Death in Disguise (37 page)

Tension combined with all the running had started a pain in her chest. Control of the situation had quite slipped away, if indeed it had ever been within her grasp. She sensed an unpleasant tightening in the atmosphere. A determined energy running back and forth between the two visitors. They hardly conferred, yet seemed to know each other's ways like a crack team of whippers-in.

‘Where's this solar, then?' When there was no reply, Terry said: ‘Come on, come on.' A hard Cockney barrow-boy whine. Cam orn…cam orn… He bounced on the balls of his feet, perky and aggressive, a boxer looking for an opening. ‘Did you ask us down or didn't you?'

‘Ask you down?'

The words boomed out above their heads and, briefly, Terry and Ave were disoriented. Then they saw at the top of the grand staircase a female figure magnificently clad in a flowing multicoloured robe, the bodice of which was adorned by a glittering crescent moon. A lofty mass of auburn hair added to this creature's already splendid height.

Terry muttered, ‘Funky bisons,' and took aim. Dimly in the light from all this reflected radiance, he perceived another person. A slender girl in a green and gold sari positioned, like a handmaid, one step behind. As the flash went off, she turned quickly away, covering her face with a fold of silk.

Now why do that, Ave thought?

‘Explain yourself.' A further rich vibration. It was like listening to the opening chords of some grand oratorio.

‘It's our glorious free press.' Suhami spoke quietly into May's ear. ‘Exercising their divine right to muckrake.'

‘This is private property.' May began to descend, billowing in plenipotentiary splendour. Her feet, encased in damson velvet slippers thickly studded with brilliants, appeared and disappeared beneath the hem of her gown like gorgeous little boats. ‘Who are you?'

‘Who are
you
?' replied Ave, like someone out of
Alice
. Raptorial fingers hovered near the starter button of her machine.

‘That's of no importance.' Clickety click, wheeze click. ‘Stop doing that!'

Briefly Terry held his fire. He was staring hard at the less exotic of the two women, and coming to the conclusion that she was no more a Chatterjee than he was despite the vermilion caste-mark. The brown skin was simply tanned white skin, plus the face was really familiar. Where had he seen her before? He closed, raising the Pentax. She took up a pewter plate from the second of the wooden chests and threw it, striking him sharply on the side of the head.

‘Do you frigging mind, lady?' he shouted. ‘I'm trying to take some pictures here.'

‘Dear child…' May turned, showing a shocked and distressed countenance. ‘That is not the way. Not the way at all. What would He have said?' Suhami burst into a storm of weeping.

‘Now look,' said Ave, putting down her bag and microphone but in a manner that made it clear this was temporary. ‘I hate to pour cold water on all this virtuous indignation but we were invited here—right, Terry? So let's stop carrying on as if it's a break-in to rape and pillage the ancestral marbles.'

‘You must be mistaken,' said May firmly.

‘Ask Mrs Beavers,' replied Ave.

All heads turned to where Ken and Heather stood looking greatly discomposed. Apprehension, embarrassment and exasperation vied for supremacy on their features. They kept screwing up their eyes and exchanging ‘you say—no you' grimaces. Eventually Heather spoke.

‘There's been a misunderstanding. This person rang up and I completely got the wrong end of the stick. She gave me the impression that some sort of interview was already fixed and all she needed was directions on how to find the place.'

‘You're wasted here, kiddo,' said Ave. ‘You should be in Westminster.'

‘Heather's right,' chimed in Ken. ‘I was standing by the phone at the time.'

‘I put the idea of an exclusive to them.' Ave spoke directly to May. ‘They asked me to ring back in five minutes. When I did they said fine—come on down. Apparently they'd talked to some astral wanker called Hilarion and he'd okay'd the whole shoot.'

‘Is this true, Heather?'

There was a long pause then Ave said, ‘If things are going to start getting tacky, I think I should say that all my incoming calls are taped.'

‘Of course it's true!' burst out Suhami, staring at the Beavers with contemptuous disgust. ‘They've sold us. You've only got to look at them.'

‘Don't talk to me like that!' cried Heather. ‘It's all very well for you. Rolling in money all your life. Maybe if I'd got half a million to chuck about—'

She broke off, clapping her hand across her mouth, horrified at such impious backsliding. Ken, looking sheepish and responsible, as though his wife was some large ill-tempered pet that he had failed to keep under control, started to pat her in a clumsy manner.

Terry, who had been listening with lip-curling relish to this tirade, now realised why the girl looked so familiar. He stepped back a little then sideways, trying to frame her head and shoulders while she was still distracted. What he really needed was a bit of elevation. Stairs no good—he'd just get the back view. He looked around, saw the perfect spot and climbed. Ave too had twigged the girl's identity. She picked up the microphone.

‘What was your father doing down here, Sylvia? D'you think he was involved in the murder? Were you having an affair with the victim?'

‘Aahh…' Pain flared in the girl's voice. ‘You're vile… Isn't it enough to lose him? The dearest man…'

‘He
was
your lover then?'

‘
Go away
…for God's sake go away!'

‘If I do, you'll only have the others on your back. You won't be able to step outside without being blinded by cameras and deafened by questions a whole lot nastier than the ones I've just put. But give the
Pitch
an exclusive and they'll leave you alone.'

Terry, climbing on to the Buddha's plinth, waited for this untruthful suggestion to work. It frequently did. Even intelligent people fell for it. Desperation mainly. Better the devil you've just been introduced to. Pity saris were so high-necked. She'd got lovely tits.

May was making a great effort to re-draw her karmic blueprint. Sensing that the visitors were in some way demonic, she had conjured her guardian angel and saw him now, beating his great wings, directly beneath the lantern. She pictured her bones and tissues being flooded by the pulse-beat of his celestial light. She would need all his support. How quickly and easily these people had appeared, no doubt through the great tear in the house's protective shell made by the Master's death. The woman was speaking again.

‘I said—if you give us an exclusive you'll be left in peace.'

‘Such a collusion would be against all our principles.'

‘We'll pay. Lots.'

‘That is precisely what I mean.'

‘The community uses money, surely, like everyone else?'

‘The community!' Ken stared, stunned. ‘But I thought—' Heather gave him such a violent nudge in the ribs he almost fell over.

‘We'll make the cheque out to the Golden Windhorse then you can fight it out amongst yourselves.'

‘We are not like that.' May spoke with simple dignity.

‘Everyone's like that if there's enough swag on the table.'

At this point Terry, having rammed an air-pumped Reebok into the discreet drapery of the statue's crotch, was poised for a tasty full-length frame of the Gamelin profile. As he took it, she emitted a shriek of fury.

‘Look where he's standing! That's a rupa…'

Terry winked and clicked, again getting an immaculate shot of her beautiful, frenzied face.

‘A sacred thing. Get off…
get off!
'

An anguished and muddled hesitancy momentarily seized the group. The outrageous violation shocked them into immobility. Suhami stared around, silently imploring, her eyes glazed with misery.

The pause was brief. Suddenly an urgent stream of flying cheesecloth passed them by. Ken, having sussed an opportunity to make perhaps some tiny measure of amends, hurled himself with great force at the Buddha's plinth—knocking over the floral tribute and getting cold water and lupins in his face. Gasping for breath, he scrabbled at the slippy stone, heaving and straining upwards, crumbs of grit beneath his suffering nails. Reaching Terry's foot, he gripped the Reebok's laces and tugged.

Locking both arms around the statue's neck, thus turning away from Ken, Terry started to kick backwards savagely with his free foot. Ken received a couple of painful blows in the shoulder. There was no problem at this distance in reading Terry's socks although their directive seemed, given the behaviour of the feet, to add an unnecessary gloss. At the third blow, Ken released the laces and went for Terry's ankles.

Briefly, almost gracefully, he was swung out on the end of an even more violent kick only to go crashing face-first back into the plinth. Grappling more and more fiercely, he tugged at the denim calves, thighs and cheeks in a grotesquely literal representation of male bonding. The end came when he reached, and seized, Terry's groin.

With a yelp the photographer wrenched his head and shoulders round and started spewing obscenities into Ken's upturned face. This sudden violent movement shifted the statue. It made a slow grating sound like a large stone being dragged from a wall.

There was a concerted intake of breath as, open-mouthed and breathless, people watched the fixedly smiling figure shiver. Then it tilted forwards, but slowly, the main mass of it still balanced safely on its axis. Still able to rock safely back into position if only its dangling necklace of human flesh were removed.

Ave uttered a piercing cry. ‘Terry—let go!'

Terry was panting, face made grimly triumphant by the fact that he was still hanging on in there. Then he made the mistake of turning outwards to see how all this derring-do was being received. This unwise redistribution of body weight caused the statue to tip still further, this time past the point of no return.

It fell to the floor with a deafening crash. Terry, twisting in mid-descent, landed inches from its powerful skull. Ken was not so lucky.

T
roy came in bright-eyed, crisp as a nut, the baby having slept right through. He smelled of Players High Tar and Brusque, the plebeian's two fingers at
Chanel Pour I'Homme
. He hung up his jacket, stared at Barnaby who was gazing out of the window and said: ‘What are you doing?'

‘I'm studying for the priesthood, Sergeant. What does it look as if I'm doing?'

Oh dear. A sarky day. A sarky day spent looking at a face like a slapped arse. Not the day to bring out the new pictures of Talisa Leanne standing up all by herself apart from hanging onto the back of Maureen's chair. To be fair to the chief, he was not looking at all smart.

‘You OK, sir?'

‘So so. I didn't sleep too well.'

‘That a fact?' Newly refreshed, Troy was not really sympathetic. He was one of those people who, offspring permitting, could sleep hanging by a toenail from a clothesline. He went over to look, for the umpteenth time, at the blow-up and said, ‘I've been thinking.'

This was a process Troy used sparingly. Too much thinking, it seemed to him, just got you overheated. He observed, he listened, he made neat notes. He was scrupulously accurate and sometimes intuitive. What he did not go in for were long periods of rigorous introspection plus a precisely argued follow-through.

Barnaby said, ‘Uh huh,' and waited.

‘This Tim, look where he's sitting.' The chief inspector had no need to look. He knew the positions by heart. ‘Actually kneeling at Craigie's feet.'

‘So?'

‘Now see where the Gamelin girl is, on Craigie's left. The three of them in fact make an upended triangle. All Tim has to do is jump up and turn and he'd be facing them both—right?' Barnaby agreed. ‘I think that might be what he did. And in the semi-darkness, plus all the confusion with the old dingbat going it on the quilt, he stabbed the wrong person.'

‘You mean he was trying to kill Sylvia Gamelin? But why?'

‘By all accounts he worshipped old Obi. This man was his sun, moon, stars and the last bus home. But what has the lad got to offer in return? Total devotion, that's it. Well, you can get that from a dog can't you? Now here comes this girl, young, beautiful, all her marbles, plus she's about to offer the community a whacking great hand-out. Might Riley not see this as a moment of threat? Believe she's trying to buy her way into the Master's affections and push him out?'

Barnaby frowned. Troy continued, ‘Probably seem an overreaction to you and me, but don't forget he's mental. He won't reason logically.'

‘It's slight but just about feasible. In a state of extreme jealousy he might panic and react in the manner you describe.'

Troy flushed and tugged at his shirt cuffs: a habit when he was pleased or embarrassed. ‘That might explain his wild reaction to the death, Chief. And why he said it was an accident.'

‘Mm. The whole matter of emotional relationships is one we haven't even started to go into. These enclosed communities can be like pressure cookers, especially the spiritually orientated places where showing antagonism is frowned on.' If Barnaby sounded irked it was because he resented people who purported to have annexed goodness to themselves. ‘And it's not unusual for a leader with exceptional charismatic gifts to be adored in a physical as well as an emotional way.'

‘You mean he was knocking somebody off?'

Barnaby winced. ‘Not necessarily. I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that because we never met him when he was alive we can't appreciate—no matter what his followers say—quite how dynamic his personality really was. Or how strong his influence might have been.'