‘Came across an old biddy,’ said Inspector Meredith, ‘who actually recalls not only the day itself but the name of the firm.’ He ruffled his pages and continued, abandoning his natural drawl for what he appeared to regard as a South Bucks working-class accent.
‘Oi remember thaat corz thaat was Beech Hams and moy maam used to give uz Beech Hams pills.’ He chortled, no doubt at the quaintness of old peasant biddydom in general and this crusty old example in particular.
Nobody joined in. Barnaby watched the inspector sourly. He was closing his notebook now, no doubt after memorising the fragment of folklore to entertain his chums. They’d be pissing themselves at the Athenaeum over that one.
‘Her name I believe,’ concluded Meredith, ‘was Mrs Staggles.’
‘Well, whatever her name is,’ replied the chief inspector, ‘she’s certainly a long way from her native Norfolk. I trust,’ he carried on quickly over the laughter, which he perceived to derive as much from pleasure at Meredith’s displacement as at his own wit, ‘you didn’t leave the matter there?’
‘Naturally not.’ Skin extremely tight around the eyes. ‘The firm, it appears, was taken over a year ago by a much larger company. Cox’s of Slough. They didn’t keep any of the staff - there were only half a dozen - but did take their names and addresses in case there were vacancies sometime in the future. I plan to talk to any who are still living locally, tomorrow.’
‘I shall be interested to hear the result,’ said Barnaby. ‘I think you may well find that they did not move Hadleigh’s stuff from Kent, as we’ve been led to believe, after all.’
‘Really, sir? What makes you say that?’
Barnaby briefly described his visit to the solicitor’s and the reading of the will, which filled the room with some surprise and quite a few whistles of envy.
‘The more we seem to discover about Hadleigh,’ continued the chief inspector, ‘the more we find ourselves on shifting sands. We’ve been unable to find any record of his marriage in the year that he implied it had taken place. We’re trying to trace an insurance number but the name is not all that uncommon and we have no date of birth to go on. The Department of Agriculture at Whitehall are checking their records but, quite frankly, I’ve little hope in that direction either. It’s becoming plain, I’m afraid, that Hadleigh was a man bent on concealment. At this stage we can only guess at whether what he took such pains to conceal was connected with his death.’
Barnaby sat back, watching his team take all this in. Personally he found these conclusions totally depressing. He was not a man to relish complication for the sake of complication, as Nicholas had discovered while trying to teach his father-in-law to play chess.
Policewoman Audrey Brierley started smoothing her neat cap of shining hair, a nervous habit she indulged when speaking in front of a group. ‘But why would anyone make up a whole set of lies about themselves, sir?’
‘A good question.’
‘Have we checked if he’s got form?’ asked Inspector Meredith.
‘Yes, we have,’ said Barnaby crisply. ‘And no, he hasn’t.’
‘Not under that name,’ said Audrey.
‘Precisely. The fact that it’s proving so difficult to pin him down suggests that the name is false. And it may not be the only alias.’
‘Maybe he’s a cut and runner,’ said Troy. ‘Wife and kids all too much - buggers off. Or a bigamist.’
‘I wonder if you’ve considered the possibility ...’ Inspector Meredith, who had not waited for the previous speaker to finish, leaned back in his chair. He crossed one elegant tweed leg over the other and lowered his narrow head as if thanking his muse for this, the latest in a long line of inspiration. If he puts the tips of his fingers together, thought Barnaby, and rests his chin on them, I will personally go over there and bash his head on the floor till his brains rattle.
‘The possibility,’ reprised the inspector, ‘that what we may have here is an official make-over. If Hadleigh had been some kind of supergrass a complete change of location, totally new background and identity could have been part of a deal. I have a connection in the Home Office and would be glad—’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
Barnaby, having a rough idea what such transformations could cost, suspected they were very rare indeed. He also knew how close the Home Office played such matters to its chest. Still, the suggestion could not be entirely discounted. He only wished someone else had made it.
‘Maybe Jennings will be able to fill in some of the blanks, sir,’ said Detective Constable Willoughby. ‘Are you going to be putting out a press release about him soon?’
‘I thought we’d give it another twenty-four hours, but if there’s no trace by then of the man or his car, I’m afraid we’ll have to.’ Barnaby rose to his feet, saying, ‘Right. If that’s it ... ?’
Glancing about he noticed Inspector Meredith’s sudden frown and look of increased concentration, as if some perception or other had occurred. The man looked alert within himself. Barnaby said, ‘Well, inspector?’
‘Sir?’
‘The little grey cells working overtime again?’ There were a few toadying snickers and Barnaby chided himself for such petty spite. It was hardly Meredith’s fault that the system upgraded graduates to inspector in four years whilst making hard-working, foot-slogging, intelligent constables hang around for fifteen. He drained the acid from his voice before continuing.
‘You’ve had an idea, I think?’
‘No, sir.’
At that point the night shift arrived. Barnaby checked his desk over and made for the door, his mind already closing on the anticipatory pleasures of the kitchen. Herbs and mushrooms to be chopped, liver to be thinly sliced. A glass of the ’90 Crozes-Hermitage while he worked. What could be nicer?
As he passed the windows of the incident room on his way to the car park he noticed that Inspector Meredith was still there. Utterly engrossed, his fingers were tapping busily at a computer keyboard as his snaky head, quite still and urgently attentive, studied the screen.
Hector Pulls it Off
Brian pushed his muesli and grated apple sullenly around its homely dish. He had had a rotten night and was now looking at a rotten, filthy day. Rain beat in a rattling crescendo on the white-framed kitchen windows and, in the garden, trees and shrubs bent this way and that in the force of a driving wind.
Sluggardised by wakefulness and bad dreams Brian sat on the fake pine breakfast bench attached to the table. Actually he did not so much sit as lurch, semi-upright. A posture that, should anyone else in the family have adopted it, would have brought about an immediate lecture on slovenly behaviour.
Brian was going over, as he had done more or less constantly since hobbling away from Quarry Cottages, the complete turn of events that had taken place there. His imagination had already largely rewritten several crucial moments, but enough were left inviolate to make his memories of the occasion somewhat disagreeable.
But he tried not to dwell on those. And it wasn’t as if matters could not be put right. It had, after all, been the first time. A certain amount of awkwardness was only to be expected. But now that he knew what Edie wanted, what turned her on, things would be very different. Looking at the already brown fruit mincings in front of him Brian reassembled the apple in his mind’s eye. Immediately it transformed itself into a creamily perfect, pink-tipped breast.
Keenly fraught with lust, he shifted uneasily back and forth, staring sourly across the room at his earnest shambles of a wife. He wished her moon face far away. And her saggy, russet-aureoled boobs and big feet. Christ, how was it possible for a woman with legs like Olive Oyl to take size eights? He’d thrown himself away there all right, by God he had. Casting the pearls of his intellect and talent before such an unpractised simpleton.