Death in Disguise (19 page)

The mushrooms were stewing in a small four-legged bronze skillet, their juice a vivid unpleasant colour. The taster put a single stalk and a spoonful of the violet liquid in his mouth. Immediately he choked. The muscles of his throat became numb, his stiff coal-black tongue stuck out. Eyes bolting, he fell and upset the skillet, scalding his arms on a steaming mass of food.

He briefly comprehended startled faces and the slave running, then paralysis spread downwards to his chest and life closed up inside him like a fan.

‘May…May…'
The words were knotted with terror as Arno heard the strangled choking. He was first from the dais, flinging himself on his knees at her side. Other people followed, crowding round. Even Felicity, looking dreamily puzzled rather than alarmed, drifted over to glance down at the figure wrenching itself into such terrible loops and arches on the appliquéd quilt.

‘Do something!' cried Arno. ‘Someone…do something…' He snatched May's hand from Christopher's grasp and started to chafe and rub it between his own.

‘Give her the kiss of life.'

‘She's not drowning.'

‘How do you know she's not drowning?'

‘Shouldn't we loosen her belt?'

‘Look at her face!'

‘Take the pillow away. Lay her flat.'

‘She can't breathe as it is.'

‘Ken's right. That'll just make things worse.'

‘We need some agrimony.'

‘I'd have thought there was more than enough agrimony here already.'

‘Remarks like that are not particularly helpful, Mr Gamelin.'

‘Sorry.'

‘This is actually an emergency in case you haven't noticed.'

‘I'm sorry—all right?'

May drew back her lips and gargled horribly.

‘What would she say if she could speak?'

‘Think colour according to the cosmic law.'

‘That's right she would. What day is it?'

‘Friday.'

‘That's violet.' Heather leaned closer and shouted, ‘May—can you hear me? Think violet…'

May shook her head with great force and, struggling to form the words, finally cried out: ‘Mush…mush…'

‘What does she mean—mush, mush?'

A puzzled silence then Arno cried, ‘Dogs. She's calling a dog team. May is in Antarctica.' He pulled off his jumper. ‘That's why she's shaking. She's freezing to death. Quick everyone…'

They all removed an item of clothing. Felicity offered her shiny mussel-effect scarf. Everything was piled up on May and finally, it seemed, to good effect. The gargle became a ripple then a mere bubbling sigh. The rasp of her breathing softened almost into inaudibility, her chest rose and fell in a calm, even motion. The hem of her shift stopped vibrating.

‘It's worked.' Arno turned a radiant face to them all. ‘She's better.'

As he spoke, May opened her eyes, gave a great yawn and sat up. ‘My goodness! The most exciting adventure yet, I do believe. What on earth are all these things?'

‘We thought you were cold.'

‘You were shivering.'

‘Nonsense. Sweltering in that tent. Someone put the lights on and I'll tell you all about it.'

Christopher went to do so. As light flooded the room, people started to pick up their bits and pieces and don them again. May called across to her mentor: ‘Well, Master that was quite—' She broke off and gave a loud exclamation. Attracted by this the others, too, turned and stared.

The Master was standing just in front of his chair. Slowly and seemingly with great effort he lifted his right arm. A finger pointed. Then he fell, very gracefully with a slow turning movement so that he came to rest face upwards with his milk-white hair spreading over the oatmeal carpet. He lay cruciform, arms flung wide and in his breast a knife was buried. Right up to the hilt.

D
etective Chief Inspector Barnaby was cooking
Moules à I'Indienne
, pounding away at some cardamom seeds in a stone pestle. He wore a long cotton tablier of the sort favoured by waiters in speakeasy-type dives and had a glass of Frog's Leap Chardonnay to hand.

It had dawned on Tom the hard way, and over many years, that Joyce, his beloved prop and mainstay, was not going to (indeed saw no reason to) improve her cooking. Take it or leave it was her attitude and the fact that on the whole he left it was not apparently reason enough to instigate reform. And as she had once said, poking him none too playfully below the belt, you didn't get up to thirteen stone by going without. She was neither defiant nor aggressive; just simply did not understand his point of view. Joyce ate her own cooking quite happily and now ate her husband's, when he had time to do any, just as happily—but without any indication that its quality was at all superior to her own. Barnaby had long ago decided that she suffered from the gastronomic equivalent to being tone deaf.

‘What's for starters?'

‘Tarragon eggs.'

‘Are they the ones in brown puddles?' Joyce took a deep swallow of wine and beamed encouragement. ‘I like those.'

‘I'll put more gelatine in this time.'

The making of aspic had come into part seven, ‘Raised Pies and Galantines', of Barnaby's ‘Twelve Cookery Lessons for Absolute Beginners' at Causton Tech and was one he had missed, due to being on call. He had taken to the art straight away, really looking forward to Tuesday evenings when he could once more get to grips with scales, knives, pots and pans. The only male in a class of seventeen, he was left relatively in peace once his fellow students had got used to his lumbering masculine presence and tired of pulling his leg. Only one lady, a Mrs Queenie Bunshaft, still persisted in asking archly where he was hiding his truncheon and which of them was going to be his dish of the day. Barnaby threatened to run off with Mrs Bunshaft when Joyce got particularly obstreperous.

The meal was to celebrate his daughter's engagement. Both parents had been pleased but surprised at Cully's emotional declaration some weeks ago. Barnaby had been quite caustic when shown the ring, a pretty white-gold love knot studded with Victorian garnets.

‘I thought he just moved in these days with a toothbrush and a packet of peppermint-flavoured Mates.'

Cully had smiled dreamily and looked demure. Demure! The first time, as Joyce said later, since she'd abandoned nappies. Nicholas looked simply stunned as if he could not believe his luck, which was quite true.

‘Students,' moaned Joyce once they had danced away. A Hollywood pavane complete with dry ice and string accompaniment.

‘Not for much longer.'

‘They've no money.'

‘They've as much as we had.'

‘At least you were in a proper job. The theatre, Tom…of all things…'

‘They're only engaged, not married with five kids. Anyway—she's enough confidence for fifty that one.'

‘You don't know what it's like.' Joyce emptied her glass and reached for a bowl of coconut.

‘Leave that alone. I've weighed it out.'

‘Don't start throwing your weight about with me. You're not at the station now, you know.' Joyce put some of the white shreds in her mouth. ‘It's going to be all right for Sunday, isn't it Tom?'

‘Fingers crossed.'

At the moment matters were quite sluggish. No shortage of crime (when was there ever?) but for the past few days it had been seedy, run-of-the-mill stuff. There were occasions—not many, never long—like this. Other periods seemed to hold such an escalation of smashing and grabbing; of screaming, squealing tyres and breaking bones that Barnaby sometimes felt he had been sucked into an ever-spinning maelstrom of brutality. He marginally preferred these times. This acknowledgement gave him neither pleasure nor comfort but neither did he attempt to duck the fact.

In the hall the phone rang. Joyce got up saying, ‘Oh no.'

‘Probably Cully…'

‘Bet it isn't.'

Barnaby started to chop some chillies, half an ear to the door. Joyce reappeared, expressionless. Barnaby pulled at the strings of his apron and turned off the gas. Five minutes later Joyce was helping him into his jacket.

‘Sorry, love.'

‘I don't know why you keep up this fiction of saying sorry, Tom. You've been doing it for nearly thirty years and it wouldn't deceive a child. You already look twice as sparky as you did in the kitchen.' Barnaby buttoned up and kissed her. ‘Where is it, anyway?'

‘Out Iver way.'

‘Will you be late?'

‘Looks a bit like it.' He added, pointlessly, for she invariably did, ‘Don't wait up.'

She called after him down the path, ‘Shall I ring Cully and cancel?'

‘Not yet. See how it goes.'

Troy had taken to wearing glasses for driving. Glinting, squared-off steel rims which made him look like Himmler. Weaving and snaking, foot down, they were already half way to the Manor House.

‘Break up anything special did it, Chief—this caper?'

‘Not really.'

Just rustling up a few
Moules a l'Indienne
for my daughter's engagement dinner. Barnaby smiled to himself, imagining his sergeant's response. The concealed disdain behind a courteous, ‘Oh yes, sir?' And the limp-wristed mockup of a chef portrayed later in the staff canteen when he was safely elsewhere.

To Troy, cooking, like hairdressing and making clothes, was a pursuit fit only for women. Or poofters. It was his proud boast that he had never as much as toasted a slice of bread or washed a sock in his entire life. Start doing that sort of thing, he'd say, and you'd got women left with time on their hands. And women with time on their hands got into trouble. Known fact.

‘Course a baby went quite a way to solving that problem. His own was now nearly one. Incredibly bright. Troy wondered if this was the moment to pass on what she had said at breakfast. It was so clever, so advanced. He had told everybody at the station; one or two people twice. But with the Boss you never knew. Sometimes you'd think he was paying attention then discover he hadn't heard a word. Sometimes he jumped down your throat. Ah well—worth a try.

‘You'll never guess what she said this morning, Chief.'

‘Who?'

Who…?
Who?
For a minute Troy was so flabbergasted he could not reply. Then he said, ‘Talisa Leanne.'

‘Hmn.'

Could have been a grunt. Or a cough. Could even have been a sigh. Only the most besotted parent would have taken it as encouragement to continue.

‘She was eating her Weetabix…well, I say eating… flinging it about's more like it…' Troy laughed, shaking his head at the wonder of it all. ‘Some in her bib…some on the wall…there was even—'

‘Let's get it over with, Sergeant.'

‘Pardon?'

‘What did she say?'

‘Oh. Yes. Well—it was “ball”.'

‘What?'

‘Ball.'

‘Ball?'

‘True as I'm sitting here.'

‘Good grief.'

The sky was almost dark. A rim of crimson seeped into the horizon's edge as the car swung with great panache into the village. Barnaby half expected to see an ambulance on the Manor drive but there were just two police cars and George Bullard's Volvo.

As soon as Barnaby climbed out he heard the howling. Terrible agonised cries like an animal in a trap. He felt his skin ice over.

‘Jesus!' Troy joined him in the porch. ‘What the hell is that?' A constable positioned inside the hall became alert in recognition. ‘Everyone's upstairs, sir. Along the gallery to your left. Far end.'

Troy stared around as they climbed, too disturbed by the dreadful sounds to experience his usual knee-jerk resentment when entering what he presumed to be the environment of the upper crust. He sniffed and said, ‘What a stink.'

‘Joss sticks.'

‘Smells like cat mess.'

They found Scene of Crime in a long room almost bereft of furniture. Controlled businesslike people moving with quiet efficiency. A photographer sat on some steps, a Pentax with an attached flash dangling from his neck. A second constable was at the door. Barnaby asked who was making all the row.