Caroline Graham - The Killings at Badger's Drift

Back on the terrace Henry Trace slumped in the chair. The bustling continued around him unabated. Boxes of champagne flutes went by and a hamper of napery. A pretty girl in a pink overall was wiring white carnations into an arch over the door. She was singing. Henry closed his eyes and braced himself for another wave of pain. It came in quietly but in no time was tearing at him with vicious ferocity.

‘Excuse me, sir ... ?’ Pause. ‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m just going to do the gypsophila. I thought it’d look rather pretty wound through the balustrades then sort of tumbling down the steps ... ?’

He looked at her, then across at the marquee which was now gaily decorated with bunting. People were hurrying about, calling to each other. The mountain of chairs was being dismantled and carried into the tent. He must do something to stop the momentum. Even as he prayed there was some mistake he knew there was no mistake. Everything Barnaby had told him fitted. Everything must be true. But what could he say to the girl? He looked at her kind smiling face.

‘Yes,’ he said, turning his chair to go indoors, ‘tumbling down the steps will be fine.’

‘Take the kitchen,’ cried Barnaby, ‘I’ll check upstairs.’

All three bedrooms were empty and looked just as they had before: the little single bed still straining pristinely for effect, the double a tangled mess. Barnaby checked the wardrobe and was just opening a large trunk on the landing when he heard Troy cry out. He flew down the stairs and found his sergeant standing in the studio in front of the easel. He looked completely stupefied.

‘But ...’ he gaped at Barnaby. ‘Who is it?’

Barnaby glanced at the canvas. Resting on the rim of the easel was an envelope addressed ‘To Whom It May Concern’. He snatched it up and walked quickly out of the room. Troy, his face the colour of a boiled lobster, followed.

In the hallway Barnaby tore open the envelope, glancing rapidly over the pages. Then he hurried into the kitchen. Something which looked very like parsley was strewn all over the table. And there was a musty smell in the air. Like mice.

Troy stood watching his chief uncertainly. The man looked poleaxed. He sat down and shook his head from side to side as if to escape tormenting thoughts or an insect stinging. Then he got up and looked round him in a dazed manner. He stuffed the letter into his pocket and hurried from the room. He said nothing to his companion. Indeed Troy felt that Barnaby had forgotten he was there at all. Nevertheless he followed the other man as he hurried round the side of the house and immediately plunged deep into the woods. Troy, uncomfortably aware of the effect the painting had had on him, stumbled behind.

Barnaby twisted and turned, back-tracked and turned again. Too late, too late was all he could think as he wheeled round and round in circles while the unforgiving seconds ran through his fingers like silver sand. Images in his mind: a television screen with a square inset ticking off fractions of a second almost faster than the eye could see; banked computers and a nasal voice counting ‘Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.’ An hour glass, the last grains tumbling through. And, over and above everything, himself and Troy relaxing in the Copper Kettle. A starter, a main course. Cheese and biscuits as well as a pudding. Coffee. And a refill, sir? Why not? There’s no hurry. All the time in the world.

Where the hell was the place? He tried to remember if there was anything special about it. Any landmark. Only the ghost orchid which started the whole thing and the stick with the red bow which would have been removed days ago. So there was nothing ...

God - he’d seen those scabby parasols on that tree trunk before. He’d been running around in bloody circles. He stopped, vaguely aware that Troy had crashed to a halt beside him. Only now was he aware that every beat of his heart was causing the most intense pain. That his jacket was black with sweat and snagged, like the skin on his face, with brambles. That he was opening his mouth wide and sucking in air like a drowning man. He stood very still, willing himself to think calmly.

And it was then he saw the hellebores. And knew why the scabby parasols looked familiar. A few feet away were the tightly latticed branches which made a screen that curved. He walked alongside the partition, his footsteps silent in the thick leaf mould, until he came to the end.

He was facing a hollow. Quite a large piece of the ground was flattened; bluebells and bracken folded backwards and crushed. Katherine Lacey lay in her lover’s arms. They rested heart to heart for comfort, like children lost in the wild wood. A single glass lay inches from his lifeless hand. She wore her bridal gown, stiff folds of ivory satin and a veil held in place by a circle of wild flowers. The veil, thickly embroidered and encrusted with seed pearls and diamante, streamed away from her body and seeped, a spangled luminous pool, into the surrounding dark. Her remarkable beauty was undimmed even in death. As Barnaby, bereft of speech, stood silently by, a large leaf drifted down and settled on her face, glowing richly against the waxen skin and covering her sightless eyes.

‘It was very good of you to come and see me, Chief Inspector.’

Barnaby sat back in the tapestry wing chair, a large slice of plum cake and a double Teachers at his elbow. ‘Not at all, Miss Bellringer. If it weren’t for you - as you remarked, I remember, quite early on in the proceedings - I would not have had a case at all.’

‘I always suspected the Lacey girl, you know.’

‘Yes,’ Barnaby nodded, ‘one is inclined to reject the very obvious solution. But it is so often the correct one.’

‘And of course once you realized she wasn’t working alone ...’

‘Exactly. It then became clear how all three murders could have been committed.’

‘I feel so distressed about Phyllis Cadell. A terrible business. But I still don’t quite understand all the ramifications. Why on earth would she confess to something she hadn’t done?’

‘It is quite complicated.’ Barnaby took a sip of his Teachers. ‘And I’ll have to go back a few years to start explaining. Back to the Laceys’ childhood in fact. Do you remember Mrs Sharpe?’

‘The nanny? Yes, I do. Poor woman. They led her quite a dance, I believe.’

‘So Mrs Rainbird told me. Apparently the children were as thick as thieves when they were little, always plotting, planning, fiercely protective, always covering up for each other, then when they were older everything changed. Nothing but rows which got to such a pitch that, as soon as they were old enough to cope alone, old Nanny Sharpe left for a bit of peace and quiet by the seaside. I accepted this story at face value simply because I had no reason to doubt it. And the behaviour of the Laceys certainly bore it out. I overheard an extremely bitter quarrel between them myself. But my conversation with Mrs Sharpe gave me an entirely different picture.’

He took a bite of the excellent plum cake, stiff and black with fruit, and a swig of Teachers. In his mind he sat again on the unyielding Rexine sofa overlooked by a constellation of smiling Laceys. Mrs Lacey as a child and young woman, wedding photographs, christenings. The children growing up, so alike and watchful; always close.

‘She was the strong one,’ said Mrs Sharpe. ‘Took after her father.’

‘Not an easy man, I understand?’

‘He was wicked!’ Mrs Sharpe’s thin face flushed. ‘I don’t go in for all this modern understanding-what-makes-people-tick rubbish. There are some people just born wicked and he was one of them. He broke my poor girl’s heart and drove her to her death. She was a lovely creature too ... so gentle. And other women ... he was supposed to have met this smart piece he went abroad with after Madelaine died. Well I’ve never believed that and I never will. He was carrying on with her all along, to my way of thinking.’