Faithful unto Death

by Caroline Graham

  She pondered her first line carefully, for the text was sacrosanct. Nothing was ever altered or crossed out. She would have regarded such mutilations as ill-omened.

  A movement in next door’s garden caught her eye. Alan! First sighting since he had been so cruelly abandoned. He had his back to the house and was carrying a spade. As Brenda gazed hungrily down, he pushed it into a large, wet patch of earth near the patio.

  Brenda had sat, just so, looking down and longing, on hundreds of occasions. She believed herself to have exceptional sensitivity as far as Alan was concerned and was sure that, should he happen to look up, she could lower her eyes and turn away in time. Certainly she always had till now.

  But then something happened which gave the lie to such confidence. He thrust the spade down hard by a clump of day lilies, withdrew it then turned away, apparently in some disgust. As he did so he raised his head and stared straight at Brenda’s window. Caught out, all she could do was stare straight back.

  Their eyes met as they had done so often in her dreams. But in real life it was all very different. His glance was dark and unfriendly, almost a glare, and struck her like an arrow. He made a forceful movement with his free hand and, for one terrible moment, Brenda thought he was threatening her with his fist. Then he flung the spade down with a great clatter on the patio slabs and strode back into the house.

  Brenda was devastated. What must he think? What must any person think going about their business, with every reason to presume themselves unobserved, only to discover they were being spied on? No wonder he was angry. Brenda felt shattered, as if they had had a lover’s quarrel.

  She closed her book, replaced the cap on her chunky pen and blew her nose loudly. It would do no good to cry. Nor was their any point in abandoning herself to morbid self-scrutiny. Quarrels were made to be mended. And it would be up to her to find a way to do it.

  “I had to get all worked up to come.” Mrs. Molfrey tossed back her shoulder-length blonde ringlets with such vigour that her hat nearly fell off. “I hope I have not been misinformed as to your rank and station.”

  Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby tried to hold in place the mask of courteous inquiry invariably assumed when presented with an unsolicited visit from a member of the public but it was hard, very hard indeed, not to stare.

  An excessively raddled old lady sat facing him. She appeared lost inside a voluminous girlish dress with puffed sleeves. It was made from what appeared to be furnishing fabric: glazed chintz, patterned with blowsy cabbage roses. She also wore white lace gloves and rather muddy, elastic-sided shoes with holes punched into the ivory leather. Her face was so thickly layered with pink and white cosmetics that when severely frowning or expressing emotion with any degree of vivacity motes of it became detached and drifted in the air like perfumed dandruff. Her eyelids were the harsh and dazzling blue once called Electric. If Mary Pickford were still alive, thought Barnaby, this must be pretty much what she would look like.

  “They tried to palm me off in your front office with a constable. In his shirt sleeves.” Mrs. Molfrey lowered eyelashes so black and stiffly curled they could have been coated with pitch. “But I insisted on speaking to someone of the highest authority.”

  Sergeant Troy had passed through reception during Mrs. Molfrey’s argumentative discourse. Sussing the situation, he had popped her in the lift, whisked her up to the third floor and left her on Barnaby’s Welcome mat. Whether his bag carrier had been motivated by sportish malice or the suspicion that an entertaining diversion was required, the Chief Inspector had yet to discover.

  “So what seems to be the problem, Mrs. Molfrey?” asked Barnaby aware, as soon as the words were out, that he had assumed an avuncular, almost condescending manner. Attempting equilibrium he added, more formally, “How can I help you?”

  “It is I who can help you,” replied Mrs. Molfrey, tugging off her left glove. “My neighbour has disappeared. I thought you would want to know.”

  “His name?”

  “Her name. He’s still on the spot. And thereby, if you ask me, hangs a very long tale.”

  Barnaby, who had anticipated that what Mrs. Molfrey had to say would be as dotty and uncoordinated as her appearance was pleased to be proved wrong. Even if elaborately presented and quirkily phrased, her meaning seemed crystal clear.

  “It’s Simone Hollingsworth,” began Mrs. Molfrey. She paused for a few moments, frowning severely at an anti-theft poster and dislodging a few more flakes of pastel pargeting. “Aren’t you going to write it down?”

  “Not at the moment, Mrs. Molfrey. Please continue.”

  “She vanished last Thursday. Into thin air, as the saying is, though I’ve never understood why. Surely if a person is to be concealed the air would have to be extremely thick. Rather like the old pea-soupers.”

  “If you could—”

  “Don’t chip in, there’s a good fellow. When I’ve finished I’ll give some sort of signal. Wave my handkerchief. Or shout.”

  Barnaby closed his eyes.

  “I became suspicious the very first evening. I remember it precisely and I’ll tell you why. The sunset, from which I usually derive considerable refreshment, was a great disappointment. A dreadful common colour, like tinned salmon. Cubby was feeding my onions—renowned, I might add, for their splendour—and I was rootling around with my little hoe anticipating a word or two with Simone. She would usually come out around that time to call her cat and we would exchange pleasantries, the latest bit of village gossip from her side of the fence whereas I would discuss the progress of my plants, curse all winged and crawling predators and inveigh against the weather, the way keen gardeners do.”

  Barnaby nodded. He, too, was a keen gardener and had been known to inveigh against the weather in his time in a manner so robust it caused his wife to slam the French windows with such vigour the panes rattled.

  “But who should emerge instead but Alan—that is Mr. Hollingsworth—calling ‘Nelson, Nelson’ as if he had ever cared tuppence for the poor creature and rattling a box of crunchy stuff.” Mrs. Molfrey leaned forwards. “And that’s not all.”

  These last few words had a throbbing undertow bordering on the melodramatic. Barnaby recognised the note; he had heard it many times. It nearly always indicated a possibly genuine concern for the welfare of a fellow human plus an inability to believe that that welfare was not at risk, usually for the most lurid and sinister of reasons.

  “I had already discovered three more disturbing pieces to this mysterious jigsaw. On the afternoon of the day Mrs. Hollingsworth vanished, Sarah Lawson, our artist in residence so to speak, had been invited to tea. Half an hour later Maison Becky also turned up on her flying bicycle plus all the coiffure folderols for a pre-arranged hair appointment. But Simone had taken the twelve-thirty omnibus to Causton without letting either of them know!”

  Mrs. Molfrey, who had ticked off these peaks of high drama on gnarled fingers tipped with brilliant vermilion nails, now concluded, “Nothing could be more out of character.”

  The process wherein a slightly unusual or vaguely inexplicable occurrence was fancifully expanded into an event of Grand Guignol-like style and content was also very familiar. Barnaby controlled his impatience.

  “But if you find all that baffling,” Mrs. Molfrey paused and looked at the Chief Inspector in such keen and collusive anticipation that he did not have the heart to disappoint her. An expression of mild curiosity briefly possessed his craggy features. “Wait till you hear le mot juste.” She leaned forward, severely mangling, in her excitement, a large raffia bag on her knees. “Questioned by the vicar, who was naturally concerned at finding himself one campanologist short for the funeral, Alan Hollingsworth said his wife had gone to visit her mother. Hah!”

  Uncertain whether this was a forceful expression of disbelief or the shout that signalled he was now free to chip in, Barnaby cleared his throat and, when no reprimand was forthcoming, said, “Was this something out of the ordinary then, Mrs. Molfrey
?”

  “You could say that. She’s been dead for seven years.”

  “Then it was plainly an excuse made up on the spur of the moment,” said the Chief Inspector. “People don’t always tell the truth about their personal affairs. Why should they?”

  “I do,” said Mrs. Molfrey with the simplicity of a child.

  There was no answer to this and Barnaby wisely did not attempt one.

  “Don’t you think,” continued Mrs. Molfrey, “it all sounds rather,” she searched her mind for an adjective which would adequately sum up the dark and terrible complexities of the matter in hand, “Sicilian?”

  Barnaby thought it sounded about as Sicilian as a stick of Blackpool rock. “Would you expect to hear from Mrs. Hollingsworth if she’s away for any length of time?”

  “Probably not. She was an acquaintance rather than a friend. But that does not mean one is not concerned.”

  “Indeed. And have you discussed this with anyone else?”

  “Only Cubby—my innamorato.” The Chief Inspector kept his face straight by a supreme effort of will. “He feels it’s really none of our business but then he’s getting on a bit for any sort of arsy-varsy. Fruit-bottling, making faggots and appliqué embroidery—that’s all he’s good for. Typical male. That’s a nasty cough you’ve got there, Inspector.”

  “No, no.” Barnaby wiped his eyes. “I’m fine.”

  He got up then and Mrs. Molfrey got up too, pushing on the tubular steel arms of her chair for leverage and looking crisply about her.

  “Thank you for coming, Mrs.—”

  “Don’t I get a form to fill in?”

  “Just leave the Hollingsworths’ address with the desk sergeant.”

  “They do on The Bill.”

  “I can assure you, Mrs. Molfrey, the matter will be looked into.” He’d get a call put through to the village beat officer. Get him to ask around discreetly. She sounded reasonably compos mentis but might well have got completely the wrong end of the stick. The last thing the station needed was complaints of wrongful accusation.

  Barnaby came round from behind his desk to open the door. As he did so, Mrs. Molfrey held out her hand. The Chief Inspector enclosed the tiny, withered claw utterly in the spread of his palm. She was very small, the wavy brim of her picture hat level with the tip of his tie. Her raspberry smeared lips parted in a smile of great sweetness as she looked up at him through those preposterous eyelashes and said, “I’m sure we shall work very well together.”

  After she had left, he sat shaking his head for a moment in amused disbelief then took the stop off his calls. Immediately the phone rang and the workaday world engulfed him.

  Chapter Two

  Police Constable Perrot’s beat, which he had now had for seven years, comprised three villages. Ferne Bassett, Martyr Longstaff and Fawcett Green. Of the three, he much preferred the last.

  Ferne Bassett was overburdened with weekend cottages, holiday homes and London commuters. Most of the time it was as quiet as the grave. The quietude may have been skin-deep but, as long as what was festering underneath did not erupt and start acting illegally, Perrot regarded it as no concern of his. In Martyr Longstaff a long-running feud existed between a scrap metal merchant operating, contrary to all council regulations, a business from his home and a neighbour furiously determined to put a spanner in the works. Confrontations were loud, violent, monotonously regular and often took place in the middle of the night.

  But Fawcett Green—ah, Fawcett Green! Constable Perrot sighed with pleasure as he gazed about him. Dozing in the sunshine the place looked remarkably unspoilt. A great deal of the surrounding land belonged to a stately home which had been bought by a Far Eastern conglomerate. They had planted rather a lot of beautiful and unusual trees, created a large lake and left the rest alone. And, with a couple of exceptions, local farmers had remained sturdily resistant to the brandished cheque books of Bovis and Wimpey. Over the last fifteen years the place had hardly changed at all.

  PC Perrot had lifted his Honda on to its stand at the very edge of the village though his destination was a good ten minutes’ walk away. Residents, quite rightly, expected to see “their” bobby strolling about, stopping for a word, hearing complaints and generally making himself available. Consequently it took him nearly half an hour to reach Nightingales.

  His brief was simple but open-ended. He could take the interview with Alan Hollingsworth as far or as deep as the occasion seemed to demand. The constable’s own feelings were that some nosy neighbour with too much time on their hands had got a bit carried away. He had not been informed who the concerned party was and did not wish to know unless it became absolutely necessary.

  PC Perrot had deliberately chosen mid-morning on Sunday for his visit. It was nearly eleven. Time for the man to have finished breakfast but too early presumably to have gone out to lunch.

  The constable’s approach to the front gates had been noted. Old Mrs. Molfrey, cutting branches of orange blossom in her front garden, smiled and waved her secateurs. In the adjacent house a white poodle with its front paws up on the sill barked at him through the glass and was promptly yanked from view.

  The approach to the front step and garage could do with a weed. Thistles were starting to show in a border of leggy pansies and tangled aubretia. The tobacco plants on the front doorstep looked a touch on the dry side.

  Finding no bell, Constable Perrot tapped smartly with the brass mermaid’s tail. Noticing the curtains were still drawn, he waited a few minutes in case Hollingsworth was still asleep then rapped again.

  In the lane a woman went by dragging a bawling infant. She pointed out the constable, assuring the toddler that if he didn’t shut his bleeding gob the big policeman would cart him off, lock him up and chuck the key down the lavvy. PC Perrot sighed. What was the point of all his primary school visits when there were parents like that to contend with? No wonder some kids ran a mile when they saw him coming.

  Hot, even in his blue cotton summer issue, Perrot rolled up his shirt sleeves and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Then he crouched down to bring himself to the level of the letter box, lifted the flap and peered in.

  He could see the stairs and the hall floor on which were lying some letters and a freebie newspaper. At the far end of the hall was a closed door which Perrot assumed belonged to the kitchen. A second door stood ajar. By screwing his head sideways and pressing his cheek hard against the cold metal, the policeman could see a section of carpeted floor, part of a table, the arm of a chair and a pair of fully occupied leather slippers.

  Putting his mouth close to the slit he called, “Mr. Hollingsworth?” Then, feeling more than a little foolish, “I can actually, um, see you, sir. If you could come to the door, please? Constable Perrot, Thames Valley Police.” PC Perrot straightened up and waited. A high-pitched whine nearby made him turn round. Next to the gate was a lad who looked to be about eight. He was leaning on a chopper bike and holding a dog on a piece of string. The policeman smiled and raised his hand. The dog yawned again, the boy stared back, unblinking.

  PC Perrot once more agitated the mermaid then, feeling even more self-conscious, wondered if he should take upon himself the responsibility of a forced entry. Nervously he recapped on the circumstances in which such a procedure could be justifiably carried out. Immediate pursuit of criminal. To prevent a breach of the peace or a person being harmed. Someone inside unconscious or in need of medical assistance. It seemed to him that the last might very well apply.

  He made one final attempt at addressing the feet, which he presumed belonged to the owner of the property. This time, sharply aware of being awarded marks out of ten for entertainment value, he remained upright and spoke very loudly at the opaque glass panel.

  “I am about to forcibly enter sir, by breaking the door down. If you are able to—”

  There was a thud inside the house then a dark shape loomed behind the glass. The safety chain was struggled with in a frantic manner accompanied by sw
earing and cursing. Two bolts; a mortise. The door was flung open. Someone on the threshold shouted, “For Christ’s sake!” into the startled policeman’s face then he was dragged forward and the front door slammed.

  Inside, the air was chokingly oppressive; sour and heavy. Perrot felt immediately stifled and slightly nauseous. He tucked his helmet more firmly under his arm and tried not to breathe too deeply. The man was shouting at him again.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Mr. Hollingsworth?”

  The man said “Christ” again then turned and stumbled away. For a moment Constable Perrot thought he was going to crash into the sitting-room architrave. He lurched a few steps towards an armchair. From its position Perrot supposed it to be the one in which Hollingsworth had been sitting when his slippers were visible through the letter box. The cushion was widely and deeply indented as if a large animal had been curled up there for some considerable time. Hollingsworth reached the chair, turned round vaguely once or twice as if unsure which was the right way to face and fell into it.

  PC Perrot hesitated, looking around him. Very little light came through the drawn velvet curtains but a lamp, shaped like a golden pineapple, with an unlined cream linen shade, had been switched on. An unpleasant odour came from a vase of half dead roses, their leaves crisp and brown. It mingled with the smell of alcohol, cigarettes, garlic and something the policeman recognised but could not have named but which was monosodium glutamate. Dirty cutlery and several used foil containers were spread all over a handsome inlaid table on which there was no cloth. Some of the containers still had bones and bits of food in. There were a lot of flies about.

  Realising he would probably wait a long time to be invited, PC Perrot pulled one of the narrow backed dining chairs out and sat down, a healthy distance from the table. He placed his helmet on the floor and adjusted his radio which was digging into his slightly plump middle. Then, indicating with a polite nod the foil dishes, said, “Catering for yourself, I see, sir.”