‘Not listening at all. Just hearing the words.’
‘I must remember to tell Maureen that next time she tries to up the housekeeping,’ said Troy. ‘How’d it go - money’s the concrete what ...? And speaking of concrete - have you tried this cake?’
‘I’ve taken enough risks for one night,’ said Barnaby. ‘I drank the drink.’
‘Not what you’d call leaping ahead are we, Chief?’ Troy perched on the table, fielding Barnaby’s sour glance with a winning smile. ‘What about the conspiracy theory? The old dingbat deliberately lays on the drama to draw attention from the dais ... they all rush down thus allowing the other half of the combo—’
‘Exactly. They all rushed down.’
‘Yeh ... well ... look ...’ Troy turned May’s sketch round. ‘There’s what ... nine of them? It’s dark ... ish. Nine people do not move as one. Obviously somebody lags behind, does old Obi Half a One Kenobi, then brings up the rear. How long would it take? A second? Two? And with her yelling and carrying on, no one’d hear even if he did cry out.’
‘Mm. It’s a sensible theory.’ Troy smirked with pleasure. ‘Not sure I buy the conspiracy bit, though. Well - let’s talk to -’ he turned the sketch back, ‘Christopher Wainwright. He stayed with the Cuttle woman throughout the regression so, like her, had a head-on view. He may have seen -’ A brief tap and the thirty-something policewoman put her head round. ‘What is it?’
‘There’s a Miss McEndrick outside, sir. She says she has some urgent information about the incident upstairs.’
The officer had hardly finished speaking before Janet pushed her way into the room. She stood screwing up her eyes with nervousness and blinking, bony shoulders hunched before bursting into a flurry of speech. The words tripped each other up, fell over themselves.
‘I’m sorry - I couldn’t wait till you sent for me - sorry - it’s just that I saw something - I’m sure it’s important - that you’d want to know before wasting your time on other people - sorry ...’
Everything about her was remorseful. She seemed to be asking forgiveness for her height, her unappealing clothes, her angle-poised body, her very existence. Yet she had forced her way in. Imposed herself upon a stranger in a position of authority. That must have taken some doing.
Barnaby asked her to sit down. She did so saying, ‘I know who did it. He wore a glove didn’t he? A washing-up glove?’
‘What makes you think so?’
‘Behind the curtain, wasn’t it?’ She paused and Barnaby said, ‘Go on ...’ noting the lack of grief in the intelligent, wide-apart eyes and the jumping-jack nerve in her cheek.
‘He pulled it out of his pocket. I was watching. He’d been glancing round the room as if waiting till he was unobserved, so I looked the other way - pretending to be talking to someone - but I caught him!’
‘Caught who, Miss McEndrick?’
‘Why - Guy Gamelin, of course.’ She was struggling to speak evenly but there was a current of triumph in her voice that could not be disguised.
Of course? This is personal thought Barnaby and wondered why. Perhaps, like his sergeant, she was simply one of those people consumed by envy in the presence of the very rich. Somehow the chief inspector didn’t think so. He asked what her opinion was of Mr Gamelin.
‘Me?’ She flushed an ugly crimson. ‘I have no opinion. I only met him today.’
‘You had dinner together.’
‘Hardly together. There were nine of us.’ Barnaby nodded, looking expectant and encouraging. The silence lengthened but the expression of concerned interest upon his features did not change. One would have to be a churl not to respond.
‘If you really want to know, I thought Gamelin quite obnoxious. Full of himself - like most men. Putting us right when he wasn’t putting us down. Laughing at our ideals and the way we try to live. Of course some people are easily impressed by power. And money.’
‘The majority perhaps?’
‘More fool them.’
Barnaby explained about the sketch, and offered her some paper, but Janet said, ‘Why? I had nothing to do with this.’
‘You are all being asked.’
‘But isn’t it over now? I mean - why don’t you just go and arrest him?’
‘You any special reason for wanting that, Miss McEndrick?’ Troy stalked behind her chair.
‘No ...’ The word whipped out. Janet screwed her neck round, seeking the questioner. She took in the bristling red hair and thin mouth, and sensed a cold unkindness that alarmed her. She turned back, almost with gratitude, to the older of the two men. ‘It’s just that I thought whoever used the knife must have worn a glove because of fingerprints. When I saw him hiding it -’
‘You put two and two together?’ suggested Troy.
Janet started on her map. Barnaby observed her downcast head as she drew. Noted the pin-thin scrupulous parting - not a single hair straying to the wrong side of the tracks. Battleship-grey metal grips cruelly scraped the scalp. He could just see her brushing the wiry mass night and morning without fail. Fifty hard, punishing strokes. Nothing to do with beauty, more with self-flagellation. A wish to drive the demon out. Or was he being fanciful? Which demon, he wondered, might it be? Jealousy, despair, sloth ... lust? The sketch was returned, looking (a brief glance down) pretty much like all the others. He jumped into the dark.
‘Do you like living here, Miss McEndrick? Get on all right with people?’ She looked wary. He sensed a retrenchment. ‘Yes. I suppose so.’
‘Do you have a particular friend perhaps?’
‘No!’ In one swooping motion she had left her chair and veered towards the door. Opening it, she turned a tormented face to Barnaby. ‘I’ll tell you something else about Guy Gamelin. The Master pointed him out when he was dying. Pointed him out to us all. That’s how guilty he is. Ask him ... Ask anyone ...’
Chapter 8
‘I had a sports teacher like that,’ said Troy when Janet had departed. ‘Knobbly knees, plimsolls, no tits, whistle round her neck. They really turn me up, dykes. All members of the buggerocracy, come to that. Don’t they you?’ He directed his question at the note-taking constable.
The young man glanced across at Barnaby who, head down, was still writing busily and decided to play safe. ‘Never really thought about it, Sergeant.’
‘Going to have Gamelin in now, sir?’ asked Troy.
‘I prefer to hear what everyone else has to say. See what we can build up.’ He sent the constable after Christopher Wainwright.
‘I don’t suppose he’s used to being kept waiting.’
‘Bring a little novelty into his life then, won’t it?’
Troy admired that. He knew plenty of officers (some far senior to Barnaby), who wouldn’t have kept Gamelin waiting longer than it took to polish the seat of the visitor’s chair. I shall be like the chief, vowed Troy, when I’m DCI. No one’ll push me around. I shan’t care who they are. That he would be operating from a position of psychological weakness, rather than strength, did not occur to him.
Christopher Wainwright looked to be in his late twenties. The pallor of his face was somewhat exaggerated by the solid blackness of his hair. He wore tight jeans and a short-sleeved sports shirt with a little green alligator patch. If he was devastated, he concealed it well. Although he looked at both policemen frankly enough, there was about him a controlled caution that puzzled Barnaby. What could the boy have to be worried about? He was one of the two people in the room who could not have delivered the fatal blow. Was he concerned on someone else’s behalf? The weeping girl he had been holding in his arms? Barnaby asked if he had seen anything at all from his uniquely helpful viewpoint. Christopher shook his head.