Death in Disguise

by Caroline Graham

  ‘Yes.’ Joyce turned the bacon with a fish slice.

  ‘So who is it?’

  ‘Who’s what?’

  ‘The man in the black hat.’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Pooh. Three whole days and don’t know.’

  ‘Watch it,’ said her mother. ‘He’s big but he’s fast.’

  ‘It sounds really weird, this Windhorse. Do they dance starkers under the moon? I bet they’re all having it off. They do in covens.’

  ‘It’s a commune not a coven.’

  ‘Same difference. What do they wear? Wampum beads and ethnickers?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Don’t see how you can wear less,’ said Joyce.

  The toaster popped and Cully got up, gathering the soft folds of her dressing gown (pale-grey marbled silk this morning). The robe was far too long but she had found it in a period secondhand clothes shop in Windsor and fallen in love, saying it made her feel like Anna Karenina. Joyce said she’d end up tripping over it and doing herself an injury. Cully jacked up the toast and glanced down at the frying pan.

  ‘Turn it off! Turn it off!’ She grabbed the fish slice, removed the bacon and reached for a plate.

  ‘I’m making it crisp.’

  ‘It’s already crisp.’ She tore two sheets from a paper towel roll and started to pat the rashers. ‘Any crisper and it’ll self-combust.’

  ‘Now what are you doing?’

  ‘Saving him from a heart attack.’ Cully put the plate and some fresh toast in front of Barnaby. The bacon was perfect. Then she went back to her seat and said, ‘Tell me some more about your suspects?’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Because I might have to play a hempen homespun one day.’

  ‘Ah.’ Of course, acting. Everything came back to that. ‘Well, there’s someone who channels spirits and whose wife visits Venus when she’s not organising fairies to help with the washing up—’

  ‘I wish she’d send some round here,’ said Joyce.

  ‘And a woman who reads auras—very worried about mine by the way, even if no one here is. Says I should harmonise my spleen.’

  ‘How can people believe such pottiness?’

  ‘Tunnel vision,’ said Cully. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘It’s a mystery to me,’ said Barnaby who saw no rhyme or reason in regarding the world as other than it was, and could not have done his job if he had.

  ‘All cults are the same. You just have to blot out everyone and everything that doesn’t agree with your beliefs. As long as you can do this you’re OK. Bet they don’t have a radio or telly.’ Barnaby admitted that this was indeed a fact. ‘Dangerous though, being isolated. Once the real world breaks in you’re finished. Pace our late dominatrix.’

  ‘Oh, do stop showing off,’ said Joyce, still cross about the bacon…she brought her coffee over to the table and sat down. ‘So one of those spiritual souls has committed a murder?’

  ‘Perhaps two.’

  ‘Oh?’ She put in too much sugar then didn’t stir. ‘You’re not talking about that man who fell downstairs?’

  Barnaby stopped eating. ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘Ann told me. We met for coffee just after it happened. The village was in a high old state. Everyone convinced he’d been vilely done to death. They were terribly disappointed with the verdict.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t—’

  ‘And I told you that very same evening.’

  ‘I don’t recall—’

  ‘I always tell you about my day. You simply never listen.’

  There was a far from pleasant silence. Then Cully grinned at her father and spoke. ‘This big white chief—the one who got spiked? Was he one of your charismatics?’

  ‘Oh, definitely.’ Barnaby took a deep breath and prepared to put his irritation aside. ‘Silver-haired and silver-tongued. Seems to have held everyone spell-bound.’

  ‘The Romans thought a good rhetorician must, in the nature of things, be a good man.’

  ‘Hah.’ He spluttered and put down his tea. ‘They’d have got it wrong with Craigie. He’s a con from way back.’ Briefly the Chief Inspector wondered, when the past of their beloved guru was laid bare, how his communicants would take it. Some no doubt, already blind with faith, would continue blind even in the face of irrefutable evidence. God knew there were enough historical precedents.

  ‘Got to go. I’m picking Gavin up. Maureen’s taking the baby to the clinic so she’s using the car. No doubt I shall hear every boring detail of Talisa Leanne’s progress before the day’s out.’

  ‘Talisa Leanne.’ Cully snorted.

  ‘You were just the same,’ Joyce smiled at her husband.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Used to carry snapshots of Cully and press them on total strangers.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ He looked across at his daughter and winked. Cully immediately slipped into a parody of film-starish camera-hungry glamour. Lips parted, eyelashes batting madly, chin resting on the heel of one hand.

  ‘Tubby little thing she was.’ He moved towards the door. A piece of toast flew past his shoulder, striking the woodwork.

  When in the hall putting on his jacket, she called, ‘Don’t forget tonight, Dad.’

  Barnaby sensed behind the words a tugging need that had been absent from their exchanges for a very long time. It made him uneasy. They both knew the score. Over the years Cully had gradually, painfully come to accept that whereas the dads of her friends were invariably present at birthdays and school plays, sports days and holidays, her own quite frequently was not. Her tears, his guilt at the sight of them, then anger at being made to feel guilty, all left Joyce in the unenviable position of family buffer. This wore her out, leading to extremely voluble outbursts of resentment. (All the Barnabys would have won prizes for self-expression.) They loved each other but it had not been easy.

  Now, as he groped for his car keys and called ‘Bye’ over his shoulder, Barnaby seemed to hear an echo of a hundred sorrowful childish wails: ‘But you promised…’

  ‘What on earth’s got into you?’ Joyce sat down, facing her only child who had already disappeared behind the Independent. ‘Don’t read when I’m talking, Cully…’ She reached out and pulled down the newspaper.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Cully shook the pages smooth again.

  ‘When has he ever promised?’ Joyce paused. ‘Come on.’ Cully stuck out her heavenly bottom lip and sulked. ‘Never, that’s when. “I’ll be there if I possibly can” is as near as he would ever come.’

  The repetition of that long-time fail-safe rubric evoked a vivid rush of muddled recall which coalesced into one especially unhappy episode, Cully’s fourth birthday.

  Seven little chums, Noah’s Ark cake with chocolate marzipan animals, lots of games, lovely presents and all the while the child’s face turning, turning to the door. Waiting. Missing her own party by a mile. Eventually, when the guests, balloons bobbing, were waving and calling goodbye from the windows of their parents’ disappearing cars, Tom arrived. But by then she was inconsolable. He was home for her fifth party and her sixth but, as is the way of children, it was the fourth that she remembered.

  ‘Don’t try and back him into a corner, love. He’ll feel badly enough if he can’t be here, without you throwing a moody.’

  ‘Not half as bad as I’ll feel.’

  ‘Oh be fair.’ Joyce felt anger rising and tried to calm herself. They’d the rest of the day to get through. ‘For the past three birthdays you haven’t been near us. Last year we tried to ring and you’d gone to Morocco.’

  ‘This is different I’d have thought. It’s my engagement as well.’ She dropped the paper on the floor. ‘You always stick up for him.’

  ‘Of course I do. No I don’t. Pick that up.’ Cully reached out for an apple and a paring knife. ‘Cully…it’s difficult this case. I don’t think it’s going well. Don’t give him a hard time.’

  Cully looked across at her mother then,
with one of the mercurial swings of mood which so enchanted her admirers and drove others mad with irritation, gave a warm and brilliant smile.

  ‘I’m sorry…sorry…’ She leaned across and kissed her mother’s cheek, slipping an arm around her neck. Joyce tried to kiss her daughter in return but Cully, already free, was getting up.

  ‘Poor Ma.’ She shook her head in what looked to Joyce very much like mock sympathy. ‘Pig in the middle. Again.’ And turned away. ‘I’m going to have a bath.’

  ‘What are you doing this morning?’ Joyce, trying to prolong the moment of closeness, knowing it had already gone for good.

  ‘Going to see Deirdre’s baby.’ The slender brown pink-toenailed feet tripped upstairs. ‘Then I’m meeting Nico at Uxbridge tube. We’ll be back by four to give you a hand.’

  Joyce imagined the hand. She shouted over the sound of running water: ‘You’d better bring some stuff from Sainsbury’s. All we’ve got so far is eight tarragon eggs and a few ground-up cardamom seeds.’

  ‘Kay.’

  Wisps of carnation-scented steam floated down as Cully shook some Floris Malmaison into the water. Joyce picked up the newspaper and started to clear the table. As she broke up left-over toast for the birds, she played back Cully’s graceful flight across the tiled floor. Recalled the skilful gathering of the heavy robe, the sinuously twining arms around her neck, the elegant half-turn of the head, the melting affectionate kiss and smooth backward dance of her retreat. From start to finish it seemed to Joyce there had been no more than one single continuous flowing movement. She and Tom had gradually and painfully realised that they were never sure when their daughter was acting and when she just was. It could be very disconcerting. Joyce felt briefly sorry for Nicholas until she remembered that he was even worse.

  Mid morning. Barnaby sat hunched over his desk, a large fan cooling one side of his face, the other trickling with sweat. The dailies were scattered all over, weighted down against the artificial breeze. Only the tabloids still featured the story on their front pages and only the Daily Pitch made it their main headline. DID YOGI’S KILLER COME FROM VENUS? Heather, memorably unkempt, had made the front page.

  Barnaby’s door was wide open and showed a scene of orderly activity. Forms and more forms, photographs and reports. And dazzling green-lettered screens with yet more information. Plus of course the phones, which never seemed to stop.

  Many callers offered ‘vital information’ about, or even solutions to, the crime at the Golden Windhorse. It took more than the fact that a murder was domestic and had taken place in a tightly enclosed environment to stop the great British public sticking its oar in. One anonymous caller had got through at five A.M. to describe a vision wherein the ghost of Ian Craigie had appeared before him in chains, declaring that his spirit would never be at rest until all the coloureds in his beloved homeland had been returned to their natural habitat. The man had added, ‘That’s tropical climes to you and me, John,’ before hanging up.

  But much of the information was official and a great clearer of the air: George Bullard rang to say that Jim Carter was probably prescribed Metranidozole and would indeed have been very unwise to imbibe alcohol whilst taking it; following permission from Arno Gibbs, Mr Clinch had agreed to reveal the contents of Ian Craigie’s Will; the real Christopher Wainwright had been raised at White City Television Centre and had verified Andrew Carter’s description of their schooldays at Stowe, meeting for drinks in Jermyn Street and subsequent lunch at Simpson’s. The only point at which their stories diverged was that Wainwright seemed genuinely to have lost his wallet. He had said, ‘Andy paid for lunch,’ sounding quite chuffed.

  Noeleen, Andrew Carter’s bedsitting neighbour at Earl’s Court, had also confirmed that they were having breakfast for a good half of the morning on which his uncle died. Barnaby had not seriously thought the boy was involved, but it was not entirely unknown for a guilty person to put up an elaborate smokescreen of pretend-investigation to cover their tracks. Barnaby had been less successful so far concerning Andrew’s activities on Blackpool’s Golden Mile, but out there in the hive someone would be working on it.

  Whether there was a link between the two cases was, at the moment, quite unclear although it was temptingly easy to start guessing. Sticking to facts, however, the only certainties were that Carter had made a discovery (‘Andy—something terrible has happened…’) and had shortly afterwards fallen or been pushed down the stairs. And that two months later Craigie had been murdered. The Master may or may not have been involved in the first death—Miss Cuttle had been unsure to whom the emotion-choked voice fearing a post mortem belonged. Assuming it was not Craigie’s had he, in his turn, discovered the something terrible and likewise been despatched?

  If so, that let out the Gamelin bequest, for Sylvie had told the chief inspector at her interview that she had not suggested it to the Master until the week before her birthday. And that neither of them had mentioned it to anyone else. Until Guy, of course, and that on the evening of the murder. Barnaby looked down at his pad. He often doodled as he thought, plants usually. Ferns, flowers, delicately detailed leaves. He had drawn the sharp spears and the curled-back veiny petals of the iris sibirica: the poor man’s orchid.

  ‘Trust’ was written several times in the margin. The word had been floating repeatedly to the surface of his mind as if asking to be paid attention to. It was a constant irritation, for Barnaby presumed he knew all there was to know about Sylvia’s trust fund. How much it was, her determination to offload it, her father’s determination that she should not, Craigie’s feigned (according to Gamelin) refusal to accept. The chief inspector drew a thick, cross line down the margin, tore off the sheet and threw it in the bin. The word floated up again. So…

  What about alternative meanings? Trust as in be certain of, or have faith or belief in. Trust as in lack of, falsely placed or betrayed. Certainly the last was the very essence of a con man’s art. Barnaby ferreted away at this notion. Had Craigie been murdered by an acolyte who had discovered his true nature and felt betrayed? Or by some enraged victim of a previously successful scam? One of the time share losers, perhaps waiting patiently till his predator should be released. Most of them could doubtless be traced. But surely Craigie would know whoever it was, and be on his guard?

  Troy came in with the lab report. He was wearing his usual tight trousers, a beautifully ironed, crisp white shirt buttoned right up, despite the heat of the day, and a narrow discreetly patterned tie. Barnaby rarely met his sergeant off duty so had no idea how formal the rest of his wardrobe might be, but at the station he never rolled his sleeves up or wore a casual shirt. Audrey had been heard to say this was because he had no hair on his chest.

  Barnaby thought the reason for this sartorial swaddling was rather more complex. It was all of a piece with the sergeant’s meticulous reports and scrupulously tidy working area. The second thing Troy would do when entering the office, after putting his jacket on a hanger and before calling for coffee, was to align the wire-meshed trays on his desk with the edge and twitch any disorderly bits of paper into a neat stack. Sometimes he would rub at a barely visible stain with his handkerchief.

  It hardly needed a professional analyst to deduce that this was all about control. About the constant vigilance needed to keep disorder at bay. A bit glib, perhaps, to assume, this behaviour to be the outward manifestation of a million inward seething resentments. A touch of the Windhorse pop psychology there. Heavens, thought Barnaby, I’ll be counselling him next. He held out his hand for the expected confirmation that the shreds of canvas from Suhami’s bag were identical to the filament caught up on the murder weapon.

  Troy handed over the envelope and switched on the portable television to catch the eleven o’clock news. There was an interview with Miss Myrtle Tombs, village postmistress at Compton Dando, who had been so cunningly placed before an excellent still of the Manor House that she appeared to be actually standing in the drive. She had nothing to say about the G
amelin case or the house’s inhabitants and was saying it with great conviction and at great length. Troy switched off just in time to hear a lengthy hiss of indrawn breath from the far side of the office.

  Barnaby was staring at the paper in front of him, his mouth slightly open, his eyes disbelievingly blank. Troy crossed over, slid the report from his chief’s slackened grasp, sat down and read it.

  ‘This can’t be right.’ He shook his head. ‘They’ve cocked it up.’

  ‘The appliance of science. Highly unlikely.’

  ‘You’ll check back though?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Where does this leave us if they’ve got it right?’

  ‘Up the bloody creek.’ Barnaby began savagely punching at the buttons as if in retaliation for some mortal insult. ‘Without a bloody paddle.’

  Felicity was up and dressed and sitting by the open window of her room. She was wearing the contents of the pigskin case: a Caroline Charles cream silk two-piece splashed all over with poppies and wild flowers. There were some companion shoes, bright grass-green suede by Manolo Blahnik. Peep-toes and heels like oil derricks. May put these firmly away in a drawer and offered a pair of comfortable slippers instead. Before putting them on, she had massaged Felicity’s feet with a little scented oil. The orangey-copper skin was like fine wrinkled paper; her ankles the size of May’s wrists.

  ‘We must feed you up,’ May had said, smiling. ‘Lots of fresh vegetables and home-made bread.’

  ‘Oh I can’t eat bread.’ Felicity immediately added an apology. ‘You’re very kind but I have to stay size ten.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘… well…’ The fact was that all of Felicity’s acquaintances were size ten and the minute they weren’t they rushed off to a Health Hydro until they were again. Faced with twelve stones of blooming benevolent amplitude, this explanation seemed both feeble and insulting. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You have a very long journey, Felicity. You will need all the help we can give you but you must also help yourself. Now, at the moment you are very weak and can only do a little, but that little must be done. It is your contribution, do you see?’