Footsteps in the Blood Page 8

  Heads for Cheasey, tails for Jack and Annie.

  The coin fell face up.

  She was going to Cheasey. It was what she wanted anyway.

  Cheasey was an easy drive along the Slough road, the traffic was heavy but slow-moving, all you needed was patience. Not the quality that Charmian was strongest in, but today she felt strong and quiet. She had the radio on and a Beethoven quartet was being played. No self-pity in that man.

  Up to the Slough-Cheasey roundabout, then behind a huge lorry heading for the motorway and leaving the road before her clear. Then a drive through suburban streets with factories and workshops on either side. Then she was through the industrial area into row upon row of small houses, with here and there a tail block of dwellings where the inhabitants must feel like cave-dwellers.

  A few stunted trees hung on at irregular intervals, dusty and depressed, like a parade of forgotten soldiers. Cars lined the kerbs on either side so that driving down the narrow path between needed care. A public house, The Grey Man, with a large car park, gave Charmian somewhere to stop while she looked at a road map.

  Yes, she was close to the house where one enclave of the Fisher family lived. Knowing from Dolly Barstow what a strange and inchoate group they were, with family members moving around from house to house as it suited them, she had to hope that 12 Duke Road was where Nella Fisher had called home.

  She thought she knew the road. At one time, and not so long ago, when she had been a part-time student at the University in Uxbridge, writing a thesis on Women in Crime, she had driven these streets often as she sought out criminous women willing to be interviewed. Cheasey had provided a rich field. Interestingly, no member of the Fisher clan had come forward to be questioned, although many could be nominated, with one or two she had heard tell worthy of the title ‘ Woman Criminal of the Year’.

  She locked the car – you locked everything in Cheasey, nailed it down if possible or when you came back it was gone – and went into The Grey Man for a glass of dry sherry and a little prospecting of the landscape. She seemed to recall that the place had formerly been called The Packhorse Inn which seemed to suggest a change of ownership.

  A change of policy also, perhaps? She remembered it as a place of darkness and quiet; now it was painted, too well lit and noisy with music. The woman behind the bar had pretty red hair teased into a wildness, a kind of froth, and wore earrings that dangled brightly towards her waist. She had strong mauve, blue and turquoise shadows painted above her eyes into which baby-blue contact lenses had been inserted so that her gaze was as bright and lucid as a fish. She had overdone it, but Cheasey pushed you to extremes.

  The bright eyes had no difficulty in assessing Charmian, deciding what she was, and possibly even estimating her rank. Or she may just have come across Charmian in the past.

  She pushed the sherry across the bar without comment.

  ‘I’m looking for Duke Street. I believe it’s around here somewhere.’

  The blue eyes, behind which paler eyes lurked, became vague. ‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘ Duke, you say? There’s a Queen street.’

  ‘Duke,’ said Charmian firmly.

  ‘Prince Albert road?’

  ‘You don’t know Duke Street?’

  ‘Looking for a friend?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Charmian.

  The blue eyes, which could not cloud because of their constituent parts, had begun to water a little so that the woman had to pat them with a tissue. The rainbow of eye shadows began to run. ‘Bert,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘ Do we know where Duke Street is?’

  A man appeared from the back, a plump man in a striped shirt with a bow-tie. He looked like an out-of-work actor, but a lot of men had that look these days. ‘Duke Street? Round the corner somewhere, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you know anyone who lives there? Mrs Fisher?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Fisher? We don’t do we, Ginny?’

  Ginny did not answer, she was repairing her eye makeup. These bloody lenses,’ she muttered. ‘ Well, I wouldn’t. I hardly know anyone round here if they don’t drink here.’

  ‘Silly question,’ said Charmian, taking her sherry away to a seat in the window.

  She sipped her drink, pretending to study a map, while making a discreet survey of the room.

  She was immediately aware that she was the object of scrutiny herself. The room had filled even in the short time since she had arrived. A group of men sitting in one corner, were talking away loudly; they were also watching her in a wall mirror. A man in the next window recess was reading a newspaper and keeping an eye on her.

  Ginny and Bert were maintaining a covert watch too, Well, well, it began to look as if she might have walked into the very pub in which Nella had worked, and in which Dolly Barstow had taken a drink. She could go up to the bar and question Ginny and Bert, but they seemed a pair of obstinate non-answerers. Not subtle but dogged.

  It was more than possible too that Nella, who seemed to have a different name for every place, had not called herself Fisher. Possibly not even Nella. But Bert and Ginny, who looked as though nothing got past them, would certainly know who she was.

  But they were not going to admit it, they did not want to talk about it. They were very wary in this place. This was surprising in itself because people like Bert and Ginny were usually anxious to keep in well with the police.

  Depended on who used their bar, of course, and for what purpose.

  While still studying her map and apparently writing a few notes, she observed the faces of the men. No one she knew, but they fell into a type. Rough men trying to look respectable, men on the edge of the law. One or two of them had probably done time. She would take an oath on it. That one with the dark spectacles and pale face and thick hands, that one across the room with his newspaper. She could bet he knew his way around Fitcham Prison.

  They all had an air of watching and waiting. Waiting for someone? Well, they hadn’t been waiting for her. She was an unexpected and, she would swear, an unwelcome arrival.

  As she finished her sherry and made to go, the door swung open to admit a man. He was tall, well built, with a large head. A crop of wiry brown curls, a tanned skin and a broken nose. He was wearing a well-cut blue blazer with a crest on the pocket and brass buttons. A clean white shirt of which the cuffs could just be seen at his wrist. He had large but nicely manicured hands with a ring on his little finger.

  Charmian knew his face. They had met, but not socially. A man whose face had known many a mug shot. He had a record and a place in the history of crime.

  She fumbled for his name. Jake something. Her memory quickly provided a few facts. Jake Henley, alias Joe Howard, and sometimes Jo Headlam. He stuck to the same initials, because he was a natty dresser who liked to have his clothes initialled.

  Porn, and drugs, were his speciality, although he was reputed to be willing to try anything in which he would not actually get his own hands dirty.

  He had been inside, but never for as long as he deserved. No one regretted it more than Charmian who had tried hard to put him there once herself. The day of the trial had been the day that the photograph stuck on Nella’s wall had been taken. Coincidence? She hated coincidences.

  The audience in The Grey Man was quiet. This was the man for whom they had been waiting.

  Jake walked quietly to the bar, collected his drink and took it to a solitary seat by the fire. Perhaps it had been left vacant for him. He acted as if it was his by right. There was a comfortable chair next to it, but no one moved to take it. You had to be invited.

  Assembling her thoughts, Charmian remembered that Jake Henley had managed to stay in the background of the porn case she had investigated and brought to court. A group of people, women as well as men, more’s the pity, had gone to prison for a lot longer than he had. Heavy fines had been imposed. I must have put a spoke in quite a few lives, she thought. Perhaps in that man’s.

  Charmian got up, picked up her bag and started to walk towar
ds the door. Henley looked up and stared at her. Their eyes met.

  That man hates me, Charmian thought. It hit her hard. What a lot of male hostility I seem to be stirring up lately. More than usual, and there had always been a bit of it around her. She was used to provoking rough brushes with the male ego, as every successful woman must. But she could ignore those: they were all in the way of business. But she could not ignore this display of feeling, it was altogether

  more personal.

  No one else moved, and she walked across to her car, feeling a

  tingling down her spine. Yes, she was scared. Better to admit it.

  She started the car while she savoured the thought it had been

  in The Grey Man that Dolly Barstow had seen the bent copper

  meeting the porn king. It had a rich flavour, that thought.

  This was where Roger, so-called, had met Jake Henley, so-called.

  If that was the man who had it in for Dolly Barstow, then Dolly

  was in trouble indeed.

  Any woman would be.

  Her thoughts took their own unprompted course as she turned the car towards Duke Street.

  Odd that man coming into The Grey Man just when she was there. Luck or unluck, depending on how you felt about it.

  She waited for the traffic lights to change. Perhaps it wasn’t luck at all. Perhaps he had come because he knew she was there. A telephone call from Bert or Ginny as they darted in and out would have done it.

  In a way, she preferred that possibility, with her inbuilt, police dislike of coincidences. But it introduced other elements that would need thinking about. Like, why would he want to bother? And what lay behind his dislike of her?

  Perhaps he just disliked all policewomen on principle.

  The lights changed to green and she moved off.

  Cheasey was much as she remembered it. The rows of houses with their small gardens, some cared for, even cherished, others used as a dumping ground for bits of old cars and bikes. One front garden had an ambulance parked in it and another parked outside. Last time she had come this way it had been old fire engines the house-owner had collected. Obviously he had now diversified into ambulances.

  She was glad to see that particular garden, it had been a landmark in her memory. It was good to see people behaving the way they always had.

  Past the old ambulances, a turn to the left, and she was in Duke Street. This too was unchanged, part of a large housing estate built by the local authority after the last war. Duke Street was a long vista of small semi-detached houses with a high-rise block of dwellings at the end, sealing it off, making a dead end.

  Charmian drove along slowly, checking the numbers as she did so. The Fishers lived about halfway along Duke Street. Two cars were parked at the kerb outside, each having the hangdog, dejected air of a vehicle that has not been moved for weeks and very possibly can no longer be driven. The tyres had an ominously flat look to them. But beyond them were a couple of smarter, newer cars that were too good for Duke Street.

  She found an empty space, parked her own car, locked it with care, and walked back, passing the new cars and the old, automatically observing as she did so, and from old habit, that the licence on each window of the two old cars was well out of date.

  The Fisher front garden was average in disorder for the street, possibly even a fraction tidier than its neighbour on the right, because someone had once cut the little patch of grass and planted a few shrubs. True, a family of cats seemed to be living amongst them in wooden boxes but the creatures looked well fed.

  She rang the bell, but it made no sound, so she banged on the door. Then she waited. She was pretty certain someone was observing her from behind the curtain of an upstairs window, but she pretended not to notice. Cautious people, the Fishers, wouldn’t do to frighten them. Not more than was necessary, anyway.

  Presently she heard footsteps approaching. The door opened, but was kept on a chain so that all she saw was a woman’s face. Middle-aged, curly blonde hair, but not natural because you could see a rim of dark near the scalp, eyes with the rings of colour that seemed so fashionable in Cheasey and an unwelcoming expression in the mouth.

  ‘Mrs Fisher?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know where I could find her then? Nella Fisher’s mother.’ Charmian said quickly: ‘ That’s you, isn’t it? You are Mrs Fisher?’

  ‘I’m Rivers now. I was Fisher when I had her.’ It was said without much expression. Fisher yesterday, Rivers today, Seaman tomorrow.

  ‘Chief Superintendent Charmian Daniels.’ Charmian showed her credentials.

  ‘I know you.’ Mrs River’s voice, husky from smoking and much shouting up and down the pavements of Cheasey since childhood, gave nothing away. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to talk about Nella. I’d like to know about her.’ And because I am anxious about a beloved goddaughter. ‘May I come in?’

  After a pause, Mrs Rivers opened the door. ‘All right. I’m busy, mind.’

  As she went in, Charmian said; ‘Are those cars parked out there yours?’

  ‘Might be.’ She sounded indifferent.

  ‘And those cats? Are they yours too? Do they live out there?’

  ‘They’ve got fleas,’ said Mrs Rivers, showing sudden feeling. ‘Quick, don’t let that one get in.’ A large black animal had made a speedy dash for the door and was squeezing past.

  The cat fled down the passage. Mrs Rivers shrugged. ‘Damned animal.’ She led the way to the sitting room at the back of the house. Another woman was sitting at a table there, as if waiting. She did not rise, or smile, or speak. Or not to Charmian. To Mrs Rivers, she said: ‘Shall I put the kettle on, Freda?’

  ‘Don’t bother, Ju.’ Freda sat at the table herself, and motioned to Charmian. ‘She won’t be staying long. Wants to talk about Nella.’

  The cat had got into the room, and was sitting on the windowill, with its tail lashing back and forth.

  ‘That damned Timmy’s back in again,’ said Ju, and gave an absent-minded scratch.

  Why did Charmian have the feeling that there were other people in the house? She had the notion that, although there were just these two women in the sitting room, off-stage somewhere, perhaps upstairs or in another room, was a masculine presence. The women had been pushed into the front, the men hid in the background.

  ‘I can’t tell you much about her. She didn’t keep in touch, our Nella. Pushed off. Did her own thing. That’s what she said.’

  ‘Came back,’ said Ju.

  ‘Well, that’s true. On and off.’

  ‘Weren’t you worried about her?’

  ‘She could look after herself.’

  Manifestly untrue, Charmian thought.

  ‘She had a nice little job at one time, working for Mr Dick in Merrywick at the Keyright Bureau. I got her that work. Used to clean for his mother till she died. I got Nella in there, but she got too big for her boots, wanted to be a secretary or get a degree. I let her get on with it. I lost touch then. Couldn’t keep up.’

  ‘You did see her, though,’ Ju reminded her. ‘She came back.’

  ‘When?’ asked Charmian, keeping a wary eye on the flea-ridden Timmy.

  ‘Just before she went away.’

  ‘Went away where?’

  ‘Died.’ It was a bleak statement.

  ‘Why did she come then?’ asked Charmian.

  ‘I dunno. She didn’t say. Just came. I shall miss her, though.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Charmian.

  ‘You hardly ever saw her,’ said Ju, who seemed to enjoy dropping her ironic little comments into the pool.

  ‘You can miss someone even if you don’t see them. I knew she was there.’

  Charmian tried again. She had to get something out of this woman, she felt she was holding back. ‘You talked, though? You didn’t sit in silence, What did she say?’

  ‘She told us she was going to die.’

  Charmian felt the shock and surprise.r />
  ‘I reckon that was why she came.’

  Charmian did not know what to say. She said nothing, and scratched her leg.

  ‘So when she did, we thought she had killed herself.’

  Again deep in her state of shock, Charmian said: ‘But she didn’t.’

  ‘So we found out.’ ‘But what made you think she would want to kill herself?’ There was silence in the room. Outside a child was crying and

  someone was trying to start a car.

  Freda gave Charmian a look of ironic amusement. ‘ You don’t

  know much, do you?’

  ‘Obviously not enough.’

  ‘She had it.’

  ‘Had what?’

  Freda raised her eyebrows, then leaned forward and whispered

  in Charmian’s ear.

  Nella had been HIV positive. She had told her mother. As she

  listened, Charmian thought she heard feet passing quietly down

  the stairs.

  ‘Is that why you didn’t come to the funeral?’

  ‘Yes. Leave it there, we thought. She told us not to come and

  we didn’t. “ Don’t watch me being buried,” she said. “ I wouldn’t

  fancy it.” So we did what she said. Kept out.’

  Thanks for explaining,’ said Charmian. ‘ I’ll let myself out, shall

  I?’

  The cat came with her, giving a quick scratch as he passed though

  the door, following her down the street and making a good attempt

  to get into the car with her, so that she had to make haste.

  She sat in her car for a little while, getting her breath back. She

  noticed that the new cars had gone, while the old remained, as

  dusty and immovable as ever.

  A sequence of events was unfolding itself before her inward eyes.

  Nella had gone to give blood. As a consequence of this act, she

  had learned that she was infected.

  Desperate, either for money to ease her plight, she had gone to