A Ghost in the Machine (46 page)

 

By the time the car turned into the gates Kate was almost hysterical. She had to force herself not to run outside but stood in the kitchen forcefully drying some already bone-dry cups and plates. As the front door opened she heard voices. He had brought her back.

Polly was alive. She had not died of some rogue virus or electrocuted herself or been run over, or killed during a break-in or by a jealous lover or a madman on the loose. She was all right. Kate took several deep and careful breaths, then, still dizzy with relief, stepped out into the hall.

Mallory was standing with his back to her, holding Polly. Kate's welcoming smile, half formed, now froze. She was too appalled to speak.

Polly, swaying on her feet, looked like a ghost. Her face was without colour but for the deep bruising around her eyes. Her hair, her lovely thick shining hair, hung down like a tangle of greasy string. Her clothes were unclean. She was crying, tears splashing on the floor at her feet.

Kate moved forward without hesitation. She couldn't help it. The armour developed against years of rejection, the training of herself not to care, the determined cultivation of indifference to slight and insult dropped clean away.

Polly turned from Mallory and, in a single blind movement, fell into her mother's arms. Kate held her gently for a moment then murmured, “Come along, darling…come and rest.”

Slowly they stumbled upstairs. Polly's head resting awkwardly against her mother's breast; Kate with an arm around Polly's shoulder. She led Polly into the bedroom and found her a clean nightdress. Undressed her like a little girl, sponged her face with warm water, helped her into bed.

Late evening sunshine, faintly tinged with red, spread over the coverlet, shedding warmth on Polly's deathly countenance. Kate thought the golden light beautiful but when Polly started to turn her head to and fro to keep it from her eyes she drew the curtain a little.

Then she sat by the side of the bed, holding Polly's hand until she fell asleep. Gradually Kate became aware that, stronger than the feelings of fear and anxiety about Polly's wellbeing, stronger even than curiosity as to what had brought her to this terrible pass, was a slow pervasion of happiness. Polly had turned to her. She had been needed. She had held her child in her arms. In these arms, thought Kate, touching them almost in disbelief. And so she sat on as one hour flowed into the next. In the moonlight and starlight she sat, surprised by joy.

Knowing the chief's first appointment that day was with the fishmonger in Causton, Detective Sergeant Troy was surprised, on picking him up at eight thirty in the station forecourt, to be told to drive to Forbes Abbot. Lucky with the traffic, it took him barely fifteen minutes.

The village was looking good, warming up in what looked like the beginnings of a beautiful day. Troy thought, as he often did, that he'd like to move out of his cramped terraced house in the seedy part of Causton to a place like this. Never, ever would that come about. The prices here were astronomic. And you couldn't blame weekenders for pushing them up. This was commuters' territory.

“Property, Chief – eh?”

“What?”

“It's a madhouse.”

“Yes. I wouldn't like to be starting out now.”

Troy knew he should be grateful that he was not starting out. Nine years ago he and Maureen had scraped and saved for a ten per cent deposit on their present house, seeing it as the first step on the property ladder. Three years later they had Talisa Leanne, Maureen gave up full-time work and their dreams of moving were over. Now there was no way Troy could have afforded even a dog kennel in the town where he was born.

“I should park close to the wall,” suggested Barnaby as they turned into the drive of Appleby House. “They might need to take the Golf out.”

“I did actually plan to do that, sir.”

“Good for you.”

“This is Croydon.” Benny had come to her door, holding a magnificent tortoiseshell. She put it carefully down on the veranda. “He was Carey's cat but he's mine now. Shoo, Croydon. Go and play.” The cat sat down, yawned and began to wash itself.

“Has anything happened?” asked Benny eagerly, when they were once more in her little sitting room. “Have you made an arrest?”

“I need to ask you some questions, Miss Frayle.” Barnaby lifted his hand in a negative gesture towards Sergeant Troy, about to produce his notebook.

“Will it take long?” asked Benny. “I'm having coffee with Doris…Mrs. Crudge, at eleven.”

“That depends on how frank you are with us.”

“I don't lie.” Benny sat down quite suddenly. “I answered all your questions the other day.”

“Not quite accurately, I'm afraid.”

“Oh I'm sure I…What…what do you mean?”

“I asked you if you saw the medium Ava Garret in church at all. And, as I remember it, you said you were not very good at putting names to faces.”

“That's true.”

“True may be, but also misleading. Because you had a meeting with her, Miss Frayle. You gave her some money and she did you a service. Would you like to tell us about that service or shall I?”

Benny's heart beat faster and faster. She tried to speak but her voice was thick and jumbled and the words made no sense.

Barnaby continued: “When Ava Garret pretended that Dennis Brinkley had ‘come through,' as I believe it's called, she described very precisely the room in which he died. The white walls, the windows, the machine which killed him. She even knew the colour of the clothes he was wearing—”

“She was a medium,” cried Benny.

“She was a liar!”

Benny gave a little yelp and shrank back in her chair. Troy winced. It was like watching a kicked puppy. He had more sense than to intervene but then, mere moments later, her attitude changed. She seemed to rally becoming at once tearful and belligerent.

“It's all your fault!”

“What?”

“I asked you – I begged you to investigate Dennis's death. If only you'd listened instead of writing that horrible letter none of this need have happened.”

“At the time there—”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Benny still didn't look directly at Barnaby. “What would
you
have done?”

“How much money was involved?”

“A thousand pounds. Five hundred before the Sunday service and five afterwards.”

“Did you pay it all?”

“No. She gave me a week to raise the second instalment but died three days after the service.”

“And if she hadn't?”

“I don't understand.”

“What was she going to say the following Sunday? When the murderer is supposed to finally reveal himself.”

“We were rather hoping to genuinely hear from Dennis before then.”

The chief inspector paused, sighed and rested his forehead in the palm of one hand. Rodin's
Thinker
without the muscles.

“Did anyone else know of this arrangement?”

“Neither of us would have wanted that.” Her admission over, Benny straightened up, looking relieved and much less intimidated. “It all seemed to work out very well.”

“Doubt if Mrs. Garret would agree with you,” murmured Troy.

“Oh, well,” said Benny, in quite an airy voice. She lifted and lowered her shoulders in a casual sort of way.

Any minute now, thought Barnaby, we'll be into omelettes and breaking eggs. Having got what he came for he felt annoyed and dissatisfied being forced to recognise that, far from being a piece of the main puzzle, this new revelation belonged nowhere. It moved nothing forwards. It shed very little light on what had gone before. It was as dead as the proverbial parrot.

 

“How d'you get on to that then, Chief?” asked Sergeant Troy, squeezing the car between a new Land Rover and a B reg. Metro van on Causton market square.

“Something my daughter said last night. I realised that if Garret wasn't genuine someone must have fed her all those details about the death scene.”

“And Benny Frayle was the only one with any reason.”

“Exactly,” said the DCI.

Mr. Allibone, Fishmonger, was just opening up. His spotless green and white awning was unrolled and the man himself, boater tipped against the brilliant sun, was standing in the doorway.

“Chief Inspector? Good day to you.”

“Mr. Allibone. This is Detective Sergeant Troy.”

A youth was filleting herrings inside the shop, sliding the guts into a slop bucket, scraping the glittering scales. Ice was everywhere. Blocks of it in the window and piles of it, crushed, between the fish themselves.

Mr. Allibone proudly pointed out the lack of smell.

“You don't get any with really fresh produce. Him, for instance.” He pointed out a large, handsome crab. “Couple of hours ago he was saying goodbye to the wife and nippers.”

Troy felt rather sad at this and was glad he didn't like shellfish. He'd been persuaded to try an oyster once. Like swallowing frozen snot. Stepping carefully over a stout, rather pungent old dog, he followed the chief and Mr. Allibone up some narrow, richly Axminstered stairs and into a room crammed with old-fashioned furniture. A large vase of chysanthemums released a bitter smell.

“My lady wife,” said Mr. Allibone. “Alicia – say how-de-do to the CID.”

Mrs. Allibone blinked shyly and smiled. She looked a little like a sea creature herself. Her hair, a cap of shiny orange red was cut close to her head in overlapping little scallops. Her small pink mouth pushed forwards into a pout of welcome. Troy decided she looked like a rather pretty goldfish.

“A little something, gentlemen?” She had the sort of voice that wore net gloves. A table nearby was laid with a silver coffee pot, milk jug and willow-pattern cups and saucers. Various luscious eatables had been carefully arranged on embroidered doilies.

“A bit too soon after breakfast for me,” declined Barnaby.

“I'll have some,” said Troy.

Mrs. Allibone poured the drinks and added hot milk. She nudged one of the doilies murmuring: “Sweetmeats?” Then, extending her little finger, began to sip her coffee.

“I believe you have some information for me, Mr. Allibone?”

Mr. Allibone responded by taking Barnaby's arm and leading him to a large three-sided bay window at the far end of the room. Each section had a padded window seat on one of which was a pair of binoculars, almost concealed by the folds of a heavy plush curtain.

“It is my habit,” announced Mr. Allibone, “to occasionally glance out of this window.”

“Understandable,” said Barnaby. There was a splendid view of the market place. “All human life seems to be down there.”

“Exactly. A neverending panoply.” Reaching carelessly behind him Mr. Allibone twitched at the plush curtain. “And this is how I came to observe what I later decided to entitle The Mystery of the Brass Snake Lamp.”

“Troy?” snapped the chief inspector.

Sergeant Troy, cheeks bulging like a chipmunk's, hurriedly wiped his sticky fingers on a napkin and reached for his notebook. He wrote down, quickly and carefully, a mass of details about lights mysteriously going on and off. Utterly irrelevant as any fool could see, but his was not to reason why.

“My motto,” Mr. Allibone was saying, “as anyone who knows me will confirm, is, if you can't say anything nice about someone, say nothing. Correct, Alicia?”

Mrs. Allibone, also packing in the sweetmeats, nodded and waved. Troy noticed she extended her little finger even when she was only chewing. Maybe she had arthritis.

“But I'm convinced that when poor Mr. Brinkley told me those lights were on a time switch he was telling a porkie.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Ahh…that's the mystery.”

“Well, that's very interesting, Mr. Allibone. And we'll certainly—”

“Oh, that's just the horse's doovers, Chief Inspector. Wait till you get your ontray.”

Barnaby settled himself on one of the window seats. Troy's pen ran out. He dug out a reserve and stared interestedly round the room. So much furniture you could hardly breathe. There was a mantel over the carved fireplace with lots of little mirrors. Bouquets of pale stone flowers under glass domes. Hundreds of ornaments in glass cabinets and even a stuffed pike. Talk about bringing your work home.

“We're Victorians at heart,” whispered Alicia Allibone. She picked up a framed photograph. It showed herself wearing a crinoline and her husband in frock coat and stovepipe hat, struggling to board a stagecoach. “Eatanswill Club's annual outing.”

As Barnaby sat, absorbing Mr. Allibone's further revelations, he felt his scalp begin to tighten. The information was purely circumstantial and might prove to have nothing to do with Brinkley's murder but it was extremely interesting.

“So at around ten p.m. you saw her get out of the taxi—”

“Cox's MiniCabs to be accurate.”

“But how do you know she went into Brinkley and Latham's? There are flats—”

“The street door opened and closed. Couple of minutes later their office light was switched on.”

“You wouldn't have the actual time and date?”

“I certainly would. It was the day Neptune had his abscess lanced. Alicia – the appointments diary, if you will.”

“Neptune?” Troy looked round.

“Our dog,” whispered Mrs. Allibone. “He lives in the hall now. Being inclined to let fly.” She pronounced it “lit flay.” “It was Monday the twenty-third, Brian.”

“But that isn't the half of it, Chief Inspector.”

“Isn't it?” replied Barnaby.

“Believe me or believe me not, Mr. Brinkley himself was around when this strange incident occurred.”

“Really? Where?”

“He was actually sitting in his posh motor in the square. Up the far end, close to the Magpie. Almost as if he was expecting something to happen.”

A finger of doubt touched the chief inspector. They seemed to be moving into fantasy land. Everything he had heard about Brinkley mitigated against him being the sort of person who would be loafing around outside a pub late at night spying on his own office. It just didn't hang together. Unless…

“How did she get in, this girl?”

“Had a key.” As if sensing a reduction of confidence in his performance Mr. Allibone leaped into fervid description. “Beautiful she was. Dark curly hair, lovely legs. Slim but plenty of…” He cupped his hands as if weighing ripe melons.

Yes, he was making it up. For who could observe someone in such detail when they were a good twenty yards away and it was dark? Disappointment pricked Barnaby into a sharp response.

“You must have cat's eyes, Mr. Allibone. Or X-ray vision.”

“Pardon? Oh—no. I'd seen her before.”

“What?”

“A week or so earlier. I was just selecting some mackerel – for Lady Blaise-Reynard actually – when I happened to glance up and there she was. This same person storming out of that same building. She flung herself down on Reuben's steps.” He nodded towards the statue. “And was she in a paddy! Kicking her feet about. And her face…” He leaned close to Barnaby who had to force himself not to lean back. The fishmonger was sweating heavily. Licking his chops over furtive visions of long legs and young breasts and curly hair.

“Full of fire. Pure hatred. If you're looking for someone capable of murder, Inspector, all you've got to do is find that girl.”

 

Sergeant Troy took a deep breath of carbon monoxide from the queue of cars at the traffic lights. It was deeply refreshing after being shut in the Allibones' sitting room for nearly an hour. The acrid smell of chrysanths mingling with the knockout perfume from a bowl of fruit so ripe it had practically liquified had made him feel quite queasy. Then, as they reached the sleeping dog at the foot of the stairs, Neptune's bottom had backfired. This strenuous, intensely sulphurous explosion was so powerful it all but bowled them into the High Street. Here Troy started to complain that Alicia's date and toffee flapjack (which she had called “marchpane”), now firmly glued to the roof of his mouth, had been far too sweet.

“Didn't stop you packing it in,” grumbled Barnaby. His envy when observing his sergeant's constant guzzling of highly calorific food was matched only by his resentment as Troy continued never to gain an ounce. Joyce had tried to cheer her husband up by saying that Gavin was cruising for a bruising by which she meant an unheralded heart attack or stroke. But though Barnaby had waited patiently for now almost fourteen years, neither had yet had the decency to show themselves.