Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

‘I understand that you and the other beater searched for the cartridge afterwards?’

‘I wouldn’t put it quite as strongly as that. We had a cursory poke round but it seemed so pointless that we soon gave up.’

‘Thank you, Mr Lacey.’

As the two policemen climbed into the car Troy, remembering his earlier gaffe about the Rover, strove to think of something perceptive and intelligent to say. ‘Did you notice that he locked the door of the room where he was painting? I thought that was a bit strange.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Creative people often have an intensely protective attitude about work in progress. Look at Jane Austen’s creaking door.’

Sergeant Troy reversed, using a large, double-sided mirror which had been fixed in the hedge, giving a view of the approaching path and the front of the cottage. ‘That’s a point, sir,’ he replied. There was no way he was going to let on he knew nothing of Jane Austen’s creaking door. As for Michael Lacey being love’s young dream, well ... He glanced in the mirror and briefly smoothed his carrot-coloured hair. Surely it was only in romantic novels that girls preferred dark men.

Michael Lacey watched from the porch while the car drove away then returned to his studio. He picked up his palette and brush, stared at the easel for a moment, then put them down again. The light was dying. In spite of the recent interruption he had had a good day. Sometimes he worked in a fury of resentment; tearing up sketches, painting over scenes that would not come right in a frenzy, occasionally weeping with rage. But days like that paid for days like this. From the striving came, sometimes, a marvellous and felicitous ease. He studied the figure in the painting. There was still a lot to do. He had put on the dead colour, that was all. But he was excited by it. He had the absolute conviction that it was going to be successful. It was tremendous when that happened. The belief that, no matter what he did, how he approached it, whatever the technique, it was going to work. His conviction was so strong that he felt he couldn’t spoil it even if he tried.

He went to the kitchen and opened a can of baked beans and sausages and, spooning them into his mouth, returned to his workroom. The fading light appeared to alter the shape of the place, made the walls shifting and amorphous. Four vast abstracts covered with thick white paint loomed at him from a few feet away. In the corner of each was a dark, imploding star, now no more than a smudge in the crepuscular light.

On top of the corner cupboard was an old-fashioned pewter student’s lamp. He lit the candle and wandered round the room looking at the many canvases stacked against the walls. Although there was a strong fluorescent strip light on the ceiling Michael Lacey loved the effect of candles. Colours on the paintings became richer, many-layered; eyes seemed to flicker and mouths twitch with the illusion of light. Solid flesh was transformed into something rare and delicate. The effect was stimulating and seemed to fill his mind with wonderful and subtle ideas.

In the corner cupboard was a pile of paperbacks and art catalogues, all well thumbed, the spines cracked and, in some cases, broken. He pulled one out at random and sat contemplating a plate by Botticelli. How seductive, he thought, the tender vivacious faces adorned with fresh spring flowers. He finished the beans and sat for a moment longer utterly content, imagining himself walking round the Uffizi, standing in homage in front of the original. Then he opened the window, threw up the tin and kicked it, a shining arc, through the window and into the night.

Late that evening Barnaby sat toying with a salad. He had deliberately stayed on at the station, looking through the pro-formas as they appeared in his tray, until he felt dinner would be beyond redemption and a tin opened with no hard feelings. He had forgotten there were such things as tomatoes and cucumber and beetroot ...

One would have thought that not even Joyce could have maltreated a salad to the point where it became inedible, but one would have been wrong. Abustle with wild life, it was also soaked in a vinegary dressing. Barnaby lifted a soggy lettuce leaf. A small insect emerged, valiantly swimming against the tide.

‘It’s Bakewell Surprise for afters,’ she called from the kitchen, doubly percipient. He was hungry too. This last phenomenon always surprised him. It was rather touching, really: no matter how much stick he gave his stomach there it was, a few hours later, hopeful if apprehensive, wondering if this time its luck would change.

‘And Cully’s coming next weekend.’ She gave him the tart, a cup of tea and a fond kiss. ‘All right?’

‘Lovely. How long for?’

‘Just till Sunday teatime.’

Barnaby and Joyce looked at each other. They both loved and were immensely proud of their only child. And they both thought it much nicer when she was not at home. Neither of them ever said so. Even when quite small Cully had had a sharp eye and an unkind tongue. Both had become more finely honed with the passing years. Outstanding at school, she was now reading English at New Hall and confidently expected to get a good second in spite of the fact that she seemed to Barnaby to spend all her time rehearsing some play or other.

‘Will you be able to pick her up on Saturday?’

‘Not sure.’ Barnaby put his Bakewell Surprise to the sword, which was more than it deserved, and wondered what his daughter would be next seen wearing. She had always dressed in a provoking manner but he and Joyce had assumed, seeing her off on the Cambridge train, that the days of dishcloth and safety-pin skirts and tie and dye makeup were over (indeed they half expected her to be sent smartly home again) but each brief and infrequent visit since had presented them with ever more exotic and alarming transformations. The nice thing about these occasions was that having left home, as she put it, whilst she still had her health and strength, Cully protected these twin assets by always arriving with a goodly supply of gorgeous food from Marks and Spencers and Joshua Taylor’s deli.

‘You won’t forget to ring your father?’

Barnaby took his tea and sat by the fireplace. As he had been ringing his parents once a week for a quarter of a century he’d hardly be likely to. They were both in their eighties and had retired to just outside Eastbourne twenty years before. There they inhaled the ozone, played bowls and gardened, as spry as tinkers.

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Do it now before you settle down.’

‘I have settled down.’

‘Then you can enjoy your tea.’

Barnaby dutifully hauled himself out of his chair. His mother answered the phone and, after a token inquiry about his own health and that of his family, launched into an account of her week which included a splendid row at the Arts Circle when a nonagenarian had suggested a life class. She ended, as she always did, by saying, ‘I’ll just call Daddy.’

Barnaby senior then described his week which had included a splendid row at a meeting of the preservation society over a Victorian bandstand. What a bellicose lot they were down there, thought Barnaby who, when his parents had moved, had pictured them passing their hours dozing peacefully in their conservatory. A rather unsound piece of image-making, he now admitted. They had never been the dozing kind. His father finished describing how he had finally scuppered an unscrupulous opponent on the bowling green.

Barnaby listened patiently then said, almost as an afterthought, ‘Never mind. We’re in the middle of the cricket season. I expect you’re glued to the set most days.’

‘Certainly am. Rented one of those video gadgets. Play back the best bits. Terrible about Friday, wasn’t it?’