The whole room was reactivated as well then, like a film when the freeze frame is released. People started to move, gesture, talk. Someone even laughed. It was Sergeant Troy actually. Part nerves, part just bloody relief.
‘Ties her well in, doesn’t it, sir?’ said Audrey Brierley. ‘Mrs Lawrence.’
There were murmurs of agreement. Plain as the nose on your face, it seemed now. The missing girl had lived in the woman’s house, as did the prime suspect. Or as good as. The murdered man had worked for her. Everything was becoming satisfyingly intertwined.
‘Certainly,’ said Barnaby, ‘we now know she saw what happened when the girl went into the river. But that’s all we know at this stage, OK?’
There were a few murmurs of reluctant agreement.
‘Let’s not get overexcited,’ continued the chief inspector. ‘She may simply have been an observer.’
‘Presumably a secret observer,’ suggested DI Carter, ‘or someone would have shut her up long before this.’
‘But if that was not the case,’ Barnaby carried on smoothly, ‘and Mrs Lawrence was the only person involved, then Leathers must have been blackmailing her.’
This suggestion, which overturned all the beliefs and theories held so far in the murder inquiry, was presented with surprising equanimity. The room, taking their cue from the top, nodded.
‘First thing tomorrow we chase up her bank. And if she’s been drawing out large sums of money . . .’ Barnaby shrugged, letting the rest of the sentence tail eloquently away.
Troy liked this idea of open-ended dialogue, if only so that someone else could make a fool of themselves for a change by finishing it. He said, ‘So our assumption that the blackmail victim murdered Leathers . . .’ He shrugged, letting the rest of the sentence tail eloquently away.
‘Yes?’ said Barnaby.
‘Um.’ A pause.
‘Hurry up. We haven’t got all day.’
‘I think Gavin means,’ said Sergeant Brierley, ‘that it’s very hard to picture Mrs Lawrence garrotting someone.’
‘Very hard indeed,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Though not impossible.’
‘But she’s been attacked herself, sir,’ said Constable Phillips. ‘There aren’t two murderers involved in this case surely?’
Barnaby did not reply. Just sat looking round the room. Roughly ten minutes into the meeting and so far sympathy for Ann Lawrence was not particularly in evidence. The chief inspector was not surprised. As far as he knew, no one present, apart from Troy, had met her. They had certainly not witnessed her lying unconscious and hanging on to life, breath by fragile breath, in a lonely hospital bed.
‘So where does Jackson fit into this, chief?’ asked Troy. ‘D’you think he was involved in the assault on Mrs Lawrence?’
‘I don’t think, I know.’
‘But why?’
‘Presumably because we were going to meet her later this afternoon.’
‘But would he know that?’ asked Inspector Carter. ‘Given the total lack of communication between them.’
‘He could have listened in - there’s a connecting line from his flat to the house. Or got it from Lionel. He’s putty in Jackson’s hands.’
Troy snorted in disgust. Putty wasn’t the word he’d use. Something soft, yes. Flexible, yes. Something you could step in that would leave an impression on the sole of your shoe. But not putty. He snorted again just to emphasise his complete and utter disdain.
‘Whatever,’ said Barnaby. ‘But I’m convinced these two crimes are back to back and skin-tight. Solve one, you solve both.’
‘All due respect, sir—’
‘No genuflexions, please, Phillips. Anyone on my team is encouraged to speak their mind.’
And God help them, said his team silently to itself, if he’s running a moody.
‘It’s just that,’ continued Phillips with a quail in his voice, ‘as the girl’s body has never been found, how do we know we have a serious crime at all?’
‘Because whatever Leathers saw gave him a genuine lever for blackmail. And trying it on got him killed.’
‘Oh yes, sir.’ Constable Phillips, not a tall person at the best of times, folded himself down into his chair until he almost vanished. ‘Thank you.’
‘Any time,’ said Barnaby.
‘Could she have just swum to the other side, climbed out and run away?’ asked DS Griggs.
‘Hardly,’ said Inspector Carter. ‘You’ve read Jackson’s record. Can you see him being that incompetent?’
‘Not if the attack on Mrs Lawrence is anything to go by,’ agreed Sergeant Agnew. He turned to Barnaby. ‘How do you think he managed to work that, sir?’