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A note in the voice there, Charmian thought. A strong relationship with the mother? Or dislike of the father?

  The next questions were about her string of offences. They were a mixed bag from shoplifting to housebreaking, Nix seemed willing to have a go at anything, and this fitted in with what Charmian was beginning to feel about her. Then she started on carefully phrased questions about her friends. The special little group of fellow women recidivists who seemed to be hanging together.

  Nix wouldn’t say much about them.

  Charmian put a question or two about men, Nix’s current relationships, if any, but she was not surprised when Nix refused to be drawn.

  By certain answers Charmian put a star. Her victim noticed. ‘Why are you doing that?’

  ‘They are of interest.’ Where I think you have lied, she might have said.

  Nix stared at the questions as if trying to read them upside down.

  ‘They’re in shorthand,’ said Charmian, not without sympathy. ‘You can’t read them. But I’ll tell you, if you like.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘I’ll tell you, anyway.’

  Nix shrugged.

  ‘The questions where I asked about your group of friends, and asked how you all happened to end up so close now you were out. And you said it was happenstance.’

  ‘Coincidence, I said.’

  ‘Was that the word?’ Charmian pretended to study her notes. ‘And before that we had agreed it was lucky.’ Their eyes met, then Nix looked away. ‘And I haven’t quite fathomed’—good word, Charmian thought, suggesting depths that she knew must be there—‘I haven’t quite fathomed why you do these things because you haven’t quite answered.’

  ‘Because you haven’t quite asked. I do it for the hell of it. For the kicks. It isn’t dull. It makes me feel alive.’

  Excitement for Nix and profit for Laraine, Charmian thought, what a dangerous combination they made.

  ‘And is that all?’

  ‘You have to believe in something,’ said Nix slowly, ‘and sometimes you have to show it. Stand up and say so.’ Then she stopped, as if she had said enough.

  When Nix had gone, shortly after finishing what was left of the whisky and in the mood to be affectionate and friendly, Charmian went downstairs to ask Anny if she could use the telephone.

  Anny, still up and sleepless but in a dressing gown, nodded. ‘But use the one in the office. I don’t want to disturb Jack. Just got him off to sleep, the great baby.’ She sounded weary but calmer. ‘Any news?’ Charmian shook her head, not prepared to tell her that there had been a part of a woman’s body in the sack. ‘None here either.’ She moved through into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m going to make some cocoa, come in and have some when you’re through.’

  Charmian spoke to Harold English. ‘They are certainly up to something. I can see all the signs, but I can’t say more yet. I think it would be worth checking on the man.’ Baby had reluctantly supplied a few details and these Charmian passed on: thirtyish, well spoken, a smart dresser, probably had form. A Londoner. ‘That’s for you to do. But I’m beginning to break through with them.’

  She felt half pleased, half a heel. Women should help women. Well, in her way she was trying.

  She remembered what Nix had said as she left. ‘It’s not easy to be a woman like me. Not easy to be a woman unless you’ve got certain things going for you which I hadn’t. You understand me, Charmian, and you’ll do some good.’

  It was like a wary animal coming forward for a pat.

  By midnight all in the Yard were asleep, even Jerome, anxious about his son who had seemed restless. ‘ Misses his mother,’ he told himself. ‘Bound to.’ Unlike Jack he could not soothe his sorrows with whisky nor with hot milk as could Anny, but he had devised his own means to assuage his grief. You didn’t hide from what you felt, you did something about it, you worked hard, you looked after your son, made a success of your business and did something. That way you felt better.

  Anny and Jack were not precisely hiding from their anxieties, but they were glad to be asleep and out of the way of themselves for a bit. ‘ I’ll go to the Fair in the Great Park,’ Anny told a sleeping Jack as she turned out the light. ‘Molly gave me good advice. Of course, Kate’s all right. I’ll probably hear from her tomorrow and be laughing all over my face.’

  Round the corner in the Robertsons’ shop the night was disturbed by the baby wailing, and then by the lad Peter asking for a drink of water. ‘ I itch, Mum, something dreadful.’

  His mother examined him. ‘It’s the spots,’ she announced. ‘You’ve got the chicken-pox.’ She considered. ‘I’ll sponge you down. Won’t need to bother the doctor now, that’s one thing, even if he was back, which he isn’t.’

  Her son said: ‘Mum, there’s something I’ve got to tell you. That night you went to Bingo and Dad was at the British Legion and I was babysitting? Well, I did just go out for a minute, only a minute, Mum, I felt I needed the air.’

  ‘I’ll give you air,’ said his mother ‘If you didn’t have spots I’d give you a smacking for leaving the baby. Well, now you’ve told me, go to sleep.’

  ‘That’s not all, Mum.’ Her son gripped her hand. ‘I didn’t go far, just to see Jerry Gardiner, we had a bet on, and we were where we could see the doctor’s.’ He paused; his acting experience in A Midsummer Night’s Dream had not been wasted on him. Then he said: ‘There was a black plastic sack on his steps, I could see it plain. And there was a lady standing by it.’ He gave an energetic scratch. ‘I think it was the sack with the dead body in it.’

  Later, in bed, Brian said to his worried wife: ‘There’s probably nothing in it, you know what boys are, like a bit of drama, especially that one, but you may as well tell the police.’

  With all the disturbances, they were late up next day, so that there was more than the usual rush to get the older ones off to work, the rest to school and to give breakfast to the baby and the sick Peter.

  At last Mrs Robertson wheeled the baby in his pram to the open shop door where he could get a breath of air and find some amusement from watching the street scene if he wanted. This morning he seemed more inclined to sleep.

  Bessie went back inside to the kitchen, poured out two cups of tea and allowed herself the luxury of a sit down while she drank. Her customers were a good lot who would either leave the money for what they owed by the till or give her a shout. ‘Where are you?’ she called to her husband. ‘I’ve poured you out a cup.’

  ‘Be down. Nearly finished shaving.’

  ‘Take a look at the little ’un as you go past.’

  He was a good father and would do just that. The baby was quiet, Peter making no fuss; she enjoyed her cup of tea. A quick glance at one of her magazines would do no harm; she took up a copy of Woman.

  Her husband came in. ‘Where is he then?’

  ‘Who?’ she raised her head from her horoscope, which was a good one: You will have an exciting week in the home.

  ‘The baby, of course.’

  ‘In the pram.’ She stood up, at first surprised but quickly alarmed. ‘Isn’t he?’ she hurried to the pram.

  The pram was there, she could see the indentation on the pillow where the child’s head had rested. The pillow was still warm when she touched it. But the baby was gone.

  Charmian had gone to London very early on the train to Waterloo. There was work to do, checking on the backgrounds of Laraine, Nix and the others. She would be meeting both of them with Rebecca Amos, Betty Dedman, Elsie Hogan and Yvonne King in Windsor tomorrow, or so she hoped. The meeting had been arranged by the reluctantly co-operative Baby. Sorry, Andrea.

  She was taking them all to the matinee at the theatre. She understood it was a crime story which ought to be to their taste. They would all sit in a row and be friends.

  She did her routine checking, some in Scotland Yard and some on the records in St Catherine’s House. She was filling in the details of their lives, trying to see them against their settings. B
roken, unsettled homes for the most part, and, for three of the women, Betty Dedman (two brothers inside), Rebecca Amos and Yvonne King, a criminal family. Rebecca’s father had been a habitual small criminal, while Yvonne King’s husband was a con man of great skill. He was sunning himself in Italy with his current mistress, having long since put Yvonne and his two children behind him. It wasn’t true that criminals made good family men, Charmian thought. On the whole they did not.

  Later that day she went to a meeting in a house so august that she entered it by a back door through the mews.

  Humphrey was there, also one other man, whom she had seen once before.

  Charmian delivered her report, which was listened to in silence. ‘That is as far as I can go at present. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Would it be possible to infiltrate another woman into the group?’ asked the Palace official.

  ‘No chance.’ Charmian was decisive. ‘They are such a strong close group. They only talk to me because of Miss Barker.’ And because they think I am honest.

  Humphrey said: ‘No, you’ve done well. And we owe a lot to your friend.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charmian, troubled. She wished she could think that Baby was totally disinterested. She wondered what Baby expected out of it. A medal, perhaps.

  The last train to Windsor finally delivered her at the Riverside station; fatigued in mind and body, she walked past Alexandra Gardens and under the railway bridge, taking a left turn at the traffic roundabout and then along Peascod Street where she passed the Robertsons’. A young woman was emerging. She recognised her as the doctor, the locum, filling in. The recognition was mutual.

  ‘Hello, met you at Anny Cooper’s, didn’t I? I’ve bought one of her pots.’ She sounded as tired as Charmian felt.

  ‘Nothing wrong at the Robertsons’, is there?’

  ‘Where have you been all day?’ asked the girl wearily. ‘High drama round here. I don’t blame the mother for being hysterical. But it was the boy I came to see now. The worst case of chicken-pox I’ve ever been privileged to view. I’ve just had him admitted to the Prince Albert. You missed the ambulance by a second.’ In a few more words she let Charmian know about the missing baby, cutting across her reactions. ‘And that’s not the lot. The boy has some talk about seeing a woman and the black plastic sack outside the doctor’s surgery. I’ve had the police questioning me. They thought it might be me. But it wasn’t.’

  ‘No,’ said Charmian, realising a response was called for.

  ‘I know nothing about it all. I shouldn’t even be here, I’ve got an exam to take. If only the man I’m filling in for would come back, I’d be off. I don’t like this place. Too many strange things happening.’ She lugged her heavy bag towards the car. ‘I don’t like the police breathing down my neck. Perhaps the kid was hallucinating, he does have a fever, but somehow I don’t think so. He saw what he says. And it was not me. Isn’t that life?’

  Life and death, irretrievably mixed up as usual.

  Chapter Five

  CHARMIAN WENT STRAIGHT to her own flat, where she discovered Muff crouching behind the door with her plump form on an unstamped manila envelope which looked at once anonymous and official. The address was typewritten, but there was no stamp, so the letter must have been delivered by hand. From which she deduced that it had come from Harold English. His motives for this kind act would need thinking about. She fed the cat, drank a glass of water, then sat down to read what he had to say.

  What she had in front of her was a condensed report of the police investigation on the severed limbs found in Wellington Yard. She was being given a private look behind the scenes. Even as she inwardly thanked English for his courtesy, she was grasping the fact that he thoroughly understood her own emotional involvement. He had done his homework, he knew of her long friendship with Anny Cooper, he had known the gossip about Kate, heard the stories, probably come to a few conclusions of his own. No doubt he knew also what his colleagues thought of it all, although no hint of this came through. It would have been nice if the report could somehow have eliminated Kate from any connection. But it did not.

  She took the report with her into the kitchen while she ate her supper of bread and cheese. Muff had eaten rabbit cat food from a tin, her favourite brand. Tomorrow she might fancy something different, Muff had her own ways of letting her mistress know these things, and her own technique for ensuring action. Charmian devoted more time and thought to planning Muff’s menu than she did her own.

  A crumb of bread fell on the page she was reading. She brushed it away, noticing that it had left a soft buttery stain behind which had highlighted a word: blood.

  The limbs had been severed after death with a sharp instrument applied by an unpractised hand. The job had been well done but not elegantly, the blows cutting across bone and muscle with more regard for symmetry than anatomy. Not, then, the work of a surgeon or a butcher. An amateur job.

  There would have been blood. Plenty of it.

  The time of death could only be speculated upon, but decomposition of the limbs was not far advanced. Say some twenty-four hours before the limbs turned up in Wellington Yard. They were working on this.

  One leg was that of a man of light build, thin but tall, probably approaching six feet in height. The hairs on the leg were dark, the skin fair.

  The other leg had belonged to a plump young woman who had been estimated to be about five feet and four inches tall. A blonde.

  There was a light deposit of some as yet unidentified powder on both legs. This was now being studied, and when identified might provide a useful pointer to where the bodies had rested before turning up in Wellington Yard.

  There was, as yet, no indication where the rest of the bodies were. Nor why the legs had been cut off, nor why the legs had been deposited in the Yard.

  The case was being treated as a major murder enquiry, a double murder of a particularly brutal kind. Missing people were being checked.

  No mention, she noted, of the boy’s story about seeing a woman near the sack outside Dr Cook’s surgery. News of that might have come in after this report was put together. No mention either of Kate and Harry.

  So that was it. Charmian was putting the report in a drawer when the front door bell rang. She paused only for a moment before answering it.

  ‘Anny! Welcome, I could do with some company. I’m just going to make some coffee. Like a cup?’

  Anny followed her into the kitchen. ‘I designed this kitchen, you know.’

  ‘I did know, Anny. It bears all the marks of you.’ Also, every piece of china in the apartment had been made by Anny herself, and was unmistakably her work. The very tiles that lined the bathroom were her design: leaping dolphins on a terracotta background.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Comfortable, well designed and good to look at.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Anny sat down and reached out for the mug of coffee. The mug was aquamarine blue from her green-blue period which had come after the red period and preceded the yellow which she was in now. ‘You’re cheering me up, aren’t you?’ Her tone suggested Charmian might not find it easy.

  Still, Charmian noticed that her friend had had the spirit to have her hair newly washed and cut. ‘ Your hair looks nice.’

  ‘Jerome did it for me this morning.’

  ‘Is there anything that man doesn’t do?’

  ‘He used to be a hairdresser, before he took up other things. He’s been everything, that man. Go yourself.’ Suspiciously, she said: ‘You’re still cheering me up.’

  ‘If you want something else I can give that, too.’ Her eyes went to the drawer containing the report.

  Anny’s gaze followed hers, not without comprehension. She was as quick at reading body movements as Muff. Her lips tightened.

  ‘I know about the other leg being a girl’s leg,’ she said. Also about the woman seen standing by the plastic sack outside Dr Cook’s. Word gets around. Would you call Kate a woman?’ she said in an expressionless tone. ‘Not reall
y old enough, is she?’

  ‘To a boy perhaps.’

  ‘He’s a liar, that boy,’ said Anny.

  Charmian said nothing. She did not believe he was: there was a ring of truth to the story as she had been told it.

  ‘Don’t you think so?’ Anny tried again, but without much conviction in her tone.

  ‘And you can’t go and have it out with him because he’s got chicken-pox and the baby’s been snatched,’ said Charmian with sympathy. ‘And you wouldn’t go anyway, because you don’t really think he’s lying. And as it happens he’s just been whisked off to hospital.’

  ‘But it might have been a fantasy thing. I knew he was pretty ill. If he had a high fever then, he might have been imagining things.’ Anny finished her coffee. ‘But Jack doesn’t think so. He’s had to have a whole bottle of Bell’s to stop thinking about it.’

  ‘He’ll kill himself.’

  ‘And I don’t know what to believe. What do you think, Charmian?’

  ‘Let’s put it this way—which would you prefer: that Kate is the killer, or that she is a mutilated corpse?’

  It was a brutal but necessary shock to Anny.

  She put her hands over her eyes as if to shut out the picture Charmian was so vividly calling up.

  Charmian said: ‘I think we’d better decide that this affair has nothing to do with Kate and Harry. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Anny.

  For a moment, Charmian thought she had quietened Anny’s fear, but Anny was not so easily soothed. With her, at this time, anxiety was pushed out of one door only to come in at another. She had a newspaper in her pocket that she pulled out.

  ‘Do you think that Kate can be the woman held in this house siege in Ealing?’ she pointed to the paragraph in the evening paper where there was a picture of the house, a neat bow-windowed villa, with a story saying the police had decided it was ‘a domestic affair’ and would draw back from confrontation for ‘the time being’.

  ‘No.’ Charmian was firm, although she had considered this possibility herself. ‘But if you want to make sure, go to the house and take a look.’