The next morning, John wakes to the smell of coffee and the sound of his daughter shrieking with laughter. He's tired but not as tired as he might have been. When his alarm went off at 4 am, Sarah rolled over and whispered that she'd get the next shift. It was like having a baby in the house again.
Cinching his bathrobe on, he stumbles into the kitchen for a cup of wake-me-up. Sarah is watching the bacon crisp while whipping up some scrambled eggs. Betty is nowhere to be seen.
Another shriek leads him to the living room, where he finds Jones lying on the carpet, arms up to catch Betty as she springs off the sofa at him. She giggles as he pulls her down into a hug, then scrambles up to jump on him again.
"That can't be good for his head," he murmurs when Sarah comes up behind him and rests her chin on his shoulder.
"I found him in the nursery when I went to do the 6am check," she replied. "He heard her fussing when he got up to go to the bathroom, so he changed her, dressed her, even got the tangles out of her hair. He's been playing with her since. Can we keep him?"
"Concussions can be tricky," John muses. "He probably shouldn't travel for a couple of days." Jones will need to make a statement about Germaine, interview Wade and Butler. John figures he can stretch that out until at least mid-week. "How long until breakfast? I have a phone call to make."
It's early on a bank holiday morning to be calling a Chief Superintendent, but John has known Brighton's division commander since he was a fresh-faced DS and Keith Hicks was his DCI. He doesn't waste time on small talk. "I have something of yours here," he tells DCS Hicks.
"Nice to talk to you as well, John," Hicks replies, affable even at this early hour. "Are you planning on giving him back?"
"Not unless you intend to take better care of him," John replies, serious now. "What were you thinking, sending him under with no lifeline?" It occurs to him that he's been on the other end of this conversation a few times. He understands Tom's calls a little better and likes them even less.
"He had support."
"Where? Brighton? Oxford? London?" John is furious now. If this had happened anywhere other than Midsomer, Jones would have had no one looking for him. He was only tipped off because Sarah and Kam noticed Jones wasn't playing. Germaine would have overcome her scruples, he's sure of it. For Cilla, for her grandson, for another chance.
"He had a local contact."
"Who nearly killed him."
There's a long pause, and John realizes that this is news to Hicks. He knows that Jones reported in, which means Hicks either wasn't on the call, or Jones left some key details out.
"Who was he working for? The Met? NCA? Fraud?"
"You know I can't tell you that," Hicks chides, which only confirms that it was bigger than Brighton. "And you won't be doing him any favours if you start making waves in the wrong places."
"I want him recognized for this, Keith," John says seriously. "He cracked the ring and helped solve two murders at considerable risk to himself." Jones might doubt himself, but John doesn't.
"Is he all right?"
"He was whacked on the head with a cricket bat. Strung up in a storehouse to be beaten to death." He can still see Jones hanging from the turf installer. Germaine poised to swing. He's not sure he'll ever forget that image. "We only got to him in time because we knew to look for him."
Another long pause. "That wasn't in his report."
A coordinated effort then. Just not coordinated enough. "My case, not his. I'm reporting now. Germaine Troughton tried to make him body number three. Was that part of the plan?"
"That couldn't have been anticipated." But as a DCI, Hicks had always looked after his own, and promotion hasn't changed that. "I'll talk to his team leader. About what Jones did and what they didn't do. Tell him he's on leave for a week. Unless the powers that be have other plans, I'll expect him back in Brighton next Monday."
"Thank you, sir." John can be deferential when he needs to as well. He hangs up and calls Winter. "I need a list of all the numbers called from my home phone since yesterday afternoon. You can text them to my mobile."
"Right now?" Winter sounds bleary, and John remembers that it's not quite eight on a holiday morning and they've been working long hours.
"You can finish your lie-in," he says generously. "But don't fob it off on uniform. This is strictly between you and me." And Jones, once he has the information he needs. "And Winter, Mrs. Barnaby would like you to come for dinner this evening. Five o'clock. Bring a bottle."
There's a knock on the door frame, and Jones leans in. "Sarah says to stop poking your nose into my business and come to breakfast before the eggs get cold."
"I don't believe she said that at all," John replies, though it sounds exactly like something his wife would say. She and Jones have always had a distressing tendency to team up against him. "I was merely obeying her wishes and inviting Winter for dinner."
"Of course, sir."
The one thing he can't say he's missed is Jones's ability to make deference sound like insubordination. "Cheeky bugger. For that you can feed Betty."
Jones grins. "That would be my pleasure."
Much to John's amazement, he's as good as his word, coaxing Betty to eat nearly all her scrambled eggs and toast soldiers, with minimal spillage and no flinging of food. He's less thorough with his own plate, however, pushing his eggs around and sticking to toast and a single slice of bacon.
John glances at Sarah, who shakes her head slightly.
"Are you feeling ill, Ben?" she asks, clearly only just restraining herself from reaching over to feel his forehead.
Jones looks up, surprised. "No, I'm fine. I usually don't have much of an appetite in the morning."
John has seen him wolf down a full English and go back for seconds, but he lets it go for the moment.
"Well at least finish your juice," Sarah chides, now on full maternal alert. "I could make you a smoothie, if you'd like."
"I said I'm fine," Jones snaps, and John adds irritability to his mental checklist of concussion symptoms. "I'm sorry," he immediately adds. "I'm still a bit tired. If it's okay, I'll take a quick shower."
"Don't you dare shave your beard," Sarah threatens, but her smile is forced.
John watches him leave. Steady on his feet, but too pale for someone who has been playing cricket in what passes for the English sun for the past two months. "I'll take him to the MIU on the way to the station," he says.
"Oh, John, you're not going to make him work today. It's a holiday and he needs rest."
He knows she's right, but there are things that can't wait another twenty-four hours. "Just long enough to take a statement. And he'll need to get his things from Germaine's, unless you want him to wear his cricket uniform to dinner."
"I can do that. And surely you can take his statement here. Jamie can come over and help." She has an implacable expression on her face that John knows too well to challenge. "Fluorescent lighting and computer screens are the worst possible things for him right now."
He can hear the shower running upstairs and decides the statement can wait. "We'll see how he's feeling this afternoon."
But Sarah is still frowning. "He's not singing," she says. "Ben always sings in the shower."
John has never particularly noticed that before, but now that he thinks about it, he can remember a half dozen times he's heard Jones singing to himself, in the locker room or when he's stayed over. "That's not a sign of brain injury," he says. Quite the opposite, if anything.
"I realize that," Sarah says to him, as if he were a particularly dull student. "But it's a sign of something. He's been another person for two months, isolated from everyone he cares about. That has to take a toll."
John has never been undercover for a significant period of time, and not at all for many years, but he never enjoyed role playing. Jones, though, seems to thrive in a different persona. "I liked being Jack Morris," he said last night, and Barnaby can understand the draw of being someone without ties, with no past, no expectations.
"I talked to Kate last night," Sarah says. "Ben told her he was on a course in Scotland for three months. She hasn't talked to him since he's been gone. Just a text every week or so saying he was fine and learning lots. She tried calling him when you texted her the picture, but of course his phone is broken." She shakes her head. "Don't you ever do that to me."
John can't imagine being away from Sarah and Betty for a weekend, much less cut off for months. It must have been hard for Jones, to be so close to family and friends, but unable to see them. But he also knows that it's easy to lose track of the outside world when you're caught up in a case. And Jones seems to have made new friends in Lower Pampling, which he'll tease him about when things are less raw.
The shower shuts off as he's helping Sarah clear the table and wash the dishes. When Jones hasn't come downstairs after another fifteen minutes have passed, Sarah gives him a pointed look.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm not checking on him."
"What if he got dizzy and fell?"
"Surely we would have heard that," John protests.
"If you won't check on him I will. Which do you think will be more uncomfortable for him?"
"I know what's more uncomfortable for me," John grumbles, but heads upstairs. The bathroom door is open, but the spare bedroom door is closed. He raps on the door. "Do you need a change of clothes?" He can't imagine Jones wants to put on the clothes he was nearly killed in.
There's no answer, and John acknowledges that Sarah was right to be concerned. "Jones?" he calls out a little louder. But there's still no answer. He knocks again. "Ben?"
"Just a second," he finally hears.
Jones is dressed in just joggers with a towel draped over his shoulders. With his hair damp and hanging low on his forehead he looks young and vulnerable. John knows it's an illusion. Jones has never been vulnerable, even tied up and threatened, and he's only young now in relative terms.
But the illusion is enough to cause alarm. "You look knackered," he says. "Head still hurting?"
Jones shrugs. "I'm fine." In John's experience, it means he's anything but.
John leads Jones over to the bed, pushing on his shoulders until he sits down. There's a yellowing bruise on his left side. Too old to be from yesterday, and it looks more like a ball than a bat, but it's another indication that Jones has had a rough time of it. "Even if you can't sleep, try to get some rest. Sarah will get your things from Germaine's. I'll need a statement, but we can do it here before dinner. Winter can come by early."
"Did Sarah lay down the law?" Jones asks with a ghost of a smile.
"She merely reminded me that it's a holiday, a day of rest for all of us." He expects Jones to remind him of the dozens of times he called him out on a Sunday or interrupted his day off, but Jones just nods.
"Tell her not to worry. I'm okay."
"I'll do no such thing. Never get in between a mother and her cubs." Sarah has always been protective of his sergeants, often accusing John of being too hard on them, but she has a particular soft spot for Jones. So does he, if he's being honest with himself.
"When I was thirteen," Jones says, seemingly at random, "I missed a corner and rode my bike into a tree. Cracked my cheekbone, took them an hour to pick the debris out of my mouth. My mum insisted on staying in my room to check on me, but she fell asleep almost immediately, so I kept myself awake and asked myself questions every hour, because I was terrified I'd slip into a coma. Perils of watching too much telly."
"What did your mother say the next morning?" Barnaby asks. He can't imagine sleeping a wink if Betty were hurt.
"She said she must have subconsciously known I was responsible enough to look after myself." He smiles a little sadly at Barnaby's frown. "She wasn't well. She needed to sleep more than I did. Anyway," he pauses and looks down, bright spots of colour on his pale cheeks. "Thank you for checking on me." He lies down, curling on his side away from Barnaby.
It's a dismissal, but John hesitates a moment, watching Jones's back rise and fall. He snaps the light off as he leaves the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him.
Sarah looks expectantly at him when he returns to the kitchen. "You can stand down, mama bear," he teases. "I've put him down for a nap."
"Good," she says. "Rest is the best possible thing for him."
He has to agree. The last day had to have been physically and emotionally traumatic for Jones. He knows what it's like to be strung up, waiting to die. He can't imagine discovering one of the few people he thought he could trust was the one trying to kill him. "I don't know how close we came to losing him," he says, and Sarah reaches out and takes his hand. "If I'd been a minute later…"
His mobile pings before he can follow that thought through and he glances down. Winter has texted through the numbers he requested. He recognizes three of them; it's the final number that interests him. There's no name attached, but it's a Thames Valley number, and he knows he's found Jones's contact.
His phone rings, Winter following up. "I sent the numbers," he says unnecessarily. "Four outgoing calls since yesterday, not including your call to me. One to Elizabeth Tompkins in Midsomer Parva, a landline, seventeen minutes."
"Ben's grandmother." He smiles at Sarah. "Make sure to ask about the latest gossip tonight. She's a font of knowledge, is his gran."
"Next one, ten seconds, to a mobile registered to Dr. Kate Wilding. Long enough to listen to the message but not leave one. And then an incoming call from that number a couple of hours later that lasted nearly fifteen minutes. Is she Jones's doctor?"
"She's a professor. Hold on." He lowers the phone and looks at Sarah. "Did you call Kate or did she call you?"
"She called the landline. Said she'd missed a call while she was at a concert. Why?" Sarah is looking at him suspiciously, clearly divining that he's spying on Jones.
"No reason." Jones must have made the call, though it's odd that he didn't leave a message. He speaks into the phone again. "And the third call?"
"That's the unidentified number, sir." Winter has that smug tone in his voice that tells John he's holding something good. "I did some discreet checking and it's a switchboard for SEROCU. You think that's who Jones was working for?"
"I think they were coordinating the overall operation, but he was also reporting to his DCS. That's the last call, by the way." He doesn't know what he's going to do with this information yet, but it's good to have in his back pocket. "Sarah has forbidden me from bringing Jones into the station to make a statement today, so I'll need you to come by a little earlier this afternoon. Sharpen up your steno skills."
"Yes, sir. How is Inspector Jones today?" For someone so deeply suspicious of Jones - or rather Jack Morris - at first, Winter seems to have warmed to his predecessor's predecessor.
"Feeling the effects of the concussion. Brighton is letting us have him for the next week to wrap things up, so unlike you, he's enjoying a day of rest."
"By the way," Winter says. "There was a message from Cilla Troughton at the station. She's bringing some things by for her mother and can drop off Jones's bag as well. I'll swing by and bring them over with me."
"Perfect," John proclaims. "That will save Sarah a trip. Good work, Winter. Why don't you come by around three? Jones should be up to an interview after a morning's rest." He hangs up and looks smugly at Sarah. "Winter will bring Ben's things over when he comes to take his statement. Satisfied?"
"Absolutely," she replies. "Though not that you're checking up on Ben."
"For his own good," he protests. "I can't protect him from the bureaucratic wolves if I don't know what species I'm dealing with. You know they're likely to take all the credit and off-load any of the blame."
"Now who needs to stand down, papa bear?" she teases and kisses his cheek. "I'm glad he talked to his gran."
John loves Jones's stories about his grandmother, who seems to know everybody and everything in Midsomer county. But he realizes he can't remember Jones talking about his parents. "Has he ever mentioned his mother to you?"
"Just that she died when he was young and he was sent back to Wales to live with his father's family for awhile. I wanted to know why he has that lovely lilt if he was brought up in Midsomer. Why? Did he say something to you?"
John tells her what Jones said and her face crumples in sympathy. "Oh, Ben," she says. "No wonder he has such a hard time asking for help."
John starts to argue, but then he remembers what Tom told him all those years ago, and Jones's stubborn insistence that he could look after himself when Grady Felton was picking off his list. He wonders how hard it was for Jones to walk into the station and ask for their help, whether it was easier because he was asking from a position of authority not supplication.
"Don't try that psychology on Jones," he warns. "We need him to trust one of us."
Sarah ignores him. "I wonder why he didn't leave a message for Kate," she says.
"That's men for you. Useless communicators." But it worries him as well. Something is not right with Ben Jones, and it's more than just a concussion.
