‘No. We passed each other in the hall as I arrived. She was on her way out and looking very strange.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well . . . if it had been anyone but Judy I’d say she’d been with a lover.’
‘That’s remarkably catty even for you,’ blurted out Lessiter, regretting it immediately as he caught the glimmer of satisfaction on Troy’s face.
‘She gave me an ecstatic smile - incidentally the first I’ve received from that direction since the day I moved in - and said she was driving into High Wycombe to buy a new dress before the shops shut. Which is also strange. I’ve never known her take the slightest interest in clothes. Quite understandable when you think that she’s shaped like a couple of suet puddings.’
Whatever was on that piece of paper, thought Troy, had made her as bold as brass. She didn’t look like a centrefold dream today. The facial lines under the bronzy powder seemed more deeply etched, her eyes were hard and her hair had an inelasticity that made it look completely artificial. Even her curves seemed rigid and unyielding.
‘Someone will call later to talk to your daughter, sir,’ murmured Barnaby, and bade them good evening. The door had hardly closed behind them before Trevor Lessiter turned to his wife.
‘I hope you’re not expecting—’
‘You dirty sod!’
‘Don’t you speak to me like that. I shouldn’t be driven to places like the Casa Nova if you were any sort of a wife.’
‘I might be more of a wife if you had the slightest idea how to set about it. You’re bloody pathetic.’
‘At least they care about me there. Krystal’s always—’
‘Care about you? They must be laughing themselves sick.’
‘How the hell do you know so much about it? I’m surprised you’ve even heard of the place.’
‘They were talking about it in the Abraxas, if you must know. Some of the old slags come in for a spot of rejuvenation.’
‘Doesn’t work though, does it, Barbara?’
‘What?’
‘The rejuvenation. I mean you’re really looking your age right now. That was one of the first lies you told me, wasn’t it? About your age. God - today’s opened my eyes all right. I feel as if I’m seeing you for the first time.’
Barbara walked over to the window, carefully selected a cigarette from the silver box and lighted it. She turned and faced him, blowing out a cool plume of smoke.
‘Well that goes for both of us, husband mine,’ she said, baring her teeth in an implacable smile. ‘That goes for both of us.’
Chapter Five
David Whiteley opened the door of Witchetts wearing his working jeans and a sweat-stained shirt, with a tumbler of whisky in his hand. He showed them into the sitting room and turned off the blaring stereo. (‘Bridge over Troubled Water.’) He invited them to sit down and offered Barnaby ‘a touch of Jameson’. The offer being declined he drained his own and poured another. His hand was as steady as a rock; his voice strong and clear and, although he consumed a third glassful during their brief visit, both hand and voice remained unchanged.
‘You know what has happened, Mr Whiteley?’
‘Yes. I stopped my car and asked one of the multitude outside the Black Boy. Load of ghouls.’
Barnaby asked about his movements during the afternoon. Whiteley was sitting in a bentwood rocker and tipped it very slowly back and forth as he surveyed them both. He looked incongruous in this traditional refuge of the old and resigned. There was something so potent about his masculinity; his blond good looks and rather crude sexual vigour. It seemed only fitting that, like the corn god, he should spend his days reaping and renewing the land. He said, ‘I was supervising the hopper till about three . . . three-thirty . . . then I took a combine harvester down to Gessler Tye. We’ll start cutting in a couple of days . . . well, probably not Saturday because of the wedding but Sunday I should think.’
‘Sunday?’
‘Oh yes. Once harvesting starts you can write off your weekends.’
‘Did you know Mrs Rainbird at all?’
‘By sight only. I don’t socialize much in the village. Any . . . picking up I do is in the Bull over Gessler way. Or in Causton.’
‘Nothing nearer home?’ murmured Barnaby delicately.
‘No. Oh I knew what you were thinking the other day, Inspector. In the kitchen at Tye House. But there’s nothing doing there, believe me. At the moment that is. Mind you I don’t think our Kate’s nearly as cool as she makes out. I shall try again once she’s safely married.’
No need for him to visit the Casa Nova, thought Troy, admitting for once to a male persona probably nearly as attractive to women as his own. Looking round the room Barnaby noticed, on the mantelpiece, the photograph of a child, the glass a cobweb of splinters and cracks.