Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

It was then that she heard somebody rattling the door. The emotion that surged through her was panic, not relief — suppose it was her captor coming back? She bent down and seized the brick. Light flooded into the barn, making her blink. It must be earlier in the afternoon than she had thought. The doorway was almost filled by a large, bear-like silhouette.

She raised the brick. ‘You? It was you?’

There was a deep chuckle. ‘Mrs Langstone,’ Joseph Serridge said. ‘I don’t think you’ll be needing that.’

She lowered the brick. For the first time she sensed the nature of the man’s charm, a blind force like magnetism or a seismic tremor. Except it wasn’t really charm but a sort of hypnotic spell, an impression of overwhelming power. For the first time she also understood what had happened to Miss Penhow and Amy Narton.

‘Thank you. I wasn’t quite sure-’

‘What happened?’ Serridge said, his voice hardening. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ Lydia dropped the brick on the pile in the corner. ‘I am now, at any rate.’

‘What’s been going on?’ Serridge advanced into the barn, forcing her to step back. He glanced around quickly. ‘You’re the last person I expected to see.’ He swung round and towered over her. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came for a walk,’ Lydia said sharply, feeling rattled. ‘I knew the farm my father used to own was over this way, and I thought I’d have a look at it. He told me he sold Morthams Farm to you.’

‘But what are you doing in Rawling? You didn’t come all this way just to look at Morthams.’

‘No, of course not,’ Lydia snapped. ‘I came with Mrs Alforde.’

‘I didn’t realize you knew her.’

‘Colonel Alforde is my godfather,’ Lydia said.

‘The devil he is. Well, I’m damned.’ Serridge began to smile, but then his face changed again. ‘So why is Mrs Alforde here today, and why has she brought you?’

‘Look here, Mr Serridge, I know I’m probably trespassing, and I apologize for that. But I don’t see why you should interrogate me like this. I’m having a day out of London with Mrs Alforde. We’ve just had lunch with the Vicar.’

‘Oh, I see. Narton’s funeral, I suppose. Mrs Narton’s an old servant, isn’t she, and her dad worked on the estate.’

‘And now I’d better be getting back to the Vicarage,’ Lydia said, moving towards the door. ‘Mrs Alforde and Mr Gladwyn will be wondering where I am.’

‘Of course. But somebody shut you in. Who?’

Lydia was outside now. On the ground was a length of iron piping about five feet long.

‘I don’t like people going in here,’ Serridge said. ‘The structure’s unsafe. I’m going to have it pulled down. It’s not used for anything now.’

Lydia pointed at the pipe. ‘Is that what was keeping the door shut?’

He nodded. ‘It had been wedged against it. Used to be the downpipe from the guttering on the corner.’

A long, rounded indentation marked where the pipe had lain, imprinting its outline on the smooth, clay-streaked mud beneath. Lydia noticed a small footprint at one end.

‘You didn’t see anyone?’ Serridge asked. ‘Hear anyone?’

Lydia turned back to him, smudging the footprint with the heel of her own shoe as she did so. ‘No, I had my back to the door. There was an almighty bang. Somebody’s idea of a practical joke, I suppose.’

Serridge scowled, his face a dark red. ‘If I catch whoever did it, they’ll be sorry. I promise you that, Mrs Langstone. Now, do you want to come up to the farm? I’ve got the car up there — I can run you back to the Vicarage.’

‘Thank you, but no. They’ll probably be worrying about me. It won’t take me ten minutes to get back.’

He hesitated, and she thought he would try to persuade her to come to Morthams Farm with him. She didn’t want to go, for reasons she could only half acknowledge.

‘All right. I’ll walk you back to the road.’

Lydia tried to protest that there was no need but he insisted. Serridge made her walk on the tussocky but relatively firm ground beside the hedge while he lumbered through the raw, recently ploughed earth of the field itself. At last they came to the gate. On the other side lay the lane, with the lights of the Vicarage already glimmering a hundred yards away.

Serridge paused, with his hand on the iron latch. ‘You’ll be making plans soon, I reckon.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘About what you do with your life.’

Lydia looked coldly at him and said with all the haughtiness she could muster, ‘I’m afraid Mrs Alforde will be getting worried, Mr Serridge. I wonder if you could open the gate?’

He looked down at her, his forehead corrugated with lines, his heavy brows huddled together. He looked so woebegone that for a second she almost felt sorry for him. Then it struck her that it was almost as if he knew about the divorce, or at least that a longer separation was likely. Had her father told him? But even her father didn’t yet know about her conversations with Mr Shires.

Serridge unhooked the gate and pulled it open, standing aside to allow her through. ‘I’ll say good afternoon, Mrs Langstone.’ He touched the brim of his hat with a forefinger. ‘Mind how you go.’

Rory was still a little drunk by the time he returned to Bleeding Heart Square. He wasn’t so far gone that he was incapacitated, either mentally or physically, but he was saturated with the fuzzy self-confidence that whisky brings, and as yet had little trace of the hangover that might follow. It wasn’t just the whisky that was affecting him. It was also the possibility of work, real work. A connection with a magazine like Berkeley’s could make all the difference. It might even be possible, using that as a springboard, eventually to make a living as a freelance, which was his real ambition. At this moment even Julian Dawlish seemed not such a bad fellow. After all, the chap could hardly be blamed for falling in love with Fenella, if that was in fact what had happened. They had arranged to meet on Friday evening to confirm the details for Saturday.

At the corner, Rory paused. There were people drinking in the Crozier. He heard a loud yapping at knee level and looked down. Nipper had been attached to the old pump with a piece of string. Howlett was visible through the window of the lounge bar, and his top hat was resting on the window ledge.

Rory bent down and scratched Nipper behind the ears, which seemed to please him. He rubbed the dog’s neck, pushing his fingers under the collar. It was rather a handsome collar, or at least it had been, with a tarnished brass buckle and little brass stars set into the strap. There were footsteps behind him. He gave the dog a last pat and straightened up. Mrs Renton, laden with a shopping basket, was coming up the alley from Charleston Street.

‘Good afternoon,’ Rory said, cheerfully. ‘Let me carry that.’

‘Thank you.’ She held out the basket and he took it from her.

Nipper strained towards her, his tail wagging and his yapping intensifying.

‘Oh stop it, do,’ Mrs Renton said and backed away from him. She made a semicircular detour around the pump, keeping her distance. ‘Nasty thing.’

‘He’s all right,’ Rory said. ‘I think he’s pretty harmless, really.’

Mrs Renton shook her head. ‘I can’t abide dogs. You can’t trust them, not really. They’ll go with anyone who feeds them.’

She set off towards the house. Nipper backed away, squatted and scratched vigorously behind his left ear with a hind leg. Fleas, probably, Rory thought. Behind him there was the ring of a bicycle bell and one of the mechanics at the workshop at the end of the square cycled past. It was the conjunction of those two factors, the bicycle and the dog scratching its ear, that collided with a third item that was lying like an unexploded bomb in his memory.