Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

The poor bloody chap. He was sorry that Narton was dead, even though he hadn’t much liked the man. It must have been very sudden. A heart attack, perhaps. What would happen now? Would one of Narton’s colleagues get in touch?

It was then that the idea came into Rory’s mind. He emptied the contents of his own pail into the bin and went back up to his flat. He smoked a cigarette and thought about the idea and its implications.

Why not? What else had he got to do?

By the time he reached the fork in the path, it was nearly lunchtime and Rory was growing hungry. Instead of turning right, as he had before, he turned left onto the path that would bring him more quickly to the village and the Alforde Arms. The fields on either side were three or four feet above the level of the path and bordered with lank hedgerows. After a few hundred yards, he glimpsed roofs through a gap in the right-hand hedge. He stopped to look. A field sloped gently up to a huddle of trees. On their right was a group of farm buildings. The chimneys of a house were visible above the trees.

Morthams Farm?

Movement caught his eyes. He was just in time to see a boy running along the hedge bordering the field. How long had the boy been there? Was someone watching the watcher?

Unsettled, Rory continued along the path and came eventually to a narrow road with large, muddy fields on either side. He turned right, in the direction of the village. Almost immediately he saw the cottage, which stood by itself in an overgrown garden; the gate from the road had fallen from its hinges and was lying on the verge, and the roof of a small lean-to building at the end had lost many of its slates. But a trickle of smoke rose from somewhere behind the house.

He paused by the gateway. Behind the strip of garden was a neglected orchard. A tall, gaunt woman was standing with her back to him among the trees, tending a bonfire. Despite the cold, she was wearing only a long, thin cotton dress with a faded floral print, covered with a stained apron.

‘Good morning,’ he called.

For a moment he thought the woman hadn’t heard him. He was about to repeat the greeting when she turned away from the fire. In her hand was a stick she had been using as a poker. She stared at Rory, who raised his hat.

‘Good morning. I’m looking for Mrs Narton.’

‘That’s me.’ The voice was harsh and low like a man’s.

‘I knew Sergeant Narton. Am I right in thinking he was your husband?’

She nodded.

‘I was so sorry to hear of your loss.’

‘He wasn’t a sergeant, though.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘He wasn’t a sergeant,’ the woman repeated. ‘Not when he died.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘They took that away from him,’ Mrs Narton said. ‘Three and a half years ago. That and everything else. Cheated him out of his pension too.’ Stick in hand, she advanced through the ruined garden towards Rory, the skirts of her dress trailing through the long, wet grass. ‘Them devils at headquarters as good as killed him. I’d like to see them hang, every man jack of them. I know it’s a sin, but I would.’

‘But I thought he was in the police. Now, I mean. He said he was. That’s why I’ve come. I was going to-’

‘More fool you for believing him.’

‘Look, I’m terribly sorry about his death. How did it happen?’

She pointed the stick at the lean-to beside the cottage. ‘He was cleaning the shotgun.’ Her eyes focused on Rory’s face.

‘So it was an accident?’

The muscles around her mouth twitched. ‘What were you up to with him, mister?’

‘Have you heard of a lady called Miss Penhow?’

‘Of course I have. Mrs Serridge. So-called.’

‘Like your husband, I wanted to find out what had happened to her.’

‘Why?’

‘Her niece is a friend of mine. It was on her behalf.’

‘After the money, are you?’ It was not really a question.

‘No. I-’ Rory broke off and started again. ‘We want to be sure she’s all right.’

‘I can’t help you.’

For a moment they stood there separated by a couple of yards of nettles and long grass. Mrs Narton was so pale that she looked like a ghost, not a person of flesh and blood.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Rory said again. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help, will you let me know?’

She stared at him, saying nothing, and he realized the futility of what he had said. Nevertheless he opened his coat and took out a propelling pencil and his notebook. He wrote R. Wentwood, 7 Bleeding Heart Square, London EC1 . He tore out the page and held it to her. She didn’t move. He took a step closer to her. She stared at something behind him. He dropped the piece of paper in the pocket of her apron.

A thought occurred to him. ‘What happened to his notebook?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It wasn’t found?’

‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Just go away.’

He nodded. As he was leaving, he glanced at the bonfire. There was a child’s book on it, he noticed, the remains of a pink eiderdown and what looked like a doll. There was also a fragment of charred cardboard that might have come from the cover of a small, black notebook.

It was after one o’clock by the time Rory reached the gates of the Vicarage. Mr Gladwyn’s Ford 8 was standing outside the front door. He would be at lunch now. Narton had said you could set your watch by Mr Gladwyn.

Rory didn’t mind the delay. He wanted time to think. If Narton had no longer been a police officer, then what the hell had he been doing? The only answer that seemed to make sense was that he had been pursuing a vendetta against Serridge.

He went into the saloon bar of the Alforde Arms and ordered beer, ham and eggs. Narton had not mentioned that he lived so near Morthams Farm, claiming that he had not considered it relevant. But if some sort of private feud, not an official investigation, was the reason behind his interest in Serridge, that might have been another reason to keep quiet about where he lived, in case it suggested to Rory the possibility of a personal connection between the two men.

It was almost two o’clock by the time he finished his meal and paid the bill. Outside, a small, untidy boy with a flabby mouth was sitting on the edge of the horse trough in the yard. He glanced at Rory and then away, continuing to whittle a stick with a penknife. He seemed faintly familiar. Was it the boy he had glimpsed near Morthams Farm? But the world was full of small boys.

It still seemed a little early to call on the Vicar. Rory spent ten minutes in the church, which was small and dark. It had been carefully restored by yet another Alforde in 1876-8 and made even gloomier than it need have been with pitch-pine panelling and pews. He worked his way round the walls, reading the memorial tablets. The Alfordes went back to the middle of the eighteenth century. The most recent in the sequence was Constance Mary Alforde, widow of Henry Locksley Alforde. She had died a few months after her husband, in 1929. ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’

He walked slowly through the churchyard, glancing at the graves on either side, in the direction of the Vicarage. This brought him to the section where the newer graves were. For the second time that day the name Narton caught his eye. It was on a neat new stone marker beside a yew tree. For an instant his mind grappled with the impossible: surely Narton wasn’t dead and buried already? Then his mind caught up with what he was seeing, with the smooth green mound and the rest of the inscription on the marker:

AMY CONSTANCE

BELOVED DAUGHTER OF MARGARET AND HERBERT NARTON

1915–1931

“WHOM THE LORD LOVETH HE CHASTENETH.”

Thanks to Pammy’s warning the other day, it did not come as a complete shock to see Marcus in Rosington Place. That did not make him any the more welcome. It was just after lunch, and Lydia had returned to work at Shires and Trimble. She was alone with Miss Tuffley — Mr Reynolds was in conference with Mr Shires, and Mr Smethwick had gone to see a client.