‘And you believe it was wrongfully, Mr Lawrence?’ asked Barnaby.
‘I know it was.’ Sounding unchristianly smug and self-righteous. ‘Ann is notoriously careless. People are who’ve never known want.’
‘Still, such things do happen,’ said Troy, feeling sorry for the devastated, long gone Mrs Lawrence. In return he got an incredulous stare awarding him ten out of ten for sensitivity plus bonus points for tender loving care.
‘Could you tell us something about her background, Mr Lawrence?’ asked the chief inspector.
‘It’s all on record at the Caritas Agency.’
‘Yes, and we shall be talking to them. But right now I’m talking to you.’
The Reverend looked rather taken aback at the sudden hardening of his interrogator’s voice.
‘I don’t see how prying into the girl’s past will help find her.’ He blinked weakly. ‘Everyone has a clean slate here.’
‘I believe she often received airmail letters.’
‘Oh, I doubt that, you know.’ Lawrence smiled indulgently.
‘Apparently she threw them away unopened,’ added Sergeant Troy.
‘Who on earth told you such a story?’ It didn’t take him long to run through the possible suspects. ‘I’m surprised you attend to servants’ gossip, Inspector.’
This brought a response from the blue armchair. Ann Lawrence gave a muffled cry and struggled to sit up. She tried to speak but her tongue, a huge lump of inert flesh in her mouth, would hardly move.
‘Herry . . . no . . . not . . . serv . . .’
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ He crossed over to his wife, propelled, it seemed to Barnaby, more by annoyance at her behaviour than care for her wellbeing. ‘We must get you upstairs, Ann.’ He glared at the two policemen who stared stolidly back. ‘If you want to talk to myself or my wife again you can make an appointment in the proper manner.’
‘That’s not how it works, I’m afraid, sir,’ said the chief inspector. ‘And I have to inform you that if you remain uncooperative, any future interviews could well be taking place at the station.’
‘We’ll have to watch our step there, chief,’ said Troy with a chuckle in his voice as they were crossing the gravel. ‘Him and his fancy handshake connections.’
Barnaby commented briefly on the Reverend Lawrence’s Masonic connections, employing the vividly concise gift for imagery and pithy dialogue that made his subordinates so apprehensive of getting a summons to his office.
Troy had a good laugh and went over the retort a few times to make sure he remembered it to pass on in the canteen. By the time he’d got this well and truly sorted, they were standing by the door of the garage flat.
This time he had seen them coming. Seen the car, seen them go into the main house. He would be well prepared. Barnaby, recalling the interruption from Lawrence on the last occasion they talked to Jackson, trusted the Reverend would be spending the next twenty minutes or so remonstrating with his wife.
Sergeant Troy’s thoughts were running along precisely the same lines. One more up-chucking display of snivelling hypocrisy from the chauffeur and he could see the Red Lion’s Apricot and Raspberry Pavlova suddenly forming a tasteful mosaic on the smart cream carpet. And he would not be cleaning it up.
The door was opened. Jackson stood there wearing a silvery tweed jacket and black cotton polo neck sweater. His face wore an expression of unguarded candour. ‘And to think when you said you’d be back, Inspector, I thought you was just stringing me along.’
‘Mr Jackson.’
‘Terry to you.’ He stood politely aside and they all went upstairs.
The flat looked pretty much the same as the last time they were here except for a new ironing board leaning up against a wall by the kitchen. Both the kitchen and bathroom doors were wide open as if to deny they had anything to conceal. There was a copy of yesterday’s Daily Star sunny side up on the coffee table.
Jackson sat on the settee. His manner was bland and compliant. But his eyes were keenly focused and Barnaby noticed he sat well forward, hands resting lightly on his knees, the fingers curled like a sprinter.
‘Do you always drive Mr Lawrence, Terry?’
Jackson looked surprised then wary. Whatever he had expected, it had not been this.
‘Yes. Me or Mrs L. He never got round to learning.’
‘Tell me what happened today.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Everything leading up to this doctor’s visit.’
Jackson hesitated. ‘I don’t know that Mr Lawrence would like that.’
‘I’ll either get it here or down the nick,’ said Chief Inspector Barnaby. ‘It’s up to you.’