Chapter 36: Heading In Circles

The journey from CID to Malham passed in silence, only broken when Barnaby pointed out a turn Troy almost missed. There was no comment about the screeching of the tires on gravel, merely an aggravated glare Troy saw just out of the corner of his eye. Which was just fine with him; the quiet meant an end to the needling.

Once they entered Malham proper, Barnaby finally began to speak again, at first pointing out yet more turns to get them to the Keyne house. Troy was not about to complain, for his memory of the route was muddled by hunger, lack of sleep, and the headache both had induced. After the third of these turns, the chief inspector said, "Had an interesting call from Liz Keyne last night."

"What about?" Troy asked, peering into the rear-view mirror. Still no one on the road, as so often seemed to be the case in these quiet, haunted villages.

"Their creditors—and the bailiff."

"What about them?"

"Apparently"—Barnaby lifted the photocopies Troy had brought from the squad room—"a couple of them were at the door, just a few days ago."

"Is that even legal, sir?"

"Perhaps. It is their own money they want, after all."

Tapping the indicator, Troy made a sharp right turn from the side road on which they had been driving for the last few miles. "But there are proper ways—"

"And with the bailiff scheduled to show up, they are being employed."

"No need for them to put in an appearance then."

"Sometimes," Barnaby said, tossing the photocopies onto the dashboard as the Keyne house loomed through the windscreen, "one wants to be certain." With the end of the drive nearing, Barnaby added, "Stop here."

Troy returned the car to first gear before turning the key in the ignition; with the quiet hum of the motor no longer playing background to the silence between them, he scrambled through the door as quickly as possible. The fresh air and peaceful quiet of the countryside immediately lessened the tension in his hands and shoulders, the ache in his arm improving with them.

Barnaby led the way, striding to the front door and knocking sharply. Though he followed, Troy remained a few feet back. No one answered the door and even as he shuffled, Barnaby knocked again, louder this time.

"Did you call her at all, sir?"

"No," Barnaby said, turning around briefly, "I did not. No use alerting a potential witness...Or suspect."

"Could she—" Troy stopped, trying to think of the right thing to say as he took a step toward the car. "Could she be with a friend?"

"She could be."

"Should we call—"

He rapped his fist on the door once more. "We can spend a few minutes here to be certain, Troy."

Barnaby's words were still brusque as they had been that morning, and Troy slid his mobile back into his pocket—and glanced to his left. Something—or someone—was shuffling about in the garden: a woman with dark hair and a red shirt, peering at the flowers on one of the many trees surrounding the house. After taking a couple steps toward her, Troy was sure. "Sir!"

As soon as he said that word, Mrs. Keyne turned away from that tree, her thin and pale face peering at them. Even with the ever decreasing distance, Troy knew something was wrong; though she had never struck him as assertive, her frame appeared nearly crushed by some weight he could not understand, and her eyes stared past him, hardly focused. He had nearly reached her when he heard Barnaby beside him, entering the garden in a slow run.

"He's not back," she said.

"Hasn't he contacted you?" Barnaby asked, coming to a halt beside Troy, both of them just a few feet from her as she shook her head.

"Right...Did he take any—any clothes?" Desperation was growing in the chief inspector's voice. "A bag?"

She looked them in the eye, and Troy could come up with no idea as to what was in her mind: worry, anger, grief..."I wanted children." An unexpected harshness bubbled beneath her words. "But he said we still had some fun years left—then it was we had to build up the car business first. Now we're bankrupt—and there won't be any children."

What a strange thing to say. Troy took a step toward her, his own fear increasing as he did, for she spoke with certainty. "Why are you talking about your husband in the past tense, Mrs. Keyne?"

"Because he's dead." She stopped, swallowing hard. "I can feel it."

His eyes widened; the first words she had spoken to them had not been a question, but a statement. "How—do you know any—" He was stumbling over his words, almost ready to take a step away from her.

Barnaby shook his head, and Troy stopped. "I think what Sergeant Troy is trying to ask is, what do you mean?"

"I feel it," she said, stepping forward and nodding emphatically. For a moment, Troy thought her head might work itself loose from her neck.

Barnaby touched a hand to her shoulder, stilling her. "But you've not heard anything from him—from anyone about him, have you?"

Liz Keyne drew a deep breath, like she meant to prepare for a shouting match, only to release it as quickly. "No," she whispered.

"So how can you be sure?" Troy asked quietly.

"I don't know," she went on, shivering as she clasped her arms to her body and pulled away from Barnaby. "But he's dead."

Though it would have been best to continue observing Mrs. Keyne—after all, in the absence of any apparent evidence, she claimed to know her husband was deceased—Troy glanced at Barnaby. The chief inspector's face was tightening, like he saw their case vanishing, carried away by the wind.

"Can we go inside?" Barnaby asked, stepping back to clear a path for the distraught woman.

Though it was another blank stare, she looked at him, then to Troy before saying, "Yes." She took one faltering step, then another, needing a third before she became steady on her feet. "Of course." But even as she entered the parlor, settling herself in a chair after a few moments, Barnaby and Troy stood just outside the door, waiting for her to calm.

"She just knows?" Troy whispered.

Barnaby shrugged his shoulders before tucking his hands in his pockets. "Does that sound strange to you?"

He nodded. "A bit."

"She knows her husband, Troy: what he does, how he does it. And..." As he looked inside at Liz Keyne, Troy did the same: though her chair was facing them, they could not see her face, for she was hunched forward, her eyes trained on the floor. "Her feelings aside, you and I both know she's more likely right today than yesterday."

It was a truth neither of them had spoken aloud the entire morning. Even allowing for Keyne simply running out on his debts—and his wife—every hour lessened the likelihood of his being found alive and well...or at all. "So you really don't think it's possible he's just—gone? Just left it all behind?"

Barnaby chuckled beneath his breath. "Think about where you are, Troy. What has happened in the past few days, here in this small Midsomer town."

"Right..."

"Well come on." Barnaby led the way, hardly making any noise; Troy winced at the sound of his own feet on the paving stones that led to the parlor door, and Mrs. Keyne almost jumped as the silence was broken. The chief inspector simply watched her for a few moments, perhaps waiting for her to begin. As she remained silent, he said quietly, "Mrs. Keyne, if you do know anything, you must tell us."

She was still mute when Troy's mobile rang. Drawing it from his pocket, he took a few steps away before answering it. "Hello?"

"Hello, PC Angel here," the familiar voice at the other end of the line said. "Tried ringing the chief inspector, but...we've—we've had a report of a body, positive identification, too. Adam Keyne."

All hope was gone it seemed, and as Troy stared at the wall before him, it was a struggle to keep his voice steady and ask, "Where?" He began to turn around, wondering if Barnaby would know instantly. Probably.

"An abandoned barn—right middle of nowhere."

"And who—" Troy bit his lip as he began to pace behind Mrs. Keyne's chair, glad of the carpet muffling his shoes. That's more than she needs to know.

"Who found it—the body, you mean?"

"Yes, Angel."

Papers rustled right in his ear and Troy yanked the phone an couple of inches from his face. "Um..." More rustling. "Neighbor of his. Hugo—Balcombe."

"The crazy botanist?" Troy asked, turning as far from Barnaby and Mrs. Keyne as possible.

"Sounds the same, if you say so—"

"Look," Troy said quickly, beginning to walk back to the other side of the room where Barnaby still stood, "we'll be around for the details."

"Right on—" Troy didn't bother to listen to the rest, instead ending the call with a harsh press of his thumb.

"What happened?" Barnaby asked quietly, leaning toward him.

Troy returned his mobile to his pocket, exchanging it for the car keys. "We—we'd best be back to CID, sir." He glanced to Mrs. Keyne, before almost whispering, "Before we go to the scene."

"What happened?" Her question was dull and flat, and both Troy and Barnaby could hardly stand to look at her as she asked, her arms pressed to her abdomen, like she was trying to hold herself together. "Who is it?"

Though Troy had seen more than his fair share of corpses—after all, this was Midsomer—and had read the meager details sent from the scene to CID as a constable gave them a lift, he was unprepared to step into the barn. Hugo Balcombe, unlucky enough to have discovered the body, was almost trembling perched upon a bale of hay outside, like the image was burned into his mind and refusing to fade as his voice began to give out. And when he and Barnaby left him in the hands of the other officers to see the scene for themselves, Troy immediately understood why.

Adam Keyne lay atop a combine of some sort, a threshing blade piercing his skull and nearly splitting it right open down to the middle of his forehead, his limbs thrown every which way like a doll tossed aside by a bored child. The blood that had seeped from the wound was dry, crusted, and black, and despite the foul stench of rot pervading the barn, the flies hovered, awaiting an opportunity for a clandestine feast.

Clad in his disposable white uniform, Bullard was no doubt already familiar with the ins and outs of this crime scene. "Would have died just about instantly," he said, surveying the body one final time before pointing up. "The joists have been sawn through. They left just enough to keep the floor in place, but it would've given way as soon as he stepped onto it."

Barnaby took another hard look at the body before nodding his goodbye to Bullard and heading for the exit. Troy followed eagerly, wanting nothing more than the scent of fresh air; as they passed Balcombe, he was unable to look at him, remembering the pale, horrified man who had met them those few minutes earlier. "Do you think this is connected to Melissa's murder, sir?" he asked, desperate for some thought to turn over in his mind, to push that searing image aside.

"Well, they were friends," Barnaby said, walking slowly from the bales of hay toward the car in which they had come. After a few steps, though, he stopped, turning back to the barn before starting to move again. "Where's the motive? Melissa was killed in revenge for old Neil Axton's death. Why this, what did Adam have to do with that? And what was Adam doing here?" Once more he stopped and turned, like he couldn't make up his mind, Troy thought, or that he just wasn't sure what to think. "Wouldn't be a bad spot, though, would it, for a secret tryst? All that straw..."

"Hmm..." A tryst in the straw? Troy thought. Bloody bad idea...

"What?"

"Personally, I think straw's a bit overrated, sir."

Barnaby was staring at him, not even blinking. "Why?"

"It's prickly." He had only just said it when Troy wished he had not, for Barnaby was peering at him with that—look he had, like the chief inspector could see right into his mind to all the thoughts that could never be revealed. But Barnaby did not say anything, instead taking a step toward the car in which they had arrived. "What if," Troy began, eager to return Barnaby's full attention to the case, "Melissa and Adam were having an affair, and Liz Keyne decided she'd had enough—of the pair of them?"

Barnaby shook his head. "And all that anxiety was what, an act?"

Troy shrugged; they had dealt with many a guilty suspect who had put on a fabulous show of worry and grief. Rather than protest, he simply followed Barnaby to the car, ready to settle into the backseat for the return journey to CID. Barnaby had decided a PC should drive them so they could both take the time to focus on the few clues they had to hand then, meager as they were. To be honest, he'd rather have been driving whilst listening to Barnaby mutter about the case—

"Oh..." Barnaby was standing by the front passenger door, just waiting. Just as Troy did so often at CID, he opened the door for the chief inspector; it was like a last remaining bit of respect for rank, a holdover from those early days as a constable. But the chief inspector did not get in, crossing his arms instead and leaning against the back door, staring at the barn. Thinking, Troy thought, as always. Before he could do anything about it, he felt the ache in his jaw, the pressure ready to force his mouth open in a yawn. And though he was able to transform it into a small one that might not have been observed by many, there was no hiding anything from Barnaby.

"Late night, was it?"

The yawn gone, Troy asked, "Sorry, sir?"

"I've never known you to run so late before."

Troy let the door fall closed, stepping away from the car as the tips of the fingers on his right hand began to twitch. God, he couldn't do this anymore! "Sir, it wasn't hardly gone seven—"

"Even when the worst traffic would make it easy."

"Ah—well—"

"There's one thing I've always been able to count on from you," Barnaby said, waving his hand in the air: "punctuality, even when the cards are down."

Troy released a deep breath before shoving his hands into his pockets. Why bother? "Yes, sir."

"If not other things. You never know when it will turn up, the critical piece, in a case like this. Though you never let the traffic slow you down, do you?"

He almost bit his tongue, trying to stop himself from saying something he would regret. "Not usually, just this—"

"But I thought you said it was an accident."

Did I?

Barnaby was still peering at him, now standing straight and away from the police car. "There's no report of it anywhere at the station..."

"Um..."

"So," Barnaby continued, narrowing his eyes, "a busy night?"

"No, no, sir, I just couldn't get to sleep—then forgot to set the alarm." His fingers were twitching, searching through his pockets. Why am I doing this? he wondered, turning his gaze to the dusty ground littered with gravel and hay. I can't win. "Just slipped my mind," he muttered.

"Well, those things do happen, Troy. Once a while, I hope it doesn't become a pattern."

The rifling continued, though it was just as much his fingers twitching. He needed one like he never had before. After six years, Troy suddenly wanted that burn in his throat and lungs, the gentle relief before the next urge hit with a vengeance. God, he had to have a fag. There weren't any—he knew there weren't—and there wouldn't be any; but even that knowledge was not enough to sate the need.

"Fortunately, you aren't driving," Barnaby said, finally turning around to the car. "You don't need your keys."

Troy felt the filter between his fingers and the warmth against his lips, smelling the grey smoke drifting from the smoldering tip all the while. All that was missing was the burn at the back of his throat, wafting into his lungs with that glorious cloud of nicotine and satisfaction. "I know," he said, swallowing hard. It would pass in a few minutes, this craving; they always had.

Barnaby coughed gently, as though he was clearing his throat. "But I do want to say—thank you."

As he reached for the handle of the back passenger door, Troy looked up. "For what?"

"For all the time you spent—helping Cully."

It was better than an accusation, but what to say Troy wondered, opening his door. He'd already put his foot in his mouth enough to today without her name being mentioned. "Oh—"

"I know she appreciated it. And I truly hope that you—we will all see that—soon."

"It wasn't any trouble."

As the chief inspector began to climb into the front passenger seat, Troy hardly heard what Barnaby said as it was just a whisper: "I know."

I don't think you really understand what she felt, Troy thought, finally slipping into the backseat. You...can't. He was about to begin dwelling on it, too, as he closed the car door—everything he had seen, everything he had done—until he reached for his seat belt. The strap touched that patch of flesh just below his shoulder, and the pain resurged, burning more than ever. "Bloody hell!" he hissed as he shoved the buckle into place. The irritation came not so much from the pain, but the unexpected reappearance. Sports and his work had resigned him to such aches, but not when they were...well, he couldn't come up with a word for it. Nothing about it was sensible.

"Is your arm bothering you that much?"

At the chief inspector's question, Troy looked up from his aching limb to see Barnaby staring at him in the rear view mirror. He shook his head. "No, sir, just off and on." Well, it was true, since the throbbing dulled to a minor ache unless he slammed it into something. As he touched it again, he winced, wishing he had just let it alone.

"Must be a hell of a bruise."

You have no idea, sir.

A/N: Yes, in the book canon, Troy is a smoker, and a thoroughly unapologetic one. I figure that since we never see him smoke in any of the television episodes and this story draws from a mishmash of the two canons, it's fair to characterize him as a former smoker who is just barely able to resist the temptation he feels in times of stress.