Faithful unto Death Page 22

  She was reminded of The Case of the Chocolate Scorpion. In this rather racy thirties crime novel an elderly lady, not all that unlike herself (except rather eccentric) had overheard a fragment of conversation through her ear trumpet whilst playing baccarat. Meaningless in itself, she had had the wit to relate these few sentences to the larger pattern of a crime with which the police of five continents had been unsuccessfully wrestling. At the end of the story she was awarded the OBE. Mrs. Molfrey exhaled wistfully. No one seemed to write books like that any more.

  She got through to an answerphone. Much alarmed, for she had a horror of modern gadgetry, Mrs. Molfrey immediately replaced the receiver. She had expected Barnaby to be in his office, awaiting her call. An unreasonable assumption, she now realised. Of course he would be out and about measuring footprints, analysing cigar ash or scraping telltale mud from a sinister pair of galoshes.

  Pausing only to wonder if the single of galoshes was galosh, Mrs. Molfrey made her way outside again. It was impossible to keep such a dazzling discovery to herself for more than a minute. Cubby had taken some calabrese to Ostlers but would surely be on his way back by now. Reaching the gate, Mrs. Molfrey leaned on it to get her breath back. And then, oh joy! who should appear but Constable Perrot.

  Hardly of a comparable rank to her would-be confidant, he was nonetheless of the same persuasion and, as such, a more than satisfactory courier. Mrs. Molfrey cried, “Cooee!” and fluttered her tiger-striped organza pelerine.

  PC Perrot was just wheeling his Honda out of Nightingales’ forecourt. He had made a point of arriving almost half an hour before the postman, to be on the safe side. He had even remembered to bring some gardening gloves, the only sort he owned, should there be any letters to handle. There were three. He stowed them carefully away in his pannier.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Molfrey.”

  “I’m all of a tremble,” said Mrs. Molfrey using, for the first time ever, a phrase much favoured by Heather’s grandma.

  “Is there something I can do?”

  “Yes, indeed. There’s good news to be taken from Aix to Ghent. Are you my man, Constable Perrot?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Can I rely on you?”

  “Yes.” Perrot’s reply was immediate and unthinking. He may not know precisely where Aix and Ghent hung out but reliable he knew, no question.

  “Your chief is expecting to hear from me. Indeed he gave me his personal number to that effect but seems to be out of his office at the moment. Hot on the job, no doubt.”

  “More than likely, Mrs. Molfrey,” said PC Perrot, mentally filing the conversation to entertain Trixie at suppertime.

  “Will you be seeing him at all?”

  “Going over to the station right now, as a matter of fact.”

  “Then you’ll pass the information on.” She explained her message clearly.

  It made no sense to Constable Perrot. Indeed, he wondered briefly if it was in some sort of code. There was that word Youree? Uri . . . ? Yewree something.

  “Eureka?” Questioned, Mrs. Molfrey told him not to worry. “You can leave that out. It’s not really germane.”

  Perrot, already wondering how much of the rest he could safely leave out, mounted his Honda and revved up.

  “Remember, not a chink or chime!”

  “With you, Mrs. Molfrey.”

  “And why not, Constable? Why not? That is the question to which we must now address ourselves.”

  Perrot lifted a hand in salute, realised he was still wearing his emerald and bright yellow cotton gloves and took them off. Halfway up the lane he passed Cubby Dawlish and saluted again, this time with feelings of the deepest sympathy.

  Barnaby was still in the incident room when Constable Perrot arrived at the station proudly bearing his envelopes. He placed them on the desk in front the Chief Inspector, took a modest step back and waited.

  “Left your prints all over these, have you, Constable?”

  “Damn!” Perrot leapt into explanation. “I was—that is, I only. Gloves off a moment. Gardening—I remembered specially. Waylaid the postma—”

  “Spare me the sordid details.” Barnaby regarded the envelopes sourly. An AA magazine, an electricity bill and a Racing Green catalogue.

  “Anything else to report?”

  “Well, I hardly like . . . I’m sure it’s nothing really . . .”

  At this point Sergeant Troy strolled up. He placed himself directly behind the Chief Inspector’s desk, parted his thin, dry lips and bared his teeth.

  “Wotcha, Poll.”

  “Good morning, Sergeant.”

  “Quark, quark.”

  As Perrot stood there in the painful spotlight of Troy’s sneering regard, he imagined himself stumbling through Mrs. Molfrey’s message. If it had sounded more than a little wonky in the quiet country lane at Fawcett Green, how much wonkier would it sound here?

  Perrot looked around at the busy room; all professional ordered activity. Intelligent ordered activity. Don’t show yourself up, Colin.

  “Get on with it then.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Whatever it is that’s ‘nothing really.’ ”

  “I’m afraid it’s slipped my mind, sir.”

  Troy laughed out loud at this. A harsh, raucous bark.

  “I should clear off back to the village then, Constable,” said Barnaby.

  “And when you get there I’d like you to do something for me.”

  “Yes, Chief Inspector.”

  “It’s a bit complicated but I’m sure, with a modicum of serious application, you can handle it.”

  “Sir.” Perrot straightened his back in readiness.

  “Pick up the keys to Nightingales from the solicitors Fanshawe and Clay and check whether or not the switch for the halogen light, which you’ll find in the garage, is in the On position.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And—Oi! Poll?”

  PC Perrot, now halfway to the exit, halted, sighed and turned round.

  His cheeks still glowed as a result of the Chief Inspector’s irony.

  “Sergeant?”

  “Canteen’s in the basement if you want a bite of lunch.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  “It’s seed cake on Wednesdays. And cuttlefish omelette.”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of playing Long John Silver?” asked Barnaby when the door had closed on the hapless policeman.

  “Who?”

  “A pirate.”

  “Well-endowed, was he?” asked Sergeant Troy.

  At that moment a messenger from Forensic came in bearing a stout envelope containing SOCO’s report on Hollingsworth’s Audi.

  There were few surprises. The boot had been empty but for the spare wheel and a jack. Apart from a single set of unidentified prints on the handles of the rear door, all the fingerprints in the car were those of Alan Hollingsworth, as were some hairs found on the driver’s head rest. There were none on the passenger’s side or in the rest of the vehicle. Indeed, someone had put a note in the margin to say it looked as if the Audi had been recently valeted.

  Valeted. Barnaby, who loathed all such posey phrasing, sucked his teeth with irritation. Anyone would think the bloody thing was being steam-pressed, wire-brushed and a stitch taken up in its upholstery. No doubt during these ministrations it would be asked if it had been on its holidays yet.

  Valeted! For God’s sake.

  The village shimmered in the blazing heat. The whitewashed edges of the kerb dazzled the eye and the hedges were thick with dust. At the side of the road the straw-coloured grass verges dried and crackled.

  In the garden of Arcadia, Cubby Dawlish took an old zinc bowl with a wooden handle, lowered it almost to the very bottom of an ancient barrel and poured the silky rainwater round the base of his Glen Moy raspberries.

  As he did this he wondered about Elfrida’s new piece of information. He was glad she had passed it on to their local bobby instead of the Chief Inspector who had called
at their house. Not that Barnaby hadn’t been a very pleasant man but, placed very much at the top of the tree, as it were, he was bound to be extremely busy. Cubby could not bear the thought of Elfrida being brusquely dealt with. Or, much worse, being passed over to a younger person who might not appreciate just how much respect she was naturally entitled to. Who might even, God forbid, have a bit of a laugh at her expense.

  As for the recollection itself, Cubby could not pretend he understood its significance. Secretly he suspected it would prove not to have any, though he would not have admitted this to Elfie for the world. She was already awaiting the CID’s response with such eager anticipation. Over the hedge Cubby could see Colin Perrot and wondered whether to call across and check out the situation. But before he could come to any decision on the matter, the policeman disappeared inside the garage.

  Constable Perrot had made a detour on the way to Fawcett Green to pick up his camera. He was determined not only to obtain the exact information that the DCI had requested but to have photographic proof of same. Carefully he photographed first the sensor switch and, secondly, its immediate surroundings.

  After this he wrote a short summary (a novella, merely) of the situation. He read it through, keenly aware, after his boob with Hollingsworth’s post, of the need to carry out this next allotted task with speed, efficiency and correctness. Barnaby’s threat of an alien posting was never far from his mind.

  Once certain the report could not be improved, he locked up and roared away, relieved at having avoided both the inhabitants of Arcadia. Sooner or later he knew one of them was going to ask how Mrs. Molfrey’s red-hot, number-one star clue—which was how she described it—had been received. And then he was going to be in a right old pickle.

  Fortunately Mrs. Molfrey was hardly likely to run into Barnaby and ask. Ignorant of the top echelons as he was, even Perrot knew that the officer running a murder investigation spends nearly all his time in the incident room.

  Minutes after Perrot’s departure, Barnaby’s Rover turned into St. Chad’s Lane and pulled up outside Sarah Lawson’s cottage. A shabby red and white Citroën Quatre Chevaux was now parked on the spare patch of oily grass. Sergeant Troy stared at it, a sneer twisting his thin lips.

  “Toys R Us, that’s where you pick them up. With one hand tied behind your back, most likely.”

  Sweltering, mopping his brow with a large cotton handkerchief, Barnaby hove alongside.

  “Kiddy cars,” continued Sergeant Troy. “And foreign at that. If more people bought British, we might not be in the mess we are today.”

  “Got rid of the Nissan, have you then, Gavin?”

  As well you know, you sarky old bugger. Troy made a mental note to watch his step. When over-heated, the boss was inclined to lash out, willy-nilly. A bit like Long John himself, no doubt.

  Clouds of tiny butterflies, like scraps of fawn silk, fluttered over wallflowers and night-scented stock. Barnaby stood in the shade of the bay tree which presumably gave the cottage its name and admired them. Troy knocked on the front door with little result.

  “She must be in if the Meccano set’s outside.”

  “Not necessarily.” Barnaby moved to the nearest window. The type with lots of small panes framed in white painted metal. He glanced inside.

  A woman was lying on a sofa covered by what looked like a brightly patterned rug. She had long hair which fanned out across the cushions that supported her. One of her arms hung limply over the side of the sofa, the other lay across her breast. Barnaby was reminded of a Burne-Jones illustration. Or the Millais painting of Ophelia in her watery grave.

  He began to feel alarmed. There was no way, unless she was in a drugged stupor, that she would not have heard Troy’s knocking. The Chief Inspector tapped gently himself, this time on the glass, without result. Then, just as he was seriously considering breaking in, she sat up. And, very slowly, made her way across the room.

  The first thing that struck him was that she looked very ill. The second that, even looking very ill, she was strikingly attractive. She opened the window slightly. He heard the music then. “Softly Awakes My Heart” from Samson and Delilah. It was sung in French, he guessed by Jessye Norman. Or maybe Marilyn Home.

  She said, “What do you want?” Her breath was sour and cold. In the searing heat of the day, Barnaby shivered.

  “Miss Lawson?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re police officers. We’d like to talk to you for a moment about Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth from Nightingales.”

  “Why me? I hardly knew them.”

  “We’re not choosing you specially, miss,” said Sergeant Troy who was now also at the window. “This is part of a house-to-house.”

  “A what?”

  “We’re visiting everyone in the village. Just gathering general background information.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “I believe someone has called once or twice before,” said Barnaby.

  “Have they? I may have been in bed. I’m not well . . .” Here she broke off, making a vague gesture with her left hand in the direction of the front entrance. The two detectives, rightly assuming they were now to be admitted, retraced their steps.

  Once inside, having produced his warrant card and introduced himself and Sergeant Troy, Barnaby looked about him.

  They had stepped straight into a room crowded with sunlight; the golden beams sought out powdery gatherings of dust and illuminated webby corners. It was a place full of colour and a certain ragamuffin charm. Apart from the sofa, there were a couple of saggy armchairs concealed under vividly striped and patterned durries. Several original paintings hung on the walls, mainly abstract but including one watercolour—pale sand, a limpid almost colourless sea, and sky like a taut sheet of amber silk. Books were everywhere. Stacked on the floor, jumbled about on shelves, piled on the furniture. None looked new. There were art and travel books, some essays. The Chief Inspector recognised the black spines of several well-worn Penguin classics. And marigolds: a blaze of orange in a black and white stone Dundee marmalade jar.

  “May we?”

  “I’m sorry, yes. Please. I’m sorry.” She switched off the music.

  Troy sat down on a ladder-back chair painted with birds and flowers. Barnaby shifted a weighty Thames and Hudson volume on Goya then balanced his bulk on the edge of the sofa.

  Sarah Lawson, having the air of someone poised for flight, remained standing. It was the intruders who appeared most at home.

  “I understand,” began the Chief Inspector, “that you had arranged to visit Mrs. Hollingsworth on the day she disappeared.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Could you tell me why?” asked Barnaby when the ensuing silence had lasted a full minute.

  “She had some stuff for my white elephant stall at the church fête. I went to pick it up. Knocked on the front door, got no reply. Tried round the back and found she’d left the box on the patio.”

  “You were invited for tea as well, I believe.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that a regular occurrence?”

  “Not at all. No.”

  Troy made a brief note and looked surreptitiously about him. As always when surrounded by evidence of any sort of creative or intellectual existence, he saw it as a criticism of his own life. Typically, he began to redress the balance.

  All these books, snob music. His eye fell on a stained glass panel and a heap of clay. Fancy messing around with that stuff at her age. Like a kid with Plasticine. Pity she didn’t take a few minutes off to sweep up some of the grot. Or iron her clothes. He noticed with some satisfaction that the floorboards beneath the soft, washed out but still beautiful rugs were dirty. As a woman, he decided, she was a complete anachronism and it took a man of his cognisance to recognise it.

  Delighted at this felicitous conclusion, he tuned back into the conversation. The governor was asking Sarah Lawson when she last saw Mrs. Hollingsworth.

  “I really don’t remember.”
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  Barnaby was both patient and encouraging. “When she invited you for tea perhaps.”

  “Ahh . . .” Plainly she was grateful for the suggestion. “That was it. I don’t recall the exact date, I’m afraid.”

  “The news of the kidnap must have come as a great shock.”

  “It did to all of us. I still can’t quite . . . I mean, it’s not something that happens to people you know.”

  The times the Chief Inspector had heard either that remark or a close variation on the theme. Every day thousands of people were burgled, mugged, beaten up, raped, murdered, arsonised—if there was such a word—yet the confidence of the human race that they, their loved ones and acquaintances had personally been granted divine immunity was uncrackable.

  “You work in adult education, I understand, Miss Lawson.”

  “That’s right. At Blackthorn College, High Wycombe.”

  “And Mrs. Hollingsworth came to your course for a while.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “How did that come about exactly?”

  “I’d been designing four glass panels for a conservatory. Just finished autumn—fruit, hips and haws, woodsmoke. It was resting up against the car waiting to be wrapped while I sorted out some sacking. Simone came by and pronounced it ‘totally wonderful’ and said she’d ‘positively adore’ to do something like that.

  “Thinking she was only making conversation, I suggested she came along to a class sometime which she said she’d even more positively adore if only she had the transport. So then of course I felt constrained to offer her a lift which was a bit of a nuisance as I didn’t always want to come straight home.”

  “Is that another of the pieces?” Barnaby had noticed it when he came in, leaning against the stone fireplace. Engraved with glittering snowflakes, stained dark green and crimson. Winter, no doubt.

  Sarah nodded. Slowly she reached out a hand and brushed a speck of dust from a holly berry, glowing like a ruby. Then she rubbed a thorny stem gently with her sleeve. This involved turning her back on her visitors and Barnaby sensed a great relief as she did so.