Death in Disguise (43 page)

Janet made herself read the note over and over again, working on the principle that any word or series of words if studied, or spoken aloud for long enough, loses all meaning. And thus the power to wound. She couldn't honestly say this was entirely the case here. Sharp pinpoints of distress still penetrated and a single thrill of jealousy but, eventually, although her hand had not quite stopped quivering, she began to feel a little calmer. And, with the slow curling away of that first swamping pain, rationality returned.

For instance—why should she take it for granted that ‘V' was male? True, Trixie (or, more vulgarly, Trix) was the writer's ‘dearest' but what did that signify? Strong affection was all. No reason to assume a romantic interest. Same with the concluding form. Who didn't sign their letters ‘love' these days. Even to mere acquaintances. Of course there was that rather fervid repetition, but that could simply mean the writer had an enthusiastic nature.

The more Janet thought about this, the more likely it seemed. As for the obviously foreign Hedda, she was probably an au pair living in the house—with whom Trixie had not got on. Now she had left, it was OK to go home.

It was not until that moment, after all her angst-ridden reasoning, that Janet saw how stupid she was being. For of course Trixie had gone before the letter arrived. The two things could not possibly be connected.

About to scrunch up the paper, she checked herself. Nothing had changed in one important respect. V, even if not actually sheltering Trixie, would probably know where she might be found. So the next step must be to ring Slough Post Office and seek out a more detailed address.

Janet got up. Doing something, she immediately felt better. To her surprise she also felt hungry. She took an orange from her fruit bowl and set out to find an unattended phone.

‘Where's the
Indy
?'

‘I'm sitting on it.'

‘God, you're mean!'

‘That's right.'

In the corner of the Barnabys' kitchen the washing machine clicked and swooshed and swirled. When Cully was home it was on, and usually full, every day. A smell of frying bacon and coffee mingled with the scent of summer jasmine, a great swag of which hung over the open window. It had been a close night and the air was oppressive and still.

‘It's not as if you're going to read it. You're just thinking about the case. Isn't he, Ma?'

‘Yes.' Joyce turned the bacon with a fish slice.

‘So who is it?'

‘Who's what?'

‘The man in the black hat.'

‘Don't know.'

‘Pooh. Three whole days and don't know.'

‘Watch it,' said her mother. ‘He's big but he's fast.'

‘It sounds really weird, this Windhorse. Do they dance starkers under the moon? I bet they're all having it off. They do in covens.'

‘It's a commune not a coven.'

‘Same difference. What do they wear? Wampum beads and ethnickers?'

‘More or less.'

‘Don't see how you can wear less,' said Joyce.

The toaster popped and Cully got up, gathering the soft folds of her dressing gown (pale-grey marbled silk this morning). The robe was far too long but she had found it in a period secondhand clothes shop in Windsor and fallen in love, saying it made her feel like Anna Karenina. Joyce said she'd end up tripping over it and doing herself an injury. Cully jacked up the toast and glanced down at the frying pan.

‘Turn it off! Turn it off!' She grabbed the fish slice, removed the bacon and reached for a plate.

‘I'm making it crisp.'

‘It's already crisp.' She tore two sheets from a paper towel roll and started to pat the rashers. ‘Any crisper and it'll self-combust.'

‘Now what are you doing?'

‘Saving him from a heart attack.' Cully put the plate and some fresh toast in front of Barnaby. The bacon was perfect. Then she went back to her seat and said, ‘Tell me some more about your suspects?'

‘What on earth for?'

‘Because I might have to play a hempen homespun one day.'

‘Ah.' Of course, acting. Everything came back to that. ‘Well, there's someone who channels spirits and whose wife visits Venus when she's not organising fairies to help with the washing up—'

‘I wish she'd send some round here,' said Joyce.

‘And a woman who reads auras—very worried about mine by the way, even if no one here is. Says I should harmonise my spleen.'

‘How can people believe such pottiness?'

‘Tunnel vision,' said Cully. ‘Isn't that right?'

‘It's a mystery to me,' said Barnaby who saw no rhyme or reason in regarding the world as other than it was, and could not have done his job if he had.

‘All cults are the same. You just have to blot out everyone and everything that doesn't agree with your beliefs. As long as you can do this you're OK. Bet they don't have a radio or telly.' Barnaby admitted that this was indeed a fact. ‘Dangerous though, being isolated. Once the real world breaks in you're finished.
Pace
our late dominatrix.'

‘Oh, do stop showing off,' said Joyce, still cross about the bacon…she brought her coffee over to the table and sat down. ‘So one of those spiritual souls has committed a murder?'

‘Perhaps two.'

‘Oh?' She put in too much sugar then didn't stir. ‘You're not talking about that man who fell downstairs?'

Barnaby stopped eating. ‘What do you know about it?'

‘Ann told me. We met for coffee just after it happened. The village was in a high old state. Everyone convinced he'd been vilely done to death. They were terribly disappointed with the verdict.'

‘Why on earth didn't—'

‘And I told you that very same evening.'

‘I don't recall—'

‘I always tell you about my day. You simply never listen.'

There was a far from pleasant silence. Then Cully grinned at her father and spoke. ‘This big white chief—the one who got spiked? Was he one of your charismatics?'

‘Oh, definitely.' Barnaby took a deep breath and prepared to put his irritation aside. ‘Silver-haired and silver-tongued. Seems to have held everyone spell-bound.'

‘The Romans thought a good rhetorician must, in the nature of things, be a good man.'

‘Hah.' He spluttered and put down his tea. ‘They'd have got it wrong with Craigie. He's a con from way back.' Briefly the Chief Inspector wondered, when the past of their beloved guru was laid bare, how his communicants would take it. Some no doubt, already blind with faith, would continue blind even in the face of irrefutable evidence. God knew there were enough historical precedents.

‘Got to go. I'm picking Gavin up. Maureen's taking the baby to the clinic so she's using the car. No doubt I shall hear every boring detail of Talisa Leanne's progress before the day's out.'

‘
Talisa Leanne
.' Cully snorted.

‘You were just the same,' Joyce smiled at her husband.

‘Me?'

‘Used to carry snapshots of Cully and press them on total strangers.'

‘Rubbish.' He looked across at his daughter and winked. Cully immediately slipped into a parody of film-starish camera-hungry glamour. Lips parted, eyelashes batting madly, chin resting on the heel of one hand.

‘Tubby little thing she was.' He moved towards the door. A piece of toast flew past his shoulder, striking the woodwork.

When in the hall putting on his jacket, she called, ‘Don't forget tonight, Dad.'

Barnaby sensed behind the words a tugging need that had been absent from their exchanges for a very long time. It made him uneasy. They both knew the score. Over the years Cully had gradually, painfully come to accept that whereas the dads of her friends were invariably present at birthdays and school plays, sports days and holidays, her own quite frequently was not. Her tears, his guilt at the sight of them, then anger at being made to feel guilty, all left Joyce in the unenviable position of family buffer. This wore her out, leading to extremely voluble outbursts of resentment. (All the Barnabys would have won prizes for self-expression.) They loved each other but it had not been easy.

Now, as he groped for his car keys and called ‘Bye' over his shoulder, Barnaby seemed to hear an echo of a hundred sorrowful childish wails: ‘But you
promised
…'

‘What on earth's got into you?' Joyce sat down, facing her only child who had already disappeared behind the
Independent
. ‘Don't read when I'm talking, Cully…' She reached out and pulled down the newspaper.

‘Do you mind?' Cully shook the pages smooth again.

‘When has he ever promised?' Joyce paused. ‘Come on.' Cully stuck out her heavenly bottom lip and sulked. ‘Never, that's when. “I'll be there if I possibly can” is as near as he would ever come.'

The repetition of that long-time fail-safe rubric evoked a vivid rush of muddled recall which coalesced into one especially unhappy episode, Cully's fourth birthday.

Seven little chums, Noah's Ark cake with chocolate marzipan animals, lots of games, lovely presents and all the while the child's face turning, turning to the door. Waiting. Missing her own party by a mile. Eventually, when the guests, balloons bobbing, were waving and calling goodbye from the windows of their parents' disappearing cars, Tom arrived. But by then she was inconsolable. He was home for her fifth party and her sixth but, as is the way of children, it was the fourth that she remembered.

‘Don't try and back him into a corner, love. He'll feel badly enough if he can't be here, without you throwing a moody.'

‘Not half as bad as I'll feel.'

‘Oh be fair.' Joyce felt anger rising and tried to calm herself. They'd the rest of the day to get through. ‘For the past three birthdays you haven't been near us. Last year we tried to ring and you'd gone to Morocco.'

‘This is different I'd have thought. It's my engagement as well.' She dropped the paper on the floor. ‘You always stick up for him.'

‘Of course I do. No I don't. Pick that up.' Cully reached out for an apple and a paring knife. ‘Cully…it's difficult this case. I don't think it's going well. Don't give him a hard time.'

Cully looked across at her mother then, with one of the mercurial swings of mood which so enchanted her admirers and drove others mad with irritation, gave a warm and brilliant smile.

‘I'm sorry…sorry…' She leaned across and kissed her mother's cheek, slipping an arm around her neck. Joyce tried to kiss her daughter in return but Cully, already free, was getting up.

‘Poor Ma.' She shook her head in what looked to Joyce very much like mock sympathy. ‘Pig in the middle. Again.' And turned away. ‘I'm going to have a bath.'

‘What are you doing this morning?' Joyce, trying to prolong the moment of closeness, knowing it had already gone for good.

‘Going to see Deirdre's baby.' The slender brown pink-toenailed feet tripped upstairs. ‘Then I'm meeting Nico at Uxbridge tube. We'll be back by four to give you a hand.'

Joyce imagined the hand. She shouted over the sound of running water: ‘You'd better bring some stuff from Sainsbury's. All we've got so far is eight tarragon eggs and a few ground-up cardamom seeds.'

‘Kay.'

Wisps of carnation-scented steam floated down as Cully shook some Floris Malmaison into the water. Joyce picked up the newspaper and started to clear the table. As she broke up left-over toast for the birds, she played back Cully's graceful flight across the tiled floor. Recalled the skilful gathering of the heavy robe, the sinuously twining arms around her neck, the elegant half-turn of the head, the melting affectionate kiss and smooth backward dance of her retreat. From start to finish it seemed to Joyce there had been no more than one single continuous flowing movement. She and Tom had gradually and painfully realised that they were never sure when their daughter was acting and when she just was. It could be very disconcerting. Joyce felt briefly sorry for Nicholas until she remembered that he was even worse.