Death in Disguise

by Caroline Graham

  ‘No. He died before you met him.’

  Barnaby didn’t even try on that one. ‘And who was he?’

  ‘Oh, a dear person. One of our longest-serving members. He had an accident—a fatal fall. I’m surprised you don’t know about it.’

  ‘Not our pigeon—accidental death.’

  ‘There was an inquest.’ May regarded Barnaby in a rather judgemental manner as if he’d been caught smoking in the bike shed. ‘It was a day or two after his death when I was on my way to the laundry that I overheard the argument. Or a bit of it. The door was ajar in the Master’s sanctum. Someone said: “What have you done? If they decide on a post mor—” Then they were shushed and the door was closed.’

  ‘Did you see who it was?’

  ‘There was a screen in the way.’

  ‘Was it Mr Craigie speaking, do you think?’ Barnaby leaned forwards as he spoke. Troy stopped massaging the window and turned into the room, his eyes wide and sharp. The air tightened.

  ‘I don’t know. The voice was so knotted up. But when the inquest came and there was a proper coroner’s report and everything seemed to be all right, I thought I was probably reading too much into it. Then, a couple of weeks later, I was woken by a noise in the middle of the night. Soft bumps as if furniture was being carefully moved about and slidy sounds like the opening and closing of drawers.’

  ‘Where was this?’ asked Troy.

  ‘Next door—Jim’s room. It was never locked so why do all this creeping about? Why not just go openly in the daytime?’

  ‘Perhaps a break-in,’ suggested Barnaby.

  ‘Not at all,’ said May and explained about the person running down the side of the house.

  ‘Didn’t you think of contacting the police?’

  ‘Well, you know, we don’t do that sort of thing here.’ May gave Troy a smile with a consoling pat in it. ‘I’m sure you’re very good but it might have caused real psychological damage.’

  ‘Do you think he—or she—when running away could have heard your window open? I assume they would know your room was adjacent.’

  ‘I suppose that’s possible.’ She glanced up at him with clear bright eyes. ‘Is it important?’

  Troy took in the question with a mixture of awe and disbelief. Here was a woman who drove a car, handled the company finance, dealt with banking matters and looked after sometimes quite large numbers of visitors. All these accomplishments existing alongside a shining belief in archangels, extra-terrestrial domestic and legal help, plus an astrally spot-on blade artist who’d despatched the head gaffer, no messing. He watched her giving the chief, who was looking excessively pained, a gentle touch on the arm.

  ‘Are you feeling quite well, Inspector Barnaby?’ Barnaby cleared his throat, a dryish scrape. May appeared concerned. ‘A tense larynx can conceal grave kidney problems.’ This formidable diagnosis having being received calmly, she added: ‘I can get my passionflower inhaler in a twinkling.’ Barnaby went into a constrained but unequivocal retreat.

  Doesn’t want that at his time of life, observed Troy. Randy old devil. Should be slowing down.

  Barnaby sensed that May was disappointed. She shook her head a little sorrowfully but her opulent assurance remained undimmed. It was plain she was one of those people who must always be helping others. He had no doubt that she was genuinely kind, but suspected that the kindness would manifest itself in a rather narrow application of her own principles to the problem in hand, rather than a real attempt to seek out the supplicant’s needs.

  ‘Perhaps we could have a look at Mr Carter’s room?’

  ‘There’s nothing there. All his things have gone.’

  ‘Even so…’

  ‘A tip, Inspector,’ she set off still talking, ‘which you should find very useful. Pull up an amaranth by the root—Friday of the full moon otherwise it doesn’t work—fold in a clean white cloth, which must be linen, and wear next to the skin. This will make you bullet-proof.’

  ‘The police supply garments for that purpose, Miss Cuttle.’

  ‘I say—turn left—do they really?’ She became intensely interested. ‘Are you wearing one now? Could I have a look?’

  May’s eyes shone and her amber globe earrings shone too. She found herself thinking that being involved in an investigation was proving to be quite exciting. And wondered perhaps if the Windhorse, in refusing to give houseroom to a radio or television set or printed matter of a non-spiritual nature, was not only blotting out all negative vibrations but also a certain amount of lively colour. I should get out more, she thought, and felt immediately shamed by such disloyalty.

  ‘Would you say I was “helping with your inquiries”, Inspector?’ she stopped outside the room next to her own. ‘I’ve often wondered exactly what that phrase meant.’

  But she had hardly formed the words when the door had been opened, herself courteously thanked, and the door closed again.

  Barnaby and Troy looked about them. The place was as neat as a sailor’s. A minimum of furniture. Two pale oak chairs with high slatted backs which a smart dealer might have sold as Shaker, a single bed, a card table, a wardrobe containing an empty shoebox, the label showing smart Italian loafers, and a chest of drawers. There were three hooks screwed into a plain piece of wood on the far wall. The coverlet on the bed was white roughish cotton, the sort found on iron bedsteads in men’s lodging houses. It was hospital-cornered, stretched with tight rigidity over the thin mattress. This straining air of self-effacement sat well with the rest of the room. It had such a feeling of puritanical restraint that any loose fold or wrinkle would have appeared pushily voluptuous. There was a text on the otherwise bare walls: God Is A Circle Whose Centre Is Everywhere And Circumference Nowhere.

  Troy checked the chest of drawers. Empty. Barnaby stared around, wondering at this apparent confirmation of the necessary link between physical discomfort and spiritual attainment. He thought of mendicants in hair-shirts, self-flagellation, yogis sitting in caves for years—matty-haired, ash-daubed and smelly; of martyrs rushing into flames or the jaws of great tawny cats. The chief inspector could see neither rhyme nor reason to it. He loved his comforts. A well-used armchair at the end of the day. Or a hammock on a summer evening, glass of wine to hand, music pouring through open French windows. He loved—how he still loved—going to bed with Joyce. Or sitting by a warm fire, sketching the still unblurred lines of her profile.

  The chief inspector was not given to dwelling at length on philosophical matters, not only because he didn’t have the time but also because the pursuit seemed to him ultimately arid. He tried to live decently. Cared for his wife and daughter, did a worthwhile job as well as he was able and supported half a dozen charities when subscriptions were due. He had few friends, having been content to spend the little spare time that was his lot with his family, but the friends he did have had good cause to be grateful for his attention and concern if they were troubled. Overall he reckoned he hadn’t done too badly. Well enough, perhaps, to tip the scales positively should there prove to be such a metaphysically mischievous joke as Judgement Day.

  ‘Not much to show for a life, is it sir?’ Troy had wandered over to the book shelves. Three wooden planks separated by neat stacks of amethyst-coloured bricks. He crouched, pulling out a volume from the bottom layer. ‘There’s a book here on wolf messing.’ He passed it over. ‘My autobiography by R. R. Hood.’ And chortled.

  Barnaby could never decide whether his sergeant’s happy appreciation of his own wit, was truly ingenuous. It seemed unkind to think so. He looked at the spine. The tome was by Wolf Messing, described on the jacket as ‘Russia’s greatest psychic healer’. Barnaby pulled a book of his own out. Deathing: An Intelligent Alternative for the Final Moments of Life by Anya Foos-Graber. Much cheered by the news that there was going to be a choice, the chief inspector was only sorry that poor old Jim had failed to grasp the principles. Either that or he’d been given no time to bring his intelligence into play.

  ‘Bette
r check them all—you never know.’

  The two men pulled out each volume, shaking them, leafing through. Barnaby, expecting to find evidence only of cultural vassalage to the East, was pleasantly surprised. Sufism, Buddhism, Druidic Lore, Myths and Legends, Runecraft, the Rosicrucian, a Jung primer. There was also the I Ching, books on UFOs, The Tao of Physics, and the Arkana Dictionary of New Perspectives. They were mostly paperbacks and all second-hand. Top whack three pounds seventy-five, the cheapest twenty-five pence.

  ‘He must have had some personal stuff, Chief?’ Troy riffled through the last volume and put it back carefully. ‘Most people have got at least a birth certificate, a few photographs. You can’t exist with just the clothes on your back and a few books.’

  ‘Monks do.’

  ‘Oh well…monks.’ Troy’s tone was so deeply uncomprehending he might have been referring to men from Mars. Barnaby picked up The Meaning of Happiness. What man would not?

  ‘One here by a yogi, sir. Yogi Bear actually. Ten exciting ways with porridge.’

  ‘If all you can find to do is make daft jokes you can clear off and interview Mrs Gamelin.’

  ‘Right. Any idea where she is?’

  ‘You’ve got a tongue in your head. Ask. You know what we want.’

  I know what I want. A nice long tasty puff. Troy opened the door and nearly fell over May who immediately offered to take him to Felicity. On the way she gave him many an encouraging glance, stopping at one point to suggest that he should refrain from cutting his hair so short as it served as an antenna for cosmic forces.

  ‘The Temple of Victory on Venus is open to our consciousness on the seventeenth of this month. Would you care to join us for a little healing ceremony?’ Troy looked exceedingly nonplussed. ‘You do need healing, you know. Very, very badly.’ Thinking his silence meant indecision, she continued, ‘And we treat the whole person here. You see when you’re ill outside you just get some drug on prescription. Or if you’re hospitalised surgeons pay attention to the organ in question and not the person behind it at all.’

  Troy who had spent his entire adult life searching for a female with just such a talent for disinterested application, checked a hankering sigh. ‘Yeh…well…bit busy at the moment. New baby and that…’

  Leaving Troy on the landing, May entered Felicity’s room then re-emerged saying, ‘She’s awake but her force-field is still very low so would you—’

  ‘We’ll be fine, Miss Cuttle.’

  Troy hardly recognised Felicity. She was sitting in bed propped up by pillows, straight hair tied back with some sort of plaited stuff, wearing a blue silk robe. The nicest thing about the following interrogation, to the sergeant’s mind, was that he smoked all the way through without asking her permission. This minuscule bit of point scoring (sans-culotte 5, aristo nil) was rather undermined by the fact that she hardly seemed to notice, let alone be at all put out.

  In fact she didn’t seem much more compos mentis than yesterday. And hardly remembered where she was sitting on the dais or who was next to her. Troy wondered if she’d just blotted the murder out. Let’s face it, being in the same room while one was being committed was enough to unbalance anybody, and if you were ten pence short of a quid to start with…

  Questioned on her feelings regarding the McFadden Fund and its disposal, she became quite agitated and said she’d known nothing about it. On being told her husband certainly had, she added, ‘Trust him.’ Then, ‘He’d fight it with everything he’d got.’

  ‘It’s the girl’s inheritance, Mrs Gamelin. Up to her surely?’

  ‘Whose money it was would make no difference.’ She became extremely distressed and started tossing her head about. Troy decided to open the door. Before he had reached it she launched upon a startling breakdown of her husband’s physical and mental distinguishing features. Troy, full of admiration at this talent for picturesque abuse (the mildest phrase being ‘frog-faced illegitimate avaricious prick’), quite missed the fact that it was couched in the imperfect present. When Felicity, panting, rested once more upon the pillows he said primly, ‘I don’t think that’s very nice, Mrs Gamelin. He has just passed away after all.’

  At this Felicity gave a loud cry and fell out of bed, hanging upside down in a sort of swoon. May came running in.

  ‘You stupid bugger, Gavin,’ said Barnaby on their return to the station.

  ‘Well, how was I to know? She was lying there looking like death warmed up. I assumed someone must have told her the good news by then. Sir Sinjhan Farty was round there at ten this morning.’ He glared sullenly at the floor. ‘I get blamed for everything round here.’

  Whipping boy I am. Should have been a plumber. Or a linesman like my dad. But even as these grumbling alternatives formed, Troy recognised they were dishonest. He had always wanted to be a policeman, loved being a policeman, would never wish to be anything else. But there were times when the carping, the paper work, the brown nosing and double-declutch handshakes, the soft attitudes of outsiders who never had to scrape up the mess, the political in-fighting, the need to button your lip if you wanted to get on and a thousand other day to day irritations all coalesced and threatened to overwhelm him.

  Noting the tightened mouth and strawberry patches on Troy’s cheekbones, Barnaby recognised that he had been unfair. The assumption that Felicity had been told of her husband’s death was not an unreasonable one, although no doubt his sergeant had handled matters unskilfully. Troy’s modest level of academic achievement was a very sore spot and calling him stupid was striking where it hurt. Normally the chief inspector would have thought ‘tough’ and let him get on with it. Today he was feeling benevolent.

  ‘Mistake anyone could have made, Sergeant.’

  ‘Sir.’

  That was all it took. Troy’s ego was back from the mender’s in no time. Already he was wondering if this new indulgence was encouragement enough to broach the subject of Talisa Leanne tactfully. He murmured a few words. Just an oblique reference, nothing specific. Receiving an absent-minded nod, he immediately leapt into hyperbolic speech delineating the baby’s charm, beauty, growth rate (height, teeth, hair, nails), speech development, teddy bear (handling and interrogation of), musical accomplishments (creative timpani-playing with saucepan lid) and artistic creativity. The latest drawing, Blu-tacked to the fridge, was the dead spit of her nanna’s poodle.

  Barnaby easily tuned out. He was back in the bare-boned room thinking about Jim Carter. A man serious in his devotions and friendly in his ways. And about the fragment of overheard conversation.

  ‘What have you done? If they do a post mor—’

  A post mortem? What else, two days after an unexplained death. So Craigie (perhaps) and at least one other had been afraid of such a procedure. And now Craigie was also dead. Were the two linked?

  Speculation was fruitless at this stage. A waste of energy and a great spoiler of concentration. And God knows, thought Barnaby, I’ve enough on my plate to be going on with. The new information would have to go on the back burner and bide its time.

  It did not have to bide long, for the very next day some information became available which threw a new and deeply disturbing light upon Jim Carter’s death.

  Chapter Eleven

  Breakfast chez Barnaby. Cully and Joyce were sharing the Independent. Tom was sawing at something very soft, very pink, wet, white and streaky.

  ‘I wish you’d cook bacon properly. Why can’t we have it crisp?’

  ‘Last time I did it crisp you said it was burnt.’

  ‘It was burnt.’

  ‘Talking of food,’ Cully folded the paper and rested it on her knees, reached for another brioche, ‘how’s the chefing coming on, Dad?’

  ‘I shall have to miss this week.’

  ‘I mean for tomorrow night, silly.’ She slathered on nearly white butter followed by lashings of black cherry jam and, without waiting for a reply, started reading again.

  ‘I’ve done the first course but it might be wise to g
et something from Sainsbury’s to follow up.’

  ‘Sainsbury’s.’

  Joyce said, ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full.’

  ‘This is my engagement dinner we’re discussing. Plus my birthday.’

  ‘I’ll take us all out when the case is finished. Somewhere really nice.’

  ‘Not the same.’

  ‘I see that awful tycoon’s made the front page.’ Joyce opened up her section. ‘With, I assume, an obit inside. I wonder what it says.’

  ‘Did not suffer human beings gladly,’ replied her husband.

  ‘Bad as that?’

  ‘I suppose it’d be a bit pushy to ask for a piece?’ Barnaby stretched out his hand to no avail. ‘Why do I never get what I want in this house?’

  ‘We all love you, Dad.’

  ‘I’d rather you let me have a look at the paper.’ Barnaby wondered how long it would take before the press discovered that the newly deceased millionaire had been present only hours before when a murder was committed. No time at all was his conclusion and he hoped the Golden Windhorse was prepared.

  Cully was chuckling again and the paper, held by slender fingers tipped with hot pink nails like glossy almonds, trembled. She was wearing a man’s silk foulard dressing-gown, her long dark hair piled up and loosely pinned on top of her beautifully shaped head. A curl fell forward and she pushed it back with unmannered grace. Or was it mannered grace? It was never easy to tell where the daughter left off and the actress began. Barnaby had to remind himself—observing the sweet curve of her cheek, the soft unblemished apricot skin and baby fine golden down on her forearm—that this was a girl who’d been around. On the pill at sixteen, she’d also taken soft drugs during a punk-rock phase. Something she only told him about when it was over and done with. And now here she was, five years and God alone knew how many lovers later, looking as exquisite and untouched as a newly opened rose. Ah youth…youth…

  ‘What on earth’s the matter Tom?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Have you got indigestion?’