Barnaby released a sound of demurring protest reinforced by a disbelieving movement of his head.
‘It’s true. She said the most terrible thing, the cruellest thing. I’ve never told anyone - not even Sue. He’d been unconscious for days in that hospital in Spain and we’d been taking turns to sit with him. I’d been resting and I was going back along the corridor towards his room when Honoria came out of the doctor’s office. She gripped my arms - I had the marks for days - and screamed in my face. “If you’d loved him enough he wouldn’t have died.” It was the most dreadful shock. I didn’t know he’d gone, you see. It happened while I was asleep. It was the only time I’ve ever seen her show any emotion.
‘She’s taken him back now. The headstone has his name and a single space for hers. His room with all his childhood things is permanently locked. She’s always in there. I hear her sometimes reading out his letters or school reports. But none of that matters really. I sit by his grave and talk to him and we’re as close as we ever were. All the rest is trimmings.’
After she had finished speaking Amy sat in silence for a while. There was an almost inaudible click as the minute hand on the clock jumped round and a faint humming from the overhead fluorescent light. But in spite of the brightness of the room and the constant shrilling of telephones and the human clatter just beyond the thin walls, Amy was aware that she felt very much at ease.
‘I can’t imagine why I told you all that.’
‘Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger.’
‘That depends on the stranger, surely. You seem to have a gift for it, inspector. Perhaps you should join the Samaritans.’
‘No patience. They’d be jumping off high buildings in droves.’
Amy was surprised. He had seemed to her endlessly patient and attentive. But perhaps that was just part of his technique. An enforced physical stillness to encourage revelation. Certainly he seemed to have taken rather a lot of notes. She began to feel slightly ill at ease and was quite relieved when he buzzed for the nice policewoman with the shining hair.
‘We would like, Mrs Lyddiard,’ said Barnaby, unhooking her coat from the curly hat stand, ‘some fingerprints from you. Purely for purposes of elimination. They will not be put on file or kept longer than is absolutely necessary.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Amy.
‘What do you think our chances are of obtaining your sister-in-law’s?’
‘Absolutely nil. She’s a law unto herself, Honoria.’ Barnaby shook hands. As WPC Brierley and she were leaving he said, ‘Take Mrs Lyddiard out via the incident room.’ He smiled at Amy. ‘You might be interested to see how the wheels go round.’
‘Indeed I would.’
Amy followed the policewoman down the corridor determined to make a mental note of everything she saw. She would buy a folder and mark it Police Research. Readers were said to love authentic detail and already Amy’s mind was conjuring a scene in which Araminta - after many tortuous travails - finally collapses on the steps of a station not a million miles removed from Causton CID. There, after being comforted and refreshed, she would pour out her incredible story. Probably to a large, burly man who would hear her out in close and sympathetic silence.
The telephone call from the day-shift barman at the Golden Fleece came shortly after one of the mingiest, stingiest lunches Tom Barnaby had ever eaten. He had been frightened into this austere reckoning when, tired of waiting for the lift, he had wheezed his way up a single flight of stairs to reach the canteen. Having attained the final step he found himself overwhelmed by a terrible choking sensation as if his windpipe had been clamped. There was a zinging in his ears and the hand that gripped the stair rail was not only curiously numb but - he squinted, trying to bring it into focus - curiously on the move.
Though these extraordinary physical sensations lasted only a few seconds it had been long enough to concentrate his mind marvellously on the virtuous section of the menu. Consequently an egg salad now nestled in his stomach alongside a slimmer’s yogurt and a cube of fatless cheese that had looked and tasted like yellow india rubber. (At least he now knew what to give up for Lent.) All this plus two slices of crispbread. Not that these had been crisp any more than they even remotely resembled bread. More like soggy sawdust held together by pockets of air. A clear case for prosecution under the Trades Description Act.
‘Are you all right, chief?’ Troy prised himself away from Audrey Brierley’s desk and sauntered over. His eyebrows were raised in mild inquiry, which was as near as he ever came to demonstrating concern.
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Indigestion, is it?’
‘You have to have eaten something to get indigestion, sergeant.’
Troy laughed in the careless way young, healthy, slender people have. ‘That’s very good. I must remember that. Tell Mor.’
‘She must really look forward to your return, Gavin.’
‘Yeah, I think she does. Usually has a go at me, though, about not going straight home.’ Like most of the men, and some of the women, Troy unwound after his shift with a few jars in the Police Club.
‘You’d think she’d be grateful. I’ve tried to explain it’s for her that I do it. If I took all the stresses and strains of this job back to 18 Russell Avenue she’d complain fast enough. I dunno ...’ He swivelled a chair round and sat down more comfortably. ‘Women. No sooner am I in the door than she starts. Jobs usually. When am I going to fix the bathroom tap, kitchen cupboard, landing light? I’m bloody wacked on my day off. All I want to do is kip. After I’ve cleaned and polished the car.
‘You daren’t open your eyes. The second the old lids roll back she’s off. Latest thing is, why don’t I ever talk to her. I said, I never talk to you, Maureen, because I can never get a bloody word in.’
Sensing a lack of interest from the far side of the desk, Troy asked if anything helpful had come out of the interview with Mrs Lyddiard.
‘Nothing I latched on to at the time. But I had the feeling after she’d left that something was said that rang false. I don’t necessarily mean that she was lying - just that there was some discrepancy. I’m just about to read through it again.’
But, almost before he had finished speaking, the phone rang and the resulting conversation put all thoughts of Amy’s interview from his head.
Garry Briggs, the day barman, was unsure whether the scrap of information he could add to that of his colleagues was worth passing on, but he had seen the woman they were all being asked about leaving the hotel car park, on more than one occasion, in a black Celica. Barnaby asked Mr Briggs if he had noticed who was driving at the time.
‘She was.’
‘Are you sure? If this is the vehicle I’m thinking of the windows would be dark.’
‘Positive. Saw her getting in and out. Always on her own.’ When these remarks were received in silence he added regretfully, ‘I did say it wasn’t much.’
The chief inspector thanked him and hung up. Sergeant Troy, quietly attentive, was leaning forward, hands resting lightly on his knees. He said, ‘So she had the use of his car. Which means she wasn’t a casual pick-up.’
‘Find Laura Hutton’s statement, would you?’
Looking slightly puzzled, Troy did so. Barnaby read it quickly through while punching out her number. She picked up the phone immediately but asked if he would ring back.
‘I’m showing an estate agent round at the moment.’
‘It won’t take a second, Mrs Hutton. It’s about the night you saw this woman arrive at Plover’s Rest. Do you remember—’