‘And she’d lost her twin brother not long before?’
‘Mm, but that was before I came, although there was still talk.’
‘Oh?’
‘Bit of a mystery. They thought it might be traced to a hepatitis C, rather rare.’
‘How would they get that?’
Rosie smiled. ‘I’m told Mrs Dryden thought she’d somehow given the infection to them, they’d been working on a vaccine at the laboratory, but it was nothing of that sort. Couldn’t be, the Nuttin is very, very careful. No, they’d been on holiday in eastern Turkey so they might have contracted it there. Not her. But I don’t know what the final conclusion was, I think they are still working on it.’
‘But they were buried.’
‘Yes, well, they have specimens,’ she said delicately. ‘I think the coroner left it open … Death from unknown causes.’
‘I suppose you can usually confirm that sort of thing?’
‘Yes, in the end,’ Rosie said cautiously. ‘Usually. Can take time. Not my job, of course. The backroom boys do that for us. We’ve had some real mysteries. The chap who got bitten by his ferret, and a long-running saga of this man who died with his pet rabbit. Bit of leaking kitchen equipment did for him and for bunny.’
‘Your job and mine have a lot in common,’ I said.
‘And it doesn’t do to get too close.’
‘But I think you do.’
‘And you.’
‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘Sometimes. More often than you’d think.’
‘Dryden?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I didn’t like seeing his face.’
‘They were rather sweet together,’ Rosie said thoughtfully. ‘I think he was what people call a good husband,’ she added wistfully.
‘Must be a nice thing to have.’ Or was it? One woman’s good husband might be another woman’s total bore.
And now he’s gone and she’s gone. The brother, sister-in-law, and child. The whole family group. And Chloe Devon. But there can’t be any connection.
I’m not going to say that aloud, I told myself. I’ll think about it later.
‘Can I have some more coffee?’
‘Sure.’ She poured and pushed the sugar towards me. The noticing eye, I thought, doctors are trained to see that sort of thing.
I drank the coffee. It didn’t seem to be doing much for me.
‘You’re too hard on yourself,’ said Rosie gently.
‘You work hard yourself.’ It was true that her face was drawn with fatigue, but it was still a young, eager face, nothing had dented that look yet. I hoped it never would.
‘True, but I get something back, and I’m not sure if you do.’
Damn that noticing eye.
‘I did once,’ I said. I finished my coffee. ‘I’d better ring for a taxi to take me back.’
Rosie stood up. ‘ I’ll give you a lift home.’
‘Aren’t you working?’
She looked at her watch. ‘I should have finished three hours ago. Come on, before someone starts bleeping me. Windsor still, is it?’
‘No, Brideswell now. I’ve just taken a house there. Is that difficult?’
‘No, I know it. On my way.’
I was cold and tired, glad to sit silently beside Rosie while she drove, which she did with the competence I would have expected of her.
‘To the right here,’ I directed. ‘Here we are.’ No lights on in the house, it looked dark and empty. My spirits sagged. I needed someone to be there putting on lights and making a meal.
‘Come in and let me give you a drink?’ I invited Rosie.
‘No, thank you. I won’t. I must get home. You don’t know but I have a husband and a two-year-old son waiting for me.’
Not a good husband, I speculated, as I got out of the car.
‘Look after that ankle,’ she said through the window. ‘Who bound it up for you?’
‘Dr Harlow.’
She nodded. ‘I know him. He’s a good chap. Bye.’ She waved her hand and drove off.
I hobbled up to the door and let myself in. Everywhere was dark and felt cold. I felt depressed. It would have been nice to have Humphrey here, but he hadn’t obliged.
Then I heard sounds from the kitchen and his voice.
‘I’m out here trying to relight the boiler.’
‘In the dark?’ I switched on the light. ‘I thought it was cold here.’
He appeared at the kitchen door. ‘Wasn’t dark when I started. You can’t go on living in this dump much longer.’
‘I can’t live in the other dump either. It’s got no roof, remember.’
‘Well, I’ve lit the fire and I have a meal ready.’ He came across and kissed me on the cheek. ‘You look terrible, what’s up?’ He gave me another and more searching look, then put his arms round me and drew me towards him. In spite of myself I resisted, feeling stiff and awkward. ‘Oh, come on now, what is it?’
I told him, poured it all out to him, the relief was tremendous.
‘I’ve never known you like this.’
‘I’ve believed in what I was doing. Even when I was a trainee constable pounding the streets in St Andrews and Dundee, when I was sergeant in Deerham Hills, I was buoyed up by believing that I was on the right side. Not always the winning side, although I did my best to see it was, but the right side.’
‘And not so now?’
‘I suppose I still believe it, but I can’t feel it. All I can feel at the moment is despair at the violence, the blood, the deaths. I can’t see any reason for the killings in this place.’
‘I think you’ve placed too much on reason.’
‘What else is there?’
‘Not much, I admit.’ He drew me into the sitting room. ‘But what I can offer is a hot beef casserole with what seems to be a lot of vegetables and wine in it.’
‘You never cooked it yourself?’
‘No, it was brought in by one Ellen Bean who said she thought you would need it, and to tell you that Benjy was happy at the Midden.’
‘Ellen?’ I separated myself from him and dried my eyes. I was surprised to find I had been crying. ‘She’s probably put Happy Dust in it.’ I knew what concoctions Bridie and Winifred were capable of mixing up and feeding to those they thought needed it. I could believe Benjy was happy at the Midden, he was in a familiar atmosphere.
‘You’re better already.’
He lit the fire in the big old grate, the ashes were still warm from yesterday. ‘I’ve fed the cat, by the way.’
‘I’d even forgotten Muff.’
‘She seems recovered from whatever, judging by the way she ate. Ellen Bean brought something for her too.’
More Happy Dust, I thought, soon the whole household would be in a state of euphoria.
‘Who is Ellen Bean, by the way?’
I hesitated. How to describe her? ‘You know Winifred Eagle and Birdie Peacock?’ They had once told him his fortune, not from his palm but from their dark green ball of glass. He had come away looking white, admitting that they had been alarmingly interesting about his past and he did not wish to dwell on what they offered him for his future. ‘She’s like them.’
‘We’d better eat what she’s given us and pray.’ He disappeared into the kitchen. ‘I had a spoonful and it has to be said that she makes a tasty stew.’
We ate by the fire. I had washed my hair and changed my clothes. Muff was asleep on my lap. ‘ Ellen didn’t bring in this burgundy,’ I said sleepily, sipping the wine.
‘No, that came with me. My touch of witchcraft.’
Muff leapt from my lap as the bell rang. Twice.
‘Oh God, I think I know who that is. He means well but I wish he hadn’t come.’
Clive Barney came in shaking himself like a dog that has been caught in a shower.
‘Still raining, is it?’
‘Worse if anything.’ He shook himself again, quite unselfconsciously. I found myself liking him more and more. But I wished he hadn’t come. I kne
w what he was going to talk about.
Humphrey poured him a glass of wine. ‘Or you could have whisky?’ Or beer; I could see him assessing Barney. A beer man?
‘No, I like wine.’ He smiled, he had a good smile, slightly crooked but very genuine. There was an old scar on that side of his face and I wondered what had happened to him. I could find out. ‘And this looks a good burgundy.’
Muff sniffed round his trousers and shoes, then leapt on to a chair near him and stared in his face. He didn’t pat her head, as many might have done, or say, ‘Nice cat,’ but stared gravely back and then looked away. Muff appreciated that, I thought.
‘I’ve come over to let you know what I know, which isn’t much.’
‘Thank you.’ I was very far from being grateful, but I was sensible of his generosity in coming. He must be as tired as I was, if not more tired. He certainly looked it, and also less tidy than yesterday as if this was one day his wife hadn’t pressed his tie. If he had a wife. That shirt was certainly unironed.
‘The surgeon and the pathologist both had a look at Dryden. They agree: he was killed by a blow to the back of his head. A small heavy instrument. Might have had a sharp edge.’
‘He survived that blow.’
‘Yes, for a time, but it was a mortal blow all the same. He might never have been completely unconscious or he may have gone out like a light and then come back. Fluctuated.’
‘Time?’ I said.
‘Within the last twenty-four hours … they couldn’t get closer … They agree on that estimate … they don’t agree on the wounds.’ He drank some wine. ‘ The police surgeon took a quick look and said they were inflicted at more or less the same time as the head wound.’
‘They were still bleeding when I found him.’
‘They would be, some of them were deep, and he wasn’t dead … The pathologist says the knife wounds were later.’ He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to come out with the next bit. ‘And were superimposed upon earlier wounds.’ He looked into the fire. ‘Bite marks.’
I felt sick. ‘Like Chloe Devon.’
‘Could be. It’s something we have to consider.’
‘What sort of animal did the biting?’
He shook his head. ‘I suppose it might be possible to find out. If we can find out where he was attacked. It doesn’t look as though he was at home.’
‘You’ve looked?’
‘First thing one of my team did. No traces of blood or violence. Doesn’t look as though he’d been home for some time.’
‘He telephoned me. Said he wanted to tell me something.’ I don’t know why I had been so slow to tell Barney.
‘Did he now? Pity he never came out with it.’
‘You think that was why he was killed? To stop him talking to me?’
‘It could be … There’s usually a good practical motive for the way things are done, however bizarre they look.’
‘He said to me, when I first found him: “ One of them was murdered.” And then later: “ Fire.” That’s what it sounded like. If that’s what he wanted to say, then he said it.’
‘I don’t know what we can make of that,’ said Barney.
‘I shall be trying.’
Humphrey had kept quiet all this time, I think we had both forgotten he was there. Then he spoke: ‘Is it possible the wounds were self-inflicted?’
‘In this case anything seems possible.’ He stood up. ‘ Better be off … Oh, one more thing.’
I stood up too. Here it comes, I thought. One of the reasons, perhaps the reason, for coming.
‘The blood in your cellar. Seems it could have been from Chloe Devon. We’ll have to have a thorough look … Sorry about it. Wanted you to know as soon as I knew myself. Not nice for you.’
‘No, not nice. Thanks for telling me.’ Especially when she had my name and address in her pocket, I hadn’t forgotten that tiresome fact.
I went to the door with him and watched him go off. He looked kind of homeless. The way I felt.
Humphrey said: ‘You like him, don’t you?’
‘Yes, more than I expected.’
I poked the fire and watched the sparks fly upward. Getting to know Barney, getting to like him, introduced complications in my life. I should have to think about it.
I picked up Muff, stroked her head as I stared into her pale eyes with their dark pupils. ‘I don’t want you to think, Muff,’ I whispered, ‘that you really understand or care about the human race. It’s just a game we play between us. No, not even between us. I play and you watch.’
I don’t know if Humphrey heard.
Chapter Thirteen
What was happening to me was frightening, but in the right circumstances might be entertainment to some. I stood outside it for a moment and viewed it: put it on the screen or between the pages of a book and it was amusement.
A murder was coming home to me. Literally, physically. Taking up a place in my own house. You can be detached about a matter when it is a professional concern, but when it gets too personal then it’s as bad for you as anyone else.
Benjy had been returned late that night, looking cocky and with a note in Ellen Bean’s writing, saying he had been fed and ‘Didn’t the ghost walk?’ At least I suppose it was Ellen Bean’s writing, it was certainly in her spirit.
It was no spirit message though, being in large, clear, hard handwriting. Black pen. But interestingly, it was not there in the morning. Not because it had faded but because the paper itself had suffered. Benjy or Muff. I could never pin it decisively on either, but Muff clawed papers and this was eaten. I found a chewed wet scrap by the front door. Somewhere that said Benjy to me.
I fed Muff, now apparently recovered and in rude health; I pushed Benjy into the garden and shut the door on his reluctant face. It had stopped raining but was misty and chill.
Then I went into the kitchen to make myself some breakfast. I had much to think about, both professionally and personally. But in truth I could hardly separate the two at the moment.
Now there was blood in my own backyard, I had to get out of the case. At the same time, now I was in contact with Clive Barney, it could not be me who considered the enquiry which was under way on a case of his. I must be out of that affair.
I looked at my watch. Still early. Humphrey was still asleep. Later there would be some telephone calls to make. In practice I was autonomous as head of SCRADIC, but in fact there is always a chain of command and as well as directing committees (curse their name), I had a nominal superior. He was at the Home Office because my job had various aspects, and not all of them open to the world.
To him, Lord Bixhaven, recently ennobled with a life peerage, I must report. He would have to know that I thought I should step aside from the enquiry on Clive Barney, and then I would tell him that I was taking leave. I should have to explain why that was, but he probably knew.
I fumbled my way into the kitchen to find the coffee pot. Caffeine is a drug of addiction, thank God, and one can rely on it. I usually ground the beans and had it ready the night before since I knew from long experience that my power to perform this delicate task in the morning was unreliable. And to the real addict only coffee made from the bean works the trick.
I drank a cup, black and hot, standing up with my eyes shut. When I had drained it, I opened my eyes to face the day. I had some intellectual and emotional baggage to sort out.
I took another cup of coffee back to the kitchen where I sat to drink it. The table was large, old and well scrubbed, part of the furniture left behind by Bea Armitage. I suppose one felt her presence more strongly in the kitchen than anywhere else. She must have spent a lot of time there, sitting in the big chair that she had also left behind by the old Aga.
I let my mind roam, not trying to discipline it first. Names and faces darted through my mind: Billy Damiani, Chloe Devon, Bea Armitage. Somehow I saw them as a group. Then Crick and David Cremorne, Dr Harlow and Ellen Bean; the villagers. Thomas Dryden; he stood on his own with a clu
ster of ghostly figures behind him: his wife, his brother-in-law and his family. All dead now.
Was that what Ellen Bean had meant by the ghost walking? Ellen Bean and the Midden in Ruddles Lane ought to be visited. I liked her but did not trust her. Which, in a way, was how I felt about Birdie and Winifred in Windsor: they were like God, unknowable and unpredictable.
I forced myself to think logically, to assemble my thoughts in a pattern.
Billy Damiani had taken Chloe Devon out to dinner in Brideswell; they had quarrelled and she had left on her own. Damiani had never been totally convincing about that quarrel and the matter would certainly bear study. I counted him an accomplished liar and dissembler.
His engagement to Lady Mary was interesting. I had a private bet with myself that it would never come to a marriage: I hoped she kept the big diamond.
But no evidence, forensic or otherwise, had come up that connected Damiani with Chloe’s murder or the disposal of bits of her body. He could have been in my cellar but there was nothing to show me that he had.
But for me he was high in the lists of suspects. Number One, as far as I was concerned, but that might just be personal.
But now there was another death to bring into the frame: Thomas Dryden. He, too, had been mutilated.
The bite marks linked his death with that of Chloe Devon. I had the feeling that when we found the origin of the bites, we should have the killer.
Motive? Except for Billy Damiani, since we had no names to hang upon, motive was hard to guess.
Clive Barney had said that a good practical motive would be found to be at the bottom of it. I respected that judgement, but, of course, a practical motive for a madman might not be the same as the one for a sane human being. So if the killer was unbalanced that changed the way we should think about him.
Or her. We had no indication of the sex of the killer. I used he and him in my own mind just for convenience. A matter of semantics.
One last thought had to be slotted in: what had Dryden meant with his mutter that ‘one of them was murdered’? His other mutterings of what had sounded like fire had to be thought about but might be no more than the disconnected ramblings of a man about to die.
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