The Killings at Badger's Drift(27)

‘What is the lady’s full name?’

‘Phyllis Cadell.’

‘Miss?’

‘Very much so.’ The squeeze of lemon in her voice intrigued and pleased Barnaby. Too much sweetness and light could cloy after a while, in his opinion. Rather a short while too. He liked what he called ‘a bit of edge’. He wondered what Phyllis Cadell’s exact position in the household was and if it would change after the marriage. Surely any new wife would want to take the reins into her own hands. And, with a disabled husband, she would need to be exceptionally capable. He looked at Miss Lacey’s slightly sunburned hand as she knocked at the door. It looked stronger than her rather flower-like appearance would lead you to expect.

‘Oh Phyllis - I’m sorry to disturb you . . .’

Barnaby followed her into the room. He saw a rather plump, middle-aged woman with a slab-like face, gooseberry-green eyes and dull brown hair done in a youthful style with a fronded fringe and hard tight little curls. Atop her long pale face it looked foolish, like a wig on a horse. She was sitting in front of a large flickering television set, a box of fudge on her knees.

‘. . . it’s the police.’

The woman jumped. Cubes of fudge went flying everywhere. She crouched, concealing her face, but not before Barnaby had seen fear leaping to life behind her eyes. Katherine bent down too. It was assorted fudge: three shades of brown (vanilla, mocha, chocolate), and some squares were studded with walnuts and cherries.

‘You won’t be able to eat these now, Phyllis -’

‘I can pick up a few sweets, thank you. Leave me alone.’ She was cramming fluffy cubes anyoldhow into the box. She still didn’t look at the two men.

‘You’ll show Chief Inspector Barnaby out then, will you?’ Receiving no reply Katherine turned to leave, saying just before she closed the door, ‘It’s about Miss Simpson.’

At this remark Barnaby noticed the colour rush back into the older woman’s cheeks but unevenly, leaving the skin mottled, as if she had been roasting her face by the fire. She gushed at them, ‘Of course, poor Emily. Why didn’t I think? Sit down . . . sit down both of you.’

Barnaby selected a fawn fireside chair and looked around him. A very different atmosphere from the drawing room downstairs. Not uncomfortably furnished yet quite lacking in individuality. There were no ornaments or photographs and hardly any books. A few copies of The Lady, a couple of insipid prints and a dying plant on the windowsill. Apart from the television set it could have been any dentist’s waiting room.

Phyllis Cadell switched off the box and sat facing them. Any anxiety she may have felt at their arrival was now firmly under control. She turned a bland but concerned gaze upon them both. If it had not been for the knees, far too firmly clamped together, and the cords standing out in the soft, flabby neck Barnaby might have thought her quite relaxed. She was affably forthcoming as to her movements on the seventeenth. In the afternoon she had been in the village hall setting up the tombola. And she had spent the evening ‘quite blamelessly I assure you, Chief Inspector’ watching television.

This did not surprise Barnaby. He found it hard to picture the matronly figure, flesh springing free from rigorously confining corsets, rolling and frolicking in the greenwood. He did not of course discount the possibility. The most unlikely characters have stirred others to romantic yearnings. How often had he heard his wife say ‘I don’t know what he sees in her’? Or, less frequently, the reverse. No, the count against Phyllis Cadell being the woman in the woods was not her unglamorous appearance but the fact that she had nothing to lose by discovery. She might even, taking into account society’s attitude towards unattached middle-aged females, have a lot to gain. So, in that case, why had she been so frightened when they had first arrived?

‘And what time did you leave the hall, Miss Cadell?’

‘Let’s see’ - she tapped her top lip with a tallow-coloured finger - ‘I was almost the last to go . . . it must have been half-past four . . . quarter to five.’

‘Did you leave with Miss Lacey?’

‘Katherine? Good gracious no. She left much earlier. Was hardly there at all, really.’ She caught the glance that Sergeant Troy turned on to Barnaby’s unresponsive profile. ‘Oh dear’ - she made an arch little moue of false regret - ‘I hope I haven’t said anything I shouldn’t?’

‘And did you go out at all after you’d returned home?’

‘No. I came straight up here when we’d finished dinner. Wrote a couple of letters, then as I have already stated, watched some television.’