wasn’t so late.’ She seemed anxious to establish the timing. She reached out to take Peter’s hand.

  ‘We wanted to tell you something,’ Peter spoke quickly.

  Amy broke in, ‘We don’t want to be a nuisance.’ She seemed on the point of dragging Peter away. ‘And we ought to get on with the delivery, people will be looking for their papers.’ She gave them bot
h a radiant, anxious smile.

  Peter took his hand away. ‘Don’t, Amy. We agreed to do this. And we’re early, it’s why we are so early, we can catch up.’

  Charmian could feel a chill wind blowing down the street. ‘Come inside,’ she said to them. ‘I don’t know what this is about but I am not going to talk on the doorstep.’

  She led the way into the kitchen which was warm and tidy. Any food left over from last night had been tidied away, and the Aga was burning brightly. All this was due to Humphrey who had reformed Charmian’s bleak kitchen.

  She put the kettle on in order to make some tea. She didn’t care whether these two wanted any or not, she did, at least two cups of strong hot tea.

  ‘Tell me now what this about.’ She had her eye on the kettle. The teapot was to hand. She could see the girl eyeing the pot with interest. No doubt in her house the teabags were popped straight into the mug.

  ‘It’s a teapot,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I know, we’ve got my granny’s but mum never uses it. Well, she doesn’t drink tea unless it’s herbal and she says it would be a waste to infuse it.’

  Well, I deserved that, thought Charmian. Infuse it, eh? She has a way with her, this girl.

  Peter said quickly as if Amy might stop him, or prudence rein in his tongue, ‘We came because we didn’t tell all yesterday.’

  ‘Go on. You found the body. But it wasn’t by chance.’

  He was surprised. ‘Yes, how did you know?’

  ‘Because I hear that sort of story often.’ It was rare in her experience that a body was found quite by accident. The finder often had a purpose of some sort in being where the body was.

  Peter licked his lips. ‘ We were supposed to be meeting her.’

  ‘Oh, were you? Strange place to meet.’ She waited.

  ‘We met her at a party the night before …’ he paused.

  ‘And you liked her so much, you wanted to meet her again?’

  ‘No, no nothing like that. We just thought we’d meet and talk.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Charmian, pouring water into the pot, and then getting three cups and saucers out of the cupboard.

  ‘She was getting us something. Tickets for a concert.’

  Charmian did not believe this for a minute, there had been no tickets on the body. For that matter there had been no Ecstasy tablets, Valium, or any money. Just empty pockets.

  ‘Right, let’s leave that for the moment. Did you notice anyone else there?’

  He shook his head, the girl shrugged and said no, she hadn’t seen anything.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  Peter was the spokesman. ‘We saw someone lying there. Didn’t know it was her at first.’

  ‘I could see she was dead,’ said Amy. ‘I am going to be a doctor, so I knew what to look for. Anyway, she had no pulse and her eyes were fixed. She was dead before we got there.’

  Peter spoke up for them both. ‘I phoned the police on Amy’s mobile.’

  Charmian looked at the future doctor. ‘It’s my mother’s but she’s in the Valley of the Kings.’

  ‘So … you knew her name and where she lived?’

  Peter shook his head.

  Surprise, surprise, thought Charmian.

  ‘We just met at the party, you see.’

  ‘What did you call her then?’

  ‘Didn’t really call her anything.’

  ‘So you don’t know anything about her? Can you recall anything? Think, will you?’

  ‘I think she said she was called Pippa and her father was a poet.’

  ‘And her mother?’

  ‘Oh … dead, I think … she’d passed on.’

  Charmian poured out three cups of tea. ‘Thank you for coming. Drink that.’ She pushed a sheet of paper at them. ‘Write your names and addresses there, please, so we can get in touch.’

  The two looked at each other. ‘Our parents –’ began Amy.

  ‘Yes, they’ll have to know. You’d better tell them first.’

  Humphrey appeared on the stairs behind her as she watched the pair depart. Paper deliveries would be late today.

  ‘What’s up?’

  She turned to look at him. Not many men can look distinguished and intelligent when unshaven and sleepy, but Humphrey managed it. His old grey dressing gown was ragged at the edges, his slippers were soft and battered, but they were worn with unconscious style, looking as if they had come from Jermyn Street or the Rue St Honoré some decades ago. Which, come to think of it they probably had.

  She poured him some tea. ‘Here you are, hot and strong.’

  ‘Good, I can’t abide weak tea,’ he said with the complacent air of one who had wed an obliging wife. He was in charge of the coffee while Charmian took care of the tea, but he had had to train her. At least she went to the best stores now. ‘So what was all that about?’

  ‘The couple of kids who found the body last night are also the pair who deliver our newspapers. I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Did they come to tell you?’ Humphrey finished his cup of tea and poured another one. ‘Want some more tea? I’ll have to put some more water in.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Charmian, her voice abstracted.

  Humphrey sipped his tea, the second one always tasted best of all, and studied her. ‘So what did they come to say?’

  ‘They not only recognized me, knew me, they also knew the dead girl.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, bit of a surprise that. I think they were going to buy some drugs from her, not that they admitted it. They made up some story about trying to get hold of concert tickets. They met her at a party. I daresay the girl Fiona was also hoping for some of the same. May have bought some in fact. We’ll have to go into that.’

  ‘Does this help you?’

  ‘It helps me build up a picture of the dead girl. She told Fiona that her mother was called Baby and she was called Bibi… I drew a conclusion from that: I decided that she was Beryl Andrea Barker’s child.’

  Humphrey nodded. ‘Seems reasonable.’

  ‘Didn’t it? I haven’t spoken to Baby yet, although I have arranged a visit to the mortuary with her to see the dead girl. That’s not off. She shall go, but later, I will tell Parker.’ And she would be there herself to see Baby’s face.

  ‘You don’t think the dead girl is her daughter?’

  ‘I’m leaving it all open. She told Peter and Amy that her father was a poet, and her mother was dead, passed over, as she put it, and she was called Pippa. I think she must have been reading Browning, don’t you?’

  ‘Not many people read Browning these days,’ said Humphrey thoughtfully.

  ‘And she didn’t look like a girl who read poetry.’

  Humphrey pointed out that he had, and he was glad about it. He had not seen the girl, but he could tell Charmian that Birdie and Winifred were wondering if they could identify her. There was a girl who had come in looking for a post in their bookshop and they wondered if it might be her.

  Charmian groaned. ‘Let’s keep them out of it for the moment.

  We can reel them in later. They have their hermit, he’s enough to keep them occupied surely.’

  ‘They’re bored, I think,’ said Humphrey. ‘I detect a slight drawing away from white witchery.’

  ‘Their life seems full enough to me, with their bookshop.’

  ‘Just warning you.’ He finished his tea and picked up the pile of newspapers. ‘I fancy there is a distinct movement towards crime. Birdie and Winifred, Detectives Ltd.’

  ‘I hope you are joking.’

  ‘Half and half …’ his voice was abstracted. The local newspaper had fallen out of the pile and the headlines had caught his attention.

  ANOTHER MURDER VICTIM. DO YOU KNOW THIS GIRL?

  Underneath was a drawing of a young girl. She had a neat-featured, pretty face, her hair falling, straight and plain, over her shoulders. Her face was heavily made up.

  Charmian grabbed the paper. ‘Let me look … It�
��s not a bad likeness. Whoever drew this saw her, and I want to know how.’

  ‘If you read on,’ said Humphrey who was reading over her shoulder, ‘ you will see that the editor says he was sent the picture from an anonymous source. Arrived on his desk.’

  DID THE KILLER SEND IT? asked another headline.

  ‘Why hasn’t he sent it to the police? I should have had it.’

  Humphrey said nothing, he could think of several good reasons why the editor had kept it to himself, and the first and strongest was that the police would have retained it and used it as they thought fit rather than allowing him to print it.

  ‘I am going to ring the editor and demand he send it round.’

  Humphrey looked at the clock. ‘Far too early, he won’t be there. Might not be anyone there.’

  ‘It’s a newspaper office, damn it.’

  ‘Not Fleet Street though. Or wherever the big nationals are now.’ The local newspaper office was in Merrywick, housed in a quiet back street in a building that looked ancient outside and not much newer inside, although it was equipped with all the flashing screens and fax machines without which no office felt itself authentic. But Humphrey had called on the editor Percy Clubb once before about an article on the local theatre he was proposing to write and knew Percy to be a polite, gentle man, not in love with dazzle and push. He knew that what his readers wanted to hear about was the local deaths, births and marriages, together with some discreet gossip. Also wanted were careful reports of all local sports matches.

  ‘I’m going to ring him. Someone will be there,’ said Charmian.

  The officer cleaner, thought Humphrey, or just the answerphone. Sometimes he thought that so many years as a high-ranking police officer, telling people to jump and watching them jump, had cut Charmian off from the world others lived in, the world in which people said no, or I might, or didn’t even answer.

  She did get an answer. A soft, young, female voice answered and acknowledged that yes, this was the Merrywick Mercury. Charmian could never shake free from the notion that this Mercury was a bisexual god who sometimes spoke with a gruff male voice, local accent, and sometimes with an educated, female alto. It was a different voice altogether today. That made three Mercurys. Marvellous theme for a really Attic comedy.