Barnaby sat very still, his eyes closed. There was no point in bemoaning the tragic twists and turns in the case that had kept Ann Lawrence from his grasp until it was too late. ‘If only’ were words outside his vocabulary. Even so, it was bloody hard.
The room was still. Someone switched the machine off. Sergeant Troy, struggling with a deep sense of unease, looked sideways at the brooding figure under the Anglepoise. He saw a profile that seemed to sag rather than relax, blue veins prominent in the wrists (why had he never noticed them before?) and a heavy droop of skin above each eyelid.
Of course the chief often looked knackered, that was nothing new. Sergeant Troy had seen him look tired and disappointed many times. Cheated. Betrayed even. But not beaten like this. And never old.
Barnaby lifted his head, heavily at first as if it was a ball of stone, then more freely. His burly shoulders, freed from tension, set themselves firmly back.
‘Well,’ he said and smiled, warming to life again before their very eyes. ‘Here’s a turn-up for the book.’
The whole room was reactivated as well then, like a film when the freeze frame is released. People started to move, gesture, talk. Someone even laughed. It was Sergeant Troy actually. Part nerves, part just bloody relief.
‘Ties her well in, doesn’t it, sir?’ said Audrey Brierley. ‘Mrs Lawrence.’
There were murmurs of agreement. Plain as the nose on your face, it seemed now. The missing girl had lived in the woman’s house, as did the prime suspect. Or as good as. The murdered man had worked for her. Everything was becoming satisfyingly intertwined.
‘Certainly,’ said Barnaby, ‘we now know she saw what happened when the girl went into the river. But that’s all we know at this stage, OK?’
There were a few murmurs of reluctant agreement.
‘Let’s not get overexcited,’ continued the chief inspector. ‘She may simply have been an observer.’
‘Presumably a secret observer,’ suggested DI Carter, ‘or someone would have shut her up long before this.’
‘But if that was not the case,’ Barnaby carried on smoothly, ‘and Mrs Lawrence was the only person involved, then Leathers must have been blackmailing her.’
This suggestion, which overturned all the beliefs and theories held so far in the murder inquiry, was presented with surprising equanimity. The room, taking their cue from the top, nodded.
‘First thing tomorrow we chase up her bank. And if she’s been drawing out large sums of money ...’ Barnaby shrugged, letting the rest of the sentence tail eloquently away.
Troy liked this idea of open-ended dialogue, if only so that someone else could make a fool of themselves for a change by finishing it. He said, ‘So our assumption that the blackmail victim murdered Leathers ...’ He shrugged, letting the rest of the sentence tail eloquently away.
‘Yes?’ said Barnaby.
‘Um.’ A pause.
‘Hurry up. We haven’t got all day.’
‘I think Gavin means,’ said Sergeant Brierley, ‘that it’s very hard to picture Mrs Lawrence garrotting someone.’
‘Very hard indeed,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Though not impossible.’
‘But she’s been attacked herself, sir,’ said Constable Phillips. ‘There aren’t two murderers involved in this case surely?’
Barnaby did not reply. Just sat looking round the room. Roughly ten minutes into the meeting and so far sympathy for Ann Lawrence was not particularly in evidence. The chief inspector was not surprised. As far as he knew, no one present, apart from Troy, had met her. They had certainly not witnessed her lying unconscious and hanging on to life, breath by fragile breath, in a lonely hospital bed.
‘So where does Jackson fit into this, chief?’ asked Troy. ‘D’you think he was involved in the assault on Mrs Lawrence?’
‘I don’t think, I know.’
‘But why?’
‘Presumably because we were going to meet her later this afternoon.’
‘But would he know that?’ asked Inspector Carter. ‘Given the total lack of communication between them.’
‘He could have listened in - there’s a connecting line from his flat to the house. Or got it from Lionel. He’s putty in Jackson’s hands.’
Troy snorted in disgust. Putty wasn’t the word he’d use. Something soft, yes. Flexible, yes. Something you could step in that would leave an impression on the sole of your shoe. But not putty. He snorted again just to emphasise his complete and utter disdain.
‘Whatever,’ said Barnaby. ‘But I’m convinced these two crimes are back to back and skin-tight. Solve one, you solve both.’
‘All due respect, sir—’
‘No genuflexions, please, Phillips. Anyone on my team is encouraged to speak their mind.’
And God help them, said his team silently to itself, if he’s running a moody.
‘It’s just that,’ continued Phillips with a quail in his voice, ‘as the girl’s body has never been found, how do we know we have a serious crime at all?’
‘Because whatever Leathers saw gave him a genuine lever for blackmail. And trying it on got him killed.’
‘Oh yes, sir.’ Constable Phillips, not a tall person at the best of times, folded himself down into his chair until he almost vanished. ‘Thank you.’
‘Any time,’ said Barnaby.
‘Could she have just swum to the other side, climbed out and run away?’ asked DS Griggs.
‘Hardly,’ said Inspector Carter. ‘You’ve read Jackson’s record. Can you see him being that incompetent?’
‘Not if the attack on Mrs Lawrence is anything to go by,’ agreed Sergeant Agnew. He turned to Barnaby. ‘How do you think he managed to work that, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Audrey. ‘Like, how could he know in advance where she was going to park?’
‘He drove in with her,’ said Barnaby. ‘Though of course without her knowledge.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Troy. ‘She’d never have got into a crowded double-decker bus with him, let alone a car.’
‘He wouldn’t risk hiding in the back, surely.’
‘No, no, he used the boot,’ explained Barnaby. ‘Climb in at the very last minute, pull the lid down, hold on to the latch. And bingo, he’s on the spot when she gets out.’
‘Unlucky for Mrs L there was no one around,’ pointed out Inspector Carter.
‘That would merely have delayed the attempt,’ said the chief inspector. ‘He’d have got her later - waiting at the traffic lights, walking too near the kerb. One hard push when a bus was coming would do it.’
‘Plus he might be carrying,’ added Troy. ‘He’s been done for using a blade.’
‘Lovely,’ murmured Audrey Brierley.
‘And all because she knew exactly what happened the night Carlotta disappeared?’
‘I’m sure of it,’ said Barnaby.
‘He must be desperate.’
‘Yes,’ said Barnaby. ‘Which makes him doubly dangerous.’
‘We should get a result this time, though, sir. Broad daylight? Someone must have seen him.’
‘Maybe,’ said Barnaby. ‘But I think it’ll be forensics who are going to nail this one.’
‘They’re working on the Humber,’ added Sergeant Troy. ‘And they’ve got his clothes. Though he’d already put them through the wash.’
‘That’s a giveaway if you like,’ said Constable Peggy Marlin, a stout, comfortable women in her late thirties with several sons. ‘I’ve never known a bloke that age wash his clothes at all, never mind the minute he takes them off. They’re all over the floor for the next three weeks.’
‘We might have more luck with the shoes,’ said Barnaby. ‘We’ve got all those that were in his flat plus the sneakers he was wearing.’
‘He’ll have cold feet.’ Policewoman Marlin laughed.
‘He’ll have more than cold feet before I’ve done with him.’