Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

They waited until St. James had disappeared into the fog before they turned back to the house some ten yards beyond them in the high street.

“What do you think?” Havers said.

“That we can’t afford to wait for Sheehan.” He peered back the way they had come into the village. The old man and the dog were just ambling round the bend in the road. “There’s a footpath somewhere that she had to have used on Monday morning,” he said. “And it seems to me that if she got out of her house without being seen, she can’t have left the front way. So…” He looked back at the house, and then again down the road. “This way.”

They set off on foot in the direction from which they had just driven. But they hadn’t gone more than five yards when the old man and the dog accosted them, the man raising his cane and poking it at Lynley’s chest.

“Tuesday,” he said. “You lot were here Tuesday. I remember that sort of thing, you know. Norman Davies. Good with my eyes, I am.”

“Christ,” Havers muttered.

The dog sat at attention at Mr. Davies’ side, ears pricked forward and an expression of friendly anticipation on his face.

“Mr. Jeffries and I”-this with a nod at the dog who seemed to dip his head politely at the sound of his name-“have been out for an hour now-Mr. Jeffries having a bit of a time answering the calls of nature at his advanced age-and we saw you pass, didn’t we, Mister? And I said those folks have been here before. And I’m right, aren’t I? I don’t forget things.”

“Where’s the footpath to Cambridge?” Lynley asked without ceremony.

The man scratched his head. The collie scratched his ear. “Footpath, you ask? You can’t be meaning to take a walk in this fog. I know what you’re thinking: If Mr. Jeffries and I are out in it, why not you two? But we’re out taking a ramble in order to see to the necessary. Otherwise, we’d be snug inside.” He gestured with his cane to a small thatched cottage just across the street. “When we aren’t out seeing to the necessary, we mostly sit in our own front window. Not that we spy on the village, mind you, but we like to have a look at the high street now and again. Don’t we, Mr. Jeffries?” The dog panted agreeably.

Lynley felt his hands itch with the need to grab the old man by the lapels of his coat. “The footpath to Cambridge,” he said.

Mr. Davies rocked back and forth in his Wellingtons. “Just like Sarah, aren’t you? She used to walk to Cambridge most days, didn’t she? ‘I had my constitutional this morning already,’ she’d say when Mr. Jeffries and I would stop by of an afternoon and ask her out on a ramble with us. And I’d say to her, ‘Sarah, anyone as attached to Cambridge as you are ought to live there just to save yourself the walk.’ And she’d say, ‘I’m planning on it, Mr. Davies. Just give me a bit of time.’” He chuckled and settled into his story by digging his cane into the ground. “Two or three times a week she was heading over the fields and she never took that dog of hers with her which, frankly, is something I have never been able to understand. Now, Flame-that’s her dog- doesn’t get near enough exercise to my way of thinking. So Mr. Jeffries and I would-”

“Where’s the bloody path!” Havers snarled.

The man started. He pointed down the road. “Just there on Broadway.”

They set off immediately, only to hear him call, “You might express some appreciation, you know. Folks never do think…”

The fog shrouded his body and muffl ed his voice as they rounded the bend where the high street became Broadway, as misnamed as a country lane could possibly be, narrow and thickly hedged on either side. Just beyond the last cottage, not two-tenths of a mile past the old school, a wooden kissing gate-green with its growth of winter moss-hung from rusty hinges at a lopsided angle, its corner in the mud. A large English oak spread its branches above it, partially hiding a metal sign that was posted on a pole nearby. Public footpath , it said. Cambridge 1½ miles .

The gate opened onto pasture land, thick and lush with grass that bent under the weight of the day’s heavy fall of moisture. Drops showered their trouser legs and their shoes as they hurried down the track that ran along the rear garden fences and walls which marked the property boundaries of the cottages along the high street of the village.

“D’you really think she made a hike into Cambridge in fog like this?” Havers asked, jogging at Lynley’s side. “And then ran back? Without getting lost?”

“She knew the way,” he said. “You can see the path itself well enough. And it probably skirts the fields rather than heads across them. If you were familiar with the lay of the land, you could probably do it blindfolded.”

“Or in the dark,” she finished for him.

The rear garden of the old school was contained by a barbed wire fence, rather than a wall. It consisted of a vegetable garden gone extensively to seed and an overgrown lawn. Beyond this was the back door of the house, set above three steps. On the top one of these stood Sarah Gordon’s mongrel, pawing at the bottom of the door, giving a low, worried whine.

“He’s going to set up a row the moment he sees us,” Havers said.

“That depends on his nose and his memory,” Lynley replied. He gave a soft whistle. The dog’s head darted up. Lynley whistled again. The dog gave two rapid barks-

“Damn!” Havers said.

– and bounded down the steps. He trotted briskly across the lawn to the fence, one ear perked up and the other drooping over his forehead.

“Hello, Flame.” Lynley extended his hand. The dog sniffed and examined and began wagging his tail. “We’re in,” Lynley said and slipped through the barbed wire. Flame leaped up with a single yelp, eager to say hello. He planted muddy paws on the front of Lynley’s coat. Lynley grabbed him, lifted him, and turned back to the fence as the dog licked his face and squirmed in delight. He handed the animal over to Havers and pulled off his own muffl er.

“Put this through his collar,” he said. “Use it as a lead.”

“But I-”

“We’ve got to get him out of here, Sergeant. He’s willing to say hello, but I doubt he’s willing to sit on the back step quietly while we slip into the house.”

Havers was struggling with the animal who seemed to be mostly tongue and legs. Lynley looped his muffler through Flame’s leather collar and handed the ends to Havers as she set the dog on the ground.

“Take him to St. James,” he said.

“What about you?” She looked towards the house and came up with an answer that she clearly didn’t like. She said, “You can’t go in there alone, Inspector. You can’t go in at all. You said he’s armed. And if that’s the case-”

“Get out of here, Sergeant. Now.”

He turned away from her before she could speak again and, in a crouch, quickly crossed the lawn. On the far side of the house, lights were on in what had to be Sarah Gordon’s studio. But the rest of the windows stared blankly into the fog.

The door was unlocked. The knob was cold, wet, and slippery in his hand, but it turned without a sound, admitting him into a service porch beyond which was the kitchen where cupboards and work tops threw long shadows across the white linoleum fl oor.

Somewhere in the gloom nearby, a cat mewled. The sound was followed a moment later by the appearance of Silk, slithering in from the sitting room like a professional housebreaker. The cat paused abruptly when he saw Lynley in the doorway, scrutinising him with an undaunted stare. Then, he leapt onto one of the work tops where he sat with Egyptian-like tranquillity, his tail curling round his front feet. Lynley walked past him-his eyes on the cat, the cat’s eyes on him-and edged to the door which led into the sitting room.