It was about an hour and a half later. Sasha was mingling among the grazing mourners as though nothing at all had happened. Rod was pouring wine on troubled waters, and Troy was looking sceptically at what he held to be a bunch of lunatics, and wondering if, perhaps, he had not been found under a gooseberry bush, when Rod’s daughter Nattie came to tell him there was a policeman at the door.
‘One of mine?’
‘No – old Trubshawe from the village.’
‘And he’s asking for me?’
‘He’s asking for the guv’ner, whoever that might be.’
‘Fine. Show him into my study. Then find Sasha, get her upstairs and keep her there.’
Troy gathered up Rod and brother-in-law Lawrence. ‘I want the two of you there. But say nothing unless I give you the nod. This is copper stuff and I suggest you let me handle it.’
Neither argued. When Constable Trubshawe was shown into Troy’s study, the three of them had arranged themselves like actors blocking out the set in a third-rate West End drawing-room drama, the fireplace, the desk, the french windows. Troy thought they all looked like suspects in Cluedo. All they needed was the lead piping or the dagger. Trubshawe clutched his helmet, that monstrous, absurd symbol of his authority, in one hand and shook Troy’s hand with the other. Troy had known Frank Trubshawe most of his life. He’d come to the village as a constable – indeed, he was still a constable – when Troy was in his teens. All the same it was not a time to use his Christian name.
‘Good of you to call so soon, Mr Trubshawe. You know Rod, of course, and my brother-in-law, Lawrence Stafford.’
‘Mr Rod, Mr Stafford,’ Trubshawe said, with the hint of deference he could never quite lose after twenty-seven years as a village bobby. He sat on the edge of a chair, the helmet at his feet, his notebook out and flipped open.
‘I gather there was a funeral this mornin’, a member of your family, I’m told, sir.’
‘We buried my sister’s husband. Viscount Darbishire,’ said Troy.
‘I have had reports of the discharge of a firearm.’
‘Really? From whom?’
‘The vicar, sir. Canon Chasuble. Very distressed, he was.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Oddly enough, no, sir. The gravediggers say they heard nothing, and I’ve not yet had occasion to talk to any of the mourners.’
‘They’re all here.’
‘I’m sure they are, sir.’
The remark seemed almost dismissive, a conclusion foregone.
‘However the Reverend Mr Chasuble can hardly be dismissed lightly, so if you’d care to tell me what happened . . .’
Trubshawe’s appearance was misleading, fat, fiftyish, red-faced, bald, but nobody’s fool.
‘My sister did fire a gun, yes. She was hysterical with grief. But I cannot see that any law was broken.’
‘Discharge of a firearm in a public place, sir. You know the Act as well as I do. Indeed, I should think you could quote me the relevant sub-paragraph.’
‘A public place?’
‘The cemetery.’
‘The cemetery is not public, it’s private – it is the fiefdom of the Lord of the Manor and merely loaned to the Church.’
Trubshawe mused on this, but seemed undeterred. ‘And who might the Lord of the Manor be, if you don’t mind my askin?’
‘Well,’ said Troy, ‘It was my father … so I suppose it is now one of us – Rod, as the eldest son, or me, as the owner of Mimram. It’s not a conversation we’ve ever had.’
‘Indeed, sir. And I am informed at least one shot was aimed at the coffin.’
Troy said nothing.
‘Which might be termed “mutilation of a cadaver”, which, as I’m sure you know, sir, is illegal under the 1716 Act and again under the revisions of 1868.’
‘We’ll never know,’ said Troy.
‘How do you reckon that, sir?’
‘Well, the body is now under several feet of earth. We cannot simply dig it up and look. That would require an exhumation order from either a judge or a coroner, and I do find myself wondering if, without any further corroborating evidence, we should pursue the matter to that extent.’
‘Further corroborating evidence?’
‘Quite,’ said Troy. ‘Unless you care to talk to my entire family, who are, almost needless to say, in mourning . . . you know, grief, shock . . . all that sort of thing.’
Trubshawe flipped his notebook shut without a word written. Looked from Troy to Rod and from Rod to Lawerence. Nobody spoke. A nod from Troy, and Lawrence, with his insatiable hack’s curiosity, would be in like lightning, but Troy didn’t nod.
‘I’ll thank you for your time, gentlemen,’ Trubshawe said at last. ‘And I’ll be off.’
Troy walked with Trubshawe to the front door. He put his helmet back on, tucked the strap into a cleft between his many chins, clutched the handlebars of his bike, and said, ‘How much did you slip the gravediggers, sir, if you don’t mind my askin’?’
‘Tenner each,’ said Troy.
‘Hmmm,’ said Trubshawe musing again. ‘That seems to be about the going rate. Certainly did the trick.’
‘Doesn’t pay to be stingy at a time like this.’
‘Indeed, sir. Might I also ask where the gun is now?’
‘In the grave with my late brother-in-law.’
‘Then we’ll say no more about it. Dare I say, sir, you’ve got away with it?’
Troy said nothing.
‘But sometimes, sir, don’t you wonder just how much you can get away with, and that one day maybe you won’t? It’s one thing, a bunch of toffs getting the best of an old-timer like me who’s never made it past constable, but you play in a bigger league, don’t you, sir?’
Trubshawe wasn’t smiling exactly, but, equally, he seemed to be speaking without resentment, as though the point so made was of purely philosophical interest.
‘Did you never fancy life at the Yard, Mr Trubshawe?’
‘No, sir. I like a world where black is black and white is white. The – what would ye call ‘em? – the ambergooities of your world wouldn’t sit too well with me.’
With that he scooted up his bike, flung one leg over the saddle and rattled off down the drive.
Troy found he rather envied Trubshawe. He’d been a copper almost as long, and well remembered the days before the ambergooities of the job had made themselves obvious to him . . . when the world had been black and white or he could at least pretend that it was.