- [Barnaby has just finished a phone conversation with Troy]
- Joyce Barnaby: Was that Sergeant Troy just now?
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Yes.
- Joyce Barnaby: I'd like to meet him one day.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: No, you wouldn't.
- Sergeant Troy: [to the effeminate undertaker] Well, you can't have the body yet. All right? "Sir"?
- Dennis Rainbird: [to Barnaby] Oh! I see you've got a right "cunt-stable" there.
- Judith Lessiter: It's a surprise for our anniversary.
- Dr Trevor Lessiter: We've never celebrated our anniversary. By the time we got to the first one, we knew we knew there was nothing to celebrate.
- Dennis Rainbird: Iced sombrero, Constable?
- Sergeant Troy: [annoyed] No, thank you. And I'm a sergeant!
- Sergeant Troy: Why would they want to kill her? Unless it was adultery. I suppose it could have been ass bandits.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: What?
- Sergeant Troy: In the wood.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: You mean homosexuals, Troy?
- Sergeant Troy: Well, that's what I said.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: You are as politically correct as a Nuremberg rally.
- Lucy Bellringer: You will look into this, Chief Inspector, because I know something is wrong.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: We'll look into it, Miss Bellringer.
- Lucy Bellringer: I shall have to go over tomorrow. I still haven't told the bees.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: I'm sorry?
- Lucy Bellringer: Well, you have to tell the bees when somebody dies, otherwise they just clear off.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Find out what calls Miss Simpson made after six o'clock.
- Sergeant Troy: So you're talking it seriously, then, sir.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: No Troy, I'm just filling in time till tea.
- Cully Barnaby: Was it very hard, the bodies?
- D.C.I. Barnaby: I've seen worse. I think... you know what really bothered me, Cully? I didn't feel anything. Not for Iris Rainbird or her son.
- Cully Barnaby: Well, they weren't very nice people.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: They were people. All I could think about was, it's another death. Gets the machine moving again.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: You wouldn't think, would you, one small village could have so much trouble bubbling away unto the surface.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Why do I get the feeling that everyone is lying to me? Everyone.
- Joyce Barnaby: They always lie to you, Tom. And you always know that. That's why you're so good at your job.
- Sergeant Troy: This must be the first police search organized for a flower.
- Lucy Bellringer: It's an orchid.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Not much meat on this chicken, is there?
- Joyce Barnaby: It's not a chicken, it's a quail.
- Sergeant Troy: You better come and take a look at this. You're not going to believe it.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: On the contrary, Troy. I rather think I will.
- Sergeant Troy: Pathetic.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Phyllis Cadell?
- Sergeant Troy: Her story about the car tax. She was scared shitless.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Oof. You do have a way with words, don't you, Troy?
- Barbara Lessiter: Well, I was in Causton all day yesterday, shopping. I like shopping. Ask Pookie.
- Dr Trevor Lessiter: No need to follow my wife, Inspector, just follow her credit card slips.
- Cully Barnaby: Hi, Dad.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Hello, you.
- [pause]
- D.C.I. Barnaby: What happened to the green hair?
- Cully Barnaby: That was last term, Dad.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: And the tattoo?
- Cully Barnaby: It washed off.
- [last lines]
- Joyce Barnaby: I hope you're not going to fall asleep on this.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: I wouldn't dream of it.
- Joyce Barnaby: Anyway, after what you've just been through, a study of incest should be right up your street.
- Cully Barnaby: [onstage] Comes this in sadness from you.
- Giovanni: It's some mischief before me soon if I dissemble it all.
- Cully Barnaby: You are my brother, Giovanni.
- Giovanni: You my sister, Annabella. I know this...
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Annabella!
- [laughs]
- Sergeant Troy: Clear off her rocker if you ask me.
- D.C.I. Barnaby: You didn't believe her?
- Sergeant Troy: Well, what you got to go do on? A slammed door and a trike that wasn't padlocked. It's a waste of time.
- Cully Barnaby: Dad?
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Oh, come in. Mom gone to bed?
- Cully Barnaby: Hours ago. What's all this?
- D.C.I. Barnaby: Notebooks. Iris Rainbird took the neighborhood watch to unheard of extremes. You wouldn't think, would you, that one small village would have so much trouble bubbling away under the surface.