“I doubt it would have made any difference.”
The Reverend Bream got up, smoothing his cassock. Barnaby noticed that, in the bright sunlight, it had something of a greenish tinge.
“I suppose you couldn’t tell me how exactly ...” The vicar trailed off delicately.
“I’m afraid not, sir. We’re still pursuing our inquiries.”
The Reverend Bream went off to wet the baby’s head and Barnaby continued on his way to Dr. Jennings’ house. This turned out to be a very attractive two-storey building of golden stone with a much less attractive breeze block surgery bulging from one side.
Mrs. Jennings showed him into a comfortable sitting room and went off to make some coffee. Barnaby employed the time waiting for her return in wandering around enjoying the books and family photographs. Happy snaps, school pictures—gold-rimmed ovals on dark brown mounts, two boys and a girl. Middle-aged people, old people. A girl of around eighteen with a roly-poly baby, both laughing fit to bust. A paterfamilias with muttonchop whiskers.
“Quite a family, Mrs. Jennings,” he said, moving to help her as she entered the room. The tray looked very heavy.
“I wish they’d go away,” said Avis. “Not for good, of course. Or even for long. Just sometimes.”
“Mine’s gone,” said the Chief Inspector. “I don’t entirely recommend it.”
“It’s different for men.” She was attacking the cake with a fearsome knife, long and curved like a Malayan kris.
Barnaby said, “None for me, thank—”
“I mean, you’re not so constrained by their presence.” She poured from a round-bellied pot then, pulling apart a little nest of tables, warmed to her theme. “How many times, for instance, have you been chasing a criminal along the motorway and lost him because you’ve had to go and pick somebody up from netball?”
“Not often.” He thanked her for the table and then for the coffee. “Well, never actually.”
“Exactly.” She placed the cake, a silver fork and a pretty starched napkin alongside. “I’m renowned for my squidgy mousseline. This one’s coffee. What d’you think?”
Barnaby thought a morsel wouldn’t hurt. Only common courtesy after all. And he needn’t eat it all.
A grave miscalculation. It was food for angels. He took a second loaded forkful, swallowed then smiled across at the woman who had engaged him in conversation with such ingenuous bluntness. There were people to whom it never seemed to occur that speaking from the heart could cause embarrassment and Avis Jennings, like Mrs. Molfrey, was plainly one of them. Perhaps they were a speciality of Fawcett Green, which would be excellent news from an investigative point of view.
“So,” she took a long drink of her own coffee. “I suppose it’s about Alan.”
“We’re also inquiring into Mrs. Hollingsworth’s disappearance.”
“Oh?”
“How well did you know her?”
“Hardly at all. She came to the WI for a bit. And bell-ringing. We had the odd chat.”
“What about?”
“Oh, this and that.”
Barnaby curbed his impatience. It was not difficult as the divine centre filling of the cake melted on his tongue. Bitter chocolate, almonds, burnt sugar, a trace of orange flower water.
“Did she tell you anything about her life before she was married?” He produced a notebook and pen.
“A bit. She seemed to have drifted rather. You know, all sorts of jobs, none with any real future.”
“For instance?”
“Served in a flower shop, did a course in make-up, demonstrated food mixers.” Avis, rummaging in her mind for accurate recall, frowned. “Um, worked in television for a bit. Was a cashier in some sort of club. She rather skirted round that one. I wondered if it might have been a bit Soho. Sparkle and feathers and sad old men in waistcoats.”
Presumably she meant raincoats. “In London, was this?”
“I got that impression.” Avis rummaged a bit more but came up with nothing new. Barnaby asked if she knew of anyone else that Mrs. Hollingsworth was especially friendly with.
Avis shook her head. “Simone wasn’t into all girls together stuff. She’s what was called years ago a man’s woman.” Air quotes were hooked round the last three words. “She might have talked to Sarah Lawson more. Was in her art class for a bit.”
That might be useful, thought the Chief Inspector as a distant buzzer went off.
“That’s the last patient gone,” said Mrs. Jennings. “Come along, Inspector. I’ll take you through.”
Dr. Jennings, washing his hands, smiled cheerfully over his shoulder. The smell of soap and antiseptic filled the room. He waved at a chair placed close to the side of his vast, well-cluttered desk. His visitor sat in it.
“I don’t like a great expanse of wood between myself and the patient,” said Dr. Jim, taking his own seat. “It creates too great a distance. Turns me into a figure of superior authority.”
The Chief Inspector, in common, he suspected, with the majority, liked to think his GP did have a certain amount of superior authority. At least in matters medical. Jennings swung his padded leather chair round and the two men sat cosily, almost knee to knee. Barnaby adjusted his position slightly to avoid a Well Woman poster listing, in detail, all the ills to which female flesh was likely to succumb.
“I believe both the Hollingsworths were on your list, Dr. Jennings.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Hollingsworth died of a drug overdose—”
“Ah, that’s it then. So much for the rumours. Which, I might tell you, have been fairly wild.”
“I understand, acting on a suggestion from Constable Perrot, that you called on him the other day.”
“Monday lunchtime, yes. Banged on the front door for a bit but no reply. What did he take?”
“Haloperidol. Have you ever prescribed medication containing this for either of them?”
“As a matter of fact I have.” He drew a largish, stiff brown folder towards him saying, “I got this out in readiness, when you rang.” And pulled out a wad of notes. “Mrs. Hollingsworth—I never actually met her husband—came into surgery a couple of months ago.”
“When exactly?”
“March the ninth, if it matters. She was complaining of sleeplessness. Now I’m not the sort to hand out tablets on request, Inspector, because, quite often, the simple thing the patient is describing can conceal something much more complex. So I put one or two questions and, though I was not at all persistent, she got quite upset. Admitted she was lonely and unhappy. Missing “The Smoke.”
“Then I asked if everything was all right at home. There was a very long pause and I began to think either she hadn’t heard me or was not going to reply. Then quickly, as if suddenly making up her mind, she took her jacket off. Her arms were covered in ugly bruises. She shrank away when I tried to examine her and burst into tears. I could see straightaway she regretted the impulse. She wouldn’t expand on the matter at all so rather than push and perhaps risk her not coming back if she needed to, I let it go.”
“And did she come back, Dr. Jennings?” asked the Chief Inspector, jotting away and hoping his Biro would hold out.
“Yes. I’d given her a month’s supply.”
“When was that? And how much would the dosage be?”
Dr. Jennings glanced at his notes. “Thirty tablets at half a milligram.”
“And she returned ... ?”
“On the seventeenth of April. Said the tablets had helped her a lot, which I must say surprised me as she still looked really washed out. And even more unhappy. I gave her another prescription.”
“For the same amount?”
“Yes, but warned her I wouldn’t be giving repeats ad infinitum and that it was not in her interest that I should. So when she came back a week later—”