DCI John Barnaby was not a man who could be easily persuaded to write off his own psychology degree, although he would never admit that Jones' teasing did not bother him. He was never quite sure why he had endured the long four years at university, writing paper after paper, only to end up working for the police for much of his later life. One thing a psychology degree was good for, however, was reading the subtle emotions that visited Barnaby's sergeant's face fleetingly. Because, it had to be said, DS Ben Jones was a closed book.

It started on an early morning call out. Barnaby had been dragged from bed before the dawn chorus had woken him by the insistent pulsing tone of his phone. An incoherently tired Jones had managed the address and a name, Marjorie Friar, before hanging up, barely stifling a yawn down the line. Hungry and unable to stop for breakfast, the detective wrestled with his tie, flattened his compliant hair and rushed to the crime scene.

He met the young sergeant beyond the yellow and black tape, stooping to clear the barrier as it fluttered in the breeze and nodded his thanks to the bleary eyed constable that held it in cold, reddening hands. Jones was staring at his phone cryptically but pocketed it as Barnaby cleared his throat and pointed towards the nearby farmhouse.

"Another elderly one, sir," he began, referencing the recent chain of suspicious deaths amongst the oldest residents of Midsomer as they walked side by side, "Ms. Friar lost her husband several years ago and has lived alone ever since. She inherited all of his earnings, from the looks of things, and settled down here in a renovated barn for retirement. She has a daughter, a son, a couple of grandchildren and no other relatives to speak of. Before the autopsy comes in, we're working on the assumption of natural causes; heart condition." Barnaby nodded, albeit a little enviously at the succinct, thorough report Jones had managed to build up of a victim at 5 o'clock in the morning.

"Any reason why we were called then?" he asked with a singularly raised eyebrow, "Early morning, poor health, no signs of suspicious activity-" He held his fingers up as he counted off the reasons he would rather be in bed before Jones stopped him.

"It wouldn't be suspicious, if our victim hadn't been calling the station for a few weeks to report a mysterious figure who seemed to be following her," he explained with a grimace, "She phoned a neighbour, who found her and called it in, but hung up in the early hours of this morning so they knocked to check if she was alright. According to the desk sergeant who's been taking her calls for the last few weeks, description matches that of the person all our murder victims have been seeing recently."

"But no sign of the usual struggle," Barnaby finished thoughtfully, "Well, let's take a look and then release the body. I'm sure we could all do with some breakfast before anything else happens." Jones gestured with one arm through the door, seemingly reluctant to follow the inspector much further. Barnaby raised an eyebrow but did not comment, putting it down to an uneasy, empty stomach.

The body was laid out in the middle of the room, clear of the neatly placed, undisturbed furniture of the living room. The elderly woman's eyes were closed and her arms rested gently on her still chest, as if she were peacefully resting. Something irritated the back of Barnaby's mind but he pushed it away quickly and focused on the unfamiliar pathologist who knelt on the teal carpet. They looked up, blinking through thickly rimmed glasses and nodded in greeting.

"DCI Barnaby, is it?" the man inquired pleasantly, "Dr. Mark Allen. I'm standing in for Kate for a couple of weeks whilst she's on leave." Barnaby hummed in response, glancing back at the deserted doorway and focusing again on the body.

"She's got a relaxed look to her, eh?" the doctor continued with a fleeting smile somewhere between sympathy and relief, "No signs of a fight, no bruises or scratches on her arms. Her fingernails are clean and don't have the usual fibres or blood we'd expect to see from someone who had been struggling against someone."

"So, initial thoughts are natural causes," Barnaby presumed, spurred on by the expectant nodding of the pathologist, "DS Jones mentioned a heart condition." He reached out to take a small bottle of pills from Mark's outstretched hand and read the label briefly, "Dysapyramide."

"It's used to treat congenital heart disease," he explained as he packed his bag and waved through the window to three people holding a stretcher, "I would imagine this is an open and shut case but, given the current track record, I will complete a full autopsy and email you the report."

"Thank you," Barnaby muttered, tracing the titles of books with a finger, finding a small layer of dust covering his fingertips. He looked around the room for a moment longer and then followed the procession out of the front door, not at first seeing DS Jones who had retreated further from the scene. He approached him with a frown coming to rest on his brow, overhearing a rushed, murmured conversation over the phone.

"Not right now," Jones seemed to be saying, "I'll call you back, just hold on." Barnaby stood a few feet away as he hung up and then announced his arrival.

"Taking personal calls at work, Jones?" he asked sarcastically, managing a small smile in the early morning sun, "It really wasn't that bad in there, you know. There wasn't even a drop of blood." Although he had meant to provide some comfort to the occasionally squeamish sergeant, he was surprised to see the involuntary shudder that ran through the body of the man in front of him. Jones shook it off firmly and gestured to his phone awkwardly.

"It wasn't a personal call, sir," he replied, choosing to ignore the inspector's later comments.

"So you have an update for me?" Barnaby returned with narrowed eyes, struggling to buy the officer's lies as he shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot, "No, therefore it was a personal call. If there is a problem with someone, Jones, you're welcome to attend to it. Don't feel the need to sneak around like this." Again, his tactfully chosen words of reassurance were met with the opposite reaction and Jones firmly shook his head.

"Nothing personal," he seemed to murmur to his feet, still avoiding Barnaby's scrutinising gaze due to his sudden fascination with the patterns of dew in the grass.

"It's 5 o'clock in the morning, don't make me play the detective," Barnaby warned gently, "Go home, and stay there if you need to, otherwise meet me back at the station at a more respectable hour. I'll even pick you up, if you need it." Jones shook his head dismissively and walked away, hands pressed into his trouser pockets and shoulders hunched from the wind as it picked up over the trees. Barnaby mimicked his actions and moved to his own car, unable to stop his mind from detecting. He was well and truly awake.

His front door opened with a gentle creak and he slipped through, shutting it quickly to avoid letting a draft in. The smell of an imminent breakfast drew his heavy feet to the kitchen where Sarah stood against the hob, coffee cup in hand. He nodded tiredly in her direction and embraced her briefly before pulling away to retrieve his own steaming mug.

"Another one?" she asked knowingly, the expression he held after returning from every death ever present on his face, "I did think you might bring Ben with you, I never like to pass up an opportunity to get some proper food in him." Barnaby smiled for a moment before slipping into a thoughtful stupor.

"Ben is alright, John?" Sarah pushed insistently, a look of worry firmly planted on her face as she stepped towards him again, cupping his hands in her own, "Has something happened?" Barnaby shook his head to clear the thoughts and fixed a smile more firmly.

"Jones is fine, dear. We're all a bit tired but I sent him home to feed himself. He is an adult, you know," he reminded with a gentle grin as Sarah rolled her eyes with a light laugh.

"You just looked worried for a moment," she clarified, not losing the look of scrutiny, "But that does remind me; Ben will have to come for dinner again soon. He hasn't been free much recently, I noticed." Barnaby avoided the train of thought his mind presented and nodded absentmindedly. His seargeant, he had long since realised, seemed intent on causing himself as much trouble as possible.

"What motive would someone have to follow and murder the elderly?" he posed the question to his wife, changing the subject back to something he was much more capable of talking about. She shrugged for a moment, passing him a plate loaded with eggs and toast.

"Are the victims linked?" she inquired, blowing on a forkful of food before chewing it contemplatively.

"Not as far as we can see," Barnaby replied, "They all had one condition or another that could lead to a natural death but only this last one was without a struggle. The other three bodies were found in searched rooms, clearly involved in a fight beforehand. Anyhow, I should be getting off again." He returned her hapless shrug with one of his own and kissed her swiftly on the cheek, patting Sykes on the way out and returning to his car.

Although it wasn't on his route, Barnaby chose to drive past Jones' house, he argued, to put his mind at rest that the sergeant had indeed returned to eat some breakfast as he had been told. But, like many things concerning Ben Jones that day, he got the opposite of what he expected.

The modest, small house had tightly drawn curtains across the windows and the narrow strip of usually well kept lawn was in need of a mow. Barnaby frowned as he pulled up on the kerb, not used to seeing the quaint house in such a state of disrepair. It was not like Jones to neglect his garden, no matter how small the plot of land was.

He approached the front door although there was no car in sight and went to knock on the chipped paint when an engine stopped in the street behind him. The milkman, Mr Banks, was heading towards the neighbour's drive when he caught his eye and joined him on the front step.

"Morning, Inspector," he had a clipped accent, almost foreign to the natives of Midsomer, "I don't expect Mr Jones will be in, sir. He's not been taking his milk so often. In fact-" He leant down and uncovered the two bottles he had placed next to a single bush by the door, "I could've sworn he'd asked for a delivery yesterday." The man in the peaked cap shook his head and looked hesitantly to the inspector who leant his hand against the door.

"How long has this been going on for?" he broke the silence eventually, "Irregular milk deliveries, Jones being out more often?" The milkman shrugged for a moment before holding up a finger and jogging over to his van. Leaving a final, lingering hand on the door, Barnaby followed him, reading the aged log the man kept of his deliveries.

"There you go, sir, Ben Jones last had daily deliveries three weeks ago," Banks pointed, "Since then I've been lucky to catch him more than twice a week, and his payments have been accumulating, rather than seeing me daily."

"Does he owe you money?" Barnaby asked a little sharply. He couldn't help but realise that Jones had been as distant from his own house as he had from his inspector for the same duration of time.

"No, he's all caught up, it seems," the tall man bent over to read the report and then nodded again, "He left money for young Mindy to collect on the windowsill yesterday. She's my daughter; been taking over the round every so often recently." Barnaby thanked him and returned to his car, unsure of what to think.

Ben Jones, houseproud and organised, was falling behind on the most simple of payments, neglecting his house and barely living there. For the first time in his life, Barnaby hoped that Ben had been sleeping with Mindy and was merely avoiding the older milkman out of embarrassment. But the unsettled pit in his previously full stomach told him otherwise - his sergeant was not quite right and hadn't been for some time.