Distant Voices

‘No, it wasn’t him.’ Jenkins clasped his glass happily. ‘It was Everett as found the body.’

‘Do they reckon he did it?’ Mr Denby looked at him sharply.

‘Nope. He’s got an alibi.’

The four men were silent for a while, listening to the fire hissing round the logs in the hearth, then Fred slammed down his empty glass on the counter and turned for the door.

‘Goodnight all,’ he called and was gone.

‘I think he knows something,’ said Jenkins quietly. ‘Did you see how his hand was shaking?’

‘And he burned hisself on that match.’ Mr Denby nodded. ‘Do you think we ought to tell Constable Conway?’

‘No.’ Sam shook his head vehemently. ‘If he did it he had good reason. Fred never does anything without a very good reason.’

Fred plodded slowly up the hill. The lights in Constable Conway’s cottage were blazing as he went up the slushy path and knocked on the door. Mrs Conway showed him into the parlour where the constable, his blue shirtsleeves rolled up above the elbow, was sitting at the table, eating a large bowl of stew.

Fred sat down opposite the young man and waited until his host’s mouth was empty. ‘That body you’ve got. Know who it was?’

Conway shook his head without speaking and spooned up some more stew.

‘Did he have a red shirt and a townified tie?’ Fred was twisting his cap round between his fingers on his knee.

Constable Conway choked slightly. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I seen him before. He was heading up Highfield way. Looking for hammer beams, he said.’

‘Hammer beams?’ The constable’s mouth dropped open. ‘What are they when they’re at home?’

‘Don’t rightly know, but Jeffrey’s barn’s got ’em. He had a camera with him.’

Conway nodded. ‘Yes, that was still there. There wasn’t no robbery. The chap had quite a bit of money in his wallet.’

‘Was it by the door you found him?’ The casualness of Fred’s question did not fool the constable. He had risen and, buttoning on his tunic was already reaching for his notebook.

‘Now see here, Fred. You’d better tell me everything. What do you know about all this?’

‘Nothing much. But a few days back I was up that way. I saw one of those great icicles fall over that doorway. Like a sword it was, three or four foot long. That would kill a man if he were standing underneath.’

‘I reckon it would.’ The constable nodded thoughtfully. ‘Could have been that.’

‘And the icicle would have melted long since.’

‘I reckon it would.’

Fred left the cottage well satisfied.

There was no one left in the village now who would remember the slick fancy architect fella who had seduced and then abandoned Fred’s pretty daughter. Only old Mrs Hennessy, and she was blind. And you can’t fingerprint a puddle, now can you?

Watch the Wall, My Darling (#ulink_313fc3e7-457d-5cf0-b9f4-8d8577c41351)

PART ONE

With each smart tap of her foot on the sun-baked ground the swing arced higher. Above her the dappled shade of the oak tree cooled the air. Mercifully hidden now behind the high yew hedge the garden party was in full swing.

Caroline Hayward grimaced as, throwing back her head at the apogee of the swing’s travel, she felt her long heavy hair slip from its combs. Her bonnet had already gone, hanging from its ribbons behind her like an unruly animal. Shaking her head she laughed suddenly, feeling her hair whip across her face. What did it matter how she looked? She was alone at last and for a few precious moments she was free!

‘That swing was not designed for adults!’

The deep voice startled her so much she nearly released her hold on the ropes.

Dragging her slippers in the dust to slow her momentum she tried desperately to stop, suddenly acutely aware of the acres of petticoat showing beneath her light, blown skirt. Grabbing at what remained of her dignity as the swing slowed she curbed her first instinct which was to jump to her feet. Instead she smoothed her skirts, taking a deep breath as she saw who had addressed her. Dressed in sober black like all the men present at the bishop’s garden party, the Reverend Charles Dawson, her host’s elder son, was standing facing her, his darkly handsome face showing uncompromising disdain; Charles Dawson who had spent the best part of the party surrounded by a cluster of his father’s younger women guests.

‘You obviously find our party boring, Miss Hayward,’ he said with a humourless smile. ‘I’m sorry, but I must suggest you find other ways to amuse yourself. That swing was not designed to take someone of your weight.’

‘I am not that heavy, Mr Dawson!’ Caroline retorted. To her chagrin one of her slippers had fallen off and she was feeling for it desperately with her foot, hidden beneath her full, long skirt.

He allowed himself another tight smile. ‘I didn’t mean to imply that you were.’ He gave a slight bow, his eyes gleaming. ‘Nevertheless, the swing was put up for my brother’s children, who are aged six and seven respectively. When you have recovered your shoe –’ he raised an eyebrow slightly, ‘– perhaps I can escort you back to the party and fetch you a glass of lemonade.’

She could hear in the still heat of the garden beyond the hedge the deep voices of the sober, assembled clerics, the higher voices of the women, the occasional constrained laugh. She and Mr Dawson were uncompromisingly alone.

No one had noticed when she had slipped away. Her father, the Reverend George Hayward, had been deep in conversation with his bishop, his daughter long forgotten, when she had glanced round the company, many of whom she had known all her life, and experienced her sudden, quite unexpected wave of rebellion.

The violence of the emotion which had swept over her had astonished her. She was overcome with anger and despair. She was still a young woman, wasn’t she? She was still reasonably attractive, wasn’t she? She was still full of day dreams and of hopes. So why was she here, at her father’s side, faithfully accompanying him as ever on parish business, in the role into which she had slipped almost without realising it when her mother had died? Her sisters were married, her brother now lived in London. She alone was left. And it had been expected and accepted by everyone that she would fill her mother’s shoes. All thoughts of her marriage seemed to have flown from her father’s mind. The few persistent suitors who had called on her slowly slipped away. And no one seemed to have noticed but her.

She glared at Charles Dawson. She had not been one of the young women clustering round him with adoring looks and simpering giggles. No, she had been beside her father listening dutifully as he talked church business with the bishop! Not that she would have talked to Charles anyway, she reminded herself sternly. It was no problem for her to remain immune to his handsome good looks, behaving as he was like an extension of her father in his obvious disapproval of her. She had always detested him for his pompous ways. And he would never, ever, have been one of her suitors. Rich and well connected, he would look far higher than a mere rector’s daughter.

The thought made her even more cross. She had never allowed any of the young men who had found their way to the Rectory door in Hancombe to arouse their hopes when they had come calling upon her and now it was too late to change her mind. She was old. She was destined to look after her father for the rest of his life. She was on the shelf. She was twenty-nine years old.

‘… don’t you think so, Miss Hayward?’

With a start she realised Charles Dawson had been speaking to her as he escorted her away from the swing and back towards the party. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and, oh yes, he was good-looking. As he looked down at her she realised she had been staring at him.

‘Don’t you think so?’ he repeated.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch what you said,’ she murmured.

She caught the expression of impatience, quickly hidden, which crossed his face before she looked away.

‘I said, that I fear there may be a storm later,’ he repeated.

‘Yes indeed, the air is heavy.’ Now he would think her deaf as well as rude and stupid!

As they emerged through the gap in the hedge she noticed several pairs of eyes speculatively upon them. Her father’s were not amongst them, she saw at once with relief, and suddenly she was overcome by an irresistible urge to laugh. Here she was, dishevelled, her hair down and her gown awry, appearing in the company of the most eligible man there, and quite unchaperoned!

As if reading her thoughts Charles Dawson stepped away from her rather too hastily. ‘May I suggest, Miss Hayward, that you retire to the house to tidy yourself,’ he said curtly, and with a bow he left her. For a moment she stood where she was, aware that she was still being watched closely, then slowly and demurely she began to walk across the grass.

Somehow she managed to reach the ladies’ withdrawing room in the palace and there she managed to redo her hair and replace her bonnet. Outwardly she was docile and smiling. Inwardly, her moment of amusement gone, she was seething with resentment and anger. Of all the pompous, sarcastic men why did it have to be Charles Dawson who had followed her? He would tell his father what he had caught her doing and no doubt they would smile about it together over the port that evening, and then the bishop would tell her father! And her father would not find it amusing. He would be very, very angry. Oh, the humiliation of it all!