Louise, tying the belt of the first dress she laid hands on, stood suddenly still, jolted by the sheer novelty of such an observation. She had never been afraid of Valentine in her life. Bewilderment was slowly transformed into a quiet rage. She got up and strode over to the wall facing the village street. Pressing her hands flat against the glass, she stared across at the Old Rectory garden, at the giant cedar and the flat over the garage and felt her rage harden into hatred.
Why couldn’t it have been Jax instead of Charlie Leathers? A miserable, not very pleasant old man would have lived and a foul young one, at the very beginning of his havoc-dealing life, would have been destroyed. I could have done it myself, thought Louise, truly believing at that moment that she was capable of murder. Not hand-to-hand, of course, she could not have borne to touch him. But say there had been a remote control - a button to be simply pressed. Well, that might have been a different matter.
She lifted her hands, studied the blurred imprint of her palms and finger span then wiped her forearm quickly across the glass, obliterating all trace. If she could do it like that, with no more concern than squashing a greenfly on the roses ...
‘What are you thinking?’
‘Ah!’ Louise jumped away from the window then moved quickly back. She stood in front of the smeared handprint as if it was readable, making her malevolence plain. ‘You made me ... I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘I’m just going for a shower.’ Val was wearing his cycling gear. Black Lycra knee shorts and yellow top, both dripping wet, plastered to his powerful shoulders and muscular thighs. He looked at her without expression. ‘Put some coffee on, Lou.’
In the kitchen, waiting for him to come down, Louise breathed evenly and deeply. She was determined not to be drawn into an argument; she would remain uncritical and calm. It was his life. Only, prayed Louise silently, let me not be driven from it.
There was coffee on the table and brioche with pale butter and Swiss black cherry jam. When Valentine came in he sat straight down and poured the coffee without looking at her and Louise knew what was coming.
‘I’m sorry about yesterday.’
‘That’s all right. Everyone has—’
‘I was very unfair. You’ve always more than paid your way here.’
‘That’s all right, Val. We were both upset.’
‘But,’ Valentine put his cup down, ‘we do need to talk.’
‘Yes,’ said Louise, as the floor fell away beneath her chair. ‘I do see that.’
‘I spoke in anger, suggesting you move out. But I’ve thought about it and, you know, I still think it might be a good idea.’
‘Yes,’ said Louise again through stiff lips. ‘I ... er ... I’ve been thinking pretty much the same thing, actually. After all, I only came here temporarily, to lick my wounds, so to speak. And I’m feeling so much better now. Time I dived back into real life - or is it dove - before I ossify. I thought I’d rent somewhere between here and London while I look round for a place more permanent. It might take me a few days to get my things sorted. Is that OK?’
‘Oh, Lou.’ And Valentine put down his cup, reached out and took his sister’s hand. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘I remember when you first started calling me Lou.’ She had been twelve and head over heels entranced by a beautiful youth who was staying in their parents’ house. In her innocence Louise had believed him to be simply her brother’s friend. ‘It was when Carey Foster—’
‘Please. Not the “do you remember” game.’
‘Sorry. Below the belt?’
‘A bit.’
‘I can come and see you?’ Louise’s voice sounded strained and childish, even to herself. ‘And ring?’
‘Of course you can ring, idiot. And we’ll meet in town, like we always used to. Have lunch, go to the theatre.’
‘In town.’ She was being banished then. Louise sipped nearly cold coffee, sour on her tongue, and already the pain of separation began to make itself felt. Every cell in her body ached. ‘Yes. That would be lovely.’
After a quiet Sunday spent in the garden lifting and storing tulip and lily bulbs, splitting and replanting hardy perennials and cutting back summer-flowering shrubs, Barnaby prepared for his 8.30 a.m. briefing the next morning feeling physically relaxed and in a positive frame of mind. He made a note that a ten o’clock appointment with the Caritas Trust was listed in his desk diary.
Troy, who was waiting by the door trying to appear cool and alert, was chewing on a Twix. He had taken them up as a substitute for cigarettes and it was working pretty well except he was still smoking.
As Barnaby tapped his papers neatly end to end and slipped them into an envelope file, he frowned at the sight of his sergeant’s chomping jaws.
‘Don’t you ever stop eating?’ It was a sore point. No matter what Troy ate or how much of it, he never put on an ounce.
‘Certainly I do.’ Troy was aggrieved. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. First thing in the morning too. What was the old bugger going to be like by six o’clock?
‘I can’t imagine when.’
‘When I’m asleep. And also when I’m—’
‘Spare me the grisly details of your sex life, Sergeant.’
Troy maintained a dignified silence. He had been going to say, ‘When I’m reading to Talisa Leanne.’ He rolled the chocolate wrapper into a pellet and flicked it into the waste basket.
Thinking of his daughter reminded him of ‘chortling’. He had indeed looked the word up in her dictionary and found it to be a cross between chuckling and snorting. Pretty stupid, Troy decided. Why not the other way round? Hey, let’s hear it for the snucklers.
Everyone in Room 419 was sitting up and looking alert, notebooks open, print-outs everywhere. Only Inspector Carter appeared crumpled as if he hadn’t been to bed and rather depressed. Perversely, Barnaby decided to start with him.
‘Piss all, actually, sir,’ responded Carter, having been asked what he’d got. ‘We did a very thorough house-to-house in all three villages, going back in the evening to catch anyone at work during the day.’
‘And those who were in the pub?’
‘Oh, yes. No one seems to have heard any disturbance last Sunday night. All inside, curtains drawn, watching the telly. One person, a Mr ... um ... Gerry Lovatt was out walking his greyhound, Constanza, just yards from the weir at quarter to eleven and he heard nothing either.’
‘That is surprising,’ said Barnaby.
‘There was that lady—’
‘Yes, I’m coming to you, Phillips. Thanks very much.’
‘Sorry, Inspector.’
‘Carry on then.’
Constable Phillips’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. He blushed and Sergeant Brierley gave him a kindly, encouraging smile. Troy, entranced simply by being in the same room with the girl he fancied rotten, sent his own smile winging across the desk tops. He had named his daughter’s kitten Audrey merely for the pleasure of constantly repeating her name. That ignored him as well. Maybe he should rechristen it Constanza.
‘A Miss Pleat,’ began Constable Phillips.
‘I’ve met Miss Pleat,’ said Barnaby. ‘You’re not telling me I’m going to meet her again, are you?’
‘Not necessarily, sir.’
‘Thank God for that.’
There was a certain amount of nervous laughter in which Constable Phillips laggardly joined.
‘Only I think she might have something. Not facts, I’m afraid, just ideas.’
‘Don’t tell me, the ebb and flow of the human heart?’
‘Something like that, sir. Well, she seems to think that Valentine Fainlight, the man in that amazing—’