‘Did you know Miss Simpson well?’
‘I don’t know anyone well. She let me do a series of paintings of her garden . . . different times of the year . . . but that was ages ago. I hadn’t seen her for . . . ohh . . . a couple of months at least.’ He gazed at the chief inspector, alert, detached, a little amused, deciding to treat this enforced interruption as an entertainment.
‘Could you tell me where you were on the afternoon and evening of last Friday?’
‘Here.’
‘Well that’s certainly a prompt reply, Mr Lacey. Don’t you need to reflect at all?’
‘No. I’m always here. Working. Sometimes I take a break to walk in the woods.’
‘And did you walk in the woods that day?’ inquired Barnaby.
‘I may have done. I really don’t remember. As all my days are the same I don’t need to keep a diary.’
‘It seems rather a dull life for a young man.’
Michael Lacey looked at his bare feet. They were beautiful feet: long, narrow, elegant, with papery skin and fine bones. Byzantine feet. Then he looked directly at Barnaby and said, ‘My work is my life.’ He spoke quietly but with such a charge of passionate conviction that Barnaby, dabbler in watercolours, casual member of the Causton Arts Circle, felt a stab of envy. He then told himself that conviction didn’t mean talent, as many an exposure to Joyce’s drama group had confirmed. Armed with this rather churlish perception, he said, ‘There are one or two more questions, Mr Lacey, if you wouldn’t mind -’
‘But I do mind. I hate being interrupted.’
‘I understand,’ continued Barnaby smoothly, ‘that you were present when the late Mrs Trace was killed.’
‘Bella?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Yes I was but I can’t see . . .’ He paused. ‘You don’t think there’s any connection . . . ?’ His previous animosity seemed forgotten. He looked genuinely interested. ‘No . . . how could there be?’
‘I gather from the newspaper report that you were the first person to reach Mrs Trace.’
‘That’s right. Lessiter said not to touch her but to run and ring for an ambulance, which I did.’
‘Was there anyone at Tye House at the time?’
‘Only Katherine. Toadying away like mad.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘In the kitchen making sandwiches, stuffing vol au vents, chopping up hunter’s pie.’
‘Whilst you were helping with the beating.’
‘That’s different. I was being paid!’ Barnaby’s dig stung the anger back into his voice. He confirmed that no one in the party had been in a position to shoot Mrs Trace, then said, ‘I don’t know why you’re asking me. I didn’t even have a gun.’
‘I understand that you and the other beater searched for the cartridge afterwards?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite as strongly as that. We had a cursory poke round but it seemed so pointless that we soon gave up.’
‘Thank you, Mr Lacey.’
As the two policemen climbed into the car Troy, remembering his earlier gaffe about the Rover, strove to think of something perceptive and intelligent to say. ‘Did you notice that he locked the door of the room where he was painting? I thought that was a bit strange.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Creative people often have an intensely protective attitude about work in progress. Look at Jane Austen’s creaking door.’
Sergeant Troy reversed, using a large, double-sided mirror which had been fixed in the hedge, giving a view of the approaching path and the front of the cottage. ‘That’s a point, sir,’ he replied. There was no way he was going to let on he knew nothing of Jane Austen’s creaking door. As for Michael Lacey being love’s young dream, well . . . He glanced in the mirror and briefly smoothed his carrot-coloured hair. Surely it was only in romantic novels that girls preferred dark men.
Michael Lacey watched from the porch while the car drove away then returned to his studio. He picked up his palette and brush, stared at the easel for a moment, then put them down again. The light was dying. In spite of the recent interruption he had had a good day. Sometimes he worked in a fury of resentment; tearing up sketches, painting over scenes that would not come right in a frenzy, occasionally weeping with rage. But days like that paid for days like this. From the striving came, sometimes, a marvellous and felicitous ease. He studied the figure in the painting. There was still a lot to do. He had put on the dead colour, that was all. But he was excited by it. He had the absolute conviction that it was going to be successful. It was tremendous when that happened. The belief that, no matter what he did, how he approached it, whatever the technique, it was going to work. His conviction was so strong that he felt he couldn’t spoil it even if he tried.
He went to the kitchen and opened a can of baked beans and sausages and, spooning them into his mouth, returned to his workroom. The fading light appeared to alter the shape of the place, made the walls shifting and amorphous. Four vast abstracts covered with thick white paint loomed at him from a few feet away. In the corner of each was a dark, imploding star, now no more than a smudge in the crepuscular light.
On top of the corner cupboard was an old-fashioned pewter student’s lamp. He lit the candle and wandered round the room looking at the many canvases stacked against the walls. Although there was a strong fluorescent strip light on the ceiling Michael Lacey loved the effect of candles. Colours on the paintings became richer, many-layered; eyes seemed to flicker and mouths twitch with the illusion of light. Solid flesh was transformed into something rare and delicate. The effect was stimulating and seemed to fill his mind with wonderful and subtle ideas.
In the corner cupboard was a pile of paperbacks and art catalogues, all well thumbed, the spines cracked and, in some cases, broken. He pulled one out at random and sat contemplating a plate by Botticelli. How seductive, he thought, the tender vivacious faces adorned with fresh spring flowers. He finished the beans and sat for a moment longer utterly content, imagining himself walking round the Uffizi, standing in homage in front of the original. Then he opened the window, threw up the tin and kicked it, a shining arc, through the window and into the night.
Chapter Seven
Late that evening Barnaby sat toying with a salad. He had deliberately stayed on at the station, looking through the pro-formas as they appeared in his tray, until he felt dinner would be beyond redemption and a tin opened with no hard feelings. He had forgotten there were such things as tomatoes and cucumber and beetroot . . .
One would have thought that not even Joyce could have maltreated a salad to the point where it became inedible, but one would have been wrong. Abustle with wild life, it was also soaked in a vinegary dressing. Barnaby lifted a soggy lettuce leaf. A small insect emerged, valiantly swimming against the tide.
‘It’s Bakewell Surprise for afters,’ she called from the kitchen, doubly percipient. He was hungry too. This last phenomenon always surprised him. It was rather touching, really: no matter how much stick he gave his stomach there it was, a few hours later, hopeful if apprehensive, wondering if this time its luck would change.
‘And Cully’s coming next weekend.’ She gave him the tart, a cup of tea and a fond kiss. ‘All right?’
‘Lovely. How long for?’
‘Just till Sunday teatime.’
Barnaby and Joyce looked at each other. They both loved and were immensely proud of their only child. And they both thought it much nicer when she was not at home. Neither of them ever said so. Even when quite small Cully had had a sharp eye and an unkind tongue. Both had become more finely honed with the passing years. Outstanding at school, she was now reading English at New Hall and confidently expected to get a good second in spite of the fact that she seemed to Barnaby to spend all her time rehearsing some play or other.
‘Will you be able to pick her up on Saturday?’
‘Not sure.’ Barnaby put his Bakewell Surprise to the sword, which was more than it deserved, and wondered what his daughter would be next seen wearing. She had always
dressed in a provoking manner but he and Joyce had assumed, seeing her off on the Cambridge train, that the days of dishcloth and safety-pin skirts and tie and dye makeup were over (indeed they half expected her to be sent smartly home again) but each brief and infrequent visit since had presented them with ever more exotic and alarming transformations. The nice thing about these occasions was that having left home, as she put it, whilst she still had her health and strength, Cully protected these twin assets by always arriving with a goodly supply of gorgeous food from Marks and Spencers and Joshua Taylor’s deli.
‘You won’t forget to ring your father?’
Barnaby took his tea and sat by the fireplace. As he had been ringing his parents once a week for a quarter of a century he’d hardly be likely to. They were both in their eighties and had retired to just outside Eastbourne twenty years before. There they inhaled the ozone, played bowls and gardened, as spry as tinkers.
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Do it now before you settle down.’
‘I have settled down.’
‘Then you can enjoy your tea.’
Barnaby dutifully hauled himself out of his chair. His mother answered the phone and, after a token inquiry about his own health and that of his family, launched into an account of her week which included a splendid row at the Arts Circle when a nonagenarian had suggested a life class. She ended, as she always did, by saying, ‘I’ll just call Daddy.’
Barnaby senior then described his week which had included a splendid row at a meeting of the preservation society over a Victorian bandstand. What a bellicose lot they were down there, thought Barnaby who, when his parents had moved, had pictured them passing their hours dozing peacefully in their conservatory. A rather unsound piece of image-making, he now admitted. They had never been the dozing kind. His father finished describing how he had finally scuppered an unscrupulous opponent on the bowling green.
Barnaby listened patiently then said, almost as an afterthought, ‘Never mind. We’re in the middle of the cricket season. I expect you’re glued to the set most days.’
‘Certainly am. Rented one of those video gadgets. Play back the best bits. Terrible about Friday, wasn’t it?’
Barnaby smiled indulgently. His father must know that he was never around in the daytime to watch cricket, yet always assumed he knew exactly what was being discussed.
‘What happened?’
‘Why, no match, dear boy. Not enough light. The umpire offered Allenby the option and he decided to stop play. Eleven ack-emma. Everything was ready this end. Cucumber sandwiches, jug of mint tea. Settled in for the duration. We were totally distraught. Well, to be honest, your mother wasn’t too bothered but it did for my day, I can tell you.’
After due commiserations Barnaby returned to his armchair and a fresh cup of tea. ‘People have started lying to me, Joyce.’
‘Oh yes, dear . . .’ The pale silky knitting grew. ‘In this business at Badger’s Drift, you mean?’
‘Mm. Katherine Lacey was seen in the village during the evening she said she didn’t go out. Judy Lessiter said she was at work all afternoon and was seen in the village shop at half-past three. Trevor Lessiter said he was at home watching cricket . . . “superb bowling” . . . and the match was cancelled. And Phyllis Cadell went rigid with fright when she saw us, then tried to cover it by some silly story about her road tax.’
‘Goodness . . . that seems plenty to be going on with.’ The names meant nothing to Joyce Barnaby and she knew Tom was really only thinking aloud, getting his thoughts into some sort of order. She listened intently all the same.
‘And Barbara Lessiter, the esteemed doctor’s wife, had something in this morning’s mail that turned her white as a sheet.’
‘How do you know?’ Barnaby told her. ‘Oh - it’s probably a final demand. I expect she’s been buying clothes and run up a terrible bill somewhere.’
‘No.’ Barnaby shook his head. ‘It was something more than that. And where was she the night Emily Simpson died? Driving round. Very vague.’
‘But innocent people are vague. They don’t always have alibis. Or know precisely what they were doing and when. You’ve always said that. What was she doing in the afternoon?’
‘Shopping in Causton.’
‘There you are, then,’ said Joyce, irrefutably. ‘She’s been overspending.’
Barnaby smiled across at her, drained his cup and replaced it in the saucer. Something told him that it was not that simple. That none of it was going to be that simple.
Chapter Eight
Next morning, the day before the inquest was due to be reconvened, Barnaby got to his office early and settled down for a rapid read-through of pro-formas, statements and reports. The gist of these would later be transferred to a rotating card system (they were still waiting for a computer). He called for some coffee and began.
He read fast and skilfully, seizing on tiny details, passing quickly over the mundane and merely repetitious. The result was pretty much as he had expected. The only males in the village not at work on the afternoon of the seventeenth or at home with their wives were two unemployed men who spent the time on their respective allotments in full view of each other. The vicar had been in his study working on next week’s sermon. A fact confirmed by his housekeeper who had been making jam in the kitchen and was highly indignant that the vicar, a frail old party of seventy-three, should have been questioned at all. In the evening the men were either at home with their families or in the Black Boy. Policewoman Brierley brought in the coffee and Barnaby took it gratefully.
The women of Badger’s Drift also seemed to be accounted for. Some were out at work. The old ones at home. The rest (with the exception of Mrs Quine) in the village hall preparing for the morrow. The young women who had left the hall in plenty of time for a quick frolic in the bracken had all met their children off the school bus and gone home to a blameless tea. In the evening three carloads had gone to Causton for a keep-fit class and the rest had stayed at home. Assuming that the couple in the woods were inhabitants of the village, which Barnaby was still inclined to do, the circle of suspects was very small indeed.
He finished his coffee, noting with some surprise, as the liquid went down, the gradual emergence of a green frog wearing a friendly smile and a straw boater, and playing a banjo. He turned to the scene-of-crime reports.
There were not many surprises. The larder window had been forced and traces of white paint were on the inside shelf. There was not, alas, the weather being dry, a lump of mud with the pattern of a shoe sole clearly visible. No fingerprints on the piecrust table, the hemlock-filled jar, garden trowel, door handles and all the other places one would expect to find fingerprints. And none on the telephone - which was strange, as the last person to handle that should have been Doctor Lessiter. And what reason would he have for wiping it clean? The pencil mark on the copy of Julius Caesar was a 6B. Not perhaps as common as some but hardly a vanishing species. The pencil had not been found. Elimination tests showed that any prints belonged either to the deceased or to Miss Lucy Bellringer.
He skimmed the second report again briefly but he had missed very little the first time. A search for the rug was in progress but Barnaby was not optimistic. Anyone who was so punctilious over fingerprints would hardly leave the thing lying around in the back of a car or flung over a sofa. Of course it was hardly common knowledge that the fibres of a rug had been found and not everyone knew that semen stains were as conclusive as fingerprints. The police might just be lucky. Troy opened the door.
‘Car ready when you are, Chief.’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Sergeant Troy, turning off the Gessler Tye road towards Badger’s Drift, ‘that could’ve been arse bandits in the woods. You know . . . gay.’ There could not have been more venom in the last word if the couple had been seen devouring children.
This was the fifth suggestion he had made in the last ten minutes, all scrupulously punctuated with ‘sirs’. He was very free with his ‘sirs
’, was Troy. You couldn’t fault him on etiquette. Nor on discipline. Sergeant Troy played it by the book. He passed his exams with room to spare, his reports were models of concise yet comprehensive information. He was without the silly romanticism that lured so many men and women into the force and also without the rather watery compassion that usually evaporated when confronted by their first one hundred per cent amoral, ruthlessly proficient, frequently armed villain. Especially he was without the compassion. He was about to chirp up again. Really, thought the chief inspector, with a more likable personality you could have called him irrepressible.
Before Troy could speak Barnaby said, ‘That had occurred to me as well but, as far as we know, only Dennis Rainbird fits that description. I checked with his partner and he definitely didn’t leave work until quarter to five on the Friday. Also there seems to be no reason why he should conceal any such relationship. It’s no longer against the law.’
‘More’s the pity,’ said Troy, adding, with unusual percipience, ‘I bet his mother would be jealous, though.’ Then, ‘Shan’t we be a bit early for the Lessiter girl?’
‘It’s her half day.’
‘Oh my God!’ Sergeant Troy slammed on the brakes. The car screamed to a stop. Barnaby pitched forward, saved from a collision with the windscreen by his belt. A figure had leapt out from behind the village post box almost directly in their path. Barnaby wound the window down and spoke through blanched lips.
‘It’s really not a good idea, Miss Bellringer—’
‘How fortuitous.’ She beamed at them. A faint scent of carnations and orris root pervaded the interior of the car. Before Barnaby could stop her she had opened the door, climbed in and disposed herself on the back seat. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘first and before I forget, the funeral’s tomorrow. Eleven-thirty. I don’t know if you wish to come?’
Barnaby murmured something noncommittal. Sergeant Troy dug out a packet of Chesterfields with trembling fingers.
The Killings at Badger's Drift Page 12
