Troy wrote for a moment then said, ‘How long would you say you were out, sir? Altogether?’
‘Ohh . . . about an hour.’
‘In that weather?’
‘Yes.’
‘For no reason?’
The sergeant lowered his head and the sun hit Brian full in the face. He clambered down from his stool, caught his foot on a low cross strut and stumbled away from the blinding light, dragging the stool with him.
‘You weren’t perhaps,’ continued Troy, ‘on your way to some sort of tryst?’ He was glad of a chance to use this word, which he had picked up from a chocolate commercial on the telly.
‘Tryst?’ The faint blush of colour on Brian’s cheeks deepened and spread like an ugly naevus. A tic doloreux danced beneath his left eye. He croaked, ‘Of course not.’
‘In that case, Mr Clapton, let me put my own theory on the table. I think you left the house intending to turn right - which was how you came to make the slip in your earlier statement - but saw that someone nearby had observed you. So you turned left and walked off, returning later when the coast was clear.’
‘Clear? Clear for what?’
‘For you to re-enter Plover’s Rest of course.’
‘Talk about Jemima Puddleduck,’ said Sergeant Troy, who had recently taken on the sweet pleasures of reading to his daughter. ‘Another five minutes I’d’ve had to mop the floor.’
He was sitting in the incident room rejigging the scene in the science cupboard for Barnaby’s benefit, twirling with satisfaction on a tweedy swivel chair and nicely relaxed after a spaghetti bolognese, double chips, Bakewell tart and custard and several cups of tea in the staff canteen. All this consumed in time unofficially included in the visit to Causton Comprehensive.
‘He admitted he’d gone in the opposite direction from what he’d told us. Gave me some rigmarole about getting confused. Still insists he just went for a walk to clear his mind. I suggested that he had in fact left his house intending to return to Plover’s Rest, seen someone hanging around and been forced to depart elsewhere until they’d gone, whereupon he made his way back there, presumably to get on with the dirty deed.’
‘Did you now?’ said Barnaby, entertaining himself by fleshing out the scene. ‘And how did he react?’
‘Nearly passed out.’
‘You must have enjoyed that, sergeant.’
‘Just doing my job, sir.’
‘Quite. Did you believe him?’
‘I did actually,’ said Troy. ‘I shouldn’t think he’s got the guts to crack a flea let alone do a bloke’s head in. He looked dead guilty but he’s the sort who’d look guilty if a copper asked him for a light.’
‘He took the trouble to lie though, which means he wasn’t simply out for a constitutional.’
‘My bet is he was hanging around Quarry Cottages.’
‘The Carters’ place?’
Troy nodded. ‘Came over all hot and bothered talking about them. And he’s just the sort of pathetic sod to peer through bedroom windows jerking off.’
‘I agree,’ said the chief inspector, for Brian had struck him as a sad case - the sort of man whose personality was out of print before the ink was dry on his birth certificate. ‘He’d be well advised to keep his distance. They’ll have his balls in the shredder.’
‘Got to find them first,’ said Troy, recalling Brian’s limp cords. Hard to believe they held as much as a tin whistle let alone two fun bags and a hot dog.
‘But what really made his day,’ continued the sergeant, chortling happily, ‘was when I said I thought his wife’s paintings were so good I’d decided to commission one. That did for him good and proper.’
‘So now we know of two people at the meeting who went out again that night. St John I feel has been honest with us. Certainly his remorse strikes me as totally genuine. Clapton’s something else. You might well be right about the Carters but I don’t want to leave it there. Give him a breathing space to get nice and comfy then try again. We got his prints yet?’
‘Coming in today on his way home.’ Troy laughed. ‘Couldn’t wait to oblige. Much arrive this end while I was out?’
‘Several things. Ms Levine rang back unable to help us further, which didn’t surprise me. Uxbridge had a call from Hadleigh at ten thirty p.m. the night before the murder reporting his car stolen. It had been parked in Silver Street. No luck tracing it so far. The inquest on Hadleigh is convened for next Tuesday. His GP has agreed to identify the body. And the PM report’s come in. Unfortunately there’s nothing unexpected or revelatory. He was killed, as George Bullard suggested, by a single massive blow to the forehead, probably the first one struck. Whether the murderer knew this and couldn’t stop, or didn’t and thought he was making sure, we can only guess at this stage. Hadleigh had eaten next to nothing but drunk quite a lot of whisky, which bears out what we were told. He was killed between eleven at night and two a.m. and, mingled with the blood and mucous, were found heavy traces of lachrymal fluid.’