Death in Disguise Read online

  Terry, who had been listening with lip-curling relish to this tirade, now realised why the girl looked so familiar. He stepped back a little then sideways, trying to frame her head and shoulders while she was still distracted. What he really needed was a bit of elevation. Stairs no good—he’d just get the back view. He looked around, saw the perfect spot and climbed. Ave too had twigged the girl’s identity. She picked up the microphone.

  ‘What was your father doing down here, Sylvia? D’you think he was involved in the murder? Were you having an affair with the victim?’

  ‘Aahh…’ Pain flared in the girl’s voice. ‘You’re vile… Isn’t it enough to lose him? The dearest man…’

  ‘He was your lover then?’

  ‘Go away…for God’s sake go away!’

  ‘If I do, you’ll only have the others on your back. You won’t be able to step outside without being blinded by cameras and deafened by questions a whole lot nastier than the ones I’ve just put. But give the Pitch an exclusive and they’ll leave you alone.’

  Terry, climbing on to the Buddha’s plinth, waited for this untruthful suggestion to work. It frequently did. Even intelligent people fell for it. Desperation mainly. Better the devil you’ve just been introduced to. Pity saris were so high-necked. She’d got lovely tits.

  May was making a great effort to re-draw her karmic blueprint. Sensing that the visitors were in some way demonic, she had conjured her guardian angel and saw him now, beating his great wings, directly beneath the lantern. She pictured her bones and tissues being flooded by the pulse-beat of his celestial light. She would need all his support. How quickly and easily these people had appeared, no doubt through the great tear in the house’s protective shell made by the Master’s death. The woman was speaking again.

  ‘I said—if you give us an exclusive you’ll be left in peace.’

  ‘Such a collusion would be against all our principles.’

  ‘We’ll pay. Lots.’

  ‘That is precisely what I mean.’

  ‘The community uses money, surely, like everyone else?’

  ‘The community!’ Ken stared, stunned. ‘But I thought—’ Heather gave him such a violent nudge in the ribs he almost fell over.

  ‘We’ll make the cheque out to the Golden Windhorse then you can fight it out amongst yourselves.’

  ‘We are not like that.’ May spoke with simple dignity.

  ‘Everyone’s like that if there’s enough swag on the table.’

  At this point Terry, having rammed an air-pumped Reebok into the discreet drapery of the statue’s crotch, was poised for a tasty full-length frame of the Gamelin profile. As he took it, she emitted a shriek of fury.

  ‘Look where he’s standing! That’s a rupa…’

  Terry winked and clicked, again getting an immaculate shot of her beautiful, frenzied face.

  ‘A sacred thing. Get off…get off!’

  An anguished and muddled hesitancy momentarily seized the group. The outrageous violation shocked them into immobility. Suhami stared around, silently imploring, her eyes glazed with misery.

  The pause was brief. Suddenly an urgent stream of flying cheesecloth passed them by. Ken, having sussed an opportunity to make perhaps some tiny measure of amends, hurled himself with great force at the Buddha’s plinth—knocking over the floral tribute and getting cold water and lupins in his face. Gasping for breath, he scrabbled at the slippy stone, heaving and straining upwards, crumbs of grit beneath his suffering nails. Reaching Terry’s foot, he gripped the Reebok’s laces and tugged.

  Locking both arms around the statue’s neck, thus turning away from Ken, Terry started to kick backwards savagely with his free foot. Ken received a couple of painful blows in the shoulder. There was no problem at this distance in reading Terry’s socks although their directive seemed, given the behaviour of the feet, to add an unnecessary gloss. At the third blow, Ken released the laces and went for Terry’s ankles.

  Briefly, almost gracefully, he was swung out on the end of an even more violent kick only to go crashing face-first back into the plinth. Grappling more and more fiercely, he tugged at the denim calves, thighs and cheeks in a grotesquely literal representation of male bonding. The end came when he reached, and seized, Terry’s groin.

  With a yelp the photographer wrenched his head and shoulders round and started spewing obscenities into Ken’s upturned face. This sudden violent movement shifted the statue. It made a slow grating sound like a large stone being dragged from a wall.

  There was a concerted intake of breath as, open-mouthed and breathless, people watched the fixedly smiling figure shiver. Then it tilted forwards, but slowly, the main mass of it still balanced safely on its axis. Still able to rock safely back into position if only its dangling necklace of human flesh were removed.

  Ave uttered a piercing cry. ‘Terry—let go!’

  Terry was panting, face made grimly triumphant by the fact that he was still hanging on in there. Then he made the mistake of turning outwards to see how all this derring-do was being received. This unwise redistribution of body weight caused the statue to tip still further, this time past the point of no return.

  It fell to the floor with a deafening crash. Terry, twisting in mid-descent, landed inches from its powerful skull. Ken was not so lucky.

  THROUGH THE MAGIC LANTERN

  Chapter Twelve

  Troy came in bright-eyed, crisp as a nut, the baby having slept right through. He smelled of Players High Tar and Brusque, the plebeian’s two fingers at Chanel Pour I’Homme. He hung up his jacket, stared at Barnaby who was gazing out of the window and said: ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m studying for the priesthood, Sergeant. What does it look as if I’m doing?’

  Oh dear. A sarky day. A sarky day spent looking at a face like a slapped arse. Not the day to bring out the new pictures of Talisa Leanne standing up all by herself apart from hanging onto the back of Maureen’s chair. To be fair to the chief, he was not looking at all smart.

  ‘You OK, sir?’

  ‘So so. I didn’t sleep too well.’

  ‘That a fact?’ Newly refreshed, Troy was not really sympathetic. He was one of those people who, offspring permitting, could sleep hanging by a toenail from a clothesline. He went over to look, for the umpteenth time, at the blow-up and said, ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  This was a process Troy used sparingly. Too much thinking, it seemed to him, just got you overheated. He observed, he listened, he made neat notes. He was scrupulously accurate and sometimes intuitive. What he did not go in for were long periods of rigorous introspection plus a precisely argued follow-through.

  Barnaby said, ‘Uh huh,’ and waited.

  ‘This Tim, look where he’s sitting.’ The chief inspector had no need to look. He knew the positions by heart. ‘Actually kneeling at Craigie’s feet.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Now see where the Gamelin girl is, on Craigie’s left. The three of them in fact make an upended triangle. All Tim has to do is jump up and turn and he’d be facing them both—right?’ Barnaby agreed. ‘I think that might be what he did. And in the semi-darkness, plus all the confusion with the old dingbat going it on the quilt, he stabbed the wrong person.’

  ‘You mean he was trying to kill Sylvia Gamelin? But why?’

  ‘By all accounts he worshipped old Obi. This man was his sun, moon, stars and the last bus home. But what has the lad got to offer in return? Total devotion, that’s it. Well, you can get that from a dog can’t you? Now here comes this girl, young, beautiful, all her marbles, plus she’s about to offer the community a whacking great hand-out. Might Riley not see this as a moment of threat? Believe she’s trying to buy her way into the Master’s affections and push him out?’

  Barnaby frowned. Troy continued, ‘Probably seem an overreaction to you and me, but don’t forget he’s mental. He won’t reason logically.’

  ‘It’s slight but just about feasible. In a state of extreme jealousy he might panic and
react in the manner you describe.’

  Troy flushed and tugged at his shirt cuffs: a habit when he was pleased or embarrassed. ‘That might explain his wild reaction to the death, Chief. And why he said it was an accident.’

  ‘Mm. The whole matter of emotional relationships is one we haven’t even started to go into. These enclosed communities can be like pressure cookers, especially the spiritually orientated places where showing antagonism is frowned on.’ If Barnaby sounded irked it was because he resented people who purported to have annexed goodness to themselves. ‘And it’s not unusual for a leader with exceptional charismatic gifts to be adored in a physical as well as an emotional way.’

  ‘You mean he was knocking somebody off?’

  Barnaby winced. ‘Not necessarily. I suppose what I’m trying to get at is that because we never met him when he was alive we can’t appreciate—no matter what his followers say—quite how dynamic his personality really was. Or how strong his influence might have been.’

  ‘True. Didn’t look much lying on his back with his toes turned up. I still don’t see though…’ Troy abandoned the diagram and sat down facing the desk. ‘D’you mean he might have been influencing someone in the wrong way?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The truth was that Barnaby did not know what he meant. He was simply cogitating aloud. Positing ideas, throwing them away, playing with others. Guessing at unseen connections, maybe guessing wrong. When he was younger this had been the stage in a murder inquiry that had alarmed him most. The dreadful malleability of the whole thing. Grasping at a conversation here, a suspected motive there, a physical clue (that could surely be proven and pinned down), only to find them all evaporating under closer scrutiny.

  Each setback would further knot him into apprehension. He sensed, not always in his imagination, disappointment in his performance and increasing pressure to get his finger out, from his immediate superiors. He never forgot the first case that he brought to a successful conclusion. His feelings of exhilaration qualified immediately by a disturbing sense that there had been no ‘spare’ to fall back on. That he had made it mainly through luck and by the skin of his teeth. And that the success might never be repeated.

  Now he was somewhat more at ease with ambiguity and had enough confidence not to panic, believing that sooner or later deliverance, in the shape of a newly discovered fact or freshly made connection or slip of a suspect tongue, was at hand. Occasionally they were not and failure was the result. Not the end of the world as he had once thought, but meaning simply that he was no different from other men.

  At the present moment the case was barely two days old and he was waiting on many things. Firstly for the PM report and information from the lab on the fibres of a coarse apron and several towels removed from the Windhorse yesterday. He was niggled about this thread. Not knowing its origins or how it came to be there meant not knowing its importance. It might be of no moment; it might be crucial.

  Then someone was trying to chase up the real Christopher Wainwright and George Bullard should be ringing back on the subject of Jim Carter’s medication. There were a couple more Ian Craigie soundalikes on the way although Barnaby had little faith in this conviction of Troy’s, springing as it did merely from Gamelin’s hardly unbiased description and a false hairpiece. Attempts were being made to check on Andrew Carter’s story but so picaresque were his meanderings (if truthfully described), that it was going to be far from easy. Barnaby had also obtained a copy of the coroner’s report and inquest on the boy’s uncle and could see that re-opening the investigation might prove problematical. All members of the community were provably elsewhere at the time of Carter’s death but the letter and scrap of conversation could not be ignored. Trixie Channing was not on the computer so she had not, as Barnaby had previously suspected, skipped bail. This meant a composite had to be built up and circulated, all of which took time. Barnaby was by no means as convinced as Andrew Carter that ‘nothing sinister’ had occurred just because all the girl’s gear had disappeared when she did. Trixie had been scared of something at the time of her interview and Barnaby now regretted he had not pushed harder to find out what it was.

  ‘You still set against Gamelin, Chief?’

  ‘I suppose I am.’ In fact Barnaby was no longer even tempted. Quite why he could not say. Partly irritation at being so forcefully presented with a scapegoat. Partly Gamelin’s genuine rage that he should have been so used. Then there was the motive. Seemingly so straightforward, on closer examination it proved to be much less so. Barnaby believed, when it came to the push, Guy’s daughter would come before her ducats. He appeared consumed by a fierce despairing need to regain her affection. She had made her feelings about her teacher plain, so her father must have known that harming Craigie would scupper his chances of a reconciliation for good and all. Neither was the man’s removal any sort of guarantee that Sylvie would not hand the money over. It may well have made her even more determined. Finally, and to Barnaby’s mind most telling, there was the nature of the beast. Gamelin struck him as a perfect example of the take-what-you-want-and-pay-for-it-type. Certainly the chief inspector could see Guy committing murder but felt it would most likely be on a blood-boiling impulse rather than as the end result of skilful plotting. Then he’d have stood up and shouted—maybe even boasted—about the deed before throwing as much money as it took at the best defence lawyers in the business. No—Barnaby was sure it wasn’t Gamelin. What he didn’t understand, yet, was why the dead man had pointed him out.

  Audrey Brierley brought in more information on the dead man’s possible alter egos. Troy grabbed the sheets and perused. Freddie Cranmer? Not only too young but also known to be covered in exotic (i.e. obscene) tattoos. The next one, though, seemed possible. Albert Cranleigh. Fifty-seven. Early form, mainly petty swindles and flogging stolen goods. More elaborate cons. Phoney mail-order ads. Insurance and mortgage rip-offs. Then he pulled a really big time share scam. Made a packet that was never found. Got picked up in Malta. Did four out of seven. Released 1989. Exemplary prisoner, but then fraudsters usually were.

  ‘This fits, sir.’

  Barnaby listened as Troy read aloud. All the while the sergeant was nodding with enthusiasm, his vivid brush cut dipping and rising like the crest of some perky marsh bird.

  ‘All that fits,’ said the chief inspector at the conclusion, ‘is that they’re within a few years of each other’s age. Apart from Gamelin’s accusation, quite understandable under the circumstances, we’ve no reason whatsoever to regard Craigie as a con man.’

  He watched the outline of Troy’s jaw tighten. Troy with an idea was like a cat at a mousehole. It was his strength and also his weakness, for he never knew when to give up and go home. ‘If you remember,’ said Barnaby, who only remembered himself because he had gone over the statements the previous evening, ‘Arno Gibbs mentioned the community’s bursary help and donations to charity—Christian Aid and suchlike. That hardly tallies with your theory.’

  ‘But they all did that, Chief—the big villains. Look at the Krays. Hand-outs, boys’ clubs, boxing trophies. They were always spreading it.’

  ‘Grass-roots support. The publicity encourages recruits. What we’ve got at the Windhorse is not tsarism but a pantisocracy.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Troy winked and clicked his tongue against his teeth.

  ‘An organisation where all members are equal.’ Barnaby read his subordinate’s mind. ‘Not one run by women.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ An understandable mistake, mused Troy, being as how most of them had minds like bags of frilly knickers. ‘I still think I might get some mug-shots.’ He looked mutinous.

  ‘Leave it. They’ve enough on their plates out there already.’ The buzzer went. It was Winterton, the communications relations officer for what was already and inevitably being called the Gamelin case. He had the press permanently on the end of his line and did Barnaby have any new morsels to throw at them.

  ‘Reword what you threw them yesterday.’


  ‘Thanks Tom. You’re a great help.’

  ‘Any time.’ Barnaby replaced the receiver. When he looked up the room was empty.

  Arno was walking in the orchard. It was quite early. Still a few tendrils of blue mist about and, surprisingly, a glitter of frost on the apples. Over his head shone the bright dagger of the Morning Star. Through the night he’d hardly closed his eyes, but was not at all tired.

  He was carrying a pottle lined with strawberry leaves and making his way to where ‘Stella’, their self-fertile cherry, was fruiting. The tree was awkwardly draped with an arrangement of net curtains garnered from various jumble sales and loosely sewn together. They were far from bird proof and several starlings flew out screeching derisively as Arno approached. He picked what cherries were left, balanced his basket on the flat of the cucumber frame, then neatly, with his pocket knife, cut away any nibbled or waspy bits. He piled the rest carefully into a little pyramid, the un-maltreated sides facing outwards. But the result was far from satisfactory and a long way from the plump black glossiness to be found in supermarkets.

  Normally Arno accepted the unsprayed imperfection of his produce with resignation, but he wanted to tempt May. She had hardly eaten a thing at dinner the previous evening and no wonder, given the disastrous earlier imbroglio. Arno had fretted ever since, fearing (for truly love is blind) there’d be nothing of her soon.

  Holding the basket upright very carefully, he recrossed the lawn and noticed now that the sun was up, that the grass had lost its earlier crunchiness and felt soft and dewy. As he neared the house and came to within sight of the main gates, he hesitated—walking till the last minute in the shadow of the yew hedge then peeping out to get the lie of the land.

  Ave and Terry had not been wrong about the deluge. Arno had found an old lock and length of rusting chain and secured the main gates just in time. By early evening there was an unpleasantly noisy crowd out there. It was a bit like a scene from some old silent movie where revolting peasants storm the Bastille. Photographers had been standing on the crinkle-crankle wall and the ambulance had had quite a job getting through.