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The Science of Bees.
He had never taken to Ambrose Deddington the moment they had met; not only was the man's high pitched and strange voice gotten on his nerves, but his attitude over the course of the investigation after he had been assaulted by Noah in the dead of night had rubbed him the wrong way at times, but hearing Noah ranting about how Ambrose had lied about his cancer, and how Noah's mother made the mistake of believing them, only for her to die of cancer herself.
With that point of view, John could not blame Noah for wanting revenge, and seeing Ambrose's expression as Noah ranted and raged at him while Ambrose and his sister Tamara listened, his body shaking with barely restrained rage as he remembered what those lies about bee-related medicine - one of the things John liked the most about many of his investigations were how he had the opportunity to learn about new things and; it had seriously never occurred to him in the past there was a field of medicine where bee products such as honey, beeswax, and bee venom was the base of a number of medicines - led to, and John had gotten the chilling thought during Noah's rants that Ambrose had not only lied to one person about his cancer but others had followed the lie and they had paid for it.
And now he was left wondering about how many more there were. Barnaby made a mental note to get Winter to check when they got back to the station and pray to god Noah's mother had been the anomaly, not the norm.
But as Ambrose turned over mastership of the hives to Cyrus Babbage (John couldn't help but ask if even in his shocked state there was enough pettiness in Ambrose to strike another blow at Jude; personally he didn't understand why Ambrose refused to consider all possibilities and listen to Jude, who seemed sensible enough despite what his uncle believed, and Ambrose was just too quick to blame people to really see there were other possibilities. Jude was more interested in taking beekeeping into a new age, that was all), John wondered if Cyrus would allow Jude to move in or not.
Something told him that Cyrus would; John had no idea what the relationship was between Jude and Cyrus was, whether Jude took advantage of his relationship and Cyrus just folded, but Jude was unlikely to not take advantage of this opportunity to move back in. And at the same time, he was unlikely not to transform the apiary into his vision.
As he and Winters got back in the car, Barnaby turned to the DS and remembered what he had been thinking of a moment ago. "After we've got back from the pub, I want you to check on everyone else who bought Ambrose's lies."
Winters turned to him. "What, you think others might have died like Noah's mother?"
Barnaby chuckled. One of the things he liked about training Detective Sergeants was they quickly learned how to think. If Winters went on like this, he would make an exceptional Detective Inspector. "Got it in one. I have a few doubts about how effective Ambrose's products were. Noah's mother might be one of a dozen people who took in Ambrose's lies and paid the price."
"Mm, you're right. Okay, remind me when we get back to the station. What did you make of Ambrose passing on the buck to Cyrus?"
"Another petty blow to Jude," John shook his head and wondered if arrogance went along with petty vindictiveness in the Deddington genes. It seemed - more or less - to have jumped Jude and his mother.
"Do you reckon Cyrus will move the meadery into the apiary? It's the logical step," Winters commented.
"Yeah," John nodded thoughtfully. "I wonder if Ambrose took that into account when he gave Cyrus mastery over the hives."
Winters shook his head. "I think we'll need to check in a month or so, see how it goes for later."
John didn't normally revisit scenes of old crimes, but there were exceptions - the business in Bleakridge during that business where Ingrid Lockston, the leader of a more fascistic neighbourhood watch who had come to enjoy their power a little too much, had ordered a number of staged burglaries just to make her organisation seem more important than it was; following the investigations there, he'd remembered full well how lawless the place was, so he had pulled strings and made sure patrols were sent out to make it clear to everyone in the village including Ingrid vigilantism and lawlessness would not be tolerated.
"Only for a brief visit," Barnaby conceded.