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Written in Blood(31)



‘He was a gentleman.’

And that put paid to that. End of conversation, end of audience. Barnaby explained that their fingerprints would be needed. Honoria retaliated with great vigour. Such a degrading procedure was quite out of the question. As Amy was showing them out she could be heard declaiming loudly, ‘Jumped up clowns!’

A gentleman. Troy kicked savagely at the gravel as they made their way back to the rusty gate. Of course we all know what that means. The upper crust on life’s farm-house. He lit a cigarette. A member of the club. Right tie. Right accent. Right attitude. Right sort of money. Right wing. (Troy himself was extremely right wing, but from quite a different jumping-off point, and for quite different reasons.) And, of course, blue balls.

‘You can’t believe folk like that, can you?’ He opened the gate and stood aside to let Barnaby pass through. ‘In this D and A. I bet she’s never done a stroke of work in her life. Bloody parasite.’

‘Now look.’ Barnaby, his voice sharp and irritable, stopped in mid-stride. His back ached from standing and he liked being patronised no more than the next man. ‘Your prejudices are your own affair, Gavin, unless they interfere with your work, in which case they also become mine. Our job is to extract information and to persuade people to reveal themselves. Anything that hinders this procedure is a time-wasting bloody nuisance. And I don’t expect to find it coming from my own side of the fence.’

‘Sir.’

‘Have you got that?’

‘Yeah. Got that.’ The sergeant chewed furiously on his high tar. ‘It’s just they get up my fucking nose.’

‘No one’s asking you to pretend liking or respect. In any case either attitude would be as inappropriate as the one you’re currently wallowing in. Your own feelings are immaterial. Or should be. Self-absorption is fatal in our job. We should be looking out, not in.’

‘Yeah,’ said Troy again. ‘Sorry, chief.’

Trouble was, he knew Barnaby was right. And on the whole he did look out for he loved his work and wanted to do it well. Troy took great pride even in his most modest achievements - of which, it had to be said, there were many. He decided to make a real effort. Politeness to a fault would be the order of the day. After all, civility cost nothing. But there’d be no green-welly licking. Green-welly licking was right out.

By this time they were halfway across the green. Kitty Fosse, a dark, attractive girl, a reporter on the Causton Echo, came running to meet them.

‘Hi, chief inspector. What’s the story?’

‘Hullo, Kitty.’ He walked on. The reporter, hurrying to keep up, stumbled over a tussock of grass and Troy leapt forward to assist.

‘Someone in the crowd said a body had been taken out,’ she said, while attempting to retrieve her arm.

‘That’s the case, yes.’

‘And is it the man who lived there? (Thank you, sergeant, I can manage.) A certain,’ she checked her spiral notebook, ‘Gerald Hadleigh?’

‘Mr Hadleigh was found dead early today in suspicious circumstances.’

‘Who by? (I said I could manage!)’ She wrenched her arm away. ‘How was he killed?’

‘You know the form, Kitty. There’ll be a proper statement later from communications.’

As the chief strode away Troy turned to the girl. ‘Why don’t we meet up later for a drink? Might have a leak for you by then.’

‘You’re not catching me on that one twice.’ Kitty gave him a look of deep disgust.

‘Sorry?’

‘Eighteen months ago. The Jolly Cavalier?’ She had naively gone along hoping for some sort of scoop, but had received instead several propositions, none of which was fit for a girl to blow her nose on.

‘Hey - that’s right.’ He grinned in belated recognition. ‘Another time then?’

‘Don’t hold your breath.’





Barnaby had a visit to Rex St John next in mind. If he and Jennings had been the last to leave, discovering the time and order of their departure was extremely relevant. They found the weather-beaten clapboard house, almost directly opposite Plover’s Rest, without any trouble but, although their approach produced a canine response the like of which neither man had ever heard nor ever wished to hear again, no human soul appeared.

Putting Borodino firmly behind them and making their way back to Hadleigh’s cottage Barnaby noticed a woman with a bicycle standing by the gate of the house next door. She had obviously been informed by someone in the crowd that they had been previously seeking her out, for she was looking in a concerned, expectant manner in their direction. Barnaby, fishing for his warrant card, approached.