‘If we phrase it very carefully we can try a public appeal,’ said Barnaby. ‘Simply describe the stolen cycle, the time it was swiped and suggest the direction it may have been taking. Someone must have seen him.’
‘We could say what he was wearing.’
‘For God’s sake! First, we don’t know what he was wearing. Second, we keep any reference to Jackson, however oblique, absolutely out of it. Once he’s nailed, I want no accusations of pre-trial prejudice getting him off. Or the civil liberties mob breathing down our necks.’
‘The press’ll be on to it though. Nobody’s going to believe a public appeal over a missing push bike.’
‘So we’ll stonewall. Won’t be the first time.’ Barnaby slipped his notes into an envelope file, took his jacket from the back of his chair and put it on. Troy held the door open and the DCI strode away from his office. The working day proper had begun.
That same morning Hetty Leathers arrived at the Old Rectory at her usual time of 9 a.m. but without Candy. The dog was coping much better now at being left alone and, as Mrs Lawrence was absent, Hetty felt she should perhaps ask the Reverend’s permission to bring Candy to work.
She went in through the front door, carrying straight through to the kitchen. There she found Jackson wearing a pair of stained jeans and a sleeveless vest, scraping Marmite onto burned toast. His bare feet were up on the table. There was no sign of Lionel.
Hetty turned round and walked straight out again. Out of the kitchen and out of the house. As she made to go down the drive, a movement through the library window caught her eye. She crossed over, rested her hands on the sill and peered in. She insisted afterwards to Pauline that she had no thought of spying and this was probably true. What was also true was that she very much wished she’d walked on by.
The Reverend was crouching over Mrs Lawrence’s writing desk. Letters were strewn everywhere. As Hetty watched, he tore another envelope, already opened, practically apart in his eagerness to rip out its contents. A second to stare angrily at the piece of paper and it joined the others on the floor. He paused, panting for a moment, then started to tug furiously at a little drawer at the back of the desk that would not open.
Hetty watched in shocked amazement. The Reverend’s face, distorted by a fear-filled hungriness that could hardly be contained and scarlet with effort, was barely recognisable. He put his foot against the leg of the desk and this time using both hands heaved on the drawer with all his might. Hetty ran away.
As she did so, Jackson wandered into the library. Leaned against the door jamb, dark blue eyes gleaming with excitement, a happy smile barely disturbing his lips.
‘I hate to see you like this, Lionel.’
Lionel, by now wailing with rage, looked fit to explode.
‘Wait.’ Jackson strolled across the room and rested a calming hand on Lionel’s arm. ‘If you must break into other people’s property—’
‘You don’t understand!’ shouted Lionel.
Jackson turned his face from the gust of sour wine and reeking, unwashed skin. He was very fastidious about that sort of thing.
‘And stop shouting. You’ll have half the village out.’
‘It’s all right for you ...’ Lionel attempted to soften his voice, with little success. ‘What’s going to happen to me? Where shall I go?’
‘You don’t even know Mrs L’s made a will.’ Jackson’s grip tightened slightly. ‘In which case, as her legal better half, you’ll be laughing.’
Lionel gave a single piercing cry. ‘I thought I was safe here.’
‘Let go,’ said Jackson. He sounded patient, not unkind just weary, like a parent who’d had enough of a favourite child’s tantrums. ‘I’ll do it.’
Lionel released the drawer and stood, arms swinging loose by his sides, staring. Jackson produced a knife from the pocket of his jeans. A click and the short, narrow blade sprang out, shining. He inserted it behind the lock, gave a sharp twist and the drawer sprang open. It was full of papers.
Lionel seized them and started to read. Jackson could see the heading Friends Provident, the words separated by a blue rose. After a few minutes Lionel had shuffled through all the pages and flung them also to the floor.
‘All to do with her trust fund.’ He was very near to tears and struggling for breath. ‘She’s always been very tight with that, Jax. I wanted her to buy a little flat, give a temporary home to youngsters struggling to make a new life. People like yourself. But she was adamant. There’s so much selfishness in the world, meanness, don’t you find?’
‘I don’t like to hear you being disloyal, Lionel. I’ve always thought Mrs L basically a very sincere person.’ It was probably with her solicitor. Or the bank. ‘I think you need some breakfast. Cheer you up a bit.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Plus a wash and brush-up. OK, I got “no change” from the hospital this morning but things could have altered by dinner time. What if you was allowed to visit this afternoon? You can’t go in looking like that. Come on.’ He took Lionel’s damp and unresisting hand. ‘Jax will make you a nice piece of toast.’
‘You’re so good to me.’
‘Richly deserved, to my mind, Lionel.’
‘You won’t go away?’
‘Try and make me.’
Barnaby’s appointment with Richard Ainsley was for ten o’clock. They were shown straight into his office and offered tea which Barnaby declined. The bank manager’s face was grave as befitted the matter under discussion.
‘A most dreadful business. I can still hardly believe it.’ His distress was plainly genuine. A fact explained by his next words. ‘I have known the family thirty years. Ann, Mrs Lawrence, was seven when I first started handling her father’s affairs.’
Barnaby had not been aware of that but rejoiced in the knowledge. One never knew what would be grist to the investigative mill.
‘Then I’m sure you will be doubly anxious to help us, sir.’
‘Of course I am. But how is it possible? A random, violent attack—’
‘We’re not sure that it was random.’
‘Oh.’ Ainsley’s expression changed then. Became immensely cautious and somewhat apprehensive. He sniffed and stared intensely at his visitors as if etheric traces of the crime might still be drifting about their persons.
This reaction from the public was not uncommon. Barnaby smiled encouragingly and said, ‘I can assure you that anything divulged during this interview will be in complete confidence.’
‘Ah.’ Richard Ainsley looked warily at Troy sitting near the door, notebook balanced discreetly on his knee. ‘Well ...’
Barnaby jumped in at the deep end. ‘We have reason to believe that Mrs Lawrence was being blackmailed.’
‘So that’s—’
‘That’s what?’
But Ainsley withdrew immediately, like a limpet into its shell. ‘You must understand, Chief Inspector, my customer’s financial affairs—’
‘Mrs Lawrence is undergoing an emergency operation, Mr Ainsley, even as we’re sitting here. A positive outcome is far from certain. Now, I can go to a magistrate, get the relevant piece of paper and come back for the information you are withholding. But time is of the essence here. I urge you to co-operate.’
‘Yes. I do see. Oh - this is all so dreadful.’ He wrung his hands for a moment, then opened his desk diary, checked a date and started to speak.
‘Ann came in to see me on Saturday morning. August the twenty-second. She needed to borrow five thousand pounds against the security of the house. That was acceptable, of course. The Old Rectory is worth a great deal of money. But her income is a modest one and I was concerned about her ability to make regular repayments. When I mentioned this she became almost hysterical, which naturally made me more concerned then ever. She had already drawn a thousand pounds from her current account.’