ACT VI

"Love is a flattering mischief…a passion,
that carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds move feathers,
and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of what we desire."
—Izaak Walton

Chapter 57: On Course

The drive through the congested streets of urban Causton's morning traffic was much the same as always: dull and winding, a driver here forgetting his indicator, another one there jumping a red light, and far too many slamming their right foot on the brake pedal with little notice. Nothing much on the radio, or at least nothing that concerned him, just the same vacuous noises he expected each morning before he switched it off in annoyance. No new murders he would be briefed on as soon as he arrived, no TDAs, no missing diplomats, and maybe most happily, no new break-ins for the superintendent to complain about. For now, he thought, making the final turn into CID. Who knows about the rest of the week.

Steering his car into an empty space in the car park and twisting the key forward in the ignition to silence the engine, Barnaby released a sigh. Even as a new week loomed, so many questions swirled, demanding to be asked and answered after yesterday. Cully had been out that evening, meeting a friend from school, she said (and after the last days, he was satisfied that for once in the last few months, it was not Troy). And between the two of them, Joyce's words had been the darker, but perhaps unsurprising. He too was unused to their daughter not knowing the words she needed, even more so when her opinions and passions ran high.

He pulled his keys from the starter, scratching at the back of his neck with the largest one for the car, the smaller house keys biting at his skin for a moment. His wife hadn't had that much to say, really, beyond the faintest observations of how quiet Cully really had been. Perhaps she's still coming up with her own thoughts? he wondered, straightening the knot in his tie before entering into the real world. Before she passes them along?

"Well, that wouldn't be surprising," Barnaby muttered, finally finding the door handle and thrusting it open, emerging into the open air, to bustle and bother of Midsomer and all its troubles. He might be the policeman, the words she'd used yesterday as she reminisced about her short conversation with Cully, but maybe, for once, he was the person who did not see the world as it was. Perhaps because he was so used to how it had been? Slamming the door closed, he shook his head; if that was the case, well then, what did that mean for the past months and everything he had seen? No point in worrying about it ahead of a first mug of coffee.

Typing his code into the keypad at CID's entrance—the silly thing beeping sharply and surprising him as it always did—Barnaby finally stepped back into the sometimes bleak world he inhabited five days a week, sometimes more. Here, the shadows often swallowed the light and every moment of kindness kept a close eye for the threat of being smothered by the hideous weight of a dozen conversations all laden with the darkness bubbling beneath Midsomer's pleasant façade.

As always, there were a handful of people milling in reception: constables and uniformed sergeants about to start their days, one or two men or women come in from the streets to report some wrong, and the duty officer waiting to transcribe it all with a dull gaze. To those he didn't know, Barnaby nodded his head and to those he did, he murmured a greeting as he finally achieved the corridor to the squad rooms and his office. Though not, if he was honest, without a brief detour to the staff room, desperate for that initial cup of coffee, even if it was merely CID's finest.

Another handful of his fellow officers were milling in that dingy, ne'er-looked-after converted office, some with styrofoam cups of tea, others clutching those terrible mugs of coffee. He spied Audrey, whom he called out to with a hallo ("Good weekend, Audrey?" "Yes, sir, very nice!") and her partner, that tight-faced inspector with his mop of greasy blond hair whose name he never remembered and whose face he always wanted to scrub clean after washing his mouth out with soap ("Morning..." "Morning, Barnaby. Don't think I've seen Troy about today—" "Well, that wouldn't be too much a surprise.").

The hallway was mostly empty, just a couple constables with their orders returning to reception, nodding as passed with a mumbled, "Sir." As his shoes clicked on the chipped laminate, the morning sun fell in patches, broken by the shadows of the of the windows' frames and beams. With the first sip from his mug, Barnaby shuddered; every Monday, he remembered how truly awful the motor oil CID passed off as coffee really was. Some day, he thought as he turned into the office he shared with Sergeant Troy, I might have to become one of those people toting around those white cups.

The younger man already sat behind his desk, his head bent over a few papers, scribbling in his notebook as he kept his place on a page with his finger. "Good morning, Troy," Barnaby said, passing by on the way to his own desk.

He didn't look up, although his writing slowed. "Morning, sir."

After another drink of his coffee, Barnaby set the ceramic mug behind his pile of folders. He wasn't eager to flip through them again. They were still a horrifying sight to behold, even if, as he had said to Cully yesterday morning, they were still far less raw than the pain of a new death. "Bit early, aren't you?"

Troy finally glanced up. "I just had a few things I wanted a head start on, that's all."

"Oh?" He finally settled into his chair, his gaze fixed on Troy, just watching. Nothing was different than it had been on Friday, at least not to the eyes. Nothing was out of place: not his tie, not a hair, not a thread, not a whit even though his suit coat already hung from the back of his chair. His desk was as always tidy, all the papers neatly stacked and all of his unused pens and markers collected. A place for everything and everything—everyone?— in its place. Nothing at all. But of course, it hadn't been nothing.

"She didn't say what was wrong, Tom," Joyce said as she passed the dish of boiled broccoli to him. Cully was out for the evening, catching up with one of her good friends from her secondary school days, some muttered words about the past years and a coffee.

"What it was about?" he asked.

"Just that she and Gavin had an argument yesterday."

"And—nothing more?"

She shook her head. "Not really. Just something about changes."

Barnaby's eyes narrowed as he took a scoop of the green-grey vegetables. "And the next day, she finally decides to take a chance on leaving Causton for two or three months."

"She wouldn't say much more, but—what was that?" His wife thought for a moment. "She didn't think he wanted to know."

"Odd," he said, handing the flowered dish back. "But she told him she changed her mind?"

"Yes—well, I think so."

"I don't follow."

Joyce shrugged, a better sight than the grey liver on his plate flanked by singed pearl onions and grease leaking from the sauce she'd worked so hard for. "That's the thing, Tom, she said she tried."

"Strange thing to say."

"I know you're the policeman, but maybe there's something you're not seeing."

"Could be," he muttered, launching his first attack on the liver with his knife and fork. "I wouldn't think Cully would have trouble speaking her mind."

"I told you, she really didn't say much at all."

"Friday evening, before..." Troy's voice was lost in the scraping of chair legs on the floor, still jarring even on ancient laminate.

"Yes?" Barnaby asked. The sound dragged him from his memory to his sergeant walking across the small room, his notebook and a few papers in his hand.

"I—"

"Watch that, Troy!" Barnaby snapped, dragging his mug back before the stack of pages landed on top of his coffee. Talks and acts before he thinks.

"Sorry, sir," Troy said, finally set the papers on his desk (did he imagine it, or was the man's hand shaking, just ever so slightly?). They were list after list of reservations from the Causton train station with several highlighted names and a few notes of his own. "I found something interesting."

"Footing for your theory?"

Troy nodded. "I think so."

As Barnaby flipped through the pages the pattern was striking indeed. A few common names were occasionally marked, but one stood out again and again: Huhes, Iain. Page after page offered no other commonality so marked, though one or two didn't contain the man's name.

"He's the only one across all the weekend trains, sir," his sergeant said, leaning forward to peer at the reports along with Barnaby, Troy at last resting his hands on the front of the desk. "Either coming or going, no one else pops up nearly every time."

"What about mid-week?"

Troy shrugged, flipping back a page or two in his small notebook. "That's hardly worth worrying about, sir, coming into Causton. It's not the busiest station."

"Good point." He shuffled the lists back together, tossing them onto his pile of folders. "And very interesting, Troy."

"Thank—"

"And any barrister worth their salt wouldn't give it a second look," Barnaby said, folding his hands together. "Not without something better go on."

The younger man sighed, taking a step back. "Sir—"

"What else?"

Troy glanced down at his notebook again. "I ran his name through the database this morning. A minor caution, nothing else. The printout's on the bottom of those, sir."

This morning? It's not quite nine. "Already?"

His face rose. "Uh—yes, sir?"

Barnaby couldn't quite decide what about those few words sounded so peculiar. Troy typically arrived around the same time he did—occasionally before, there was nothing unusual in that—but already buried in work, enough time to restart his own investigation on a Monday morning? That was. Troy had ambition and the mind to do something with it, but even the most ambitious had a streak of laziness. Barnaby had mostly worked it out of him years ago, though it still put in an appearance once in a blue moon. Though not, perhaps, all those afternoons and evenings reading and collecting Cully after— He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "So no reason for his fingerprints to be on file."*

"And he's young—just twenty-one."

Very good, Troy. "Probably nimble to crawl through a broken window or door, strong enough to cart his prizes away. Very interesting." He reached for his glasses, peering closer at the other marked names. The pattern truly was remarkable. "And, for the next notch in your theory—the thing we've all struggled with—why the gaps?"

"I don't know—yet, sir," Troy said, closing his notebook. "I was just about to start searching his background. See if I can find his school records, family."

Barnaby nodded. Exactly the next steps he would take. "I'd get on it, if I were you. That might take Edwards** off our back, at least for a day or two."

"Right," his sergeant said before turning back to his desk.

"And Troy?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Good work." He didn't miss the small smile on Troy's face as he finally took his place behind his desk again.

Over the next few hours, Troy placed a few phone calls, though the particulars were lost across the din of the other officers muttering about their own cases, then perused the details of the earliest break-ins. In the light of his sharpening theory, Barnaby assumed. He poured over the reports and photographs of the latter cases, the same ones Troy had examined time and again the week before. (Even after all those days, his sergeant still asked to see the first few cases again.) The facts remained familiar—they'd been chasing after the wind and their invisible thief long enough—but some had lost their clarity. And anyway, better to look at pictures of broken windows and chiseled door frames than broken young women, no matter what he had told Cully yesterday. Speaking of Cully…

His gaze rose over the top rim of his glasses again, just peering across the room at Troy. The young man was still focused on those cases, still taking notes, still comparing, still reading. Still apparently unbothered, still working like nothing had happened. Week after week, as Troy took up more and more space in his daughter's life, Barnaby admitted he hadn't always been pleased. Some moments were innocent—almost meaningless—but others...He wouldn't deny they still troubled him, remembering the young sergeant assigned to be his partner: brash, crass, sometimes careless and rude. Perhaps Joyce was the reason his stomach no longer churned at the thought of his daughter out with Troy. After all, he'd found the words to thank the man after spending an evening out with her, even as he glowered inwardly, watching his sergeant about to grasp her hand in...what? Friendship? Affection? Something more? He still hoped not.

But that wasn't it now, Barnaby had to admit that as he returned to his photographs and SOCO reports, grabbing a pen to underline an interesting note before he finished the last of his bitter, cold coffee. It was the contrast that so troubled him: the darkness and uncertainty in his daughter's eyes yesterday, so removed from the deftness and utter sameness in her— No, his sergeant's poise today. Almost indifference. And perhaps that was worse: nothing rather than something.

"Ah, Troy..." he began, peeling off his glasses, looking up again.

Troy took a few seconds to respond, and his words were muffled when he did. "Yes, sir?"

"Did you talk with Cully this weekend?"

He just heard Troy draw a sharp breath of air before he raised his face. "Yes, sir, what of it?"

"Nothing much," Barnaby said, shaking his head. "Just wondering."

"Why, sir?"

Troy's words were quieter, just tinged with the darkness Barnaby remembered from the prior day and everything Cully and Joyce managed to say. "Well, she's finally decided to go to Cambridge for that—play. I thought she might have mentioned it."

Troy nodded. "She did, sir."

"And?"

"What of it, sir?"

Troy was usually not so vague when it came to Cully, Barnaby knew, even if he spoke around everything as best he could, determined to say as little as possible. "I just thought you might have an opinion."

His sergeant was silent for a few seconds, turning his face down to his desk once before speaking. "I—sorry, sir, in the end, I just didn't have very much to say. I don't think it was my..." He took another deep breath, so harsh Barnaby heard it across the room. "Well, it's her life, isn't it?"

Possible, Barnaby thought, replacing his glasses on the tip of his nose and going back to his reports, but not probable. He remembered Troy's reactions each of the last few times Cully left Causton a few months at a time for a play: guarded, but certainly something. At the very least—disappointment.

"Troy," he said after another few minutes.

"Yes, sir?"

"Could you do me a favor?"

"What is it?"

Barnaby held up his empty mug. "Could you get me another cup of coffee, black—"

"No sugar, I do remember—sir," Troy said as he stood, tossing his coat back over his shoulders. And almost immediately, he shoved his hand into one of his trouser pockets he crossed the room, reaching for Barnaby's mug.

"Thank you," he muttered at the man's retreating back. That, at least, was something; Troy usually only snapped at a comment on his driving. Perhaps it wasn't all quite the same after all.

Barnaby returned his attention to the photographs, pulling one or two closer to examine a few smaller details. All he noticed was larger shards of glass and larger patches of crumpled grass where a foot had fallen. After a few minutes, he pulled Troy's printout of his potential suspect from bottom of the pile of papers. Not a lot, to be sure—a name, a birth date, an issue date, notation of issuance for being drunk in public—but enough to begin digging into the young man's past. The clock had ticked through nearly ten minutes before Troy returned, a cup of coffee in either hand, setting the pitch black one on Barnaby's desk before taking a sip of his own milky one. "Took you long enough."

"Sorry, sir," Troy mumbled, returning to his own desk and scraping the chair across the floor as he often did. "Didn't mean to."

"Oh, I'm sure."

Some scent was hanging in the air: familiar, yet odd. Smokey, almost, like when a suspect locked in the interview room lit up a cigarette or three, the closed door locking in the stench as well. "Do you smell that, Troy?" he asked. It was beginning to fade even as it turned stale in his nostrils, nonetheless still acrid.

Troy took a sip from his fresh mug of coffee, somehow not scowling into it as he took back to his paperwork and notes. "Hmm?"

"Smells like a bonfire," Barnaby muttered.

He shook his head and flipped to his next page of reports, not bothering to glance up. "No, can't say I do, sir."

You really are a terrible liar, Troy, he thought, forcing his glasses back up to his eyes. If that comes back in with you after so long just to fetch a couple cups of coffee...I thought you had better judgment than that.

* My attempts at researching UK police procedures indicated that very minor things don't result in you being fingerprinted. I could be wrong, but this is what we're rolling with. I swear, I did research!

** My own lil' character to be the superintendent, referenced way back in Chapter 41.

A/N: No, I never forgot about the policeman part of this, there were just a lot of emotional things to be worked through and/or inflicted.