job, we cope.’
As she sped on, she muttered:
‘Whenever I hear two of our residents going on at each other like this, I think that maybe they were not the only ones in the marriage to get battered. Not an acceptable PC view, I know.’
The noise was coming from the communal sitting room on the first floor.
‘Miriam, Miriam,’ said Mary as she pushed open the door. ‘At it again.’
A small, sturdy figure, a round face with short, cropped hair, swung round. Miriam Beetham; she called herself Mrs Beetham but no marriage ceremony had taken place with Tommy Beetham and the title was purely honorary.
The room showed signs of battle with a chair overturned and a sofa shoved at an angle against the wall. A small child was sitting on the sofa, looking interested rather than frightened. Billy Beetham recognized Mary.
‘How do you know it’s me?’
‘I recognize your voice. And you, Ally.’
Ally was tall, thin, but capable of swift physical action if required. Learned behaviour, Mary thought sadly.
The two women had been friends and enemies since schooldays, the relationship not improved by the fact that Ally was indeed Mrs Beetham, although she called herself Ally Carver. Husbands and lovers had shuttled between the two since they first took up sex. It was bad luck that had brought them into the refuge at the same time.
Or had they fixed it between them? With this pair, you never knew.
Evelyn was examining Ally’s nose. ‘Not broken. It’ll stop bleeding soon.’ She produced a wad of tissues which she held to the nose. ‘And keep quiet.’
‘What’s it all about?’ demanded Mary. ‘No, don’t tell me. Come to the office later. I wish we had a vow of silence in this place.’
The battle was over, showing every sign of starting again. ‘Her fault,’ muttered Ally through the tissues. ‘And you can’t say we’ll have the police in, ‘cause we got them already. And they will know about whose fault it is … they know.’
‘She said my Billy was simple.’ The rejoinder came from Miriam in a loud voice. ‘So I hit her. Do it again.’
‘He is simple.’
Looks sharp enough to me, thought Mary, ageless too, six coming on sixty and the devil kissed him. Now what do I mean by that, she asked. I mean he’s wicked through and through. Shouldn’t think like that, should you? Children can’t be wicked.
But she knew they could be.
‘Tidy up the room,’ she said. ‘And get Billy to help you. And calm down. Have a cup of tea.’
There was always tea and milk left ready in the sitting room.
‘It’s because of what was left on the doorstep,’ called Miriam after them. ‘We’re all upset.’
The child Billy gave a cry, something between a wail and a hiccup of laughter.
I think he likes bits of bodies, Mary thought. But no, he can’t know anything about it. We haven’t said: Keep quiet, the police told us.
On the stairs, she said to Evelyn, ‘What is wicked?’
Over another cup of coffee, Evelyn said she thought it was a matter of feeling. You felt something or someone was wicked.
‘Even a child? I shouldn’t have been so sharp with those two. Not professional. Gentle does it.’
‘You mean Billy, I suppose?’ said Evelyn, crunching a biscuit. ‘The wicked bit?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s a mite young to get the full judgement, but he’s coming on nicely.’
‘They all know about the parcels of limbs on the steps. When they asked, I said I had no idea. But they know. They know there wouldn’t be all that police activity for just a dead dog.’
‘Probably making guesses who it is.’
‘Oh God, yes.’ Good accurate guesses too. On such a subject they would be well-informed.
‘Phoebe Astley will know how to handle it, she’ll assess what they say, work out if there is anything in it.’
‘They’ll say plenty.’ Mary continued to be gloomy. ‘Make it up if they have to.’
‘Phoebe …’ began Evelyn.
‘Yes, she’ll know how to weave her way through it. If she does it herself. You know how it goes.’ They were not without experience in police visits. ‘Uniformed branch first, then CID, it’ll be women because of what we are, and then, if it’s important, we shall get the top brass. Or toppish. Remember how it was when Jodie Spinner hid the stuff her husband had stolen in her bedroom?’
Evelyn nodded. That had brought Chief Inspector Astley in sharpish.
‘She’ll check on the really interesting stuff … if any.’
‘I wouldn’t mind asking her a few questions myself.’
The interesting thing was that Phoebe Astley had been round here so speedily that morning, even before the first SOCO team had finished photographing the front steps. Off again now.
She had not had much to say, even to Mary. Police business, her expression said.
Evelyn said: ‘Do you think it could be Henriette?’
‘The dead woman? Etta? Oh no, she went home to France.’
‘We’ve never heard from her. No one has.’
Henriette Duval had worked with Mary and Evelyn in the Serena Seddon for about eighteen months to earn her keep while doing an English language course at the University of the Second City. Then she had said her farewells and gone home to Versailles.
‘Oh, but that’s not so surprising.’
‘She said she would keep in touch. We liked her, everyone did, and she was marvellous at cleaning the kitchen, a real eye for dirt.’
‘People always say they will keep in touch; they hardly ever do. Doesn’t make her a candidate for being chopped up.’
Evelyn was quiet for a minute, then she said: ‘Thought I saw her in Drossers Lane Market. Tried to catch up with her but she disappeared.’
Mary shrugged. ‘A mistake, the girl just looked like Etta.’
‘Not many like Etta … red hair, tall and thin, skirts up to her thigh. No, I thought it was Etta.’ She added: ‘With a man, of course.’
‘Well … Etta …’ said Mary. ‘If it was Etta …’
‘She would be with a man.’
‘Still doesn’t make her a candidate for killing.’
‘You know the sort she went with: either villains or policemen. Both the type that might kill and cut up a girl.’
Mary wondered what Phoebe Astley would make of this comment, then realized she would raise an eyebrow and laugh, half accepting the judgement. It was true, the police did deal in violence.
Some truth in what Evelyn said then; violence was part of their life for the police. For some of them, not necessarily the worse, just the more vulnerable, perhaps because of something inside, it rubbed off on them.
‘Just because you saw Etta alive in Drossers Lane Market doesn’t mean she’s going to turn up dead on our doorstep.’
Evelyn looked unconvinced.
‘You can’t even be sure it was her.’
Evelyn looked even more unconvinced, and Mary remembered that you could never argue Evelyn out of anything: she just got more stubborn.
‘Have