Dennis in his role as usher had gone right over the top, tying a huge black bow to his arm, the ends shyly resting on his hip. His mother lay, becalmed, a mountain of bullet-coloured taffeta and grey net veiling in the second pew. Mrs Quine was there showily wiping away a non-existent tear, with Lisa Dawn still sighing and snuffling. Phyllis Cadell was in navy, David Whiteley in jeans and a dark striped shirt. In the back row the old man Jake wept openly, mopping up his tears with a red-spotted handkerchief. Then, when everyone knelt and Henry Trace bowed his head, Barnaby saw Michael Lacey, who remained upright in his seat glancing round at the respectful congregation with a mixture of impatience and scorn. He had made no concession to propriety and was wearing a paint-stained boiler suit and a peaked denim cap.
‘For man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live . . .’
Emily Simpson had lived, by comparison with a large proportion of the world’s population, quite a long time, but she had still not been allowed her allotted span. No one, thought Barnaby, should be sent out on to that long journey a day, an hour or even a second before their natural time. He loosened his collar against the heat, closed his eyes and rested his forehead for a moment on the cool stone.
Figures moved behind his lowered lids: Laceys and Lessiters, Phyllis Cadell, David Whiteley, the Rainbirds, Henry Trace. They approached each other, met, mingled, broke apart in a passionless pavane. Who belonged with whom? If he knew that he would know everything.
Barnaby had started dreaming about the couple in the woods: two shapes twisting and turning, loops and knots of white limbs now fixed like sculpture, now softly melting together. Last night they had spun very slowly, a mobile of lust on an invisible thread, and he had waited in his sleep, breath seemingly held, for his first sight of their faces. But as the figures finished their slow circumfluence all he saw were two blank white hairless ovals.
A beam of dust-filled sunlight ambered the sheaf of lilies. Everyone rose to sing ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended’. Behind Barnaby a dark branch of yew, activated by a sudden flurry of wind, knocked on the glass.
PART THREE
REPETITION
Chapter One
On the afternoon the inquest was reconvened the coroner’s court was packed. Every light-oak-stained folding seat was taken. Badger’s Drift seemed to have turned out in its entirety. It appeared (Barnaby scanned the rows of faces) that only David Whiteley and Michael Lacey had not turned up. The jury - striving to look serious, disinterested and worthy of the trust placed - were in position.
Barbara Lessiter was incongruously dressed in a black and white spotted frilled dress more suitable for a garden party, a little black hat with a frou-frou of spotted veiling concealing her face. Judy wore a fair-isle jumper and tweed trousers, Katherine Lacey a culotte suit in white linen. Her hair was held back by two scarves, brilliant turquoise and acid yellow, twisted around each other in a tight circlet. Mrs Rainbird had gone the whole hog and was wrapped, like some gargantuan Christmas gift, in shiny crimson satin topped off with a green hat covered in little berries. The coroner took his seat and the inquest began.
The statement of Doctor Trevor Lessiter was read out. In it he made the point most strongly that, on examining the deceased, he certainly had noticed congestion of the lungs, but as he was treating Miss Simpson at the time for bronchitis he thought the fact hardly surprising. Naturally he had not checked for symptoms of coniine poisoning. What physician in those circumstances would? The coroner said there was no blame to be apportioned in this matter and the doctor stared hard at the reporter from the Causton Echo to make sure he’d got that down. He then signed his statement and walked importantly back to his seat, his round head and pudgy shoulders looking pompous even from behind.
The pathologist’s report was read. There was a buzz of interest at the word hemlock and the Rainbirds held hands excitedly. Next a scientist from the Police Forensic Laboratory gave evidence relating to the analysis of fibres found in an area of beechwood near the village Badger’s Drift, and the identification of dirt and leaf mould adhering to tennis shoes belonging to the deceased as coming from the same area.
Two scene-of-crime officers described the large flattened space near which a deep impression of the same shoes indicated that Emily Simpson had been standing for some time. Here Barnaby noticed Miss Bellringer flush with anger and glare at the man giving evidence. He continued to describe an impression that could have been made by someone of Emily Simpson’s height and weight having fallen a few feet away. The coroner asked for a pause whilst he checked back on Doctor Lessiter’s statement. He then asked the doctor if the bruises on Miss Simpson’s shin could have been caused by the earlier fall. The doctor sighed mightily and, in a voice indicating that they had already wasted enough of his valuable time, said that he supposed so.