Faithful unto Death

Chapter Four

Notified that his car was ready, Barnaby, rejecting the lift, made his way downstairs. Huffing and puffing to and from the car park to his room was practically the only regular exercise he got these days. He discounted gardening which was necessarily intermittent and, as his plot was now so old and well-established, involved very little in the way of hard digging.

He had quite a distance to huff and puff. In common with the headquarters of many civil businesses, the higher a person’s rank in the police force the further away from the ground floor his or her office would usually be found. The Chief Super was rumoured to reside in the crow’s nest, a steel and plastic anti-lightning device screwed halfway up the radio mast on the roof of the main building.

Passing through reception Barnaby noticed the Brockleys and could see straightaway that the stays of their lives had loosened further. They were sitting side by side in comfortless polystyrene shells. Plainly their daughter had not returned. There was a sad reversal in the manner of their appearance. Reg now looked as ill and distraught as had his wife the previous day. Iris sat like a rock. Her tightly folded arms pressed a framed photograph hard against her chest. Her face, though expressionless, was savagely compressed, appearing to spread outwards. She looked like the lemon on the old squash advertisement: Idris When I’s Dry.

They had indeed waited, as Barnaby suggested, almost another whole day before reporting Brenda missing. Such subjection to authority in a situation like this seemed to him almost unbelievable. Ridiculous even. He was about to go over when a policewoman came out from behind the desk and approached them.

The heatwave, promised for some days by the weather forecasters, was now well on the way. The car was like an oven. All the windows were open but Barnaby could still feel the leather burning his legs. His shirt was limp and already glued to his back. Troy, in a crisp, apple-green Lacoste sports top (genuine Alligator motif, three pounds from a car boot) looked as if he had just stepped out of a fridge, not a trickle of sweat anywhere. He was moaning, as always, this time about his sex life.

“I mean, if I’d wanted to screw a marble statue I’d’ve got a job in the British Museum.”

Barnaby opened all the windows.

“Eventually I said to her, don’t wake up if it’s too much trouble.”

“And did she?”

“Hard to tell. She don’t give much away, Maureen.”

The Chief Inspector, pausing only to reflect that whatever his sergeant’s sword did in his hand it certainly wasn’t sleep, turned his thoughts to the Brockleys’ only child.

Until now Brenda had hardly impinged on his consciousness. With both a dead body and a missing person on his plate, he had more than enough to be going on with. The fact that her parents had received a reassuring phone call also mitigated against any sort of concerned action. But, over forty-eight hours later, she had still not returned. And however resolutely they insisted on a complete lack of involvement in Alan and Simone Hollingsworth’s affairs, there was no denying that the Brockleys lived virtually on the couple’s doorstep. Could Brenda have seen or heard something that might have put her at risk? The more he thought along these lines, the less easy Barnaby became in his mind.

Troy was still droning on. As they were on the point of entering Fawcett Green, Barnaby tuned back in. This time the subject under the hammer was Mrs. Milburn, Troy’s mother-in-law.

“Lethal, that woman. She’s got a donor card saying on no account use any of this person’s organs after her death. They are bloody toxic.”

“Rubbish.”

“I’ve seen it. Got a skull and crossbones on.”

Troy parked on the pub forecourt at ten minutes to eleven. Barnaby had an appointment on the hour with Dr. Jennings. Troy was detailed to chase up the address and telephone number of the mobile hairdresser, Becky Latimer. And also Sarah Lawson, the other person mentioned during Mrs. Molfrey’s earlier visit to Causton police station. The two men would meet up at Nightingales.

Already the lane was choked with people, as was the small field which backed on to the Hollingsworths’ rear garden. An exasperated Perrot, rosy with ill temper, guilt and apprehension as to how this blatant example of his inability to keep any sort of control might persuade the force to deal with him, was trying to clear a way through for a muddy Landrover. The driver leaned pointlessly on his horn, underscoring the hysterical barking of his two golden retrievers. No sooner had the vehicle squeezed by than the passage closed up again.

Barnaby missed most of this, needing to cut through the churchyard to find the doctor’s house. Troy decided, before going to the post office, to have a little fun at Perrot’s expense. He pushed through the crowd largely by exercising sharp elbows and brute determination.

“I should move this lot along, Polly.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Where’s the barrier?”

“On its way.”

“Here.” Troy jerked his head indicating a wish for intimacy.

Perrot, his heart in his boots and his stomach twisted into knots of anxiety, moved closer.

“Just thought you might like to know the PM results. Died about ten minutes before me and the chief got to him. Close as that. Sad, ain’t it?”

He strode on, leaving the ashen-faced policeman staring, in utter devastation, after him.

In the churchyard, having world enough and time, Barnaby dawdled, read the gravestones scabbed with green and yellow lichen, admired equally a simply inscribed slab and a grand mausoleum enclosed by ornate railings. One unadorned plot had a glass jar of wild flowers jammed into the ground; another green granite chippings and an empty metal vase. Grand monument or homemade wooden cross, what did it ultimately matter? Passing show. And all for the benefit and comfort of the bereft. The lonely bones beneath couldn’t give a damn. In the elms around and about, rooks croaked and cawed their aggressive hearts out.

The Reverend Bream appeared, closing the vestry door behind him and making his way down the path with a swish of armazine. Although walking with his hands demurely clasped across his richly curved front and his eyes cast down, Barnaby sensed something rather worldly about the vicar. His face was highly coloured and surrounded by a lot of crisply waving chestnut hair just long enough to touch his collar. He could have stepped straight out of one of those bibulous nineteenth-century paintings featuring two jolly cardinals.

“Hullo,” said the Reverend Bream. He smiled, revealing a lot of glistening white teeth. “Are you part of our excellent constabulary?”

“That’s right, sir. Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby.”

“To do with Nightingales, is it?” Then, when Barnaby nodded. “A sad business. Poor Alan.”

“Did you know the Hollingsworths at all?”

“Simone slightly. She was in my bell-ringing team. The only time I spoke to her husband was the day she disappeared. She didn’t turn up for practice so I popped round to see if things were all right.”

“Look,” Barnaby indicated a rustic bench, “d’you think we might sit down?”

“Well, I’m just off to Hellions Wychwood for a christening.”

“It won’t take a moment. Or we could meet later.”

“Oh, I expect it’ll be all right.” The vicar glanced at his watch. “I’m usually fifteen minutes early and they’re bound to be late. People always are at weddings and christenings. Never at funerals. Can’t wait to see them off and get back to the booze.”

“Did you know Mrs. Hollingsworth well?” asked the Chief Inspector when they were sitting down.

“Not really. She came to a few meetings, missed a couple, wandered half-heartedly back. Just looking for something to do, I think.”

“You didn’t meet or talk for any reason? Apart from bell-ringing?”

“Good heavens no.” He laughed then glanced briefly upwards as though asking post-clearance on this innocent exclamation. “Neither of the Hollingsworths were churchgoers. But then who is these days? Till it comes to needing a setting for the bridal video.”

The Reverend Bream did not speak in acid tones. He seemed cheerfully resigned to the scale of his neglect. Perhaps, as his high complexion indicated, he found solace in the occasional cup of claret. A little wine for his stomach’s sake. Barnaby warmed to him.

“What did you think of her?”

“Simone? A bit dim—no, sorry. That’s unkind. A better word, I think, would be guileless. And rather gullible. One got the impression that she would believe anything you said. Sweet-natured, as far as it’s possible to judge. Tiny, just about five feet, I’d say, and very slender. Little hands and feet. Fair-haired with a lovely skin. Astonishingly pretty.”

Another novelist. They were everywhere. Barnaby asked if the vicar remembered what time he had called at the house.

“Around six, directly we’d finished. I knocked several times, persisting because Alan’s car was there. Eventually he opened the door looking quite dreadful.”

“You mean ill?” The Chief Inspector recalled Perrot’s mention of a goodbye message on Hollingsworth’s answerphone. This sounded as if he had already discovered it.

“Wildly distressed is how I’d put it. Almost incoherent. I stepped inside—uninvited but there are times when good manners must take a back seat. Asked if there was anything I could do. If Mrs. Hollingsworth was all right. He said she’d gone to look after her mother who’d had a stroke. Almost before he’d finished speaking I found myself back on the doorstep.”

“You didn’t call again?”

“There seemed little point when he so obviously hadn’t wanted me there in the first place. I told Evadne and she got the village support system going—to poor effect, I’m afraid. I feel quite ashamed now. If perhaps I’d been more persistent—”

“I doubt it would have made any difference.”

The Reverend Bream got up, smoothing his cassock. Barnaby noticed that, in the bright sunlight, it had something of a greenish tinge.

“I suppose you couldn’t tell me how exactly ...” The vicar trailed off delicately.

“I’m afraid not, sir. We’re still pursuing our inquiries.”

The Reverend Bream went off to wet the baby’s head and Barnaby continued on his way to Dr. Jennings’ house. This turned out to be a very attractive two-storey building of golden stone with a much less attractive breeze block surgery bulging from one side.

Mrs. Jennings showed him into a comfortable sitting room and went off to make some coffee. Barnaby employed the time waiting for her return in wandering around enjoying the books and family photographs. Happy snaps, school pictures—gold-rimmed ovals on dark brown mounts, two boys and a girl. Middle-aged people, old people. A girl of around eighteen with a roly-poly baby, both laughing fit to bust. A paterfamilias with muttonchop whiskers.

“Quite a family, Mrs. Jennings,” he said, moving to help her as she entered the room. The tray looked very heavy.

“I wish they’d go away,” said Avis. “Not for good, of course. Or even for long. Just sometimes.”

“Mine’s gone,” said the Chief Inspector. “I don’t entirely recommend it.”

“It’s different for men.” She was attacking the cake with a fearsome knife, long and curved like a Malayan kris.

Barnaby said, “None for me, thank—”

“I mean, you’re not so constrained by their presence.” She poured from a round-bellied pot then, pulling apart a little nest of tables, warmed to her theme. “How many times, for instance, have you been chasing a criminal along the motorway and lost him because you’ve had to go and pick somebody up from netball?”

“Not often.” He thanked her for the table and then for the coffee. “Well, never actually.”

“Exactly.” She placed the cake, a silver fork and a pretty starched napkin alongside. “I’m renowned for my squidgy mousseline. This one’s coffee. What d’you think?”

Barnaby thought a morsel wouldn’t hurt. Only common courtesy after all. And he needn’t eat it all.

A grave miscalculation. It was food for angels. He took a second loaded forkful, swallowed then smiled across at the woman who had engaged him in conversation with such ingenuous bluntness. There were people to whom it never seemed to occur that speaking from the heart could cause embarrassment and Avis Jennings, like Mrs. Molfrey, was plainly one of them. Perhaps they were a speciality of Fawcett Green, which would be excellent news from an investigative point of view.

“So,” she took a long drink of her own coffee. “I suppose it’s about Alan.”

“We’re also inquiring into Mrs. Hollingsworth’s disappearance.”

“Oh?”

“How well did you know her?”

“Hardly at all. She came to the WI for a bit. And bell-ringing. We had the odd chat.”

“What about?”

“Oh, this and that.”

Barnaby curbed his impatience. It was not difficult as the divine centre filling of the cake melted on his tongue. Bitter chocolate, almonds, burnt sugar, a trace of orange flower water.

“Did she tell you anything about her life before she was married?” He produced a notebook and pen.

“A bit. She seemed to have drifted rather. You know, all sorts of jobs, none with any real future.”

“For instance?”

“Served in a flower shop, did a course in make-up, demonstrated food mixers.” Avis, rummaging in her mind for accurate recall, frowned. “Um, worked in television for a bit. Was a cashier in some sort of club. She rather skirted round that one. I wondered if it might have been a bit Soho. Sparkle and feathers and sad old men in waistcoats.”

Presumably she meant raincoats. “In London, was this?”

“I got that impression.” Avis rummaged a bit more but came up with nothing new. Barnaby asked if she knew of anyone else that Mrs. Hollingsworth was especially friendly with.

Avis shook her head. “Simone wasn’t into all girls together stuff. She’s what was called years ago a man’s woman.” Air quotes were hooked round the last three words. “She might have talked to Sarah Lawson more. Was in her art class for a bit.”

That might be useful, thought the Chief Inspector as a distant buzzer went off.

“That’s the last patient gone,” said Mrs. Jennings. “Come along, Inspector. I’ll take you through.”

Dr. Jennings, washing his hands, smiled cheerfully over his shoulder. The smell of soap and antiseptic filled the room. He waved at a chair placed close to the side of his vast, well-cluttered desk. His visitor sat in it.

“I don’t like a great expanse of wood between myself and the patient,” said Dr. Jim, taking his own seat. “It creates too great a distance. Turns me into a figure of superior authority.”

The Chief Inspector, in common, he suspected, with the majority, liked to think his GP did have a certain amount of superior authority. At least in matters medical. Jennings swung his padded leather chair round and the two men sat cosily, almost knee to knee. Barnaby adjusted his position slightly to avoid a Well Woman poster listing, in detail, all the ills to which female flesh was likely to succumb.

“I believe both the Hollingsworths were on your list, Dr. Jennings.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Hollingsworth died of a drug overdose—”

“Ah, that’s it then. So much for the rumours. Which, I might tell you, have been fairly wild.”

“I understand, acting on a suggestion from Constable Perrot, that you called on him the other day.”

“Monday lunchtime, yes. Banged on the front door for a bit but no reply. What did he take?”

“Haloperidol. Have you ever prescribed medication containing this for either of them?”

“As a matter of fact I have.” He drew a largish, stiff brown folder towards him saying, “I got this out in readiness, when you rang.” And pulled out a wad of notes. “Mrs. Hollingsworth—I never actually met her husband—came into surgery a couple of months ago.”

“When exactly?”

“March the ninth, if it matters. She was complaining of sleeplessness. Now I’m not the sort to hand out tablets on request, Inspector, because, quite often, the simple thing the patient is describing can conceal something much more complex. So I put one or two questions and, though I was not at all persistent, she got quite upset. Admitted she was lonely and unhappy. Missing “The Smoke.”

“Then I asked if everything was all right at home. There was a very long pause and I began to think either she hadn’t heard me or was not going to reply. Then quickly, as if suddenly making up her mind, she took her jacket off. Her arms were covered in ugly bruises. She shrank away when I tried to examine her and burst into tears. I could see straightaway she regretted the impulse. She wouldn’t expand on the matter at all so rather than push and perhaps risk her not coming back if she needed to, I let it go.”

“And did she come back, Dr. Jennings?” asked the Chief Inspector, jotting away and hoping his Biro would hold out.

“Yes. I’d given her a month’s supply.”

“When was that? And how much would the dosage be?”

Dr. Jennings glanced at his notes. “Thirty tablets at half a milligram.”

“And she returned ... ?”

“On the seventeenth of April. Said the tablets had helped her a lot, which I must say surprised me as she still looked really washed out. And even more unhappy. I gave her another prescription.”

“For the same amount?”

“Yes, but warned her I wouldn’t be giving repeats ad infinitum and that it was not in her interest that I should. So when she came back a week later—”

“A week?”

“With some story about the tablets disappearing, just vanished out of the bathroom cabinet, I didn’t accept that for a minute.”

“What did you think had happened?”

“To be honest I was afraid she was on the verge of doing something silly and wanted another bottle to make sure she made a proper job of it.”

“So you refused to give her another prescription?”

“That’s right. She became very distressed. Started to cry. I must say I did wonder then, briefly, if she might be telling the truth. Working on this principle I gave her half a dozen low dosage tranquillisers just to tide her over. Also the phone number of the Samaritans. And Relate.”

“What’s that?”

“Marriage guidance, as used to be. I urged her to discuss her problems with someone. And explained, of course, that she could always come to the surgery and talk to me.”

Barnaby, pausing briefly to wonder at the fact that a doctor still existed who encouraged his patients to simply come and talk to him, asked what happened next.

“Nothing. She went away. I never saw her again.”

“Were you surprised when she left her husband?”

“I must admit I was. I hate to use sociological jargon, Inspector, but that girl struck me from the first as a born victim. It wasn’t just that she was small and fragile, there was something so submissive about her. She was like a child on its first day at school, you know? Standing around waiting for someone to tell her what to do.”

“Was her general health reasonably sound?”

“Excellent, I assume. In fact the two visits I’ve just described were the only times she came to the surgery.”

“Well, thank you for your time, Dr. Jennings.” Barnaby got up as the doctor repacked the envelope file. “There’s just one last thing, what colour would these capsules have been?”

“The half milligram?” He looked both interested and puzzled. “Turquoise and yellow. Why do you ask?”

“Just general background.”

“I don’t see, if he committed suicide, what difference—”

But he was talking to space. A further courteous murmur of thanks and the Chief Inspector had departed.

Down the lane things were now a bit more orderly. SOCO were working entirely inside so there was not a lot to see. Quite a few people had given up and those that were left looked as if they were in half a mind to.

Perrot, his face grey with misery which he was plainly only just managing to control, stood just inside the wrought-iron gates. He sprang to open them as the Chief Inspector approached. Glancing at the constable’s frozen features, Barnaby was surprised to see such absolute despair. If Perrot had taken a minor dressing down this much to heart, how the hell was he ever going to cope if he found himself in real trouble?

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing, sir. Thank you.”

“You look like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Out with it, man.” Silence. “D’you think I’ve got all bloody day to hang about?”

“No, Chief Inspector.” Perrot came out with it. How Hollingsworth had been alive all the time he, the not merely foolish but criminally negligent Perrot, had been standing on the front doorstep. How the man’s life might have been saved if only.

“You’ve been misinformed Constable.” No need to ask who had delivered the good news. “He died Monday night.”

“Ohhh!” cried Perrot. “But ...”

An expression of utter disbelief rinsed the misery from the policeman’s features. Disbelief, Barnaby suspected, not so much at this new piece of information but at the discovery that such deliberate malice could be directed against him by one supposedly on his own side. It was a wicked old life, thought the Chief Inspector, and no mistake.

Troy was standing just outside the newly secured French windows, smoking. Inside, two people wearing transparent overalls and boots were about their business. The boots were like old-fashioned galoshes, the front flap folded over and fastened with poppers down the side. The air was close and smelt rather metallic.

One of the officers, a woman, was new to Barnaby. She was tweezering something from the rug where Hollingsworth had, presumably, breathed his last. As Barnaby watched, she slipped it into a clear plastic sachet with a tag already attached.

Aubrey Marine, twenty years in the business, having run a hand-held Hoover up and down every fold of the apricot velvet curtains, was now starting on the lining. He called out, “Hullo, Tom. Here we are again.”

“How’s it going?”

“No startling surprises, as yet. We looking for anything special?”

“One or perhaps two small prescription bottles labelled Simone Hollingsworth, probably empty. And thirty or so turquoise and yellow capsule casings, also empty.”

“How do you ...” Aubrey pondered briefly then said, “Ah, with you. Those torpedo-shaped things you can pull apart.”

“That’s it.”

“Not like you to invite us to a suicide’s party.”

“I’m not at all sure it is.”

“Farewell note says you’re wrong.”

“What?”

“Goodbye, cruel world,” moaned Aubrey. “First on the left on the landing.”

“Bugger!”

Barnaby jerked his thumb at Sergeant Troy. The two ascended the stairs avoiding the banister which was already thickly coated with aluminium powder. Troy, neurotically averse to the slightest smudge or stain either on his person or raiment, was excessively painstaking.

The room in question was small, awash with bright white light and crammed with electronic equipment. All the machinery was plugged in and gently humming to itself. Every screen but one was blank. On this, even beneath the silvery bloom of SOCO’s dust, emerald letters gleamed. The photographer from yesterday, now wearing a Blur/ Parklife T-shirt, tattered white shorts and the same filthy shoes, bent over the keyboard. A middle-aged woman, removing soft brushes from a steel case, addressed Barnaby.

“We’re having to settle for pictures here, as you can see.” She sounded cheerful and friendly and appeared to think such information would be a delightful surprise. “Blow them up nice and big and we should get some good results.”

“Not much use in evidence.” Barnaby was surly and morose.

“Best we can do, I’m afraid. The computer keys are quite deeply indented so there’s no way we could lift a clear print with tape. It would just pleat and tucker.”

“I have attended a scenes of crime investigation before, thank you.”

The woman flushed, snapped her case shut and left, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll come back later, Barry. When the room is free.”

Barry winked at the two policemen then hefted himself and his tripod to one side so they could read Alan Hollingsworth’s final message.

To whom it may concern. I can no longer bear to go on living and plan to take my own life. I am of sound mind and fully aware of my actions.

Alan Hollingsworth.

Staring uncertainly at the screen, Barnaby silently ran through every expletive and curse with which he was familiar then invented several more.

Troy, well experienced in assessing his chief’s moods, saw that matters were presently in a state of flux. Could swing either way, as the man said when asked for his views on capital punishment.

“What’s wrong with a pen and notepad all of a sudden?”

“They don’t agree with paper. Cyber freaks.” Troy spoke with feeling and some distaste. His cousin Colin, who jeered at everything the police held most dear, was heavily into what he called “Surfing the Net, flamming and spamming.” Tactically excluded by such specialist lingo, Troy reacted by murmuring “Pathetic,” sighing with boredom, looking constantly at his watch and telling Col to get a life.

Barnaby was likewise computer ignorant. Like a lot of middle-aged people, every time he came across the word modem in a newspaper or magazine, he assumed it to be a misprint for modern. He had picked up as much as he needed to file, bring up and cross-reference information. Anything more complicated and someone else took over.

Still, you didn’t need to be a compugenius to see that tapping out a death note, complete with what by no stretch of the imagination could be called a signature, was an absolute doddle compared to forging a man’s handwriting. And even if his sergeant was right and cyber freaks despised the use of paper, surely, in such extreme circumstances, Hollingsworth would have at least printed out his last message and signed it, if only to authenticate matters for his executors.

The more he thought about this, the more cheerful did the Chief Inspector become. The words on the screen now had the air to him not of bleak, resigned finality but of hasty improvisation. Mustn’t get too cocky though. Best to wait till the pictures came out. They would show if Hollingsworth was the last person to use the keyboard.

“My daughter’s learning to read with one of these. At playgroup,” Troy remarked.

“Good grief. Haven’t they got any books?”

“Oh yeah. But the kids prefer this.”

Leaving, Barnaby looked back. The machine squatted there, passive, self-contained and, to his irritated fancy, with a will of its own. Running with this humanoid notion, he wondered how long it would be before they cut humans right out. Machine calling to machine, ripe with mechanical malice. Organising—or, more likely, disorganising—their owners’ lives.

“Well, you won’t get the better of me,” he muttered, closing the door behind him. “You boss-eyed little Cyclops.”

The unhinged gate of Bay Tree Cottage had been pushed to one side leaving a narrow gap. Sergeant Troy, slim as a shark’s fin but minus that creature’s affectionate nature, slid through with ease.

He lifted the gate, put it to one side so that his chief could follow and knocked on the front door.

“Do with a new coat, this,” said Troy. He had given it five and was now rapping much more firmly on the narrow wooden panels, dislodging several flakes of Della Robbia blue.

Barnaby moved to the nearest window, the type with lots of small panes framed in white painted zinc. He glanced inside. No sign of human habitation.

There was no garage but on a roughish piece of grass next to the house were tyre marks and a small puddle of oil. Presumably Sarah Lawson’s parking space. The drumming on the door had intensified.

“For God’s sake, Gavin! Anyone’d think we were on a drug bust.” Barnaby watched as his sergeant reluctantly lowered his fists. The trouble with Troy was that he could never observe and assess a situation simply for what it was worth. If drama was naturally absent, it had to be created, an opportunity made for him to play the toughie. It got rather tiresome at times.

“Back to the ranch is it then, chief?”

“No. It’s half twelve and I’m parched. Let’s get a bite to eat.”

This time they sat in the garden at the Goat and Whistle. Geraniums blazed in window boxes. There was a sandpit with some buckets and spades and a Rockabilly giraffe which would agitate itself for up to five minutes on receipt of a fifty pence piece. Mercifully, at the moment there were no takers.

There was also an old tyre suspended by chains from a walnut tree. On it Troy, munching on pork scratchings, swung idly back and forth, a lager and black on the grass beside him.

Barnaby was struggling to finish his sausage roll. The pastry was hard and the filling, which in no way resembled sausage, tasted faintly of soap. He decided to leave the pickled egg, a strange shade of greenish fawn. Bravely, the Chief Inspector took a sip of his drink.

Last year his daughter and her husband had toured Eastern Europe with an Arts Council production of Much Ado About Nothing. Cully had sent her parents a copy of a Polish menu, woefully mistranslated. Joyce’s favourite line had been: “Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.” Barnaby had thought this merely an interpretive hiccup until he tasted Fawcett Green’s Liebfraumilch.

“If this is going to run,” he said, “we’ll have to find somewhere else to eat.”

“Oh yes?” Troy was puzzled. A bag of crisps was a bag of crisps was a bag of ... “Do you want the rest of that roll, chief?” He got off his tyre and wandered over.

“God, no.”

“What’s the plonk like?”

“Indescribable.” He pushed the nearly full glass, the roll and the egg across.

“Brilliant.” Troy sat down and tucked in. Then, with a mouth full of mumble, “Thank you.”

“Your insides must be made of galvanised steel.”

“He knows how to make pastry, this bloke. I’ll give him that.”

Troy munched happily while keeping an ear cocked should any input be needed. But the gaffer was silent. He wore his folded-in expression. Inscrutable, like those Oriental masters who train the heroes of comic books to be Masters of the Universe. Presently he produced a silver foil strip of antacid tablets, popped two into his mouth and crunched them up.

Eventually Troy said, “You’re very quiet, guv.”

“I’m thinking.”

Fair enough. Troy’s egg vanished in two bites. A dirty job but someone had to do it.

“About this hair appointment,” continued the Chief Inspector, “Mrs. Hollingsworth had on the day she disappeared.”

“Right.”

“Made for round about the same time Sarah Lawson was invited for tea. Don’t you think it’s an odd thing to do?”

“No, no.” Sergeant Troy masticated, swallowed then said, with confident authority, “They’re like that, women.”

Women, like foreigners, the pigmentally challenged or differentially abled, like anyone in fact who did not fall into the lower middle to working class white male aggressively heterosexual brotherhood were diminished, in Troy’s categorisation, to “they.”

“Came home one night last week,” he expanded. “Maureen’s mate was giving her a home perm. Plus all her sisters were there. Everybody sitting round the kitchen table with their feet up guzzling chips and swigging Coke. Screaming, laughing, telling mucky jokes. Whole place stank of fag smoke and vinegar.”

Barnaby somehow did not feel that Simone Hollingsworth’s sessions with the girl Mrs. Molfrey had described as Maison Becky would follow a similar pattern but it seemed a touch snobbish to say so.

“When you talk to the hairdresser, find out if it’s happened before. Someone else being around, I mean, when she’s had to work on Mrs. Hollingsworth.”

“Okey doke.”

“I wonder,” mused the Chief Inspector, “why she didn’t cancel when she realised she wouldn’t be there.”

“They don’t bother, rich people,” said Troy. “They couldn’t care less about putting you out.”

Barnaby felt his sergeant was probably right, in a general sense. And maybe it was as simple as that. But what he had heard so far of Simone did not tie in with that particular sort of arrogance. Quite the contrary.

“We going back to the house now?” Troy asked.

“No. Aubrey said it might be another couple of hours before they’re through. I’d like to visit Hollingsworth’s office or factory unit—or whatever these industrial set-ups are called. See what the background really is to this Gray Patterson fracas.”

“He’s number one in the frame though, chief, wouldn’t you say? Hates Hollingsworth, already known to be violent.” Troy hesitated before adding, “Perhaps we should nip round to his place first? Before he has a chance to scarper.”

“He’ll have scarpered by now if that’s his intention.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“And we’ll only get one version of the truth there. I’d like to have something to compare it with.” Barnaby heaved himself up from the much stained wooden bench. It was one of two bolted to either side of the table and he had to scramble awkwardly backwards, being unable to move it aside. His temper was not improved by the discovery that he had a piece of chewing gum stuck to his trousers.

Sergeant Troy climbed into the driving seat and opened all the windows. “It’ll cool down once we get going.”

“God, I hope so.” Barnaby got Directory Enquiries on his mobile and asked for Penstemon’s number. He rang it and told reception he would like to come over and talk to someone about Alan Hollingsworth.

“I’m afraid Mr. Hollingsworth isn’t in at the moment.” The young, slightly shrill female voice added, with breathtaking understatement, “He’s not very well.”

Though the police had, as yet, given out no official statement regarding the tragedy at Nightingales, Barnaby was surprised no one at Fawcett Green had thought to inform his office.

Speaking as he thought gently, he informed the girl in reception just how very unwell Alan Hollingsworth presently was. There was a lengthy pause, a sharp cry then a thud, as of a heavy object hitting something soft.

Listening, the Chief Inspector heard a confused hum of sound. Questioning voices were raised. Someone started to laugh in a high-pitched manner. The line went dead.

The company turned out to be based on one of those very large industrial estates which spawn on the outskirts of country towns. This one was about seven miles from Amersham.

Although, eventually, someone had given them precise instructions which Troy had carefully written down, he now found himself passing Texas Homecare and Allied Carpets for the third time. Previously he had come to a dead end in a builders’ merchant’s timber yard. There had been no verbal rebuke but the chief had started to drum his fingers on the rim of the wound-down window and glare about him.

Troy drove slowly, leaning into the windscreen, looking from left to right. It wasn’t like finding MFI or Do It All which were not only hugely visible but had their own flags. Penstemon would no doubt be some little prefabricated Portakabin well off the main circuit. The heat from the windscreen was burning his forehead.

“Stop!”

“Sir?”

“There’s a signpost.”

Troy, who had already spotted the signpost, murmured, “Well, I never,” and drove as close to it as he was able. Penstemon was back the way they’d just come. Barnaby sighed and rapped rather more firmly. Troy reversed and a few minutes later spotted the long, low building. It, too, was displaying an emblem. An azure blue flower on a yellow background. The flag was flying at half mast.

The reception area was boringly conventional. Tubular steel furniture, low tables holding neat stacks of technical journals and a great many artificial plants emerging from pots of simulated earth. On the hessian walls were mounted several brilliantly luminous computer graphics in brushed aluminium frames.

As Troy closed the glass entrance door a young man wearing a pale, stylishly crumpled linen suit came forward to greet them.

“You’re the police?” He barely glanced at the warrant cards. “What absolutely terrible news. Verity’s lying down,” he added, as if they had asked for her by name. “She’s the person usually on reception. I’m Clive Merriman.”

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news, Mr. Merriman.” Barnaby undid his jacket the better to revel in the air conditioning. “Do you think we might have a word with whoever has been in charge during Alan Hollingsworth’s absence?”

“That’s our accountant, Ted Burbage. I told him you’d be coming.”

Mr. Burbage’s office was not far. In fact nothing was. They passed only three other rooms. One held several people sitting at keyboards. The second held several monitors and had Alan Hollingsworth’s name in gilded letters on the door. The third was labelled “loos, mail® femail.”

“Causton CID?” Mr. Burbage, a man not so much deeply tanned as caramelised, was giving Barnaby’s card a much closer inspection. “What on earth’s going on? Is it something to do with Alan?”

“That’s right, Mr. Burbage.”

“Sorry, please sit down.” Then, as the two policemen did so, “Will this take long?”

“Hard to say, sir.”

“Better sort out some tea, Clive. Or,” he looked inquiringly across the room, “perhaps you’d rather have something cooler? We have a Coke machine.”

“That would really hit the spot. Thanks very much.”

After the cold drinks had turned up and instructions given for his calls to be held, the accountant got up from his chair and stood facing his visitors. There was something rather defensive about the movement. And about the way he leaned forward, balanced by fingertips resting on the edge of his desk. He looked a bit like a goalie bracing himself for a deceitful kick from a sharp left-winger.

“So.” A deep breath. “Found dead was all we could get out of Verity. Once we’d brought her round, of course.”

“Mr. Hollingsworth’s body was discovered mid-morning yesterday but we think he died late Monday evening.”

“Good God.”

“An overdose.”

“Suicide?” It was one long groan. He put his head in his hands. The burnished bald spot glowed less emphatically. “The insurance’ll never pay out. God, what a mess.”

“There’ll be an inquest when our preliminary inquiries are complete, Mr. Burbage. I should wait for the coroner’s verdict before rushing to conclusions.”

“There are several full-time workers here, you know.” Burbage had rushed on well before the Chief Inspector finished speaking. “People with mortgages, families, dependants. What is going to happen to us if the business folds?”

This lack of distress at an employer’s demise was to be found in all the interviews carried out at Penstemon. Alan Hollingsworth, while not actually disliked, certainly did not seem to evoke much warmth of feeling amongst his staff.

A second later, when Mr. Burbage had caught up with Barnaby’s suggestion about the coroner’s verdict, an amazed questioning possessed him. The Chief Inspector wasted several minutes getting the interview back on the rails.

“I assume Mr. Hollingsworth was in touch with the office while he was away?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What reason did he give for his absence?”

“Summer flu.”

“Was that like him?”

“Absolutely not. Never had five minutes off since I’ve been here.”

“Did you speak to him yourself?”

“Naturally. There were various things to discuss. Ongoing problems.”

“Money problems?”

All expression vanished from Mr. Burbage’s cool, pale eyes. “I really couldn’t say.”

“How did he sound?”

“Not well at all. And he was also rather ... wound up. If I didn’t grasp what he was saying straightaway he started to shout, which was also unlike him. He was usually very courteous.”

“Was there anything untoward about his last day here?”

“Only that he went home early. Around five fifteen.”

“Did he say why?”

“It may have been something to do with a phone call Verity put through. She said it was from his wife.”

“I see. You appear to be a small concern,” said the Chief Inspector, looking round. “Or is this perhaps not the only branch?”

“No, Wysiwyg.” Faced with bewilderment, he elaborated. “Computer speak. What you see is what you get. As to your question ...”

Ted Burbage hesitated. Barnaby recognised the wish to be helpful struggling with the professional money man’s ingrained habit of close-mouthed caution. “Small but stable. This is a thriving time in the industry. We can’t all be Bill Gates but when the big boys thrive there’s always a nice helping of crumbs for the little boys.”

As an example of appearing to say something while in fact saying nothing it was pretty neat. Barnaby nodded. Even he had heard of Bill Gates.

Troy also nodded, in accord. Not that Burbage would have noticed. The sergeant was sitting in a wide leather armchair, the position of which, slightly behind and well to the left of the accountant, had been chosen deliberately. Though Troy’s note-taking was both rapid and discreet—often he would cover several pages while hardly seeming to glance at his book at all—he was aware that seeing their spoken words written down could really throw some people, even cause them to dry up. Hence, whenever possible, he would play the invisible man.

The chief was asking now how well Burbage knew the firm’s late owner.

“That’s difficult. I didn’t know all that much about him but whether that was because he chose to conceal things or because there wasn’t much to know I couldn’t tell you. He talked about work all the time but men do of course. And those who are hooked on computers are the worst of the lot. I felt sorry for his wife.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“No. She didn’t come here and Alan didn’t go in for socialising. At least not within the firm.”

“You’re not aware then that she left home several days ago?”

“Left ... ? No, I certainly wasn’t.”

“Did he ever indicate—”

“Look, you’d be far better off putting questions about Alan to ...” Burbage floundered into silence and stared out of his picture window at the double-glazing company’s fascia across the road. Barnaby could not have asked for a sweeter segue.

“We shall be talking to Gray Patterson later, Mr. Burbage.”

“Sorry?” The accountant frowned now as if trying to remember where he had heard the name before. Barnaby did not help him out. “Ah, Gray, of course, yes. He’d perhaps know more about it.”

“Perhaps you can fill me in with a bit of background regarding the trouble between the two men.”

“Ohhh, that.” Pause. “Rather technical, I’m afraid.” Mr. Burbage spoke with crisp, dismissive brevity, plainly regretting his earlier slip of the tongue. From now on Barnaby judged the interview would be unembellished by any bits of gossip or private opinion as to the personalities involved. Never mind. With a bit of luck there would be some gleanings along those lines in the outer office. Wearing an expectant, interested expression he waited, maintaining eye contact. He was good at that.

“Something to do with creating a new language,” said Mr. Burbage so grudgingly one would think he was giving away a shameful secret. “One where you can write an application, run it on any machine and also transfer stuff straight from the Internet on to your own computer.”

“I understand,” fibbed the Chief Inspector. “Did they found Penstemon together—Hollingsworth and Patterson?”

“I’m not sure about that. But Gray has certainly been involved from the very beginning.”

“What was their relationship?”

“How do you mean?”

“Were they friends?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Oh, come on, Mr. Burbage.” Barnaby allowed himself a flare of irritation. “Half a dozen people work here at very close quarters. You must—”

“As far as I know it was just business.”

“So how did all this drama come about?”

“You should ask Patterson.”

“There’s always more than one side to any story. And I’m never going to hear Hollingsworth’s.”

“That’s true.” A respect for balance, a proper equilibrium, prompted him to continue. “Well, as I’ve already explained, they’d got this new micro system going. And after almost a year things had got to the stage where Gray felt they were ready to talk about marketing. Alan said he wanted to develop the package a stage further feeling that this would push it into the really big league. ‘Worldwide’ was what he actually said. Gray had come to a full stop on it and naturally asked what direction Alan thought this further stage would take. Alan was evasive, saying he needed more time to clarify his ideas. About a month went by—”

“Bringing us to?”

“Oh, early March, I suppose. Anyway, Gray started pressing him again. You must understand, Inspector, that this world is intensely competitive. With everyone always desperately looking for an inventive edge, time is absolutely of the essence. Days, even hours sometimes, can count. Though he trusted his colleague, never having had cause to do otherwise, Gray’s anxiety about this evasiveness led him to try and access the file. You understand what I mean by this, Chief Inspector?”

“Vaguely,” replied Barnaby. He certainly knew it had nothing to do with filing cabinets, those cumbersome metal objects without which no office had once seemed complete.

“It couldn’t be found. Gray checked twice then looked for the back-up. But the floppy had also gone. Alan professed puzzlement. He appeared upset but not nearly as upset as Gray who was absolutely distraught. We’re talking about months of very hard, creative work here. Not devastatingly original perhaps—most of the new stuff is designed on the shoulders of what’s gone before—but, as far as they knew, well ahead of the race.

“There was a certain amount of acrimonious exchange which ended with nothing resolved then things seemed to settle down somewhat. We thought Gray had simply accepted the fact that, due to some dreadful carelessness on someone’s part, Celandine—that was the project’s code name—had been accidentally wiped. But we were wrong. The mildness of Alan’s reaction to the disaster had made Gray suspicious. He borrowed Alan’s keys on some pretext or other and got the one for Nightingales copied. One afternoon, when Mrs. Hollingsworth was presumably known to be elsewhere, he got into the house, plugged in to Alan’s personal computer and discovered that Celandine had been sold to a company called Patellus for two hundred thousand pounds.”

Barnaby allowed himself to look impressed, which wasn’t difficult. He said, “Are Patellus one of the big boys you mentioned earlier?”

“Ish. Not in the league of Lotus or Novell but on the way. Gray drove straight back here, stormed into Alan’s office, locked the door and set about him. It was appalling. The noise ...” Mr. Burbage shuddered with distaste. “I called the police. I had to. I thought they were killing each other. Gray got a suspended sentence, as I expect you know.”

“Indeed. But he won’t leave the matter there surely?”

“Oh, no. He’s taking us to court for loss of earnings. Although—” Burbage broke off, looking quite put out. Plainly, for the duration of his narrative, he had forgotten that the owner of Penstemon was no more. “What will happen now I don’t know.”

“I assume the company can still be sued?”

“Alan was the company. We’re not Plc. There are no shareholders. And I can tell you that there is no way we could find two hundred thousand pounds, let alone court costs. That is,” he added hastily, “in the strictest confidence.”

“So one could say that Hollingsworth’s death was very much to Gray Patterson’s disadvantage?”

“I suppose so. Yes.”

“Do you have any idea how much of the work on Celandine each man put in?”

“Not really. I doubt if even they did to any precise degree. These things are very difficult to quantify.”

“Or why Hollingsworth should suddenly have needed such a large amount of money?”

“None at all.”

“Could I ask if the name Blakeley means anything to you?”

“Freddie Blakeley? He’s our bank manager. At Nat West.”

“Thank you. And, I wonder, do you have the name of the Hollingsworth family solicitor?”

“Jill Gamble at Fanshawe and Clay. They are Penstemon’s solicitors also.”

“And, one last question. Someone should be notified that Hollingsworth has died. In the absence of his wife, who is presumably his next of kin, do you know of any close relation?”

“He has a brother in Scotland. Alan described him once as a very pious man, full of rectitude and a pillar of the community. I’m not sure that he’s not a minister.” Mr. Burbage allowed himself a smile of wintry satisfaction. “They weren’t close.”

“Well, thank you, Mr. Burbage.” Barnaby got up.

The accountant, with a wheeze of relief, did the same.

“If we could have a word now with the rest of the staff?”

Gamely Mr. Burbage escorted them into the outer offices where he stayed, as chaperon, for the duration of their inquiries. He even gave up the keys to Alan’s office without demur and stood by as it was locked. Plainly an unhappy man, he then went outside to wave them off.