Driving once more through Causton on her way to Ferne Basset, Louise realised she could not go home. She just couldn’t face Val so soon after seeing Ann. Couldn’t put on her false face and express concern over the future of that creature who was ruining both their lives. And she doubted if she could successfully conceal her anger at Ann’s neglect by her husband.
As it was now one o’clock, she decided to stay in town for lunch. Instinctively avoiding the multi-storey, Louise left her bright yellow Seicento tucked away in a tiny back street, risking a parking fine.
There were only two cafes in Causton. One, Minnie’s Pantry, was unbearably mimsy. The Soft Shoe was a greasy spoon. Louise decided on the Spread Eagle which was in the Good Pub Guide and had quite decent food. The lounge, it not being market day, was only half occupied.
There were newspapers on sticks and she tried to read the arts pages of the Guardian while drinking Guinness and waiting for an individual steak and kidney pudding, braised cabbage and potato croquettes. It was hard to keep her mind on the music and theatre reviews. That world, which had so recently been very much a part of her life, now seemed as remote as Mars.
A Sony portable was suspended over the far side of the bar, the volume low. When the local news came on, Louise put down her paper and took her drink across to listen. A woman in civilian clothes, referred to as a police spokesman, was voicing an appeal for information following an incident in Causton the previous day. A Peugeot bicycle had been stolen at around 3 p.m. from Denton Street. The cyclist was thought to have made off in the direction of Great Missenden. It was possible the theft could be linked with a more serious incident. A telephone number was given. Louise wrote it down.
The response to the television news appeal was surprisingly swift and several calls had been received by two thirty when Barnaby and Sergeant Troy returned to the incident room from the canteen. Still swamped in blissful recall of his highly calorific outing the previous night, the DCI had eaten very lightly and, consequently, remained clear-headed and full of energy.
Barnaby sat at his desk in excellent spirits, in part conjured by the confirmation (at least as he saw it) that Ann Lawrence had definitely been the person blackmailed and that she had been prepared to pay up at least once and possibly twice, for had she not drawn out more money, presumably to cover a second demand?
Barnaby recalled his brief telephone conversation with her on Monday. She had seemed very calm, even cheerful. Said she was looking forward to talking to him. This, linked with the intention to return the money, implied that she had come to the decision not to pay. Also that she planned to tell the police exactly what had been going on.
Barnaby murmured again to himself at the vagaries of fate while watching Sergeant Troy, with a mass of paper in his fist, making his way down the incident room. His expression was somewhat cautious.
‘What d’you want, sir? The good news or the bad news?’
‘What I don’t want,’ snapped Barnaby, ‘are stupid games. Or tired old maxims I’ve heard a thousand times before and never reckoned the first time.’
‘Right. The good—’ He was interrupted by an intemperate growling. ‘Sorry. We’ve had nine calls. All genuine, I’d say, as the descriptions of the cyclist hardly vary. We’ve even got him on film—’
‘Got him on film?’ In his excitement Barnaby banged his fist down on the desk top. ‘Then got him is right!’
‘Top Gear, men’s fashion next to the Soft Shoe Cafe, has a couple of mobile security cameras. One covers the shop interior, the other the door and a small area of the pavement. Our man’s caught on it actually pushing the bike into the road and riding off.’ Troy turned his final page and put the papers down on the desk. ‘Someone’s bringing the film over.’
‘With news as good as this, what could be bad?’ asked Barnaby.
‘The man carried a small rucksack and was in black from head to foot. Gloves, knitted hat, leggings, everything.’ Troy watched the chief take this in. Sit back in his chair, winded. Who wouldn’t be?
‘So the stuff Jackson took out of his washing machine—’
‘That forensics,’ Barnaby reached for the telephone and savagely punched at the dial, ‘have already spent the best part of twenty-four hours working on.’
‘Was completely irrelevant.’ Troy watched his chief with some sympathy. ‘Why did he choose the Hotpoint, d’you think? Why not just take something out of the wardrobe?’
‘His idea of fun. Hoping we’d think, hey, these’ve been washed pretty quickly. They must be guilty jeans. And a guilty T-shirt.’
Which we did, recalled Sergeant Troy. Silently. ‘He’s a clever bastard.’
‘Jackson is not clever.’ It was almost a shout. Heads turned, keyboards ceased to clatter, telephone calls were put on hold. There was a gathering of attention which Barnaby irritably dispersed with a vigorous swishing at the air with his hand. ‘He is devious,’ said the chief inspector more quietly. ‘He is vicious and twisted and cruel. But he is not clever.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘No man who has spent twelve of his twenty-six years in and out of juvenile courts, remand homes, Borstal and prison is clever. Hold on to that.’
‘Right,’ said Troy again, this time with more conviction.
‘Hello, Jim?’ said Barnaby as the receiver squawked at him. ‘Look, I’m sorry about this but that material on the Leathers case we sent down yesterday ...’
By mid-afternoon on the day after Ann Lawrence was attacked, Ferne Basset was in a ferment of agitation. There was a good reason for this. A stranger in a dark blue Escort had arrived at dusk the previous evening, parked on the edge of the Green and sat in his car reading a paper. Highly suspicious, to say the least. He was still there when night fell.
In the morning, relief and, it must be said, a certain amount of disappointment were experienced when the car appeared to have vanished. Then it was spotted some distance away, nearer to the church. This time the occupant was drinking from a Thermos flask and smoking. Later he got out and had a walk around, neither greeting anyone nor responding to friendly civilities on the village’s part with anything other than a curt nod.
The words Neighbourhood Watch could have been invented to describe Ferne Basset and it did not take long before it was generally agreed, round the counter at Brian’s Emporium, that the newcomer was casing the joint. Local burglaries, in spite of endlessly inventive and costly precautions, were common and commonly successful. Straightaway the decision was taken to ring the local bobby.
PC Colin Perrot’s beat covered four villages. He got more hassle from this one than all the others put together and always from what Colin had designated the ‘upper strata’. This lot weren’t prepared to accept the slightest deviation from what they regarded as the socially acceptable norm. He had been called out once late at night following a complaint about someone holding a rock concert. Had driven nine miles in the pouring rain to find music coming from one of the council houses that was half the level he could hear any night of the week through his own lounge walls.
‘They don’t know they’re born,’ muttered Colin to himself, putt-putting to a halt then heaving his BMW onto its stand. He went into the shop, listened, came out and made his way towards the stationary car. All the customers and staff came out and watched from the forecourt as PC Perrot rapped on the window which was promptly wound down.
‘What seems to be the situation?’ asked Brigadier Dampier-Jeans, a leading local worthy and chairman of the parish council, when the policeman returned.
‘Ordinance survey,’ replied Perrot. ‘Something to do with land measurement.’