‘No.’ She did not elaborate. Just carried on sipping.
‘When do you expect him back, Mrs Jennings?’ Troy’s excitement subsided as he noticed the neat roll of fat around his goddess’s middle and those tired, knowledgeable eyes.
‘Haven’t the foggiest.’
‘Perhaps you could tell us what time he arrived home last night?’
‘Took three dream-easies. Wouldn’t know if the end of the world arrived last night.’
‘This meeting he attended - at Midsomer Worthy?’ She didn’t reply. Just peered at Barnaby intently as if he was slowly becoming invisible. ‘Had he discussed it with you at all?’
‘No.’ She trowelled in more icy slush, drowned it in Beefeaters, gave it a mere flirtation with the plastic lemon. Glug-glug-glug.
‘It didn’t, did it?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Turn up last night.’
‘What’s that, Mrs Jennings?’
‘The end of the world.’
‘No.’
‘Just my fucking luck.’
‘Any idea where we might catch up with your husband?’ said Troy. She didn’t seem to understand the question at all. Impatience followed disenchantment. He said, extra loudly, ‘Where has he gone?’
‘Finland.’
‘
Finland!
’
‘Signing books.’
‘How long for?’
‘Ask his so-called secretary. Bouncing Barbara. They’re thick as thieves.’
‘Do you know what time he left?’
‘Better talk to Stavros. He runs everything. Hot breakfasts, nice clean clothes, perfect pool maintenance. Pity he’s such a rotten lay.’
She presented her back to them. Barnaby thanked her, turned on his heel (snapping the head off a crimson blossom) and withdrew.
‘No wonder he’s shoved off,’ said Troy as they went to look for the butler. The sergeant had no time for neurotic women. To be fair he had no time for neurotic men either. Troy liked people to be simple and uncomplicated, which was how he saw himself.
‘That sort of caper though’ - he meant the book signing - ‘funny way to do a runner. A bit high profile isn’t it?’
‘Well at least he’s gone somewhere we can extradite him.’ Sweat was pouring down Barnaby’s face. His clothes were sticking to his skin. ‘God I’m glad to get out of that swamp.’
They found the butler in the kitchen, an area so dazzlingly comprehensive in its display of unusual and inventive equipment that it was hard to believe the place existed merely for the preparation of food. Stavros was sitting at a stainless steel table reading
Taxythromos
.
‘Mr Stavros?’ said Troy.
‘Stavro.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘I am Stavros Stavro.’
‘Oh. Right. Well Mr Stavro, we’d like a word.’
‘I am all legal.’ The Greek got hurriedly to his feet, folding up his magazine. ‘Visa, papers, everything, for six months. I show you—’ He started to leave in some agitation.
‘Nothing to do with that,’ said Barnaby. ‘Just a few questions about Mr Jennings. For instance, were you around when he got home last night?’
‘I always wait up. The gates are opened from inside.’
‘What time would that have been?’
‘About one o’clock.’
‘And what sort of spirits would you say he was in?’ Stavros looked puzzled. ‘Happy? Sad?’
‘Ah - sad, yes. Quite and sad.’
‘Did he say anything about the evening? How it had all gone?’
Stavros shook his head. ‘We don’t talk like . . . like . . .’
‘Friends?’ suggested Troy.
‘
Neh - e filos
, friend. He just say the time to be called, then go to bed.’
‘What sort of bloke is he? All right to work for?’ Stavros shrugged.
‘What about Mrs Jennings?’
Troy could not resist the question nor could he keep a knot of resentment from his voice. Whilst his own fancy for the lady had been fleeting, to say the least, he loathed the thought of this oily little tosser getting his end away between those cinnamon loins. He said:
‘Tell us about this morning, Mr Stavro.’
‘What about?’
‘All about.’
‘I wake Mr Jennings, six half with tea and run the bath. Then I pack for him—’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Country things, warm tops, shirts. He wear his favourite suit.’
‘That wouldn’t be the same one he had on last night by any chance?’ asked Barnaby.
‘Yes.’ Stavros looked anxious at the chief inspector’s sudden dark frown. ‘Is there a mistake?’
‘What time did he leave?’
‘Nine and a half.’
‘Did he say for where?’
‘Heathrow.’
‘And what did he actually take with him?’
‘Two big cases and a handbag.’
‘You what?’ Troy’s eyes widened with surprise.
‘Briefcase, sergeant. Don’t be obtuse.’ Barnaby was getting more bad-tempered by the minute. ‘Did Mr Jennings say when he’d be back?’
‘No. Just he would telephone.’
‘Where are the rest of the things he was wearing last night? Shirt, socks, underwear?’
‘In the machine.’
‘Washed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘
Then katalava
. . .’
Stavros was beginning to look most apprehensive.
‘Did Mr Jennings ask you to wash the things straight away?’
‘No. I always do in the morning.’
‘Was there blood on them?’ asked Troy.
‘Blood!
Mitera tou theo
. . .’
‘All right sir, calm down. Calm down.’ Bloody foreigners. It was like being in the middle of an opera. Any minute now it’d be ‘Nessun Dorma’ and time for the kick-off.
‘We shall need the washed clothes, Mr Stavro,’ said Barnaby. ‘Also the shoes and tie Mr Jennings wore last night if they’re available. I trust the shoes have not been cleaned.’
‘No.’ Stavros looked even more apprehensive. ‘I don’t think to get into trouble.’
‘You don’t know what trouble is, sunshine,’ said Sergeant Troy, ‘until you refuse to help the police with their enquiries.’
Troy would have liked to reassure the butler further by suggesting that a refusal to comply might well mean the precious visa being shredded and flushed down the swanny, but thought better of it. The chief was strongly against threats for the sake of threats, preferring to save them for really tight corners from whence he had been known to fire such devices with the force of a howitzer.
‘Someone will come along tomorrow from our scene-of-crime department to collect the stuff,’ he was explaining now. ‘Just point it all out to them. Don’t handle anything yourself - all right? There’s one more thing . . .’
Troy took down a detailed description of Max Jennings’ Mercedes and the registration number.
Stavros saw them off the premises, perspiring with relief. As they climbed into the car he rose on the balls of his feet as if preparing for flight.
‘Imagine living in that.’ Barnaby, looking back at the house, spoke with a certain scorn. He wound the window down slightly, letting in a rush of pneumonia-bearing night air. ‘Talk about medallion man writ large.’
Not knowing what to say, for he had loved the house and everything in it, Troy shivered and kept silent.
At roughly the time that Barnaby and Troy were speeding towards Warren d’Evercy, Sue Clapton, having washed up and cleared away, was preparing the next day’s lunch boxes. Chopping celery and red cabbage for fibre, adding raisins for energy before mixing in walnuts (lineolic acid and vitamin B). Adding her own special lemon dressing in a little glass jar. Taking endless trouble as always, quite unaware that Mandy swapped the fresh salad and home-made bap each day for crisps, Coke and a Mars bar.
Sue’s husband and daughter had both been late home. Brian had been whisked off by two of his colleagues for a drink after school where, quite misunderstanding their requests that he should tell them all about the drama, he had bored them both rigid with a mercilessly detailed update of
Slangwhang For Five Mute Voices
.
Amanda, casually mentioning that she’d only been fast asleep while a murder was going on next door, that’s all, found her company, for the first time in her life, in great demand. The absolute superlative was when Haze Stitchley, who was well wicked and had her own gang, asked Mandy round after school for a takeaway and video (
Vampire Sex Slaves
).
Neither of them thought to ring Sue who, by the time they finally did arrive home, was frantic with worry. Mandy, smelling strongly of wine, was unrepentant. Brian, perhaps recalling his own moment of fear in the head’s office, felt guilty. Guilt made him bluster and shout. Neither wanted any supper, a delicious steamed onion pudding with ginger sauce, so Sue ate alone, forcing food down a throat closed tight with anger. Now she added a Cox’s pippin to Brian’s box and fitted a ripe banana around Mandy’s salad bowl.
Next door the television blared. Brian was laughing in the enforced, unnaturally loud way he had when he was not at all amused but desperate to take part in whatever Mandy was enjoying. Sue listened to them chortling away. Daddy and his little girl. She didn’t understand how they could. Not when someone living so close had just died. And in such a terrible manner.
With so much noise her head was splitting. Funny how the children at play school never affected her like this, no matter how much racket they kicked up. Sue wrapped herself in a shawl, stepped outside into the back yard and closed the door behind her. In the windless dark a blackbird chirruped, sounding as if he were in the old apple tree. The contrast between the sweetness of his song and the ugly cacophony in her sitting room made her want to weep.
Eventually it was turned off and Mandy came into the bathroom to clean her teeth. Sue could see her formless shape behind the thick, wavy glass. After she had spat her final spit Mandy slammed off and, moments later, Nirvana came blasting through her bedroom window. The blackbird gave up. Brian came out.
He said sternly, ‘We have to talk,’ and held the kitchen door open for her to enter. Feeling like a child reporting for punishment Sue went back inside.
Once there and seated Brian, wound up like a spring, seemed unable to get going. He drummed a little on the edge of the fridge and fiddled with the plastic letters, turning ‘Hello’ into ‘Holel’. Then he sucked the insides of his cheeks and played with his beard. Sue was familiar with this mood of evasive punchiness. It meant he was going to attack her but was not sure where best to begin. She began her calming routine. Inhale to a count of ten, exhale twelve, hands linked loosely in lap. Visualise landscape of tranquil beauty, e.g. the Bounty Bar island.
‘I couldn’t believe it. Just Simply Could Not Believe It.’
‘What’s that, Brian?’
‘Gerald was discovered first thing this morning? Correct me if I’m wrong.’
‘Yes. Poor Mrs Bundy found him.’ One of these days I
will
correct you and you’ll die of shock.
‘Something like ten o’clock?’
‘Around then.’ And so shall I, probably.
‘And . . . And . . .’ But it was no good, disbelief had become too much for Brian. He had to break off and wag his head about before being able to continue. ‘You actually let me know at
three
.’
‘I explained that—’ The island had white sands and curling, creamy ocean waves, all beneath a shimmering sky.
‘Five hours later!’
‘Yes. I was—’ Plus a beautiful bird of paradise with a furled rainbow tail.
‘But surely there’s a telephone here? I distinctly recall paying several extremely large bills.’
And who runs those up? ‘I didn’t get back from play school until one, Brian. The police came and explained what had happened and then the reporters arrived . . .’ Sue’s voice quavered. A cloud hung over the brazen meridian. ‘They just pushed past.’
‘They wouldn’t have pushed past me,’ cried Brian, fiddling up Llohe. ‘Licensed manipulators of populist greed.’
‘I rang as soon as they’d gone but—’
‘But, but. But by then that Morse clone and his fascist sidekick were at the school acting as if they were in some cretinous telly series. God - I could have written better dialogue in my sleep.’
I didn’t think he was a fascist. I thought he was sweet. He’s got a little girl who would just love a picture of Hector.
‘They must have burned up the road getting there. Banking on us not having time to talk. Trying to trick me.’
‘Trick you, Brian?’ Momentarily Sue was so surprised she forgot her ironic counterpoint. ‘Trick you into what?’
‘Well . . .’ Brian stared hard at his wife as if testing her ingenuousness. There was a long pause. The problem was a tricky one. How to find out what a person knows without asking them, in so many words, how much they know. Oh hell.
‘I mean - take for instance all those asinine questions. What time did we get home and go to bed? Did we go out again? Did we hear the car leave? I don’t know what you told them.’
‘That I went up around quarter to eleven, that I couldn’t get off to sleep and that I did hear the car leave.’ Sue looked up from her quietly folded hands. ‘What did you tell them, Brian?’
‘What d’you mean, you couldn’t sleep? You were well away when I came up. Snoring your head off.’
Sue, who always pretended to be well away whenever Brian was in the bedroom, lifted her wide, earth-mother shoulders in a resigned sort of way.
‘You didn’t say I’d gone out for a bit of a walk then?’
‘No. Did you?’
‘After I’d finished checking the homework. Round the Green. Just to blow—’ Brian restored the letters on the fridge to their most popularly accepted distribution. ‘God - that’s typical of you, that is. Bloody typical.’
Sue started to cry. Brian picked up the
Guardian
, came across a Make This The Year You Learn To Write advertisement and vented his wrath by cutting it out and sending it to Jeffrey Archer.