Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

Barnaby smiled indulgently. His father must know that he was never around in the daytime to watch cricket, yet always assumed he knew exactly what was being discussed.

‘What happened?’

‘Why, no match, dear boy. Not enough light. The umpire offered Allenby the option and he decided to stop play. Eleven ack-emma. Everything was ready this end. Cucumber sandwiches, jug of mint tea. Settled in for the duration. We were totally distraught. Well, to be honest, your mother wasn’t too bothered but it did for my day, I can tell you.’

After due commiserations Barnaby returned to his armchair and a fresh cup of tea. ‘People have started lying to me, Joyce.’

‘Oh yes, dear ...’ The pale silky knitting grew. ‘In this business at Badger’s Drift, you mean?’

‘Mm. Katherine Lacey was seen in the village during the evening she said she didn’t go out. Judy Lessiter said she was at work all afternoon and was seen in the village shop at half-past three. Trevor Lessiter said he was at home watching cricket ... “superb bowling” ... and the match was cancelled. And Phyllis Cadell went rigid with fright when she saw us, then tried to cover it by some silly story about her road tax.’

‘Goodness ... that seems plenty to be going on with.’ The names meant nothing to Joyce Barnaby and she knew Tom was really only thinking aloud, getting his thoughts into some sort of order. She listened intently all the same.

‘And Barbara Lessiter, the esteemed doctor’s wife, had something in this morning’s mail that turned her white as a sheet.’

‘How do you know?’ Barnaby told her. ‘Oh - it’s probably a final demand. I expect she’s been buying clothes and run up a terrible bill somewhere.’

‘No.’ Barnaby shook his head. ‘It was something more than that. And where was she the night Emily Simpson died? Driving round. Very vague.’

‘But innocent people are vague. They don’t always have alibis. Or know precisely what they were doing and when. You’ve always said that. What was she doing in the afternoon?’

‘Shopping in Causton.’

‘There you are, then,’ said Joyce, irrefutably. ‘She’s been overspending.’

Barnaby smiled across at her, drained his cup and replaced it in the saucer. Something told him that it was not that simple. That none of it was going to be that simple.

Next morning, the day before the inquest was due to be reconvened, Barnaby got to his office early and settled down for a rapid read-through of pro-formas, statements and reports. The gist of these would later be transferred to a rotating card system (they were still waiting for a computer). He called for some coffee and began.

He read fast and skilfully, seizing on tiny details, passing quickly over the mundane and merely repetitious. The result was pretty much as he had expected. The only males in the village not at work on the afternoon of the seventeenth or at home with their wives were two unemployed men who spent the time on their respective allotments in full view of each other. The vicar had been in his study working on next week’s sermon. A fact confirmed by his housekeeper who had been making jam in the kitchen and was highly indignant that the vicar, a frail old party of seventy-three, should have been questioned at all. In the evening the men were either at home with their families or in the Black Boy. Policewoman Brierley brought in the coffee and Barnaby took it gratefully.

The women of Badger’s Drift also seemed to be accounted for. Some were out at work. The old ones at home. The rest (with the exception of Mrs Quine) in the village hall preparing for the morrow. The young women who had left the hall in plenty of time for a quick frolic in the bracken had all met their children off the school bus and gone home to a blameless tea. In the evening three carloads had gone to Causton for a keep-fit class and the rest had stayed at home. Assuming that the couple in the woods were inhabitants of the village, which Barnaby was still inclined to do, the circle of suspects was very small indeed.

He finished his coffee, noting with some surprise, as the liquid went down, the gradual emergence of a green frog wearing a friendly smile and a straw boater, and playing a banjo. He turned to the scene-of-crime reports.

There were not many surprises. The larder window had been forced and traces of white paint were on the inside shelf. There was not, alas, the weather being dry, a lump of mud with the pattern of a shoe sole clearly visible. No fingerprints on the piecrust table, the hemlock-filled jar, garden trowel, door handles and all the other places one would expect to find fingerprints. And none on the telephone - which was strange, as the last person to handle that should have been Doctor Lessiter. And what reason would he have for wiping it clean? The pencil mark on the copy of Julius Caesar was a 6B. Not perhaps as common as some but hardly a vanishing species. The pencil had not been found. Elimination tests showed that any prints belonged either to the deceased or to Miss Lucy Bellringer.

He skimmed the second report again briefly but he had missed very little the first time. A search for the rug was in progress but Barnaby was not optimistic. Anyone who was so punctilious over fingerprints would hardly leave the thing lying around in the back of a car or flung over a sofa. Of course it was hardly common knowledge that the fibres of a rug had been found and not everyone knew that semen stains were as conclusive as fingerprints. The police might just be lucky. Troy opened the door.

‘Car ready when you are, Chief.’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Sergeant Troy, turning off the Gessler Tye road towards Badger’s Drift, ‘that could’ve been arse bandits in the woods. You know ... gay.’ There could not have been more venom in the last word if the couple had been seen devouring children.

This was the fifth suggestion he had made in the last ten minutes, all scrupulously punctuated with ‘sirs’. He was very free with his ‘sirs’, was Troy. You couldn’t fault him on etiquette. Nor on discipline. Sergeant Troy played it by the book. He passed his exams with room to spare, his reports were models of concise yet comprehensive information. He was without the silly romanticism that lured so many men and women into the force and also without the rather watery compassion that usually evaporated when confronted by their first one hundred per cent amoral, ruthlessly proficient, frequently armed villain. Especially he was without the compassion. He was about to chirp up again. Really, thought the chief inspector, with a more likable personality you could have called him irrepressible.

Before Troy could speak Barnaby said, ‘That had occurred to me as well but, as far as we know, only Dennis Rainbird fits that description. I checked with his partner and he definitely didn’t leave work until quarter to five on the Friday. Also there seems to be no reason why he should conceal any such relationship. It’s no longer against the law.’

‘More’s the pity,’ said Troy, adding, with unusual percipience, ‘I bet his mother would be jealous, though.’ Then, ‘Shan’t we be a bit early for the Lessiter girl?’

‘It’s her half day.’

‘ Oh my God! ’ Sergeant Troy slammed on the brakes. The car screamed to a stop. Barnaby pitched forward, saved from a collision with the windscreen by his belt. A figure had leapt out from behind the village post box almost directly in their path. Barnaby wound the window down and spoke through blanched lips.

‘It’s really not a good idea, Miss Bellringer—’

‘How fortuitous.’ She beamed at them. A faint scent of carnations and orris root pervaded the interior of the car. Before Barnaby could stop her she had opened the door, climbed in and disposed herself on the back seat. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘first and before I forget, the funeral’s tomorrow. Eleven-thirty. I don’t know if you wish to come?’