Faithful unto Death

by Caroline Graham

  It seemed to Barnaby there were three ways of explaining this little vignette. She was a genuine transient simply keeping a sharp eye out for a free nibble or bevy; she was a transient who had been paid to go into the café, pick up the bag and deliver it elsewhere; or she was directly involved in the kidnap and ransom of Simone Hollingsworth.

  Barnaby thought this last extremely unlikely and favoured the second notion. Which led to the interesting question as to why such a messenger would be necessary. The most obvious reason—because she was substituting for someone who would otherwise have been recognised—was not the only one. Presumably this person also needed to establish an alibi well away from where the drop was made.

  The more Barnaby thought along these lines, the more it seemed to him that this old crone might have the key to the whole business. If they found her, they might well get a description of the man they were looking for.

  Fingers crossed.

  He pulled forward the next envelope and took out Perrot’s report on the position of the Halogen switch in the garage and accompanying pair of photographs. Barnaby hardly knew whether to laugh or fling the whole caboodle up in the air and the over-scrupulous constable with it. All he had wanted was a simple message: “on” or “off.”

  The pictures showed the main switch and the surrounding area from two points of view. Aesthetically there was not a lot to choose between them. One lawnmower and collection of garden equipment looked, as far as Barnaby was concerned, much like the next. But the interesting point, the ah! factor, if you like, was that the Halogen light which, according to Reg Brockley, came on when Hollingsworth drove home was now switched off.

  Barnaby sat quietly, warmed by this tiny bit of information even more powerfully than by the summer sun, now streaming through the ivory plastic slats of the incident room’s Venetian blinds. For if Hollingsworth had not pulled that switch, someone else had. Someone who needed to leave Nightingales without being observed. Which meant there had been another person in the house in spite of the Brockleys’ insistence that no one had entered or left.

  Barnaby looked around for Troy and singled him out, half hidden by a busy, moving crowd of people at the far end of the room. The DCI stood up, preparing to attract his assistant’s attention.

  Troy, unaware of the chief’s regard, was about to embark on the most delightful method of time-filling imaginable. Chatting up every man in the station’s favourite ingredient, Sergeant Audrey Brierley.

  “Blimey,” he began, perching on the edge of her desk. “It’s a fair cop.”

  Audrey wrinkled her her lovely brow with irritation and moved an I Heart New York mug out of his way.

  “Sometimes,” continued Sergeant Troy, gazing hungrily at the matchless profile, “I wonder if you quite appreciate what a lonely person I am.”

  “Whose fault’s that?”

  “Pardon?”

  “If you weren’t so . . .”

  “So what?” Troy was genuinely curious. He could see no logical reason for this continual rejection for, while acknowledging that he had faults, being imperfect was surely not one of them.

  Audrey, cross at having allowed herself to be provoked into a personal exchange, decided she might as well continue. “I just think you’d be happier if you weren’t so spiteful.”

  Troy blinked with surprise. This was not a connection he would have made himself. If anything, the reverse was true. Life, if you didn’t put the boot thoroughly into it from time to time, would pretty damn soon walk all over you. A cruel aside could put people in their place before they had a chance to screw you into yours.

  Memory sparked. A small boy with his dad, sober for once, climbing on a swing in the park. A slightly larger boy coming along and tugging on the chain. Not violently, probably only wanting to play. Told to stand up for himself and push the intruder away, the younger child had started to cry. The man had seized his son’s fist and swung it hard against the other boy’s jaw. The boy fell down, hurt. It struck Troy now that this was possibly the very first occasion that he had got his retaliation in first.

  “Where was I, Aud?”

  “Lonely, ‘Gav.’ ”

  “Ah, yes. Reason being,” sorrow weighed down his voice, darkened the pupils of his eyes, “my wife doesn’t understand me.”

  “Oh, I bet she does, sweetheart. I bet she understands you till it’s coming out of her ears.”

  “I sometimes feel I’m—”

  “Whatever would men do for conversation if the letter ‘I’ was abolished?”

  “What?”

  “You’d be absolutely dumbstruck.”

  “God, skipper.” He slid off the desk. “It’s a business doing pleasure with you.”

  “I should give up then.”

  “There’s thousands be glad of it.”

  “There’s thousands watch Jeremy Beadle.”

  Troy hesitated, unsure how to respond. Was it a joke? Or an astonishingly generous compliment?

  “Get a grown-up to help you with that one,” said Audrey kindly. She half turned in her swivel chair. “What’s that roaring sound?”

  Troy, who had absorbed the bellowing through the back of his head without giving the source much thought, now sprang to attention. He hurried to the gaffer’s desk.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is that all you can find to do?”

  “Developing good relationships with colleagues, chief. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t that right? On the streets, in the field—”

  “Credit me with some intelligence, Sergeant.”

  “Righto.”

  “I need something very wet and very cold from the Automat.” Barnaby rootled a pound coin from the jangling collection in his trouser pocket and passed it over. “There you go.”

  “Tango?”

  “No thanks. You’re not my type.”

  It was not often Troy found himself in the position of being able to deliberately withhold laughter at his superior’s jokes—the DCI hardly ever made them and when he did they were usually quite good. Troy kept his lips firmly closed now with some satisfaction.

  “Make that two,” called out Barnaby as his leg man sauntered off. “I’m celebrating.”

  “Celebrating what?” asked Sergeant Troy on his return.

  Barnaby made rings on the desk with two Lemon and Lime Fantas. “An extremely—”

  “That’s another twenty pee, by the way.”

  “Oh.” Barnaby continued speaking as he rootled some more. “After Hollingsworth returned home on the night he died someone switched off the Halogen lamp.”

  “Fancy.” The sergeant waited for the bit worth celebrating. The chief looked so pleased with himself Troy thought the murderer must have turned up while his own attention was wandering. Just presented himself at the front desk with a fringe of parsley round his mouth and an apple up his bottom.

  “Which means the man wasn’t alone.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “What?” Barnaby, popping his first can, looked displeased.

  “It could have been Alan.”

  “What reason would he—”

  “Habit. Probably did it every night, like winding up the cat and putting the clock out.”

  “But they’re specifically for use in the dark.”

  “He knew someone was after him, then. Wanted to hide.”

  “In that case, wouldn’t he want the light to be working? So he could see if anyone approached the house?”

  “Not nec—”

  “For God’s sake!” Barnaby slammed his drink down. An effervescent fountain of spume shot up in the air. “Whose side are you on?”

  Tight-lipped, Troy produced a spotless handkerchief and dabbed at his newly spotted cuff. Typical of the force, this sort of thing. They asked you to use your initiative. You used your initiative. They threw Lime and Lemon over you. It was the way of the world. No point complaining.

  “Sorry, Gavin.”

  “Sir.” Old people today, though
t Sergeant Troy, refolding his snowy cotton square and tucking it back into his sleeve. They couldn’t care less. “Want anything to eat with those, chief? Sandwich? Some crisps?”

  “No thanks. I’m taking an early—yes, what is it?”

  “The information you asked for from the Curzon cinema, Chief Inspector?” said one of the civilian telephonists. “Programme times?”

  Barnaby loathed perfectly straightforward statements that transformed themselves into questions almost as much as he loathed jargon. He grunted and took the print out, churlishly withholding any thanks.

  And then he was sorry, for the girl had handed him one of the most interesting items to date. A nice little length of rope, you might say, to hang someone with. Or at least give them an extremely sharp tug.

  “Have a look at this.” He passed it over.

  Troy read the page and emitted a long, slow hiss. “New programme starts each Monday . . . tenth of June we’ve got Olivier, Olivier. Whoever he is. Facinelli. It finished Saturday night. Well, waddya-know.

  “She’s not very good at it, is she, our Sarah?”

  “Got her head in the clouds, no doubt, creating and that.”

  “A lie’s a lie. Go and pick her up.”

  “OK,” said Sergeant Troy, making a mental note to cover all extremities and wishing, for the first and only time in his life, that he had access to a cast-iron chastity belt.

  “Take her to the interview room in the basement.” Barnaby passed over the Identikit drawing. “And before you go, pin this on the board.”

  “Strewth!” Troy regarded the sketch with disgust and disbelief. “The granny from the black lagoon.”

  Barnaby drained the first drinks can and Troy took it off the desk and placed it carefully in the waste paper basket. He tried to ignore the damp rings and certainly was not going to use his handkerchief to wipe them off. He made a mental note to bring a paper towel roll in and put it in the cupboard. He was a bit of a messer, old Tom.

  “What I can’t understand about this whole Häagen-Dazs scene,” Troy fished some drawing pins out of a Sharpe’s toffee tin, “is the business with the coffee.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Well, Hollingsworth goes and buys it. The girl says he needed both hands for the tray which means leaving whatever he was carrying, i.e. the loot, somewhere in the café. Highly dodgy. You don’t turn your back on your valuables for a second in an air terminal. Thieves are everywhere.”

  “Presumably that was the drop.”

  “But the old hag turned up after he took the coffee to the table. Not while he was at the counter.”

  “That was the first time she was spotted. Not necessarily when she first turned up.”

  “And why buy the stuff and not drink any?” That had really niggled Troy. He hated seeing money wasted. “It wasn’t as if it was the sort of place where people are breathing down your neck if you don’t immediately order.”

  “Now Hollingsworth’s gone, we may never know.”

  “I hate mysteries.” Sergeant Troy saw nothing incongruous in the fact that a detective should make such a statement. Yearning for a society that was passive, ordered and static, he regarded police work as nothing so much as an endless and ever more stringent tidying. Sweeping the country’s rubbish off the streets and into first the courts and then Her Majesty’s detention centres.

  Not that it always worked like that. Half the time you were no sooner out of the witness box after giving evidence for the Crown than the rubbish was back on the pavement giving you the finger and either laughing or spitting in your face.

  “What’s that?”

  Sergeant Troy hadn’t realised he’d been mumbling aloud.

  “Restoring order, chief. The right balance. That’s our job, isn’t it?”

  “Symmetry’s for the gods, Gavin. We mustn’t presume.” Barnaby got up, taking his jacket from the back of his chair. “They don’t like it.”

  Sergeant Troy parked his beloved Cosworth outside Bay Tree Cottage. He got out and stood, in a blaze of oppressive sunshine, in the space where a gate should be. Briefly he lifted his face to the sun and revelled in it.

  The Citroën was not there. Troy crossed over to the window, leaned on a pale windowsill bleached even paler by the consuming “heat, and looked inside. The sitting room appeared empty.

  He walked to the rear garden and studied the tangle of herbaceous and climbing plants, receiving no pleasure from what he immediately designated a right old mess. There was a wishing well with a small ornate arch made of cast iron wreathed in nasturtiums. Troy lifted the old wooden cover and peered down the shaft which was lined with damp moss and appeared very deep. It smelled sweet and clean. A pretty good sign that there was no one having a casual kip at the far end.

  Disappointed that he was not going to be hurrying back to the station with news that he and he alone had found the body of Simone Hollingsworth, Troy replaced the lid. In the back yard—you couldn’t really call it a patio—was a scarred and battered table covered with a right load of old junk—pebbles and driftwood and shells. There were lots of earthenware pots in all shapes and sizes containing assorted cuttings, trays crowded with leggy seedlings and some tomato plants. Although there was a length of hose close by already connected to a tap, everything looked as if it could do with a good soak.

  Troy dragged the table out and had a gander into the kitchen. There was some dirty crockery in the sink. Normally he would regard that as a sign that whoever the stuff belonged to would be back soon but with a slut like Sarah Lawson you could never tell. He wouldn’t put it past her to go off on a round-the-world trip without even putting the bin out.

  At the front again, he lifted the letter box and peered through, hoping there might be some post on the hall carpet—that would at least give him some idea how long she’d been out—but no joy.

  The sergeant drifted back on to the pavement, wondering what to do next. He had no intention of returning empty-handed to the station. He might not be able to produce Ms. Lawson in person but at least he should be able to glean some information on her whereabouts. So where would be the best place to start?

  He was facing Ostlers which was ideally situated for observing all the comings and goings at Bay Tree. In a matter of seconds, Sergeant Troy was in there. A red-faced woman with bobbing little sausage curls, wearing a floral pinafore dress and pearl stud earrings, sat behind the till. Troy did not recognise her. But Mrs. Boast remembered him.

  “So. It’s you.”

  “Pardon?”

  “How you can show your face . . .”

  “Me?”

  “The Incident of the Curdleigh Posset?”

  “Ohh . . . yes.” Troy smiled.

  Mrs. Boast pushed her red angry countenance close to his own until their noses were almost touching and snarled. It was very off-putting. She smelled of candles and lavender wax polish. “That’s the high spot in my talk. I can’t culminate without my posset.”

  Sergeant Troy essayed a spot of light relief. “Whatever turns you on.”

  “I reach my peak, I have the audience in the palm of my hand, I lift up my hedgehog and what do I see?”

  Troy had had enough of this tomfoolery. He produced his warrant card and said, “Causton CID need your assistance, Mrs. Boast, in a matter of some discretion. I hope we can rely on you?”

  “That depends,” said Mrs. Boast peering at his photograph with the deepest suspicion.

  “On what?”

  “Neither hubby nor myself would be prepared to do anything illegal.”

  It was not often Sergeant Troy found himself lost for words. Eventually he said, “There’d be no question of that. It’s a simple matter of surveillance.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Boast’s eyes narrowed. Without moving a muscle she managed to strike an attitude. That of a woman of whom her country may demand great things at any moment and who would not be found wanting. She straightened her shoulders and said, “Message received. Over.”

 
“We’re hoping to interview Sarah Lawson—”

  “What about?”

  “That’s the discreet bit.”

  “I thought you meant—”

  “She’s not in at the moment. I wonder if you noticed what time she went out?”

  “Her car hasn’t been there for a day or two. In fact, she drove off not long after you and that other policeman, the one with the nice manners, called at the cottage the other day.”

  “And she hasn’t been back?”

  “No.”

  Ah shit. The boss was going to love this. “Have you seen anyone calling at the house?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed.”

  “I see. Well, as you’re so ideally placed, Mrs. Boast, perhaps you or your husband would be good enough to give us a ring the minute she does return.” He placed one of Barnaby’s direct line cards on the counter.

  Mrs. Boast studied it, plainly with some disappointment. “Is that all?”

  “It may not seem like much but it could be of great assistance.”

  “Like in Crimewatch?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And should I listen out for any comments—on her possible whereabouts or suchlike? This place is a good clearing house for village gossip.”

  Troy could well believe it. He hesitated. The DCI might not be prepared as yet for their interest in Sarah Lawson to get around. “Listen by all means, Mrs. Boast, but I can’t stress how important it is that you keep this present conversation to yourself.”

  “Have no fear.”

  “And your husband too, of course.”

  “There is no need for you to concern yourself over Nigel,” retorted Mrs. Boast. “He played Francis Walsingham in our last Tudor pageant so there’s not much you can tell him about surveillance.”

  Troy escaped but not without buying a pack of twenty Rothmans which cost seven pence more than those at his local newsagent.

  While this conversation was going on Elfrida Molfrey reclined in her lovely garden on a slatted wooden steamer. The chair, like its occupant, was the genuine article, having been reserved for her personal use on the top deck of the Cherbourg Orion during its 1933 maiden voyage to New York. After the ship had docked, the Captain, at whose table every evening she had glittered and sparkled like the great star she was, had presented her with the lounger. It had been crated up and delivered to the Music Box where she was triumphantly to appear in a revival of Oh Lady, Lady.