The Killings at Badger's Drift (3 page)

‘And then I found it. But you see Emily had found it first.’ Responding to Barnaby’s raised eyebrows she continued, ‘We had a stick with a ribbon to mark the spot. Hers red, mine yellow. Now’ - Miss Bellringer leaned forward and Barnaby, so intense was her regard, only just stopped himself doing the same - ‘why did she not come and tell me?’

‘Perhaps she was saving it. As a surprise.’

‘No, no,’ she said, irritated by his apparent inability to grasp the situation, ‘you don’t understand. I’ve known Emily for nearly eighty years. She would have been overwhelmed by excitement. She would have come straight to me.’

‘She may already have felt ill and been anxious to get home.’

‘She has to pass my gate to get there. If she’d been ill she would have come in. I would have looked after her.’

‘Did you see her at all on that day?’

‘Saw her bringing Benjy back from his walk about two o’clock. And before you ask, they both looked as fit as fleas.’ She looked around the room in a lost yet hopeful manner, as the newly bereft sometimes do. Unable to accept the empty space, half expecting the dead person to reappear. ‘No’ - she focused her gaze firmly on the inspector, ‘something happened after she saw the orchid and before she returned to the village, to put the discovery out of her mind. And it must have been a pretty big something, believe you me.’

‘If what you say is true, are you suggesting that the shock killed her?’

‘I hadn’t really got as far as that.’ Miss Bellringer frowned. ‘But there is one more thing . . .’ She rummaged furiously in her bag, crying, ‘What do you make of this?’ and handed him a scrap of paper on which was written: Causton 1234 Terry.

‘The Samaritans.’

‘Are they? Well, they may give succour but they certainly don’t give information. Couldn’t get a thing out of them. Said it was all confidential.’

‘Where did you find this?’

‘On her little table, tucked under the telephone. I can’t imagine why she would have rung them up.’

‘Presumably because she was worried or depressed and needed to talk to someone.’

‘To total strangers? Fiddlesticks!’ Hurt lay behind the snort of disbelief. ‘Anyway our generation didn’t get depressed. We soldiered on. Not like today. People want tranquillizers now if the milk goes off.’

Barnaby felt his innards twang aggressively and shifted in his chair. The brief flicker of interest her story had aroused died away. He felt irritated and impatient. ‘When did your friend actually die?’

‘Friday the seventeenth. Two days ago. I’ve been stewing about it ever since. Knew there wasn’t much to go on, y’see. Thought I’d probably be told I was talking a load of nonsense. Which of course I was.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Young man at the desk. Said at her age it was to be expected and hinted that I was wasting his valuable time. Not,’ she added caustically, ‘that he seemed to be doing very much.’

‘I see. No, all complaints and inquiries are investigated. Our opinion on their veracity is quite irrelevant. Who is the next of kin in this case?’

‘Well . . . I am, I suppose. Neither of us had any near relations. Odd cousins and aunts long since popped off. She had a nephew somewhere in the Antipodes. And I’m her executor. We left everything to each other.’

Barnaby made a note of Miss Bellringer’s name and address then asked, ‘You’re in charge of the funeral arrangements?’

‘Yes. She’s being buried on Wednesday. That doesn’t leave us with much time.’ Suddenly they were in the realms of melodrama. ‘You know, I can’t help being reminded of
The Case of the Vanishing Orchestra
. The circumstances are really quite -’

‘You read detective fiction, Miss Bellringer?’

‘Avidly. They’re a mixed bunch, of course. My favourite is -’ She broke off and looked at him sharply. ‘Ah. I see what you’re thinking. But you’re quite wrong. It’s not my imagination.’

Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby rose and, after a preliminary flapping of garments, his companion did the same. ‘I shouldn’t worry about the funeral, Miss Bellringer. These things can always be postponed if it proves to be necessary.’

In the doorway she turned. ‘I knew her, you see, Emily.’ Her fingers tightened on the bone handles of her bag. ‘All this is totally out of character. Believe me, Chief Inspector, there is something very wrong here.’

After she had left Barnaby took two tablets and swished them down with some water. He leaned back in his chair and waited for them to work. It seemed to take longer and longer. Perhaps he should start taking three. He loosened his belt and returned to the child molester’s file. A photograph grinned up at him: a sunny-faced little man who had had three previous convictions, then been given a job as a primary school caretaker. He sighed, pushed the folder away and wondered about Emily Simpson.

It was his belief, forged by thirty years of looking and listening, that no one ever acted out of character. What most people thought of as character (the accumulation, or lack of, certain social, educational and material assets) was shallow stuff. Real character was revealed when these accretions were stripped away. It was the chief inspector’s belief that anyone was capable of anything. Strangely enough this did not depress him. He did not even regard it as a pessimistic point of view but rather as the only sensible one for a policeman to hold.

However, Miss Simpson had done several things on the last day of her life that someone who had known her closely since childhood had never known her do before. And that was odd. Odd and interesting. Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby had made a note of the Samaritans’ number and took hold of the phone. But first there was the little matter of Miss Bellringer’s reception to be dealt with.

He pressed the buzzer and said, ‘Send Sergeant Troy in here.’

There was no joy from the Samaritans. Barnaby had not expected that there would be. Clam tight as usual. Which was why after a second, later telephone call he presented himself at their tiny terraced house behind Woolworth’s at seven p.m. looking worried.

An elderly man sat behind a desk with two telephones. The receiver of one was clapped to his ear. He covered the mouthpiece and whispered, ‘Please sit down’ to Barnaby, then continued listening, nodding gravely from time to time. Eventually he replaced the receiver and said, ‘You’re the person who rang hoping to see Terry?’

Barnaby, who had thought the elderly man might have been Terry, nodded. ‘That’s right. We talked on Friday.’

‘And you are . . . ?’ He was turning back the pages of a log book.

‘I’d rather not give my name,’ said Barnaby truthfully.

The phone rang again, and almost simultaneously a middle-aged woman and a young girl came out of a room nearby. The couple shook hands. Barnaby turned to the woman who murmured ‘Good evening’ and left. The girl waited expectantly. The man at the desk smiled and made a sign bringing her and Barnaby together.

She was slim and pretty, with a fall of shiny, fair hair. She had on a neat checked dress and a necklace of little silver beads. Barnaby compared her to his own daughter who, on her last visit home, had been wearing shredded jeans, an old leather breastplate and her hair in a sequinned crest.

‘We can talk in here.’ The girl led him back into the room. There was a comfortable armchair, a banquette against the wall and a pine table with a jar of marguerites. Barnaby took the banquette. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘No thank you.’ He had entered the building with no plan, prepared to play it as it came. For all he knew Terry might have been a tough old pro like himself. Blessing his good fortune, he smiled gravely at her and produced his warrant card.

‘Oh! But we’re . . . I can’t . . . what do you want?’

‘I understand you were the person who spoke to Emily Simpson last Friday evening?’

‘I’m sorry.’ She sounded a bit firmer this time. ‘But we never discuss clients with anyone. Our service is completely confidential.’

‘I appreciate that of course,’ replied Barnaby, ‘but in the case of a death -’

‘A death! How dreadful . . . I’d no idea she was suicidal. I’ve only been a volunteer for a few weeks . . . I’m still training, you see . . .’ The words tumbled out. ‘If only I’d known . . . but the other two Sams were interviewing and on the other line and I thought I could handle it . . . Miss Simpson I mean -’

‘Hold on, hold on.’ She looked younger by the minute and on the verge of tears. ‘As far as we know there’s no question of suicide. But there may be suspicious circumstances.’

‘Oh? What sort of circumstances?’

‘So I would like you to tell me, if you would, what you remember of the call.’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I’d have to check -’

‘I’ve spoken to your director Mr Wainwright and I can assure you that in this case the rules can be waived.’ He gave her a fatherly smile.

‘Well . . . I don’t know . . .’

‘You wouldn’t wish to obstruct a police inquiry?’ A hint of sternness entered the smile.

‘Of course not.’ She glanced at the slightly open door. Barnaby sat patiently, guessing that in a moment she would recall the helpful gesture with which the Samaritan at the desk had introduced them. Her face cleared. She said, ‘I do remember Miss Simpson’s call. We only had about three that evening . . . but not word for word.’

‘That’s all right. As much as you can. Take your time.’

‘Well, she said something like “I’ve got to talk to someone. I don’t know what to do.” Of course an awful lot of people start off like that . . . then I asked her if she’d like to give her name because you don’t have to and some clients would rather not, but she did. And I encouraged her, you know . . . and waited.’ She added with rather touching self-importance, ‘A lot of our work is just sitting and waiting.’

‘I understand.’

‘Then she said, “I’ve seen something. I feel I’ve got to tell someone about it.”’

Barnaby felt his concentration tighten. ‘And did she say what it was?’

Terry Bazely shook her head. ‘She did say it was unbelievable.’

Barnaby thought that didn’t signify. Elderly spinsters of both sexes were inclined to think the mildest spot of chicanery unbelievable if letters to the local press were anything to go by. They nearly always started: ‘I was absolutely amazed to see/hear/observe/experience . . .’

‘But then someone came.’

‘What?’ He leaned forward.

‘She said she had to go - there was a knock at the door and I said we’d be here all night if she wanted to ring back, but she didn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I checked in the book when I arrived.’

‘And she hung up before she answered the door?’

‘Yes.’

‘She didn’t say which door?’

‘No.’

‘Did you hear a dog bark?’

‘No.’

‘And that’s all you remember?’

She looked distressed, fretting her brows, afraid she had disappointed him. ‘I’m afraid so . . . at least . . .’ A long pause, then she said, ‘I’m sorry.’

Barnaby got up. ‘Well thank you Miss -’

‘Bazely. But I’m always called Terry. We only use Christian names here.’

‘Thank you. You’ve been extremely helpful.’

She opened the door for him. ‘There was something else . . . I know there was.’

He thought there probably was. She didn’t look like the sort to make something up just to please. ‘It’ll probably pop into your mind when you’re at work or doing the washing up. Give me a ring if it does. Causton Central.’

‘Even if it doesn’t seem important?’

‘Especially if it doesn’t seem important. And’ - he closed the door - ‘you do understand that all this is completely confidential. Not to be discussed even with your colleagues?’

‘Oh.’ Doubt flooded back. She looked more worried than ever. ‘But . . . I shall have to put your visit in the book.’

‘Just enter me,’ smiled Barnaby, opening the door again, ‘as an unnamed client worried about a death in the family.’

 

It was almost nine o’clock. Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby sat at the dining-room table facing a plateful of leathery strips, black and shiny as liquorice, surrounded by coils of yellowish green paste.

‘Your liver and greens are spoiled, dear,’ said Mrs Barnaby, implying that there had once been a time when they were not.

Tom Barnaby loved his wife. Joyce was kind and patient. She was a good listener. He always talked when he came home, usually about work, knowing her discretion was absolute. And she would look as interested and concerned at the end of half an hour as she had at the beginning. She was, at forty-six, ripely pretty and still enjoyed what she called, with a nudge in her voice, ‘a bit of a cuddle’. She had brought up their daughter with affectionate firmness, doing most of the things parents were supposed to do together by herself because of his job, and with never a word of complaint. The house was clean and comfortable and she carried out lots of boring chores in the garden willingly, leaving all the creative and interesting bits to him. She could act very well and sing like the lark ascending and did both,
con brio
, in the local amateur operatic and dramatic society. Her only flaw was that she could not cook.

No, thought Barnaby, as a particularly resilient bit of liquorice sprang up and hit the roof of his mouth. It was not just that she couldn’t cook, it was much, much more. There was between her and any fresh, frozen or tinned ingredient a sort of malign chemistry. They were born antagonists. He had observed her once making a tart. She didn’t just weigh and handle materials, she squared up to them, appearing to have some terrible foreknowledge that only an instant and combative readiness could bend them to her will. Her hand had closed over the shrinking pastry ball with a grip of iron.

When Cully was about thirteen she had persuaded her mother to go to cookery classes and, on the evening of the first lesson, she and her father had stood at the gate gripping each other’s hands, hardly able to believe their good fortune. Mrs Barnaby had set off carrying a basket of good things covered with a snowy cloth like a child in a fairy tale. She had come home three hours later with a small leather mat thickly studded with currants, crunchy as bits of coal. She had gone a few more times then given up - out of, she explained, kindness to the teacher. The poor woman, never before having experienced failure on such a monumental scale, had started to get terribly depressed.