Written in Blood, page 37
The gate seemed stuck. Brian pushed hard and noticed something behind it, blocking the way. It was his typewriter. He squeezed through the gap and bent down to pick it up. The latest episode from Slangwhang was still in there, sticking damply to the roller.
Now Brian could see all sorts of other things strewn over the straight and narrow path leading to the front door. Tapes, books, clothes. Records in bright sleeves. His silver cup for elocution. Ties, shoes. Oliver, his Gonk.
He moved slowly up the path, still carrying his Smith Corona. He picked his way carefully, but still managed at one point to tread hard on the bright, sweetly smiling faces of the Nolan Sisters. Rain began to fall.
He put the machine down on the step and searched for his key. It would not fit the Yale lock, which he now noticed was unusually bright and shiny. He moved sideways across the garden, muddying his trainers and trouser turn-ups, to tap on the sitting-room window.
Sue, her hair tied back with a velvet ribbon, was sitting at a table, painting. The oil lamp had been lit and her profile, serenely engrossed, was clearly outlined against a soft, golden haze.
Brian rapped again. The rain was coming down in earnest. His audience, standing around on the pavement, turned its collective coat collar up. One woman shook open a transparent plastic hood and covered her hair.
Sue dabbled her brush in a jar of clear water and wiped it on a cloth. Then she got up in a calm, unhurried way and left the room. Brian ran back to the front door. There was a soft little click as the letter box was lifted and an envelope fell on to the mat outside the door.
He snatched it up and, sheltering as best he could under the narrow lintel, tore it open. The message inside was brief. In future his wife would be communicating with him only through her solicitor, whose address and telephone number were enclosed. For the next few days at least Amanda would be staying with her grandparents.
Brian splashed his way back to the window and rapped for a third time. But Sue, staring fixedly well above his head, was already drawing the curtains.
‘How do you feel?’
‘OK.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re shaking.’
‘Only outside.’
‘Can I get you something?’
‘I’m all right, Amy, honestly.’
Sue turned away from the shrouded window. Amy got up from the old rexine pouffe which had been pushed into one of the alcoves. She had been tucked away there since the first enquiring scrape of Brian’s key at the brand-new keyhole.
Realising her hands were still clenched, Amy slowly opened them and stretched her fingers. Then she looked concernedly across the room to where Sue was standing very upright, holding her shoulders rigidly, like a soldier on parade.
‘Do you think he’ll try the back door?’
‘Perhaps. It’s bolted.’ Sue’s voice was husky, as if she had a cold.
‘Windows?’
‘Locked.’ She made a strange sound which could have been a cough or the beginnings of an exclamation. ‘Don’t worry. He can’t get in.’
‘I’m not worried.’ That wasn’t quite the case, though it would be true to say Amy was certainly a lot less worried than she had been when Sue had rung up nearly an hour ago and demanded that she come straight round. Honoria had answered the telephone and had been so taken aback by the urgent and uncompromising manner in which Sue had spoken that she had done little more than pass the message on. Amy had left immediately.
Arriving at her friend’s she had found Sue in the front garden throwing shirts and pyjamas all over the place. Then she had gone back inside and Amy had followed, skipping and jumping over an assortment of garments.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’ she had cried as soon as the door was closed. ‘What’s happened?’
Sue was panting slightly. She held out her arms, as if to prove to her own satisfaction they were really empty, then said, ‘All gone.’
‘What are all those things doing outside?’ Amy tried to take Sue’s hand but it was snatched away. ‘Please, Sue—tell me.’
‘Had the locks changed. A man came from Lacey Green.’ Sue stared around with stern purposefulness as if she were taking an inventory. Amy did so too. It seemed to her that several things were missing, although she could not have quite said what they were.
‘Of course it will be temporary. My solicitor told me. Things will have to be sorted. But I’m entitled, he said. And why not? Earned it, I’ve earned it. They’ll be at his mother’s. Staying. See how she likes it. Jumping. Feet on cushions. Cartoons. Thump thump thump thump thump thump. Thinks they’re angels. Do no wrong. See how she likes it. See how she—’
‘Sue!’ Amy gripped Sue’s shoulders. ‘You sent for me. And I’m here.’
‘Amy…’
‘It’s all right.’ She kissed Sue’s icy cheek and felt a muscle twitch and jump. Sue eased herself out of Amy’s arms in an indifferent way, as if resigned to the impossibility of comfort. Amy said again, very gently, ‘Tell me.’
Sue told her. Amy listened, her bottom jaw hanging in disbelief, eyes round as saucers.
‘On the village notice board?’
‘Yes.’
‘But…who put them there?’
‘God knows. I saw them on my way to play group.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘I told you.’ Sue sounded slightly impatient. ‘On the notice board.’
‘What…still?’
‘Yes.’
‘You left them there?’
‘Yes.’
‘All day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ahhh…’ Amy covered her mouth to check she was not sure what. A squeal of excited disbelief. A cry of horror. A whoop of satisfaction. Imminent laughter.
As they stared at each other, the frozen surface of Sue’s face started to loosen, crumple, then fall into soft weary folds. She surrendered to a storm of tears. Amy guided her to the sofa, where they both sat down.
‘Angry…’ wept Sue. ‘So angry.’
‘I should just think you are.’
‘Years of all that…’
‘There, there.’
‘Non-stop sneering.’
‘I know.’
‘How stupid I am. Not pretty, not sexy. Can’t cook, can’t drive. My painting’s rubbish. I’m a rotten mother—’
‘You’re a wonderful mother.’
‘And all the time…all the time…’
Amy waited until Sue became less distraught, then passed over a large silk handkerchief which had belonged to Ralph.
‘Have a good blow.’
Sue trumpeted softly and dried the veil of moisture that had completely covered her face.
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Amy reached out and retrieved the ball of wrinkled sog. ‘It’s good to cry.’
As Amy put the handkerchief away and watched Sue become more composed she wondered what would happen next. Had Sue asked her round merely for sympathy and moral support? Or to assist in some specific plan? Whatever it was was fine by Amy. Now that the first ripple of amazement on hearing of the notice board’s farcical and outrageous montage was fading she became aware of her own anger, burning fiercely on Sue’s behalf.
‘Is there anything you want me to do?’
‘Just wait with me until he comes.’
‘Of course I will.’ Amy imagined Brian’s fury should he happen upon this latest news bulletin before arriving home. Always sanctimonious, his ability to instantly rewrite anything that showed him to a disadvantage would surely be strained here to the absolute utmost. And when habitual self-deceivers were forced to face the truth about themselves the consequences could be extremely dangerous. And not just for wild ducks in the attic.
‘Do you think you might weaken and let him in? Is that why you want me to stay?’
‘No.’ Sue spoke from the kitchen, where she was filling her painting jam jar with water. She came back and put it on the table before lighting the lamp. ‘I just want someone here.’
‘Is he violent?’
‘Only inside.’
It was Amy who saw Brian, earlier than expected, getting out of his car and trudging across the Green. By then Sue had finished setting the scene of quiet, creative solitude that her husband observed through the sitting-room window.
Amy held her breath when Sue responded to his urgent rapping by slowly rising, picking up an envelope, leaving the room and, on her return, slowly drawing the curtains.
Amy could not help noticing that, though Sue did this in a calm, controlled way, her head was tilted back at quite a sharp angle. Amy guessed that this was because Sue was afraid to look at Brian, but she was wrong. The truth was that Sue made this avoidance not out of fear but from the certain knowledge that if, even once, she had stared directly into her husband’s eyes she would not be able to stop her fist crashing straight through the glass and into his stupid face.
After a dietetically correct lunch Barnaby returned to the incident room. Although it was barely three o’clock several members of the outdoor team were clocking back in, though Sergeant Troy was not among them. He had been detailed to harass Brian Clapton further, on the principle that the devil a suspect knew was more likely to slip past his defences than a devil he didn’t. Especially if that first devil was already able to scare the shit out of him.
Barnaby was on the point of going over the statement Amy Lyddiard had made in his office for the third time. His previous reading had reactivated that earlier irritating niggle that there was something buried in there that did not quite add up but had not revealed precisely what it was.
He wondered if she had contradicted a remark made earlier, on the morning the murder investigation had begun. That interview would be under ‘Lyddiard, H’, for it was Honoria who had spoken at such domineering and bombastic length. Amy’s contribution, as Barnaby remembered it, had been fragmentary to say the least.
Leaving his own screen, he applied himself to the nearest vacant keyboard and began his search. As he tapped away he was momentarily distracted by thoughts of his bête noir, who had elected at the morning’s post-briefing sort-out to revisit Gresham House. To Barnaby’s deep chagrin the malicious impulse which had prompted him to encourage Meredith to pursue the matter of Honoria’s fingerprints the other day had sharply backfired. The man had returned with the news that, although Miss Lyddiard would, under no circumstances, visit the station, she would be prepared, provided he himself was present at the procedure, to co-operate in this matter at her home.
Barnaby screwed his eyes up against the green dazzle. He recalled Honoria’s responses as completely negative and, as he ran through them, it seemed that he was right. Amy had asked a single tremulous question and offered one contribution and that domestic.
‘I made us a drink, cocoa actually—’
At which point she had been rudely cut short by her sister-in-law. Barnaby saw no significance in this. The interruptive mode of speech was natural to Honoria and he felt it hardly likely that a description of cocoa-making would reveal anything of moment.
The chief inspector slid his mouse about, scrolled back, then highlighted the context of Amy’s remark, starting with his own question to Honoria.
B: Did you retire straight away?
H: Yes. I had a headache. The visitor was allowed to smoke. A disgusting habit. He wouldn’t have done it here.
B: And you, Mrs Lyddiard?
A: Not quite straight away. First I—
Barnaby pushed his chair back in such a hurry it crashed into the desk behind and the policewoman sitting there jumped, staring at him in surprise. Mumbling an apology, he got back to his own machine and quickly found what he was looking for. It was right at the beginning. He had asked Amy if they had gone directly home from Plover’s Rest after the meeting and she had replied:
‘Yes. I made us some hot drinks then went upstairs to work on my book. Honoria took hers into the study.’
Well, it was a discrepancy all right, but a very small one. Very small indeed. In fact, if it were any smaller… Barnaby felt his growing excitement dim before it had a chance to really get going. For what was in a word? Especially one as flexible as ‘retire’. To some people it could mean disappearing into the bathroom for a good long soak, to others slipping away to the den, pouring a stiff one and putting on the headphones. Why shouldn’t Honoria have used it to mean going into her study to read?
But it said here she had a headache. Barnaby cursed himself for not being more specific. If only he had phrased his question more precisely. Did you go to bed straight away? Or even, did you go upstairs? Then, providing of course Amy was telling the truth, he would have caught Honoria out in a deliberate lie. Barnaby was mildly disconcerted to realise how pleased he was at the thought and how much he would have enjoyed confronting her with it.
He ran through both statements again, but there was nothing else that could explain his previous sense of unease. That tiny contradiction was the grit in the oyster.
He sighed, closed both files and opened Laura Hutton’s. Quickly scanning through the first, unrewarding meeting he turned to the follow-up, where she had drunk too much and wept and railed against the man who had, as she saw it, wilfully refused to care for her.
Barnaby read very closely, his concentration narrowed till it all but blotted out the room. As before he looked for incompatible, conflicting or just plain careless remarks. Unfortunately, by the very nature of her admissions, everything she described—the visit to Hadleigh’s house in the summer, the theft of the photograph, her love-lorn nocturnal ramblings—were all unverifiable.
There was a rattle of china, a pleasant smell of coffee and a cup and saucer were placed upon his desk.
‘Ah.’ Barnaby identified the bearer of his refreshment. ‘You’re back. What news from the Rialto?’
‘Gone over to Bingo, last I heard.’
‘Don’t try my patience, sergeant. I’m not in the mood.’
Troy, wearing his what-have-I-said-now? expression, sat down and unwrapped a Walnut Whip. ‘A right time I’ve had.’
‘With Clapton?’
‘Without Clapton, more like.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Went to the school and found he’d left early. Went to his house and the wife says he’s at his mother’s. Go to his mother’s and what do we find?’
Mr Clapton had opened the door and had been so devastated by the sight of a police car parked directly in front of his gate that, even though Troy was not wearing uniform, he had found himself seized fiercely by the arm and forcibly dragged into the house in a nice reversal of the usual procedure.
As the door was slammed behind him, Mrs Clapton appeared. Gift-wrapped in shiny nylon, she was wringing her plump hands and crying, ‘He won’t come out of the toilet.’
And he wouldn’t either, in spite of Sergeant Troy’s repeated knocks and crisply worded entreaties, spoken in a very loud voice over pop music pounding away downstairs.
When the sergeant had eventually given up, Mr and Mrs Clapton saw him off the premises as far as the gate. As he was getting into the car some people walked by and Mrs Clapton called out in a loud voice, ‘We’ll certainly keep our eyes open for him, sergeant. It’s very sad when anyone loses a little dog.’
Troy told the story well and Barnaby laughed.
‘Do you want me to get a warrant, chief? Bring him in.’
‘Perhaps tomorrow.’
‘I’ve found out what “Slangwhang” means.’
‘Slang what?’
‘You know—his daft play.’
‘Oh yes. How did you do that?’
‘Looked it up in the dictionary.’
‘You’ve—?’ Barnaby stopped himself—immediately but, he saw, not quite in time. Christ, what an incredibly patronising thing to think, let alone say. ‘Sorry, Gavin. Really.’
‘S’ all right.’ But Troy had gone very pink. ‘Understandable. I’m no scholar, as you know. We got it for Talisa Leanne. For when she has homework, like.’
‘So what does it mean, “slangwhang”?’
‘Noisy or abusive talk. He’s a pretentious git. That the right word?’
‘Dead right.’ Barnaby finished his drink, pushed his cup aside and was about to go into his mini-discovery on the Lyddiard front when several more men returned.
He saw at once that the crew brought no further revelations. They looked dull, bored and mildly resentful, as people do who have spent several hours getting nowhere and could have told you this would be the case before they started.
Detective Constable Willoughby approached Barnaby’s desk and was relieved when Troy got up and walked away, for he had suffered more than once from the sergeant’s abrasive manner. Barnaby indicated the vacant chair and Willoughby sat, placing his hat carefully on his knees and his notebook carefully inside his hat.
Barnaby prepared to listen with a mixture of sympathy and irritation. There weren’t many pro cons as tender round the edges as this one. The lad would either have to buck his ideas up or get out of the Force. Barnaby suspected it would come to the latter and only hoped this wouldn’t be by way of a nervous breakdown.
‘I’ve been talking to Mr St John, sir, as instructed,’ began Willoughby. ‘He hasn’t anything to add to his account of Hadleigh’s visit, or the evening and its aftermath. But there was something he noticed during the day, though I’m afraid it’s very trivial—’
‘I’ll decide what’s trivial, constable.’
‘Yes, sir. As he was seeing Mr Hadleigh off the premises Miss Lyddiard came out of the gate at Plover’s Rest and cycled away.’
