A Place Of Safety(47)

DCI Barnaby and Sergeant Troy were having a very pleasant lunch at the Red Lion: steak and kidney pudding with fluffy mashed potatoes and garden peas. And a dessert made from tinned fruit salad, sponge cake and raspberry jam, grandly calling itself Raspberry and Apricot Pavlova.

‘Know anything about Pavlova, Sergeant?’ asked the chief inspector, moving a dirty ashtray from a table by the window.

‘I know you don’t get much for three quid.’

‘One of the greatest dancers that ever lived.’

‘That right?’ Troy seized his irons and set to.

‘Famous for her interpretation of a dying swan.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Troy politely.

‘It’s said that people who saw it were never quite the same again.’ Barnaby drank a little of his Russian stout which was delicious. ‘And she was at it till the day she died.’

‘Why is it,’ asked Sergeant Troy, sawing gently away, ‘that kidneys always squeak when you cut into them?’

Although Barnaby had not introduced himself at the bar and was wearing an ordinary, dark blue business suit and plain tie and polished black Oxfords, he knew that they knew he was a copper. And not just because he had already been seen around the village questioning people.

Sometimes Barnaby thought he wore an insignia, like the mark of Cain. Invisible to himself but screaming to the rest of the world This Man Is A Policeman. He did not exaggerate. Once he had been having dinner with Joyce in a restaurant they had never been to before. Halfway through his Lobster Armoricaine the manager had come over to say they were having a bit of trouble with a drunk who would not pay his bill and what did Barnaby advise?

Here in the Red Lion they were being not noticed in the studied way people sometimes decide not to notice if a famous person happens to be within their sight range. Not impressed, not even interested. Better things to do with their time.

‘They’re quick on the house-to-house.’ Sergeant Troy, who had just started on his raspberry sponge, nodded, grinning towards the door. ‘Our wooden tops.’

Two uniformed constables from Barnaby’s team had come in and were talking to the landlord and a couple of locals at the bar. Troy noticed, to his chagrin, that the landlord was offering the plods a drink. Which they refused. Quite right too.

‘You were one yourself once.’

Troy, scraping his bowl, did not respond. He preferred to forget this inglorious period in his glittering career. Instructed now to ‘drink up’, he drained his boring alcohol-free lager and shrugged into his elegant, lightweight jacket.

As he made his way towards the door, he noticed two very attractive women at the bar. The force was with them, having a laugh and a joke. One of the policemen caught Troy’s eye. The sergeant moved his head slightly to indicate who was bringing up the rear. One look of dismayed disbelief and the uniform scrambled to its feet, thanked the landlord loudly for his help and legged it.

‘What are you chortling at?’

Chortling. Where did he find them? Troy decided to look it up in Talisa Leanne’s dictionary when he got home. Chortling. The more you said it, the wonkier it sounded.

‘You going to follow up on Mrs Lawrence now, sir?’

Barnaby mumbled something inaudible. He was seething with bad temper and all directed against himself. Throughout lunch he had become more and more convinced that the apprehension he had entertained while in Carlotta’s room - that perhaps he should have waited until Mrs Lawrence returned to see it with him - had been correct.

He knew now he should have waited if it took all day. And interviewed her before she had had a chance to find out from Hetty Leathers why the police were in the house. Now he had thrown away one of the most important weapons in the interrogator’s armoury - surprise.

As it happens, he was wrong. Hetty and Candy had been collected by Evadne Pleat just before twelve for a lift to the vet’s. Ann did not return for another hour and so knew nothing about his earlier visit. Even so, luck was still against the chief inspector, though for quite a different reason.

The Humber Hawk was in the drive and a light on in the garage flat. But Barnaby decided to tackle the Lawrences first, feeling it more likely that information would be revealed that would be of use in Jackson’s interview than the other way round.

Once more Troy swung on the old-fashioned bell. If anything, the paintwork on the front door looked even more flaky. On the bottom section there was a strip of it actually curling away from the wood.

Lionel Lawrence himself opened the door. He gazed at them with a puzzled expression, as if he was sure he had seen them somewhere before but not quite where. His white hair was slightly more tidy than the last time but he had compensated for this by wearing an extremely colourful, very long hand-knitted scarf, fraying not only at the edges but all down one side.