The Killings at Badger's Drift (29 page)

He watched Lacey as he spoke. Watched his face change. All the pugnacity and superciliousness faded. A look of the most intense pleasure spread across his face. He said, ‘Yes, I have, haven’t I?’ But there was no arrogance in his voice. Just happiness laced with the merest thread of uncertainty.

‘Your technique is very assured. Have you been to an art school or college?’

‘What?’ He gave a shout of laughter. ‘For one term . . . that was enough. Load of pretentious wankers. There’s only one way to learn and that’s to sit at the feet of the masters.’ The sincerity in his voice robbed the phrase of all pretension. ‘I shall go to the Prado. The Uffizi. To Vienna and Paris and Rome and New York. And learn my craft.’ There was a long pause then he said, ‘Is anything the matter, Inspector? You look quite . . . well . . . put out.’ Then, when Barnaby still did not reply he got up. ‘So . . . is it all right for me to go now?’

‘What? Oh’ - Barnaby got up - ‘yes . . . you can go.’

Michael Lacey strolled over to the door, saying, ‘Excuse me,’ to Sergeant Troy and adding, ‘you really should close your mouth, Sergeant. You could catch something very nasty.’

Troy snapped his jaws together and glared at the closing door. ‘Why the hell are you letting him go, sir?’

‘He was with the Lessiter girl all yesterday afternoon.’

‘But . . . Mrs Quine saw him.’

‘She saw someone, I’ve no doubt. Someone wearing clothes and a cap very like those that Lacey wore. Now the point is,’ murmured Barnaby, ‘if the murderer was so keen to incriminate Lacey why didn’t he make a thorough job of it and dump the clothes at the cottage as well?’ Troy, understanding that these questions were self-addressed, kept silent. ‘Well, they can’t be far. Whoever it was was pushed for time. With a bit of luck the search should turn them up today. I’m just going over to Forensic to see what’s new. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Sort a car out, would you? And your bucket and spade.’ Troy’s jaws parted company again. Barnaby turned in the doorway and smiled grimly. ‘We’re going to the seaside.’

Troy took the A21 (Hastings and Saint Leonards) at Tunbridge Wells and re-opened the conversation that had been temporarily abandoned whilst he had negotiated unfamiliar roundabouts and watched for exit signs. He and Barnaby had been discussing the latest analysis reports from the Forensic department.

‘But if these . . . filaments . . . these bits of nylon were under her nails doesn’t that mean she must’ve scratched the murderer’s face?’

‘Not necessarily. If you pull a pair of tights over your head only a small section would cover your face. That means there’s quite a bit of stuff left over. She may have grabbed at that.’ He leaned back and closed his eyes, picturing - not for the first time - the terrible moment when Mrs Rainbird’s visitor disappeared from the sitting room, perhaps after asking to use the loo, to re-emerge moments later, features squashed out of all recognition, wielding a sharp knife. The fact that he now knew who that figure was added an extra gloss of horror to the scene. Troy moved on to the findings in the garden shed.

‘Must be the rug, sir . . . the black and green fibres they found.’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘I suppose whoever it was thought dumping it in water would be safer than trying to burn it? Less conspicuous.’

‘Expect so. I’ve got a feeling it was in the pond in the woods near the cottage. And that the clothes might well be in there too.’

‘And one or the other of the Rainbirds got wind of it and tried to put the bite on?’

‘I think so. They were right out of their league, of course. The quickness and efficiency of Miss Simpson’s dispatch should have told them that. “Murder being once done,” Troy.’

‘That Jane Austen again is it, sir?’ asked the sergeant, zipping through Lamberhurst. ‘Shan’t be long now. That rug must have weighed something to cart away.’

‘Yes. I expect they had a plastic bag, probably a bin liner. And the clothes went in as well.’

‘All a bit risky. Broad daylight and everything.’

‘Ah - but it’s panic stations now. Things are starting to go wrong for them, Troy. Time’s running out . . . time’s running out fast.’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw the sergeant turn his head.

‘What . . . ? You mean you know who committed the murders?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘What . . . both of them?’

‘All three of them.’

‘But . . . I don’t understand . . .’

‘Watch what you’re doing, man!’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Troy stared carefully at the road ahead for a few moments then continued, ‘Surely Phyllis Cadell killed Mrs Trace.’

‘I think not.’

‘But . . . she’s confessed. God - she even took her own life.’

Barnaby did not reply. His silence lasted until they entered Saint Leonards. Nearing the sea front he asked the sergeant to stop and asked the way to De Montfort Close of an old gentleman stiffly adorned with salt-caked whiskers. Troy followed his directions and drew up outside Sea Breeze, a white bungalow with a neat front garden indistinguishable from a thousand others. Barnaby got out but stopped Troy as he made to follow.

‘Won’t you want me, sir? For a statement?’

‘I doubt it. This is just background. I’ll call you if I do.’

Left alone, the sergeant turned Barnaby’s cryptic remarks over and over in his mind. They didn’t make sense from where Troy stood. No sense at all. It must have been Lacey. The Lessiter girl was covering up. Easy to see she was mad about him. Instead of letting Lacey go Barnaby should have arrested her as an accessory. That’s what he, Troy, would have done. Because who the hell else could it have been? Dennis was out at work, Lessiter was screwing away at the Casa Nova, Mrs L and David Whiteley ditto in her Honda, Katherine was with Henry. And if the same person committed both murders that ruled out Phyllis Cadell who couldn’t have been the woman in the woods and so had no reason for knocking off Miss Simpson. And in any case (here Troy was inclined to agree with Barnaby) her denial had the ring of truth. After all, if you’re confessing to one murder there’s not a lot of point in lying to cover up a second.

And she must have murdered Bella Trace. Troy struggled to recall the newspaper report. No one in the party could have fired the shot, that was made plain at the inquest. Katherine was back at the house making sandwiches so Phyllis Cadell was the only - Wait a minute! Troy’s thoughts swarmed madly in all directions like disturbed ants. There was one of the current suspects still unaccounted for on that day.
Where was Barbara Lessiter
? Not out shooting (that would have been a sight to wonder at) yet with no definite alibi. Now
she
could have killed Miss Simpson. And Mrs Rainbird. She wasn’t all that precise about the time she was in her car with Whiteley. And keeping their affair secret would have been a strong enough motive in both cases. But Bella Trace, for heaven’s sake? What would be the point in that? On the other hand why should Phyllis Cadell confess to something she hadn’t done? It didn’t make sense.

Troy sat grinding his teeth. He had been with Barnaby all along the line in this case. Heard all the interviews, had access to forensic results. What Barnaby saw and knew he, Troy, saw and knew. And it infuriated him to hear his chief speak with such easy certainty of conclusions reached. Troy slammed his fist at the dashboard and winced with pain. Where had he gone astray? Was he looking at things from completely the wrong angle? That might be it. A spot of lateral thinking; try a new slant. He would do a bit of Chinese breathing, go calmly back to the beginning and start again.

Barnaby stood square in the centre of the cardinal-red polished step, lifted the tail of the mermaid knocker and let it drop. An old lady opened the door. She looked at him, over his shoulder at the car and back at his face again. She looked immeasurably sad and very tired.

Barnaby said, ‘Mrs Sharpe?’

‘Come in,’ she said, turning her face away. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

CONCLUSION

As the car sped along through the pallid genteel streets and out into the Sussex countryside Barnaby reviewed what, in spite of the number of deaths, he would always think of as the Simpson case. He had arrived at a solution which he knew must be the true one and the puzzle was complete but for one small segment. He recalled the scene in question. He remembered it so vividly, almost word for word. The trouble with this small segment was that it made nonsense of his conclusions. Yet he could not ignore the scene or pretend that it had never happened. Somehow or other it must be made to fit.

Troy eased up a little as they re-entered Tunbridge Wells. The man really drove very well, thought Barnaby. For all his occasional reprimands about his sergeant’s dashing over-exuberant style Barnaby acknowledged Troy’s skill and road sense. Watching now, noting how frequently he checked the road behind; mirror to road, road to mirror, mirror to -

‘But that’s it!’

‘Sir?’ Troy’s eyes slid, for a fraction of a second, over to his chief. Barnaby did not reply. Troy, whose Chinese breathing and circumvolutions had got him absolutely nowhere, did not pursue the matter. He was determined not to give the old devil the satisfaction of responding with wide-eyed and eager questions. No doubt all would be revealed when he judged the time to be right. Till then, thought Troy, his brilliant deductions could stew in their own juice. ‘Straight to Causton is it?’

‘No,’ replied Barnaby. ‘I’ve been up since half-past five and I’m starving. We’ll stop off at Reading for some lunch. There’s no hurry now.’

He remembered those words afterwards and for a very long time to come. But he had no way of knowing that, in the town they had so recently left behind, an old lady was lifting a telephone and, with tears streaming down her face, dialling a number at Badger’s Drift.

 

The marquee was the size of a barrage balloon. It billowed and flapped whilst half a dozen men struggled with pegs and hammers to tether it down. Two dozen crates of champagne and twelve trestle tables stood nearby together with a tottery mountain of interlocking bentwood chairs. Under the canvas the exquisitely nurtured aristocratic green, trampled by heavy boots, was already giving off that enclosed warm smell redolent of a thousand refreshment tents - a scent of tea urns and sweet hay and freshly cut bread.

As Barnaby walked down the terrace steps for the last time he saw Henry Trace wheeling himself between florists and caterers; nodding, smiling, pointing, getting in the way. Even from a distance of several feet his happiness was tangible. Barnaby looked around for Katherine Lacey.

‘Why, Chief Inspector.’ Henry propelled himself skilfully across the flagstones. ‘How nice. Have you come to wish us joy?’ His smile faded as he saw the policeman’s face. He stopped his chair some little distance away as if this gap might somehow mitigate whatever tidings Barnaby had brought.

‘I’m very sorry, Mr Trace, but I have some bad news.’

‘Is it about Phyllis? I already know . . . they rang up. I’m afraid it looks a bit insensitive going ahead here but everything was so advanced’ - he gestured across the lawn - ‘that I decided . . .’ His voice ran down. There was a long pause whilst he stared at the two men, dread gathering in his eyes.

Barnaby spoke for a few moments, gently, knowing there was no way to make the cruel words merciful. Troy, who had always hoped that one day he would be in a position to see a member of the upper crust getting their comeuppance, found himself looking away from the shrunken figure in the wheelchair.

‘Can you give me any idea of Miss Lacey’s whereabouts?’ Barnaby waited, repeated his question and waited again. He was about to ask it a third time when Henry Trace said, ‘She’s gone over to the cottage . . .’ His voice was unrecognizable. ‘Someone rang up . . .’

‘What! Did she say who it was?’

‘No. I took the call . . . it was a woman . . . in some distress I think. She sounded very old.’

‘Jesus!’ Even as he spoke Barnaby started to move. Troy ran alongside. ‘Leave the car . . . quicker through the spinney.’

They cut through the garden of Tranquillada, past the startled constable, and crashed through the hedge to the spinney. Barnaby tore at the hazels and forced his way through into the woods. He ran like the wind, kicking sticks and everything else out of his way savagely. Troy heard him mutter, ‘Bloody fool . . .
bloody bloody fool
.’ And, not knowing who or what Barnaby meant, felt himself caught up in the slipstream of urgency engendered by the other man’s flight.

Back on the terrace Henry Trace slumped in the chair. The bustling continued around him unabated. Boxes of champagne flutes went by and a hamper of napery. A pretty girl in a pink overall was wiring white carnations into an arch over the door. She was singing. Henry closed his eyes and braced himself for another wave of pain. It came in quietly but in no time was tearing at him with vicious ferocity.

‘Excuse me, sir . . . ?’ Pause. ‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m just going to do the gypsophila. I thought it’d look rather pretty wound through the balustrades then sort of tumbling down the steps . . . ?’

He looked at her, then across at the marquee which was now gaily decorated with bunting. People were hurrying about, calling to each other. The mountain of chairs was being dismantled and carried into the tent. He must do something to stop the momentum. Even as he prayed there was some mistake he knew there was no mistake. Everything Barnaby had told him fitted. Everything must be true. But what could he say to the girl? He looked at her kind smiling face.

‘Yes,’ he said, turning his chair to go indoors, ‘tumbling down the steps will be fine.’

‘Take the kitchen,’ cried Barnaby, ‘I’ll check upstairs.’

All three bedrooms were empty and looked just as they had before: the little single bed still straining pristinely for effect, the double a tangled mess. Barnaby checked the wardrobe and was just opening a large trunk on the landing when he heard Troy cry out. He flew down the stairs and found his sergeant standing in the studio in front of the easel. He looked completely stupefied.