A Place Of Safety (11 page)

‘May we come in?’

‘Why?’ Despite the blunt response, her voice had a throaty sweetness.

‘A couple of questions about Charlie Leathers. I understand he worked for you.’

‘Only just.’

But she stood aside for them to come in. Barnaby entered and waited, completely at home as he was almost anywhere. Troy stared about him in wonderment. At the glorious fall of curtains, the single stunning central light, the suspended Arabian lamps and patterned silk wall hangings. At the whole elaborate fairytale structure.

She led them behind a curved linen screen which concealed a couple of vast chestnut leather sofas and a low, black, glass table supporting exotic chessmen. There was also a strange-looking lamp with a flat, thrusting head like a snake.

‘So,’ said Louise, crossing her legs and staring rather aggressively at the two policemen. ‘What do you actually want to know?’

‘How long have you employed Mr Leathers?’

Before she could reply, they heard footsteps running quickly above their heads then down some stairs.

‘Louise? Was that someone at the door?’

There was more than simple curiosity behind the question. Barnaby heard eagerness, perhaps even excitement. Valentine Fainlight came round the screen, pulling up short at the sight of the two policemen.

You would never have known, thought the chief inspector, that they were brother and sister. Valentine had thick, straight hair the colour of butter, a squarish face, pale green eyes and a large nose. He was shorter than Louise and chunky with it.

‘They’re asking about Charlie Leathers.’

‘Really?’ He sat next to his sister, pulled out a packet of Karelias and lit up. ‘I can’t imagine we’ll be much use.’

Troy’s nostrils twitched. Earlier that year he had given up smoking for the sake of his little girl Talisa Leanne, now four. For some months up to then he had been inhaling just in the bathroom then blowing the results out of the window. Maureen thought smoking only in the shower might break the habit. She was like that. Very sarcastic.

‘What can you tell me about Mr Leathers?’ asked the chief inspector.

‘Next to nothing,’ said Valentine. ‘We told him what to do and he got on with it. Once a month we paid him. End of story.’

‘Did he work inside the house?’

‘No. Just in the garden.’

Barnaby had noticed the garden, which lay at the back of the house. A serene, extremely formal arrangement of golden gravel swirled into nautilus circles. Several huge earthenware amphorae were carefully positioned and there was a long, rectangular pool lined with black tiles on which floated several white lilies. The whole was enclosed by a wall holding many alcoves in which statues posed in positions that were excessively formal, even for statues.

The chief inspector, who was a keen gardener, wouldn’t have liked to work there at all. A bloodless, even slightly sinister environment, he thought, and was reminded of a film he had seen when courting Joyce in the sixties.
Last Year
. . . in something or other.

Seeing the boss momentarily distracted and keenly aware of the blank pages in his notebook, Troy leapt into the breach.

‘No mid-morning chats over a cosy cuppa, then.’

They stared at him, then at each other and snorted with laughter. Troy flushed a dull pink. He thought of pretending he’d only been kidding (naturally they wouldn’t be mingling with the hired help) but knew he wouldn’t be confident enough to pull it off. The stain on his cheeks deepened. He decided he hated snotty-nosed clever dicks almost as much as he did do-gooders.

‘So you have no idea who might have wanted to kill him?’

‘That’s right.’ Louise, who was feeling rather mean, gave Troy a friendly smile. ‘I don’t suppose it’s any help but I did see him the night he was killed.’

‘It might be,’ said Barnaby. ‘What time was this?’

‘About half ten. I think on his way to the Red Lion, dragging that poor little dog behind him.’

‘Ah, yes. I believe you were involved when the animal was found, Mr Fainlight.’

Valentine shrugged. ‘I ran them to the vet’s, that’s all.’

Sensibly, that should have been the end of the interview. It was plain that Leathers had hardly impinged upon their lives at all. And they knew nothing of his. But Barnaby was reluctant to leave. It wasn’t just the extraordinariness of his surroundings. Or his pleasure, which was still going strong, in looking at Louise Fainlight. It was the feeling that there was present here what the jargon-ridden Social Services would have called a hidden agenda. It could be that whatever was running underneath the surface had no connection with the current investigation. In fact, that was more likely than not. But you never knew.

Barnaby assessed his next move. A link with Charlie boy if possible but anything that could open the matter out.

‘Does Mrs Leathers work here as well?’

‘No,’ said Louise before the words were even out of his mouth. ‘We use an agency in Aylesbury.’

‘That’s useful.’ Barnaby noted the flashing speed of the denial. What was she trying to head him off from? Discussing Hetty Leathers? Surely not. Hetty Leathers’ work? Maybe. ‘I expect she’s got more than enough to keep her busy at the Old Rectory.’

Something walked into the room then. A dark, breathing presence exposing that which had gone before for the mere chimera that it was. So, thought Barnaby, leaning back comfortably against his chestnut leather padding, whatever it is, it’s over there.

 

‘She can’t half talk, that woman,’ said Troy when they were once more passing beneath the sign with the wheatsheaves and cricket bats and cocky badger on their way to the car. ‘Once she gets going.’

‘Yes. It’s a pity she didn’t say anything relevant to our investigation.’

‘We don’t know that, sir. Best keep an open mind.’ Though Troy carefully kept the satisfaction from his voice he felt the chief’s sharp glance between his shoulder blades. Worth it, though. He had heard that little homily about a dozen times a day over the past ten years and for the first time in the history of the universe had managed to slip it into the conversation first. Ho, ho, ho.

Louise had talked about her years in banking. The problems of buying and selling property in London. She had discussed the building of Fainlights, describing how the conservative resistance of Causton town planning department had given way to snobbish pride when the eminence of the award-winning architect was drawn to their attention. She had described her own and her brother’s childhood in Hong Kong and touched briefly on how she came to be living with him now. The creation of Barley Roscoe was mentioned, his growing fame and the new television adaptation.

Authors. Sergeant Troy sniffed, consigning yet another subspecies to his personal limbo. Fleetingly he marvelled at the chief’s patience as he sat through all this irrelevant stuff then realised that he was not listening under duress but because he wanted to. When he had had enough - halfway through the saga of Louise’s fight to extract a golden handshake from Goshawk Freres commensurate to her twelve-year input as a stocks and shares analyst, he made an excuse and left.

As Barnaby and his bagman reached the car, Troy said, ‘Very tasty, Muzz Fainlight.’

‘She certainly is.’

‘What was the point of all that, d’you think?’

Barnaby climbed into the passenger seat, leaned back and closed his eyes. It was a good question but, at the moment, unanswerable. All he knew was that Valentine Fainlight had walked off the moment his sister started speaking to answer a telephone that Barnaby had not heard ring. Neither, he suspected, had Fainlight. And then Louise had simply talked. And talked. He had been - what was the word? Distracted? Diverted? No, filibustered, that was it. Obstructed even before he had made any attempt to ask any serious or relevant questions, had he known what they were.

At this stage it didn’t matter. He could catch up with either or both again any time he chose. But what had been the point of such a forceful and elaborate diversion? Not, the chief inspector felt sure, to avoid further talk of Charlie Leathers. And why drag up all that stuff about her financial background? She struck him as someone who would naturally be rather discreet. Was it to deflect him from asking about her brother? A man who could tighten a garrotte if ever there was one. Probably, given those tremendously muscular arms and shoulders, with one hand tied behind his back. Whatever the reason, Barnaby was intrigued.

Troy released the handbrake, took first and lumbered out of the Red Lion car park.

‘Try and avoid that camper van.’

Troy’s lips tightened at the injustice. He was an excellent driver, first class. It was just being with the chief. The criticism made him nervous. It was the same with Maureen. And his mum. And his dad, come to that. In fact he only really drove well when he was by himself. But you couldn’t tell people that. They’d never believe you.

 

A wonderful smell greeted the chief inspector when he walked into 17 Arbury Crescent. Which meant his beloved wife, Joyce, was not cooking. So who could be? Probably Mr Marks and Mr Spencer. Or, if he was really lucky . . .

‘Cully!’

‘Hello, Dad.’ She gave him a big, unselfconscious hug and turned back to the pot. ‘You’ve lost weight.’

‘Really?’ Barnaby spoke casually but was secretly delighted. He had been told by George Bullard at his last check-up that around thirty pounds had to go. No problem eating less at home but he was inclined to recover from any domestic ordeal by topping up in the canteen. ‘I’ve been on the cabbage soup diet.’

‘Ugh.’ Cully gave a theatrical shudder. ‘So, how’s the new case going?’

‘So-so. Interviewed a famous personage this afternoon.’

‘Who was that, then?’

‘Valentine Fainlight. He writes—’

‘I know. I’ve met him.’

‘You have?’

‘First night party, three, maybe four years ago. He was with Bruno Magellan.’

‘Who?’

‘Wonderful theatre designer. I think they were together for quite a while.’

‘He’s living with his sister now.’

‘Yes, Bruno died of Aids. It was very sad.’

Barnaby went into the hall to get some wine. Came back with a bottle of Montzinger Dindarello ’96, opened it and poured some.

‘Any news on the commercial?’

‘Nope. Still waiting. Still not cutting my hair. But Nico’s up for the National on Saturday.’

‘Good for Nicolas.’ They clinked glasses. ‘Where is he anyway?’

‘Out with Mum buying “the present” .’ Cully’s voice was a sarcastic drum roll. She hooked ironical quotation marks out of the air. Her parents’ silver wedding was less than a month away.

‘I thought presents were supposed to be a surprise.’

‘They are. This will be yours from Mum. You buy one for her—’

‘I know, I know. Thanks for your help, by the way.’

Cully had introduced her father to a friend from her student days, Dodie McIntosh, now a successful silversmith, and Barnaby had commissioned an oval, silver-backed hand mirror for his wife. The design was very lovely. Joyce’s initials, flowingly interwined, were set in a heart, itself surrounded by a border of her favourite flowers, lily of the valley. The detail on every tiny bell was exquisite as the flowers continued, twisting round the handle of the mirror.

‘And me and Nicolas get one for both of you.’

‘Good grief.’

‘I think it’s brilliant,’ Cully sniffed, stirred, tasted, ‘especially with us going to this special place all over again. It sort of closes the circle.’

They had been talking about engagements a few nights earlier. Nicolas had thought the whole business passé. Cully had been rather scathing about wasting money on what she called ‘some skinny little diamond chipping’ when you could roll in the Caribbean surf with your best babe for a whole fortnight on the same money.

Joyce was still wearing her skinny chipping which was all Barnaby had been able to afford on a young constable’s pay. He had given her the ring in its cheap leather box over dinner at a little French bistro in London. They had eaten boeuf bourguignon and tarte framboise washed down with the red house wine. Appreciating the significance of the occasion, the patron had let them take the menu away.

As their finances improved, Barnaby had offered to replace the tiny solitaire but Joyce would have none of it. She wore it with her band of gold and the beautiful emerald eternity ring bought to celebrate Cully’s arrival, and insisted she would do so until the day she died.

It was Nicolas who had pointed out that the bistro in question, Mon Plaisir, was still thriving in Monmouth Street. Then Cully said they absolutely must go there to celebrate their silver wedding. Barnaby immediately agreed, relishing the wonderful synchronicity of the idea. Only Joyce hesitated, unsure about returning to a place of which she had such perfect memories.

‘What’s in this?’ Barnaby took the wooden spoon from Cully’s hand and gave the casserole a stir.

‘Lamb, new potatoes, onions and baby turnips. Those peas go in at the last minute.’

‘Couldn’t you make huge amounts of everything every time you come and put it in the freezer?’

‘No. How d’you think that would make Mum feel?’

‘I know how it would make me feel.’

They both laughed. Barnaby heard a car in the drive, wandered into the sitting room and looked through the window. A garden-centre van swung into the drive, closely followed by Joyce’s Punto. She and Nicolas got out and conferred with the van driver. Then two men dragged a huge crated object from the back of the vehicle and carried it into the garage. Barnaby stared through the window in amazement then made his way back to the kitchen.

‘Did you see that?’ Joyce came in, gave her husband a kiss and found herself a glass.

‘Of course I saw it.’ Barnaby poured. ‘It’s as big as a house.’