Death in Disguise (25 page)

Guy remembered the stillness in that empty, quiet room. The feeling that he had briefly laid down the burden that was Guy Gamelin. A burden he had not even realised he carried. If he went back, if he were allowed to go back, would the silence still be there? And could it really heal?

Even as he posed the question he became angry at the gullibility that provoked it. Craigie was a trickster, right?
Right
. An impresario putting on a show with a bit of silk and sunlight. Remember that.

‘Remember that.' Nodding vigorously in self-convincement, Guy returned his glass to the bucket and unscrewed the whisky bottle.

Seeking distraction he applied himself to the television set, screwing up his eyes in an effort to distinguish and separate the blobby shapes on the screen. A woman washing up, a little girl with shining hair standing next to her on a box. They were having a serious conversation about cutting grease. The woman gave a false ‘maternal' laugh and placed a sparkly bit of foam on the tip of the child's nose. Guy zapped channels but the damage had been done.

Renascent deprivation gripped his heart and with it the final cruel apprehension that it really was too late. That what he wanted, what he yearned for, was not his daughter—that tall duplicitous stranger—but the child that she once was. Flesh of his flesh. The utter hopelessness of this desire quite overcame him and his face became disfigured by grief.

He caught sight of himself in the cheval glass across the room. Swags of flab hanging over the elasticated band of his shorts, wet matted chest hair, face the colour of uncooked pastry and running with perspiration, whisky stains down his shirt. As he stared at this gross and repulsive figure, a powerful visceral queasiness made itself felt. Then an overwhelming sensation of physical heat. Guy put his head between his knees.

The room tilted and slid first one way then the other. He sat up again, hanging on to the braided edge of the armchair. He was going to be sick. Struggling, heaving and pushing, he somehow got to his feet and started towards the bathroom. Half way there he felt an astonishing fierce tearing sensation in his chest as if someone was ripping it open with a bill hook. He cried out and stood swaying, looking round.

The pills were in his jacket. Guy moved slowly, dragging legs weighty as marble columns. A step away, a second tear knocked him off his feet. He lay on his back till the worst was past then forced himself up on one elbow and, raising his other arm, grabbed the table. He got the edge of the fruit bowl, dislodged a small card. Apples and oranges, pears and bananas rained down, hit him in the face and bounced off.

Impossible to try again. The pain was back, this time in iron hoops. Guy fell back against the carpet and let it devour him.

B
y eight-thirty next morning Barnaby was at his desk sifting, thinking, looking over his multiplicity of statements and sketches. Most of the latter showed some blanks but everyone seemed to know where they and their immediate neighbours had been, and from these incomplete drawings Barnaby had composed a large complete one of his own, now blown up on the wall.

He was studying this when the door opened and a pale-faced wraithish creature with eyes ringed like a panda's appeared hanging on to a tray.

‘Is that my tea? About time.'

Barnaby had had five hours' sleep. He never needed more than six and was in fine form. Troy got to bed at three
A.M.
The baby woke at four and cried, on and off, till seven-thirty when her dad got up and dressed, whereupon she had fallen into a deep sleep. She had been doing this sort of thing every night for a week. Such a degree of vindictiveness in one so young was giving Troy serious pause for thought. He gave Barnaby his tea, put three sugars in his own, stirred and drank. Barnaby drank too and pulled a face. ‘No sugar.'

‘You said you were cutting down.'

‘Down not out.' Troy took over the bowl and the chief inspector helped himself liberally, grinning up at his sergeant. ‘Ah—the joys of fatherhood.'

‘She's lovely. Beautiful. But…'

‘But not in the middle of the night. I remember it well.' He and Joyce had taken turn and turn about when Cully had six-week colic. He wondered what sort of helping hand Maureen got.

‘I expect eventually I'll learn to sleep through it.'

‘I'm sure you will, Gavin.'

Encouraged by the voice of experience and enlivened by his sweet tea, Troy went over and studied the chief's sketch.

‘That it then?'

‘Yes. Although just how important all those positions are I'm not sure. We'll look again when we get the PR report. See the angle of the knife and so on.'

‘I've been thinking about that, Chief.' Troy scraped out the last of the melting sugar with his spoon. ‘Quite long it was and bloody sharp. Even if you could conceal it about your person I shouldn't think you'd feel all that safe or comfy. I wondered if it was stashed in the Solar ahead of time?'

‘Not much in the way of a hiding place. Plus you'd have to retrieve it.'

‘I was thinking of those cushions.'

‘Bit of a risk. Might have a bum on at the crucial moment.'

‘Then you sit on it yourself.'

‘But no one did.'

‘True, true.' Troy was loath to let go his theory. He wandered over to the window, fingers twitching, longing for a ciggie to set off his cup of tea, and stared out hoping for distraction. “Course that would mean Gamelin knew in advance where the regression would take place. We could find that out when we talk to him this morning.'

Barnaby, lost in the pile of statements, did not reply. About to return his cup to the tray, a movement in visitors' parking caught Troy's eye. ‘Hullo, some smart money's spreading itself out there.'

Barnaby, glad to stretch his legs, joined his sergeant. A magnificent Bentley the colour of bitter chocolate had driven to an immaculate standstill. A man climbed out with some difficulty and walked towards the main building. Watching his slow and stately progress, Barnaby thought it took a tailor of genius to make a paunch like that look distinguished and not disgusting.

‘Who the hell do you think that is?'

‘I've got a very good idea.'

Shortly after this a constable from the main building came in with an excessively plain engraved card which Barnaby read aloud. ‘Sir Willoughby St John Greatorex. OK, Troy—better wheel him in.'

The CID was quite separate from the station proper, connected by a high glassed-in walkway. It was quite a distance although not nearly such a distance as Troy made it seem. He took Sir Willoughby through Traffic Control and up two unnecessary flights of stairs, proceeding always at a brisk pace until, by the time they arrived at Barnaby's office, the great man was gasping for breath. Troy announced him po-faced but casting a derisive eye at the ceiling. Barnaby introduced himself and offered coffee. Sir Willoughby pressed a paisley silk square to his perspiring forehead and declined.

‘It's very good.'

‘I'm sure it is, Chief Inspector. Unfortunately I'm limited to one cup a day which I've already had three times.'

Barnaby, a martyr to indigestion, nodded not entirely sympathetically. His own unruly gut was simply reacting against years of ropey home-cooking and greasy fry-ups in the works canteen. He suspected the Greatorex intestines were finally giving out after an equivalent period of superb business lunches and evenings toying with a morsel of pâté de foie gras and a glass of Margaux.

Sir Willoughby really was the most extraordinary shape. Like a huge tweedy pear. Everything about him was pendulous. His nose, his jowls, the thready pouches under his eyes. Even his ear lobes looked as if the slightest breeze might set them dancing. He was speaking again.

‘On the other hand it appears I may be involved quite soon in a lengthy and rather unpleasant disquisition, so perhaps a further bending of the rules might apply.'

No discipline these people, thought Troy, going off to get the desired brew. No self-control at all.

Soon, sipping delicately, Sir Willoughby said, ‘Perhaps you could explain exactly what the situation is regarding Mr Gamelin. The telephone call I received last night was a little incoherent.'

What exquisite tact! Barnaby imagined the torrent of oaths and vitriolic abuse that must have poured out of the Greatorex receiver. No doubt the size of the Greatorex bill would be commensurate. He explained exactly what the situation was.

Sir Willoughby heard out the man lately described to him as ‘a truculent bugger with a face like a side of beef.' Then he rested long, surprisingly slender fingers on the elegant camouflage of his trousers; winced and returned his nearly full cup to the chief inspector's desk. Turning to Troy, Sir Willoughby said, ‘Do you think I might have a glass of water?'

Perversely the man's courtesy irritated the sergeant far more than haughty condescension would have done. Even so there was no way the words ‘Sir Willoughby' were going to cross his lips. Even a simple ‘sir' used without a second thought to any half-way adult and reasonably sober male member of the public remained unuttered. Muttering ‘…Right…' he left the office.

‘I understood,' said Sir Willoughby, ‘when discussing this matter late last night that Mr Gamelin had been formally charged.' (‘The fuckers have stitched me up, Will.')

‘That is not the case although we will be questioning him again this morning. As Mr Gamelin's solicitor—'

‘Please.' Sir Willoughby's hand made a weary gesture of disassociation. ‘I am the McFaddens' solicitor and am here primarily to support and protect Mrs Gamelin.'

Barnaby felt a fleeting sympathy for Guy. The poor sod must have worn his trotters down to the ankles scrambling for a foothold in that tight little clan. The water arrived. Troy put it on the far corner of the desk and removed himself to the window.

Barnaby continued, ‘—You're welcome to be present.'

The offer was not entirely disinterested. An attendant solicitor helped keep the story straight. Saved trip-ups if things got as far as court. Sir Willoughby smiled, stretched way out for his water, drank a little and gestured again, this time with such stylish ambiguity that it could have meant anything, everything, nothing or all three simultaneously.

They're going to throw him to the wolves, Barnaby thought, and decided to question Sir Willoughby about the previous evening's phone call. Normally asking a suspect's solicitor if he could help the police with their inquiries would be about as daft as trying to milk a mouse and with much the same results. But Sir Willoughby considered the request seriously.

‘Well, it was fairly rambling. There was something about a glove and colourful descriptions of the food and company. The murder of course. And a long lament about his daughter.'

‘What did he say about the murder?'

‘Only that he'd had nothing to do with it.'

‘Did he mention the trust fund?'

Sir Willoughby sat up. Or as nearly up as his avoirdupois would allow. ‘No.'

‘I understand Miss Gamelin intends to give it all away.'

‘Ah…' He recovered so quickly the anguished little twist of sound might never have been uttered. ‘Well, of course it's her money and she is of age.' He then rose after a certain amount of rocking to and fro. ‘I have to be in court this afternoon…so…'

‘Will you be driving Mr Gamelin over here later, Sir Willoughby? Otherwise we'll send a car.'

‘I really can't quite say when we'll be meeting. I shall be going straight from here to the Manor House to see how Sylvie and her mother are. So I shouldn't rely on me.'

Yes, thought Barnaby. Definitely to the wolves.

Troy detailed Policewoman Brierley to show Sir Willoughby out and watched the Bentley depart with a curl of his lip, thinking,
Sinjhan
. If I'd got a name like a Paki newsagent I'd keep it to myself.

Nobody had slept much. Breakfast was proving hardly worthy of the name. Everyone was saying to everyone ‘You must eat something' whilst going without themselves. Earlier in the hall (no one could bear to enter the Solar), they had gathered in a circle to recharge. But even ten minutes' controlled breathing into Universal Mind had little effect. Grief had disunited them and they mourned individually, hutched in invisible cages of sorrow. Even Janet, whose respect and admiration for the Master stopped well this side of devotion, was dismayed by how disconsolate she felt.

Christopher poured fruit juice, Arno crumbled a barley cake, Heather had carved herself a slice of marmalade the colour of treacle toffee and laid it to rest on some burnt toast. Ken, on Hilarion's instructions, was just about to retire to the garden with a straightened-out metal coat hanger to dowse for whatever etheric traces of the Master's spirit might remain, a sortie he referred to as Operation Karmalight.

May sat at the head of the table, proud shoulders drooping, wonderful hair loose and unbrushed. She had been crying and her eyes were still bright and swimmy. Without make-up her face looked haggard. She looked ten years older; a faint facsimile of her former self. Arno's heart almost broke at the sight and he had never loved her more.