“Moats are no big deal out here in Suffolk. Cattle troughs mostly, nowadays. Every farmhouse of any size has one, fed by underground springs. It was the main water source in the past. They’re not for defensive purposes, though perhaps in the Middle Ages they might have been. The great houses keep them for show and entertainment. Some stock them with fish. Truelove keeps his weed-free and crystal clear—a sight more healthy than Byron’s Pool in Grantchester, I can tell you. Everyone in the village who can swim learned to do it in that old moat. Younger guests like to splash about and squeal in the summer. Don’t worry—you won’t be expected to perform—it’s been far too cold a season so far and the water’s like ice still.”
Joe pocketed the plan and looked Hunnyton in the eye. Time for a bit of aggression, he calculated. “So far, so good. It’s all working out for you, isn’t it, Superintendent? You’ve got your man on the inside for a couple of days potentially, by personal invitation of the dowager, welcomed within the drawbridge by various members of the family for reasons that wouldn’t bear close inspection. I’d guess you don’t intend me to leave unless I’m dragging some fiend behind me in handcuffs.”
Hunnyton grinned broadly. “Not too fussed about the cuffs, sir. I just want you to ferret out the truth. I want you to know the truth. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
There wasn’t. Joe sensed that he and Hunnyton shared the same instinct for ferreting and could well understand why the man wanted to get to the bottom of his Phoebe’s death. A mate of Joe’s had taken a bullet in a fleshy part of his body in the war. It healed over and for years he was able to ignore the metal he was carrying around with him. But one day it seemed to have decided of its own accord to burrow its way painfully to the surface again. Surgery was required. Impossible to cut into one’s own flesh. You call in a steady hand to perform the extraction for you. He laid this out for Hunnyton, who nodded his understanding.
“But Cecily Truelove?” Joe questioned. “She seems to think she also has booked an operating slot with the same surgeon at the same time. I’m sure she has no concern for little Phoebe Pilgrim—if she even remembers her. No, Cecily would appear to be calling for an invasive procedure to be carried out dangerously close to her family’s heart. Why would she do that?”
“It can only be that she knows Lavinia’s death was managed and she thinks she knows who’s responsible. She must have every confidence that the prime suspect—who, in anyone’s book, must be her own son, James, the victim’s husband—is in the clear. Otherwise she wouldn’t countenance your presence within fifty miles. The guilty party must be someone she regards as untouchable by her—someone with influence—or even perhaps very close to her. She wants the guilty party removed by an impartial police officer with sufficient authority to effect that removal.”
“This gathering she’s organising …” Joe said, casting a fly on the water. “She’s re-creating the April house-party, isn’t she? She’s re-enacting the whole show for my benefit. It’s a trap for some poor bugger. Thanks to her careful arrangements, the murderer will be tethered here at Melsett for the next few days, drawbridge up, ready for the strong hand of the Law to feel his collar. He’ll not have dared to turn down the invitation for fear of arousing suspicion. He’ll be giving me a rictus grin over his sherry glass and nervously muttering, ‘So, they tell me you’re a policeman …’ ” He looked searchingly at Hunnyton. “I do wonder why she couldn’t just have had recourse to the Cambridge detective division. To you, Superintendent.”
“Thought you’d get there if I waited long enough. I could go on about prophets in their own country having no respect. Home-grown boy, regrettably intertwined with the family and all that. But the real reason—I’ll say it now I know you’ve worked it out—is that you’re looking at the murderer.” He cast a swift glance at Joe, looking for something in his reaction and fiddled with his pipe in the annoying way pipe smokers have, using the time for thought or emphasis or just to annoy. “In her eyes, I’m the bloke who killed Lavinia, and she’s going to do her level best to prove that. It’s a risk for me but it’s one I’m prepared to take to get you in there. This boil needs lancing.” He waved a nonchalant hand around the room. “If you have to run for shelter from the outfall, remember the door’s never locked. Consider this your retreat—your bunker if you like. You may like to know I keep a pair of guns loaded and ready up there in my bedroom. Purdeys.”