Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

Arbury Crescent was quiet as Barnaby eased into his garage. Dreaming suburbia. A few television sets still flickering but the guiltless inhabitants were mostly asleep, renewing their energies for the daily commuter slog to the city.

‘Is that you, Tom?’ called Joyce, as she always did.

He stood for a moment on the patio looking down the garden at the heavy mass of dark arboreal shapes. The leaves rustled in the night air and were touched with silver by the moon. He was glad he couldn’t see his herbaceous borders. He hadn’t touched them for a fortnight. He would get Joyce to do some deadheading at the weekend. This unfortunate phrase reminded him of work and the sighing of the trees ceased to be a comfort. He went indoors.

‘I’ve kept you some soup hot.’ Joyce was in her housecoat and slippers, her face cleaned of makeup.

‘Oohh ...’ Barnaby slipped an arm around her waist. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’

‘How did it all go today?’

‘So so.’ Barnaby took the mug.

‘I’m afraid it’s not home-made.’

Barnaby took the soup gratefully and drank deep. It was wonderful. Monosodium glutamate. Permitted stabilizers. HC and FCF. All the angst-producing E’s. Bliss.

‘You hadn’t forgotten Cully’s here for the weekend?’

‘I had, actually.’ Barnaby drained his mug.

‘Would you like some more?’

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

She ladled some out but before he could drink put her arms around him. ‘Tom?’

‘Mm.’

‘You look sad.’ She drew his grizzled head down to her soft bosom. ‘Would you like a cuddle?’

‘Yes please.’ He kissed her. She smelt sweetly of fresh toothpaste and the baby lotion she used as a moisturizer. He felt a sudden overwhelming rush of gratitude. Today and every day, however dark the working hours, come nightfall he touched home base. He stroked her hair, adding, ‘And not just because I’m sad.’

It was a lovely day for a wedding. Falls of hops entwined with summer jasmine were attached to the stone arches; old-fashioned nosegays starred the end of every pew. The altar rails were covered with tuberoses. The bride stood, a glittering column of frosty satin and foaming lace, incomparably lovely. The groom wheeled his chair down the aisle. As he came to a halt at the chancel steps the bride turned and stared at him, her face gradually becoming transformed into a mask of horror. Set square on his immaculate shoulders was a grinning skull. The vicar said, ‘Dearly beloved ...’ The congregation smiled. No one seemed to notice anything amiss. The bells rang. And rang. And rang.

Barnaby groped around on his bedside table. He turned the clock round. Half-past five, for God’s sake. He tumbled the receiver off the hook. ‘Barmby.’ He listened and was wide awake. ‘Christ almighty ... have you called Bullard? ... No ... I’ll be in straight away.’

Joyce turned over. ‘Darling ... what’s the matter?’

He was out of bed, dressing. ‘I have to go ... don’t get up.’

She struggled to sit, rearranging the pillows. ‘You’ll want some breakfast.’

‘The canteen opens at six. I’ll get something there.’

‘How long do you think she’s been dead?’

Doctor Bullard placed the blanket over Phyllis Cadell’s marmoreal profile. ‘Ohh ... two ... three hours. Early morning some time.’

Barnaby sat down heavily on the lavatory, the only other piece of furniture in the cell. ‘God, George - this is all we need. A custody death.’

‘Sorry.’ Bullard smiled - quite cheerfully, considering the hour. ‘Can’t rejuvenate that one for you. Anyway from what I’ve heard she’s better off where she is. Don’t you think?’

‘That’s hardly the point.’ Barnaby looked across at the grey flannel hump. He could see what Bullard meant. What had the dead woman to look forward to? The pain and humiliation of a public trial. Years in prison. A lonely and unloved old age. And all the while having to live with the knowledge that Henry and Katherine were alive and happy together at Tye House. All the same ...

The custody sergeant entered Chief Inspector Barnaby’s office and closed the door as tenderly as if it had been made of glass. He looked once at the figure behind the desk and once was enough. Throughout the interview he kept his eyes on the floor.

‘All right, Bateman - let’s have it.’

‘Yes, sir. It wasn’t -’

‘And if you say it wasn’t your fault I’ll ram this filing cabinet down your gullet.’

‘Sir.’

‘From the beginning.’

‘Well, I accepted the prisoner but before I could make out a custody record she asked to go to the toilet.’

‘You didn’t let her go on her own?’

Bateman cleared his throat. ‘Point is, sir, Policewomen Brierley and McKinley were searching a pair of scrubbers we’d picked up on the precinct. I sent someone with the prisoner as far as the door -’

‘Oh wonderful, Sergeant. Brilliant. He watched her through the wood, did he? See what she was up to?’

‘No, sir.’

‘No, sir. Did she take anything to the toilet with her?’

Bateman swallowed, stopped staring at the floor and stared out of the window. ‘... Handbag ...’

‘Speak up! I’m feeling deaf.’

‘A handbag, sir.’

‘I don’t believe this.’ Barnaby buried his face in his hands. ‘Go on.’

‘Well ... I did the record ... then took her down. We listed her stuff, wrote a receipt. I settled her and gave her a cup of tea. When I did my first check she was sound asleep.’

‘So when did she take the tablets?’

‘With the tea, I suppose. She must’ve palmed them when she was in the toilet. She had a cardigan with a pocket and a handkerchief. When I checked the contents of her bag’ - the man started to babble in self-justification - ‘there was a bottle of sleeping tablets in there with half a dozen tablets in it. She actually asked me if she could take one. She was very clever -’

‘She was a damn sight cleverer than you, that’s for sure.’

‘If the bottle had been empty, obviously I’d have been suspicious -’

‘The very fact that she’d got them in her handbag at all should have been enough to make you suspicious, man. Or do you think people take them as they go about their daily business?’

‘No, sir.’

‘In Sainsbury’s or Boot’s? Or the library?’ Silence. ‘When did you first discover she was dead?’

‘On my third check, sir. Just before five. I noticed she wasn’t breathing. Called the police surgeon right away but it was too late.’

‘Well if she wasn’t breathing it bloody well would be too late wouldn’t it?’

The sergeant, his face rigid with misery and mortification, muttered, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’re about as much use to the force, Bateman, as a jockstrap in a nunnery.’ Silence. ‘I’ll have your stripes for this.’ Pause. ‘And that’s only for starters.’

‘If I could -’

‘You’re suspended from duty. You’ll be notified about the hearing. And I don’t want to see your face again until you are. Now get out.’

The door had barely closed on the wretched sergeant before it reopened to admit a young constable. ‘It’s the prisoner in cell three, sir. He wants to make a statement about his movements yesterday afternoon.’

‘Well I assume you’ve been with us long enough to manage that without too much nervous strain.’

‘I’m sorry but he wants to talk to you.’

The prisoner in cell three was finishing his breakfast, mopping up his plate with a piece of bread. ‘One star for comfort, Inspector, but definitely two for cuisine. I can’t remember when I’ve dispatched a nicer poached egg.’