Death in Disguise (30 page)

‘Well, you know my theory—never do one job when you could be doing three.' Heather nodded. ‘So, while I was producing this lot, I also used my thought-energy web to tune into Hilarion about our future here.'

‘Brilliant. What did he say?'

‘Wouldn't tell me, the old reprobate—oops!' Ken put his head in his lap and covered it with his hands as if protecting himself from a rock fall. ‘Sorry Hilarion…' he called through his fingers. ‘Only joking.' He sat up then and continued. ‘But he did zero in with some info of his own. Nothing less than a complete world-overview of the cosmic and global situation. There was a special reference to the holes in the ozone layer and—talk about a paradigm shift—
they are nothing whatsoever to worry about.'

‘What? I can't believe…' Hope and incredulity fought it out in Heather's shining face.

‘It's true. Comes directly from the Original Silent Fourfold Column. You know how the waters break when a baby's born? Well, this is precisely the same process. As we all know, there's a great spiritual outpouring from the angelic realms at this particular moment in time. Now, how can this get through if apertures are not made in the heavens?'

His wife clapped her hands in wonder. ‘I never thought of that.'

‘Talk about profound. The old fox.'

‘So all this changing aerosols and fridges and things—'

‘Complete waste of time.'

Heather galumphed to her feet. ‘We must share this with the others.'

‘And then with the world.'

Crossing the hall towards the dining room, Ken checked the ‘Feeling Guilty' bowl as he always did when passing. There was no money in it today, but he did find something else. A key with a tag on reading ‘25'. The key to Trixie's room.

The afternoon was hot. Both the windows in Barnaby's office were open but there was little breeze. It was Policewoman Brierley's twenty-second and someone had had the wit to lob in ice and a huge bag of lemons as well as assorted cakes and pastries. The chief inspector had a frosted glass of tart, freshly made lemonade in one hand and was eating his doughnut in a very circumspect manner, trying to keep the filling off his shirt and off the mass of material on his desk, which included the recently delivered scene-of-crime report.

A chorus of ‘Happy Birthday' wafted through the half-open door and he could see his sergeant perched on Audrey's desk. Troy was holding some computer sheets and singing away, his eyes on her black-stockinged knees.

She'd come on a lot in the last three years had little Audrey, thought Barnaby. Earlier on she'd been really shy, not knowing how to handle flirtatious come-ons or chauvinistic put-downs, which in any case often came joined at the hip, like unkind Siamese twins. The girls that stuck it toughened up.

As Barnaby watched, catching scarlet confectioner's jelly just in time, Troy leaned forward with a predatory leer, murmuring something, winking. Audrey winked and murmured back. There was an explosion of laughter and the sergeant walked away.

‘She used to be really sweet, that girl,' he said angrily, flourishing the print-out. ‘Dead feminine—know what I mean?'

‘I think she's quite sweet now, actually.'

‘Pay them a compliment—jump down your throat.'

The compliment had gone as follows. Troy: ‘I'll take you for a drink to celebrate. Somewhere really smart. How about that snug little place on the river? You'll have a good time. They don't call me up-and-coming for nothing.' Audrey: ‘Use it to stir your tea, Gavin.'

‘Women who are coarse just show themselves up—don't you think, Chief?'

Barnaby, reading, said: ‘No Craigie on these.'

Troy made an effort to become unchagrined. ‘I checked on similar names as well. There's a Brian Craig in there. Insurance fraud. Died in Broadmoor.'

‘Must have been some territory.' Barnaby rarely made a joke. This one died on its feet.

‘There's more to come. I'm waiting on a Cranleigh and Crawshaw.' He sounded very bright and positive. ‘I'm convinced Gamelin was right. Feel it in my bones.'

Troy was always feeling things in his bones. They were about as reliable as a Saint Bernard that had been at the brandy.

‘Anything in scene-of-crime, sir?'

‘Not a lot.'

Troy read the two closely typed sheets. Nothing on the glove—which was to be expected. And nothing on anything else much either. A magnified picture of the fibrous thread which had been caught up on the knife.

‘Bit of a pisser, that,' he said when he'd finished. ‘Doesn't look as if it came off anyone's gear. Mind you—not everyone was wearing the sort of clothes that could conceal it. May Cuttle's dress had long floaty sleeves but she's out. Could have passed it to somebody though. Hey—maybe she slipped it to Wainwright. Because there's no way he could have brought it in himself. Tight jeans, sneakers, short-sleeved shirt.'

‘He didn't go near the dais either.'

‘So who's left? The dykey woman wore trousers—she could've brought it in. The blonde might have found it difficult. Gibbs could have had it up his jumper. Gamelin and the Beavers could have hidden it and that lad with one oar out of the water. He wore a baggy sweater. Or Gamelin's wife—she could have had a whole canteen of cutlery in that dress. Same goes for her daughter in the sari.'

Troy's mouth pursed with a
moue
of distaste. If there was one thing that turned him up, it was white women dressing like blacks. ‘If that girl was mine,' he muttered, ‘I'd drag her home, wash that red muck off under the tap and give her a good clout.'

‘But people are not “ours”, Sergeant. They're not cars or washing machines. You've forgotten someone.'

‘No I haven't.'

Barnaby pointed to the wall sketch. ‘
Craigie?
' Troy laughed in disbelief. ‘Well, he's not going to give the murderer a hand by smuggling a knife in, is he?'

‘He was there. We shouldn't exclude him. What do we keep, Troy?'

‘An open mind, sir,' sighed Troy, thinking some people's minds had been kept so open their brains had fallen out.

‘Have a look and see if there's any more of those doughnuts.'

Janet was searching Trixie's room. She knew there was no point. She had searched it twice already, first in a whirling hawk-eyed frenzy of disbelief then more slowly, systematically turning out every drawer. She looked beneath the mattress and rugs and through pages of books and, once, in a moment of barmy desperation, pulled out the basket in the fire grate. But she found no clue as to where Trixie might have fled.

What Janet was really looking for, of course, was a letter. But there was no trace of any such thing. Not even thrown-way scraps from which an address might be pieced together. And there was nothing on file in the office either. Trixie's first inquiry was by telephone, and this had been followed by a weekend visit which had extended itself indefinitely once bursary help was found to be available.

Janet was almost as distressed by the intensity of her misery as by the misery itself. How had she let herself get into such a state? The progress had been so insidious. At first she hadn't even liked Trixie. The girl had struck her as shallow and silly, and they'd had nothing whatsoever in common. Then, gradually, she had started to admire and eventually envy the younger girl's soubrettish character. Her assurance and smart backchat. Born into a tradition of polite reticence, Janet frequently found herself either tongue-tied or constrained by good manners from speaking her mind.

She had realised quite early on that Trixie was not a true seeker. Was not in fact very interested at all in the higher realm. She had attended meditation, had interviews with the Master and slipped a few genuflective remarks into various semi-religious discussions but Janet knew her heart wasn't in it. It struck her once that Trixie only went this far to be sure of keeping her foot in the door. Janet had often longed to ask why she was at the Windhorse in the first place but had never dared. Trixie always said that if there was one thing she could not stand it was nosiness.

Now, sitting at the dressing table, the roses still blushing in their bowl and feeling quite ill with loss and longing, Janet opened the top drawer for the umpteenth time and regarded all that was left of Trixie. A half-full packet of Tampax, a pink lacy angora jumper smelling under the arms and some ‘airport' novels, ill-written and virtually (Janet had dipped into a couple) pornographic, although any virtue seemed to have been vanquished by page seven.

Janet was sure that Trixie had disappeared because she was afraid. And that it was something to do with Guy Gamelin. Even in death that monstrous man exuded the power to harm. Janet pictured Trixie alone and frightened, running, running. Had she any money? Surely she wouldn't try to hitch a lift. Not after all the terrible stories one heard. She must have left sometime between half eleven and twelve. Perhaps creeping through the hall with her blue-wheeled suitcase while Janet was just a few feet away in the kitchen. Oh God!

She sprang up, her arms wrapped straight-jacket-tight across her chest. Now more than any other was the time when Trixie would need her friendship. And Janet had so much to give. She could feel it lying, a great heavy lump, where her heart should be. She seemed to have been carrying it all her life and it grew heavier every day.

She caught sight of herself in the glass. Her hair was wild, skin stretched tight over beaky nose. She faced the thought that Trixie might never return and a terrible sensation of time passing snatched at her throat. A concentrated sense of loss. The bleakness of it almost brought her to her knees. She felt she was facing a long, unendurable twilight without ever having known the glory of the day.

She'd read once that the intensity of a really powerful emotion could kill recollection. Janet felt she could handle such oblivion. Loving Trixie in a poignant cauterised way, like a misplaced memory. There was something clean and austere about this conclusion. The absolute certainty of naught for your comfort was almost a comfort in itself. She would walk alone bearing in mind the harsh and deeply unsatisfactory epigram that the only sure way to get what you want in life is to want what you get.

‘Settle' was the term her mother would have used. ‘I'll settle for that' Janet remembered her saying about a length of fabric or a piece of meat or a knitting pattern. Janet had always understood the phrase to mean ‘It's not what I want but it's better than nothing.'

But no sooner had Janet decided to settle for nothing than an agonised longing for human contact, for a flicker of warmth to light the way, devoured her, and she buried her face in the scented roses and wept.

Christopher and Suhami were in the study. She gazing out of the window, he sitting at the barley-twist one-legged table at which Barnaby had conducted the interviews. There was a small pigskin case by Christopher's feet and on the table a large unsealed brown envelope. Three days' neglect of the room had occasioned a layer of dust over everything.