The Killings at Badger's Drift (2 page)

Miss Simpson blinked, and blinked again. Who would ever have thought it? She eased the parted twigs back together and, holding her breath, gently let them go. Then she stood for several minutes wondering what to do next. Her mind was a mass of conflicting thoughts and emotions. She felt shock, intense embarrassment, disgust and a very faint flicker, instantly and resolutely suppressed, of excitement. She felt as if someone had handed her a ticking bomb. Having, by force of circumstance and natural inclination neatly sidestepped all the mess and muddle of selection, courtship, marriage and the resulting clash of arms, Miss Simpson felt singularly ill equipped to handle it.

A prim irritation started snagging the edge of her mind. A ‘tsk’ almost escaped her lips. In the middle of a wood of all places. When they each had a perfectly good home to go to. They had spoiled what should have been a really wonderful day.

Now she somehow had to get away as silently as she had approached. She studied the ground thoughtfully. She must avoid snapping even a twig. And the sooner she moved the better. For all she knew they might almost have come to . . . well . . . whatever point it was people came to.

And then the woman shouted. A strange terrible cry, and a bird flew up from the thicket right into Miss Simpson’s face. She cried out in her turn and, full of shame and horror at the thought of discovery, turned and started to run. Seconds later she tripped over a tree root. She crashed heavily to the ground but panic drove out any feeling of pain. She scrambled to her feet and ran on. Behind her she heard a lumbering, crashing sound and realized they must have jumped up and torn the branches aside to see what was happening. They would recognize her. They must. She was only a few yards away. Surely, naked, they wouldn’t pursue?

Her eighty-year-old legs responded to demands that hadn’t been made on them for years. Flying up behind her at odd angles like freckled sticks, they carried her, in an incredibly short space of time, to the edge of the wood. There she rested against a tree, listening and panting, her hand on her flat, agonized chest, for almost five minutes. Then she walked slowly home.

Later that evening she sat on the window seat looking out over the darkening garden. She pushed the casement wide, breathing in the fragrance from nicotiana and night-scented stocks planted directly beneath the window. At the end of the lawn was the faint white blur, almost blue in the dusk, of the beehives.

Since her arrival home almost three hours ago she had sat thus, unable to eat, becoming more and more aware of the pain in her shin, and less and less certain of what to do next.

Everything was changed now. They knew that she knew. Nothing could alter that. Would that it could. She would have given anything to put the clock back to yesterday. It was her own vanity that had got her into this mess. Wanting to crow over her friend; wanting to win. Serve her right. She sighed. All this castigation didn’t solve a thing.

She wondered if they would come and see her, and turned cold at the thought. She imagined the awful, three-cornered conversation. The hideous embarrassment. Or perhaps they wouldn’t be embarrassed? To be able to frolic about in the open like that argued a certain brazen confidence. Perhaps she should take the initiative and approach them. Assure them of her continuing silence. Miss Simpson’s fastidious soul was repelled by the idea. It would look as if she was forcing further intimacies that they may well not want. How strange it was, she thought, to be suddenly handed a startling new piece of information about two people one thought one knew well. It seemed to colour, almost cancel out, all her previous knowledge of them.

She shifted slightly, clenching her teeth against the pain from her bruised leg. She recalled wistfully the moment she had discovered the orchid and how much fun it would have been making the celebration tea. She could never tell Lucy now. Everything seemed grubby and spoiled. She eased herself off the window seat, went through the kitchen and entered the perfumed stillness of the garden. A few feet away her favourite rose, a Papa Meilland, was about to flower. Last year the buds had been struck by mildew but this year all seemed well and several dark, glowing scrolls hinted at the glories to come. One looked as if it would be fully open by the next morning.

She sighed again and returned to the kitchen to make her cocoa. She unhooked a spotless pan from one of the beams and measured out the milk. She had never felt more keenly the truth of the saying ‘a trouble shared is a trouble halved’. But she had lived in a small village long enough to know that what she had discovered could safely be discussed with no one - not even dear Lucy, who was not a gossip but who had absolutely no idea of concealment. Nor the people one would normally have regarded as natural confidants such as her own solicitor (now on holiday in the Algarve) and, of course, the vicar. He was a terrible gossip, especially after the Wine Circle’s monthly get-together.

She took an iridescent fluted cup and saucer (she had never been able to adapt to the modern fashion for hefty mugs), put in a heaped teaspoon of cocoa, added a little sugar and a sprinkling of cinnamon. She could tell her nephew living safely in Australia, but that would mean writing it all down and the very thought made her feel slightly sick. The milk foamed up to the saucepan’s rim and she poured it into the cup, stirring all the time.

Sitting in her winged chair Miss Simpson sipped a little of the cocoa. If no individual was to be trusted surely there were organizations one could talk to at times like this? Never friendless in her life, she cast around in her memory for the name of a society which helped those who were. She was sure there had been a poster in the offices where she had gone to argue about deductions from her pension. A man holding a telephone and listening. And a name which had struck her at the time as faintly biblical. Inquiries would know. Thank goodness everything was automatic now: nothing would have got past Mrs Beadle on the old post office board.

The girl knew immediately what she meant and connected her to the Samaritans. The voice at the other end was most comforting. A little young, perhaps, but kind and sounding genuinely interested. And, most important, assuring her of complete confidentiality. However, Miss Simpson, having given her name, had hardly begun to explain the situation when she was interrupted by a sound. She stopped speaking and listened. There it was again.

Someone was tapping, softly but persistently, at the back door.

SUSPICION

‘There’s something very wrong here and I expect you to do something about it. Isn’t that what the police are for?’

Sergeant Troy observed his breathing, a trick he had picked up from a colleague at Police Training College who was heavily into T’ai Ch’i and other faddy Eastern pursuits. The routine came in very handy when dealing with abusive motorists, boot-deploying adolescents and, as now, with barmy old ladies.

‘Indeed we are, Miss . . . er . . .’ The sergeant pretended he had forgotten her name. Occasionally this simple manoeuvre caused people to wonder if their visit was really worth the bother and to drift off, thus saving unnecessary paperwork.

‘Bellringer.’

Chiming in, thought the sergeant, pleased at the speed of this connection and at his ability to keep a straight face. He continued, ‘But are you sure there’s anything here to investigate? Your friend was getting on in years, she had a fall and it was too much for her. It’s quite common, you know.’

‘Rubbish!’

She had the sort of voice that really got up his nose: clear, authoritative, upper upper middle class. I bet she’s ordered a few skivvies around in her time, he thought, the noun springing easily to mind. He and his wife enjoyed a good costume drama on the television.

‘She was as strong as an ox,’ Miss Bellringer stated firmly. ‘As an ox.’ There was a definite tremor on the repetition. Jesus, thought Sergeant Troy, surely the old bat wasn’t going to start snivelling. Mechanically he reached for the Kleenex under the counter and returned to his breathing.

Miss Bellringer ignored the tissues. Her left arm vanished into a vast tapestry bag, trawled around for a bit then reappeared, the hand gripping a round jewelled box. She opened this and shook a neat pile of ginger-coloured powder on to the back of her wrist. She sniffed this up each nostril, closing them alternately like an emergent seal. She replaced the box and let out a prodigious sneeze. Sergeant Troy grabbed resentfully at his papers. When the dust had settled Miss Bellringer cried, ‘I wish to see your superior.’

It would have given Sergeant Troy a great deal of pleasure to say that none of his superiors was on the premises. Unfortunately this was not the case. Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby had just returned from holiday and was catching up on some files in his office.

‘I won’t keep you a moment,’ said Troy, horrified to find the word madam lurking at the end of the sentence.

As he knocked on Barnaby’s door and entered, Troy kept his face expressionless and his ideas regarding Miss Bellringer’s degree of senility firmly to himself. The Chief could be very terse at times. He was a big, burly man with an air of calm paternalism which had seduced far sharper men than Gavin Troy into voicing opinions which had then been trounced to smithereens.

‘Well, Sergeant?’

‘There’s an old - elderly lady in reception, sir. A Miss Bellringer from Badger’s Drift. She insists on seeing someone in authority. I mean someone apart from myself.’

Barnaby lifted his head. He doesn’t look as if he’s had a holiday, thought Sergeant Troy. He looks tired. Not very well either. The thought did not displease him. The little bottle of tablets which Barnaby carried everywhere was on the desk next to a beaker of water.

‘What’s it about?’

‘Her friend has died and she’s not satisfied.’

‘Who would be?’

The sergeant rephrased his question. It was obviously going to be one of the Chief’s sarky days. ‘What I meant, sir, was that she’s convinced there’s something wrong. Not quite straightforward.’

Chief Inspector Barnaby looked down at his top file: a particularly unsavoury case of child molestation. It would be a pleasure to postpone reading it for a while. ‘All right. Show her in.’

Miss Bellringer settled herself in the chair that Sergeant Troy drew forward and rearranged her draperies. She was a wondrous sight, festooned rather than dressed. All her clothes had a dim but vibrant sheen as if they had once, long ago, been richly embroidered. She wore several very beautiful rings, the gems dulled by dirt. Her nails were dirty too. Her eyes moved all the time, glittering in a brown seamed face. She looked like a tattered eagle.

‘I’m Chief Inspector Barnaby. Can I help you?’

‘Well . . .’ She eyed him doubtfully. ‘May I ask why you’re in mufti?’

‘In what? Oh’ - he followed her stern gaze. ‘I’m a detective. Plain clothes.’

‘Ah.’ Satisfied, she continued, ‘I want you to investigate a death. My friend Emily Simpson was eighty years old and because she was eighty a death certificate has automatically been issued. If she’d been half that age questions would have been asked. A post mortem carried out.’

‘Not necessarily, Miss Bellringer. That would depend on the circumstances.’

It had been years since Barnaby had heard such an accent. Not since his early days of going to the pictures. In the postwar years films had been full of clean-cut young Englishmen with straight up and down trousers, all sounding their As like Es.

‘Well the circumstances here are very strange indeed.’

They didn’t sound all that strange, thought Barnaby, picking up a notepad and pen. Apparently his visitor’s friend had been discovered, lying on a hearthrug, by the postman. He had needed a signature for a parcel and, not getting any reply to his knock (except the frantic barking of a dog) had peered through the sitting-room window.

‘He came straight to me . . . he’s been our postman for years you see . . . knew us both and I telephoned Doctor Lessiter -’

‘That’s your friend’s GP?’

‘He’s everyone’s GP, Inspector. Well, all the elderly in the village and those without transport. Otherwise it’s a four-mile trip into Causton. Well - I hurried over, taking my key, but in the event it wasn’t necessary because . . .’ - Miss Bellringer lifted a compelling annunciatory finger - ‘and this is the first odd thing - the back door was unlocked.’

‘Was that unusual?’

‘Unheard of. There have been three burglaries in the village recently. Emily was most particular.’

‘Everyone has a lapse of memory sometimes,’ murmured Barnaby.

‘Not her. She had a fixed routine. Nine p.m. check time with the wireless, set her alarm for seven, put Benjy in his basket then lock the back door.’

‘And do you know if her alarm was set?’

‘No. I looked specially.’

‘Then surely that simply indicates that she died before nine p.m.’

‘No she didn’t. Died in the night. The doctor said.’

‘She may have died in the night,’ the inspector continued gently, ‘but lost consciousness several hours before.’

‘Now here’s the clincher,’ said Miss Bellringer, eagle bright, as if he had not spoken, ‘
what about the ghost orchid?
’

‘The ghost orchid,’ repeated Barnaby evenly, thirty years of dealing with the public standing him in ineffably good stead. Miss Bellringer explained about the contest.

‘And in the afternoon after my friend died I went for a walk in the woods. Silly really, because of course I simply got rather upset. I found myself half looking for the orchid then realized that it didn’t matter any more whether I found it or not. And this brought Emily’s death home to me in a way that seeing her . . . lying there . . . hadn’t.’ She looked across at the inspector, blinked several times and sniffed. ‘That must sound a bit peculiar.’

‘Not at all.’