Doctor Lessiter looked up, then flung his Telegraph down with some annoyance. ‘Good grief - I thought I’d seen the last of you lot.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry, but this sort of inquiry is quite usual -’
‘Turning the whole village upside down.’
‘In the case of an unexplained death -’
‘The woman picked some hemlock by mistake. There’s a large field of it just beyond Church Lane. The seeds blow everywhere. Obviously some went into the garden and took root. I’ve never known such a palaver.’
‘We are asking everyone in the village to account for their movements on the day in question. That is last Friday the seventeenth of July, afternoon and evening.’
The doctor gave an irritated little snort, threw his paper down and stood with his back to them, staring into the fireplace. ‘Well ... if we must. On my rounds in the afternoons ... then in the even—’
‘Your rounds are Tuesday and Thursday, Daddy.’ Judy’s tone was calm and reasonable but Barnaby thought he detected a rather unpleasant smile plucking the corners of her mouth.
‘What? Oh ... yes ... sorry.’ He picked up a magazine from the log basket and started to flick through it, illustrating his lack of concern. ‘I was here, of course. Bit of gardening but mainly watching the final Test. What a game that was ... superb bowling ...’
‘And the evening?’
‘Still there, I’m afraid. A dull day really.’
‘And your wife was with you on both of these occasions?’
‘Part of the evening. She was shopping in the afternoon.’
‘Thank you. Miss Lessiter?’
‘I was working during the day. I’m a librarian. At Pinner.’
‘And in the evening?’
‘... here ...’
Both policemen noticed the rather theatrical start of surprise the doctor gave at this remark, as no doubt they were meant to. Tit for tat, thought Barnaby.
‘Well ...’ she elaborated, ‘I did go out for a bit of a walk ... it was such lovely weather.’
‘Do you remember what time that was?’
‘Sorry, no. I wasn’t out long.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Just down Church Lane, past the fields for about half a mile, then back.’
‘Did you meet anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Did you hear or notice anything out of the ordinary when you were passing Beehive Cottage?’
‘No ... I think the curtains were closed.’
‘And what time did you return?’
She gave a couldn’t-care-less shrug.
‘Can you be of any help here, Doctor Lessiter?’ asked Barnaby.
‘No.’ The doctor had returned to the settee and reimmersed himself in his newspaper. Barnaby was just about to ask if he could see Mrs Lessiter when she appeared in the doorway behind him. He was made aware of this by a sudden change in the atmosphere. The doctor, after a glance over Barnaby’s shoulder, started reading his paper with a degree of intensity which could only be feigned, Judy glowered at no one in particular and the blood heated up and zipped around under Sergeant Troy’s almost transparent skin, staining it an unbecoming bright pink.
‘I thought I heard voices.’
She dropped into the armchair by the window, put her feet up on a tiny footstool and smiled at the two policemen. She could have stepped straight out of one of his centrefolds, Troy thought, eyeing the ripe curves pressing against a terry-towelling jump suit, the tumbling hair and glossy fondant lips. Her slender tanned feet were in high-heeled golden sandals. Barnaby thought she was not as young as all that hard work and hard cash would have you believe. Not early thirties but mid, maybe even late forties.
In reply to his question she said that in the afternoon she had been in Causton shopping and in the evening she was at home except for a short period when she had gone out for a drive.
‘Was that for any special purpose?’
‘No ... well ... to be honest we’d had a little tiff, hadn’t we, Pookie?’
‘I hardly think our domestic squabbles are of any interest to the police, my dear -’
‘I overspent my dress allowance and he got cross so I took the Jaguar and drove around for a bit till I thought he’d’ve cooled down. Then I came home.’
‘And this was?’
‘Was Miss Lessiter here when you returned?’
‘Judy?’ She frowned at the girl in an impersonal way, as if wondering what she was doing in the place at all. ‘I’ve no idea. She spends a lot of time in her room. Adolescents do, you know.’
Barnaby could not think of the figure now lumpily taking up half a settee as an adolescent. The word implied not just a lack of confidence, ungainliness and a personality in a state of flux but fragility (if only of the ego) and youth. Judy Lessiter looked as if she had been born middle aged.
‘You didn’t stop anywhere, Mrs Lessiter? For a drink perhaps?’
‘No.’
‘Well, thank you.’ As Barnaby rose he heard the flap of the letter box. Judy heaved herself up from the sofa and lolloped out of the room. Her stepmother glanced at Barnaby.
‘She’s in love. Every time the post arrives or the phone rings we get a touch of drama.’ Her shiny unkind smile included all three men. It said: isn’t she ridiculous? As if anyone would. ‘A dreadful man too, but devastatingly attractive, which makes things worse.’
Trevor Lessiter’s knuckles whitened over the newsprint. Judy returned with a handful of letters. She threw one into Barbara’s lap and dropped the rest down the inside of the Daily Telegraph chute. Her father clicked his tongue with annoyance.
When they left the house Barnaby stopped to admire a spectacular Madame le Coultre clematis climbing up the portico. Before he walked on he looked back through the window of the room they had just left. Barbara Lessiter, standing now, was staring out unseeingly into the garden. Her face was a mask of fear. As Barnaby watched she crumpled a letter into a tight ball and thrust it into the pocket of her suit.
‘What’s the matter, Stepmamma?’
‘Nothing.’ Barbara moved back to the armchair. She was longing for some strong black coffee. Everything was on a low table in front of the sofa. But she wouldn’t trust her shaking hands.
‘You’re white as the proverbial sheet under all that plaster of Paris.’ Judy stared at the older woman. ‘You’re not pregnant are you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Of course not,’ echoed Judy. ‘You’re well past it, aren’t you?’
‘Have you got a cigarette, Trevor?’
Her husband, not looking up from his paper, replied, ‘There’s some in a box on my writing desk.’
Barbara took one, tapping it so furiously on the lid it almost snapped. She lit it with a silver football and stood smoking at the window, her back to them. The silence, packed with unspoken animosities, lengthened.
Judy Lessiter directed her burning gaze at her father’s paper shield. She would have liked to burn straight through it like a magnified ray from the sun. To see it brown and blacken and flake away, leaving a hole for his stupid astonished face to peer through.
It was now five years since that shattering day when they had both turned up on the doorstep with matching gold bands. He had been away from home the night before, telling her he was at the bedside of a dying patient. She had been unable to forgive him for this lie which she felt was utterly despicable. She wasn’t even sure if she still loved him. Certainly her pleasure in observing his day-to-day discomfiture augured strongly against it.