Written in Blood (16 page)

‘Where you felt someone was watching you?’

‘They were standing in the trees on the edge of the wood. I got this awful creepy crawling down my backbone. It was dark. I became frightened and . . . deserted my post.’

‘I shouldn’t be too hard on yourself, Mr St John,’ said Barnaby, knowing he was wasting his breath.

‘But to be so . . . so womanish.’

Womanish, thought Troy. He wants to meet some of the women I’ve come across. They’d have his legs for breakfast. He said, ‘Why do you think Mr Hadleigh chose you to help him in this matter?’

‘I’m not really sure.’ A blush of shame mantled Rex’s still damp cheeks as he recalled the excitement and happy curiosity that had consumed him after Gerald had left.

‘You weren’t especially friendly then?’

‘Gerald didn’t seem to have any close friends. Neither do I, of course, now. They’ve all become casualties of time. I asked him round when he first moved in. That was 1983. The year that bomb in the Lebanon destroyed an embassy. Just courtesy, you know. He turned up and was nicely civil but nothing came of it. I expect I bored him with my war games.’

‘Did he speak about his past at all?’

‘Not really. But he did tell me he was a widower and that he moved here because he couldn’t bear to go on living where his wife had died.’

‘Did he say what part of the world that was?’

‘Somewhere in Kent I think. He took early retirement from the Civil Service.’

‘Any idea what branch? Or where?’

‘I got the feeling it was the Min of Ag and Fish, although I don’t suppose they call it that nowadays. And it was in London I know because he said what a terrible fag the journey was.’

‘Do you have any idea when his wife died?’

‘Just before he moved here so that would be nine - no, ten years ago.’

‘And do you know if Mr Hadleigh has been involved with anyone else since then?’

‘Involved?’ Rex looked completely baffled.

‘An affair,’ said Troy. Poor old devil. Probably been so long he’d forgotten what he’d got it for. You had to make allowances. ‘Another woman?’

‘Oh, I’m sure not. Although—’

At this point they were interrupted by a fierce scratching at the door. The noise was so loud the policemen half expected to see claws splintering through the wood.

‘It’s Montcalm. He’s finished his tea.’ Barnaby experienced a risible representation of the dog sitting up, a napkin round its neck, tucking daintily into a plate of cucumber sandwiches. ‘I’ll have to let him in.’

‘We’re almost finished, Mr St John.’

‘But he doesn’t like—’ Rex broke off, head cocked. It had gone quiet outside. Montcalm padded away. Then, after a brief pause, they heard him return at a gallop which culminated in a tremendous crash. The door panels shivered mightily under the impact.

Rex said ‘Sorry’ and let the dog in, prudently closing up the tuck shop first. It trotted twice around the room, happily wagging its plumed tail, and knocking several soldiers flying. Then it scrambled up on to the chaise-longue beside its master, transferred itself to his knees and rested its great head against his cheek.

‘We were discussing . . .’ Barnaby broke off in some confusion. He found himself facing a pair of trousered legs, five feet of rough, grey, hairy hound and two intelligent, enquiring faces. It was like questioning some fabled beast from the realms of mythology.

‘Emotional friendships.’ Sergeant Troy came to the rescue. ‘I think you were about to have second thoughts, sir.’

‘Was I?’

‘You said “although”,’ the chief inspector reminded him.

‘Although what?’

Barnaby prayed for patience. Troy winked at the dog. It gave a cavernous yawn, its lolling tongue and sharp pointed teeth scarlet with bone juice.

‘Ah yes,’ remembered Rex. ‘I used to wonder if Laura didn’t have rather a pash.’

‘Any special reason for thinking so?’

Barnaby asked the question while his sergeant relished ‘pash’ and vowed to try it out on WPC Brierley.

‘Just that she was always watching him,’ said Rex. ‘With a certain expression. Rather like Montcalm when I’m about to open the Winalot.’

They talked for a while longer but Rex had little of note to add. Barnaby offered his thanks, then explained that it would be necessary for Rex to come to the mobile incident room or, after tomorrow, to the police station to have his fingerprints taken. On hearing this Rex perked up slightly, as if a visit to the pod was a sort of treat. Something to look forward to. Perhaps it was. Poor devil.

‘Who’d be old,’ said Barnaby, as they made their way back down the garden path.

‘He’s all right,’ replied Troy. ‘Got the soldiers. All those medals. Not to mention his posh nuts.’

‘What the hell sort of dog do you call that anyway?’

‘Irish wolfhound.’

‘Make a great rug.’ He strode across the Green (the grass was greyish-orange now in the sodium lighting) and climbed into the incident room. It was cosy inside and there was coffee on the go. A middle-aged couple, no doubt the last of many, were offering information which might or might not prove helpful.

Barnaby rang Amersham police station, asked them to check their electoral register for Max Jennings’ address then, while he was waiting, helped himself to a warm drink. They rang back in just under ten minutes.

 

‘Trouble is after a murder,’ said Sergeant Troy, picking up the A413, ‘people describe things differently from what they might have done otherwise.’

‘You mean the way they talk about the victim?’

‘That, yes. But their own experiences as well. Take St John - there he is, hanging around in Hadleigh’s back yard, supposedly keeping an eye. Now he says there was someone in the woods watching him. But did he genuinely think so at the time?’

‘Could be he’s trying to persuade himself,’ said the chief inspector, ‘to excuse the fact that he cleared off.’

‘Not much chance of proving it, what with the rain and Joe Public trampling all over the place.’

Barnaby did not reply. He was having a brief, silent rail at the malignant fates who had organised Gerald Hadleigh’s murder the night before Causton’s market day. If he had only talked to Rex earlier. Had got to know of the connection between the dead man and the visiting author. Naturally he had planned to talk to Jennings, but had presumed this would involve a few brief questions dealing mainly with the time of his departure. Bugger. In a word.

However, regret being a time-wasting and sterile occupation, Barnaby soon gave it up and turned his attention to Laura Hutton. In the light of her display of grief, Rex’s suggestion of a pash seemed to be putting it mildly. It seemed to Barnaby that she must have loved the man - and fruitlessly, or why that rasping cry, ‘That’s right - a grieving widower’?

She had fought for control afterwards, plainly regretting the slip, and so determined to make no further revelation that she had turned her back on them to end the interview. And the remark had not only been bitter but shot through with sarcasm. Was this fuelled merely by the angry resentment of a woman scorned? Or did she know something about Hadleigh’s private life that made a mockery of the man’s public sorrow over the death of his wife? When she was calmer, if it still proved necessary, he would question her again. This conclusion returned him to the present and the realisation that they had stopped driving and had started flying.

‘For God’s sake! Do you want to spread us both over the tarmac?’

‘Roads are fine now, sir.’

But Troy came down to fifty-five and forbore to comment on this further example of unjust criticism. He had never had an accident nor caused one to be had. Sailed through Police Advanced, than which there is no harder, with comparative ease. Practising his skills gave him immense pleasure. The fluid connection of clutch and gear change and finely balanced play of the wheel, the open landscape sweeping, tearing by or, conversely, the constant observation and eye for detail needed when negotiating town hazards. But he had no patience, which would forever stop him being quite as good as he thought he was. Especially he had no patience with what he thought of as his chief’s excessive caution. But then, what could you expect of a man who drove an automatic? Not that ‘drove’ was in any way the appropriate term. You just sat in the thing and it trundled you about like an old cart horse. Troy had never heard of the Frenchman who thought the servants could do his living for him but would have immediately recognised, in the idle sod, your typical automatic driver.

Mirror, signal, manoeuvre and their headlights had swallowed up the Chalfonts and were already sweeping the pretty lanes of Warren d’Evercy. Troy cruised, checking right. Barnaby, taking the other side, was the one to spot the gates. As tall and elaborate as the ones at Gresham House but in a much more elegant state. A golden M in the centre of each was held in place by a wreath of acanthus leaves. The gates were flanked by sandstone pillars atop which were a pair of well-worn and aloof-looking griffins. Discreetly set into the side of the nearest pillar was a push button and grille. Barnaby pushed and spoke. After a crackling exchange with a deeply masculine foreign accent the gates swung open.

The drive was quite long and brightly lit by what appeared to be original Victorian street lamps. There were flower beds, presently full of winter pansies and rather formal groupings of shrubs. It was attractive enough but impersonal. A bit like a public park.

The house, whilst quite grand, was also markedly unoriginal in design. Styled after the manner of a Southern ante-bellum mansion, it was fronted by six white columns and grandly positioned behind an approach of marble steps. Troy sucked his teeth with admiration. Barnaby was less impressed. The building called to his mind the shrink-wrapped Parthenon of Pearl and Dean.

As he was looking over the carved wooden lintels for a bell one of the doors swung open and a short, swarthy man stepped out. He had naked feet and was wearing tight white 501s, a loose flower-patterned shirt and several gilt chains. His dark, curly hair was wet.

Troy flashed his warrant card, saying, ‘Mr Jennings?’

‘Stavros, I am butler.’

‘Causton CID. We’d like a word with your employer, please.’

Stavros stepped back into the house and beckoned. The policemen found themselves in a large, circular hall with a domed ceiling from which depended a glittering and very lovely Venetian chandelier.

The butler set off down a corridor, leaving a trail of damp footprints. The walls of the corridor were lined with watermarked ivory silk and hung with ormolu mirrors and many original but unremarkable paintings. Overhead, at regular intervals, were more chandeliers, tiny spears of light, which shivered and tinkled as the three men walked beneath. They had passed several doors before Stavros halted in front of a mirrored wall some thirty feet in length. He pressed a button and, with a sweet, almost silent, click-clickety-click, the entire wall slowly started to fold up like a screen.

They stepped into what appeared to be a large orangery with a high, arched roof made of ribbed steel and shadowy apple-green glass. The place was crammed with exotic flora - palm trees in tubs, plants with huge fleshy leaves and Day-glo flowers the size of dinner plates, bananas and pineapples, climbers with hairy stems as thick as conger eels, giant cacti, hanging swags of richly perfumed orchids. All of this stuff dripping with moisture in the thick, steaming air.

Stavros having vanished, Barnaby and Troy crunched forward over grass of such a sizzling emerald hue it could only be fake. Discreetly dispersed amongst all this lush exuberance were various pieces of gleaming sports equipment that peered through the foliage like shy jungle creatures. Invisible speakers introduced the mellow Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass.

Barnaby and his sergeant made their way around various artificially raised beds, avoiding (or in Troy’s case tripping over) snaking hoses, before finally coming up against a filmy curtain of delicate fern. Close to they could hear rhythmical splashing. Troy pushed the curtain aside. Stepped forward. Caught his breath.

A long, narrow pool lined with turquoise tiles of such brilliance that the water shone like liquid lapis lazuli. The flowers and trees came to the very edge of the pool so that the woman, slowly swimming up and down, seemed not to be in a man-made environment at all but in some hidden grotto on a tropical island. Her coppery limbs emerged, dark and glowing, from a white one-piece swimsuit. She turned on her back and her hair streamed softly about her head.

Troy stood and stared, entranced. Surely this was Hollywood. Hollywood and Beverly Hills and Dallas, Texas. He let out his breath in a long, satiated sigh of pleasure. The woman got out and stood for a moment, water streaming from her wide bronzed shoulders and endless elegance of legs. As she turned and walked away, her neck, wrists and ankles flashed fire and Troy thought: my God - she’s swimming in her jewels.
Swimming in her jewels
.

He mopped his forehead before slipping off his jacket and carrying it in such a way as to conceal his own fire-works. Then he followed the boss, who was picking his way carefully over the ersatz turf.

They caught up with her in a clearing containing several loungers and wicker armchairs, none of which they were invited to occupy during the conversation that followed. There was also a drinks cart. She started to shovel shavings of ice into a tumbler with a little silver trowel, added a huge slug of gin and a quick squirt of juice from a plastic lemon. Barnaby said:

‘Mrs Jennings?’

‘Yes.’

‘We were hoping to speak to your husband.’

‘Oh?’ She threw the gin down her throat and picked up the bottle again. ‘What about?’

A hiccupy grunt, ‘Whabah?’ She climbed up on to a bar stool with some difficulty and regarded them with singular lack of interest.

‘Is he here?’ asked the chief inspector. He was wondering how old she was. The flesh on her face seemed unnaturally taut compared to that on her calves and inner thighs. The backs of her hands were veiny and her eyes, though set in wrinkle-free surroundings, were knowing and exhausted.