So Terry Jackson told them how he had been bringing Lionel back from a meeting at Causton council offices to discuss improvements to the training of magistrates. Driving along the High Street they had spotted his wife wandering about in a high old state. Lionel had tried to get her into the car but she had started shouting and waving her arms about.
‘Shouting about what?’
‘Nothing that made any sense.’
‘Come on. Something must have made sense.’
‘No, honestly. It was all jumbled up. Then I got out to help but that just seemed to make her worse.’
‘Surprise, surprise,’ muttered Sergeant Troy.
‘At first Lionel asked me to drive home but then he changed his mind. Their doctor’s at Swan Myrren, Patterson, and we went directly there. He saw her straightaway. Must have given her a whacking shot of something. She was like a zombie when she came out.’
‘Then what?’
‘Stopped off at the chemist’s for a prescription and drove back here.’
‘Do you know why she went into Causton?’
‘No.’
A hair’s breadth of hesitation. He knew and he didn’t want to tell them. Good. A minuscule scrap of progress. Barnaby paused, considering whether to make anything of this now or save it for later. He decided to wait, noting, with some satisfaction, that Jackson’s forehead was now lightly beaded with sweat.
Changing tack entirely, he said, ‘There was a young girl staying here until a few days ago.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What was she like?’
‘Carlotta? A stuck-up bitch.’
‘You didn’t hit it off then?’ said Sergeant Troy.
‘Thought she was above me. And she was nobody, right? Come through the system same as I did.’
‘Turned you down, did she?’ suggested Barnaby.
‘She didn’t get a fucking chance!’
‘That make you angry?’
Having responded to the jibe apparently without thinking, they now watched Jackson step back. He said, carefully, ‘I never came on to her. I told you. She weren’t my type.’
‘D’you know why she ran away?’
‘No.’
‘Lawrence never discussed it with you?’
‘None of my business, was it?’
‘What about Mrs Lawrence?’
‘Do me a favour.’
‘Oh, of course.’ Troy’s fingers gave a little snap of pretend recollection. ‘She won’t have you in the house. That right?’
‘Bollocks.’ Jackson sullenly turned away from them and started chewing the inside of his right cheek.
‘There is a possibility that she may not have run away at all,’ said Barnaby.
‘You what?’
Sergeant Troy took up the story. ‘We received a report, at roughly the same time she was supposed to have gone, that someone had fallen into the river.’
‘That wouldn’t have been Carlotta.’ Jackson laughed for the first time. ‘She’s far too sharp. Always looking out for number one.’
Look who’s talking, thought Troy. He repeated himself: ‘Fallen. Or been pushed.’
‘Well, it weren’t me. I were in Causton the night you’re on about. Waiting to collect Lionel from a meeting.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘Pure as the driven, I am.’
Barnaby remembered his mother saying that when he was little. Pure as the driven slush. He wasn’t unduly depressed by Jackson’s story. Presumably the man had had time to squander while hanging around and Ferne Basset was only a twenty-minute drive at the most. Less if you put your foot down. And he had no alibi for the crime that truly did exist. The murder of Charlie Leathers.
Barnaby got up then and Troy, rather disappointed, did the same. Almost at the door the DCI turned with one of his ‘gosh I almost forgot’ starts. These were invariably followed by a laboured rendering of ‘by the way’. Troy always got a kick out of this little number. An absolute hoot which would not have deceived a baby.
‘Oh, by the way . . .’
‘You’re not going?’ said Jackson. ‘I was about to put the kettle on.’ He gave a shout of spiteful laughter.
‘A bit of news about Mr Leathers,’ Barnaby pressed on.
‘Charlie?’ Jackson spoke absently. He seemed miles away. ‘You got anybody in the frame yet for that, Inspector?’
You had to hand it to the bastard, thought Sergeant Troy. He’d got more front than Wembley Stadium.
‘I’ve started fancying you in that position actually, Terence.’
‘Me?’
‘He was blackmailing you, wasn’t he?’
At that single word, the atmosphere changed. They watched Jackson making a great effort to pull himself together and sharpen his concentration. A struggle which showed in the jumping jack nerve in his temple and the rigid line of his jaw.