Faithful unto Death

by Caroline Graham

  “Have you conspired with him in any way to bring about the kidnap and consequent ransom of Simone Hollingsworth?”

  “No!”

  “Has he ever discussed such a possibility with you?”

  “Never.”

  “Has he talked about revenge? Ways of getting his own back after Hollingsworth swindled him?”

  “No.”

  “When you met, what did you talk about?”

  “Nothing. Day-to-day trivia.”

  “How well did you know Alan Hollingsworth?”

  “What?” She stared at him, mesmerised and bewildered.

  “The question was,” snapped Troy, “how—”

  “You’ve asked me that! I’ve answered that! What are you trying to do?” She jumped up, her cheeks blazing. She shook her head in anguish and the damp pleats of hair fell against first one and then the other of her sunken cheeks. “Why are you dragging it out like this?”

  “All right, Miss Lawson, calm yourself. One final question and that’s it.” For now. “What were you doing on the night Hollingsworth died?”

  “I’ve told you. I was at home.”

  “Gray Patterson called at Bay Tree Cottage at eight p.m. Neither you nor your car were anywhere to be seen.”

  That stopped her. Stone cold in her tracks. And her mental state was such that she could not gather her wits even to the degree necessary for the simplest response.

  “I shall be obtaining a warrant shortly to search the flat at Flavell Street. And also your house at Fawcett Green. It would help us if you would hand over the keys, otherwise I’m afraid it’s a forced entry which can mean quite a lot of mess.”

  She did not reply but pushed her bag across the table. Made from Liberty’s peacock fabric, it was floppy and un-lined with a drawstring neck.

  After Troy had made a statement to the effect that the suspect had now willingly surrendered her handbag and its contents, the tape was once more timed and switched off.

  Then, to Sarah Lawson’s loud and continuing distress, she was told she would be further detained at least until the results of the search were available.

  This meant a cell. There was only one with bars and it was occupied. Barnaby had a word with the duty sergeant. He explained the extreme stress his suspect was suffering and that her psychological condition could only deteriorate should she be put in a room with no window. At this, the inhabitant of the first cell was transferred.

  Once Sarah Lawson was installed, the duty sergeant wondered if it would be wise to remove her belt and shoe laces. Also, bearing in mind that a remand prisoner had managed to hang herself earlier this year with a bra . . .

  The Chief Inspector weighed the possibility of attempted self-damage against the added distress caused by the forcible removal of his suspect’s clothing and decided against such a step. However, he did ask that the usual four times an hour surveillance should be increased to a check every five minutes. Ignoring the disbelieving and resentful glances spreading around an understaffed and overworked front office, he also suggested that a doctor should have a look at the prisoner.

  After obtaining a warrant and while waiting for his car to be brought round, Barnaby went back to the cell block. He let the door flap of number three down and looked in.

  The cell window was way above the sightline even of someone as tall as Sarah Lawson. So she had climbed on to the rim of the toilet and seized the bars to pull herself level. The tips of her toes rested on the porcelain and her face was turned towards the sky. A golden rectangle of sunlight fell across her eyes like a blindfold.

  No one took the slightest notice of Barnaby and Troy as they climbed the iron staircase once again. Or even when they put on some latex gloves, produced a set of keys and let themselves into the Flavell Street apartment taking a dustbin, which proved to be empty, from the balcony in with them.

  The first thing that hit their nostrils was the smell of stale fat—in the air, in the curtains and carpets and, no doubt, the furniture as well. Decades of greasy fry-ups. Troy felt around for a light switch.

  They were standing in a narrow hall with three doors off, the cheap, hollow type filled with wadding and varnished light brown. One opened on to a bathroom—cracked green and black tiles and an old, once white bath. The second revealed a scruffy kitchen—a couple of odd, freestanding cupboards, a stained Formica table, two plastic chairs, one with the seat slashed, and an extremely grotty fridge. Barnaby poked distastefully at some chipped pots and pans in the sink. He unlocked the back door. Another set of iron steps, this time leading down into a deserted little back alley bordered by a row of garages.

  He was locking up again when Sergeant Troy called loudly, “Guy! Quick, in here!”

  Barnaby lumbered away into the sitting-cum-bedroom. Troy was standing in the centre of a hideous black and yellow carpet staring at the wall.

  “Aahhh,” cried the Chief Inspector.

  “Geronimo, yes?”

  “Too right,” agreed Barnaby. Longing to demonstrate the passionate satisfaction consuming him but a bit heavy for anything more taxing than a saunter round the room, he slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand and said, more loudly, “Too bloody right.”

  Though the paper on the wall was deeply unattractive and none too clean, both men devoured the pattern of narrow ribbon stripes and sentimental puppies as if it was the latest from the brush of Michaelangelo.

  “OK, that’s enough gloating. Now, where’s the camera?”

  “Shouldn’t be difficult.” Sergeant Troy, bringer of good fortune and turner of tides, swaggered. “Place is no bigger than a flea’s bumhole.”

  They both started to look. It didn’t take long. Troy pulled out the furniture—one armchair covered in rusty red nylon fabric and a well-snagged mustard tweed Put-U-Up. While he checked down behind the cushions and opened out the single bed, Barnaby went through the dressing table’s drawers and the wardrobe which took no time at all as they were both empty but for two sheets, a pillow and a couple of blankets.

  Physical elation gradually draining away, the Chief Inspector inspected the kitchen cupboards. They held a few storage jars and tins with nothing in them, some tea bags and a carton of milk. That was it.

  “One toothbrush.” Troy came in from the bathroom. “One towel, one bit of soap. The Ritz it ain’t.”

  “Well,” they wandered back next door, “it was only needed as a place to hide Mrs. Hollingsworth.”

  “And use her as a punch bag.”

  “As you say.” Barnaby stared morosely at the capering canines. He was remembering Aubrey Marine’s comment on the wallpaper when they had first seen the ransom pictures: “It was everywhere, that,” declared Aubrey, “a few years ago.” A sharp defence could make persuasive headway on such popularity.

  “Cheer up, guv. It’ll be at her cottage—the camera.”

  Barnaby did not reply. He stood quietly, regarding the plain bevelled mirror on the wall opposite the window, and wondered if Simone had been dragged in front of it to see the results of her captor’s handiwork. He thought about constraints and how they had been managed. Had Simone been tied to one of the kitchen chairs? Or drugged? Or simply promised more violence if she made any move to draw attention to herself and her plight? He remembered how her hair had been wrenched out and her mouth bloodied. Threatened with another helping of the same, who wouldn’t keep quiet?

  He was surprised the room retained no sense of any of this. He remembered crossing the Bridge of Sighs once in Venice and the very fabric seemed to groan in sad recollection of the prisoners’ tears.

  “There’s two of them in this, isn’t there, guv?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Patterson?”

  “I don’t think so. I believe Sarah Lawson’s working with someone entirely unknown to us. Which is why, if she decides to keep schtum, we’re going to be in real trouble.”

  “What about Simone? Do you think she’s still around?”

  “I doubt it. H
ollingsworth’s gone, which means no more money. Alive and able to identify them, she’s a continuing threat. My guess is they’ve already got rid of her.”

  “Christ.”

  “Well.” Barnaby turned briskly towards the poky little hall. “No point in hanging around. We’ll get Aubrey’s little lot over and see what they can dig up.”

  “With a bit of luck, Patterson’s fingerprints.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  Before returning to the station they talked briefly to the owner of the Asian greengrocery who gave them the disappointing news that number ten, the only other flat in the terrace that was occupied, was owned by his uncle, Rajni Patel. And that Mr. Patel had flown to Bangladesh a month previously to join the family celebrations on the birth of his first male grandchild.

  Asked if he had seen anyone entering or leaving number thirteen, the available Mr. Patel described only Sarah Lawson, whom he referred to as a thin, wild woman.

  So it would be back to more foot-slogging and photo-flashing and persistent questioning up and down Flavell Street and nearabouts. Which meant there would be no reason at all for the Chief Super to cut Barnaby’s team by half, as he had threatened to do the previous evening. So in that respect, at least, life was definitely looking up.

  Fawcett Green had also caught the rain. A certain amount of dampness still marked the ground in St. Chad’s Lane and clung to the grass borders. The air was fragrant with the scent of newly washed leaves and flowers. Sergeant Troy pulled in off the road and parked on the spot previously occupied by Sarah Lawson’s Dinky toy.

  “I thought the home guard was supposed to be keeping an eye on this place,” said Troy.

  Poor Perrot. He had been staunch and true but, like all human beings, occasionally needed a rest and something to eat. Give or take an hour here or there, he’d been hanging around Bay Tree Cottage for nearly two days. It was just his bad luck that, after a lengthy early-morning shift, he should have popped home for a quick shower and a bowl of Coco Pops.

  Barnaby and Troy had donned their gloves and were standing on the front steps when the decelerating cough of the Honda’s engine preceded his return. A picture of dismayed disbelieving guilt, the policeman hurriedly lifted his bike on its stand and ran towards the broken gate.

  “Chief Inspector—”

  “Ah, Constable. Nice of you to drop by.”

  And that was that as far as Perrot was concerned. As he told Trixie later, “Something snapped and everything went red.” Driven by the injustice of the remark and convinced by now that he was done for anyway, Perrot threw himself into his swan song.

  “Actually I haven’t just dropped by, sir. I have just dropped back. I have stayed close to this house and its immediate environs for the last forty-eight hours as per your instructions. I have hardly slept and I have eaten on the hoof. I was not able to attend the Infant Cyclists’ Time Trials yesterday as I have done every year since I moved to this posting. Likewise the Old Reliables Bowls Tournament. My wife and children have hardly seen me since this case began. I have tried to carry out my duties to the very best of my ability and all I’ve had is sneering remarks and cruel comments. It’s . . . it’s not right.”

  Silence, open-mouthed and thick as treacle, followed this intemperate outburst. Then Troy walked slowly over to Constable Perrot, squared his shoulders, thrust out his chin and said, “You give the DCI any more lip, Poll, and I’ll squeeze your cods till your eyes bubble.”

  “Don’t call me Poll.” Perrot spoke up boldly though his lips were stiff with misery and fear. “I don’t like it.”

  “Who the fuck do you—”

  “All right, Gavin. That’ll do.” Barnaby stood on the doorstep regarding Constable Perrot. Now that all restraint had been removed and his bolt was shot, the policeman stood silently quaking. His face was white going on grey; his eyes were ringed darkly with exhaustion. Asked for a comparison from the animal kingdom, Barnaby would have suggested a panda on the edge of a nervous breakdown. “There’s no need for any further surveillance here, Perrot. We’ll be keeping Sarah Lawson at the station for the present. Better go home and get some sleep.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  “And I should think twice before you give a senior officer the benefit of your private opinions in future.”

  “I will, Chief Inspector. Thank you very much.”

  “You let him off light, guv.”

  “Poor sod,” Barnaby turned the key in the Yale. “Out of his league, out of his depth, desperate to please. All he wants is a kind word.”

  “He’s in the wrong bloody job then,” said Sergeant Troy.

  Remembering how withdrawn and subdued and lacking in energy Sarah Lawson had been during their previous interview at Bay Tree Cottage, Barnaby was surprised at how plainly the house reflected her absence. It seemed to have shrunk. It had a collected air of seclusion, a quietness that also seemed somewhat sterile. He was put in mind of a rarely visited museum.

  Even Troy sensed it. He stood awkwardly on the glowing, shabby rugs and finally said, “Where should we start, do you think?”

  “I’ll look in here. You take next door.”

  Sergeant Troy, remembering the dirty plates, sighed. He braced himself to check the sink first and get it over with. One plate was already wearing a greenish grey fur collar.

  He pulled out all the drawers including those in a battered Welsh dresser. Wooden spoons, old but hand-carved, all sorts of cooking pots and utensils in different styles and colours, bowls and dishes painted all over with flowers and fish and stars and suchlike. A proper junk shop. Troy recalled his mum’s kitchen which was Diary of an Edwardian Lady throughout, including the tea towels. That’d open Sarah Lawson’s eyes all right.

  Barnaby, for reasons that he could not quite determine, was reluctant to get going. This was unlike him. Rooting determinedly through other people’s most private possessions was all in a day’s work. He tried to disentangle his thoughts but to no avail and eventually wiped the wretched image of an incarcerated Sarah Lawson from his mind and simply began.

  He started on a little writing table with a brass rail littered with used cheque books, bills and sheaves of loose paper, most of which were covered with sketches. He was hoping to find something personal; a note or letter, perhaps a photograph, but he was out of luck. Nothing was concealed in any of the books nor inside the covers of the vinyl records which Sarah still seemed to prefer to tapes or compact discs. Perhaps she couldn’t afford a CD player. This theory led Barnaby into wondering about his suspect’s financial affairs. Just how poor was Sarah Lawson?

  The Chief Inspector was well aware that middle-and working-class ideas of what constituted poverty were very different. True, she had no television set but Barnaby suspected this was from ideological reasons rather than lack of money. She must have some sort of private income, though. At the most, three hours’ teaching would bring in sixty or seventy pounds. Who could live on this, pay their council tax and bills (in her case electricity, phone, Calor gas), and run a car?

  Plainly, from the state of the house, she had no spare money to chuck about. But Barnaby could not believe she would have got involved in something as alarming and dangerous as the abduction and wrongful ill-treatment of another human being for the sake of a few thousand quid to do up Bay Tree Cottage.

  “Look at this, guv.” Troy, going through the last stack of books by the window, held a study of Picasso open at a page showing a portrait of Dora Maar.

  “Mmm.” Barnaby waited to hear that the drawings from Talisa-Leanne’s playgroup made more sense and you didn’t have to know anything about art to know what was crap.

  “Look.” Troy came over and sat down on the old sofa. “She’s got a red eye looking one way, a green eye the other and a yellow face.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” said Barnaby, stealing the great line without a qualm.

  “What do you think he’s getting at?”

  “Search me.”

&
nbsp; “I mean,” he gestured angrily at the shelves of books, the music and stained glass, the beaten-up pile of clay on the marble slab, “what’s it for, all this?”

  “Supposed to make life more bearable.”

  “Give me a good shag and a double Scotch any day.”

  “Upstairs.” And, when they were on the tiny landing, “You take the bath and loo.”

  There was just one bedroom which ran the length of the house and had windows at both ends. These had unlined curtains made from faded velvet patches hanging from thin metal rods. Barnaby glanced out of the window facing the lane and noticed a group of three women on the other side of the road staring at the house. When they saw him they immediately turned their backs and started to chat among themselves but he had no doubt that the news of his own and Sergeant Troy’s presence (and Sarah’s continuing absence) would be zinging along the village hotline in no time.

  He turned his attention to the room which was as austere as the one downstairs was rich and colourful. The divan had a cover made from crushed velvet the colour of moleskins. A raffia stool by the bed held a flat dish full of beautifully marked stones, a paperback novel by Barbara Trapido and a jar of honey.

  The bare walls had been painted white then washed in a soft, powdery blue but so thinly that the original colour showed through giving them an almost luminous glow. A very delicate scent in the air could be traced to a bunch of white violets in an egg cup placed on an old linen chest. The room was crowded with sunshine.

  Barnaby put the egg cup carefully on the bare wooden floor and lifted the lid. As he did so, Troy came in.

  “Dead basic in there, guv. One of them old-fashioned baths—ball and claw foot.”

  “Is that right?” Barnaby took out some unironed shirts and blouses and a long skirt patterned with wild irises.

  “They’re in again now. You can pay a fortune for something your granny used to scrub the old man down in.”

  “Well, you know what they say . . .” An embroidered jerkin, a three-quarter length coat with a sheen like hammered bronze, some boots made of patterned skin and fastened with six tiny silver buckles, a frayed straw hat. “What goes round . . .”