Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

One man had delivered over (Barnaby checked back) the last ten years eggs and vegetables twice weekly. Someone else regular loads of wood. A few months before these offerings had ceased and Mrs Rainbird had drawn a neat line underneath and written ‘Deceased’. Poor old devil, thought the chief inspector, wondering what peccadillo the old man had been guilty of. Probably nothing too terrible. Ideas of right and wrong in a small village, particularly among the older inhabitants, often seemed archaic to more modern minds. He opened another file. Two pounds a week for three years, then nothing. Perhaps the victim had decamped. Driven out of the place as the only way to avoid payment. He read on. Fifty pounds a month. One pound a week. A regular servicing of Denny’s Porsche. Ironing done, shrubs supplied. Who would have thought in a village of some three hundred souls there would have been so much ‘sin’ about?

But of course there was also Brown’s. And Dennis with his slimy ways, driving round Causton visiting the bereaved and offering oleaginous comfort. People talked unrestrainedly in times of grief and gossiped at funerals. Rich pickings there. Between them he and his mother must have covered a pretty wide area.

Barnaby picked up the last pink folder, casually, with no sense of premonition. No idea that this would be the chamber with the bullet. Spin number six.

No need to wonder now, he thought, looking at the long column of figures, where the silver car came from or the partnership in the funeral parlour. Number 117C had paid out thousands. Even before he looked at the date of the first payment he knew what he would find. Not many crimes could command that sort of blood money. In fact perhaps only one. He felt a surge of emotion too strong to be called satisfaction. He felt on top of the world. He had not been able to let the shooting of Bella Trace alone. Without the slightest shred of evidence, indeed with all those present insisting that only an accident could have occurred, Barnaby had carried the incident around with him for a week whilst it plucked at the edges of his mind like a child with a story to tell. And now here he was, vindicated. A gentle tapping on the window of the car broke into his reverie.

‘Ah, Troy.’ He got out and slammed the door. ‘Did you see Miss Cadell?’

‘Yes. She’s been at this new place all day, she told me. Then I tried Holly Cottage again like you said but it’s still empty.’ He hurried alongside Barnaby. ‘Seems to have an endless supply of cottages, Mr Trace. Takes some people all their lives to buy -’

‘Show me where Phyllis Cadell’s house is, would you?’

‘Oh, she’s not there now, Chief. She left when I did. Eating with the Traces.’

‘Right.’ Barnaby crossed the road. ‘How did she seem?’

‘Well, she didn’t know of course, about the murder. After I told her she went a bit funny. She laughed a lot but it sounded ... oh I don’t know ... I think she’d been drinking, actually.’

Phyllis Cadell was standing by the window in the room where they had first met. She turned as they entered and as soon as Barnaby saw her face he knew his suspicions were correct. He stepped forward.

‘Phyllis Cadell. I arrest you on suspicion of the murder of -’

‘Oh no!’ She turned from him and ran to the far end of the room. ‘Not now ... not now! ’ Then she covered her face with her hands and started to shriek.

Barnaby crossed the room. As he approached Phyllis became quieter and stared at him. The intensity of her gaze, the utter, utter misery in her eyes, lifted her for a brief moment from the realms of bathos and made her appear an almost tragic figure. Barnaby completed the caution. Troy, trying to look as if all this was no more than he expected, produced his notebook and sat down by the door.

Phyllis Cadell gazed at them both, blinking convulsively, then said, ‘How did you find out?’

‘We have removed several files from Mrs Rainbird’s bungalow. Yours was amongst them.’ She would never know that no details of the crime were stated in the file and that the blackmailer’s victim was identified only by three figures and an initial. Or that, lacking any sort of proof, Barnaby had hoped to frighten her into an admission of guilt. She started to speak.

‘I know you’ll find this impossible to believe but when I first came here ... of course I was much younger then ...’ Her glance at the floor was abject. It indicated how sad she found her age, her appearance, her general unlovableness. ‘And Henry was ... I did everything in the house, you know ... and he was always so grateful. Then ... gradually I felt his gratitude becoming something more. Bella was always so busy, you understand. Her position in the village meant she was expected to be on the Parish Council, do a certain amount of charity work. She was president of the WI, the local Conservative Association. Oh - she looked after Henry in a brisk sort of way but half the time she just wasn’t here. He looked so wistful sometimes ... sitting by the window waiting for her car to turn in at the gate. Then one evening - I shall never forget it ...’ Her puffy face became criss-crossed with tears and her voice thick with emotion. ‘I was preparing some sandwiches - cream cheese with horseradish - and he took my hand and said, “Oh Phyllis. What would I do without you?” Not we’ - she stared at Barnaby defiantly - ‘I. “What would I do without you?” You see he was turning to me more and more as time went by. And I understood that. I loved him so much you see that it seemed only natural that he should start to love me a little. And then I thought’ - her voice dropped to a whisper - ‘how happy we could both be if it wasn’t for Bella.’

She sat down then and was quiet for so long that Barnaby was afraid she had stopped for good. But, just as he was about to speak, she started again. ‘There was no love lost between us, you know. Everyone thought how good it was of her to give me a home. But she would never have got a housekeeper to do all the things I did. And she enjoyed flaunting her happiness. She soon spotted that I cared for Henry. There were no flies on Bella.’

Barnaby moved and sat down without taking his eyes off her face. ‘I’d learnt how to handle a gun when I was quite young. It’s just something one does in the country. But I never liked killing things.’ Her lips twisted on the paradox. ‘I told Bella I fancied a change from domesticity and felt like joining them on a shoot. Henry seemed a bit surprised but quite pleased. I took a hip flask filled with vodka. I wasn’t much of a drinker in those days. I hadn’t any definite plan but I was sure there’d be an opportunity. People don’t stay in a line or bunch you know, they fan out - break up a bit. But, as the time went by, it seemed to be getting more and more impossible. There was always someone between us or she moved too far away or too close. I started to get desperate. I didn’t know what to do. I kept taking drinks from the flask. I knew I’d never get up the courage to go out with them again ... all the dead birds, the blood ... it was making me sick. Then I had a brilliant idea. I thought if I went round in front of them and I was hidden in the trees and ... and did it from there no one would know. So I said I didn’t feel too well or I’d got bored or something and left and worked my way round in a semi-circle till I was facing them. Guns were going off all the time. I suppose I could easily have been hit myself.’ She buried her face in her hands, adding huskily, ‘I wish to God I had been.

‘Then ... I shot her. It was terrible. I saw her pitch forwards and fall to the ground. And I panicked. I just got up and ran and ran. I threw the gun into some bushes. After a few minutes I stopped and drank the rest of the vodka and then of course I realized ...’