My urgent interjection came as she drew breath to start telling me about how John Langton had died. Only I already knew how he’d died. He died like anyone does losing a game they had intended to win. Unwillingly.
She persisted, ‘Didn’t you say tonight that the man you saw was tall and dark?’
Now Freddy’s white face was in my mind, and the way the Captain had sounded when I had unwittingly dredged up the memory for him. When I didn’t manage to formulate a reply, she added it for me. Musingly, seriously, she added, ‘Yes. Yes, you did. When you were telling Mrs Winstone that you’d seen him on the path you said that he was wearing summer clothes that were too good to belong to a farmhand, that he had black hair and was tall. Lean, was it?’ This was as I corrected her. ‘Well that’s just another way of saying tall, isn’t it? And if he should have happened to have a limp …?’
‘I—’
She was sitting there with her hands spread on the table. It was the sort of manner a person contrives when they think they’re being very daring and I didn’t like it. I suppose I was easily spooked tonight. Her mistake in Mr Winstone’s house had sent all sorts of shadows racing about the room and Aunt Edna’s slightly mad collection had accompanied me all evening. I certainly didn’t need Mrs Abbey to begin conjuring the dead man’s shade from the corners again now.
I told her more clearly, ‘I don’t want to know about it. Don’t you think it might be time for bed?’
She didn’t take the hint. She told me with relish, ‘Master John had a physical weakness in one leg. He took a riding accident in his youth and his body never quite allowed him to forget it. Its waxing and waning was a barometer of his darkest moods.’
I think she could tell I was about to protest rather more precisely. She turned her eyes to an ugly vase on the high shelf before she said with a different kind of eagerness, ‘Of course, if you’re about to tell me that the man on Mr Winstone’s path today didn’t have a limp and piercing blue eyes—’
‘You think I remember the colour of his eyes?’
‘— There is someone else who matches that description, who didn’t die last March. Someone who is also tall and capable and to whom, for all they say he was innocent, everyone was happy to attribute all manner of violent tendencies until young Master John’s death put it clear out of their minds …’
Her gaze returned to me. It actually made me laugh. ‘Mrs Abbey, if you mean to hint at Matthew Croft, I have to tell you I think you’d do better to stick to the version that blames the squatters. There must be someone amongst them who matches your description of tall and dark with blue eyes.’
For a moment I thought my tone had shocked her. Then I realised that she was just amused by my tart adoption of her idea of Mr Winstone’s attacker. It didn’t really matter what I said I thought he looked like. She knew what I’d told them at the village.
With rather more frankness and rather less play at scandal, she asked me with a coolness that was the most authentic curiosity I’d had from her, ‘When you were with Freddy just now, did you see anything? Find anything he’ll feel obliged to tell the others?’
Oddly enough I appreciated the honesty of this open question. She wanted to know what we had found because if Freddy lived with Matthew Croft and Freddy told him that we’d searched the spot, she knew perfectly well that the information would not be returned to her. The exclusion almost explained her visit here, except that this might have just as easily waited until the morning.
I told her the truth. ‘We tried to look about but it was dark and more than a little unnerving. We didn’t find any great clues, if that’s what you’re asking.’
Mrs Abbey wasn’t smiling in the lamplight. This was the real woman and she was deeply alert for something. I could feel its energy emanating from her; building in hard waves ready to break. The thought came unbidden – ready to break like anger.
‘Mrs Abbey,’ I began tentatively, ‘Why don’t you like Mr Croft?’
Her gaze flickered and cooled to a wry smile. ‘I wasn’t very tactful earlier, was I? That man … well, that man is everything John Langton can’t be. He’s alive and he’s frustratingly reserved. He won’t talk about what happened, regardless of how I ask – and don’t look like you think I’m only probing for the sake of gossip because, believe me, I knew young Master John and of all the ways we could manage what went wrong, this conspiracy of silence so that we never dare to even speak his name is the worst kind of healing. There isn’t even a grave where we can lay his ghost to rest—’ Something passed across her face like a settling of control. Afterwards, her words were steadier and less inclined towards revelation. I still wasn’t allowed to know her. ‘And to crown it all, that man refuses to buy my old car that’s mouldering in my barn.’
Her mouth plucked into amusement. I mustered a vague smile in return as I was meant to. Then she asked in her own version of my earlier hesitancy, ‘Emily, dear, tell me the truth. Did you really see as little as you declared earlier? Or are you just displaying the practical city-dweller’s approach to a drama and walking swiftly by on the other side of the street?’
‘Do you mean to ask if I’m minding my business in case someone minds it for me? What do you think?’
Mrs Abbey hadn’t meant to offend. At least, I presumed not. She said benignly, ‘I think it’s very unfortunate that poor Mr Winstone can’t remember the man’s face …’
‘… Since that just leaves my description and I barely saw him at all.’ I finished the point for her. Foolish honesty made me add, ‘Although, I should say that I think I’d recognise him if I saw him again.’
I didn’t expect Mrs Abbey’s demeanour to transform to decisiveness quite so abruptly, but it did, all the same. The change might almost have been with relief. This feeling was certainly running high. She was suddenly dragging out a wristwatch on a broken strap from a pocket. I suppose it mattered to know that I knew enough that this man might be identified and caught; in a strange way I suppose it promised safety even if this night had to be got through first. And that in itself was a clue to her real purpose here, because then she was telling me about the footpath to her little farmhouse and doing one of those funny twists people do when they mean to point out its location only to find themselves waving a hand at the impenetrable screen of a wall. This was the reason why she was here. At last I understood that she wanted to feel in control and at last I was allowed to know the reason for all this odd circular conversation that she patently didn’t really enjoy. She’d given herself a fright at the turbine house and couldn’t quite bring herself to face the long walk up a darkened path to her farmhouse alone.
‘You could stay,’ I offered doubtfully. ‘Unless your hus—someone will be out looking for you?’ I’d almost said husband then and saw from the way she jumped that I’d cut rather too close to that deeply private pain. For a moment she stared at me with that vacancy of expression that a person gets when they’ve been tested unexpectedly on an unhealed wound.
Then the moment passed and she was saying with elegant amusement that was also very genuine, ‘What, will you make room for me amongst all the Welsh love-spoons? No, I’ve got to get back. It’s practically neglect as it is and if I hadn’t been foolish enough to meet with Mrs Winstone by the shop I’d have been home hours ago. The path from the ford is very overgrown—’
‘Let me just fetch a jacket,’ I interrupted, ‘and a torch.’
I stood up from my lean against the stove. Mrs Abbey’s eyes followed the movement. In the lamplight, her face was wan. ‘As easy as that? You’re coming with me?’ Her voice was odd. Shaken would be the best term I had for it, as though guilt strode in on the heels of getting what she wanted.
I pressed my lips into a hapless line. After all those musings on responsibility,