A Ghost in the Machine

19

Before the first briefing on the Garret/Brinkley murders, Chief Inspector Barnaby made himself familiar with the little background on Dennis Brinkley that was available. He discovered the man to be a quiet, respectable financial consultant; law-abiding to the extent that he had never received as much as a parking ticket. So far the only unusual thing about his life was the bizarre way in which he left it. Of course there would be vastly more to Brinkley than this simple outline suggested. If there was one thing experience had taught Tom Barnaby it was that few things were more extraordinary than ordinary lives.

He had been given a larger team than he expected but not as large as he would have liked. But then it never was. He looked at them, the fresh-faced, eager detective constables, the hard-bitten old lags, the middle ranks, capable, experienced, not yet completely cynical. Most of them looked lively and interested and so they should. This was no run-of-the-mill domestic. This looked like being complex, unusual and, Barnaby feared, long-running.

“You’ve all read the background notes?” Everyone nodded or mumbled or rustled their stuff. “As you know I always stress the importance of keeping a completely open mind…” An inaudible sigh possessed the room. A new DC carefully wrote down “open mind” and never heard the last of it.

“But we have to start somewhere,” continued Barnaby. “And in this case I’m afraid it has to be with an unproven assumption. Namely that Ava Garret was killed because she believed she could describe the murder of Dennis Brinkley. And, presumably, the murderer.”

Faces were pulled and there was a fair bit of laughter. The radio tape had entertained them all. As had the photograph of Ava in full fig, already known around the canteen as “Rocky Horror’s Favourite Fuck.”

“Hard to imagine anybody taking such a threat seriously, Chief,” said Inspector Dancey, sitting as closely as he could to WPC Abby Rose Carter without actually climbing into her lap.

“You’ve killed someone,” said Barnaby, “you can’t afford not to.”

“That’s right,” said Sergeant Troy. “And there have been genuine—”

Garret and Dennis Brinkley lived in the same village. It’s a small place; they may have known each other. I want to know all about both of them. Brinkley died somewhere in the early evening on Tuesday the twenty-fourth of July. Three weeks ago now, I’m afraid, but someone might remember something. Ask if any stranger was seen hanging round the house that day. Or even near the day. Talk to them in the village shop. Find out who delivered Brinkley’s post. If he had domestic help or a gardener, I want to know. And don’t forget the pub.

“I’ll be talking to the people at…” He squinted at the spiral notebook. “Troy?”

“Appleby House, Chief.”

“And you can also leave out Ava Garret’s immediate family. The situation there is quite fragile and involves a child.”

“Better give us—”

“The address is on the board. Audrey, I’d like your help in breaking this. We don’t want Karen finding out via the telly or some nosy neighbour.”

Great. Thanks a bunch, sir. It was always the same. Always the bloody same. Any hammer blows to deliver – any painful, emotional or shocking news, a woman got lumbered. Where were all these sensitive new men when you needed one? Butching it out at nappy-folding class, no doubt.

“Also, try and persuade Roy Priest, who lives there, to come in and do an E-fit. He seemed agreeable when we talked on the telephone.”

“Even though no money will be changing hands,” added Sergeant Troy, laughing.

“Once that’s done we can get them out to the staff at Uxbridge station. Issue a public appeal.”

“Shouldn’t we check her car, sir?” asked WPC Carter. “If she did leave it near the Tube someone might have clocked her coming back. This Chris character could’ve still been around.”

“I doubt it. He’s not the careless type. Her mobile seems to have disappeared. And neither Priest nor the girl knows the number or make.”

“What about the first call he made? To the house?”

“Number withheld,” said Sergeant Troy.

“That’s about it then.” DCI Barnaby stood up, dismissing them. “Off you go. Debriefing, six o’clock.”

It was nearly two hours later before Barnaby himself was ready to depart. He passed Roy and Karen, escorted by Sergeant Briery, about to enter the incident room and took a minute to thank them for coming in.

Karen smiled and said hello. Roy mumbled something. He could still hardly believe he was voluntarily in a police station helping the police with their enquiries, as the saying went. But once Audrey had settled them down by this seriously weird machine and the guy who worked it explained what he’d like them to do, things got really interesting.

The only photograph of Ava extant in black wig and cloak was on the screen. The idea was to change it so that she looked exactly as she had when going out last Wednesday night. By the time this was completed the only thing left from the original was the shape of Ava’s face and her features. Even then the eyes, without false lashes, thick eyeliner and heavy shadow looked different. As for the wig, it was simply wiped away.

They started with the clothes. Roy described her jacket and it was drawn over and over again until they got it absolutely right. The colour proved difficult. He didn’t want to use the four-letter word that was closest, what with Karen sitting there and everything. So he said, “Sort of gold.” Then, “Khaki-ish.” It was Karen who suggested mustard.

The curly auburn hair took ages as well, what with lightening it then darkening it. Putting more red in, then more blonde. When Roy thought they’d finally got it right Karen said it was too ginger. They were there for simply ages but the time just flew. Halfway along Sergeant Brierly brought some sandwiches and chocolate Hobnobs and orange squash. Roy was really sorry when it was all finished and they had to go home. He talked a lot about it afterwards and seriously thought about going into computers.

By 9:00 a.m. that same morning scene of crime officers had begun a scrupulous examination of Kinders. Forbes Abbot was agog. The large van, lined with shelves themselves loaded with all sorts of fascinating equipment, brought out the gawpers in ten seconds flat. Frankly inquisitive, they mostly just stared and asked questions of the officers, which were ignored.

Other villagers, just as nosy but feeling that to show it was rather infra dig, felt a sudden need to walk their dogs back and forth, visit the post office, or perhaps drop in on a friend.

The ducks had never known anything like it. Most days someone would drift down at some point with a handful or two of bread or a biscuit. This day there were hordes of feeders. And they didn’t just toss a few crumbs into the water and go away. They hung around. The inexperienced ones had bought not just bread but cakes and tarts and stuff. One woman floated a whole lemon cheesecake, sending it on its way with a long stick, as if it was a boat. Another launched a large seeded bloomer. The pond became scummy, the surface crammed with bobbing confectionery. The ducks all climbed out and went to sit on the opposite bank.

“They don’t do all this for nothing, you know,” said an onlooker, jerking her head in the direction of the van’s interior. “A serious crime’s gone on in that house.”

“They reckoned he died in an accident,” said the man next to her.

“Huh!” Another man, leaning against the van’s bonnet with an air of authority. “It’ll be on Crimewatch – you see. A reconstruction.”

“Nick Ross’ll sort it. He’s ever so good.”

It was at this point that Sergeant Troy attempted to ease the DCI’s car through the congestion. Restraining a natural inclination to lean on the horn and shout, which he would certainly have done had he been alone, Troy let the window down.

“Excuse me…Thank you…If you’d just…thank you.”

“Give them a good honk,” said Barnaby.

As the car passed through the outlying stragglers a woman, rocking a screaming toddler, stared through the windscreen. She spoke to her neighbour: “I’ve seen him before – that fat bloke.”

“’Ave you?”

“He were round the Garrets’, Friday.”

Troy fixed his gaze straight ahead but couldn’t help picking up the slow hiss near his left ear. The chief was very sensitive about his weight. Burly, as a description, he liked. Well built he could live with. And no one could reasonably complain on being described as “a fine figure of a man.” But fat…

“I think this is it, sir.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Well, according to the instructions—”

“Go and have a look. And get a move on – I’m not sitting here all day.”

Injustice plodded up the drive with Sergeant Troy. Wrongful accusation and unfairness marched alongside. He found himself muttering, as he seemed to have been doing all his life, man and boy, why is it always me? The building was Appleby House. He beckoned the DCI who, still glaring, got out of the car and slammed the door. Troy rang the bell.

Barnaby thought the man who appeared was probably about his own age. If younger, he’d been having a tough time. Perhaps he had been ill. But he smiled pleasantly enough.

“Mr. Lawson?”

“What is it?”

“Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby, Causton CID.”

“Detective Sergeant Troy.”

“We need to talk to you regarding the death of Dennis Brinkley.”

“Yes—what’s going on?” asked Lawson. “Some of your people were here earlier after the keys to his house. Waving a bit of paper, which I suppose represented some sort of authority.”

“Perhaps we could come in?”

The furniture of the room they entered was strangely placed. Barnaby was reminded of a doll’s house whose owner, bored, had tumbled it in any-old-how. Lawson vaguely apologised.

“Can you find somewhere to sit? We’ve only just moved in.”

Troy took down a dining chair from a stack of three, settled at the table and opened his briefcase to produce a notebook. Lawson remained standing. Barnaby perched on a low nursing chair. He thought the man seemed more nervous than curious, but that this probably didn’t signify.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news. Recent developments have made it necessary for the police to reassess this case. It is now the subject of a murder inquiry.”

Lawson’s body folded down suddenly on to the nearest piece of furniture, a coffee table. His jaw swung loose. He stared at the chief inspector, then directed his attention to Sergeant Troy as if he might there find an alternative theory.

But Troy just shrugged and said, “We have your evidence from the inquest, sir, but, given the change in circumstances, need to talk to you again.”

“What?”

“I understand Mr. Brinkley was—”

“You’ve made a mistake. This just isn’t possible.”

“Could you please help us by answering the questions, Mr. Lawson?”

“No one would hurt Dennis. He was the most harmless person. Kind, friendly.”

“I understand you’ve known him a long time?” asked Barnaby.

“Since I was a child. He was my aunt’s financial advisor.”

“How would you describe him?”

“I’ve just described him.”

“In business matters?”

“Scrupulous, intelligent, totally honest. Carey trusted him completely.”

“Successful?”

“I believe he was very successful.”

“Though in partnership, I understand.”

Lawson duly rattled through the history of Fallon and Brinkley now Brinkley and Latham. Asked his opinion of Dennis’s partner, he said shortly, “No idea. Never met him.”

“Would you expect Latham to – ah, inherit Brinkley’s share of the business?”

“Certainly not. Dennis couldn’t stand the man.”

Troy asked for Latham’s first name and wrote down: “Andrew Latham. Disliked by Brinkley. Distrusted? Reason?”

Barnaby moved to more personal matters, asking Lawson if he had any idea at all who might have had a reason for killing Dennis Brinkley.

“Of course not. The whole idea’s preposterous.”

“Do you know if there was anything worrying him?”

“Actually…this won’t be of any help to you, I’m afraid.”

“Tell us anyway, Mr. Lawson,” said Sergeant Troy.

“He did want to discuss a problem that was causing some concern. We’d arranged to talk about it after dinner the night he died.”

“He gave you no idea at all what it was about?” asked Barnaby.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Not even whether it was work or something personal?”

Mallory shook his head.

“Do you know of anyone else he might have talked to? He must have had other friends.”

“Not that I know of. Quite a few people came to his funeral, though.”

“We’ll need a list of their names and addresses at some point, sir,” said Sergeant Troy.

“Heavens – I don’t know who they are.” He was starting to sound exasperated. “There was a notice in The Times. They just turned up.”

“That’s unfortunate,” said Barnaby. “What about people in the village?”

“Dennis wasn’t much of a mixer.”

“I understand that he and Miss Frayle were what one might call close.”

“Oh, yes. Poor Benny.” He looked up; a quick realisation. “I suppose if you’re right it means she was right.”

“Yes.” But Barnaby felt neither self-reproach nor guilt. No policeman would have attempted to overturn a properly obtained coroner’s verdict on absolutely no evidence. “The night Mr. Brinkley died—”

“God. Do we have to?”

“Can you tell me exactly what happened from the time you arrived?”

“I…went into the war room.”

“The what?”

“It’s a huge space where his machines were kept. He was lying on the floor close to a giant catapult thing. There’s a sort of gulley overhead holding sling shot, great wooden things, heavy as cannon balls. It was hanging loose and one of them had rolled out and struck him on the head.”

“Only one?”

“One was enough.”

They must have been set to be released singly. Although Barnaby had seen photographs they had been taken purely to establish the physical details of the scene. He would have a closer look at the equipment when SOCO were through.

“Can you tell me exactly what you did from the time you arrived at the house until the moment you left?”

Mallory went through it, sick at heart. These men didn’t know what they were asking. The big one kept interrupting – which telephone did he use to call the ambulance? Did he leave the room and come back at any time? Did he touch or move the body at all? Why did he wash the wooden ball? Then the thinner, younger one asked why he cleaned up the mess.

“Christ!” At this point Mallory’s ability to remain calm was lost. Provoked into anger at their insensitivity, at their persistence, at the fact that they were just damn well there, he shouted: “What d’you expect me to do with brains and blood and vomit all over the floor? Leave it for his cleaner?”

Troy wrote down “cleaner” and asked for her name. Barnaby continued his questioning.

“Have you been back to the house since, Mr. Lawson?”

“No.”

“Does anyone else have keys?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

“What about this domestic?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“Doris? Oh, yes. I suppose she does.”

Mallory rested his head in his hands. His fury was evaporating as quickly as it had flared. These people had a job to do. If Dennis really had been deliberately killed he was the last person to be uncooperative.

“We shall need your fingerprints, Mr. Lawson, for purposes of elimination.”

“Fine.”

“So, if you could come down to the station as soon as possible? Please bring the shoes you were wearing—”

“They were badly stained.” He gestured, pushing the memory from him. Pursing his mouth in disgust. “I threw them away.”

Understandable, in an innocent man. Even more in a guilty one. And it was more common than was generally known for the first person on the scene, or the one who reported the crime actually to be the perpetrator.

Barnaby decided this would be a good time to imply that the interrogation was over. He struggled up from the nursing chair.

“Well, I think that’s about it, Mr. Lawson.” But he got nothing in the way of feedback. No sudden slackening of physical tension. Or relieved exhalation of breath. The man simply looked knackered. Maybe it really was time to call a halt. For now. “But while I’m here I also need to talk to Mrs. Lawson. And Miss Frayle.”

“They’re in Causton. Benny had an appointment at Hargreaves, the solicitors.”

“D’you know what that was about, sir?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“No I don’t,” retorted Mallory. “And it’s her business. Not yours.”

“Are they perhaps Mr. Brinkley’s solicitors?” asked Barnaby.

“So?”

“Maybe if they were that ‘close,’” said Troy, a leer in his voice, “she’s mentioned in his will.”

“They were platonic friends who cared deeply for each other.” Mallory looked disgustedly at both men but hit on Troy for his next remark. “No doubt that’s totally beyond your comprehension.”

Barnaby decided against the Horse and Hounds for lunch. True, there was a chance of picking up some local gossip, but it was slight. Much more likely to end up trapped within earshot of someone boring for England. Or be exposed to an endless loop of musical sound bites: nothing longer than sixty seconds and guaranteed tune free. So he settled for the only alternative.

They were offered a window table at the Secret Garden. The very table, in fact, that the DCI’s daughter and her husband had occupied over a week earlier. Barnaby scanned the menu. Sergeant Troy, who would much rather have gone to the pub, moodily regarded a vase of plastic freesias.

“They’ve got liver and bacon.”

“Right.”

“D’you want a look?”

“No. That’ll do. And some chips.”

“Fried potatoes.”

“Whatever.”

There would have been a bit of life in the Horse and Hounds. A laugh and a joke. Maybe a pool table. Something on the telly. Then, having sighed over this collection of absent delights, Troy was left with the thing that was really bugging him, i.e., just who did this bloke, this Mallory Lawson, think he was? And what sort of name was Mallory anyway? Who’d ever heard of it? Troy certainly hadn’t. Probably a “family” name. A wanking public-school name going all the way back to William the bonking Conqueror. Who didn’t go back to him? That’s what Troy wanted to know. Everybody comes from somewhere. Just because you hadn’t got your bit of paper with a seal on. Or your relatives crumbling under old church slabs.

“No doubt that’s beyond your comprehension.” Troy repeated the remark, the patronising remark, in his mind for the umpteenth time. He always boasted that he didn’t give a fairy’s fart what anyone thought of him, a claim so transparently untrue that even Talisa Leanne saw through it. But he couldn’t seem to put this insult from his mind. To a man who wanted more than anything in the world to be admired for his capabilities and intelligence to be told he was an insensitive cretin was a blow too far. And to his face as well.

“I should put that fork down.”

“What?”

“Before you snap the handle off.”

Troy flung his cutlery on to the cloth and began to shore up his defences. He recalled hearing that people who needed to put other people down were hopelessly insecure and decided it was definitely true. What other reason could they have? It was just a pity there were so many out there.

Though the woman who slapped their lunch on the table had a face like a squeezed lemon the food itself was delicious. Crisp rashers of bacon, nicely fried liver and fresh garden peas. All on station expenses too. Troy’s spirits began to rise.

“So. Are we back to the Frayle woman’s flat after this, Chief?”

“I want to see how SOCO are getting on first.”

“Bit of luck – no one else going in since Brinkley died.”

“We’ve only Lawson’s word for that.”

“Think he’s in the frame, then?”

“Hard to say, at this stage.”

“Have we got time for a pud?”

Thirty contented minutes later Troy followed the DCI into the village street. His heart was further gladdened by the sight of Abby Rose Carter on a house-to-house. The man she was questioning looked as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt. Troy smiled, waved, then realised he was walking on by himself. He turned back.

The chief was standing in front of a shabby building made of shingles. It had a rusty tin roof and was practically encircled by old yew trees.

“Blimey,” said Sergeant Troy. “Talk about lowering the tone.”

“This is it.” Barnaby read the noticeboard. “The Church of the Near at Hand.”

“Creepy.” Troy had a wander round. “There’s a window broken back here.”

Barnaby’s nature was not of the type to be fascinated by the weird and the deathly but now he thought about the church and the people who came there. How lonely they must be, how desperate to be assured that the people they loved had not gone for ever. And what a comfort to be able to believe that one day they would all be together, living in paradise, time without end. Barnaby thought of his parents. Of Joyce still with him, thank God. Of his beloved daughter, just the thought of whose loss could bathe him in a cold sweat of terror. He was too honest to pretend that sometimes, in the dark watches of the night, he too did not long to deceive himself. But he couldn’t, and in the bright rational light of day was not sorry. Happy ever after sounded great until you thought it through, when it began to sound like a fate worse than death. Imagine, thought Barnaby, millennia after millennia after millennia of radiant bliss. Having a nice day not only every single day but every single second of every single minute world without end, and never being able to call a halt. Enough to drive a man mad.

“It’s a forest back there.” Troy came up, flicking black needles from his jacket sleeve. The two men walked on. “Do you think Dennis Brinkley ever went?”

“Wouldn’t have thought so. Not from the way Lawson described him.”

“There’s gotta be a connection though, Chief.”

Though hard to credit, this was undoubtedly true. Somewhere at some time something had happened to forge a link between the shy, stiffly correct financial consultant and the flamboyant, boastful necromancer Ava Garret.

“Did I tell you Cully had met her?”

“At the church?” Troy was amazed. He didn’t know the chief’s daughter well but she seemed to him the last person to go in for such wonky shenanigans. Cully had struck Sergeant Troy as pretty unmystical. A touch cynical, even.

“She rang last night to tell me about it. All to do with research.”

“For what?” Troy could never understand actors. He found it hard enough to be himself. Pretending to be all sorts of other people seemed quite deranged to him.

“She’s playing a medium in Blithe Spirit and wanted to talk to some real ones.”

“But there aren’t any real ones.”

“Don’t try my patience, Troy.”

Oh, brilliant! When he said they didn’t exist that was fine. Now I say they don’t exist I’m trying his patience. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. All he really wants, all any of them really want, is a yes man. Agree with everything, praise whatever they do right or wrong, dumb your mind down, colour your nose brown. Right—I can do that. And from now on I will.

“That must be Brinkley’s house.” Barnaby nodded towards SOCO’s van and the strangely shaped building behind it.

“I expect it is, sir.”

As they climbed the front steps John Ferris, in charge of the SOCO unit, came out and Barnaby said: “You through?”

“Not quite with the flat. But you’re OK with the murder scene.”

“Better have a look then.”

“Be amazed.” Ferris grinned at him. “Be very amazed.”

And they were. The twenty-five-by-twenty photographs showing the body of Dennis Brinkley and its immediate surroundings were no preparation at all for the vast expanse of space and light they now encountered. The towering structures, the great garlands of glowing waxen rope, massive crossbows, a butcher’s hook on which you could have hung a brace of elephants.

Both men were disturbed by the machines, Sergeant Troy the more so. For no reason that he could have put into words, they struck him as deeply shocking. Barnaby quickly shook off this unease and turned his attention to the mechanism of the trebuchet. But Troy, who would have been completely at home at a modern armaments fair, felt his skin crawl and creep. Determined to conceal any weakness, and ignoring predatory shadows that seemed to press against the small of his back, he began to stride about, affecting an interest in the gigantic constructions. There was a hanging metal cage big enough to hold several men and next to this some stocks. Troy spent a pleasant couple of minutes picturing Mrs. Sproat so constrained and himself throwing rotten cabbages, then ambled up to a three-tier wooden tower on wheels. There were long, narrow openings at regular intervals along the sides. Troy came closer and attempted to squint inside. A cool wash of air grazed his eyeball. He jumped back.

“Come and look at this.”

Sergeant Troy was glad to. He moved quickly, hurrying to where the chief was studying the apparatus that held the huge wooden balls. The rack, tilted at an extremely steep angle, was covered with grey powder.

“Blimey,” said Sergeant Troy. “A dinosaur’s bollocks. They go in this catapult thing?”

“Those or boiling oil or red-hot coals. Sometimes the heads of prisoners. They weren’t fussy.”

“How d’you know all this?”

“The notes.” Barnaby indicated the illustration and paragraphs of text in a little frame on the wall nearby. “All the machines have them.”

“So why’s the sling in the wrong place for the ball to fall in?” The trebuchet had been shifted at least a couple of metres to the left of its original position. The drag marks were on the floor.

“Presumably so it would hit Brinkley instead.”

“But he wouldn’t be daft enough to stand there, surely?” said Troy, already shedding his new role as yes man. “How does the thing work, anyway?”

“Very simple.” Barnaby got out a handkerchief and pushed his shirt sleeves back. Aluminium was a sod to wash out. “The balls are held in place by this block of wood. The rope,” he took a loose hanging cable in his hand, “lifts the block and releases them, one at a time.”

“Only if you let it go, surely. Hold on and they’d all roll down.”

“No. There’s a ridge, look – halfway up. It drops down when the block moves then clicks upright again. Let’s have a look at the glossies.”

Troy opened his bag and took out the photographs of Dennis Brinkley’s mortal remains. Apart from the floor the only flat surface was a marble slab balanced on two columns of grey stone in the centre of the room. Troy spread the pictures out on this.

“So. He seems to have been lying exactly…here.” Barnaby walked back, one of the pictures in his hand. “Would you mind, Troy?”

Yes, I bloody would mind, thought Sergeant Troy, already feeling somewhat fragile after his encounter with the spirit of the barbican.

“It would be very helpful.”

Troy got down on the floor. “Just keep well away from that rope, Chief, OK?”

Barnaby walked slowly around the machine, studying Troy’s stretched-out form from all angles.

“Can I get up now?”

“In a minute.” He got out his handkerchief. “Lift up.” When Troy did, Barnaby spread the handkerchief precisely where his head had been. Troy got to his feet and Barnaby gave a tug on the rope. A ball rumbled down and landed almost directly on the linen square.

“That’s how it was, all right.” Barnaby flourished the picture. “See?”

“No thanks. We’re having pizza tonight.”

“I think Brinkley moved the catapult himself. You can judge how far it was dragged by these marks, right?”

“Yes…” Here we go. First a close brush with squelching oblivion. Now an instant hernia. I shall want counselling for this.

“Drag it back, if you would. You can see the original place marks here.”

“Sir.”

But Troy had forgotten that, though skilfully aged and battered, this was but a lightweight facsimile of the real thing. He returned it quite easily to its original position. Then Barnaby again pulled on the rope. A second ball came hurtling down the ramp to fall short of the catapult’s leather holding sack by about two feet.

Troy laughed. “Measured things differently in those days, Chief.”

“No, no. Look at the finish – the precision in all of these machines. I suspect they were an obsession with Brinkley. He’d never overlook a fault like that.”

“So…?” Troy wandered round the trebuchet, looking upwards. “The ramp has been messed with.”

“That’s right. See if you can find some steps. Make sure they’ve been dusted.”

Troy found some lightweight alloy ones in the garage, brought them in and, having already sussed whose day this was for walking the plank, climbed straight up.

“How does it look?”

“Ratchet, two huge screws, a block underneath to support it. These balls must weigh a ton.”

“How’s the block fixed?”

“Screws again.”

“So to alter the angle…?”

“Just remove the screws, rejig the ramp, put them back and retighten.”

“Taking the balls out first.”

“Blimey, yes. Otherwise the whole lot would come crashing down.”

“How long might that take?”

“Half an hour tops, I’d say.”

“The result being that the next time he reached out and tugged on the rope…”

“Kersplat!” Troy climbed down again.

“But why pull it at all?”

“Maybe he just played with the stuff,” said Troy. “You know—like some blokes like trains.”

Barnaby decided to leave it there. SOCO’s report should help them to a clearer understanding of the exact situation in this strange room on the day Dennis Brinkley was killed. The chief inspector collected the rest of the pictures from the stone slab, which he now saw was engraved in gold with rather beautiful calligraphic script. He read out the lines.

“Throwing first he struck the horn of the horse-haired helmet, and the bronze spearpoint fixed in his forehead and drove inward through the bone; and a mist of darkness clouded both eyes and he fell as a tower falls in the strong encounter.

“The Iliad, Book Four”

After a moment’s silence Sergeant Troy spoke. “Re-pressed, that’s what they are, these loners. Going around that respectable and timid and law-abiding, and all the while hoarding this mad stuff. Police files are full of them.”

Barnaby said mildly, “He didn’t actually do anything.”

“Bet he did. Otherwise why knock him off?”

After examining Dennis Brinkley’s flat Barnaby returned to Appleby House to be told that Miss Frayle was presently in her own flat above the stables.

Though the stables themselves were in a neglected state, with half the doors missing and the stonework flaky, the architect had done a grand job on the conversion. Totally in period, he had even accommodated the original clock tower, though the metal face and coach-and-horses weather-cock were now heavily stained with verdigris. The hands on the clock had stopped at seven.

Benny had seen the two men climbing the stairs. A narrow veranda with wooden rails ran the length of the flat and she came along it to meet them. She was smiling and Barnaby could see the smile was not one of triumph but simply an expression of relieved satisfaction.

“Chief Inspector, it’s good to see you again.” She held out her hand. “Welcome to my home.”

And very nice too, thought Sergeant Troy, taking it all in. He was thinking of getting some work done on his loft but it was a cramped little hole and would never look anything like this.

“Nice, isn’t it?” said Benny. “It’s only one living space wide, of course, so every room opens into the next – like a box puzzle. But as I live by myself that doesn’t matter. They used to store all the spare tack up here. And animal feed.”

“Miss Frayle,” said Barnaby, “I need to talk to you—”

“Would you like some tea? We’re in the kitchen already, as you see. On the spot, as it were.”

“We’ve just had lunch, thank you,” said Sergeant Troy.

“Through here then.”

They disposed themselves about the sitting room. Troy at a satiny oval table on a spindle chair, the chief inspector on a tapestry settee and Benny in a high-backed wing chair by the old-fashioned mantelpiece. Barnaby couldn’t help noticing how carefully she lowered herself into this chair, how gently she rested her fingers on the padded arms.

“I want to thank you, Inspector, for personally coming to tell me about this latest development,” said Benny, “but Mallory has already put me in the picture. If only I’d known, I could have saved you a journey.”

“There are other matters. One or two questions.”

“Oh, really?” She straightened her shoulders, setting them firmly back. “Fire away, then.”

“I’m afraid I have to ask you to recall the night Mr. Brinkley was killed.” He thought it wise to get the bad stuff over first. He was expecting fear and trembling. Perhaps a perfectly understandable refusal to confront such appalling memories.

But Benny simply said calmly, “I understand.”

“Why were you actually there, Miss Frayle?”

“Dennis was coming to dinner at seven thirty. After waiting twenty minutes or so I went to look for him. He was never late, you see.”

“How did you get into the house?”

“Through the kitchen.”

“You didn’t ring the bell?”

“I did but he didn’t come. I wasn’t too surprised. The front door was usually locked and bolted. Much easier, he used to say, to go in straight from the garage.”

“I see.” It must have been unbolted for the paramedics, presumably by Lawson. So where did he get the key?

“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary when you went through the flat?”

“No.”

“Please, take a moment to think. The smallest detail could be important.”

“I walked straight through the kitchen, checked the two other rooms, and then – found him.”

“Was the door to this place with the machines closed?”

“Yes.”

And then Barnaby understood how precariously her calm was maintained. He watched her open the door again. Saw the terrible image flare behind her eyes. All colour left her face. Even her lips were white.

“Can I get you something?” Troy pushed back his chair. “A glass of water?”

Benny shook her head. Barnaby observed a tic, jumping fiercely just beneath the crescent of fat under her left eye and recognised that he had made a mistake. He should have worked up to or around this. Started with questions that would have seemed innocuous; eased her gradually into that dreadful place. Her relaxed demeanour had misled him. Too late now.

“So, did you enter the room, Miss Frayle?”

“Yes. I went in. Just enough to. Then I ran away.”

“Straight to Appleby House?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember going back. Only waking up in the hospital.”

She was staring around at the furniture, at the windows and pictures as if she had never seen them before. The awkward silence lengthened. Barnaby hesitated. Troy spoke up.

“Actually – I hope it’s all right – but could I change my mind about the tea?”

“Tea? Of course. Yes, yes.” Benny, propelled to her feet by convention and good manners, re-entered the present moment. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

Sergeant Troy, encouraged by a nod of approval from the DCI, followed her into the kitchen. Barnaby heard them chatting, clattering cups. The odd phrase filtered out. They seemed to be talking about cats, books, someone called Ashley. Visiting Croydon. There was a crackling of paper and a cry from Troy: “Oohh…I love those.” Then they came back, the sergeant carrying a heavy tray.

As Benny poured the tea she was thinking how wrong it was to make quick judgements when first meeting people. She had thought Sergeant Troy ill-mannered, even unkind, but today he couldn’t have been nicer. Look at him now, passing the ginger nuts.

Barnaby, wondering how best to phrase his next question, was glancing over the contents of some bookshelves near his sofa. Most of the names meant nothing to him: Rosamunde Pilcher, Josephine Cox, Mary Wesley. There was a Bible and a New Testament. Some paperbacks of a spiritual nature: The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross, Honest to God. Also a complete set of Jane Austen and some very old volumes that must have been prizes, for surely no child ever willingly came by Palgrave’s Golden Treasury or The Children of the New Forest. Treasure Island, of course, was something else. Miss Frayle seemed like the sort of person who would keep a school prize all her life.

Once more Troy said exactly the right thing. “That’s a really beautiful painting, Miss Frayle.”

“Oh, do you think so? It was left to me by my…well, employer, I suppose you’d say. Though Carey was much more to me than that. I was her companion for thirty years.”

Barnaby knew a lead in when he saw one. “So is that how long you’ve known Dennis Brinkley?”

“D’ you know, I suppose it is. Heavens – where does the time go?”

“Was he a friend of the family?” asked Troy.

“He handled Carey’s financial affairs.”

“And your own, perhaps?” said Barnaby.

“Gracious, no!” She nearly laughed. “I haven’t got any money.” Then her expression changed with almost comic rapidity into one of sad recollection. “Actually, that’s not true.”

Blimey, thought Troy. How can anybody be so out of it they don’t even know whether they’re skint or not?

“I only heard an hour or two ago but it appears Dennis has left me Kinders and all its contents in his will.”

“How do you feel about that?” Barnaby almost threw the remark away. It was barely a question at all. Just a comment, marking time until the primed one. The one where you pulled the pin.

“My immediate impulse was to reject it, though of course I won’t, because it’s what he wanted. But I can’t imagine ever going in there again.”

“Miss Frayle,” Barnaby leaned forward but comfortably, not threatening. “Have you any idea at all who could have killed him?”

“No. Such wickedness can have no explanation. He was a lovely man who never harmed a soul.”

“Then why, from the moment of the coroner’s verdict to the contrary, have you persistently maintained that he was murdered?”

“I knew you’d ask me that, Inspector. And I’m afraid my answer will seem most unsatisfactory.” A curtain stirred at the window and Benny got up to close it. She didn’t come back to her seat but stood fiddling with a geranium on the sill, pulling off the dead leaves.

“Dennis loved life in such a simple way. Something nice to eat. History books to read. Watching cricket on television. And his machines. Every evening he would spend an hour or so in the war room and I’m going back half a lifetime. No one else was allowed to touch them. When they needed to be cleaned or oiled he did it himself. He knew each nut and bolt and how everything worked so there is no way that what happened to him could have been an accident. Do you see?”

Barnaby saw any casualty department any weekend, full of people holding on to dripping thumbs or hopping on one foot. Do-it-yourself addicts who had also known every nut and bolt then let their minds wander. A second was all it took.

“And there’s something else.”

The DCI was happy to hear it. To his mind, wishful thinking did not rate very highly as an aid to crime analysis.

“I’d been invited – just a few days before his death – for dinner. I found Dennis standing in front of that awful catapult thing. He looked so worried I asked if anything was wrong. He said, ‘I think there’s a ghost in the machine.’”

The two policemen exchanged glances. Troy had been expecting nothing useful anyway, but Barnaby was disappointed, resentful even. He recalled the scene in his office nearly two weeks ago when she had first delivered this “information.” All that passionate insistence when all she had to go on was some daft remark about a ghost. On the other hand…

“Do you remember exactly when this was, Miss Frayle?”

“Yes. The weekend before he died. Saturday evening. We had some lovely turbot.”

“Might he have meant the machine wasn’t…correctly aligned, say?”

“Oh, no. Dennis was a perfectionist. He would have noticed the slightest little thing out of order and put it right. There would have been no imbalance.” Benny faltered, then, on the verge of tears, repeated herself. “In his life there was no imbalance.”

Useless question, anyway. Chief Inspector Barnaby, still wrestling with disappointment, chided himself for asking it. But it did confirm that the machine had not been tampered with until the day Brinkley was killed. Still irritable, his patience in short supply, Barnaby indicated that his sergeant should continue.

Troy drained his cup, murmured, “Lovely tea.” Then, with a friendly smile asked Benny if she had ever attended the Church of the Near at Hand.

“Once or twice.” Benny smiled back. “It’s not really my sort of thing.”

“The reason we ask,” continued Troy, “is because of the medium who died. Ava Garret?”

Benny nodded. She looked concerned and anxious to help.

“Did you see her at the church at all?”

“I’m not very good at putting names to faces.”

“As she seems to have a definite connection to this case—”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” enquired Benny timidly, “why are you writing all this down?”

Nothing useful happened after that. Sergeant Troy explained what a statement was. Barnaby made the fingerprint request and was assured by Miss Frayle that she would present herself at Causton police station the very next day. Then the two men left, descending the narrow wooden steps into the sunshine.

As they reached the ground Barnaby said, “You did well back there, Sergeant.”

Troy, transformed, just stood and breathed for a moment. Then managed a mumbled, “Sir.”

“We’ll try the house again for Mrs. Lawson. Save us doubling back. And we shall need the cleaner’s prints. Sort it when we get to the office.”

“Right, Guv.”

“And wipe that silly smirk off your face.”

They were in luck finding Kate Lawson at home but out of luck as far as finding any fresh information was concerned. She supported everything her husband had said but had nothing new to offer.

Roy was finding it hard to believe that it was only five days since Ava had died. So many things had happened. So much had changed. Even the house looked different, mainly because of the flowers. People had started leaving them by the gate and Karen had had a lovely time arranging lupins and roses and some beautiful yellow irises in a couple of old jugs she had found under the stairs. Notes had been pushed through the letter box by neighbours offering any sort of help needed. And Fred Carboy had taken the keys of Ava’s Honda, parked it neatly out of harm’s way on the far side of the Crescent, and offered what he assured them was a good price should they want to get rid of it.

It was almost eleven o’clock and Roy was taking a break from painting Karen’s room. The second coat of Princess Pink was drying and he was admiring the ceiling, pale blue with stick-on stars. Because of the smell Karen was sleeping in the lounge under the new Cinderella duvet. They had thrown her old curtains on the bonfire, which was still going strong in the back garden.

There was nothing left now of Ava’s mattress. Or bedding. Or bed. Most of her clothes were blazing away as well. Doris had helped Roy and Karen sort through things the evening before and there was really very little that didn’t smell musty, to put it politely. Some new shoes, a couple of scarves and a dress had been put in a box for jumble, cosmetics and bottles of nail stuff thrown away. And that was it. All gone.

Now, eating Mars bars at the kitchen table, Roy and Karen were going through Loot. Things were amazingly cheap. And barely second-hand at all, according to the sellers. Roy, having moved off his shelf and out of his hutch, was looking for a bed. Karen, quicker at reading, described what was on offer. Nearly everything said “Buyer Collects,” but there were also lots of ads for drivers with vans so that wouldn’t be a problem. So Karen wrote down telephone numbers and Roy pictured good-as-new divans with sprung mattresses and stripped pine headboards, bunk beds, antique-style beds and even an inflatable one you could let down and take on holiday.

Meanwhile Doris was once more on her way to Rainbow Lodge. You could almost say she’d never left it, for she had thought of little else since Roy’s heartbreaking story had left her reeling. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. She had even dreamed of the newly motherless child and the never-wanted, desperate boy. As for that awful house…

Choosing her moment carefully, after Alan Titchmarsh but before the snooker, she shared some of this concern with Ernest. She barely told him the half of it and tried to sound casual when suggesting they might come round for a meal sometime, but Ernest was not fooled. He knew his Doris. Having no family had been the greatest disappointment of her life. When she was younger all the love she had to give was lavished on the children of her sister, who became so spoiled it had almost caused a rift between them. So now Ernest said it was fine by him if Roy and Karen came to tea. It would be nice to have some youngsters around the place for once.

Doris had packed a basket before she left. Just a few things from the larder – home-made jam and chutney, a coffee cake from the WI stall and some vegetables from her neighbour’s allotment. She also picked up a bottle of children’s aspirin from the Spar, having been concerned yesterday about the little girl’s headaches, which hardly seemed to stop before another one began. Not that Karen complained. It was Roy who was worrying himself silly over what he called “Karen’s heads.” One aspirin every twenty-four hours, Doris had been assured, wouldn’t hurt. Really she would like to take the child to a doctor but these were very early days and she planned to tread carefully.

The second she got inside the front door of Rainbow Lodge Karen ran up to her crying, “We’ve done this amazing drawing. On a machine!”

“What’s that all about then?” said Doris. She thought how sweet Karen looked in her new jeans and a white T-shirt showing a basketful of puppies.

“And Roy’s painting my room. Come and see.”

They went upstairs and Doris admired the Princess Pink colour and lovely new duvet.

Roy said, “I’m going to paint next door all white.”

Walking back along the L-shaped landing Doris peered around the corner of the leg, finding a pile of cushions and pillows on a thin mattress and a wooden shelf holding magazines. Seeing that she was puzzled, Karen explained.

“That’s Roy’s room.”

“Or was,” said Roy.

Doris carried on downstairs, not trusting herself to utter a word. She believed in never speaking ill of the dead but there were no rules about thinking ill and she thought very ill of Ava indeed. Call that a room? Doris had seen roomier egg boxes. Downstairs she put the kettle on, made the tea and cut Roy an absolutely huge slice of cake.

20

The next morning the news that Ava Garret had been deliberately killed had made not only the local radio and television bulletins but also the Causton Echo. Give it twenty-four hours, thought DCI Barnaby, and the tabloids’ll be swarming all over the place. The landlord of the Horse and Hounds won’t know what’s hit him.

The chief inspector had been in the incident room, almost empty but for the civilian telephonists, since half-past seven, working through yesterday’s house-to-house reports. As he had expected, given the passage of time since Dennis Brinkley’s death, they were bare of any really useful information. No one had seen any person or anything unusual in the village on the day in question, as far as they could recall. The feedback on Brinkley’s general demeanour and personality bore out what little Barnaby had gathered already. His general civility stopped a little short of real friendliness. He kept himself to himself but gave generously at the door and always contributed a handsome prize to the local fête’s tombola. His relationship with Benny Frayle was indulgently regarded. The landlady at the Horse and Hounds offered a kindly if slightly patronising summation: they were nice company for each other but everyone knew there was nothing really going on.

Ava Garret was something else. Only a few people admitted to knowing her but those who did had plenty to say. The way she treated that poor little kid was a crying shame. The child was afraid of her own shadow. Plus Ava’s airs and graces were enough to make a cat laugh. No one believed her story about being married to a man who’d been to public school. What would he want with somebody whose dad was a navvy and mother a toilet attendant? As for her heavenly powers – the general opinion seemed to be that Ava was no more psychic than the dog’s dinner. No one questioned admitted to attending the Church of the Near at Hand.

Throughout, the village opinion on any personal link between Garret and Dennis Brinkley remained firmly in the negative. As one crusty old gaffer in his retirement bungalow put it – he may have been weird but he weren’t barmy.

Also on Barnaby’s desk were a large stack of pictures showing Ava as she had appeared on the night she died. Quite unrecognisable when compared to the vampiric photograph pinned up on the board.

The chief inspector closed the files, pushed his swivel chair back and took a moment to savour the cool, refreshing atmosphere. Ah – the joys of air conditioning. He recalled the heat of last summer when the room had still been fitted with heavy ceiling fans. Wooden blades the size of aircraft propellors had languidly agitated banks of stale air, barely disturbing drifts of assorted insects. Progress – you couldn’t whack it.

He checked his watch. Twenty minutes to the nine-thirty briefing. Just time to nip downstairs for sausage, egg and bacon. Definitely no chips. Or fried bread. And when he returned replete and in good humour there would his team be, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and raring to go. In your dreams, Tom, as the saying went.

The briefing didn’t take long. The new pictures were distributed; allocations to be covered shared out and off they went. All but DS Brierly.

“So, Audrey,” said the DCI. “Well done, getting Priest to come in yesterday.”

“It wasn’t difficult, sir. I think they both enjoyed themselves actually.”

“How were things at Rainbow Lodge?”

“I’m not really sure.” Pulling a chair up to his desk. “She’s a strange little soul.”

“Karen?” He recalled the child, frightened and wistful with her transparent skin and colourless hair. Like some manifestation in a ghost story. “Yes, that’s a good description.”

“I checked things out as well as I could without seeming to. The house is clean. There’s plenty to eat. And there’s someone looking after them.”

“Oh, good.”

“An Aunty Doris, by all accounts.”

Audrey had been extremely relieved that the aunt was present. She had not gone alone to Rainbow Lodge but had carefully chosen someone totally unthreatening – a young constable, barely three months into the service – who would have been pretty useless in the role of supporting adult.

But DC Cotton had not been entirely a waste of space. Admiring the newly decorated rooms, talking about football, bemoaning the lack of any decent clubs in Causton, he had got on very well with Roy while remaining blissfully unaware that Roy thought him a complete and utter wanker.

Sergeant Brierly had been terribly tempted to take Karen’s aunt to one side, reveal the frightening truth about Ava Garret’s death and leave Doris whatever her name was to do the dirty work. But she couldn’t do that. No one forgets the deliverer of terrible news. They are remembered with revulsion: hatred even. A child especially will not forget. So Audrey sat down with Karen on the stained settee and held her hand and gently explained that someone had deliberately given her mother a poisonous drink and that was why she had died.

“Like the apple in ‘Snow White’?” asked Karen.

“Yes,” said Audrey, not knowing the story.

“But then she coughed and the apple came out and she was all right again.”

“Fairy tales are different,” said Audrey.

“I wonder who it was.”

“We think whoever she went out with on Wednesday night.”

“The man from the BBC?”

Audrey was spared from wrestling with an answer to that as Doris came in with a large pot of tea and some lemonade for Karen. Doris said: “Fetch Roy, there’s a good girl.” Karen ran off and Audrey repeated her announcement. Though she tried to make her voice flat and dull the words still seemed absurdly melodramatic. But Doris took it all quite calmly, saying that that possibility had been on a lot of people’s minds but no one had liked to say so out loud.

“Karen hardly reacted at all,” murmured Audrey, hearing the others coming. “But later on…I think she’s bound to feel…um…”

“Don’t you worry about Karen,” said Doris. “I’ll be looking after her. She’s been sold short for too long, that little lass. She needs a lot of love.”

“Don’t we all,” murmured Audrey. But silently.

Karen had obviously told Roy, who came downstairs, his eyes shining. Geoff Cotton followed, dribbling an invisible football while Karen shouted, “Goal, goal.” Roy immediately started bombarding Audrey with questions. She fielded them patiently for a while, then brought up the matter of he and Karen coming into the station to help them sort out a recent likeness of her mother.

Roy was hesitant but Doris said he really should, out of decency’s sake. And Karen, once the procedure was described, got very excited and wanted to go straightaway. She loved computers. So that was settled.

“Is she a permanent thing – this aunty?” asked Sergeant Troy. The vulnerable, fragile little girl, so near to his own daughter’s age, had quite got to him.

“I think so. Mrs. Crudge—”

“Crudge?” exclaimed Barnaby. “That rings a bell.”

“It’s Brinkley’s cleaner, sir,” said Troy. “She’s coming in today.”

“When?” On being told one o’clock, Barnaby looked at his watch. “We should be back by then.”

“From?”

“I want to check out Brinkley’s office. See what this partner of his is really like.”

“According to Lawson he couldn’t stand the bloke.”

“Hardly an impartial observer.”

“As you say, Guv.” Imparshal. One more word to look up in Talisa Leanne’s dictionary. Education, there was no end to it.

The old brass plate beside the street door on Market Hill still read “Brinkley & Latham: Financial Consultants.” Very sensible, thought DCI Barnaby. From what he had heard about Dennis Brinkley’s business acumen and personal probity, the name would probably continue to inspire confidence even though the man himself was no longer present.

Leading the way upstairs, Sergeant Troy was already looking forward to checking out the talent. Alas, the receptionist proved to be a bit of a dog but, once she had led them into the main office, things began to improve. A very pretty blonde was operating the photocopier. Not as pretty as Abby Rose, but then – who was?

As Barnaby introduced himself and stated his business a man emerged from one of the enclosed cubicles. He had an air of being in charge and introduced himself as Leo Fortune.

“We’ve been expecting a visit. Ever since the news that Dennis had…um…since we heard…”

“What really happened to him,” concluded the woman from reception.

Barnaby noted Fortune’s hesitation and was not surprised. It was a funny word murder. It sold more papers and books and movies than any other. No TV drama series would risk their ratings for long without introducing one. True crime reconstructions were watched by millions. Complacently wise after the event, they would then have “their say” by phone and e-mail. But when the victim is personally known that all changes. Then reaction is muted and euphemism sets in.

“Is anyone away today?” asked Barnaby.

“Two are on holiday.”

“One holiday, one honeymoon.” Gail Fuller nodded towards two vacant desks.

“And…?” Barnaby glanced towards the empty office.

“Mr. Latham has not, so far, favoured us with his presence.”

“Oh, be fair, Leo,” argued a youth in a pink-striped shirt. “It’s barely twelve o’clock.”

There were a few sniggers at this but they quickly died away. Everyone became quiet and serious as befitted the gravity of the occasion. Though the staff were looking concerned, there was no feeling of unease in the room. They all met Barnaby’s gaze frankly though he had been round the block enough times to realise how little that signified.

“Mr. Brinkley died on Tuesday, the twenty-fourth of July. Were you all here then?”

The office junior, who turned out to be doing only work experience, was at school. And a stoutish woman with a large nose and a Snoopy telephone admitted to being absent on a Rolfing With Angels course at the Steiner Institute.

“And Mr. Latham?”

“He turned up mid-morning, as usual.”

Barnaby asked the rest if they went out at all that day. Only Leo Fortune and Latham had not left the office. The others had “nipped off” to shop, grab some lunch or go to the library. Asked to be more precise as to time, the longest anyone was absent was fifty minutes. This was down to the pink-striped man, who had spent the break in the Magpie playing bar billiards and drinking Guinness.

“And when do you close?”

“Five-thirty, officially,” said Fortune, “though Dennis and sometimes myself are often here later.”

“And that night?”

“I honestly can’t remember. There was no reason to till now.”

“Quite,” said Barnaby. He came across this all the time. Unless something incredibly interesting or appalling had happened during the day under discussion who on earth was going to remember it three weeks later?

“Are any of you familiar with this Near at Hand church?” No one appeared to be. “Did Mr. Brinkley ever mention it at all?”

“He never talked about his personal life,” said Belinda, the pretty blonde.

“Isn’t it to do with the other world?” asked the stout lady, whose name was Dimsie. She sounded sorrowful and just a teeny bit cross. “I’m afraid Mr. Brinkley had little time for the spiritual.”

“Did you hear this medium – Ava Garret – broadcast?”

“I shouldn’t think so. We were all working.”

“Can anyone imagine why someone would wish to kill Mr. Brinkley?”

The response was immediate. Fervent denials followed by warm and plainly sincere incredulity that anyone could have brought themselves to do such a wicked thing.

“It’ll be a stranger.”

“That’s right. No one who knew Dennis would—”

“Absolutely.”

“Wish I could meet the bastard up a dark alley.” The billiard player flexed his arm, and an incipient muscle, like a piece of thin string, upped and stretched itself.

“How come the verdict was wrong the first time?”

Barnaby spent a few moments explaining what they would soon be able to read in the papers, then asked them again to try to cast their minds back, this time to the weeks leading up to Dennis’s death.

“Did any of you notice any change in Mr. Brinkley? Did he seem worried about anything in particular?”

Everyone shook his or her head, though Barnaby noticed Leo Fortune frowning to himself.

“Are you permanently on reception?” he asked the middle-aged woman who had let them in. She nodded. “Could you tell me if anyone called to visit him that you hadn’t seen before? A new client, perhaps?”

“No.”

“What about phone calls? Was anyone especially persistent? Not, necessarily a business client.”

“I can assure you,” she flushed angrily, “I’ve better things to do with my time than listen in to other people’s conversations.”

Barnaby widened his interrogation somewhat, asking how the death of their employer might affect the staff. Would all their jobs remain secure, for example?

At this the mood changed. People looked at each other a touch mistily. Smiled and nodded. Leo Fortune spoke for them all. Barnaby offered his congratulations, noting that here were seven neat little motives and no mistake. Some doubtless stronger than others. Perhaps he had been a touch too quick to dismiss the present company. He got up from his perch on the corner of a desk and nodded at the busily scribbling figure of his assistant.

“Sergeant Troy will take your names and addresses. And those of any members of staff who are away.” He raised his eyebrows, nodding towards Fortune’s glassed-off enclosure.

The man left the group, followed the chief inspector, sat down behind his desk and said, “No, I didn’t.”

“You anticipate me, Mr. Fortune.”

“None of us knew about the will. We were all knocked sideways. There were a lot of tears the day the solicitor came. And they weren’t just tears of gratitude.”

“You have been here…?”

“The longest. Twenty-four years.”

“So presumably you have taken over Mr. Brinkley’s clients?”

“Yes. He didn’t have many but what he had were choice.”

“Which means?”

“Stonking rich.”

“Do you know any of them? Or are you going in cold, as it were?”

“I’m familiar with the accounts, of course. They were our most important, so someone other than Dennis had to be. Not that he was ever ill.”

“And the other partner?”

“Latham?” He gave a shout of what appeared quite genuine laughter. “He’s pathetic. His father-in-law bought into the business, apparently to get him from under his wife’s feet. The man can hardly use a computer.”

“So what does he do all day?”

“Smokes, drinks, walks about, reads the paper. Disappears for long periods.”

“And he gets a salary for that?”

“No. Gilda – that’s his wife – gives him hand-outs. When she thinks he deserves it.”

“What about clients?”

“Hasn’t any. He inherited a few from old man Fallon but they all decamped. Some to myself. Others just left.”

“And his share of the company?”

“Her share. Forty-nine per cent.” He beamed with satisfaction, showing sharp white teeth. “So we’ll always have the edge.”

“I’d better take his address and phone number.”

As Leo Fortune scrawled this down he said, “By the way, the night Dennis died I was playing David Bliss in Hay Fever.” He handed the sheet of paper over. “Amdram, you know.”

“Yes,” said Barnaby. He remembered his daughter at Cambridge. John Webster at the ADC. Amdram with a vengeance. The stage alight.

“Why did you ask us about going out during the day? The papers said Dennis died in the early evening.”

“That’s true. But the apparatus that killed him was set up before he arrived home.”

Fortune looked puzzled at the word “apparatus.” Barnaby explained in precise detail what had happened and straightaway regretted it.

“Christ…how absolutely…” Fortune then turned an interesting pale green and began to slip from his chair.

Five minutes later the two policemen were out in the street. They did not leave in good odour. Someone was pushing Leo’s head between his knees while someone else, directing a deeply reproachful glance in the chief inspector’s direction, rushed past with a glass of water.

The others had gathered around Belinda. The beautiful Belinda, just married, deeply in love and newly pregnant was shrilly holding forth while tossing her curls about. Of all the bloody cheek was her gist. And her with a ring on and everything. All those who weren’t already giving Barnaby a hard stare went to work on Sergeant Troy.

“Anyone’d think,” he said, now sulking outside on the pavement, “I’d asked her how much for a blow job.”

“What did you ask her?”

“Would she like a drink after work? What’s so terrible about that?” Troy started savagely kicking a hamburger box in the gutter. “I thought we were supposed to be living in the twenty-first century.”

“Only just.”

“I should have remembered my stars.” Troy, always prepared to assign to fate what he refused to concede to self-awareness, developed his theme. “Maureen read them over breakfast. ‘Any desire for intimacy is way off scale this week.’”

“Maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part?”

“No.” Troy, missing the point, bowed to the inevitable. “Apparently Orion’s on the cusp.”

“You’ll be on the cusp any minute now if you don’t stop kicking that bloody box about.”

Barnaby was halfway through an excellent steak pie and buttered carrots in the canteen when the desk let him know that Mrs. Crudge had arrived.

“Off you go, Sergeant.”

“Sir?”

“Look after her, see her through the system, take her to my office. Sort some tea. The usual stuff.”

Troy watched the chief chomping away, then looked down at his own plate. At the fine piece of succulent haddock, potato croquettes and mushy peas. Not much point in asking them to put it in the oven. Once he’d left the table that was it. No wonder he was so thin. He thought, I’m fading away. They’ll be sorry when I’m gone.

Barnaby finished his meal. For a shameful moment he toyed with the idea of eating Troy’s fish. Excusing such a gluttonous impulse by wondering what might be waiting for him that night at Arbury Crescent and fantasising going to bed hungry, something he had never done in his life. He hurried away before greed could get the better of him.

“Look at this mess.” Mrs. Crudge waggled stained fingers in the air. “That stuff they give you to wipe it off wouldn’t clean a mouse’s bottom.”

“Sorry about that. Thank you for coming—”

“What d’you want my fingerprints for anyway?”

“Elimination,” explained Barnaby. “How did the—”

“Nobody believes this. You should have heard them in the post office. Murder – in Forbes Abbot!”

People were always saying such things to the chief inspector. And with exactly that mingling of shock and indignation. It was as if their special patch had been granted divine exemption from such nastiness and the Almighty had done a runner on the deal.

Sergeant Troy opened the interview by asking if he could take one or two details from Mrs. Crudge, starting with her Christian name.

“I gave all that to them what come to the house. I’m not going through it again.”

“Not to worry,” said Barnaby. “First, could you tell me how long you’ve been employed by Mr. Brinkley?”

“Since he moved to the village, so that’s over twenty years. But the office job, nearer five. After their last cleaner retired.”

“He was easy to work for?”

“A lovely man. Straight as a die. And courtesy itself. Mind you, he was very particular.”

“In what way?”

“Things had to be just so. Take ornaments – I had to put them back precisely in their place. A fraction of an inch out and he’d know. And any bit of a ruck in a cushion or curtain he’d be there, smoothing it out.”

“Goodness, that is particular.”

“Like he was driven to it,” said Mrs. Crudge.

“What about the room with the machines?” asked Sergeant Troy. “Did you clean in there?”

“Just the floor. He wouldn’t let me touch anything else. I wouldn’t want to neither – horrible things.”

“The day he died—” began Barnaby.

“I never went in. My days are Wednesday and Friday.”

“And the previous Friday when you did the floor, did everything look as usual?”

“I couldn’t swear to that. I just mop it over and scarper.”

“Would you have noticed,” asked Sergeant Troy, “if there were drag marks on the floor, made perhaps by moving the apparatus about?”

“Oh, I’d’ve noticed that all right.”

Barnaby wondered if the murderer knew the cleaner would not be coming in on the day the machine was tampered with. If Dennis was as private a person as had been suggested, the murderer might well have been ignorant of her very existence. Unless he lived in the village. Like Lawson.

“I presume you have house keys?” Mrs. Crudge nodded. “Do you know if anyone else does?”

“Nobody. Mr. Brinkley was most security-conscious.”

The DCI couldn’t let that pass. “We saw several keys hanging on a board in the garage.”

“They’d be for the garden shed and such,” said Mrs. Crudge. “Anyway, it wasn’t burglars so much he was worried about as the threat of damage to his precious machines.”

Barnaby tried for the hundredth time to put himself into the shoes of Dennis Brinkley. And failed again. “What about visitors? Did anyone come on a regular basis?”

“How would I know? When I was at Kinders he was at the office.”

“What about phone calls? Did you ever take messages?”

“No. Mr. Brinkley always said to ignore the telephone.”

“Did you have keys to the office as well?”

“That’s right. I do Saturday mornings, when the place is empty.”

“And now,” Barnaby smiled, “I believe you’re a shareholder?”

“Me and Ernest are already shareholders,” bridled Mrs. Crudge. “We’re with BT. And British Water.”

At this point there was a knock at the door and a uniformed policewoman came in with a tray. Three plastic beakers of tea, some sugar and a plastic spoon.

“Pushing the boat out then?” suggested Mrs. Crudge. Brought up never to drink tea with a hat on, she removed her black felt, placed it on the floor beside her chair and stirred in three sugars. “Saw you coming out of Appleby House yesterday. How d’you get on?”

“You know the Lawsons?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“Worked for the old lady since I were fifteen,” said Mrs. Crudge. “I’m still there – for now, at any rate. Remember Mallory growing up. When Benny first came.”

“You must know her well, Miss Frayle.”

“I’m very fond of Ben. ’Course, it was all down to me that she got that message from Mr. Brinkley in the first place.”

“The message…?”

“From the world of spirit. I was the one who persuaded her to go.”

“To the Church of the Near at Hand?”

“I’m a senior member. There’s not much going on there I don’t know about.”

“Really?” Barnaby put his tea aside, folded his arms and rested his elbows on the edge of his desk. He looked sympathetic, concerned and very, very interested. “So, tell us all about it, Mrs. Crudge.”

Andrew Latham rested in a vast rose-patterned hammock under a fringed awning to protect against the sun. Lying back on the puffy, goosedown cushions, he pulled on a silky cord, let it slip through his fingers, pulled on it again gently tilting the hammock to and fro. Within easy reach was a low table with a jug of sparkling water, a dish of sliced lemons and a bottle of blue label Stolichnaya. There was also a clock with a plain face and large numerals. The clock was the most important item. It told Andrew how much time he had left before he had to depart, leaving not a trace of his presence.

Today the trouble and strife was at the Malmaison Beauty Salon, being massaged and steamed and waxed and primped by Shoshona, her personal beautician. Andrew thought a more accurate description for the plucky woman who got to grips with Gilda’s constantly shifting outline should be uglician. An uglician at the troll parlour.

These insights so entertained him he laughed aloud, spilling his drink, not just on his trousers but all over the cushion. It was quite a big mark. Thank God vodka was colourless and didn’t smell. He was just turning the cushion over and thinking it was about time he made tracks when a car turned into the drive.

Although the car was an ordinary saloon and the two men getting out wore plain business suits Andrew knew immediately who they were. He had had near misses with them often enough. What was it about the police? A sort of wary confidence. As if whatever right you had to be where you were they claimed the same right just by waving their bloody warrant cards. They were doing it now.

“Mr. Latham?”

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“We’re investigating the deaths of Dennis Brinkley and Ava Garret. You weren’t at the office when we called this morning so…”

“Here you are, this afternoon.”

“Exactly.” The young one pulled out a chair and sat at a round table under a large umbrella. “OK if we…?”

“Actually I was just—”

“This won’t take long, I’m sure, sir.”

Then the big one sat down too. Bugger, thought Andrew, and looked at the clock again.

“I was given some idea as to your background with the company.” Barnaby repeated what he had heard from Leo Fortune, leaving out the insults. “Is that correct?”

“Roughly.”

“And how did you get on with Mr. Brinkley?”

Latham shrugged. “He did his job – I did mine. We didn’t mingle.”

“Do you remember what you were doing the day he died?”

“Working, I suppose.”

“We were told—”

“Not necessarily at my desk. I’m in and out a lot. Occasionally I visit clients in their homes.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing this afternoon, sir?” Sergeant Troy’s expression was innocent, his voice politely puzzled, his gaze extremely respectful. You felt, given the chance, he might curtsy.

“Is that relevant to your enquiries?” As he spoke Andrew gathered up the drinks bottle, jug and clock. Said, “I have to change these trousers,” then disappeared into the house to empty the water and hide the vodka in his underwear drawer.

“That man was actually sweating.”

“It’s very hot,” said Sergeant Troy.

“He wasn’t sweating when we arrived.”

Within minutes Latham was back. He now had on a smart jacket, a tie, different trousers and was munching a mouthful of something green. Barnaby guessed parsley.

“I have to throw you out now, I’m afraid.”

“Just a few more questions, Mr. Latham.”

“I really can’t—”

“Regarding Ava Garret.”

“Who?”

“The medium who was killed just under a week ago. Connected to the Brinkley case?”

“It was all over the papers,” said Troy. “And on the telly.”

“Yes – of course, I did hear of it. But—”

“Did you know Mrs. Garret?”

“No.”

“She lived in Forbes Abbot.”

“Well, it can hardly have escaped your attention, Chief Inspector, that I don’t live in Forbes Abbot. So I’m not likely to have met her.”

“Have you ever been to the Church of the Near at Hand?”

“I never go to any church. The cards I’ve been dealt, God’s lucky I haven’t razed them all to the ground.”

At this point a large BMW drew up, dwarfing the yellow Punto. A colossal woman heaved and rolled her way out. She was draped in a great deal of grey gauzy fabric with a silvery finish. The comparison with a barrage balloon was inescapable. A loud bellow crossed the distance between them.

“What are you doing here?”

About to explain, DCI Barnaby realised the question was not addressed to him but to Latham, who immediately launched into some rigmarole involving a Psion organiser, a client, a cancelled appointment, a stupid assistant and a lost file. Good lies always have a spice of truth and these sounded quite convincing but even Troy could see there was at least one too many of them.

In any case the woman now ignored him, introduced herself and asked if they had come about “poor, darling Denny.” She answered all their questions, verifying what they already knew about Brinkley’s character but adding little that was fresh. She had never met Ava Garret.

“One’s world is hardly likely to collide, Chief Inspector. From what I read in the Echo it appears she lived in a council house.”

Asked to confirm her husband’s presence at home on the night of Wednesday, 8 August she declined.

“All I can say is he was here when I got back from my aromatherapy training.”

“And that was?”

“Tennish.”

“And what time did you leave for this…um…training, Mrs. Latham?”

“Around seven. I always arrive early. I need to sit quietly and recharge and direct my energies. It’s pretty high-powered stuff.”

That was when Barnaby and Troy took their leave. Before they were in the car she had let rip. Starting at fortissimo and climbing.

“I’ve seen things launched smaller than that,” said Sergeant Troy, driving off.

The car paused at the great bronze gates and Barnaby regarded the happy couple in his rear-view mirror. Latham standing there, shoulders slumped, staring at the flagstones like a naughty schoolboy. Mrs. L. bawling and windmilling her great windsock arms about. A clatter of rumbustious laughter ruptured the sweet summer air. He must be getting some bloody sizeable handouts to put up with all that.

“See that look she gave him, Chief?”

“What sort of look?”

“The sort Joe Pesci gives a guy that’s dropped ash on his shoe.”

“Let’s stick to facts,” said Barnaby. “As far as timing goes we now know Latham could be our ‘Chris.’”

“That wimp?” The gates swung open and Troy drove thankfully away.

“He could have rung Garret around five – sensibly, from a call box. Mrs. L. leaves home at seven. He goes off to keep his appointment with Ava. Spends an hour or so dangling various promises, maybe a contract, leading her on over a nice dinner. Slips the stuff into her wine, gives some excuse as to why he can’t escort her back to Uxbridge and puts her in a cab.”

“More likely the Tube, given his finances.”

“Whatever. Then back to the ghastly Dallas ranch house for a bit more grovelling.”

“It all sounds…I dunno, unbelievable.” Troy had thought the bungalow quite splendid. “Like some stupid play.”

Inevitably, given his daughter’s profession, Barnaby had seen a lot of plays and one or two had been pretty stupid to his way of thinking, but none had been quite as unbelievable as the case with which he was presently wrestling.

21

Only forty-eight hours since the first briefing on the double murder inquiry and the incident room was a very different place. A babble of voices answered busy phones. Information was recorded. Questions were being put. Maps and photographs relating to both crimes were pinned around the walls, together with large detailed drawings of the interior of Kinders.

Half an hour earlier DCI Barnaby had received and absorbed SOCO’s full report on Dennis Brinkley’s house. Gathering his team about him at the quieter end of the room he chose to open the briefing by describing the salient points.

“Some prints found were those of his cleaner, others of Mallory Lawson. The rest, identical to those on the Lexus and all over the flat we have to assume are Brinkley’s. The prints on the trebuchet are a bit of a mess. Only his are plain, but they were made on top of some blurred smudging, which Scene of Crime say was probably left by someone wearing gloves. So far, so expected.

“Footprints give slightly more away. We know, having talked to his cleaner, that Brinkley had some special soft tweedy slippers he always wore when going to look at his machines. They were left, side by side, at the entrance. Prints from these were pretty well all over the floor but not all of them were the same.”

“How d’you mean, Chief?” asked Inspector Julie Lawrence.

“A few had been made by someone with slightly bigger feet.”

“He must have guessed what the slippers were for,” said Troy, “and taken advantage.”

“The kitchen showed nothing, not even on the door handle. SOCO think the murderer’s shoes were left on the outside step.”

“And it seems he didn’t enter the flat proper.”

“Do we have SOCO’s report on that?”

“Yes. Also Troy and myself went through the place.” And what an experience that had been. The word tidiness didn’t even come close. Pens and pencils on his desk, shoes in the wardrobe so closely aligned you couldn’t have slipped a hair between them. Ornaments equidistant each from the other to the nearest millimetre. Anally retentive wasn’t in it.

“I examined his bank statements going back several months. No huge amounts either way. Some modest direct debits, probably council tax. Unfortunately his phone bills weren’t itemised but the telephone company will be able to produce details of calls for us.”

“Not much of a result, is it, sir?” asked Colin Jarvis. “Just tells us what we knew already.”

“Yes, thank you, Jarvis. So.” Barnaby gave his team a somewhat aggressive stare. “Who’s got something to tell me that I don’t know already?”

A lot of stuff had come in, nearly all of it useless, but that was nothing new. Barnaby picked up one of the E-fits and waved it about.

“Any luck with these?”

“Yes, Chief,” said DC Saunders, who had covered Uxbridge station. “The man who sold her a ticket remembered her straightaway. She asked for a single to Piccadilly.”

“Do we have a time?”

“He’d just come on shift and reckons about ten past six. I checked the next couple of departures. First out was a Metropolitan. Then a fifteen-minute wait for the Piccadilly Line.”

“Let’s hope, once these are widely circulated, we’ll discover which train she took. And, with a bit of luck, where she got off.”

Barnaby knew that was asking a lot. Even though the carriages would be largely empty when they left the terminus, the nearer the train got to town the fuller they would become. If she really had left it at Piccadilly Circus the chances of her being spotted were as good as nil, even on the cameras.

He said, “What about the car?”

Quite a bit of feedback there as well. Most of the likely sounding tips had been followed up, but though the vehicles in question were all red Hondas they were not Ava’s Honda. Unfortunately Barnaby’s hopes that she had left it in the NCP lot near the station proved short-lived. Another two sightings had come in late last night and would be followed up this morning.

He left them all to it and set off to interview the man who had been described to him yesterday by Doris Crudge as “knowing Ava inside out.” Apparently it was George Footscray who had started the medium off on the psychic circuit, supported her through the training and, once established, chauffeured her between various meetings. He also ran the spiritualist church in Forbes Abbot single-handed. George, explained Mrs. Crudge, was also quite a sensitive himself, being born with a gift for piercing the lower ether no matter how black and dense.

All this had entertained Sergeant Troy no end. Now, driving along the A413 towards Chalfont St. Peter, he was quite looking forward to meeting Footscray, whom he pictured as the sort of bloke who grew his own clothes. A mung-chewing airy-fairy ponce in beads and a raffia hat. But that didn’t mean the guy couldn’t pass on a few tips about ether piercing. Also Troy half hoped for an update on his stars, which were bitching him about as usual.

As if reading his sergeant’s mind Barnaby said: “We’ll keep the questions to the point, OK?”

“Fine by me.”

“I don’t want you running off at a tangent over some esoteric quiddity.”

“Thought they were a rock group.”

Troy was laughing already in anticipation. He spotted The Three Tuns where they were supposed to turn. Manoeuvre, signal, mirror. And there they were in Clover Street, Camel Lancing. Evens on his side.

“Could you look out for fifteen, Chief?”

Troy was not quite sure what he expected. Perhaps a tiny hunched-up hovel with a witch’s hat on the roof, like one of the drawings in Talisa Leanne’s storybooks. Or a grey, castle-shaped construction, sinisterly shrouded in mist. Number 15 Clover Street was a small, semi-detached house of outstanding dullness. Even the garden was so drab as to be almost invisible.

“This is it,” said Barnaby. “Park by that laurel.”

Troy, quite overcome with disappointment, parked. But then, ringing the bell, he cheered up somewhat. First the door mat seemed to be covered in all sorts of mysterious signs and symbols and also the bell itself was in the form of a pregnant goat with green glass eyes.

“Chief Inspector Barnaby?”

“That’s right. Mr. Footscray?”

“We’ve been expecting you. And this is…?”

“Sergeant Troy,” said Sergeant Troy, producing his warrant card and having it waved away.

“Enter, please. Come and meet Mother.”

They stepped into a tiny hall on to a large rug featuring a lion and a unicorn, a crown and a begirdled woman holding a thistle. There was also a butler. He was a life-sized wooden cutout, badly if carefully painted and somewhat removed from the normal run of butlers in that he had full-feathered, floor-length wings with golden tips. There were some neatly folded newspapers on his tray and a notice reading “Donations: Thank You.”

“They’re here, darling.” George opened a door, then flattened himself against it so the two policemen could squeeze through. Then, to Barnaby: “I expect you’d like some refreshment?”

Neither man replied. Just simply stood and stared. They had entered a shrine dedicated to the worship of one of the most revered deities of the twentieth century. Every inch of the walls was covered with plates, mugs, tins, photographs, drawings and paintings reflecting her image. Bookshelves held china figurines in her likeness. She adorned biscuit barrels and gestured from coaches of golden filigree. A glass case held a hairdresser’s block supporting a lime-green, fur-trimmed brocade hat dripping with feathers.

In an armchair, peering from a swaddle of airy blankets, sat a tiny old lady. Little puffs of hair like cotton wool seemed to have settled on her pale scalp at random. Not a scrap of her face was clear of wrinkles but her eyes were blue as periwinkles, bright and sharp.

“Welcome,” she said. “Please sit down.”

The voice was a shock. It was quite loud and had a clackety rattly delivery, like a stick being drawn across railings. She was indicating a sofa, draped with a tapestry illustrating various royal residences. Barnaby sat on Windsor Castle. Troy got the mausoleum at Frogmore. Neither knew quite what to say.

“Hello,” said the old lady. “I’m Esmeralda Footscray.”

Barnaby introduced himself and Sergeant Troy. There was some more silence broken by the sound of cutlery, off stage, as it were.

Eventually Troy, gesturing, said, “Quite a collection.”

“From the moment of her birth.” She indicated several rows of box files stacked beneath shelves crammed with photograph albums.

“Must be worth quite a bit.”

“Money?” Esmeralda’s disdain knew no bounds. As Troy said afterwards, he felt like he’d been caught farting in church. “All these artefacts are saturated with sublunar energy to be transmitted whenever an urgent need arises. As you can imagine she needs constant recharging, especially after that last operation.”

“Sublunar energy, yes,” repeated the sergeant, just as if this was an everyday conversation. He stared out of the windows, which were heavily barred, and noticed that the door too had a quite an elaborate lock.

“This is our guidance source.” She stretched forwards with some difficulty and laid her hand upon a milky white globe. It glowed, the interior pulsating gently like an illumined heart. Troy looked around for the flex but could see none. “Formulated and constantly sustained by my guide, Hu Sung Kyong.”

“That’s very…er…”

Barnaby closed his eyes and shut his ears. He had had enough arcaneries, enough giddy convulsions of the spirit already in this case to last him a lifetime.

Troy became intrigued by some grey fluff at the corner of Mrs. Footscray’s mouth. Assuming it to be the beginnings of a moustache a closer look revealed small feathers. He found this rather disturbing. Surely she didn’t eat birds. He’d always thought spiritual-type people were vegetarians. She was talking at him again.

“You must remember the last time she took the salute at Clarence House?”

“I’m not sure—”

“As she left the dais she stumbled?”

“So she did!” cried Sergeant Troy.

“I had become distracted – only for a moment, but it was enough. I apologised immediately, of course.”

“Was it sorted then?”

“Naturally. The power line was still open, you see.”

George came in, pushing a trolly. Fearing some witchy brew from entrails sown at dead of night ’neath a gibbous moon and nourished by the sweat of hanged men, the Chief Inspector declined.

“Sainsbury’s Breakfast or Earl Grey, Sergeant?”

“Well, just a cup,” said Barnaby.

Troy was admiring the biscuits. Star shapes, about as big as ginger nuts, covered with white powder. He accepted one gratefully and took a bite. He had never tasted anything quite like it before. As he chewed he tried to name the strange spice that was now lingering in his mouth. Ginger it wasn’t.

George, having fed and watered the visitors and seen his mother settled, now spoke.

“You wanted to talk to me about Ava Garret?”

There was a snort from Esmeralda as Barnaby replied, “I believe you knew her quite well, Mr. Footscray?”

“Indeed. I was Ava’s mentor and the first person to appreciate her remarkable gifts. I oversaw her tutelage and accompanied her, for the first few months at least, to church meetings.”

George’s voice was also unexpected. Very weak, it came out all quavery and wavery, as if he was a crotchety old man. Perhaps Esmeralda had made him like that over the years. Sucking his strength to nourish her own. Other people’s lives, thought Barnaby, newly grateful for Joyce and Cully. And even Nicolas.

“You never doubted that she was genuine?”

“Not for a moment,” said George. “After every service people would be waiting to talk to her, to say thank you. Often in tears.”

“What about seances? Private sittings?”

“As to that, she couldn’t be persuaded. Ava believed she was born to be on stage.”

“And were you there the day Dennis Brinkley…um…?”

“Punctured the heavenly matrix? Certainly. And I can tell you, Mr. Barnaby, it was a daunting experience.”

While George expounded on this Sergeant Troy made one or two brief notes. Truth to tell his mind was not really on the business in hand. It was dwelling rather on the strange confectionery he had recently swallowed. For no reason at all the film Rosemary’s Baby came to mind. He recalled some strange root ground up by witches and fed to Mia Farrow that had been called something like aniss. Now, to Troy’s alarm, a discreet burp was releasing the definite flavour of aniseed balls.

He stared accusingly at George, who was now describing his stewardship of the Church of the Near at Hand. Stared at his face. Long and oval like a stretched egg, it reminded Troy of that bloke holding his head and screaming that you saw on all the T-shirts. He stared at George’s greyish yellow strips of hair darkened by brilliantine. At his skin that looked as if it had been reclaimed from the sea. At the back view of his trousers, which fell directly from his waist to the heels of his shoes without obstruction. Troy remembered a bit of advice given to a female cousin by his mother when she started playing the field. Never trust a man with no bottom. Could there be anything in it? He also noticed that Footscray never quite closed his lips when he spoke and you could hear the tiny shift and click of his false teeth. It sounded like a mouse tap-dancing. Troy tuned back into the conversation, which had now become a three-handed affair.

George was saying, “Mother’s quite looking forward to going to spirit, aren’t you, dear?”

“I am,” agreed Esmeralda. “I shall know a lot more people over there than I do over here.”

“But we shall be in constant touch,” said George. “It’s not generally known but there is an excellent telegraphic system— Ariel Cobwebs plc from outer space to planet earth.”

“Really?” said Barnaby. He could never understand why people called it planet earth. Could there be another earth somewhere in the universe that was not a planet? George was still clicking on.

“Mother has a psychical opening at the crown of her head.”

“With a myriad connections,” explained Mrs. Footscray, “going back to prehistoric times.”

There was no answer to this and wisely Barnaby did not attempt to make one. Just smiled at the old lady, rose and was preparing to take his leave when she suddenly cried, “The loop, George! The loop!”

The light in the illumined globe was weakening by the second. Fluttering too, like a huge trapped moth. George hurried to wheel a small table holding a portable television and video recorder to her side and pressed play. The Queen Mother appeared in all her cerise and gamboge glory, walking down a line of uniformed cavalry. Mrs. Footscray pressed the middle fingers of her right hand to the lamp, the flat of her left hand to the screen and started humming. Then she began crooning: “Divine love from me to you…divine light from me to you…divine strength from me to you…”

The others just stood there. George nodding gravely. Barnaby stolidly expressionless. Troy intently regarding the tea cosy – a lumpy tangle of pale brown string, strangely stiffened – and struggling to keep a straight face.

Suddenly the ectoplasmic intervention was over. Esmeralda beamed at everyone and said, “Healing completed. She’ll be all right now.”

“Until the next time,” sighed George.

“It can’t be helped, dear. At her age one must expect it. I do hope,” she raised her voice as Barnaby showed signs of edging towards the door, “we leave our earthly tabernacle on the same day. She’ll need help settling in.”

“The hierarchy’s different over there.”

“I’m a quid down on that gig,” said Sergeant Troy, driving away from number 15 Clover Street. In the hall he had been encouraged to take one of the newspapers from the butler’s tray, only to have George blocking the way to the front door, clearing his throat and staring hard at the donations notice. Now he was stuck with the bloody Psychic News. “You couldn’t make them up, could you, people like that?”

“Anyone who could,” said Barnaby, “is plainly in need of professional help.”

“Wish I’d got a spirit guide. I wonder what they actually do.”

“They tell you when to add the tonic.”

“A Chinese one would be brilliant.”

Troy’s voice, delivering the wistful lead in, had a nudge in it. The DCI braced himself.

“Lo Hung Dong?” suggested Sergeant Troy.

Not a smile, not a flicker of response. Well, he’d done his best. And not for the first time. Maybe the moment had finally come to face the sad truth. He was working for a man who had no sense of humour.

Fortunately there were no passers-by to see the door to Appleby House flung open with such force it cracked on its hinges. Mallory Lawson came running out, his face frenzied with emotion. He flung himself at the Golf, tugging and wrenching the handle, then cursed and shouted, going through his pockets, slapping at them, pulling out the linings. Finally producing a key, he released the locks. The car screeched into reverse, shot out into the road and vanished.

Mallory had been thinking of nothing special when he picked up the telephone. His irritation with the police had disappeared. He’d had a vague idea of visiting the orchard, which had also come to nothing. Perhaps he might do a bit more unpacking. Perhaps he might read. Or he might just hang about perpetuating this state of easy indolence. He said, “Hello,” and when a woman’s voice said, “This is Debbie Hartogensis,” recognised the name immediately. Saw the notice pinned to the basement flat door inscribed: “Fforbes-Snaithe. Hartogensis, Lawson.” His flesh cold and shrinking, he cried, “Polly?”

Now he was burning rubber doing a ton up the motorway, foul-smelling liquid brimming in the cup of his mouth and so hot he could have been melting away. He couldn’t control his face, which kept shuddering and twitching. His hands, hot and oily, slithered all over the steering wheel. Terrified of losing control, he hung on till the knuckles almost pushed through his skin.

He had abandoned his daughter. He had not rung, he had not gone to see her. When he had gone he had not persisted. He had neglected her. Assumed she had gone on holiday simply because he heard it from Benny, of all people. Worst of all, he had forgotten her. Now she was…

That was the nub of his anguish—he didn’t know. Debbie Hartogensis had talked on but he had been so paralysed with fear that all he could now recall was a jumble of key words. Flick-knife sharp they were too: dangerous terrible deep wasted reek tablets crying smashed tablets crying tablets.

Mallory’s exit was coming up. He tried to slow down. He remembered the mirror. What use would he be to her dead? The traffic streamed and screamed behind him as he entered the slip road too fast.

He breathed slowly, braked hard, tried to calm his churning mind. It was a terrible time to be crossing London, but when was a good time and anyway it was the only time he’d got. What he simply must not do was get caught up in any provocation. No arguments. No cutting in or cutting up, no matter how desperate his awareness of time passing.

He was reminded of the last occasion he had driven in frantic worry to see Polly at Cordwainer Road, only to find she was absolutely fine when he got there. Why hadn’t he listened properly to what this flatmate had to say? Asked some sensible questions, found out exactly what the situation was.

In the street where she lived everything looked exactly the same. Mallory realised he had been dreading the sight of an ambulance or police car. He skewed the Golf any-old-how on to a double yellow and ran down the basement steps.

The moment the door moved Mallory pushed it hard and bolted into the flat. Picking herself up from the hall floor where she had fallen on to her bicycle Debbie Hartogensis righted the machine and followed him.

“You pushed me over.”

“What?” Mallory was coming out of the bathroom and staring round. All the doors he could see stood open except one. He crossed to this last, started hammering on it and shouting: “Polly!”

“Mr. Lawson.”

“Polly, are you all right? Polly.”

“Don’t do that!” Debbie seized his arm. “What are you trying to do—frighten her to death?”

An image of Polly behind the door, cowering, stopped Mallory straightaway. He stared at the girl. This must be her, the person who had rung. He couldn’t even remember her name.

“Come and sit down.”

“What shall we do?”

“If you’ll just listen—”

“Why is she in there – shut up like that?”

“I tried to explain.” Debbie pulled him towards an easy chair and pushed him into it.

“Yes, I know. I just…couldn’t take it in.”

“I came back from vacation two days ago. I knew Amanda would still be in Majorca. Polly’s door was locked so I thought she’d gone off somewhere as well. Then, in the middle of the night, I heard somebody in the john. Boy, was I scared.”

“Who was it?”

“Jesus—you think I checked? I was shitting myself. I’d just crawled under the divan when they went into Polly’s room and locked the door.”

“So it was her?”

“She was kinda moaning, then it all went quiet. Next day, when she realised I was back, she wouldn’t come out. I had to go get bagels and milk and stuff. When I got back she’d used the bathroom then locked herself away again. I heard her crying.”

Crying! He could never remember Polly crying. Even when very small she had screamed rather than cried. And if there were tears they would be tears of rage.

“Did you talk to her?”

“I tried.” She shook her head. “Zilch.”

Mallory went over and laid his head against the doorjamb. Listening, frowning.

“It went on like this – her only coming out when I wasn’t here. Then I got kinda worried. Maybe she was really sick, you know?”

“You said something about tablets.”

“I’m coming to that. So, next time I went out – I didn’t. Just slammed the door, came back inside and hid. After a while Polly got up and went to the kitchen. She looked really freaked out. I snuck into her place and it was just gross. Like that room in Seven? She must have been holed up there for days. I saw my sleeping tablets by her bed—”

“Oh God.” Mallory left the door but couldn’t sit down again. Just shifted and moved about. “Had she taken any?”

“Some.”

“Did you get a doctor?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She wouldn’t let me in. You think she’d let a stranger?”

“But stuff like that…an overdose…”

“She’d been taking them to get to sleep.”

“How do you know? How do you know she didn’t take them all at once? Christ, with no one looking out for her—”

“If no one’s looking out for her, how come you’re here?”

“You should have got in touch straightaway. I would have—”

“Hey, hey! Now you listen to me. I have run my ass off trying to help your daughter. I biked all the way to Parsons bloody Green. I knocked on every door trying to get your new address. I finally got the estate agent who sold your house. His solicitor gave me your number. Straightaway I ring you—and not collect, in case you hadn’t noticed. Next thing you’re crashing in here and knocking me over. And not even a fucking ‘sorry,’ never mind a fucking ‘thank you.’”

Mallory stared at her. At Debbie Hartogensis who had gone to so much trouble to make the phone call that had practically put him into cardiac arrest. She was young. She had on combat trousers and a tight pink top with shoulder strings and little glasses with blue lenses.

Some of the panic drained out of Mallory. He was here and he would not leave. Whatever happened, there would be no more terrible messages out of the brazen, heartless blue. Now only sorrow and gratitude remained. Sorrow for his daughter, whatever her plight. Gratitude towards this young girl who had done so much and could so easily have done nothing.

“I’m so sorry. Forgive me, please. I was distraught.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“I know Polly’s mother also would wish to thank…to say…”

“That’s OK, Mr. Lawson.” Christ, he looked as if someone had pulled his insides outside and stamped on them. No kids, vowed Debbie for the millionth time. Absolutely no kids.

“Look, I gotta split.” She had picked up a black helmet and a pair of roller skates and was making for the door.

“Split?”

“I’m meeting someone. There’s tea and stuff in the kitchen if you want.”

Surprisingly, when she had gone, Mallory found he did want. After knocking softly on Polly’s door and getting no response he made some tea in two mugs and took it back to the sitting room. Then he tried again.

“I’ve made us a hot drink. Will you come out or shall I come in?”

In silence he waited. In silence he sat down again, drank his tea and waited some more. He was prepared to wait for ever to find out what had happened to Polly. To wait – how did the song go? – till all the seas run dry.

What had happened to Polly was this. After those final astonishing moments in Billy Slaughter’s flat she had danced home. Gambolled like a child. Grabbed the vertical rail on a moving bus and whirled around, swinging over the road. Couldn’t stop even when the conductor told her off. Pelted down the road to the flat and let herself in, still feverish with exhilaration. Unable to keep still, she had put on a Nineteen Gazelles CD and danced violently about, heedless of the insider information rattling around her mind like primed sticks of dynamite.

“‘…Oh, fire flash of love…’” sang Polly, swirling and twirling, “‘burn me away…burn me away…’”

There was a lot of time to kill. Hours, actually. There was no way she could enter the offices of Brinkley and Latham in the bright early evening. A curse on British Summer Time, cried Polly, but without rancour. She couldn’t just hang around the flat. She would explode. She decided to go to see the latest Coen Brothers movie at the Curzon and buy something special at Oddbins on the way back to celebrate.

Polly finally set off around eight thirty for Baker Street, there not being a convenient Green Line. She caught a Metropolitan train to Amersham and was pleasantly surprised at the spacious, high-roofed carriage. It was more like a proper train than the Tube. Still simmering with happiness Polly gazed out of the window and, once Harrow-on-the-Hill had been left behind, became more and more charmed by the prettiness of the landscape.

She decided that she would buy a house in the country and that Buckinghamshire would be ideal. Such fresh, healthy air, so close to town. It would be a modern house, naturally. An airy structure of spun steel and glass. She would commission an architect. Not one of the stuffy old school. Chadwick Ventris, perhaps. Or Giles Givens. The house would almost certainly win an award. Polly saw herself at the ceremony in something backless and glittering, the architect at her feet.

Variations on this pleasant fantasy lasted until the train drew into Chorleywood. There were several taxi cards in the station phone box and a cab arrived quickly. Causton was about ten miles away. It was almost dark by the time Polly alighted in the market square.

Approaching the street door to Brinkley and Latham, she had deliberately refrained from looking over her shoulder but slipped the key into the lock, turned it and entered the building as casually as anyone with a genuine right to be there. Once in Dennis’s office, just to be on the safe side, she drew the blinds down.

While finding her Market Maker and setting up her screen Polly thought about her father. She remembered the lie she had told after he had agreed to release some of her money. Her pretence that these disastrous speculations had really been for him all along. So that he could abandon a job that was killing him and be free. Mallory had believed her and was touched, Polly could see, almost to the point of tears. But what if…what if…this time it was really true?

The idea of using any special knowledge to benefit someone other than herself would normally never enter Polly’s head. But this was something different. Something personal. Imagine being able to double the Lawson inheritance overnight. What on earth would they say, her parents? They wouldn’t believe it, of course. Not at first. Polly imagined this disbelief. Then pictured her father’s gradual amazement at the realisation that it had actually happened. Her mother would be pleased too. More money to throw down the bottomless pit of literary publishing. But it didn’t matter what the stuff was used for. The point was that Polly would be helping them and – improve on this – at no cost to herself. Only down side would be an inability to take the credit for such a brilliant coup. For she could never reveal how she had stolen keys, entered offices illegally and broken into a file – even if it was one relating to her own affairs. OK, the first time there was some excuse. Then she had been in rapidly expanding debt, and desperate. But this time the reason was straightforward maximisation of profits. Or, as the self-righteous whingers denied access to the golden mile would doubtless put it, naked greed.

Of course it would soon become obvious that someone had been tinkering profitably with the Lawson finances. That should be fun, thought Polly. She wondered if Dennis would take responsibility but straightaway discounted the idea. He was far too honourable (i.e., sober, self-regarding and principled). No, eventually she would have to own up. And they would all see she had done a wrong thing but for all the right reasons.

Satisfied with this conclusion Polly completed both her transactions and dispatched a heart-stopping amount of money. Even though she had watched Billy Slaughter transfer much, much more and had already seen a slight but definite increase in the share price, it was still a deeply frightening moment.

Anxious now to get away, she found a local directory and checked out a minicab. Careful not to draw attention to an unusually late call on what might be an itemised bill, she rang from a box in the market square.

Financially, she just made it home. She shouldn’t have been short. Earlier, coming back from the movie, she had drawn out the permitted maximum from a cash machine (a humiliating fifty following an acrimonious snarl-in with the bank). But then, high as a kite on great expectations, a mighty wack of it had gone on a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. No matter: even though it was long past midnight when she arrived back in London with a few pound coins in her pocket, one of the night buses would get her home.

Polly had imagined that, like a spy or commando after the conclusion of a particularly dangerous mission, she would return fizzing with a mixture of elation and relief. She saw herself unwinding, playing a little music, drinking the wine. Walking about till the first papers were on the street. Until the whole financial world now knew what she knew. But, in fact, once the string of tension had been cut, she felt very tranquil. Tranquil but tired. She pulled off her dress, slipped into bed and within seconds was fast asleep.

When she awoke it was high noon. Polly couldn’t believe it. How could such a thing have happened? The traffic, the phone that was always ringing, the passers-by clacking sticks against the railings, the yapping dogs – where were they when she needed them? Twelve o’clock!

While Polly fumed she was climbing into jeans and flinging on an old striped shirt. Into sneakers, grab keys, run from flat. The nearest newsagent a five-minute hurtle. She picked up the Financial Times. Gillans and Hart had made the front page.

Masood Aziz, giving change, was surprised to find his attention urgently drawn in the direction of the magazine rack. A young woman stood there. She looked stricken; about to fall. Sheets of pink-coloured newsprint slid through her hands and floated to the ground.

Mr. Aziz shouted for his wife, who came quickly, threshing through strips of plastic curtain at the back of the shop. They found a stool and tried to persuade the girl to sit down without success. And when Mrs. Aziz brought a tumbler of water it was pushed fiercely away. The girl set out for the door, stumbled, righted herself. People gathered in the shop entrance, watching as she staggered off down the road. At one point she stopped and vomited in the gutter. Mr. Aziz picked up the newspaper, which was dirty, and started grumbling about lost revenue.

Polly had no recollection of returning to the flat. But suddenly she was there staring into the bathroom mirror, swilling sick from her mouth, cleaning her teeth with such force her gums began to bleed.

Consumed utterly by fear and rage, incapable of intelligent thought, she paced round and round the flat, punching the furniture, banging on the wall till her knuckles bled. At one point she stood in the middle of the room yelling, “Bankrupt…bankrupt…bankrupt…” a wild ululation like a bird screaming in the jungle. Just after this the telephone rang and she ripped it from its socket and hurled it across the room.

Eventually, her throat raw, Polly wore herself out. At any rate physically. Her mind still ran at a lunatic pace. She sat down and, for the first time ever, wished she was more like her American pain-in-the-backside flatmate. Debbie was always doing what she called her “practice.” Sitting on a cushion staring into space for half an hour at a time. Said it calmed her nerves; softened her edge. Polly should try it. Polly had no wish to try it. She wanted her edge honed as keenly as an executioner’s axe. Enter the exchange with anything less and you deserved all you got.

However, even as she despised such inane and woolly thinking, Polly squatted on the floor and breathed slowly for at least five minutes. It didn’t calm her nerves or soften her edge but she did start seeing things with just a shade less emotion. This led her to consider her next move. No doubt at all what that would have to be. The question was, how should she handle a confrontation with Billy Slaughter? What she couldn’t do was what she longed to do. Go round there and stick him with an extremely sharp instrument. He was bigger and stronger and the whole business would no doubt end in her complete humiliation. And if, by some freakish stroke of luck, she did inflict any serious damage, the police would be called and she’d be in even worse trouble than she was now.

Polly flung a denim jacket over the scruffy clothes she had on, grabbed her credit card, plus the three remaining pound coins, and ran. On the bus she sat upstairs, leaning forwards, urging it ahead. Drumming her fists hard against thighs and muttering, “Come on come on come on come on…”

Polly had given no thought to her appearance. She was unaware that her hair was sticking out all over one side of her head and totally flat on the other where she had slept on it. Or that the gamey, slightly unpleasant smell on the top of the bus was not coming from the old man sitting directly behind her. Or that there were splashes of vomit down the front of her shirt. So she thought nothing of walking straight through the swing doors of Whitehall Court and heading across the vestibule towards the lift.

One of the porters behind the counter called after her. The other came quickly around to the front and caught up with Polly at the lift gate.

“Can I help you?” The words and his voice were quietly civil but his eyes were not.

“I’ve come to see Billy Slaughter.” Polly rattled the handle in her impatience though the lift was already groaning downwards.

“Mr. Slaughter?”

“Room seventeen.”

“Ah, yes. I’m afraid he is no longer here.”

“We’ll see.” Grimly she stared upwards through the metal trellis. “Get down here, you lazy fucker.”

“I wonder…would you happen to be Miss Lawson?”

Polly gave the man a suspicious stare. “Why?”

“There is a parcel for you at the desk.” He stepped back, stretching out an arm, indicating that she should precede him. And, as the lift had suddenly stopped and now seemed to be returning to the stratosphere. Polly did so.

Joining his colleague behind the vast polished counter, the porter took a small Jiffy bag from one of the pigeonholes. Although neither man as much as glanced at each other Polly sensed what she was convinced was shared contempt.

“Do you have any identification, miss?”

Polly slapped her credit card down. She had now decided not to risk the humiliation of a journey in the lift to an empty flat. “Do you have any idea when Mr. Slaughter will be back?”

“Probably not at all,” said the second porter. “He doesn’t live here.” He observed Polly’s suddenly white face with trepidation. The last thing they needed on the premises was a fainting female.

“Doesn’t.”

“That’s right. Just stays occasionally.” The first man took down a large, lined ledger. “Being a friend of Mr. Corder.”

“Corder?”

“Who does live here.” He opened the book and offered Polly a pen. “Would you sign, miss, please? For the package.”

Polly found it hard to get a grip on the pen but managed to scrawl something on the page, if not actually on the line. She took the Jiffy bag and her card then, totally disoriented by shock, turned the wrong way, blundered down another corridor and found herself in a large room with lots of comfortable chairs and low tables. There was a bar at the far end and the place was full of people. Mainly men who began staring at her but not in the way she was used to. Polly realised why when she caught sight of herself in a long mirror. Staring, unfocused eyes, a tangled mat of hair, sick all down the front of her shirt. She looked filthy and mad.

Even so, she attempted, when leaving, to walk the walk. Her proud walk to the exit doors and down the steps to the street. But the force field of her confidence had vanished and Polly knew she appeared merely grotesque.

In the street outside, in the baking heat and dust surrounded by surging tourists in souvenir hats, she began to cry. Running dangerously into the road she flagged down several taxis, planning to dodge the fare by jumping out at the lights in Dalston. But though some of the cabs were for hire, none of them stopped. Polly turned, doubling back past the Ministry of Defence, turning towards the Embankment, looking for a cash machine. She found one in the Tube station but it flashed, in bilious green: “Unable To Process This Transaction” and spat out the card.

She had to get home to open her envelope. Quite why was beyond her understanding but she knew that she absolutely must not realise the contents when other people were about. Though muddled and afraid, Polly was quite sure about that. Briefly she played with the idea of finding an abandoned underground ticket to brandish, waiting till the pushchair/heavy luggage gate was busy and slipping through. But then she’d have it all to do again at the other end and might well get stopped. While she hesitated, the decision was taken for her when someone on the staff shouted, “Oy! No beggars.”

Eventually she got home by catching a series of buses, travelling till the conductor came for her fare, then asking for a destination in the wrong direction. Flustered and apologetic she would then get off, catch the bus behind and repeat the procedure. The journey took five changes and lasted over an hour.

Back in the flat Polly prepared to open the package from Billy Slaughter. She had been gripping it so tightly her fingers had stiffened into claws. She sat down on the bed, reading her name, immaculately written in authoritative black script, again and again. Then she squeezed the bag. Tracing an outline of something hard and rectangular, Polly’s breath caught in her throat. The news lately had been all about letter bombs; of certain ministerial departments where explosive experts were permanently on call to handle any suspicious mail. But such items were planted by stealth, surely? Not brazenly couriered by someone unmasked and known by name.

Polly tore the bag open and turned it upside down. A tape fell out wrapped in a sheet of A4. She smoothed out the paper and read:

My Dear Polly,

Remember these things. Rumours as to an upturn in commodities are easily started. Insider dealing is a criminal offence, whether loss or profit results. Computers tell the truth as much and no more than the person operating them. If you thought I bought shares in Gillans and Hart you were sadly deceived. Play the tape. And consider carefully before you ever speak to anyone in such a way again.

BS.

With trembling fingers Polly rammed the cassette into her Walkman. The first words recalled the occasion precisely, even though at the time they were spoken she had been very drunk. She had just begun to grasp how frighteningly deep was the financial pit into which she had fallen. When Billy Slaughter had read out the small print on the agreement she had so casually signed and pointed out her legal obligations Polly had laughed. She thought herself immune from the slightest form of pressure, let alone genuine unkindness or bullying. He was mad about her – everyone knew that. Then slowly, as the net tightened, she had begun to understand how things really were. It was shortly after this that he offered to cancel the debt if she would go away with him “for a few days.”

Polly, consumed by disgust and rage at the thought of being at any man’s mercy, least of all a revolting creature like Billy Slaughter, then made the telephone call to which she was now listening. She had rung him in the middle of a sleepless night encouraged by several glasses of Southern Comfort.

She had assumed he would be there and perhaps he was. Just not picking up the phone. Not giving her the satisfaction. Black hatred coated Polly’s tongue with a dreadful fluency. She dwelled on his appearance—the sweating abundance of his greasy flesh, the graveyard stink of his breath, the ugliness of his thick-lipped, piggy countenance. On the fact that his arse was better-looking than his face and his genitalia were such as to make him a laughing stock wherever two or three women were gathered together in a City wine bar. She described the vile sensation as of crawling maggots when once his hand had brushed her arm. She jeered at his loveless existence. At the pretence that he chose not to have friends when the truth was that to know him was to loathe him. Take away his money and what was left? A noxious heap of stinking blubber, and so on and on and on…

Now she switched off the machine and sat on the bed, shaking. What a fool she had been. What a fool to think the straightforward repayment of a debt could draw the sting from an attack of such venomous ridicule. Of course he would seek revenge. And what a revenge. She had lost her entire inheritance. And more than that, and worse. She had lost money that was not hers to lose.

At this point Polly began to weep in agonised frustration. She howled and wept until she felt physically ill. Then tumbled into wretched sleep, woke for a while before escaping again into the dark. This cycle continued for what she recognised afterwards to be several days. She dreamed of revenge, longing for it in the hopeless, helpless way an abused child will. Drifting in and out of consciousness, picturing the form it might take. You could have people killed for as little as five hundred pounds – she had read that in a Sunday paper. Or, better still, maimed. Shot in the spine, Billy Slaughter could live for years, paralysed in a wheelchair. Better still, he could be blinded or scorched with acid or cut with knives so fiercely that people would shudder and turn away, crossing themselves at the sight of him.

Finally Polly woke, not to fall asleep again. She became aware of a horrible smell in the room, and a great yawning space where her stomach used to be. She walked shakily into the kitchen. There was nothing immediately to eat. Furry grey-green bread, sour milk, no cheese, no fruit. In the fridge a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. Polly wrestled with the urge to smash it into a large gilt mirror over the fireplace. How much worse could her luck be? Instead she switched on the microwave and put in a shepherd’s pie from the freezer. Gobbled it down, burning her lips. Heaved it back up. Took a cloth and hot water to the mess. Shortly after this Debbie came back.

Polly disliked both of her flatmates for quite different reasons. Amanda Fforbes-Snaithe, a parliamentary secretary, for her disgusting allowance and boastful inside knowledge of what she kept calling “the hice.” Deborah Hartogensis for her relentless optimism and common boyfriends. Of the two Polly would rather Amanda had come back first. Though, like lots of very wealthy people, tight as a tick when it came to parting with even a fiver, at least there would be money in her purse. And a mobile that worked. (Debbie refused to use one in case it gave her brain cancer.) But even as she struggled to picture herself talking to her bank, begging them for even a minute increase in her overdraft. Polly, now quite light-headed with hunger and exhaustion, slipped to the bottom of a dark well with no light anywhere.

When she came round it was to realise that her father had somehow materialised. That he was talking to her through the door. Talking gently and lovingly, not knowing she had recently done him an irreparable wrong.

Devastated, Polly blocked her ears. Lay with a pillow over her head. He didn’t go away. The front door slammed. She dragged herself off the bed and peered through the curtains but it was only Debbie, biking off.

Gradually she recognised that Mallory had settled in for the duration. And that, sooner or later, she would have to face him. At least, if it were sooner, there would just be the two of them. Her heart full of dread, Polly made her slow, dragging way through the mess on the carpet. And opened the door.

22

Back once more at the station, the incident room seemed even more busy than when DCI Barnaby and Sergeant Troy had left. Feedback was still coming in from London Underground. And there was news about Ava’s car.

“A Mrs. McNaughton came into reception, sir,” WPC Carter explained. “Parked near Camberley Street at just gone six. She was going to a film with some friends, then they were having dinner at the Hirondelle. Came back around half-ten only to find this red Honda stuck alongside so she couldn’t get out. She was furious. Waited about five minutes and was just about to call us when the owner turned up.”

“Fitting Garret’s description?”

“To a T. Mrs. McNaughton started to let rip but then,” DC Carter applied herself again to the form. “‘I toned it down because I thought she was ill. She looked really bad, swaying about, though she didn’t smell of drink at all. I said could I help her but she just got into the car and drove off.’”

So that was that. One more thing they had pretty well guessed at was now confirmed. But where was the new stuff? Barnaby’s fingers were crossed for luck with the posters of Ava, which should be all over the platform at Uxbridge by now, and inside the carriages. Add this to the exposure on the local TV news and daily papers and surely someone somewhere must have seen her, if only for a moment. Barnaby allowed himself the brief indulgence of a daydream where whoever sat opposite her got off at the same stop. The station was practically deserted. At the entrance someone was waiting to meet her. Yes, as it happened this fellow passenger could describe the man exactly. He even followed them along the road for a while. They went into a restaurant called—

At this point Barnaby had the sense to call a halt. It could happen, of course, though he knew what the odds against it were. He was also beginning to understand what the odds were against finding a motive for the murder of that scrupulously honest, quiet and inoffensive man Dennis Brinkley. Like everything else, it seemed to be in the lap of the gods. And everyone knew what bastards they could be.

A phone shrilled at a nearby desk. A uniformed constable answered, caught Barnaby’s eye and said, “Are you here, sir?”

“Who is it?”

“A Mr. Allibone. He wants to speak to whoever is in charge of the investigation. Says he has some important information.”

“DCI Barnaby.” Barnaby listened. “I see. I’ll send someone…Then it’ll have to be tomorrow, Mr. Allibone…I do indeed…Can’t be too precise as to that I’m afraid…as early as I can. Goodbye.”

“Can’t we go now?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“No. My daughter and her husband are coming round at six o’clock. I haven’t seen them for weeks. If I’m late I’ve been threatened with meatless meals for the next six months. And home-made meatless meals at that.”

“Did it sound promising though, Chief?”

“It sounded extremely promising. Which is why I’m going to put it right out of my mind until the morning.”

The fragrance enveloped Barnaby the moment he stepped into the house. Delicately it wafted, deliciously it filled the hall and stairwell. It was fish, he decided. But not as he knew it.

They were all in the kitchen where the fragrance was slightly stronger but still not strong enough to be called a smell. No one was slaving over a hot stove. Joyce, Cully and Nicolas sat round the table, drinking. They had got through one bottle of Prosecco and were well into the second.

“Come on, Dad,” said Cully. “You’ve got some catching-up to do.”

“Hello, you.” Barnaby, overwhelmed with pleasure at the sight of his only child, sensibly attempted to conceal it. “Nicolas.”

“Tom.”

“Nico’s just done an audition, darling.” Joyce poured out the wine. “For EastEnders.”

Barnaby took his glass, remembering the vows made not so many years ago when Nico was at the National Theatre and Cully at the RSC. No way would either of them ever, ever take a part in a soap. If they were starving they would not do it. And if one showed signs of weakness the other would threaten to leave rather than let them succumb. It puts you in the second rank straightaway, Cully had explained. You don’t see Eileen Atkins or Penelope Wilton or Juliet Stevenson acting in soaps.

“What sort of character is it?”

“A cockney chancer who’s a compulsive gambler and collects old motor bikes but really wants to be a chef.”

“Couldn’t he be into gardening as well?” asked Joyce. “Then, if the character disappeared, you could have your own show on BBC Two.”

“Four shows,” suggested Barnaby.

“It’s going to be bloody tiresome,” sighed Nicolas. “Being recognised wherever I go. Pestered for autographs.”

“He’s gagging for it.” Cully laughed and caught her father’s eye. “I know what we said, Dad. Circumstances change things.”

They had recently bought a three-bedroomed house on the borders of Limehouse and Canning Town after selling a one-bedroomed flat in Ladbroke Grove. The house needed “a lot doing to it.”

“And you can’t do much,” explained Nicolas, “on an Almeida salary.”

“Though we may well transfer,” said Cully. “This new guy is brilliant. Everyone seems to think he’ll do for Blithe Spirit what Stephen Daldry did for An Inspector Calls.”

Joyce, who had gone over to the stove, asked how Madame Arcati was coming along.

“Great. I play my own age, wear Dolce and Gabbana and there’s no crystal ball. It’s all astrophysics on a laptop.”

“Whatever next.”

“Lady Bracknell gets them out for the lads?” suggested Nico.

“Nicolas!” said Joyce.

“Picture Dame Judi—”

“I’d rather not, thank you.”

“D’you think any of these psychics are genuine, Tom?”

“I am a practical man, Nicolas. A policeman. What do you think I think?”

“Garbage, he calls it,” said Joyce, gently nudging the cooking with a wooden spoon.

“Don’t poke!” Cully ran across to the cooker. Then Barnaby went over, and Nicolas too. They all stood looking down at a vast fish kettle containing a pretty vast fish.

“Sea bass with fennel, onion and lemon,” explained Cully. “You’ve turned the gas up, haven’t you?”

“No,” said Joyce.

“I told you. The liquid is just supposed to shiver.”

“Tremble.”

“Shut up, Nico. What do you know?”

“I didn’t turn it up.”

“What are we having as well?” asked Barnaby.

They had wild rice and a salad of green leaves, one or two of which were quite new to him. The salad had a mustardy dressing made with walnut oil and white wine vinegar. Joyce opened a third bottle of Prosecco and amiability was soon restored.

“This is definitely one for the gastrocenti,” said Nicolas. “We might almost be in Camden.”

“Not at these prices,” said Joyce.

“He’s right, though.” Barnaby speared a large chunk of sea bass that almost melted off his fork. “It’s delicious.”

“So what’s happening on the case, Dad?”

“Oh, not work,” cried Joyce.

“Very little, I’m afraid. We’ve found out where Ava left her car the night she died and that’s about it.”

“Have you come across any weird and wonderful specimens for us?”

“With interesting physical quirks.”

“You’re like a pair of cannibals,” said Joyce, “sucking what you want out of people and moving on.”

“What else are we supposed to do?”

“People are an actor’s raw material.”

“It’s not as if they know they’re being used.”

Barnaby was briefly tempted to offer up the Footscrays for his daughter’s delectation. How entertained they would be, Cully and Nicolas. Poor George, into his fifties before he was out of his teens, and his deranged mother now struck Barnaby as more sad than comic. He decided it would be cruel to hold them up as a laughing stock. Even if they’d never know.

“Doesn’t sound as if this Garret woman was much use anyway, Cully,” Joyce was saying. “Your Arcati being so different.”

“True. She was a good character, though. I’ll remember her.”

“And very convincing.”

“Oh, come on, Nico.”

“Look – she described the machine that killed him, what the room was like, the shape of the windows, the colour of the walls…”

“Someone must have told her then.”

Barnaby made a strange gurgling sound at the back of his throat.

“Tom?” Joyce came round the table. “What on earth’s the matter?”

“Sorry…gone down the wrong way.”

“Have some water.”

“Give him some more pop.”

“Thanks. I’ll be OK, darling. Don’t fuss.”

Pudding was clementines stacked in a perfect pyramid on a white china dish. And there were hazelnut and marzipan cookies, which had lumps of dark chocolate in as well.

“The fruit,” said Cully, sweet golden juice trickling from the corner of her exquisite mouth, “is organic.”

“That doesn’t make you immortal,” snapped Joyce. She was getting a bit fed up with suggestions on alternative living. Every time Cully rang there was some crisply delivered lecture. Massaging the back of her neck with ginger (headache); pressing a crystal to the tips of her ears (feeling grumpy); dried chrysanthemum tea (always forgetting where put glasses).

“It’ll be feng shui next.” Joyce began to clear the plates.

“Now that is pretty well proven,” insisted Cully.

“Try it,” suggested Nicolas.

“If you’ll move the piano.” Barnaby started on the biscuits.

“It does feel strange,” said Joyce, “coming for dinner and bringing your own food.”

“We can’t ask you to ours,” said Nicolas. “Nothing’s working.”

“When it’s all fixed,” said Cully, “you can come and stay.”

They went shortly after that. Cully had a rehearsal at ten with an hour of yoga and thirty minutes’ meditation before she left the house. They surrendered the marzipan cookies but took the fish kettle. Barnaby carried it to the car and put it in the boot.

“What on earth do the two of you want with a thing this size?”

“We’re always having people round,” explained Nicolas.

“There were sixteen for supper just before we moved.” Cully kissed her parents. “See you at the first night if I don’t before.”

Back inside, Joyce began to load the dishwasher. Barnaby thought about the fish kettle and the sixteen for supper. He pictured the kitchen in their new house full of theatricals. Laughing, drinking, gossiping. Tucking in. And felt a bleak sense of exclusion from his daughter’s life, which was ridiculous because barely five minutes earlier he had been sitting with her at his own table laughing, drinking, gossiping. Tucking in.

“Some people are never satisfied.”

“What are you muttering about?”

“Oh…” He stumbled through a rough approximation of his smarting thoughts.

“Really, Tom.” She came to him: slid her arms around his waist. “How often did we invite your parents round to meet our friends?”

“That was different.”

“No, it wasn’t. Anyway – remember when Cully asked us to a party after The Crucible closed?”

“No.”

“You said you’d never met such a load of posturing ninnies.”

“Oh, that party.”

“They’ve asked us to go and stay, Tom. Think about it.”

“Mmm.”

“But until that happy day,” she kissed him, “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“You’ll have to do then,” said Barnaby. And kissed her fondly back.

It was past seven o’clock before Mallory returned to Appleby House. By this time Kate had been through every emotion of which she was capable and quite a few she hadn’t known existed.

The anger that had driven her out into the forecourt yelling after Mallory as the car zoomed away drove her back into house and straight to the telephone. She dialled Polly’s number because, of course, this was to do with their daughter. Nothing else would have sent him haring off in such fear and anguish. Yes, fear. Kate had seen it on his face. Still he could have said something, she wailed, but silently, her throat already sore from screaming after him. The phone rang and rang and rang and rang. Eventually Kate hung up.

Neither herself nor Mallory had the number of Polly’s mobile. She had refused to give it, saying it would make her feel like some juvenile delinquent being tagged and kept track of. The one thing Kate knew she definitely must not do was ring Mallory on the car phone. He had left the house at an alarming speed. She tried not to think what he could be doing on the motorway.

So began the long wait that proved to be almost six hours. Kate spent quite a long time picking and tearing at various cushions. Then emptying the linen cupboard, folding and re-folding all the sheets and towels and pillowcases and putting them carefully back. Reading was out of the question. Television seemed occupied only by fools cackling with laughter and applauding themselves and each other. Gardening, which might have soothed, was not an option. Benny would almost certainly have come out to help and Kate would not have been able to conceal her misery and despair.

As the time dragged by she began to feel nauseous with an even deeper apprehension. Because whatever had happened to Polly was now beginning to seem like her, Kate’s, fault. If only she had encouraged Mallory to visit the flat the night before their move. And why had she accepted without question Benny’s suggestion that Polly had gone to Crete? She had never gone on holiday without letting them know before. To be honest, thought Kate with some shame, I was relieved. I was happy at the thought that we would have a couple of weeks on our own. And all the while…

By the time the car turned into the gates Kate was almost hysterical. She had to force herself not to run outside but stood in the kitchen forcefully drying some already bone-dry cups and plates. As the front door opened she heard voices. He had brought her back.

Polly was alive. She had not died of some rogue virus or electrocuted herself or been run over, or killed during a break-in or by a jealous lover or a madman on the loose. She was all right. Kate took several deep and careful breaths, then, still dizzy with relief, stepped out into the hall.

Mallory was standing with his back to her, holding Polly. Kate’s welcoming smile, half formed, now froze. She was too appalled to speak.

Polly, swaying on her feet, looked like a ghost. Her face was without colour but for the deep bruising around her eyes. Her hair, her lovely thick shining hair, hung down like a tangle of greasy string. Her clothes were unclean. She was crying, tears splashing on the floor at her feet.

Kate moved forward without hesitation. She couldn’t help it. The armour developed against years of rejection, the training of herself not to care, the determined cultivation of indifference to slight and insult dropped clean away.

Polly turned from Mallory and, in a single blind movement, fell into her mother’s arms. Kate held her gently for a moment then murmured, “Come along, darling…come and rest.”

Slowly they stumbled upstairs. Polly’s head resting awkwardly against her mother’s breast; Kate with an arm around Polly’s shoulder. She led Polly into the bedroom and found her a clean nightdress. Undressed her like a little girl, sponged her face with warm water, helped her into bed.

Late evening sunshine, faintly tinged with red, spread over the coverlet, shedding warmth on Polly’s deathly countenance. Kate thought the golden light beautiful but when Polly started to turn her head to and fro to keep it from her eyes she drew the curtain a little.

Then she sat by the side of the bed, holding Polly’s hand until she fell asleep. Gradually Kate became aware that, stronger than the feelings of fear and anxiety about Polly’s wellbeing, stronger even than curiosity as to what had brought her to this terrible pass, was a slow pervasion of happiness. Polly had turned to her. She had been needed. She had held her child in her arms. In these arms, thought Kate, touching them almost in disbelief. And so she sat on as one hour flowed into the next. In the moonlight and starlight she sat, surprised by joy.

23

Knowing the chief’s first appointment that day was with the fishmonger in Causton, Detective Sergeant Troy was surprised, on picking him up at eight thirty in the station forecourt, to be told to drive to Forbes Abbot. Lucky with the traffic, it took him barely fifteen minutes.

The village was looking good, warming up in what looked like the beginnings of a beautiful day. Troy thought, as he often did, that he’d like to move out of his cramped terraced house in the seedy part of Causton to a place like this. Never, ever would that come about. The prices here were astronomic. And you couldn’t blame weekenders for pushing them up. This was commuters’ territory.

“Property, Chief – eh?”

“What?”

“It’s a madhouse.”

“Yes. I wouldn’t like to be starting out now.”

Troy knew he should be grateful that he was not starting out. Nine years ago he and Maureen had scraped and saved for a ten per cent deposit on their present house, seeing it as the first step on the property ladder. Three years later they had Talisa Leanne, Maureen gave up full-time work and their dreams of moving were over. Now there was no way Troy could have afforded even a dog kennel in the town where he was born.

“I should park close to the wall,” suggested Barnaby as they turned into the drive of Appleby House. “They might need to take the Golf out.”

“I did actually plan to do that, sir.”

“Good for you.”

“This is Croydon.” Benny had come to her door, holding a magnificent tortoiseshell. She put it carefully down on the veranda. “He was Carey’s cat but he’s mine now. Shoo, Croydon. Go and play.” The cat sat down, yawned and began to wash itself.

“Has anything happened?” asked Benny eagerly, when they were once more in her little sitting room. “Have you made an arrest?”

“I need to ask you some questions, Miss Frayle.” Barnaby lifted his hand in a negative gesture towards Sergeant Troy, about to produce his notebook.

“Will it take long?” asked Benny. “I’m having coffee with Doris…Mrs. Crudge, at eleven.”

“That depends on how frank you are with us.”

“I don’t lie.” Benny sat down quite suddenly. “I answered all your questions the other day.”

“Not quite accurately, I’m afraid.”

“Oh I’m sure I…What…what do you mean?”

“I asked you if you saw the medium Ava Garret in church at all. And, as I remember it, you said you were not very good at putting names to faces.”

“That’s true.”

“True may be, but also misleading. Because you had a meeting with her, Miss Frayle. You gave her some money and she did you a service. Would you like to tell us about that service or shall I?”

Benny’s heart beat faster and faster. She tried to speak but her voice was thick and jumbled and the words made no sense.

Barnaby continued: “When Ava Garret pretended that Dennis Brinkley had ‘come through,’ as I believe it’s called, she described very precisely the room in which he died. The white walls, the windows, the machine which killed him. She even knew the colour of the clothes he was wearing—”

“She was a medium,” cried Benny.

“She was a liar!”

Benny gave a little yelp and shrank back in her chair. Troy winced. It was like watching a kicked puppy. He had more sense than to intervene but then, mere moments later, her attitude changed. She seemed to rally becoming at once tearful and belligerent.

“It’s all your fault!”

“What?”

“I asked you – I begged you to investigate Dennis’s death. If only you’d listened instead of writing that horrible letter none of this need have happened.”

“At the time there—”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Benny still didn’t look directly at Barnaby. “What would you have done?”

“How much money was involved?”

“A thousand pounds. Five hundred before the Sunday service and five afterwards.”

“Did you pay it all?”

“No. She gave me a week to raise the second instalment but died three days after the service.”

“And if she hadn’t?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What was she going to say the following Sunday? When the murderer is supposed to finally reveal himself.”

“We were rather hoping to genuinely hear from Dennis before then.”

The chief inspector paused, sighed and rested his forehead in the palm of one hand. Rodin’s Thinker without the muscles.

“Did anyone else know of this arrangement?”

“Neither of us would have wanted that.” Her admission over, Benny straightened up, looking relieved and much less intimidated. “It all seemed to work out very well.”

“Doubt if Mrs. Garret would agree with you,” murmured Troy.

“Oh, well,” said Benny, in quite an airy voice. She lifted and lowered her shoulders in a casual sort of way.

Any minute now, thought Barnaby, we’ll be into omelettes and breaking eggs. Having got what he came for he felt annoyed and dissatisfied being forced to recognise that, far from being a piece of the main puzzle, this new revelation belonged nowhere. It moved nothing forwards. It shed very little light on what had gone before. It was as dead as the proverbial parrot.

“How d’you get on to that then, Chief?” asked Sergeant Troy, squeezing the car between a new Land Rover and a B reg. Metro van on Causton market square.

“Something my daughter said last night. I realised that if Garret wasn’t genuine someone must have fed her all those details about the death scene.”

“And Benny Frayle was the only one with any reason.”

“Exactly,” said the DCI.

Mr. Allibone, Fishmonger, was just opening up. His spotless green and white awning was unrolled and the man himself, boater tipped against the brilliant sun, was standing in the doorway.

“Chief Inspector? Good day to you.”

“Mr. Allibone. This is Detective Sergeant Troy.”

A youth was filleting herrings inside the shop, sliding the guts into a slop bucket, scraping the glittering scales. Ice was everywhere. Blocks of it in the window and piles of it, crushed, between the fish themselves.

Mr. Allibone proudly pointed out the lack of smell.

“You don’t get any with really fresh produce. Him, for instance.” He pointed out a large, handsome crab. “Couple of hours ago he was saying goodbye to the wife and nippers.”

Troy felt rather sad at this and was glad he didn’t like shellfish. He’d been persuaded to try an oyster once. Like swallowing frozen snot. Stepping carefully over a stout, rather pungent old dog, he followed the chief and Mr. Allibone up some narrow, richly Axminstered stairs and into a room crammed with old-fashioned furniture. A large vase of chysanthemums released a bitter smell.

“My lady wife,” said Mr. Allibone. “Alicia – say how-de-do to the CID.”

Mrs. Allibone blinked shyly and smiled. She looked a little like a sea creature herself. Her hair, a cap of shiny orange red was cut close to her head in overlapping little scallops. Her small pink mouth pushed forwards into a pout of welcome. Troy decided she looked like a rather pretty goldfish.

“A little something, gentlemen?” She had the sort of voice that wore net gloves. A table nearby was laid with a silver coffee pot, milk jug and willow-pattern cups and saucers. Various luscious eatables had been carefully arranged on embroidered doilies.

“A bit too soon after breakfast for me,” declined Barnaby.

“I’ll have some,” said Troy.

Mrs. Allibone poured the drinks and added hot milk. She nudged one of the doilies murmuring: “Sweetmeats?” Then, extending her little finger, began to sip her coffee.

“I believe you have some information for me, Mr. Allibone?”

Mr. Allibone responded by taking Barnaby’s arm and leading him to a large three-sided bay window at the far end of the room. Each section had a padded window seat on one of which was a pair of binoculars, almost concealed by the folds of a heavy plush curtain.

“It is my habit,” announced Mr. Allibone, “to occasionally glance out of this window.”

“Understandable,” said Barnaby. There was a splendid view of the market place. “All human life seems to be down there.”

“Exactly. A neverending panoply.” Reaching carelessly behind him Mr. Allibone twitched at the plush curtain. “And this is how I came to observe what I later decided to entitle The Mystery of the Brass Snake Lamp.”

“Troy?” snapped the chief inspector.

Sergeant Troy, cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s, hurriedly wiped his sticky fingers on a napkin and reached for his notebook. He wrote down, quickly and carefully, a mass of details about lights mysteriously going on and off. Utterly irrelevant as any fool could see, but his was not to reason why.

“My motto,” Mr. Allibone was saying, “as anyone who knows me will confirm, is, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, say nothing. Correct, Alicia?”

Mrs. Allibone, also packing in the sweetmeats, nodded and waved. Troy noticed she extended her little finger even when she was only chewing. Maybe she had arthritis.

“But I’m convinced that when poor Mr. Brinkley told me those lights were on a time switch he was telling a porkie.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Ahh…that’s the mystery.”

“Well, that’s very interesting, Mr. Allibone. And we’ll certainly—”

“Oh, that’s just the horse’s doovers, Chief Inspector. Wait till you get your ontray.”

Barnaby settled himself on one of the window seats. Troy’s pen ran out. He dug out a reserve and stared interestedly round the room. So much furniture you could hardly breathe. There was a mantel over the carved fireplace with lots of little mirrors. Bouquets of pale stone flowers under glass domes. Hundreds of ornaments in glass cabinets and even a stuffed pike. Talk about bringing your work home.

“We’re Victorians at heart,” whispered Alicia Allibone. She picked up a framed photograph. It showed herself wearing a crinoline and her husband in frock coat and stovepipe hat, struggling to board a stagecoach. “Eatanswill Club’s annual outing.”

As Barnaby sat, absorbing Mr. Allibone’s further revelations, he felt his scalp begin to tighten. The information was purely circumstantial and might prove to have nothing to do with Brinkley’s murder but it was extremely interesting.

“So at around ten p.m. you saw her get out of the taxi—”

“Cox’s MiniCabs to be accurate.”

“But how do you know she went into Brinkley and Latham’s? There are flats—”

“The street door opened and closed. Couple of minutes later their office light was switched on.”

“You wouldn’t have the actual time and date?”

“I certainly would. It was the day Neptune had his abscess lanced. Alicia – the appointments diary, if you will.”

“Neptune?” Troy looked round.

“Our dog,” whispered Mrs. Allibone. “He lives in the hall now. Being inclined to let fly.” She pronounced it “lit flay.” “It was Monday the twenty-third, Brian.”

“But that isn’t the half of it, Chief Inspector.”

“Isn’t it?” replied Barnaby.

“Believe me or believe me not, Mr. Brinkley himself was around when this strange incident occurred.”

“Really? Where?”

“He was actually sitting in his posh motor in the square. Up the far end, close to the Magpie. Almost as if he was expecting something to happen.”

A finger of doubt touched the chief inspector. They seemed to be moving into fantasy land. Everything he had heard about Brinkley mitigated against him being the sort of person who would be loafing around outside a pub late at night spying on his own office. It just didn’t hang together. Unless…

“How did she get in, this girl?”

“Had a key.” As if sensing a reduction of confidence in his performance Mr. Allibone leaped into fervid description. “Beautiful she was. Dark curly hair, lovely legs. Slim but plenty of…” He cupped his hands as if weighing ripe melons.

Yes, he was making it up. For who could observe someone in such detail when they were a good twenty yards away and it was dark? Disappointment pricked Barnaby into a sharp response.

“You must have cat’s eyes, Mr. Allibone. Or X-ray vision.”

“Pardon? Oh—no. I’d seen her before.”

“What?”

“A week or so earlier. I was just selecting some mackerel – for Lady Blaise-Reynard actually – when I happened to glance up and there she was. This same person storming out of that same building. She flung herself down on Reuben’s steps.” He nodded towards the statue. “And was she in a paddy! Kicking her feet about. And her face…” He leaned close to Barnaby who had to force himself not to lean back. The fishmonger was sweating heavily. Licking his chops over furtive visions of long legs and young breasts and curly hair.

“Full of fire. Pure hatred. If you’re looking for someone capable of murder, Inspector, all you’ve got to do is find that girl.”

Sergeant Troy took a deep breath of carbon monoxide from the queue of cars at the traffic lights. It was deeply refreshing after being shut in the Allibones’ sitting room for nearly an hour. The acrid smell of chrysanths mingling with the knockout perfume from a bowl of fruit so ripe it had practically liquified had made him feel quite queasy. Then, as they reached the sleeping dog at the foot of the stairs, Neptune’s bottom had backfired. This strenuous, intensely sulphurous explosion was so powerful it all but bowled them into the High Street. Here Troy started to complain that Alicia’s date and toffee flapjack (which she had called “marchpane”), now firmly glued to the roof of his mouth, had been far too sweet.

“Didn’t stop you packing it in,” grumbled Barnaby. His envy when observing his sergeant’s constant guzzling of highly calorific food was matched only by his resentment as Troy continued never to gain an ounce. Joyce had tried to cheer her husband up by saying that Gavin was cruising for a bruising by which she meant an unheralded heart attack or stroke. But though Barnaby had waited patiently for now almost fourteen years, neither had yet had the decency to show themselves.

When they reached the car he said, “Check out the Magpie, would you? See if anyone remembers seeing Brinkley or the Lexus around here the night before he died.”

“Shouldn’t I do that later – when we’ve got a piccy?”

“We’re on the spot. It’s worth a try.” Barnaby picked up his car phone, dialled the incident room and got DS Brierly.

“Audrey, can you get someone out to Cox’s MiniCabs? A fare, a young woman, was dropped outside the NatWest bank around ten p.m. Monday, the twenty-third of last month…That’s right. Dig up what you can.”

Some minutes later Sergeant Troy returned, positively burnished with satisfaction. He climbed into the car, beaming. “Got a result, Guv.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Talked to the barman. Same guy who was on that Monday night. He says Brinkley came in, ordered a drink, then sat by the window, hiding behind a paper, at the same time keeping an eye on the street. This bloke asked him if he was doing a spot of surveillance and Brinkley tipped him the wink and gave him ten quid to keep shtum.”

“How did the barman know who it was?”

“He didn’t then. But there was a photo in the Echo the day after the inquest. If Brinkley was expecting the girl Allibone spotted,” continued Sergeant Troy, “she could have been a legitimate client.”

“Some client,” murmured Barnaby, “with the keys to the office in her pocket.”

When the two policemen visited Brinkley and Latham for the second time Gail Fuller, leading them into the main section, whispered over her shoulder, “We’ve got the full complement today.” Then, jerking her head in the direction of the rear cubbyhole: “Put the flags out.”

Barnaby, looking, saw Andrew Latham looking right back. He got up and, before Leo Fortune had even had time to greet the two policemen, contrived to join them, explaining that as the firm’s senior partner he felt he should be present.

Leo said sharply, “This might be personal, for all you know.”

“But it isn’t, is it, Chief Inspector?”

“We’re here to continue our inquiries into Mr. Brinkley’s death.”

“Get on with it then,” said Latham. “Time’s money.”

Fortune gave an ironic laugh then, having started, couldn’t stop. Finally he managed to say, “Sorry about that. Are you telling us things today, Chief Inspector? Or asking us things?”

“Bit of both really, sir. What can you tell me about this business of the lights going on after—”

“Oh, no!” cried Latham, making a dramatic gesture of cowering horror. “Not the lights!”

“Please, Mr. Latham. If you’ve anything to contribute just tell us. We don’t have time to mess about.”

“A few weeks ago that nosy old scroat over the road told Brinkley what presumably he’s been telling you. And instead of telling him to mind his own business Dennis started worrying himself silly. He even had the cheek to ask if I knew anything about it.”

“And did you, sir?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“I was getting rat-arsed at a Lions Club dinner the first time it was supposed to have happened.”

“And the second?” enquired Barnaby.

“At the theatre. Mamma Mia.”

“That good, was it?”

“And before you ask,” continued Latham, “there were three witnesses—”

“But those were just the occasions Allibone noticed,” interrupted Leo. “We don’t know about the ones he missed.”

Barnaby, remembering the glasses, thought he probably hadn’t missed much. “How many of the staff had keys?”

“Just me and Dennis,” said Latham.

“What about spares?”

“Dennis had some. I didn’t.”

“Surely the building has a back entrance?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“Yes, but you can’t get through to here. There’s an internal wall.”

“Did Brinkley discuss this matter with you, Mr. Fortune?”

“Of course. We decided to get the locks changed as soon as possible. Turned out to be the following Wednesday.”

“The day after he died?”

“That’s right, I still got the work done.”

“Leo felt it was what he would have wanted.” Latham’s words were rich with syrupy admiration so plainly false that Fortune flushed angrily.

“And who has the new keys?”

“Both of us,” said Leo. Remembering Dennis had not wanted his partner to have them had made handing the keys over quite upsetting.

“What has all this to do with the so-called murder, anyway?”

“You don’t think he was deliberately killed, Mr. Latham?”

“Of course he wasn’t. One of those bloody machines fell on him. As for the phantom switch-thrower – I’d say he was a figment of Allibone’s overheated imagination.”

“Not at all. In fact the person was actually seen going in and out of the building.”

“And it’s a she,” said Sergeant Troy.

Leo Fortune looked absolutely stunned.

Latham said, “This is the most exciting day of my life.”

“Which is mainly why we’re here.” And Barnaby explained.

“Allibone saw this person in the daytime?”

Fortune was frankly disbelieving until Barnaby repeated Brian Allibone’s description, concluding with the angry flight across the market square.

“Oh – I know who you mean now. Her name’s Polly Lawson. The family are heirs to Carey Lawson’s estate. She was Dennis’s client for many years.”

“And now the Lawsons are yours?”

“Only by default. They may already have a financial advisor for all—”

“Mr. Latham!” cried Sergeant Troy. He had dropped his notebook and now sprang to his feet. “Are you all right?”

“I’m sorry…” Latham looked ghastly. He was supporting himself against the doorframe. “I have…have these attacks…sometimes. I just need to…”

“I’ll get some water.” Leo Fortune pushed back his chair.

“No, no. It’s…er…so close…some air…I’ll be…” He stumbled from the room.

Fortune rapped on the glass, did an urgent help-that-man mime and saw one of the women approach Latham, who angrily waved her away.

“That happen before, Mr. Fortune?” asked Barnaby.

“It’s a new one on me.”

As Troy sorted out his notebook the chief inspector watched Andrew Latham collect his briefcase and a jacket. A moment later the door of the outer office slammed shut.

“So, back to Polly Lawson. Could you tell me what this visit to Mr. Brinkley was about?”

“I’m afraid he didn’t confide in me. And even if I knew…well, as I’m sure you appreciate, any client’s business would be strictly confidential.”

“In a murder inquiry I’m afraid confidentiality goes by the board. Have you knowledge of the relevant accounts?”

“No. I’ve hardly looked at Dennis’s files. Been too busy working with Steve Cartwright, who’s taking over my own. I presume the girl’s parents are ignorant of all this?”

“As far as we know.”

“Mallory will be so upset.”

“Who?” Barnaby frowned in recollection.

“Appleby House, sir,” offered Troy.

Of course, Appleby House. Where Dennis Brinkley was going for dinner on the night he died. Where Benny Frayle lived, who found his body. And Mallory Lawson who spent time with that body before the police arrived and cleared away what might well have been evidence, and burned the shoes he was wearing.

Was this the connecting thread, wondered Barnaby, that would lead him out of the dark labyrinth of motiveless muddle and into order and clear comprehension? If not the thread, it was at least a thread.

“Do you know if the girl lives with her parents?”

“I believe she has a place in London. Dennis said she was at the LSE.”

“Right. Talk to your staff about all this, Mr. Fortune. See if there’s any feedback. It might also be wise to check out other accounts. But I especially wish to be informed as to the state of the Lawsons’ finances.” He handed over a card. “This is my direct line. Let me know the result, even if there’s nothing untoward.”

“It may be a few days—”

“By six this evening will do nicely.”

24

When Polly woke she immediately prayed for a magical withdrawal into unconsciousness. That was all she wanted and she wanted it to last for ever. Or at least for several years. Pain fretted her nerves. Her skin scalded as if she had fallen asleep beneath a blazing sun. Muscles and sinews ached. She felt permanently nauseous.

Bright daylight poured into the room through a gap in the curtains. She dragged herself off the bed to close them, covering her eyes with her hand. Outside the birds’ sweet singing hurt her ears. Looking round, she realised she was in her parents’ bedroom. Where had they slept? How soon would they come to see how she was? Though the house was silent she felt the crushing weight of their concern pressing against the walls and the solid door. Imagined them downstairs, worried and fearful, speaking very quietly so as not to disturb her.

Polly could recall little about her homecoming. She remembered feeling strangely remote, as if her personality had somehow absented itself. She remembered being helped upstairs. And that was about it. What wouldn’t she give to feel remote now.

There was a soft knock on the door. Even as she was tempted to ignore it and pretend to be still asleep Polly heard herself murmuring, “Hello.” Still dazed she tried to stand when her mother entered, only to feel her legs giving way.

“I’ve brought you some tea, love. Don’t feel you have to get up.”

“No – it’s OK.” A quick glance at her mother’s face and Polly had to look away. Kate looked older. The brightness in her voice sounded forced and shaky.

“Would you like a bath?”

“Yes,” said Polly. “Thank you.” It would delay meeting the two of them together. How strange it was, and sad, that her father should be the person she most dreaded to face. She loved her mother (another jolting recognition) but the attitude of clear-eyed pragmatism with which Kate had always faced the world meant she would be the less deceived.

“I’ll put some of my lemon verbena in. And get you something to wear.”

Polly sat for a while, then took her tea into the bathroom. She curled up in a basket chair, watching the water gush from huge brass taps into an enamelled bath. They were very stiff to turn off. The bath rested on metal feet gone green with age. She climbed in carefully, lay down, surrounded by acres of space, and stared down at her body.

How thin she was. Her thumb and little finger encircled her wrist with ease, like a loose bracelet. Polly closed her eyes and drifted, moving her arms and legs languidly, making soft splashy sounds. Then she took a deep breath and slid under the perfumed water. Sealed off from sight and sound, she rested. You could hardly call it a breathing space but the effect was the same. The world and all her troubles seemed to float away. She could have been at the bottom of the ocean. But very quickly the troubles floated back.

Just now her mother had looked sick with worry. Yesterday Mallory had been frantic with concern. But neither had shown a trace of the devastating rage and condemnation that had possessed them in Polly’s nightmares. The only conclusion must be that they didn’t yet know about the missing money. Did this mean that Dennis knew but hadn’t told them?

Polly could quite believe that. He would remember her visit. Recall how desperate she had been to get her hands on the legacy and probably guess at the truth. He would try to talk to her first because he was a decent and kindly man whom she had despised as old and stuffy. Oh, why hadn’t she taken the chance to tell him—

A terrified shriek made her sit bolt upright. Her mother stood in the doorway, her arms full of clothes. They stared at each other. Polly, water streaming from her hair, shocked and amazed. Kate, pale as death, horrified. They both spoke at once.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“I’m all right. Really.”

“So stupid. Sorry. I thought.”

“It’s OK.”

“You looked…Ophelia.”

“I wasn’t.”

“No, sorry. This striped frock. All that I—”

“It’s fine. Thank you.”

“I’ll just put it. There’s some underwear.”

When her mother had almost run away Polly got out and dried herself carefully. She put on clean pants and a slip but not the bra, which was much too large. The dress was pink and white and also too large, but that didn’t matter.

Polly took a long while to do all this. A long while using her mother’s toothbrush. She pinned her soaking hair up into some sort of knot without looking into the glass and went downstairs, barefoot.

She had been picturing her parents sitting together, waiting. Trying not to look as if they were waiting. An awkwardness would prevail. It would not be the right time to tell them what she had done. But then, when would be?

Kate was alone in the kitchen, arranging sunflowers in an earthenware jug. She turned and smiled as Polly came in. It was hard to hold the smile. Sleep had done nothing to fade the dark shadows around Polly’s eyes. She looked lost in the baggy dress, which hung forward revealing her collarbones, sticking out like little wings.

“You must be ready for breakfast.” It was almost twelve o’clock. “Or would you rather wait and have some soup?”

“Where’s Dad?”

“In the garden with Benny. Watering stuff. Picking beans for lunch.”

“Right.” She had forgotten about Benny. No way could she confess to her parents with someone else present.

“I’ve just made coffee. Or would you rather have juice?”

“Coffee’s fine, Mum.”

Kate lifted the percolator from the Aga, her hand shaking slightly. It was years since she had been called “Mum.” As a young teenager Polly had gone through a phase of calling her “Kate” and, once that stopped, nothing.

“Some toast?”

“Later, maybe.” The fact was that Polly, who had not eaten for days, had got to the dangerous stage of no longer feeling hungry. And in any case, until the truth was out of her mouth and into the open she knew she would be unable to swallow. She felt her throat closing up just thinking about it. How she would choke on the ugly words. How they would turn the sweet air foul.

“Hello, darling.” Mallory came in, carrying bunches of herbs and a lettuce as well as the beans. He moved in a dull, heavy way but smiled, attempting lightness. “How are you now, then?”

Somehow Polly smiled back. Like her mother, he had aged. And if they’re like this, thought Polly, just because I disappeared for a bit and got ill, what are they going to be like when they find out that I have stolen, gambled and lost money on the strength of insider information and am a criminal twice over? She couldn’t tell them. She simply couldn’t. But what then?

Polly considered the possible consequences of keeping silent. What could anyone prove? Her visits to Brinkley and Latham had been carried out at night. And if she had been noticed no one knew who she was. Perhaps she could go back and put things right. Take money from another account and somehow put it into her parents’. She still had the office keys. Here Polly’s mind slipped its moorings and whirled into faster and ever wilder imaginings. Kate watched her with increasing concern.

Mallory, his back to them both, washing lettuce at the sink, saw a car draw up outside the house and groaned aloud, “Ohhhh no. Not again.”

Within half an hour of Barnaby’s visit to Brinkley and Latham’s offices, the driver from Cox’s MiniCabs, a Mr. Fred Carboy, had been traced and had been persuaded, with some difficulty, to help the police with their inquiries confirming Mr. Allibone’s revelations.

Driving over to Forbes Abbot for the second time that day, Sergeant Troy sneaked a sideways glance at the boss and decided that all these little revelations were doing him the world of good. Look how he sat. Upright, leaning forward a little, fingertips drumming lightly on his knees. Couldn’t wait to get there.

“I’ve been thinking, Chief. Two things, actually.”

“Run them by me, Gavin. I’m feeling lucky today.”

“First the cleaner—the link there being she worked for the Lawsons and Brinkley. She had keys both to his house and the office. And also, it was down to her Benny Frayle met Ava Garret.”

Tell us something we don’t know, thought Barnaby. But he was feeling charitable so said simply, “What’s the other?”

“Remember Brinkley had something on his mind and wanted to talk to Lawson about it?”

“But died before he could.”

“We’ve only got Lawson’s word for that.”

“Carry on,” said the DCI.

“What if they did talk and it was about all this? We know Brinkley saw Polly Lawson go in. Saw it was his office where the light went on. Wouldn’t he check the accounts to see what she’d been up to? Anybody else – it would’ve been straight through to us and an arrest.”

“But because of their friendship—”

“Going back over thirty years.”

“He’d try and sort it out with her dad.”

“Who killed him to protect the girl.”

Barnaby leaned back now, relaxing. “Yes, I think all that’s certainly within the realms of possibility, Sergeant.”

Troy, lifting a leg so pleased was he with this encouragement, took second with a swanky flourish. “Which means no way are they going to hand over her London address.”

“We can get that through the LSE.”

Mallory Lawson was peering through a window as they got out of the car. He looked vexed and resentful but, alas for Troy’s imaginings, not at all apprehensive. He turned on both men with little ceremony.

“I don’t wish to be rude, Inspector—”

“I’m glad to hear it, sir.”

“But we do have a houseful of unpacking here. I answered all your questions during our first interview. I’ve nothing further to add—”

“But I have something to add, Mr. Lawson.”

Troy was gazing at a wreck of a girl slumped in a chair. Could this be the one Brian Allibone had described as “absolutely beautiful with dark curly hair and lovely legs”? The girl full of fire and capable of murder?

She looked anorexic to him, all skin and bone. Her hair, piled up any-old-how, had started to fall down in black ratty tails. The eyes had a bluish bruised appearance, even her lips were violet-stained. The chief was addressing her but she didn’t seem to take it in so he tried again.

“Are you Polly Lawson?”

When she still didn’t reply her father said: “Poll?”

“Yes.” Spoken on the breath. No more than a sigh.

“I have to ask you to come with us to Causton police station, Miss Lawson, where we shall put certain questions to you. If you would like a solicitor present—”

“What is this? What the hell is this?” Mallory Lawson, astounded, glared at the two policemen. “Are you mad?” His face became suffused with blood. Even his neck seemed to swell. “Get out…get out.”

“Mallory, for heaven’s sake.” Kate took his hand, his arm. “Please, darling, calm yourself. There’s obviously been some dreadful mistake.”

“Mistake…yes.” He was swaying like a tall tree. “Christ…”

“I should sit down, Mr. Lawson,” said Barnaby.

Yeah, sit down mate, thought Sergeant Troy, before you fall down. He’d been watching the girl through all this, trying to make her out. There she crouched, barefoot, huddled in that stripy tent thing like some pathetic refugee. But what was she thinking? Could her seeming indifference as to what was going on be genuine? Or was it a cover for fear? Maybe she was just too shagged to give a toss. Looking at her you could well believe it. Her mother had brought in a pair of sandals.

“Try these on, darling.”

The girl looked up then and smiled. Or tried to. And Troy saw, just for one bright moment, what they’d all been on about.

“And you’ll want a coat.” Kate realised too late what the words implied. It was hot or at least very warm now till late at night. “Well, maybe a cardigan.”

“We must be leaving,” said Barnaby.

“I’ll go in the car with you,” said Kate, kissing Polly. “Dad can follow with the Golf. So there’ll be something to bring us home.”

They all fetched up in a waiting room off reception. Setting up the interview proved deeply problematical. The Lawsons’ family solicitor was on holiday and the next most senior member of the firm was in court. The solicitor on call at the station was roundly insulted, fortunately in her absence, by Mallory Lawson, whose wife argued for reason.

“Everyone knows the sort of characters who do this job. Incompetent, unsavoury, shiftless—people who can’t get work anywhere else.”

“I’m sure that’s not true—”

“Of course it’s true. You think the police want crack lawyers sitting in on these interviews?”

“Mr. Lawson—”

“Or they’re warped. Get their kicks out of mixing with criminals.”

“I must ask you—”

“Well, my daughter’s not a criminal!”

“If you’re so concerned about your daughter why put her through all this?”

“Me?”

“The interview would have been well under way by now, perhaps concluded, if it weren’t for your obstructive behaviour.”

Here we go. Sergeant Troy, aware of what was coming, felt his skin prickle. It wasn’t often they were treated to the awesome spectacle of the chief losing his temper. Observing the intent cold gaze, sensing the rising anger, Troy stepped sideways.

Even then the explosion might have been averted if Lawson had shrugged and resigned himself. Sat down and shut up. But no – blind to the incipient whirlwind, he blundered on.

“And I demand to sit with my daughter throughout—”

“You demand? Mr. Lawson, you are in no position to demand anything. I am in charge of this situation and I will tell you this: any further trouble and I will have you for obstructing a police inquiry. Should it be my humour I can hold you here until you come before a magistrate. And I shall not hesitate to do so.

“If you and your wife insist, on Miss Lawson’s behalf, that your own solicitor is present at her interview that is your prerogative. But if you think she will be returning home with you until he is available you are very much mistaken. She will be detained here for however long it takes. Do I make myself clear?”

You could say he had, decided Troy. In fact, you could pretty much count on it. All the clattering keyboards and murmuring voices in reception had become silent under the need to give full attention to the power and volume of the chief’s address.

Troy answered the telephone, listened, then said, “Jenny Dudley’s arrived, sir. Interview room three.”

“Miss Lawson?”

Kate, who had an arm round Polly, removed it and gripped her hand. Mallory, riven with doubt and fear, got up, then quickly sat down again. Kate started to cry. Barnaby had no patience with such emotional incontinence. Anyone’d think their daughter was going to the scaffold.

Polly didn’t know how they’d found out. She didn’t care. The discovery was all of a piece, somehow. Almost to be expected. Seduced by pride in her own cleverness and dazed by greed, she had flown too near the sun. And yet, even in the depths of mortification and misery a tiny shred of self-preservation still remained. So when during their brief private interview the solicitor advised her of her rights, including the right to remain silent, she decided to do just that. Guilty she may be but there was no need to hand herself over trussed up like an oven-ready chicken. So, when the older of the two policemen asked if she knew why she was there Polly said nothing.

Then the young one went through his notebook quoting dates. Stating that she had been seen entering the office premises of Brinkley and Latham on two separate occasions when said premises were closed. In both instances a witness was prepared to identify her and give evidence. As was the minicab driver who brought her from Chorleywood to Causton market place.

Then they wanted to know where she had got the keys, why she had entered first the building then Dennis Brinkley’s office especially. What was she looking for? What did she hope to accomplish?

Polly tried to work out what was going on. Where Dennis came into all this. Who was this “witness” prepared to give evidence? Surely not Dennis himself. He just wouldn’t do it – go to the police behind all their backs. Perhaps it was that awful man Latham. They were off again.

“Where did you get the keys, Polly?”

So it was Polly now.

“Where did you get the keys?”

“Did you steal them?”

“Did you steal the keys to his house as well?”

“At the same time, perhaps?”

“Do you come down to Forbes Abbot often?”

“Were you there on Tuesday the twenty-fourth of July?”

At least this question was specific. Was she there? A backward glance down an unspeakably dark memory lane and she was being sick in the gutter, raging in the marble vestibule of Whitehall Court, weeping and screaming in her bedroom. Polly spoke briefly to Mrs. Dudley and was reassured.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Prove that, can you?”

“Definitely.” The hall porters wouldn’t forget her visit in a hurry.

“All day?”

“I didn’t wake till lunchtime. Shortly after that I went out. I saw…some people. Then I came home.”

“Who are these people?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“I’ve no idea of their names.” Polly explained where they could be found.

“Was anyone in the flat with you?”

“No.”

“Then we’ve only your word that you slept late.”

Polly, who had believed herself to be totally bereft of energy or any spark of gumption began to experience faint stirrings of resentment.

“So? What does it matter when I got up? What’s so special about Tuesday the twenty-fourth?”

Barnaby regarded Polly with disdain. He did not take kindly to someone insulting his intelligence. Or trying to play foolish games. His voice was deliberately aggressive when he said, “You’re surely not pretending you don’t know?”

Polly shrank from this harsh approach; from the vigorous accusing stare. It was rather frightening. And surely a bit extreme. Technically she had broken the law and no doubt would be duly charged but it wasn’t as if she had stolen anything that was not in the family, as it were. Or caused any damage.

“Polly?”

“I’m not pretending anything,” cried Polly. “I don’t know.”

Troy looked across at the chief. Noted the dark brow and tightening jaw. No wonder he was angry. Were they really supposed to believe that three weeks after Brinkley’s death with his body as good as discovered by this girl’s father she knew nothing of the matter? Given that it had slipped his mind to mention it, which frankly beggared belief, the bizarreness of the machinery responsible had ensured comprehensive coverage in the daily press. There had even been drawings of a trebuchet. The dramatic setting aside of the inquest verdict after Garret’s murder had also been widely reported. No, decided Sergeant Troy, genuine though her bewilderment seemed, Polly must be having them on.

“You appear to be puzzled by this whole situation,” suggested Barnaby. “Let me enlighten you, at least in part. One of the people who watched you enter the bank building on the night of the twenty-third was Brinkley himself.”

“Dennis?”

“You didn’t see him?”

“No.”

“Surely he followed you in. Daughter of old family friend, acting very strangely. Not to mention illegally. He confronted you. Probably not angry – just wanting to understand.”

“I didn’t—” Polly’s voice rasped in her bone-dry throat – “see him.”

“Stay down here that night?”

“I’ve already told you…”

“No matter. London’s not far. Plenty of time to nip down to Forbes Abbot in the morning, get into the house, do the necessary and back to the Smoke. All ready to ‘wake up,’” he poked two-fingered quotation marks directly at her face, “at lunchtime.”

“Necessary?”

“Take the keys off the garage board, did you?”

There’s a punch, thought Troy. Out of the blue, below the belt. The girl went even paler. The solicitor was solicitous, touching Polly’s arm, murmuring advice. Polly shook her head. She was tired and just wanted it over.

“Yes.”

“When did you do that?”

“I had a meeting with Dennis in Causton…”

“Early afternoon. We know.”

Polly bowed her head. She was not surprised. Was there anything they didn’t know?

“The bus back stops outside Kinders. No one was around so…”

“How did you know where the keys were?”

“I’d called there a few days earlier but he was out. I noticed them then. They had an ‘Office’ label.”

“And the house keys?”

“Why would I want his house keys?” Her voice, weak to start with, was getting duller and slower – like a battery running down.

“Because I believe,” said the chief inspector, “that on Tuesday, the twenty-fourth—”

“I’ve told you where I was then. How many more times? What does it matter anyway?”

“It matters,” said Barnaby, “because, as I’m quite sure you’re aware, that is the day that Dennis Brinkley was murdered.”

Polly recoiled at the sickening violence of his words. For a moment she seemed about to speak. Her mouth formed a strange shape, twisted to one side. Then she fell forwards, knocking the water jug over. The water ran everywhere, soaking her face and hair. Dripping off the table to form pools on the dusty floor.

Seated at his desk in the incident room, DCI Barnaby was getting outside his third cup of the very strongest, very best Bolivian coffee. He felt he needed it. More, he felt he deserved it. He was not a whiner or a shifter of blame. He felt the phrase “it wasn’t my fault” to be only a step away from “they started it,” and that both should be abandoned by adolescence at the very latest. But today, just for a brief moment, he had been sorely tempted to take refuge. Eventually he settled for the almost equally shifty, “How was I supposed to know?”

Sergeant Troy, listening, tried to look sympathetic but only succeeded in looking rather stern. He’d spent enough years exposed to lectures on the importance of the open mind not to be mildly chuffed when the DCI had kept his own tight shut and fallen headfirst into a dump truck of crapola. Because if he’d thought there was a possibility, however slight, that the girl had really not heard of the murder of Dennis Brinkley it would have been counterproductive to fling it so violently into her face. Afterwards all hell had broken loose, with Polly sprawled over the table, the solicitor threatening harassment, the chief switching the tape off and cursing. Himself running to get help.

The Lawsons, who were still in the waiting room, heard the shouting and rushed outside to see what the matter was. Someone from Traffic came out to persuade them to calm down but the man especially would not be talked to. He started demanding to see his daughter and began charging about opening doors. His wife, equally distressed, though more on his behalf, onlookers felt, than her own, was begging everyone in sight to tell her if “Polly” was all right.

Into this turmoil Barnaby strode. Fatally deciding that the best form of defence would be attack he immediately squared up to Lawson.

“Why didn’t you tell me your daughter was not aware—”

“Where is she?”

“What’s happened?” cried Mrs. Lawson as Sergeant Troy moving quickly, flashed through the pass door. “Why is that man running?”

“Miss Lawson fainted. There’s no cause—”

“You bastard.” Lawson swung a punch. It wasn’t precisely aimed but there was a lot of rage behind it. It landed on Barnaby’s face, crashing into the side of his nose and his right eye.

Not long after this the girl appeared to recover. She had so far not been charged. To the station’s surprise Mallory Lawson had also not been charged, in his case with assaulting a police officer. Eventually the whole family, drastically sobered, had wandered off, together yet plainly quite separate, in the direction of the visitors’ car park. Though relieved beyond measure to see the back of them, Barnaby thought he wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when they got home.

All this was three hours ago. Now he sat trying to put the unpleasant and humiliating fracas from his mind and hoping for a result via the clattering keyboards and now less frequently ringing phones. Troy came over to collect his empty coffee cup.

“She never did cough it then, our Poll?”

“Cough what?”

“Why she was in the office in the first place.”

“I’m hoping Leo Fortune will find that out.”

I’m hoping to sleep with Cameron Diaz, reflected Sergeant Troy, and if the Lawson girl’s half as smart as she’s cracked up to be, I’d say the odds are in my favour. As he thought these lascivious and traitorous thoughts, Troy kept his eyes fixed on the chief’s in-tray. Like everyone else present he was trying to avoid staring at what was plainly going to be an absolutely splendid shiner.

“Even if he does find out, sir, it won’t help us solve Brinkley’s murder.”

“Why not?”

“If Lawson didn’t even know it had happened how could she have been involved?”

Before Barnaby could reply someone signalled from the far end of the room. He got up and quickly made his way over. “What is it, Bruno?”

“Maybe you should take this call, sir. An Alan Harding from Northwick Park claims to have seen Ava Garret the night she died.”

“Him and half Uxbridge,” sighed Barnaby. There had been hundreds of calls already.

“This sounds like the all-singing, all-dancing version.” Sergeant Bruno Lessing passed over the receiver.

“Mr. Harding? Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby – Causton CID…Yes, I am.”

Troy came over too. He and Sergeant Lessing watched and listened. Heard the DCI’s voice quicken with interest as he asked questions.

“Would you be prepared to make a statement for us, sir?…No, no, at your nearest station. Or someone could come to the house, if you prefer…Excellent. Do we have a contact number for you?”

Barnaby hung up, seeming quite pleased. He was displaying what Troy always thought of as his “sniffer” look. Nostrils flexing, mouth tightly closed but smiling a bit, head cocked as if listening to a sound no one else could hear. He seemed flushed too, though it was hard to tell, what with the eye and everything.

“This sounds like the real McCoy. Harding was on the same Metropolitan Line train as Ava Garret. He described her clothes, jewellery, even a handbag, which the poster didn’t mention. He was sitting some distance away but could hear her talking to a couple of girls, teenagers. According to him she never stopped. She didn’t receive or make any calls on a mobile but got off when he did at Northwick Park.”

“Brilliant,” said Lessing.

“He was well ahead of her at the exit so didn’t see which way she went. But once we’ve nailed the exact time of the train’s arrival we can put out an appeal. Not just for the teenagers but for anyone else who got off at the same time.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if this ‘Chris’ character had actually met her off the train?” said Lessing. “And we got a description.”

“Wouldn’t it just.” Barnaby recalled his recent fantasy, which might not be so fantastic after all.

“How about if he was in disguise?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“How about you giving up Agatha Christie for Lent?” said the DCI.

At just about the time that Barnaby was in receipt of a black eye, and the Lawsons were beginning their wretched journey home, Roy and Karen were getting ready to have tea with Doris. Karen had put on her second new top (the one with kittens in a basket), clean socks and the sneakers. There had been some attempt to constrain her hair in bunches with bright pink bobble things but it was so silky it wouldn’t bunch and slid out and halfway down her back again. She was talking to Barbie. Roy could hear her through the bathroom door. Having managed for years with a lick and a promise he now had a bath every day. In fact, this was his second, he’d got so sweaty painting.

This visiting business, Roy told himself, was no big deal, right? Right. Yet somehow he had come to the decision that none of his clothes would do. They had looked OK before but they definitely didn’t look OK now, so he and Karen had earlier taken the bus to Causton and gone round the charity shops. They found two smart shirts and some khaki chinos at Oxfam. Plus a polo-neck declaring: “Look Out World Here I Come!” in the disabled shop.

Roy had carefully ironed one of the shirts, turning the temperature up a bit at a time so it wouldn’t burn. He had put on clean underwear and socks and his new trousers and was brushing his newly shampooed hair for the umpteenth time. Bringing his face close to the mirror over the washbasin he was convinced the ring holes in his nose and around the rims of his ears were definitely a little bit smaller. He knew that eventually they would close up completely because a girl had told him who’d had hers pierced. But there was nothing he could do about the tattoo around his neck. How he hated it – that dotted line saying “Cut Here.” He’d thought it brilliant at the time, a real laugh. Worth the agony. Now he could see it just looked stupid.

Roy was not looking forward to going to the Crudges’. Actually that was a bit of an understatement. When he thought of all the things he could say and do wrong, his heart stuttered and jumped with nervousness. The moment Doris had left the other day, his brief happiness, the disbelieving joy in being not just accepted but held and rocked and stroked, evaporated. He recognised that, briefly, he had been comforted but also understood that it was probably nothing personal. Women were just like that. You cried or got upset, they gave you a bit of a cuddle. Boys at the home were always boasting it was a sure way to get a screw. Maybe Doris fancied him?

One thing he simply must not do for his own safety was to confuse the experience with…Roy buried the word. The four-letter word. The worst, the blackest, the dirtiest. None of the others could compare in terms of cruelty.

From the time he could put a name to it he had seen examples everywhere. Leaving school, little kids waving drawings would run through the gates to be hugged and kissed by their mothers. The drawings were crap but you’d never know the way the mothers went on. Later, teenagers in pairs, arms round each other wandered past, smiling and gazing and dreaming into each other’s faces. He’d assumed at the time this happened automatically when your voice broke and your balls dropped. Not to him. Oh – girls were available if you had money or dope or fags and even sometimes if you hadn’t. But the smiling and gazing and promising and dreaming – all the stuff that mended you when you were broke – forget about it.

So this going round to the bungalow would, in the long run, prove to be just another con. Or maybe even in the short run. She was probably just a bit sorry for him. Still, he’d go along with it. A cup of tea, a bit of cake. What had he got to lose? But if there was any sign, the tiniest hint, the faintest suggestion that he wasn’t wanted, he’d be off like a shot. A boy called Toad had put him right on that one. Dump them before they dump you. At that stage Roy had still believed, in spite of all previous evidence to the contrary, that he would eventually be found wantable. What, he had asked, if they don’t dump you? Man, Toad had replied, they always dump you.

“Are you ready, Roy?”

“In a minute.” He took off the new shirt and decided to wear the poloneck. This would hide the tattoo and the slogan would give him confidence. He brushed his hair again, slapped on some cheap aftershave and wished he was taller.

“Roy! You look lovely.”

“Look Out World,” said Roy. “Here I Come.”

Earlier in the day there had been a brief shower but now it was hot and dry again. Karen’s feet, skipping, running ahead, running back, kicked up puffs of dust on the pavement. Doris and Ernest’s bungalow, just five minutes away, was called Dunroamin’. The front garden was strange, made up of four large triangles of coloured stones and a pot with a spiky green plant placed in the exact centre. Barbie rang the bell, Karen lifting her up and pressing her astronaut’s fingers against the button. Soft chimes echoed inside the house. Doris opened the door. Karen danced inside and Roy, adopting a slight swagger and already sick with nerves, followed.

It was a lovely tea. A marmalade cake and three sorts of sandwiches so small you could eat two or three at once and never notice. Not that Roy did. He seemed to be on what Doris described silently to herself as “his best behaviour.” This was not quite the case. Roy only had one sort of behaviour. What he was on now was a frozen awareness of pending disaster.

“You all right…um…?”

“Roy.” He smiled nervously across at Doris’s old man. “It’s French for king.”

“That right?” Ernest smiled back. “I’m not very up on the parleyvoo, myself.”

He seemed a friendly old tosser. When Roy arrived he was watching the football, which meant at least there’d be something for him and Ernest to talk about. Assuming, that is, Roy stayed long enough. He had already let himself down. A sandwich had gone and slipped through his fingers on to the carpet. When the others were all talking Roy picked it up and stuffed it into his pocket.

“Would you like some salad, love?”

“Yes, please, Mrs. Crudge.” Why had he said that? He hated salad.

“There you are then.” She had dished out a large helping including beetroot. Now everything was stained dark red. Roy took the plate, which looked as if it was bleeding. “And you can forget the Mrs. Crudge. It’s Doris.”

“Aunty Doris,” insisted Karen.

That rang a sharp bell. Roy flipped back to the morning Ava died. The ambulance men. The policemen. How afraid he had been. Still was. What had they said – he and Karen – to save themselves from homelessness and separation? An aunty was coming. Her aunty. That night. Tomorrow morning. Any minute now. Soon. Definitely.

What if someone from the council checked up? He could fob them off once or twice maybe, but once they’d got a grip they’d keep coming round. But if he and Karen could actually produce one, and not just any old aunty – a grown-up, quite old aunty who was reliable and kind and living just a few minutes’ walk away – what a difference that would make. All the difference in the world.

“D’you know,” she was saying now, “I think this beetroot’s a bit off.”

“Tastes all right to me.” That was Ernest.

“Sour, vinegary.” She put her knife and fork down. “Can’t eat that. Roy?”

Roy, mute, disbelieving, handed back his huge pile of salad. What a stroke of luck.

“How about a bit of cake? Take the taste away.”

Roy had two slices of cake plus a few more sandwiches. Ernest said: “I like a man who knows how to eat.”

After tea Karen and Doris cleared away and the men went out the back. Roy didn’t know what to make of the aviary. Ernest went right inside. Just stood there with the birds flying all round him, small brilliantly coloured tornadoes. And they didn’t half squawk. Even the tiny ones made peeping noises.

“This is Charlene.” He took a small, pale yellow bird into his hand. “She’s been a bit poorly.”

“Sorry to hear that, Mr. Crudge.” Roy tentatively approached the cage. The birds fluttered even more wildly and he stepped back.

“Not to worry, son,” said Ernest. “They’ll soon get used to you.”

A treacherous warmth spread across Roy’s solar plexus at this hint of not one but many future visits. He gave it five, then said casually, “’Spect they will.”

Inside the house Doris and Karen were washing up. Doris washing, Karen rinsing and stacking. Doris’s thoughts were full of what she would always regard now as the two children. Roy had been a bit withdrawn today and she totally understood why. Breaking down like that – in front of a woman too – he’d regret it afterwards. He’d backtrack, perhaps even pretend it had never happened. That was fine by Doris. However it was with Roy she wouldn’t change and sooner or later – probably quite a long while later – he would start to trust them both.

“You’re doing a grand job there.” She was taking such trouble, Karen. Holding the big plate with both hands under the cold tap before placing it carefully in the plastic rack. Doris had to slow down to keep up with her. This was not a cause for irritation. In fact, she had never been so happy. She felt like one of the women in those telly adverts for washing powder, smiling and shaking her head at the little ones coming in from play all dirty.

Then she noticed the child was frowning and squinting. Screwing up her eyes as if in pain.

“Are you still having them headaches?” Karen looked frightened. “It’s all right, my lovely. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Put that down.” Doris gently took a cup away from the child and dried her hands on a tea towel. There was a battered old armchair next to the cooker. She sat in it, drawing Karen close. Then, burning her boats: “You know I’m going to be looking after you, now?”

Karen nodded vigorously, tightening her arms around Doris’s waist. “Don’t go away.”

“I shan’t never go away. But if I’m going to be responsible you’ll have to help me.”

“I will, I will.”

“So, are you still having the headaches?”

“Don’t tell anybody.”

“’Course I won’t.” Doris, disturbed, way out of her depth, tried to sound calm. “But we’ve got to do something to make you better. Find a doctor—”

“No!” The child twisted out of her lap. “I can’t. I mustn’t…”

“Come on, you’ve been to the doctor’s—”

“I never.”

“Now Karen—”

“Honestly, Aunty Doris.”

“You were probably too little to remember.”

“No. She wouldn’t let me. It was for my own good.” She recited the last few words in a flat, monotone as if they had been drummed into her many times. “Ava said…she said they’d…”

I wish I’d got that woman here, thought Doris. I’d wring her bloody neck. Karen looked terrified. Doris reached out and coaxed her close again.

“Tell me, sweetheart.”

Karen shook her head but climbed back into Doris’s lap.

“Whisper then.” Karen shook her head. “Go on…I won’t tell anyone.”

“Promise?”

“Faithful and true.”

Karen whispered.

Doris felt dizzy and knew it was her blood pressure. When able to speak, her voice trembled. She said, “That’s a wicked lie. And you mustn’t ever believe it again.” She kissed Karen’s forehead, rocking her gently. “Me and your Uncle Ernest – we’d never let such a thing happen.”

Trying to keep the anger that flamed in her heart from marking her face, Doris eased the child into a more comfortable position and kissed her again. How to handle this? Doris’s own doctor was on the point of retiring. She had been with him for almost thirty years and he had seen her through countless illnesses and minor operations. He was a kind man and very good at guessing what was really wrong, which was not always what you’d said. There would still be time to make an appointment and ask his advice about Karen. Perhaps he’d agree to make a home visit and talk to the little girl. As a family friend like, just dropping in.

If she really wasn’t registered anywhere it should be sorted straight away. Dunroamin’ would do as an address. And themselves, she and Ernest, as nearest relatives or next of kin. Better say they were officially fostering; all the details could be sorted later. Doris, for whom the word “respectable” could have been invented, found herself ready and willing to spin as many lies in as many highly coloured variations as the occasion might demand. A child who was lost had been found, and must never be lost again.

The stifling weather had broken. After lunch it had rained, releasing the fragrant scent of flowers. The grass on the croquet lawn still sparkled and pollen dust floated through bars of sunlight.

Observing herself and Polly, in their long summer dresses and straw hats resting under the great cedar tree, Kate thought they must appear like characters from a novel set in the early twentieth century. Howard’s End, perhaps. Or The Go-Between. Certainly the atmosphere was fraught and wretched enough to occupy either. There was a tray of lemonade, which Benny had made while they were out, but no one was drinking.

The journey back had been extraordinary. All of them had sat, silent, carefully upright, fearfully prescient, like people in a tumbril. Once home, Polly got out of the car and wandered into the garden, and Mallory followed. But Kate, already sensing great unhappiness to come and knowing the action to be pathetically childish, went into the house for her lucky beekeeper’s hat. She found a frayed old Panama of Carey’s in the back porch for Polly.

Now Mallory, who had been pacing about since they first arrived, suddenly stopped dead in front of Polly and said, “Aren’t you going to tell us—”

“Yes, I am,” said Polly. She was shivering with nerves. “I was going to. I was actually on the point of it. I knew I must. Then the police arrived. I’m sorry.”

“Come and sit down, Mal.” Kate tugged a garden chair closer to her side. “Looming over her like that.”

Mallory sat down but his energy and attention, unfaltering, continued to stream in Polly’s direction. He didn’t even feel Kate’s hand on his arm. When Polly began to speak he listened intently while his world and everything in it fell slowly apart.

The aftermath was terrible. The gradual unravelling of how he had been deceived cut Mallory’s joy and pride in his daughter into bleeding ribbons. When she had finished he sat, humiliated, his gullibility exposed in the market place. A fool for love.

All the lies. How many he would never know. That was almost the worst part of it. Because now so many memories, right back into her childhood, were tainted. How could he have deceived himself that the mocking, self-centred and ruthless girl the world knew as Polly Lawson wasn’t really Polly? Not his Polly.

He remembered the scene where she had led him up to explaining how it was he who had control of her legacy. Led him like a stupid donkey to admit something she already knew. How her eyes had widened with amazement. She had actually flung her arms around his neck and wept genuine tears. And then, to compound the lie, the pretence that she had only joined this syndicate in the first place to make money for him. So that he could leave the Ewan Sedgewick and be well again. How confident he had been then of her love; how overwhelmingly proud.

Endless recollections like this combined to leave him rigid with outrage and misery and shock. When, after a long silence, she tried to speak again he turned on her.

“I’m so sorry, Daddy—”

“Don’t call me Daddy. You’re not five now.”

“I’ll pay it back.”

“And don’t talk such rubbish.”

“I’ll work hard—”

“You’ve cleaned us out.”

“I’ll make money. In the city you can. Five years—”

“Don’t lie. You’ve no intention—”

“I have. I have…”

“I’m sick of your lies.”

“I promise—”

“And I’m sick of you.”

“Mallory—”

“Still, there’s always a bright side. At least we’ve seen the back of those grudging visits. You hardly bothered to take your coat off half the time.”

“Back of…?”

“Now we’re broke I’ve no doubt we’ll quickly be found expendable.”

“Please, Dad.”

“Mind you, there’s still Appleby House,” said Mallory, stony-eyed. “That must be worth a bob or two. Could be some while before you can cash in though.”

Polly dried the shining fall of tears on her pink-striped dress. She hadn’t looked at her parents since the beginning of her confession. Now she began slowly to get up.

“Because I’m buggered if I’m going to die just to please you.”

“Mallory – stop it…”

Kate caught up with Polly near the terrace steps. She took her arm but Polly gently disengaged it, shaking her head. She said quietly, “Stay with him,” before going into the house.

That was hours ago. Kate and Mallory, willingly abandoning the now-tainted comfort of the cedar’s shade, had moved to the terrace and were still sitting there under a darkening sky. A sudden cool wind ruffled the roses.

For a long tune Mallory had said little and Kate had said nothing. He was glad she was there. He didn’t want to be alone but could not have borne anyone else to witness his mortification. Now she was taking his hand, kissing it, holding it against her cheek. The magnanimity of the gesture overwhelmed him. He thought of her life, what he had dragged her through. How modest her ambition had been: to live quietly and happily with her family and publish a few worthwhile books. And now even that was to be denied her.

“Listen,” she was saying, taking his other hand, “everything we had yesterday we have today.” Then, when he looked incredulous: “All right, we’ve discovered some things we didn’t know—”

“Like our daughter’s a thief.”

“But nothing important has changed.”

“I believed in her. I thought she loved me.”

“Darling—she loves us both as much as she’s able. She’s…Polly.”

Even the sound of her name hurt. How ridiculous. So his eyes had been opened: his illusions shattered. Wasn’t it about time? A man of his age should be past such wistful imaginings. Ordinary common sense could have told him nothing lasts and things are never what they seem. Much better to view life from a clear uncluttered perspective. So it looks suddenly barren and drained of colour – he’d just have to get used to it. And it beat being rammed up to the eyeballs in a cesspit of deceit.

He remembered years ago his aunt saying that human beings are meant to live within certain limits. And if we do not live within these limits everything goes wrong. Had he unknowingly exceeded them in some way? Perhaps by too greedily embracing the happiness that had, at last, appeared to be his lot.

“How do you do it, Kate?”

“It’s my nature.” She knew what he meant. “So I can’t really take the credit.”

“Do you think…this speculation…” The yearning tightened his throat. He could hardly get the word out. “She was actually doing it for us?”

“Of course she was doing it for us.” Kate was amazed. “Who else would she be doing it for?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.”

They sat on in silence. The sky became an even darker blue. Pinpricks of silver light appeared.

Kate said, “Look – the stars are coming out.”

And Mallory said, “Not from where I’m sitting.”

Kate went into the house then to prepare supper. It was still and quiet. The kitchen smelled of sweet peas and the coriander Benny had chopped to sprinkle on the carrot soup that was never eaten. On the table was a note.

Dear Mum,

I have gone back to London. I plan to get a job and save as much as I can before September. I shall get a loan for my fees next term and also find a cheaper place to live. Please don’t worry about me. I will send my new address. Thanks for everything.

Love Polly.

25

By mid-morning the following day the appeal for passengers alighting at Northwick Park off the 6:10 p.m. Metropolitan Line train from Uxbridge on Wednesday, 8 August had been widely circulated. DCI Barnaby of Causton CID, the officer in charge of the case, appeared at the conclusion of the local television news at 1:30. His appeal was also broadcast from radio stations, both commercial and BBC.

“That should smoke him out,” said DS Troy as the chief returned from the press room, rubbing crossly at his face with what looked like a tea towel.

“I can’t stand this stuff. What the hell does it matter if the light catches my nose?”

Sergeant Troy thought, at least they’ve covered up his black eye. He said, “I’ll do it next time, if you like.”

There was an immediate chorus of jeers and “ooohhhs.” Sergeant Troy sneered silently back, noticed the lovely Abby Rose, who had not joined in the mockery, smiling sympathetically, and was struck afresh by her beauty. Having been true to his unconsummated longing for Sergeant Brierly for as long as he could remember Troy had lately noticed a definite coarsening in Audrey’s features, a blurring of that matchless profile. Also, since her promotion to a rank level with his own, she had become overconfident, even a touch sarky. Admiration was definitely off the menu there. Respect likewise.

DCI Barnaby noticed the exchange of looks and hoped things would go no further. Fancying other people was human nature, and the workplace was often a forcing house for an attraction that, denied propinquity, could well die a natural death. The physical and emotional closeness police work often entailed made such situations especially hazardous. Barnaby himself had never been unfaithful, though there had been one or two very close calls. The second so close it had led to a request for a transfer.

Troy was turning away now, giving all his attention to the ringing of Barnaby’s direct line. The DCI stretched out his hand and Troy handed the receiver over.

“Leo Fortune, sir.”

“Mr. Fortune?”

Barnaby listened. Troy watched, trying to read the chief’s reaction. Plenty of the old gravitas, some frowning. Now he was groping around for a pencil.

“That is remarkable. Will you prosecute?…What about the other files?…If you remember I suggested that you should…I am aware that tomorrow’s Saturday…”

There was a bit more along these lines and the conversation ended.

As he hung up Barnaby said, “The girl’s practically emptied the Lawson account.”

“Crikey. What are they going to do about it?”

“Fortune’s not sure. She didn’t break in, did no damage and only took money belonging to herself and her parents.”

“Look bad for the firm if this gets out. Lack of security.”

“Exactly. What amazed him was that all the cash then went on shares that were generally known to be worthless.”

Troy, perching on the chief’s desk, gave a snort of satisfaction. “So much for high-flyers.” He removed himself to be more comfortable in a swivel chair. “How did she break into the account anyway? Aren’t they supposed to have passwords?”

“These were all in medieval French. Brinkley believed this made them incomprehensible to anyone except a specialist scholar and left the disk in an unlocked desk drawer. As for the rest—”

“You think she’s been stealing from other accounts?”

“Don’t know. And won’t know till Monday when the lazy beggars drift back into work.”

“Be fair, Chief. Even money men need a break.”

Barnaby was cross and impatient. Two murders had been committed here. One of a man who thought so well of his staff he had left them his share of the business. And where was this staff when the police needed them? Playing golf, shopping, swimming with the kids, visiting garden centres. Fortune himself was going to a wedding, offering the pitifully lame excuse that the groom was his eldest son.

“Cheer up, sir,” said Sergeant Troy, whose spirits always rose on seeing those of others fall. “It’s not as if it’s urgent.”

During morning service at St. Anselm’s, Benny sat and kneeled and stood and sat again, all the time grappling with the jumbled desolation of her thoughts. She couldn’t seem to sort her emotions out. Loneliness, keen as a knife, was paramount. She had tried to counteract this by flooding her mind with happy memories. Presently, as the vicar droned through his sermon, she was remembering the last time she and Dennis had been together. The turbot he had cooked so beautifully, the delicious chocolate pudding. And how they had talked about being involved with the Celandine Press and what fun it would be.

Now all that was gone. Anger against whoever had so cruelly ended a gentle, harmless existence was forever prowling on the fringe of Benny’s conscience, seeking to get a grip. As a Christian she tried to fight this but the simple, unquestioning faith that had supported her all her life was crumbling. The idea that if you were good and kind and hurt no one God would look after you was plainly a lie. Which left prayers, always her first and last resort in times of trouble, no more than ashes in the mouth.

Now she stood for the final hymn, recited the meaningless words, then stumbled from her pew and up the aisle. Flinching from the vicar’s flabby handshake and warm stare of compassion, Benny made her way to Dennis’s grave. How bare it looked now the wreaths had been removed. How suddenly neglected. She must arrange for a stone. Sensing that people were observing her and wary of clumsy attempts at consolation Benny didn’t linger.

But where was she to go? The obvious place, home, for the first time ever did not appeal. Something had happened at Appleby House. Something wrong, even bad. It had started when Mallory had gone tearing off to London and come back with Polly. The next day she, Benny, had been cutting back the first lupins when Chief Inspector Barnaby had come back. He had taken Polly away, holding her arm as if she might run off. Kate and Mallory went as well.

Distressed and bewildered, Benny watched for their return, instinctively keeping out of sight. She had stayed in the flat with only Croydon for company that night and all the following day, making a brief phone call so no one would worry. Pretending she had the beginnings of a cold and didn’t want to spread it about.

Now, hesitating at St. Anselm’s lych-gate and suddenly drawn by the peaceful sound of rippling water, Benny turned from the big house and made her way to the banks of the stream. She sat down beneath a drooping willow, folding her hands quietly in her lap until gradually the turmoil in her mind gentled down to just plain sorrow. Then, to keep the disturbance at bay, began deliberately to plan for the future.

The whole orchard was resonant with the thrumming of wasps and bees. Mallory didn’t know what he was doing there except that it didn’t really matter where he was, so this was as good a place to be as any. Ladders still rested against the trees and half-full baskets of ripe apples, carefully labelled, were stacked on trestle tables. Peasgood Nonsuch, Coeur de Boeuf, Api Rose. The heat brought out their full, rich fragrance.

He would give anything to switch his mind off. Half his kingdom, as the fairy tales used to have it. The ones he read to Polly. Except now he had no kingdom. No financial kingdom and no other sort of kingdom either. Trust and happiness, the only riches worth having, had vanished. All right for Kate to say they could now all have a more honest relationship. She had lost nothing and gained everything. That this made Mallory jealous only increased his self-disgust. Mean-spirited it appeared as well as gullible.

Kate stood briefly in the opening of the blue door. Every now and then she sought her husband out, not always declaring her presence. There was nothing she could do but be there. Sooner or later things would change; he would change. Until then she would occupy herself with the ongoing development of the Celandine Press.

Kate was aware, though he had not put it in so many words, that Mallory now presumed this venture to be at an end. No money, no business. On the contrary. She was more determined than ever that it should go ahead. And they now had two titles to launch. She had written to the author of The Sidewinder Café, one of the outstanding novels that she had unsuccessfully recommended for publication, found the title still available and offered a tiny advance plus a high percentage of royalties. Any loss from this title Kate believed would be more than offset by The King’s Armourer. Though there were no certainties in publishing she had been in the business too long not to sniff out a winner when it fell into her hands. Still no response from E. M. Walker but August was a holiday month so this was no surprise.

Last night, with Mallory slumped in front of the television – talk about back to square one – Kate had sat at the kitchen table sorting out their finances. There was Mal’s pension, her own savings, their profit on the London house and twenty thousand a year in rent from Pippins Direct. Both pension and rent would be taxed but they could live reasonably on what remained.

The computers and printers had already been bought and Kate planned to edit and produce the books herself. Financially this would be well within their grasp. It was not printing books but their promotion and distribution that took the money. The big companies would spend thousands on publicity for a single title. Even bribing booksellers was not unknown. The Celandine Press’s budget would be tiny. But Kate had a lot of contacts in the business and planned to make use of every one. She already had several ideas for a website and even thought of publishing “taster” chapters in advance on the Net.

She was in good spirits as well as happy. Indeed, it was astonishing considering what they had all been through in the last couple of weeks, just how happy she was. Until it had been unexpectedly watered by Polly’s tears Kate had not realised what a dry, enclosed place her heart had gradually become. Now, whatever happened, she would never cross that particular desert again.

Closing the orchard door she wandered back through the walled garden. The espaliered figs were so ripe, so luscious and bursting with juice that she picked one and held it, soft and warm, in the palm of her hand. She flung her head back and squeezed the rosy seeds into her mouth, then, wiping her fingers on her denim skirt, made her way to Benny’s flat. She had already been round once but no one came to the door, which had been locked. Unsure whether Benny was still sleeping, nursing her cold or had gone to church, Kate had left, deciding to come back later.

But now was later and Benny was still nowhere to be seen. Becoming anxious, for morning service must have finished long ago, Kate hurried to the churchyard, half expecting to find her sitting by Dennis’s grave. Guiltily she remembered her determined vow always to look after Benny. How long ago was that made? Less than a fortnight at the outside.

The village shop would now be closed. Perhaps she had gone to visit Doris? Or really was at home but too ill to come to the door. By now seriously worried, Kate was just leaving the churchyard when she saw Benny sitting by the humpbacked bridge, gazing into the running water. Kate hurried over but before she could call out Benny turned, got up and immediately began a conversation. She had come to a decision. It was about the Celandine Press. Could they have a meeting as soon as possible? A business meeting, that was.

Kate, intrigued, smiled and said, “Of course we can. Mallory’s in the orchard. We’ll go and find him straightaway.”

Troy stood over the whirring fax as the paper unfurled. Only a tiny percentage of his attention was involved in deciphering the details of Dennis Brinkley’s telephone calls. Most of the rest was on Abby Rose Carter, sitting next to the machine. On the fragrance of her hair and the downy sweetness of the back of her neck. Sex was on Troy’s mind a lot at the moment. Only last night he had dreamed of Nigella Lawson. She had been wearing satin pyjamas and standing in front of a towering silver fridge eating chocolate cheesecake. He had awoken in an ecstasy of longing, though whether for Nigella, the cheesecake or the pyjamas he could not quite disentangle, such was the bewildering fluidity of the dream.

“Details of Brinkley’s calls, Chief.” He tore the paper off. “Poor old sod. Half a dozen in as many weeks and that’s pushing it.”

Barnaby held out his hand. He recalled his own bills, especially when Cully had still been at home. Once the damage had been so completely unbelievable that he had asked for an itemised breakdown and received seven pages of information so tightly packed he had gone nearly cross-eyed struggling to make sense of it.

Dennis’s calls, made and received, were certainly few and far between. To Barnaby’s mind this did not make him a “poor old sod” but rather a person who lived simply and had found a measure of contentment in his own company. He was certainly not without the gift of evoking affection, as the interviews at Brinkley and Latham had clearly showed.

As Barnaby stared at the fax his fingertips began to tingle. A call had been made from Kinders at 11:17 p.m. on Monday, 23 July. Made after Brinkley had returned, having seen Polly Lawson illegally enter his office. Had he made the call himself? Barnaby thought it must be so. Brian Allibone had seen Dennis drive off, unaccompanied. It was pretty unlikely he would have picked up someone along the way and brought them home.

The DCI dialled the given number. He did not check it out, feeling sure it would belong to Appleby House. But he was wrong. The Lathams’ answerphone responded. Gilda was presumably elsewhere, improving the shining hour; no doubt composing haiku, perfecting her butterfly stroke, de-constructing Milton, whatever. Latham himself, on the other hand, was probably lolling in the hammock, getting outside a few blue label Stolichnayas and wisely ignoring the call lest it give his prohibited presence away. Which suited Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby just fine.

He asked for the car to be brought round. Troy got this sorted in double-quick time, which was a shame as they had no sooner driven off the forecourt than devastating news arrived, via Leo Fortune, that seemed to blow the whole case wide open.

Andrew was packing. He had left all his stuff over the bed, careless of Gilda noticing. When he had spent years concealing every move he made and every penny spent, she had watched him, hawk-like, pouncing on each real or imagined misdemeanour. Now, as he slung the few good things he had managed to steal or wheedle out of her into a holdall she lay downstairs, becalmed on the huge sofa, guzzling a tub of Funky Monkey and ogling Kilroy.

Andrew checked his briefcase. Passport, plane ticket, English money plus euros and all the evidence of his recently opened private bank account. These documents, in the first instance sent to his office address, had then been stored in the garden shed along with seed packets and plant markers in an old biscuit box. There they rested secure from investigation by anyone who valued the shape and varnished perfection of their work-shy fingernails.

The cab was due in five minutes. He’d already opened the gates. Andrew had decided against taking the Punto because a) he hated it, and b) he wouldn’t put it past her to report it stolen and set the rozzers on him. Hell hath no fury and all that jazz. Humming “Come Fly With Me” he trotted down to the lounge.

“You’ll be late for work,” said Gilda, still glued to the box.

“So?”

It took a moment for this to register. Then there was puzzlement followed by outright disbelief. Surely she must have misheard. “What did you say?”

“I don’t go to work, Gilda.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“You surely don’t expect me to exert myself for the pitiful scrap of money you dole out?”

“Don’t worry.” Still gazing hotly at Robert the smooth, Gilda snorted her contempt. “I never thought you earned it.”

“Not earn it? Not earn it? You try humping a lard mountain five times a week for ten years. You’d soon find out if I bloody earned it.”

She looked at him then all right. Turned her great moon face round, widened her little eyes so much the electric-blue lids all but vanished.

“No, what I do the minute you’re not around is come back here to drink and watch the telly. And not always alone.” He smiled cheerfully. “You’d be surprised the number of playmates available to a lonely man.”

Now her mouth was opening. Opening, closing, Opening, closing. Andrew affected concern.

“Don’t worry, they were never serious. Just something to take the taste of you away.”

“Uz…uz…crawke…” Her lips were working now, jumping in and out like lively little sponges. “Fay…fay…”

“What’s that?”

“I…fay…foo…”

“Of course you’ve been faithful. What man in his right mind is going to fuck a woman the size of an elephant with one brain cell and a neck wider than her face?”

This time there was an even stranger sound. Rather like someone gargling on broken glass.

“Too late now to say you’re sorry. And do close your mouth. The view from here is disgusting.”

Gilda was struggling now, rocking and wrestling with the sofa, trying to rise.

“Don’t look at me for assistance,” said Andrew. “I’ve suffered my last hernia. Get yourself a fork lift.”

More heaving and shaking and then—

“Oh, not tears? That’s what comes of having your own way all the time. I’ve spoiled you – that’s what I’ve done. But now I plan to make amends. I’m offering you your freedom. Think of it. You can do anything you like. You could do a tiny stroke of work for the first time in your useless life. You could find some other wretched bloke to torture. You could hire yourself out as a bouncy castle. The possibilities are—”

Damn. There was the cab drawing up and three-quarters of his long-nurtured eulogy still undelivered. With a brisk, jolly swing of his hand Andrew picked up the bag and prepared to leave. In the doorway he looked back, savouring the final moments of victory.

Gilda did not look at all happy. In fact she looked incredibly wretched and also rather ill. Andrew hesitated, then did something he was to regret for the rest of his life. He took the telephone from the far side of the room and placed it on a little table near her hand.

“Cheer up, fatty. Talk to someone – get it off that gargantuan coal heaver’s chest. Try The Samaritans. Better still –” over his shoulder, closing the door – “Save the Whales.”

It must have been about forty-five minutes after this that the police car drove up to the first set of electronic gates at Mount Pleasant and was admitted. Barnaby saw the ambulance, turning in the drive of Bellissima, straightaway.

“Bloody hell!” Troy pulled up as close as he could to the nearest flowerbed, leaving room for the larger vehicle to manoeuvre. The siren howled and the ambulance shot by as Barnaby got out and ran across the grass.

A youngish man stood in the porch. Pale, alarmed, smartly suited. Barnaby produced his warrant card and started asking questions. The man was Simon Wallace, a solicitor. The Berrymans’ solicitor.

“Perhaps we’d better go inside,” said the chief inspector. Then, when they were, “You look as if you could do with a drink.”

“Yes.” He helped himself to a whisky, his hands shaking. “God – what a day.”

“What happened?”

“She had a heart attack.”

“Is Mr. Latham here?”

“No one’s here. We had a call from Mrs. Latham. She sounded…extraordinary. Somebody had to come out immediately. She was almost screaming.”

“And when you arrived?”

“The front door was open. I found her on that sofa. She couldn’t move.”

“So what was the call about?”

“She wanted me to bring her will over.”

“Did she say why?”

“The usual reason. To change it.”

“Was this a habit?”

“Not at all. It was made just after she was married. She’d meant to make a new one long ago. Just hadn’t got round to it.”

“The details?”

“Oh, come on. You know I can’t—”

“I’m involved in a murder investigation, Mr. Wallace. We can go through the proper procedure but, to be frank, time is not on our side.”

“It’s not as if I’m a senior partner—”

“Then I’ll talk to a senior partner. Your number?”

“Well…” Simon could just hear them at the office. Unable to handle heavy stuff. Can’t take decisions. Better not risk him on the new Ainsley account.

“She cancelled the will, which left everything to her husband. Then made a new one and signed it.”

“Leaving everything to…?”

“Charity. She couldn’t think which one – she was in such a state. But it had to be animals. People were vile – those were her last words. I suggested the Cat Protection League, my wife and I being members of the Fancy.”

Blimey, thought Sergeant Troy, some mogs have all the luck. This place alone must be worth over a million.

“There was also mentioned a nuptial agreement drawn up years ago by her father. In case of a separation it was supposed to stop her husband getting any of the spoils.”

“But they’re not valid over here,” said Barnaby.

“Mr. Berryman hoped he wouldn’t work that out.”

“So when did Mrs. Latham become ill?”

“Directly after the business was concluded. To be honest I got the impression she was just hanging on till I got there. The ambulance men said things didn’t look too good.”

“I see. Thanks very much, Mr. Wallace.” Barnaby got up. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Can I go now?”

“Of course. But leave a card, if you would.”

Barnaby watched the solicitor’s Mercedes negotiate the drive and the small but select gathering of neighbours just beyond the boundary wall. He thought human nature didn’t vary much. Whatever the locale – run-down sink estate, neat suburban terrace or gated enclosure of the super-rich, curiosity as to the business of one’s neighbours seemed endemic.

“See what you can find out from that lot,” said Barnaby. “I’ll look over the house.”

He started at the far end in the larger of the four bedrooms. Men’s clothes were strewn everywhere. Some on the bed, some on the floor, over an armchair. An empty suitcase lay by the dressing table with its lid open. Some drawers had been tipped upside down.

Barnaby tried to open the sliding wardrobes running the length of the room. He had just discovered the electronic button when he heard Troy running through the hall. Racing up the stairs.

“It’s Latham, sir.” Troy stopped on the threshold staring at the mess. “He’s gone.”

“Tell me.”

“Hour, hour and a half ago. Left in a black cab carrying a large holdall. Cab was advertising Britannia Building Society.”

“Right. Get a search call out. Railways, air and seaports. Full description. And get a trace on the taxi.”

Troy seized the phone. Barnaby abandoned his investigation into the wardrobe and set about a more systematic search for Latham’s passport. He started in the library. He knew it was the library because there were red and gold book spines glued to all the shelves. There was also a framed picture of Shakespeare, quill poised, gazing gloomily at an astrolabe. But he had hardly started on the Chippendale desk before Troy was calling out again. Tetchily the chief inspector returned to the bedroom.

“For heaven’s sake, man. Can’t you do a simple—” Then took in Troy’s expression. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“I think you should hear this direct, sir,” said Sergeant Troy, and passed over the telephone.

The offices of Brinkley and Latham were almost deserted. The receptionist was still there, her eyes grossly red and swollen with weeping. A wastepaper basket at her feet full of sodden tissues. When Barnaby and Troy arrived she began to speak, then started to cry again. They made their way through to the main office.

Leo Fortune sat in his cubbyhole staring blankly into space. His desk was cluttered with papers and notes and letters as if, only moments before, he had been lively and busily engaged. There was also a cup of tea, stone-cold with a congealing skin.

When Barnaby said, “Mr. Fortune?” he brought his head up with great difficulty, as if it were a lump of rock. He looked years older than when they had seen him last, his mouth a miserable jagged line.

“This is a bad business, sir.”

“Have you found her?”

“Found…?”

“The Lawson girl.” His voice was cracking all over the place. “Have you arrested her?”

“I need to clarify certain things. The message I got—”

“What’s to clarify? You know what’s happened. You know who’s responsible.”

“I still need to—”

“Haven’t you done anything?”

“Calm down, sir,” suggested Sergeant Troy.

“Calm down?” He stared at them both in turn, his face such a mask of absolute incredulity it verged upon the tragic. Which made it, to Troy’s mind, also comic. He turned away, fumbling for his notebook.

Barnaby sensed the man struggling not to cry. He said quietly, “If we could just take some details, Mr. Fortune…?” Then sat himself squarely in the comfortable chair facing what used to be Dennis Brinkley’s desk. His stolid, phlegmatic presence and the silence that gradually took over the room eased Leo Fortune back into some sort of composure.

“Money has been stolen from nearly all of the accounts held here. Thousands of pounds. Hundreds of thousands.”

“But you’re insured?”

“Of course, we have to be. But this will still finish us. When you’re dealing with other people’s money, once trust has gone you’ve had it. God knows what Mrs. Latham will say.”

Barnaby thought this was perhaps not the time to pass on the news that Gilda was in intensive care and not expected to last the day.

“Have you any way of tracing the money?”

“It’ll be out of the country by now. Some offshore slipperiness. Ghost accounts, more than likely.”

“Ghost?” Barnaby looked up sharply. “How does that work?”

“It’s an old scam. You find a child’s grave, the child being the same sex as yourself and, had it lived, roughly the same age. Apply for a copy of its birth certificate. Using this and an up-to-date photograph, apply for a passport. You can then open an account and start putting money in. And the owner of this account can never be traced because they don’t exist. Hence, ghost.”

“Surely it’s not as simple as that.”

“If it was,” decided Sergeant Troy, “everybody’d be doing it.”

“There’s quite a risk. Checking procedures have been tightened up a lot, especially when presented documents are copies. And you can be in serious trouble just for trying it on.”

Barnaby became briefly distracted then by the phone in reception. It had been ringing quite often since they arrived. He wondered if such frequency was the normal traffic of the day or whether the news of the disaster was already leaking out. With a dozen or so distressed staff on the loose it would hardly be a surprise.

“Are you going to close the office, Mr. Fortune?”

“I can’t decide. If I do it’s going to look as if I’ve scarpered—like one of those dodgy types you see on Watch-dog. And if I don’t, when this really gets out we’ll be practically lynched.”

“Aren’t you going to tell people yourself?” asked Sergeant Troy.

“Of course.” He waved a sheet of foolscap at them. “It’s what I’ve been working on all day. Trying to warn clients that something untoward has happened without actually telling them how bad things actually are.”

“A fine line,” agreed Barnaby.

“So you see why I jumped on you about getting hold of the Lawson girl. Every minute counts.”

“We don’t think Polly Lawson is responsible for this, sir.”

“Not…? But she must be. I mean – we know she did it. You said yourself—”

“We believe these thefts to be something quite separate and unrelated to the earlier incident.”

“How can that be?” Leo looked really sick. Terrible though things were, he had thought at least the police had a name. A point of entry to start searching for the money. “I don’t understand.”

“Do you remember when we talked here a couple of days ago? When Andrew Latham joined us and became extremely disturbed.”

“Of course.”

“And at what point in our conversation it happened?”

“You were talking about the fishmonger. How he’d identified the person Dennis saw breaking in here as Polly Lawson.”

“Why do you think that brought about such an extreme reaction?”

“How should I know?” Fortune put his elbows on the desk, covered his eyes with his hands and groaned. “I don’t know anything any more. I don’t even know what day it is.” Then he looked up sharply. “But I do know I haven’t got time to play stupid games. So get on with what you want to say in a straightforward manner. Or just go.”

Latham was found before the day was out. The photograph helped. A happy smiling one of him and his wife taken years earlier. Gilda neatly excised, the police had it circulated within the hour. The lunchtime edition of the Evening Standard featured it on the front page. The black cab too had been quickly traced. Its driver had taken Latham to South Ruislip; the nearest Tube station to Bunting St. Clare that connected with the main line.

There he was clearly remembered, having tried out his charm to poor effect on the female booking clerk. He had bought a ticket to London via High Wycombe. Apparently he was in exceptionally high spirits. You would have thought, suggested the clerk, he’d won the lottery.

Latham’s complete ignorance as to any interest of the police in his whereabouts led to him travelling openly and, alas for Sergeant Troy’s romantic imaginings, with no attempt at disguise. He was detained around four o’clock at Waterloo, attempting to board the boat train for Southampton. By six he was seated in an interviewing room at Causton police station, having rejected, with an air of complete bewilderment, the suggestion that he might like to have a solicitor present. Two plainclothes officers were also at the table, on which was a folder and a large, somewhat bulky envelope. They were the same two officers, he recognised sourly, that had turned up at the bungalow only days ago and dropped him in it.

If they’d known anything then they would have arrested him then. So what did they know now? What could they know? There were one or two details skilled ferreting could no doubt discover. But you had to know what you were looking for and they knew bugger all.

His rights had been read. He knew he could not be compelled to speak, which meant he was the one with the power. And there was nothing like the power of silence.

“Off on your holidays, Mr. Latham?”

Andrew smiled.

“All on your own?” Barnaby paused. “Perhaps you were meeting up with someone later?” Nothing. “In France, perhaps?” Nothing.

“Where did you get the money?” asked the skinny red-haired one.

“None of your business.” Damn, that was a mistake. He should have said, “What money?” How quick they were to trick and provoke.

“Enquiries have led us to believe that you earned no regular salary.”

“And that it was Mrs. Latham who held the purse strings.”

“I believe she gave you an allowance every week.”

“A very small allowance.”

“So where did you get the money?”

“What money?”

The big man opened a folder and took out some papers, which Andrew immediately recognised. They had taken his travelling bag when he arrived, giving him a receipt as if that somehow made it acceptable. Obviously it had been searched. Surely that wasn’t allowed without some special warrant. If they had bent the law didn’t that mean any evidence so discovered would be inadmissible? Andrew wished now he had agreed to their suggestion of a brief.

He said, “Are you allowed to do that?”

“There is a balance here of over four hundred thousand pounds.” Nothing. “Did you have any special reason for opening an overseas account?” Nothing. “Protection from the Inland Revenue, perhaps?”

Andrew shrugged. Having absorbed the initial shock of seeing the details of his recently obtained wealth made public he recognised anew the importance of silence. What he must not do was slide into some question and answer loop with them hammering away, looking for a slip or contradiction to pounce on. He would dig his heels in and keep shtum. God knew he’d had years of practice.

“What made you choose today to disappear, Mr. Latham?”

“It was a disappearance, wasn’t it?”

“Not just a trip to gay Paree.”

Gay Paree? Do me a favour. It was Cherbourg and a car, and motoring down to Provence and then across to Italy. Sorrento, Positano, Capri. All the places he had once pretended to own and manage property in. Except now the villa would be for real.

“Perhaps the investigation of Ava Garret’s death was getting a little too close to home?”

“The Causton Echo was full of it.”

“How she met her murderer at Northwick Park.”

Andrew allowed an expression of utter stupefaction gradually to possess his features. This was difficult because it had, of course, been exactly this series of events that had provoked his flight.

“Sooner or later a witness will come forward who saw you.”

“Or your car.”

“Stands out, a yellow car.”

At this point a wondrously pretty uniformed policewoman came in with a tray of tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits. God – what a sight for sore eyes. Briefly Andrew’s concentration slipped its moorings. He gave her a warm smile but she had locked on to the younger of the two investigators, who was giving her an even warmer smile. He said, “Abby Rose, you’re a star.”

Abby Rose! Andrew stored the lovely name away. He could afford her now. A girl like that.

The tea was boiling hot and tasteless. Ignoring it, the detectives shifted tack. Now it was Dennis who occupied their attention. Dennis the menace as he was turning out to be. If he had minded his own business he would be alive today. With a million missing quid to account for, true, but alive.

What was this? Andrew was being handed some sort of printout from British Telecom. His number featured along with a few others. As did the time and date of the call. But that wouldn’t tell them what had been said. And without knowing that, such information would be meaningless. He smiled politely and handed the paper back.

“Quite a coincidence, Mr. Latham.”

“Perhaps you remember discussing this very same evening with us recently in your office?”

“When you had that rather unpleasant turn.”

“Knocked bandy, as I recall. Sir.”

“You didn’t mention this telephone conversation then.”

He hadn’t been able to resist ringing, Dennis. Vindicated at last. Able to prove his fuss about the snake lamp had a sound basis in fact. Not triumphant – Dennis could never have managed that. But chuffed in his mild way. Silly, silly man.

Because he had seen who it was. He knew the woman. The family lived in Forbes Abbot. The matter, Dennis gave earnest assurances, could be safely left in his hands. But that was the last thing Andrew could allow to happen. There was far too much at stake. Money, naturally. Love too (though not for him). And most important of all, freedom, without which the first two were as ashes in the mouth.

Now he cursed his indolence over the past month. There had been time to plan his departure carefully. He could have got himself another passport. Another name. Created a totally different persona. But how was he to know that Dennis would decide to play Sherlock Holmes? Or that some stupid woman—and, boy, had she been stupid—would have a clairvoyant experience that would put the whole enterprise at risk.

The questioning had started off again; the hefty one repeating himself. Andrew frowned, cocked his head, faking a willingness to participate.

“And we believe that late telephone call—”

“Which you did not see fit to mention—”

“Led directly to his death.”

Prove it. Go on, I dare you.

“I suggest that after Brinkley left for work the following morning you entered the house and sabotaged one of the machines.”

Andrew couldn’t help himself. “Walked through the walls, did I?”

“No. We think you used these.”

The envelope was tipped upside down. It held a bunch of picks from the days when he was a petty thief. Gilda, having no idea what they were, had found them in an old box. Thought them “all spiky and thrilling” and wanted them turned into a necklace.

Should he deny they were his? There seemed little point, for he hadn’t been able to conceal a start of alarm when they had been tossed on to the table. Still, proving they were his was one thing. Proving he had entered Brinkley’s house with them was something else. Andrew began some slow and calm breathing. The red-haired one replaced the picks in the bag using a clean handkerchief.

“They haven’t been to Forensics yet.”

“We have high hopes of Forensics.”

“Apparently the lock on Kinders kitchen door had been oiled only a couple of days earlier.”

Now that was entrapment. Because it simply wasn’t true. He’d been sure to check for anything that could transfer. On the handle too. And they wouldn’t be able to come up with a surprise witness either. After parking on the very edge of the village overlooking an empty field he’d sat on a bench opposite the house, sheltering behind The Times till the coast was absolutely clear. Then in like lightning and doubly cautious coming out.

“Not a complicated business, modifying the machine, Mr. Latham. You had, I understand, seen it before?” Silence. “But what I did find difficult is how on earth Dennis Brinkley was persuaded to pull on the rope and release the weight that killed him.”

“Yeah – that really puzzled us.”

“He must have seen the trebuchet had been dragged out of place—”

“Marks all over the floor.”

“A mysterious, one might even say a suspicious thing to happen. Yet before any attempt was made to investigate—”

“When the alteration to the ramp might well have been noticed.”

“He reached out and tugged on the rope.”

“Now what on earth would make him do that?”

Andrew sighed and solemnly shook his head. It was plainly just as mysterious and suspicious to him. If only he could help…

Actually the key to the whole stratagem was Dennis’s obsession with order, his compulsion to straighten and tidy. Andrew had left the rope caught up in a half-knot, the end hanging loose. Dennis would have been compelled to undo it. And to reach the knot he needed to lean directly over the machine and pull. It had been very precisely placed; just too high to get at any other way. Andrew was rather proud of this literally clever twist. The police would never work it out. And if they guessed, so what? When has a guess ever stood up in court? Solid evidence was what was needed and so far they’d got sweet FA. Which meant they’d either have to let him go, period, or release him on bail. In which case, Sorrento here I come.

There was almost another hour of this then they took a break.

His two interrogators having left the room, Andrew was offered something to eat. They had to do this apparently after a certain time. Sadly it was not brought by the gorgeous Abby Rose but by a spotty young constable who put the tray down and walked off, leaving the door of the interview room open. Andrew could just see him sitting on a chair in the corridor. The food was quite tasty: shepherd’s pie with garden peas and a custard slice. He asked to use the toilet, small and windowless. So much for the great escape. Then spent the rest of his time alone, recapping on the story so far and bracing himself for the questions to come.

The Brinkley side of things looked pretty watertight. His only possible connection with the case – that final late-night phone call – the police had already discovered and it had availed them nothing. But Ava Garret?

He could still remember with absolute clarity the moment in the radio interview when she started describing the death scene. The shape of the room, the tall narrow windows, the machines. She even knew what Dennis was wearing; the colour of his hair. If that child hadn’t started crying…

Until then Andrew, sitting on a stool sipping his Lavazza, had been having a good laugh at the woman’s expense. Then came the shock. So powerful it was as if a great fist had crashed into his chest. He fell backwards, gasping. Coffee flew; burning his legs, staining the floor. His fingers trembled so much they couldn’t turn the radio off.

He picked up the broken cup and put it in the bin, then stood helplessly amid puddles of brown liquid, unable to get his breath. It was as if something large and fierce had entered the room and was eating up all the air. Clearly drawn before him as on a map, he saw the end of everything. Goodbye money and sun and sex and sand. Farewell golden, shadowless landscapes and licentious living happy ever after.

A genuine medium. He had never believed there was such a thing. But a little while later, when he began once more to think coherently, Andrew started remembering all sorts of instances when such people had helped the police with their inquiries. Had even found bodies.

Filling the washing-up bowl, getting bleach out of the cupboard to scrub the floor, he tried to subdue the panic that shock had left behind.

As Andrew saw it, his hands, morally speaking, were clean. Yes, he had tinkered with the giant catapult and nudged Brinkley into a dangerous situation but the final step had been taken by the man himself. Even obsessives had free will and he had made the wrong decision. No reasonable person would call that murder.

Even so this woman could put him away, perhaps for years. Years he hadn’t got, thanks to the decade of spineless grovelling that Gilda’s father had purchased with his scrap metal swag.

Dennis’s death had taken place at one remove, as it were. Stopping Ava Garret would inevitably be more…the phrase “hands on” came horribly to mind and was immediately rejected. There was no way he could physically kill someone. He just hadn’t got it in him. He was not a violent man.

He sat and thought for so long he only just got clear before Gilda returned. It was while he was tucked away behind Bunting St. Clare parish church waiting for going-home time that he remembered the methanol. He’d had it for years. Someone in the iffy circles in which he once moved had hinted at its efficiency and given him what had darkly been described as “the leftovers.”

Andrew, interested and repelled in equal measure, had kept the unlabelled medicine bottle without ever asking himself why. Certainly he would never have slipped the stuff to Gilda. Taking risks for no financial advantage was definitely not his bag. Perhaps he was keeping it for himself. For when he got too old and tired to philander; too creaky to leave the house. Shut up with Gilda twenty-four hours a day might drive the most patient man to top himself. Anyway, whatever possible reason, it was still in the garden shed on the weed-killer shelf.

The strange thing was, no sooner had he thought of the stuff than various schemes on how to use it came tumbling into his mind.

Astonished and impressed, for he was not normally an inventive man, Andrew decided to regard this fecundity as a good omen.

The first step obviously was to get hold of this clairvoyant. Using the nearest call box he tried Directory Enquiries, giving her name and saying that he only knew she lived in the Causton area. No joy. He tried the Echo, who gave him the number of her agent, a Mr. Footscray. Even less joy there. Andrew had hardly opened his mouth before Mr. Footscray hung up on him. That left the studio.

Even as he wrote down the number he recognised the chances of them handing out personal details about a programme guest were pretty slim. Then on the point of dialling (141 first, naturally), he had a brilliant idea. Why not pretend to be working for that honourable and world-renowned institution, the BBC? Surely a hack radio station run by teenagers who’d never make it and has-beens who’d already lost it was bound to be impressed. And it worked. There was a brief, awkward pause when they asked his name until Andrew noticed a framed advertisement for computer tuition right under his nose. He said, “Chris Butterworth.” And the die was cast.

Having perceived Ava’s grandiosity, hunger for attention and blinding lack of self-awareness during the interview, Andrew had no doubts that she would agree to meet him. Getting her out of the house had been a doddle. Likewise redirecting her via the mobile, catching her just before she boarded the train.

Where to take her had been slightly more problematical. Briefly, purely out of satisfaction at the symmetry of it all, he had been tempted towards the Peacock Hotel. The change in his fortunes had begun there just a few weeks ago, thanks to a chance meeting. How satisfying if the account could be closed there as well. But he frequented the place quite often and could be recognised. Common sense warned him off.

A long time ago, just before he met Gilda, Andrew had been vaguely seeing a woman who lived at Northwick Park. Suburban anonymous, as he recalled, which meant several anonymous places to eat. He decided to take Ava there. Naturally it had all changed, but there were still plenty of cafés and restaurants. Driving round he couldn’t decide whether to look for a really busy one where they could both get lost in the shuffle, or somewhere nearly empty with perhaps just one waiter and a guy at the till to risk recalling their visit. In the end he hit on a little Greek Cypriot place, Cafe Trudos. There Andrew got the worst of both worlds as there was no one there when they arrived but by the time they left the place was packed.

Ava had talked non-stop. Andrew need not have worried about answering awkward questions regarding his position at the Beeb, length of service, actual programmes produced. The only time his opinion was solicited was on how best to present her. The sets mustn’t be cheap and her support must definitely be a star of some magnitude. He was also instructed to contact Michael Aspel and explain that Ava was not comfortable with surprises.

After about half an hour of this Andrew no longer found himself somewhat embarrassed at the thought that he was about to dispose of another human being. The miracle, it seemed to him, was that no one had done it years ago.

He had been nervous about giving her the methanol. But his idea, to put it into his own glass – which he planned to conceal in his lap – then swap them round, worked perfectly. To distract her attention all he had to do was say: “Isn’t that Judi Dench over there?” (As if.) And there was Ava craning and gawping, twisting round, even standing up at one point before disappointedly flopping down again. Andrew apologised for his mistake but she refused to be mollified. He tried to make amends with some made-up gossip about Esther Rantzen but Ava would have none of it.

“Miss Rantzen is a personality merely.”

“She’s very famous,” said Andrew. “Got an OBE.”

“There is nothing,” said Ava firmly, “like a dame.”

Sipping his tiny cup of sweet, muddy coffee Andrew then explained that they must think about leaving as he had to be in the studio by eight a.m. Ava took this very well and so she should, having just been offered the chance to front a new documentary on Victorian Spiritualism. Andrew paid the bill and the waiter helped Ava on with her coat. While she was so distracted Andrew flipped open her handbag and stole the mobile, which he later destroyed by running over it with the car.

As he led her towards the platform for the Uxbridge train he was concernedly watching for signs of illness. He’d had little time to bone up on methanol and had no idea how long it took to take effect. Maybe he’d been lucky to have got through the dinner without her falling into the feta saganaki. At the other extreme, if its make-up was not stable, the potency could have completely faded, in which case she’d wake up tomorrow morning with a bit of a headache and he’d have to start all over again.

Except that he wouldn’t. He’d screwed his courage to the sticking place once, and once was enough. Though there was more money to come, he would walk – no, he would run away, as far and as fast as the wind would carry him.

The policemen were coming back. The older one, the chief inspector, came in first. As soon as Andrew saw his face he knew that something had happened. Something bad. He got up, pushing back his chair, which screeched and scraped against the concrete floor.

Barnaby stood at his office window watching the sun go down. The longest day was now nearly eight weeks behind them and the evenings were insidiously creeping in.

Sergeant Troy put on his jacket; checked his watch. He glanced across at the chief, wondering if a cheery word might not come amiss.

Barnaby’s profile was not easy to read. Today it featured his enclosed, poker face. This inscrutability could be rather frightening, which was strange really, because there was nothing to see or read behind it to cause concern. It could be misleading too. Troy remembered once coming across the boss late one night sitting bolt upright in his leather revolving chair, showing this same impassive profile and inscrutably fast asleep.

Right now, though, he was probably simply knackered. Even Troy felt tired and he’d got twenty years on the DCI. Barnaby was, as Troy saw it, a scarred and battered old war-horse. Himself, by comparison, a jumping, prancing young stallion caparisoned by FCUK and with barely a scratch to his glossy hide.

It had been a dramatic, if ultimately barren, afternoon. After their break, when they had wearily eaten whatever was left in the canteen – warmish meat stewed to rags and green jelly with grapes in it – and Troy had seen off the remains of a packet of Benson’s in the yard by the waste bins, they had returned to the interview room to discover that Latham had decided that he did, after all, want a solicitor.

Although this inevitably caused some delay the request pleased the chief inspector. It meant that, when it came to questions regarding the death of Ava Garret, Latham was not nearly as confident as he had appeared that morning. Not that his modus operandi changed much. Apart from the occasional murmured aside to said solicitor, silence continued to prevail.

As no answers to his questions had yet been forthcoming Barnaby decided to change tack. He would describe the matter and manner of Dennis Brinkley’s murder as he supposed it to have been carried out and observe Latham’s reactions.

He didn’t learn much. The man listened with a slight smile, frowning sometimes or shaking his head. At no point did he look surprised. Only once was there an uncontrolled reaction. This was when Barnaby touched, for the second time that day, on the strange scene in Leo Fortune’s office.

“What was it that upset you, Mr. Latham? And so severely that you had to leave the building?”

Latham shrugged.

“Shall I tell you what I think?”

Latham did one of those resigned, open-armed gestures you get when returning substandard merchandise to an iffy market stall.

“I believe it was because you discovered that the person Brinkley saw entering his office the night before he died was Polly Lawson.”

At this Latham became excessively pale. Globules of perspiration broke out across his forehead; dark crescents bloomed in the armpits of his shirt.

“And not, as you had assumed, the woman who was your accomplice.”

Latham produced a handkerchief and mopped his face.

“It might also interest you to know that Ava Garret had no clairvoyant insight into Dennis Brinkley’s murder. She was able to describe the scene of his death only after being fed this information by a member of the public.”

Latham was now as white as paper, swaying slightly as if from a gentle push. His solicitor became attentive; asked for a drink.

“So how does it feel,” persisted Barnaby, “to have killed two people for nothing?”

Here the solicitor’s protestations were interrupted by a uniformed policeman with a message. Sergeant Troy asked him to fetch some water and Barnaby, having read the note, indicated that the tape should be turned off.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news, Mr. Latham.” He used the phrase automatically as he seemed to have done a thousand times in the past thirty years, the job being rather conducive to such situations. Invariably what followed provoked sorrow and despair. Fear, sometimes. Rage, often. But anguish as tormenting and exquisite as was presently in his power to bring about was something new. His voice showed not the slightest shadow of sympathy as he continued, “We’ve just heard from Great Missenden that your wife has passed away.”

Barnaby did not leave it there. He explained the circumstances of her admission; related his conversation with the family solicitor. Latham was made aware that he had been the only beneficiary in Gilda’s will; a place now seconded to the Cat Protection League. That her health was such as to encourage imminent collapse. And that if he had walked away from the marriage the circumstances were such that any court in the land would have granted him recompense.

By the time the chief inspector had finished speaking Latham was practically unrecognisable. It looked, Sergeant Troy remarked afterwards, as if all the blood had left his body. All the blood but not the bile. A few seconds later and, quite without warning, yellow liquid arched into the air and all over the tape recorder.

“Sir?” Troy brought the present back into the room. “D’you think we’ll get witnesses for whatever happened at Northwick Park?”

Barnaby was sure of it. “Photographs of them both are well circulated. And details and pictures of his car. Wherever he took her someone will remember.”

“No wonder he panicked when we locked him up.”

“At the moment he’s a broken man. Lean a bit and he’ll probably snap. Also there’s the matter of this accomplice. We can dangle a possible sentence reduction under his nose if he’s prepared to betray her.”

Sergeant Troy, having fastened his jacket, unfastened it, then fastened it again. He examined his shirt front, rubbed the toecaps of each shoe on the backs of his trousers and began to comb his hair.

Barnaby laughed. “She taking you home to meet her mother?”

“I’ll thank you not to mention mothers,” said Troy. “Or the word Sproat.” He sniffed inside his jacket.

“Don’t do that. It’s like the monkey house at the zoo.”

But Troy was already gone, quickly, without even a good night.

Barnaby returned to his position by the window and his perusal of the sky, darkening at the end of the day. He was still struck by the melancholy beauty of that phrase despite it having become such common currency that a journalist on The World at One recently referred to it as “the ee of the dee.”

Though he tried not to dwell on it, his retirement was more and more on his mind. He was taking the earliest option available without losing out on his pension. Another five years could be served but Joyce had got very upset when he had mooted the idea and Cully had fiercely backed her mother up. He saw their point and would not have had it otherwise. Love meant other people had claims on you.

Though the date was a good six months away he was already being asked around the station what he would do. Barnaby never knew how to reply. He would have liked to say “nothing” but knew this would be considered strange. Everyone had a story about someone they knew who had tried this. Physically in good shape, economically comfortable, psychologically they were dead men. Pushing up daisies within six months was the favoured tag line.

Barnaby did know what he wouldn’t do. He would not become a collector. He would not become enmired in the wasteland of silicon chip technology. Neither would he begin wearing shorts and a reversed baseball cap and start behaving like someone half his age. No marathon running or ball games or, God forbid, golf. No bridge or anything else that involved sitting still for long periods and bickering with grumpy elders. No plastic surgery – his double chin could stay where it was. And, above all, no bowls.

He knew people who did some or all of those things. Only the other day he had run into a former colleague. They had exchanged a few words and Barnaby suggested a quick half in the Magpie to catch up on each other’s news. The man declined. Boasting that he had never been busier he riffed through all the things he still had to do before bedtime, then disappeared like the white rabbit, agitating his wristwatch and bringing it up to his ear.

Barnaby felt vaguely depressed after this encounter. He knew he could never cram his life with things that would normally give him no pleasure just to escape aimlessness and boredom. What an arid, starveling prospect. And all to avoid facing the fact that the hourglass was running out.

Things were handled differently in the East. Apparently the first third of their lives out there was spent learning how to live, the middle section by becoming a householder and raising a family. Finally they retired to a hut in the forest to meditate on the meaning of life, gradually dissolve the ego and learn how to die. Cully told him all about it one evening. He was grumbling about having to take blood pressure pills and she was trying to persuade him that deep relaxation was a safe alternative.

Barnaby had a vivid image of himself sitting cross-legged, clad only in a loincloth under a spreading chestnut tree. He snorted with laughter, liked the sound of it and laughed some more. It did him the world of good.

About to turn from the window, a movement on the station steps caught his eye. Detective Sergeant Troy was leaving the building accompanied by WPC Carter. They walked, their heads close in earnest conversation, towards Troy’s beloved Ford Cosworth. Abby Rose climbed into the passenger seat but seemed unable to fasten her seat belt properly. Troy hesitated then, about to close the door, reached across her lap to help, staying in that position rather longer than was necessary.

Barnaby turned away before he could become at all saddened at what such an incident might foretell. His thoughts leaped forward twenty-four hours. Tomorrow night he and Joyce would be driving to Limehouse for supper chez Bradley. Cully said they must celebrate their very first visit by choosing whatever they liked to eat. Joyce had decided on her favourite starter: chunks of jellied beef consommé and Boursin’s pepper cheese on hot toast. Barnaby fancied steak and kidney pudding with cauliflower and new potatoes. An apricot sorbet, they both agreed, would round things off nicely. Already Barnaby’s stomach rippled gently in anticipation.

Oh, lucky man! Happiness beckoned. He switched off the light and went home.