Free Written in Blood by Caroline Graham Page A

university and, to Troy’s deep satisfaction, had so far been unable to find a job.
    ‘They make me laugh,’ said Troy, with bitter lack of humour. Barnaby sensibly received this out-of-the-blue remark in silence.
    ‘People who don’t reckon the police,’ continued his sergeant, signalling and easing on to a slip road. ‘Catch them being mugged or burgled or losing their bloody car. They start yelling for us then fast enough.’ His grip on the steering wheel tightened till the seams on his gloves looked fit to burst.
    Barnaby only half listened. The inclination to tease out the reason for Troy’s present petulance had proved fleeting. It could be anything, for Gavin was a walking mass of insecurities. He also had an overwhelming need to be admired which, given the public’s current perception of the Force, was in no danger at all of being satisfied.
    The chief inspector was also distracted by a keen gnawing in his stomach, which seemed similarly proportioned now to the inside of Jonah’s whale - his breakfast slice of toast and solitary boiled egg bounced and fell from wall to hungry wall like a solitary sock in a tumble dryer.
    ‘Over there, chief.’
    Troy was crunching around a village green on a surface newly scattered with rough sand. Barnaby could see a Panda, the SOCO van and George Bullard’s blue Viva parked in the driveway of an attractive double-fronted cottage with prettily fretworked shutters. Troy pulled up a few feet away.
    It was very quiet. There was some moody quacking from the ducks slithering about on their frozen pond and a fair amount of bird song, though what the hell they could find to sing about on a day like this Troy could not even begin to comprehend. He took in the immaculate oval of expensive, beautifully maintained houses. In their gardens trees and shrubs glittered with frost in the hard, bright winter light. Only the prominent display of burglar alarms detracted from a Christmas-calendar image of perfection. As they approached Plover’s Rest the footsteps of the two men rang out on the rock-hard road with the clarity of horses’ hooves.
    At the gate a constable was telling a small gathering of people, who were staring at the house in a hopeful and fascinated way, that there was nothing to see and would they please move along. Stretching his arms wide he moved towards them and, broom-like, swept them away a few feet. He had done this more than once and more than once they had drifted back. Soon the barriers would go up and the containment problem would be solved. There was something officially dissuasive about the holey orange plastic. Once it was pegged in, observers, no matter how half-hearted their previous willingness to toe an invisible line, rarely pushed or climbed beyond it.
    A policeman at the cottage door which was standing open, said, ‘Upstairs on the left, sir.’
    Unnecessary information. Barnaby could smell the carnage even in the hall. As he climbed the stairs the scent became stronger and his stomach, already so cruelly maltreated, revolted further in anticipation.
    The small bedroom was full of people. Scenes-of-crime; three men and one woman, their hands and feet encased in polythene. A stills photographer. And the body of a man clad in a towelling robe lying between the bed and the wardrobe. His feet were towards the door, his head, what there was left of it, closer to the overhanging duvet.
    ‘Have we got what did it?’ Barnaby stood on the threshold, neither touching the door nor stepping inside. A heavy candlestick smeared with blood and hair and already bagged and ticketed was held up. ‘Where’s the doc?’
    ‘In the kitchen, chief inspector,’ said the photographer - a young man with curly hair and a bright smile that his calling seemed to have done nothing to diminish. ‘Nice to see the sun for a change.’
    Barnaby no sooner showed his face than George Bullard, sitting with a woman at the table, got up swiftly. He eased Barnaby and Troy back