‘You won’t forget to ring your father?’
Barnaby took his tea and sat by the fireplace. As he had been ringing his parents once a week for a quarter of a century he’d hardly be likely to. They were both in their eighties and had retired to just outside Eastbourne twenty years before. There they inhaled the ozone, played bowls and gardened, as spry as tinkers.
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Do it now before you settle down.’
‘I have settled down.’
‘Then you can enjoy your tea.’
Barnaby dutifully hauled himself out of his chair. His mother answered the phone and, after a token inquiry about his own health and that of his family, launched into an account of her week which included a splendid row at the Arts Circle when a nonagenarian had suggested a life class. She ended, as she always did, by saying, ‘I’ll just call Daddy.’
Barnaby senior then described his week which had included a splendid row at a meeting of the preservation society over a Victorian bandstand. What a bellicose lot they were down there, thought Barnaby who, when his parents had moved, had pictured them passing their hours dozing peacefully in their conservatory. A rather unsound piece of image-making, he now admitted. They had never been the dozing kind. His father finished describing how he had finally scuppered an unscrupulous opponent on the bowling green.
Barnaby listened patiently then said, almost as an afterthought, ‘Never mind. We’re in the middle of the cricket season. I expect you’re glued to the set most days.’
‘Certainly am. Rented one of those video gadgets. Play back the best bits. Terrible about Friday, wasn’t it?’
Barnaby smiled indulgently. His father must know that he was never around in the daytime to watch cricket, yet always assumed he knew exactly what was being discussed.
‘What happened?’
‘Why, no match, dear boy. Not enough light. The umpire offered Allenby the option and he decided to stop play. Eleven ack-emma. Everything was ready this end. Cucumber sandwiches, jug of mint tea. Settled in for the duration. We were totally distraught. Well, to be honest, your mother wasn’t too bothered but it did for my day, I can tell you.’
After due commiserations Barnaby returned to his armchair and a fresh cup of tea. ‘People have started lying to me, Joyce.’
‘Oh yes, dear ...’ The pale silky knitting grew. ‘In this business at Badger’s Drift, you mean?’
‘Mm. Katherine Lacey was seen in the village during the evening she said she didn’t go out. Judy Lessiter said she was at work all afternoon and was seen in the village shop at half-past three. Trevor Lessiter said he was at home watching cricket ... “superb bowling” ... and the match was cancelled. And Phyllis Cadell went rigid with fright when she saw us, then tried to cover it by some silly story about her road tax.’
‘Goodness ... that seems plenty to be going on with.’ The names meant nothing to Joyce Barnaby and she knew Tom was really only thinking aloud, getting his thoughts into some sort of order. She listened intently all the same.
‘And Barbara Lessiter, the esteemed doctor’s wife, had something in this morning’s mail that turned her white as a sheet.’
‘How do you know?’ Barnaby told her. ‘Oh - it’s probably a final demand. I expect she’s been buying clothes and run up a terrible bill somewhere.’
‘No.’ Barnaby shook his head. ‘It was something more than that. And where was she the night Emily Simpson died? Driving round. Very vague.’
‘But innocent people are vague. They don’t always have alibis. Or know precisely what they were doing and when. You’ve always said that. What was she doing in the afternoon?’
‘Shopping in Causton.’
‘There you are, then,’ said Joyce, irrefutably. ‘She’s been overspending.’
Barnaby smiled across at her, drained his cup and replaced it in the saucer. Something told him that it was not that simple. That none of it was going to be that simple.
Chapter Eight
Next morning, the day before the inquest was due to be reconvened, Barnaby got to his office early and settled down for a rapid read-through of pro-formas, statements and reports. The gist of these would later be transferred to a rotating card system (they were still waiting for a computer). He called for some coffee and began.
He read fast and skilfully, seizing on tiny details, passing quickly over the mundane and merely repetitious. The result was pretty much as he had expected. The only males in the village not at work on the afternoon of the seventeenth or at home with their wives were two unemployed men who spent the time on their respective allotments in full view of each other. The vicar had been in his study working on next week’s sermon. A fact confirmed by his housekeeper who had been making jam in the kitchen and was highly indignant that the vicar, a frail old party of seventy-three, should have been questioned at all. In the evening the men were either at home with their families or in the Black Boy. Policewoman Brierley brought in the coffee and Barnaby took it gratefully.
The women of Badger’s Drift also seemed to be accounted for. Some were out at work. The old ones at home. The rest (with the exception of Mrs Quine) in the village hall preparing for the morrow. The young women who had left the hall in plenty of time for a quick frolic in the bracken had all met their children off the school bus and gone home to a blameless tea. In the evening three carloads had gone to Causton for a keep-fit class and the rest had stayed at home. Assuming that the couple in the woods were inhabitants of the village, which Barnaby was still inclined to do, the circle of suspects was very small indeed.
He finished his coffee, noting with some surprise, as the liquid went down, the gradual emergence of a green frog wearing a friendly smile and a straw boater, and playing a banjo. He turned to the scene-of-crime reports.
There were not many surprises. The larder window had been forced and traces of white paint were on the inside shelf. There was not, alas, the weather being dry, a lump of mud with the pattern of a shoe sole clearly visible. No fingerprints on the piecrust table, the hemlock-filled jar, garden trowel, door handles and all the other places one would expect to find fingerprints. And none on the telephone - which was strange, as the last person to handle that should have been Doctor Lessiter. And what reason would he have for wiping it clean? The pencil mark on the copy of Julius Caesar was a 6B. Not perhaps as common as some but hardly a vanishing species. The pencil had not been found. Elimination tests showed that any prints belonged either to the deceased or to Miss Lucy Bellringer.
He skimmed the second report again briefly but he had missed very little the first time. A search for the rug was in progress but Barnaby was not optimistic. Anyone who was so punctilious over fingerprints would hardly leave the thing lying around in the back of a car or flung over a sofa. Of course it was hardly common knowledge that the fibres of a rug had been found and not everyone knew that semen stains were as conclusive as fingerprints. The police might just be lucky. Troy opened the door.
‘Car ready when you are, Chief.’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Sergeant Troy, turning off the Gessler Tye road towards Badger’s Drift, ‘that could’ve been arse bandits in the woods. You know ... gay.’ There could not have been more venom in the last word if the couple had been seen devouring children.