A Place Of Safety

by Caroline Graham

  ‘Did anyone - a stranger - ever call here asking for him? Or perhaps ring up?’

  ‘No, they didn’t.’ Lionel Lawrence was getting testy. ‘Look, these questions are pointless and time-wasting. Leathers was plainly attacked by some poor, deranged soul who may well be compelled to cause further mischief if you don’t get out there and find him.’

  At this, perhaps sensing exasperation rising in both their interrogators, Mrs Lawrence rose and made an awkward sideways movement towards the door, indicating with a slight movement of her slender hand that they should follow. A moment later and Barnaby and Troy found themselves on the front steps, once more cheek by jowl with the Virginia creeper.

  ‘Mischief!’ said Troy. ‘Jesus Christ. Talk about - aah.’ His forearm had been seized in a steely grip.

  ‘Listen. Don’t ever do that again.’

  ‘Bloody do-gooders. They make me want to throw up.’

  ‘Our feelings during any interview are irrelevant. Antagonise people and the information dries up - remember that.’

  ‘We should show him some of the photographs of the victim.’ Troy painfully eased himself free. ‘Run him round the morgue a few times.’

  He could imagine the reaction back at the station once the ex-Rev’s point of view was known. Support for the death penalty was pretty solid and the subject was frequently booted around the canteen. A favourite diversion was a top five hit list compiled and updated in wistful anticipation of the happy practice being restored. Last week some joker had included Lord Longford and there was a long and quite serious argument before he was reluctantly crossed off.

  As Barnaby started to walk away with Troy bringing up a sulky rear, his eye was caught by a movement near the garage. A man washing the Humber car. He had not thought to ask the Lawrences if they had any other staff. And, interestingly, they had not thought to tell him.

  ‘A chauffeur,’ said Troy, with deep scorn. ‘Huh! And I thought the clergy lived plain and simple.’

  ‘I’ve already told you, Lawrence is not the clergy. Gave it up years ago.’

  ‘Cushy,’ murmured Troy. ‘You think Mrs L’s got money?’

  ‘Not if the state of this place is anything to go by.’

  The car was almost a museum piece. A Humber Hawk, its number plate four figures, three letters. Almost forty years old, heavy, Bible black, well-worn chestnut leather and brown cord upholstery. It was so precisely the type of car one would expect an elderly country clergyman to be trundling about in that Barnaby couldn’t help smiling. There were even little silver flower vases, shaped like ice-cream cornets.

  Though the man must have been aware of their approach, he didn’t look up. Just kept circling the bonnet evenly and smoothly with a duster then giving it another squirt with the aerosol. He wore a tight, white singlet and even tighter jeans that looked genuinely battered rather than trendily drabbed down. He was in excellent shape and extremely good-looking. Sergeant Troy, already out of temper, glared at him.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Barnaby and introduced himself. The man looked directly into Barnaby’s eyes, his own warm with synthetic friendliness. He gave a wide, frank smile and held out his hand.

  Barnaby replaced his warrant card, not seeming to see the hand. His nostrils recognised the delicate scent of hypocrisy. He would not have bought a used bag of chips from this man, let alone a haddock fillet.

  ‘Afternoon, gentlemen.’ As the smile gradually deepened, the warmth drained from his eyes. Plainly not enough acting talent to keep both on the boil at once. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Name?’ said Sergeant Troy.

  ‘Jax.’

  Troy carefully wrote ‘Jacks’.

  ‘Christian name?’

  ‘Don’t have one. That’s J-A-X, by the way.’

  ‘Is it really?’ asked Troy.

  ‘We’re making inquiries following the death of Charlie Leathers,’ said Barnaby. ‘I presume you must have known him?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Poor old guy. I got on brilliant with Charlie.’

  ‘You were the only one then,’ said Sergeant Troy.

  ‘Did he confide in you at all?’ asked Barnaby.

  ‘More or less. He was dead worried, I’ll tell you that.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Gambling, weren’t it? A little flutter - got out of hand.’

  ‘What sort of gambling? Horses?’

  ‘Never said. But it was really getting to him.’

  ‘How’s that then?’ asked Troy.

  ‘One night last week he swore he copped a bloke standing over there.’ Jax nodded his head in the direction of a dark clump of trees. ‘I went and had a shufty. Weren’t nobody.’

  ‘So you think he was imagining things?’

  ‘I did till today. Now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Did he talk to you about anything else?’ said Barnaby. ‘Plans he was making perhaps? His family? Other friends?’

  ‘Charlie didn’t have no friends.’

  ‘But he got on brilliant with you?’ Sergeant Troy was disbelief personified.

  ‘I’m that sort of person.’ Jax gave the bonnet a final ruthless scrutiny and started to pack his cleaning kit - chamois leather, aerosol and dusters - into a transparent zip-up holder.

  ‘Where were you between ten and twelve o’clock the night before last, Jax?’

  ‘You asking everybody that?’ The man stared hard at Barnaby. ‘Or have I been specially selected?’

  ‘Just answer the question,’ said Troy.

  ‘In the flat.’ He jerked his thumb towards the garage roof. ‘It’s where I live.’

  ‘We may need to talk to you again,’ said Barnaby. ‘Don’t move without letting us know.’

  The man picked up his bag and turned away then hesitated and turned back. ‘Look, you’ll find this out anyway. I’ve been in a bit of trouble but Lionel, he’s given me a second chance. I can start fresh here. There’s no way I’m going to blow it.’

  ‘That’s what we like to hear,’ said the chief inspector.

  After this there were only the Fainlights to be interviewed. Barnaby did not have much hope in this direction. According to Hetty Leathers, Charlie had worked there only two hours a week and, given his taciturn nature, it wasn’t likely he spent much of it chatting about his inner self.

  ‘Blimey O’Riley,’ said Sergeant Troy as they approached the formidable glass structure. ‘I wonder how that got past the planning department.’

  Barnaby wondered too. He thought the building stunningly beautiful. It was now almost dusk and nearly every room was illuminated. Not all of the pale, faintly greenish glass slabs of which the house was constructed were transparent. Some were semi-opaque and behind these the glow from the many lamps and hanging lights shifted and spread in the air like so many dissolving stars.

  The front door also appeared at first glance to be made of glass but Barnaby, studying the huge, wide-ribbed rectangle, decided it was probably some very tough synthetic substance. The doorknob was a shimmering opalescent sphere. There was no letterbox. Neither did there seem to be a bell. Or a name, though he discovered later that it was called simply after the inhabitants, Fainlights.

  ‘We’ll have to knock, chief.’ Troy couldn’t wait to see inside.

  ‘Hang on.’ Barnaby studied the surrounding architrave and found, embedded, a narrow strip of shining steel. He pressed it and waited. There had been no responding sound from inside the house.

  ‘That’s not a door bell,’ said Sergeant Troy. ‘That’s the Doberman release button.’

  Inside the house Louise, unhappily recalling the previous evening, ignored the bell. She was staring at, but not seeing, the review pages of the Guardian. These rested against a cup of cold bitter coffee and a little blue glazed dish of ripe apricots.

  When Val had walked out with such an air of savage finality the previous evening she had been driven to follow him. She knew where he was going and that she would learn nothing new. And that there was nothing sh
e could do to stop him. She also knew that he would be even more angry than he was already if he saw her. Yet Louise had not been able to help herself.

  When she saw him enter the Old Rectory’s garden she waited with no idea of what she should do if he discovered her. After the door to the garage flat had opened, she had turned, sick at heart, and gone home.

  Val had come in about an hour later. Louise had watched him through a space between the rugs on her floor. He had sat very still for some time with his head resting in his hands then gone quietly upstairs to bed.

  She had hardly slept and had woken full of deep apprehension. For the first time in her life that she could remember she dreaded coming face to face with her brother. Even so, as soon as she heard him moving about, she made a pot of the Assam Orange Pekoe tea he always liked on rising and made her way to his room.

  She knocked, received no reply and gently turned the handle. Valentine was in his bathroom. He had apparently just come out of the shower and was standing in front of the mirror, towel round his waist, shaving. The door was half open. She was about to call out when he bent to splash his face with water and she saw a dreadful mark, bluish crimson with almost black edges, on the back of his neck.

  Louise moved clumsily backwards onto the landing. Everything on her tray shook or trembled. The lid on the teapot, the fragile cup in its saucer, the surface of the milk. Carefully she put the tray on the floor and slowly straightened. She placed her quivering hands by her sides and breathed deeply, struggling to recover her equilibrium.

  She knew who was responsible for the disfigurement and told herself perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it looked, even as she knew it was much worse. The phrase ‘love bites’ jumped into her mind. She remembered how, if you could flash one of these innocent, exuberant bruises on the school bus, the other girls were envious.

  But this was something else. This was a deeply unloving bite. A hate bite. A wound. She wondered if it had bled when first inflicted, if Valentine had had to reach awkwardly over his shoulder and bathe and dry it when he got home. If it had hurt when he lay down.

  Half an hour later, when her brother came into the kitchen carrying the tea tray, she could hardly bring herself to look at him. Not because of their argument, which now seemed utterly trivial, but because of what she might read in his face.

  He was moving around very calmly, as if in a dream - putting his cup and saucer in the dishwasher, peeling an orange. Then he sat at the table, separating the fruit into segments, placing them carefully on a plate but making no attempt to eat.

  Louise moved out of Valentine’s sightline so she could look at him directly. Then she understood this was quite unnecessary for he had plainly forgotten she was there. He was staring out of the window, his gaze clear-eyed, knowledgeable, quiescent. Everything about him spoke of resignation. His hands rested sadly on his knees, his back curved beneath an invisible load.

  Another memory, this time from early childhood. Sitting with her grandfather looking through a scrapbook of photographs. There were postcards too, several from the Great War. The Angel of Mons looking sorrowfully down on a soldier kneeling by a cross. The soldier looked bravely back, knowing his fate and courageously preparing to meet it. Just so did Valentine look.

  More chiming finally brought her back to the present. Louise sighed, heaved herself upright and pushed the newspaper away. A distorted burly shape was outlined through the heavy ribbed door. And, just behind it, a slimmer one.

  ‘Mrs Fainlight?’

  ‘Mrs Forbes. Valentine Fainlight is my brother. Who are you?’

  As he produced his warrant card Barnaby regarded the woman facing him with admiration. Anyone more different from Ann Lawrence would be hard to imagine. A wide, narrow-lipped mouth, perfectly painted vermilion. High cheekbones, slightly tilted hazel eyes with very long lashes and skin the colour and texture of thick cream. She reminded him of Lauren Bacall in the days when Bogie could still boogie.

  ‘May we come in?’

  ‘Why?’ Despite the blunt response, her voice had a throaty sweetness.

  ‘A couple of questions about Charlie Leathers. I understand he worked for you.’

  ‘Only just.’

  But she stood aside for them to come in. Barnaby entered and waited, completely at home as he was almost anywhere. Troy stared about him in wonderment. At the glorious fall of curtains, the single stunning central light, the suspended Arabian lamps and patterned silk wall hangings. At the whole elaborate fairytale structure.

  She led them behind a curved linen screen which concealed a couple of vast chestnut leather sofas and a low, black, glass table supporting exotic chessmen. There was also a strange-looking lamp with a flat, thrusting head like a snake.

  ‘So,’ said Louise, crossing her legs and staring rather aggressively at the two policemen. ‘What do you actually want to know?’

  ‘How long have you employed Mr Leathers?’

  Before she could reply, they heard footsteps running quickly above their heads then down some stairs.

  ‘Louise? Was that someone at the door?’

  There was more than simple curiosity behind the question. Barnaby heard eagerness, perhaps even excitement. Valentine Fainlight came round the screen, pulling up short at the sight of the two policemen.

  You would never have known, thought the chief inspector, that they were brother and sister. Valentine had thick, straight hair the colour of butter, a squarish face, pale green eyes and a large nose. He was shorter than Louise and chunky with it.

  ‘They’re asking about Charlie Leathers.’

  ‘Really?’ He sat next to his sister, pulled out a packet of Karelias and lit up. ‘I can’t imagine we’ll be much use.’

  Troy’s nostrils twitched. Earlier that year he had given up smoking for the sake of his little girl Talisa Leanne, now four. For some months up to then he had been inhaling just in the bathroom then blowing the results out of the window. Maureen thought smoking only in the shower might break the habit. She was like that. Very sarcastic.

  ‘What can you tell me about Mr Leathers?’ asked the chief inspector.

  ‘Next to nothing,’ said Valentine. ‘We told him what to do and he got on with it. Once a month we paid him. End of story.’

  ‘Did he work inside the house?’

  ‘No. Just in the garden.’

  Barnaby had noticed the garden, which lay at the back of the house. A serene, extremely formal arrangement of golden gravel swirled into nautilus circles. Several huge earthenware amphorae were carefully positioned and there was a long, rectangular pool lined with black tiles on which floated several white lilies. The whole was enclosed by a wall holding many alcoves in which statues posed in positions that were excessively formal, even for statues.

  The chief inspector, who was a keen gardener, wouldn’t have liked to work there at all. A bloodless, even slightly sinister environment, he thought, and was reminded of a film he had seen when courting Joyce in the sixties. Last Year . . . in something or other.

  Seeing the boss momentarily distracted and keenly aware of the blank pages in his notebook, Troy leapt into the breach.

  ‘No mid-morning chats over a cosy cuppa, then.’

  They stared at him, then at each other and snorted with laughter. Troy flushed a dull pink. He thought of pretending he’d only been kidding (naturally they wouldn’t be mingling with the hired help) but knew he wouldn’t be confident enough to pull it off. The stain on his cheeks deepened. He decided he hated snotty-nosed clever dicks almost as much as he did do-gooders.

  ‘So you have no idea who might have wanted to kill him?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Louise, who was feeling rather mean, gave Troy a friendly smile. ‘I don’t suppose it’s any help but I did see him the night he was killed.’

  ‘It might be,’ said Barnaby. ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About half ten. I think on his way to the Red Lion, dragging that poor little dog behind him.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I bel
ieve you were involved when the animal was found, Mr Fainlight.’

  Valentine shrugged. ‘I ran them to the vet’s, that’s all.’

  Sensibly, that should have been the end of the interview. It was plain that Leathers had hardly impinged upon their lives at all. And they knew nothing of his. But Barnaby was reluctant to leave. It wasn’t just the extraordinariness of his surroundings. Or his pleasure, which was still going strong, in looking at Louise Fainlight. It was the feeling that there was present here what the jargon-ridden Social Services would have called a hidden agenda. It could be that whatever was running underneath the surface had no connection with the current investigation. In fact, that was more likely than not. But you never knew.

  Barnaby assessed his next move. A link with Charlie boy if possible but anything that could open the matter out.

  ‘Does Mrs Leathers work here as well?’

  ‘No,’ said Louise before the words were even out of his mouth. ‘We use an agency in Aylesbury.’

  ‘That’s useful.’ Barnaby noted the flashing speed of the denial. What was she trying to head him off from? Discussing Hetty Leathers? Surely not. Hetty Leathers’ work? Maybe. ‘I expect she’s got more than enough to keep her busy at the Old Rectory.’

  Something walked into the room then. A dark, breathing presence exposing that which had gone before for the mere chimera that it was. So, thought Barnaby, leaning back comfortably against his chestnut leather padding, whatever it is, it’s over there.

  ‘She can’t half talk, that woman,’ said Troy when they were once more passing beneath the sign with the wheatsheaves and cricket bats and cocky badger on their way to the car. ‘Once she gets going.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a pity she didn’t say anything relevant to our investigation.’

  ‘We don’t know that, sir. Best keep an open mind.’ Though Troy carefully kept the satisfaction from his voice he felt the chief’s sharp glance between his shoulder blades. Worth it, though. He had heard that little homily about a dozen times a day over the past ten years and for the first time in the history of the universe had managed to slip it into the conversation first. Ho, ho, ho.