Released at last by a fake orgasmic cry, the punters shuffled out. Young, middle-aged, elderly. No one, it seemed, had come with a mate. They emerged solitarily, blinking in the hard light, like melancholy moles. He gave it a few moments then re-entered the room.
‘Brigitte’ was perched on the artist’s stool, smoking and wearing a wrapper. Her flesh shimmered through the gauzy stuff. The pearly flesh, long silver-white curls and butter-milky complexion gave her an appearance of wholesomeness totally at variance with her surroundings. She looked as if she would be more at home on a farm milking something. She spoke.
‘Give us a bleeding chance, lover. Next show’s half an hour. Pay outside.’ He produced his wallet. ‘Fuckin ’ell.’ She stubbed out her cigarette but not before he had recognized the smell. ‘I don’t take the hard stuff, you know. You’d be on something, believe you me, if you had this bloody job.’
‘I’m making one or two inquiries—’
‘I’m not talking to you without witnesses.’ She disappeared through a door behind the stage. It opened directly on to a tiny dressing room. Barnaby just managed to squeeze in. The room stank of cheap scent, hair lacquer, sweat and cigarette smoke. It was occupied by two girls, their rear ends shoe-horned on to a couple of plastic chairs. They wore bright bedraggled feathers and nipple stars. They sussed him straight away, giving him hard aggrieved stares.
‘What you done then, Kris?’
‘Bugger all. And he can’t say I have.’
Barnaby showed her the photograph of Trevor Lessiter. ‘Do you know this man?’
‘Yeah - that’s poor old Loveless. Or Lovejoy as he calls himself. Dunno what ’is real name is.’
‘Was he here last Friday afternoon?’
‘He’s here every Friday afternoon. And Monday and Wednesday. He’s no trouble. A bit of bondage. The daffodil routine. But mostly straight. His wife won’t let him ’ave any, you know.’
‘Yeah.’ This interjection from the red feathers had the force of a bunched fist. ‘’E gave her a mink coat for Christmas an’ all.’
‘I worked it out,’ said Krystal, ‘and I told him. I’d have to do it five hundred times to buy a mink. A decent one, I mean - not one that scarpered back to the zoo the minute the whistle went.’
‘You’d be too shagged out to wear it, Kris.’
‘You bloody reckon?’ She gave a mirthless shriek.
‘They stink an’ all if you’re out in the rain,’ said the red nipple stars. ‘Them that fall off the back of the bunny wagon.’ More mirthless shrieks. Barnaby cut in firmly.
‘Can you tell me what time Mr Lovejoy left last Friday?’
‘Half-past five. I remember ’cause that’s when I knock off for an hour. He asked me to go and have some tea with him. He was always asking me out. You have to pretend . . . you know . . . that you like them, and then, some of them - the simple ones - they really believe you. Try to get you to meet them outside. It’s pathetic, really.’
She raised both hands and lifted the heavy mass of silver curls. Underneath lay dirty red hair chopped savagely and clumsily short. She grinned at the chief inspector’s involuntary start of surprise.
‘He thought it was real - didn’t you, sunshine?’
‘I love the innocent ones, don’t you?’ said the girl with the strong vocal attack. ‘They really make you want to piss yourself.’
‘I was innocent once,’ said Krystal. ‘I thought a dildo was a prehistoric bird before I discovered this place.’
Caws of laughter; the tattered feathers shook. They gazed at him with hard bright eyes. They looked both predatory and harmless, like debeaked birds of prey. He made an excuse and left.
Chapter Ten
The little country church was packed. Barnaby slipped in unnoticed and stood behind a rear pillar. It was a brilliant day; sun poured through the clerestory windows. Behind the chancel rail all was white: the white-haired, white-robed vicar; two lovely arrangements of white flowers flanking the altar; a simple sheaf of lilies on the small coffin.
Most of the mourners were in ordinary clothes but there was an inky spattering of black. Several men wore arm bands, some of the women dark scarves. Barnaby was surprised to see that almost a quarter of the gathering were what he thought of as young: i.e. under thirty.
Miss Bellringer, clad in rusty, jet-encrusted black, sat in the front right-hand pew, her eagle profile expressionless under a plumed cavalier hat, her eyes dry. In the opposite pew (kept for the squire and his relations?) Henry Trace sat, sombre-suited, with Katherine. She wore a coffee-coloured silk dress and a black chiffon scarf with little gold coins sewn into the edge. The Lessiters sat, together but separately, staring straight ahead. You would never have thought they were a family.