The Killings at Badger's Drift

Chapter One

On the afternoon the inquest was reconvened the coroner’s court was packed. Every light-oak-stained folding seat was taken. Badger’s Drift seemed to have turned out in its entirety. It appeared (Barnaby scanned the rows of faces) that only David Whiteley and Michael Lacey had not turned up. The jury - striving to look serious, disinterested and worthy of the trust placed - were in position.

Barbara Lessiter was incongruously dressed in a black and white spotted frilled dress more suitable for a garden party, a little black hat with a frou-frou of spotted veiling concealing her face. Judy wore a fair-isle jumper and tweed trousers, Katherine Lacey a culotte suit in white linen. Her hair was held back by two scarves, brilliant turquoise and acid yellow, twisted around each other in a tight circlet. Mrs Rainbird had gone the whole hog and was wrapped, like some gargantuan Christmas gift, in shiny crimson satin topped off with a green hat covered in little berries. The coroner took his seat and the inquest began.

The statement of Doctor Trevor Lessiter was read out. In it he made the point most strongly that, on examining the deceased, he certainly had noticed congestion of the lungs, but as he was treating Miss Simpson at the time for bronchitis he thought the fact hardly surprising. Naturally he had not checked for symptoms of coniine poisoning. What physician in those circumstances would? The coroner said there was no blame to be apportioned in this matter and the doctor stared hard at the reporter from the Causton Echo to make sure he’d got that down. He then signed his statement and walked importantly back to his seat, his round head and pudgy shoulders looking pompous even from behind.

The pathologist’s report was read. There was a buzz of interest at the word hemlock and the Rainbirds held hands excitedly. Next a scientist from the Police Forensic Laboratory gave evidence relating to the analysis of fibres found in an area of beechwood near the village Badger’s Drift, and the identification of dirt and leaf mould adhering to tennis shoes belonging to the deceased as coming from the same area.

Two scene-of-crime officers described the large flattened space near which a deep impression of the same shoes indicated that Emily Simpson had been standing for some time. Here Barnaby noticed Miss Bellringer flush with anger and glare at the man giving evidence. He continued to describe an impression that could have been made by someone of Emily Simpson’s height and weight having fallen a few feet away. The coroner asked for a pause whilst he checked back on Doctor Lessiter’s statement. He then asked the doctor if the bruises on Miss Simpson’s shin could have been caused by the earlier fall. The doctor sighed mightily and, in a voice indicating that they had already wasted enough of his valuable time, said that he supposed so.

Scene-of-crime continued. Fingerprint details. The marked passage in the volume of Shakespeare, a 6B pencil which had not been found. The afternoon wore on. The postman was called, as was Miss Lucy Bellringer. She assured the court that on the morning of her friend’s death the larder window was undamaged and the hemlock not in the house. And that, as regards the 6B pencil, Miss Simpson would never have defaced her beloved Shakespeare. ‘She never put a mark in any of her books. They were far too precious to her.’

Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby described Miss Bellringer’s first visit and his meeting with Terry Bazely at which there was an even stronger buzz of interest. He glanced around the court as he mentioned Annabella but saw only a few puzzled looks. No flicker of recognition. As he sat down he glanced at the jury. Their seriousness now was not assumed. They were totally engrossed, looking intently at the coroner. One woman had gone very white. An usher crossed to her and murmured something but she shook her head, edging further forward in her seat.

The coroner started his summing up, concluding with directions to the jury which were unmistakable. They conferred together only for a moment before giving their verdict, which was that Emily Simpson had been murdered by a person or persons unknown.

Immediately the reporter from the Echo, perhaps influenced by too much film noir, flung on his brand-new white trench coat, pushed back an invisible eye shield and raced from the courtroom. Everyone else left more slowly - talking, questioning, looking at each other with a mixture of excitement and dismay like a bunch of critics at a prestigious first night whose worst hopes have just been confirmed.

Barnaby watched Barbara Lessiter leave on the arm of her husband. She had sat, apparently placid, through the whole proceedings, but he had noticed her hands moving. He walked now to the end of the row which held her seat and looked along the floor. Just in front of her chair was a little pyramid of shredded tissues. He remembered the letter which she had so quickly thrust out of sight the other morning, and regretted the veil. He would have liked to have seen the expression on her face when the verdict had been announced.

Almost everyone had now gone. But on a bench, some distance away, a solitary figure sat bowed, head low. He crossed the space and sat down.

‘Miss Bellringer ... ?’ She looked at him. Her skin was ashen, her fine eyes dull. ‘Are you all right?’ When she did not reply he said quietly, ‘Surely you understood where our investigations were leading?’

‘Of course ... that is ... I suppose I did.’ Her ebullience was quite gone. She looked very old. ‘But I hadn’t put it into words to myself. Why is it so much worse now that it’s been put into words?’ She looked at him inquiringly as if he would know. There was a long pause.

Barnaby said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Such wickedness.’ A flash of anger raked her face and left a spark in her eyes. ‘After a lifetime of caring for other people. She was a wonderful teacher, you know. Better than I’ve ever been. And of course she knew them, whoever it was. That’s the terrible thing. She must have welcomed them in.’ Silently Barnaby agreed. ‘Well, they must be caught,’ she continued, her voice strengthening by the minute. ‘Right - what are your instructions, Chief Inspector? What shall I do next?’

‘Nothing, I’m afraid. We—’

‘Oh but I must do something. I can talk to people, can’t I? Find out if anyone noticed anything, anything at all on the day she died. And what about this mysterious Annabella? Perhaps I can discover who she is.’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Bellringer—’

‘But I’ve got to help. Surely, Chief Inspector, you can see why?’

‘Of course I understand your—’

‘Poirot,’ she interrupted wistfully, ‘had his Hastings, you know.’

‘And I, Miss Bellringer, have all the resources of a modern police force at my disposal. It’s a different world.’

‘They can’t be everywhere at once. And in any case I’m sure’ - she laid a gloved hand on his arm - ‘they can’t all be as intelligent as you.’

‘Please be sensible,’ said Barnaby, resisting as well as he could such blatant flattery. ‘I’m sure your friend would not wish to put your life at risk.’

She removed her hand. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘In a community as small as Badger’s Drift everyone will know what you’re about. Someone who has killed once and who thinks he can protect himself by killing a second time will not hesitate to do so. And don’t forget’ - he turned and they walked together towards the exit - ‘that if Miss Simpson knew the murderer very well, so do you.’

Chapter Two

It was nine o’clock that same evening. Phyllis Cadell stood by the chiffonier in the larger of the two sitting rooms at Tye House. She stood stock still, listening. She had gobbled her pudding so quickly she thought the other two might notice but, as was sickeningly usual, they paid close and affectionate attention only to each other.

She stared at the half-open door. Katherine was safely in the kitchen stacking the plates in the dishwasher. Henry would inevitably be nearby, gazing with fatuous admiration at this difficult accomplishment. Quickly Phyllis unstoppered the heavy cut-glass decanter. She picked up a chunky tumbler and half filled it with brandy. There was a clear chink as glass and decanter collided. She glanced at the door again, replaced the stopper and started to drink.

It was wonderful. Fiery and strong. It lagged her misery with warmth like a cosy coat. There had been wine at dinner but what were two bottles of wine between three people? And in any case wine no longer seemed to have any effect. She emptied her glass, eased out the stopper and poured another, splashing a little in her haste.

‘A small one for me too, Phyllis, if you would?’

‘Oh!’ She swung round. Henry was propelling himself across the carpet. ‘Of course ... I’m sorry ... I didn’t hear you.’ She turned her back on him, concealing the nearly full tumbler in her hand. She pushed it behind a plant and took a drink over to her brother-in-law. ‘And one for Katherine?’ she asked, proud of the balance in her voice.

‘I shouldn’t think so. She hardly drinks at all, as you know.’

She doesn’t need to, does she, thought Phyllis savagely. Do you think I’d drink if I had her life? Her looks? Her future? Concealing the glass in her hand she walked over to the window and placed herself behind a tall jardinière. She took another long, deep swallow.

She began to feel better. Then, as the unhappiness receded, her sense of her surroundings became strangely distorted. The velvet pile of the carpet seemed to be alive, rubbing around her feet like a cat; stripes on the curtain raised themselves and went zinging up and down like railway lines. A tumbling spray of stephanotis in the jardinière poured out a rich, sensuous smell, filling her nostrils cruelly. Reminding her of the coming nuptials. If you prick us do we not bleed she thought chaotically.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad at the cottage. At least she’d be out of their way. The place was a good ten minutes’ walk from the main house and they’d hardly be dropping in all the time. They might visit a bit at first, feeling vaguely uncomfortable at her solitude, but that would soon wear off.

The kitchen was quiet now. Katherine would be joining them any minute. Phyllis took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. She blinked very hard, willing herself to see the room as it really was and not as a crudely drawn, unnaturally lively stage set. Then she saw the bride-to-be walking across the yard carrying the wilting flowers from the dining table. Phyllis stared at her through the glass. Perhaps, she thought, there will be no wedding after all. Perhaps Katherine would have an accident - fall into the lake, smash up the Peugeot, walk into the combine harvester. The images in her mind frightened her. No. Katherine was young and strong and would live a long, long time. Probably for ever.

And there might be children. Somewhere deep under the cosy coat a knife turned. She would be useful then. Poor old Aunty Phyllis. Funny Aunty Phyllis. A tear plopped into her empty glass. God, she could do with another drink. She became vaguely aware that Henry was saying something.

‘... and we’re both very worried about you.’

‘...’Bout what, Henry?’

‘Haven’t you been listening?’ She stared at him with intense drunken concentration. ‘About you, of course.’

‘Nothing matter with me.’

He put down his glass and propelled himself over to where she stood. ‘Look - you don’t have to go to the cottage, you know, Phyllis. It was you who suggested it. Kate and I would be happy for you to stay here.’ She made a peculiar sound which could have been a sob or a laugh. ‘In any case we both hope you’ll still spend a lot of time with us. Katherine isn’t used to running a big house, you know. She’ll be grateful for all the help you can give her. As I have always been.’

‘Is that what I’m reduced to then? An unpaid domestic?’

‘Of course not. I simply—’

‘Is that the price I have to pay for my tied cottage? Scrubbing floors.’

‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’ She watched his face crease into irritation. Henry hated rows. Bella had always been wonderful at defusing them before they really got a hold. She would have stopped right now. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. What I’ve had to put up with since she came. All the sneering remarks, the little humiliations. She never does it when you’re around.’

‘You’re imagining things—’

‘Am I? Oh, she’s clever. You were blind but I saw what she was up to. Bella was hardly in her grave before she was up here ... helping with this ... helping with that ... simpering shyly ... pushing in where she wasn’t wanted.’ Oh stop, Phyllis, stop! You’ll make him hate you. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it was going on while Bella was still alive.’

‘That’s enough. You know that isn’t true. I won’t have you speaking of Katherine in that way.’

‘She’s only marrying you for your money. Do you think she’d look twice at you if you were paralysed and poor?’ She drove on and on. Henry Trace watched her, more amazed and distressed than angry. So much venom. He almost expected to see bile, black and thick as treacle, bubbling between her lips. When she had finished he said quietly, ‘I’d no idea you felt like this. I thought you would be pleased at my happiness. I thought you were fond of me.’

‘Fond ...’ She cried out then, hard ugly sounds. Her cheeks remained dry and red with anger. When Katherine appeared in the doorway Phyllis Cadell ran from the room, pushing the girl’s slim figure aside, unable to look at her face, which she was sure would be filled with sly laughter - or worse, with pity.

‘Oh Pookie.’ Barbara Lessiter curled her tongue into her husband’s ear like a pliant little snail. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so ...’ She took a deep breath, putting an impossible strain on the thin lace and crêpe-de-chine nightdress. Her headache was better at last.

‘There, there. You mustn’t worry,’ replied Pookie, romping happily between satin sheets. Like a very hungry man after a vast banquet he felt that what he had just received (twice) would last him forever. Which was fortunate because, as things turned out, it was going to have to from that particular source at any rate. ‘Change of life, I expect.’

At this reference to her age he felt Barbara withdraw slightly. Well, a little dig from time to time wouldn’t come amiss. Keep her on her toes. Show her she wasn’t dealing with the lovesick swain of five years ago. He’d be damned if he was going to be grateful for something that was his by rights. If her headache had gone on much longer it could have featured in the Guinness Book of Records. His hand moved again.

‘Darling ... Pooks?’

‘Mm?’ Ah, there was nothing like silk and lace. Unless it was warm bare flesh.

‘Don’t, sweetheart ... listen to Barbie ...’

Growl, growl. And a pretend doggy panting.

‘It’s just that ... I’ve been so terribly worried ... I know I’ve got to confess ... but I don’t know how to tell you ...’

Apprehension sluiced the passion from his loins, leaving him cold as ice. He seized her arms, glaring at her in the light from the ivory figurine. How could he not have guessed the reason for her neglect and distant behaviour? ‘You’ve been with someone else!’

‘Oh Pookums!’ she cried, and covered her face with her hands. ‘How could you even think such a thing of your poor Barbie?’

Relief repaired some of the sexual damage. Down in the forest something stirred. ‘Well ... what can it be, then? Can’t be too dwedful. Whisper it in Pookie’s ear.’

The lace expanded again in heartfelt preparation. ‘Well ... when I got my mink coat out of store for the Traces’ wedding the other day I left it on the back seat of the car ... just while I went shopping and ... Oh sweetheart ... someone stole it ...’ She burst into a flood of tears, then, as he did not speak, peeped coyly out between her fingers. This action, which he had once thought charming, now struck him as suitable only for a child of three. A nauseatingly winsome child at that.

‘What the hell do you want to wear a mink coat for in July?’

‘I wanted you to be proud of me.’

‘Have you been to the police?’

‘No ... I was in such a state ... I just drove around worrying ... and then I came home.’

‘You must do that tomorrow. Give them all the details. Fortunately it’s insured.’

‘Yes, darling ... I don’t suppose?’ - a serpentine arm twisted over his shoulder and around his neck - ‘Pookie will ever buy his naughty Barbie anovver one?’

Pookie’s stare gave nothing away. He was trying to recall Krystal’s remark; little Krystal who was always so pleased to see him; whose welcome was never anything but warm and friendly. What was it she had said? ‘I’d have to do it five hundred times to get a coat like that.’ He smiled calmly, almost forgivingly, at his wife and patted her smooth brown shoulder.

‘We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?’

Chapter Three

Barnaby sat in the incident room. He was in his shirt sleeves before an open window. The soft thud of tennis balls and an occasional reproachful cry floated in from the nearby recreation ground. He twirled his rotating cards for the hundredth time and called for some coffee.

‘And not in that mug with the blasted frog squatting in it.’

‘Oh. I thought he was rather sweet,’ said Policewoman Brierley, her lips twitching.

‘Well I didn’t.’

‘No, sir.’

Barnaby spun one more time, realizing that he knew all the information by heart, hoping that a fresh reading might show a piece of the puzzle in a different light, juxtapose seemingly disparate facts, reveal with a whisk of the conjuror’s cloth something which had hitherto been darkly concealed. At least with poor old Loveless/Lovejoy/Lessiter accounted for all afternoon there was one suspect fewer.

Barnaby toyed with the idea that the murderer might be fancy free, killing to protect the reputation of his or her partner. It sounded a bit far fetched but if the partner’s legal spouse held the purse strings it might be a possibility. Money had been behind many a killing. Money and sex. Interlocked. An eternal ampersand. And a motive for murder since murder began.

Two days had passed since the funeral and Barnaby had spent one of them discussing the death of Mrs Trace with all the members of the shooting party with the exception of the farm boy and neighbouring landowners whom he had left to Troy. The only new bit of information to arise from this was that, at the time of the shooting, Phyllis Cadell was on her way back to Tye House, having got bored by the whole proceedings. Henry had expressed surprise that she had decided to accompany them in the first place. Phyllis in her turn had assured Barnaby that Bella had been urging her for some time to come out with them. Phyllis had done a certain amount of shooting when she was younger and knew how to handle a gun but had simply lost the taste for it. ‘I regretted joining them almost as soon as things really got going. I stayed for a bit then decided to give up. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself so I just slipped back to the house.’

Another example of unusual behaviour. Barnaby’s mind turned back to his cards and Miss Simpson. On the day of her death she too had behaved ‘out of character’. Were the two deaths connected? There was no sensible logical reason for believing this. Yet he still couldn’t leave the idea alone. Barnaby read the photostat of the inquest report again although by now he knew it backwards. He remembered his first quick conviction that there was something odd, some fact buried in there that didn’t make sense, but by now the whole piece was so stale he wondered where that original impulse had sprung from. Certainly repeated readings had done nothing to support or elucidate this instinctive belief.

On the morning of the second day he had interviewed Norah Whiteley in the tactfully vacated office of the headmaster at the school where she worked. She was a thin woman with a bitter mouth, mistakenly wearing very youthful clothes. What she had to tell him was disturbing.

‘I left David because I was afraid. I could just about cope with his women. At least that meant he left me alone. But he was very violent. You never knew what would start him off. The dinner wasn’t right, the car wouldn’t start. I could put up with it for myself but when he started on Jamie ... I told him to go and when he wouldn’t I packed all his stuff, put it outside and had the locks changed. But even then I had to get a court order to stop him molesting us.’

‘Does he have access to the boy?’

‘No.’ There was a hard, unhappy, yet satisfied set to her lips. ‘He applied but I blocked it. I fought. I wouldn’t trust him to keep his fists to himself.’

‘And do you know if he has a ... liaison with someone at the moment?’

‘Bound to. David’s never without a woman for long. He’s sex mad.’

As she said this Barnaby had a vivid recollection of his first sight of the man sitting close to Katherine Lacey in the kitchen of Tye House. He had mistrusted his own quick assumption at that time. Shades of D.H. Lawrence. And those wonderful torrid grainy films of his childhood: Double Indemnity. The Postman always Rings Twice. It was all there: the beautiful bride, the inadequate husband, the lusty stud. So obvious, such a cliché. And yet, and yet ... How often the obvious turned out to be the truth.

But Barnaby saw no point in pretending that he had recognized any signs of guilt as the couple had become aware of his presence and broken apart. Whiteley had looked depressed and irritable, Katherine merely interested and concerned. And there was something so cool about the girl: an almost asexual purity in her beauty. He could imagine her body being offered up to its legal possessor when all the knots were properly tied, not without love necessarily, but perhaps with a moderate degree of fond attachment. It was harder to imagine her being swept away by a passion so strong it was worth risking a gilded future for.

David Whiteley was something else: amoral, self-interested and now known to be violent. Barnaby did not find it too difficult to visualize him in the role of murderer. But the death of Miss Simpson had been curiously nonviolent, almost subtle. Barnaby could not see the farm manager annotating Julius Caesar and he could never, with those brawny arms and legs, have climbed through the larder window. Nor could Barnaby see him committing murder to save any neck but his own.

Mechanically he gave the wheel another spin. He could not escape the comparison with Russian roulette. Five spins got you nowhere. The sixth could blow your mind. He drained the coffee, pleased to see nothing nearer to animate life in the bottom of the mug than a sweet dark primeval sludge. And then the phone rang.

Policewoman Brierley said, ‘I’ve got a Mrs Sweeney on the line, sir. She asked to speak to whoever was in charge of the inquiry about Miss Simpson.’

‘Put her on.’

‘It’s Mrs Sweeney here of the Black Boy. To whom am I speaking?’

‘Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby.’

‘Are you the gentleman what came in for a half and a ploughman’s the other day?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well I think you ought to come over. There’s something funny happening at the Rainbirds’.’

‘What sort of thing?’ The voice, which he recalled as flatly lugubrious, now positively rippled with excitement.

‘I don’t rightly know ... it’s almost like someone singing only it’s not like any singing I ever heard ... more like wailing, really. It’s been going on for ages.’

Afterwards Barnaby remembered that moment very clearly. As he replaced the receiver he had the strongest sense that the machinery of the case, which had seemingly ground almost to a halt with alibis, unproven and unprovable statements and, on the part of at least two people, the deliberate wish to deceive, was now moving again. Although he could not know with what speed the machinery would gather force or that a hand, as yet unknown to him, would hurl a spanner into the works with such terrible repercussions.

There must have been fifty people standing at the gate of Tranquillada. As soon as Troy cut the engine he and Barnaby could hear the sounds. A terrible keening. Mrs Sweeney left the gathering and hurried to meet them.

‘Since I talked to you I rung the bell but nobody came. I felt I had to do something.’

The two men walked up the path. No one attempted to follow. That in itself underlined the feeling of dread that permeated the hot still air. Normally, reflected Barnaby, you had to hold them back. He and Troy stood on the step. The threnody continued. Barnaby wondered how anything so apparently emotionless could produce such an effect on the heart of the listener. It stopped and started with inhuman regularity, like a needle stuck on a record. After using the knocker with no result Barnaby crouched down and shouted through the letter box: ‘Mr Rainbird ... open this door.’

The lament escalated a notch or two, became almost a screech, then suddenly stopped. Immediately the crowd fell silent. Barnaby rapped the knocker hard again. The sounds were like pistol shots in the quiet street.

‘Shall I have a go at the door, sir?’ Troy was excited. He kept looking at the people by the gate, at Barnaby and at the house, underlining the importance of his position.

‘Window’s quicker. Try to find one open first.’ As Troy ran down the side of the house Barnaby looked again at the group. Instinctively they had drawn closer together. Their shadows fell, short and squat, on the warm pavement. One woman had a toddler in her arms. As Barnaby watched she turned the child’s face away from the bungalow and into her breast. The ceramic stork stared indifferently at them all.

Barnaby turned back and noticed, for the first time, a neat pile of mushrooms on the step. What the hell was keeping Troy? He’d been gone long enough to climb in and out of half a dozen windows. Barnaby was about to raise his fist again when he heard the click of the latch and the door swung open. Troy stared blankly at the chief inspector. He didn’t speak, just stood aside for Barnaby to enter. As the older man did so he felt his skin prickle as if someone had laid a frost-covered web against his face.

He walked through the hall past a red telephone dangling on its flex, past the scarlet-stippled wall and doors, glancing into each room as he went, finding them empty. He looked for the source of a silence more terrible than the sounds had ever been and found it in the lounge.

He stood for a moment on the threshold sick with horror. There was blood everywhere. On the floor, on the walls, on the furniture, on the curtains. But most of all on Dennis Rainbird. He looked as if he had been bathed in blood. His face, like that of a warrior brave, glistened with fingers of red. Red matted his hair and gloved his hands. He wore a red soaking wet tie and a red-flowered shirt. His knees and his shoes were red. Red tears rolled down his cheeks.

Barnaby turned back into the hall. ‘Don’t just prop the wall up. Get on the phone and get things moving.’ Then as Troy moved somnambulistically across the hall, ‘Don’t touch that, you bloody fool! Use the set in the car. And don’t open that door again without something on your hands. Anyone’d think you’d been in the force five minutes instead of five years.’

‘I’m sorry ...’ Troy produced a handkerchief.

Barnaby returned to the lounge. He made his way towards the two figures in the centre of the room, placing his feet carefully on whatever unstained patches of carpet he could find.

How could one person have shed so much blood? Wasn’t there something vaguely theatrical about the scene? Surely an over-enthusiastic stage manager had been at work hurling buckets of the stuff about, preparing for a performance of Grand Guignol. And the strange thing was that over and above the sweep of disbelief and horror Barnaby felt his memory give a powerful kick. Déjà vu. But how could that be? Surely if he had experienced anything even faintly like this spectacularly nightmarish scene in the past he could hardly have forgotten?

‘Mr Rainbird ... ?’ He bent down and saw, with a fresh wave of nausea, that it was only Dennis Rainbird’s encircling arm that was keeping his mother’s head on her shoulders. Her throat had been cut so deeply that Barnaby could see the bluish white gristle of the slashed windpipe. There were cuts all over her face and neck and arms and her dress was slashed open.

The room was in a hell of a mess. Photographs and pictures were thrown about, there were cushions and ornaments on the floor, two tables were overturned, the television set was smashed. Grey shards of glass were ground into the carpet.

Barnaby said, ‘Mr Rainbird’ again and touched him gently. As if this movement activated some hidden mechanism the man started to croon gently. He was smiling; a radiant wide mad smile. The cruel simulacrum of bliss seen on the faces of earthquake survivors or parents outside a burning house. A rictus of grief and despair.

Almost twenty minutes passed, then: ‘Good God ...’ Barnaby got up. George Bullard stood in the doorway. He carried a small black case and looked around him, aghast. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘Careful where you step.’

The doctor stared at the two figures for a moment, his expression a mixture of pity and disgust, then picked his way gingerly across the floor. He knelt down and opened his bag. Barnaby watched as he cut into the stiff crimson cuff of Dennis Rainbird’s shirt and held his delicate wrist.

‘How long has he been like this?’

‘We got here around half an hour ago. I should think for at least half an hour prior to that. Did you sort out an ambulance before you came?’

‘Mm.’ The doctor shone a light into Dennis’ pupils. He didn’t even blink. ‘Should be here in a minute.’

‘It’s vital I talk to him—’

‘For heaven’s sake, Tom, use your sense. The man’s catatonic.’

‘I can see that. Can’t you give him something?’

‘No.’ George Bullard rose to his feet. ‘He’s made a good job of this and no mistake.’

‘How long do these states last?’

‘A day. A month. Six months. There’s no way of knowing.’

‘That’s all I need.’

‘Sorry.’

Through the net curtains Barnaby saw the ambulance drive up followed almost immediately by three police cars. There was a murmur of excitement from the crowd. The ambulance attendants, perhaps inured to scenes of carnage by years of scraping people off the motorway, seemed much less shocked by what had happened in the lounge at Tranquillada than either Barnaby or Doctor Bullard. Whilst one of them talked to the doctor the other attempted to separate Dennis from his mother. He tugged gently at Dennis’ wrist but the fingers were clamped on to her right shoulder and left upper arm as tightly as if he were hanging for his very life on a cliff edge. Patiently the man prised the fingers away one at a time and unhooked the thumb. Mrs Rainbird’s head rolled back, attached to the neck only by a thin flap of skin. The torso tipped over and slid on to the carpet. Dennis’ crooning ran down, then stopped.

‘Can he walk d’you think?’

‘Let’s try him. Up you come, my lovely.’

Dennis rose to his feet, rubber limbed, still smiling. His face, always pale, was now almost albino-ish in its lack of colour.

‘Shall we clean him up a bit?’

‘Sorry,’ interjected Barnaby, ‘nothing must be touched.’

‘Right. On our way then.’ The three of them left the room, Dennis clinging trustingly like a child. Barnaby followed them out. The crowd, their wildest expectations more than fulfilled, played their part to the hilt, gasping aloud and crying out. One woman said, ‘And to think I nearly stopped in to watch the six o’clock news.’

‘Can you get everything he’s wearing bagged up?’ asked Barnaby. ‘I’ll send someone to collect it.’

‘Will do.’

Barnaby re-entered the lounge to find the doctor pulling down the corpse’s dress and shaking a thermometer.

‘What d’you think?’

‘Ohh ... I’d say an hour ... hour and a half at the most.’ He drew the slashed opening of her dress together. ‘He must’ve had some sort of brainstorm.’

‘I have to get a man over to the hospital. I don’t want Dennis Rainbird left alone.’

‘Well, Tom, you know your own business best. But I can assure you he won’t be going anywhere. Or doing himself a mischief.’

‘I’m not worried about him doing himself a mischief.’ He could hear the scene-of-crime men entering the hall. ‘But he might say something that could help us. He may even have seen something. He must have got home pretty soon after this happened.’

‘You mean ... ? Oh. I seem to have been jumping to the wrong conclusions. Anyway - Dennis or no Dennis - whoever did this must have been clean off his rocker.’

‘His?’

‘Well,’ the doctor frowned, ‘it always is, isn’t it? An attack like this.’

‘Don’t you think a woman would be physically capable?’

‘Physically yes ... I suppose so ... if the rage is there. Psychologically and emotionally ... that’s something else. It’d be a very peculiar sort of woman who could do something like this.’

Barnaby grinned. ‘You are an old chauvinist, George.’

‘So my daughter’s always telling me. Anyway’ - he stood aside to make room for the photographer - ‘I suppose murderers are peculiar.’

‘Not always. I only wish they were. It’d make catching them a lot simpler.’

‘Is this where the body was found, sir?’ asked the photographer.

‘I should imagine so,’ said Bullard.

Barnaby agreed. ‘I think he just lifted her up and held her. I don’t think he dragged her about at all. There’s more blood here than anywhere else.’

Doctor Bullard looked around the room again and shook his head. ‘Who’d believe we only had nine pints? And she’s still got plenty left.’

Barnaby looked at Mrs Rainbird’s bolstery legs which looked as plump and lifelike as they had a couple of days previously when he had talked with her. Her feet were bare. One tiny gold mule trimmed with white ostrich feathers lay, miraculously unstained, in the fireplace. The other was nowhere to be seen.

The room was filling up. Barnaby went into the hall, glad to escape from the rich metallic smell, and spoke to the principal scene-of-crime officer. ‘Are we going to have a pod out here?’

‘All lined up. Should be here within the hour. And I’ve got on to Technical Services ... do a video for you.’

Barnaby nodded and looked around for Troy. On the pavement two officers were placing a cordon and the crowd, now monstrously enlarged, was being forced some distance from the gate. In spite of the emergence of Dennis Rainbird, a sight surely gruesome enough to satisfy the most ghoulish expectations, murmurs of dissatisfaction at this realignment could be heard. Troy, his colour back to normal, came down the path which ran along the side of the house.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘I was just checking round the back, sir. I found something a bit unusual.’

‘You should know better than to go trampling about at the scene of a murder, Sergeant.’

‘I didn’t trample ... kept to the concrete path. But look.’ He led Barnaby to a small cedar shed a few feet from the gazebo. All around the path and the step adjacent was damp. Barnaby looked for a dripping tap or faulty hose and saw neither. ‘I mean ... it hasn’t rained for days, has it, sir?’

‘No.’ The chief inspector glanced through the window. On the floor next to the lawnmower was a huge puddle of water. He couldn’t see any containers that might be leaking. Well, all the outbuildings would be checked. No point in wasting time at this stage in fruitless surmise. Troy was looking both smug and hopeful of praise, like a dog who has successfully returned a stick. It was very irritating.

‘Are you feeling all right now?’ asked Barnaby unkindly.

‘Me?’ His sergeant looked first blank then intensely puzzled. ‘I’m fine.’

The end of the back garden was marked by a double hawthorn hedge with a green gate in the middle. Behind the hedge was a narrow path bordered by a dense tangle of wild dog roses, hazels and cow parsley. The path and the last few feet of the garden were overlooked by the upstairs windows of number seven Burnham Crescent, glass eyes with cataracts of grubby lace. Mrs Rainbird wouldn’t have liked that. Barnaby heard footsteps approaching, and stepped through the gates.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Lacey.’

‘Whoops.’ Michael Lacey stopped in his tracks and stared at them. ‘It’s our friendly neighbourhood sleuths. Leaping out of the hedgerow to startle innocent passers-by.’

‘Would you mind telling me where you’re going?’

‘I’m taking a short cut to the Black Boy. Still, as far as I’m aware, not a criminal offence.’

‘A little early, isn’t it?’

‘She opens the jug and bottle if you knock on the shutters. ’ And before Barnaby could reply he had walked quickly away.

‘I don’t believe this,’ murmured Troy. ‘Not a single question as to what we’re doing here. Why, half the village is gawping outside the house. How uncurious can you get?’

‘Incurious. And he wouldn’t know about the crowd if he’d come straight from Holly Cottage through the woods and up Church Lane.’

‘Still, why dash off like that?’ Troy pursed his lips shrewdly before adding, ‘The murderer returns to the scene of the crime.’

‘Hardly ever, Sergeant,’ replied the chief inspector, ‘at least in non-domestic matters. As your experience should have taught you by now.’

‘But they are connected aren’t they, sir?’ continued Troy. ‘The two deaths?’

‘Oh yes.’ The two men stepped back on to the concrete path. Barnaby could see through the french windows into the lounge. It seemed to be crammed with people milling aimlessly about. In fact, as Barnaby knew, the most precise cataloguing and analysis were taking place. And today the scent was warm. Discoveries would be made. No one killed without taking something (usually unintentionally) from the scene. Or leaving something behind.

He made his way to the kitchen door, stopping when he got there, glancing back the way he had come. He thought how impossible it was for a gardener to attempt to conceal his personality. Telling one’s dreams could hardly be more revelatory. Unsophisticated harmony for Miss Simpson; tangled exuberance for Miss Bellringer; whilst here ... He looked at the showy shrubs, the billiard-table-baize lawn, the pond with a concrete cherub peeing mechanically on a plastic lily. Here was ostentatious vulgarity, literally in full bloom.

He entered the hall. A pair of black Oxfords appeared just above his head and made their way down the pine steps from the loft, followed by tweed trousers, a short-sleeved shirt and a bearded, hot-looking face.

‘Finished up there?’ asked Barnaby.

‘We have. Lots of prints. Looks as if they’re all from the same person, though. Soon see.’

Barnaby climbed the stairs. There were about a dozen of them, broad and solidly based, quite unlike the capricious aluminium approach usually leading to a conversion. The opening had been enlarged, no doubt to accommodate Mrs Rainbird, and there was a rail on two sides of the entrance about three feet from the floor. Barnaby heaved himself up and Troy followed.

The loft was very large. The beams were unpainted, the walls white, the floor covered with a porridge-coloured tweed carpet. At either end of the loft was a round window. Directly beneath each stood a plain wooden chair. They also each had a narrow sill holding a notebook and ballpoint. On the seat of one of the chairs was a magnificent pair of Zeiss binoculars. There were two large grey filing cabinets and that was all. Barnaby, who had been expecting either the usual piles of lumber or a wildly baroque spare room, looked about him in some surprise. He picked up the binoculars and looked out at the Street.

A face in the crowd sprang at him in the most astonishing detail. Open pores, nostril hairs, pink plastic rollers, petals on a flowered scarf. He adjusted the focusing ring and got a broader sweep. The forecourt of the Black Boy was now packed. More cars were pulling up by the minute. All human life seemed to be out there. And it was not a pretty sight.

‘Empty those cabinets, Sergeant. Start taking the stuff downstairs.’ He put down the glasses and flicked through one of the notebooks, picking a day at random. The entries read:

Barnaby closed the book. Mrs Rainbird’s daily occupation did not surprise him. He never underestimated the tremendous satisfaction that knowing all a neighbour’s business gave to some people. A passionate interest in everyone else’s affairs seemed to him a very human characteristic hardly reprehensible enough to be called a failing, let alone a sin. If he himself wasn’t endlessly concerned with other people’s behaviour he wouldn’t be doing the job he was. He watched Troy lowering himself down through the loft opening, pulling a stack of envelope files after him.

No. What interested Barnaby was not the revelation that Mrs Rainbird watched human beings rather than waxwings but what she did with the knowledge she so obtained. There was something very pared down, almost ruthlessly functional about the room he thought as he collected the rest of the files and the other notebook and prepared to follow Troy. Downstairs all was voluptuous indulgence but this place was something else. This place, thought Barnaby, taking a last look round, meant business.

Chapter Four

The portable pod had just arrived, giving rise to great excitement. The delivery lorry was backing away. Hydraulic machinery wheezed, four legs dropped to the ground, the shell settled into position. A man in the crowd shouted, ‘Glad - the libry’s here. You brought your books?’ Loud laughter. A woman said, ‘Robbie - run home and tell your mam the Martians have landed.’ A generator and cables were set up and a GPO line connected.

As soon as Barnaby reached the pavement he was nobbled by the white trench coat, now topped by a Fred MacMurray trilby, from the Echo.

‘Chief Inspector - do you have a statement for the press?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘The public has a right to know.’ Dear God. Dialogue by RKO out of Universal Pictures. ‘Is it true that the most terrible murder has been committed?’

‘A suspicious death has been reported, yes.’

‘Oh come off it, Inspector Barnaby. What’s in the files?’

‘Please ... oh please ...’ A young girl lugging a Uher tape recorder stepped directly in his path. ‘Are you in charge of the case?’ She sounded breathless and exhilarated as if on her way to a party. ‘Local radio,’ she added, thrusting a bulbous windsocked mike under his nose. ‘If you give me something now it will make the seven o’clock news.’

‘Big deal,’ muttered Troy.

‘Has a communication relations officer been appointed yet?’ cried the reporter, showing off in front of the girl.

‘No. Give us a chance to breathe,’ said Barnaby, pushing by.

‘But Inspector—’

As Barnaby walked away he heard one of the villagers (the one who had made the remark about the library) seize his moment of fame. ‘Oh it was horrible! Horrible!’ he cried into the microphone. ‘The son did it ... he came out covered in blood. They’ve took him away in an ambulance. They reckon he had a brainstorm. He’s queer, you see ... it takes them like that ...’

‘But who’s been killed?’ asked the girl.

‘Well ... it’d be his mother, wouldn’t it?’ He gazed brightly round. ‘Am I on camera?’

Barnaby stowed the files safely in the car boot and locked it.

‘It didn’t take long for them to start sniffing round,’ said Troy.

‘Oh there’s always a village correspondent for the local rag. Does WI reports and flower shows. I expect they got in touch.’ He started walking briskly down Church Lane, Troy hurrying alongside.

As they reached the wooden footpath sign to Gessler Tye Troy asked, ‘Are you going after the suspects straight away, sir?’

Barnaby did not reply. He was breathing quickly, his face was flushed, his lips tight. For him the murder of Mrs Rainbird had shocked the case, yesterday so arid and at a standstill, into new pulsating life rich with fresh insights and possibilities. And although the killer still remained faceless his scent became strong and somewhere, not very far ahead, Barnaby could sense his quarry no longer running swift and gleeful, laughing over his shoulder but back-tracking, threshing about, sensible that the distance between them was shrinking.

Many years before, becoming gradually and sometimes sharply aware of the pleasurable exhilaration he felt at this moment in a case, Barnaby had become extremely depressed and unhappy. He had felt his role, a hunter of men, to be a base one. He had struggled for some time to work in a more disinterested manner. To pretend that this sweep of excitement as he drew the net tighter was not happening. Or that if it was happening it was nothing to be ashamed of. When that failed he went through a phase, lasting several years, when he had played the hard man, ignoring or angrily stamping on these earlier perceptions. The quarry was scum. There was only one thing they understood. Give them an inch and they’d cut your throat. It takes one to know one.

Promotion had been steady. He had done well. Three men he had caught during this period had been hanged. He had been offered a lot of respect, frequently from people he despised. But as this carapace of contemptuous hatred for the criminal hardened around him so, inexplicably, self-hatred grew until the day came when he felt he would almost rather die than be the man he was slowly turning into.

He had gone to see George Bullard, speaking in only the vaguest terms of stress and headaches, and was granted a month’s leave with hardly a question asked. He had spent the time gardening, painting watercolours, talking things over with Joyce. At the end of the month he knew there was no other job he would ever wish to do and that the shell had been broken beyond repair. And so he went back and continued: at first insecure (although never less than competent), realizing that lack of instant and extreme opinions on matters of the day made him appear insipid to some of his former colleagues who usually had a surplus of both. He was also at that time over-reacting against his former harshness, loathe to bawl out and discipline when necessary. That was mistaken for weakness. Gradually he repaired this misconception. And now he walked down a dusty country lane having come, in a way, full circle. A policeman neither proud nor ashamed of his job entering the last phase of his career and of a murder hunt, feeling excited by this and accepting that excitement as a fact of life. Part of how he was. Troy touched his arm.

They were halfway along the dirt track leading to Holly Cottage. Barnaby stopped and listened. Someone was yelling, the words thick with rage and unintelligible. The two men moved silently along, hidden behind the tall hedge, to where it opened out into the car space. Keeping in the shadow of the trees they approached the house. A window on the ground floor was wide open. And the words became clear.

‘But you must come, Michael ... you must ...’

‘No must about it. You needn’t expect me to present myself with a carnation up my nose and a pair of matching bloody candlesticks to watch you sell yourself to the highest bidder.’

‘It’s not like that. You’re so unfair. I do care for him ... I do. How can I help it? He’s been looking after us for years.’

‘I’ve never heard such sentimental crap. It makes me want to vomit. You’ve certainly pulled the wool over his eyes, poor bastard.’

‘That’s a lie! He knows exactly how it is ... I haven’t pretended to anything I don’t feel. I shall be a good wife—’

‘God! Tied to a bloody cripple at your age.’

‘You just won’t understand! It’s different for you. All you care about is your work. It’s all you’ve ever cared about. As long as you can paint, the rest of the world might as well not exist. But I’m not like that. I’m not especially good at anything. I’m not trained for anything. I have no money - I wouldn’t even have a home if it wasn’t for Henry. For heaven’s sake, Michael, what’s so wrong with wanting security—’

‘We’ve got security. He’d never turn us out. He’s so besotted with you you could keep him dangling for years.’

‘But I don’t want to stay in this damp gloomy place. I hate it.’

‘Well you certainly don’t come cheap. Tye House and five thousand acres. I don’t know why you don’t just take to the streets and make a proper job of it.’ There was the sound of flesh meeting flesh with some force. Michael Lacey shouted, ‘Spiteful bitch!’ Katherine cried out. Barnaby drew his sergeant behind a clump of larches. Moments later Katherine Lacey flew past them, her face contorted, making little strangled choking sounds, and disappeared down the path towards Church Lane. The cottage door slammed and Michael stood in the porch for a moment looking undecided. Then he turned and strode off into the woods behind the house, kicking a fallen branch furiously out of the way.

When he had disappeared Barnaby approached the house, opened the front door and slipped inside. Troy, concealing his surprise, followed. If I’d suggested this, he thought, I’d have got a right bollocking.

They stood in the hall, the dank chill seeping into their bones. It seemed perfectly natural that these walls should witness bitter words, tears and sorrow. Barnaby felt that any happiness accidentally immured in such surroundings would have no chance to develop and thrive but, like the honeysuckle by the porch, be slowly choked and strangled by the forces of despair. He led the way to the kitchen. It was not an attractive room. The units were cheap and showing signs of wear. A few rugs lay about on the original cold and bumpy brick floor. A half-empty can of spaghetti and a clumsily hacked wedge of bread were on the wooden table with a mug, teapot and half a bottle of cheesy-looking milk. There were flies everywhere.

The room adjacent to the kitchen facing the front of the house had rush matting, a table, four chairs, bookshelves, a two-seater settee and a telephone. The second room on the ground floor was locked.

‘This is the place where he was painting when we came before, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Barnaby tried the door again, then left it. ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about that without a warrant. We’ve bent the rules enough already.’

Too right, thought Troy, following his chief up the uncarpeted stairs. He couldn’t see why they were roaming around the place at all. Surely the whole point of coming to the cottage was to check Lacey’s alibi for that afternoon?

‘The more you know about a suspect, Sergeant, the more cards you hold. And that includes his natural habitat.’

Troy blinked in some alarm at this spot of telepathy. A very worrying development. If a man couldn’t call his thoughts his own a man could remain a sergeant for life.

There were three bedrooms. The smallest had a single bed, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. The bed was rigidly and efficiently made, a hospital bed. A nightdress was folded neatly on the pillow. The wardrobe was nearly empty and the chest of drawers had a thin film of dust. A bunch of wild flowers in a jar gave the room a mild fragrance. Again Barnaby recalled the Serotina struggling in the nettle patch.

A much larger room was next door, empty but for a small old-fashioned bed, two wicker chairs and a garden table. ‘I suppose this is where the nanny slept,’ offered Troy.

The third room, biggest of the three, clearly belonged to Michael Lacey. The bed was unmade, the sheets tangled, one of the pillows on the floor. There was some grey scummy coffee on a scarred bedside table next to a copy of Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, and a packet of Gitanes. The acrid smell of the cigarettes hung in the air, mingled with the smell of stale sweat. The only chair was decorated with a shirt and a grubby pair of Y fronts. Sergeant Troy, ‘clean from the skin out every day’ as his wife was wont to boast in their local laundrette, turned up his nose and sniffed.

‘A bit careless,’ he said as they re-entered the hall, ‘leaving the door unlocked.’

‘Oh I don’t know.’ Barnaby opened it a fraction and checked the view, then stepped out. ‘The only room where there might be anything worth pinching was secured.’

‘Great works of art d’you mean?’ jeered Troy as they walked back towards the hedge.

‘I was thinking of canvases - they cost a hell of a lot. So do paints. Or of course he might be doing a Keating.’

‘Come again, sir?’

‘Tom Keating. A very successful forger.’

‘Well whatever he’s doing he’s not successful. I’ve seen families on the Social living better. Didn’t even have a telly.’

‘And you can’t sink much lower than that.’

Troy looked at his chief suspiciously as they walked on but Barnaby’s expression remained bland. As they came to the junction of Church Lane and the Street several more police cars arrived. The crowd, now swelled by the return of the local work force, was being urged to move along or go home. Barnaby wondered how long it would be before the nationals got hold of the story. There was a rustle of speculation as the two men appeared, a rustle that became a loud hum as Barnaby and Troy turned into the Lessiters’ driveway. The fact that everyone in the village would shortly be questioned was, even if it had been known, supremely irrelevant. It was the Lessiters whom the police were visiting. The Lessiters who were, in some way as yet unrevealed, connected with the crime.

As Barnaby stood once again beneath the Madame le Coultre and looked through the window he, once again, saw Barbara Lessiter. This time far from looking afraid and shaken she had taken a combative stance. He could not see her face but her shoulders had a martial set and her hands were clenched into angry fists. He heard Lessiter shout, ‘You sang a different tune in bed last night.’

‘That was last night.’ She tossed her head as she yelled her rejoinder and Barnaby caught a glimpse of her tight angry profile. Troy raised sandy eyebrows, muttered, ‘Naughty naughty.’ He rang the bell.

Stepping into the sitting room was like stepping on to a battlefield. The whiff of the last two salvoes hung, still and trembling in the stifling air. Barnaby gave them a moment before ascertaining that they had both heard of Mrs Rainbird’s death.

‘Terrible business, terrible!’ cried Lessiter. ‘Head split open by an axe, I understand. I suppose he had some sort of fit ... Dennis I mean. At least,’ he added with a scornful curl of his lip, ‘no one can accuse me this time of wrongly issuing a death certificate.’

Both the Lessiters looked at the policemen with interest, no doubt glad of a breather. However, the doctor did not wear his air of detached attention for long. Barnaby asked where he was between three and five that afternoon.

‘Me?’ He gasped at them, his rubicund complexion fading to a mere puce, ‘What on earth has this to do with me?’

‘Everyone is questioned in a murder case, darling.’ Barnaby was glad no one had ever called him darling like that. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ He moved to his writing desk. ‘Very well, Inspector. I ... was visiting a private patient. I’ll be glad to write the name and address down for you.’ He scribbled something, tore off the sheet and was just crossing to Barnaby when his wife ran forward and snatched it out of his hand. ‘Barbara!’

She read the piece of paper then handed it to Barnaby. She seemed calm but her eyes glittered like diamond chippings.

‘And you, Mrs Lessiter?’

‘I was at my health club in Slough ... the Abraxas if you want to check. I went for a salad lunch, a sauna and massage. I was there till around half three then I did some shopping. Got back here five-thirty.’

‘Thank you. Is Miss Lessiter at home? I’d like a word with her.’

‘No. We passed each other in the hall as I arrived. She was on her way out and looking very strange.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well ... if it had been anyone but Judy I’d say she’d been with a lover.’

‘That’s remarkably catty even for you,’ blurted out Lessiter, regretting it immediately as he caught the glimmer of satisfaction on Troy’s face.

‘She gave me an ecstatic smile - incidentally the first I’ve received from that direction since the day I moved in - and said she was driving into High Wycombe to buy a new dress before the shops shut. Which is also strange. I’ve never known her take the slightest interest in clothes. Quite understandable when you think that she’s shaped like a couple of suet puddings.’

Whatever was on that piece of paper, thought Troy, had made her as bold as brass. She didn’t look like a centrefold dream today. The facial lines under the bronzy powder seemed more deeply etched, her eyes were hard and her hair had an inelasticity that made it look completely artificial. Even her curves seemed rigid and unyielding.

‘Someone will call later to talk to your daughter, sir,’ murmured Barnaby, and bade them good evening. The door had hardly closed behind them before Trevor Lessiter turned to his wife.

‘I hope you’re not expecting—’

‘You dirty sod!’

‘Don’t you speak to me like that. I shouldn’t be driven to places like the Casa Nova if you were any sort of a wife.’

‘I might be more of a wife if you had the slightest idea how to set about it. You’re bloody pathetic.’

‘At least they care about me there. Krystal’s always—’

‘Care about you? They must be laughing themselves sick.’

‘How the hell do you know so much about it? I’m surprised you’ve even heard of the place.’

‘They were talking about it in the Abraxas, if you must know. Some of the old slags come in for a spot of rejuvenation.’

‘Doesn’t work though, does it, Barbara?’

‘What?’

‘The rejuvenation. I mean you’re really looking your age right now. That was one of the first lies you told me, wasn’t it? About your age. God - today’s opened my eyes all right. I feel as if I’m seeing you for the first time.’

Barbara walked over to the window, carefully selected a cigarette from the silver box and lighted it. She turned and faced him, blowing out a cool plume of smoke.

‘Well that goes for both of us, husband mine,’ she said, baring her teeth in an implacable smile. ‘That goes for both of us.’

Chapter Five

David Whiteley opened the door of Witchetts wearing his working jeans and a sweat-stained shirt, with a tumbler of whisky in his hand. He showed them into the sitting room and turned off the blaring stereo. (‘Bridge over Troubled Water.’) He invited them to sit down and offered Barnaby ‘a touch of Jameson’. The offer being declined he drained his own and poured another. His hand was as steady as a rock; his voice strong and clear and, although he consumed a third glassful during their brief visit, both hand and voice remained unchanged.

‘You know what has happened, Mr Whiteley?’

‘Yes. I stopped my car and asked one of the multitude outside the Black Boy. Load of ghouls.’

Barnaby asked about his movements during the afternoon. Whiteley was sitting in a bentwood rocker and tipped it very slowly back and forth as he surveyed them both. He looked incongruous in this traditional refuge of the old and resigned. There was something so potent about his masculinity; his blond good looks and rather crude sexual vigour. It seemed only fitting that, like the corn god, he should spend his days reaping and renewing the land. He said, ‘I was supervising the hopper till about three ... three-thirty ... then I took a combine harvester down to Gessler Tye. We’ll start cutting in a couple of days ... well, probably not Saturday because of the wedding but Sunday I should think.’

‘Sunday?’

‘Oh yes. Once harvesting starts you can write off your weekends.’

‘Did you know Mrs Rainbird at all?’

‘By sight only. I don’t socialize much in the village. Any ... picking up I do is in the Bull over Gessler way. Or in Causton.’

‘Nothing nearer home?’ murmured Barnaby delicately.

‘No. Oh I knew what you were thinking the other day, Inspector. In the kitchen at Tye House. But there’s nothing doing there, believe me. At the moment that is. Mind you I don’t think our Kate’s nearly as cool as she makes out. I shall try again once she’s safely married.’

No need for him to visit the Casa Nova, thought Troy, admitting for once to a male persona probably nearly as attractive to women as his own. Looking round the room Barnaby noticed, on the mantelpiece, the photograph of a child, the glass a cobweb of splinters and cracks.

He said, ‘I got the impression when we met in the kitchen that you were depressed about something.’

‘Me? You must be joking. I never get depressed.’ He stared at Barnaby aggressively. ‘Doctor Jameson cures all ills.’ He lifted his glass then tipped it back. The sort of man, thought the chief inspector, who would use the loss of his son as a sympathy-producing counter in the game with women but who would never admit to fatherly affection in front of a member of his own sex.

Barnaby continued, ‘And after you’d taken the harvester?’

‘I drove back to Tye House in the Land-Rover, picked up that pathetic Jack Russell and took it to the vet. Katherine didn’t want them to come to the house. It should’ve been done before now in my opinion but she kept trying to feed it. After that -’

‘A moment, Mr Whiteley. Were Miss Lacey and Mr Trace at home when you picked up the dog?’

‘Yes.’

‘What time would you say this was?’

‘Some time between half four and five, I suppose. I only caught a glimpse of Katherine. She ran upstairs when I came in - so as not to see me take him, I suppose. After I’d handed the dog over I drove back here, poured myself a drink and you turned up.’

‘He’s got the strength and build for it,’ said Troy moments later as they crossed the road, making for Tye House. ‘And with an estate the size of Trace’s who’s to know where he is half the time? I thought that actually, sir, when we questioned him about the first murder ... you know, the couple in the woods.’ Encouraged by Barnaby’s silence he continued, ‘I mean what’s to stop him taking half an hour off for a quick screw when he’s miles from anywhere? And take today ... he could have left the hopper for a while. Or turned the combine into the nearest field instead of taking it to Gessler Tye, doubled back and done for Mrs Rainbird. Pity we’ve no idea of the motive.’

Barnaby, who had a very good idea of the murderer’s motive, arrived again at the apricot-coloured farmhouse. Katherine Lacey opened the door. She looked very pale and, even if Barnaby had not witnessed the earlier scene at Holly Cottage, he would have known that she had recently been crying. Distress did not mar her remarkable beauty. Her violet eyes looked very large with tears as yet unshed. She was wearing a white dress of spotless linen and flat sandals. She gazed at them unsmiling and said, ‘We’re in the kitchen.’

Henry turned his chair around as the chief inspector entered, and wheeled it across the floor. ‘What has really happened, Barnaby? Surely it can’t be true that the Rainbird boy has attacked his mother?’

‘Mrs Rainbird has certainly been killed, sir. In a very violent and unpleasant manner.’

Henry turned a stunned face to his fiancée. ‘You see, darling.’ She sounded gentle but firm. ‘We can’t ... now ...we’ll just have to wait.’

‘Katherine thinks we should cancel the wedding. It’s ridiculous. A hundred invitations accepted. The catering organized. The marquee’s being put up tomorrow. The house is bulging with presents -’

‘I only meant for a week or two. Until all this awful business is sorted out. And perhaps by then Michael will have come round.’

‘Since when has your brother -’ He broke off. He was not the sort of man, Barnaby judged, to even admit to familial discord much less display it in front of complete strangers. He appeared older today. There were liver-coloured rings beneath his eyes and he looked distrait. ‘I simply won’t hear of it, Katherine. It’s out of the question. After all, this is nothing to do with us.’

‘Could I ask you both what you did this afternoon, Mr Trace?’

‘Us? Well, we’ve been organizing for Saturday,’ said Henry. ‘I didn’t go over to the office today. Katherine and I spent the morning arranging the wedding presents in the main dining room, then we had lunch, finally decided on the placing for the marquee, then Katherine went mushrooming -’

‘Mushrooming?’ Barnaby remembered the little pile on the doorstep of the bungalow.

‘Yes. There are some flat open ones not far from Holly Cottage,’ said the girl. ‘And some girolles. They taste wonderful. Not like those awful things you buy in the shops. I wanted to do an omelette for supper.’

‘There were some on Mrs Rainbird’s step.’

‘Yes - I was coming to that. The last time I saw her -’

‘When was that?’

‘Yesterday at the Parish Council meeting. She gave me a recipe for mushroom and anchovy ketchup and I said next time I gathered some I’d let her have a few. So I went round and knocked but no one answered so I just left them on the step and came away. Now I can’t stop thinking about it ... he must have been in there ... perhaps even ... but it was so quiet ... I thought she’d gone out, you see.’ She repeated the words, her voice suddenly jangled and shrill. ‘I thought she’d gone out.’

‘Kate.’ Henry held out his hand and she gripped it, crying, ‘Everything’s going wrong ... just like I said the other day ... it’s all slipping away from us.’

‘Now you must stop this, darling. All right? You’re talking nonsense.’

Barnaby crossed to the table and the mushrooms. He picked one up and sniffed it. There was a large basket, only half full but still holding a lot of mushrooms. ‘It must have taken you quite a while to pick all these?’

‘Not really. About half an hour, I suppose.’

‘When actually was this?’

‘I left here ... when was it, darling? About quarter past three and was back three quarters of an hour later ...’

‘You say the place where they grow is quite near Holly Cottage. Did you happen to call in at all?’

‘Yes I did. I thought Michael might have -’ She broke off, catching Henry’s eye. ‘Anyway it was a waste of time because he wasn’t there.’

‘Was this before or after you did the picking?’

‘After.’

‘Between four and half past in other words?’

‘I suppose so.’ She did not mention her later visit and the spectacular row and, as the timing made it irrelevant to his present inquiry, Barnaby saw no need to mention it either. He had no doubt that it would not meet with her fiancé’s approval.

‘And you were here when Miss Lacey returned, Mr Trace?’

‘Yes. I was with Sam ... he’s the boy who does bits and pieces of maintenance and helps with the garden. I was unpacking Katherine’s roses, he was mixing peat and bonemeal, preparing the ground. We made some tea. Kate rang the cottage to see if Phyllis would like to join us but she wanted to carry on doing her curtains and unpacking stuff.’

Barnaby asked, ‘Has Miss Cadell moved out for good then, sir?’

‘Not quite. She’ll be sleeping here tonight. For the last time, I believe.’ Barnaby was hard put to disentangle the mixture of emotions in Trace’s voice. Relief, satisfaction and more than a little worry.

‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to direct us to the cottage?’ asked the chief inspector.

‘It’s a bit difficult to describe,’ said Katherine, ‘I’ll take you there.’

As they left the house Barnaby said, ‘I’ll leave Miss Cadell to you, Sergeant. You know what I’m looking for. And then you can try Holly Cottage again. I’ll be in the pod when you’re finished.’ He watched them go off across the lawn towards the grove of poplars, the girl’s shoulders bowed slightly, her dark hair stirred by the evening breeze. Troy walked a little closer to her than was necessary to deliver the animated stream of chatter that his lively profile suggested. Every now and again he pulled down his black leather blouson and smoothed his hair. Barnaby made his way back to the pod.

Here all was activity. A certain amount of simple forensic work had already been done. The exhibition officer had logged a fair bit of detail. All the blood came from Mrs Rainbird. There were filaments under her nails, not yet analysed, which suggested the murderer had worn a stocking or tights over the face. Soap in the bathroom was marbled with streaks of blood, indicating that a shower had been taken. Barnaby got on to the station and briefed Inspector Moffat to handle communications for the case. As he did so a TV pantechnicon drew up outside and a uniformed scene-of-crime officer entered the pod.

‘Oh - you’re back, sir. A message from a Mrs Quine. Said to tell you that she saw a Michael Lacey in the spinney approaching the bungalow and acting in a highly suspicious manner -’

‘Actually we also saw Mr Lacey in the spinney acting in a fairly ordinary manner. But thank you. Has the body been taken away?’

‘They’re just bringing it out now, sir,’ the man replied unnecessarily. You could have heard the gasps and murmurs half a mile away.

‘Are you on to the outbuildings?’

‘Not yet, sir. Just starting on the kitchen.’

‘Right.’

Barnaby left the pod, set the newshounds (the two original plus five more and a television team) on to Inspector Moffat and returned to his car to wait for Troy. He took an armful of Mrs Rainbird’s folders, sentimentally pink and blue, and one of the notebooks, locked himself in the back seat and started to read.

He flipped first through the notebook. Each page was pretty much like the one he had already read. People identified only by initials and, occasionally, sporting a red star. No one seemed to be doing anything out of the ordinary. Walking, talking, visiting, using the phone box. Every one skewered by the omniscient beam from Mrs Rainbird’s powerful optics.

Barnaby put the notebook aside and started on the files. He realized immediately that his previous supposition when first checking out the loft had been the correct one. Mrs Rainbird appeared to have a fresh and not unreasonable approach to her profession. Barnaby hesitated to use the word Marxian to describe such an individualistic, anti-social business as blackmail, but there was no doubt that the woman’s demands were nothing if not sensible. People paid what they could. From each according to his abilities.

One man had delivered over (Barnaby checked back) the last ten years eggs and vegetables twice weekly. Someone else regular loads of wood. A few months before these offerings had ceased and Mrs Rainbird had drawn a neat line underneath and written ‘Deceased’. Poor old devil, thought the chief inspector, wondering what peccadillo the old man had been guilty of. Probably nothing too terrible. Ideas of right and wrong in a small village, particularly among the older inhabitants, often seemed archaic to more modern minds. He opened another file. Two pounds a week for three years, then nothing. Perhaps the victim had decamped. Driven out of the place as the only way to avoid payment. He read on. Fifty pounds a month. One pound a week. A regular servicing of Denny’s Porsche. Ironing done, shrubs supplied. Who would have thought in a village of some three hundred souls there would have been so much ‘sin’ about?

But of course there was also Brown’s. And Dennis with his slimy ways, driving round Causton visiting the bereaved and offering oleaginous comfort. People talked unrestrainedly in times of grief and gossiped at funerals. Rich pickings there. Between them he and his mother must have covered a pretty wide area.

Barnaby picked up the last pink folder, casually, with no sense of premonition. No idea that this would be the chamber with the bullet. Spin number six.

No need to wonder now, he thought, looking at the long column of figures, where the silver car came from or the partnership in the funeral parlour. Number 117C had paid out thousands. Even before he looked at the date of the first payment he knew what he would find. Not many crimes could command that sort of blood money. In fact perhaps only one. He felt a surge of emotion too strong to be called satisfaction. He felt on top of the world. He had not been able to let the shooting of Bella Trace alone. Without the slightest shred of evidence, indeed with all those present insisting that only an accident could have occurred, Barnaby had carried the incident around with him for a week whilst it plucked at the edges of his mind like a child with a story to tell. And now here he was, vindicated. A gentle tapping on the window of the car broke into his reverie.

‘Ah, Troy.’ He got out and slammed the door. ‘Did you see Miss Cadell?’

‘Yes. She’s been at this new place all day, she told me. Then I tried Holly Cottage again like you said but it’s still empty.’ He hurried alongside Barnaby. ‘Seems to have an endless supply of cottages, Mr Trace. Takes some people all their lives to buy -’

‘Show me where Phyllis Cadell’s house is, would you?’

‘Oh, she’s not there now, Chief. She left when I did. Eating with the Traces.’

‘Right.’ Barnaby crossed the road. ‘How did she seem?’

‘Well, she didn’t know of course, about the murder. After I told her she went a bit funny. She laughed a lot but it sounded ... oh I don’t know ... I think she’d been drinking, actually.’

Phyllis Cadell was standing by the window in the room where they had first met. She turned as they entered and as soon as Barnaby saw her face he knew his suspicions were correct. He stepped forward.

‘Phyllis Cadell. I arrest you on suspicion of the murder of -’

‘Oh no!’ She turned from him and ran to the far end of the room. ‘Not now ... not now!’ Then she covered her face with her hands and started to shriek.

Chapter Six

Barnaby crossed the room. As he approached Phyllis became quieter and stared at him. The intensity of her gaze, the utter, utter misery in her eyes, lifted her for a brief moment from the realms of bathos and made her appear an almost tragic figure. Barnaby completed the caution. Troy, trying to look as if all this was no more than he expected, produced his notebook and sat down by the door.

Phyllis Cadell gazed at them both, blinking convulsively, then said, ‘How did you find out?’

‘We have removed several files from Mrs Rainbird’s bungalow. Yours was amongst them.’ She would never know that no details of the crime were stated in the file and that the blackmailer’s victim was identified only by three figures and an initial. Or that, lacking any sort of proof, Barnaby had hoped to frighten her into an admission of guilt. She started to speak.

‘I know you’ll find this impossible to believe but when I first came here ... of course I was much younger then ...’ Her glance at the floor was abject. It indicated how sad she found her age, her appearance, her general unlovableness. ‘And Henry was ... I did everything in the house, you know ... and he was always so grateful. Then ... gradually I felt his gratitude becoming something more. Bella was always so busy, you understand. Her position in the village meant she was expected to be on the Parish Council, do a certain amount of charity work. She was president of the WI, the local Conservative Association. Oh - she looked after Henry in a brisk sort of way but half the time she just wasn’t here. He looked so wistful sometimes ... sitting by the window waiting for her car to turn in at the gate. Then one evening - I shall never forget it ...’ Her puffy face became criss-crossed with tears and her voice thick with emotion. ‘I was preparing some sandwiches - cream cheese with horseradish - and he took my hand and said, “Oh Phyllis. What would I do without you?” Not we’ - she stared at Barnaby defiantly - ‘I. “What would I do without you?” You see he was turning to me more and more as time went by. And I understood that. I loved him so much you see that it seemed only natural that he should start to love me a little. And then I thought’ - her voice dropped to a whisper - ‘how happy we could both be if it wasn’t for Bella.’

She sat down then and was quiet for so long that Barnaby was afraid she had stopped for good. But, just as he was about to speak, she started again. ‘There was no love lost between us, you know. Everyone thought how good it was of her to give me a home. But she would never have got a housekeeper to do all the things I did. And she enjoyed flaunting her happiness. She soon spotted that I cared for Henry. There were no flies on Bella.’

Barnaby moved and sat down without taking his eyes off her face. ‘I’d learnt how to handle a gun when I was quite young. It’s just something one does in the country. But I never liked killing things.’ Her lips twisted on the paradox. ‘I told Bella I fancied a change from domesticity and felt like joining them on a shoot. Henry seemed a bit surprised but quite pleased. I took a hip flask filled with vodka. I wasn’t much of a drinker in those days. I hadn’t any definite plan but I was sure there’d be an opportunity. People don’t stay in a line or bunch you know, they fan out - break up a bit. But, as the time went by, it seemed to be getting more and more impossible. There was always someone between us or she moved too far away or too close. I started to get desperate. I didn’t know what to do. I kept taking drinks from the flask. I knew I’d never get up the courage to go out with them again ... all the dead birds, the blood ... it was making me sick. Then I had a brilliant idea. I thought if I went round in front of them and I was hidden in the trees and ... and did it from there no one would know. So I said I didn’t feel too well or I’d got bored or something and left and worked my way round in a semi-circle till I was facing them. Guns were going off all the time. I suppose I could easily have been hit myself.’ She buried her face in her hands, adding huskily, ‘I wish to God I had been.

‘Then ... I shot her. It was terrible. I saw her pitch forwards and fall to the ground. And I panicked. I just got up and ran and ran. I threw the gun into some bushes. After a few minutes I stopped and drank the rest of the vodka and then of course I realized ...’

‘Yes?’ So quiet Barnaby’s voice. So still the room. Troy, pencil flying, felt they had forgotten he was there.

‘... Why that everyone would know it wasn’t an accident. All the others, except the farm boy were behind her, you see. And he was too far away. I thought what shall I do, what shall I do? I sat there and sat there. I thought of running away but then everyone would know it was me ... so I made myself go back. By that time of course it was all over. The ambulance had been and gone and Trevor Lessiter told me that Bella had had an accident. Tripped and fallen on her gun. I just couldn’t believe it. That anyone could be so lucky. I cried and cried with relief. I couldn’t stop. Everyone was very touched. Such sisterly concern.

‘When they’d all gone I made supper for myself and Henry. I didn’t lay the table. We sat by the fire. I had to coax him to eat. I’ve never known such happiness. I expect you think that’s wicked but it’s the truth. All I could think of was, I’ve got away with it, and I’ve got Henry. Then about half-past seven the phone rang.’ Her voice became dry, little more than a croak. ‘Excuse me ... I need a drink.’

‘Sergeant.’ Barnaby beckoned.

‘It’s all right.’ She poured from a decanter and added a quick spurt of soda. ‘Well, the call was from Iris. She said I was to go round. I told her what had happened to Bella and said I couldn’t leave Henry. She just said, “You’ll come now. Or would you like me to come to you?” She sounded very odd but even then I wasn’t really alarmed. I got Henry some pudding and went off to the bungalow.

‘She offered me some coffee, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and Dennis went off to the kitchen. We sat facing each other in her revolting lounge. She wouldn’t say what she wanted. She kept twinkling at me, saying how I’d be needed more than ever at Tye House. “Quite the chatelaine you’ll be, dear.” Then Dennis came in pushing the trolley. There was coffee and biscuits on the bottom tier and on the top ... the gun. No one said anything. It was horrible. They just kept looking at each other then at me, and beaming. As if I’d accomplished something extraordinary. As I suppose I had.

‘Then Dennis said he’d seen me shoot Bella and ditch the gun and run away and whilst they were both very anxious for my continuing happiness at Tye House they were sure I’d understand that poor people had to make their way in the world too and that they’d always known I was the sort of person to be generous to my friends. My plan had so obsessed me that I hadn’t given anyone else a thought, least of all Dennis Rainbird. But he was mad about Michael Lacey then. Was always following him about. I should have remembered that. Anyway’ - her shoulders sagged - ‘there’s not much else to tell, really. Since then they’ve cleaned me out. Henry gave me Bella’s jewellery - they’ve had the money from that. Then there were my own few bits and pieces and fifty thousand my mother left ... and you see’ - a wave of sorrow washed over her features - ‘it was all for nothing. He didn’t love me at all. He was just being kind. And then Katherine came along.’

As the silence lengthened and she didn’t speak again Barnaby said, ‘Is that the end of your statement, Miss Cadell?’

‘It is.’

‘And Mrs Rainbird’s death?’ Even as he spoke the chief inspector knew what her answer would be. He could see her, buoyed up in the belief that Henry cared and primed with a flask of vodka, firing at Bella then, immediately overcome with shock and horror, running all over the place and hurling the gun away. What he couldn’t see was that stout, foolish-faced woman wielding a knife again and again, wading through blood, steeped in blood. Coolly changing clothes, scrubbing the traces away. So it was without surprise that he heard her say, ‘I had nothing to do with that.’

Yet he still felt it was in order to ask further questions. After all she had no alibi for that afternoon and she had everything to gain by Mrs Rainbird’s death. He pointed out both these things.

‘I don’t see how I benefit by her death. I might’ve done eighteen months ago but they’ve both known for weeks that all the money was gone. And I told them that if I went down I’d make damn sure they went down with me. They knew I meant what I said all right.’

After she had listened to the statement being read back, and signed it, Troy positioned himself at the bedroom door whilst she packed. She came out carrying a small case and her handbag and wearing a shapeless raincoat. She looked much older. She had never been an attractive woman but a certain amount of vitality and a high colour had added some liveliness to her appearance. Now she looked drained, even her hair seemed greyer. As they reached the foot of the stairs a door opened and Barnaby felt his prisoner shrink closer to him.

‘Phyllis.’ Henry wheeled himself into the hall, with Katherine close behind. ‘What on earth’s wrong? What is happening?’

‘You’ll know soon enough.’ She wouldn’t look at him but hurried through the front door, Troy following. Barnaby closed the door and turned to the waiting pair.

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mr Trace, but Miss Cadell has just confessed to the murder of your wife.’

‘It’s not possible!’ Katherine looked absolutely astounded.

Henry seemed bereft of speech entirely. Finally he said, ‘Are you sure? There must be some mistake. I can’t believe it.’

‘I’m afraid there’s no doubt.’ Barnaby re-opened the door. ‘We have taken her into custody. You may wish to contact her solicitor.’ Then he closed the door and walked after the others to the car.

Chapter Seven

Barnaby sat behind his desk in the incident room. He pushed the last of the Tranquillada’s files aside and concentrated on his coffee. A few minutes before he had learned from the hospital that there was no change in Mr Rainbird’s condition but that he continued comfortable. Barnaby doubted that. He doubted that very much indeed. Until the person who had killed his mother was caught Dennis Rainbird, once memory returned, would never feel comfortable again. Because Barnaby felt sure that whatever she knew he knew. And what now, unless madness had permanently addled his wits, was to stop him talking? Which was why there was a guard at the door of his hospital room as well as someone always by his bed.

Barnaby had in front of him the cutting on the Trace inquest. Now he knew the truth he read it again, remembering his earlier impression that there was something in there that hadn’t seemed quite right. He assumed that whatever it was would now stick out a mile, but he was wrong. Ah well ... it was no longer important.

All around him was activity. Muted, orderly but intense. Breathing space between telephone calls was slight. Fleet Street had picked up the news as had BBC television. Although no appeal had yet been made several members of the public, no doubt anxious to appear to be playing some part in such a dramatic event, had rung offering information and ideas.

Paper was piling up. Every little detail was put on an action form and those not already transcribed on to the rotary card system were circling round like homing pigeons. Forensic and other information was being recorded in the portable pod. A vast blown-up map of the village hung on the wall behind Barnaby’s head. One of the monitors showed a local television reporter interviewing Mrs Sweeney, and Mr Fenton, senior partner at Brown’s Funeral Emporium (‘Every solace in your hour of need’) had appeared for the opposition. The villagers were being questioned by the police as to their whereabouts between three and five p.m. All the normal procedures were being carried out. But whilst Barnaby was aware that everything that was being done must be done, his mind refused to expand to absorb all the minutiae of an official inquiry.

It held only five suspects (he had decided to jettison Henry Trace, and Lessiter had an alibi) and these five moved in a slow tantalizing pavane on a screen behind his eyes. Wherever he was, whoever he was with, whatever he was doing, the dance went on. He drained his coffee. Old green-eyes was back.

It was now almost nine o’clock. He wrote down an order for the Chinese takeaway - Black Bean and Ginger Soup. Sweet and Sour Prawns. Rice and Spring Rolls. Toffee Apples - and had just sent it off when the phone rang.

‘It’s a Mrs Quine asking for you, sir. She’s in a call box. I’ve made a note of the number.’

‘Right ... Mrs Quine?’

‘Hullo? What’s going on ... didn’t that chap in the caravan tell you what I said? About that Lacey bloke?’

‘Yes. The message was passed on.’

‘Woss he doing still roaming round the village, then? We’ll all be torn to bloody shreds before you lot get off your arses and do something. I saw him go up to that house bold as brass.’

‘We also—’ Barnaby stopped. Around him the phones continued to ring, a typewriter rattled, outside a car screeched to a halt. He heard none of those things. His concentration was yanked to a single fine point. There was just him, the telephone and Mrs Quine. His throat was bone dry as he asked, ‘Did you say he went up to the house?’

‘I told you. In the message. He went through the hedge, up the garden path to the back door. Got his old denims on and that cap. I’d know him anywhere.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Well ... the Young Doctors had just finished and Tickle on the Tum hadn’t started. I’d gone up to make the beds - which was how I came to spot him, y’see. Through the bedroom window. Lisa Dawn was making a cup of tea.’

‘Yes,’ said Barnaby, marvelling at the control in his voice, ‘but what time would that be?’

‘That’d be ... um ... five to four.’

He sat gripping the receiver for a moment longer. She continued speaking but her words were lost as a wave of exhilaration pounded through him. His brain felt as if it were being dragged all over the place by wild horses. Five to four. Dear God. Five to four. More words were getting through.

‘Was it you sent that nosey bugger from the Social round? Upsetting Lisa Dawn.’

The pips admitted a merciful release. Barnaby went to find Inspector Moffat to get a search warrant. He yelled ‘Troy!’ as he went through the outer office - a shout that could have been heard as far as the cattle market and the Soft Shoe Café. His sergeant leapt up from a spot of hot-eyed dalliance with Policewoman Brierley and responded with a ‘Sir!’ automatically pitched at the same level.

‘Car. Shift yourself.’

Leaving another ‘sir’ splintering the atmosphere Troy ran from the room. This was something like it, he thought, running across the car park and leaping into the Fiesta. Foot down. Siren blaring. Secret tip-off. Villain on the run. Troy and Barnaby closing in. Cuffs at the ready. But the Chief’s getting on. Oh he was fast in his day but now ... So it’s Troy who makes the arrest. He was a tough bastard, too. One of the hard men. Afterwards Barnaby admitted as much. ‘Without you, Sergeant, I couldn’t have—’

‘For God’s sake don’t just bloody sit there. Move!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Back to the village. And you can switch that thing off.’ He didn’t say slow down, though, and Troy touched eighty when they were clear of the town.

‘What’s up, sir?’ Barnaby told him. Troy whistled and said, ‘Wow. We’ve got him then.’

‘Keep your eyes on the road.’

‘But ... that’s pretty conclusive, wouldn’t you say?’

‘He’s certainly got some explaining to do.’

‘I hope he hasn’t scarpered. He wasn’t in the cottage when I went back to check.’

When they entered the village a mere handful of people was now hanging round the portable pod. The television van had gone on to the next drama. It was getting dark. As soon as Troy eased through the hedge space they saw a light in the cottage.

‘He’s back.’

‘There’s no need to whisper, Sergeant.’ Barnaby got out. ‘I should think our headlights alone have alerted him to the fact that we’ve arrived.’

The sun was setting. The house was softened by the glow. The dark mass of surrounding trees was rimmed with deepest gold. An upstairs window reflected the sun. Troy squinted against it as it hung in the very centre of the pane. He thought it looked like a lump of blood. Barnaby knocked.

‘Heavens, not you again.’ Michael Lacey regarded them coolly from the doorway. He was eating a huge hunk of bread and cheese. ‘You never stop, do you? Really it makes it a pleasure to pay my taxes. If I ever earned enough to pay taxes, that is.’

‘We’d like to ask you a few questions.’

He gave a little moan but it sounded phoney. Part of a game. He opened the door. ‘Come in then if you must. But I’ve already been asked a few questions. By one of your minions barely half an hour ago.’

‘Then I expect you know that Mrs Rainbird has been done to death—’

‘Done to death? How wonderfully archaic.’

‘In a particularly brutal manner.’

‘I hope you’re not looking for insincere expressions of regret on my part. She was a very nasty woman. Almost as nasty as her golden-haired boy.’

‘Indeed? I didn’t realize you knew her well.’

‘You didn’t have to know her well.’

Supercilious sod, thought Troy, hugging Mrs Quine’s revelation to his heart. Barnaby asked Michael Lacey where he was between three and five that afternoon.

‘Working.’

‘You wouldn’t like to expound on that?’

‘Not really. Thanks all the same.’

‘So if someone said they saw you walking up the path of Mrs Rainbird’s back garden at four p.m ... ?’

‘I’d say they wanted their eyes tested.’

Barnaby produced one of his two warrants. ‘Mr Lacey, I have a warrant here to search these premises.’ At this the man’s expression changed. That’s wiped the smile off his face, thought Troy, allowing the hint of one to appear on his own. ‘I hope,’ Barnaby continued, ‘that you will cooperate in this matter.’

‘You can’t do that!’

‘I’m afraid this bit of paper says we can. Sergeant ...’ Barnaby nodded towards the stairs and Troy vanished. ‘Would you accompany me to the kitchen, Mr Lacey?’

He searched the kitchen thoroughly while his companion stood sullenly by the sink. Then the room with the settee and bookshelves. He pulled out the paperbacks, lifted the matting. Lacey perched on one of the uncomfortable dining chairs and watched. Troy re-entered the room, giving Barnaby what he fondly imagined to be an imperceptible shake of the head. The chief inspector finished his task and turned to the man at the table, who said, ‘If that wild semaphoring of absolute despair is anything to go by, your clueless sergeant hasn’t dug up anything either. So I suggest you go on your merry way and leave me in peace.’

‘Next door, Troy.’ The sergeant nodded and walked out. Lacey jumped up.

‘That’s my studio. I won’t have my work disturbed. There’s nothing in there but paintings.’

Troy called, ‘It’s locked, sir.’

‘Well, break it down then.’

Michael Lacey ran into the passage and hung on to Troy’s arm. Delighted, the sergeant immediately seized the man’s wrists, wrenching his arms behind his back.

‘All right, Sergeant, all right.’ Barnaby ambled up. ‘He’s not going anywhere, are you, sir?’

Troy released Lacey, who glared at them both. But there was more than anger in his expression. There was fear. ‘Why don’t you just unlock the door and save us all a lot of hassle?’ asked the chief inspector.

Lacey ignored him. Troy put his shoulder to the wood. It gave on the fourth heave. He moved the door into the hall and stepped back, keeping an eye on Lacey who was leaning against the stair rail, very still, his face expressionless.

Barnaby entered the studio, which seemed innocent enough. And meticulously tidy in comparison with the rest of the house. Some canvases were stacked against the wall, one or two tied together with string. The easel was covered with a cloth peaked into a square by the canvas beneath. The floor was swept clean and there was the scent of turps and resin in the air. A trestle table held an orderly array of jars and brushes and there was an unlit Calorgas heater in one corner.

In the hall Troy stood, legs apart, ready for anything. Over his head the electric meter buzzed like a trapped bee. He glanced up. Slim grey cables snaked about. Funny to see a meter in a private house. Plenty of council tenants had them of course. Set too high as often as not so there’d be some cash to spare when they were emptied. A bloody irritating noise. He turned and looked up. It wasn’t the meter buzzing. It was flies. Dozens of them; great filthy bluebottles with iridescent wings. They were clustered all over something. Something jammed behind the meter. He stood on his toes and stared harder.

‘Chief ...’ Barnaby hurried out. ‘Look - up there!’

‘Get a chair - and something to hold it with.’

Troy climbed on to one of the dining chairs with a dirty tea towel in his hand and tugged at the knife. It bloomed with dark stains. The flies lifted sluggishly but didn’t go far. As Troy held it out they hovered over his hand. Barnaby looked at Michael Lacey, who moved away from the banisters and came towards them, staring at the knife in astonishment.

‘Can you explain what this is doing behind your meter, Mr Lacey?’

‘Of course I can’t.’

‘Does the knife belong to you?’

When Lacey remained silent Troy gave him a none too gentle nudge. ‘The chief inspector’s talking to you.’

‘I don’t know ...’ He looked more closely, his mouth puckering with distaste. ‘Yes ... it’s the knife we use for the vegetables.’

‘And where have you hidden the clothes, Mr Lacey?’

‘What?’

‘The dungarees, the cap, the gloves. The tights.’

‘Tights. What d’you take me for? A transvestite?’

‘The clothes that you wore,’ Barnaby continued implacably, ‘when you killed Mrs Rainbird.’

‘When I -’ Lacey gazed at him open mouthed. ‘You’re raving mad. You’re not hanging that on me. I’ve heard all about police corruption. You probably planted that yourself. Came round here earlier when I was out.’

Barnaby was turning back into the studio when Lacey ran for it. Pushing the chief inspector violently aside and hitting Troy in the chest, he flew through the doorway and raced across the open space in front of the cottage. Troy, picking himself up, ran after him and brought the man down by the car. When Barnaby reached them Lacey was handcuffed and Troy pink faced with exertion and pride.

‘In the car, Lacey.’

Barnaby’s prisoner stared at him. The look held everything he expected to see, fright and despair, but there was something else behind his eyes. A disturbing expression that the chief inspector could not put a name to. Troy bundled the man into the back seat. Barnaby put the knife into the boot, then said, ‘Do you have a key to secure the house?’

‘It’s never locked.’

They drove off. As Troy slowed down to approach the junction of Church Lane and the Street Katherine Lacey came round the corner with two of the dogs. There was just enough light for her to recognize Barnaby, and she half smiled. Then she saw her brother and her face changed. She called out, ‘Michael?’ and started to cross the road towards them. He lifted his handcuffed wrists and made a square around his face, shouting, ‘I’ve been framed!’ Then the car gathered speed and drove off.

Chapter Eight

It was dark when they reached the station. Michael Lacey received an intimation and was asked if he wished to make any telephone calls. He declined and started looking round him with some interest. He seemed to be recovering his savoir-faire fairly quickly. By the time Barnaby handed him over to the custody officer he was even exhibiting a certain amount of bravado. Barnaby heard him place a facetious order for toast, tea, a mixed grill, apple pie and ice cream. The chief inspector asked how the other prisoner was faring.

‘Sleeping like a baby, sir. And snoring her head off.’

Barnaby returned to the incident room where Troy was completing a house-search form. It was too dark to start looking for the murderer’s clothes, but at first light they’d get started. More action forms had come to roost on his desk next to his cold gluey Chinese takeaway. No need to read them all now. He’d got the murderer downstairs under lock and key. He stood by the window looking up at the indigo sky thickly patterned with bright stars, and wondered at his feelings of unease.

‘Sir?’ Troy was holding out a telephone. ‘Miss Lacey.’ He took the receiver.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby.’

‘What’s happened? What were you doing with Michael?’ Barnaby told her. There was a terrible pause then Katherine started shouting. Barnaby heard ‘No ... no ... he couldn’t ... it isn’t true ...’ and Henry Trace’s voice. Then Trace took the telephone.

‘Tell me the exact situation, Barnaby. I can’t get any sense out of Katherine. Darling ... please ... it’ll be all right. Try to calm down ... we can’t do anything till we know just what’s going on.’

Barnaby went through it again. He heard Katherine crying, ‘I want to see him ... Henry - I’ve got to see him.’

‘May we see him, Chief Inspector?’

‘I suggest you ring in the morning, Mr Trace. We’ve settled him down for the night now.’ He could hear Katherine still sobbing hysterically as he replaced the telephone.

Barnaby leaned back and closed his eyes. He was feeling tired but not healthily so. He felt what his mother called ‘worn to a frazzle’. Wound up, worn out and nothing to show for it. But what was he saying? Of course he had something to show for it. Downstairs, sealed securely away in a cell, he had the murderer of Iris Rainbird. And tomorrow they would find the clothes. Lacey can’t have got far with them. Probably dumped in the pond in the woods. He remembered the little puddle of water in the Rainbirds’ shed. He had water on the brain. And an unpleasant tightness under his belt. His stomach was never satisfied. When he fed it it complained. And it complained when he didn’t. But everything was fine. Tired phrases that he would never normally use lumbered into his mind. An open and shut case. Caught red handed. No problem.

He threw the takeaway into the grey metal waste bin and heaved himself out of his seat. ‘I’ve had it,’ he said to the room at large. ‘See you in the morning.’ Troy, thriving on his twelve-hour shift, sprang up and accompanied Barnaby to the main door, holding it open for him.

‘Quite a session wasn’t it, sir?’ he asked, his face burnished with satisfaction.

‘You can say that again.’

‘I mean’ - Troy kept pace with Barnaby across the car park - ‘how often in your career have you arrested two murderers in one day? This has to be a one-off wouldn’t you say, Chief?’ Barnaby unlocked the door of his Orion. ‘God - I’ve seen some liars in my time but that Lacey ...’

‘Goodnight, Sergeant.’

Troy winged a final bright-eyed glance through the window. ‘An open and shut case wouldn’t you say?’

He watched the blue car drive away. Surly old sod. Troy thought that if he’d pulled off a double coup like that it’d be drinks all round for the lads and Policewoman Brierley’s knickers in his glove compartment before the night was out.

Arbury Crescent was quiet as Barnaby eased into his garage. Dreaming suburbia. A few television sets still flickering but the guiltless inhabitants were mostly asleep, renewing their energies for the daily commuter slog to the city.

‘Is that you, Tom?’ called Joyce, as she always did.

He stood for a moment on the patio looking down the garden at the heavy mass of dark arboreal shapes. The leaves rustled in the night air and were touched with silver by the moon. He was glad he couldn’t see his herbaceous borders. He hadn’t touched them for a fortnight. He would get Joyce to do some deadheading at the weekend. This unfortunate phrase reminded him of work and the sighing of the trees ceased to be a comfort. He went indoors.

‘I’ve kept you some soup hot.’ Joyce was in her housecoat and slippers, her face cleaned of makeup.

‘Oohh ...’ Barnaby slipped an arm around her waist. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’

‘How did it all go today?’

‘So so.’ Barnaby took the mug.

‘I’m afraid it’s not home-made.’

Barnaby took the soup gratefully and drank deep. It was wonderful. Monosodium glutamate. Permitted stabilizers. HC and FCF. All the angst-producing E’s. Bliss.

‘You hadn’t forgotten Cully’s here for the weekend?’

‘I had, actually.’ Barnaby drained his mug.

‘Would you like some more?’

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

She ladled some out but before he could drink put her arms around him. ‘Tom?’

‘Mm.’

‘You look sad.’ She drew his grizzled head down to her soft bosom. ‘Would you like a cuddle?’

‘Yes please.’ He kissed her. She smelt sweetly of fresh toothpaste and the baby lotion she used as a moisturizer. He felt a sudden overwhelming rush of gratitude. Today and every day, however dark the working hours, come nightfall he touched home base. He stroked her hair, adding, ‘And not just because I’m sad.’

Chapter Nine

It was a lovely day for a wedding. Falls of hops entwined with summer jasmine were attached to the stone arches; old-fashioned nosegays starred the end of every pew. The altar rails were covered with tuberoses. The bride stood, a glittering column of frosty satin and foaming lace, incomparably lovely. The groom wheeled his chair down the aisle. As he came to a halt at the chancel steps the bride turned and stared at him, her face gradually becoming transformed into a mask of horror. Set square on his immaculate shoulders was a grinning skull. The vicar said, ‘Dearly beloved ...’ The congregation smiled. No one seemed to notice anything amiss. The bells rang. And rang. And rang.

Barnaby groped around on his bedside table. He turned the clock round. Half-past five, for God’s sake. He tumbled the receiver off the hook. ‘Barmby.’ He listened and was wide awake. ‘Christ almighty ... have you called Bullard? ... No ... I’ll be in straight away.’

Joyce turned over. ‘Darling ... what’s the matter?’

He was out of bed, dressing. ‘I have to go ... don’t get up.’

She struggled to sit, rearranging the pillows. ‘You’ll want some breakfast.’

‘The canteen opens at six. I’ll get something there.’

‘How long do you think she’s been dead?’

Doctor Bullard placed the blanket over Phyllis Cadell’s marmoreal profile. ‘Ohh ... two ... three hours. Early morning some time.’

Barnaby sat down heavily on the lavatory, the only other piece of furniture in the cell. ‘God, George - this is all we need. A custody death.’

‘Sorry.’ Bullard smiled - quite cheerfully, considering the hour. ‘Can’t rejuvenate that one for you. Anyway from what I’ve heard she’s better off where she is. Don’t you think?’

‘That’s hardly the point.’ Barnaby looked across at the grey flannel hump. He could see what Bullard meant. What had the dead woman to look forward to? The pain and humiliation of a public trial. Years in prison. A lonely and unloved old age. And all the while having to live with the knowledge that Henry and Katherine were alive and happy together at Tye House. All the same ...

The custody sergeant entered Chief Inspector Barnaby’s office and closed the door as tenderly as if it had been made of glass. He looked once at the figure behind the desk and once was enough. Throughout the interview he kept his eyes on the floor.

‘All right, Bateman - let’s have it.’

‘Yes, sir. It wasn’t -’

‘And if you say it wasn’t your fault I’ll ram this filing cabinet down your gullet.’

‘Sir.’

‘From the beginning.’

‘Well, I accepted the prisoner but before I could make out a custody record she asked to go to the toilet.’

‘You didn’t let her go on her own?’

Bateman cleared his throat. ‘Point is, sir, Policewomen Brierley and McKinley were searching a pair of scrubbers we’d picked up on the precinct. I sent someone with the prisoner as far as the door -’

‘Oh wonderful, Sergeant. Brilliant. He watched her through the wood, did he? See what she was up to?’

‘No, sir.’

‘No, sir. Did she take anything to the toilet with her?’

Bateman swallowed, stopped staring at the floor and stared out of the window. ‘... Handbag ...’

‘Speak up! I’m feeling deaf.’

‘A handbag, sir.’

‘I don’t believe this.’ Barnaby buried his face in his hands. ‘Go on.’

‘Well ... I did the record ... then took her down. We listed her stuff, wrote a receipt. I settled her and gave her a cup of tea. When I did my first check she was sound asleep.’

‘So when did she take the tablets?’

‘With the tea, I suppose. She must’ve palmed them when she was in the toilet. She had a cardigan with a pocket and a handkerchief. When I checked the contents of her bag’ - the man started to babble in self-justification - ‘there was a bottle of sleeping tablets in there with half a dozen tablets in it. She actually asked me if she could take one. She was very clever -’

‘She was a damn sight cleverer than you, that’s for sure.’

‘If the bottle had been empty, obviously I’d have been suspicious -’

‘The very fact that she’d got them in her handbag at all should have been enough to make you suspicious, man. Or do you think people take them as they go about their daily business?’

‘No, sir.’

‘In Sainsbury’s or Boot’s? Or the library?’ Silence. ‘When did you first discover she was dead?’

‘On my third check, sir. Just before five. I noticed she wasn’t breathing. Called the police surgeon right away but it was too late.’

‘Well if she wasn’t breathing it bloody well would be too late wouldn’t it?’

The sergeant, his face rigid with misery and mortification, muttered, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’re about as much use to the force, Bateman, as a jockstrap in a nunnery.’ Silence. ‘I’ll have your stripes for this.’ Pause. ‘And that’s only for starters.’

‘If I could -’

‘You’re suspended from duty. You’ll be notified about the hearing. And I don’t want to see your face again until you are. Now get out.’

The door had barely closed on the wretched sergeant before it reopened to admit a young constable. ‘It’s the prisoner in cell three, sir. He wants to make a statement about his movements yesterday afternoon.’

‘Well I assume you’ve been with us long enough to manage that without too much nervous strain.’

‘I’m sorry but he wants to talk to you.’

The prisoner in cell three was finishing his breakfast, mopping up his plate with a piece of bread. ‘One star for comfort, Inspector, but definitely two for cuisine. I can’t remember when I’ve dispatched a nicer poached egg.’

‘Say what you’ve got to say and get on with it.’

‘I’d like to go home now.’

‘Don’t play games with me, Lacey!’ Barnaby crossed to the man on the bed and bent down so that their faces were barely an inch apart. ‘I’ve had you up to here.’ He spoke slowly and quietly but the current of anger that flowed from him was almost palpable. Lacey shrank away and turned pale. The skin graft, unchanged, stood out like a piece of stretched pink silk. ‘And I should warn you,’ continued Barnaby, ‘that if you were lying to me yesterday you’re in dead trouble.’

‘Oh I wasn’t ... technically that is ...’ His speech was hurried now, not at all fluent, with an anxious edge. ‘When I said I was working in the afternoon that was quite true. I was making preliminary sketches for an oil I’m going to do of Judy Lessiter. I’ve been thinking about it for some time and she rang up about twelve o’clock and reminded me. We worked in their garden.’

Barnaby took a deep breath, struggling to contain his rage. ‘Don’t you usually work at home?’

‘One can sketch anywhere. And in any case she invited me for lunch. I never turn down a decent meal.’

‘So when did you arrive?’

‘About half one. Started work just after two, worked till around four. Stopped for some tea and cake and stuff. Worked on till around five then left.’

‘And why,’ said Barnaby, his voice stretched with the effort of control, ‘did you not tell me all this yesterday?’

‘Well ... I don’t really know.’ Michael Lacey swallowed nervously. ‘I suppose I was so shattered when you discovered the knife ... then I panicked and before I knew what was happening you’d bundled me into the car and there I was ... in one of your little grey cells.’ He attempted a grin. The chief inspector did not respond. ‘And somehow the longer I left it the harder it got to say anything so I thought I’d try to sleep and leave it till morning.’ There was a long heavy silence and he stood up and said, a little uncertainly, ‘So can I go now?’

‘No, Lacey, you cannot “go now”.’ Barnaby moved away. ‘And let me tell you that you don’t know how lucky you are. I know men who would have had your head in and out between those bars half a dozen times by now if you’d messed them about like you’ve messed me.’ He slammed the door, locked it and flung the key back on the board.

As he climbed the steps and made his way to the incident room he became aware that he was clenching and unclenching his fists with fury. He changed tack, returned to his office and stood by the window, struggling to simmer down. His brain was in a turmoil, his skin burned, there was a band of steel around his forehead and his stomach bucked like a maddened bronco. He felt almost sick with anger and frustration. But there was no disappointment. Because he had known in his heart from the moment when he saw Lacey gaping incredulously at the blood-encrusted knife that it was all too easy. Caught red handed. No problem. An open and shut case.

He sat in the chair behind his desk and closed his eyes. Gradually his pulse and heartbeat slowed down. He breathed slowly and evenly. Five long minutes crawled by and he made himself sit still for five more. By then he felt himself more or less back to normal and with normality, surprisingly, came hunger. He checked his watch. If he was quick he would have time to expose his arteries to the comfort of a quick fry-up in the canteen and still catch Judy Lessiter before she left for work.

Chapter Ten

The Lessiters were at breakfast. Trevor, who had a mouthful of bile and an aching groin, took a ferocious poke at his egg which retaliated by spouting a great gobbet of sulphur yellow all over his tie. Judy laughed. He scrubbed at the tie with his napkin, glaring at his wife who was turning the pages of the Daily Telegraph in the manner most calculated to annoy, i.e. with languid indifference.

She was up to her tricks again. Locked door last night and, when he’d tapped, very softly so that Judy wouldn’t hear, Barbara had put her lips to the door jamb and hissed, ‘Go away, you randy little man. Don’t you ever think of anything else?’ He had walked up and down in his room for two hours after that, torn between lust and fury, cursing Judy’s presence in the house. At one moment he had even thought of dragging a ladder out of the garage, climbing up to his wife’s window and breaking in. God - she’d have known about it if he had. Tears of self-pity sprang to his eyes. He recalled the time he had spent in her arms only forty-eight hours ago. Trick or treat, she’d whispered. Both had been equally enthralling. It’d been almost like the night before their wedding. He realized now what a fool he was. How she’d always used sex to lead him round, like some pathetic bull calf with a ring through his nose. Well, two could play at that game. Just wait till it was time for her next dress allowance. Or a new subscription to that rapacious health club. She could bloody well whistle for it.

Judy Lessiter stirred her coffee and stared dreamily out of the window. She wore the dress she had bought from High Wycombe the evening before. The cloth was a grey and cream harlequin pattern and the dress had a white ruff. ‘Frames your face a picture,’ the salesgirl had said. Judy’s absurd legs were encased in new pale grey tights. She had also lashed out on some Rive Gauche and a box of eye shadows which she had applied, rather clumsily, before coming down. She was re-running, as she had done all night long, the events of yesterday afternoon.

At one o’clock it had stretched, a lonely space to be filled, until teatime. At five past one, fortified with a small sherry, she had rung Michael Lacey, reasoning that it had been over a week and he had said he wanted to paint her and what had she got to lose anyway? To her surprise and delight he had immediately agreed to come over. Even saying, ‘I was just going to ring you.’

She had taken a quiche out of the freezer, popped it in the microwave, had a quick bath and scrambled in and out of three dresses. She had even experimented with some of Barbara’s makeup. Michael had arrived half an hour later with a sketch pad and promptly told her to go and wash her face.

She took lunch out into the garden and he spent the next two hours drawing in a rapid but detached manner whilst she tried to keep still and refrain from looking at him all the time. He threw an awful lot of stuff away. Not angrily, screwing them up and hurling them from him, but shedding them as impersonally as a tree sheds leaves. By four o’clock there was a little sea of the stuff around his ankles and half a dozen sketches that he put in a portfolio. She had made some tea then and they had drunk it and eaten ginger cake sitting on the wooden seat that ran all round the giant cedar.

She said, ‘Can I have one of these?’ picking up a discarded sketch.

‘No.’

‘Oh but Michael’ - glancing at the paper - ‘it’s lovely.’

‘It’s awful. They all are. Promise me you’ll burn them. Or put them in the dustbin.’

She nodded sadly and poured out some more tea. He picked up his pad and a few minutes later handed her a sketch. ‘You can keep this one.’

It was all there. The mournful curve of her lips, her beautiful eyes, clumsy fingers on the teapot, the sturdy yet submissive line of the neck. He had signed it neatly M.L. It was so precise and so cruel. She felt her throat tighten in prelude to tears and, knowing that nothing would annoy him more, blinked them away hard.

‘Hey Jude ...’ he sang softly, ‘don’t be afraid ...’ He put his cup on the grass and touched her arm. ‘You ought to get out of this place. Away from that miserable pair.’

She gulped her tea. ‘Easier said than done.’

‘Oh I don’t know. When I start my European junketings I shall need a totally subservient dogsbody cum model. I might take you along.’ And then he kissed her. Full on the lips.

Judy closed her eyes. She smelt the cedar needles and the sweetness of ginger, felt each individual moist cake crumb on her fingertips, heard a blackbird sing. The kiss lasted a millionth of a second. And a hundred years. Even as she thought I shall remember this moment all my life it was over.

‘I said do you want some more coffee?’

Judy looked blankly at her stepmother. ‘No thank you.’

‘Trevor?’

No reply. Barbara poured a second cup for herself, unrolled the latest edition of Country Life, then pushed it aside in disgust. Much more of that and she’d be into hairy stockings and lace-up walking drawers. No one read the thing anyway. It went straight into the waiting room. She decided to cancel it and place an order for something a bit more spicy. That’d gee up the golden oldies’ blood pressure. She nibbled a buttered soldier and glanced slyly at her husband’s tie. What with that and Judy looking like something out of a McDonald’s ad the day was off to a flying start. And there were only (eyes down to the diamond-studded wristwatch) six hours to go to nookie time. The doorbell rang.

‘Who the hell is that at this hour of the morning?’

‘I’ll go.’ Barbara sauntered out to return with Chief Inspector Barnaby.

‘What time of day do you call this?’ asked the doctor angrily.

‘Miss Lessiter?’

‘Yes?’ Judy scrambled to her feet like a schoolgirl. ‘What is it?’

‘Just one or two questions about yesterday afternoon if you would? Your whereabouts -’

‘We had someone here last night asking about all that,’ snapped Lessiter.

‘That’s all right,’ said Judy, ‘I don’t mind going through it again. I was here all the time. I had the afternoon off. And my friend Michael ... Michael Lacey was here too. He was doing some preliminary sketches for a painting he’s hoping to start soon.’

‘Could you tell me when this was arranged?’

‘Well I rang him up ...’ Barbara Lessiter covered a smile with her hand, but carelessly. ‘Although actually the first thing he said was “Oh - I was just going to ring you”.’ She stared at the two people sitting at the table. She looked defiant and vulnerable. ‘Why is it so important?’

‘Someone has stated that they saw Mr Lacey enter the Rainbird house around four p.m.’

‘No!’ Judy cried out in horror. ‘It isn’t true. It can’t be. He was with me. Why is everyone always picking on him? Trying to get him into trouble.’

This time Barbara did not even try to conceal her smile. Judy wheeled round and pointed at her stepmother. ‘It’s her you want to talk to! Why don’t you ask her a few questions?’

‘Me?’ Amused and amazed.

‘Ask her where her fur coat is. And why she’s trying to find five thousand pounds. Ask her why she’s being blackmailed!’

With a shout of rage Barbara Lessiter leapt up and flung her coffee in her stepdaughter’s face. Judy screamed, ‘My dress ... my dress!’ Doctor Lessiter seized his wife, holding her arms by her sides. Judy ran from the room. Her father hurried after her. Barbara, suddenly released, flopped into the nearest chair. There was a long silence.

‘Well, Mrs Lessiter?’ asked Barnaby. ‘Why are you being blackmailed?’

‘It’s absolute nonsense. I don’t know where the silly cow even got such an idea.’

‘Perhaps I should tell you that we have removed a good many files, copies of letters and documents, from the dead woman’s house.’ This time the silence was even longer. ‘Would you prefer to come to the station -’

‘Christ, no. Hang on ...’ She crossed to a Welsh dresser, shook out a cigarette with shaky fingers and lit up. ‘I had a letter from her about a week ago.’

‘Signed?’

‘That’s right. Your friend Iris Rainbird. On her horrible lilac writing paper that stinks of dead flowers. It just said that they knew what was going on and if I didn’t want my husband to hear all the juicy details it’d cost me five thousand quid. She’d give me a week to raise it then be in touch again.’

‘And what was going on?’

‘Me and David Whiteley.’

‘I see.’ Barnaby’s mind back-tracked. She could have been the woman in the woods (no checkable alibi). And David Whiteley the man (Ditto.) At the time Miss Simpson was killed she was vaguely driving round. And she could, just about, have squeezed through the larder window. He hesitated and was wondering how most delicately to phrase his next question when she answered it for him.

‘We used to use his car. The seats let down. He’d tell me where he was working. I’d drive there. Hide my car behind a hedge or some trees and we’d climb into the estate for half an hour.’

One up for Sergeant Troy, thought Barnaby. ‘And you think that one of the Rainbirds must have seen you?’

‘Oh no.’ She shook her head. ‘Impossible. But there was one occasion ... we were supposed to meet around three and Henry kept him all afternoon at the office. And when five o’clock came and I knew he’d be home I drove round.’ Barnaby remembered the notebook. Mrs L drove into the W garage. And the red star.

‘It was something we agreed I’d never do because of the risk but I couldn’t wait, you see. I had to have him.’ She stared at Barnaby defiantly. ‘I suppose that shocks you?’ Barnaby managed a look of mild reproach. ‘And he was just as bad. He didn’t even let me get out of the car. Then we went upstairs and started all over again.’

There was nothing amative in the description. She did not even use that consoling euphemism ‘making love’. Love, as Barnaby understood the word, probably didn’t enter into the arrangement at all. He asked if they had spent any time together yesterday afternoon.

‘Yes. We met about half-past three. He was shifting the combine so he didn’t have the Citroën. We managed in the front seat of my Honda. We were together for about an hour, I suppose.’

‘Well, thank you for being so cooperative, Mrs Lessiter.’ Barnaby turned to leave. ‘I may need to talk to you again.’

‘Well, you know where to find me.’ She turned also, then stopped, staring over his shoulder. Her husband was standing in the doorway. Barnaby glanced at the man as he left. Rage and triumph struggled for supremacy on the doctor’s features.

When the door had closed behind the chief inspector Trevor Lessiter said, ‘I shouldn’t be too sure about that.’

‘How much did you hear?’

‘More than enough.’ The rage and triumph dissolved into a look of intense satisfaction. He gazed at her, a close and rewarding scrutiny. She had started coming down to breakfast without what she called her warpaint. Something she would never have done when they were first married. And her age really showed. She wouldn’t find another mug like him in a hurry. But maybe she wouldn’t have to. If she came to heel. Did as she was told. She had too much time on her hands, that was her trouble. Too much time and too much money. Her allowance could go for a start. So could the car. And Mrs Holland. Keeping a house this size clean and in order, cooking for three, gardening, the ordinary duties of a doctor’s wife should keep Barbara occupied. And at night there’d be other duties. And he’d make damn sure he wasn’t sold short there, either. Once a night every night and more if he felt like it. Then there were lots of little variations he had picked up at the Casa Nova. She could learn all those just to be going on with. He’d still go to the club of course (couldn’t disappoint little Krystal) but not nearly so often. At the thought of the money he had spent there over the last couple of years while his wife had been ... He remembered his blood pressure and tried to take it all more calmly. Yes, the bitch had a lot to make up for (every locked door, every headache, every cutting remark) but make up for them she would or out she’d go. He recalled the tasteless tatty hole where she’d been living when they first met. That should have told him something about her for a start. She’d do anything before she’d sink back to that. She’d dance to his tune all right. He visualized a future rosy with sensual delights and started to explain the situation to his wife.

Barbara listened to him droning on. Every now and again he’d rise to the balls of his feet, cradling his pot belly with splayed fingers. She was to do this. She was to do that. She was to be a loving mother to that stumpy boss-eyed little mixer Judy. And to listen and look charitably on his bug-infested patients when they started whingeing. Poxy four-course meals were mentioned.

She thought of the blackmail money in her bag upstairs. Four thousand. And she still hadn’t sold her watch. She could scrape up enough for a deposit on a house. But what sort of house would it be? A terraced hovel like the one her parents, if they were alive, were probably still living in. Back to square bloody one with a vengeance. And how would she pay off a mortgage? What sort of job would she be able to get at her age? Of course once you had a property rooms could be let. With optional extras if need be. But if she was going to spend the rest of her life wrestling between the sheets why not do it here in comfort? She could always lie back and think of Capri. Or Ibiza. Or the Côte d’Azur.

She gazed out of the window. At the green sweet grass sparkling under the hypnotic sprinklers. At the flowering trees and the terrace with its tables and umbrellas and urns brimming with flowers. Then her eyes roamed around the room. Thick Chinese rugs and puffy sofas and onyx tables, nesting slabs of green and gold. And all she had to do was pretend. She should be able to manage that. After all she’d been doing it all her life.

She looked at him. He was really getting into his stride. Shredded rhubarb eyeballs staring, a frothy tic of malice tweaking at his lips. She would have to manage without a car. Three in one household was ridiculous. Mrs Holland would be given notice. The gardener’s hours drastically revised. It wouldn’t hurt Barbara to find out what a hard day’s work was like. Or a hard night’s work come to that. The days of freeloading were over. Ah - that had reached her. At last it had sunk in which side the bread was buttered. She was coming over now, a tender smile on her face. She reached out a hand and laid it gently on his arm.

‘Fuck off, Pookie,’ she said.

Chapter Eleven

Barnaby sat in the Orion at the end of Church Lane. The windows were open and the sun was warming his face. He was thinking.

Lacey’s alibi was, as he had expected it to be, confirmed. The man was innocent of the murder of Iris Rainbird. Yet he had made a run for it. Why? Had he really just panicked? Sensed a frame-up? The first folds of a net falling around him cast by an unknown hand? It was feasible enough, Barnaby knew. He had seen people bolt more than once on a lot less provocation. Lacey had set off running like the wind yet Troy, who had to pick himself up from the floor before setting off in pursuit, had caught the man and brought him down before he had covered more than a few yards.

Barnaby recalled the scene, superimposing Lacey’s face on his mind’s eye. Amazement first. Then panic. And something else. They had looked at each other for a moment just before Lacey had been bundled into the back of the car and Barnaby had been aware of a third emotion behind the eyes. Unexpected and out of place. What was it? Barnaby found himself sweating as he struggled to recall precisely those few seconds, so fleeting and imprecise.

And then he had it. The third emotion was relief. Now, holding on to this new realization, he replayed the scene for a second time. Lacey running; Lacey getting caught almost certainly before he needed to have done; Lacey relieved. And when exactly had he started running? Not, as would have been expected, when the knife was produced. But minutes later, when Barnaby was about to turn back into the studio. That must be it. They had found something in Holly Cottage. But they had not found what Lacey was afraid they would find.

Barnaby got out of the car and crossed the road. His mouth was dry and he could feel his heart thumping in his breast. As he walked he recalled the studio. Neat. Professional. Trestle tables. Brushes and paints. Nothing out of the ordinary, but as he hurried down the dirt track he became more and more convinced that his sudden perception was correct.

Holly Cottage, no longer basking in the sun, looked cold and grey once more. Barnaby opened the front door, calling ‘Miss Lacey’ up the stairs. He thought it unlikely that she had slept there last night but, just in case, did not want to alarm her. There was no reply. He stepped through the doorless opening into the studio.

Everything looked exactly the same. He picked up all the jars, tubes and tins; opened and sniffed. They seemed to contain nothing unorthodox. The brushes were just brushes. There were lots of paperbacks and art catalogues in a corner cupboard. He opened them and shook the pages. No incriminating letter fell to the floor. There was a jar of clean spirit, one paint-muddied, and a few rags, some clean and neatly folded, some stained and crumpled. The windowsill was bare. Barnaby turned his attention to the paintings.

He wasn’t sure what he expected. Iris Rainbird had called them ugly, violent things. Barnaby was aware that this remark had started an ignoble hope in his own breast, once he had met the man, that Lacey had no talent. A hope now rudely shattered.

The first canvas he picked up was the portrait of Dennis Rainbird, and it was stunning. The paint glistened as if still fresh. A combination of grey and yellow ochre reminded Barnaby of a newly turned lump of sticky clay. Close to, the painting looked unfinished, almost crude, but put upon the windowsill a few feet away it leapt into instant complicated life. Dennis was wearing an open-necked shirt the outline of which, like his hands, was blurred, fading into a shadowy background. The bones at the base of his throat showed through the fine skin clear and fragile like those of a small bird. The planes of his face were thick yellow slabs of paint which miraculously managed to suggest the subtle living tissue of real flesh with all its tides and secrets. The mouth was very tightly controlled and the gaze turned inwards reflecting the sitter’s personal thoughts. His eyes showed loneliness and sorrow. The painter had understood and realized on canvas much more than Dennis Rainbird’s physical appearance. He had exposed the man’s secret heart. No wonder his mother had hated it.

Another portrait. An old woman holding a bunch of violets. Her eyes were sunken in a withered brown face. Her expression held all the gravity of the old yet her lips smiled with youthful lightness and grace. The violets retained a faint rime of silver where dew still clung to them. There were some abstracts and several landscapes and Barnaby, quite against his will, felt a rush of admiration as he turned these face outwards. No wonder Lacey didn’t give a damn for his surroundings with all this going on in his head.

Cornfields with poppies, a bank carpeted with wild flowers, two which could have been Miss Simpson’s garden. All a million miles removed from the careful discreet naturalism aimed for by Barnaby’s own art club. Here were brazen skies arched over endless almost colourless beaches; buildings shimmering in heat; gardens engorged with vivid plants and flowers, everything bathed in golden light. He propped them against the wainscot and the sunshine seemed to spill out of the canvases, forming lustrous puddles on the wooden floor.

The abstracts were very large and plain. Thick white paint and, in one corner, an imploding star. Galactic rings of ever-deepening colour shrank to a kernel of tar-black flame. Next to these was a portfolio. Barnaby opened it and pulled out a sheaf of drawings. Sketches of Judy Lessiter, quickly done but full of animation. Seeing these brought Barnaby back to the moment and to why he was there.

He looked closely at all the paintings again. There seemed to be nothing revelatory about them. Nothing to indicate why they should be sealed away behind locked doors. Stepping back, he collided with the easel. It tipped to one side and the old shirt covering it fell off. Barnaby righted the easel and replaced the cloth. It made a squarish shape supported by the two cross bars. But it was a different shape from the one he had seen yesterday. Less solid. He was quite sure that yesterday there had been a largish canvas on that easel. Which meant that, between that time and now, someone had entered the cottage and taken it away.

‘Get Lacey up here.’

‘Yes, sir,’ cried Sergeant Troy italically, leaving the incident room at a brisk trot and clattering down to the basement. ‘Come on you.’ He unlocked the cell door and jerked a thumb in Lacey’s direction. ‘Get off your backside. The chief inspector wants a word.’ He watched the prisoner pick up his jacket. ‘And you needn’t bother with that,’ he continued, ‘you’re not going anywhere.’

Michael Lacey ignored the sergeant, pushing past and hurrying up the stone steps. Troy caught up with him and resentfully tried to regain the dominant position. He had been brought up to date by Policewoman Brierley as to the main dramatic disaster of the night but as yet knew nothing of Lacey’s alibi, and his confidence was absolute. ‘Just bloody well watch it, that’s all.’

The prisoner sat down in front of Barnaby’s desk without being asked and looked around with interest at the equipment and activity. At the bank of telephones, wheels of cards and television screens.

‘So this is where it all goes on. Most impressive.’ He gave Barnaby a smile, perky and sardonic. ‘I shall sleep more easily in my bed tonight. I assume that’s where I shall be sleeping?’

‘Well, Mr Lacey, your alibi has certainly been confirmed.’

The man got up. ‘So I’m free to go?’

‘Just a moment.’ He sat down again. ‘I returned to the cottage this morning to continue my search.’ No reaction. No fear. No alarm. Not even nervousness. Sod his hide, thought Barnaby. ‘I believe at the time when you were detained there was quite a large canvas, covered with a cloth, on the easel in your studio.’

‘I doubt it. I was just starting on a portrait of Judy Lessiter, as you know. I never work on two things at the same time.’

‘Nevertheless that was my impression.’

‘Then your impression was incorrect, Chief Inspector. Did you enjoy looking round? What did you think of it all?’ Then, before Barnaby could reply he continued, ‘I’ll tell you, shall I? You don’t know anything about art but you know what you like.’

Stung by this patronizing assumption that he was nothing more than a flat-footed clodhopping philistine, Barnaby retorted, ‘On the contrary. I know quite a lot about art and I think you have a most remarkable talent.’

He watched Lacey as he spoke. Watched his face change. All the pugnacity and superciliousness faded. A look of the most intense pleasure spread across his face. He said, ‘Yes, I have, haven’t I?’ But there was no arrogance in his voice. Just happiness laced with the merest thread of uncertainty.

‘Your technique is very assured. Have you been to an art school or college?’

‘What?’ He gave a shout of laughter. ‘For one term ... that was enough. Load of pretentious wankers. There’s only one way to learn and that’s to sit at the feet of the masters.’ The sincerity in his voice robbed the phrase of all pretension. ‘I shall go to the Prado. The Uffizi. To Vienna and Paris and Rome and New York. And learn my craft.’ There was a long pause then he said, ‘Is anything the matter, Inspector? You look quite ... well ... put out.’ Then, when Barnaby still did not reply he got up. ‘So ... is it all right for me to go now?’

‘What? Oh’ - Barnaby got up - ‘yes ... you can go.’

Michael Lacey strolled over to the door, saying, ‘Excuse me,’ to Sergeant Troy and adding, ‘you really should close your mouth, Sergeant. You could catch something very nasty.’

Troy snapped his jaws together and glared at the closing door. ‘Why the hell are you letting him go, sir?’

‘He was with the Lessiter girl all yesterday afternoon.’

‘But ... Mrs Quine saw him.’

‘She saw someone, I’ve no doubt. Someone wearing clothes and a cap very like those that Lacey wore. Now the point is,’ murmured Barnaby, ‘if the murderer was so keen to incriminate Lacey why didn’t he make a thorough job of it and dump the clothes at the cottage as well?’ Troy, understanding that these questions were self-addressed, kept silent. ‘Well, they can’t be far. Whoever it was was pushed for time. With a bit of luck the search should turn them up today. I’m just going over to Forensic to see what’s new. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Sort a car out, would you? And your bucket and spade.’ Troy’s jaws parted company again. Barnaby turned in the doorway and smiled grimly. ‘We’re going to the seaside.’

Chapter Twelve

Troy took the A21 (Hastings and Saint Leonards) at Tunbridge Wells and re-opened the conversation that had been temporarily abandoned whilst he had negotiated unfamiliar roundabouts and watched for exit signs. He and Barnaby had been discussing the latest analysis reports from the Forensic department.

‘But if these ... filaments ... these bits of nylon were under her nails doesn’t that mean she must’ve scratched the murderer’s face?’

‘Not necessarily. If you pull a pair of tights over your head only a small section would cover your face. That means there’s quite a bit of stuff left over. She may have grabbed at that.’ He leaned back and closed his eyes, picturing - not for the first time - the terrible moment when Mrs Rainbird’s visitor disappeared from the sitting room, perhaps after asking to use the loo, to re-emerge moments later, features squashed out of all recognition, wielding a sharp knife. The fact that he now knew who that figure was added an extra gloss of horror to the scene. Troy moved on to the findings in the garden shed.

‘Must be the rug, sir ... the black and green fibres they found.’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘I suppose whoever it was thought dumping it in water would be safer than trying to burn it? Less conspicuous.’

‘Expect so. I’ve got a feeling it was in the pond in the woods near the cottage. And that the clothes might well be in there too.’

‘And one or the other of the Rainbirds got wind of it and tried to put the bite on?’

‘I think so. They were right out of their league, of course. The quickness and efficiency of Miss Simpson’s dispatch should have told them that. “Murder being once done,” Troy.’

‘That Jane Austen again is it, sir?’ asked the sergeant, zipping through Lamberhurst. ‘Shan’t be long now. That rug must have weighed something to cart away.’

‘Yes. I expect they had a plastic bag, probably a bin liner. And the clothes went in as well.’

‘All a bit risky. Broad daylight and everything.’

‘Ah - but it’s panic stations now. Things are starting to go wrong for them, Troy. Time’s running out ... time’s running out fast.’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw the sergeant turn his head.

‘What ... ? You mean you know who committed the murders?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘What ... both of them?’

‘All three of them.’

‘But ... I don’t understand ...’

‘Watch what you’re doing, man!’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Troy stared carefully at the road ahead for a few moments then continued, ‘Surely Phyllis Cadell killed Mrs Trace.’

‘I think not.’

‘But ... she’s confessed. God - she even took her own life.’

Barnaby did not reply. His silence lasted until they entered Saint Leonards. Nearing the sea front he asked the sergeant to stop and asked the way to De Montfort Close of an old gentleman stiffly adorned with salt-caked whiskers. Troy followed his directions and drew up outside Sea Breeze, a white bungalow with a neat front garden indistinguishable from a thousand others. Barnaby got out but stopped Troy as he made to follow.

‘Won’t you want me, sir? For a statement?’

‘I doubt it. This is just background. I’ll call you if I do.’

Left alone, the sergeant turned Barnaby’s cryptic remarks over and over in his mind. They didn’t make sense from where Troy stood. No sense at all. It must have been Lacey. The Lessiter girl was covering up. Easy to see she was mad about him. Instead of letting Lacey go Barnaby should have arrested her as an accessory. That’s what he, Troy, would have done. Because who the hell else could it have been? Dennis was out at work, Lessiter was screwing away at the Casa Nova, Mrs L and David Whiteley ditto in her Honda, Katherine was with Henry. And if the same person committed both murders that ruled out Phyllis Cadell who couldn’t have been the woman in the woods and so had no reason for knocking off Miss Simpson. And in any case (here Troy was inclined to agree with Barnaby) her denial had the ring of truth. After all, if you’re confessing to one murder there’s not a lot of point in lying to cover up a second.

And she must have murdered Bella Trace. Troy struggled to recall the newspaper report. No one in the party could have fired the shot, that was made plain at the inquest. Katherine was back at the house making sandwiches so Phyllis Cadell was the only - Wait a minute! Troy’s thoughts swarmed madly in all directions like disturbed ants. There was one of the current suspects still unaccounted for on that day. Where was Barbara Lessiter? Not out shooting (that would have been a sight to wonder at) yet with no definite alibi. Now she could have killed Miss Simpson. And Mrs Rainbird. She wasn’t all that precise about the time she was in her car with Whiteley. And keeping their affair secret would have been a strong enough motive in both cases. But Bella Trace, for heaven’s sake? What would be the point in that? On the other hand why should Phyllis Cadell confess to something she hadn’t done? It didn’t make sense.

Troy sat grinding his teeth. He had been with Barnaby all along the line in this case. Heard all the interviews, had access to forensic results. What Barnaby saw and knew he, Troy, saw and knew. And it infuriated him to hear his chief speak with such easy certainty of conclusions reached. Troy slammed his fist at the dashboard and winced with pain. Where had he gone astray? Was he looking at things from completely the wrong angle? That might be it. A spot of lateral thinking; try a new slant. He would do a bit of Chinese breathing, go calmly back to the beginning and start again.

Barnaby stood square in the centre of the cardinal-red polished step, lifted the tail of the mermaid knocker and let it drop. An old lady opened the door. She looked at him, over his shoulder at the car and back at his face again. She looked immeasurably sad and very tired.

Barnaby said, ‘Mrs Sharpe?’

‘Come in,’ she said, turning her face away. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’