‘She grubbied her neck for her, put dirt in her ears. I cannot be sure, but I think she went out to the closet and got muck to put in her mouth. I never smelled anything in my life like the smell of that wee girl’s mouth when I laid her out. But she couldn’t do anything about her bonny white teeth. Cover them in night soil, make them smell so bad the doctor wouldn’t go near, but it all came off with a swish of water.’ Nettle Jennie shook her head and clicked her own strong yellow teeth together.
‘I’ve been to plenty a corp I wished I had gloves for, I can tell you. Years of dirt, ground in. Linens never been off them for months. But this one was all wrong.’ She turned to me suddenly plaintive, a look of real pain in her eyes. ‘What did she do that for, eh?’
‘It fooled the doctor,’ I said.
‘But how could she do that to her own wee girl? Soil in her mouth? How could she?’ I was startled. I should have thought that one in her occupation would be past such sensibility. She drew herself up.
‘I’m a woman just like you,’ she said, with such remarkable appositeness that I wondered whether she might be a witch after all. ‘I do what I have to do, for it must be done by someone. But I couldn’t do it for one of my own, not as tender and as gentle as I am. And as for back-combing the hair on the head you’ve just smashed in, on the neck you’ve just broken -’
I put out my hands to try to block her words, and she stopped at last, turned abruptly and went back into her house. I followed.
‘What you’ve just told me only confirms it, but I thought so anyway,’ I said, standing in the open doorway. ‘She is mad.’
‘She must be,’ said Nettle Jennie. ‘If that’s what happened.’ She looked slyly at me and repeated it. ‘If that’s what happened.’ Facing the sunlight, her hooded eyes were easier to read and I saw an unpleasant look there now – cunning and taking some pleasure in the cunning. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ she said. I nodded. ‘We could find out,’ she said in the same slightly wheedling tone. ‘We could ask the wee lassie.’
‘What do you mean? How could we ask her?’ I said, thinking of ouija boards and upturned glasses.
‘I’m sure she would tell you. She knows you’re trying to help her.’
She looked up at her curious window, pointing at the row upon row of odd bottles. Medicine bottles and scent bottles, beer bottles and oil bottles all corked or stoppered with scraps of rag. I moved towards the window and peered at them.
‘They’re empty,’ I said. ‘What do you mean she would tell me?’
‘They only look empty,’ said Nettle Jennie, right behind me. ‘She could tell you with her dying breath.’
I turned, to see her smiling at me. She mimed breathing out, emptying her lungs, then she bent as though to kiss an imaginary face and mimed sucking in hard. Lips pursed shut, she plucked an empty bottle from the shelf at her side, blew into it and waved it at me, one strong brown thumb over the neck, cackling.
Chapter Eighteen
I was miles from her house before I could stop the cackling laughter ripping around my head, halfway home before my blood stopped thundering. Perhaps it was just as well, for without nerves and shivers to help me I should never have had the strength for another long drive. As it was I just about held together, but my little motor car was fizzing hot and had developed one clank and two different grinds under its bonnet when I hauled into the stable yard again, twenty hours after quitting it. It gave one last smoky bang and came to what felt like a permanent stop.
Alec, who had evidently been watching for me, came around from the drive with Bunty in tow, and as she and I fussed over each other, I quickly told him the bare bones of my news: the baby from years ago, the desecration of Cara’s body, and a little about Nettle Jennie herself.
‘Completely hopeless?’ he asked.
‘If you’d only been there,’ I said. ‘With such a witness to lean on, we’d be lucky not to be committed, never mind her. But, speaking of lunatics… What she said about Lena can’t be ignored. We shall just have to go to the police on our own and do our best. Let me wash and change and then we’ll talk it through.’
We entered the house through the gun room door, which was nearest, and as we hurried along the passageway Hugh popped his head out of the library.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘How was she?’
I blinked at him and then at Alec. What had Alec been saying?
‘Yes, how was Daisy?’ said Alec with a penetrating look at me.
‘Oh! Daisy! She was… um.’ A sudden brainwave. ‘She was utterly beside herself. And I think, I really do, that she should go to the police. Don’t you think, Alec? Blackmail, after all, is a crime.’
‘Of course,’ said Alec. Then he added stoutly, ‘Absolutely. You should ring her right now and tell her, Dandy.’ We began to walk very fast.
‘Blackmail?’ said Hugh’s voice behind us. ‘I thought it was moths.’
I asked for Croys and waited, drumming my fingers impatiently and staring at Alec without seeing him, while the operator put me through, the bell rang out and the butler answered. Then I fell to earth with a thud as he told me that Mrs Esslemont was away. I sent him to get Silas.
‘What will I say?’ I hissed to Alec, with my hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Silas doesn’t know half of what I’ve been up to. Will I try to fill him in?’
‘Just ask him where Daisy is,’ said Alec. ‘She may only be out for tea with the vicar. Calm down, Dandy, for God’s sake, and try to sound normal.’
‘Hello?’ came Silas’s voice on the line. ‘That you, Dan? You’re out of luck I’m afraid. Daisy’s not here.’
‘Where’s she off to, darling?’ I asked, in my best casual drawl. ‘How that baggage does desert you!’
‘Oh well,’ said Silas, obviously quite taken with the chance of some unforeseen self-pity. ‘I can’t complain, really. She’s on a mercy mission. Gone to see Lena Duffy.’
‘What?’ I breathed.
‘I agree,’ Silas went on. ‘After all that nonsense in the spring, I wouldn’t have said Daisy owes Lena any friendship. But Lena rang up this morning and Daisy has gone to help. Something to do with servant problems. No servants at the cottage or something? I wasn’t really listening. And then Daisy said she was off, kiss kiss darling, and see you tonight. You know how she is, lots of noise and no detail, but -’
‘Silas, I have to go,’ I said. ‘Stay by the telephone and I shall ring you as soon as I have news.’ I slammed the earpiece into the cradle.
‘Daisy has gone to see Lena,’ I said, and I could feel the colour drain out of my face too as I watched Alec pale. ‘She’s walked right into it, Alec, and it’s all my fault.’
We stared at one another in a lengthening, darkening silence. I was waiting for Alec to say there was no need to worry, not to give way to hysteria. He might have been waiting for me to say the same, but all I could think of was my letter to Daisy, that stupid, cowardly letter, designed only to save my pride. I had told her nothing that could put her on her guard, had primed her with a line which, repeated in all innocence, had delivered her unsuspecting, perhaps feeling confident, straight into Lena’s hands.
I fumbled the earpiece out of the cradle again and rattled the lever to summon the operator.
‘Edinburgh police headquarters, please,’ I said and then shoved the thing into Alec’s hands, knowing I could not rely on myself to form words. I sat down on the arm of the sofa and listened to him trying.
‘You have to send someone along there as soon as you can,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll give you the address. What? No, there has been no crime committed, not yet – except, yes, there has but unless you get there in time I – What? My name? Alexander Osborne, but it really doesn’t matter. Dorset, but listen. Listen, the woman’s name is Eleanor Duffy and the address is 28 Drummond Place in Edinburgh. There is a lady visiting there, a Mrs Esslemont… Now look, I am trying to tell you in the plainest possible terms, that Mrs Esslemont – This woman has murdered once already and… I am not drunk. Please! Someone must go to the house and get her out, before -’