The Killings at Badger's Drift (27 page)

‘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.’

‘Say what you’ve got to say and get on with it.’

‘I’d like to go home now.’

‘Don’t play games with me, Lacey!’ Barnaby crossed to the man on the bed and bent down so that their faces were barely an inch apart. ‘I’ve had you up to here.’ He spoke slowly and quietly but the current of anger that flowed from him was almost palpable. Lacey shrank away and turned pale. The skin graft, unchanged, stood out like a piece of stretched pink silk. ‘And I should warn you,’ continued Barnaby, ‘that if you were lying to me yesterday you’re in dead trouble.’

‘Oh I wasn’t . . . technically that is . . .’ His speech was hurried now, not at all fluent, with an anxious edge. ‘When I said I was working in the afternoon that was quite true. I was making preliminary sketches for an oil I’m going to do of Judy Lessiter. I’ve been thinking about it for some time and she rang up about twelve o’clock and reminded me. We worked in their garden.’

Barnaby took a deep breath, struggling to contain his rage. ‘Don’t you usually work at home?’

‘One can sketch anywhere. And in any case she invited me for lunch. I never turn down a decent meal.’

‘So when did you arrive?’

‘About half one. Started work just after two, worked till around four. Stopped for some tea and cake and stuff. Worked on till around five then left.’

‘And why,’ said Barnaby, his voice stretched with the effort of control, ‘did you not tell me all this yesterday?’

‘Well . . . I don’t really know.’ Michael Lacey swallowed nervously. ‘I suppose I was so shattered when you discovered the knife . . . then I panicked and before I knew what was happening you’d bundled me into the car and there I was . . . in one of your little grey cells.’ He attempted a grin. The chief inspector did not respond. ‘And somehow the longer I left it the harder it got to say anything so I thought I’d try to sleep and leave it till morning.’ There was a long heavy silence and he stood up and said, a little uncertainly, ‘So can I go now?’

‘No, Lacey, you cannot “go now”.’ Barnaby moved away. ‘And let me tell you that you don’t know how lucky you are. I know men who would have had your head in and out between those bars half a dozen times by now if you’d messed them about like you’ve messed me.’ He slammed the door, locked it and flung the key back on the board.

As he climbed the steps and made his way to the incident room he became aware that he was clenching and unclenching his fists with fury. He changed tack, returned to his office and stood by the window, struggling to simmer down. His brain was in a turmoil, his skin burned, there was a band of steel around his forehead and his stomach bucked like a maddened bronco. He felt almost sick with anger and frustration. But there was no disappointment. Because he had known in his heart from the moment when he saw Lacey gaping incredulously at the blood-encrusted knife that it was all too easy. Caught red handed. No problem. An open and shut case.

He sat in the chair behind his desk and closed his eyes. Gradually his pulse and heartbeat slowed down. He breathed slowly and evenly. Five long minutes crawled by and he made himself sit still for five more. By then he felt himself more or less back to normal and with normality, surprisingly, came hunger. He checked his watch. If he was quick he would have time to expose his arteries to the comfort of a quick fry-up in the canteen and still catch Judy Lessiter before she left for work.

The Lessiters were at breakfast. Trevor, who had a mouthful of bile and an aching groin, took a ferocious poke at his egg which retaliated by spouting a great gobbet of sulphur yellow all over his tie. Judy laughed. He scrubbed at the tie with his napkin, glaring at his wife who was turning the pages of the
Daily Telegraph
in the manner most calculated to annoy, i.e. with languid indifference.

She was up to her tricks again. Locked door last night and, when he’d tapped, very softly so that Judy wouldn’t hear, Barbara had put her lips to the door jamb and hissed, ‘Go away, you randy little man. Don’t you ever think of anything else?’ He had walked up and down in his room for two hours after that, torn between lust and fury, cursing Judy’s presence in the house. At one moment he had even thought of dragging a ladder out of the garage, climbing up to his wife’s window and breaking in. God - she’d have known about it if he had. Tears of self-pity sprang to his eyes. He recalled the time he had spent in her arms only forty-eight hours ago. Trick or treat, she’d whispered. Both had been equally enthralling. It’d been almost like the night before their wedding. He realized now what a fool he was. How she’d always used sex to lead him round, like some pathetic bull calf with a ring through his nose. Well, two could play at that game. Just wait till it was time for her next dress allowance. Or a new subscription to that rapacious health club. She could bloody well whistle for it.

Judy Lessiter stirred her coffee and stared dreamily out of the window. She wore the dress she had bought from High Wycombe the evening before. The cloth was a grey and cream harlequin pattern and the dress had a white ruff. ‘Frames your face a picture,’ the salesgirl had said. Judy’s absurd legs were encased in new pale grey tights. She had also lashed out on some Rive Gauche and a box of eye shadows which she had applied, rather clumsily, before coming down. She was re-running, as she had done all night long, the events of yesterday afternoon.

At one o’clock it had stretched, a lonely space to be filled, until teatime. At five past one, fortified with a small sherry, she had rung Michael Lacey, reasoning that it had been over a week and he had said he wanted to paint her and what had she got to lose anyway? To her surprise and delight he had immediately agreed to come over. Even saying, ‘I was just going to ring you.’

She had taken a quiche out of the freezer, popped it in the microwave, had a quick bath and scrambled in and out of three dresses. She had even experimented with some of Barbara’s makeup. Michael had arrived half an hour later with a sketch pad and promptly told her to go and wash her face.

She took lunch out into the garden and he spent the next two hours drawing in a rapid but detached manner whilst she tried to keep still and refrain from looking at him all the time. He threw an awful lot of stuff away. Not angrily, screwing them up and hurling them from him, but shedding them as impersonally as a tree sheds leaves. By four o’clock there was a little sea of the stuff around his ankles and half a dozen sketches that he put in a portfolio. She had made some tea then and they had drunk it and eaten ginger cake sitting on the wooden seat that ran all round the giant cedar.

She said, ‘Can I have one of these?’ picking up a discarded sketch.

‘No.’

‘Oh but Michael’ - glancing at the paper - ‘it’s lovely.’

‘It’s awful. They all are. Promise me you’ll burn them. Or put them in the dustbin.’

She nodded sadly and poured out some more tea. He picked up his pad and a few minutes later handed her a sketch. ‘You can keep this one.’

It was all there. The mournful curve of her lips, her beautiful eyes, clumsy fingers on the teapot, the sturdy yet submissive line of the neck. He had signed it neatly M.L. It was so precise and so cruel. She felt her throat tighten in prelude to tears and, knowing that nothing would annoy him more, blinked them away hard.

‘Hey Jude . . .’ he sang softly, ‘don’t be afraid . . .’ He put his cup on the grass and touched her arm. ‘You ought to get out of this place. Away from that miserable pair.’

She gulped her tea. ‘Easier said than done.’

‘Oh I don’t know. When I start my European junketings I shall need a totally subservient dogsbody cum model. I might take you along.’ And then he kissed her. Full on the lips.

Judy closed her eyes. She smelt the cedar needles and the sweetness of ginger, felt each individual moist cake crumb on her fingertips, heard a blackbird sing. The kiss lasted a millionth of a second. And a hundred years. Even as she thought I shall remember this moment all my life it was over.

‘I said do you want some more coffee?’

Judy looked blankly at her stepmother. ‘No thank you.’

‘Trevor?’

No reply. Barbara poured a second cup for herself, unrolled the latest edition of
Country Life
, then pushed it aside in disgust. Much more of that and she’d be into hairy stockings and lace-up walking drawers. No one read the thing anyway. It went straight into the waiting room. She decided to cancel it and place an order for something a bit more spicy. That’d gee up the golden oldies’ blood pressure. She nibbled a buttered soldier and glanced slyly at her husband’s tie. What with that and Judy looking like something out of a McDonald’s ad the day was off to a flying start. And there were only (eyes down to the diamond-studded wristwatch) six hours to go to nookie time. The doorbell rang.

‘Who the hell is that at this hour of the morning?’

‘I’ll go.’ Barbara sauntered out to return with Chief Inspector Barnaby.

‘What time of day do you call this?’ asked the doctor angrily.

‘Miss Lessiter?’

‘Yes?’ Judy scrambled to her feet like a schoolgirl. ‘What is it?’

‘Just one or two questions about yesterday afternoon if you would? Your whereabouts -’

‘We had someone here last night asking about all that,’ snapped Lessiter.

‘That’s all right,’ said Judy, ‘I don’t mind going through it again. I was here all the time. I had the afternoon off. And my friend Michael . . . Michael Lacey was here too. He was doing some preliminary sketches for a painting he’s hoping to start soon.’

‘Could you tell me when this was arranged?’

‘Well I rang him up . . .’ Barbara Lessiter covered a smile with her hand, but carelessly. ‘Although actually the first thing he said was “Oh - I was just going to ring you”.’ She stared at the two people sitting at the table. She looked defiant and vulnerable. ‘Why is it so important?’

‘Someone has stated that they saw Mr Lacey enter the Rainbird house around four p.m.’

‘No!’ Judy cried out in horror. ‘It isn’t true. It can’t be. He was with me. Why is everyone always picking on him? Trying to get him into trouble.’

This time Barbara did not even try to conceal her smile. Judy wheeled round and pointed at her stepmother. ‘It’s her you want to talk to! Why don’t you ask her a few questions?’

‘Me?’ Amused and amazed.

‘Ask her where her fur coat is. And why she’s trying to find five thousand pounds. Ask her why she’s being blackmailed!’

With a shout of rage Barbara Lessiter leapt up and flung her coffee in her stepdaughter’s face. Judy screamed, ‘My dress . . . my dress!’ Doctor Lessiter seized his wife, holding her arms by her sides. Judy ran from the room. Her father hurried after her. Barbara, suddenly released, flopped into the nearest chair. There was a long silence.

‘Well, Mrs Lessiter?’ asked Barnaby. ‘Why are you being blackmailed?’

‘It’s absolute nonsense. I don’t know where the silly cow even got such an idea.’

‘Perhaps I should tell you that we have removed a good many files, copies of letters and documents, from the dead woman’s house.’ This time the silence was even longer. ‘Would you prefer to come to the station -’

‘Christ, no. Hang on . . .’ She crossed to a Welsh dresser, shook out a cigarette with shaky fingers and lit up. ‘I had a letter from her about a week ago.’

‘Signed?’

‘That’s right. Your friend Iris Rainbird. On her horrible lilac writing paper that stinks of dead flowers. It just said that they knew what was going on and if I didn’t want my husband to hear all the juicy details it’d cost me five thousand quid. She’d give me a week to raise it then be in touch again.’

‘And what was going on?’

‘Me and David Whiteley.’

‘I see.’ Barnaby’s mind back-tracked. She could have been the woman in the woods (no checkable alibi). And David Whiteley the man (Ditto.) At the time Miss Simpson was killed she was vaguely driving round. And she could, just about, have squeezed through the larder window. He hesitated and was wondering how most delicately to phrase his next question when she answered it for him.