‘Come in.’
Laura Hutton was standing behind the door, covering her face. Barnaby presented his card. She didn’t even glance at it, but walked away towards a tiny office of glass and tongue-and-groove boarding which had been made by enclosing a small corner of the large, high-ceilinged space through which she was now leading them.
Barnaby looked around him. He could have been in the props room of Joyce’s amateur theatre group. Furniture stacked on top of itself, paintings two or three deep facing the wall. Ornaments. Cardboard boxes, with lot numbers stamped on, crammed with old cutlery and other household junk.
Her office had a tiny antique desk, the surface almost invisible beneath a Macintosh LC, telephone, fax and answering machine. The air was scented by a soapy fragrance. Barnaby guessed that she had probably heard his first knock and had washed her face in the pretty flowered hand basin before coming to the door. If this was in an attempt to conceal the fact that she had been crying it had failed, one could say miserably.
Her face was screwed up with distress and, even as Barnaby apologised for the intrusion, her eyes shimmered and brimmed with fresh moisture. At last, he thought, someone is weeping for Gerald Hadleigh.
‘I’m sorry.’ She caught the tears, now pouring down her cheeks, with the brightly coloured silk square in her hand. ‘It’s the shock ...’
Oh, more than that. The chief inspector watched her mouth, once speech had stopped, fall into a slack, grief-stricken curve. Much more than that.
‘Then you know why we’re here, Mrs Hutton?’
‘Yes. I can’t believe it. Can’t ...’ Her narrow shoulders shook and she covered her eyes with her hands. She said ‘sorry’ again.
‘I shouldn’t have let you in. I thought I could cope.’
Barnaby hesitated, unsure whether to continue. Not out of sensitivity. He was a sensitive man but it had never stopped him doing extremely insensitive things if he had to. But because he could see that she might, in all probability, go to pieces. He’d get nowhere and next time her memories of the present encounter could well make questioning her that much more difficult. He said, ‘Would you like us to come back another time?’
‘No. Not now you’re here.’ Laura reached out and switched off the desk light. In the dimness that ensued she seemed slightly more comfortable. She sat down in a padded swivel chair, the only seating in the room. Troy rested his notebook on the filing cabinet and only hoped he could read his writing. Barnaby leaned against the door. ‘Though I don’t quite understand what you want.’
‘Just a word about last night, Mrs Hutton.’
‘I see.’ She obviously didn’t see and her dull, lifeless voice indicated that neither did she care.
‘How your meeting went, for instance.’
‘The meeting? But what has that to do with ...’ She appeared not to be able to say his name.
‘Did you notice anything different about Mr Hadleigh at all?’
‘Yes. He barely spoke to anyone, which was unlike him. He was never a garrulous man, but he enjoyed talking about writing. I expected him to seize the opportunity to ask lots of questions.’
‘Did you get the impression that this withdrawal was in any way connected with the visiting speaker?’
‘No, not really. Although ... it’s strange you should say that. Because when Max Jennings’ name first came up he—’
‘You mean Mr Hadleigh?’
‘Yes, he was very put out. He actually dropped his coffee. You can still see the stain.’
‘He was opposed to the idea?’
‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that. He just seemed to think it was a waste of time. We’re always asking well-known authors to come and talk to us and they never do. But in the end he agreed to ask.’
‘Why was it down to him, Mrs Hutton?’ asked Sergeant Troy.
‘He was the group’s secretary.’
‘A lonely business, writing,’ said the chief inspector, as people always do who’ve never done it. ‘What’s your line exactly?’
‘I’m transcribing a mass of papers I came by at a sale in Aylesbury. A lot of recipes - or “receipts” as they were called then - plus notes on running a Tudor household, animal husbandry, herbal medicines ...’ Laura hesitated then stopped at the realisation that this fiction was no longer necessary. Would never be necessary again.
‘Another Diary of an Edwardian Lady perhaps?’ She shrugged. ‘Did you all leave together yesterday evening?’
‘Except for Rex, which was a bit odd.’
‘In what way, Mrs Hutton?’ asked Troy. He smiled, but without calculation, for he could see, even in this light, that she was indeed not only too old for him but consumed by an utterly private wretchedness in which any flirtatious gesture would be grotesquely ill placed.
‘He usually dashes straight off. Sometimes before the rest of us. Worries about his dog.’
Troy nodded understandingly. He loved dogs and had a magnificent young German Shepherd, brindled cream and grey, an ex-police dog wounded during a stake-out and consequently of no further use to the Force. He asked Mrs Hutton if she had gone straight home after the meeting and she said yes.
‘And you got home when?’ asked Barnaby.
‘Just before half past ten. I only live a short distance away.’
‘And you didn’t go out again?’ She shook her head. ‘Mr Hadleigh ... would you say he was popular in the village?’
‘I’ve really no idea. I’m not involved in parish-pump matters.’
‘He was a widower I understand?’
‘That’s right - a grieving widower.’ Her harsh voice cracked. Barnaby saw her hands clench into fists as she fought for control. She stared hard at the computer screen. ‘I have to be in Gerrards Cross in half an hour to look at some furniture. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave now.’
‘More to that than meets the eye,’ said Troy, never one to mint a new phrase when an old one still had mileage. ‘My mum’s mad on that Edwardian Diary stuff. Every Christmas, every birthday, that’s all she’s on about. Tea towel, chopping board, egg cups, tea cosy - she’s got the lot. The family’s getting desperate. Soon there’ll only be the book left.’
‘That is desperate,’ said Barnaby.
‘Lunch then, chief?’
‘God, yes please.’
It was nearly three and the station canteen was half empty. Barnaby, mindful of his five-hundred-calorie allowance, took a lean beef and salad sandwich with slimmer’s mayonnaise to a separate table, unable to bear the sight of his sergeant’s robust scoffing.
Afterwards they drove back to Midsomer Worthy, beating the four o’clock bus by five minutes. It was almost dark when they parked once more outside the gates of Borodino. The bus stopped a few yards away and several people got off. Some crossed the Green, others disappeared in the opposite direction. Only three people advanced towards the policemen - a young girl with a child in a pushchair and an immensely tall, very thin elderly man who loped along in a slack, disjointed manner, long legs quite out of concordance, each apparently quite unaware of the other’s existence. He was festooned with shopping, most prominently an old-fashioned string bag stuffed with bloody parcels wrapped in newspaper. He also carried several books encircled by a tightly buckled belt, the strap of which was looped through his braces. His silver hair was in constant movement, flowing softly around his head like a shining puffball. As he came closer they could see that he was smiling, happily but inwardly, in an appreciative, reminiscent sort of way. As he opened the gate Barnaby got out of the car and crossed towards him.