Chapter 21: Improving Visibility

Barnaby had looked over the fingerprint report several times since it landed on his desk, more from habit than curiosity. Little in it was surprising. "No question about it now," he said. "Gregory Chambers' fingerprints are all over that brush."

At his desk a few feet away, Troy glanced up from his paperwork. Since their return from Midsomer Magna's fete and wood an hour ago, most of his sergeant's time had been spent with those reports. "How long on the blood, sir?"

"Tomorrow at the earliest." The forensic lab had produced this report much quicker than Barnaby had anticipated, probably as a result of its connection to such a gristly murder case. How often was Midsomer the background for a scene of dismemberment? More often than its population might dictate, but not often enough to be commonplace, thank god. Morbid enthusiasm was behind the speed, he decided; even the forensic team was occasionally intrigued. If they applied the same curiosity to the burglar still crisscrossing the county—another break-in had occurred last night and Sergeant Brierley had been assigned as the lead investigator for the moment—perhaps that case would be going somewhere.

Speed was an invaluable asset to the present case. With eager technicians at the helm of machines with bells and whistles, perhaps the bloodstained leaves would yield their secrets quickly and completely.

Unlikely. "Probably longer," Barnaby added, a dreary weight hanging on the words. He drank a sip of coffee from the half full mug beside his hand. Today, at least, it was potable, the oil slick held at bay. To be honest, hoping for any conclusive result regarding the blood was a touch mad. The stains had lain out in the open for days, exposed to the elements and any inquisitive creature with a nose for the stuff. If the report contained anything more specific than "human", that would surprise him.

"But it can't be anyone else's, can it?" Paper shuffled as Troy moved to the next report. Their paperwork was completed in a maddening mixture of formats, some on the blasted computer system and some by hand to be later entered into the blasted computer system. On the whole, Barnaby still preferred scribbling the information in pen.

"Probably not," he said as he took another mouthful of coffee, slipping the pages back into the case file. "That wouldn't make any sense."

Pushing his chair back, Troy threw down his pen. "So that's where he was killed, do you think?"

"Yes. It's a lot closer to Abbot's Pool than where the hand was found." Only a few hundred yards away and a much more convenient location for the murder. "Just a matter of time before they find the body in there."

Troy stood, taking a few impatient steps behind his desk, like he was attempting to think. "Even removing the hands and head, sir, it's risky just leaving it there."

"Don't think there was any other choice, Troy. What else were they going to do with it?"

Troy turned, retracing his path. "So you still think it's connected to the hotel?"

"Do you have another motive?" Barnaby asked, finishing off the bitter remnants of his coffee. "And who—apart from someone who had to be at the funeral—would be so pressed for time?"

Troy's brow furrowed, his mind lingering on the list of suspects. "Still leaves all of them."

"Yes."

"Including Annie and Tyson."

"Troy, you really must learn to keep an open mind."

Despite Annie Tyson's certain alibi at the time of Kenneth Gooders' death—being held in custody tended to be one—Troy still clung to the belief that she was involved somehow. Barnaby had not argued too forcefully against his sergeant's mumbled complaints yesterday afternoon about her bail. Any time for grumbling had been consumed by sorting through the first deluge of information on Kenneth Gooders' death; the review had taken the rest of the day and much of the evening. The final stretch had brought the lab's confirmation of Colin Salter's mycological knowledge: Amanita virosa, Destroying Angel.

It was past seven when Barnaby had found the first opportunity to ring Joyce with a quick apology for the late day. Troy, his desk buried beneath piles of photographs and initial reports that he had ceased attempting to organize, had made no phone calls at all. What had happened after they departed from CID for the night—nearer nine than eight—Barnaby couldn't say, and he rather hoped it would remain so. It was the singular advantage of finding this case at this time: the confusion and the machinations pushed everything else aside.

"But she's got the best motive, sir," Troy said, walking back across the patch of tile behind his desk. "By far!"

Barnaby nodded slightly. "That may be true—" The rest of his sentence was interrupted by the shrill ring of the phone on his desk. The cuff of his shirt sleeve brushed against a stack of papers as he reached for the receiver, and he caught the collapsing pile with his other hand. "DCI Barnaby."

A clear, familiar voice reached his ear, cutting through the endless tune of voices, keyboards, footsteps, and telephones. "Sir?"

"Oh, good afternoon, Angel," Barnaby said, waving a hand at Troy to sit down. The man did so, taking his pen and leaning over the neat stack of forms on his desk again. Almost dutifully.

"Sir," PC Angel said, "there's been an accident in Midsomer Magna."

"Oh?" Barnaby's fingers tightened around the phone, their very tips tingling. Something's changed.

"That Punch and Judy van had a blowout on the tires, ended up in a field."

"When?"

"Just now." Angel's voice crackled as the mobile signal waned briefly, then returned to full strength. "They said they were on their way back from the fete."

"Only the two of them?" Troy looked up, shuffling his papers into a neater stack before capping his pen and returning it to the small mound of them near the edge of his desk. He was already alert.

"Yes, sir," the constable continued. "We're taking them home now."

"Anything odd about it?" With his free hand, Barnaby tugged a pad of paper from a desk drawer, then reached for a pen of his own.

"Yes, sir. Three holes in the tires. Someone from SOCO's out here already, thinks they might have come from nails or spikes."

"That's a nasty business," Barnaby muttered, scribbling a few words on the top page. tire blowout. nails/spikes. three holes.

"It nearly had them into a wall, sir."

Barnaby added another phrase. could have been fatal. "Are they both all right?"

"Just shaken, I think."

"Ah, thank you, Angel. We're on our way."

Barnaby dropped the receiver, looking over the words that slanted down across the lined paper, cramped and hurried. Could have been fatal, he thought, clicking the top of his pen to retract the ballpoint end. But laying such a crude trap was the work of an amateur—an amateur in the midst of panic.

"What happened, sir?" Troy asked, walking to Barnaby's desk to glance at the page. "Bloody hell..."

The chief inspector dropped the pen, not caring where it came to rest as he snatched his jacket from the back of his chair. "It seems someone was rattled by Clarice's show after all," he said, swiftly thrusting his arms through the sleeves. "The van went off the road after the tires were punctured."

"Might have just been squicked by the puppets," Troy said, scowling as he hurried across the room for his own jacket.

"Troy..." Barnaby sighed, shaking his head.

"They're horrid little things, sir, they just—are."

His sergeant's face was as pale as when the man had stood on the roof of Chetwood House just a few weeks earlier. "Heights, puppets..." Barnaby set a fast pace out of the office. "Anything you aren't afraid of?"

Troy was almost scrambling to catch him, a few sputtered protests spilling from his mouth as they walked even quicker through the corridor and the noises of CID faded. "That's not—"

"Hmm."

"I'm just saying—"

"I doubt anyone was too upset by just looking at Mr. Punch," Barnaby interrupted as the fresh air enveloped them, banishing the station's stale ghosts. Digging his car keys from his pocket, he waved an impatient hand at Troy. "I'll drive." No use in them having an accident en route to investigate sabotage and attempted murder.

Ten minutes on the road had them past the outskirts of Causton and on one of the narrow, unlined Midsomer roads, passing blurs of trees decked in green finery and billowing fields filled with bleating sheep. The clear sun of the early afternoon had not faded—Barnaby had not found a chance to ask Joyce about the money her croquet stall raised—and had they been driving straight into it, he would have been blind.

The click of the indicator was drowned by the ringing of Troy's phone. His sergeant fumbled with his jacket, finally slipping one of his hands beneath the seat belt to retrieve his mobile, answering without reading the name on the display. "Troy."

Though Barnaby kept his gaze firmly on the road, he watched the man beside him from the corner of his eye. Troy stiffened for a brief moment, then his shoulders loosened. "Oh—hi."

No name, Barnaby thought, completing the left turn. A greeting, but no name. Obvious.

"No, not at all," Troy continued, switching the phone to his left ear and leaning toward the passenger door. "No, we're just on our way back to Midsomer Magna." The voice at the other end of the line was impossible to understand, but easily identifiable as female. "Yes, earlier, for the fete—" Another pause. "Something's come up."

Barnaby let his eyes scan the trees at the edge of the tarmac, scouring the trunks for the break indicating the main road to Midsomer Magna. No more than another mile. The phone conversation beside him—half of it—was more relaxed than he had expected, as though Troy had forgotten his presence.

Troy just listened to the muted voice for a few seconds. "No, I don't think—" In the middle of the next word, he stopped, drawing a deeper breath. "Don't know yet...Uh, yes. Why?"

The houses at the edge of Midsomer Magna trickled into view: one small cottage stood here, another sat across the road a quarter mile farther along as Troy continued to listen, propping his elbow on the edge of the door and nearly smiling. "It's going that badly?"

Barnaby pressed his foot on the brake pedal, gently bringing the car to a brief halt at a stop sign. The houses with their neat front gardens were more frequent on this stretch of the road, and after another minute of the half-heard conversation—the words on Troy's end remained brief, almost deliberately innocuous apart from "Well, give me a ring whenever you're done." Then, faster and warier, "Maybe tonight."—the houses gave way to the village shops.

"Bye," Troy said finally, ending the call and tucking the phone back into his jacket pocket.

His sergeant's elbow was still propped up on the door, his knuckles pressed to the window's glass as he stared at the tidy brick buildings. Feigned interest, Barnaby knew, for the hedgerows fencing in the front gardens and the ivy tumbling over the walls of the cottages had neither grown nor been cut back in the hours since they had last traveled this road.

"Cully, was it?" Barnaby asked finally, tightening his hands on the steering wheel. His thoughts on this—situation had been clear from the beginning. Mostly, at least. But which was worse, yes or no?

"Yes—sir," Troy said, leaning forward to peer at a street sign. His gaze was more focused than usual, and his fingers were almost twitching.

"Anything important?"

"Not really." His sergeant fell back into his seat. "She thinks her rehearsal might run long. Wanted me to know, that's all."

"Ah."

No more words passed between them until Woody Pope opened the front door of his home. The pale columns, crisp windows, and well-fed roses running the length of its façade revealed no change in the world, but his face was red and anxious beneath his moustache. "Come in," he muttered, stepping away to give them room, "come in." It was all he managed as he led them into the house, repeating the words so many times they began to sound like nonsense from a child.

"Someone's rattled all of them," Troy whispered, bringing up the end of the column filing through the foyer.

"I'd say so," Barnaby said.

They were the words of a man almost in shock. "Come in," he said again as they entered the sitting room, abandoning them for his wife. Even across the room, she was obviously pale, clutching a glass of water with one hand, her cane with the other. Already sitting on the couch, Clarice looked just as unwell, her body drawn up and tense.

"It was deliberate," Barnaby said as Troy let the door close. "We found three spike holes in the tires." The last of Evelyn Pope's strength vanished and her husband took her arm, helping her sit in the upholstered chair by the fireplace; Barnaby suspected she was trembling. "And with that wall there, well, you were very lucky. We'll put an officer outside the door for you."

"You think they'll try again?" Clarice asked, her voice somehow steady.

"Well, if somebody wanted to get rid of you for whatever reason...didn't succeed, did they?" Barnaby smiled slightly, though he knew such things never comforted. "And yes, yes, they may try again." It was, perhaps, the singular disadvantage of evading a murderer's plan, the fear that it might be attempted once more.

"You think they think I know something."

"Well, do you?"

Clarice's eyes widened. "No!"

"That picture that fell out of the Punch and Judy book," Barnaby said gently, nodding his head, "could I have a look at it, please?"

Clarice hesitated, weaving her fingers together, pressing her hands to her knees. Barnaby wondered if she was about to look at her aunt for guidance. "Does this have something to do with the investigation, Chief Inspector?" Evelyn asked, a little more harshly than he expected.

For a brief moment, Barnaby stood in the wood again, staring up at the sulfur yellow growth on that tree. With its delicately curling edges, it was almost beautiful to his gardener's mind, except where it had been touched by a human hand. "It might."

Slowly and carefully, Clarice stood, her arms clearly shaking. Only sensible, Barnaby thought, after you're almost murdered. She walked around the couch to the table behind it, its back edge pressed flat against the wall. Troy had to step aside for her to open the drawer and pull out the ancient Punch and Judy book. Its binding crackled as she lifted the front cover, slipping out the photograph. As soon as the book was closed again, she replaced it in the drawer, returning to her position on the couch with the same caution as before.

That Troy glanced at her only to move out of her way did not escape Barnaby. At another time, his sergeant's eyes would have raked over her; when the two had first met, he thought they had. Now all Barnaby could believe was that Troy had been staring at the puppet she cradled in her arm, ready for it to spring to life. And even when he had introduced them—something had forced "Gavin Troy" from his mouth rather than the more formal "Sergeant Troy"—there had been no untoward reaction.

God. And now, that same reaction here was clear. Troy was only polite toward Clarice and his face tightened whenever he noticed the disembodied puppet heads on the mantel. It was not fear the puppets, Barnaby saw, but unease. He shook his head for a moment, finally noticing that Clarice stood before him, offering him the picture with a steadier hand.

Taking it and clutching the bottom white strip of the Polaroid, Barnaby examined the image. Yes, it could only be the same fungus. The cut was exactly the same. "How long you had this photograph, Clarice?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "It's one of Gregory's. He used to try to teach me. He'd put the names on the backs so I could sort of use them as—test cards."

Turning it over revealed only a blank patch of white on the slick back. "Well, there's no name on this one."

Her face darkened for a moment as she peered at it. "He normally put a date and location as well." She looked at him again. "He liked to keep a record."

"Why are you so interested in this particular picture, Chief Inspector?" Evelyn asked, grasping the handle of her cane with both hands, more fiercely than before. The wizened knuckles were nearly white.

"I think this photograph was taken at the murder scene," Barnaby said. "Gregory's cleaning brush was found a couple of yards from this tree stump, along with some blood stains. There's a bracket fungus growing on a tree stump. This fungus has been partially cut away." He held it up, turning the image toward her. "It looks identical to this one. Now, I think this photograph was taken very recently."

Neither of the women answered, and Barnaby looked from one to the other. Though always a keen gardener, he had no knowledge of mushrooms apart from the fact that his wife had no more luck cooking them than anything else. But no growth had appeared in the time that elapsed between the taking of the picture and the discovery of Gregory Chambers' cleaning brush. It could only be a few days, then, the same few days since the man had disappeared.

Evelyn did not speak for a moment, pulling her cane toward her body. "What does it mean?"

What does it mean? Barnaby repeated to himself, sure his face betrayed his disbelief. Just as he had immediately felt something off about Suzanna Chambers' behavior after her husband's disappearance, something wrong was clinging to Evelyn Pope and Clarice Opperman. They were hiding something, and probably more than the time when the Polaroid was taken. Drawing himself up, he said, "I didn't notice any suspicious reactions when Mr. Punch mentioned the piece of paper. Did you?"

Again, Evelyn was silent, her eyes focused on the carpet for a few seconds. "Suzanna knew Gregory was having an affair, before he was murdered," she managed finally. "Did you know that?"

"Go on," Barnaby said, the muscles in his shoulders tightening in anticipation.

"The landlady of the Red Horse told me today. Did Suzanna tell you she knew of the affair?"

"Suzanna and Tristan both have alibis."

Her opinion remained unchanged, he saw. "There is such a thing as a false alibi."

Barnaby nodded in spite of himself. "That is true, but that's a lot of lying by a lot of people."

And yet...Suzanna had driven through the wood on her way out of Midsomer Magna; then, Kenneth Gooders had driven through the same wood on his way back to Midsomer Magna; and Tristan and Julia were in a budget meeting. Alibis all around, all with something suddenly ringing false. It was too fortuitous, too coincidental that these four people so well connected to the missing man should either be in the forest at the time of his disappearance or providing one another with that valuable alibi.

He would have to give it more thought later, when his irritation with this quiet deception began to fade. "That officer will be out here within the hour," he said, handing the picture back to Clarice. When it was clutched in her fingers again, she looked down to it with sad and almost tired eyes; she had clearly lost a friend.

"Do you think that will be enough?" Woody asked slowly, his hand pressed heavily on his wife's shoulder.

Barnaby nodded quickly. "The attack earlier today was deliberate, but anonymous. I doubt there's any further danger right now. It's all we can do until we learn more." Clarice released a shaky breath. "If you remember anything else," he went on, "give us a ring."

Evelyn began to stand, but Woody's hand did not move and she did not fight its weight. "Of course, Chief Inspector," she said quietly.

Woody showed them to the front door and the path through the garden silently, only saying "Thank you" when they were outside again, his voice distant. He closed the door rather harder than Barnaby expected, more than a few of the crimson roses shivering. Wanting to shut out the danger, he thought, walking over the grey paving stones and through the path in the hedge to the car, Troy just behind him. "Here," Barnaby said quietly, searching for the car keys in his pocket. After a second, his fingers closed around the metal ring and he held them out to Troy. Despite his lack of faith in his sergeant's driving skills and the consequent fear for his car's safe return to CID, he required time to think.

"Do you think she could be right, sir?" Troy asked once they were on the road, the Popes' grand house lying farther behind them with each revolution of the tires.

"What, that there's some sort of alibi conspiracy?"

Troy shrugged, his gaze moving from the tarmac to the right hand wing mirror. "If you're right, sir, and it's something to do with the hotel, it's got to be one of them."

"Except that they're all accounted for," Barnaby answered quietly.

"All the more reason not to forget Annie and Tyson."

The possibility was growing in his mind. Could Evelyn be right? The news of Tristan's skill with a bow and arrow sparked an intriguing possibility. And those alibis..."On my way to the hairdresser's—I went through the woods...That makes me a suspect, I suppose." Suzanna had not hesitated to tell him that. Then there was Kenneth's unconcerned and arrogant admission to Troy about his own presence there, less than an hour before the funeral. "Oh, I didn't mention it yesterday, but actually, I drove through the forest in the morning. So..."

And what of Julia and Tristan? "Yes. Tristan was with me from ten-thirty 'til about twenty to twelve. We had to cut it short because of the funeral." "I was in the kitchen from...eight 'til about ten-thirty, then I was in the office—had a budget meeting with Julia—and then I went back to change for the funeral."

The alibis for all four were tight—and convenient. If the timing of the murder was so crucial, it was a miracle that each one had been somewhere verifiable. Yet Evelyn's assertion about false alibis..."A lot of lying indeed," Barnaby said as the road passed in a blur, Troy's foot pressed more heavily on the accelerator than his own had been on the way into the village. But none of them had a motive so far as he could ascertain, let alone all four of them. Suzanna gained Gregory's share of the hotel, but they already held a majority interest without it.

"Come again, sir?" Troy's voice broke through his thoughts, and Barnaby looked at him briefly.

"Oh, it's nothing, Troy." He ignored the sudden engagement of the brake pedal. "It's just the more I think about it, the more I'm certain Annie and Tyson aren't involved...But that's it, I think, for the day."

"A nice change of pace," Troy muttered, turning the steering wheel hard and a bit too fast.

"Anything else on, the rest of the day?" Barnaby asked, curling his fingers around the door handle and sinking into the seat. Already, the man's answer was running through his mind.

"Just picking Cully up from rehearsal." Only the slightest pause preceded those words, like he took no notice of them anymore, like this new ritual of giving Cully a lift was unremarkable. "I thought I might try to catch the football, too."

"Hopefully my daughter won't run too late, then," Barnaby said, indigestion flaring briefly.

"Mostly the rehearsals haven't, sir, I think this might be the second—"

"I'm glad to hear that, even if I've seen no evidence of it." Though an actress's hours were no more regular than a policeman's, Barnaby had become habituated to a certain schedule whenever his daughter was working in Causton. The first few weeks of rehearsal it was as though she was working any other job; technical week, she vanished; and when the performances began, her days were so skewed to the afternoon and evening hours, he expected to see almost nothing of her.

That's the ordinary course of events, Barnaby thought, pressing the back of his palm to his mouth as he turned the recent past over in his mind. His hand would do nothing against the bile if it chose to rise, though. This is not ordinary. Not just the time for an innocent ride from the theater, but all of it—and it had ceased to be ordinary a very long time ago.

Troy just shrugged, one hand falling away from the steering wheel when the car came to a halt at an intersection with the first main Causton road. "Well, it's nice to talk about how things went—"

"I'm sure, Troy," Barnaby said, staring at the last of the fields before they were consumed by the county town's sprawl. "I'm sure."