‘Is that right?’ Troy stared at some creamy yellow balls roughly the size of sheep droppings.
‘What a jewel. I’ve got the Exvuriensis. Nice of course. But not the same.’
‘No, well. It wouldn’t be.’ Troy racked his brains for some intelligent rejoinder, for he hated to be found wanting. Faintly, memory chimed. ‘Aren’t they rich, chief? The Rothschilds? Millionaries or something?’
‘They have this wonderful garden in Hampshire. Exbury. You can buy plants there.’
Troy nodded vaguely and his interest in the creamy balls, never overwhelming, expired, for there was not a spot of horticultural blood in his veins. Almost the first thing he had done after moving into his small 1970s terraced house was see off the front garden and replace it with a tarmacadam parking space.
‘Not much point in trying that,’ said Barnaby. On the top of a cracked flight of steps was a mass of dried leaves and twiggy bits which the wind had piled against the front door. ‘Doesn’t look as if it’s been opened for years.’
As they made their way down the side of the house Troy said, only half joking, ‘Beggars and tradesmen round the back.’
They found a second opening. Poorly made and ill fitting, the door was the type that usually leads simply to an outhouse, but it was the only one visible so Barnaby rapped on it. Quite loudly, but without result.
He waited for a few moments and was about to try again when Troy stayed his hand. A woman, having made her way through a bareish vegetable garden, was crossing the stone courtyard towards them. A large, middle-aged woman in a shapeless, lumpy woollen skirt, a Barbour almost black with age and a waterproof fisherman’s hat. A worn leather pouch hung around her neck, bouncing on the granite shelf of her bosom like a nosebag on a horse. She had a huge face, an expanse of raw red flesh, the features lassoed into a tight, malignant bunch in the centre, dark shaggy eyebrows and a mouth like a gin trap. She was what Troy’s dad would have called ‘as ugly as sin’.
‘I was right about this place,’ Troy mumbled just before she hove into earshot. ‘Here’s Dracula’s mother.’
To the men’s astonishment she walked straight past them as if they were invisible, lifted the wooden latch in the old door and slammed it in their faces. Barnaby was furious. He raised his fist and thundered on the shaky panels. The door was immediately snatched open.
‘How dare you! Can’t you read?’ She pointed a Fair Isled digit at a weathered metal plate: No Hawkers. No Circulars. ‘Go away at once or I shall call the police.’
‘We are the police,’ replied Barnaby and his helpmate smirked invisibly at the sweet neatness of this riposte. Arrogant, fart-faced old biddy.
‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’
‘We were hardly given an opportunity.’ Barnaby reached inside his overcoat and produced his warrant card. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby. Causton CID.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To ask a few questions. I take it you are Miss Lyddiard?’
‘Questions about what?’
‘Could we come inside for a moment?’
She gave an impatient and irritated sigh but stood back, admitting them into what is now called a utility room, though this one had the floor area of a two-bedroomed bungalow. It was full of old furniture, a rubber-rollered mangle, garden tools, jumbled-up sports equipment - croquet mallets, tennis racquets and nets - and bicycles. There was a long workbench covered with dahlia corms, drying bulbs and other gardening paraphernalia.
A family of five could live in this, bridled Sergeant Troy as he made his way silently behind the others though, in truth, he had little concern for either the homeless or the destitute.
At the far end of the room was a second door much more solid and with a wire-mesh glass panel in the top half. Honoria pushed at this and they were in the kitchen. Another vast space - high ceilinged, shabby and extremely cold.
It was not unoccupied. A small, round woman, wearing baggy trousers and several sweaters topped with a cardigan embroidered vividly with butterflies, was making pastry at an ancient deal table. She stopped immediately when they came in, looking embarrassed and a little apprehensive, as if caught out in some foolishness.
Barnaby, uncertain whether this was the sister-in-law, the cook or someone else entirely, waited to be informed, but in vain.
‘We’re investigating a suspicious death.’ He addressed the two of them equally. ‘I’m afraid a near neighbour of yours. Mr Hadleigh.’
He observed their twin expressions of incredulity without surprise and wondered how many more times he would be faced with just such a reaction before the day was out. It was always the same. No one could ever believe that someone they had recently seen alive and apparently well was no more. It was impossible. That sort of thing only happened to strangers. An unknown name in the papers. An alien face on the television screen.
The woman in the cardigan had gone deathly pale. She had a sweet face which seemed made for happiness, not the slack-jawed distress that had now overtaken it.
‘Gerald ... But we only ... oh. Ohhh ...’
‘For heaven’s sake, Amy. Remember who you are.’ Honoria seized her sister-in-law by the arm and bundled her, none too gently, into the nearest chair. ‘There are strangers present.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Amy trembled and looked around with the air of a child seeking comfort. Barnaby suspected she might be in for a long wait. Honoria spoke.
‘There has obviously been some abhorrent mix up,’ she said firmly, putting both of them straight once and for all.
Barnaby could imagine her on the seashore forbidding the waves their approach. Or standing in the eye of a storm sending the wind about its business.
‘I’m afraid not, Miss Lyddiard. Mr Hadleigh was killed late yesterday.’
‘Killed. Are you saying—’
‘Murdered. Yes, I’m afraid so.’
Amy burst into a storm of frightened tears. Honoria sat down and became very still. Her face had a stripped quality as if she had suddenly forgotten everything that she had ever known. Eventually she said, ‘I see.’
‘I understand that there was a meeting at his house last night and that you were both present.’
‘How perfectly frightful.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And in Midsomer Worthy. I warned people again and again, but no one would listen.’ Her grey eyes stared directly at him and Barnaby was frigorified. He had never seen such coldness. ‘The barbarians are at the gates.’
‘I’m sure you would wish to help—’
‘What has this dreadful business to do with us? I am a Lyddiard, as is my brother’s wife. Our name is woven into the very warp and woof of England and above reproach.’
Oh dear, oh dear, mused Troy. Pardon me while I curtsey. Knowing he was expected to remove it he pushed his cap to the back of his head with his thumb and glanced around with bold derision, taking in cracked gloss paint on walls the colour of dirty custard, free-standing old-fashioned cupboards and a huge Electrolux fridge of the type that was obsolete before Adam went into the cider business. He’d be ashamed to ask Maureen to keep her yoghurts in it. If I couldn’t do better than this, reflected Troy, with a deep inner glow of satisfaction, I’d shoot myself. He tuned back in.
‘... and so, I am sure you would wish to help us in any way you can.’ Here Barnaby paused, wondering if, by introducing the word ‘duty’, he had overstretched his luck but it seemed not.
‘Naturally we would wish to do all that we can to bring this miscreant to justice. If justice it can these days be called.’
Barnaby recognised a note of harsh longing and guessed that Honoria was wistfully recalling the days when a villein could be publicly disembowelled for patting his master’s dog. He said, ‘Could you perhaps tell us first who was present at your meeting last night and give us their addresses.’ Troy wrote the details down. ‘And you met, how often?’