Faithful unto Death

Chapter Nine

By the following morning there had been a considerable falling off in sightings of Simone Hollingsworth. Plainly she was becoming yesterday’s news. And Brenda’s death, in spite of all the tabloids’ nudging, exclamatory prose hinting at a possible connection, had not obtained the same imaginative grip. This made for a rather less frenetic atmosphere in the incident room which did not please everyone. Sergeant Troy, for example, blossomed when the adrenaline flew.

Information both positive and negative was still coming in but was proving helpful rather than exciting. Clearing useless stuff out of the way rather than shedding light into dark corners.

The man with the white van phoned to say he was innocent of all knowledge of what he called “the missing Mrs. Haitch.” She was definitely not the blonde who had been seen climbing into his vehicle outside Bobby’s department store on the afternoon of her disappearance.

He rang anonymously on 999, unaware that the number from which all such calls are made is automatically displayed to BT as they come in. He was furious when someone from the station later called at his house. But not as furious as his wife who had thought he was working on the Friday in question over at Naphill.

The check on the possible purchase that same day in Causton of a pink jacket and auburn wig had also proved negative. The nearest the inquirers could manage was the sale of a size 20 cerise blazer with diamanté buttons and sequined lapels from the British Heart Foundation shop. A coronary causing little number if there ever was one.

Mid-morning Barnaby received a call from the coroner’s office to say that a death certificate had now been issued for Alan Hollingsworth and the remains released for burial. In the absence of the deceased’s wife, notification had been made to his brother.

There was some news on Simone Hollingsworth’s first husband although he had not yet been physically traced. While not actually the “bad lot” as described by Hollingsworth to Gray Patterson, Jimmy Atherton, born and dragged up in Cubitt Town, certainly seemed to be swilling around somewhere near the bottom of society’s barrel. Runner of iffy errands and deliverer of highly flexible packages; selling from a suitcase in the West End; bookie’s messenger; bag carrier and front man for a casino near Golden Square; street trading from a suspiciously mobile lorry and kiting dud cheques.

The word on the street was that Jimmy’s wife had been mad about him and he was mad about her and both were mad about money but he was worse. And so, when a new project with the possibility of immediate potential and long-term growth came up, you didn’t see him for the proverbial. She cried fit to float a P&O liner but he still cleared off.

Incredibly, given such a profile, this jammy dodger had somehow managed to convince Australia House that he would be an asset to the country’s community. Consequently, a mere six months ago, Atherton had set off, via Quantas, along the well-worn convict trail to the Antipodes. Had this not been the case, the Chief Inspector would have got a search going, for Jimmy sounded just the sort to be mixed up in a plot to raise a stack of the readies on the exmissus.

Thinking along these lines, Barnaby experienced a sudden powerful sense of coincidence which directed him back to Dr. Jennings’ surgery. Once more he attended to the descriptions of Simone Hollingsworth’s bruised arms and her distressed condition. He found his notes and checked out the date of her first visit. March the ninth. He pulled a keyboard towards him, scrolled through Sarah Lawson’s statement and hit on the lines: “Simone rang up and said she wouldn’t be coming again. I think she’d been crying. She certainly sounded very subdued. I got the impression Alan was standing over her.” That had been early March too, both incidents taking place just over a week before Simone had been given the necklace.

The pattern was not unfamiliar. A bullying partner brings pressure to bear to get his or her own way. Once achieved, at whatever the cost to the recipient, the victor is all smiles and affectionate generosity. Loving assurances are made that such a thing will never happen again. Gifts are quite frequently offered—in this case, one would have thought, of quite disproportionate value to the petty victory gained.

This train of thought led Barnaby to dwell on the disappearance and possible theft of the jewels. Their illustration in Harpers was being well circulated by the police both in legitimate and highly suspect circles but so far to no effect. And surely if they had been stolen, Hollingsworth would have reported it, if only for the insurance.

The Chief Inspector’s opinion was that Simone had taken the necklace with her. No doubt she felt she’d earned it and it would certainly have fitted into her handbag, or even her pocket. This notion went well with the theory that she believed she was off to start a new life with a new partner, albeit without much in the way of luggage. Then one was left with the problem of why, with two hundred thousand smackers worth of razzle dazzle in his hot little hand (and perhaps the ring as well) the man had persisted with a possibly risky kidnap and ransom demand. Unless, as was so often the case, the original request was scheduled to be the first of many.

At this point in his reflections an update from Heathrow was put on Barnaby’s desk. Of the two registration numbers he had left with Inspector Fennimore, one had come up trumps. Alan Hollingsworth’s Audi convertible had definitely checked into the Short Term Car Park. A ticket found in Brenda Brockley’s Mini indicated that she had been barely minutes behind him. There was no record of the second number, which belonged to Gray Patterson.

A fax of the Identikit portrait of the bag lady drawn with Eden Lo’s assistance also arrived. This had only been in circulation around the airport for an hour or two so it was unrealistic to expect much feedback as yet. Barnaby drew it towards him and switched on his Anglepoise for a closer look.

It was not a pretty sight. The Chief Inspector was reminded of the drawing in the final box of the Have You Got Your Pension Sorted adverts. A jolly smile in the first, a couple of faintly sketched frown lines in the second, a much more definite network of anxiety as our improvident hero flirts with middle age, and finally something resembling a man with a densely woven spider’s web stuck to his face.

This was a female, of course. Seamed and wrinkled as a walnut, wearing a patterned headscarf loosely tied under her chin. Clothing listed alongside: stained dark skirt, shabby cardigan with some sort of design which might, Miss Lo suggested, have been Fair Isle. An ancient jumper, colour not remembered. Dirty tennis shoes.

Not bad for a glance lasting a couple of seconds. Barnaby, duly grateful, prayed that someone somewhere would recognise the woman and that the police would then be able to lay hands on her. He leaned back and closed his eyes, picturing the scene in the Häagen-Dazs café.

Hollingsworth coming in, buying a coffee, taking it to a table and walking away. Almost immediately the woman crosses over and starts to drink it. At Miss Lo’s approach she hurries off carrying a string bag holding parcels wrapped in newspaper. It was not known whether she brought this in with her.

It seemed to Barnaby there were three ways of explaining this little vignette. She was a genuine transient simply keeping a sharp eye out for a free nibble or bevy; she was a transient who had been paid to go into the café, pick up the bag and deliver it elsewhere; or she was directly involved in the kidnap and ransom of Simone Hollingsworth.

Barnaby thought this last extremely unlikely and favoured the second notion. Which led to the interesting question as to why such a messenger would be necessary. The most obvious reason—because she was substituting for someone who would otherwise have been recognised—was not the only one. Presumably this person also needed to establish an alibi well away from where the drop was made.

The more Barnaby thought along these lines, the more it seemed to him that this old crone might have the key to the whole business. If they found her, they might well get a description of the man they were looking for.

Fingers crossed.

He pulled forward the next envelope and took out Perrot’s report on the position of the Halogen switch in the garage and accompanying pair of photographs. Barnaby hardly knew whether to laugh or fling the whole caboodle up in the air and the over-scrupulous constable with it. All he had wanted was a simple message: “on” or “off.”

The pictures showed the main switch and the surrounding area from two points of view. Aesthetically there was not a lot to choose between them. One lawnmower and collection of garden equipment looked, as far as Barnaby was concerned, much like the next. But the interesting point, the ah! factor, if you like, was that the Halogen light which, according to Reg Brockley, came on when Hollingsworth drove home was now switched off.

Barnaby sat quietly, warmed by this tiny bit of information even more powerfully than by the summer sun, now streaming through the ivory plastic slats of the incident room’s Venetian blinds. For if Hollingsworth had not pulled that switch, someone else had. Someone who needed to leave Nightingales without being observed. Which meant there had been another person in the house in spite of the Brockleys’ insistence that no one had entered or left.

Barnaby looked around for Troy and singled him out, half hidden by a busy, moving crowd of people at the far end of the room. The DCI stood up, preparing to attract his assistant’s attention.

Troy, unaware of the chief’s regard, was about to embark on the most delightful method of time-filling imaginable. Chatting up every man in the station’s favourite ingredient, Sergeant Audrey Brierley.

“Blimey,” he began, perching on the edge of her desk. “It’s a fair cop.”

Audrey wrinkled her her lovely brow with irritation and moved an I Heart New York mug out of his way.

“Sometimes,” continued Sergeant Troy, gazing hungrily at the matchless profile, “I wonder if you quite appreciate what a lonely person I am.”

“Whose fault’s that?”

“Pardon?”

“If you weren’t so ...”

“So what?” Troy was genuinely curious. He could see no logical reason for this continual rejection for, while acknowledging that he had faults, being imperfect was surely not one of them.

Audrey, cross at having allowed herself to be provoked into a personal exchange, decided she might as well continue. “I just think you’d be happier if you weren’t so spiteful.”

Troy blinked with surprise. This was not a connection he would have made himself. If anything, the reverse was true. Life, if you didn’t put the boot thoroughly into it from time to time, would pretty damn soon walk all over you. A cruel aside could put people in their place before they had a chance to screw you into yours.

Memory sparked. A small boy with his dad, sober for once, climbing on a swing in the park. A slightly larger boy coming along and tugging on the chain. Not violently, probably only wanting to play. Told to stand up for himself and push the intruder away, the younger child had started to cry. The man had seized his son’s fist and swung it hard against the other boy’s jaw. The boy fell down, hurt. It struck Troy now that this was possibly the very first occasion that he had got his retaliation in first.

“Where was I, Aud?”

“Lonely, ‘Gav.’ ”

“Ah, yes. Reason being,” sorrow weighed down his voice, darkened the pupils of his eyes, “my wife doesn’t understand me.”

“Oh, I bet she does, sweetheart. I bet she understands you till it’s coming out of her ears.”

“I sometimes feel I’m—”

“Whatever would men do for conversation if the letter ‘I’ was abolished?”

“What?”

“You’d be absolutely dumbstruck.”

“God, skipper.” He slid off the desk. “It’s a business doing pleasure with you.”

“I should give up then.”

“There’s thousands be glad of it.”

“There’s thousands watch Jeremy Beadle.”

Troy hesitated, unsure how to respond. Was it a joke? Or an astonishingly generous compliment?

“Get a grown-up to help you with that one,” said Audrey kindly. She half turned in her swivel chair. “What’s that roaring sound?”

Troy, who had absorbed the bellowing through the back of his head without giving the source much thought, now sprang to attention. He hurried to the gaffer’s desk.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is that all you can find to do?”

“Developing good relationships with colleagues, chief. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t that right? On the streets, in the field—”

“Credit me with some intelligence, Sergeant.”

“Righto.”

“I need something very wet and very cold from the Automat.” Barnaby rootled a pound coin from the jangling collection in his trouser pocket and passed it over. “There you go.”

“Tango?”

“No thanks. You’re not my type.”

It was not often Troy found himself in the position of being able to deliberately withhold laughter at his superior’s jokes—the DCI hardly ever made them and when he did they were usually quite good. Troy kept his lips firmly closed now with some satisfaction.

“Make that two,” called out Barnaby as his leg man sauntered off. “I’m celebrating.”

“Celebrating what?” asked Sergeant Troy on his return.

Barnaby made rings on the desk with two Lemon and Lime Fantas. “An extremely—”

“That’s another twenty pee, by the way.”

“Oh.” Barnaby continued speaking as he rootled some more. “After Hollingsworth returned home on the night he died someone switched off the Halogen lamp.”

“Fancy.” The sergeant waited for the bit worth celebrating. The chief looked so pleased with himself Troy thought the murderer must have turned up while his own attention was wandering. Just presented himself at the front desk with a fringe of parsley round his mouth and an apple up his bottom.

“Which means the man wasn’t alone.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What?” Barnaby, popping his first can, looked displeased.

“It could have been Alan.”

“What reason would he—”

“Habit. Probably did it every night, like winding up the cat and putting the clock out.”

“But they’re specifically for use in the dark.”

“He knew someone was after him, then. Wanted to hide.”

“In that case, wouldn’t he want the light to be working? So he could see if anyone approached the house?”

“Not nec—”

“For God’s sake!” Barnaby slammed his drink down. An effervescent fountain of spume shot up in the air. “Whose side are you on?”

Tight-lipped, Troy produced a spotless handkerchief and dabbed at his newly spotted cuff. Typical of the force, this sort of thing. They asked you to use your initiative. You used your initiative. They threw Lime and Lemon over you. It was the way of the world. No point complaining.

“Sorry, Gavin.”

“Sir.” Old people today, thought Sergeant Troy, refolding his snowy cotton square and tucking it back into his sleeve. They couldn’t care less. “Want anything to eat with those, chief? Sandwich? Some crisps?”

“No thanks. I’m taking an early—yes, what is it?”

“The information you asked for from the Curzon cinema, Chief Inspector?” said one of the civilian telephonists. “Programme times?”

Barnaby loathed perfectly straightforward statements that transformed themselves into questions almost as much as he loathed jargon. He grunted and took the print out, churlishly withholding any thanks.

And then he was sorry, for the girl had handed him one of the most interesting items to date. A nice little length of rope, you might say, to hang someone with. Or at least give them an extremely sharp tug.

“Have a look at this.” He passed it over.

Troy read the page and emitted a long, slow hiss. “New programme starts each Monday ... tenth of June we’ve got Olivier, Olivier. Whoever he is. Facinelli. It finished Saturday night. Well, waddya-know.

“She’s not very good at it, is she, our Sarah?”

“Got her head in the clouds, no doubt, creating and that.”

“A lie’s a lie. Go and pick her up.”

“OK,” said Sergeant Troy, making a mental note to cover all extremities and wishing, for the first and only time in his life, that he had access to a cast-iron chastity belt.

“Take her to the interview room in the basement.” Barnaby passed over the Identikit drawing. “And before you go, pin this on the board.”

“Strewth!” Troy regarded the sketch with disgust and disbelief. “The granny from the black lagoon.”

Barnaby drained the first drinks can and Troy took it off the desk and placed it carefully in the waste paper basket. He tried to ignore the damp rings and certainly was not going to use his handkerchief to wipe them off. He made a mental note to bring a paper towel roll in and put it in the cupboard. He was a bit of a messer, old Tom.

“What I can’t understand about this whole Häagen-Dazs scene,” Troy fished some drawing pins out of a Sharpe’s toffee tin, “is the business with the coffee.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Well, Hollingsworth goes and buys it. The girl says he needed both hands for the tray which means leaving whatever he was carrying, i.e. the loot, somewhere in the café. Highly dodgy. You don’t turn your back on your valuables for a second in an air terminal. Thieves are everywhere.”

“Presumably that was the drop.”

“But the old hag turned up after he took the coffee to the table. Not while he was at the counter.”

“That was the first time she was spotted. Not necessarily when she first turned up.”

“And why buy the stuff and not drink any?” That had really niggled Troy. He hated seeing money wasted. “It wasn’t as if it was the sort of place where people are breathing down your neck if you don’t immediately order.”

“Now Hollingsworth’s gone, we may never know.”

“I hate mysteries.” Sergeant Troy saw nothing incongruous in the fact that a detective should make such a statement. Yearning for a society that was passive, ordered and static, he regarded police work as nothing so much as an endless and ever more stringent tidying. Sweeping the country’s rubbish off the streets and into first the courts and then Her Majesty’s detention centres.

Not that it always worked like that. Half the time you were no sooner out of the witness box after giving evidence for the Crown than the rubbish was back on the pavement giving you the finger and either laughing or spitting in your face.

“What’s that?”

Sergeant Troy hadn’t realised he’d been mumbling aloud.

“Restoring order, chief. The right balance. That’s our job, isn’t it?”

“Symmetry’s for the gods, Gavin. We mustn’t presume.” Barnaby got up, taking his jacket from the back of his chair. “They don’t like it.”

Sergeant Troy parked his beloved Cosworth outside Bay Tree Cottage. He got out and stood, in a blaze of oppressive sunshine, in the space where a gate should be. Briefly he lifted his face to the sun and revelled in it.

The Citroën was not there. Troy crossed over to the window, leaned on a pale windowsill bleached even paler by the consuming “heat, and looked inside. The sitting room appeared empty.

He walked to the rear garden and studied the tangle of herbaceous and climbing plants, receiving no pleasure from what he immediately designated a right old mess. There was a wishing well with a small ornate arch made of cast iron wreathed in nasturtiums. Troy lifted the old wooden cover and peered down the shaft which was lined with damp moss and appeared very deep. It smelled sweet and clean. A pretty good sign that there was no one having a casual kip at the far end.

Disappointed that he was not going to be hurrying back to the station with news that he and he alone had found the body of Simone Hollingsworth, Troy replaced the lid. In the back yard—you couldn’t really call it a patio—was a scarred and battered table covered with a right load of old junk—pebbles and driftwood and shells. There were lots of earthenware pots in all shapes and sizes containing assorted cuttings, trays crowded with leggy seedlings and some tomato plants. Although there was a length of hose close by already connected to a tap, everything looked as if it could do with a good soak.

Troy dragged the table out and had a gander into the kitchen. There was some dirty crockery in the sink. Normally he would regard that as a sign that whoever the stuff belonged to would be back soon but with a slut like Sarah Lawson you could never tell. He wouldn’t put it past her to go off on a round-the-world trip without even putting the bin out.

At the front again, he lifted the letter box and peered through, hoping there might be some post on the hall carpet—that would at least give him some idea how long she’d been out—but no joy.

The sergeant drifted back on to the pavement, wondering what to do next. He had no intention of returning empty-handed to the station. He might not be able to produce Ms. Lawson in person but at least he should be able to glean some information on her whereabouts. So where would be the best place to start?

He was facing Ostlers which was ideally situated for observing all the comings and goings at Bay Tree. In a matter of seconds, Sergeant Troy was in there. A red-faced woman with bobbing little sausage curls, wearing a floral pinafore dress and pearl stud earrings, sat behind the till. Troy did not recognise her. But Mrs. Boast remembered him.

“So. It’s you.”

“Pardon?”

“How you can show your face ...”

“Me?”

“The Incident of the Curdleigh Posset?”

“Ohh ... yes.” Troy smiled.

Mrs. Boast pushed her red angry countenance close to his own until their noses were almost touching and snarled. It was very off-putting. She smelled of candles and lavender wax polish. “That’s the high spot in my talk. I can’t culminate without my posset.”

Sergeant Troy essayed a spot of light relief. “Whatever turns you on.”

“I reach my peak, I have the audience in the palm of my hand, I lift up my hedgehog and what do I see?”

Troy had had enough of this tomfoolery. He produced his warrant card and said, “Causton CID need your assistance, Mrs. Boast, in a matter of some discretion. I hope we can rely on you?”

“That depends,” said Mrs. Boast peering at his photograph with the deepest suspicion.

“On what?”

“Neither hubby nor myself would be prepared to do anything illegal.”

It was not often Sergeant Troy found himself lost for words. Eventually he said, “There’d be no question of that. It’s a simple matter of surveillance.”

“I see.” Mrs. Boast’s eyes narrowed. Without moving a muscle she managed to strike an attitude. That of a woman of whom her country may demand great things at any moment and who would not be found wanting. She straightened her shoulders and said, “Message received. Over.”

“We’re hoping to interview Sarah Lawson—”

“What about?”

“That’s the discreet bit.”

“I thought you meant—”

“She’s not in at the moment. I wonder if you noticed what time she went out?”

“Her car hasn’t been there for a day or two. In fact, she drove off not long after you and that other policeman, the one with the nice manners, called at the cottage the other day.”

“And she hasn’t been back?”

“No.”

Ah shit. The boss was going to love this. “Have you seen anyone calling at the house?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“I see. Well, as you’re so ideally placed, Mrs. Boast, perhaps you or your husband would be good enough to give us a ring the minute she does return.” He placed one of Barnaby’s direct line cards on the counter.

Mrs. Boast studied it, plainly with some disappointment. “Is that all?”

“It may not seem like much but it could be of great assistance.”

“Like in Crimewatch?”

“Exactly.”

“And should I listen out for any comments—on her possible whereabouts or suchlike? This place is a good clearing house for village gossip.”

Troy could well believe it. He hesitated. The DCI might not be prepared as yet for their interest in Sarah Lawson to get around. “Listen by all means, Mrs. Boast, but I can’t stress how important it is that you keep this present conversation to yourself.”

“Have no fear.”

“And your husband too, of course.”

“There is no need for you to concern yourself over Nigel,” retorted Mrs. Boast. “He played Francis Walsingham in our last Tudor pageant so there’s not much you can tell him about surveillance.”

Troy escaped but not without buying a pack of twenty Rothmans which cost seven pence more than those at his local newsagent.

While this conversation was going on Elfrida Molfrey reclined in her lovely garden on a slatted wooden steamer. The chair, like its occupant, was the genuine article, having been reserved for her personal use on the top deck of the Cherbourg Orion during its 1933 maiden voyage to New York. After the ship had docked, the Captain, at whose table every evening she had glittered and sparkled like the great star she was, had presented her with the lounger. It had been crated up and delivered to the Music Box where she was triumphantly to appear in a revival of Oh Lady, Lady.

For a while Elfrida’s mind wandered, recalling the towering pagodas of flowers—red roses and lilies and Malmaison carnations that had filled her dressing room to the ceiling and lined the long stone corridors outside. She thought of dinner at Sardis and how everyone in the restaurant would get to their feet and raise their glasses when she came in. Of dancing in her white satin Worth gown at DeLanceys on Madison Avenue. And of the rope of rose gold Okinawa pearls that Jed Harris, the meanest man on Broadway, had looped round the neck of a pretty little marmoset and had delivered to her suite at the Astor Hotel.

Elfrida sighed but briefly for, unlike many people with a brilliantly successful past, she was extremely happy in what some might regard as a rather mundane present. Struggling to sit up, she looked around for Cubby. Not seeing him immediately, Elfrida closed her eyes and concentrated hard, for she believed her secret thoughts to have great carrying power.

And sure enough, a moment later, he came trotting round the corner of the house bearing a bunch of forget-me-nots and stephanotis.

“For your bedroom, dear,” he called across the herbaceous border. “Which vase would you prefer?”

“I need my writing things, Cubby. If you would be so kind.”

“Of course.”

Cubby retrieved the cigar box, writing paper, envelopes and the gold and tortoiseshell lorgnettes from the trolley in the sitting room. One of the loveliest things about Elfrida, he thought as he made his way back into the garden, was her manners. And, though exquisite, they were in no way artificial. She just always considered other people’s feelings.

“We simply must do something about those poor souls next door,” said Elfrida, proving his point. She opened her cigar box and took out a fountain pen. “If it is only to express our sympathy and offer what help we can.”

“I doubt if it would be wanted.”

“This is no time to worry about being rebuffed, my love.”

“I didn’t mean that. I just can’t imagine what on earth we could do.”

“Sometimes just knowing that concern—and I’m not talking about prurient nosiness or the wish to meddle but genuine concern—exists can perhaps yield a grain of comfort.”

Cubby still looked doubtful. His whole nature shrank from entering the force field of another’s agony. All he wanted was to be left alone to cultivate his garden.

Elfrida, understanding this, said, “You don’t have to be involved, sweeting.”

Then of course Cubby wanted to be involved, fearing that the Brockleys might think he didn’t care.

“I shall write a little note which will naturally be from both of us and slip it through their letter box.” Elfrida selected a sheet of thick ivory paper with taffeta watermarks and a long narrow envelope. She uncapped her pen.

Coincidentally Reg Brockley, accompanied by Shona, was at the same time entering St. Chad’s Lane at the point where the very last house in the village abutted on to the barley fields.

Reg had neither seen nor spoken to anyone, except PC Perrot and the vicar, since the public announcement of his daughter’s death. He dreaded the time when a confrontation would be forced upon him and had chosen to take his walk at twelve thirty for this very reason. For most of Fawcett Green’s inhabitants would surely, at that hour, be either preparing or actually eating their lunch.

Shona had been allowed out again into the back garden and had, out of timid desperation, once more fouled that pristine velvet showpiece. She had crept back into the house with the deepest apprehension, peering round the kitchen door and cringing when Reg approached.

It was this as much as anything that had driven him to go out. He no longer gave a damn about the garden but this was his daughter’s dog. Plainly anxious, bewildered and lonely, Shona had received no exercise since the evening Brenda disappeared, let alone any word of comfort or affection. Somehow Reg had made himself take the lead off the hook in the hall, as Brenda had done every night of her life. Then, after checking that Iris was still deeply asleep and the lane was deserted, he and Shona had set off.

They made a square round the nearest field, the poodle moping and sighing at Reg’s heels. She never leapt and pranced now. He tried to make conversation but simply felt foolish and could think of nothing to say. Brenda would have chattered away to the dog about everything and nothing, using sweet pet names and baby talk. Unbelievably, he and Iris had sometimes been irritated by this.

On the way back and just a few yards from his house, a woman whose name Reg did not know but who lived in the village appeared. She was on a bicycle and travelling towards him. It seemed inevitable that they must pass each other.

Reg’s stomach bucked and churned. In the throat-searing heat his upper lip and forehead became drenched in cool sweat. Convinced that she would know just who he was, he stared hard at the moving polished toecaps of his shoes.

But then, as they drew nearer to each other, an extraordinary thing happened. His gaze would not stay lowered. He felt his eyes being tugged upwards and sideways, again and again. A confused need for human contact overwhelmed him. And by the time she was barely a few feet away he was staring, hard and determined, directly into her face.

The woman started frowning; looking at her watch. She shook her wrist, checked the watch again, tutted and sighed with an irritation that was plainly artificial. By the time all this had been accomplished she was well past him and pedalling quickly away.

Reg stood quite still, gazing after the departing cyclist, amazed at the distress he felt at the rebuff. It was as if he had suddenly become invisible. And, worse, untouchable.

Slowly he covered the remaining distance to The Larches. As he approached the gate, a figure draped in floating organza was just coming out. No problem with recognition on this occasion.

Forewarned by now, Reg braced himself. He stood aside for her to pass; Shona humbly came to heel.

“Mr. Brockley.”

“Good ... er ...” Reg licked his dry lips and tried again. “Good morning, Mrs. Molfrey.”

“I just wanted to say how very sorry both Cubby and myself were to hear the terrible news about Brenda. We’re close by, as you know, and if there is anything, anything at all we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to ask.” Whilst speaking the last few words, she laid her hand gently on his arm.

It was this, or so Reg thought, long afterwards, that broke him. He had not shed a tear since his daughter’s death. Now the frozen shell round his heart splintered, cracked, fell away. He stood there weeping in the street and pain ran through his veins like fire.

Sergeant Troy did not drive back to Causton straightaway. So far his purse was empty of all save bad news and he wanted to be able to offer at least a coin or two which had a positive ring.

Troy thought about Gray Patterson. He had had as much to do with Sarah as anyone in the village. And even if his attempts to know her better had, as he had put it, “got nowhere,” he must have found out quite a bit about her background, family, friends and so forth during their conversations. He might also know where she’d hopped off to.

It took Troy all of three minutes to walk round the corner to Patterson’s. That was about all you could say in favour of country life, in the sergeant’s opinion. At least everything was near everything else. Pub, shop, post office. Trouble was they were all surrounded by miles and miles and miles of nothing.

The first thing he noticed was that the agent’s For Let board had been taken down. It was lying on its side just behind the belt of blue piceas. Bess came rushing up, doing her stuff. Troy liked to think the welcome meant she remembered him.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Patterson.”

“Hullo.” Patterson’s greeting was much more cautious. He had plainly not forgotten their last meeting. As if sensing a certain reserve in the situation, Bess’s tail began to wag less confidently. “What is it this time?”

“Let the house, have you, sir?”

“That’s right. Move out at the end of the month and, yes, I will inform you of my new address.”

“Planning to go far?”

“I’m going to look at a flat in Uxbridge this afternoon.” He had been cleaning up the drive when Troy arrived. Now he started again wielding the rake with smooth, sweeping movements, lightly dragging the pea shingle back and forth. Tugging up weeds.

“Thirsty work,” suggested Sergeant Troy through dry lips.

“What do you want?”

“A word about Miss Lawson, actually.”

“I’m not discussing Sarah behind her back.”

“Mr. Patterson, refusing to help the police with their inquiries—”

“Don’t give me that crap.”

Sergeant Troy reacted immediately to this insult. Colour flared beneath his near transparent skin. His cheeks became hollow with tension as he clamped his lips together. He concealed his annoyance by bending down to pat the collie, murmuring, “Good dog.”

He used these few moments to ask himself some sensible questions. Such as, could he handle this supercilious bastard as the chief might in similar circumstances? Could he, just this once, not let himself be pushed all over the shop by his emotions? He decided to give it a whirl.

“Thing is,” Troy drew a deep breath and straightened up, “we’re rather concerned about her. Were you aware that she has been missing for the past two days?”

“I’m not sure I’d use such an emotive word as missing.”

“Could I ask when you last saw her, Mr. Patterson?” God, this phoney civility stuck in his throat. Troy could not believe that the words This Man Is A Creeping Toad were not branded on his forehead in letters of fire.

“Well, it was four days ago actually.” Gray had no intention of saying how often he had called at the house. Or how, for no logical reason, anxiety as to Sarah’s wellbeing had been gradually building up in him until, last night, he had been unable to sleep.

“And how did she seem to you then?”

Gray hesitated. He could just imagine what the police would make of the news that Sarah had been distressed beyond measure by Alan Hollingsworth’s death. Yet he felt to prevaricate might look odd.

“A little bit down, I think.”

“Did she say why?”

“Look, a woman has disappeared here and two people have died in mysterious circumstances. Even if they weren’t well known or liked, something like that seeps into the bricks and mortar of a small community. I think everyone has been affected to some degree or other.”

“And she’d be specially sensitive. Being artistic.”

“Up to a point, Lord Copper,” said Gray drily. Sarah had not been all that understanding when it came to his own feelings.

Troy did not reply and it was not until Gray glanced up again that he became aware that the other man appeared flushed and angry. It occurred to him that perhaps Troy had never heard the phrase before and thought he was being sarcastic. He said, “It’s a quote, Sergeant.”

“I’m aware of that, sir. Thanks very much.” Always more comfortable with a lie, Troy felt his flush subside. “So, Miss Lawson didn’t tell you she was going away?”

“There’s no reason why she should.”

“Sounds a bit sudden.” Troy remembered the plates in the sink, the feeling he’d had that someone had simply walked straight out, leaving the house exactly as it was. Just like Mrs. Hollingsworth.

“Isn’t tomorrow her teaching day?”

“That’s right.”

“Could you give me the name of the place where she works, please?” Troy produced his notebook and jotted it down, murmuring casually as he did so, “We did actually talk to Miss Lawson on Saturday morning.”

“Really?” His voice was wary.

“Mmm. She hadn’t quite realised that Mr. Hollingsworth’s death was being treated as suspicious. I must say when we explained this, her reaction was, well rather extreme.”

“In what way?”

“She passed out.”

“Christ!”

“Which naturally gave one pause for thought, as you might say.”

“You surely don’t think she had anything to do with it?”

“Who’s to say?”

“I’m to say. I know Sarah. You’re barking up totally the wrong tree.”

“Have you discussed the matter with her then, Mr. Patterson?”

Gray paused then, realising that “no” would not be believed. “Briefly. And came to no conclusion, before you ask.”

“Did she ever mention any close friends or relatives to you? I’m thinking of where she might be staying.”

“Where you might be able to hunt her down, you mean.”

“I think hunt is rather an emotive word, don’t you, sir?” Pleased with this natty bit of table turning, Troy put away his notebook. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Patterson. Oh, by the way ...”

“Now what?” Gray had already returned to his raking.

“Your alibi for the sixth of June checks out. The cashier at the cinema remembers you buying a ticket.” All that meant, of course, was that Patterson had gone into the Odeon at the time he said he had. Nothing to say what time he had come out. Might have been sitting in there five minutes before climbing out of the toilet window. Still no point in saying so at this moment in time. Get them off their guard and keep them there.

Troy was quite chuffed with his performance. He went into the phone box and gave the Coalport and National a bell. He asked for Miss Willing, left his name and explained that one or two things had come up regarding the Brockley case that he thought she might be able to help him with. He didn’t like to disturb her at work but perhaps later?

Then he rang Sarah’s college and was told that a supply teacher was taking the Stained Glass Design Course this week. Sarah Lawson had rung in saying she had had an accident which had left her incapacitated. She would not be returning until next term at the earliest.

Barnaby had withdrawn from the incident room to his office three floors away and was already thinking of going back. The atmosphere, merely soupy downstairs, was positively gluey up here.

The DCI’s blue and white striped shirt had great dark patches of sweat under the arms. He had opened the front and loosened his tie the better to ease the collar away from the back of his burning neck. Even the desk fan, heaving its propellor blades slowly round, appeared to be on the point of grinding to a halt.

The idea was that, being quieter up here, it would be easier to think. He was struggling to put this notion into practice but his brains had become addled by the heat. He heaved himself to his feet and wandered over to the wall by the window on which was spread a map of the Thames Valley area.

He studied it with a certain amount of gloom. Somewhere in that great expanse of land and water existed—or, more likely, had by now ceased to exist—Mrs. Alan Hollingsworth. And all the newspaper publicity and posters and flyers and handouts had failed to discover where.

Barnaby, though deeply disappointed, was not really surprised. If it was easy enough to disappear under one’s own volition—and Missing Persons files were heartbreakingly clear on this point—how much more easy to vanish from public view under duress.

And vanish was the word. Like the pretty assistant of a master magician, she had entered the magic box—in this case the ladies’ loo in a department store—and apparently never come out again.

The key word, of course, being apparently. The store was very busy on market day, which was probably why none of the assistants or shoppers had noticed Simone leave. Certainly she must have walked through Bobby’s to get to the street. The ladies’ room was on the second floor so she could hardly have climbed through the window.

Barnaby closed his eyes and pictured the thronging streets, busy stalls with their bright striped awnings and bawling, shouting occupants, hot dog and fresh fish mobile vans, and the open-sided lorries selling clothes and china. Simone, or whoever was pulling her strings, had certainly chosen the right day for it.

A knock at the glass-panelled door and Sergeant Troy put his head round.

“About time.” Barnaby lifted his crumpled linen jacket from the old-fashioned hat stand. “Are we fit then?”

“No, chief.” He came properly into the room. “Sorry. She’s scarpered.”

“What!”

“Left the house soon after our visit. Hasn’t been seen since. Phoned the college to say she won’t be in again this term.”

“Oh hell.” The Chief Inspector stumbled back to the old leather swivel chair behind his desk, slumped into it and groaned again. “Bloody sodding buggering hell.”

“Yeah, it’s a pisser all right.” Troy closed the door and leaned against it. “I tried Patterson on the off chance. Him doing a bit of courting, like. Or trying to. But he doesn’t have a clue where she’s gone either. Or so he says.”

“Of all the stupid, stupid ...” Barnaby’s voice shook with self-directed anger. It had been plain, talking to the woman, that she was emotionally entangled in some way with what had been going on. He had known of her friendship with Gray Patterson, the main man in the frame. He had seen her trembling with nervous distress throughout their whole interview and passing out with shock on discovering Hollingsworth had not taken his own life. On coming round she had wept.

And still he had not taken her in. Just how serious an error his decision was to leave matters for a day or two now became plain. A breathing space was how he remembered regarding it. Time to “settle into the reassuring belief that she had seen the last of them.” What a grave miscalculation. What swaggering hubris.

And now she had turned the tables on her tormentors with a vengeance, presenting them with the alarming proposition that it was they who might well have seen the last of her.

Barnaby returned to his desk in the incident room to wade through the latest backlog of information and kill time till the five o’clock briefing. He found clarification from Scenes of Crime who, having received a facsimile of Brenda Brockley’s fingerprints from Heathrow, were now able to inform him that they had not been present anywhere in Nightingales. No more than he had expected.

Also pretty predictable was the postmortem report. Brenda had died from a subdural haemorrhage following the fracturing of her skull. She also had a broken tibia in her left leg, a fractured pelvis and three broken ribs. The accompanying SOCO report described the marks on her legs and dress as being made by Pirelli tyres identical to the ones fitted to the Audi convertible. The Heathrow team had already liaised with Causton Forensic and would be coming over to examine Hollingsworth’s car within the next two days.

No luck with the letting agencies as far as discovering the hiding place for the kidnapped woman was concerned though the checking procedure had borne some rather unpleasant fruit. A two-bedroomed flat in Princes Risborough had been found to be in use for highly immoral purposes. And, nearer home, a lockup with dripping walls and no proper ventilation proved to be doubling as a sweat shop in which over twenty Asian women and young girls spent their days inhaling kapok while making soft toys.

Barnaby drank some tea, a cold drink, more tea and tried not to dwell on the fact that it was now twelve days since Simone had taken the market bus to Causton and never returned. And almost eight since Alan Hollingsworth and Brenda Brockley had died. He reminded himself that all investigations moved at their own pace. That some, lacking witnesses perhaps or forensic detail, never got off the ground and others, like this one, could be submerged in such a wash of assorted information that any movement that was at all subtle could very easily be overlooked.

He recalled the moment in the lift, not all that long ago, when he felt himself content to be submerged for a while in a “cloud of unknowing.” And tried to be unbothered by the fact that the cloud now seemed to have transformed itself into a sea of blind ignorance in which he was floating, rather more quickly than he would have liked, to a watery grave.

The room was filling up. At 5 p.m. precisely the Chief Inspector got up to speak.

“I’m afraid there’s been a disappointing development,” he began and went on to describe Sarah Lawson’s disappearance. “I’m now quite convinced that Lawson is seriously involved in this matter. She lied about where she was on the evening of Hollingsworth’s death. On the other hand, she appeared absolutely devastated when I told her that we were regarding it as suspicious.”

“P’raps they were lovers, sir,” suggested Sergeant Beryl. “On the Q and T.”

“More likely she was devastated on Gray Patterson’s behalf,” said Troy. “I reckon she knows something about his movements that really puts him in the frame.”

“That level of concern implies some sort of genuine involvement. He led us to believe he was keen but getting nowhere.”

“Men have been know to lie,” said a young red-haired girl. And immediately ducked down behind her VDU.

Barnaby cut the jeering short. “The crucial thing now is to find her. The college will be open tomorrow at eight thirty. Talk to the staff and administration and get a photograph if they have one. And it’s the day her class meets so talk especially to her students. Find out everything you can about her background, especially any friendships or close relatives she may have spoken of. She might be staying with one of them. Ask the students their opinion of Simone Hollingsworth while you’re at it. She wasn’t on the course for long but it will be interesting to see what they thought.”

“Will we be searching Sarah Lawson’s house, sir?” asked a fresh-faced young constable with an extraordinary moustache; very curly and totally out of control. “There might be some clue there as to her present whereabouts.”

“Probably within the next day or so, Belling, yes.” Barnaby nodded, half smiled. They asked questions now, the youngsters. Were encouraged to do so which was quite right. Thirty years ago he would never have dared.

“Unfortunately we can’t spare anyone to watch the cottage full time in case she returns but our man on the beat will keep an eye. Details of her car have already been circulated. It’s a red and white Quatre Chevaux. Far from unique but out of the ordinary enough perhaps to catch someone’s eye.”

“Be well tucked away by now, sir, though, won’t it?” asked Sergeant Brierley. “Garaged somewhere.”

“Not necessarily,” said Barnaby. “She may not realise we’re searching for her. It could be, of course, that her disappearance has nothing to do with my visit and we’re in a muck sweat over nothing.” He paused, looking round. The famous eyebrows lifted slightly evoking a response. It was plain from the expression on their faces that no one believed that. Barnaby didn’t blame them. He didn’t believe it himself.

“Well,” he got up and stretched his legs. “Until eight o’clock tomorrow then. And that’s eight sharp.”

“Yes, sir. I certainly will. I’ll be over there, on the spot, within the next half hour.”

Trixie Perrot, keeping an eye on her youngest child who was just learning to feed himself, drying the hair of the oldest and trying to keep the dog from mangling her husband’s slippers, shouted across the room, “Tell him it’s your rest day.”

“Sorry, Chief Inspector? No, no, that’s the television set. It’s a bit loud.”

The Perrots had had a lovely afternoon. Trixie’s parents had brought around a bright blue plastic paddling pool. Colin had inflated it in the garden and filled it from the hose. Back from school the kids had laughed and screamed and splashed about while the grown ups sat in the shade and ate scones and freshly picked raspberries with Devon cream.

In half an hour, when the children were upstairs, there would be chicken salad, an ice cold lager and Keith Floyd who Colin and his wife loved to watch. More for the tears before bedtime factor than the recipes if truth were told, the sense that any minute the whole boiling might well go up in smoke.

“Daddy ...”

“What was all that about?”

“Daddy!”

“Sarah Lawson’s disappeared. They want me to keep an eye on the house.”

“But you’re off duty.”

“It’s my beat. There’s no one else.”

That this was true in no way mitigated Trixie’s distress. “What are you supposed to do then? Sit on her doorstep in case she turns up?”

“I suppose. Well, on and off.”

“That’s ridiculous. And surely you don’t have to go this minute?”

“Dadee, look.”

“Good grief, Jamie.” Colin pulled out his handkerchief. His son’s face was covered in ice cream, as was his hair. There was even a certain amount up his nose. “Have you eaten any of that?”

“Eaten all,” cried Jamie proudly.

“At least stay until they’re in bed.” Trixie tried to keep the irritation out of her voice but she hated seeing him like this, so anxious to please running round in circles the minute that sneering lot at Causton blew the whistle.

“Can I go and watch TV now?”

“No.” She ran her fingers through the hair of the child on her lap. “You’re still damp.” Then, to her husband. “They won’t think any more of you.”

“You know how things are, Trix. The mistakes I’ve made. I’ve already been threatened with a transfer.”

“Well, they shouldn’t expect you to do CID work. That needs special training. You’re a village bobby. And the best there is.”

“Don’t get upset.”

“I’d like to see them come down here and do your job.”

Constable Perrot stayed to see his sons to bed then got his Honda out and rode over to Fawcett Green. He parked outside Bay Tree Cottage, walked up and down the lane a bit and visited the Goat and Whistle for a quick half. Then he sat in the warm evening sun in Sarah Lawson’s back garden. The time passed very slowly. Next time, he decided, he would bring something to read.

While Perrot kept his lonely vigil, Barnaby was enjoying the pleasure of his wife’s company and a chilled glass of Santara Chardonnay. He was suffering rather than enjoying a series of more or less painful pinpricks in his knees.

“Those trousers’ll be ruined.”

“Leave him alone. He’s all right.”

Eighteen months ago the Barnabys’ daughter and her husband, having signed up for a three-month European tour, had left behind their newest acquisition, a Russian Blue kitten, Kilmowski.

Barnaby pointed out sourly that he thought the period wherein your offspring begs for a pet, promises to wash, groom, feed and exercise it to the end of its days then promptly dumps the whole procedure on to you drew to a natural close around the fifteenth year.

Joyce, enchanted by the adorable little creature, told her husband he was an old grump. Barnaby, just as deeply disenchanted, soon had his worst fears realised. Food nicked off his plate while he wasn’t looking, his newspaper torn up then wee’d on. He counted the days to his daughter’s return.

But by the time Cully and Nico got back, the kitten had seduced him utterly and it was not only Joyce who was unhappy at the thought of giving it back.

However, as things turned out, Cully was barely unpacked before she had to leave for Manchester Royal Exchange and Hedda Gabler. Nicholas had a surprise chance to go to Stratford where an actor had broken his contract and taken a movie offer. They decided to let their flat for the next six months. By the time they had stopped vagabonding and had once more settled in London, Kilmowski, though still richly endowed with beauty, elegance and playfully winning ways, was plainly no longer a kitten. He had, as Cully put it with sorrowful wit, transmogrified. She and Nico both agreed that it would be not only selfish but cruel to whisk him away to a window-boxed flat when he had all of Arbury Crescent to roam around in. So Kiki, as he had been called almost from the day of his arrival, stayed put.

“What time are they coming?”

“Not they. It’s Cully on her own.”

“Oh, we’re not starting all that again, are we?”

“Of course not. Nice’s got to be at Pinewood by half past seven in the morning so he’s having an early night. I told you.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

“I meant to tell you,” Barnaby changed the subject, “I played your Amadeus rehearsal tape yesterday—”

“Oh Tom, that’s really nice.”

“Gavin thought you were Cecilia Bertoli.”

“Perhaps I’ve misjudged that boy.”

“No you haven’t.”

“No, I haven’t.” Joyce laughed.

The doorbell rang. She left to answer it. Barnaby put the cat down and went to the kitchen where he retrieved his gazpacho from the fridge and began to crack some ice.

Cully entered (no other word would do), crossed centre left and gave him a kiss. She wore a very short plain white linen dress and black espadrilles, the laces cross-gartered almost to her richly bronzed knees. No make-up, hair tumbling every which way. Beauty unadorned.

“Hullo, Pa.”

“Hullo, darling. You’ve decided to watch this film then?”

“Almost. I think. I wanted to see you and Mum, anyway.”

Barnaby, ridiculously pleased, said casually, “Nice to see you, too.”

“Yum yum.” She dipped her finger into the gazpacho and sucked it. “What else is there?”

“Crab and rice salad and gooseberry—Don’t do that.”

“We’re all family.”

“Licking your fingers then sticking them back in the food, that’s not how we’ve brought you up.”

Cully giggled. “Shall I go and stand in the corner?”

“You can help your mother with the plates. And help yourself to some wine.”

“You sure I’m old enough?”

Barnaby got out three white soup bowls with a blue fish on the bottom. Souvenirs from Galicia. He set them in slightly larger bowls packed with crushed ice and poured in the soup. Put French bread on the tray and a dish of pale, unsalted butter from Brittany.

“Shall I open another bottle?” said Joyce through the serving hatch.

“I shouldn’t.” He had noticed Cully’s car keys, swinging from her little finger.

The food was set out on a low coffee table in front of the television. The tape of The Blue Angel, set to Rewind, whizzed, hissed and finally clicked off. Joyce picked up the remote control and looked at her daughter.

“Do I press Play?”

“Sure. Why not?” Cully pushed an imaginary trilby to the back of her head with the edge of her thumb. “Let’s hear it for Marlene and the professor.”

Barnaby, as far as he could remember, had never seen the film. This made the score two out of three. Joyce had caught it at the Hampstead Everyman “years and years ago.”

Supposedly a new print, it was still pretty grainy. But nothing could mar that astonishingly flawless face. A face whose mysterious perfection no words could even begin to describe. Beautiful was hopelessly inadequate. And where could you go from there?

Cully sighed deeply. She said, “I will never, ever again believe that cheekbones are merely deposits of calcium.”

Watching the character played by Emil Jannings, twisting and turning in the fatal net, Barnaby thought how useless a weapon intelligence was against the inscrutable devouring onslaught of sexual passion. Here was a man fighting for his honour, his marriage, his very life even with no weapons but his mind. When physical obsession took over, it seemed that common sense and even sometimes sanity itself fled.

Barnaby put the film on Pause and went to dish up the crab and rice salad. When he came back, his wife and daughter were discussing Dietrich, then and now.

Cully was saying, “It’s impossible for us to react to the film, and especially to her, as people did in the thirties.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Because then she was simply a stunning looking woman at the start of her career. Now she’s an icon. And whatever else icons might be, they are not sexy. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

“Hang on a sec.” He forked up some of the rice and tasted it. “Not enough nutmeg.”

“Don’t put your fork back into that when it’s been in your mouth,” cried Joyce.

Cully started giggling again but stopped when her father refused to refill her glass. There was a fairly brisk argument which ended with the youngest Barnaby deciding she had had enough of the film, the dinner and her parents, thanks very much and vanishing abruptly into the night.