Written in Blood

Coda

Nearly always, even when a case has, on paper, been solved there will be ramifications that remain forever unexplained. Characters on the fringe of the investigation for instance whose precise involvement remains mysteriously undefined. A tangle of snippets and loose ends that are fated never to be unravelled or neatly tied.

Accepting this, Barnaby had assumed the actual identity of the woman in Gerald Hadleigh’s ‘wedding’ photograph would remain undiscovered and had dismissed the matter from his mind. Then one evening Troy, ringing up in great excitement, said that he had found her.

The sergeant had been re-running, not for the first time and to his wife’s increasing annoyance, his video of The Crucible, in which the chief’s daughter had so radiantly performed. In the court scene, when various women were racing all over the place and screaming their heads off, Troy had spotted a face in the background that looked vaguely familiar. He had pressed the freeze-frame and there she was. Mrs H. to the life.

They had traced her easily, first through BBC casting then via Equity. She was a registered film extra and, at the time of the photograph, had also been on the books of an escort agency. She certainly remembered the business with Mr Hadleigh, for it had been the easiest hundred pounds she had earned in her life and all strictly Kosher. She had even been allowed to keep the hat and veil, but he had been quite short with her when she had tried to find out what lay behind it all. The church had been in the country not far from Burnham Beeches. It had all been pretty much as Max Jennings surmised.

All that was nearly a month ago. Barnaby, due for some leave, was now taking it, for Cully and Nicholas were about to fly home and he did not want to miss even a moment of their company. They would be staying a couple of days before returning to London.

As he sat now, engrossed in a relatively unclawed section of the Independent, he thought how very nice it would be to see them again and hear all about the on- and off-stage dramas that seemed to be permanently simmering in their closed and over-heated world. So different, thank God, from his own.

His left leg was going to sleep. He stretched it out, flexed his toes, then crossed the other leg over it with some vigour. The kitten, who had been playing with his shoe lace, went flying through the air to land on a cushion in the opposite armchair.

‘Tom!’

‘What?’ He lowered the paper. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Try and be more careful.’ She was running across the room and picking up Kilmowski, who immediately struggled to be put down.

‘What have I done?’

‘You could have really hurt him.’ The kitten was already plodding back to the settee, where it started to make its way determinedly up Barnaby’s trousers.

‘Do you want your drink now or with your meal?’

‘Now, please, love.’

A glass of Santa Carolina Grand Reserve was poured and very toothsome it turned out to be. Barnaby forced himself to sip rather than glug. Tomorrow, when the children were here, they would have champagne. A lovely smell was wafting from the direction of the oven. Rabbit casserole baked with lemon grass, capers and celeriac. Comice pears were in there too. He had made a sauce of half-fat cream cheese pushed twice through a sieve then flavoured with a dash of Madeira and some toasted amaretti crumbs.

Barnaby drank a little more and lay back, content. This, even with pins and needles being systematically pushed and pulled about one’s upper arm, was definitely the life.

The phone rang. Joyce took it in the kitchen. She cried out with pleasure. ‘Oh, hello darling - how lovely to talk to you.’

Barnaby’s happiness went on hold. Something had gone wrong. They weren’t coming. Or, if they were, they couldn’t stay. If they could stay it was only overnight. Perhaps they were bringing people and he and Joyce would never have a chance to talk to their daughter or Nicholas properly.

‘Tom?’ There was the sound of the receiver being laid down and Joyce’s face appeared in the serving hatch. ‘Do you want a quick word? She’s just ringing to check we’ve got the time right for Heathrow.’

‘Might as well.’

‘Don’t come round. I’ll pass it through.’

Cully sounded as if she was in the next room. It was going to be great to see him and Ma again. She had bought a super carved wooden rack in Poland for all his spices. What was he cooking tomorrow night? Had he remembered to video The Crucible? Tour had been terrific. Director an absolute toad. Nicholas utterly brilliant as Don John. She had never really got Beatrice right.

Barnaby listened to all this with a glad heart but, as she was about to ring off, thought it wise to inject a cautionary note.

‘We may have a bit of a problem this end, Cully.’ As he spoke his hand rested gently on Kilmowski, asleep on his shoulder and gradually slipping off. ‘Regarding the kitten. I’m afraid your mother’s getting terribly fond of it.’

‘You don’t have to go in, Amy.’

‘I do, I do have to go in.’ But she could not turn the handle.

They were on the landing outside Ralph’s room. It was the first time Amy had entered Gresham House since the terrible night when she had so nearly died.

Walking through the kitchen, crossing the clammy, weed-infested flagstones of the hall, climbing the stairs, had been bad. But nothing like as bad as this.

‘Shall I open it?’

‘If you like.’ But when Sue stretched out her hand Amy cried, ‘Wait a minute!’

She was having second thoughts. Or rather twentieth, thirtieth and even fiftieth thoughts, for she had imagined this moment at least as many times. Now she asked herself why she was so determined. What sensible reason could there possibly be?

After all, he wouldn’t be there. She would see the dappled horse with the worn leather saddle and scarlet reins that he had picked her up and put her on the first time he had brought her home. And the fire guard with narrow brass trim. Books and models and the beautiful scientific drawings at which he had excelled. But Ralph, or ‘the remains’ as the police had insisted on referring to him, was resting with his sister beneath the yew trees in St Chad’s churchyard.

Sue had tried to understand what she viewed as Amy’s amazing benevolence in permitting this, but without success. In her friend’s place she would have arranged for Honoria to be cremated then flushed the ashes down the loo. Eventually Sue came to the conclusion that Amy, after the discovery that her husband was not only bisexual but occasionally unfaithful, had had a change of heart about him, but she was mistaken. Amy merely felt that if someone was prepared to kill, however madly or wrongly, to avenge the only person they had ever loved, the least you could do was let them rest in the same grave.

Sue now shuffled her feet, coughed to draw attention to the fact that time was passing and glanced sideways. Amy’s face had become tight and expressionless and she was screwing up her eyes as if braced for some scene of visual devastation. A second later she flung open the door.

The candelabra were still there. The room was full of them. The whole place had been blazing with light apparently, like an altar in some great Romanesque cathedral. Hundreds of candles. Their congealed drippings sticking to the floor and all over the furniture.

Ralph’s likeness gazed and smiled and laughed from every aspect of the room. As a baby, toddler and young boy. Many of the photographs were propped up, unframed, against the candle holders. It was a miracle the place hadn’t burned down.

Amy had been afraid the room would smell, but there was only the ever-present fragrance of mildew. Someone, perhaps the police, must have opened the windows. They had been very kind, as had everyone, especially Dennis Rainbird, the funeral director. He it was, after the first coffin had been raised, who had tactfully disposed of the load of heavy books it contained. He had also made a point, when Amy had refused to visit his premises to view the dear departed, of assuring her that Mr Lyddiard had been most beautifully embalmed. He appeared to be under the impression that this would be a comfort.

‘This is where he was lying.’ Amy went across to a large refectory table in the centre of the room. ‘Under a white silk bedspread.’

Sue didn’t know how to respond. The whole story had struck her as so completely revolting that she had nearly passed out when Amy first told her. To think of Honoria up here talking to a corpse, perhaps even holding it - God. It didn’t bear thinking of.

‘Did I tell you he asked for me, in Spain, just before he died? She said I’d gone away.’

‘Amy - that’s terrible. But surely he’d know it wasn’t true.’

‘Oh yes. He knew her very well. It’s just ... it would have been nice to say goodbye.’

Amy picked up a school report. One of many draped over the fire guard like little printed paper towels.

‘Bright but mischievous.’ ‘Distracts other pupils.’ ‘A definite gift for languages.’ ‘Needs to concentrate more.’ ‘A popular boy.’

‘Everyone liked him,’ said Amy. ‘It’s all down here.’

Sue’s feelings of intrusion and inadequacy deepened. Standing helplessly by she made a clumsy indefinite movement demonstrating a wish to comfort, then let her arms fall once more to her sides.

‘I thought he didn’t want children, but he knew, you see, what was wrong with him.’

That was why he had always taken the responsibility for contraception. Not, as he had told his wife, because he was worried about the side effects of the pill, but for her own safety.

He should have told her though. That was the hardest thing to bear. Not unfaithfulness or the fact that he had sexual inclinations of which she had known nothing, but this decision to carry alone the dark knowledge that their days of happiness were numbered. Perhaps he was afraid she would reject him.

‘I’m sure that wasn’t it,’ interrupted Sue as Amy showed signs of increasing distress. ‘He wanted to save you pain. We do when we love someone.’

Amy didn’t seem to hear. She was moving around the room touching things - rocking the dappled horse, running a little green metal car backwards and forwards along the edge of a shelf, glancing through school exercise books. She was trying hard to invest these actions with emotion or meaning, but felt merely awkward and artificial. It seemed a ghostly place to her without even the memory of a life in it. Both sacred and pointless, like a mausoleum.

She pushed open the curtain and sunlight flooded the room, throwing into harsh relief the nursery artefacts so incongruously combined with ceremonial appointments of death. Suddenly the stifling atmosphere became unbearable.

‘Let’s go.’

‘Don’t you want to take something?’ The house was due to be cleared the next morning by a firm from Princes Risborough.

‘I have this.’ Amy’s fingers rested briefly on the locket. She was almost running down the landing. ‘Come on, Sue.’

Sue was glad to comply. When they were once more outside she looked up at the great brooding mass of grey stone, which now belonged to Amy, and was glad that she would never have to enter it again. They set off down the drive together.

It was a beautiful March day. The sky was a great stretched arc of cloudless blue. There were daffodils all along the drive and crocuses and aconites beneath the trees. As Amy closed the main gates Sue said, ‘I’ve brought some bread. Shall we feed the ducks?’

‘All right.’ They crossed over on to the Green and the ducks immediately started quacking and waddling towards them. ‘How is it they always know?’

‘They spot the bags. You can give them the cake if you like.’

Sue couldn’t get out of the habit of baking, even though there was only her and Amy and, more and more frequently, Amanda. The local wildlife, in all its varieties, had never been so well fed. She passed a huge lump of dried seed cake over to Amy, who crumbled it, saying, ‘We mustn’t forget that little one who always gets pushed out.’

‘I’ll see if I can coax him away while you distract the rest.’

Sue concealed her bread and moved off, leaving Amy surrounded by a bustling crew of eager birds. Then she crouched down by the side of the pond and tried to attract the attention of the very small mallard trying to push its way in, through or round the others but never quite making it. While tearing up a crust she thought about Hector, as she did most of the time now that she was a proper author, with a contract and commission for a second story. The working title for this was Hector Learns to Rumba and to say he looked remarkable in his Latin American costume would be putting it mildly.

Sue made little chucking noises, trying to attract the mallard’s attention, but without success. Perhaps it would be better to throw something so close to its beak that the others would not have a chance to snatch it. But they were packed very tightly together ...

Amy was coming to the end of her cake. Sue watched as she distributed the final crumbs and reflected on how, in the space of a mere few weeks, their fortunes had both changed.

Amy was rich now. She had been offered what had seemed to them both an astonishing amount of money for Gresham House. And she was also, slowly, getting better. When she had first arrived at Trevelyan Villas from the hospital she had wept all through the daylight hours and had nightmares in the dark. Sue had felt quite desperate sometimes as to what best to do. But now, although Amy’s sleep was never unbroken, she had at least stopped crying and yesterday had even started talking about the future, wondering where she should decide to live for instance. And how she must soon start thinking of getting on with Rompers.

Sue herself was fine. She had heard once, via her solicitor, from Brian. He had written suggesting that he move back in, just until Sue got over the shock of him moving out. She had thrown the letter on the fire.

‘You’re miles away.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Sue straightened up. ‘Sorry.’

‘What were you thinking?’

Sue, who had been thinking that she would never again have to watch Brian wrinkling the skin of his cocoa to the side of his cup with his tongue and then eating it, said, ‘I was wondering if I should take my lenses out. My eyes are watering a bit.’

‘It’s the wind. Put some drops in when you get back.’

Sue distributed the rest of her bread. The mallard remained unlucky.

‘I’m sure he’s all right, actually,’ said Amy. ‘He may be small but he doesn’t look thin. And his feathers are lovely and shiny.’

In the distance, as they walked home, they saw Rex exercising his soppy dog. He called out to them and waved and they waited for him to approach. Even from several feet away it was plain the man was consumed by happiness. His smile covered half his face and his eyes shone.

‘What is it, Rex?’ asked Sue. ‘Down, Montcalm! You seem very pleased with life.’

‘Well ...’ About to speak with great eagerness, Rex checked himself. The truth was that his current research into warrior traditions had just turned up the most amazing fact. It seemed that the Huns had used to cut the cheeks of new-born male babies with swords so the infants would taste blood before their mother’s milk. Rex’s pleasure in this arcane titbit had been only slightly diminished when he had been unable to find a place for it in The Night of the Hyena.

The women were looking expectant but, remembering what Amy had so recently gone through, Rex thought it wiser to keep his newly found discovery to himself.

‘I’m afraid I didn’t quite get the question.’

‘We wondered,’ said Amy, ‘why you were looking so happy.’

‘Oh, just life you know.’ Rex beamed at them both. ‘Just life.’

Then he touched his battered cord cap and walked away, Montcalm prancing and dancing at his heels.

Laura, studying her reflection in the Venetian glass in her yellow silk sitting room was well pleased. She looked beautiful, confident and, most surprising of all, happy. She, who had thought never to be happy again.

Turning slowly round, looking backwards over her shoulder, she admired her profile, noting with special pleasure the delicate, trembling sprays of diamonds in her ears. Her heavy mass of bronze hair falling around her shoulders, was held back by two pearl and marcasite combs. Laura thought she looked rather like a Burne Jones voluptuary, and smiled. She adjusted the accordian-pleated collar on her cape of heavy taffeta so that it framed her face. She was going to see Der Rosenkavalier and already her head was filled with music.

There was a spritzer of white wine and Pellegrino to hand. She had kept two goblets behind in case Adrian, one time owner of the Irish linen cupboard, decided to join her. He always got out of the car and came to the door. Never just sat there and tooted. She liked that. Laura drank a little and put the glass back carelessly, making yet another ring. The mantelpiece already looked like an Olympic logo.

Around her, as in every room in the house, were tea chests, cardboard boxes and shrouded pieces of furniture. Tomorrow she would be shaking the village dust from her feet. And not a moment too soon. Not that she had been there much recently. She had been staying with friends in Stoke Poges supervising work on her new house, which was close by, and paying only fleeting visits to Midsomer Worthy to pick up her mail and check for messages on the answerphone.

There had been several from Amy. They indicated a wish for a meeting so that she could express her gratitude to Laura for having saved her life. After the third of these embarrassingly tense communications, Laura had sent a postcard to say that it was really quite unnecessary and that, largely due to the move, she had very little time to spare. The hint seemed to have been taken for, even when her Porsche had been parked in the driveway, Amy had not stopped by.

The last thing Laura wanted was to be reminded of the gruesome tragicomedy she had witnessed at Gresham House. Afterwards, when the police had taken her to the station, they had insisted on giving her strong sweet tea which she hadn’t wanted but which they kept saying was good for shock. Laura had tried to explain that everything had happened so quickly she had not had time to be shocked.

After smashing some glass and climbing through the gap she had run upstairs to the room from where she judged the screams to be coming. The second she dashed in Honoria had released Amy, crossed quickly to the open window, sat down on the sill and fallen backwards. One moment her legs were sticking stiffly upside down in the air and the next she had gone. She did not cry out, either when she fell or when she hit the ground. It was all over in an instant.

Laura still hadn’t grasped all the ins and outs of what had been going on and wasn’t sure she wanted to. All she really understood was that her decision to call on Amy instead of ringing up to propose that they meet elsewhere, as Chief Inspector Barnaby had suggested, was, in retrospect, a very good thing. She never had got a look at the picture in Amy’s locket, supposedly the point of the whole exercise, but had been assured that this no longer signified. Now all she wanted was to put the whole messy business out of her mind, which she had succeeded in doing pretty well.

She was especially surprised at the rapid transformation of her feelings for Gerald Hadleigh. (She always used his surname now when referring to him in her thoughts.) Quite soon after being told about his strange double life and homosexuality the obsessional passion that had once so dominated her life had completely and mysteriously vanished. She seemed, like Titania, to have been released from some mysterious spell.

Laura wondered if this quick and easy recovery meant she was rather a shallow person and the thought was not entirely unpleasing. Certainly in many respects, the shallow seemed to have a far easier time of it.

The distinctive roar of a Jensen cut through these pleasant musings. Laura picked up her bag. On the way out she paused before her quattrocento princeling and frowned at his melancholy countenance. Always close to her heart today, for the first time, she felt irritation and wondered if she had not perhaps been too indulgent in inventing so many assorted tragedies to explain his mood. He was probably just having an adolescent sulk. Laura patted his hand and said, ‘Cheer up. It might never happen.’

The doorbell rang. He was here. She reached for the little gilt chain which hung down by the side of the painting. Pulled it. And put out the light.