Faithful unto Death

by Caroline Graham

  His mind was beginning to feel like a bowl of alphabet soup. One stir and certain letters floated up, a few would join briefly and seem to make some sort of sense before sinking once more to the bottom of the dish. Another stir would produce only disconnected gibberish.

  Troy, an old hand at assessing the chief’s moods, was also an expert at being both present and absent at the same time. Positioned so that he was immediately available should old misery guts happen to look around for him or call out, he had also organised enough space between them to remove himself from the turbulent range of Barnaby’s bad temper.

  He understood the reason, of course. Felt the same himself. There were times when you wanted to get hold of a case and shake it till its innards rattled. Shake it until the entire shape of it changed or until someone caught in the frame started to sing a completely different tune.

  Like Sarah Lawson, for instance. Troy would have handled that interview the other day quite differently. Seemed to him the time to put pressure on someone was when they were at their most vulnerable. Now, even if they picked the woman up within the next twenty-four hours, she’d had over three days to sort herself and her story out. Go over and over it. Make it question-proof.

  Mind you, having said that, it paid to be a bit cautious when dealing with a member of the middle class. You couldn’t really let yourself go as you might with a steaming pile of lowlife from the average tower block. They would sit there, the Lawsons of this world, looking as if they couldn’t afford a pot to piss in and all the while they were shagging the local MP. A wise man watched his back in these matters.

  Sergeant Troy was a bit off women anyway at the moment. They were, it seemed to him, deceivers ever. Take Jacqui definitely non-Willing. What a teaser she’d turned out to be. An extremely spicy wrapper, no question (four chillies, Troy would have said, asked to grade that luscious exterior) but more of your three hundred cals a portion when it came to tasting time. One quick lager and lime in the Turk’s Head and she’d had to dash off to get her husband’s dinner. Seemed that if he didn’t have something hot on the table the minute he got in, there was no handling him. Troy said sourly he knew just how the man felt.

  It was at this point in the sergeant’s irritable musings that the fax machine leapt into life. He went across, read the results and tore the paper off with some satisfaction. This would cheer the boss up.

  “Something from Heathrow, sir.” He placed the fax on Barnaby’s blotter. “Bit of a breakthrough, wouldn’t you say?”

  The gist of the matter was this. Someone working in the Left Luggage department and seeing the photographs of Alan Hollingsworth and Brenda Brockley pinned up in the office recognised the girl.

  Gordon Collins had seen Brenda, on the evening of her death, standing just underneath the stairs in the section where cases were deposited. She had at no time joined the queue. At one point she had been reading a paper. Like Eden Lo, the Left Luggage clerk got the impression that Brenda was hiding from someone.

  Inspector Fennimore had left unasked no question that Barnaby himself would have put. The Chief Inspector read on with increasing satisfaction not unmixed with gratitude that he would be spared a sweltering drive to Heathrow to talk to the man himself.

  In spite of being asked to look and think and look again, Mr. Collins could not recall ever seeing Alan Hollingsworth either passing over his luggage or collecting it. He pointed out that three handlers were on duty at any given time and he may not have been the one to take the case in question or issue the ticket.

  The other two men on the same shift were equally unable to help. Hundreds of passengers used the system every day. A customer would need to be really remarkable either in manner or appearance to stand out.

  The excellent Inspector Fennimore had worked out the next step in the puzzle with admirable speed. Hollingsworth had gone to the Häagen-Dazs café, ordered a coffee he didn’t want and immediately walked away. So why buy the drink? Because he had been instructed to leave the ticket under the saucer.

  Fennimore had shown the baggage handlers the Identikit portrait of the old lady and asked if any of them had seen her. Receiving a negative reply, he then wondered what the situation would be if she had presented herself at the counter and handed over Hollingsworth’s ticket.

  All three men agreed that it was unlikely the item would be released without question. Normally this would be done, for there was nothing in the rule book to say that the party who handed in the luggage had to be the party who picked it up. But some dirty old transient?

  So, wrote Inspector Fennimore, this meant surely that the old woman had merely taken the ticket for someone else. And take it she certainly did for Miss Lo cleared the cup away immediately after chasing her off and it had not been there then.

  The fax’s concluding paragraph gave the date of the preliminary inquest on Brenda Brockley as Thursday week at Hounslow Civic Centre. It also offered continued assurances of assistance should Causton CID feel the need.

  Barnaby pushed the letter aside. The upsurge of interest, the feeling that at last something was happening to move things further forward or show them at a new angle was fading fast. For what had they got now that they didn’t have before? Only the knowledge that the ransom money was not in the old biddy’s string bag, as previously supposed, but in some sort of container in the Left Luggage department.

  “Get that acknowledged, would you? Include our thanks.”

  “Right, sir.” Troy, dismayed at the quick return to surly withdrawal, added. “After that I thought I’d take a break. Grab a bite in the canteen. You coming?” This last sentence was prompted by the sight of Barnaby unhooking his jacket from the hat stand.

  “No. I’m off to the bar.”

  Troy stared then glanced, as he thought surreptitiously, at the clock. It was barely twelve thirty.

  “Got a problem with that, have you, Sergeant?”

  “Of course not, sir.” Not what you’d actually call a problem. Admitted, he had never known it happen before, the gaffer taking a drink in the middle of a shift; still, he supposed there had to be a first time for everything.

  But he felt uncomfortable as he picked up the letter from Heathrow and set about organising the reply.

  As things turned out, Barnaby only had a half of mild and a cheese and tomato farmhouse bap. A farmhouse bap was indistinguishable from the common or garden bap but for a smattering of white flour on the top and an extra penny on the price.

  It was while chewing away at this uninspiring slab of tasteless stodge that the perfect solution to the problem of what to do with this completely unproductive lunch hour presented itself. He would go and buy Joyce’s perfume.

  The slip of paper with the address of the nearest stockist was in his wallet, as were some credit cards. He also carried his cheque book. Barnaby drove to Uxbridge, filled up with petrol, took the A4007 and got into the city centre about thirty minutes later.

  Policewoman Titheridge, who had chased up the details, had thoughtfully asked for the precise position of the shop and the Chief Inspector was glad of it for La Parfumerie was in a tiny cobbled street behind a Norman church. He could have been wandering around for hours searching.

  It was a lovely little place, the interior a glittering octagon of mirrored walls which multiplied again and again the crystal bottles and cellophane-wrapped and beribboned boxes that lined the shelves.

  A pretty woman with a cloud of dark hair wearing a pink cotton wraparound overall smiled at Barnaby and asked if she could help him. He said he was looking for some Joy.

  “The perfume, sir? Or the eau de toilette?”

  “Oh, perfume. It’s for a special occasion.”

  “We’re out of the one ounce size.” She took down a glistening gold and white box striped with red. “But we have this which is the two ounce. Or the fifteen millilitre.”

  This second box was very much smaller. Almost minuscule, it seemed to Barnaby. Not much to offer the wife of your bosom on the occasi
on of her big five oh.

  “I’ll have the first one.”

  “Thank you.” The girl smiled at him and started to wrap the larger box first in fuchsia tissue paper and then in a sheet of shining metallic gold. She tied it up with wide satin ribbon, making several lavish bows. Then she reached under the counter, produced a velvet rose slightly deeper than the colour of her overall and wound the stem round the ribbon.

  “That looks lovely,” said Barnaby who had unfolded his cheque book and uncapped his fountain pen while all this was going on. “Now, what’s the damage?”

  She described precisely the extent of the damage then said, “Oh dear, you’ve dropped your pen.”

  “Yes.” Barnaby bent down and retrieved it off the floor. The sudden movement made him dizzy. But not nearly as dizzy as he felt already. “Four . . .” He realised he was croaking and cleared his throat. “Four . . . ?”

  “Four hundred and seventeen pounds and eleven pence, please, sir.” She watched as his pen jerked around, pecking at the paper eventually, almost, one would have said, against its will, inscribing the correct words and figures. “Someone’s a very lucky girl.”

  It struck Barnaby then that she thought the gift was for his doxie. A furtive, guilt-absolving donation to some tucked-away mistress in a service flat.

  “The perfume is for my wife. Her fiftieth birthday’s coming up. I wanted to get her something really special.”

  “Goodness.” She blinked, plainly at a loss. “Have you been married long?”

  “Thirty years.”

  “Thirty . . . ?” Not even the excuse of a newly revived lust then. “Well, all I can say is, she must have made you very happy.”

  “Happiness,” said Barnaby, picking up his box and turning to leave, “is not the word for it.”

  “That looks a bit of all right,” suggested Sergeant Troy as his boss put the conspicuously decorated box in his desk side cupboard.

  Barnaby gave a noncommittal grunt. Normally he would have simply left such a thing in the car. After all, the vehicle was locked and standing on a police station forecourt. But the value of the perfume had made him extra cautious. He gave a final squint at it as he closed the cupboard door. The gift wrapping already appeared to him both garish and tawdry.

  “I’ve got two birthdays coming up next week,” volunteered Troy. “Maureen and my mum.”

  “What are you getting them?”

  “Maure wants that beauty book by Joan Collins. I said to her, ‘Maureen, if everybody could get to look like Joan Collins simply by reading a book, Joan Collins wouldn’t be worth shit.’ ”

  “That must have gone down well.”

  “The old lady’s a doddle.” This had always been the case. Mrs. Troy was invariably overwhelmed by the smallest kindness demonstrated by her children. Or anyone else, come to that. Self-esteem was not her strong suit.

  This year Troy planned to give her the video of Martin Chuzzlewit. He had missed at least half the episodes and it would give him a chance to catch up. The sergeant liked a good costume drama. Lace-up boots, frilly bonnets, powdered wigs. And that was only the horses.

  Troy waited for an appreciative laugh for this sally in vain. The boss appeared distracted and remained so for the rest of the afternoon.

  In the incident room all the leg men were back from Blackthorn College in time for the five-thirty briefing. The good news was that each staff member, as well as the students, had to carry an identity card complete with photograph. Only one had been needed from Sarah Lawson’s strip of four and the rest, still on file in the office, had been willingly handed over. The bad news was that there was no more good news.

  Each member of her class had been interviewed but could tell the police nothing apart from the fact that their tutor kept herself to herself. During the class’s tea break she usually stayed in the studio. It was felt that, though encouraging and plainly interested in their efforts, Sarah remained very detached.

  About Simone the group’s opinion was also united. A pleasure to look at, she had also been very popular. Friendly and always ready for a chat though not talking much about herself at all. Often she would laugh or whisper in class which could be a bit distracting. Sometimes Miss Lawson would give her a telling off. Everyone was sorry when she stopped coming.

  The administration department and the rest of the staff were likewise unhelpful. Taking only one mid-afternoon session a week, Sarah never made use of the senior common room. Asked to describe her last telephone call in more detail, the woman who took it said the accident which was keeping Sarah away for the rest of the term was a fall from a stepladder. She had a badly strained arm and displaced shoulder. No, she had not sounded unusually distressed. Just her usual rather dry, sardonic self.

  “Wonderful,” said Barnaby when all this came to an end. “Nothing minus nothing. Which leaves us with?”

  The room, infected by his pessimism and recognising the question as purely rhetorical, remained silent. Eventually Sergeant Brierley offered a consoling observation.

  “At least we have Lawson’s picture now. Get that circulated, someone’s bound to catch sight of her somewhere.”

  “Like they did Mrs. Hollingsworth?”

  “All due respects, sir, Mrs. Hollingsworth was being deliberately concealed.”

  Barnaby’s expression did not lighten. It was now past six and no overtime in the offing. Indeed the next shift, with little to check out, follow up or run a search on would definitely be overmanned.

  Everybody started to collect their gear. Barnaby’s telephone rang; his own line. He had been waiting for a call from Heathrow Forensic. They had been examining Hollingsworth’s car hoping to find proof positive that it was the one responsible for Brenda Brockley’s death. But it was not Heathrow Forensic.

  Barnaby turned his back on the others, mumbled something, left the room. In the corridor he pressed the elevator button for the next floor up.

  Troy, who had followed him out at a respectful distance, knew what that meant. So he didn’t go home with the others but stayed behind, hovering near the lift doors, pretending to study the notice-board. Just in case the chief wanted to let off steam when he came down. Talk things over. Maybe go for a quick drink.

  But his presence was not required. Half an hour later Barnaby stormed out of the lift, his face black as thunder, dived into the incident room, seized his briefcase and left via the stairs without even noticing the presence of his faithful sidekick.

  Sergeant Troy had never come across the phrase “darkest before the dawn” or surely would have added it to his well-worn list of aphorisms. Like most hoary old sayings, it only applied to some of the people some of the time but Barnaby would have gone to sleep a good deal happier that miserable Wednesday if he had known just how soon it was going to apply to him.

  What happened was this. When Troy got home, his deeply loathed cousin Colin, girl friend Miranda and Maureen were sitting under the B&Q umbrella in the backyard drinking champagne. Talisa-Leanne was flinging around a Mickey Mouse drinking cup half full of Buck’s Fizz.

  Torn between the pleasurable novelty of a bibulous homecoming and resentment at Col’s “great surprise” (he and Miranda had just got engaged), Troy sat down with the intention of making serious inroads into the Asda non-vintage.

  Conversation dawdled. The four really had nothing in common. Troy was tired, Maureen distracted by the toddler, Colin and Miranda were simply doing the rounds as people with wonderful tidings to impart have always delighted in doing.

  “How’s work then, Gav?” inquired Colin. “Still making the streets safe for muggers and pushers?”

  Maureen laughed.

  Miranda said,“Colin.”

  “Looking for someone who taught at your place actually,” said Troy to Miranda. “Crafts department. Wednesday afternoon.”

  “I wouldn’t know them then. I’m full-time Business Studies.”

  “Sarah Lawson?”

  Miranda shook her head. “Disappeared, ha
s she?”

  “That’s right. Three—no, four days ago.”

  “What do you do now?” asked Miranda. “I mean, how do you set about finding someone?”

  “Don’t encourage him, sweetheart,” said Colin.

  “It’s interesting though.”

  “Yeah. Like watching paint dry.”

  “Don’t do that, Talisa-Leanne!” yelled Maureen.

  “Whaaahhh . . .”

  “Pass me that cloth, Gav.”

  “Well,” said Troy, passing the J cloth, “we circulate a photograph, if we have one. Ask the press and public to help. Talk to people who knew her. Perhaps run a check on estate agents and letting agencies in case she’s renting a hidy-hole somewhere. If it’s a really big fish, some absconding financier or suchlike, we inform the sea and airports.” It sounded quite exciting, put like that. Very different from the dreary foot-slogging actuality.

  Miranda said something inaudible under Talisa-Leanne’s righteously indignant bawling.

  “Give her back her mug,” instructed Sergeant Troy.

  “And have it thrown over everybody?”

  “She’s only three.”

  Tight-lipped, Maureen returned the mug and sponged the orange juice off her skirt. It was always the same. She’s only one, she’s only two, she’s only three. Maureen could see handsome young men thronging the doorstep only to be told Talisa-Leanne couldn’t come out to play because she was only twenty-one.

  “Sorry, I missed that,” said Troy to Miranda.

  “I said, have you tried the college accommodation bureau?”

  “Didn’t know they had one.”

  “They find bedsits and digs for students. And sometimes flats if people want to share.”

  “Is that a separate department?”

  “No. They work from the main office.”

  And so, the very next morning, Sergeant Troy left home an hour early—absolutely no hardship there—and burned up the M40 on his way to High Wycombe.