On one of the rare occasions when he and the chief were having an off-duty drink Barnaby had said that he felt sometimes his sergeant objected to murder not so much because it was an outrageous violation against a human soul but because it was chaotic. Troy had been both hurt and angry at this remark and the lack of moral sensibility that it implied. He had dwelt upon it at some length after the two men had parted, which process made him angrier still, for introspection was not his forte and he avoided its dangers whenever possible. He dodged them now by bringing himself back to the present and getting on with the job, slipping his fingers quickly but thoroughly into the pockets of all the clothes on hangers. He discovered nothing more exciting than a clean handkerchief.
‘Look at these.’
Barnaby was standing by the bed, stripped bare by the SOCO team. A pair of striped pyjamas lay on the mattress. Troy, having dutifully crossed to the chief’s side and looked as instructed, was rather at a loss as to how to respond. Seen one pair of pyjamas and, it struck him, you had seen a multitude.
‘Very nice, chief.’
‘Why wasn’t he wearing them?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘He got undressed but instead of getting into these he put a robe on.’
‘Probably going to have a bath.’
Barnaby gave a non-committal grunt and wandered into the rather spartan en-suite bathroom. It was like a tiny sauna. The walls, bath enclosure and ceiling were stripped pine. A wooden bowl of shaving soap and an ivory-handled brush were on the shelf over the basin next to a double-sided mirror. Also on the shelf was a Rolex Oyster. He opened the louvred door of the cabinet. It held nothing but the usual complement of pain relievers, plasters, cotton wool, eye drops and deodorant. There was no steam on the glass or droplets of water on the wall but then, after twelve hours and in this temperature, there wouldn’t be. The post-mortem would tell them if Hadleigh had had a bath but not, of course, if he had merely intended to.
Troy, who had completed his search by going through a box of cufflinks, studs and other very ordinary bits and pieces, called out, ‘Nothing in the wardrobe. I’ll try the chest of drawers.’
‘Fine,’ Barnaby replied, though he knew how necessarily superficial their observations must be in comparison with the forensic reports that would be landing on his desk sometime within the next forty-eight hours.
‘Chief?’ Barnaby wandered back. ‘We’ve been robbed.’
‘So we have.’
Barnaby bent down and peered into the four drawers - two small ones paired over two large. All were lined with gingham-patterned paper which had a slightly waxy surface - not ideal from an investigative point of view. All were empty. He said, ‘How strange.’
‘Don’t see anything strange about stealing clothes in weather like this. A dosser’d be glad of the extra warmth.’
‘Maybe the drawers didn’t contain clothes. And I’m not sure this crime’s opportunistic. There’s a Rolex Oyster in the bathroom.’ Troy whistled. ‘No petty thief leaves a watch behind, whether he knows its real value or not.’
‘True, true,’ said the sergeant. ‘Pity the back door was unlocked. Means we don’t know if the murderer’s someone who’d normally have had to break in.’
‘Well, whoever it was must have moved very quietly, otherwise Hadleigh would have heard them and come downstairs.’
‘Perhaps he was planning to. Picked up a sound when he was half undressed, put the robe on to investigate but they got up here first. Would explain why he wasn’t wearing pyjamas.’
Barnaby wandered out on to the landing and into the second bedroom. It was even smaller than the first and used for storage. It held stacked cans of paint, rollers and a ladder. Plus a vacuum cleaner resting against an ironing board. There were also two well-worn brown-leather matching cases. One only slightly larger than a briefcase, the other medium sized. Barnaby made a mental note to check with Mrs Bundy if there had been a third.
He pulled aside the fawn velvet curtain and looked down at the Green. The portable pod had arrived and was setting up near the duck pond. It was a long, pale prefabricated building dropped quite literally (and hydraulically) off the back of a lorry. The locals were already departing from the front of the house in droves. Calling out, ‘Downstairs,’ he moved off.
Troy, trying on the Rolex, turning his wrist this way and that in front of the bathroom mirror, removed it in a hurry and smeared his crisp shirt cuff with grey powder. He cursed silently, knowing it would irritate him for the rest of the day. He wondered how odd it would look if he pushed the cuff out of sight up his coat sleeve. Of course then he’d have to do the same with the other. Snorting with annoyance he joined his boss.
The house was still full of people. More detectives were working in the kitchen and the second door, leading to the garage, now stood open. Barnaby spotted the flat, reptilian head of Inspector Meredith, his bête noire, peering into a segmented wooden box of cutlery. Scenes-of-crime were all over the garden. At the front of the adjoining wood were more spectators. One man had a little boy perched on his shoulders and was pointing something out to him.
Barnaby entered a large room to the right of the front door where, he presumed, the Writers Circle had met. Like the bedroom it was curiously characterless. It contained a long sofa and one much smaller, plus three capacious armchairs. All the furniture had loose chintz covers in wishy-washy pastel shades or insipid flower prints. The curtains were beige velvet and floor length, the walls a dreary cream. More boring pictures, this time in rather ornate frames: pyramids of fruit in pewter dishes flanked by dead game birds, hunting scenes, a print of Salisbury cathedral. There was something somnolent and torpid about the place. It had the air of a gentleman’s club, or an elderly solicitor’s waiting room.
The chief inspector recalled Mrs Bundy’s remarks about Mr Hadleigh giving nothing away. This room certainly supported such a notion. But could Hadleigh, could anyone, be as blandly dull and predictable as these trappings and the clothes upstairs implied? The answer to that was obviously yes but Barnaby was hopeful that subsequent investigations would prove otherwise.
In the far corner a light-oak bureau with a drop-leaf front was being systematically worked over by Detective Sergeant Ian Carpenter, who looked up as Barnaby walked over.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Found anything interesting?’
‘Not really. Insurance - car and house. Bank statements. The usual bills - water, phone, electricity. All paid.’
‘No letters?’
‘Nothing personal at all. Except this.’ He picked up a framed photograph which had been lying face down inside the bureau and passed it across. Barnaby took it over to the window.
The happy couple were standing in the doorway of what appeared to be a very old church. She wore a cream dress and a little pill-box hat embroidered with gold thread and tiny pearls. Attached to this was a fluttery shoulder-length veil which she was holding away from her face with a gloved hand that also clutched a nosegay of carnations and mignonette.
Gerald Hadleigh, dark-suited, an apricot rose in his buttonhole, gripped her other hand tightly. She was much shorter than him and had tilted her head back to quite a sharp degree so that she could look into his eyes. She was laughing happily but the groom’s profile was serious and intent and the set of his mouth suggested that the prize he was holding on to so firmly would not easily be surrendered.