a sharp pang. She had worn them so well, been so beautiful. And now they hung lifeless, misshapen by the bony shoulders of the clothes hangers..
Charles ruffled through the dresses and looked with care among the litter of shoes in the bottom of the wardrobe. He still didn’t know what he was looking for, but he didn’t feel the time was wasted. Somehow, among her things, he felt closer to Charlotte, closer to understanding what had been going through her mind in the days before her death.
Her clothes smelt strongly of her scent, as if she were still alive. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see her walk in through the door.
The wardrobe revealed nothing unexpected. Nor did the rows of drawers which flanked it. He was about to start looking round the bathroom when he stopped. There had been nothing unexpected among her clothes, but equally there had not been something that might have been expected there either.
Charlotte Mecken had been strangled with a scarf. Hugo had identified it as her own scarf and yet there were no others among her clothes. There were any number of dresses, skirts and shirts for her to choose from, any number of pullovers and pairs of shoes. But only one scarf.
When he came to think of it, Charles realized he had never seen Charlotte wearing a scarf. And what was more, even his sketchy knowledge of current fashion told him that scarves were not ‘in’. Certainly not those crude Indian prints like the one he had seen knotted around Charlotte’s neck. No, those had had a vogue in the late sixties, they now looked rather dated. Charlotte, with her sharp fashion sense, would not have been… He smiled wryly as his mind formed the phrase ‘been seen dead in one.’
What it meant was that Charlotte was most unlikely to have been wearing the scarf with which she was killed. Which made the accepted picture of the murder, of Hugo reaching out to her in a drunken fury and throttling her, unlikely. Whoever killed Charlotte must have gone to get the scarf with which to do it.
The bathroom did not offer much space for secrets. The pale green bath, basin, bidet and lavatory were modem and functional. Fluffy yellow towels hung from the heated rail. Only the mirror-fronted cabinet gave any opportunity for concealment.
The contents were predictable. Make-up, various creams, nail scissors, a tin of throat sweets, shampoo, an unopened box of Tampax, cough medicine, a roll of sticking plaster.
The decor of the bathroom was recent. The walls were olive green and the floor was covered with the same mustardy carpet as the bedroom. It was all very neat, very attractive, like a picture out of Homes and Gardens.
The only blemishes were two small screw-holes above the cabinet. It must have been set too high initially and been moved down to the right level for Charlotte. Maybe it had been moved when Hugo exiled himself to the other bedroom and bathroom.
Now it had been moved down, the cabinet’s bottom edges rested on the top row of white tiles which surrounded the wash-basin. As a result it was tilted slightly and there was a narrow triangle of space between it and the wall.
Charles knew there would be something in there. He didn’t know why. It was part of the understanding he was beginning to feel for Charlotte. She had been so young, so young, almost childlike in some respects. It was in character for her to have a hiding place for her Secret things, like a girl at boarding school making one ‘little corner of total privacy that the teachers would never know about. It was a way of maintaining her identity in a challenging situation.
Charles pressed his face to the wall and squinted along the gap. Then very calmly, he fished in with a pen and slid out a brown envelope. It was not sealed. As he raised it to shake out the contents, the front door-bell rang.
He shoved the envelope in his pocket and swallowed his first impulse to run and hide. After all, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Hugo had given him the key Without prompting. He wasn’t even trespassing on his friend’s property.
He tried to calm himself with such thoughts as he walked secately downstairs, but he still felt as guilty as a schoolboy caught with an apple in his hand in an orchard.
This mood was intensified when the opened front door revealed a uniformed policeman.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ said the policeman in a tone that indicated that he was prepared to start quite reasonably, but was ready to get tough when the need arose.
‘Good afternoon,’ Charles echoed foolishly.
‘Might I ask what you’re doing here, sir?’
‘Yes, certainly.’ Charles affected man-of-the-world affability, to which the policeman seemed immune. ‘My name’s Charles Paris. I’m a friend of Hugo Mecken. I’ve stayed here a few times. He gave me a key, actually.’ Charles reached into his pocket as if to demonstrate until he realized the fatuity of the gesture. ‘Said I could drop in any time.’
‘I see, sir.’ The policeman’s tone remained reasonable, but it had a strong undercurrent of disbelief. ‘Rather an unusual time to drop in, sir. Or haven’t you heard what’s been happening here?’
‘Oh yes, I know all about it.’ Charles replied eagerly and, as he said it, recognized his stupidity. If he’d claimed ignorance of the whole affair, he could just have walked away.
‘I see, sir. In fact, we had a call from someone in the road who had seen you go into the house and who thought, under the circumstances, it was rather odd.’
Good God, you couldn’t blow your nose in Breckton without someone seeing. There must be watchers behind every curtain. Time for a tactical lie. ‘In fact, officer, the reason I am here is that, as I say, I stayed with the Meckens a few times and on the last occasion Mrs Mecken was good enough to wash out a couple of shirts for me. Now all this terrible business has happened, I thought I’d better pick them up without delay.’
The policeman seemed to accept this. ‘And have you found them?’
‘Found what? Oh, the shirts — no, I haven’t yet. I’ve been looking around, but I’m not sure where Mrs Mecken would have put them.’
‘Ah. Well. Would you like me to accompany you round the house while you find them?’ It was phrased as a question, but it wasn’t one.
Like Siamese twins they went through the house They looked in the airing cupboard, they looked in the wardrobes. Eventually Charles produced the solution he had been desperately working out for the last few minutes. ‘Do you know, I think Mrs Mecken must have mixed them up with her husband’s clothes and put them away in his drawer.’
‘Well, sir, I dare say you’ll want to be off now.’
Charles didn’t argue.
‘And, sir, I think, if you don’t mind, you’d better give me that key. I’ll see that it gets put with the rest of Mr. Mecken’s belongings. I think, under the circumstances, with the possibility of further police investigations, the less people we have walking around this property, the better. I quite understand why you came in, sir, but if a key like this got into the wrong hands… well, who knows, it might be awkward.’
‘Of course.’ Charles had no alternative but to hand it over.
‘Thank you, sir.’ The policeman ushered him out of the front door and closed it behind them. Then he stood in the middle of the doorstep. ‘Goodbye, sir.’
Charles walked across the gravel and along the road in the direction of the station, conscious of the policeman’s eyes following him. He wasn’t going to get another chance to get inside that house without breaking and entering.
Still, the search had not been fruitless, In his pocket there was an envelope.
CHAPTER TEN
‘You realize it’s probably illegal,’ said Gerald grumpily. ‘It’s withholding evidence… or stealing evidence or… I’m sure there’s something they could get you for.’
Gerald was being unhelpful over the whole thing. He didn’t want to hear how Charles had spent the rest of the morning and manifested the minimum of interest in his findings. Also it was clear that he didn’t like having his
