Chapter 75: The Last Turn

Barnaby was unprepared to find himself beside Troy in the car, just clutching the door as they swerved along the road from Setwale Wood to make their way to another rural patch of the still stubbornly agrarian county. Beyond the woman's name—and therefore her husband's name—they had little else, not even a certain cause of death, though finding her face down in the pond didn't leave much doubt. And that was their current task as they circled around the village core, not bothering with the bustle of Midsomer Worthy: delivering the same sort of news they had done time and again, perhaps destroying a life along the way.

"What's a dairy farmer doing in court?" Troy asked, the tires squealing around a bend as he failed to brake soon enough and wrenched the steering wheel around when the car careened a little too close to the bushes and brambles beyond the pavement's edge.

The chief inspector gulped down a breath against his newly rapid pulse. He could always count on Troy to threaten a heart attack with his driving. "Something about that wood, he said. Apparently, the man who owns it—"

"The other man?"

What a delightful way to put it, Barnaby thought, still clenching the door. "Yes, Troy. Mr. Fielding said they've been at each other's throats for years."

"No surprise, that."

"Oh? And you would know that how?"

"Well, they didn't seem to be the best of friends sir," Troy said, another turn surprising him like his mind was elsewhere.

And no prizes for guessing where. Not anymore. "All the more reason to talk to the man before anyone else can get to him."

Troy laughed for a second, for once glancing up to the rear-view mirror as if he hoped to not murder them so close to the end of their journey. "Before he can invent a reason we should let him alone?"

"Before he has time to hear of it and has time to begin thinking of everything differently." His sergeant's mind always went before the facts, not just wondering and considering but choosing and deciding before he knew a thing. Less than when they first met, but still more often than he should.

"So the same thing?"

"Not exactly—" The car swerved again around some small rodent wandering across the road, and Barnaby seized the door again, trying to ignore the new churning in his stomach. "And keep your eyes on the road, for once! No point in missing the last turn! Just there!"

Both of them fell silent as the rougher pavement that led from the rural Midsomer Worthy road to Grange Farm crunched under the tires. If the kennel master—Mr. Fielding—proved to be correct, they had another time to come face to face with Simon Bartlett. Hopefully without punches, this time, he thought, another vehicle's engine growling in the morning sunlight. The drive was narrow, hardly wide enough for a bicycle to ride alongside— Don't, he thought, another vehicle barreling from the opposite direction leaving a spray of dust behind.

Even with the revving of that other engine, Troy still bore down on the accelerator. The jeep in the distance grew closer—faster—and still the young man kept pace. Only at the last minute did he slam his foot on the brake, the tires screeching against the drive as Barnaby clutched at the door, happy to have had merely another near death experience at the hands of Troy's driving. But for the man already slamming his palm against his Land Rover's steering wheel, Barnaby would have shouted at his sergeant for his stupidity.

As they both clamored from the car—Barnaby not bothering to slam his—the sandy-haired man had his face out his open window, shouting. "Move it! Move it now, you idiots!" The vehicle's horn blared again. "Get out of my way!"

"Mr. Bartlett—"

"Do it now or I do it myself!" the man snapped, turning his gaze back to the road, perhaps ready to slam his foot through the floor—

Barnaby reached through the window, catching the keys dangling from the ignition and twisting them forward, silencing the vehicle. "Mr. Bartlett, you may remember me, we met yesterday. I am Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby, this is Detective Sergeant Troy, and I need to talk to you."

Behind the wheel, finally leaning back, Bartlett released a breath, perhaps long held as they approached. "About—what?"

"We are investigating a suspicious death, and she has been tentatively identified as your wife."

His face fell, one of his hands across his mouth, quivering against his skin. "So it is true?"

One of Troy's hand on the top of the Land Rover's door above Barnaby's shoulder, like he was peering at the newly distraught man behind the steering wheel, already studying him. "What do you mean?"

"She left...a note," Bartlett murmured, hardly audible behind his fingers.

"A note?"

"She said..." He gulped, clenching his eyes.

"Do you have it?" Barnaby asked.

"No"—he shook his head, not opening his eyes—"but on my computer—I had an email."

"May we have a look at it?"

"Uh, yes, of course."

Barnaby was more than happy to go separate ways from Troy as they left the office in the barn, abandoning his sergeant to interview Jonas Bloxham, one of the hired hands, while he followed Simon Bartlett into his house. A few quiet questions about his so recently deceased wife unavoidable. When did he last see her? When did he get home? What did his wife mean by "the truth"? A few others asked as gently as possible brought even more to the front of his mind; not all was well in the Bartlett household. With a last thank you, he let himself out the front door, leaving the man in his kitchen, alone with his nascent grief.

Troy had finished his task as well, it appeared, leaning against the driver's door of their car, notebook on the roof as he jotted down a few final notes. Making his way to the passenger side, Barnaby said, "He last saw his wife eight o'clock yesterday morning." From the barn's nearest pen, a cow mooed, catching his gaze. Bloxham, in his stained blue jumpsuit, was head down, scattering what he assumed to be animal feed into a trough at the edge. "What about Bloxham? Was he here all day?"

His notebook already back in his pocket, Troy pulled his door open at the same time as Barnaby. "On and off." The doors snapped closed together. "Last saw Mrs. Bartlett at twelve on his way into the village. She was leaving the Harrington farm."

He last saw his wife yesterday morning, Barnaby thought, the trials of his own small world falling away as he stared through the windscreen. Separate bedrooms. Visiting her husband's closest rival. No, something had been very wrong in this home. "And Bartlett was just about to go into court with this man, Harrington. Not the best time to drop in for a cup of coffee, was it?" Barnaby muttered, his own seat belt latching at the same time as his sergeant's.

A little quieter, Troy added, "Susan Bartlett only ever went to Abbey Farm when her husband 'wasn't around'."

The new roar of the engine as he turned over the starter muffled Barnaby's low sigh. "Do I detect a euphemism?"

"Bloxham reckons they were at it."

At it. "That's better, Troy." Perhaps I shouldn't have asked for clarification, he thought, peering through his open window to Bloxham again. A strange man. "Don't start discussing matters of the flesh with delicacy and discretion." You've never had it before, why start now? Don't tell me why. "I'll never know what you're talking about." The gears grinding as the clutch pedal caught didn't cover up his sergeant's little laugh.

"Well, I suppose I'll have to grow up some time."

"Yes, we all do."

"As long as I don't have to give up…" The car lurched again, like Troy had tightened his hands.

"Yes?"

Troy coughed. "Nothing."

All of us have to grow up, Barnaby repeated to himself, ignoring the bumps and jostles as the car bounced over the drive and under the wooden threshold of Grange Farm. Growing up, no longer a teenager who is sixteen just going on seventeen or a constable hoping for a promotion to sergeant. They had both...changed, he knew. Joyce said as much Sunday night, that Cully was thinking about voice-over work, already with an answer to his surprise as they both remembered how their daughter despised voice-overs. "She wants to be here, she said. Maybe she wants something firm underfoot for once." Maybe— Troy said something else as he took another turn too fast, but Barnaby didn't hear. "Eyes on the road!" he snapped.

And his sergeant...In the high days of summer, he'd first watched with the barest concern—he couldn't banish all of it after everything that had gone on before—his thoughts tinged by amusement rather than...fear? Troy kept more to himself at the office, as though on his best behavior, minding his words more than ever. (Perhaps Troy finding himself the target of Cully's attention had been a benefit for the female sergeants and constables in the office, calming his now occasional verbal indiscretions.) But as the preparations for that blasted play began and wore on for weeks, everything bubbled to the surface, more visible with each passing day. But even through all of that—most especially Troy's sudden awkward and silent protests that nothing had happened—the young man pursued his theory through to the end, through everything. Eyeing the inspector's exam with a hope to take it sooner rather than later? Or merely growing up, no longer just into his twenties ready to leer and utterly unprepared to keep his thoughts to himself, readying himself for something new, for...her? Barnaby couldn't decide which possibility troubled him the most.

As the day wore on, Barnaby struggled not to think about it. Again, he was perfectly content to send Troy off on his own while he quietly spoke to the Fielding children in their front room and struggled to soften his words, asking his sergeant to call the office: inquiring after the postmortem George Bullard was certainly undertaking now, or whether any of Susan Bartlett's clothing had been processed. Anything to keep Troy out of his hair and his mind.

Interviewing James Harrington was another story, Troy peering over his shoulder as the man the man lied through his teeth until everything crashed around him. Perhaps it was better to have another set of eyes peering through Harrington, unwilling to allow him a moment's peace while he dithered and dissembled, finally pinned beneath what they knew and he didn't. And by the time they made their way back to CID—the postmortem still underway, only a few items as yet described by the technicians that whiled away in their white rooms stinking of antiseptic, always waiting to be certain before finalizing their reports.

Throughout the afternoon and the evening crawling up ahead of the night, Barnaby sent Troy this way and that from their corner of the squad room: inquiring again after all the the bits and pieces collected from the wood earlier; asking Bullard yet again whether he had a cause of death; fetching a cup of coffee from the staff room. By the time night thoroughly dawned, black and inky outside, only broken by the harsh lights high above the car park, the first bits of data they desperately needed trickling back, Troy finally snapped he needed a moment before beginning the small stack of paperwork already piling up and disappeared into the corridor, snatching his jacket from the back of his chair.

Barnaby called Joyce in the few minutes he had to himself. "You're normally not this late," she said. "It's gone half eight."

"Unfortunately, George and all his ilk seem to be even more thorough than usual. I shouldn't be too much longer. If he doesn't have any answers for us in the next few minutes, there won't be anything until tomorrow."

"Just don't forget to come home sometime, Tom."

"I will not forget."

Still alone in his corner, Barnaby peered at the page he had ripped from Troy's notebook before they parted ways Grange Farm, a quick transcription of Susan Bartlett's apparent suicide note in his sergeant's neat sharp writing, emailed after Julie and Sean Fielding stumbled across her body in the wood the previous day. "I have to face the truth now. No more pretending. I'd rather be dead than live with it. At least you can start again. Susan"

"'Start again'," he whispered, drumming his fingers on his desk, eyes running over those few short sentences. "Going to her death, thinking of her husband beginning anew." Well, it was really quite odd. But then again, who was in a sensible mind, choosing death over life? No way to know for sure— The shrill ring of his phone brought him back to CID as he lifted the receiver, muttering, "Barnaby."

"You do know if you hadn't sent Troy to the morgue time and again all afternoon, I might have had an answer for you earlier."

"I'm sure." Barnaby shoved the slip of paper away as he stood. If Bullard had an answer, there was no more reason to stay, only new thoughts and possibilities to chase around. "And now?"

"Sometimes things are exactly what they seem to be, Tom, even when you always think they aren't."

"I'm paid to have a suspicious mind, George." Just across the room, there was Troy again, no doubt back from the canteen: a plate in one hand, a mug in the other, this time not bringing the odor of a bonfire with him. And he couldn't blame the man, it had been a lengthy day experiencing the misery of a Midsomer village.

"Well, there's nothing here that you wouldn't expect, finding a body face down in a pond on a Friday morning."

"No doubt about the cause of death is there, or the time?"

"None at all. Drowned—lungs full of water—some time overnight. Ten pm to two am, that time frame, not a mark on her."

So everything still fits together, if not for those children, Barnaby thought, nodding at Troy. "I'll pick the report up tomorrow morning, thank you," he said, dropping the receiver back on the cradle.

"Postmortem?" Troy asked, taking a first sip from his mug.

"Yes," Barnaby said with another nod. "Susan Bartlett definitely drowned, and she drowned sometime between ten pm and two am. There's no sign of any kind of a struggle. The suicide note was emailed at 9:48, so the suicide theory fits perfectly..." He shrugged. "Except for the fact that Julie Fielding saw Susan Bartlett's body lying in Setwale Wood earlier that afternoon."

Troy's eyes narrowed, like he was trying to make sense of it. "If Julie did see the body, it was at least six hours before Mrs. Bartlett died."

Barnaby tossed his suit coat over his shoulders, one of his hands catching at the elbow. "Well, that gives us something to go on, doesn't it?" He pressed the switch on his desk lamp, finding the handle of his briefcase.

Troy was confused, that was plain to see. "Uh, what?"

"Doesn't make any sense at all, does it?" Barnaby said, walking away across the squad room, the last of their fellow constables finishing the same sort of paperwork still awaiting Troy. "'As I was walking up the stair, I met a man who wasn't there.'" Grabbing his fall coat from the rack, Barnaby threw it over his arm, just glancing at him once. "'He wasn't there again today, I wish, I wish he'd stay away.'" Barnaby didn't bother to look back again as he walked out of the squad room into the still crowded hallway. All they would know from the investigation concluded for the day and he was more than content to leave Troy alone with the paperwork—safely at CID—and spend whatever remained of the evening with his wife and perhaps even talk with his daughter as she had said that morning. If she cared to explain anything he didn't already know, that is.

The lobby loomed ahead through the mass of constables and murmured words, more than a few of them stepping aside to allow him to pass, always happy to defer with a few muttering "good night, sir". But he didn't really bother listening, the possibility of finally having a proper answer to the endless question of what was really going on beneath the surface—not merely his own deduction, which fit all of the clues and lingering worries. Perhaps some honesty at last.

By the time he reached the car park and picked his way through the vehicles, the headlights shining in the overhead lights marking where one bonnet started and one ended, it was still niggling in his brain. Start again, start again. Like someone who is looking forward to the future. And to die that way—Bullard had confirmed what they all suspected on first sight—drowned in a shallow pond, no sign of a struggle. Not against another person holding her face beneath the surface, not even against that so human desperation for life. What had Julie said as he sat across from her and her brother this afternoon? "But later, I thought it was like she was asleep, you know..." Her young mind had faded, all the possibilities he and Troy and everyone swirling around them could consider: death and murder.

"At least you can start again." Preparing for death, thinking about the future…He didn't notice himself turning round, darting between the cars again, already at the front entrance to CID, punching his code onto the keypad. Already in those few minutes since he stepped through the door the first time, the lobby was emptier, the hallway sparse, and the squad room quiet, except for...Yes, it was Troy's voice, low and easy and...almost happy. "No, wish I was," he said as Barnaby caught sight of him, still tucked behind the wall. All the awkwardness he was used to seeing in Troy these long days and weeks was gone and forgotten, back in his own world, just Cully and him.

His mobile against the side of his face, Troy's dinner was pushed aside, his suit coat thrown over the back of his chair again as he leaned forward on his desk in just the light of his lamp. "Still can't say," the younger man was muttering, his free arm folded across his chest. "There's a suicide note, apparently, but emailed when she was already in the wood." He stopped, like he was waiting for some answer from Cully—Barnaby had heard no names, hadn't caught the voice at the other end of the line, but he knew. After all these months, he knew.

"Some Midsomer Worthy farmer's wife," Troy went on, now falling back in his chair, stretching that arm up in the air. "Did I tell you, your dad and I had to break up a scuffle with her husband yesterday, after we finished in court, him and some other bloke just outside." Another pause. "I suppose we were a little distracted." And again as he crashed forward again. "Not because we wouldn't have enjoyed it."

"Troy," Barnaby hissed. His keys cut into his palm, something to hold him to the earth, still just outside the squad room peering in from the corridor. If the young man bothered to glance up rather than toy with with the pen between his fingers, he would see his boss—and a father.

"I know that, Cully, but—aren't I allowed to enjoy you?" No, too much. "But I should probably remember where I am—" Yes, you should. "And aren't I allowed to say it?...Not on the phone. And I don't think I'll be able to see you tonight...Maybe tomorrow, if things are sorted—"

Barnaby coughed loudly, not bothering to cover his mouth behind his palm, stepping more heavily than usual into the almost empty squad room, away from the safe bustle and murmurs of of the hallway. The rest of the sergeants and inspectors had faded away, vanishing into a more comfortable night than he knew awaited him. Now, no illusions remained: no Cully to protest and protect this young man, her latest infatuation, no Joyce to remind him to silence his tongue. "Troy."

His sergeant finally looked up, a lazy smile vanishing along with the remaining color on his cheeks, leaving a gaunt pallor as the pen tumbled from his fingers. "Uh, sir—"

Barnaby tossed his coat onto his desk, dropped his briefcase onto the floor with a crash, approaching the young man in the shadows of his own lamp. "Perhaps you would care to—explain some things to me."

A/N: Buckle up, Buttercup. Some characters *cough Sergeant Troy wow, don't know what got caught in my throat there* might be in for a really bumpy ride. I will do my best to get chapters out ASAP, but work continues to be busy and exhausting, and the cat remains valiant in her attempts to be cute. I refuse to sacrifice the minimal quality I have for the sake of speed, but I may tweak this chapter (again, posting before work). But there's your taste of where we may—or may not—be going.