Stepping outside, she winced as the skin on her face contracted in the cold air. In the bird bath a wren, having quite misjudged the temperature, had leapt in for a quick splash and was now frantically skidding around on the ice in circles. Making a mental note to thaw the water when she got back, Laura creaked across the splintering puddles to unlock the garage.
The law firm of Jocelyne, Tibbles and Delaney occupied the ground floor of an elegant eighteenth-century town house. Part of a row of six and situated almost in the town centre, their backs pressed hard by St Bartholomew’s parish church. The door, painted liquorice and flanked by tubs of crocuses, shone like black glass. Some heritage-conscious soul had had the bright idea of restoring the approach to the house to its original surface of cobbles embedded in cement. They were hell on the feet and must have been responsible for many a turned ankle. Or so the chief inspector thought as he stumbled over them to mount the highly polished, and equally treacherous, front steps.
They were expected, and asked to wait by a stout middle-aged lady, also rather cobbly in appearance but with a warm, if slightly distracted, smile. She showed them into an ante-room. Very confidence-inducing with panelled walls, solid furniture and low tables holding heavy glass ashtrays and copies of the Law Quarterly Review. On one of the close-buttoned and tightly padded chairs a striped cat lay curled up fast asleep, its ears occasionally twitching. Troy nodded in its direction.
‘Must be Tibbles.’
‘Don’t mention cats to me.’
‘D’you think I’ve got time for a ciggie?’
‘No.’
Barnaby was right. Even as he spoke a section of the panels vanished inwards and Mr Jocelyne, a short man with a markedly pouty chest and tiny hands and feet, came towards them. Barnaby was reminded of a pigeon. Everything about the solicitor was grey - his pin-striped arms and legs, the soft, sparsely distributed curls of hair upon his head and the more wiry tufts springing from his ears. Even his nails had a blue-grey tinge. He looked bone dry, as if all his essential juices had recently been drained off, and rustled as he walked.
‘Ah - here you are!’ he cried, as if it had been them who were keeping him waiting. ‘Come along. Come along.’
Once they were seated, in an office almost as stuffy and boring as the anteroom, Mr Jocelyne settled himself behind a desk the size of a rugger pitch and almost disappeared. He said, ‘Appalling, appalling.’
Barnaby hoped the man wasn’t going to say everything twice or they’d be there till the cows came home. He assumed that Mr Jocelyne was referring to the murder of his client.
‘Good of you to dispense with the formalities, Mr Jocelyne.’
‘In a murder case, chief inspector. In a case of murder.’
Mr Jocelyne drew towards him a mottled box file that he had placed earlier roughly scrum half. He opened it and took out an envelope containing the will. As he unfolded the sheets of heavy parchment they crackled as sharply as if they were on fire. Smoothing them out, the solicitor began to read.
‘Mr Hadleigh’s instructions are that any properties that he should own at the time of his death plus all other monies accruing from his estate are to go equally to Emmanuel College, Cambridge and the Central St Martin’s School of Art and Design there to endow two scholarships in literature and art respectively for young people of outstanding talent but limited means. The will makes it plain that both these establishments have already been approached regarding this matter.’
‘Quite a lot of money involved then?’
‘Indeed yes. Mr Hadleigh spread his investments wisely. Global Unit Trusts, Fidelity Cash Accounts, Woolwich Tessa and Treasury Bonds. All in all around eight hundred thousand pounds. Excluding the value of the house of course.’
Barnaby, concealing his surprise, asked the date of the will.
‘February the thirteenth 1982. The only amendment has been a change of executor. When Mr Hadleigh moved to Midsomer Worthy he needed a local solicitor for the conveyancing and asked if we would handle his affairs in the event of his death.’
‘Who were the previous executors?’
‘The firm who drew up the will.’
‘Might I have their details please? And the address Mr Hadleigh gave at that time.’
Mr Jocelyne produced a pewter-coloured fountain pen from an inside pocket. He unscrewed the top, fitted it neatly but firmly on to the other end and produced a piece of scrap paper from a neat folder. After checking that it had already been used on one side he cleared his throat as if preparing to speak rather than write and scribbled a few lines. Then he doubled the note, doubled it again and handed the tiny square over.
‘Could I ask, Mr Jocelyne, how well you knew your client?’
‘I didn’t. He was here for the business I have just described and I haven’t seen him since.’
‘I see. His investments make up quite an elaborate portfolio. Do you happen to know if he used a financial adviser?’
‘No idea.’ Mr Jocelyne, apparently pleased with this unhelpful response, looked kindly on them both.
‘We understand, from what Mr Hadleigh himself gave out, that he moved here from Kent—’
‘Hardly my business where he came from, chief inspector,’ responded Mr Jocelyne happily. Then, in case there should be the slightest doubt, ‘No concern of mine.’
The less helpful he was able to be the warmer the solicitor’s manner became. After being compelled to answer several further questions with a brief negative he bordered almost upon the radiant. When the time came to bid farewell he positively beamed and a flash of silver, bright but well within Mr Jocelyne’s chosen colour range, sparkled between his front teeth.
As Barnaby opened the door he noticed a large framed photograph of three youngsters, two boys and a girl, dressed in vivid colours, laughing, full of beans. The girl was swinging upside down. They were so obviously having such a wonderful time that the chief inspector took a moment to look, for the sheer pleasure of it.
‘Your grandchildren, Mr Jocelyne?’
‘No.’ A trace of colour finally showed itself, a delicate bloom upon the bloodless cheeks. ‘That is my family. Taken on my daughter’s fifth birthday. Last month.’
‘What a goer.’ Troy was chuckling as the two men once more hobbled across the slush-covered pavement. ‘No wonder he looks as old as the century. Back to the car now is it?’
‘I could do with a warm-up. Let’s grab some coffee at Bunter’s.’
‘Bunter’s?’ Troy stared in surprise.
‘Why not?’
He knew why not but went just the same. They sat down in the genteel snug surrounded by copper kettles and hunting horns and horse brasses suspended from leather straps. The waitresses wore mid-calf length black dresses with aprons like white exclamation points and pleated, pie-crust headbands low on the forehead. But their faces were young and skilfully painted and they moved with just as much speed and efficiency as their confrères at McDonald’s.
The room was crowded and very warm, smelling of damp clothes, toast and freshly ground coffee. There was no truck in Bunter’s with all that fluffed-up nonsense sprinkled with grated chocolate. Proper EPNS pots, milk jugs and sugar basins with flowered cups and saucers and apostle spoons.
Troy poured for them both, adding three sugars to his cup before warming his fingers round it. Then he sat back, glancing with deep satisfaction over the pleated, half-mast cretonne curtains into the street. For what could be nicer than sitting comfortably in the warm and dry watching one’s fellows trudge, pinched and shivering, on their weary way. Not much, Troy conceded, though driving past a bus queue in torrential rain came pretty near. Especially if you could get really close to the gutter.