‘You tricky bastards. You wouldn’t tell such lies if he was here to defend himself. She left it in Carter’s Wood just like the first time.’
‘Mrs Lawrence didn’t leave any money anywhere. She’d decided not to pay and was returning it to the bank.’
‘Yeah, well, that might be what she says—’
‘She isn’t saying anything,’ said Troy. ‘She’s been in intensive care for the last three days. It’s not even certain that she’ll recover.’
Barnaby looked across the table at the girl. She had begun to look pitifully uncertain and his gaze was not unsympathetic.
‘He did have a record of violence, Tanya.’
‘No he didn’t.’ She immediately contradicted herself. ‘There was reasons.’
‘For a knife attack on—’
‘He never done that. Terry was the youngest, he took the blame so he could belong. The actual guy would’ve got life. On the streets you gotta be accepted. If you’re not, you’re finished.’
Troy wanted to ask about the old man left in the gutter but was strangely reluctant. The fact was he was fighting sympathetic feelings himself. Not for Jackson, never that, but for her. She was visibly distressed now and was struggling not to cry. Barnaby had no such qualms.
‘There was another incident. An old man—’
‘Billy Wiseman. He was lucky.’
‘Lucky?’
‘I know people - he’d never have got up again.’
‘What do you mean, Tanya?’
‘I were ten when they fostered me, him and his wife. What he done - I couldn’t even say it in words. Over and over. Sometimes in the middle of the night I’d wake up and he’d be ... Then, when I were fourteen, I were down by Limehouse Walk with Terry. I just started talking and it all came out. He never said nothing. But his face was terrible.’ Tanya gave a single cry then. A wild sound, like a frightened bird.
Barnaby said, ‘I’m sorry.’
And Troy thought, Christ, I’ve had enough of this.
‘I hadn’t seen him for ages. He’d been in two or three places, then Barnardo’s. I’d been moved about - once we lost touch entirely. Not knowing where each other was. And that was the worst. Like everything in the world closing down at once.’ Tears poured down like rain. ‘He was the only person who ever loved me.’
Troy clumsily attempted comfort. ‘You’ll meet someone else, Tanya.’
‘What?’ She gazed at him blankly.
‘You’re young. Pretty—’
‘You stupid fuck.’ She drew away from them then, staring from one to the other with fastidious contempt. ‘Terry wasn’t my boy friend. He was my brother.’
They would have solved the crime anyway in a couple of days as things turned out. When the prints in Tanya’s room in Stepney turned out to be a perfect match with the ones in the Old Rectory attic.
Or when Barnaby remembered that Vivienne Calthrop had described Carlotta as far too short to be a model so how come she had to duck her head not to bang it on the Old Rectory door frame? Or when the bicycle on which Jackson had ridden back from Causton was found propped against the wall of Fainlight’s garage under half a dozen others. And the money, still in the saddle bag. The rucksack and clothes were never found. Received opinion in the incident room had it that Jackson had buried them under the other rubbish in the Fainlights’ wheelie-bin the day before it was emptied.
Valentine Fainlight, when questioned further, admitted that he had shown Jackson round the house and garden on one occasion when his sister was out. And that the man could have taken the garden key away while he was looking elsewhere but what the hell did it matter now anyway and, Jesus, when in hell were they going to leave him alone?
‘So how do you see it being worked, chief?’ asked Sergeant Troy as he and Barnaby walked away from the ravishing glass construction for the last time.
‘Presumably he biked over that back field, through the gate into the garden, down the side of the house and into the garage. Then he could duck down behind the Alvis, change clothes and hide his stuff to be sorted later.’
‘What d’you think he’ll get, Fainlight?’
‘Depends. Murder’s a serious charge.’
‘It was an accident. You heard what he said to his sister.’
‘I also heard him say he was blind with jealousy. He knew the man, Troy. They had a relationship. Which means murder is a possibility. The Met were right to charge him.’
‘But he was allowed bail.’ Troy was getting quite worked up. ‘That must mean something.’
‘It means he’s not regarded as a danger to the public. Not that he hasn’t committed any crime.’
‘So he might be found guilty?’
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Whether anti-homosexual bias can be weeded out in the jury. How impressed they are by Fainlight’s standing as a well-known author. How appalled they are when Jackson’s record is read out. How they respond to Tanya Walker’s testimony, which will be hostile to say the least.’
Tanya’s interview had concluded with her description of the fight that led to her brother’s death. According to her, Valentine had burst in, attacked Terry, dragged him over the landing and forced him back through the stair rail. Afraid for her own life, she had run away down the fire escape.
‘The Crown have a witness as well, chief. DS Bennet.’
‘He only saw Jackson fall. She can say what led up to it.’
‘And lie.’
‘Probably. The girl’s heart is broken, she’ll want revenge. And who could prove perjury?’
‘Do for his books, this, won’t it?’
‘As he writes for children, I would say so.’
Barnaby had been shocked at Fainlight’s appearance. He looked like a zombie. In his eyes the death of all life and hope. There was not even the colour of despair. His frame, now much less stocky, folded in on itself with utter weariness. He seemed inches shorter, pounds lighter.
Barnaby didn’t envy Louise. He was sure she could tough it out, nurse Fainlight through his dark night of the soul. She had the love and the patience and, certainly at present, the energy. Everything about her had shone. Her eyes, her skin and hair. Her cheeks were rosy, not with the usual skilfully applied cosmetics but with health and happiness.
And she had time on her side. The man who had caused her brother so much agony no longer existed. At least in the flesh. But in Fainlight’s heart - that was something else. And in his mind, where all troubles start and end, what of that? Eaten up by guilt and loneliness, starved of the only company his unhappy soul craved, how would he survive, in or out of prison?
‘If only,’ murmured Barnaby to himself. ‘Sometimes I think they’re the saddest words in the English language.’
‘I’d say pointless more,’ said Sergeant Troy.
‘You would,’ replied the chief inspector. He was used to his sergeant’s phlegmatic attitude and occasionally even welcomed it as a sensible corrective to his own rather free-ranging imagination.
‘What’s done’s done,’ pursued Troy. Then, just to make sure there had been no misunderstanding, ‘Junna regret ay reean.’
They were making their way now across the Green, passing the village sign with its robustly priapic badger, stooks of wheat, cricket bats and lime-green chrysanthemum.
Barnaby noticed several pale furry dogs hurling themselves about in a transport of delight, happily too far away to make even the most brief exchange of courtesies with their owner feasible. A small terrier attempted to join in, not making too bad a fist of it. The owners of the dogs walked arm in arm, heads close together, talking.
‘Look who’s over there,’ said Sergeant Troy.
‘I’ve seen who’s over there,’ replied the chief inspector, quickening his step. ‘Thanks very much.’