Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

‘Where did you find it?’

‘In the pond behind the beechwoods. I saw them throw it in tied round some stones.’

She made no reply; just breathed out, a long slow contented hiss.

‘My mo-mo’s all wet. I had to put it in the boot, you see.’

‘We’ll buy you another one.’

‘Oh Mummy ...’ Ecstatically excited, he squeezed her arm. ‘Do you think it’s worth a lot, then?’

‘Oh yes, my dear.’ She took a step forward and poked the sodden mass with the toe of her shoe. ‘A very great deal. A very great deal indeed.’

The garden of number seven was a tip. Literally. There was a small pyramid of junk teetering up against the side of the house. Bed frames, broken prams, old boxes, rusty iron chains and a large splintering rabbit hutch. The curtains downstairs were tightly closed. Barnaby rattled the letter box. Somewhere in the house a child was crying. He heard a woman scream, ‘Shut it, Lisa Dawn.’ Then, ‘Wait a minute can’t you?’ Thinking this might apply to him he waited.

Eventually Mrs Quine appeared. She was a thin woman with a concave chest and a cluster of red spots around her mouth. She was smoking and had an air of constant movement even when standing still, as if she had just been wound up and was raring to go.

‘Come in.’ She stepped back as they entered. ‘My neighbour said you were going round everybody.’

The room they entered was thick with smoke and dimly lit with a centre light, a wooden chandelier with parchment galleon shades. The television was blaring loudly. Mrs Quine made no move to turn it down. The room was untidy and not very clean. A little girl was sitting at a plastic table, sniffling and snuffling.

‘Now look who’s come, Lisa Dawn.’ The child looked across at Barnaby. ‘Told you I’d get a policeman if you warn’t a good girl.’ More tears. ‘Look what she’s done, Mr Policeman.’ Mrs Quine seized a dark wet object from the table. ‘Her Baby Jesus Pop-Up Book . Only had it Christmas. Blackcurrant everywhere.’ She opened the book. Jesus, Mary, Joseph and a clutch of assorted beasts rose up from the page, richly and symbolically empurpled. ‘Nothing’s new for five minutes in this house.’

‘Oh I’m sure it was an accident.’ Barnaby smiled at Lisa Dawn, who knuckled her eyes sadly and sniffed again. He turned to Mrs Quine who was now pacing briskly around the room sucking violently on her cigarette and flicking the ash about. ‘I have to be on the go,’ she explained.

‘I understand that you worked for Miss Simpson?’

‘That’s right. There and Tye House. I worked for old Clanger an’ all. Only for a week though. She said I could do what I liked as long as I never moved anything. Well how can you clean without moving anything? You tell me.’

‘That would be Miss Bellringer?’

‘Right.’

‘Did you turn up as usual the morning Miss Simpson died?’

‘Course I did. No reason not to was there? Miss B. was keeping an eye through the window. She came out and told me. You can sit down if you want.’

‘Pardon? Oh - thank you.’ Barnaby sat on the edge of a black vinyl settee. One of the cushions was disgorging multicoloured foam chips through a razored slit.

‘She gave me a cup of tea in case I felt bad. Then I went on to Tye House.’

‘It must have been a shock?’

‘It was an’ all. The doctor’d only been a few days before. She’d had a bit of bronchial trouble but he reckoned if she took good care she was all right for another ten years.’ Mrs Quine lit a new cigarette from the stub of the old. ‘Course we know why she went now, don’t we? Bloody rapists. There was one on the telly the other night in full view. I know what

I’d do to them.’ She settled briefly on the fireguard, throwing her stub into the empty grate. Her foot drummed furiously on the carpet. She inhaled with such force that the flesh beneath her cheekbones fell away into great hollows. ‘Poor old gel. At her age an’ all.’

Forbearing to comment on this wild bit of embroidery, Barnaby asked if Miss Simpson had been all right to work for.

‘Oh yes ... she liked everything just so but I knew her ways. We got on OK.’

‘And Tye House?’

She gave a gratified smile, showing glacially perfect false teeth. ‘Been round there, have you?’ When Barnaby nodded she continued, ‘Laugh a minute there, ’ent it? Old Phyllis Cadell hanging on for grim death. You could see the way the wind was blowing there all right. Grooming herself for the situation vacant, warn’t she? Worked her drawers off even when Mrs Trace were alive. Making herself indispensable - so she thought. You should’ve seen her after the accident. Trying to look sorry when anyone was about. Sorry! She was tickled to death. You could see what she thought would happen. Then Miss Great Britain from Holly Cottage starts popping in and out and swaps the jackpot. I thought Miss Cadell was going to chuck herself under the nearest bus the morning the engagement was announced. It made my day, I can tell you.’

‘To return to last Friday, Mrs Quine ... were you in the village hall during the afternoon?’

‘Me? Mucking in with that lot? You’ve got to be joking. Women’s Institute? Load of cowing snobs. They can stuff their flower arrangements. And their bloody walnut pickle.’

‘You were at home, then?’

‘Yes. Watching the telly. Weren’t we, Lisa Dawn? All afternoon. Except she ran up the shop for some crisps.’ Barnaby looked at Lisa Dawn, whose thin legs dangled at least eighteen inches from the floor. Reading the look, Mrs Quine continued, ‘She’s ever so good crossing the road. And she always comes straight back. She’s a big girl, ’ent you, Lisa Dawn? Tell the nice policeman how old you are.’

‘Nearly four,’ whispered the little girl.

‘You are four. She’s a good four,’ insisted Mrs Quine, as if the child were a pair of shoes. ‘And who bought you some sweeties in the shop?’

‘Judy.’

‘ Auntie Judy. That’s Doctor Lessiter’s daughter. She often treats her. Bought her an egg at Easter, full of rabbits.’ Lisa Dawn started to cry. ‘Oh God - shut up can’t you? What’ll the gentlemen think? I shouldn’t have said that ... about the egg. The dog next door got off his chain and had her rabbit.’

‘Poor Smokey.’

‘All right, all right. We’ll get you another.’

‘What time was it when your daughter went to the shop?’

‘Dunno exactly. We was watching Sons and Daughters so it must’ve been gone three.’

‘And this was definitely the afternoon of the seventeenth?’

‘Told you, haven’t I?’ She lit a third cigarette.

‘And you were in all that evening?’

‘Can’t go anywhere with her.’

‘Thank you.’ Whilst Troy read the pro-forma back and Mrs Quine inhaled and tapped her feet and sighed, Barnaby tried to talk to Lisa Dawn but she shrank back in her chair and would not look at him. Bluish black marks, pretty as pansies, flowered along her inner arms. Before they had passed again between the rotten gate posts Barnaby heard her start to cry.

Barnaby switched on the fan in his office and asked for some coffee and a sandwich from the canteen. Before leaving to fetch them Policewoman Brierley said, ‘I’ve put a message underneath your clip, sir. A Miss Bazely. She left her office number and asked if you’d ring.’

Barnaby lifted up the phone and dialled. The blue propellers of the fan, whilst making an efficient whirring sound, did no more than shift the warm air in a sluggish stream past his perspiring face. ‘Miss Bazely? Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby here.’

‘Oh yes ... hullo ... you know when we talked the other day and I thought there was something I hadn’t told you?’