A Ghost in the Machine Read online

  Troy laughed. “Measured things differently in those days, Chief.”

  “No, no. Look at the finish – the precision in all of these machines. I suspect they were an obsession with Brinkley. He’d never overlook a fault like that.”

  “So…?” Troy wandered round the trebuchet, looking upwards. “The ramp has been messed with.”

  “That’s right. See if you can find some steps. Make sure they’ve been dusted.”

  Troy found some lightweight alloy ones in the garage, brought them in and, having already sussed whose day this was for walking the plank, climbed straight up.

  “How does it look?”

  “Ratchet, two huge screws, a block underneath to support it. These balls must weigh a ton.”

  “How’s the block fixed?”

  “Screws again.”

  “So to alter the angle…?”

  “Just remove the screws, rejig the ramp, put them back and retighten.”

  “Taking the balls out first.”

  “Blimey, yes. Otherwise the whole lot would come crashing down.”

  “How long might that take?”

  “Half an hour tops, I’d say.”

  “The result being that the next time he reached out and tugged on the rope…”

  “Kersplat!” Troy climbed down again.

  “But why pull it at all?”

  “Maybe he just played with the stuff,” said Troy. “You know—like some blokes like trains.”

  Barnaby decided to leave it there. SOCO’s report should help them to a clearer understanding of the exact situation in this strange room on the day Dennis Brinkley was killed. The chief inspector collected the rest of the pictures from the stone slab, which he now saw was engraved in gold with rather beautiful calligraphic script. He read out the lines.

  “Throwing first he struck the horn of the horse-haired helmet, and the bronze spearpoint fixed in his forehead and drove inward through the bone; and a mist of darkness clouded both eyes and he fell as a tower falls in the strong encounter.

  “The Iliad, Book Four”

  After a moment’s silence Sergeant Troy spoke. “Re-pressed, that’s what they are, these loners. Going around that respectable and timid and law-abiding, and all the while hoarding this mad stuff. Police files are full of them.”

  Barnaby said mildly, “He didn’t actually do anything.”

  “Bet he did. Otherwise why knock him off?”

  After examining Dennis Brinkley’s flat Barnaby returned to Appleby House to be told that Miss Frayle was presently in her own flat above the stables.

  Though the stables themselves were in a neglected state, with half the doors missing and the stonework flaky, the architect had done a grand job on the conversion. Totally in period, he had even accommodated the original clock tower, though the metal face and coach-and-horses weather-cock were now heavily stained with verdigris. The hands on the clock had stopped at seven.

  Benny had seen the two men climbing the stairs. A narrow veranda with wooden rails ran the length of the flat and she came along it to meet them. She was smiling and Barnaby could see the smile was not one of triumph but simply an expression of relieved satisfaction.

  “Chief Inspector, it’s good to see you again.” She held out her hand. “Welcome to my home.”

  And very nice too, thought Sergeant Troy, taking it all in. He was thinking of getting some work done on his loft but it was a cramped little hole and would never look anything like this.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” said Benny. “It’s only one living space wide, of course, so every room opens into the next – like a box puzzle. But as I live by myself that doesn’t matter. They used to store all the spare tack up here. And animal feed.”

  “Miss Frayle,” said Barnaby, “I need to talk to you—”

  “Would you like some tea? We’re in the kitchen already, as you see. On the spot, as it were.”

  “We’ve just had lunch, thank you,” said Sergeant Troy.

  “Through here then.”

  They disposed themselves about the sitting room. Troy at a satiny oval table on a spindle chair, the chief inspector on a tapestry settee and Benny in a high-backed wing chair by the old-fashioned mantelpiece. Barnaby couldn’t help noticing how carefully she lowered herself into this chair, how gently she rested her fingers on the padded arms.

  “I want to thank you, Inspector, for personally coming to tell me about this latest development,” said Benny, “but Mallory has already put me in the picture. If only I’d known, I could have saved you a journey.”

  “There are other matters. One or two questions.”

  “Oh, really?” She straightened her shoulders, setting them firmly back. “Fire away, then.”

  “I’m afraid I have to ask you to recall the night Mr. Brinkley was killed.” He thought it wise to get the bad stuff over first. He was expecting fear and trembling. Perhaps a perfectly understandable refusal to confront such appalling memories.

  But Benny simply said calmly, “I understand.”

  “Why were you actually there, Miss Frayle?”

  “Dennis was coming to dinner at seven thirty. After waiting twenty minutes or so I went to look for him. He was never late, you see.”

  “How did you get into the house?”

  “Through the kitchen.”

  “You didn’t ring the bell?”

  “I did but he didn’t come. I wasn’t too surprised. The front door was usually locked and bolted. Much easier, he used to say, to go in straight from the garage.”

  “I see.” It must have been unbolted for the paramedics, presumably by Lawson. So where did he get the key?

  “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary when you went through the flat?”

  “No.”

  “Please, take a moment to think. The smallest detail could be important.”

  “I walked straight through the kitchen, checked the two other rooms, and then – found him.”

  “Was the door to this place with the machines closed?”

  “Yes.”

  And then Barnaby understood how precariously her calm was maintained. He watched her open the door again. Saw the terrible image flare behind her eyes. All colour left her face. Even her lips were white.

  “Can I get you something?” Troy pushed back his chair. “A glass of water?”

  Benny shook her head. Barnaby observed a tic, jumping fiercely just beneath the crescent of fat under her left eye and recognised that he had made a mistake. He should have worked up to or around this. Started with questions that would have seemed innocuous; eased her gradually into that dreadful place. Her relaxed demeanour had misled him. Too late now.

  “So, did you enter the room, Miss Frayle?”

  “Yes. I went in. Just enough to. Then I ran away.”

  “Straight to Appleby House?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember going back. Only waking up in the hospital.”

  She was staring around at the furniture, at the windows and pictures as if she had never seen them before. The awkward silence lengthened. Barnaby hesitated. Troy spoke up.

  “Actually – I hope it’s all right – but could I change my mind about the tea?”

  “Tea? Of course. Yes, yes.” Benny, propelled to her feet by convention and good manners, re-entered the present moment. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

  Sergeant Troy, encouraged by a nod of approval from the DCI, followed her into the kitchen. Barnaby heard them chatting, clattering cups. The odd phrase filtered out. They seemed to be talking about cats, books, someone called Ashley. Visiting Croydon. There was a crackling of paper and a cry from Troy: “Oohh…I love those.” Then they came back, the sergeant carrying a heavy tray.

  As Benny poured the tea she was thinking how wrong it was to make quick judgements when first meeting people. She had thought Sergeant Troy ill-mannered, even unkind, but today he couldn’t have been nicer. Look at him now, passing the ginger nuts.

  Barnaby, wondering how bes
t to phrase his next question, was glancing over the contents of some bookshelves near his sofa. Most of the names meant nothing to him: Rosamunde Pilcher, Josephine Cox, Mary Wesley. There was a Bible and a New Testament. Some paperbacks of a spiritual nature: The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of the Cross, Honest to God. Also a complete set of Jane Austen and some very old volumes that must have been prizes, for surely no child ever willingly came by Palgrave’s Golden Treasury or The Children of the New Forest. Treasure Island, of course, was something else. Miss Frayle seemed like the sort of person who would keep a school prize all her life.

  Once more Troy said exactly the right thing. “That’s a really beautiful painting, Miss Frayle.”

  “Oh, do you think so? It was left to me by my…well, employer, I suppose you’d say. Though Carey was much more to me than that. I was her companion for thirty years.”

  Barnaby knew a lead in when he saw one. “So is that how long you’ve known Dennis Brinkley?”

  “D’ you know, I suppose it is. Heavens – where does the time go?”

  “Was he a friend of the family?” asked Troy.

  “He handled Carey’s financial affairs.”

  “And your own, perhaps?” said Barnaby.

  “Gracious, no!” She nearly laughed. “I haven’t got any money.” Then her expression changed with almost comic rapidity into one of sad recollection. “Actually, that’s not true.”

  Blimey, thought Troy. How can anybody be so out of it they don’t even know whether they’re skint or not?

  “I only heard an hour or two ago but it appears Dennis has left me Kinders and all its contents in his will.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Barnaby almost threw the remark away. It was barely a question at all. Just a comment, marking time until the primed one. The one where you pulled the pin.

  “My immediate impulse was to reject it, though of course I won’t, because it’s what he wanted. But I can’t imagine ever going in there again.”

  “Miss Frayle,” Barnaby leaned forward but comfortably, not threatening. “Have you any idea at all who could have killed him?”

  “No. Such wickedness can have no explanation. He was a lovely man who never harmed a soul.”

  “Then why, from the moment of the coroner’s verdict to the contrary, have you persistently maintained that he was murdered?”

  “I knew you’d ask me that, Inspector. And I’m afraid my answer will seem most unsatisfactory.” A curtain stirred at the window and Benny got up to close it. She didn’t come back to her seat but stood fiddling with a geranium on the sill, pulling off the dead leaves.

  “Dennis loved life in such a simple way. Something nice to eat. History books to read. Watching cricket on television. And his machines. Every evening he would spend an hour or so in the war room and I’m going back half a lifetime. No one else was allowed to touch them. When they needed to be cleaned or oiled he did it himself. He knew each nut and bolt and how everything worked so there is no way that what happened to him could have been an accident. Do you see?”

  Barnaby saw any casualty department any weekend, full of people holding on to dripping thumbs or hopping on one foot. Do-it-yourself addicts who had also known every nut and bolt then let their minds wander. A second was all it took.

  “And there’s something else.”

  The DCI was happy to hear it. To his mind, wishful thinking did not rate very highly as an aid to crime analysis.

  “I’d been invited – just a few days before his death – for dinner. I found Dennis standing in front of that awful catapult thing. He looked so worried I asked if anything was wrong. He said, ‘I think there’s a ghost in the machine.’”

  The two policemen exchanged glances. Troy had been expecting nothing useful anyway, but Barnaby was disappointed, resentful even. He recalled the scene in his office nearly two weeks ago when she had first delivered this “information.” All that passionate insistence when all she had to go on was some daft remark about a ghost. On the other hand…

  “Do you remember exactly when this was, Miss Frayle?”

  “Yes. The weekend before he died. Saturday evening. We had some lovely turbot.”

  “Might he have meant the machine wasn’t…correctly aligned, say?”

  “Oh, no. Dennis was a perfectionist. He would have noticed the slightest little thing out of order and put it right. There would have been no imbalance.” Benny faltered, then, on the verge of tears, repeated herself. “In his life there was no imbalance.”

  Useless question, anyway. Chief Inspector Barnaby, still wrestling with disappointment, chided himself for asking it. But it did confirm that the machine had not been tampered with until the day Brinkley was killed. Still irritable, his patience in short supply, Barnaby indicated that his sergeant should continue.

  Troy drained his cup, murmured, “Lovely tea.” Then, with a friendly smile asked Benny if she had ever attended the Church of the Near at Hand.

  “Once or twice.” Benny smiled back. “It’s not really my sort of thing.”

  “The reason we ask,” continued Troy, “is because of the medium who died. Ava Garret?”

  Benny nodded. She looked concerned and anxious to help.

  “Did you see her at the church at all?”

  “I’m not very good at putting names to faces.”

  “As she seems to have a definite connection to this case—”

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” enquired Benny timidly, “why are you writing all this down?”

  Nothing useful happened after that. Sergeant Troy explained what a statement was. Barnaby made the fingerprint request and was assured by Miss Frayle that she would present herself at Causton police station the very next day. Then the two men left, descending the narrow wooden steps into the sunshine.

  As they reached the ground Barnaby said, “You did well back there, Sergeant.”

  Troy, transformed, just stood and breathed for a moment. Then managed a mumbled, “Sir.”

  “We’ll try the house again for Mrs. Lawson. Save us doubling back. And we shall need the cleaner’s prints. Sort it when we get to the office.”

  “Right, Guv.”

  “And wipe that silly smirk off your face.”

  They were in luck finding Kate Lawson at home but out of luck as far as finding any fresh information was concerned. She supported everything her husband had said but had nothing new to offer.

  Roy was finding it hard to believe that it was only five days since Ava had died. So many things had happened. So much had changed. Even the house looked different, mainly because of the flowers. People had started leaving them by the gate and Karen had had a lovely time arranging lupins and roses and some beautiful yellow irises in a couple of old jugs she had found under the stairs. Notes had been pushed through the letter box by neighbours offering any sort of help needed. And Fred Carboy had taken the keys of Ava’s Honda, parked it neatly out of harm’s way on the far side of the Crescent, and offered what he assured them was a good price should they want to get rid of it.

  It was almost eleven o’clock and Roy was taking a break from painting Karen’s room. The second coat of Princess Pink was drying and he was admiring the ceiling, pale blue with stick-on stars. Because of the smell Karen was sleeping in the lounge under the new Cinderella duvet. They had thrown her old curtains on the bonfire, which was still going strong in the back garden.

  There was nothing left now of Ava’s mattress. Or bedding. Or bed. Most of her clothes were blazing away as well. Doris had helped Roy and Karen sort through things the evening before and there was really very little that didn’t smell musty, to put it politely. Some new shoes, a couple of scarves and a dress had been put in a box for jumble, cosmetics and bottles of nail stuff thrown away. And that was it. All gone.

  Now, eating Mars bars at the kitchen table, Roy and Karen were going through Loot. Things were amazingly cheap. And barely second-hand at all, according to the sellers. Roy, having moved off his shelf and out o
f his hutch, was looking for a bed. Karen, quicker at reading, described what was on offer. Nearly everything said “Buyer Collects,” but there were also lots of ads for drivers with vans so that wouldn’t be a problem. So Karen wrote down telephone numbers and Roy pictured good-as-new divans with sprung mattresses and stripped pine headboards, bunk beds, antique-style beds and even an inflatable one you could let down and take on holiday.

  Meanwhile Doris was once more on her way to Rainbow Lodge. You could almost say she’d never left it, for she had thought of little else since Roy’s heartbreaking story had left her reeling. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. She had even dreamed of the newly motherless child and the never-wanted, desperate boy. As for that awful house…

  Choosing her moment carefully, after Alan Titchmarsh but before the snooker, she shared some of this concern with Ernest. She barely told him the half of it and tried to sound casual when suggesting they might come round for a meal sometime, but Ernest was not fooled. He knew his Doris. Having no family had been the greatest disappointment of her life. When she was younger all the love she had to give was lavished on the children of her sister, who became so spoiled it had almost caused a rift between them. So now Ernest said it was fine by him if Roy and Karen came to tea. It would be nice to have some youngsters around the place for once.

  Doris had packed a basket before she left. Just a few things from the larder – home-made jam and chutney, a coffee cake from the WI stall and some vegetables from her neighbour’s allotment. She also picked up a bottle of children’s aspirin from the Spar, having been concerned yesterday about the little girl’s headaches, which hardly seemed to stop before another one began. Not that Karen complained. It was Roy who was worrying himself silly over what he called “Karen’s heads.” One aspirin every twenty-four hours, Doris had been assured, wouldn’t hurt. Really she would like to take the child to a doctor but these were very early days and she planned to tread carefully.

  The second she got inside the front door of Rainbow Lodge Karen ran up to her crying, “We’ve done this amazing drawing. On a machine!”

  “What’s that all about then?” said Doris. She thought how sweet Karen looked in her new jeans and a white T-shirt showing a basketful of puppies.