Connelly smoothed down his waistcoat in an unconscious preening gesture. ‘And, in this case, I’d say the two gentlemen were pretty much equals. They knew each other quite well, I’m sure. It wasn’t as if they were meeting for the first time. No ice to be broken, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes, I understand. So they were friendly?’
‘Mmm. I didn’t say that, did I? On the contrary, I felt there was a little bit of tension. Nothing was said while I was at the table. I’m afraid they were rather too discreet for that. But, watching from a distance, I could see their conversation was getting a bit heated at times.’
Fry looked around the restaurant. Despite its reputation, the tables were pushed fairly close together. Or perhaps that was because of its reputation. Restaurants went in and out of fashion all the time. Right now, Le Chien Noir might be the place to eat, but next month the people with the money could be going elsewhere and reservations would dry up. Managements liked to cash in on a spell of popularity. More covers meant more profits.
‘Was the restaurant full?’ she asked.
‘On Monday night? No way. The good people of Edendale like to stay at home in front of the telly most of the week. We get a nice visiting clientele during the summer, but not in early March. Besides, the weather was bad, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Connelly followed her glance around the room. ‘Ah, you’re wondering whether any other diners might have overheard their conversation. Unfortunately, I gave the two gentlemen a nice, quiet table in a corner, with no one too near them. I thought they might be discussing business, you see.’
‘And hoped they would be good tippers?’
The manager inclined his head. ‘As indeed they were.’
The kitchen door banged, and someone shouted what sounded like a complicated curse. What was the language? Russian? Polish? Something East European, anyway.
‘You were telling me about the other man,’ she said. ‘Did you notice what kind of accent he had when he spoke?’
Connelly shrugged. ‘He didn’t speak all that much. Local, I would have said. But don’t make me swear to it in court.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’
Fry looked at the credit-card receipt. She noticed for the first time that Patrick Rawson had, indeed, been a good tipper. He’d added a hefty gratuity to the bill, rather than leave cash in hand.
‘It seems Mr Rawson paid the bill at five minutes past ten. I imagine he and his companion left together shortly afterwards?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Can you remember whether they arrived together?’
Connelly tapped the photograph dramatically with a long, pale finger. ‘I believe this gentleman arrived first, by a few minutes. But not much.’
‘Did you see a car outside? Or did they ask you to send for a taxi when they left?’
‘No. Neither. Their clothes weren’t wet, but I don’t think it was actually raining at the time. Just a moment now …’
‘Yes?’
The manager pointed towards the exit, a smoky glass door looking out on to the market place. For a second, Fry felt disorientated. Her eyes had become accustomed to the dim lighting of the restaurant, her concentration had been on Connelly and what he was saying. This sudden glimpse of blue-and-white market-stall awnings, crowds of people passing by, the brake lights of cars queuing at the traffic lights – they all seemed like an intrusion.
‘I do recall them looking out to see what the weather was doing before they left,’ said Connelly. ‘Customers often do that, spend a few moments deciding whether to wait, or to make a dash for their cars. People who dine here don’t like to get wet.’
Fry felt a bit disappointed that Connelly hadn’t come up with anything more. He had seemed so promising in the beginning. But perhaps she just wasn’t asking the right questions.
‘I know your memory is good, sir,’ she said. ‘So if you do recall anything else about either man, anything at all, please give me a call, won’t you?’
She handed him her card, which he glanced at and slipped into his apron pocket.
‘Detective Sergeant, it would be a pleasure. And do make a reservation for dinner some time. Would you like to take a menu with you?’
‘Not just now, thank you.’
‘Well, don’t forget. I’ll make sure you’re given a special table.’
They called it the Plague Village. Nice name, thought Cooper. Not the sort of thing you’d expect to be used as a selling point for your house in an estate agent’s brochure. Who would want their home to be remembered for an intimate connection with an outbreak of Black Death?
But the name for Eyam must have well and truly stuck by now, since it was still in use more than three and a half centuries after the event. Five-sixths of the village’s population had been wiped out, most of them during one deadly summer in 1666. Along the main street, picturesque little stone cottages displayed plaques in their front gardens, listing the names of people who’d died there, killed by the bubonic plague.
Yes, like all the best disasters, Eyam’s outbreak of Black Death had been turned into a tourist attraction.
Along with thousands of other children, Cooper had visited this village with a school party. It had been a sort of living history lesson, collecting the work sheets from the museum, gawping at the plague tableaux, looking eagerly for the stocks where miscreants had once been pelted with rotten food. Those were his favourite sort of lessons.
Two hundred and sixty people had died when the plague hit Eyam. Yet the rector, William Mompesson, had rallied the villagers to a famously selfless act of isolation. He’d told them that it was impossible for them to escape by running away, that many of them were already infected and carried the seeds of death in their clothes. He told them that the fate of the surrounding country was in their hands. They broke off all contact with the outside world for five months, as the plague cut down the population of Eyam, one by one.
For that, Mompesson had been rewarded with the death of his own wife. Now, hers was the only grave of a plague victim to be found in the Eyam churchyard.
Despite its role as a macabre tourist attraction, Cooper could tell Eyam remained a thriving community. It was good to see a village that still had a butcher’s shop, for example. A high-class butcher’s too, according to the sign. In many villages, the shops had long since gone, the parish church had been converted into a holiday home, and the vicarage was providing bed and breakfast. And, of course, every village post office was now the Old Post Office, selling teas and ice cream instead of stamps and tax discs.
The first address on his list was in Laurel Close, on the outskirts of the village. Cooper could see straight away that Laurel Close was an old people’s housing estate. Quiet and well tended, with stone-faced bungalows standing in neat rows behind well-mown grass, like gravestones in a cemetery. The image was appropriate, really. This could be a place where the main topics of conversation were illness and death, and the latest funeral was the highlight of the week.
Ah, well. No more time to be lost. Cooper got out of his car and knocked on the first door.
Deborah Rawson took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘Let’s get this straight. Are you saying that Patrick was murdered?’
‘We don’t know that for sure, Mrs Rawson.’
‘It’s a bit much to take in.’
‘Yes,