Written in Blood, page 14
He stood before a wall of aerated panels that strongly resembled grey Ryvita. On these were pinned still photographs plus enlarged freeze frames from the video made at the scene of the crime and when Barnaby opened by describing the case as a very messy one it was only too clear what he meant. A blow-up of Hadleigh’s wedding picture was also displayed, along with photographs of the murder weapon. Barnaby recapped only briefly on the information gathered so far, for they all had notes on yesterday’s interviews.
‘We now know that Jennings hasn’t flown to Finland, or anywhere else come to that, from Heathrow. We’re checking other airports today. We’ve also telexed the seaports and might pick up something there. Obviously the fact that he’s cleared off after lying about where he’s going is a cause for some concern. On the other hand we must remember that after leaving Hadleigh’s he drove home, went to bed and this morning had his valet pack for him and ate breakfast before leaving. This does not indicate a man in a hurry.
‘If he killed Hadleigh there was no way he could know that the body had not been found. Rex St John seems to have made his role as minder very plain so, for all Jennings knew, the minute his car drove off St John was back round there. The murder would have been discovered, the police notified, St John’s story told and Jennings easily apprehended. We also have to take into account the nature of the attack. This sort of severe bludgeoning indicates someone in a fit of rage, which argues against premeditation. I wouldn’t wish to push this suggestion too far. A murder can, of course, be coldly planned and still emotionally carried out, but I’d like you to bear this in mind.
‘The house was not secure, which means we can’t discount the possibility of some opportunist or vagrant nipping in. Aggravated burglary happens, as we all know, but I feel here the odds are against it. The cleaning lady is sure nothing was taken from downstairs. Unfortunately, upstairs she will not go. I had a further word with her last night however and it seems that, as I suspected, a large brown case is missing from the small bedroom. It was there the previous week when she cleaned through and I think it not unreasonable to assume that whoever emptied the chest of drawers used it to carry the contents away. I’m hoping SOCO will be able to give us some idea what they were.’
‘So are we looking at robbery as a motive after all then, sir?’ asked a young detective constable, shiningly alert and crisp as a biscuit.
‘Hard to say at this stage, Willoughby. The theft might have been an afterthought, yet I can’t help thinking, as a hugely expensive watch was left behind, that it was also quite specific. Mrs Bundy says the drawers were always kept locked.’
Inspector Meredith, who had so far sat in a distant silence picking his thoughts over (for all the world, Barnaby commented later, like unclaimed jewels), spoke up: ‘Using the suitcase as the means to hand would surely indicate that matey-boy did not expect to find what he did or he would have come prepared to take the clobber away. After all, you can hardly conceal that much stuff about your person.’
‘Indeed you can’t, Ian,’ replied Barnaby and heard, just behind his left shoulder, a sharp intake of breath and intuited, indeed positively shared, his sergeant’s antagonism.
Inspector Ian Meredith, heading the outdoor team, had been the object of Troy’s resentful envy since the day of his arrival. One of the short-cutters. A Bramshill flyer. Out of Oxbridge with his degree round his neck like an Olympic gold. Made up to sergeant before he’d taken his stripey scarf off, inspector in four years, plus, most galling of the lot, connections in high places. And without the grace to wear this largesse lightly.
‘Nevertheless,’ continued Barnaby, ‘it’s an odd house that doesn’t contain a couple of cases or travelling bags, so I don’t think we can read too much into the fact that he came apparently unprepared.’
That’s told him, said Troy’s supercilious mask. ‘Matey-boy’ indeed! Jesus. He smirked at Inspector Meredith and was disconcerted to discover that the man was nodding his head in agreement. Some people just didn’t seem to know when they were being put down.
‘We’ll keep the search going on both cars, but I imagine you’ll find Hadleigh’s in some local garage having a checkup. It’s the Mercedes that I suspect we shall find elusive.’
‘What sort is it?’
‘In your notes, Inspector Meredith.’
‘A 500 SL sir,’ said Detective Constable Willoughby, simultaneously.
‘Oh, yes.’
Meredith’s acknowledgement was of a casualness to imply that all his friends and relatives had one. Trouble was, thought Barnaby sourly, they probably did. He said: ‘I want you to find out all there is to know about Hadleigh. Gossip and hearsay as well as what’s officially on record. We’re told that he was married to a woman called Grace, surname unknown, and that they lived in Kent, where she died of leukaemia. He worked for the Civil Service, supposedly in the Ministry of Agriculture. Once all this has been verified we can start building on it. The video of the crime scene is now available. I shall expect you all to make yourselves familiar. That’s all.’
The outdoor team disappeared. The rest swung away from him on their swivelchairs involving themselves in the glint and dazzle of their VDUs. Barnaby strode off to his office, where he could use the telephone in reasonable peace and quiet.
He had the number of Max Jennings’ publishers and had already rung twice without reply. It was now nine forty-five. He picked up the receiver and tried again. Nothing. Barnaby sucked his teeth with a rather self-righteous click, for he had the early riser’s puritanical disdain for slugabeds. At last a Sloaney female accent responded.
He stated his business and was put through to publicity where, neatly fielding considerable curiosity, he asked if it was the case that Mr Jennings was currently on a book-signing tour in Finland. This remark was repeated aloud at the other end, causing much merriment.
‘We’re in stitches here,’ said his contact, unnecessarily. ‘We can’t get Max into his local bookshop under cover of darkness to sign as much as a paperback. Let alone the full cheese and wine at Waterstones. Someone’s been pulling your leg.’
‘So it seems.’ Barnaby sounded very regretful. ‘I wonder…would there be any details about Mr Jennings you could perhaps let me have? Publicity handouts—that sort of thing?’
‘Well.’ She turned away from the phone and he heard a quiet exchange. ‘There’s a biog. we send out. It’s pretty up to date. I could fax you that.’ As he gave the number there was more murmuring and his contact said, ‘We think you should talk to Talent.’
‘Who?’
‘Talent Levine, his agent. Have you got a pen?’ Barnaby wrote the details down. ‘They’ll be able to help you much more than us. He’s been on their books from the year dot.’
Barnaby thanked her, hung up and sat back in his chair. The tensions of the briefing over, and his indigestion almost entirely abated, he discovered to his surprise that he was hungry. Or at least (for breakfast was only two hours gone) that he fancied a little something. Telling himself that he could always cut out lunch he wandered into the corridor to see what was available in the automat.
Like most of its kind it offered only garishly wrapped and highly calorific items. Barnaby selected a whirly Danish studded with glacé cherries and put his money in.
Further down the corridor Sergeant Troy emerged from the Gents reeking of nicotine. Smoking had, from January first, been banned in the station under a Thames Valley ruling and was now allowed only in the toilets. These, by the end of the day, resembled Dante’s Inferno with the shades of uniformed or plain-clothed sinners diving in and out of swirling clouds of smoke.
Troy moved on light, quick feet. Spring-heeled Jack. Exciting times were in the offing. The case was opening up and, whichever way the next few hours crumbled, they seemed to be fairly full of Eastern promise and relatively short on paperwork. Then he spotted the boss and wiped the pleasure from his countenance. Just to be on the safe side.
‘I’d like some coffee with this.’ Holding up the cellophane packet. Walking away.
‘Right, chief.’
When Troy produced the coffee, Barnaby was on the blower. The sergeant put the cup down, less warily this time, for he could see things were looking up. And he was actually thanked. Just one raised finger. Which made a nice change.
Barnaby listened, relishing the voice. Cigar rich. Garrick Club fruity. Port and nuts and Armagnac. The brazen clash of money, with a wheeler-dealer edge.
‘The only things Max Jennings signs are contracts,’ rumbled Talent Levine. ‘Why exactly do you want to speak to him?’
‘We are investigating a sudden death. Mr Jennings was one of several people who spent time with the deceased yesterday evening.’ Barnaby explained the circumstances in some detail.
‘Talking to some scribbling amateurs in the back of beyond? I don’t believe it.’
Barnaby gave assurances that such was indeed the case even as he wondered how the inhabitants of Midsomer Worthy would regard being reassigned to the polar ice caps.
‘He wouldn’t even talk to Lynn Barbour,’ continued Talent. ‘Mind you, that was on my advice.’
‘We’re fairly sure that Mr Jennings knew the man who issued the invitation quite well. Did he ever mention the name Gerald Hadleigh to you?’
‘Not that I recall.’
‘It would be going back a few years.’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘We’re getting some background material on Mr Jennings from his publishers—’
‘Why?’ Barnaby was momentarily silenced. ‘I want to know much more than you’re telling me, chief inspector, before I start answering questions about my client without his permission.’
‘Very well. The facts are these. Mr Hadleigh was murdered late last night. As far as we know your client was the last person to see him alive. Now Mr Jennings, after giving false information about his destination, seems to have disappeared.’
There are pauses and pauses. You would have needed a wrecker’s ball to dent this one. Eventually Max’s agent said, ‘Christ almighty.’
‘Do you have any idea at all where he might be?’
‘Absolutely none.’
‘If he gets in touch—’
‘I need to take advice on this one, chief inspector. I’ll get back to you. Perhaps later today.’
‘I’d appreciate that, Mr Levine.’ An interruptive growl. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon. Ms Levine.’
He hung up, murmuring to himself, ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’
Troy remained silent. Even if he had the chutzpah this was no time to correct the chief’s grammar. Barnaby once more turned his attention to the pastry. The cherries, so glossy and seductive under wraps, proved to be as hard as wine gums. He took a bite, felt a savage twinge in his tooth and flung the remains down in disgust.
‘There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, Gavin.’
‘It’s the same everywhere.’ Troy removed the empty, coffee-stained polystyrene beaker and dropped it, together with the pastry, in the bin. ‘Maureen’s stopped putting the news on.’
He produced a snowy handkerchief, smoothed the rest of the crumbs into his hand and disposed of them. Then he wiped his palms and fingers carefully.
‘When you’ve finished dusting,’ said Barnaby, long familiar with his sergeant’s obsessively meticulous behaviour but still capable of being entertained, ‘I want you to go and see Clapton again. Lean a bit. Find out just what he was up to on Tuesday night when he was supposed to be taking this quick turn round the Green.’
‘I’m so glad you could come round.’
‘We were lucky. Me with a break. You on afternoons.’
Sue dunked tea bags in stone mugs. Camomile for herself, Sainsbury’s Red Label for Amy. There was a home-made oat and carob slice each, too. All on a tray balanced on the cracked old Rexine pouffe in front of the fire.
Amy took her tea, murmuring, and by no means for the first time, ‘A terrible day.’
‘Oh, yes—terrible. Terrible.’
They had talked about it and talked about it. Amy starting even before she had taken her coat off.
It was twenty-four hours now since the police had called at Gresham House. After their visit, and the dreadful revelations they had left behind, Amy had naturally expected that she and Honoria would sit down and slacken their disbelief together. Absorb the shock (as she and Sue were doing now) over a warm, comforting drink. But Honoria had appeared satisfied merely to deliver a run-of-the-mill diatribe describing the sociological forces that had combined to bring the criminal element so firmly into their midst. These, though varied, were neither wide ranging nor original.
Ignorant and indulgent parents, lax teachers, spoon-feedings by the state from the cradle to the grave and easy access to the depravities of television. Contempt for authority came next, closely followed by the abandonment of corporal and capital punishment and the deliberately malicious council policy of siting municipal dwellings a mere thieving’s distance from the homes of decent, tax-paying citizens. All or any of these heinous components could, it seemed, be permed any which way to produce the thing that had killed Gerald Hadleigh—for that he came from the dregs of society went without saying. Foolishly, Amy had argued.
‘Aristocrats killed people. Elizabeth the first was always chopping heads off.’
‘Royalty is different.’ Honoria had stared at Amy with her round, hard pebbly eyes. ‘If you’re so interested you should have asked that turnip-faced hobnail of a policeman if you could go over and have a look.’
‘Honoria! What an awful—As if I would ever—Ohhhh.’
Amy’s fingers trembled anew as she broke off a piece of her carob slice. To be made to feel like a morbid snooper, like those awful people parked on the Green. She didn’t want to see anything. Indeed felt quite ill at the thought. But surely (and she had said so) it was no more than human to wish to discuss such an appalling incident on one’s own doorstep.
‘In that case,’ Honoria had replied, ‘I’m glad I’m not human.’
‘Tell us something we don’t know,’ said Sue, as Amy passed this on.
They had cried a little together, as they had separately the previous day. Sue had wept when the news hawks had finally left her in peace, Amy during the brief moments she had spent in St Chad’s after visiting Ralph’s grave.
Not knowing if Gerald had been religious, and not being especially religious herself, she had kept her prayer simple, merely asking that his soul should be accepted in heaven and there find peace. Of course all this sort of thing would be properly and officially attended to at the funeral, but Amy had a vague notion that time was thought to be relevant in these matters and that there should not be too much delay.
Sue spooned thick meadow-flower honey into her tea. ‘I got in touch with Laura and Rex,’ she said, ‘when I knew you were coming, in case they wanted to join us. She was really short with me and Rex seemed to be out when I went round.’
‘Oh well.’ Amy was not really disappointed. She loved sitting in this room with Sue, the fire crackling, throwing shadows on the dark red walls. It was like being in a snug cave.
They had become friends almost by default—drawn together as two English people might be if marooned in a foreign country, reaching out in their isolation, sensing immediately a kindred spirit. Without words each understood the other’s situation. They never needed to ask, as outsiders might (and frequently did), why on earth do you put up with it?
Instead they offered comfort, encouragement and advice. Sometimes they would let off steam, angrily berating their oppressor’s behaviour. But, in the main, they struggled to remain humorous and detached. What else could you do?
Neither allowed the other to slide into self-pity, or take unnecessary blame. When they had first started meeting Sue had done a lot of that, explaining that Brian only acted the way he did because she was slow and not very bright. Amy had knocked that notion severely on the head.
They had an escape plan, of course. Sue was to become a famous illustrator of children’s books and buy a little cottage with room for just herself and Mandy, if she wanted to come. There would be a garden with space for ducks and chickens. Amy would sell her block-buster and get a house not too far away. It would be spacious, airy and modern, for she had had enough of clanking radiators and stone floors and smelly, mildewed cupboards.
And when they met they would have slow, thoughtful conversations with breathing spaces. Not like now, when they talked and laughed and interrupted each other non-stop but always with one eye on the clock. Amy said they were like two nuns from a silent order vouchsafed a once-a-year speaking day.
‘I keep wishing,’ said Sue—they were still discussing the murder—‘that I’d looked at my clock when I heard Max drive away.’
‘How were you to know? Anyway I don’t see that it would help the police that much.’
‘It would give them a time when Gerald was still alive.’
‘I thought post-mortems sorted all that out.’
The phrase struck them both with a deep chill and they looked at each other in some distress.
‘I expect they’ll have to talk to him—Max I mean. It’s so embarrassing. Us mixing him up in something like this.’
‘Could be worse.’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘Could have been Alan Bennett.’
They burst into nervous giggles, ashamed at such levity yet also knowing relief. Then, acknowledging that the time had come to put their reflections on death aside, Sue said, ‘Something nice happened yesterday. Did you have the policeman with red hair?’
‘Yes.’
‘“Fox” I called him at first,’ said Sue, for she anthropomorphised everyone. ‘But then I had second thoughts. His lips were so thin and his teeth so sharp that I decided he should be “Ferret”. And the bulky one’s “Badger”.’
