Chapter 49: In the Headlights

A mist wafted from the lake, swirling in the breeze as Troy and Barnaby made their way along the bumpy path, descending the grade into a small valley enclosing the small lake. Just follow Barnaby, Troy thought, his eyes picking apart the trail and not looking at how far above level ground they remained. Gravel gave way to dirt, then mud and twigs, all sheltered beneath leaves and branches and a grey early morning sky. The leaves and withered sticks crunched beneath Troy's shoes as he fell in step behind the chief inspector, humidity creeping beneath his overcoat despite the cool air. "It would be the perfect place to hide a body," he said, biting back a yawn. If he kept his eyes trained on the ground, he didn't have to think about it.

"Quite." Barnaby stepped over a root as the path toward the lake suddenly dropped a foot or so, like a giant had bitten away a chunk of the slope. "If it weren't for the boys being a little too enthusiastic in their swimming, he might have been down there for years."

Troy's shoe slipped on the mud as he followed the older man, though he kept his balance as his hands rose a few inches despite his heart pounding for a moment. "That's one part of the mystery solved then, sir."

"How so, Troy?"

"Assuming SOCO's right, calling him Archie Bellingham, now we know he's dead." He pushed a branch laden with straggly leaves from his face, and as stepped away from it, it snapped back with a crack in his ears, the fog lifting from his mind.

Barnaby sighed, wearing a frown as he glanced over his shoulder. "It only creates more questions."

"Why kill him, you mean?"

"Exactly," Barnaby said, turning back toward the path and the lake as he continued forward, bushes and shrubs rustling against him. "Then when, and where—"

"And how—I know," Troy said, rolling his eyes as mud squelched under his shoes. Disgusting sound.

"Have some faith: Bullard will tell us how."

Troy bit his lower lip, not wanting the chief inspector to hear his annoyance. If he can tell us how, he can probably answer everything else, too. "You said that conspiracy nutter was going on about him, the school, and the Pudding Club," he said after a moment, the water peeking through the trees. Voices trickled up, though the words were muffled by forest. He heard a faint beeping as well; perhaps the ambulance destined to remove Bellingham's corpse had found a safer way down than this slippery, dirty footpath. Probably took longer. When Barnaby was determined and ready to be somewhere, the safer path was not always the choice he opted for.

"Yes...He said there was a struggle for control of the Pudding Club, that Daniel and Bellingham were victims of the struggle." Barnaby laughed quietly, ducking around a low hanging branch as others scratched at his coat. "Dudley Carew is looking a little less nutty by the minute. "

Troy rolled his eyes. "That would be saying something, sir."

Barnaby didn't look back, but he spoke louder when he began again. "So, we have Daniel Talbot, still at school—Dudley Carew, a pupil years ago—Archie Bellingham—an alumnus*."

"Alum-what?"

"The one thing they all have in common is Devington School. Not the village, where—Talbot would rather us look. Just the school."

"Well, apart from being dead, sir," Troy added, taking another large step over a few stones, trying to ignore a drop of rain on his face. Dew falling from the leaves, he hoped, not an autumn deluge. God, it would be a mess, struggling back up this hill in sodden dirt. Might be able to catch a lift if anything mobile made it down this way.

"That was a given," Barnaby said, though his voice drifted into silence. "It's almost a shame Carew wasn't a member of the Pudding Club. That would really have given us something go on."

"Maybe he was. Maybe that's what got his head wrapped around all those theories in the first place."

Barnaby shook his head. "No, I doubt that. 'The picture is incomplete', that's what he said. If he had been a member, even briefly, he would have known more, could have told us more. Though maybe not everything, especially after we put his back up." The chief inspector chuckled for a second.

"We?" Troy scowled as he scrubbed at his hands. His palms were clammy, the humidity settling into the lines of his skin and the crevices between his fingers, the dampness mixing with a few drops of sweat. Despite the early hour—and the season, just a week or so into autumn—his shirt and suit coat were now too much beneath the lined coat he had donned in the hurry to his car that morning. The deepest layers were soaked and sticky, seeping into those overtop.

Even with Barnaby's phone call as sunrise was finally overtaking the smoky grey of dawn, Troy had at first struggled to rouse himself. He had dreamt something, and as he woke it slipped from his grasp like a will-o'-the-wisp. But what? Those faintest hints: they weren't delicate, but somehow fragile instead. Strong and indomitable, and still ready to shatter if he held it wrong. He had ached as he sat up, cringing as his back cracked, and whatever he had seen during sleep faded into nothingness. Broken, cautious, restive...disappointed?...

"...certainly liked to talk about his theories, if he was willing to contribute articles on them."

Troy shook his head, struggling to stay here, not run back to the evening and night before, back to his daydreams and the memories his mind had shunted into darkness. "Seems like he knew a lot about it, everything else aside. Maybe he just didn't want to admit to being a part of it."

"Knowing, Troy, does not necessarily mean belonging. There's no way we'll ever be certain, really, when no one will give us the time of day about the blasted club."

"But knowing might be enough."

"Oh really?"

The lake rose into view, the water rippling as divers in plastic wet suits and forensic investigators with their nets broke through its glassy surface. Farther from the shore, rings spread out, vanishing only when they crashed together, probably raindrops shattering the placid water. "We keep hearing rumors that Daniel wanted to leave the club, which isn't done," Troy added. "He talked to Carew, and a lot more than once. That looney knew a lot more than your typical outsider—"

"And the last time I spoke to him, Troy," Barnaby interrupted, shaking his head, "he had just come back from a meeting of the Flat Earth Society."

He almost tripped over the tip of his foot as a stone rolled beneath his shoe. "The flat earth...?"

"They are still around, mixing with the Royal Family and Lee Harvey Oswald set."

"Barking mad, was he?"

"I never said he wasn't mad, just a little nearer to sane than we previously thought," Barnaby said, pushing aside another low hanging branch. Troy caught it with his hand before it smacked back into his face. "But whether he knew anything else or was just speculating..." The chief inspector shrugged his shoulders as they neared the muddy edge of the lake, the murmurs of dozens of technicians and constables growing louder and louder. "Until we can verify anything, nothing he told us should be taken as the truth." Barnaby turned his head, looking from one end of the muddy bank to the other. "He sounded certain Bellingham was dead, though, not just missing. At least we can know he was right about something."

"At least we're on flat ground again," Troy muttered, suddenly feeling how his heart had been racing. Surprising Barnaby hadn't heard the throbs. Off to the left, just at the edge of his vision, a black tarp lay over...something, bumps and lumps underneath. Has to be the body, he thought, a rank aroma rising through his nostrils. Been missing for how long? Dead for…probably as long.

"The divers haven't found it yet, but they reckon he was weighed down with something," Barnaby continued, taking a few more steps toward the tarp. "Only thing that makes sense. And he still has a rope wrapped around his chest apparently."

"So the weight came off in the water?"

"Must have. Maybe it was attached with another rope that got loose. And the body was probably tangled in or around something, just enough to hold him—"

"Until the boys disturbed it," Troy finished, peering at the form underneath the dark plastic. He hadn't been so anxious to view a body in the field for years; Midsomer provided more than enough of them that Troy didn't bat an eye any longer after so long. But this time...He coughed, trying to rid his mouth of the smell.

"Everything all right, Troy?" Barnaby asked, eyes narrowing as he looked back.

"Of—of course, sir." He cleared his throat. "So he's been in the water since he...disappeared, you think?"

"Seems right." Barnaby bent down, shifting the covering; the grey fingertips and blackened nails peeked out. "It's not cold enough to stop the decay, just slow it down. So he's released from—whatever, and the gases force him to the surface." Clutching those fingers, he tugged the entire arm out, the black fabric of the dead man's coat frayed and leaden. "Fulmer said the body almost shot out of the water."

The smell was already churning in his throat when Troy heard his mobile ring, vibrating in his jacket pocket as it did. He pulled it out, taking a few paces away from the body and the scent of decay. "Troy—"

"You were the one who waylaid my students last night?" Not you, Troy thought. After the last few days—and particularly now, his mind still foggy from a bad night's sleep—he was not in the mood to hear Headmaster Eckersley-Hyde's voice.

"If you mean we found them at the Chalk and Gown, yes, Mr. Eckersley-Hyde." He turned away from the chief inspector, walking farther from his boss and...he swallowed a gag. How was it already coating his mouth?

"Ah."

"We'll be round to talk to Marcus Heywood and Charlie Meynell later in the morning—" Troy began, but the headmaster interrupted him.

"Meynell has something to tell you. Now."

"It'll be best if he tells us in person, sir—"

"Meynell!" the headmaster shouted, the sound sharp in Troy's ear. After the previous evening and the short sleep he had managed, the beginning of a headache throbbed beneath his skull, dull and deep. Something about this case prickled under his skin, the young men with their white hats and tails, forbidden to even walk on the bloody grass unless they had a stupid set of cuff links, looking down their poncy little noses at everyone in servitude to their lives and higher ideals.**

He glanced over his shoulder, still listening to the fumbling on the other end of the line. Barnaby was standing again with one of the technicians, peering down at what was probably a diagram, or some notes about the body rotting on the dirt and lichens, pointing and asking questions, the sort he often wanted to put forth before his boss shut him down.

"Sir?" It was a new voice, quieter than the headmaster's. Charlie Meynell, he remembered.

"Yes?" Troy asked, turning back as he remembered the call. The smell coming from the body had followed him, the rank aroma rising. It clung to his skin, like the growing sunlight and warmer air peeled the odor from the dead man's skin, pulling him back to the lake and new crime scene.

"It's about Heywood, sir," the boy said.

"What about him?"

"Well, he wasn't in his room this morning."

"What?" He almost shouted the word into his phone, walking farther from the forensics team and constables, though a few of them glanced in his direction. "Well, did he tell you anything about where he's gone? Last night?"

"No, that's—that's all I know—"

Troy pressed a hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was only getting worse, no matter how far he strayed from the corpse. "You had to interrupt for that?"

"But no one knows where he is, sir."

"So he's just vanished?" Troy snarled, with silence the only response from the other end of the line. "You've no idea where he's gone?"

"No, sir," Meynell said quietly.

A hiss of breath escaped Troy's mouth as his hand dropped from his face. God, he was ready to forget this blasted school and its pampered students. "Well, if you can come up with one in the next couple of hours, that would be great." He snapped his phone shut, not giving Meynell a moment to answer. It'll just be another excuse, he thought, slipping his mobile back into his suit coat's pocket.

But as he returned to the chief inspector and the body...well, maybe he should have lingered on the phone. Barnaby was crouching by the body once more, peering at the hand and arm peeking from beneath the plastic. The skin was grey and loose, his white shirt smeared with mud. Algae lay in strings on the sleeves of his suit, just visible against the dark cloth. "Anything important?" Barnaby asked, turning his head, like he was trying to catch a glimpse of the dead man's wrist beneath his shirt and coat.

"A bit," Troy said flatly, drawing his next breath through his mouth. "The water's done a number on him." Barnaby shoved the dead man's arm forward, pushing on it through the cloth, and Troy noticed a few round marks on the fleshy bits of the hand, green and grey, black muscle and blood just bare beneath the skin. His stomach jerked, and he tasted a hint of bile. "Sir—"

"Probably not just the water." Barnaby waved him forward, and Troy shuffled through the dirt and leaves, slow as he could.

"You really think it is him, sir, Bellingham?"

"No reason not to. SOCO's usually up to the task of analyzing a crime scene and identifying the victim."

"But why kill him? Daniel Talbot—Carew—this bloke...There's the school to link them together, that's all—just like you said. Even I'm not upset enough about Causton Comprehensive to kill."

"If everything was that obvious, we'd be out of a job, Troy." Barnaby reached out, almost touching the dead man's hand, then stopped, his eyes narrowing. "That'd be enough for him to turn it into something demonic, wouldn't it?"

"What do you mean, sir?" Troy asked, crouching beside the chief inspector. It was only growing stronger, still gathering in his nostrils.

"Carew and his conspiracies." Barnaby touched the drenched sleeve, gently lifting the shining silver at its edge. "Look, Pudding Club cuff-links." As Barnaby pulled up the black sheet of plastic, the stench crashed over Troy like a wave. The man's face was grotesque, ashen flesh swollen over his cheekbones and the lips bloated. More algae clung to his eyebrows, nose, and ears; between the green-black patches, putrid bare muscle gaped where fish had gnawed on the skin. And the eyes—

Troy's stomach roiled, and acid rose in the back of his throat. The smell was like a fog clinging to them, and as he drew each new breath through his mouth rather than his nose, he tasted it instead, rotten and crawling with death. "So that's the missing diplomat, is it?" he said, the words just pulling in more of the vile air. Troy covered his mouth with a palm, retching as he did; he was inured to the coppery scent of blood but this was beyond anything he had experienced.

"Yeah," Barnaby said, still looking at the dead man like he was just examining one of Bullard's photographs after the body on the slab was long ago washed and cleaned. "Must have been dead over a week. Look, he's taken a massive blow to the head, similar to Dudley Carew."

Troy dropped his hand from his face, nearly embarrassed. The sight might be tolerable, but the smell...He needed to press it back against his nose, trying to close his nostrils as he held his breath. God, it was repulsive, growing stronger every second, the sour bile coating his tongue before he swallowed.

He couldn't do it, rising to his feet—walking away. "Ugh..." The body still stuck in his mind, the man's eyes punctured and broken—no doubt by even more fish—and all the flesh hanging, ready to slide away expose the black, decaying muscle and bone underneath. His head spun for a second as the blood rushed away, mixing with the exhaustion still fogging up his brain.

"...all right, Troy?"

He turned back to Barnaby as the man stood, following him. "Uh, yeah," Troy said, still breathing through his mouth. "I've just been talking to Charlie Meynell," he added, his thoughts at last drifting from their newest victim of Devington School. "Apparently, Marcus Heywood's gone missing."

"I think I know where to start looking for young Marcus." Barnaby began to walk away toward a muddy path on the other side of the small valley and Troy followed, his shoes slipping a bit on one or two more of the damp stones beneath the dirt. "Was that your call, just now?"

"Yes." His voice still sounded hollow even in his own head. "The headmaster had him in his office." He coughed against the back of his hand, still tasting the acid in his throat. "Not that he had much to say."

Barnaby stopped, turning around and tucking his hands in his coat pockets. "Are you sure you're all right?" he asked quietly.

"Yes, sir." He chanced a deep breath beneath the cover of the trees, the lake and its carnage falling away. It all just smelled of the damp, now: damp leaves, again, and moss. "I just wasn't—expecting that..."

"It happens to the best of us, Troy. If you throw a man in to sleep with the fishes, they'll eventually remember why their brethren ended up on his plate."

"Bit of revenge, is it?" The sunlight was patchy again, filtering down through the forest cover, the already chill morning turning cooler despite the warmth earlier. Troy tugged his jacket closer around his neck, the thicker lining around the collar slightly rougher against his skin.

"Perhaps. And revenge is still a dish best served cold."

"Didn't realize we were going to Russia, sir." He took one more intense breath, the decay finally dissipating from his nose and throat.

"It's French, I think. Watch your step, Troy: looks like there's a few more steep patches, this side."

"No good way out, is there?" he asked, the toe of his right shoe nicking at a thickened tree root protruding from the earth.

"That is true of very many things."

Thursday continued as a bit of a whirlwind: finding their missing student and witness, opening a secret room to an unexpected treasure worthy of a mystery series on BBC One, stopping a pompous bastard from being beaten to death with a rather enormous silver spoon. Troy wasn't sure he would believe it a month's time, the story was so outrageous. Late that evening when he finally arrived home, he wondered if he should mention it to his cousin, that something about his job was more interesting and exciting than sitting in front of a computer tapping away numbers and code. In the end, Troy passed the last few minutes of his night on the phone with Cully, worrying neither about the case nor his cousin.

Friday morning, Troy and Barnaby watched as constables removed gold statues, bronze figurines, ivory carvings, treasures from around the world, ready to transport them to CID to bag, tag, and catalog them. They handled them warily, though their care was perhaps not up to the standards of a museum curator. "Do you think they'll ever find where they belong, sir?" Troy asked as one artifact after another loaded into the police van that now sat in the Devington School quad.

"Hard to say." Barnaby's gaze followed the cautious parade of priceless items they might never see again so close, gleaming beneath the sun before they were tucked into the back of the police van. Several young boys crossing the quad—their feet firmly on the pathway, not the grass—glanced their way, a few bouncing up on their toes for a clearer view. "Charlie Meynell was right."

"What about, sir?" Troy asked, tucking his hands in his pockets. His fingers felt dirty—caked in grease—watching this transport of stolen goods, thinking about it. No matter what it went to, the theft was still a crime—even for scholarships and books.

"About the Pudding Club. He said they were like kids in a gang," Barnaby went on. "In the end, it wasn't about money. It was about who was in—who was out—who was the leader—who was top dog."

Troy lifted his face, his eyes darting around the stone archway. Beautiful places for people who think they deserve them. "School," he murmured, shaking his head. "Supposed to be the happiest days of your life aren't they, sir?"

"That's what they say, Troy."

He let out a breath, his eyes dropping to the pavement. "I never did get that." What was school, just another place where the toffs and selfish gits walked all over you, like they and their parents did everywhere else, gazing down at you rather as a wretched insect under a heel. And the teachers, the admins, even the custodians—stamping a foot in your face, smashing you down like they knew who you were, where you came from, what you were meant to be. To keep you where you were meant to be.

Troy took a few hurried steps behind Barnaby, trying to be here and now, not there and then. The chief inspector paused after a moment, peering at the sign hammered into the green: KEEP OFF THE GRASS. He glanced back, a small smirk spreading over his face, and Troy knew what he was thinking. "Shall we?" As each footstep crushed the pristine blades, he resisted the temptation to grind his heel in the earth, to finally leave his own mark on Devington School. On any school, really, to finally walk over something, not be trampled underfoot instead.

Back at the office, morning bled into afternoon, Troy and Barnaby at the grind alongside the uniformed constables. As exquisite as each antique removed from the hulking remnant of the nineteenth century was, after cataloging the first dozen, they somehow became The Same; Troy caught himself scribbling details of an ancient bronze god from...where on earth he could say it was, rather than a gold carving. Details for the museum blokes, he thought, his eyes rising to the clock set high on the dingy wall of the squad room. Whenever he glanced up, worried about how many hours they'd already spent crouched over their desks, those handed marched forward faster and faster like a reminder: don't be late. And when the anticipation churned stronger...the hands ceased to move. Second by second time was a debt to pay, like all the clock meant to do was tease. And torment.

After a few hours, the clock well past four, Troy leaned back in his chair, his back cracking as he fastened his hands behind his neck. You wouldn't think it'd need so long to write about some old bits from all over the world. His head spun, almost like one of the afternoons long ago his mum had dragged him to the British Museum, part of a weekend trip to London. Egyptian funeral masks, Italian paintings, all that nonsense instead of the local football match. As he dropped his head back, he said, "God. How'd they get all of this?"

Across the room, Barnaby looked rather the same: weary though he had one foot up on his desk. Bored, Troy supposed, not exhausted. "Mr. Carew was right again, it looks like. Diplomatic bags, diplomatic passports..."

"Maybe it's time to stop that."

Barnaby shook his head. "You haven't studied much history have you, Troy?"

He let his chair forward, one of his shoes clunking harder against the floor than he meant. "Well, if it doesn't work the way it's supposed to, sir..."

"Doesn't undo the need for it. There's a reason embassies are part of their home countries' soil."

"If you say so," Troy said, trying to keep his eyes' next flash at the clock a short one—maybe it was time to start just looking at his watch—

"Do you have somewhere you need to be?"

Troy's heart beat faster for a moment, and his fingers twitched behind his head. "Sorry?" He refused to even let them drop round his neck.

Barnaby nodded his head toward the clock. "You've hardly let your eyes off the clock for the past couple hours."

"Nothing much," Troy muttered. "I mean..." "You're never going to try and forget it, are you?" Her voice cut through his head, and one of Troy's elbows slipped from his chair back. Over the last couple days, he'd drifted to her words on Sunday. He could not quite forget her face, that evening: not upset—not even frustrated—more...disappointed. "I didn't ask if you will, I asked if you'll try."

"Yes?"

"I...Just..." Troy swallowed, both of his arms falling away from his neck as he sat straight in his chair. Not really the time for a casual lean, was it? "I felt bad, not seeing Cully for so long. I mean—after helping her with...that play for all that time." He clenched a hand as Barnaby's foot slipped from his desk. "Asked her if she wanted to go to the cinema this evening, that's all."

The older man leaned forward, folding his hands on his desk. "Oh?"

"Just...might find something similar...together." The blood rushed to his face, a gentle flush ahead of full on redness. "Something theatrical. Don't want to be late. I've already—" Don't, he thought, chewing his lip. What, you want to tell her father you've already messed up a lot? Or how many times you've already slept with her—and how many times almost—and not regretted it at all? Good way to die.

"Yes?"

Troy reached for the last form he had been working on, adding a few more notes with rather more pen pressure than he knew he needed. "Just...I don't want to be late."

"I hope she isn't either." Troy didn't bother asking what the chief inspector really meant: "I hope she isn't home too late." No worries, sir, I like my neck intact...as much as I like your daughter.

* A lot of people in my experience don't know about alumnus vs. alumna vs. alumni, so I'm assuming Troy doesn't. Throughout their interactions, Barnaby always seems to have a better vocabulary, so I'm working with that here.

** The books elucidate more than the first series how much Troy has problems with rich/privileged people, so just trying to extrapolate from that.