‘I knew you were on your way. I saw a car drive by whilst I was studying some swallows on the telephone wires. Such a charming arrangement. Quite like notes of music.’
‘Ah ... perhaps it was you I glimpsed the other morning when I was in Church Lane? In your loft I think. An excellent vantage point.’
‘Hide is the term we ornithologists prefer, Mr Barnaby.’ A nip in the air. Barnaby begged her pardon. She waved a sparkling hand. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ Barnaby sank into an armchair thickly barnacled with bumps of crochet.
‘And what about you, dear?’ Dennis danced around Sergeant Troy. ‘Don’t you want to take the weight off those legs?’
Bristling with machismo, Troy selected the hardest chair, sat in it bolt upright and produced his pro-forma pad. A piercing whistle filled the air.
‘Denny? Pot to kettle.’ As he disappeared she said to Barnaby, ‘You’ll need to be fed and watered.’ Then, overriding his protests, ‘Now, now. Don’t tell me you’re not absolutely exhausted asking all those people all those questions. It’s quite ready.’
And so it was. Moments later, a gentle rattling preceding him, Dennis entered wheeling an overwrought trolley built along the lines of the altarpiece at the Brompton Oratory. This was loaded with tiny sandwiches in the shapes of playing card symbols and rich creamy cakes. Mrs Rainbird filled a plate for Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby and handed it over.
‘Now you mustn’t refuse, Mr Barnaby.’ (She addressed him as Mr Barnaby throughout their conversation, perhaps believing that policemen in the higher echelons were, like their medical counterparts, titularly civil.) ‘The inner man, you know.’
Her son poured the tea, his bloodless white fingers flickering over the crockery. He popped an apostle spoon with a large purple stone embedded in the handle in a saucer and handed it, with the cup, to Barnaby. Feeling slightly repelled, the chief inspector took it and leaned back rather uncomfortably on his crunchy support.
Dennis dealt an anchovy club, a salmon-spread spade, a potted-meat diamond and a marmite heart on to a plate, added a meringue erupting with chestnut-coloured worms, and swayed over to Sergeant Troy. He put everything on an occasional table, brought over the tea then swayed back to his mother. They beamed at each other then he plumped up her cushions before sitting, appropriately enough, on a pouffe at her feet. Finally Barnaby spoke.
‘We’re making inquiries into an unexplained death -’
‘Poor Miss Simpson of course,’ interrupted Mrs Rainbird. ‘I blame the parents.’
‘- and would be glad if you and your son could give me some idea of your whereabouts on the afternoon and evening of last Friday?’
‘Myself doing the flower arrangements and plants in the village hall. No doubt you’ve heard about the gymkhana?’ Barnaby indicated that he had. ‘I left around four-thirty with Miss Cadell of Tye House. One of the last as always. I’m afraid I’m one of those dreadful people who has to have everything just so.’ A little preen. A smug smile. She had a mouth like a goldfish which, even in repose, had a pushed-forward pouty expression. ‘“Delegate, Iris, delegate!” is my constant cry, but do you think I ever can? Where was I?’
‘One of the last to leave.’
‘Ah yes. I believe only Miss Thornburn, our dear Akela, remained.’
‘Did you happen to notice what time Miss Lacey left?’
‘A few minutes before four o’clock.’
‘Are you sure?’ Foolish question. He already felt he was in the presence of something oracular rather than merely observant. Mrs Rainbird obviously had the eye of an eagle and, almost as important, an eagle’s Olympian lack of interest in the welfare of its prey.
‘Quite sure,’ resumed Mrs Rainbird. ‘She slipped away, in my opinion, in a very furtive manner indeed.’ She deigned to glance at Sergeant Troy on the last few words to make sure he was noting them down. ‘But I’m rather curious as to why we’re being asked about the afternoon. I understood that Miss Simpson died much later.’
‘We’re not sure exactly when she died.’
‘Well she was definitely alive around five o’clock because I saw her.’
‘You saw her!’
‘Certainly I did.’ She basked for a moment in the warmth of his reaction. Dennis screwed his head round and gave her an approving smirk. ‘I just happened to be in the hide at the time, charting the flight of a waxwing. Emily came hurrying along Church Lane from the direction of the woods. She stopped once, holding her side. I wondered if she were ill and had almost decided to run over when Denny arrived for his tea. Didn’t you, pet?’ Did her hand tighten on his shoulder? Certainly the sparklers were activated into instant life.
‘Mm.’ He laid his cheek briefly against her knees. ‘I usually get home about five-thirty but that night -’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, Mr Rainbird. We’ll take those details in a moment.’
‘I can hardly wait.’ Dennis bit his lower lip, pink with delight at being the recipient of such masterful instructions. He smiled at Sergeant Troy, a smile as sweet and sickly as the vanilla slice he was consuming. ‘I don’t think the sergeant likes his marron Lyonnaise, Mother.’
‘Press him to a frangipane, then. Yes’ - she turned her attention back to Barnaby - ‘I was definitely concerned. In fact I’d almost decided to visit her after supper but then we got involved in a game of Monopoly and I felt it could wait till morning. She had a telephone after all and Miss Bellringer was close by. So we didn’t go out at all, did we, pet?’
‘No. Little home birds we.’
‘And who won all of Park Lane?’
‘Me, me! And a big chunk of Piccadilly.’
‘I saw Katherine Lacey again, though. Around eight o’clock time.’
‘Really? Wasn’t that a little late to be pursuing your hobby, Mrs Rainbird? What on earth is on the wing at that hour?’
‘Owls, Mr Barnaby.’ A very sharp look.
‘Ah.’
‘Denizens of the night.’
‘Quite so.’
‘We had taken a little break from the game, Denny was making some coffee and I just happened to glance out of the window.’
‘I see. Did you notice where Miss Lacey went?’
She leaned forward dramatically and, as she still had her hand on her son’s shoulder, so did he. What a macabre double act they were, thought Barnaby. He was unaccountably reminded of the Joe Orton play his wife had been in last month. They would have fitted a treat into that.
‘She was turning into Church Lane.’
‘Do you think she was calling on someone?’
‘I couldn’t see. The road curves sharply to the right almost immediately. She’d got one of the beagles with her. And a letter in her hand.’
‘So she may have been simply going to the post box?’ Mrs Rainbird lifted an eyebrow like a crayoned new moon. It said that if he believed that he’d believe anything. ‘And did you see her return?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ Her voice thickened with chagrin. ‘Mrs Pauncefoot rang. Wanted some more Lilium regale for the judges’ platform. If only I’d known’ - she punched her palm with her fist - ‘I would have kept watch.’
Her expression was far more than just peevish. She seemed to seethe with frustration at this reminder of an opportunity missed. She obviously couldn’t bear not to know what was going on between everyone, everywhere, all the time. Charting the flayt of a waxwing my backside, thought Barnaby, and turned to question her son.