Amy was conscious of a great dismay. She had actually screwed her courage to the sticking place. Had seen the door that led to freedom standing ajar. Must it now be slammed forever in her face?
‘I’ve been thoughtless.’ Honoria compounded her mysterious felony. ‘So used to the cold I don’t notice. We must light a fire. And I’ll sort out that boiler. Order some coke and really get it going.’
She was moving away as if the matter was settled. Amy couldn’t bear it. She wanted to stop her. To cry out that the boiler didn’t matter nor the lighting of fires. That it was all too late and her mind was made up. Tomorrow she would be packing and by the next day, gone.
But even as she called, ‘Honoria?’ the library door closed and she was once more alone.
Barnaby sat behind his desk, rumbling. Mindful of his starter at Bunter’s he had consumed only a ham salad in the canteen at lunchtime, cutting the pink and white meat, already paper thin, into even smaller portions and carving up the tomatoes - finding himself in the ridiculous position of eating something he didn’t really want while at the same time trying to make it last.
Troy, sitting opposite, had lowered cottage pie, peas, double chips, apricot crumble, two Kit Kats and a huge beaker of Coke which must have given the two young girls on a boat some stick.
‘I don’t know where you put it all. You must have hollow legs.’
Troy regarded the extremely large figure facing him with some sympathy. It was all that cooking that had started it. The sergeant had been quite perturbed when he first discovered the governor’s new hobby, for it had struck him as more than a touch on the bendy side. But then he discovered, via a new sitcom, that all the world’s greatest chefs were men, which not only figured but went a considerable way towards allaying his suspicions. For it stood to reason they couldn’t all be poofters.
Now he watched as Barnaby got up and started prowling around, staring at screens over their operatives’ shoulders, snatching up any phone within an arm’s length the second it rang, chatting to the statements reader, interrogating researchers. Keeping busy not just because that was his nature but because he hoped, by so doing, to banish from his mind the image of the calorifically engorged automat squatting a mere few yards away.
‘Water’s very good,’ said Troy.
‘What?’
‘Maureen drinks a lot of water. When she’s trying to lose weight.’
‘Just mind your own bloody business - all right?’
Barnaby turned and walked back to his patch and Troy, quite unoffended, followed. He perched on the edge of the desk and said, ‘I’ve had a thought.’
‘Well treat it gently. It’s in a strange place.’
‘About this visit of Max Jennings. I was wondering if it wasn’t a coincidence that his name came up at that writers’ meeting. We know now about Laura Hutton’s feelings. What if - even before she knew he wasn’t Mr Spotless - she was getting cheesed off at being rejected. And invited Jennings out of spite.’
‘That presupposes she knew the man. Or at least was aware of the effect his visit might have on Hadleigh.’
‘Stranger things have happened. You’ve said yourself, if we put all the coincidences we come across in a book no one’d ever believe it.’
‘True.’
‘Like for instance the whole lot of them being writers.’
‘Not entirely, Laura Hutton was just faking it to make sure she saw him once a month.’
‘Seems to me they’re all faking it. Nobody seems to have sold anything.’
‘I suppose we ought to be grateful they’re not writing detective fiction. Remember Lucy Bellringer?’
‘Who?’
‘That old woman at Badger’s Drift whose friend was murdered.’
‘God, yes.’ Troy laughed. ‘Totally looped she was.’
‘What is it, Owen?’ This was addressed to a uniformed constable coming up to the desk.
‘I’m afraid we’ve had a negative result for 1979 on the trace for Hadleigh’s marriage, sir.’ He paused, then, noting Barnaby’s dismay, said, ‘Do you want us to try 1978 or 1980?’
‘Not at the moment.’
Dismissed, the man returned to his machine. Barnaby sat back and closed his eyes. Troy watched in silence, thinking how tired his boss looked. His eyelids were droopy and wizened, and the skin on his face looked stiff and pale. Eventually the sergeant said, ‘I shouldn’t be too cast down, chief. After all we didn’t know for certain it was ’79. Just worked it out from what Hadleigh put about. Why don’t you give the year before a whirl?’
‘We’re not wasting more time and money following up what I’m beginning to suspect is a load of false information. We already know he was far from being the heartbroken celibate he pretended. And that when he was supposed to have a place in Kent he was actually shacked up in Victoria.’ Barnaby got up and turned to face the map on the wall behind him. A blown-up aerial plan of Midsomer Worthy.
‘I’m afraid all the people we’re currently interviewing only know what Hadleigh wanted them to know. To find out anything really useful we need to talk to someone from the past.’
Barnaby rested the tip of his index finger on the headed pins marking Plover’s Rest and thought of the visiting celebrity roaring away, to use Mrs Clapton’s term, on the night of the murder. Where was he now?
Although there had been no official call put out, the author’s newsworthy presence on the fatal evening had been well reported. It struck the chief inspector as highly unlikely that Jennings had neither seen these reports nor had them drawn to his attention.
In which case, why had he not got in touch? The answer ‘because he was guilty’ was obvious enough. Yet there was also a deeply disturbing alternative. Might it not be the case that Jennings had not come forward because he was unable to do so? In other words were they all looking, not for a prime suspect, but for a second victim?
Sue sat, biting her nails, in the cramped untidy sitting room whose glowing terracotta walls still vibrated from the violent slamming of the front door. She was left alone, consumed with a need to talk to someone, anyone, anyone at all, about her visit to Rex’s house and their subsequent extraordinary conversation.
She had made innumerable attempts to tell Brian, but he had been behaving so oddly from the moment he arrived home that eventually, out of sheer exasperation, she had given up.
Shouting, ‘Ah, tea - tea!’ he had dashed to sit down, only to push and pull his food vigorously about without eating it. He kept looking at the clock and flicking the end of the table with his nails.
After eating he cleaned his teeth then, half an hour later, Sue heard him scrubbing at them again, swilling and spitting in seemingly endless repetition. He emerged blowing into his cupped hands and inhaling with a deeply suspicious frown.
He disappeared upstairs and she heard drawers open and close and the forceful clack and rattle of manipulated coat hangers. Coming down, he vanished once more into the bathroom, carrying a pile of shirts over his arm. This time his reappearance was marked by soaking wet hair hanging in a skinny plait and a complexion rosy from friction. Then, after checking the clock yet again, he sat down on the sofa with his bulldog-clipped sheets and began to peruse his play.
All this time Sue had been hovering around submitting conversational openings along ‘you’ll never guess ... the most amazing thing ...’ lines that she herself would have found instantly irresistible.
Brian behaved as if she wasn’t there apart from once, at the moment of his departure, when, reaching for his scarf, he moved her, none too carefully, out of the way.
When she asked what all this hustle and bustle was in aid of he had said brusquely, ‘I’ve had to call an extra rehearsal. We’ve barely a fortnight to go.’