A Place Of Safety(27)

Barnaby replaced his warrant card, not seeming to see the hand. His nostrils recognised the delicate scent of hypocrisy. He would not have bought a used bag of chips from this man, let alone a haddock fillet.

‘Afternoon, gentlemen.’ As the smile gradually deepened, the warmth drained from his eyes. Plainly not enough acting talent to keep both on the boil at once. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Name?’ said Sergeant Troy.

‘Jax.’

Troy carefully wrote ‘Jacks’.

‘Christian name?’

‘Don’t have one. That’s J-A-X, by the way.’

‘Is it really?’ asked Troy.

‘We’re making inquiries following the death of Charlie Leathers,’ said Barnaby. ‘I presume you must have known him?’

‘Oh, yeah. Poor old guy. I got on brilliant with Charlie.’

‘You were the only one then,’ said Sergeant Troy.

‘Did he confide in you at all?’ asked Barnaby.

‘More or less. He was dead worried, I’ll tell you that.’

‘What about?’

‘Gambling, weren’t it? A little flutter - got out of hand.’

‘What sort of gambling? Horses?’

‘Never said. But it was really getting to him.’

‘How’s that then?’ asked Troy.

‘One night last week he swore he copped a bloke standing over there.’ Jax nodded his head in the direction of a dark clump of trees. ‘I went and had a shufty. Weren’t nobody.’

‘So you think he was imagining things?’

‘I did till today. Now I’m not so sure.’

‘Did he talk to you about anything else?’ said Barnaby. ‘Plans he was making perhaps? His family? Other friends?’

‘Charlie didn’t have no friends.’

‘But he got on brilliant with you?’ Sergeant Troy was disbelief personified.

‘I’m that sort of person.’ Jax gave the bonnet a final ruthless scrutiny and started to pack his cleaning kit - chamois leather, aerosol and dusters - into a transparent zip-up holder.

‘Where were you between ten and twelve o’clock the night before last, Jax?’

‘You asking everybody that?’ The man stared hard at Barnaby. ‘Or have I been specially selected?’

‘Just answer the question,’ said Troy.

‘In the flat.’ He jerked his thumb towards the garage roof. ‘It’s where I live.’

‘We may need to talk to you again,’ said Barnaby. ‘Don’t move without letting us know.’

The man picked up his bag and turned away then hesitated and turned back. ‘Look, you’ll find this out anyway. I’ve been in a bit of trouble but Lionel, he’s given me a second chance. I can start fresh here. There’s no way I’m going to blow it.’

‘That’s what we like to hear,’ said the chief inspector.





After this there were only the Fainlights to be interviewed. Barnaby did not have much hope in this direction. According to Hetty Leathers, Charlie had worked there only two hours a week and, given his taciturn nature, it wasn’t likely he spent much of it chatting about his inner self.

‘Blimey O’Riley,’ said Sergeant Troy as they approached the formidable glass structure. ‘I wonder how that got past the planning department.’

Barnaby wondered too. He thought the building stunningly beautiful. It was now almost dusk and nearly every room was illuminated. Not all of the pale, faintly greenish glass slabs of which the house was constructed were transparent. Some were semi-opaque and behind these the glow from the many lamps and hanging lights shifted and spread in the air like so many dissolving stars.

The front door also appeared at first glance to be made of glass but Barnaby, studying the huge, wide-ribbed rectangle, decided it was probably some very tough synthetic substance. The doorknob was a shimmering opalescent sphere. There was no letterbox. Neither did there seem to be a bell. Or a name, though he discovered later that it was called simply after the inhabitants, Fainlights.

‘We’ll have to knock, chief.’ Troy couldn’t wait to see inside.

‘Hang on.’ Barnaby studied the surrounding architrave and found, embedded, a narrow strip of shining steel. He pressed it and waited. There had been no responding sound from inside the house.

‘That’s not a door bell,’ said Sergeant Troy. ‘That’s the Doberman release button.’

Inside the house Louise, unhappily recalling the previous evening, ignored the bell. She was staring at, but not seeing, the review pages of the Guardian. These rested against a cup of cold bitter coffee and a little blue glazed dish of ripe apricots.