He paused, cupping his hands round his eyes like blinkers for a second, then continuing. ‘I’d driven the Master into Uxbridge - he was a hospital visitor, Thursday was his regular day - and we’d arranged to meet back at the car. There’s a public toilet nearby which I needed to use. As I went down the steps, three men came up. Big men. One of them had tattooed arms, red and blue. They were laughing - great rough shouts. Not humorous laughter but ugly.
‘I used the urinal thinking the place was empty, then I heard whimpering coming from one of the cubicles. He was in there - Tim. His trousers were round his ankles and he was bleeding from the anus. They had ... used him.’ Arno’s voice had sunk almost to a whisper. Barnaby leaned forwards, barely able to hear. ‘Some money as well ... a five-pound note ... there. I mean, wedged ... It was vile.’
Arno broke off unable to continue. He produced a handkerchief and rubbed his eyes, turning his back while he did so. Picturing the scene, Barnaby felt the pity of it and even Troy was moved to sympathy - thinking, life’s a bugger and no mistake. After a few moments Arno apologised for the break in continuity and carried on.
‘He was in such pain and he didn’t understand. I’ll never forget how he looked ... his eyes ... It was like finding a child violated. Or a baited animal. As soon as he saw me, he started to scream. I tried to help him but he just hung on to the lavatory, his arms locked around it. I didn’t know what to do. I ran to the car park where the Master was waiting and told him what had happened. He came back with me. Tim had fastened the cubicle by then. The Master talked to him through the door for over an hour, even though he got some odd looks from the two or three men who came in during that time.
‘You never heard him speak, of course, Inspector - but he had the most remarkable voice. Not just mellifluous but with a great promise of kindness ... of happiness even. And so compelling. You felt whatever he told you must be true. Eventually Tim unbolted the door. The Master comforted him, stroked his hair. Then after a little while we helped him dress, took him to the car and drove him here. May put him to bed and we cared for him. And have been doing so ever since.
‘Everything had to be sorted out with the Social Services of course. We all got a thorough going-over which I thought a bit ironical considering how the boy had been neglected before. Turfed out of the hospital, shoved into a bedsitter and visited once a week, if he was lucky, by a care assistant. We got his benefit book and details of his medication and that more or less was it. I think the fact that we’re a sort of religious organisation swung it. They said we’d be checked up on from time to time but no one’s ever come. I expect they’re glad to have one less on their list.’
Arno paused then, with a look that plainly hoped this sorry tale would deflect Barnaby’s intention. As it became clear this was not the case he said: ‘Better come along then ...’
Tim’s room was nearly dark. Through a gap in the heavy velvet curtains, sunlight leaked to form buttery puddles on the sill. Arno pulled the velvet further apart. Only a little, but the humped form beneath the quilt twitched and shivered. The air was so smelly and stifling Barnaby longed to open the windows.
Arno approached the bed, uttering the boy’s name: a syllabic croon. He drew back the quilt, the floss of golden hair glittered on the pillow and Tim looked up, his eyes flying open like those of a mechanical toy. Barnaby heard a quick intake of breath behind him and was not unmoved himself - for the boy’s beauty, even disfigured by tears and grief, was remarkable.
‘Tim? Mr Barnaby would like to talk to you for a moment - it’s all right ...’ The boy had already started to cower. Tim shook his head. There was a throbbing vein like a thin turquoise worm in his alabaster forehead.
‘I shall stay here,’ continued Arno.
Barnaby took a chair so that he would not be looking down on the boy and sat near the opposite side of the bed to Arno. At a nod from his chief, Troy withdrew to a far corner of the room, producing a notebook but without much hope.
‘I know you must be very unhappy, Tim, but I’m sure you’ll want to help us if you can.’ A ring dove’s voice, purling. Troy thought the station’d never credit this. Even so, Tim reached out and seized Arno’s hands in what appeared to be an absolute frenzy of alarm.
Arno had said the previous evening that this was his usual condition. But it seemed to the chief inspector, cautious though he had been, the boy’s fear was intensifying by the second. His staring eyes were shadowed by it and the throbbing vein became more pronounced. Barnaby gave it five then continued.
‘You understand what’s happened, Tim? That someone has died here?’
Another long pause then, on the palely illumined pillow, the anguished face turned. Tim’s cheeks were slobbered with tears. Brilliant dark blue eyes touched Barnaby’s, slid away, returned. The procedure was repeated many times. Finally the connection held and he seemed to be getting ready to speak.
‘Ask ... ask ...’
‘Ask who, Tim?’
‘Ask ... her ... don ...’
The voice was but a tangled filament of sound, but Barnaby did not make the mistake of leaning closer. He just repeated his question, adding, now that he had a gender, ‘Do you mean May, perhaps? Ask May? Or Suhami?’
‘Neh, neh ...’ Tim shook his head fiercely and the nimbus glittered and shone. ‘Askadon ... askadon ...’
Barnaby said, ‘Are you saying “accident”?’
‘No, Chief Inspector. He just—’
Arno broke off as Tim made an urgent strangled copy of the chief inspector’s words.
‘... mean ackerdent ... ack ... si ... dent ...’ Having got it right, Tim repeated the words more and more quickly, rising higher and higher on the scale until the three syllables became transformed into a stream of meaningless babble. His body was a single bolt of flesh beneath the quilt and his eyes rolled wildly. Arno gave Barnaby as near to a glare as a man of such equable temperament could muster, then stroked Tim’s forehead with an air of resentful protectiveness that said quite clearly, now look what you’ve done.
Barnaby sat stubbornly on for a further thirty minutes, even though he suspected that Tim would not speak coherently again. Although the boy soon grew quiet, slipping into a self-protective doze, the measure of Arno’s indignation did not abate and Barnaby felt the warmth of it across the narrow space.
He refused to feel guilty. He knew he had been right to question Tim and that he had done it in a tactful and humane way. The fact that the boy was mentally disturbed did not mean he was incapable of noticing what was going on. Of course Barnaby had not realised quite how disturbed he was. Even so ...
At this point in his reflections he caught Troy’s eye. As was his wont, the sergeant immediately blanked out any expression that might give away his true feelings. His lids fell but not before his superior officer had caught an impatient and derisive gleam. Barnaby accurately translated: What a waste of frigging time.
But he was not at all sure that he agreed. It was hardly unimportant that Tim, closest of all to Craigie on the dais, saw his death as an accident. And surely there was, in Arno’s attitude, a much deeper anxiety than that caused by mere protectiveness?
No - Barnaby finally got up and moved towards the door, not a waste of time at all.
Hearing the news of Gamelin’s death, Christopher went searching for Suhami. Her room was empty and he finally discovered her on the terrace leading to the herb garden. May had tried to dissuade him from searching, saying, ‘She needs to be by herself. To take things in.’
Suhami did not turn as he approached but continued to stand motionless like a pillar of salt. He studied her profile. She looked very calm, wrapped in her own thoughts as tightly as the sari enwrapped her slender figure.