“I’d say he’s been dead a couple of days. Perhaps a bit less.”
The doctor was unfastening the dead man’s shirt. Suddenly bored with the dismal ritual, the Chief Inspector went outside. It occurred to him to pass this consoling piece of information on to PC Perrot but the man had, once again, disappeared. Sergeant Troy stopped swinging and attempted to look more alert while still plainly relishing the sunshine.
“This is the life, eh, guv?”
Barnaby marvelled at such detachment. Shortly after discovering a human being who would never again see the sunrise this was, apparently, the life. Very occasionally and for barely a heartbeat the Chief Inspector would envy his sergeant. This was not one of those occasions.
After ten minutes or so, George Bullard joined them. Although he did not actually say this is the life, there was tremendous relish in his inhalation and exhalation of the fragrant summer air. Barnaby began to feel rather out of things.
“The van should be along any minute, Tom.”
“Any chance of a PM fairly soon?”
“Every chance. I’m clear, actually, for the rest of the day.”
“That’s what we like to hear.” The Chief Inspector looked around. “Where’s our plod, Gavin?”
“I put him out front to move people along. Last time I checked he was admiring some little kid’s drawing.”
Barnaby gave a groaning laugh.
The doctor said, “He’s all right, Colin Perrot. I used to live on his patch. He always had time for you.”
“I’m sure he’s a warm and richly lovable human being,” said Barnaby. “But I’m starting to think he’s a bloody useless copper.”
The investigation into Alan Hollingsworth’s death being necessarily delayed until the PM report, it was Simone’s disappearance that now absorbed Barnaby’s attention.
Half an hour had passed since the mortuary van departed. A uniformed police presence was now stationed at the front and rear of the house.
The time was one thirty. What better place, suggested Barnaby, both to eat and glean information than the village pub? Walking there, they were overtaken by Constable Perrot. He halted briefly near the crossroad and was seen to reach into the hedge and pick up an aluminium can.
“Little Miss Tidy,” said Sergeant Troy.
The Goat and Whistle, awaiting its hundred and fiftieth birthday, had recently been transformed by the brewers. Its ceiling, kippered by years of tobacco fumes to a rich yellowy brown, had been stripped and repainted with dark, yellowy brown varnish. Its scarred counters, well-worn quarry-tiled floor and old fire grate had been ripped out and replaced by artificially distressed counters, creatively cracked stone flags scattered with fake sawdust and a chipboard Elizabethan ingle-nook. The ancient dartboard disappeared and an Astaroth v. the Dark Hellhounds of Erewhon space invader arrived.
This imaginative transformation, unasked for and unwanted by both mine host and his customers, had cost thirty thousand pounds. The landlord was assured that, once the word of such startling refurbishments got about, his takings would be going through the roof. So far there was no sign of this. He had replaced the dartboard out of his own pocket.
Half a dozen heads turned as Barnaby and Troy came in and conversation ceased. The Chief Inspector ordered a ham salad and some Guinness, Troy a corned beef and Branston pickle baguette and a half of bitter. He took them to a table near the space machine and started to play.
Waiting for his meal, Barnaby was soon engaged in conversation, the landlord, Daniel Carter, opening.
“Yours, is it? That Rover down the lane?”
Barnaby admitted that it was.
“Everything all right?” The question was put by an elderly woman who had come up to the counter for a refill of her gin and peppermint. Although no one else moved, Barnaby was aware of a general gathering of attention keenly focused on his reply.
“Actually we’re looking into the disappearance of Mrs. Simone Hollingsworth.”
“What did I tell you, Elsie?” said the gin and pep over her shoulder.
“Thanks, Bet. I’ll have a drain of White Satin.”
“Deaf as a beadle,” said Bet, swivelling back. “You’ve taken long enough about it.”
“Did you know the couple?” asked Barnaby. Addressing the old lady, he also glanced around the room. The floodgates opened.
By the time he had finished his tired undressed salad and near transparent shavings of ham he had discovered that Mr. H worked all the hours God made, Mrs. H was always done up like a dog’s dinner. He never mixed, she mixed but got bored with you after five minutes. They’d give at the door but not what you’d expect, taking the property into account. The last anyone had seen of poor Simone was on the Causton bus. And, rounded off Elsie, don’t tell me anyone leaves their old man with no more than a handbag and a thin jacket. Specially when he’s loaded.
So far, so familiar. Barnaby became resigned. But then Daniel Carter leaned forward. He looked left to right as if about to cross a busy road and seemed on the point of tapping the side of his shiny red nose.
“Now if it was Alan who had disappeared, you wouldn’t have to look far.”
“Really? Why is that?” countered the Chief Inspector.
“You should know,” said Elsie. “You’re the fuzz.”
“He was had up for it?”
“Gray Patterson.”
“GBH.”
“Common assault, weren’t it?”
“Same difference.”
“All over some theft or other,” said the landlord. “They worked together, see, him and Hollingsworth. Partners supposedly, in this computer business. Pen something.”
“Penstemon,” shouted deaf Elsie.
“That’s it. Then, according to the report at the magistrates’ hearing, Patterson designed some new programme or whatever they reckon to call it. Something really special that should have made him thousands. And Alan ripped him off.”
“Stole it like.” A fat man, having finished his steak and kidney pie, chipped in for the first time.
“I don’t know all the ins and outs,” continued Daniel Carter, “but there weren’t half a ruckus. Ended with Patterson blowing his top.”
“Is that right?” asked Barnaby.
“Beat the shit out of Mr. H,” said the old lady, daintily tipping back her glass.
“Now he’s stony-broke, Gray. Owes money on the house, can’t sell it, can’t move. In schtuck, as the saying goes.”
“I heard he was trying to let.”
Barnaby finished his drink. He would have thought it excellent had he never been exposed to the velvety soft bitter sweetness of the Irish version. A year ago he and Joyce had been in Sligo for the Music Festival and the Guinness had been a revelation. The difference, they told him, lay in the water.
Troy, having finished banging and thumping and cursing Astaroth and Co. was now leaning up against the machine chatting to a youth who was banging, thumping and cursing in his turn. Now, catching the boss’s eye, he murmured, “Cheers, mate,” and moved towards the door.
“Get anything?” said the Chief Inspector as they walked back down the lane.
“Only that Mrs. Hollingsworth was a great looker but seemingly kept it all for her husband. Bloke I was talking to’s the brother of the bird who cleans for that old woman.”
“Which old woman? This place is swarming with them.”
“That daft one who came in to see you.”
“Not so daft, as things are turning out.”
Since the event of Perrot’s Open Text report, Barnaby had thought more than once of the eccentrically dressed and supersonically bewigged Mrs. Molfrey. His memory of their recent meeting had become imbued with a charming piquancy which he feared had not been present at the time. He didn’t really want to talk to her again, suspecting she might well turn out simply to be a chaotic-minded and garrulous old bore.