Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

‘Where is the dog now?’

‘Trace’s farm. You must have seen the place. End of the village - pale orange job. They’ve got half a dozen already so one more won’t notice. I’ve been to see him a couple of times but I shan’t go again. It’s too upsetting. He just comes trotting out hoping it’s Emily. She’d had him thirteen years.’

‘Didn’t you hear him bark? On the evening of her death?’

‘No, but he was very good like that ... for a Jack Russell. As long as he knew the people, of course. With strangers it was different.’ She smiled at Barnaby, the significance of the last two remarks not registering. ‘And he slept in the kitchen, so with the sitting-room door closed he’d simply think she’d gone to bed.’

‘To return to Friday morning ...’

‘That’s about it, really. Once the van had gone I switched off the electricity, took the dog lead from behind the kitchen door, locked up and off we went.’

‘I see. I shall have to keep the key now, I’m afraid. I’ll let you have a receipt in due course.’

‘Oh.’ He watched questions form in her mind and remain unasked. ‘Very well.’

‘You went straight to the farm then?’ continued Barnaby. ‘Not into the garden or shed at all?’

‘Well ... I had to tell the bees.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You have to tell the bees when someone dies. Especially if it’s their owner. Otherwise they just clear off.’

Clear orf is right, observed Troy to himself. Clear orf her rocker. He flexed his fingers, deciding to omit this unlikely bit of potted folklore.

‘Really?’ said Barnaby.

‘Goodness yes. Known fact. I struck the hive three times with the key, said “Your mistress had died”, then left. Village people say you should tie something black around the hive as well but I didn’t bother. They’re a superstitious lot. Also I thought if I started messing about the bees might sting me.’

‘Thank you. Sergeant Troy will read your statement back now and ask you to sign it.’

When this had been done Miss Bellringer rose, saying, rather wistfully, ‘Is that all?’

‘After lunch I’d like you to show me where the orchid was found.’

‘Won’t you have something to eat with me?’ she asked, visibly perking up.

‘No thank you. I shall get a snack in the Black Boy.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t do that! Mrs Sweeney’s food’s notorious.’

Barnaby smiled. ‘I expect I shall manage to survive.’

‘Ahhh ... I understand. You’re in search of local colour. Background information.’

Using his handkerchief, Barnaby opened the door for her. As she turned to leave something caught her eye. ‘That’s funny.’

‘What is it?’

‘Emily’s fork’s missing. She always kept it on that shelf with her trowel and apron.’

‘Probably in the garden.’

‘Oh no. She was a creature of habit. Tools cleaned with newspaper and placed on her mat after use.’

‘No doubt it will turn up.’

‘Doesn’t really matter now, does it?’ She turned away. ‘See you around two o’clock then?’

After she had left, Barnaby posted Sergeant Troy outside the front door and sank into the chintz sofa in the still, orderly room and listened to the ticking of the clock. He faced the two armchairs, their cushions now plump and smooth. In one of them had someone sat with a glass of wine, smiling, talking, reassuring? Killing?

There was little doubt in the chief inspector’s mind. The hemlock in the kitchen was almost certainly a rather crude attempt to suggest that short-sighted Miss Simpson had picked a bunch in mistake for some parsley and so poisoned herself. A hurried afterthought once the news of the post mortem had travelled around the village.

He walked over to the piecrust table already covered in a thin film of dust and looked down at the books. The Shakespeare lay open on top of the pile. Julius Caesar, the noblest Roman of them all. Not to mention the most boring, thought Barnaby, remembering his struggles with the text over thirty years before. He had read no Shakespeare since, and a dutiful visit to an overly inventive production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which Joyce had played Titania as an Edwardian suffragette, did nothing to make him regret the decision. He looked at the open pages, screwing up his eyes. He felt for his reading glasses, remembered they were in his other jacket and picked up the magnifying glass with his handkerchief.

Miss Simpson had almost reached the end of the play. Pindarus had brought the bad news to the battlefield. Barnaby read a few lines. None of it was in the slightest degree familiar. Then he saw something. A faint soft grey line in the margin. He took the book to the window and peered again. Someone had bracketed off three lines of a speech by Cassius. He read them aloud:

This day I breathed first. Time is come round,

And where I did begin there shall I end;

My life is run his compass.

All conversation ceased as Barnaby entered the Black Boy. Not that that was saying much. There was an old gaffer in the corner, only partly visible through drifts of noxious smoke; two youths with their feet on the bar rail; a girl playing the fruit machine. Mrs Sweeney, grey-haired and untypically flatchested, had an air of being at bay rather than at home behind the counter.

Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby asked about food, refused one of Mrs Sweeney’s home-made pies and settled for a ploughman’s and a half of bitter. He was sure that curiosity as to the reason for his presence would soon produce some comment or other. However he was unprepared for the rapidity with which the nub of the matter was reached. He had hardly taken a sip of his beer (warmish and soapy) before one of the youths said, ‘You’re the fuzz ’ent you?’

Barnaby cut off a piece of cheese and made a movement of the head that could have meant anything.

Mrs Sweeney said, ‘Is it about poor Miss Simpson?’

‘Did you know the lady?’ asked Barnaby.

‘Ohhh ... everyone knew Miss Simpson.’

The fumes in the corner cleared slightly and a rattlesnakish clatter could be heard. My God, thought Barnaby, the poor old chap must be on his last legs. Then he realized that the sound was caused by a collapsing wall of dominoes. ‘She used to teach me in English,’ the old man stated.

‘That’s right, Jake, she did,’ agreed Mrs Sweeney, adding, in a whispered aside to Barnaby, ‘and he can’t read nor write to this day.’

‘She was well liked in the village then?’

‘Oh yes. Not like some I could mention.’

‘What d’you want to know about her for?’ said one of the youths.

‘Yeah,’ the other chipped in. ‘She been up to something?’

‘We’re just making a few inquiries.’

‘Do you know what I reckon?’ said the first one again. He wore a T-shirt reading ‘Don’t Drink and Drive You Might Get Caught’. Beneath it a wodge of fat, leprously white and hairy, hung over his commando belt. ‘I reckon she was a godmother. Gorra vice ring going over there. Slipping it in the honey.’ They both guffawed. The girl tittered.

‘That’s not funny, Keith,’ Mrs Sweeney said angrily. ‘If that’s the best you can find to say you can go and drink somewhere else.’

Barnaby listened for another half hour as more people came and went, but the verdict on Miss Simpson didn’t change much. Very kind. Patient with the children. Ever so generous if there was a stall. Jam. Honey. Jars of fruit. Did lovely flowers for the church. That poor Miss Bellringer. Whatever will she do now? And what about Benjy? They pine, you know. And he’s getting on. She’ll be greatly missed. Sadly missed.

Even when it was shorn of the eulogistic flavour deemed obligatory in all statements about the recently dead, Barnaby was still left with the picture of a singularly nice human being. Mrs Sweeney’s final remark seemed to sum it up neatly.