 
Redemption: an Inspector Gilles Maintenon mystery

Louis Shalako

This Smashwords Edition copyright 2014 Louis Shalako and Long Cool One Books

ISBN 978-0-9866871-8-1

Design: J. Thornton

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The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased; or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. This edition not intended for sale or display in Norway.

Redemption

Part One: The Aviator

Cold wind blasted at his face, the stench of petrol ever-present. Focused as he was, thoughts of fire reveled in the back of his mind. Huddled over the stick, bundled in layers of clothes, his guts still ached from the hours of shivering.

Looking over the side, the crossroads he sought passed under his wheels. Huddled in the cockpit against the icy chill, inscrutable in the helmet, mask and goggles, the beauty of the land below, darkened in irregular blotches by patches of cloud, a low mist still hanging in some of the valleys, meant nothing. The brazen sun came in over his right shoulder, and the details leapt up at him, but there was no joy in this revelation. It was irrelevant.

The clock on the instrument panel mocked his every desire, and reinforced his every terror. If only she knew what he knew, she would never forgive him. But for her, he had sacrificed everything, and it still wasn't his fault.

It wasn't his fault and he didn't want to pay the price. White knuckles gripped the control column, and his head swung on a pivot, his gleaming dark eyes probing everything with rapier-sharp focus from behind the thin glass. He had no choice in the matter.

The fearful burden that he bore must go with him to his grave, for surely the truth, a truth so obvious, would never be accepted. It would never be accepted of him, never in a thousand years. One little lie to get somewhere in life, and it had led to this inescapable moment in time. The barrier looming ahead made his lower guts tighten up in anticipation. Heavy straps tugging at his body in the sudden turbulence gave little reassurance.

The white fog obscured all vision and even dulled the sound of the motor. Rarely for him, the tension rose a thousand-fold, but this was different. There was no going back now. He stared at the turn-and-bank indicator in fixed concentration. What people said was absolutely right—there was just no way to tell if you were in straight and level flight inside of the cloud, or if you were in a one-way, one-gravity death spiral, with the cold and indifferent earth rising up to meet you. If the instruments had shaken, or tumbled, or gone off in any way, he might have given up and just let go, but they were serene in their confidence to measure simple forces. Theory was nothing when confronted by the reality.

The parachute bulging so uncomfortably under him was of no comfort at all. The thought of using it for anything other than an emergency, a fire in the air perhaps, had always terrified him.

People also said you couldn't really tell the difference between vertigo and sheer horror. They said it was a kind of physical, totally-detached temporary insanity, where the whole world was spinning on you. In his experience, people said an awful lot of stupid things.

Normally a very confident young man, he was finding that this one was unfortunately true. He felt sick, deep in the pit of his stomach, a feeling that had been constantly with him for many hours.

Perhaps it would be just as well if he did lose control. He could die with a little dignity and his honour intact.

Chapter One

Dartmoor

Birds and crickets chirped. Gnats and midges swarmed around his face, moist with sweat. He snapped the cover shut and put the dulled and worn brass watch away, snug and secure where it belonged. The blazing orb of the sun was becoming oppressively warm after the frosty chill of the dawn. Sundews, glistening with beads of ever so inviting, yet ever so deadly sap glowed under the low branches in a shady spot. He marveled at the song of the meadow pipits. The tiny birds darted about in his peripheral vision. They seemed to know when he was looking at them. When he looked away, they moved again. The cold breeze from the north tugged the hanging fog down from the high valleys, and when the clouds moved across the face of the sun, the distinct chill reminded Maintenon of the mountains of his childhood home. In the city, warmth and shelter, and heated taxis were taken for granted. The Metro was always a short step away. Here everything was so different. Admittedly, this was the point of the whole exercise.

The moors glowed with a healthy vigour. Interspersed with patches of hardy wildflowers, smudges of rose-pink and purple competed amongst the glossy dark green of the heath-land, redeemed from winter's frozen hell by the heat of the late spring sun. Patches of sweet-smelling plants crept everywhere underfoot. It should have been sublime, the sun glinting off of countless surviving dew-drops, shimmering in the rapidly-drying grass as the wind changed direction. Small flocks of tiny birds flitted from bush to bush and twig to twig in their endless quest for sustenance. They chattered back and forth amongst themselves, cocking their heads from side to side to take in the awkward-looking stranger.

They were just birds, when you got right down to it. He had lingered for half an hour yesterday though, lurking on the bank of a wide but shallow river and watching a dipper at work. It was joy itself, to catch a glimpse of the sturdy, drab little bird, brimming over with the very essence of its short and innocent life, watching it clamber around underwater and upstream in search of bugs and small invertebrates. The simplicity of living had overtaken Gilles. It was only for a moment. Then he remembered that he was alone, always alone. As far as internal dialogues went, that one was a real conversation-stopper. Birds were cheerfully abusive, there was no denying it and aging detective-inspectors would inevitably become philosophers if they weren't careful about the thoughts they had.

Managing his perceptions could be a real chore at times. There was too much recent history, although the memory of pain faded quickly. There was still that dull ache of grief and remorse. It was pure emotion, and at times he wallowed in it, knowing all the while that it was unhealthy and self-destructive. One last kick at a dead love, he kept telling himself, knowing it was pure masochism.

Maintenon was enjoying, or at least trying to enjoy, the wild remoteness of the moors. Gilles was taking his first holiday in years. The heavy canvas rucksack slung on his aching shoulders and the unaccustomed exertion annoyingly betrayed his age and lack of fitness. It also smelled rather moldy, a smell that he had been unable to escape from for a week now. For the fourth time in an hour, he wondered what cases Andre and the boys were working on, or what a good cup of coffee at Maxim's would taste like at this exact moment in time. Reluctantly, he pushed the thought aside and soldiered on. A mental image of gleaming white linen and a tall, sparkling carafe of ice-water still haunted him. Gilles had a heavy camera in a tan leather case slung over one shoulder, and the hard mass clunked against his hip annoyingly as he constantly compensated for the lop-sided weight. He wanted to keep it handy, and had taken several photographs, which was a new thing for him.

It was good to try new things, but he wasn't exactly bitten by it. It was a forlorn hope.

As for the early morning and the wheezing in his chest upon awakening, the smoking wasn't doing him any good at all. He came upon another in a succession of small rises and began the climb. One couldn't complain about all the fresh air. The top of his lungs felt tight, like his throat was half-closed by a hard knot of gristle. His arteries were hardening up with old age. It was a sobering thought.

His breath puffed in his ears, and he resolved to exercise more in future. Upon awakening this morning, there were some complaints from his knees, but Gilles handled the first three or four kilometres well enough. He was hiking from inn to inn and village to village, at least in theory.

While there was no major pain at present, there were some sensations. He knew he would pay for this transient pleasure later. The important question was whether he would make it at all. Lovely as it was, so far this lonely path hadn't offered up any passing strangers, herdsmen or young people on bicycles. A corner of his attention was still focused upon the marvelously open country, and the blue haze upon distant hills.

Somewhere a red grouse, growing scarce these days by village talk, thrummed the ground with stiffly-held wings. The air was thick with scent, good enough for one long, deep breath, and then it was gone again. You couldn't deny the beauty of the place after half a lifetime spent in the narcissistic and inward-looking world of Paris, the self-proclaimed centre of world culture and scholarship. Paris was a place which smelled depressingly the same, day after day.

Hopefully, the next village lay just ahead and around the bend. The map was very deceptive in terms of reading the distance. Wonderful for fantasizing over his dining table, it was woefully inadequate for navigation in the field.

***

Growing up in the small village of Bagneres de Luchon, near the border with Spain in the high Pyrenees, Gilles was an athletic boy, but that was decades ago. For a boy from a small place, the Tour coming through was a big thrill, offering the allure and the temptation of a greater world. The village was located at the confluence of the One and Pique rivers, thus his original love of the outdoors, long forgotten in the lifetime since. He had once prided himself on his endurance in the saddle of a bike, such a youthful accomplishment. It had no meaning anymore.

Perhaps it had been one too many decades. So far, his heart was fine, but the lungs seemed tight before he got going in the morning, and of course all the little twinges and jabs of pain couldn't be ignored entirely. It did not speak well for the future. He was well into the process of becoming a cranky old widower with rheumatism, lonely as anything, and boring people to death with a long list of ailments. If he wasn't careful, he would end up sitting on benches and feeding the pigeons as a matter of daily routine.

Gilles topped the hill and saw another valley, with the white trace of the path running across it and up the other side. Standing there, he watched the subtle caress of the wind on the heather, with the marks of its invisible touch shooting here and there, and then touching his face with its warmth. The sky was pristine in the big blue holes, with a thick smear of cumulus huddling low to the west. For the first time in years, he was looking at a horizon.

There was nothing on it. The tops of chimneys, a column of smoke, or most especially, the dull glint of roofing tiles, would have been a welcome sight.

'Merde," he said in disgust, trying to work up some spit without draining his small water bottle too quickly.

Behind his right shoulder there came a droning, like a fly at first, but then growing louder and more distinct. It was an aircraft, coming up from the south, bearing to the northwest by the look of it. It was intent on some lonely mission of its own. Gilles wondered what it would be like to see the moors from the air. The buzzing machine went behind a cloud, reappeared, and then continued on, oblivious to him and his opinions. He enjoyed the sight of its shadow on the far hillside. Up and over the shadow went.

Shielding his eyes from the slanting rays of the late morning sun, he tried to make it out. It was just a dark blotch of black, bug-like in its initial impression. It was approximately due east now. The machine was like an ugly black fly, intent upon some distasteful business, perhaps laying its eggs in a pad of manure or somewhere else equally disgusting.

The aircraft sailed serenely on, oblivious of Gilles and his plight. Putting a foot wrong, he wobbled and felt a sharp jab. His knee now ached terribly, and he suddenly understood that this was not just the first, but also his last walking holiday. The noise of the aircraft finally faded off into the distance. Gilles stood for awhile, regaining his breath, and trying for all he was worth to enjoy the stillness of the moors.

But it was no good. He could not maintain a state of denial forever.

"Lord, love a duck," he said, to the sound of that exact animal off in the distance.

Quack, quack, quack.

One would hope that where there was one duck, there must be others...but no joy.

It was just that one loud and anonymous duck.

Its raucous complaint mocked him with a faint sense of the ridiculous. What in the hell was he doing out here, all alone and with no one to talk to? Not for the first time, he wondered at the folly of the middle-aged bachelor, out for 'an adventure.'

He had come to love his comfort too much. Crickets surrounded him, their volume swelling now in intensity as he stood quietly. When he moved forward, a small wave of grasshoppers leapt away in all directions, evading the dark and menacing predator. Their perceptions were so utterly simple, but not unique.

A notion struck him.

"Let us hope that is the alleged village! Or at least a farm," he said, to no one in particular. "Maybe even one that has ice-cold water in the well. And a real live chair to sit on, if only for a moment."

Gilles was getting tired of walking around in the hot sun, lugging a damned heavy load, and sitting on the hard, sun-baked ground all of the time. If nothing else, it put civilized life in its proper perspective, something that we inevitably lose over too much time spent in relative comfort.

***

His fascination with Sherlock Holmes as a child, combined with a certain lack of inspiration in his vacation choices, had brought him to this. He ignored the obvious traces of a barrow off to his left, and grimly soldiered on, focusing on Berlioz, 'Grande Messe des Mortes,' the 'Lachrymosa,' of all things, and ignoring the insistent pain. It was so annoying when a musical score would not go away, a sign of too much stress. This was persistent, mocking narcissism. It occurred to Gilles that neither Sherlock, nor Conan Doyle for that matter, had ever actually tried to sleep in such pathetic ruins, or if any true fugitive had ever holed up in one for any length of time. Another youthful fantasy crushed! These places had all been flattened millennia ago. He felt oddly let down by this, as if the reality had been over-romanticized. This had to be true of the most popular fiction, mostly written for children of course, but it was still a disappointment. Most readers had no chance of ever getting here, and so it made no difference. All it did was to deepen his ennui towards anything with a superlative attached to it, and added to his mistrust of living too deeply or too superficially. Lately he was convinced that he had been doing too much of one or the other. Which one exactly, he wasn't too certain of, but it irked him all the same. Even Brook Manor House, which Conan Doyle had immortalized in 'The Hound of the Baskervilles,' was a let-down. Located to the west of the village of Buckfastleigh, the house in the book was actually modeled after Cromer Hall in Norfolk. He had a feeling his photographs would reflect his own sense of disappointment.

Ancient Roman ruins were scattered all over the Bagneres de Luchon area, and even Strabo had mentioned the hot springs. They had been popular as baths for millennia, probably since humanity first discovered those long valleys buried deep in the craggy mountains.

"Another useless observation," muttered a cranky Gilles Maintenon.

Gravel crunched under his feet. The trail was rutted, uneven and prone to muddy holes. The gravel was a relief.

There either had to be something more, or something less to life. But to go on as he had would be intolerable. This field narrowed to a point, and judging by the length of the grass, or hay perhaps, it hadn't been grazed recently. Its golden colour meant it must be hay, he concluded with a bleak smile at his own ineptitude.

Again he heard a duck quacking and prayed for relief. Ahead lay a fence, complete with a heavy gate and a weathered wooden stile to climb over. One looked as bad as the other. He discovered the wire fastening the gate had been put on by a gorilla. He gave up quickly. His hands were too soft. No cows or sheep would ever undo that! With a sigh, he un-slung his pack and dropped it over on the other side of the wire. He was committed now, and he gingerly pulled himself up the steps, using his hands and arms as much as possible. With the trees closing in on each side of the beckoning laneway, it was even warmer here. There was a bustle in the hedgerow immediately nearby, which at night would have made his hair stand on end. The daylight revealed the unseen creature to be nothing more than a hedgehog, or more likely a squirrel. His boyhood insight was that a rabbit was dead silent except when running full pelt on hard ground, or when it was being killed. A rabbit did not rustle in the underbrush.

"Hmn!" he grunted.

Since he could hold his right knee straight with relatively little pain, it was a climb on the left leg mostly, and that knee had some pain as well. The real problem was at the top. This was where the stiffness in his hips and lower back came into play. It was tricky when he didn't want to bend at the knee. The thing was ridiculously narrow. Reaching tentatively with a toe, he found nothing there. Finally he had it. Gilles almost made it, but his toe slipped off. He slid and hit the next step. There was a sharp pain and his knee buckled. He half slid and half fell down the other side, slivers biting into his palms, and banging his shin and losing some skin as he did so.

"Merde!" he gasped, as a wave of nausea swept over him. "Argh!"

Fresh sweat popped out around his eyes and he bit his lip rather than cry out. The pain in his right knee was shocking in its intensity, as he lay on the ground clutching it and rocking back and forth on his side in a kind of animal response.

Chapter Two

A Good Samaritan

The sweat had dried on his face. Luckily the biting insects left him alone, although he had a suspiciously itchy spot on his wrist. The pain was a dull throb. All he could do was to wait, but the thick grass was dry under the biggest tree. He was comfortable enough, for the time being.

A spider web, thinner than the thinnest human hair, trembled on the breeze. Gilles watched in fascination as the creature, an infernal optimist as all arachnids were, fed out the glistening line in the most damnably slow fashion. It wavered, up and down, here and there, trembling on every thin zephyr of the breeze; and then it caught. The end of the line caught on another milkweed, and then the creature began going about the solitary but ultimately rewarding work of building a web. He saw it as a microcosm of all reality. Everything eats something else, and there is no escaping this aspect of existence. It became a matter of brains versus brawn, might versus stealth, theft versus persuasion...all of reality could be boiled down into these terms, even math, physics and chemistry in some odd way. At least that was how the untrained Gilles saw it.

He wondered if that was how the average killer saw it, deep down inside, and it was just that no one had ever been able to put it into words before.

Normally he never thought of such things. He rarely had the opportunity, the free time. It was unfamiliar to him. So much of life was time spent in needless suffering. And waiting. Gilles hated waiting just then.

The sound of sputtering in the distant haze up the road somewhere broke Maintenon out of his self-induced trance of misery and self-recrimination. The water bottle held one-quarter now, and he was just debating whether or not to drink it.

"Ah, nom de Dieu," he gasped. "At last!"

He was able to make it to his feet, pulling himself up using the fence. Holding on with one hand, he managed to snag the pack and sling it up on his left shoulder. Hobbling out into the sunlight, Gilles Maintenon stuck out a thumb like the humblest transient labourer and prayed for a good Samaritan.

Gilles tried to rub the rust from the wire off on a trouser leg as he waited a little impatiently for help.

***

"My name's Jimmy, or Jamey Martin," the fellow shouted in his ear, but then he had been doing that right from the start.

"James," noted Maintenon.

"I've just taken my commission," Jimmy called.

He would be as proud as a dog with two tails, as Gilles recalled sympathetically. It was only later, that the disillusionment would come.

Gilles tried to grin and nod cheerfully, as he clutched a skinny metal handle and braced himself for another series of mud-filled potholes, steaming in the sodden June heat. The extensive puddles from the previous night's thundershower were evaporating now.

"I'm off on leave, and me mum lives just up the road," yelled Jimmy, braking and downshifting and only God knew what, but Jimmy's right knee kept coming perilously into Gilles' space.

Thankfully, the exhaust was somewhere a foot or so behind them.

"Oui! I mean yes! That is what you were saying," bellowed Gilles as politely as he could.

"I've only got three days," Jimmy was leaning half over the sidecar and his voice came loud and warm right up beside Maintenon's head. "Just between you and me and the gatepost, I could use a day or two up in town."

"The gate-post? Town?" asked Gilles, and Jimmy laughed in delight.

Ah! He meant London, or rather what would be Mecca, to someone from around here.

Straightening up in the sagging leather saddle, Jimmy changed gears and popped open the throttle several more notches. If only the watery ruts were straight, but the machine was constantly thrust from side to side, as he watched the dark pines of the forest bounce and jostle past one another. He clenched his teeth, not so much in anger as to avoid biting his tongue off.

On the dry stretches, especially at intersections, it was so bumpy at times that his vision blurred. On the wet sections, flying clods of sticky dirt were a constant threat to the face.

Gilles hunkered a little further down in the slippery red leather seat, with not even a seat-belt provided. He wished the small windscreen out front was a little taller. Dusty air blasted at his unprotected eyes. All he could do was to squint, grin and bear it. Both hands were needed for stability. His knee ached like the very devil. He was filled with a sense of regret, or his present circumstances might have been a little more enjoyable. It was horribly awkward. His knapsack was jammed in half under and half behind him, all hard and lumpy and too far to the left. It was too big to sit on or hold in his lap, and the foot-well of this ridiculous vehicle was too small for it. An adventure didn't always have to turn out well. One way or another, walking tours were over for Gilles. Motor-cycle tours had never been on the cards, but there you have it.

Was it regret or surprise? It all happened so quickly. One day you were young. One day you were old and decrepit. He saw her just for a moment, just as she had been as a girl, and then he rudely pushed the thought out of his mind. His heart ached still, but somehow a little less. Hard as the thought was, it brought its own twinge, its own qualms.

"Merde," said Gilles Maintenon, hanging on for dear life as Jimmy slewed through another muddy turn.

***

"Oh, goodness, gracious me," said Esther Phelps.

Tall, spare, yet with a twinkle of fun in her eyes, and an engaging smile, she was one of the more attractive of the 'horsey set.' He was to discover she said that a lot. She was the 'goodness gracious' type.

The woman fussed around, trying to get him to lean forward so she could fluff up a pillow. All Gilles wanted to do was to stretch the offending leg out on a cushion, let the killing, frozen agony of the ice bag do its magic work, and beg a drop of something very strong. Her wrists and forearms were attractively tanned. She had good, strong-looking hands for a woman. Interestingly enough, there were no knitting baskets visible anywhere. In his opinion, that was probably a good thing.

"Madame," he began. "Madame, would you...?"

Warm breath in his ear, she was very close.

"Yes?" she asked, suddenly staring deeply into his eyes with some unfulfilled questions.

She was inches away. Her scent surrounded him on all sides It was inescapable, and perplexingly disturbing.

"Would you have a drop of whiskey in the house?" he asked. "It's for the pain, of course."

Her jaw dropped a little and she gulped, looking away. Her eyes slid back to his with a sardonic delight now visible.

"Of course," she nodded. "Why didn't I think of that? You must think me quite stupid!"

Gilles, taken aback a little by her enthusiasm, was trying to think of what to say next.

"It's Miss," she said. "By the way."

"Pardonnez moi?" stammered Gilles, lost by this turn of conversation. "What? Miss By-the-way?"

Giggling, she straightened and moved to the sideboard.

"I thought he said Phelps," muttered Gilles.

Esther Phelps giggled quietly away over in the corner as he waited patiently for a drink at long last. Perhaps Gilles was in shock. It was a strange revelation to have about oneself. He felt distinctly disoriented. Perhaps it was just mood. It might even be a good thing.

"You'll be fine," she scolded. "Here. Get that into you."

Scotch whiskey, which was not his favourite, had never tasted so fine.

"You are an angel," he said, unwittingly.

He watched in sober wonder as she tipped up her own eight-ounce tumbler and had a good slug, never taking her glistening eyes off of his for a moment.

A little voice in his head said, 'nom de Dieu,' but there wasn't very much he could do about it. She was a healthy and athletic woman in her late thirties or early forties. A little flirting might do both of them some good. Analyzed objectively, it probably would! The hell of it was, she was just the right age for him. It was a saying he had always hated.

Gilles prayed for Jimmy to bring a doctor back, any doctor. He didn't care if it was a horse doctor, just as quickly as he possibly could.

This woman was going to eat him alive.

***

The admission was wrung out of him like a bad tooth. It was inevitable. It might have been the blessed relief of being in a deeply padded leather armchair, his bad leg propped up in front of him. Maybe it was just time to let go. It might have been the liquor.

"My wife died last summer," he said.

"I'm so sorry," she said, looking away for a moment.

Her girlish blushing at his earlier comment had faded to a pale and dignified attentiveness.

He studied the book-lined walls of her study. She must be very isolated here at times, especially in winter. She seemed a very patient, very calm woman. There was no denying the intelligence that lay behind those eyes. In spite of the isolation, and the latent loneliness he sensed, she was a good listener. She bred horses for show, nothing more! Not racehorses, apparently, as it was too far from the regular circuit. He also understood it was quite costly.

His wife's long illness, her death, meant that Gilles had thrown himself into the work. It seemed that one day he looked up and some of the grief, the overwhelming burden of sadness and remorse was gone. He had made himself numb. More than a year had passed. It was a kick in the guts. That stab of guilt, that revelation, did something to Gilles. That was when he decided he must breathe again. He could live again. He could look up again.

His wife's suffering was over. What about his own life? Wasn't that also precious in some way?

It didn't feel very precious sometimes, but his private admission had spurred action of a sort.

"It's all right now," he said. "She suffered long enough. Her passing was very peaceful..."

Gilles' voice caught for a moment. He recovered quickly, and with some relief.

"That's more than some of us get," he added peevishly, shifting the ice-bag around his knee with a grimace.

"You suffered right along with her," she told him, and Gilles wondered if that was really true.

It was like the last few years of his life had been spent in a damp and miserable fog, laden with all the despair of a sole survivor.

"So you're a Detective-Inspector," she changed the subject. "I adore anything French. Do you catch a lot of criminals?"

"A few, Esther," he admitted, wondering where in the world was that dratted Jimmy, and how in the very blazes had they gotten to a first-name basis so quickly? She had no telephone, and Jimmy had simply dashed off on his motor-bike without anyone really thinking it through.

She waited.

"I only go after the really, really bad ones," he told her with a smile that felt strangely unnatural and yet such a relief at the same time.

Somehow she had gotten Gilles to loosen up.

The smile came and went, and as she dropped her eyes, the shadow of a something long past crossed her face.

"Your glass is getting low," she said, looking up again.

Gilles drained the last half inch of scotch and handed it over.

"It's good for what ails you," said Esther, rising to get him another.

There was nothing Gilles could add to that. Under present circumstances, he did not wish to dispute it, either.

***

From the shaded porch out front came two or three short barks of a certain pitch. There was an old yellow hound. Maintenon and the dog had studiously ignored each other upon his arrival, although it seemed to know Jimmy well enough. Then he detected a percussive beat on the soft, gentle breezes. The sound of a hundred birds in the garden outside almost drowned it out, but it was definitely there. It was a motorcycle, but was it the right one?

The grateful sound of Jimmy pulling to a noisy halt on the graveled drive came in through the French doors and the filmy, feminine white curtains billowing in the June breeze and brilliant sunshine.

Idly, he wondered if Jimmy had gone to his mother's house.

Maintenon tried to keep the conversation with Mademoiselle Phelps going, but was impatient. It seemed to take the fellow forever. How long did it take to remove a coat and a helmet? Gilles could not help but to recall that the boy was going out of his way for a stranger, and was grateful that he had a little cash on him. Chaps of a certain age never had any money.

Finally the young rider entered the room. His normally apple-cheeked complexion was as white as an envelope.

The observant Maintenon hauled himself up a little straighter.

"Jimmy! Are you all right?" gasped Esther.

Rising, she almost knocked a small side table and their drinks to the floor.

"I've just seen a dead man," Jimmy announced.

The youth was either a great actor or it was true.

Open-mouthed, Gilles watched Jimmy stumble to the settee and drop into it. Shocked eyes met his. Silent, with a hand over her mouth, Esther lowered herself back into her own chair.

"I might as well take you back there," he offered. "They've sent for the doctor, and sooner or later he has to show up. They don't have a telephone either."

"Where?" asked Esther in a tense voice.

She looked at Gilles uncertainly.

"Up the road at the Squire's," said James, to her apparent understanding.

Gilles settled deeper into the overstuffed leather armchair, the sudden trip-hammer in his abdomen not subsiding. His guts felt all cold and hard inside, and as tight as a knot.

"Goodness gracious," said Esther, but looking at Maintenon, eyebrows raised over her piercingly blue eyes.

Jimmy stared at the glass in fascination as Maintenon savoured more scotch.

"Start from the beginning, young man," he suggested.

Chapter Three

It Might Have Been the Alcohol

It might have been the alcohol, but the scene on arrival was surreal or fantastical, with that little element of whimsy that Maintenon was not unfamiliar with after a long career in the Surete.

Hieronymus Bosch would have been proud of the candles burning on every sideboard, and the long refectory table surmounted by a bulky form shrouded in a sheet so white it glowed under the crystal chandelier. Dark, smoke-blackened beams and heavily–carved oaken wall paneling lent itself to the overall impression of the macabre. The silence and Jimmy's loud breathing quickly became oppressive.

Gilles had no opening remarks.

"I told you so," said Jimmy, as if relieved the body was still there.

Maintenon stood silently with Jimmy beside him, drinking in the scene. The lad was looking up to him for leadership, uncertain of what to say next. Jimmy took another breath and cleared his throat.

"It's the Novena for St. Somebody-Or-Other," advised Jimmy. "She converted after the Squire's passing."

"Ah," said Gilles, giving him a sidelong glance.

"She's well-known," muttered Jimmy, and Maintenon gave a short nod.

It was an eccentric house.

"He was just so ordinary-looking," Jimmy said.

There were tears in his eyes as he took in the shapeless huddle of what had once been a man.

An unshaven gentleman in a black suit entered from a side passage.

"Hi, Freddy," said James, by which Gilles understood this was not the owner or landlord.

Jimmy pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes, still sniffling.

"The doctor's not here yet," said Freddy, a slender man of about forty.

He had a sheepish, subservient look about him, and he licked his lips every time he shifted his eyes and looked at the liquor cabinet.

"Do you mind? I have a certain morbid curiousity," said Gilles.

The fellow looked at him like he wasn't there, completely baffled by the fact that this strange man could speak. Gilles approached the table, still leaning on Jimmy's shoulder, and lifted up the sheet. Heavily clad in flying clothes, yet so flat and still the pilot lay inert. Jimmy backed away slightly, but hovered there, his breath noisy and smelling warm and wet.

"Ah, so young," he muttered. "How long do you think it might take for the doctor to arrive? Is he also the coroner?"

They said it was a pilot and the man was dressed like a pilot. The dead man had lanky brown hair, and while the angles of the limbs and neck were not good, there was little blood. Not all torn to bits, then. He looked up to see a maid there now as well. He nodded at her and she blushed and bobbed her head in acknowledgment.

Jimmy couldn't look, but Gilles was undeterred.

"Thrown clear, we figure," said Freddy.

"Did you see it crash?" asked Jimmy in a rising tone. "Cor!"

"No, not really," admitted Freddy. "I didn't even hear it. Dan Parkman, a labourer, brought the news."

Gilles nodded thoughtfully.

He reached in and put his finger on the big carotid artery in the neck, or where it should be. His impression was certainly of cold, and of death. Maintenon gently peeled back an eyelid, and the dead pilot's head moved ever so slightly. Crossing himself, he regarded the face for a moment.

He smelled aftershave. The man had pallid, strangely composed features. So completely ordinary...average, even, as Jimmy said. He was just your average victim.

With a sigh, Gilles straightened up the head and closed the mouth, but it wouldn't stay closed.

"Oui! He is dead, all right," said Maintenon, pulling the sheet back over his placid pale features. "Sacre bleu."

He crossed himself, whispering something fitfully in French. His lips moved for a moment, eyes closed. Then, whether it was routine or reflex, he had an uncontrollable urge.

Maintenon reached under and lifted the body. He found heavy toggles for the zip fasteners of the suit. That was just the top layer. He felt around inside. Pulling a wallet out of the rear trousers pocket, he held it up for inspection, showing the others his little trophy.

Gilles looked inside with three pairs of eyes goggling at him in disbelief. The name meant nothing to him, and they were all too polite to inquire.

"So, we wait," he advised. "And now, I think I would like to sit down."

"I'll just go and get my lady," said Freddy. "Step this way, please. Tea-time can't get here soon enough, in my opinion."

When Maintenon considered it, this house had seen more than one dead body on the dining room table. A few births as well, he reckoned, and maybe even one or two major surgical operations.

***

The mantel clock was the only sound that broke the stillness for long moments as the conversation lagged. He and James waited patiently. A faint scent of masculine hair oil arose from the dainty lace antimacassars on the backs of the couches and chairs, melding into a potpourri of cloying sweetness along with the hastily brought-in arrangements of lilies from the garden. Standing in cold water in their pristine glass vessels, their heads hung as if they were awaiting execution and not already dead. Despite the daylight, pools of intimate warm light fell from three shaded table lamps, which did little to dispel the dusty aura of long neglect. It was an elegant room, one that had been frozen in time since 1898. It was a statement of character, beliefs and intentions, and he took the time to seek out details of the oak-paneled ceiling and plaster rosettes in heavy relief around the central chandelier.

"Where in the bloody hell is that damned doctor?" fussed James.

He rolled his eyeballs around in a vague attempt at humour. It was unsuccessful. He shrugged in acceptance.

Maintenon's eyes swept the room, taking in the black wallpaper with narrow, vertical pink pinstripes and creamy flowers garlanded in profusion. While he didn't mind it, it didn't really fit in with his impression of modern English décor. The Squire, as it turned out, was a long-deceased gentleman of fearsome reputation and lasting influence. He was tempted to ask if the Squire had been laid out on the table, although he surely must have been brought into the world with his mother laid upon it in such a fashion. This house was a self-contained microcosm of something, but of what? The unchanging nature of it, clearly intentional, might indicate smugness, genteel and complacent conservatism, or simple carelessness. It might indicate a sense of denial. They might be short of money, but he didn't think so.

This was the home of Freddy's employer and as it turned out, a friend and acquaintance of young Jimmy. The young man was betraying signs of impatience, and not leaping into the breach in terms of talk. His mind was somewhere else. Perhaps the lady had a fearsome reputation as well.

Gilles' knee had subsided down to a dull throb, but his pack was still in Jimmy's side-car and without some resolution, they obviously couldn't sit here all day.

"I'm so sorry for all the trouble I've caused you," began Gilles, as he turned to James and fumbled for his own wallet. "But if you wouldn't mind?"

Just at that exact moment, they heard the rasping exhaust sound of a motorcar on the road outside, and it was clearly slowing down.

"It's all right, old chap," said Jimmy. "Wild horses couldn't drag me away. Maybe we could go and take a look at the crash site later!"

Gilles gave a little snort and grinned at the youth's enthusiasm. It would be a nine-day wonder around here no doubt, but in Gilles's opinion, air-crashes were all too common.

Just then the far door crashed open. A squat and forbidding woman, with her long grey hair tied and wrapped up in a severe bun stood there. She wore a house-dress of the black, sack-cloth and ashes variety. Yet another nauseating smell, the scent of lilac, pushed into the room ahead of her. It reminded him of his own grief, causing a sick lurch in his guts.

"I see," she said, black eyes examining him as she stood in a kind of arrogant pose.

Her hands moved to her hips, and a foot tapped.

Freddy hovered just in behind her, peering around the rather forbidding lady's shoulder. She blankly regarded Gilles Maintenon. He said nothing. It was her home and her move. Her eyes raked him from top to bottom and then back up again. She had changed her dress to meet him. How he knew that was a mystery he didn't care to solve.

There was a long pause, and then she cocked her head quizzically to one side, comprehension dawning.

"You're foreign, ain't you?" she said, her eyes sliding to Jimmy, as if asking him and not Gilles.

Her eyes came back after a smile at young James.

"Am I right?" she grinned mischievously.

Maintenon heard someone's voice echoing in the hall.

"Please allow me to introduce myself," he began, but it was not to be.

***

Esther, deeply worried about the fate of the mysterious stranger, buffeted by fate and cast ashore by unkind fortune upon her cottage porch, was there to check up on him. Jimmy appeared ready to bolt. Hurriedly pressing a ten-pound note upon the lad, thereby earning his undying trust and respect forever, Gilles took his goodbyes.

"Can you chuck my bag in the hallway? Give me your telephone number. In case I need a ride," he murmured as the lad hovered by the front hall door.

Gilles jotted down the lad's address and proper name, carefully folding the note paper and saving it in his wallet.

"I'm still not up to walking much, and there is a train I need to catch at the end of all this," he said.

"Well, it was nice meeting you," said Jimmy, suddenly shy.

Gilles figured he was going to see the wreck, but said nothing. It could not be prevented in any case.

"I am Gilles Maintenon," he told the other, and they shook hands a little awkwardly.

"You're mucking about a little better now," Jimmy said. "The doctor has to show up sooner or later."

"Yes, it's the ice more than anything."

Gilles consciously took his first really good, hard look at him. James was a big, broad-shouldered fellow with blue eyes and blonde hair. He looked about twenty-five or twenty-six years old. The old Corps was now 'the R.A.F,' and he wore the uniform very well. James had a good, open, honest look about him. He seemed to be an archetype—a fellow just like any other fellow.

Just like the other one, the dead pilot. What a strange thought. James reached again and they shook hands for a second time.

"Well, you picked a good day for it," Jimmy said and then he turned and was gone.

***

"Remy St. Martin, very authentic," noted a slightly-inebriated Gilles Maintenon.

He sloshed a little of the fine cognac around in his mouth, wishing he could safely spit it out into a planter. Unfortunately, Mrs. Heath had very few of those about, and she watched him too closely.

"VSOP," she said.

They were promising soup and sandwiches, and his belly was grumbling in anticipation. With Esther fussing about all over him, sitting at his side in a proprietary manner, his day would be complete if the soup didn't arrive very, very soon.

Everyone around here seemed to have an idea that a drink would cure anything. The alcohol did little for his knee, and made perspective very difficult. It had never occurred to Gilles before, but he might become a rather surly kind of drinker, if given half a chance and a little provocation.

***

After drinks and afternoon tea, there was still no word of the doctor, who could be reasonably expected to take charge of the situation and know what to do. Apparently the nearest village was about three and a quarter miles down the road, and the gendarmes, the police, were undoubtedly guarding the wreck site and pondering the fate of a dead pilot...and a missing body! Gilles was momentarily sated, but was giving some thoughts to his dinner and where it might be sought. The locals didn't know any better, but the crash site should have been left undisturbed.

No one seemed to have thought of that, least of all the field hands and farm labourers who saw Mr. Shelborne, the steward of the estate, as the only leadership they recognized. This turned out to be none other than the wishy-washy gentleman otherwise known as Freddy. He was the one to send for the police.

Gilles had no idea why they had taken it into their heads to bring the deceased here, reportedly in a cart belonging to someone named Mr. Appleby. Mr. Appleby had gone bankrupt and lost his farm, and was now engaged in selling proprietary mixtures from his cart in a clover-leaf route that wound through the valley once a week, as regular as clockwork. It was said he slept over at people's houses and always paid with some little gift from his stock, for his lodging and meals. Maintenon's eyebrows rose so high and then stopped out of politeness.

Incroyable!

***

Again, the inevitable reared its ugly head. She had a suggestion, as the spark of mischief lit up her eyes.

"Let's go," she suggested, squeezing his hand in the late afternoon light.

Dust motes danced, sparkling in the air as the old lady slept in her chair, nodding slightly in agreement with some unknowable inner vision. She reached down and picked at something unseen in the vicinity of her lap, and then her hand moved towards her mouth. To watch this too long was to court madness, Gilles thought.

'Satan be gone...' mumbled Mrs. Heath, with drool coming out of her mouth and down her chin. "Who—who's cat is that?"

Her head bobbed in contemplation, then fell over on an even more extreme angle.

"Pardon?" he asked. "Go where?"

Then he understood.

"Of course," he said.

"She's going to have a sore neck when she wakes up. It's not far. I know where it is," Esther said. "We'll take my car."

Gilles couldn't think of a reasonable excuse in any reasonable amount of time. And almost anything had to be better than this.

"Maybe the doctor is there," she said, in what put the final clincher on the decision.

Chapter Four

It Made Him Crazy Sometimes

"She's a Catholic, you know," Esther bellowed over the howl of a seven-hundred-fifty cubic centimetre engine doing its best to sound like six litres. "It's what makes her so crazy."

"Ah, yes," agreed Maintenon, who was also a Catholic.

It made him crazy sometimes, too. It was getting late in the day and the shadows had a distinct angle across the road. His vision flickered as they sped along. Thankfully the low sun was behind them now. The air was soft and warm, with a faint blue haze showing shafts of sunlight sloping in through the trees lining the road.

She laughed, throwing her head back, looking very young and wholesome with the gleam in her eyes and the kerchief vainly trying to keep her hair in check. Esther reached over and gently patted his sore knee in a conspiratorial manner. He found it hard to make eye contact when someone was being nice to him, a problem which seldom arose in the course of a normal day. To endure someone making a fuss over him was very difficult for Gilles.

"It's what makes her different," she explained. "I mean, different for around here. In your country, everyone's a Catholic of course, and so it seems perfectly normal."

"Ah," smiled Gilles, patting the back of her hand.

It was almost like he was fighting against his own will. In her own way, she was infectious.

It just happened, for no reason at all, something he didn't normally accept as possible.

"Oh, look! A crowd," she said.

Inwardly Gilles agreed. This must be the place. It was the only one with a plane crash in the middle of what looked like sheep or cattle range and a crowd of extremely intelligent-looking people standing about analyzing things until some authoritative figure took control. The mob looked expectantly at the pair in the car. They had arrived.

"Now, where is that confounded doctor?" she asked.

"I have a funny feeling he's not here," said Gilles, trying not to sound too miserable.

"No. He's not," said Esther, examining the faces, or more importantly, the attire. "Oh, well. We might as well have a look."

***

"It made a crater," a small boy told Gilles. "Just like on the moon!"

There was a smell of petrol, yet people were smoking. Esther, looking oddly furtive, slipped out a silver cigarette case of her own and lit one up as well. He wanted to see it all from an angle, to step out of the picture and look down on it as if from above. Gilles wanted it to be surreal rather than so prosaic. It was a small field, surrounded by a combination of stone fences, long piles of rocks more than anything, and bordered by hedgerows, and patches of thicker forest. While the aircraft had crashed on low, boggy ground, there were small, gently rounded hills to the north and south of the crash site. There were automobile tracks coming across it from over at the other end of the field, but he saw no car. His attention was distracted and it was a lot to take in all at once. He guessed it was interesting enough in its own way.

"Er, yes," agreed Gilles.

There wasn't much left of the plane. The tail appendages, the wings, or the ends of them, had broken off and bounced and crumpled. Bits and pieces were flung everywhere. The framework of the fuselage was bent around like a paper clip, and huge sheets of thin fabric were torn and mangled. The engine and the propeller, or what was left of them, were buried deep in the ground. Skimming low over the trees to the south, the aircraft simply ran into the side of the valley. Airplanes had numbers and all of that, but it might take some time to piece it together. If the innocent bystanders didn't take it all away for souvenirs, that is.

It wasn't Gilles' place to start giving orders.

There was a farm labourer, a stout fellow with a red face and faded blue overalls tugging at his sleeve. Gilles already knew this was Billy, an agricultural labourer from up the road. They were all yelling back and forth excitedly. Others were still arriving in cars, on bikes, and on foot. The news must have traveled for miles by now.

"Look," he beckoned. "This is where the kerpeller hit the bushes!"

Gilles had to agree that it certainly looked like it. The top of a bush showed white tips where the foliage had been neatly nipped off by the swirling blades, one of which was still visible at the crash-site. Two sharply defined grooves in the soft green turf showed where the wheels had gone, torn off immediately, and then the gouge in the earth began in earnest. Still visible was a curved place where the grass had been neatly trimmed, and then the propeller caught solid ground. The thing went over and broke up on impact. Maintenon realized he was subconsciously patting his pocket where his notebook would normally be. He grunted in recognition of the reflex. All of the marks were being rapidly trampled out of existence. He shook his head at the sight.

"Did you see the crash?" asked Gilles, at a loss for conversation. "Was the motor running? Did he lose control?"

The man scowled as he sought the words, aware now that Gilles was a foreigner.

"Hmn! Well, I just don't know, sir. He came in straight and level, but the motor didn't sound very loud—it was still turning, though, it must have been—and it was behind the hill when I heard it stop," he began.

"It just sort of stopped suddenly, and that's when I wondered why it didn't come out again," he added.

"You asked yourself, why didn't it come out from behind the hill?" asked Gilles and the man nodded. "Were you the first?"

"No," he admitted. "There were, ah, three or four of the lads here when I arrived. I had to put the team in the barn and then I hurried on over."

"Ah," said Gilles, noting there had been no fire, and the engine and the front of the plane were the most solid parts of the machine and therefore the most intact. "Hmn."

They were also buried the most deeply, an insignificant fact if there ever was one. A man had died here today, he reminded himself in his absurd emotional detachment. His own knee still ached, and that was so much more important. Gilles had no authority to take control of this mob, but was still tempted to say something. Struck by an impulse, Gilles stared fixedly at the wreckage, but there was no way to tell if this was the machine he saw earlier. What difference that might make, what importance that fact might have had, he didn't know.

The grass all around the machine was now thoroughly flattened and there wasn't much there to look at. The novelty was already beginning to fade, and not just for him. A couple of younger boys were engaging in noisy horseplay, an unexpected afternoon off work the root cause. Another of the men, taller, and much older, was looking cross, as if all of this wasted time would have to be made up somehow.

"Simmer down, lads," he barked, almost on cue.

They ground to a halt, not exactly contrite, but more in a vague show of obedience to a surrogate father.

A fellow was standing there, bent over, picking through the wreckage with a stick, looking for items of interest, and exclaiming noisily to his chums. One of the few gentlemen in a suit was busy setting up a camera and tripod, but did not appear to be with the press. He was just an enthusiast, seizing a rare opportunity. Gilles exchanged a glance with his new companion Billy and shrugged.

Looking around, he saw Esther with another small group, dressed as members of the middle class. The women were in colourful summer print dresses, the men in dark suits and vests, white shirts, and casual summer straw 'boaters.' They were heavily engaged in an animated conversation which seemed quite unrelated to the present situation.

Esther was in the vogue, wearing a long, straight-sided dress in a plain weave, very chic. Her hat, hastily-donned before dismounting from the vehicle, was a small, flat, sunshine yellow canister cocked rakishly to one side, whereas every other woman there was dressed in a more traditional Victorian garb that oddly reminded Gilles of his own mother. That was that group, although others were clearly farm women interrupted in mid-chore. With Esther, it was a matter of barely showing a shapely kneecap, almost consciously by pose alone, and the others were daring if they exposed an ankle! It wasn't even so much a difference of age. Either she wasn't from around here, or she got away from here quite often. He wondered if his deductions had any validity at all when it came to the female sex. Only insofar as his job required, and not much more, he thought.

Why even consider it?

Gilles saw this as an interesting moment in personal observation, an opportunity to see things from a totally detached point of view. Did they realize they stood gossiping in a cow pasture? Pink and peach and sea-foam green, shimmering, gossamer, rarely seen even in Church these days. Those bonnets would give the communists bad dreams. Fifteen years or fifty, it was out of date. They seemed blissfully unaware of the latest trends, and if ignorance was bliss, then these people were surely having a good time.

For one second, Gilles wondered if he loved or hated 'nice' people. He had never seriously considered the question before. They honked and cackled like geese sometimes.

"All right, all right, step back please, ladies and gentlemen," and it looked like the local constabulary had arrived at long last, as a harried man in the blue of an English Bobby brushed past him and Billy. "Step back, step back."

The constable, a lantern-jawed man well over six feet tall but otherwise non-descript, put his bicycle up on its kickstand and pulled a notebook out if his coat pocket. His wrists stuck out of his sleeves a long way. Due to the soft ground, the bike promptly fell over but he ignored it. Putting his head down and writing out the particulars of this event, he studiously ignored everyone, as all eyes were begging for his attention at once. Licking the tip of the pencil thoughtfully, he kept going. But he would call them when ready, realized Gilles, and not a moment sooner. The flicker of a grin crossed his face, but quickly faded. A gendarme's dignity was inviolate. This fellow had the act down pat.

Gilles hoped the alleged doctor of this straggling hamlet was not too far behind. Sagging in exhaustion and emotionally drained by his own ordeal, Gilles limped back to Esther's little green car, hoping that she would take a hint, although he had absolutely no idea of what to suggest next. The death of the unfortunate pilot went only a little way towards putting his own drab, dreary and meaningless life in perspective.

The English even had to drive on the wrong side of the road, he grumped to himself, awkwardly climbing in with his bad leg throbbing.

***

Gilles and the doctor got along like a house on fire. Doctor Nagle had been at the Somme, sawing off more than his fair share of shattered limbs, to hear him tell it.

"There's really not too much more I can do, old chap," said Doctor Nagle. "You've pretty much followed the drill. Rest, elevation and ice. If you simply must walk about on it, a wrapping for compression is called for."

"Pardon? Drill?"

"You did the right thing to put ice on it," said the doctor. "I can give you something for the pain, or something to help you sleep."

"Very well," said Gilles. "And thank you."

"While I've got you here, I was wondering if you might be interested in a bottle of Doctor Zuckerman's Strawberry Extract?" suggested Dr. Nagle. "If that doesn't put the lead back in your pencil, then I suppose nothing will!"

With a collegial grin and a conspiratorial wink, Gilles leaned over and tapped the doctor on the knee.

"No," he said.

Doctor Nagle leaned over and did the same to Gilles.

"What about Mrs. Heart-throb's Deep-Cleansing Stomach Pills?"

Gilles just smiled amiably and shook his head, brushing the doctor's hand away with a wry look. The man was clearly half-mad and enjoying a good day out of the office.

The doctor continued rummaging through his valise.

"Hmn, hmn, hmn," he said. "Aha! Piles, anyone?"

Gilles laughed aloud, and again he shook his head firmly.

The tantalizing aroma of food, hot food, came from somewhere in this house. Gilles's gut grumbled insistently and loudly. It went on and on and on, and he wondered if the other could hear it. What would the diagnosis be? And what would be the prescription?

"No problem," explained Doctor Nagle, rummaging through his little black bag. "I'm so sorry I couldn't get here sooner, but Mrs. Jackson over at Pomfret's came damn near to having a miscarriage. I won't bore you with the technical terms, but it was touch and go. And then the Lowell boy's fever—but I guess you don't care too much about all of that!"

Gilles nodded sheepishly. The doctor pulled out bottles, all of dark brown glass and smelling mean and bitter. He had a roll of stuff and some safety pins in the bag, and he would no doubt be writing up a bill, any minute now.

"Oh, I don't know," he muttered. "Your next customer is of the, er, patient type."

Doctor Nagle boggled slightly at this remark, then his face split open in a wide grin.

"Hee-hee-hee," he said, giving Gilles a wink after a quick look around. "These newfangled machines, they're going to destroy society by making things happen too quickly."

Biting his lip, and with a sardonic gleam in his eye, he rose to his feet. Proffering a hand to help Gilles get up from the wing chair in this dismal house, Nagle planted a bland yet cheerful look on his face.

"Let's go have a look," he suggested. "I've been hearing about it all fewking day, mate!"

A slightly wobbly Gilles Maintenon nodded in grim agreement.

"A Royal Army doctor! Just my luck," he quipped.

"Haw!" was Nagle's response. "How many medicinal brandies have you actually had?"

He stared at Gilles, pale blue eyes piercing in their intensity, even from behind the round silvery lenses.

The doctor tipped his head momentarily, spun around on one heel, and led the way out the door. There was a sense of relish visible even from this angle, upon his remarkably homely visage. Something about the set of his neck told Gilles that this was the most exciting thing that had happened around here in quite a while, and Doctor Nagle was determined to make the most of it. He gave the impression of a not-very-good actor playing a lead role to a packed house for the very first time.

The Constable had taken charge of the dining room table and its forlorn occupant.

"His name is Harold Hardy," reported Gilles, proffering Constable Dick Tyler the offending wallet.

"And how did you come by this, sir?" Constable Tyler asked politely, but with an edge to his query. "Interfering with the remains of a deceased individual is an offence."

Gilles ignored the fact that the body had been dragged here by a gaggle of willing volunteers, in clear contravention of statute, and tried not to slump in exhaustion. Someone had been in here, and not just the doctor. A bare foot stuck out, and there were wet boot marks on the floor. Gilles was a foreigner, he understood that very well. He was a stranger in town.

Gilles wondered where the other shoe and sock were. Taken for souvenirs, perhaps?

"I was the first one who thought to look," he explained. "He was a lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, although the aircraft doesn't look official. He's dressed in evening clothes, underneath the flying suit."

"Are you an expert in aircraft, sir?" inquired Constable Tyler.

"No," admitted Gilles.

"Then we'll leave that to the investigators, won't we?" said Tyler with a grim look, snapping shut his notebook. "There'll be an inquest, of course. I pray you aren't leaving town, sir?"

Gilles suppressed a rude retort and gratefully turned away as Tyler's coal-black eyes scoured the room, seeking out another victim for this unique form of torment. This is what happens when bullies go straight, he decided. Giggles and whispers from the peanut gallery, a sort of sitting area arranged near the front bay windows of the big double room petered out quickly. A hushed silence and a bunch of flaming red ears were all Gilles could see through the archway.

In a bizarre twist, Constable Tyler half-turned his way, patted him solicitously on the shoulder, and nodded in sympathetic understanding.

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," he told the bemused Maintenon. "I'm really sorry about your leg, and you're not a serious suspect anyways. Heh-heh-heh."

Gilles threw his head back and laughed at the rafters of this Gothic horror of a house, complete with water stains on the cracked and yellowing, bulging old plaster between the beams.

He was tempted to tell Constable Tyler that he was smarter than he looked, but gave in to the temptation to deny himself this pleasure. Besides, it would keep until later.

"That's what I tell everyone too," said Maintenon.

Chapter Five

The Air Was Blue with Smoke

The air in the billiards room was blue with cigar smoke as the doctor lined up. Maintenon was beating him pretty badly, not even bothering to keep score but just patiently waiting. Then when the doctor flubbed a shot, Gilles would send a triple-banker caroming off a stripe and a solid, a stripe and a solid...

"Argh," said Doctor Nagle. "Bloody Frog! Let me guess, you used to work undercover."

"Pommy bastard," noted Gilles mildly. "And I did do some undercover work, quite a lot of it, actually."

"It's good to see you boys get along," said Mrs. Heath, poking her head in the doorway and eyeballing with suspicion the cloudy atmosphere, the residue of which would undoubtedly befoul her curtains. These were heavy dark orange things that appeared to keep light and air out of the room rather than fulfill any valid decorative purpose. The room was refreshingly masculine compared to the rest of the place. Clearly she had had no hand in it, and the Squire's suffocating influence still held sway.

He limped around the table, eye-balling the next shot.

The Squire's nasty old portrait hung on the end wall of this very room. It was unwelcome anywhere else, he decided, but she would never take it down completely and hide it in the attic. At one time they must have seen something in each other. The same thing could be said about anyone's marriage, even his own.

There was a commotion in the hall outside, and then another figure brushed past her rudely.

"Harold Hardy! That can't be Harold Hardy!"

It was Jamey Martin, with a blank look on his face. He stood in the doorway, reeking of beer. Tie missing, his shirt was unbuttoned at the top. His Royal Air Force tunic had damp-looking blotches on the left side of the chest. Mrs. Heath, red-faced but speechless, grasped her rosary beads up close under her chin and glared at James. She took a step away from him and put her hands on her hips, dangling beads and all.

"Yes?" inquired the doctor, holding up a placating hand to stifle her. "Did you know the chap?"

Jamey's mouth was open but he just stared at Mrs. Heath as if recognizing that he had nearly knocked her down. He gulped a couple of times in dismay, apparently having nothing to say for himself.

Dr. Nagle's wondering eyes turned to Maintenon.

"That's handy, what do you think?" he asked his new friend and confidante of the three stiff drink variety.

"How come you didn't say anything before?" Maintenon asked James in mild curiousity.

Surely this was none of his affair, but the night was long and he wasn't quite ready for bed yet.

"I...I didn't know," gasped the fellow. "He looked so queer...so dead. It never really registered."

"Maybe we'd better have another look," said the doctor, and Maintenon nodded shortly in agreement.

"There's nothing better to do around here," he noted.

***

Jimmy and Gilles turned right upon exiting the billiard room, but the doctor corrected them.

"No," he advised. "We've moved him to the rear. He's in the mud room."

"Mud room?" asked Gilles, mystified.

While the major rooms were papered in various patterns, the hallways were all painted in a soothing, warm off-white colour with just a hint of peach in it. They went off in all directions from the foyer. But then, it was a big house.

"You'll see," said Jimmy Martin. "They couldn't leave him there forever."

"Yes, that's right. We hope to eat dinner soon," grunted Maintenon. "Right off of that very table."

James' features were pale, and a thin sheen of moisture could be seen on his cheeks. Yet he was much more composed now.

They followed Doctor Nagle down a short hallway, past the landing to the rear stairs, and through a big, brightly-lit kitchen, ignoring its lone occupant, a stout feminine figure in an apron. There was a door with half-glass in it, and beyond that another heavily-glazed room was visible.

They all trooped through the door and stood looking at the shrouded form lying prone on a long pine bench just to the left of the door.

"Ah," said Gilles as comprehension dawned. "A mud room!"

The door on the east side and a long tin tray replete with rows of different sizes of boots and shoes, obviously belonging to both genders, held their own logical explanation.

***

The doctor pulled back the sheet. Jimmy stepped in close, keeping his hands at his sides as if fearing contagion.

"Didn't you look before, James?" asked the doctor, and the young Martin boy just shook his head.

He was still half afraid to look, and yet unable to deny the necessity of this occasion. He held his breath, looked, looked away, and then back again. He seemed puzzled.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Aren't you?" asked Doctor Nagle.

"How well did you know this Hardy?" asked Gilles. "Are you certain that it is not him?"

Gilles brushed the hair back on the forehead of the peaceful corpse, perhaps not as youthful as James Martin, but certainly tragically young even to the jaded Maintenon.

"Various parties," said Martin. "On base...places around town. Aw. Jesus, Christ, almighty."

The head lolled back on the bench, although someone had been thoughtful enough to put a folded old blanket under the back of it. Mostly to keep it from clunking down, he understood without a whole lot of either sympathy or contempt. People didn't have to be rational or even just logical, in Gilles' opinion—all they had to do was stay out of trouble and he would have been happy with that.

"There is some discolouration," said Gilles, which was putting it mildly. "He's very pale, flaccid if you will. He hadn't shaved in some time, although the beard does continue to grow after death. How well did you know this man? He is a famous flier, as Constable Tyler was telling us."

Jimmy nodded slowly.

"Everybody knows Hardy," said Jimmy and his shoulders suddenly slumped. "What in the hell was he doing up here?"

"Is this Lieutenant Harold Hardy?" prodded Doctor Nagle. "That's what it says on his card, and if you're not sure, that's all right. It's better off not to say. It's better not to confuse the issue. The police or more likely the Air Ministry will notify his next of kin using official channels, and we'll get a proper identification of the body. I'm waiting as far as the death certificate goes. We rather like to get the right name on there."

Jimmy shook his head sadly.

"It sure looks like Harry," and the fellow was having a hard time swallowing and breathing.

"We'll just assume it's him for now, James," said Maintenon, touching the young man gently on the elbow. "We'll let the proper authorities worry about it. There will almost certainly be an inquest."

"It looks somewhat like him," repeated Jimmy, and then he allowed Doctor Nagle to lead him back to the kitchen.

"Strong tea, and lots of it," he prescribed, beckoning to the cook, who was seated at a huge unpainted worktable, reading the evening papers.

Gilles nodded in approval as the cook got up with alacrity to sit James down at the table.

***

The night was restless.

The atmosphere was manifestly unhappy with itself, and about to lash out.

Low scudding clouds, fat as a cow's udder bearing milk to her offspring, surged overhead. Swirls in the dark mist hung below in filmy curtains, dragging along the darkened horizon like a woman's skirts. The air was pregnant with promise and the imminent discharge of all debts to the earth. Gilles' hair stood up on end on the back of his neck, but it was mood more than any real danger. It was the mere suggestion of something sinister in the air.

Strong lightning flashed across the sky, splitting it asunder in jagged arcs of electrical fire.

Boughs of the dark larches surrounding the property wavered and began to whip back and forth.

Hard rain pelted down and a cold wind began to blow. The abrasive rasp of hail spattered on the roof. The shutters began to bump gently back and forth, with long pauses, and then three or four quick beats. Branches of a massive old oak tree, half of which was clearly dead, tapped against the window of an upper bedroom. The air crackled with promises long un-kept and the evening was alive with the sudden silence of the crickets. Gilles had a prickling sensation at the back of the neck, and wondered if the lightning would seek them out next time.

Pale in the dimness, a wraith-like form appeared from a gap where a footpath broke through the dark box-hedge surrounding the main house.

An attractive woman in a long, filmy white nightgown ran barefoot across the lawn. The damp garment clung to her pale form. Pausing, she looked desperately about her, eyes rimmed in white and with one hand plucking at the nightgown's fastening at her throat. Then, lowering her head against the rain and the darkening sky, she continued on around the corner of the hedge and disappeared as silently as she had come.

Standing on the rear porch with one eyebrow raised, Doctor Nagle nudged Maintenon and sucked hard on his empty pipe, a little globule of spittle burbling happily away in the bottom of it.

"Who in the hell was that?" he asked. "Are they all stark, raving, mad around here?"

"The house of two stone dogs," murmured Gilles, referring to the black-painted concrete figures mounted on top of the rough sandstone mass of the Manor's gate posts. "Tell me about the Squire."

"Oh, God," said the doctor.

And with that, as he lit up another of his infamously thin black cheroots, Gilles would have to be content.

Chapter Six

Please Walk This Way

"Please walk this way," said Freddy, taking Gilles upstairs to a bedroom.

Hasty arrangements and flustered conferences had determined it was best for 'the injured foreign gentleman' to remain overnight. Mr. Appleby was sitting in the kitchen enjoying an unaccustomed treat of fresh-baked apple pie with an incredibly stinky cheese and innumerable cups of hot, sweet tea. He would be taking the corpse into town in the back of his cart. The only reason for delay was the necessity of the stable lads unpacking all of the liniment and hair-curling formulas from the back of the wagon. Their footsteps thudded up the curving stairway, with Gilles using the heavily-spindled railing to help pull himself along. The hallway, painted a golden yellow, was dimly lit and full of anonymous doorways, framed in heavily-tooled, dark brown wood. These old houses always had a certain smell of mothballs and carbolic soap, which was not unfamiliar to him. The inhabitants probably didn't notice it anymore, and those who did would find some reassurance in it.

The carpet was grooved in the centre, with a low terrain all of its own due to generations of use. It sucked up the noise of their passage, resulting in a deathly silence. The upstairs seemed quite isolated from the rest of the house.

"Slow down," begged Gilles. "Thank you! Here is my bag!"

He tried to appear bright and cheerful, yet he was so exhausted by his week of hiking, and now all the excitement in what was after all a strange household. A sprained knee was just the icing on the cake. A private house was not an inn. It was something he hadn't bargained for. He had lost control over his situation, if only temporarily, and Gilles wasn't keen about imposing on the kindness of strangers.

"Well, I hope you'll find the room comfortable enough, and if you should need anything," said Freddy, rock-steady of hand and gait, now that he was safely drunk, and seemingly inclined to chat. "Let me know if you need your shoes cleaned or jacket brushed, or anything like that. Morning tea will be brought at seven, breakfast is served at eight."

"Yes, yes, thank you," said Gilles, unwilling to push by the man aside and occupy the space so arbitrarily allotted to him.

If he could just get rid of him.

"There's always hot water, and tea in a jar in the kitchen," said Freddy.

"Yes, thank you," said Gilles.

"I'll just be going then," said Freddy.

Gilles sighed deeply and stepped in close enough to feel the heat of him, brushing past Freddy and heading for the bed where his evil-smelling rucksack lay. Through a gap in the open curtains, he could see Mr. Appleby's cart, dimly visible in the spill of amber light coming out of the coach-house.

"There's water and a sponge, and towels on the sideboard," said Freddy.

"Hmn," said Gilles, impatient.

When he turned around, Freddy was finally gone. One way or another, Gilles had a very strong urge to get out of the place. His head jerked in sudden recognition. How many times had he said it?

Flight was evidence of guilt. What was he running from?

***

In spite of himself, Gilles found a lethargy overtaking him that he could not fight against. After a wash, a tepid shave, and a quick change into the last of his clean clothes, he could not resist. Another quick look out of the bedroom window, and the cart was still being unloaded. It would obviously take them forever. Serfs were so inefficient! But it kept them busy, and therefore out of politics. He lay on the bed, just to rest his tired eyes for a moment, and all of a sudden he found himself waking up again, without knowing quite how long he had been out of it...he could still hear their cheerful voices in the yard outside.

So that was all right then, but he had better try the back stairs soon.

Gilles planned on leaving without any goodbyes or loud and insistent protest from his would-be hosts. Charming as they were, the doctor didn't seem all that competent, now that he thought about it, and he really was supposed to be having a good time.

A sibilant noise came to him from the corner. Turning his head, he was appalled, galvanized even, by the apparition of a ghostly figure, all dressed in white, and with a pair of pale, dark-rimmed eyes glaring at him in sheer, sardonic sexual glee.

Recognition struck.

"Esther!" he gasped. "Oh, nom de Dieu! Nom de Dieu! Oh, no, what in the bloody hell are you doing here?"

"How do you like my hair?" she asked, coming forward and climbing right up on the bed beside where he still lay, gaping in awe. "I dyed it just for you—like a Gypsy!"

True enough, her long tresses were now much straighter and jet-black. She was the lady of the storm!

"Er, er, most fetching," gabbled Gilles, now bolt upright and back-crawling up the pillows and the headboard. "You were out on the lawn! Are you mad? How did you get here?"

"I came across the fields," she giggled, clearly much-aroused by the sensuality of wet grass on bare feet and legs.

The thin gown, still damp after hours of waiting, did little to conceal the shape and warmth of her breasts, as she grabbed Gilles's wrists, and with a leg-cross as quick as any professional fighter he had ever seen, she straddled his middle.

"Oh, no, Esther," he groaned in dismay and with much emphasis on the last word.

She was unbelievably strong. She was trying to kiss him, and he was trying to push her away, and they were face to face, inches apart, and all was deathly silent except for the strong breath of their exertion. She let go impulsively.

"What's the matter, silly?" she asked, pulling the thin shift off over her head.

Gilles' heart-rate shot up another few notches. The obvious place to push was her chest, and he couldn't help himself but to try...oh.

There was no denying her magnificence.

The hell of it was, Gilles couldn't think of any reasonable, rational objections. But he was almost certain it would spawn unforeseen complications—and there was no telling how long it could possibly take to unload that miserable wagon.

The last thing he needed was a lot of fuss and bother. To be caught would be most humiliating...

How much noise was she likely to make, one way or another?

***

There came a sharp knock at the door. They froze, an almost impossible task at that precise moment in time, and the noise of her tongue withdrawing from his mouth made an audible smack.

She was unbelievable. Gilles stared up at her, mesmerized by his own folly. Her wild eyes were locked on his in a hysterical questioning mode. She flung up her hands.

'What? What?' she was saying, turning and staring fixedly at the door's inscrutable barrier and then back again. Although the meaning was obvious, he was all out of ideas.

Gilles shrugged as best he could, being at a complete loss as to what to suggest using silence and gestures only. He focused on gaining control of his breathing, staring at her loveliness, trying all the while not to groan loudly and pound his fists on the side of the head.

It was ever so predictable! He had never been a lucky man, only very good at certain things.

Leaping out of bed, for she was still on top of Gilles, she nipped back into the corner behind the door. Then she scampered back for the gown.

"Ah-ah," gasped Maintenon, out of breath and struggling his way up into a seated position.

He shook his head in disbelief, and her hand flew up to stifle a giggle.

"Glugh," he said, gulping for air.

The door popped open and a head and a set of shoulders came sticking into the room, backlit by the dim glow of the hallway. Esther's eyes bugged out in a look of sheer horror from the other side of the door's thickness.

"Are you all right, sir?" asked Freddy. "I was on my way to the bathroom, and I thought I heard something. I said to myself, 'that's a funny noise coming from Monsieur Maintenon's room!'"

"Oh! No! It's nothing, I assure you," stammered Gilles. "Really, I think I just swallowed the wrong way! But I thank you for your concern."

"I'm sorry, sir, it's just that I thought you might have been taken ill, or something," said Freddy and Gilles was waiting for him to flip on the light and make himself at home. "I thought, er, I wonder if Monsieur Maintenon...do you prefer Inspector? I thought some people have, er, fits, and things like that...and, ah...forgive my impertinence...?"

The questions, both real and imagined, hung in the air like very sharp icicles, just waiting to drop on your head, or into your eyes if you looked up at the wrong time to admire their beauty.

"I...er, it is very embarrassing, how do you say? I, I, I talk to myself," said Gilles, unable to come up with anything better extemporaneously. "Ever since...well."

If ever there was a time to be maddeningly French, now was that time!

Ever since the wife died, he was trying to imply, but clearly Freddy had no knowledge of it. Yes, and it would take time, and provoke more talk, all of it dangerous, to explain. He had new sympathy for prisoners under interrogation. This was hard! He stared silently at Freddy, and incidentally at Esther as well.

"Well, I hope you have a good night, sir," said Freddy, at a loss for what inquiry to make next.

Gilles wondered if he missed the Squire, and if they maybe used to talk like this, with Freddy half hanging in and half hanging out of the bedroom doorway.

"Thank you, and good night," said Gilles firmly.

Finally, reluctantly, Freddy closed the door and Gilles wondered how long he would stand there. It's not that he could actually hear Freddy's breath, but he could well imagine it. There was Esther, fully revealed again, staring at him in glee, with her hand over her mouth, and bent over in convulsions.

He prayed that Esther wouldn't giggle, and was unbelievably grateful when she didn't. He let go of the tension and fell straight back onto the pillows, almost afraid to breathe again just yet. Gilles sucked in more air, slowly, enjoying the taste of it, and all for free, by the grace of God. All free.

All of the tension and fear left him with a rush, and he smiled back at her without reserve.

Taken all in all, and in her own unique way, Esther was a remarkable woman. Gilles savoured the moment for what it was worth, when he discovered that he possessed a sneaking morsel of affection for the lady. The bed jostled and shook as she climbed back aboard carefully, trying not to squeak the bedsprings any more than was absolutely necessary.

"Hi, lover," she whispered, locking her mouth onto his semi-incredulous face once again.

***

"Oh, Lord a mercy," she shuddered, falling back into the sweaty sheets beside him.

Gilles lay there for a while, listening quietly, slowly reintegrating his identity, which had departed entirely. He couldn't honestly recall that ever happening before. It really was like becoming an animal, sheer organism with no higher mental function other than the stimulus of the moment, of a moment that was everything, complete and dependent upon nothing but itself.

Two people, engaged in the most primal, and the most sublime thing that two people could do without laughing.

It symbolized the essence of life, in its most fundamental form. He had a brief mental image of spermatazoa swimming through viscous fluid, all fighting to be first, and now, suddenly, for the first time in his life, he understood why. It was because to be second was to fail utterly, and to be wasted entirely. Promise fulfilled, and a failure irrelevant. This was a kind of mysterious revelation, and something to be respected and remembered. He found the words.

"I like you, Esther," he told her in simple humility.

She gave him a strange look, waving air over herself to cool down, her skin moist and covered in glowing highlights with all the sweat.

So that was it, then.

He could still taste her mouth hot upon his own. Such was reality. He could not deny the event. It must have some other meaning. It was perhaps hidden, only to be revealed later. It would be revealed upon his death bed and not a moment sooner, for only God knew the mind of Woman. The frightening thing was the discovery of hidden depths in his own confused mind, his own disjointed persona.

"Thank you," said Gilles, coming to terms with what had just happened. "Why you would ever do such a thing, is completely beyond my comprehension. But I thank you anyway!"

Would wonders never cease?

Chapter Seven

Dumb As a Stick

Mr. Appleby was apparently as dumb as a stick and as deaf as a stone. Esther held the car up close to the right of the plodding wagon and Mr. Appleby was in the middle of the bench seat, trying to control a suddenly-persnickety horse. The animal was all too aware of the sputtering motorcar coming up from behind. The horse, an old dappled grey mare of the massively-built variety, was not deaf. She clearly despised sports-cars, lurching to the right, and turning her head to the left, ears rotating around to locate the source of the threat. Ghostly beech trees jogged backwards beside the road at a sedate pace, with Esther driving one-handed and reaching down half under Gilles and tugging at his pack.

"Argh," grunted Gilles, suddenly irritated beyond measure or rational control.

Hot angry grunts rent the night, his face went all tight and his chin went down, but he got a grip on himself. A couple of deep breaths of chill night air helped, but only just. These people were all so stupidly innocent.

"Hold on," Gilles added in a show of politeness.

Damn the English!

The land was dimly lit by the glistering light of a thin crescent moon and glowing, billowing clouds. Bright stars were visible in the patches of black velvet between them. The car's yellowing headlamps dimly lit the road ahead, and finally Mr. Appleby seemed to be aware that this lighting was not natural. Gilles saw the grey head spin around suddenly, but the blasted man simply would not stop. Esther apparently only had about a pint of petrol in the tank, as Gilles could see from his own seat if he really cared to look. The thought festered but a moment more.

"You'll have to jump!" shouted Esther. "He's very stubborn, and he has no idea—"

"Va te ferre foutre!" blurted Gilles, uncharacteristically for him.

"He thinks we're playing some kind of prank," shouted Esther.

It was completely unprofessional, but luckily she understood no French, or so Gilles thought.

"I have no idea what you just said, but honestly," she said.

"I'm on the wrong side," he pointed out.

Finally the cretin Appleby, half standing in his perch, all red-faced and blustering in the darkness as if staving off a posse of highwaymen, pulled the ancient thing to such a sudden halt the doddering old fool almost fell forwards over the dash-panel.

Gilles hadn't had such a strange day in many, many years. He wondered if it was going to get better, or worse. He wondered if it would ever end!

With a groan, he tried to unwind himself from the snug space of her car, all his muscles and joints aching. His knee was on fire. It was about this time that a big black auto, surely the sign of an important man, perhaps even a doctor, raced past them with horn blaring. It was headed in the direction of the village. He plopped painfully and carelessly onto the hard bench seat beside Mr. Appleby, in an act of pure masochism. Mr. Appleby whipped up the reins and the horse obediently moved on with an impatient lurch. As he looked back in wonder, Esther waved gaily, blew him a kiss, and then whipped around in a U-turn that was suicidal in its impulsiveness. The raspberry of exhaust diminished up the road, her tail lights two receding pin-pricks of lonely red light in the blackness. She crested a slight rise, and then she was gone.

"Merde," said Gilles.

Hearing an indistinct thump from the bed of the wagon behind, Gilles turned again. Illuminated by strong moonlight, there was revealed a limp white wrist, with a pale and lifeless hand attached to it, jiggling ever so slightly as they hit yet another deep pothole. The wind whipped up the shroud, and Gilles wondered if they would ever get to a telephone. For some reason he kept thinking of Poe.

"Va te faire foutre, Monsieur Raven!" he muttered darkly.

What he wouldn't give to speak to someone on a telephone, someone from home, someone from the department, if only for the sound of a rational voice. What he wouldn't give for the perspective of someone with some degree of separation from the day's events.

The night had suddenly gone very cold.

***

Gilles shivered uncontrollably, with his teeth audibly chattering, almost hugging himself with impatience. Deposited in front of the inn at approximately four-thirteen in the wee hours of the morning, it was with some sense of dread and futility that he raised the heavy bronze door knocker.

He stepped back in alarm when the light over the door snapped on and he heard bolts being drawn back.

"Sacre bleu," he muttered.

"Welcome, stranger," said a blowsy woman in a nightgown that hung like a grain sack on her ample frame. "We've rather been expecting you."

She had a face so wrinkled it could have held a three-day rain. Her hair hung in tatters. At least that was his first impression, but it was merely very thin and very white now. It must have been red hair once, judging by her complexion. She smiled and it was a joy to behold. This was a genuinely happy person, and at this hour.

"Please hold a room for me," said Gilles, thrusting money into her hand, and holding his knapsack out at arm's length.

With her mouth open in disbelief, she took it in reflex as Gilles spun and limped off in pursuit of the man Appleby and the corpse of Harold Hardy. The back end of the cart had just disappeared around an adjacent corner, and it couldn't get far in two minutes. He could still hear hoof-beats on cobblestones.

***

Gilles watched from behind a privet hedge as the doctor and Appleby dragged the body from the bed of the cart. The arms dangling, with the weight itself supported by what looked like a narrow door or something, they thumped and whacked it into the back of the local undertaker's.

"Incroyable!" breathed Gilles.

He had seen all that he was likely to see. Turning to make his way back to the inn, he ran smack into a hard wall of blue serge that could only be bad news.

"Monsieur Maintenon, I presume," said Constable Tyler. "Out for a stroll, were we?"

***

"Of course you can explain everything," said Tyler, seated atop his high chair behind a tall counter top.

Gilles stood there, cold, miserable, and hungry, slightly hung over, with a bit of a headache, and the sullen memory of his recent near-rape hanging over him. Hand-cuffed! Andre and the boys would love to see this. He shook his head in a kind of resignation.

"No, actually, I cannot," he rejoined tartly. "But I sure would like to know more."

"What do you mean?" asked Tyler. "That's a strange attitude, or maybe not, for a strange gentleman, hanging about and with no real business of his own."

"I'm on a walking tour of Dartmoor," explained Gilles.

"You're behaving like a guilty man—Inspector Maintenon," noted Constable Tyler. "In this building we have telephones, unlike some of the houses around here. Something is bothering you."

With a friendly smile, Tyler came around and removed the cuffs. He led Gilles into another room, this one more of a squad room, and got him a cup of coffee.

Maintenon sat regarding the man opposite. Surely it was none of his 'beeswax,' as the English were fond of saying? Was there any real danger of the British authorities fumbling a simple criminal investigation, one which he was sure he could solve if given a little time and a free hand to ask pertinent questions?

What were the odds that this was a crime, and a very serious one?

Maintenon took a deep breath, held it in and let it out.

"If that plane crashed at about ten forty-seven a.m., and if that man was alive when he flew over me, and if he died in the crash, then why has the body shown no signs of rigour mortis?"

Constable Tyler pursed his lips tightly, working them thoughtfully back and forth. In a habitual gesture, he reached up to stroke his chin. He looked puzzled, as if his beard was suddenly missing.

"That is a very good question," he admitted. "Thank you for sharing that with us."

Gilles Maintenon sat there unhappily, wondering what sort of unstoppable juggernaut he had just set in motion.

***

The barn was less than a thousand metres from the crash site. There were the requisite marks, and the landowner did not own a motorcycle with a sidecar. There was only one of those in the neighbourhood, as far as anyone in this intimate and isolated community knew.

"Voila," murmured the local Deputy Superintendent, Inspector Avery Dawson.

He was based in the county town and administrative centre of Exeter.

Constable Tyler was hovering with his notebook.

Another pair of uniformed officers pulled aside the lone labourer, clad in disconsolately limp grey coveralls, and carefully brushed loose black soil aside. They set about picking it out, as Tyler took copious notes while the labourer carefully picked his nose.

"I'll bet a thousand francs it's a parachute," said Gilles, as the grey mist gave up the struggle and a thin spattering rain began to fall.

There was a grim look on his face. He sagged in resignation and a kind of relief. His hunch was right. They would not think him a fool.

There were no takers for his wager, and no one laughed, either.

In a kind of anticlimax, it turned out to be Harold Hardy's own personal parachute, offering no further leads other than the simple fact of its discovery.

***

"Ooh!"

Horrid-smelling steam rose up from manhole covers in the street, and then stopped. The miasma of it was indescribable, all warm putrescence and the suggestion of everything else. One moment all was clamour and noise, the next deathly silent. They shared every minute of it vicariously, sometimes with a look between strangers, sometimes with a gasp, a half-repressed feminine scream, or a masculine groan or curse.

"Ahhh!"

They all craned their necks. The police, the crowd, the pickpockets, the pimps and the prostitutes watched together. Their hearts and minds were mostly on his side, and against the common enemy, their hearts and minds together as one, wishing against the machine as they watched with gaping mouths. Always in the background, the unobtrusive life of the city, a clanging of bells, a rushing of winds, the slamming of doors, the padding of footsteps, shouts, cat-calls, whistles, and vehicles rushing to and fro.

"No! NO!"

In spite of it all, he heard gasps and sighs all around in the pool of streetlight and the engaging blackness beyond. No, these people would not like the police. Not at street level, not in this part of the city.

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god," a woman babbled and no one noticed except him.

Light spilled out of a hundred lit windows of a once-trendy London block of flats. The pale golden light glimmered on the strips and steps of a series of three fire escapes, connected back and forth by narrow catwalks with slender railings. The patter of hard shoes reverberated in the streets and alleys below, but the city was alive with its own noise. It was hard to make out, and so the sudden silences as people hung on the moment.

"Yay!" they shouted as one, and Maintenon had to grin in spite of the seriousness of the moment.

From a building just across the street, the most incoherent bongo band Maintenon had ever heard energetically tried to bash the heads off of their drums. A mindless, throbbing beat with no rhyme or reason, just energy for its own sake, assailed his eardrums as he stood with most of his weight on the left leg, watching in suspense.

"Ssss," the people sucked in a collective gasp...

Tall figures in dark uniforms trotted up and down, up one set of stairs, down another, and then across and over again in pursuit of a solitary figure. The fellow seemed to know his way about. Gilles wondered if he would try the window ledges next, or the thick cable, stoutly clipped to the side of the structure, or maybe the drainage pipes. The fire escape of the adjacent building was clearly too far to attempt, at least to a rational soul. Again, like a big black monkey, he clattered up and away from the encircling blue uniforms and waving batons. He must know it was hopeless, but it was never hopeless to the quarry, as Maintenon knew from experience. Once in a blue moon someone did escape, and it made the news. It gave room for hope to the desperate, and the desperate couldn't think straight anyway.

The hum of voices enveloped him, wrapping him in a warm hug of human emotion, spilling out of a hundred guts.

Everyone around him was talking or muttering or cursing at once. This was the psychological moment. It was over.

A stentorian voice called out in the gloom. Bloodstains discovered in the alley were the clincher. Harold Hardy had died there, or very close by. And this was James Martin's little pied a terre in the City. If that wasn't enough, the crash happened on the second day of a three-day leave. It was circumstantial, but persuasive evidence indeed.

"James Martin, we have a warrant for your arrest."

There was a delay, a catch in the stride, and then the figure suddenly slumped to a halt, five floors above the street, up against the thin railing, right at the front end of the building near the street. Head hanging, even in the now familiar uniform, he was unrecognizable to Gilles. Stark terror gleamed in his eyes, mouth hanging open, vainly seeking sustenance from the polluted air. It seemed like an infinity of space, and yet realistically, Gilles estimated that one-hundred and forty-three feet of distance separated his own eyes from Martin's.

They know my name. There is no place to hide.

James stared into the street below as a thick hush, pregnant with emotion, came over all of them at his obvious despair.

His eyes sought something out, who was it? What was it? When was it? Where was it? Gilles saw horror in those blank eyes, as they went left and right, left and right, cycling back and forth very quickly. Those eyes saw everything, and yet nothing made sense anymore.

James was finished.

They could hear his ragged panting as he thought about things, wildly looking around. Gilles felt it too. It was like being inside of another man's head at the darkest moment of his existence. All of time hung in the balance, and then it was over. He could imagine the physical feel of James Martin's eyes, awash with tears, as he stood there blinking in the glare of two dozen flashlights.

Jimmy waited patiently for the officers to arrest him and to put the handcuffs on.

Then, with the hulking dark forms on either side of him, a little prodding and much gentle patience, he was led, half-limp, to the nearest window and helped back inside.

All the time, that damned marimba band kept pounding out the jungle beat, fitting enough background music for the capture and arrest of a heartless, cold-blooded killer. Gilles shivered in the cool evening air as the man beside him gave a grunt of relief. There was a general rise in the volume of conversation all around them, and the people, relieved of something inside of them, noticed that they had neighbours. It was like a tragedy had been averted and then a cocktail party broke out on some mad impulse. Strangers became friends, and class barriers were suddenly overcome. Maintenon took it all in stride.

"I half expected him to jump, just then," Avery Dawson observed.

Inspector Roy Luddle of Scotland Yard nodded in a kind of fulfillment.

"Right! We got the blighter, and none of the men are injured. That's good, jolly good," said Luddle. "Bloody miserable business, I've had to do it a time or two myself."

Chapter Eight

An Inquest into the Death of Harold Hardy, R.A.F.

Coroner Edward Lyle faced the jury of stolid, impassive citizens and engaged each and every one of them by eye. The middle-aged Lyle, with his grizzled mutton-chop whiskers and imposing bearing, supported by a six-foot frame, knew well how to hold their attention through the preliminary tedium. They were eager to get to the testimony, especially the autopsy. He was reading from prepared notes, but in fact could have done it all by heart.

The problem was, they had all read the newspapers, and it was all irrelevant to his purpose.

He planned on further investigation by police. All he had to do was to get them to agree.

"Our sworn duty is to determine the facts of the case as laid out in the Coroner's (Amendment) Act of 1926," he informed them. "Also, to determine and report the cause of death, be it by accident, suicide, or otherwise, to prepare our findings, and solemnly swear and attest that these said facts are a true bill in our finding, if that should be the case."

A collective gasp rose from the packed gallery of oaken pews, sloping up from the floor and the bar where the legal profession did their gladiatorial combats with words, interpretations, and innuendo.

"Shush," someone said hoarsely, and they all leaned forward in their seats.

Two hundred ears, all strained at the leash.

"And if it be anything other than accident, natural causes, suicide, or other causes, to recommend whether further investigation, without prejudice, be carried out."

A dull murmur rose up and filled the space with a lot of question marks. The body should never have been moved, but the collective attitude was that no harm was meant. Many of the spectators were at the crash site, and there were reporters from the BBC, and the major newspapers and some of the more disreputable publications. There was a faint air of celebrity in the room.

"There are issues which also pertain to clause seven of the amended act," he told the hushed silence, imposed by his looking up from the page. "This is due to the fact of the unauthorized removal of the body. This is especially serious in the case of an aero-plane crash, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, where authorities simply must conduct a thorough investigation in order to determine cause, liabilities and to make recommendations to help prevent such fatalities in the future. The fact that a serving member of His Majesty's Royal Air Force lost his life in this incident deepens the tragedy, and certainly his family and other survivors will be raising a number of issues pertaining to the movement of the body and the possible impact on any subsequent investigation."

An objective and impartial observer could have heard a pin drop, but Gilles Maintenon didn't hear any and there was nothing wrong with his hearing.

"We're not here to apportion blame, or assess criminal liabilities, or to find fault with anyone," he assured the room. "Our only sworn duty is to identify the deceased, and outline such circumstances of his death as seem relevant to the public good."

Edward Lyle cleared his throat with a short, dry-sounding cough.

"We will proceed," he added, looking down again at the docket in front of him. "Our first witness is William Henry Jenkins, of Covington Lane. Please step forwards, give your oath, and then please be seated."

This inquest was underway and he had complete control.

***

Gilles had seen a plane fly past, at approximately such and such a time. It might have been somewhere around eleven in the morning, perhaps a little later, perhaps earlier. And yes, he had just consulted his watch, but had forgotten the actual time almost instantly. He had nothing else to say. No one else was reporting any planes except from the area of the crash site. Presumably it was the same plane, yes. One line in the history books! He was excused after giving his evidence, for want of a better term.

After waiting for most of the morning to give his statement, Gilles didn't have much reason to stay around and follow the action. It was a major inconvenience. First his holiday was ruined by injury and then the death of Lieutenant Hardy, and then having to come back to England for the inquest. As a witness, he had little choice. He either agreed to come, or they would have served papers and detained him! Luckily, as a senior officer of the Surete, he had a fairly high degree of credibility.

Perhaps even more fortunate was the fact that the boss had an understanding mind. 'The Boss Man,' Jean Baptiste Chiappe and Gilles went back a long way, to his days on the job in the major crimes undercover unit.

Another week off to help make up for it all seemed like a good idea to old Rene. Gilles had another thirteen years to go until retirement, but Rene only had about a year and a half. It was time for old favours to be remembered—and redeemed.

***

She was up in the front row. Esther must have seen him near the back, he concluded, and was too embarrassed to sit near him or pay him any attention at all. Insanely, Gilles felt the urge to tip-toe from the hearing. Esther was still in the courtroom. All morning, he had been reluctant to meet her eye, and she had reciprocated. He didn't expect her to come out, as he stood blinking in the sudden sunshine on the front steps. Like many a rural town, it was a strange mix of old architecture, and new electric signs. French villages must be the same way, he thought. He had to leave his own country to see it in any clarity.

Sure enough, a clop-clopping sound, relatively rare in Paris these days, came upon the warm air.

"Thank you for waiting," said Gilles as he approached his taxi. "I didn't think it would be so long."

The driver kept reading, held in thrall by the agony columns. Around the corner came a wagon, louder now among the brick storefronts and cobbled streets.

It was that blasted Mr. Appleby! He was perpetually going about his appointed rounds. On an impulse, Gilles waved to his waiting cab driver. The man sat there in his battered black London taxi, impassively smoking his pipe and reading his paper.

"My good man!" called Gilles. "How much do I owe you?"

The paper came down then.

"Wha-wha—what?" the man stuttered. "But I thought—"

He sat bolt upright and reached for the door handle.

Beet-red, he leapt out and rushed to the boot. Growling something unintelligible and keeping his head turned away, he flung it open and grabbed Maintenon's still-pungent rucksack. Looking about, he found Gilles right at his elbow. Maintenon pressed bills on the man, a big wad. Taking his pack from the fellow's sagging grip, Gilles grinned in acknowledgement.

"That's enough for both ways," he told the driver. "Nothing personal, but my plans have changed."

He left the angry fool gaping, and set off at a quick march in pursuit of the travelling salesman Appleby. Gilles had once written in a training manual that we all have 'a characteristic emotional response,' the first one we reach for when under sudden stress. The taxi driver's was anger.

Chapter Nine

An Emporium on Wheels

Mr. Appleby's cart was an emporium on wheels. It was also his home away from home. Without a wife or children, Appleby had mistresses in every village, at least to hear him tell it. With a collapsible roof and luxurious brass fixtures and appointments, the vehicle had clearly enjoyed more genteel duties in the past. Some better-off family replete with buxom ladies all dressed in black lace and veils had left their own dusty scent, but Appleby also sold spices.

"There have been a lot of those new-fangled aero-planes about lately," Mr. Appleby's loud and cringing voice was painfully irritating.

"What? Really? I thought it was almost unheard of," said Maintenon in weary good humour. He was just making conversation more than from any real interest. Appleby was quite a talker once he got going. Much of his life story, at least in precis, was blurted out in the first ten minutes of their acquaintance, an efficiency which left a lot of time for other subjects.

"Oh, no, sir. There was one over in South Brent a few days ago," said Mr. Appleby.

Gilles sat enjoying the ride as they headed out of the village at a steady pace. Mr. Appleby would no doubt be grateful for a fiver or a ten-pound note. With that kind of money, the man could sleep indoors for a month, probably, and winter was coming. Maintenon wondered if he had ever been robbed, but doubted it. This man sat on the thin cushion, flattened by years of pounding, day after day, and seemed unperturbed by his precarious existence.

"I saw a Short Brothers fly over one time," said Mr. Appleby, surprising Gilles with his precision of term.

"Really?" he asked.

"It was a ski-plane," said Mr. Appleby with an almost bovine contentment. "A three-seater."

"Ah," noted Maintenon, reaching in the haversack and pulling out a half-bottle of a pleasant red he liked. "That would be the thing to have. We could alight upon the sea, and cast our lines and go fishing for swordfish!"

"Yes," said Mr. Appleby. "The Gloster, is a single-seat racing plane and the one Mister Hardy crashed in was a Genet Moth with sixty horsepower."

Sacre bleu! The man was an expert on aircraft. It was at that point, that life ceased to amaze Gilles. The really important thing would be to find a corkscrew. Luckily, the itinerant peddler that he was, Mr. Appleby could provide for many of Gilles' everyday household needs at competitive prices, and delivery was always free.

"Formidable," advised Appleby. "Right, Monsieur?"

Maintenon gravely handed Mr. Appleby a tin cup full of wine, military issue by the look of it, although the man needed little lubrication for the tongue.

***

"What are you saying, Inspector?" inquired Superintendent Dawson.

His politely raised eyebrows indicated perfectly his feelings in the matter. They had an open-and-shut case against Mr. Martin, and this just raised ugly complications for a successful prosecution.

"I am saying that a light aircraft, not the one that crashed, was seen in the vicinity, more than once, over the course of several days, before Flight Lieutenant Hardy met his untimely fate," said Maintenon.

This Gilles Maintenon was no longer on vacation.

"So?' asked Superintendent Luddle, tone flat and hard.

His stolid, ruddy English mug simply reeked disapproval. His iron countenance turned to his colleagues, eight of them in the office of the Commissioner.

"One of the issues raised at the inquest was the right of the state to conduct a full and proper investigation. Another was the next of kin," began Gilles. "This whole issue of the moving of the body, surely that had some meaning."

"Yes?" asked Commissioner Reynolds in interest.

"What is sort of curious, at least to Mr. Appleby, is the matter of the pilot. He was, and I quote, 'looking over the side' of the plane, as if he was lost..."

Gilles waited.

"Perhaps looking for landmarks...for future reference?" he added.

All that resulted in was a lot of puzzled faces and more heavy resistance looming on the horizon.

"Mr. Martin has relatives who love him very much," said Maintenon. "Surely the defendant is also entitled to an investigation."

A couple of them settled back in their chairs for a long discussion. Luddle stared fixedly at Maintenon who ignored it politely, and Dawson gave a twitch of recognition.

"You know what happened!" he accused.

He sat bolt upright and watched with new interest, and even more resentment.

"Non. I do not," advised Maintenon, with a direct look.

"Martin is a Catholic in the RAF," explained Luddle heatedly. "He shouldn't have lied! Hardy was going to talk, or had already talked, or was threatening to talk. He would be sacked in a heartbeat."

"Non," said Gilles. "I agree it would have gone hard with Martin, but a scandal would not be allowed, just as in the present case. He would have been quietly transferred and set aside. Not his first choice perhaps. An end to his military career—still sufficient motivation if you accept that he did it."

"Some of our other witnesses say Hardy was helping him with the technical stuff," said Dawson. "There are lots of planes about theses days."

"Don't tell this man anything," complained Luddle. "We have Martin in the bag. Don't you ruddy well fuck up my investigation."

Maintenon was aware that the real power in the room lay on the other side of that vast mahogany desk, spotless and empty of all useless objects. The man studied him. Maintenon studied him in return.

"Why would James Martin kill the only man who could, and did, offer serious help to a young pilot, probably not knowing he was a Catholic, with a life-long dream not only of flying for His Majesty's Armee de l'Air, but also of getting on the Schneider Cup trophy team?" asked Gilles. "That was his dream, n'est pas?"

There was a long silence. Gilles stared all of them down, shoving his personality in through those eyes, one at a time and one after another, and two by two, those eyes dropped away. One thing you could not deny was the man's reputation. Still, they didn't have to like it.

"That is the first question Mister Martin's barrister will ask," said Sir William in a reasonable tone.

Luddle jerked in his seat, and another one, an Inspector Somebody, muttered something unprintable.

"What exactly do you need, Gilles?" Sir William added with a quizzical look, as the other officers turned as one and regarded him in wonder.

Grinning hugely, something some of them had never actually seen before, he sat and looked placidly at his old friend. They hadn't seen each other since early in 1919, Gilles recalled, a little shocked at the welcome he got. Maybe that was the definition of true friendship. True pleasure, after all these years, with nothing asked and nothing to be forgiven.

Gilles Maintenon inclined his head in polite agreement and enjoyed the look of the most sublime consternation on their faces.

***

He put down the report from Dartmoor's finest. Tire tracks, in fields, in woods, going in through closed and wired-shut gates. They were from a number of different vehicles. Some of those could be accounted for by the landowners themselves, but not all of them. The problem was guessing the age, and finding out which marks belonged to which local resident, and accounting for when and why they were in such a location. It was tedious but necessary work, and very time consuming in terms of manpower. His old friend was pulling out all the stops.

"Some positively identified with Monsieur Martin's sidecar, and some not. The worst are the inconclusive ones," admitted Dawson. "I see your point, actually, regarding the defense and their probable strategy. We should be prepared to meet all contingencies."

"When on base, Martin loaned the bike to everyone," noted Maintenon. "Sometimes he took the train to his home and back. Sometimes the bike was left in his own barn, or when he drank too much, at the home of a friend or even behind a pub."

Gilles sat with Dawson in his humble and rather dark office with a female sergeant to bring files and dockets and answer general queries. Another desk and a phone had been brought in as well. A little overcrowding was a seemingly necessary part of police work.

"The basic premise is that Martin had a lot to lose. His chum, who also had a lot to lose, was helping him to study and found out. A lie like that, he'd be up shit creek. Technically it's not illegal, but there really is a glass ceiling. Some say there's none here, but that's nonsense," explained Dawson as an impassive Sergeant Sheila Kersey took extensive notes.

Gilles wondered if the sergeant was a Catholic. There was something about her posture. Certainly the others must have known or surmised that Gilles was Catholic. Some of their reluctance may have been due to that unconscious bigotry that flowers from long example and early teaching.

"Hmn," said Gilles. "It seems to me that two things can happen here. Either we shall nail down James Martin beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt, or we somehow find an alternative explanation of what happened."

"So all you're really asking for is objectivity," muttered Dawson. "Hah. Martin is not talking upon advice of counsel, which is good advice whether he's guilty or innocent. But my impression is that he wasn't going to talk anyway."

Gilles nodded. A lot of the time people couldn't wait to talk. The trouble was that the whole thing was based upon a lot of unsupported assumptions, and some prejudice, right from the start.

He couldn't deny that James Martin had bolted from police when they called at his London flat, and then refused to talk to anyone. Gilles wondered if he was even speaking to his solicitor. No one knew the answer to that. It was being openly acknowledged that the Air Ministry probably didn't want a big investigation. They would have plenty of good reasons for that as well. Certain issues might be raised.

Particularly affecting had been the sight of Jimmy's mother, Mabel Martin, sitting in calm dignity with other neighbourhood ladies at the inquest. Gilles was emotionally involved in this case somehow.

Maintenon became aware the sergeant and Dawson were staring at him.

"Pardonnez moi," he grunted. "It's just the notion that James may be totally innocent, and yet he still refuses to defend himself. This, if true, implies much. But what?"

"Do you really expect to gain anything by tramping up and down all over Dartmoor?" asked Dawson, somehow, managing to imply that Gilles would equip himself with a pipe, a deer-stalker hat, a short cape in colourful plaid, and a big magnifying glass. "And I still have this horrible feeling that you know exactly what happened."

"Non, to both," said a studiously-calm Gilles Maintenon.

It was nothing more than the truth. But his impression of James Martin was that he was not the murdering type, although you never really knew for sure. The human animal was capable of anything, in the final analysis.

"We should dress up as Lascars and go and sit in an opium den somewhere," suggested Maintenon.

There was a profound silence as he took in the smoke-stained walls, once painted but now mostly stained by years of coal smoke and tobacco. Small, spreading patterns of mildew on the plaster above attested to the age of the building and its own personal history, quite aside from human events. Dawson was inclined to stick things to the wall with pins. The most recent were still white paper, but the spectrum was fully represented by business cards, advertisements for take-away ethnic restaurants, staff bulletins, and the odd 'Wanted' type poster. One or two of them had darts sticking out of them. He wondered where the third dart was, and could not help but to search for it up in the corners and bulkhead areas of the ceiling.

"Why?" asked the sergeant, mystified by this turn of events.

She put the pen down in a kind of disgust.

"Because we might learn something," concluded Dawson. "I'll tell you what, Inspector. Make it a good stiff lunch somewhere half decent, and you've got yourself a couple of customers."

"What if Martin is covering for somebody else, a woman, maybe"? asked Sheila, reaching for the phone to call down for a driver and a car.

Chapter Ten

Putty in Her Hands

It was happening again. Putty in her hands, he was powerless to resist, and of course the hell of it was that he didn't want to.

It felt like betrayal of all that he had once stood for, in his marriage and relationship with his wife. No one else could play the role. It was too perfect. Inwardly, he mocked himself and his regimented pretensions of civility.

In his role as a 'Lascar,' Maintenon was 'enjoying' a tramp through the moors and uplands surrounding Esther's snug cottage. Perhaps a little more fit than the last time, he was thoroughly enjoying the combination of crystalline air and fully-ripened wildflowers in profusion. In many respects, he was a bad actor, and knew it very well. That knowledge hurt deep inside. If only he could be genuine! But then of course, he wouldn't have returned. There wouldn't have been any reason, or was he just another fool, lying to himself, and denying himself fulfillment out of simple fear—the fear of pain and being hurt? He couldn't remember the last time someone had hurt him.

He didn't think it had ever happened. This thought brought up all sorts of loving images of his wife, and his heart ached. It was time to focus on the moment, if he could.

She held him at arm's length, and he was powerless to resist. It was so hard to meet her gaze.

Some token effort of resistance must be made, if only to remain in character.

"Esther," he sighed.

"What? Are you afraid someone might see us?" she smiled. "I don't care. You're mine, all mine. And I want them to see it."

"Yes, yes," he said.

The trouble was the guilt, of course, the guilty pleasure of treating someone he liked very much as a whore. The trouble was that she was still a suspect as much as anyone else, and that made kissing with any sincerity rather difficult. If she noticed, which she could not but help to do, hopefully she put it down to his recent widowhood or some natural-born shyness.

Put it down to agoraphobia, but put it down to something.

"Come on, silly," she said in a school-girl breathless voice. "It's really lovely, and sheltered from the wind, too."

Hot sweat trickled down his armpits in anticipation.

She was dressed in a pair of rough, grey wool stockings, sturdy buff-brown brogues, and a plaid skirt. Her cashmere sweater was thin and tight in all the right places, and his mental picture of her last time was all too clear, with those high, cone-shaped breasts and the surprisingly pink nipples of a childless woman.

It was tough duty, no doubt about it. Hopefully the others would understand his reticence about certain details.

Holding his hand firmly and dragging Gilles relentlessly onwards, Esther half-skipped in an elfin manner, determined that her latest plan of seduction would succeed. Why had he come back, after all?

The little copse among the trees, with a hard-packed trail, and a stream running through it to drown out the noise, would have been a wonderful place to leave a motorbike or some other light vehicle temporarily. The edge of the strip of forest running down the middle of the shallow valley they were in loomed, and darkness reigned under those black conifers.

His heart began to beat a little faster. While the present situation was out of character for Gilles, it wasn't entirely beyond his experience.

As a younger, unmarried man, Gilles had done what he had to do, in order to prove himself in the undercover branch, to win his spurs, and to move upwards and onwards. The process was grueling and unforgiving, and took everything out of you emotionally, but it was very satisfying in a professional way.

This was just a little bit different, and very, very troubling.

If only she wasn't such a nice person. If only too many nice people hadn't killed before.

Halting in the first glade, in the gloom of the trees and standing on a forest floor carpeted in red pine needles, with the smell of resin and the musty, metallic imprint of damp soil in the air, he stopped her and spun her around gently.

"My turn," he said, pulling her in close in a gentle but restrictive bear-hug.

This was a wonderful feeling. He had to admit the power of it, the sexual power he somehow had acquired over her. But why?

The next time he got the chance, Gilles would examine himself very closely in the mirror, although he doubted that he would see what she saw. He had few illusions these days. It was like he didn't believe in love anymore. If he was a handsome man, which he did not for a moment believe, was that enough? Surely that was shallow, vapid, and she was so much more than that. He prayed that it was not kindness on her part, but what could she hope for from him? That was the worst question of all.

Head tipped back in trust, she closed her eyes and waited, clinging on very tightly in contentment and possession.

Gilles never closed his eyes. He didn't want to miss anything, not one single thing.

Her eyes popped open and they were inches apart.

"Aren't you going to kiss me?' she asked.

He smiled wickedly.

"Yes, I am, Esther," he said, and proceeded to do just that, very much aware that the organic part of him, the organism, responded very well indeed. As someone very wise had once said, sex was supposed to be dirty.

***

Sweat practically freezing upon his skin, he sat upon the exquisite torture of the toilet, thin, prickly wool blanket hugged tightly around his trembling frame, praying for death to take him away from this hell.

***

In the background Joey, the old yellow hound, gave a soft bark of general irritation. The breeze caught the billowing curtains and just for a moment he caught a glimpse of thick grass out in the garden, turned a warm greenish-yellow by the sun.

Gilles Maintenon stepped lightly from the shower, grateful that the bathroom was warm enough. He was especially grateful for the ceramic tiles of the floor. His London hotel room, low down on the north side of a tall building, was still fresh in his memory, a chill and cheerless place even in mid-summer. Toweling himself carefully, he dressed in the casual slacks and loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt without a care in the world except for the present moment.

The bathroom was huge by Parisian standards, and he was thoroughly enjoying the white and blue tiles, with the upper half of the room a cheerful sunshine yellow; and the colourful mats, wicker baskets on the small countertop, and most of all, a wooden chair, with a thick blue cushion on it. He sat and carefully adjusted his socks. One quick check in the mirror, and his hair, what little there was left of it, was more or less in the right place. His eyes seemed good, and an incipient grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. Gilles felt all right, with a keen appetite, and he was looking forward to the day.

Without a speck of morbid narcissism, he abruptly turned and left the room with the door slightly ajar to let out the steam as instructed by Esther. Gilles padded down the hall to the guest bedroom where he had left his shoes, heartened by the smell of something wafting up from the kitchen area.

He whistled an obscure little tune in his head, a folk song from, as he remembered it, practically the first day at school. It was funny how something like that would stick in your mind forever. Of course he still thought of his wife, yet her face had somehow become dim and grey. The last image he had of her was one of a grinning skull with piercingly blue eyes looking up from her deathbed in a kind of fearful defiance.

Gilles paused with one shoe on and one off. The stab of remorse was strong, no denying it. With a sigh, knowing this too should pass some day, he finished tying his shoe-laces and rose to go down to the drawing room.

***

After a quick look around upstairs, he proceeded to the kitchen to find Esther. Rounding the corner, he was about to speak when the words caught in his throat, the sight of Esther slumped over the kitchen table with a carving knife in her back stopping him dead in his tracks.

Finally he found some words.

"Oh, no! Esther," he said.

Tears welled up unnoticed from his staring eyes, and deep in his heart, he knew that he was responsible for her death as much as the murdering bastard who did this to her.

He stood there shivering, having gone very cold inside. There was no need to touch her, to further defile her.

A dark voice inside of Gilles Maintenon said two words, very clearly and distinctly, just once.

'You fool.'

There was no denying it.

"Oh, Esther," he said.

"Please forgive me," Gilles said, knowing that he would never forgive himself for this.

Chapter Eleven

Ruled Out As a Suspect

"Well, I guess that rules her out as a suspect," the charitable Inspector Roy Luddle observed.

Gilles had the horrible urge to kick him in the balls and just turn and walk away from it all, everything that he once thought important in life, for ever. It passed as quickly as it had come, but of course the man had all the proper instincts of the true clod.

"I know how humiliating this must be for you, Inspector," and Luddle was at it again.

"Humiliating is not the word," said Gilles, restraining himself from smacking Luddle in the mouth, but unable to properly control his demeanor.

His face was all tight and screwed up in knots, his features engaging in a fandango of their own contrivance. He stood there panting in rage, trying to get control. Luddle picked up on Gilles' emotional and mental state quickly enough, and went still.

"I'm sorry, I really am," he muttered.

Maintenon finally got control of his breathing, unwilling for the other to see him break, or to allow even a hint of tears in his eyes.

He growled, long and low and mean.

"It is myself that I am angry with," Gilles bit out. "It simply never occurred to me to follow my own logic—if James Martin is innocent, then some other person must be guilty."

"I don't know about that," said Inspector Luddle. "For all we know, it might have been a jealous lover."

For a second time, Maintenon went pale, or at least thought he did. Esther was no virgin—he knew that much.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," said Luddle. "But you know the way we have to think. My own personal prediction is that there won't be any prints on the knife."

Gilles glared at the man in weary contempt as constables and identification and crime-scene technicians came and went by the front door. Of the exterior, all was quiet innocence, the creamy walls of the English cottage, the faded golden sheaves of the thatched roof, the wisteria vines on the door frame, creeping slowly but inevitably up and over...sublimely peaceful, in death just as it was in life.

They stood out front and ignored the huddle of bystanders and pedestrians, all of whom were completely fascinated by this new excitement.

"I hate to ask, Inspector Maintenon," began Luddle, sensing that he was extremely unwelcome right at this moment. "But..."

"Yes," said Maintenon. "You must take down my statement immediately."

There was a silence while Luddle considered the Inspector's feelings.

"We'll get him, Inspector," he assured Gilles with as much confidence as he could muster, although privately he would have argued that this one wasn't a hasty crime by an amateur.

Whoever did it, walked in, stabbed Esther Phelps in the back, and then walked out again.

Robbery wasn't the motive—it was pre-planned and premeditated. The very cleanliness of the scene indicated that to the experienced Luddle. There slumped the body of Esther Phelps, flour up to her elbows, at the homey kitchen table, with the sunlight through the trees dappling the floor in front of the window with golden patches that moved fitfully back and forth. The Inspector, Monsieur Maintenon was not an intended victim either. Surely the killer could have waited around a few minutes, or simply entered the bathroom in a rush with the knife ready...it was almost too obvious a conclusion.

Maintenon's chin dropped and with thoughts far, far away he glowered menacingly at nothing at all, his jaw thrust out and working back and forth strongly.

"I will never rest," he growled, lips drawn back in a feral snarl.

Nodding slightly, Luddle said nothing, watching Gilles closely with narrowed eyes. He knew the feeling.

***

The prisoner stood at the bars shouting at the top of his lungs, face contorted in rage, hands clutching the cold iron rods in a death grip.

"Vindication! Vindication! Vindication, you miserable sons of bitches!" he shouted, flecks of saliva flying off in all directions.

***

If only they would stop telling him to stop blaming himself.

He prayed for death, either death or vengeance, not just in his darkest moments, but much of the time. His face had become cold and grey. He never smiled anymore, and the more junior English constables and officers were avoiding him when they possibly could. He knew it and was grateful. His anger and his remorse were set in concrete now. The thought of getting over it also angered him, and he promised himself that he wouldn't.

If only God would take him away from all of this.

"Of course Martin's lawyer is all over it," sighed Inspector Dawson. "Roy?"

Luddle spoke up.

"The problem is that it proves nothing! We have no motive, no suspects, no evidence other than a body and a kitchen knife from the victim's own home. There are no reported sightings of strangers, neighbours, or any other person, quite frankly because there was no one about to ask."

"Except me. Yes, it's fairly isolated, surrounded as it is by trees and hills," said Gilles. "And not surprisingly, there is a myriad of tracks, foot and vehicle, all around the vicinity."

"It's those damned caves," advised Luddle. "Baker's Pit, Reed's Cave, and a few other smaller holes. That's what I call them. A certain class of people are nuts about them. They tramp all over the place looking for new entrances and new caves. Then there are all the closet archaeologists. Some of them are very secretive, but then, they think there's money to be made."

The explanation petered out as Gilles nodded thoughtfully.

Once again they sat in Inspector Dawson's grimy office, ashtrays overflowing with butts, with curling, attenuated wisps of blue smoke going off in all directions. Nothing was visible on the other side of those fly-specked panels of glass, nothing but a formless grey backdrop of overcast. The other world, both inside and out, was just a distant hum. A set of footsteps passed by the door, anonymous and discomforting somehow. His heart felt like a stone in his chest, and the resultant ache coloured all of his thinking. The pain sucked all the pleasure out of living, and just when he was starting to get it back. The words 'vicious,' and 'malice' rung in his heart, and it wasn't just the killer. Gilles was becoming the thing he hated. Never having considered it before, he now realized that he could in fact become a killer. It would be all too easy. At this point, all he really needed was opportunity. Gilles had a motive. He certainly had motive, the Holy Grail of a homicide investigation.

"We must come up with a better motive, not just for...Esther, but for Hardy as well," Gilles' voice was harsh and unyielding. "And for James Martin, in the event he is innocent, as I believe he is..."

"We have little choice but to consider the cases to be connected, although statements to the press make no indication of that," explained Luddle directly to Gilles, bringing him into the investigative picture as fully as he could.

"Did she really know anything? Was it about Hardy or Martin, or the killer? Some fact, the significance of which she herself might have been unaware of? Or was it a warning? To me...to us?" asked Gilles, something almost more sinister than the murder of an innocent person, assuming there truly was such a thing in this world.

"What sort of a person, murderer notwithstanding, would feel that threatened by my mere presence in the vicinity?" he wondered. "A psychopath, yes; however much that word has been abused. But they must believe, in however paranoid a fashion, that there is something to be learned, something to be revealed. There is some rational basis, some starting point in their reasoning. As for us, it is all assumptions once again."

The thing to do was to try them out one by one. The British were being relatively cooperative. There was some reticence. While Gilles was a trained officer of the law, he was also a foreigner with no official standing.

"She was killed because she knew something," said Dawson. "The killer saw her with you, and was afraid she would spill the beans. Right?"

"I don't know," muttered Maintenon. "What could she have possibly known? The killer is in no doubt now, that we know this to be murder—he himself removed that doubt, and James Martin was safely locked up behind bars at the time. Unless the need was pressing, it was extremely risky. Now, are all doubts removed about our other assumptions? This wonderfully compelling notion, that Jimmy Martin killed Hardy, strapped a dead body into a plane and leapt out by parachute, thereby allowing it to crash and thus faking an accidental death? Does that still make perfect sense to us, gentlemen?"

He paused, briefly.

"If he wasn't killed in the crash, then what really happened, and was it really Martin flying the plane? And yet we have bloodstains in the alley."

His voice was soft and other-worldly, his gaze far away, as if lost in all of eternity.

"How did Harold Hardy die? And where exactly?" asked Gilles. "Who was he with?"

This brought nothing but silence. That was the biggest question they faced. Was there a connection between James Martin, or Harold Hardy, and Esther Phelps, or wasn't there? Certainly Martin knew Esther, but so far no one had been able to link Hardy and Esther. Inquiries were continuing, in all the places either was known to habituate. In the case of Esther, this was a short list. A few committees, a circuit of hotels and towns where she went in the course of showing and selling her stock, a hotel or two in London. She stayed there when she went up for a party, or to go to the theatre. This was fairly seldom by all accounts. The police had both of the victim's appointment books. Presumably most of their friends and relatives were in their address books. Esther had remarkably few male friends, all of them claiming purely platonic relationships, and not a hint of romance, another abused word, had surfaced in countless interviews. So that ruled out a jealous lover, at least in Gilles' opinion.

In the case of Harold Hardy, the list was substantially longer, and with a hundred man-years of applied labour, they were unlikely to be able to identify more than a fraction of his friends, acquaintances, and others who interacted with him, on a daily basis, at a thousand venues. No one among his family or closest friends admitted to seeing anything of him for a few days before he died. Hardy was famous and popular, a real headache for the investigators. According to the autopsy, his death happened within eight to sixteen hours of the crash. Gilles didn't agree. The problem was that rigour mortis set in anywhere from ten minutes to several hours later, and would normally last up to seventy-two hours. Harold Hardy had been dead for anything from one to three days at the time of the crash. Going by his own gut instinct, Gilles was unwilling to pin it down any tighter. With the time of death more or less confirmed by the stomach contents, the conclusions seemed obvious until someone asked the wrong question.

"Why was Hardy dressed in evening clothes?" asked Gilles. "They fit properly, and all of that?"

No one had any ideas.

"No mention is made of anything unusual," admitted Luddle. "I agree that's unsatisfactory at this exact moment in time."

"Hmn! How was the body brought to the plane?" gasped Dawson. "Jesus, did anybody think to ask?"

Jaw hanging low, he pulled a pad near and scribbled for a moment. He looked up with a gleam in his eye.

"Evening dress...a cab ride!" he said. "A cab ride with a dead man...weeks and months ago now," and he uttered a sigh of resignation.

"The coroner is a bit hazy on the actual state of dress," noted Gilles. "With the moving of the body, Doctor Nagle's loving ministrations, and then the undertaker admits he had a look. We have no idea if he dressed himself while still living, or if he was stripped and then re-dressed by his killer. Evening clothes under a flying suit, which I saw for myself. It would be difficult to describe from memory!"

"Yet that makes no sense either—at least not yet," muttered Luddle. "If he missed a party, or a dinner reservation, no one has made any mention of it. There is nothing in the date or appointment book, and for the most part, he was part of daily military routine. However, in his glamorous position, he had considerable latitude as a prospective pilot-in-training for the Flight."

Maintenon nodded dutifully, trying to fill in gaps in the mental picture he had of Hardy.

"Some of those parties go on for days," he muttered.

Hardy wasn't known to disappear for days on end like that, and yet it wasn't entirely out of character either. He came and went as he pleased, and as duty allowed. The aircraft was his own machine, being from a relatively well-to-do family. It was always parked at Croydon, in the London suburbs, when he wasn't using it for personal travel. With a range of about three hundred miles, Mr. Hardy had never been known to fly the machine far from home and never to the West Country. He mostly used the plane for commuting between London and Calshot, and other Royal Air Force establishments such as Farnborough. He had friends and service comrades all over. Some of them had been posted or reassigned, making it difficult to make follow-up inquiries regarding their statements.

"Martin is the only one we can assign a motive to," admitted Dawson. "At first, I was happy enough, but you raise all these questions."

They had sufficient evidence to charge him, and up until now, thought it was enough to convict Martin. Gilles was not quite so easily convinced, and it had led to the death of Esther.

Finally Luddle spoke. It was with deep respect and empathy. He had come to know a little more about his odd companion, not the least of which was his formidable reputation when it came to catching cold-blooded killers, those who pre-meditated their crimes with full knowledge of its wrongness, and its consequences.

"You have been known to speculate," he prodded. "These two bodies are connected—even I can see that."

"Don't sell yourself short, Roy," muttered Gilles Maintenon.

So they were asking him for a theory, then.

"Hmn," grunted Maintenon, as some of the tension left his shoulders.

Relaxing visibly in his seat, he considered the possibilities. Perhaps he could be of some use after all.

Chapter Twelve

A Small, Birdlike Woman

"Your son is hiding something, Madame," said Gilles.

Mrs. Martin was a small, slender woman with short brown hair. While the initial impression was of some birdlike qualities, her eyes glittered with repressed emotions, some of them quite animated, and the effect was to make him question everything about her.

She had a good brain in her head as she regarded Gilles Maintenon with what she thought was calm dignity. Her chest and upper body were very taut, and her nostrils flared repeatedly.

"My son is innocent," she said.

"That is my impression as well," he said.

He allowed the silence to drag on. She was so thin, and very grim, as if barely hanging on to her temper. He wondered if she was ill, and it was a kind of blow to the stomach.

"Why won't he speak?" Maintenon asked.

Her eyes fell and she kept her hands folded in her lap. She seemed to be breathing very raggedly, one second very shallow and the next deep, uncontrolled breaths of extreme emotion. Her head came up and she stared off to the side, and the light of the small stained-glass window, surely a thing of pride in such a small home, stained her now-haggard features in hideous prismatic display.

He watched the tears well up in her eyes, as she struggled with the decision. But he did not think she would let James die for a lie that no longer had any real meaning.

"He's protecting someone," he suggested, and a spasm wracked her thin frame, so bravely and defiantly accessorized in all the trinkets and icons of staid middle-class respectability.

"A woman, we think," said Maintenon, and that's when Mabel Martin broke down completely.

A faint noise escaped the sergeant. Glaring at Maintenon in sheer unadulterated fury, she flung her pen down and went to Mrs. Martin, bending awkwardly over beside the upholstered chair and attempting to comfort her. The lady let it all loose in a paroxysm of despair, as if her very soul was being torn from her identity.

Feeling like the most vicious hound from hell, Maintenon delivered the final blow, suffering right along with the poor woman as her thoughts plumbed the depths of hell.

"He's not really your son, is he?" he said coldly, kindly rewarded by the sight of her writhing, moaning and tearing at her own skin in agony as Heather and Constable Tyler tried to restrain her.

"It's a small town," said Gilles. "It's hard to keep a secret."

Sooner or later, she would tell them a story of a wee little baby in a basket left on her doorstep, and it would be nonsense, and it was rare that he regretted not being able to torture the innocent in order to make them see sense—a couple of quick slaps to the face should have done it. Why did people have to be so stupid? She might be next in line for the killer's attentions, and he had the feeling that she knew it as well as he did. It was tearing her up inside, as anyone could see.

Just when a man couldn't feel any lower, duty called. It's not like he had never been angry with a suspect or witness before, far from it, but this time it was very different.

For the first time in half an hour, Luddle spoke up, adding his own fillip of cruelty-to-be-kind.

"Is it Miss? Or Missus?" he asked, tapping his pen on his notebook. "Quite frankly, I think it's my duty to stop this interview right now. I think you need to call your lawyer. Ah, clearly you're not going to help us save your alleged son Jimmy from the gallows!"

This brought on a fresh series of contortions and convulsions from her embattled chair. It was like a psychology-attack on an extremely vulnerable person. But they had no choice, and she was so tiny. She gnashed her teeth and moaned in a kind of unintelligible gibberish. The shape of her legs was suggested by the thin house-dress, and they were all bones, the upper parts hardly bigger around than his wrists. They were trying to help her and James, and the tactics made his skin crawl, but they had to do it. They had to get something, anything out of her.

Mrs. Martin bawled her eyes out as Constable Tyler and the sergeant wrestled to keep control of her body, as she kept flinging herself from side to side and back and forth.

Luddle and Gilles stared at each other for a long minute, shaking their heads slightly.

Some people were just so stubborn, and yet technically...technically, there was still time to withdraw the charge. Once it went to a trial, James Martin was doomed. Gilles, Luddle, Dawson, they were all agreed upon that, or he might not have gotten so much cooperation.

She would be watched of course, and the odds were the constables would be standing around in the street or taking an illicit leak in her garden when the killer came a-calling.

***

The prisoner received three days in the hole for insubordinate behaviour, specifically, verbal abuse of the guards. He had called one of them a 'cretin,' and that was 'uncalled-for.' He was placed in a concrete cell with no light, no bed, and no window in the door. There were no bars. The door was solid steel, and in the corner was a bucket for his daily needs. He was issued a thin wool blanket. Once a day he was provided with a jug of tepid water, and a sixteen-ounce loaf of bean-cake, with quite predictable results.

The horrific, gagging stench that resulted could only be experienced, or endured. It could never be described. Endure it he did, for he had no choice. The smell of his own vomit covered it up in some ways, or perhaps he just got used to it. You could get used to anything, given enough time.

The silence was deadly, and even that could be borne.

In the end, he thought he had beaten them, and it was with a smile of triumph that he stared up from his blanket at the face of his jailers. His smile faded when he saw the warden glaring down at him.

"If you like it that much, you can have another three days," said the warden, and the door slammed shut, plunging him into darkness again, and a kind of despair that mere words cannot tell.

That one brief glimpse of flaring lights had revealed much to his newly-aroused awareness, including scores of futile scratch marks all around the door and frame where the paint had been removed by the scrabbling of desperate hands, insane hands.

"Right, then!" he said smartly, and all was silent again except for the echo of his own defiance.

***

"To aspire to greatness, to be great, is to become a threat to a million other guys, all of whom think they have the right to be great. 'Guy' means fool, inspector," said a beaming Inspector Luddle. "As in Guy Fawkes."

In spite of his faults, like the liquor he was fast becoming a good friend. Gilles was aware the British populace burned effigies, 'dummies,' of Fawkes every autumn. The date escaped him. He thought it was sometime in early November. Fawkes symbolized the English recusants, who refused to attend Anglican services. There was some odd relevance here. There was little to distinguish Catholicism from the Church of England. The whole rupture was about the power to appoint to benefices, which was how people made their living from religion back then. It was also about power, he remembered.

"Yes, both Hardy and Martin were driven individuals," agreed Gilles. "Ah! And so is our killer."

"And a certain type of victim implies a certain type of criminal," said the sergeant, who had taken the time to re-read a little monograph written by Maintenon on the subject some years before.

It was in the departmental library, as naturally the British CID was interested in opinions from pertinent experts in various fields from around the world.

"If our basic theory is that Martin killed Hardy to get or keep his place or chance at the Cup team, and now assuming that he is innocent, then it is just barely possible that someone else is trying a kind of double-play," suggested Luddle. "What gets me is the fact that no one knows who James Martin's real mother is. I find that hard to accept. They are either dead, or someone is lying to us."

"Somebody knows," muttered Gilles angrily. "Every day, I am more and more convinced of less and less."

"The doctor, this Nagle character, didn't arrive in the village until about eleven years ago, upon the retirement of another gentleman, Doctor John Donald Ives," the sergeant reminded Gilles. "Martin is twenty-two. Theoretically."

"And there is no record of any unusual births, i.e. single mothers, around the time when Jimmy should or would have been born," muttered Gilles. "With untold hours spent combing through the parish's moldering old files. What about stillbirths? Miscarriages? Same problem, we have either too many, or not enough. You can't exhume every unmarked fetal grave in the local cemeteries."

"Don't put it past me," said Luddle.

"Do you seriously believe her tale of the mysterious phone caller, and the monthly checks?" asked Dawson. "I believe the monthly cheques. I find it very hard to believe she's never met the other woman."

"And she is sure it is a woman," sighed Gilles. "She mentioned a trace of scent on the letters and envelopes. The last one came a few years ago, and my nose can't detect it. Male, female, what difference it makes I don't know. But whoever it may be is still out there, and very, very dangerous, mon ami. Have no illusions about that."

"What makes you so sure it may have been a man?" asked the sergeant.

"Because it takes two people to do the tango, sergeant," noted Maintenon gravely, lost in his theories. "And no, I am not sure of anything."

It was a little bit like writing a play, as one of his youthful mentors in the department had once explained. If an actor exits stage left, to reappear from stage right a little too quickly would be to disrupt the natural flow of events.

The unspoken thought that Mrs. Martin was in grave danger, in spite of the unobtrusive security detail dogging her every footstep, hung like a thundercloud over the room. If someone was absolutely determined, protecting her would be difficult. The one saving grace to this aspect of the case was that the killer would want to remain undetected.

Chapter Thirteen

You Would Think There Would Be Gossip

"Well, it isn't exactly unheard of," allowed Doctor Nagle. "But you would think there would be a lot of gossip, not just at the time, but even years later. Jimmy Martin, as you know, is not presently my patient. Sorry, but you know what I mean. It's not like everyone in the vicinity doesn't come to me from time to time. But he's been gone these last three or four years. As I recall, James is a disgustingly healthy young fellow."

"What about a potential parent?" murmured Inspector Luddle, with his fountain pen, which Maintenon expected to explode of its own volition momentarily, poised over his notebook.

"Ahem?" asked Nagle. "A parent?"

His face went tighter almost imperceptibly, but Gilles caught it. He didn't think the doctor actually knew anything. It was the suggestion that he might violate professional conduct. Yet doctors cooperated with police all the time, and it was no big secret. Someone would have had to deliver the baby. It was before his time, and undoubtedly the doctor would prefer not to speculate.

"It's all right, doctor, no one is asking you to break your code of ethics," said Gilles. "But if we can avert another tragedy, this must of course take precedence. Please keep everything we are sharing with you confidential, by the way."

"What?" gaped Doctor Nagle. "What do you mean?"

"He means please don't gossip about our little visit, Doctor," said Luddle.

Red faced, eyes popping out of his head, he regarded them in a kind of awe as Gilles sat on the examination table, with his feet a good two inches above the floor, wagging back and forth in impatience and repressed animal energy.

"Well, the mother, doctor. The father. What about reputation? Does anyone come to mind, someone who might have fathered James?" asked Luddle. "Because, doctor, if it wasn't her, then it had to be someone else. The birds and the bees, as the saying goes."

"What about James' age?" asked Gilles. "Are we a hundred percent certain he is twenty-uh, two?"

"His muscular and glandular development were perfectly normal for an adolescent, as I recall. In terms of physical maturity, nothing struck me as odd...at the time, as far as I can recall!" replied Nagle. "I mean seriously, gentlemen."

Doctor Nagle's lanky grey eyebrows came together and he shrugged.

"If you want to dig through the records, birth certificates are at the church, death certificates are in the county office, and my civilian records only go back, ah, ten or eleven years..." sighed Doctor Nagle. "I wish I could help you, I really do—"

The previous practitioner, Doctor Ives, was 'over the hill' and had retired in 1917. Hopefully they could locate him at the rest home in Brighton, as Nagle 'sort of recalled' he went there with his wife, Emily.

And that was about all they got out of him, other than to extract his permission to go through the previous practitioner's medical records, kept in a shed behind his home in the village. Dr. Nagle had belatedly remembered that he had them, and in all the written records of police interviews, no mention was made of anything of the sort. A simple oversight, but then the case seemed to be 'cut and dried,' as the English said.

As they left Doctor Nagle's office, Maintenon couldn't help but regret how fast the summer had gone, and how in some odd fashion Paris was fading into a kind of hazy memory. It was nothing more than a set of bad memories. The years had taken their toll. The speed at which he was forgetting his previous life was shocking, but his perceptions had changed and so his reality had changed. It was environmental. Change one's surroundings, and you change yourself in some way.

"How seriously do we take this?" asked Gilles. "We already have the ages of every person within a radius of some twenty miles. Admittedly, some might have moved away, and some were not born here. But those are very few, I think. And there is this whole angle of Hardy, at his end. Comprenez vous? Some of his friends don't say much. He must have had enemies, but it's hard to get anyone to admit to a dislike, or jealousy, or any kind of angst regarding him now."

"God, I don't know," said Luddle. "All we can do is to follow standard procedures and keep following up every little thing, no matter how small or seemingly irrelevant."

"Inspectors?" asked the sergeant, holding the door for them.

Reluctantly they climbed into the capacious official vehicle, sullen-looking in its scuffed black paint, to go and have a look in the doctor's shed.

Settling into the deep red leather, Gilles turned to Luddle.

"Interesting how the Ministry didn't list the cause of the crash as an accident in their reports," he said. "Neither did they say it was deliberate. They said it hit a hill. The pilot, un-named, was killed. End of report."

"Bad publicity. A later addendum will draw somewhat less attention. A year and a half from now it won't make so much of a splash with the boys in Fleet Street," noted Roy Luddle. "Besides, Martin hasn't been convicted yet."

"Yet," said Maintenon. "Yes, the papers would have something to print then."

"The Ministry and the Crown will make sure of it," noted Luddle.

What they needed was a miracle, and they weren't going to get it anytime soon. Not the way they were presently going about it.

"If only James Martin would talk," he grimaced. "That's our real problem here. He knows something. But what does he know? And who would be harmed if he told? Surely his adoptive mother, Mabel Martin. That much is obvious. But is there anyone else?"

"Hmn," noted Luddle. "It's a short list of possibilities, including the natural parents."

"James must have some idea, some suspicion, of who his real parents are," concluded Maintenon. "There must be some deep emotional aspect—his father and mother put his birth onto a single mother, and disappeared. They insisted that he should be raised as a Catholic, or the small amount of money they were providing would dry up.. Or did they?"

"It would only be natural for them to want to keep an eye on their child. Even if they couldn't acknowledge it," concluded Luddle. "Yes. I'm with you on that one."

"Either they lived locally, or they came and went," said the sergeant, as she made a note. "Let's say they lived somewhere else. Why come here? Why abandon a child here?"

It was a good point, a sticking point. There simply had to be a local angle.

"The real question is whether they will let him die for it," suggested the sergeant. "What could he know, or who might he be, that would be so devastating, and to whom?"

"Is it possible that neither parent killed Esther? My head hurts sometimes with this one," said Maintenon, but then lately he was waking up half hung-over most days.

That was the time-consuming part, to reinvestigate the case of Martin, and investigate the murder of Esther, and never quite being sure if they were actually related to one another, or if the crimes were committed by a single individual.

"What if more than one individual was involved? What if one's act spurred another to act, completely independently, for different reasons?" asked Dawson to another profound silence. "I'm not sure I can explain that!"

***

Maintenon sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding. He looked wildly around him, and then sagged in relief.

"Nom de Dieu," he gasped.

Flipping on the small table lamp by the bed, he flung aside the covers in disgust. Gilles swung his legs over the side of the lumpy, sagging mattress. Aware that he was soaking in cold sweat, the fragmentary dream still haunted his thoughts.

Trapped under a thin sheet of ice, at first it seemed strange, but there was no fear. Everything happened in slow motion. The novelty of looking up at a deep blue sky, with fluffy cumulus clouds scurrying past, and seeing a flock of blackbirds scattering for one of their noteworthy vertically-tumbling mass landings, was a kind of exploration: what would the world look like if viewed from below? To swim, weightless, floating in that ethereal blue world, where all was stillness and peace until someone banged two rocks together and then the piercing shards of sound would puncture your eardrums like knitting needles, making your head ache exactly in the middle of your brain, like when you took too big a bite of ice cream, and smiling in that feral rictus, and screaming soundlessly and vainly in that desolation. Like when he as a child held his breath, trying to make himself go unconscious, to compel his mother to give him ice cream.

It was only when he asked himself, 'is this a dream?' that the panic began, and he began to scrabble at the smooth, icy undersurface, and his last impression was a dim reflection of his own face, his own hands, rubbed raw, flesh scraped off right down to the bone, eyes staring off into a fate and a future too horrible to contemplate...but the present ever more so, and Gilles needed a drink so badly he would have cheerfully killed at that moment.

'Nom de Dieu," he repeated.

In the modern world, with medical science, hospitals and doctors, all kinds of drugs and medicines, death was mostly peaceful these days. But not always, Gilles was aware. It was not that he didn't have some inkling of how personal and painful a person's death could be, but this was different. Busy as his life had been in the pursuit of justice for all, a long and useful career when you really thought about it, he had never spent any amount of time examining his own ultimate mortality. It was the futility of life that struck home.

Murder was the result of motivation. Everyone who had ever killed had a reason. There was lust and greed, anger and hatred, or sometimes just simple naked fear. As often as not, it was for profit.

What would it be like?

There would be a moment of certainty, wouldn't there? Esther must have had something like that, an unbelievable, shockingly intense moment of uncomprehending, animal pain...sudden understanding...one quick gasp, and then, mercifully, she was gone.

Somewhere along the line, all the anger had been whipped out of him, and there was acceptance. This was a mental puzzle, nothing more. His gut ached to think upon it.

His shoulders slumped, and he reckoned it was better than drowning, but not quite as good as dying in your own bed, sedated, unconscious, and surrounded by grieving loved ones. It was not that she didn't have a sister, a cousin or two, and some other relatives, some friends in the village, but she was a person whose life seemed strangely alone, and even worse, complete.

Esther was complete before Gilles ever arrived, he saw that. He felt like a half a man most of the time. It was like he was always frightened of something. He thought it was a deep sadness. He thought it was normal, a phase he would pass through.

Was Gilles the only one who would truly grieve for Esther? Why?

That was the worst thought of all. There was also the fact that there would be no one there to grieve for Gilles.

A chill swept over him like a wave, as one more disturbing detail of the dream leapt into sharp focus: that damned black raven, sitting on the ice, head cocked over, looking down into his eyes and croaking in hideous laughter as Gilles drowned in a sea of his own cold and bitter tears.

Worse, when he finally rolled over and tried to sleep again, some bizarre internal state of the unconscious busied itself with tormenting him further. The images came again and again. This time it seemed he was in a long, slender boat. Not a racing shell, he was facing forwards, and the boat was crashing into a thin sheet of ice frozen to the side of a riverbank, and it was cutting into the sides by his feet, just above the waterline. He could have sworn he was awake the whole time, fully conscious. It was just that the dreams wouldn't shut off. When the thin light of dawn began coming in the gap in the curtains, it was a kind of mercy.

***

The smell of soft rich humus was moist in the air. Woodpeckers drilled happily away at a hollow tree beside the road, momentarily overcoming the clop-clopping of hooves.

"The war defined an entire generation of Englishmen," shouted Mr. Appleby, whose first name was Lester.

"What do you mean?" asked Maintenon.

Predictably enough, he was back on undercover duty.

The notion that they must shake something loose or the investigation was going nowhere was the one thing they could all agree on. For some reason, the average Englishman believed the average Frenchman was a fool. But, British police officers working undercover in a remote and rural location were notoriously easy to spot, as there was no easy way to account for their turning up in the first place. With soft hands and weak backs, they could never seriously pass for agricultural labourers, not for any length of time, and the subsequent medical problems could be never-ending. But they had the notion that they must provoke the killer somehow, and Gilles could at least look after himself. At least that was the theory.

"That is to say those that didn't get killed," amended Appleby in a more reasonable tone. "But for the rest of us, it was the greatest adventure of a lifetime. All of the officers have written their memoirs, and even a few of the enlisted men."

"Ah," said Maintenon. "And you?"

Appleby gave a snort and a snappy toss of the head, by which Gilles took to mean that he hadn't.

"I drove wagons, dug gun emplacements, and latrines, filled sandbags, managed horses, and even commanded a small crew of my own," noted Appleby. "The Royal Artillery! It was damned noisy, boring, and dangerous enough. When I wasn't busy fewking digging, I kept my head down, as deep in my fewking hole as I could. Who wants to read that?""

Gilles nodded fitfully.

"Same for me," said Gilles. "Although I was in Headquarters, doing staff work. We learned to keep our heads down, too!"

"Generals," said Appleby, spitting decisively out to the side. "Argh!"

After a quick thought, Gilles spat lugubriously over the side as well, with the damned sticky saliva refusing to break loose cleanly, and he practically had to shake his head and bite it off.

"Generals!" he blurted in annoyance, wiping off his wet face with the back of a hand. "Argh."

He felt slovenly and unclean. How did Lester make do without hot water and a clean towel once in a while? But according to him, he had a girl in every port—and 'any port in a storm.'

Gilles looked over and grinned at the grey-bearded, hawk-faced countenance of his new companion. Gilles was reluctant to lean in and have a thoroughly good sniff. The overall impression was of genteel poverty, and not downright filthiness. So maybe it was all true, then.

Objectively analyzed, Lester was an extremely distinguished man in terms of his appearance.

Properly dressed, and with a little money in his pocket, women might just find him impossible to resist.

Ludicrous.

The vehicle lumbered down a road that wouldn't have been any bumpier if it had been made of cobbles, but it was just hard-baked clay. Gilles marveled at the simple beauty, so often overlooked in the mundane cares of the typical busy day. In this modern world, even in remote areas, Sundays were becoming busier. The fourth motorcar in an hour blundered past, noisy, smoky and dirty. The driver, a bourgeois family man by the look of him, waved, but while the mare's ears twitched and her head bobbed, Lester simply ignored it.

The faint blue smoke lingered under the hanging boughs of the forest. The trees were all green and verdant and looking somehow finished, replete even, due to the wilting dry heat of August. Glittering insects zipped to and fro, intent upon the pursuit of food and mates. A moist trickle of sweat dripped inside of his shirt, and he tried to ignore it. It seemed unlikely to offend Appleby. From time to time Gilles caught a sort of meaty, garlicky smell from Lester, with his rounded-over shoulder hovering large and just a little too close to Maintenon's.

"I've never met one," offered Gilles.

"The Brigadier—Squire Heath—was the worst of a bad bunch," said Appleby. "Right out of fewking Kipling. Enough to make you sick, it really was."

The British had territorial units, where everyone was from the same village. No wonder it was so quiet around here. They were all dead! He sat up a little straighter on that thought.

"Tell me about Florence," asked Maintenon, as the old grey mare's tail flicked flies off of her ample posterior and a small black dot in the sky tipped over and stooped at an unseen target behind the tree-clad hillside just ahead. It must be a falcon, Gilles thought. The thought struck him that it was impossible to photograph—like a murder in progress.

"Oh, God," said Appleby.

The man twisted awkwardly in his seat, eyes peering in concern at the load in the wagon behind them.

"Just reach back under the red blanket there and pull that out," he instructed Gilles.

Mystified, and yet half-knowing what it was that he sought, Gilles' probing fingertips felt smooth, rounded glass.

"Of course," he muttered. "Wait! Let me guess. What a shock! That must be a bottle of whiskey."

"Nailed it in one," chuckled Appleby. "You're learning our quaint English ways, all right!"

Maintenon wrestled with it, then regained control and weaseled out the tight-fitting cork. He considered for a moment. Not a professional drinker, and there were those, he was fairly well trained.

"Mere words are not enough," said Appleby in a kind of reverence.

The right side of Maintenon's face went up in a grin.

"One's duty is clear!" he said, and he tipped it up and had a fair slug of the amber fluid.

Handing the bottle to Lester, for how could one ever think of him in any other way, he watched in a frank and sordid fascination as he doubled, then tripled Gilles' accomplishment. Happy blue eyes bugged slightly in his direction, as the bottle was handed back with a flourish.

There was a sucking, gulping sound and Appleby's throat bulged, and down it went.

Gilles jaw dropped open as Appleby stood up in the seat, and hung the reins over a stout wooden peg that was angled just so and created exactly for that purpose.

He turned around, towering proudly over Gilles, and began to speak.

"Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,

And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,

With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,

To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping.

Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,

Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,

And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,

And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! We, who have known shame, we have found release there,

Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep is mending,

Naught broken save the body, lost but breath;

Nothing to shake the laughing heart's song of peace there

But only agony, and that has ending;

And the worst friend and enemy is but Death."

"'Peace,' Rupert Brooke," he told an awed Maintenon, and then a little unsteadily and with some creaking of the joints, settled himself again, as if suddenly becoming aware of this distinctly eccentric monument of personal anticlimactic ridiculousness.

"Thank you," said a humbled Gilles Maintenon.

It's not that he didn't appreciate what he had just seen.

He was learning that not all Englishmen were idiots. They just liked to present themselves as such from time to time. Perhaps it was some kind of defense mechanism in a cold and uncertain world.

Chapter Fourteen

Rachel Carter Had a Ring on Her Finger

Her name was Rachel Carter and she had a ring on her finger. Gilles had a terrible certainty. She would not, could not, just give it back. She lived in London, which was not a problem for Gilles as the trains in England were notoriously efficient.

"James was telling people that you were to be engaged," said Maintenon.

"We are engaged," she said.

The young woman, who impressed Gilles as rather stodgy and a little bit thick in the ankles for James, looked away and he realized that she may not have been consulted in the original decision. He had the impression James might have surprised her, and she accepted unthinkingly, caught up in the bedazzling prospect of a wedding. Unfortunately, at some point she must have realized he was talking about her, and a marriage did not hold quite the same meaning or even attraction as the wedding ceremony and all that it entailed until death parted them.

"James was a very nice person," she said. "He quite swept me off my feet."

There was something in the tone. According to all sources, which included her own written statement, they had known each other for a grand total of three and a half months, more than enough for James. A lifetime wouldn't be enough for her.

"There was no official announcement," he pointed out, gazing around the pleasant kitchen in humble curiousity.

She made no comment. There was a window of opportunity when Hardy must have died, but she was with her parents and siblings, and could throw no light on James' whereabouts at that time. He let her stew for a bit. Rachel was a Protestant, and hadn't known that James was not. Some food for thought, but it indicated that James wasn't hung up on his nominal faith. For James, it was enough to not talk about it. Gilles would have liked to understand James' attitude better. The room was bright and cheerful, and yet a cool oasis from the late summer heat, with the sun's glare safely blocked by sheer white gauze curtains. The room was uninspired but comfortable, and it held no pretensions of grandeur.

"He shouldn't have done it," she said.

"But are you sure?" blurted Gilles in disbelief and a kind of disgust.

This was definitely the wrong woman for James Martin. Of all the luck! But all the more fool was she, to have sex with such an immature person. She must have known the inevitable psychological outcome, with an insecure and immature individual like that. There were always consequences.

His own unhappiness had a way of locking up his stomach and emotions at times when he needed to focus. To become emotionally involved with a case was the death-knell of serious police procedure.

"Tell me about some of his other friends," he suggested, and she looked over at a slip of paper on the couch beside her.

Couldn't she speak, or simply hand it to him? Was she afraid it would help James, and was that a concern for her? Inwardly groaning at James' luck, Gilles understood that a young woman like this would not be prepared to wait, and that loyalty was a tough prospect and a hard sell. James was allegedly a friend, and one she had at least contemplated marriage with. He was facing conviction and execution, and all she could think about was her own miserable embarrassment. She was worried about all the gossip and what the neighbours were saying about her.

When he left her sitting in the kitchen of the quiet suburban home, his last impression was of her being unable to meet his eyes, unwilling to talk, and sitting there slumped in the chair as if there was no point in going on. Perhaps that was a tear for the evil fate of her lover James Martin, but more likely it was just the emotional impact of her own bad luck. She didn't even enjoy all the extra attention she was getting. Gilles pitied the man who would eventually end up with her. For certainly someone would. And he marveled at his own cynicism. Now, he was looking at hours and hours on the train, with nothing much to show for it and a little too much time to think.

***

Gilles wandered the ruins of a recently burned-out parish church. The gaping windows must have once held ancient stained glass, perhaps of the highest order. He noted the curiously convoluted vine-like carvings creeping up and over the top of the window arches.

It was recent enough that nature's chaos had not taken over. It was just dry crunchy rubble and the odd bit of blackened charcoal, small lumps and pieces of what had once been roof beams or ceiling rafters. His footsteps seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness, here where there was shelter from the breeze.

Slanting in from behind him, his long shadow cast its menace upon the grass, sending a small flurry of insects away in all directions as birds in a nearby tree shrieked disapproval at his rude intrusion.

In the distance he heard a tractor, and nearer, maybe half a kilometre away, dogs barking in the yard of a nearby farm.

He stepped out into the broad light of day again. There was no longer any real smell to the destruction. The churchyard was neat and orderly. Someone was clearly tending to the grass and the graves.

"Hooligans, probably," said a man standing under the spreading branches of a fine old oak.

"Pardonnez moi?" blinked Gilles, who in his uncaring state hadn't heard him come along.

"Hooligans, drunks, tramps," said the stranger. "Who knows? Who cares? The place was boarded up long ago."

"Why?" asked Gilles.

"Not enough parishioners," he explained.

The man, wearing the dog-collar of a priest, stood there patiently. He was a sturdily-built man with receding hair and bright blue eyes of the most cheerful aspect, wearing a crooked smile and leaning awkwardly on a cane that appeared very thin and a little too short for him, but perhaps it had sunk a little into the soft turf from the weight. His hat, a scuffed and faded fedora of light grey, didn't go too well with the overall black and somber garb. Still, in combination with the olive-stained, straw-bedecked, calf-length gumboots, it spoke country priest well enough. The ruddy glow of face, neck and hands told of a long life spent either in the garden or the fields, and a love of the outdoors.

"Was there something I could help you with? Forgive me, my name is Edwin Plover, I'm the Vicar," he said, extending his hand for a stout grip and a long shake.

"Er, Maintenon. Gilles Maintenon," said the inspector. "I am just passing through, and I was thinking of what a lovely photo this might make, or be, or howsoever one says it in English."

"Ah, a photographer!" said the Vicar. "This was the Church of St. Someone-Or-Other. I'm C-of-E."

"Ah! A photographer. Well, not exactly," admitted Gilles.

Certainly the Vicar should know who he was and probably did. Gilles plunged right into it, and to no big surprise, the Vicar responded amiably enough to his questions.

"Tell me about the Squire," Gilles asked as he fiddled with the camera's f-stop and the exposure settings.

He squinted about, looking up at the angle of the sun, closely examining the light as it fell on various features of what had once been a magnificent old building.

"A finer gentleman never lived," said Plover. "He provided for all of these people."

"Ah," said Gilles.

So apparently from the Squire all bounty flowed, at least in the Vicar's opinion.

"He ran a pretty tight ship," said the Vicar. "He was always involved in everything going, the fair, the hunt, ah, the King's Birthday celebrations. He was on every committee, and ran most everything around here."

"Ah," said Gilles. "And now Freddy runs the Manor?"

"Poor Freddy," noted Vicar Plover. "Honestly, I think Florence runs it more than he does. But it's easier and I suppose it's better if the uneducated labourers get their instructions from someone else, you know, from a man of their own class."

"What do you mean?" asked Gilles.

"Freddy's more diplomatic," grinned the Vicar and Gilles smiled too. "I think he understands them a little better. Would you like to come back to the vicarage for a nice cup of tea?"

"Ah! Thank you, but I was just going to have my lunch here. Mr. Appleby has thoughtfully provided me with a bottle or jug of a rather remarkable vintage," and the Vicar laughed outright.

"Poor Lester!" he said, shaking his head at the travesty of it all. "But seriously, if it's a drink you'd be having, there's a pub just up the road. It's much more civilized, and I was just on my way there myself. I was only joking about the tea."

He smiled brightly and waited.

"I seem to be cornered," suggested Gilles.

"Well, we don't get much contact with the outside world around here," Edwin Plover told a bemused Gilles Maintenon. "Come along, we have lots to talk about. The food isn't bad either. Far better than a crusty old roll and some cheese, now, what do you say?"

"Very well, then. The pub it is!" replied Gilles with some show of enthusiasm.

He snapped another exposure and then closed up the leather case.

"They make a steak and kidney pudding that will just knock your socks off," said the Vicar, grasping Gilles' elbow in a friendly but proprietary fashion and leading him down the thin gravel path to where the sunlit road beckoned its promise of good food and a drink in interesting company.

They set off at a relaxed but road-eating pace and at this mild temperature, it was no sweat as far as Gilles was concerned.

***

"Yes, poor Freddy," continued the Vicar in a similar vein. "Ever since the Linda Murrit affair, and then having to sit out the war. Life was too easy on him. Well, you see him now. Yet he's really quite a good manager, and regulates his drinking habit like clockwork. A pint or two at lunch, two sherries at tea time, a couple of good stiff ones at six o'clock..."

Maintenon supposed it went on from there until such time as Freddy knocked off for bed, in which case he would probably have a bottle in a drawer in case he couldn't sleep and needed a nightcap.

"Linda Murrit?" he prodded.

"A barmaid, when she works. Birds of a feather," said Plover, reaching for his glass as Gilles nodded thoughtfully. "Then there was Bridget O'Conner! Some talk about pressing his advances a little too quickly, even charges pending. But nothing ever came of it. They reconciled for a while, and then, God...maybe a few months or a year later, there was even some talk of marriage. Ultimately, nothing ever came of it."

"Ah," nodded Maintenon, as if engaged in a course of instruction.

"Don't tell the wife. Promise?" and Plover knocked back a double scotch on the rocks in a heartbeat. "Mabel!"

Slightly stunned, realizing that he probably wouldn't be allowed to nurse a half pint of lager over the course of a long afternoon, Gilles took a drink himself. While technically he knew that Mabel Martin worked at the Lion's Head, to see her hovering at his elbow was a bit of an emotional jolt. In her own element now, he was even more stunned to see some rather forlorn cleavage, as her rag mopped the table and her eyes were right there but looking at the Vicar. He wished he hadn't seen that. It put her life in perspective, and made her even more pathetic for all of that.

He wondered if she would give him a hard time, but she was completely professional and apparently not to be put off by her previous unpleasant experience with him. He wondered if she still had a grudge, but if she did, she didn't let it show.

"And what will you gentlemen be having today?" she asked coolly, eyes flicking past Gilles' to come to rest in the exact epicenter of their crude wooden trestle table while she waited, pencil poised like a patrol cop on the beat, ready to take down the crude details of their most sordid culinary desires.

***

"I find the local history quite fascinating," Maintenon was telling Edwin. "And the scenery is compelling, especially after years of a small, smoky apartment in Paris."

They were quickly becoming acquainted, and Gilles was perhaps becoming a better actor.

"For example, 'buckfast' may mean stronghold," he noted.

"Oh, yes, you were on vacation, and it was so rudely interrupted. It must be nice to be able to get time off like that. Your reputation precedes you, so to speak," said the Vicar. "Are you writing a book? The legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles is local."

"Yes! Yes!" replied Gilles in some gratitude. "I don't mean that I'm writing a book, the thought never entered my mind. The legend is what brought me here in the first place. But there is so much more—I have never thought of myself as being all that particularly interested in nature before. The moors really do have a way with a man's soul, and as you have observed, I am getting older."

"It's in the Domesday Book," said the Vicar. "Buckfast or Buckfastleigh is quite mediaeval in its history. A local Benedictine abbey was founded or approved by King Canute. The town centre still shows some of our history in the massive masonry walls and the whole layout."

Gilles nodded shortly, as all of this was in his guidebook.

"The time away from my career, for surely it is not over—it is time off for my health," he confessed. "Perhaps even my sanity, no?"

"Ah, yes, and with your wife's passing, you must be questioning a few things in your life, many things. Am I right?"

Edwin's cheerful eyes bored straight into his, and then he cast a glance at their rapidly-diminishing drinks.

"Care for another?" Gilles asked, to a grin from the Vicar.

"Here's your food, gentlemen," said Mabel as she bustled up in all efficiency, with plates and bowls and platters sticking out at all angles.

"You really are a marvel, Mabel," quipped the Vicar with a grin at a silent Maintenon, still contemplating if her tone on the word 'gentlemen' had any additional layers, any barbs of significance.

It was bad enough, but he had completely forgotten that she worked here.

She was gone again, and he contemplated a pair of heaping plates that made a meal from Maxim's or any other Parisian establishment he was familiar with look anemic indeed.

"Incroyable!" he muttered, and the Vicar shrugged.

"You'll walk it off soon enough, if I don't know you," he suggested. "I don't know if you've ever tried a deep-fried dill pickle of the rather massive local variety...?"

"Bah! The English love their cucumbers," joked Maintenon, his face holding a somewhat lugubrious aspect for a brief but revealing moment.

The Vicar displayed his feral smile and toyed with his own salad, watching Maintenon closely.

Maintenon wondered just exactly what he did know, or suspect, about his continual popping up here and there. He would worry about that later. For some reason, he had decided to try the lunch special of the day, which was grilled baby beef liver and onions. The smell was indescribably enticing, and so he tucked in without further delay.

"The pickle can wait," he muttered.

Chapter Fifteen

'If it was up to me...'

"If it was up to me, I'd slice your throat in an instant."

He held silent, the quivering in his guts unstoppable, and almost unbearable. Yet he had borne it before, unpleasant as it was. He must keep telling himself that.

"Do you hear me? Do you hear me?" the voice came again.

He thought it was the man from two doors down, on this side, but he could never be sure. How would he know? How would he tell, when almost all sounds were so indistinct, or came from the guards almost exclusively. He just took it for granted.

"Slice your throat from ear to ear," the man assured him in an unspeakable up-country accent.

"The Royal fewking Air Force! A snooty bunch of bleeding toffs, all of 'em" he heard.

The voice became very faint for a moment, and he couldn't tell what the man was saying.

He felt like calling out, 'Hey! You're from Bradford,' or maybe asking, 'Do you ever get up to Berkshire?' but thought the better of it.

Convulsively, one small peep of a barely-suppressed giggle escaped him. He hoped the others wouldn't notice or remark upon it. It really was just a part of the entertainment.

That was what he told himself, and also that if they ever should meet, there would be two guards present for each of them, and that nothing would ever happen. The other fellow was half his size...he was almost sure of it. You could tell by the voice. A small man, in every which way.

Sooner or later it would peter out.

They all had to sleep at some point. He could get used to anything, given enough time. That's what he kept telling himself.

***

Vicar Edwin Plover seemed to be something of an amateur historian and genealogist. Gilles also found him to be resentful, rancorous, a backbiter, and a repository of gossip, invective and innuendo. All of his parishioners had a carefully-calculated and securely-fastened label, one which it would be difficult to escape and impossible to shrug off.

He almost invariably referred to them as 'Poor Freddy,' or, 'Poor Mr. Appleby,' or 'Poor Mabel.' The Vicar had helpful advice for all of them, advice which Gilles doubted had ever been delivered to the actual person under discussion, whom Gilles thought of as victims. This all appeared to be not so much about saving their souls as it was about his perceptions of what propriety should be in a perfectly well-organized world.

Unfortunately for the Vicar, that world had changed forever.

It was amazing what a couple of drinks could do for a man. Alcohol released certain inhibitions. It was a lubricant for the tongue, and it had loosened up Edwin Plover. Not that any of the multitude of facts, suggestions and opinions would be much use to Gilles, but Plover had a place for everyone and everyone had better remain in their place. He knew nothing of unusual or unreported births and deaths in the vicinity over the last twenty or so years, and Maintenon rather doubted if he would tell if he did. Also, now he knew someone had been asking about them. The Vicar drank quite a bit that afternoon. Gilles wondered at the propensity to gossip? How much was habitual, and how much due to the opportunity Gilles represented, the chance to offload harmlessly onto the shoulders of a stranger.

Gilles was a foreigner and a 'damned dago little blighter.' Maintenon suspected this had much to do with Edwin's willingness to talk. It was something he would never do with a socially-inferior local person. Edwin was in a uniquely lonely social position. It was with some difficulty that Gilles parted company with the gentleman on reasonably affable terms. He kept reminding himself that it takes all kinds to make a world.

***

Something was nibbling at the edges of his subconscious mind. It was an irritant, no more. They stood in the doorway, wobbling slightly from side to side as the train wound its way.

"It's like when you forget the simplest word," he told Dawson. "Knowing full well that you know it, but it just won't come. And also knowing that it will come to you in several days, but of course we need it now."

"I hear you. Lately, all of my ideas seem a little too obvious," said Dawson. "I'm back to thinking Martin did it."

Then he smiled.

"That's a joke," he said. "Honestly, I find myself surprisingly optimistic about the whole prospect. As long as we have ideas, we can generate leads and then investigate until we're blue in the face."

"Well, it must be nice to get out of the rut once in a while," said Gilles, with a gesture at Dawson's costume.

They shared a quiet chuckle over that remark. He was remarkably scruffy-looking now.

"The clothes make the man," said Inspector Dawson. "I can't wait to get off this ruddy train and get a drink!"

He winked solemnly and Gilles chuckled again at the accent.

The two stood in the door of Maintenon's compartment. In consultation with their peers back in London, it was agreed that two lascars might be better than one, and Dawson would try to stick close in case he was needed. The unspoken promise was that if someone tried to kill Maintenon, he would not be alone. Lurking in the background would be a friend, unobtrusive, yet competent enough, and very, very tough.

Maintenon took in the grizzled countenance of his friend, wrinkling his nose at the yeasty breath and bloodshot, rheumy eyes.

"Good Lord," he murmured. "How can you live with yourself?"

The tooth, not black but a kind of purplish-grey, was the piece de resistance. It drew the attention. He couldn't help but stare at it, and wonder at the moral decay of the individual who could allow such a thing to happen to themselves.

The door at the end of the car rattled, and the forbidding glare of the conductor was briefly visible through the glass panel.

"Uh, oh," noted Dawson with a grin. "Here comes trouble!"

"Ahem! Yes, thank you, my good man," said Gilles, digging heavily through his trousers pocket to find a coin.

Handing it over, he was amused when Dawson ostentatiously bit it, and then gave it a rub and squinted at it in the dim light.

"Oh, ar, thank ye very kindly, sir," he said, bobbing his head and giving a fine impression of being a scrunched-over man trying to draw himself up straight.

"I thought I told you not to bother the passengers," barked the conductor, and Dawson rolled his eyes at Gilles.

"Oh, yes, sir, oh, no, sir," agreed Dawson, huddling again within himself and ready to slink away. "Ar."

Dawson tugged at the brim of his hat, and gave a nod to Maintenon as the conductor's mouth opened to speak again.

"It's quite all right," said Gilles, not unfamiliar with the type.

He dug around in his pocket and came up with another coin.

The conductor's hand came up of its own volition, a learned response like Pavlov's dogs.

"I was asking him for directions," Gilles told the pompous ass, whose shiny buttons spoke of a perverse, morose yet controlling nature.

"Oh, aye, sir!" agreed Dawson, looking like hell in the ankle-length surplus greatcoat, perpetually-damp grey wool and looking like it had been slept in, which was not improbable.

"Which reminds me sir, the Cock and Bull is the best inn for miles, sir. If ye be thinking of having a drink, or even just looking for a room, sir."

His homely eyes blinked hopefully in the dim light of the passage, his hands wringing his battered cap as if they had a mind of their own.

"Ah, thank you! I shall bear that in mind," said Gilles, clapping him on the back and retreating into the compartment.

The conductor, puffing with indignation more than any real exertion, came in as well.

"All these damned stinking tramps, going about the countryside! They're as bad as gypsies," he told Maintenon. "Thieves, all of them. Why, one even burned down a church, or so they say. For all we know, it was that one. I'd throw him off, but he did have a ticket. Humph!"

"Yes, one wonders where he stole it, or got the money to buy it," agreed Maintenon with a gleam in his eyes that he was unable to suppress.

The fellow returned his ticket stub, looking up from under shaggy eyebrows with stern disapproval.

"I wouldn't put it past him," he muttered. "I'd be only too happy to give you directions, or recommend a good hotel, sir."

"Perhaps we shouldn't be so hard on the fellow," suggested Maintenon with an air of indulgence. "His lungs were burnt out by chlorine in the war, and he's obviously never going to work again."

The conductor's jaw dropped, his head tipped back, and a dim kind of understanding struck.

"Ah," he said in a neutral tone, unrepentant to the last.

He turned, left the compartment, and continued on his rounds. He had time for one last look.

The man gave Gilles a curt nod as he snapped the door shut. Dawson and Maintenon were on their own, and no one was the wiser. Over the noise of the train, Gilles heard his hard shoes clomping ten or twelve feet and stopping at the next compartment. With a shake of his head, he reached for the newspaper and sat carefully on the unpadded bench. After another quick consultation, it was back to Buckfastleigh and its immediate environs.

With a little luck, his subconscious mind would spit out some kind of revelation.

***

The prisoner dreamed of her hair, her eyes, her mouth, and the way the very air tasted when she walked into a room. Finally, he could wait no longer and with a long and very dirty fingernail, tried to slit open the precious envelope. Lying on the thin straw-filled mattress, with squinting eyes he tried to make out the words in the dim light.

It was the first letter in many weeks. The words were simple, the meaning plain. His heart was a stone in his chest. For the first time since his ordeal began, he wept.

***

It was possible to see one too many hotel rooms. Once again, Gilles considered making a very expensive and ultimately frustrating phone call home. But to whom? His brother Marcel? A realtor in Orleans, happily married with four children and nine grandchildren? Neither his brother, nor his sister-in-law, both pleasant and intelligent people, would have any perspective on his present situation.

"The beauty lies in the details, and I am a man of infinite curiousity," he muttered.

From the point of view of mere curiousity, he was tempted to try it. But it would take too long to explain.

Objectively speaking, he should just try to forget about the case and leave the whole thing to the British authorities. But that would be to abandon James, and to betray the memory of Esther and her love, for by now he was sure. It must have been love.

There was no other name for it.

Chapter Sixteen

The Parish Priest

The parish priest spoke the incantation in Latin. The sonorous tones and magical words had always made Gilles' hair stand on end as a boy, and this time the feeling came back. The trouble was that he knew what the man was saying. Thoughts of forgiveness, salvation, and resurrection tumbled endlessly through his tired mind.

What did it all mean? Life was allegedly precious, and then it was snuffed out in an instant.

If you were lucky! He really didn't believe there was a heaven.

He waited until the thin crowd of the faithful was mostly gone, their lonely footsteps softly fading into the night.

Gilles approached the altar. Kneeling, he offered up a prayer for Esther, James, himself, and anybody else he could think of. It was important to give something, to give something good, and it was all he had to offer. There was an intermittent mumbling from a corner of the church, and he saw three people, all sitting apart from one another. Politely out of practical earshot of the confessional, they patiently waited their turn to be shriven of their sins, pathetically venal as those sins would undoubtedly turn out to be.

The droning went on and on as he knelt there. Crossing himself and rising, he reflected that it would be a long wait, longer for some than others. Shaking his head in self-disgust, he turned and went out to seek redemption elsewhere.

It took a real masochist to mock oneself like that.

***

Stepping onto the pavement, Gilles pulled up the collar of his coat against the evening chill. Autumn was in the air, and like many, he marveled how time speeded up as you got older. The thought of winter depressed him. At one time, the long nights of June had been a paradise of hedonistic, youthful indulgence, just the two of them. He no longer had anything to look forward to. It was so much ancient history.

Traffic sputtered past, and his eye was caught by a boat-like contraption, very low to the ground, with the distinctive rasp of a small motor and a tinge of bluish exhaust smoke lingering on the air behind as it sat waiting for the right of way.

"What!" he gasped.

Gilles looked wildly around for someone, anyone to help him interpret this. He was alone, and he stared with a kind of frustration as the signal changed, the rasp turned to a deeper rumble, and the vehicle moved off bearing its single helmeted occupant up the road.

"Nom de Dieu," he said. "What in the bloody hell was that?"

He spun on a heel and strode purposefully into the gloom. He was going to make a phone call after all.

***

"You saw what?" asked Luddle, with just a trace of peevishness in his tone.

"I promise you, I have not been drinking," vowed Gilles. "I suppose I've seen one or two around at home, you know? I just never really thought of it."

"A three-wheeler," said Luddle in acceptance. "I can maybe, in some small way, understand your line of thinking. Ah...ah. In all the hurly-burly of the initial investigation, and with all of the people coming and going, it's easy to miss, or even misinterpret evidence."

He sighed deeply as Gilles waited in the phone kiosk.

"I suppose, when you get right down to it, push-carts and things also have three wheels," Luddle was thinking out loud. "The thought of a murderer pushing a cart across country is outlandish."

"There's no reason for it," agreed Gilles. "I have this terrible feeling that I'm missing something. I still don't think this is it...but."

A London bus wheezed past and he waited in patience for a moment of quiet. Luddle was not a fool.

"I'm not suggesting you go looking tonight," advised Gilles. "But I could have sworn that it was the Pastor Edwin Plover who was driving."

"Yes, yes," muttered the dry, metallic voice of his fellow investigator. "We looked for sidecars, but no one thought to look or inquire about any other type of vehicle. It was an assumption. All right, Inspector. We'll think on this overnight."

"Yes! And thank you," said Gilles, heartened by Luddle's attitude. "I'm so sorry, it's quite late."

The man's initial lack of enthusiasm was gone now, replaced by a total professionalism that Gilles found reassuring.

"Oh, no, Gilles. Not at all. All of a sudden my thoughts are going again," said Luddle. "We haven't heard from Dawson yet."

"No, and you may not, certainly not this evening. He plans to rough it," explained Gilles. "The smell is important to be in character. He'll show up looking for work in a day or two."

"So what do you suggest we do about this one?" asked Roy Luddle, stifling a yawn.

"For starters, we can go back over all the photos, looking at them with this in mind," began Maintenon. "I know the man-hours will be, shall we say, unpopular, but even so—"

It wasn't late, but Luddle's after-dinner nap had been cut short, and he was feeling the lack. Roy was forty five years old. In a previous phone conversation, they had re-hashed the question of Esther's horses, and whether they really weren't worth much, as all accounts had said. Or maybe the person who bought them from the estate knew something no one else did. The fact that her string of mounts was broken up by the sale, meant little either way to the inexpert.

From time to time Gilles heard a woman's voice faintly in the background.

"That's not what I meant," said Roy testily but with a trace of reluctant humour. "Plover."

He snorted to make his point clear.

"I wonder...but there's no reason for someone to come forward and say, 'I hear someone was murdered by someone on a motorcycle with a sidecar, and I just happen to own a slightly-similar vehicle, and I welcome a chance to clear my name...you get the idea, Inspector."

"No, I agree there is no reason or likelihood," said the other.

"And?" asked Roy.

"I'm going to have a word with the man," said Gilles.

Unknown to Gilles, Luddle grinned knowingly at this remark.

After a brief reminder to call in daily, Luddle promised to get onto the three-wheeled auto lead first thing in the morning.

"And don't worry about the manpower," he told Maintenon. "Nothing's too good for you. I mean that."

Gilles searched his repertoire of well-known platitudes and could find nothing real to say. He stood staring out at the rain-swept streets of Buckfastleigh, which was nothing but shining highlights and dim windows, and blackness anywhere that wasn't directly under the dim streetlamps.

"Thank you, my friend," he said, shoulders slumping in emotional exhaustion.

"And you're still planning to go back to the house? To the Manor?" asked his friend.

"Merde! In the absence of any other real inspiration, I suppose I must," concluded Gilles in rueful counterpoint to their present sense of futility. "I will phone tomorrow."

The pair rang off.

***

Gilles prepared for bed in his lonely room at the inn. Something was scratching at his subconscious. It was the same feeling that he had earlier on the phone with Luddle. The whole case against Martin was built on assumptions, but it was entirely possible that the new investigation had made certain assumptions too. One of those assumptions was that Martin was innocent. If only they could remove all personal doubts. That would make life a lot easier.

Propping himself up with the pillows, he opened up one of the files he had brought with him and began reading. Dawson had conducted one of the interviews with Rachel Carter, James' fiance. They met at a party, punting on the Thames! A real cliché of English culture, but they had to meet somewhere, didn't they? Out his depth socially, James might have developed a real jealousy towards anyone that paid attention to Rachel. He wondered if Rachel had met Hardy, but no one had asked, and in his own interview, had overlooked it. He also thought, or at least wondered, if it probably didn't work the other way around. She might have been grateful for an excuse to break off. All of this was getting him nowhere.

Everything about James Martin spoke of a youthful innocence, a level of immaturity, and if they could save him, what a tragedy it was that his innocence was gone for good and before its natural time.

Gilles took off the reading glasses, put the papers back in the file, and carelessly tossed it at a chair conveniently near. Otherwise, if he left it beside his pillow, it would be all over the floor in the morning, or better yet, wet from drool! He shook his head humourlessly. Snapping off the light, he prepared for a long and sleepless night.

Five minutes later, if he had any awareness at all, he would have been surprised to discover that he was asleep.

***

"Ah, Gilles!" said the Vicar in a hearty tone. "What do you think?"

Maintenon said nothing, but shuffled up to the vehicle and walked around it, carefully examining the machine from all angles as Mr. Plover beamed in pride.

"Nice," said Gilles. "What is it?"

"It's a Morgan," said the Vicar. "She's brand-new. I picked it up at the dealer's just the other day."

"I like the colour," Gilles said.

The machine was a kind of powdery, baby blue, with racy looking badges on the front, mounted on a gleaming chromium rack between the headlights.

"Oh, yes! That's right! The French national racing colours," exclaimed Plover. "Hah! I never thought of it that way."

"It's beautiful," Gilles assured him.

He saw that the wheelbase was approximately the same, or perhaps somewhat longer than a large motorcycle with a sidecar. Other than that, it would have been very hard to mistake or confuse the tire-tracks, especially if you had two vehicles side-by-side for comparison.

"Would you like a ride?" asked Plover.

"Oh, I don't know," said Gilles.

"Well, what can I do for you?" said the Vicar.

"Nothing in particular. Perhaps a photograph?" he asked.

"Oh,' said the Vicar, hesitant.

"You don't have to be in it," Gilles assured him. "It's a beautiful machine, and from certain angles, a superb example of modern industrial design."

He didn't know he had it in him, but the Vicar brightened up and nodded agreement. Stepping back in an exaggerated fashion, he waved Gilles forward. Maintenon unsnapped the camera case and tried to interpret the levers and digits on the lens.

"Let's see here...f-8, no, f-16 at one-twenty-five...depth of field," he muttered, staring at the glazed panel on top and squinting at it to see if it was in proper focus.

He looked up at Plover.

"I'm just a beginner," he said.

Then he squatted down by the left front of the vehicle and pressed the button.

"I try to shoot as many as I can. I sort of 'bracket' my shots," he told Edwin, standing there with a patient look. "We have no way of knowing if they will turn out, until I take it to the chemist, and of course I might not get another chance."

He looked up at the sun and meticulously composed the next shot.

The gentleman seemed to buy the explanation. He made no objections as Gilles wandered around, eying up the machine and shooting it from different angles and heights. He managed to get Plover in a shot, and prayed the face was fully in the frame. He didn't think Plover had noticed.

"Ah," said Plover, from time to time, as if either one of them knew what he was talking about.

Chapter Seventeen

Avery Dawson Was At Peace

Avery Dawson was at peace with his own little corner of the world when the woods opened up into a series of interconnected clearings. The whole woodlot couldn't be more than twenty-five acres, but it was isolated and above all, quiet. Dawson discovered that sleeping under the stars was an uplifting experience. He reveled in the sublime beauty of the morning. It was like he didn't have a care in the world.

Golden flowers, waist-high, surrounded him. The thin path was beaten down ahead, but in the spirit of Baden-Powell, he concluded that it was foot traffic only. No vehicles, not even any bicycles, surely the most unmistakable tracks of all. There had been no one straying from the accepted foot-path in recent days in this particular field. Despite having a firm destination in mind, he was inclined to wander.

As he climbed up a slight gradient and approached the style, he became aware of the top of a vehicle showing over the vine-clad fence. There was a man waiting silently as he clambered over.

"Hello, sir," said the inspector, falling naturally enough into a sort of half-Cockney, half country bumpkin manner of speaking. "Lovely mornin,' ain't it?"

"What you doin' in there, boy?" asked the fellow, a local by the look of him.

"Shelter for the night," explained Avery in an obsequious manner. "It was raining pretty heavy."

The fellow's face was brick-like in its colour and solidity. His small black eyes were piercing in a disapproving look. Massive through the shoulders, with a short neck and wearing dingy grey-blue coveralls of the bib-type, he was the prototypical village lad, not too well educated, but with strong opinions in spite of all that.

The battered black estate-sized lorry appeared to be heavily over-laden with cordwood and sagged at the rear axle. There was a crest on the door, but it was fairly small and in his role as a tramp, wearing his shiny new eyeglasses had been ruled out by committee. It was a decision he had cursed once or twice since. They really should have taken the time to find an old, broken- down pair, a set with the proper prescription.

The man said nothing.

"Working hard?" asked Avery, adjusting his grubby knapsack a little higher on the shoulders.

He was aware of his own smell in some superficial way, but the aroma of sheep-dip came from the man's boots and perhaps the coveralls as well.

"I word hard all day long," said the man, moving around to the other side of the truck.

Dawson knew he had been trespassing, but wasn't going to bring up the subject if the other didn't.

"Well, have a nice day, sir," he said.

He just wanted to escape without unnecessary confrontation or even conversation.

With no response from the other, he sighed and turned away. He stumped up the road into the rising sun, waiting for the sound of the vehicle to start up, but it never came. Fully a half a mile down the road, where it turned and went into the trees again, he took a quick glance over his shoulder.

Ominously, the man was standing in the centre of the road and watching. His jaw dropped a little when he saw that. It wasn't the friendliest thing he had ever experienced. It was more of a warning.

"Huh," muttered Dawson. "The gentleman is a bully, and that's for sure."

Grateful for a .25 calibre pistol in his pack, he considered whether to dig it out and find a better way to carry it. Next he time he went into the woods to pee would be a very good time. Hopefully the gentleman didn't work at the farm he was seeking.

***

Roy Luddle sat across from Constable Tyler in the tiny back room of the already small enough station house. The atmosphere was casual, with coffee rings and a tray overflowing with ashes and cigarette butts to attest to the long morning. A couple of bread plates and some crumbs were sufficient evidence of a long consultation. To a mere constable, a person of Luddle's rank just naturally sucked most of the air out of a room. That was Tyler's initial impression, although Luddle was friendly enough in a ponderous way.

Once again they were poring over reports, with a local eye this time.

"Yes, that about sums it up," said Tyler. "It looks like about eighteen people, all counted, left the immediate vicinity in the last twenty years, not counting boys who went to war but didn't return."

Of those, at least four were still unaccounted for, but they were also presumed dead in the official military records.

"No one seems to have any idea of what happened to this tramp, Daniel," noted Luddle. "Still, that one is all too easily explained away. And in fact, no questions were asked at the time."

Tyler nodded soberly.

"He could have fallen into a river just as easily as he might have walked north, or east, or west," he said. "With no last name, and no friends, no home and no known relations, a man could so very easily disappear. For all we know he's alive and well, and living thirty or forty miles up the road."

"He would have been about forty-five or fifty," said Luddle. "According to the person who mentioned him. This Mister Jordan, the grocer, he remembered him."

"Jordan is a good fellow," allowed Tyler.

Tyler waved a hand over the piles of notes and folders. When prompted, others remembered seeing the tramp in the area over the course of several seasons, perhaps a year or two. No one had any idea at all of when he was last seen, or when he might have left. They all figured that it was about 1925 or '26. Such tedious detail, interview after interview, mostly 'fishing expeditions,' as Luddle said, produced reams of irrelevant material. Most of the time it was all for nothing, but it also brought more questions. This was a good thing.

"For all we know, he went home and became a Lord," said Tyler to a prolonged silence. "Maybe he got his rightful inheritance, and all of that."

Luddle smiled and bit his lip. He gave his head a quick shake.

"This Amber Chudleigh is interesting, but as to how it might relate, is beyond me," said the constable. "She was born here, but orphaned at a young age. Mother died of the Spanish flu, dad killed in the war. She knocked about as a domestic servant for some time. She left in, ah, nineteen twenty-two for a place up north. No letters back home to anyone we have spoken to, and there is no forwarding address. No trace of her now."

Luddle shook his head in frustration.

"It's easy enough to say that she's still out there," nodded Tyler. "Or maybe not. Personal advertisements in all the papers have failed to elicit a response or any kind of tip."

"This elderly couple must be dead by now," said Luddle with a sigh. "They moved away, and then all of their remaining friends here died. The Belsons. Huh!"

"They say these hills are haunted," grunted Tyler. "I've never put a lot of stock in it, but strange beliefs might make for strange happenings. All these caves and things, old houses, crazy doings in the past..."

"Yes," said Roy Luddle, reaching for the coffee cup. "Who knows? Maybe Dawson or Maintenon will come up with something. It would have to be something unusual."

What that unusual something might be, he had no idea.

His eyes went up to the ceiling, as he sat there lost in thought. Luckily perhaps for Tyler, the phone clattered its insistent call, and the constable rose stiffly to answer it. A bike ride and some fresh air might do him some good, and hopefully it was nothing too tragic.

***

Gilles had a cab drive him out of Buckfastleigh, and with his prodding and some directions from a yokel waiting at a roadside bus stop, they found the place easily enough. He opened the door and a trio of flaming pink apples fell out onto the graveled verge.

"Sorry, sir," muttered the driver, bemused by the eccentricities of the French.

But Gilles was too well-prepared this time around, and his overnight bags had quite a number of convenient finger foods. He stood looking at the façade of the old place, rambling off in wings to left and right, each built in a different century. The driver's cough turned him around, and he hastened to find the proper bills. While he wasn't exactly on an expense account, to under-tip or to over-tip was unseemly and could be avoided.

The man's beaming expression confirmed that he had hit the proverbial nail on the head with this particular transaction.

"Merci," nodded Gilles.

"And a mighty big thank you to you, sir," said the other, turning to go.

Confronted by a big bronze door-knocker in the shape of a gryphon, rampant or erect in the fighting position, with the initials 'RH' embossed on it, he had little choice but to use it. While he had indeed telephoned ahead, and was expected, there was no sound or sign of life from within the open windows on each side of the hall. White curtains billowed half in and half out, with a strong gust of wind that sent a few dry leaves pattering across the paving stones in front. Through the back of his mind passed an inconsequential piece of school-boy knowledge. The erect figure of the bronze gryphon was quite humanoid, and of course symbolized power, authority and sovereignty, the divine right of kinds past and present. The Heaths went way back, he knew.

No, he was thinking of the lion rampant. That was it. But the gryphon had similar undertones.

His knock, while loud enough, brought no result. He lifted the heavy thing and let it drop once more. The response was more anti-climax. Either no one was home, or they were sleeping upstairs, or they were all sitting around expecting someone else to answer it. That was his immediate conclusion.

Then he thought better of it. What if they had all been murdered in their beds, just because someone had mentioned that Gilles Maintenon, the funny little Frenchman going about the neighbourhood on walkabout was going to be staying for a while. While the thought wasn't as ludicrous as it might sound at first, he snorted and decided to simply step in over the adjacent window sill, blinking in the dim light and holding back the irritation of the strongly-blowing curtains. A more modern house would have had screens.

"Hello!" he called.

No response. The room was a den, study and library, definitely large enough, but comfortably furnished in upholstered chairs in cream and dark blue. The far wall and the ends were lined with walnut shelves, with books lined up in rows, with more books stuffed in on top, and some of the side tables had stacks of books on them as well. In one corner was a television set, its Cyclopean eye forbidding as it stared blankly at his intrusion. Each tall, dark block of bookshelves was separated by an alcove, many of which held some impressive hunting trophies, including a lion's head. It gave him new insight into the personality of the Squire, far more than anything said about him so far. There was also the skin of what Gilles thought was a cheetah or leopard mounted on a slab of gnarled wood, a major tree sliced through on an angle. This one had its own spotlight. Some of the other alcoves contained African shields, spears, and savage ceremonial masks. There was a glass case filled with more conventional trophies as well. These were for shooting, riding and polo.

"Huh!" grunted Maintenon. "It just goes to show you."

What that might be, was another thing.

Over everything lay a thin film of dust, and Maintenon wondered if this was another sacred room, another untouched sanctuary that had once belonged to the Squire, and perhaps in some ineffable way it still did. The old man's spirit hovered over everything around here, and Gilles was getting a better idea of what he was like.

"Hello?" he called, moving to the door at the end nearest the front hallway.

He opened it and had a look. Sure enough, there was the front door, twenty feet off to the left. Unlocking that one, he lifted the latch and stepped out onto the low steps and picked up his luggage. Without further ceremony, he lugged it into the hallway.

This was slightly awkward. While he was indeed expected, and had been assured by both the estate manager and the unusually-strong voice of Florence herself that he was both welcome and that it wouldn't be an imposition, he couldn't just drag his bags up to the room he had been assigned before. It would be presumptuous, and to carry his kit would be ungentlemanly. This was not a house to be ungentlemanly in.

"Hello? Anybody home?" he called again.

***

Gilles had agreed to pay by the week for a short stay, which he said on the phone would not last more than a month. His mythological and photographic research was almost complete and the season was advancing anyhow. Possibly in need of cold hard cash in what was after all a rather depressed farm economy, they had agreed without too many questions. To his relief, neither Freddy nor Florence made any comment about his previous and unannounced midnight exit.

He wondered where they all were.

There was no one in the parlour, and no one in the dining room where Hardy had been laid in state last time he was here. Once again, he was struck by the dry, dusty, feminine scent of the place. All the open windows in the world would not take that smell away, he thought. At least the Squire's den had a dank, musky smell, of tobacco, coffee and male sweat.

The house was deathly silent. Surely there would be some servants about. There was no one in the kitchen. Why it would be deserted at this hour, he had no idea, and then it occurred to him that the cook would be off on Sunday and a weekday, in accordance with normal English household routine. At least he knew where it was. There was no one in the billiards room. The mud room had the usual jumble of shoes and boots all lined up cheek by jowl, with no real way to tell if there was a gap or anything helpful like that. Glancing out the door, the drive shed doors were closed and the yard was empty and lifeless. The entire household must be involved in the harvest or something.

He went back down the hall with no real feeling of irritation. In the worst-case scenario, he could make himself a cup of tea and have a bun or something.

Should he just carry his own luggage? Take a nap on what would in all likelihood be his bed, haunting as the memory of Esther would undoubtedly be?

There was a side hall, leading to the rear of the house again. It occurred to Gilles that there must be a rear stairway for the servants and possibly a bathroom on the ground floor. With a sigh of resignation, he kept looking.

Finding an alcove with three doors, two of which were closed and the last one open, he called again, pausing outside the open one.

"Hello, is there anyone home?"

No answer, but he could hear a tapping and sloughing sound, much like the curtains in the front of the house. For whatever reason, one sound, a tiny 'tick' sound, caught his attention as being out of place.

He stepped through the door and was confronted by such a compellingly bizarre sight that he was not only rendered speechless in pure shock, but came to an abrupt halt as well.

Mrs. Florence Heath was standing beside a tallboy dresser and in front of an ornately-framed full-length mirror, and while she was not exactly stark naked, she might as well have been. It might have been less shocking than what he saw.

His mouth open to beg her pardon, he took in the stockings with the line up the back, the garter belt, the uplifting brassiere, the high-heeled shoes, and that hideous grey bun in her hair. Seeing her teeth in a glass on top of the dresser, he thought the better of it, and yet his feet were riveted to the spot. The mirror was angled in such a way as to avoid catching his reflection, and she was facing away from him, yet his surprise was too complete.

Just then she turned and caught sight of his ashen face.

Her mouth popped open in turn. Gilles realized that the old lady, sixty-five years if a day, must be hard of hearing.

"Madame!" he blurted, neck and face flaming in embarrassment. "Please forgive me! I am ever so sorry! I didn't know."

Then Gilles turned and marched away from the unforgettable, well-nigh incomprehensible sight of Florence Heath in all her lavender-scented majesty, dressing herself in her stodgy, antique clothes in the privacy of her bedroom mirror.

***

Dinner was quiet, a little too quiet. The serving girl didn't have much too say, or perhaps knew enough not to talk out of turn. She would speak when addressed in this household. The estate manager Freddy kept his head down and focused on his meal and his thoughts.

His only comments were on the weather, and to request the passing of salt, butter, and other nutritional requirements.

As for Florence, her glittering eyes gave no clue as to the grotesque scene earlier. He doubted if she had forgotten about it, as he would have preferred. Even she had little to talk about, other than the weather and the routine business of the manor.

Since the aforesaid weather had turned distinctly bad, with cold, wet, rain, and cloud looming low overhead for days now, it was perhaps a matter of overall mood which could be infectious enough. He was surprised they didn't ask about his research, which should have been a revelation to them as he hadn't mentioned it on the previous visit. But then, it was a story only recently concocted, and the previous visit had been in the midst of a serious disruption.

It was with some relief that Gilles made his excuses, pleading exhaustion, and made his way up to the same room as before. This was no less than he expected, but it also put his prowling earlier into its proper perspective.

He really didn't have to do that, did he? So much unpleasantness might have been avoided. Thank God, but he was fairly certain she hadn't mentioned it to anybody. To have her make a big joke of it would have been a wretched state of affairs indeed.

Even now, the whole incident made his skin crawl for some reason. Not without significance, Gilles had stumbled into a trap of his own creation.

Chapter Eighteen

A Constant Stream of Crickets

There was a constant stream of crickets chirping, the singing of what might have been other crickets, another species perhaps, or what might be some kind of miniature frogs or toads. The occasional cry of a bird, a thin, high piping sound cut the air. Yet he could not put a name to the most familiar sounds. Avery marveled at the soft brush of the wind about his upper face. In the city, it was always an annoyance, the breeze bringing nothing good with it.

But out here was different. It cleansed a man's soul, a soul grown cool with all the years of police work. Dawson hadn't been out of the City in years, and yet once he accepted the fact of living rough, was quite enjoying the novel experience.

He was more aware of himself, as an animal, an organism, and that somehow his body fit in here better than his mind did. The wind again drummed at his temples. The sound fit perfectly in with this time and place, irrational, random and in harmony with his empty thoughts.

The low, wet, grey cumulus cast a pall of gloomy indifference upon the land as he sat on a public bench, incongruous on some level of human logic as this was literally the middle of nowhere. There were signs of use, though. A cigar butt, a wrapper from a packet of crisps, if he looked around some he might find a used condom. At the exact psychological and physical distance, he might find where a pint bottle had been tossed. Peering about, he located the metallic gleam of a bottle cap. He sat high on a hill, alone with his thoughts and loving it in some way. Dawson had found peace, and felt no guilt at not sharing it with another.

The vast open vista could be deceiving. Civilization, and with it barbarity, lay just over the nearest hilltop. He didn't have to strain his ears to catch the reality of lorries, a distant train, very distant that was, and there was the sound of men working cheerfully somewhere nearby but out of sight. And there were the crickets. The crickets had been going strong since spring, and they wouldn't let up for a moment except for the frozen hell of a long winter on Dartmoor. After the chill of the evening before, it felt quite warm to Dawson. He had no real sense of hurry. He wasn't suffering, not in the way that Maintenon had let on about. Admittedly, he was a little younger than Gilles, and wasn't injured or anything. He considered that thought. The isolation was a bit sobering in the sense of objective thinking—what if there was an emergency? He would be very much on his own, just as anyone would be out here. People had fallen, the occasional person drowned, and someone went missing around here a few years back. It was a kind of wilderness, and the fact you could see nothing for long distances meant nothing in terms of safety. Dawson had never been with the Boy Scouts, but had sufficient confidence in his abilities not to be too worried. In truth, simply being alone for the first time in years, even decades, was hard enough on the psyche. It freed up an awful lot of time for introspection.

It wasn't always comfortable, he reckoned, but his own hadn't been too bad. Others might have a different experience! There was some personal revelation here, which he really hadn't expected.

He was a mile, maybe, or it could be five miles from anyone, anyone at all. Sound carried a long way. No one cared, least of all him. The hills didn't give the impression of much height. That was only until you tried to walk up one and discovered it was real work, and then sat upon one, and discovered that it gave quite a long view around the countryside.

Upon the crags, trudging along the paths of the moorlands, that curious combination of barren prairies and lush glens, each with a life of their own, was doing Avery Dawson a world of good so far. It was a powerful place, a peaceful place, a place with no purpose and perfect enough for all of that. The encroaching noise and business was all too clear and all too imminent. The air at least was wet, and warm, and clean. The smell of cedars would remain with him a long time. He felt that instinctively. To stand surrounded, among a small copse of trees, with the sighing of the wind overhead, was to experience the most profound solitude. The smell of cedar would provoke and prolong the memory of these few days and nights of perfect freedom. The notion that there was work to be done, and a killer afoot, was a kind of icing on the cake. He was getting paid to do this.

Dawson finished his pipe and rose with a sense of anticipation. Dark was coming, and he hoped to get to the Manor either very late tonight or tomorrow at dawn. He didn't have much to put on his resume. The thought made him smile, setting off into the valley once more. Giving his whiskers a rub, he understood that he smelled perfectly in character, and didn't give a damn who knew it. The stars were so bright at night, glittering in the cold fastness of space. The moon was different from a London moon, free of all the grit and contamination of the city's smokestacks.

Dogs barking somewhere far to the east reminded him that to be alone was always more dangerous than to be in a group. There were no wolves anymore, nor bears, nor snakes nor crocodiles. The most dangerous things out here would be wild dogs and human beings. One or the other made the hair on his neck prickle just a bit.

Precisely then, a meteorite shot up from the horizon and flickered out somewhere above and behind before he could turn about.

"Cor!" he sighed.

It was like some kind of omen.

***

Dawson woke up next to a dead man. It was easy enough to see how he had missed it the night before, what with the dark and only the faint light of matches and his stubby candle to navigate around the small clearing. At the time, he was so tired it was all he could do to unroll his damp old blanket and take off his boots. As far as pillows went, a stinky old pair of boots or a damp rucksack wasn't exactly ideal. The damned thing was only about four feet from where his crumpled blanket still lay on the now-flattened grass.

He contemplated his boots for a second, and then reluctantly put them on for the day.

Strewn with the first brown leaves of autumn, the grass under the small hardwoods was long and green. There were twigs and branches scattered about in profusion. One baleful eye of a weathered skull, dank and green with moss and lichens stared up at a stunned Avery Dawson as he urinated into the brush at the side of his overnight den. Squinting in the dim light, he saw a few big, long white teeth, with dark crevices beside each one. It looked like the bottom jaw was sort of there, stuck in the dirt along with the bottom of the skull.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said.

He fastened up his fly and without moving his feet, took a good look around for more bones. He thought he saw the suggestion of ribs and some long bones, maybe from the upper leg, poking out from the leaf litter.

"What in the hell do we have here?" he asked of no one in particular, glancing around guiltily.

It was a horrible feeling, the notion that someone else might be watching, that someone else might know of this place. It was just his luck. As far as wandering tramps or other hikers might be concerned, this was not the most obvious camping site.

"Shit," he said, wondering what to do next.

***

There was a tune from the popular radio endlessly re-circulating through his head as he prepared for bed.

To bed, perchance to sleep, but he thought it unlikely. First the thoughts, ever present and often disturbing, then the indigestion, and then he had another plan in effect. The odds of a good night's sleep seemed rather slender.

Gilles brushed his teeth, washed his face, rubbing around the eyes with a hot washcloth, hoping to take the stink of a long day out of his nostrils, but to his disgust, the washcloth left a sour, yeasty aroma on him.

"Ah, merde," he said, splashing fresh water on his face.

Rubbing extra long with the old but still serviceable towel made most, but not all of the smell go away. The wash-cloth had been left damp too long after laundering. He was not unfamiliar with the phenomena. As a new bachelor, he had been forced to learn a few things about domestic science himself.

Snapping off the bathroom light, he went back to his own room. He closed the door, pulled down the comforter, and pulled back the sheets. Gilles fluffed up the pillows. He would have liked more. The two on the bed were thin and not well-stuffed. Even doubled up, it would not be enough and he was likely to wake up with a stiff neck and a headache, which was not the best way to a cheerful start in the morning.

He sighed, and opened up his suitcase, which was open on a sturdy folding table meant for just such a purpose. There lay a bottle, with the nectar of the Gods, an amber fluid that might just do the trick. Assuming the prey showed up as anticipated.

Gilles sat down in a deep arm chair, adjusted the lamp shade to throw a little light on his book, a new leather-bound edition of some modern author he had heard much about but never read. The thing had a certain feel to it, heavy and weighty. For some reason he wasn't too interested. He had one ear cocked on the door and certain ideas preying on his mind.

Soft footsteps were barely discernable, or so he thought, just on the other side of his bedroom door. Straining to hear, he was unsure if he was making out the sounds of water running, but the house was damnably well-built. The night noises tended to blend in with everything else in the surrounding area. Through the open window, dogs barked and someone far away said something indistinguishable. He had the impression there was more than one of them, walking down the road out in front. They must be on their way home from the pub, maybe going to the next farm, or the one after that. It was pure speculation on his part. It could be anybody, or it could just be his imagination. He heard no more voices.

His heart jolted with shock when a quiet knock came at the door. He was expecting it, but the adrenalin was strong in his belly.

"Hello?" Gilles asked.

The door popped open and Freddy stuck his head and a shoulder into the room in his habitually angled, awkward position. His eyebrows rose as he saw Gilles allegedly reading a book.

"Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable, Monsieur Maintenon?" he asked, catching sight of the bottle.

***

Freddy was just filling up his third glass of Glenfiddich.

"So, tell me about yourself," suggested Gilles.

"Oh, there's not much to tell, really," said Freddy, then proceeded to launch into his life story.

Apparently Freddy had less than six months training in estate management under the watchful tutelage of the Squire himself when the war caught up with the popular imagination in the locality.

There was a similar delayed reaction in France, but then the early German victories had mobilized great crowds of men to flock to the recruiter's office, choking the induction system and throwing the whole thing into chaos.

"Same here," said the other man, who still appeared stone cold sober in spite of the drinks.

The tremor was gone from his hands, and that was about it.

"Honestly, Florence was the controlling influence around here," said Freddy. "She really wore the pants in the family, and still does, of course. But the Squire—he was titular Colonel of a local regiment, and I think he saw it as a kind of liberation."

"Liberation?" muttered Gilles.

"A chance to escape," explained Freddy.

"Ah," said Gilles. "From here? Or from her?"

"I mean everything," said Freddy. 'From the pressure. A working and productive farm is a kind of strategic asset, and he was under pressure to perform in a way he had never been before, with old Florence riding on his back all the time..."

"Ah," said Gilles. "And the military?"

Freddy snorted.

"He was used to following orders, wasn't he? I swear, as God is my witness, when the Boer War was over, he liked it so much he signed up with another unit for extended garrison duty. He was gone for years. I've often wondered how she put up with it."

"Yes! I suppose he was," agreed Maintenon, wondering if all the effort and the inevitable heavy head in the morning would really be worth it for a glimpse into the minutiae of other people's lives.

"So the Squire liked soldiering," muttered Gilles.

"To hear him tell it, he had the life of Riley," explained Freddy. "That's just one of the benefits of Empire and being a member of the ruling class. It was all parties, lion-hunting, pig-sticking, and polo every day."

"The Boer War!" grinned Gilles. "And then along came the Great War."

"Half the boys in the village were killed by the time that one was over," said Freddy. "But I couldn't honestly say if that was his fault, or if it would have turned out any differently if someone else was in command. God! After the Boer War, he came back and life hadn't changed much. He must have had some good memories. He was always writing his memoirs, but the old fellow was never completely satisfied with them."

The farm manager dried up at that point, staring morosely at the darkened sky through the open window. Gilles wondered what he saw out there. Did he see his own incompetence? His own insecurity? No, he saw cowardice. Gilles understood that the label was self-applied.

"And you?" he prodded.

"I was the manager of a working farm when the big one broke out. There was no one else to do the job, and I guess nobody really questioned it when I didn't sign up," Freddy said. "It's not a bad way of life, when you get right down to it."

"Trust me, you didn't miss anything," Gilles assured him.

Freddy stared back over the rim of the glass.

"We'll never know," said Freddy. "Will we?"

"Know what?" asked Gilles, fearing the obvious answer.

He watched the bottom come up and the Adam's apple bobbing. Freddy stared in bitterness into the bottom of yet another glass.

"It's all right, Freddy," said Gilles, finding some shred of compassion for the man, who didn't have to go and so he didn't. "You were smarter than the rest of us!"

Perhaps poor old Freddy had more courage in him than he knew, but too many years of drinking, personal doubts and loneliness, had taken even that from him.

***

He no longer cared if he lived or died. He rarely got up from his metal rack anymore. It was a kind of hell to leave the cell for any reason. He often left his food untouched.

He still used the bucket, but sitting on it was rather pointless when nothing came out. His guts ached all the time.

He was beyond weeping, or crying, or carrying on. He no longer spoke to the guards, never tried to anger or to provoke them anymore.

He received a letter from time to time, and it was almost beyond his abilities to pull the thing out of its already-opened envelope and read the words therein. The things his mother, his adoptive mother, said to him meant nothing but pain, and so he did not read them more than once.

Even when he forgot them, or couldn't remember them exactly, he refused to take them out and read them again. She was only trying to help, but nothing could help. Nothing could cheer him up or make this any easier. The funny thing was, he no longer sought death, or thought of suicide. He no longer had the moral courage to try and make things easier for her.

God would take him in His own sweet time, and not a moment sooner. It was all he had to look forward to.

He was created to suffer. This was his fate. The only way to not go mad was to become totally numb and uncaring. At some point, he no longer feared madness, but welcomed it.

He no longer smelt himself, or if he did, it simply didn't matter. When a guard spoke to him, he ignored it. James was no longer the same person. He found no solace and no condemnation in the knowledge that he had ceased to exist on some level.

The body was still inhabited, but barely. The lights were still on, but he only waited for some hand to pull the lever down and plunge all into darkness.

Chapter Nineteen

Mabel Martin Knelt and Wept

Mabel Martin knelt at the front of the church and wept. Her son was going to die, and she didn't know why. She had no idea of what it was about.

Never had she felt so alone, so out of depth. Nothing in her hard life of forty-seven years had prepared her for this. There was no one to turn to. Mr. Eddings, James' long-suffering attorney, could only tell her so much. What he did tell her wasn't encouraging.

It was enough to know that he had never written her a letter. It was enough to think that maybe he didn't read hers. She tortured herself with the thought that the people inside the prison, the warders and the administrators of justice, might read her letters and laugh. It was too painful to wonder if James even read them, or if he had in fact received them, although Mr. Eddings assured her that he did.

It was unbearable, to hear a laugh through an open window, as she walked down the street. It was too much, the way voices rose and fell and went silent, and she never knew if it was about James, about her, or what it was ever about.

It was enough to see the looks of pity, and the looks of speculation. At one time, to be an unwed mother, with all the resulting social awkwardness had seemed unbearable. It had never been any fault of hers, to take in a wee child that no one wanted, that someone had abandoned to the kindness of strangers.

The bitter and guilty thought came and went, 'Why me?' and 'Why us?'

The only thing she knew for sure was that her son, her adopted son was incapable of this terrible thing. The love she felt for James was strong, but she had a head on her shoulders as well.

What could be so terrible, what could James see that she could not? She prayed for James, she begged God for his life. She prayed to see James again, knowing that she would soon see him in the dock, to be tried for the premeditated murder of Harold Hardy, and the knowing the whole thing was insane.

What was James so ashamed of? That he wanted to die? What could she say to him, if only she had the chance? What would she tell him?

That it wasn't worth it? That suicide was wrong? Nothing could ever be that bad? But it was.

Mabel Martin, on wobbling knees, rose and with her head down, body still wracked by spasms of grief and loss, stumbled down the side aisle and around the pews and into the lobby. Her forlorn footsteps were finally cut short by the thudding of the heavy door behind her.

All was silent again as the big wooden crucifix, hung with the lifelike painted plaster statue of Christ dying for the sins of man, looking down in perfect acceptance of all things offered to it by an imperfect race of beings.

***

Strong hands gripped the collar. The leads were unfastened, one by one. The animals sat panting in anticipation, the discipline still strong.

"Off, boy and girls," and the dogs raced across the heath, snapping at each other's hindquarters, and flushing doves and small birds.

Barks and snapping grunts rent the air as the animals took their fresh air and exercise.

Something was up. The trio of panting black dogs were making straight up the hill after some unseen quarry.

***

Dawson made his way up the side of the hill, soaking his trousers and the bottom of his jacket on the wet golden heather. With a stitch in his side and half out of breath, he bent at the waist, relaxing with his hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath again. One thing he had learned, in only three days and two nights out of doors, was that it was dreadfully tiring. Everything, from making a bed to building a fire, was labour intensive. Simply moving about on rough ground made the lower legs ache, and his feet and ankles were not in much better shape. One might have thought a policeman would have better staying power, and as a younger man he must have.

Too many years behind a desk, sitting in interview rooms, and riding around in official cars had taken their toll. Avery Dawson was getting on for middle age, and he realized that he wasn't going to like the process of getting old very much.

His heart already pounded uncomfortably in his chest. It was nothing to worry about, he was fairly certain of that, but even so, it was uncomfortable.

Straightening up, he was just beginning to feel better when movement in the valley below caught his attention.

"Oh, no!" he gasped. "Jesus, no!"

Several dark forms were racing up the hillside, and even at this distance of a hundred yards, he could see the red, hideously grinning mouths and the whites of their eyes. Some idiot had let his animals off the leash. Dawson saw the man, shading his eyes against the brightness of the sky and standing there like a fool. He had his hand on his hip and a red plaid cape, and a walking stick, some kind of thick cudgel such as a proper country gentleman always carried, albeit in some bygone times. The clarity of mental detail was astounding. Was it always like this?

Dawson had a moment left before they got to him, and in a kind of instinctive panic, otherwise frozen in place, he looked around, right and left and behind him for anything, a tree, a big rock, some refuge from the hunters. He could hear their snarls more clearly now, and he stared into the jaws of death with a kind of sick horror. This was really happening, and it was happening to him. All he could do was to freeze and pray. The thing was not to show any fear.

His guts were ready to fall out the bottom of him. There was nowhere to run.

***

"I'm dreadfully sorry about that," the man said.

Dawson remained dead still, as the big male dog sat twenty feet away, regarding him balefully through bloodshot yellow eyes. The thing drooled without looking hungry, and its tongue hung out even though the superbly-fit animal wasn't even out of breath after its long charge uphill, bounding through deep grasses and brush.

The mother dog, for he took this to be a family, circled warily off to his left, all the while eyeing him distrustfully, and the littlest one, the baby dog, if such a thing was possible with a breed so obviously meant for violence could be perceived of as a 'baby,' was in behind him.

He could hear its curious snuffling and indignant grunts right there, but he dare not turn.

The man was still ten yards away, and he seemed to be taking forever. He at least was stumbling and panting with exertion. Finally he paused, still yards short of the biggest, ugliest and most threatening animal.

"They wouldn't have done anything," the fellow said lamely, but when Dawson's shoulders slumped in resignation, aware that this fool would want to talk and to convince himself at least, the two larger dogs leapt into hyper-awareness again, the heavy, dark brown male dog taking two quick steps in his direction.

"Niger! No!" shouted the man in haste, and the dog froze in position again.

So stiff with fright that he could barely breathe, Dawson kept his hands were they were and prayed for the fool to get the animals back on the leash.

He still didn't trust himself to speak, angry and frightened as he was. Perhaps sensing this, the fellow set to controlling his dogs.

"They need to run and chase things, usually marmots or even pigeons," the man explained in some embarrassment. "Honestly, I didn't see you up here! I'm ever so sorry."

The ring snapped shut on the mother dog's collar, and Dawson took a step back.

"Fuck," he said, and the other fellow looked rather shocked at that.

"We haven't been properly introduced," said the gentleman, face flushing red.

He seemed rather defensive, as if he had no idea of what all the fuss was about.

"I'm Edwin Plover," he offered. "I'm the Vicar around here, or so they say."

The smallest of the dogs was sniffing around Dawson's ankles, and with shaking hands he reached down and tried to scratch the thing behind the ears, but it snorted and bolted away, eye-balling him warily over its left shoulder all the while.

"Holy, Jesus fucking Christ," said Dawson, who still trembled from the recent gut-churning spasm of adrenalin.

Those were some big dogs, and he wondered what would have happened if Plover had been behind some trees, or maybe around a corner, or just in a steeper valley. A child would have run, he was convinced of it. If he wasn't dead, he would have been severely mauled by the dogs. Dawson carefully lowered himself to the grass and sat there shaking for a while as Edwin Plover looked at him with open mouth and nothing much to say for himself.

Plover tried again.

"I say, I really am dreadfully sorry."

***

When he got to the Manor, he would start off trying to cadge a meal, then offer to pay for it, and then ask for work. That was the plan.

He was walking along with nothing but his own thoughts and a pale pre-dawn light in the east for company, glad that he was near to his destination. After miles of walking across open country, the village was warm, almost snug with its tight alleys and lush hedges. The stolid walls blocked the wind, and the breeze had dropped off considerably with the sunset.

Dawson was just stepping past the splash of light from a back door of a local inn or some other eatery, almost lured inside by the sound of human voices and the smell of fresh-baked bread.

There was no pain, not even any real awareness, but his knees buckled and there was a sharp, ringing blow on the top of his head. The earth titled crazily, the distant street lamps curved across his vision leaving trailers, traces of sharp amber light that swept across his retinas.

The ground came up and hit him hard in the left shoulder, and he opened his mouth as if to remonstrate with it. He tasted gravel. He had no thoughts. There was nothing there, and this seemed wrong somehow. A harsh voice, half whisper and half grunt demanded his attention. If only Dawson could have put words to what was happening to him.

Perhaps that might have helped, but he had no words. He had nothing to say. That was blood, he knew, wet and warm in his mouth as something that he knew to be a black leather boot swooped in from the side and got him in the left orbit of his skull.

"Wha—" he managed, but there was to be no explanation.

Heavy boots snapped into his ribcage, knocking the wind out of him, and he understood it without being able to quite comprehend it.

He didn't even have time to ask why.

Finally the lights faded, as he rolled and curled into a fetal ball, face down in the dirt, with the sharp grit of the roadway his only link to the world outside his seething mass of pain, shock and bewilderment.

The sound of footsteps walking briskly off down the alley was the only explanation he was going to get. In some incredible fashion, the police training took over momentarily, and he strained to determine, in spite of his shockingly feral anger, how many sets of feet made that sound. But with the sound of his own gasps of breath, his own animal grunts, he couldn't do it. He couldn't be sure of how many.

Putting a hand out, a wave of nausea and vertigo flushed over him, and he wasn't even able to lift his head from the gravel. Finally Dawson rolled over onto his back, crying and calling out, with his guts heaving and quivering in one vast aching bag of misery.

Avery Dawson would have some catching up to do—if he lived. The grating in his chest was unbelievably frightening. The extra shock of adrenalin was hardly necessary, and painfully intense. Maybe the thought itself would save him. His aloneness was brought home to him with a sharp clarity as his higher mental faculties returned. The recognition that he might die alone in the alley was unwelcome, but he must try harder to cry out. Surely someone must hear him as another involuntary moan wracked him and he tried to sit up. It was too much and he subsided.

"Oh, God," said Avery Dawson.

He had quite a few things to say to God, as it turned out, and one minor request.

He prayed that he would live.

***

The cold was shocking in intensity. His body shook like the fever, and startled awareness told him nothing. In one awesome moment of insanity, the pain came, and then the memory. The daylight was well advanced, but it was still early in the morning by the dark shadows slanting across his vision.

He gasped and sweat popped out around his eyes and he felt a deep nausea. Retching and trying to suck in the precious, life-giving oxygen, which seemed like his only reason for living at that exact moment, Dawson tried to roll over.

The pain in his shoulders and back was so intense that he immediately stopped, falling limp again onto his back.

The grim reality was that someone had beaten him.

"Oh, Jesus," he uttered.

Dawson tried again. This time he managed to draw up a knee and push off the ground a little, and this time he made it onto all fours. His face, clearly all puffed up in the peripheral vision, shrouding his eyes and narrowing his field of view, was covered in a painfully-tight layer of dried blood, judging by the dry red flecks that came off when he managed to get a hand up.

"God...damn...fuck," he said.

It was like he could go no further.

Sudden footsteps sounded nearby and he cowered in fright, raising a hand as if to ward off a blow, trying to see who was coming out of the newly-risen sun.

A woman shrieked ever so briefly, as Avery Dawson gasped and mumbled and retched.

There was a long moment of silence as they stood there.

"Pauline! Run and get the Constable," he heard in blissful gratitude, and then he pitched down onto his face, and plunged back into unconsciousness.

The child pelted away.

The lady's feet scraped the gravel beside his face. She was crying as she tried to help him. She had no training, or any real idea of what to do. She must do something. Warm soft hands lifted his face and then gently lowered him down again onto a thin silk scarf. It was a gift from a very dear friend, but his need was the greater. Her coat sank onto him, which she recalled was the proper treatment for shock. She bundled it close in around his ribs.

The woman knelt beside his inert body, holding his wrist with one hand and the other one covering her mouth in a kind of hysteria. There was a pulse. She realized that with a sense of dismay at her own calmness, although her heart pounded in her chest.

With a little luck, the badly-injured stranger might yet live.

Lips moving silently, her eyes closed as she held her lonely vigil, she prayed for that to happen.

***

Using the utility bicycle from the Manor, Gilles cycled the few short kilometres into the village. Although the sign-posts were marked in miles, it was a fairly rapid mental conversion, and it did not lay too far off. He noticed some kind of a local garage and motor-sales on the edge of town. The pair of red painted bay doors stood open, and men in dark blue smocks were bent over the open bonnet of a green sports-car. Its diminutive size, large spoke wheels, sweeping wing fenders and cheerful, rakish look, with its long hood and short rear deck were certainly attractive, although Gilles had never seriously considered owning a car of his own. In Paris, he could walk most places, and was thoroughly familiar with cycling, or using the Metro.

That was one of the benefits of living in a major, world-class city. You didn't have to walk everywhere, or hitch up a farm wagon and pile the kids aboard to go to Church. He grinned slightly in fond recollection of trips to Church on Sundays, growing up in a household with seven siblings, two brothers and five sisters. They tended to be raucous, noisy, and quite fun, as Gilles remembered, until his father had had enough, turning red-faced and threatening 'instant death,' a threat no one took too seriously, to the next person who 'uttered a peep,' as he was wont to say.

On some kind of an inspired whim, Gilles turned the handlebars and went in for a closer look. Leaning the bike up against a lamp-post, Maintenon removed the bicycle clips from his pant-legs and pulled out one of his infamous cheroots. No one would complain about the stench out here. Again, the view was breathtaking. The wind-swept moors came right down to the road in a series of rolling tongues of land lolling off into the haze at the eastern horizon.

The cars were somewhat interesting, although Gilles new next to nothing about them. He had only the sort of knowledge that a person picks up by a kind of osmosis. One of his brothers loved cars, and virtually every boy had dreams of becoming a famous racing driver at one time or another. In Gilles' case, the obsession didn't last long, and so like other boys he went on to other obsessions. He shook his head at the notion, but if he had followed a different path, he might have been a world champion.

He bent over and put up a hand to shade the sun's glare from the right-hand side window of one particular vehicle, a red sedan, or 'saloon,' as the English said. It seemed to be all in one piece, he thought. With no particular reason for being there, he was struck by something Andre Levain had said one day about puddles of oil under a vehicle. The seats were upholstered in strips of red leather, stitched in endless seams, and the controls and dash panel appeared functional as far as he knew, and it seemed clean and attractive inside. Tugging on the handle, he found the car was locked. This seemed logical enough, out here on the edge of the village and the beginning of nowhere.

Dropping to one knee, Gilles took a look under the front end of it. There were drip-spots on the ground, but they were dry-looking. Studying the bottom of the motor, he saw that it was dry and fairly-clean looking on...the oil pan? He was sure it was an oil reservoir on the bottom of the motor. He had heard that somewhere. The oil lubricated the engine and dripped into a pan. Then a pump sent it back up again. As a general rule of thumb, the oil was supposed to stay inside the motor where it would do the most good, this also according to Levain.

Gilles stood there looking at another car, a sporty model like the one in front of the working bays. The two men over there still muttered back and forth between themselves, although he was sure they were aware of his presence.

It seemed reasonable that a car dealer, with a few older trade-ins on the lot, would have oil spots everywhere! But that was just one of the benefits of being a trained detective. He would have figured that much out sooner or later.

Chapter Twenty

Man and Machine

Gilles had a new appreciation for the so-called relationship between man and machine. With a flick of the wrist, he sped through another corner at a relatively sedate forty-five miles per hour, with Mister George Hodges clutching the machined-aluminum grip handle on the dash board just a little too tightly. The fact that he did not have a license, as Gilles cheerfully admitted, might have had something to do with it.

After poking and prodding and kicking the tires of several vehicles in a desultory fashion, Gilles was rewarded. George came out of the front office of the dealership, his pinstripe suit a little at odds with the mundane surroundings.

His hand was warm and moist, and Gilles surmised he had caught the gentleman either having lunch or in the loo, as the English called it. His surreptitious sniff could not determine either way, but a surprising amount of cologne inclined him to the latter. One of the mechanics must have gone in and kicked the door or something.

"Oh, yes," said Hodges. "This baby really goes. And she handles like a dream."

Gilles had no real basis for comparison, as this was the very first time he had ever driven an automobile. He had heard a great deal about used-car salesmen.

"I see," he said in a non-committal fashion.

Gilles pressed the brake pedal firmly, noting that the nose dipped, and the vehicle slowed down with some authority.

"So that's all right then," he said inanely, but Hodges nodded like a Tibetan sage and pointed off to the left.

Gilles assumed that meant he must turn there, and so he prodded the brake pedal once more, and threw her into the next turn with some resolve. His brother always said that.

You had to have some resolve, when it came to motorcars. Going at speed was a matter of commitment. The rasp of the exhaust was loud in the ears, and the wind buffeted the back of his head. Gilles' hair was all mussed up, but it was a curiously youthful feeling. It really was sporting, if that word had any meaning at all.

Perhaps this was exactly what he needed. Not so much a new hobby, as if photography could ever hold any long term interest for him. Maintenon had a much better idea of how something could become a passion, which was different from a hobby. His wife had knitted all of her life, certainly for all of their marriage, or as long as he could remember.

Had it ever been a passion? He doubted it. It was mere habit, more likely. For him, photography had not become a passion, although it was challenging enough when he was faking it.

Gilles stomped the fuel pedal, feeling the machine leap forward like a steeplechaser rising to take a hedge or a fence fully in stride. His heart leapt and he felt somehow more assertive. It was hard to say whether it was adrenalin or good, old-fashioned testosterone.

George laughed beside him.

"That's right," he shouted over the wind noise. "Show her who is boss!"

***

The car was perhaps a little large for Maintenon, who wasn't much interested in a saloon as he was widowed without any dependent children. It would be just for him, he told Hodges, with a nudge and a wink.

"Ah," said George. "You need a little red sports-car!"

He gave a sideways look at Gilles as they pulled into the pub, a predictable destination in pretty much any circumstances, Maintenon was learning.

"What kind of car does the doctor drive?" asked Gilles. "That one is definitely too big for me!"

"Ah," said George in appreciation. "Doctor Nagle has the Standard Nine Selby Tourer, in cream and brown two-tone. It's a nice car, but big, yes. That one's too big for a man like you! He can put a stretcher in there over the tops of the seats, although I don't think he's ever had to do it."

Gilles nodded comprehension.

"Did you ever sell a car to the Squire?" asked Gilles, finding the question somewhat off-beat, with the gentleman so long dead.

"Before my time," said Hodges. "He had a Bentley, but he crashed it and never drove another car."

"Was he racing it?" asked Gilles in astonishment. "You learn more and more every day!"

"No!" chuckled George. "Quite frankly, I think by that time he was going a bit dotty in the head. He forgot how to turn, or something. He stuffed it nice and gently into a hedgerow at about fifteen miles per hour, and Florence put a stop to it."

"I've always liked the look of racing cars, although the, er, grille on the Talbot Darracq was rather unfortunate-looking," said Gilles.

That was a wonderful thing about the Paris papers. If a Frenchman did anything of note in the world, it would turn up on the front page, and it was part of a cop's job was to know things.

George looked impressed at this bit of knowledge.

"I don't know," he muttered as the pair trudged across the small graveled lot, with Gilles spinning around as he walked and taking another look at the Crossley they were test-driving. "Yes, that one's a bit stodgy for you."

Gilles grinned.

"Over the years, I have learned to blend in a little too well," said Maintenon. "You know, I like your idea of a sports-car."

Esther's car was impounded, but she had purchased it in London anyway, and he was reluctant to bring up the subject. He couldn't exactly remember the make or model, although it was in the case notes. Gilles was wondering when he would begin to flounder and run out of automotive generalities, but Hodges didn't seem to care. He was happy enough with an audience.

The doctor had also bought his vehicle elsewhere, which fact did not seem to trouble the salesman George overly much. He had it serviced elsewhere as well, the man told him.

"That new one of the Vicar's is an interesting machine," Gilles told George. "But I don't know how practical it is in my case, especially as it's so low to the ground."

"I'm probably cutting my own throat here," said George. "But the best thing to do is to drive a number of machines before making any decision. It's not the sort of thing to do on a whim. To give the Vicar full credit, he test-drove all kinds of cars, one or two of ours included, before settling on the Morgan. But he's a real enthusiast and this is really your first time driving."

"Oh," muttered Gilles, watching the kitchen door in forlorn hope.

"With him, he's a rather sporting fellow, and he really wanted something new. The Morgan certainly gives one the impression of speed when driving, being so low-slung. It's also very economical, and I don't think he's paid all that well. Amber, his wife, is bed-ridden, so certain lady-like considerations, like the matter of getting in or out, didn't enter into it."

"Yes, there is always that, I suppose," said Gilles. "Back home, the Metro is never more than a few steps away, a few hundred metres at most. Here, it is all wide open spaces, and I really can't walk or cycle every place that I want to go."

He had the impression that he was just stalling. He was fishing for information, but perhaps that was the way cars were bought and sold. It's just that he had never done it before. That was the thing to do—to play up his curiousity and inexperience a little.

So the Vicar had driven other vehicles, a perfectly innocent act which no one had considered, but then no one had even thought to ask. As Gilles had just proven, anyone could test-drive a motorcar. He might have borrowed one for the weekend. There would be no paper trail, no license or registration!

At that point their lunch arrived, borne by none other than Mabel Martin. Gratefully, Gilles tucked into his soup, aware that he was sailing awfully close to the wind. Did everyone accept him at face value, as a middle-aged man on a sabbatical for health reasons?

Did they really believe he was dabbling in a little research into local myths, legends and lore?

With Hodges, it probably wouldn't matter—he would try to sell him a car in any case. That was definitely in character. Predictably, George, whom Gilles was coming to know fairly well by now, had another suggestion.

"If you were willing to wait, I could order a brand-new Swallow for you," he offered. "Give me fifty pounds down. The car is only a hundred-seventy-five pounds—an incredible feat of design and production, if you ask me. And it's a nice little car."

"I'll have to think about that one," said Gilles. "You must have a brochure, n'est pas?"

***

Day in and day out, the rhythm of life was the same. There were countless long days when less than ten words were exchanged by anyone either way, punctuated only by the clang of an iron door and the rock-solid tromp of hard warder's shoes on the highly-polished yet blackened concrete floors.

The prisoner had let himself go, to the extent that he was now bordering on insanity. He never washed. Even when offered a shave, he refused it. When he stopped eating, he barely used the bucket anymore, and one day he realized the stench was coming from him more than the other corner. It frightened him just how low a man could sink, and there was never a day that passed when he did not think of the gallows. Sometimes he prayed for its release.

There had been a time when he would have cheered to read that a killer had swung, some appalling bastard accused of the most heinous crimes. He knew there were those who would applaud when he swung, and perhaps they would be right.

They would be right.

Never before had he realized just how cheap a life was, how easily disposed-of. It seemed whimsical, a fate macabre and unavoidable. And yet he had made his choices, so many of them, all of them it seemed, combining to lead him here, to this.

He thought of the last day, and how they would bring him a priest, and what he would tell him.

He hoped he had the courage to face it like a man, and that he would find some memorable last words, something for them to tell his mother—for he would always think of her in that way.

He thought of the rope, and how it would feel when they fastened it around his neck, and spoke their sanctimonious and hypocritical words, and he knew how a thousand other men had felt in this place, at this time in their lives. He wondered how many innocent men they had killed. He wished he could find solace in philosophy, or religion, but it was not possible.

He was angry, and yet he could not speak. There was no one to speak for him, and he accepted that this was the way of the world.

It was meant to be.

Chapter Twenty-One

A Sagging Hospital Bed

"My boys," said Dawson. "I spent some time thinking of them, and Deirdre."

A tear welled up in each eye and rolled down his ashen cheeks unnoticed, inconsequential. The Constable looked away for a moment, out through the gap in the curtains, where the cries of children announced their joyful and uninhibited play.

Constable Tyler sat beside the recumbent figure on the sagging hospital bed. The nurse had helpfully adjusted it so that Inspector Dawson was half-sitting, eyes glazed with morphine. The side closest was the side patients got in and out of, and Tyler had the idea that Dawson was sliding toward him. But it was only an illusion, an optical aberration.

His lips were badly swollen and he had a pair of black eyes, the right side extremely swollen. His right arm was in a sling, and Dawson's chest was taped up due to a cracked rib and broken collar bone, both on the left side.

"Did your attacker say anything?" he asked.

Tyler was taking copious notes. Dawson shook his head.

"I didn't see anyone coming, and I didn't hear anything. Not much, anyway."

It was like it came out of nowhere.

"I think there was a clump of bushes right there," he added.

"So you have no idea of whether they were big or small, young or old?" asked the constable.

Dawson shook his head carefully.

"No way of telling if it was a man or a woman," noted the constable. "There weren't any marks that would help to identify anyone—just scuff marks in the gravel, although my own impression is that they weren't particularly large."

"I don't think it was a fist or a bat. They were definitely wearing some boots or hard shoes," said Dawson, who was having a hard time speaking properly. "Damn it."

"I wish I could tell you how upset we are," said Tyler. "My nephew is on the door, by the way."

"Yes. Must remain in character," agreed Dawson. "But...this feels targeted."

There was no way of knowing for sure. The fact that nothing had been said was indicative in some ways. But it was hardly conclusive, in terms of generating any positive lead.

"Did you see anyone who struck you as suspicious or out of place in the time leading up to the attack?" asked Constable Tyler.

"No," said Dawson. "However...the day before...maybe two days ago. I don't know."

"Today's Tuesday," said Tyler.

Dawson just shook his head, and then proceeded to relate how a fellow had sort of accosted him when stepping off the moorland trail onto the roadway. The road was wider, with verges in white gravel.

"There are two gates there, one on each side. The dogs stand in the road, the sheep bunch up, and the shepherds, they come up, open the gate and then the sheep go in the pasture," Dawson attempted to describe where it had happened. "It was a small black lorry with some kind of crest on the side."

He had to pause for breath and to think it through. Tyler waited patiently. The doctor said there was concussion, but hopefully no long-lasting brain injury. His guts went like a trip-hammer when that thought came, and he sat up a little straighter involuntarily. A friend of his, Danny Smithers, had to retire from policing after suffering a head injury while attempting to subdue a pub brawl.

"Don't you worry, sir, we'll look them up right quick," Tyler assured Dawson. "This seems to be a motiveless crime. Of course there is no such thing, but all your money is still there."

"What little I had," admitted Dawson. "No, robbery wasn't the motive. I was being punished for something, which says something about our perpetrator. The disturbing thing is that silence."

His face was like putty in between the discolourations, the abrasions and contusions.

"Play it strictly by the book, boy," said Avery Dawson. "If it's real, we want a conviction. Of course it feels like it's targeted, but why? Or maybe, but not in quite that way. That man was menacing—but in his case, it's possible that was all there was to it."

"Did you smell anything? Alcohol?" asked Tyler.

"No," said Avery, shaking his head in resignation. "Who found me?"

"A lady and her daughter, Mrs. Rose," the constable told him. "And Belinda. She's about eight or nine."

"Please give them my thanks," said Dawson with sincere gratitude. "Normally, in the heat of a chase...in a moment of danger, there is no time to think..."

"And?" asked Tyler after a long moment.

"For the first time in my life, I honestly thought I could die...I wasn't sure if I was going to...but I knew that I could," said Avery. "It was a kind of revelation."

"There's more," said Tyler to a long pause.

"The bones in the woods will have to wait," said Dawson. "And the dog incident was frightening too, come to think of it."

Tyler underlined something in his notes, one word: 'Plover.'

"We can only keep this quiet for a while," sighed Constable Tyler, scratching his chin with his pencil. "You mentioned the state of the teeth."

"If it was a missing man named Daniel, a ne'er do well, a vagrant, or whichever, he had fairly nice teeth," said Dawson. "But my gut instinct is that this one will never be identified properly, and that therefore the incident is incapable of solution."

Sooner or later, they would have deal with it officially and openly.

"Maybe if a couple of vacationing forensic pathologists stumbled across them," said Tyler with a half a grin.

"I wouldn't put it past Monsieur Maintenon, or Roy Luddle, for that matter," Dawson grimaced.

Drained by his ordeal, his head dropped. Tyler sat quietly, watching the now-sleeping man. Then he snapped shut his notebook and quietly made his exit.

***

It was becoming their nightly ritual. Gilles was surrounded by guidebooks to the local area and other hefty tomes on English folklore, myths and legends, and Freddy was seated on the other side of the round claw-footed table, with his glass always half-full, or half-empty, and his seemingly bottomless bottle.

Tonight it was gin, but Freddy had thoughtfully provided a tall silver carafe of lime juice and a spritzer of soda. Not being much of a gin man, Gilles was making do. With a little salt and a slice of lime, it was bearable.

"Brook Manor House is the stuff of legend," Freddy was saying.

The place was built in about 1665, as Gilles recalled, but this was Freddy's story.

"On the night Richard Cabell died, people claimed to have seen the hounds of hell, fire-breathing dogs, racing across Dartmoor, and surrounding his house," he said with relish. "They let up a howl. Some say they were there to claim his soul."

"Conan Doyle used mastiffs, in his story," said Gilles. "Cabell's tomb is an unusual design, supposedly to keep his restless spirit from wandering."

Freddy listened well. The Squire must have had some affection for him.

"In my experience," Gilles went on with a wink. "A simple structure is really not enough to deter a ghost from travel."

The other grinned ruefully at human superstition, although he seemed pretty level-headed himself when it came to apparitions and manifestations. He looked a few years away from delirium tremens yet.

Freddy deeply imbibed from his tall glass, and gave his characteristic shudder. Hopefully, he wasn't all talked out yet.

"The yeth hound, a part of our Devon folklore, may have played some part in the inspiration for the original legend, and legends like that could go back to pre-Roman times," Gilles guessed, as Freddy nodded.

"A big, black, headless dog," said Gilles. "Surely you can see the relationship. Richard Cabell was said to have sold his soul to the Devil. The yeth hound, or yell hound, or even hell hound, was said to have been the spirit of an un-baptized child. People claim to hear it from time to time."

"He was said to be an evil man," noted Freddy. "One wonders exactly what that entailed."

"He was on the losing side," suggested Gilles.

"It may be as simple as that," agreed Freddy. "A matter of justification. He might have been a witch, or a Catholic, or an unpopular landlord!"

There wais always that. Our friends, our loved ones, our neighbours write our stories, Gilles knew. They might remember us differently from what we might choose. Many powerful lords were also notorious lechers and debauchers of neighbourhood ladies. This was never appreciated by their sons, husbands and fathers.

"The whole area is steeped in history," said Freddy. "We're mentioned in the Domesday Book, and the Benedictine Abbey was founded by Earl Aylward in about ah, the year 1018."

"Ah, yes!" agreed Gilles. "I thought that was King Canute—didn't he try to fly or something? Or maybe it was trying to hold back the tide. Something like that."

The men had a little chuckle over Canute and then Freddy glanced at his watch.

"Oh, let's have one more," suggested Gilles. "It will help you sleep."

It wasn't necessary to twist Freddy's arm to get him to agree to this, and there was no telling what else he might come up with in the way of detail, or local colour, and occasionally filling in the brief rundowns on all the local personalities provided by authorities.

***

In spite of all the booze, Gilles had trouble sleeping. It was a state where he was sure he was awake, although his eyes were closed. He was sure he was conscious, as his mind was swimming with ideas, thoughts, facts and surmises, odd impressions of people, and of course the theories.

What had Esther known, that could have made her such a threat to her killer? Was James Martin a threat, or merely a tool for some other sinister purpose? Was it really about religion?

'When in doubt, follow the money,' was a good rule of thumb, yet the killing of Harold Hardy had not enriched anyone so far as could be determined. It hadn't really saved Martin from exposure either. Martin had no money. As an orphan, to inherit would be complex, with the deceased likely to be revealed, along with their survivors. There was some food for thought there. A person was more likely to inherit from the adoptive parents. But bastard sons had inherited before.

Without the death of Hardy, James might have been secure from discovery. That part of the theory really didn't hold water when examined in strong light.

And was the threat of exposure as a Catholic such a devastating threat to Martin? No one had thought to ask, and the probability was that he wouldn't answer one way or another, truthfully or otherwise. While sometimes a lie was as revealing as a truth, it was also very difficult to analyze objectively. Ostensibly, the times were changing, but change is often slow, and there is always resistance to change. Sooner or later, someone had to be the first Catholic officer above sergeant's rank in the R.A.F. Martin had as much chance of making history, as he did of being drummed out.

What had Esther seen, that she had not recognized the significance of? What was different about Esther? What set her apart from anyone else in the vicinity of Buckfastleigh? Why her and not Mabel Martin?

In between other matters, Gilles also reviewed the events of the day, especially his own experience with the motorcar he had driven. The day was a jumbled-up, mixed bag of impressions, and the whole thing was just too hazy, too confusing. He was still sure his subconscious mind was trying to tell him something, and that it would come in due time, as some kind of breakthrough.

The last dream or waking thought, just before he dropped off into a deep, heavy sleep shortly before dawn, was a visual impression of the bonnet and wings of a motorcar, with the bulbous pods of the headlamps gleaming in polished chrome, shaking and vibrating as it climbed some winding road up a hill, with presumably his own hands upon the steering wheel. He could even smell it, a mix of oil, and petrol, and exhaust, and then there was the sputtering noise of the thing. The car was a familiar shade, the racing blue of France. In his dream, for surely that was what it must be, there was a beautiful woman, half-familiar and yet a stranger, standing by the roadside and holding a bunch of daisies and black-eyed Susans. She was waving and smiling and calling out to him as he passed.

That was the last thing he saw or heard before the morning light and the chattering of the birds woke him, and it was time to begin the new day. His head hurt, a dull throbbing in behind the eyes, and the bright sunshine and the cheerful words of the housemaid were distinctly unwelcome.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Emotions Better Repressed

Gilles stood at the grave of Esther Phelps, his heart aching with emotions that might have been better repressed. But he didn't want to repress them anymore. He wanted to give in to them, and to throw himself on the ground and writhe in agony.

It was still so difficult to believe, and to accept. Just then, somewhere out of sight, came a woman's voice, low and sibilant. While on some higher level, he understood that it was a living person, out of sight but not far away, his reaction was immediate and visceral.

There was a jolt in his midriff, and he wondered if Esther was speaking to him from beyond the grave. Something snapped inside of him. Gilles was angry with God, and yet he knew or believed that cursing God was unjust or blasphemous. He wanted to tell God so badly, just how much he hated him. He wanted to put on a show, to express his feelings somehow.

Gilles had the irrational impulse to drop to his knees, plunge his hands into the soil, still black and soft under a thin bed of autumn leaves, and dig her up. To hold her in his arms once more, and to tell her the things he never could have said, never would have said, because he couldn't allow himself to say them, when she was alive. He wanted to give in.

"I am so sorry, Esther," he whispered, but that wasn't it.

That wasn't what he wanted to say, or why he had come here.

Then, hovering at the back of the funeral, for people would talk, had been a nightmare of self-discipline and control over one's countenance. Now he could let himself go, and it might even do him some good. Funerals were for the living, or so he had been told. But he was a stranger in her life, only there for a moment that paled in comparison to her grieving family. He had wondered what they might think of him, but of course one couldn't ask.

More than anything, Gilles needed rest and healing from his own emotional scars.

He couldn't bring himself to do it. It wasn't loyalty to his now long-dead wife, whom he must have loved this much at one time. It wasn't fear of being overheard or looking like a fool. No one knew him around here, and surely no one cared.

Tears washed down his face, as he sniffled and wept in a wallow of loss, remorse, denial and self-recrimination. Anger filled his heart, but it was no good. There was a good dose of self-pity, for Gilles was more alone now than he had ever been before.

"I promise you, Esther, that I will find your killer. And justice will be done," he told the empty place where a headstone would eventually be placed. "Even if I have to do it myself."

He wanted to see some justice, which was the most slippery of words. Deep in his heart of hearts, he prayed for that much at least, and wondered if that was really for Esther, or if it was more for him—a salve for a guilty conscience. For surely, when he thought about it, he had used Esther, intentionally, with the most cynical disregard, and that knowledge would haunt him for the rest of his life.

***

"What was different about Esther, and what set her apart from anyone else?" Gilles asked rhetorically.

They were having a consultation in the office of Roy Luddle. Sergeant Kersey sat taking notes, and Constable Tyler was reading from his notes of the interview with Dawson.

"The only thing I can think of, was that she got around more than most of the locals," he pointed out. "As for what she saw, or what the killer thought she might have known, is pure speculation."

"It could have been a simple diversion, just to throw us off track," said Sheila Kersey.

"Yes," agreed Luddle. "But up until then, we were mostly satisfied with James Martin. The fact that Gilles showed up and paid some attention to Esther Phelps is significant, even if we don't know why or how. At least that's the theory. Or I should say it's one theory."

"What about Dawson? That was some beating he took, and he couldn't possibly know anything after walking about on the moors for two or three days," said Tyler. "Why beat a harmless tramp? That was a quick identification by our killer if it was him—or her—and it just draws attention. The same with the Phelps murder. It just confirmed what we already suspected, that James did not kill Hardy."

"Yes," said Gilles. "There is a certain psychology. Some criminals wish to be known for their deeds, although they hardly want to be caught and punished, although there are those as well. It is an element of thumbing their nose at the authorities."

"Is there anyone else like Esther? Someone who got out and about, assuming that she saw something?" asked Sheila.

"We all have a pattern," said Gilles. "One that is often hard to break. Esther was a suffragette, although not a man-hater. Freddy is afraid of what people think. Doctor Nagle has a license to practice medicine, although he is not very good at it. But that hardly deters him! The Squire dominated the village, for no real or apparent reason other than social status and wealth. James Martin is a kind of moral coward, who is prepared to be punished, or even executed, for a crime he didn't commit. He is ashamed of the lie, and still cannot admit it openly. We have no idea if he is ashamed of being a Catholic, which would explain a few things."

"The Vicar?" asked Luddle."

"Ah, the Vicar," said Gilles. "He has little or nothing good to say about anybody, and he seems to know everything about them, although I doubt if he really does."

"Mabel Martin?" asked Tyler. "What's her pattern?"

"The loving and hard-working mother who doesn't understand what is happening," said Gilles.

"Mr. Appleby?" asked Sheila in some forlorn wish to be helpful.

"He drives around in circles, drinking strong wine and reciting poetry," said Tyler with a nod to Gilles.

"And Avery didn't see his attacker, whom he describes as the strong and silent type," said Luddle.

"Bloody hell," said Sergeant Kersey.

A knock came at the door.

"Yes?" called Inspector Luddle.

The door opened and a head popped in through the gap.

"We have a Mister Norbert Burke in the interview room," said a constable that Gilles hadn't met yet.

Rising, Luddle beckoned to Gilles.

"Let's see what the gentleman has to say for himself," he suggested. "This might be the fellow Avery spoke about. He certainly fits the description, and the vehicle is spot-on."

"Mr. Appleby could have seen anything that Esther did, if it was a local personality," said Sergeant Kersey with a sigh, still digging, still trying to be helpful.

"The trouble is that he's a hard man to shadow for very long," said Gilles in pure frustration, heading out the door.

***

Norbert Burke was a sturdily-built farm labourer about forty years of age. While Gilles could see why Dawson had found him threatening under the circumstances of their meeting, he had no previous history of violence.

The man was sweating profusely as Sergeant Kersey questioned him. Gilles felt a moment of sympathy for the man, who had never been in trouble before. He watched the interview through the one-way mirror, with half his mind elsewhere.

"Where were you on the morning of September eighth?" she asked.

Burke shook his head.

"I have no idea!" he said.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"I'm a busy man, and my employment takes me all over the place," he explained.

"And what do you do?" she asked, although she already knew the answer.

"I work for the estate of Robert Krollys. His properties are spread all over the county. He has dozens of tenants, and I collect the rent."

"So you get around then?" she asked. "Was somebody late with a payment? Why were you out on September eighth?"

His mouth opened and closed, and he shook his head again.

"Do you have any idea why you might have been around Moore's farm, by the laneway to the east? Are they one of the tenants?" she inquired, eyebrows raised.

"Oh," he said. "That was...I was keeping an eye out for poachers."

"Poachers?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "There have been some problems. Every so often someone takes it into their heads that the pond up there might make a good fishing hole. But it's private property, you see."

"And?" she continued.

"What? Um...it's theft, and while Mr. Krollys is deceased, his estate is up for sale or disposal," he replied. "The game and wildlife are a valuable part of the estate."

"Is that part of your job?" she asked. "Or did you just take it upon yourself?"

"I do a little bit of everything," Norbert told her. "Whatever the job calls for, and collecting the rents is not exactly a full-time occupation."

"You mean like bringing in a load of firewood?"

"Yes," he agreed. "We'll be laying in tons of it before winter. And a few tons of coal, but obviously I get that in the village."

Sergeant Kersey opened up a file folder and pulled out a photograph.

"Do you recognize this man?" she asked.

With a quick glance at her face, he studied the picture readily enough when she handed it to him.

"Yes," he said. "I saw him up there. What's this about?"

"The gentleman was severely beaten not long after you spoke to him," she told him, intent on his face and his reactions.

Norbert paled, stiffened, and stared at her in dismay.

"Oh, dear," he said.

"Do you have any idea of why anyone would want to assault him?" she asked.

"No!" he gasped. "Is he badly hurt? Is he going to be all right?"

"He is recovering from his injuries," Sheila informed him. "Have you ever seen him before?"

"No," said a shaken Norbert Burke.

"Someone answering to your description was seen leaving the area," she informed him, which was a lie, but Gilles approved of the method.

Burke was shaking his head, sitting up straighter now and practically backing up and over the top of his hard wooden chair.

"Oh, no. Oh, no," he said.

"I put it to you that you attacked and beat this man," Sheila said with a barely-controlled fury.

Tears popped out in Burke's eyes, and he shook his head vehemently.

"Never!" he gasped.

"What do you mean, never?" asked Sheila, inexorable in her determination to get at the truth.

"I...I have a wife and four children! I go to church on Sunday! I stay out of trouble," he gasped, not angry, but his face was ruddy with emotion. "My little one is sick...the treatments are expensive...my family needs me too much!"

"Your family needs you?" she asked with a hint of perplexity. "What's that supposed to mean? You don't want to go to jail?

Norbert Burke put his hands over his face, slumped over into a heap, and cried like a baby. Gilles had the impression that the man had been wound up very tight for a very long time, and whether they liked it or not, it was all coming out now.

He looked at Roy Luddle standing beside him. Gilles gave a sad little shake of his head.

Luddle reached out and tapped on the one-way mirror. Although Sheila made no notice of it, Burke stared fearfully out at the pair of them.

Roy put his hand on Gilles' shoulder.

"All right, we'll jolly him up a little and send him home," he sighed. "In a situation of dire threat, Mr. Burke would defend his family, and his employer. I have no doubt about that. He served in a pioneer battalion in the War. But to seek out violence for its own sake, would appear to be beyond him."

"Really?" asked Gilles, aware that the human dregs and military misfits often ended up there.

"I don't think he's very well educated. Basic literacy," advised Luddle. "They made him a corporal, and he flubbed it badly. Ergo, the manual labour in the pioneers. It's all here in his service record."

Gilles ignored the file in Luddle's hand.

"Yes, let him go," he agreed. "We have no evidence. It was a long shot anyway. I would have expected bluster, evasion, and maybe even a kind of sarcasm...defiance. But not this."

"We'll keep looking. Anyway, that is the lorry Dawson saw," added Luddle. "Why anyone would want to do that, I don't know, but a certain class of people can be very hard on the indigent, the tramps and broken men who wander this country. A missing chicken, or petty larceny, really doesn't justify such a beating, but you never know with some people."

"Well, it wasn't him, and that's all we really care," added Maintenon. "Now we just need to do something about the skeletal remains Avery discovered."

"Another headache!" grunted Luddle. "Yes, just what we needed right now."

"Whether this is all connected is another, very tough question," admitted Gilles.

Inside the interview room, Sheila had switched modes and was asking the kind of questions that would give the gentleman time to recover his composure before he went out the door. While there was no impression of softness about her most of the time, there were some jobs better left to a woman.

"Why do you think he watched Avery?" asked his companion.

"He probably just stood there smoking his pipe, wondering if he should do something," said Gilles. "It would be in character."

They hoped Mr. Burke didn't take it too personally, and that he would get over his shock fairly quickly. But this seemed like a very traumatic experience for the fellow, and that in itself said something profound about him.

The man was still weeping, and Gilles had to leave the room suddenly, as it was almost more than he could bear. Once again, they had caused harm in the life of an innocent person. This was one of the hellish aspects of police work that was inescapable.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Squire Was a Scholar

Florence had graciously given Gilles permission to use the library for his studies.

"There's no telling what resources you might find in there," she told Gilles. "The Squire was quite the scholar."

There was a rap at the back door of the kitchen where he had found her.

"Bread-man!" someone called cheerfully, and she turned away, momentarily distracted.

Finding his way to the other wing, he opened up the ten foot high door, surprisingly quiet on well-oiled hinges, and entered the silent room.

To his surprise, he found the Vicar, Edwin Plover, sitting at a desk and reading from some dusty old tome.

"Ah, Monsieur Maintenon," he said, glancing up with pleasure evident in his voice.

"Er," said Gilles, not expecting to have company.

He was planning to go through the desk drawers, discreetly of course, doing one at a time and making the minimal disturbance. The sheer size of the house might have made it difficult to hear someone coming, though. The walls were thick masonry, centuries old and designed to withstand a siege. A heavy silence ruled the place. Gilles did notice a radio set on the wall behind the biggest desk, which was right at the far end of the long room. No one ever seemed to use it or the television. They were relics from a happier day. As he recalled, Florence had a gramophone in the parlour, although he had never heard it play.

The Vicar was seated at a low couch, with a big, heavily illustrated book open in front of him on the bronze and glass coffee table.

"I didn't expect to see you here," said Gilles.

Plover nodded in understanding.

"This place used to be a haven for all the leading literary lights of the county," he informed Maintenon. "Not too many people come in here nowadays, and least of all Florence."

It was true. While the furniture and bookshelves were apparently dusted regularly, the whole place had a dry, stuffy atmosphere. Today being cold and blustery, the windows were closed up tight, and several lamps were turned on, giving a warm, homey glow to the Vicar's features.

He sat in a pool of light cast by a cut-glass lamp on the table beside him, and there was a green shaded editor's lamp on another desk not far away. Combined with the cooler, dimmer light coming in through the windows, it was enough to give the room a cheery look without dispelling the shadows from the far corners.

"What are you reading?" asked Gilles, not realizing that this question would come back to haunt him.

As Edwin took a breath and prepared to answer, Maintenon was furiously thinking about the answer to the Vicar's own inevitable questions. He was here to look for anything related to genealogy, he decided. He wanted the family history of the local gentry, especially the 'Franklyns' or yeoman farmers who owned their own land and had their freedom from early times.

"Caves," said Edwin. "Mine is not the most exciting job in the world, as you might have surmised."

"No! Really?" gasped Gilles and Edwin rewarded him with a big horse laugh.

"That's rich," said Edwin. "No, but seriously, once in a while it's good to go on a little youthful adventure, especially a physically-demanding adventure. It keeps the blood flowing and the mind sharp."

"Caves," said Maintenon in a neutral tone.

"Yes, the whole area is riddled with them," Plover said.

His face was all lit up with enthusiasm.

"I'm a member of several clubs, and we go on outings, although 'innings' might be a better word, two or three times a year," was the Vicar's explanation. "My wife is an invalid, and so she feels more comfortable knowing I'm out with a group of male friends."

Gilles nodded in comprehension, knowing she suffered from polio and had to walk with crutches and canes, and was wheeled into the church for services when walking was beyond her strength. Word was, the lady tired quickly, and wasn't very mobile even at her best moments. Gilles suddenly wondered at the Vicar's sexual needs, which had never struck him as relevant before.

What else had they missed? What other questions had they failed to ask?

"Would you like to go?" asked Edwin Plover, carefully placing a ribbon to mark his page and closing the book with a snap.

"Pardonnez moi?" asked Gilles in polite astonishment, only slightly exaggerated.

"Would you like to go? For me to go alone is probably not the best idea, after all, and the one I'm thinking of is an easy climb," the Vicar said. "We'd be back by dinnertime."

So far the Vicar hadn't asked him what he was doing in there, and the question took him quite by surprise.

***

With a vague promise that he would think about it, Gilles said farewell to Edwin, who left the books he was reading right where they lay. This was a long dark table, with a pair of lamps on it.

His mind was racing.

Gilles sauntered over to the window and casually opened up the drapes to the fullest extent, one by one. There were two tall windows on the front, and one at the east end of the room. He opened that one up, and allowed the curtains to blow around. The sun was strong on that side, and it would help to warm up the room. He was rewarded with the sound and smell of the dairyman's lorry, replete with its cheerful script denoting the firm's name, location and wares as it left the drive. It was a busy morning in the Heath household. A gardener was busy with mulch and a rake, and putting bags over selected shrubs.

"The iceman cometh as well," he murmured absently.

Even this small tidbit of information regarding the pattern of life in this rambling old place, or even just the neighbourhood, was cause for reflection. Everyone around here seemed to know everything about everyone else, and that couldn't possibly be true in any objective sense. It was what they didn't talk about. That was the sort of thing that interested someone like Maintenon.

As the day and the house warmed up, this wing of the building, built two hundred years earlier than the rest of the structure, began to make the odd little snapping and cracking noises. Gilles thought it came from the polished yet battered hardwood flooring, which might once have been covered with some gunky old carpeting such as the rest of the house boasted. The floor had a bright yellow luster, and the lightness underfoot was in stark contrast to the dimness that prevailed in the back hallways. To be fair, the bedrooms had their own schemes, and the one he was in was not only more modern, but clean and bright as well. A large oval area rug in front of the massive old stone hearth located in the inner corner by the door twitched slightly as he strode purposefully across it, revealing the dangers of hasty actions. In spite of all the talk of busy days in years past, the place had the feel of a room long abandoned.

"Good morning, sir," came a thump of the door opening and a cheerful greeting.

Sally, a housemaid, came in wearing the typical uniform, and pushing a small cart bearing a garbage receptacle, a slender broom and dustpan. There was a white feather duster sticking up from a circular well on the top.

Was this part of routine, or had Florence said something?

"Hello," said Gilles in a pleasant voice, picking up one of the Vicar's books and examining the title.

Sure enough, it was on the geology and hydrology of the local area, complete with maps showing terrain in elevations and with drainage, both surface and underground, clearly marked in dark solid and spotted blue lines.

There were other books on caves, geology, even mineralogy. Some were of the how-to variety, and his eyebrows rose a little. But it would only make sense to review things once in a while. He was thinking in terms of safety. Edwin hadn't smoothed over the obvious dangers, which even an inexperienced person like Gilles could see. The Vicar called it 'spelunking,' a specious term. But the English had their ways with words, especially in the slangs or argots of the different classes. The language sub-sets were mutually intelligible and yet mutually exclusive as well, as sure a sign of status as an old school tie or the smell of fish on someone's hands.

Gilles sat and began reading one of the more technical manuals, which was laying face-down. Mr. Plover had been reviewing the section on vertical descents underground. Maintenon was struck by the fact that one of the volumes was on art. That one was open to a chapter on incised stone glyphs and other sections were dog-eared as well.

As he read and checked the books, he kept a careful half eye on Sally, who was now finished the rather superfluous task of emptying the waste baskets. She began dusting the long rows of varnished bookshelves. He was unsure why, but she seemed shy of going up the ladder. Although she did it, her dusting activities seemed to be more effectual at ground level, or at best a couple of rungs up. At the top of the ladder it was a couple of quick swipes and then she quickly worked her way down, slowing and becoming more thorough as she went. Maybe Florence never actually checked the work.

It occurred to Gilles that she thought he might be trying to look up her dress. She wasn't bad looking.

He would have to take it into account when looking at the upper shelves. It helped to set the pattern of activity, in fact he wanted to make a note of that term. Looking for a pen and a note-pad was a viable excuse to look in desk drawers, at least the top one or two. She ignored his rustling around.

"Does the Vicar come here often?" he asked Sally.

"Oh, yes," she smiled, flashing Gilles a quick look of gratitude.

He understood intuitively that it was the silence that was bothering her—especially when not alone in here, as it must be for her most days. And it was even more disturbing, with her back turned.

Ah!

"He seems quite interested in archaeology," he told Sally, a slender brunette whose legs were indeed well worth a look.

"Yes, sir," she said with just the hint of a blush.

He wondered if she liked him! But it was more likely the Vicar. Such things were not unheard-of. It might be a romantic triangle, with a married man who had an invalid wife, and the single, lonely female, one who was much younger. Pure speculation of course, but perhaps he had interrupted something.

"All these old volumes," she said. "They're quite a treasure in their own way. It's a pity people don't make more use of them."

This being the most intelligent statement made by anyone here in quite some time, Gilles was impressed. It said exactly nothing, and it said a lot.

This one would be a tough nut to crack. It had never occurred to Gilles that someone like Sally might be the total professional insofar as police interrogations were concerned, even covert ones.

It would help to pass the time until she left, but he already knew from the police files that she hadn't been here long, had a spotless record, and no real motive or entanglements. She was said to be going out with a local lad, and everything seemed open and aboveboard.

Police work was often a process of eliminating possibilities until nothing was left but the truth.

Chapter Twenty-Four

He Set to Work Tossing the Room

After Sally left, Gilles set to work tossing the room in a professional, methodical way. Desk drawers stuffed with papers had their dangers under such circumstances, and he quickly pulled out a couple of packets. These turned out to be bills for the estate, including minor repairs, for the roof, a broken window...insurance papers, miscellaneous household purchases clearly related to the management of the estate. All he had time for was a quick look.

Putting them back, he abandoned that part temporarily, and began a close examination of the titles, shelf by shelf. Under the 'A's he saw books on aviation and thought nothing of it until he came to the 'F's and saw more books on flying. This caused him to ponder, and he took his pad and made a quick count. There were seven thick volumes on aviation, eleven on ballooning, and airships, and about twenty-five on flight, flying, and fighter aircraft. There were also books on chemistry, physics, and engineering. Considering the sheer number of books, several thousand at least in his rough estimate, perhaps ten or twelve thousand of them, he wondered at the significance of this fact.

How often would Freddy read a book as opposed to coming in looking for an old bill? His office was in another wing, at the rear of the house, closer to the back entranceway and handy to the barns and carriage house. Who else in the employ of the manor used the room, or how many people in the village might borrow books was the sort of question it might be hard to ask without arousing suspicion, even among the most innocent.

The basic theory was that the killer already knew his purpose, and must act accordingly.

It was like stalking a tiger in long grass, but it had to be done.

***

Later that evening, after a cold lunch, a desultory tea and an interminably long dinner Gilles quietly left by the back door and hiked down to the local pub. His ears prickled with the possibility that he might be stalked like Dawson, but there was no one out there in the night. On a previous reconnaissance, he had seen with satisfaction that the public telephone was located in a corner of the parking lot, out front by the road. During that daylight trip, he had taken the precaution of removing the kiosk's solitary light bulb, and his hunch that it would not be replaced anytime soon was borne out by events.

Gilles fed in coin after coin until the operator told him to stop. She listened in on the call until Inspector Roy Luddle of Scotland Yard told her to stop on pain of prosecution and subsequent imprisonment.

Then Maintenon let out a deep breath, watching both ways up the darkened road as they engaged in a long and animated conversation before making his ritual stop inside for a pint of the local brew. The breath of pale moonlight on the roadway was all he had to watch by, and his eyes never stopped their insistent sweep.

As he walked home a heavy rain began to fall, and he had forgotten to bring his raincoat. The spill of blue light off of the storefronts washed over the road ahead of him, and made everything look sinister and evil. Turning up his jacket collar, he put his head down and strode into the wind with a purposeful look. But it was just that he was cold, and he also knew Freddy was likely to turn up with a drink and another obscure story from the past to tell.

It was better than nothing.

***

It was a fine clear morning after the cold rain of the night before. After a half-hour drive, their breath hung in clouds around them as the pair dismounted, to use the Vicar's word, from the Morgan. To be truthful, it was more like climbing up out of a dry bathtub in Gilles' opinion, and he said so. The path was a series of wide steps of wet, greasy clay. The occasional stone outcropping would make life interesting as far as Gilles was concerned.

"Nervous?" asked the Vicar.

"No, I am freezing," retorted Maintenon. "Brrr!"

He had some regrets about leaving a nice warm bed and a hot breakfast for this. With a heavy rucksack on his shoulder, a rough match for Edwin's own, and something Gilles had sort of sworn never to do again, they set off up a rugged path leading to the tors and crags overlooking the village. While his knee was better now, it was fairly steep and rough going, and the sweat was soon flowing.

The way, according to Edwin, led through a notch in the hills and hence to their destination. Gilles was inclined to take his word for it. Huffing and puffing, he saw that the Vicar also wasn't in the best shape. The view from the top would have been breathtaking, but the impression was of standing with your head fifty feet below the bottom of cloud, a cold grey cloud of exceeding dampness. The distant valleys radiating from this point were pale and misted, either with fog or light drizzle. There was no real trail now.

It seemed to be taking the very devil of a time to get there, but Plover was apparently not in the mood to talk. When he did speak, his voice was curiously high and tight. Edwin was following a v-shaped run down the hillside, with brooding slopes all covered in soaking wet heather. After a near-wordless ten minute break, they kept going until they found the valley the Vicar was seeking. They wound down the hill, damp to the waist from the vegetation that was constantly pulling and tugging at their legs.

Finally the Vicar put aside his knapsack, and after a long drink from his water bottle, began to cast around for something, Gilles was not too sure what.

"Ah! Here!" gasped Edwin Plover, anticipation written all over him.

Edwin Plover stood proudly beside a three-foot high upended boulder, roughly conical in shape. Its scarred stone surface bore the signs of millennia of weathering and a few small scratches that could have been anything or nothing at all. Gilles picked up the Vicar's bag and brought it over.

***

It took another half-hour to get all their gear shaken out and prepared. The Vicar talked the whole time, and Gilles listened and nodded.

"I believe in being thorough," explained Edwin to an attentive Gilles. "Our lives depend on everything working properly, and everything being in place."

"I see," said Gilles.

He was now wearing a full climbing harness, complete with sturdy hiking boots, heavy gloves, a series of pouches in a belt around his waist, and a helmet with a strong light on the front securely strapped to his head. It was the sort of feeling that deep-sea divers must have just before being hoisted over the side. One never knew what one might find, or what hazards one would encounter. The Vicar's enthusiasm had persuaded him to try it. The cold, wet reality of standing in a field of tall weeds, looking at a dark hole in the ground was something else. It had its own persuasion. He had to admit that, and did.

The hole they were entering was a triangular notch with in-curving sides, and it looked as if they would be barely able to squeeze through it. Yet Edwin seemed to think they would be wearing their packs as well!

"I've scouted to the bottom on my own," Plover advised. "But to go any further than that without a partner would be stupid."

"Oh, absolutely," said Gilles with a hint of trepidation. "How far down did you say?"

"It's only about thirteen metres," Edwin advised him. "Overall, that is. We drop three metres, that's easy, and then we crawl down a short tunnel, which is a bit frightening. It slopes downwards, but we can go feet-first, and then there's another ledge."

"And then?" asked Gilles, knowing the answer already.

"Don't worry, I'll go down first and set up a couple of lamps, that makes it a lot easier," the Vicar assured Gilles, eyes all lit up in excitement. "The first bit is a kind of chute. Put your back against the side wall and the footholds are small ledges, more like shelves. It's dead simple, really."

Gilles peered uncertainly into the blackness. Even with the other man pulling back and trampling down the weeds, long grass and several thin saplings, he wondered if he could do it. Plover took his time making sure the safety rope was properly tied to the boulder of recent acquaintance.

"You're quite privileged to see this," noted Edwin, as Gilles eyed up the safety rope.

He sat on the edge, pulled a long coil of line close, and then dropped it down through the cave entrance. Shining his light straight down, he looked up at Gilles. The other end of the safety rope was now stretched taut, forty feet upslope from the cleft in the ground. Edwin let the light hang on a short lanyard.

"Many cave entrances were discovered by a cow breaking a leg, or a missing lamb," lectured Edwin, as he carefully worked his shoulders down into the hole. Gilles bent forward, to make sure the small pack he wore didn't snag or catch on a twig, but the assistance was unnecessary. "I've heard of children chasing a ball and finding a crack in the earth. Someone widened it with a pickaxe, and down they went."

He gave Gilles a wide grin.

Only the Vicar's head stuck up now. Giving Maintenon a cheery wink, he snapped on his headlamp and began working his shoulders back and forth, carefully making his way down the chute.

***

They stood on a wide, flat expanse of rock, with the roof sloping low overhead. Plover had to stoop, but Maintenon's head cleared the rough stone by a few millimetres. His heart beat in his chest from the exertion, although simple gut-level fear may have had a hand in it. As Edwin said, the first part of the descent was easy enough. But in the guttering light of the acetylene lamps, the horizontal slot in the opposite wall, black as Hades and right at floor level, was forbidding.

It looked like it might become a waterfall in really wet weather. There were damp patches still there from the night's rain.

"You forgot to describe this part," said Gilles. "Are we really going in there?"

A quick grin flashed across Plover's narrow features, sardonic in the orange light of the lamps.

"Didn't want to scare off the customers," he joked. "But seriously, this will all be worth it, I promise you."

"I have never been in a cave before," Gilles apologized. "It is a novel experience. Hah! One cannot really get this out of a book, eh?"

"No!" agreed Plover, sorting through his sack and pulling out items which Gilles recognized from the briefing on the surface.

"So this is where...?" he said, and Plover nodded.

"I really did try to explain it," said Edwin. "But it's hard to sort of see it all in your head for the first time, no?"

"Oui," said Gilles. "I mean, yes."

"Feeling better now?" asked the other.

"No! Not really," quipped Maintenon. "So what do you figure is down here?"

"Stop me if you've heard this one before. But literally anything might be down there. That's why I needed someone to help," allowed Edwin Plover. "Who could I tell? Who could I trust? All kinds of people loot artifacts. Gentlemen used to amuse themselves digging up barrows. It's a kind of time-honoured local tradition. You're a policeman. I don't have to tell you!"

"So you found this yourself, then," noted Gilles.

"Now you're catching on!" grinned Edwin. "More than anything, I need a safety man. Anyway, this next one is fairly easy."

Gilles listened intently as Edwin explained how to winch himself down into the cave. Certain that he could do it, he watched as the Vicar laid flat on the floor, swung his legs over, took up the tension on the line, and slowly lowered his body from sight.

Crawling on hands and knees to the slot, and then lying flat, Gilles stuck his head inside the next chamber. The Vicar was suspended over a pit, the dangling flashlight and helmet lamp his only illumination. He ratcheted lower still. Below, the vague grey shapes of massive boulders and a steeply-sloping surface could barely be made out. The apparatus clicked and clicked as he lowered himself in fits and starts.

"Nom de dieu," gasped Gilles, immediately crossing himself for luck.

Swinging in circles, the Vicar slowed his descent and carefully made contact with the ground below. He wobbled for a moment, and then the dancing shadows settled down. The Vicar unsnapped his line in triumph.

"Come on down," he called cheerfully, his pale visage turned up to Gilles, waiting open-mouthed and taking in the awesome scene below.

Chapter Twenty-Five

What the Vicar Thought

What the Vicar thought of Gilles's halting and cautious descent went unspoken. After a few encouraging remarks, he gave it up as a bad job, and allowed him to come down at his own speed. Strong hands gripped Gilles' ankles and he gave an audible sigh of relief.

"There, that wasn't so bad, eh?"

Gilles had no response but a short and rueful head-shake.

The pair stood together in a companionable silence as Gilles got his breath back. It looked just as bad going back up, yet the technical side of it was all taken care of by the Vicar and his climbing equipment. One man would take up the slack while the other climbed. This could be done with their continuous, double-strand of rope and the tackle blocks...it could be done from below or above. Gilles understood that Edwin had given him the easier of the tasks, but even so...even so. The thought of attempting it alone hardened something in him.

"Huh," he said.

Edwin wasn't totally reckless. He hastened to explain some of his thoughts. The first few times he came here alone, and Gilles marveled.

"I really haven't gotten much farther than this," said Edwin. "A couple of scratches on the wall, some smudge marks, and this."

Gilles' jaw dropped. Plover had some kind of broken arrowhead. It seemed to be chipped from black shiny glass, was widely triangular in shape, and was fluted at the bottom for lashing to a shaft.

"Unbelievable! Why didn't you show me before?" gasped Gilles in unfeigned surprise. "Did you find that here?"

"Well, no," admitted Plover. "But not too far away! What do you think, Gilles?"

"Interesting," said Maintenon.

A strange sound caught both of their attention at once. It sounded like the ring of a hammer on an anvil, and it came from above.

Gilles started to speak, but Edwin gasped and held up a hand.

"It is that a voice?" asked Gilles, drowning out any noise there might have been to begin with and now Edwin was speaking too.

"Shhh!" Gilles hissed.

But the noise didn't come again. Gilles was just about to speak, and it appeared as if the Vicar was too, and then it came.

At first it was a low hiss, and then it got a little louder, and then the Vicar looked down, instantly bug-eyed. On a lightning-quick impulse, Edwin Plover grabbed the rope, which strangely piled up on the top of his fist and forearm, quickly spilling over and joining the rapidly-growing twists and coils on the floor.

His jaw dropped and he looked up, as did Gilles in dumb incomprehension.

"The rope!" blurted Edwin, snatching his hand back as if burnt by the brief contact.

"What?" gaped Gilles.

There was one last snap of the rope against the rocks above and then the end of it, slightly frayed where someone had cut it with one quick stroke of a heavy blade, flicked past their heads and slapped onto the rocky floor of the cave.

Edwin Plover stood there with his mouth open. He gasped over and over again in disbelief. Suddenly tears spurted into his eyes and he understood completely. Staring like a mad thing into Maintenon's eyes, his mouth opened and closed again and again, but no sound would come out other than a kind of sobbing of which he was not even conscious.

***

Plover sat where he had slumped, up against one wall of the lower chamber. Gilles, with more aplomb now that the actual disaster had befallen them, held a lamp high, and picked his way down the slope.

"Formidable!" he said at the bizarre sight that awaited him, and presumably Edwin as well.

Edwin when he was ready.

There was a table, covered in a crisp white linen tablecloth and two chairs. A candlestick, a gleaming white skull, a bottle of wine and what appeared to be a dinner setting for two.

Gilles set the light down on the top of a nearby boulder, and carefully picked his way back up to the first level.

"It seems we were expected," he advised the other man, who turned his head and sobbed all the harder.

"I suspect a devious mind at work," Gilles assured the Vicar, practically gloating and rubbing his hands in glee. "You have surpassed yourself!"

With Maintenon acting as if it was his birthday, a strange sigh emanated from the bewildered Edwin. Hauling himself erect, he followed the beckoning Maintenon down the slope.

"Behold, my friend," said Maintenon, as Edwin, speechless at the sight, braced himself against an adjacent rock face. Again, he fought hysteria as Gilles watched.

He shook his head in dull, uncomprehending shock. Edwin looked at Gilles with sheer, stark terror written all over his features, slick with tears and now sweat as he took in the tablecloth and candle. He stared, very haggard now, at the skull.

"Look at these containers! Is this our dinner? Why, I'll bet it's still hot," remarked Gilles as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Diner pour deux, mon ami," noted Gilles. "Modern technology never ceases to amaze me."

Gilles gingerly made his way down a slope of about forty degrees, solid but mostly in shadows so black he couldn't really tell the difference between a small ledge or a deep hole. He picked up a corrugated cylindrical container by the sturdy wire hook that was obviously a handle, impressed by the weight of the thing. There were four snap-clamps around the top, and he put it down and hefted another container. The lid was easily removed.

"Hmn," he said, and setting it down, proceeded to examine the contents in the amber light of the two lanterns.

The flames stood tall and straight and still, indicating that there was no breeze inside. Pushing on, he stuck his nose above the open container and deeply imbibed of the indescribable aroma coming from within. Edwin stumbled down now, looking at the display with wild eyes.

"Just as I suspected," he joshed Edwin, slapping the waxen-faced gentleman on the arm as he set about lifting out the lidded pots nestled inside like Chinese boxes on Christmas Day. "It's coming, isn't it?"

"What is?" gaped Edwin, unable to grasp Gilles's cavalier attitude to their predicament.

"Christmas," said Gilles shortly.

***

"Come on, mon ami, our last repast is now served," said Gilles, with a dramatic flourish of the hand.

He indicated an elegant table set for two.

"I can't help feeling that we were expected," he murmured. "The only thing missing is a gramophone and his master's voice."

"What? Are you quite mad?" gasped Edwin in anger and astonishment. "Can't you see our predicament? There's no way out!"

"Are you sure?" asked Gilles.

Edwin seemed sure. He said nothing, his mouth opening and closing like a landed trout.

Gilles sat down at the table after extinguishing the lamp on his side of the lower cavern, which arched up and away from the base of the slope he had come down on.

"Look, Vicar, there's a nice wine and everything," said Gilles with relish evident in his voice. "I must say, you've done a bang-up job on all of this."

"But...but," managed the Vicar, looking on in hopelessness. "But I didn't put this here. I swear it wasn't me. Just so you know—you must know—we're trapped down here!"

"The soup's not too bad. Still hot," advised Gilles. "Tomato bisque. Very nice. Thick, zesty, and with just a hint of oregano."

The sound of Gilles' spoon was loud in the stillness of the cavern. The Vicar's feet were heavy and his movements wooden and clumsy as he finally came over and sat at the other chair. One thing or another, it was the most comfortable and obvious place to sit.

"You should put out the other lantern," noted Gilles. "We'll conserve fuel. It's better to use the candle, although our friend here can go."

Maintenon reverently placed the skull, really just the top of one with no lower jaws, off to one side, back from the edge of a wide, flat rock, where he was unlikely to step on it or knock it off.

"We must keep up our strength," said Gilles, eyes boring into the Vicar's from a distance of four or five feet.

Edwin's breathing was loud in the enclosed space with its stone walls, ceiling, and all sorts of surfaces to reflect sound.

"I thought I heard a voice, you know?" said Gilles. "It's like the rope just broke, you know?"

Edwin had nothing to say, his eyes now dryer, but he stared fixedly at Gilles.

"Two birds with one stone?" muttered Gilles.

Maintenon stood momentarily, lit the tall white candle with a match from his pocket and snuffed out the other lamp.

"Let's see here," he said, examining the contents of the so-called 'thermos' type containers.

"Duck a l'orange, or roast pork au jus?" he inquired politely, with a long and creamy linen serviette over his arm. "For myself, I think the roast. And the Brussels sprouts in what looks like butternut squash soup, and the garnish...mmn! Shallots, breaded in corn meal and deep fried!"

Gilles looked upon his erstwhile companion in rough good humour.

"One last meal for the condemned man! Or rather, men," he amended. "Perhaps the rope was supposed to break after you got to the top, eh?"

Gilles was tempted to wink at the other, but thought better of it.

"Do you think someone will come looking for us?" asked Gilles. "How are we going to get out, Edwin? Would you like some roast pork, with red wine and burgundy jus? The gnoki is a nice touch! That's a kind of dumpling...no, I'm sorry! It is a perogie made with potato flour and stuffed with cheese. And if I am not completely mistaken, we have a bread pudding with a sort of caramel or possibly butterscotch sauce for our—if you will forgive me—our just desserts."

Edwin ground his jaws back and forth and said nothing.

"Surely you must taste the wine, Edwin," said Gilles with an aplomb that was real.

He felt totally in control of his emotions, for the first time in many moons. Perhaps it was the nearness of death. Gilles poured a second glass of the sparkling white wine of good vintage—he held up the bottle, and appreciatively examined the label. The Vicar didn't seem too interested. He was full of bitter thoughts about a fate he had never contemplated. Gilles watched his eyes go back and forth.

"There's a nice red, as well," he offered. "Technically, that would be more appropriate."

They were trapped like rats, but not in a maze. They were rats in a bucket.

"You are stark, raving, mad," Edwin told Maintenon bitterly. "You know that, don't you?"

"What do you mean, Mister Plover?" asked Gilles, allowing a hint of anger to show through the demeanour. "What are you getting at?"

Plover wasn't ready to spill his guts yet, although he looked like a man who had suddenly been taken very ill indeed.

"Edwin...is there someone out there who really doesn't like you for some reason?" asked Gilles as if struck by the biggest revelation since sliced bread. "I think we'll save the duck for later, if you don't mind. And the cheese, although I'm sure it's very good."

Gilles picked up his knife and fork and set to work on his tenderloin, which had a sauce that was purple, and tasted like wine, perhaps a good burgundy. It had the alcohol scalded out of it, leaving it pretty much the way it started life, as some kind of grape juice.

"Not bad," he muttered. "Although I have to admit, it could use a little something. There must be some salt in here somewhere."

He rummaged around in the containers, but came up empty-handed. Looking up at Edwin, he shrugged philosophically.

"Well, you can't have everything," he said. "So tell me, when you were exploring this place, did you come up with another entrance...or exit?"

Plover shook his head lugubriously, totally defeated. But ostensibly, that was why he had brought Gilles—as a safety backup.

Edwin Plover, looking as if he was haunted by all the hounds of hell, bleakly contemplating his imminent demise, the loss of all he held dear, and the knowledge of his own entrapment and betrayal, stared down at his plate in all bitterness. Shoulders slumped, face slack, and eyes blinking back more wet tears, the Vicar sat there in a sullen silence. His eyes worked back and forth as he went over it all, again and again, but kept coming up with the same answer every time. They had just been murdered, with time to contemplate their unique and individual fates, intertwined by random forces beyond comprehension.

He was no longer in a state of denial.

***

"They say confession is good for the soul," began Gilles. "Well. I tell you! But, uh, honestly, I feel that all of this is my fault."

Edwin sat across from him.

"Drink up," suggested Gilles. "Otherwise I'll get it all. And we should save the water as long as possible."

Mr. Plover stared at Gilles.

"First, I noted some odd things about the body and the condition of Harold Hardy, which perhaps no one else would have noticed," he said. "And then, it would seem, as I became closer to her, that this somehow endangered Esther, whom I believe you were...er, acquainted with."

Edwin's jaws worked back and forth and his eyes were like daggers.

"And now this!" said Gilles with a flourish. "I am so very, very sorry. It's just your bad luck, I'm afraid. But somehow those closest to me just seem to get killed with depressing regularity, you know? It happens all the time."

Gilles' own bitter remorse rose to the surface momentarily, and his face went taut.

Edwin gave a derisive snort and a toss of his head. He grabbed the glass and drained it.

"Argh!" he said. "I must say, I admire your cool."

"Yes," said Gilles. "Argh, as you say."

"Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes," he added and the Vicar smacked himself in the forehead, unable to cope with his own innocence and stupidity.

Finally the other man found his voice.

"We're never going to get out of here," he told Maintenon.

Gilles proffered the bottle and Edwin nodded. Gilles poured a generous portion into the glass. Edwin took a deep gulp and stared off into space. The candle guttered a little, but steadied right up. Perhaps it was their breath in the enclosed space more than anything. All was silence from the world above. Not even a single cricket cheeped in a dusty corner.

Edwin's eyes met Gilles' and then he began to talk. It was an extraordinary tale, but it had the ring of truth.

***

It was time for resurrection.

Edwin had been raving at dawn. It was a new day, and now their prison was illuminated only by the glimmer of light falling from above. Gilles moved, and the noise startled him. It had been that long. Edwin stirred, long since silent. He licked his lips and looked over at Gilles.

"Still here, old chap?" he whispered.

Edwin shivered and shook with the cold, as did Gilles.

"Yes, of course mon ami," as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"You said—you said confession was good for the soul. And you were right, Gilles. You were right," gasped Edwin. "The bitch has done for us, and right well. Two birds with one stone!"

"There is always hope, Edwin," said Gilles. "We still have a bit of wood and grass. We could try another fire. I still have a few matches left. We could burn the packs."

"Save them," said Edwin, with more strength in his voice. "You still have tobacco."

"Ah," said Gilles. "So you think it hopeless, then?"

Edwin's mouth opened to speak, and that's when a bright new rope, all covered in a safety sheath of knitted outer fibers, dropped down onto the ledge above with a slap that defied all description. Edwin sat up and stared at Gilles.

"Oh, my God," he said.

***

Edwin, with a wild look on his face, hastily donned his harness while Gilles fumbled awkwardly with his. He quickly set about securing the climbing mechanisms, with hardly a look at Gilles. Gilles watched him carefully. The Vicar had the presence of mind to look about and remove his knapsack, and everything else that might be associated with the act. If he wondered at the lack of sound or a voice from above, or why the rope had been cut in the first place, he gave no notice of it.

Perhaps he had more presence of mind than Gilles thought. If an accomplice above had been surprised by passers-by, it might actually have been a smart move to just cut the rope and play dumb, and wait until the coast was clear. The Vicar looked up with a strange look, half scorn and yet furtive, like a fox among the chickens. Gilles wondered if he was planning a fresh murder in his head.

"We'll do it just like I said," he told an apparently-bewildered Maintenon. "It's really not difficult."

As soon as Plover got to the ledge above, he twitched up the rope with lightning speed. Gilles had already grabbed it, but the burning pull of it made him relinquish it, and the Vicar gave a hoot of derision.

"Hah!" was all he said.

Gilles merely assumed that if he didn't let go, the Vicar would cut it anyway.

Wordlessly, Gilles backed off in case the Vicar decided to drop boulders on him, then went and sat down at the table, barely visible down the slope from the base of the big drop.

He listened intently as sounds came from above, as the Vicar set about the task of gathering any remaining gear up there and tossing it down into the hole, and then scuffling his way up the chute to the open air above.

Gilles waited until there was silence, and the last of the flickering of shade and light from up above was long gone.

He heaved a deep sigh of relief and contentment. Gilles rose and then bent over, scrabbling up a steep talus slope, one which dead ended at a sheer rock face, and then stood looking around in the faint light of the corner. He hauled aside two or three loose rocks.

Maintenon pulled out an official military land-line phone set and began cranking it over.

He waited.

A voice came.

"Hello?" said Gilles.

"Ha-ha!" shouted Luddle. "You should have seen him, Gilles! He popped up out of that hole like a gopher with his ass on fire, and then sat on the edge blinking in the sun with this look on his face..."

Gilles grinned in the blackness of the cave.

"And then?' he asked with a hint of amusement.

"He spent about three minutes trying to eradicate all traces, not very effectively, I'm afraid," Roy went on. "Then the bloody bastard makes straight off up the hill for home and a hot breakfast. And no one's the wiser! His wife sleeps in a separate room, and everything. But sooner or later he has to use his brain."

"He must have wondered why there was no one there to meet him," added Roy.

"No. Not after what he told me," said Gilles with finality. "I am hoping you got all of that?"

"Oh, yeah," chuckled Luddle. "The telephone authorities are cooperating fully, and we get to listen in on everything. Not only that, but Sheila got photos of you and him, coming and going, as it were."

"Still, I wonder if we can get more," noted Gilles in contemplation. "But all of my doubts are now removed."

Luddle's voice was loud and metallic in his ears.

"How much more do you need? Two orphaned sons! Never in a million years, would I have come up with that one," he said. "When do you want out?"

"Just after dark," said Gilles. "We still have no proof of who the father is."

He shrugged in resignation, although there was no one to see it. There wasn't a whole lot of water left, and the day was going to be a long one.

"And then?" asked Roy Luddle, waiting with bated breath.

"A hot meal and a cold drink," said Gilles. "And in the meantime, I could really use a nap without Edwin Plover breathing down my neck. I'm not sure I believe everything he said, but I believe enough to think that he is a very dangerous man right now. No one could make that sort of thing up, and truth really is sometimes stranger than fiction."

"And sometimes people think they are being subtle when really they ain't," added Roy in what was a nice finishing touch to this part of the adventure.

Chapter Twenty-Six

She Sat in Contemplation

She was in the library when Maintenon found her. She sat in quiet contemplation, with one knee crossed and her hands clasped across them. All of the books that Edwin and subsequently Gilles had been looking at before their trip were on the long table right in front of her.

"Monsieur Maintenon," she said, looking up with her mouth set firm.

Her eyes were gashes of hatred.

"Madame Heath," he said politely.

"Edwin is a liar," she began.

"Edwin is hardly the point, Madame," he assured the regal old dame. "However, let's play the game. Edwin forgot that I could read the same books he could. He knew I was a police officer, and yet because I am a Frenchman, he assumed that I must be stupid. That cave is in all the guidebooks! Yet he claimed it was his discovery. He said he had been caving for years. All of his equipment, everything he showed me, was brand-spanking new."

He was quite pleased with his grasp of colloquialisms, but she was understandably occupied with other thoughts.

"So who is the father?" he asked. "Mr. Appleby, am I correct?"

Appleby had once owned the farm up the road, before his bankruptcy. Even Edwin wasn't sure about that one. According to Edwin, it was her who beat up Dawson! But there was little risk, even if caught at the scene. She was taking her morning constitutional walk. Seeing Dawson first, she hid behind a hedge. She picked up a stone, one she had the presence of mind to take away with her. If caught, all she had to say was that he accosted her and she felt threatened. The odds of a county jury convicting her would have been slim. Taken as an isolated incident of random violence against an innocent stranger, it revealed much about her state of mind. What in the hell brought that on?

He would never get any answers from this one. Was it a family trait? Was it sheer stubbornness? Did it all stem from pride and insecurity?

She rose with a grace that would have stood out in a much younger woman, and with her hands behind her back, she began to pace about the room, ignoring Gilles. He stood watching, very still and very much aware of the background noises of the house, which went on as normal. It was a surreal and not very reassuring set of sounds, and in fact, somewhere, at that exact moment, footsteps came very near and then a door slammed close by. The footsteps became softer, padded by carpet, and then faded entirely.

"Madame?" he inquired politely, raising his eyebrows when she reluctantly made eye contact.

"They're going to arrest me, aren't they?" she said, eyes locked on his in accusation.

He looked down at his hands in self-deprecation.

"Yes, Florence," he agreed. "They're coming."

That was when Gilles made a mistake, one that almost cost him his life. Maintenon, underestimating both the threat and the sheer athleticism of the grand old woman, stepped closer into the room as if to place a hand under her elbow and politely escort her to the local police station.

In some ways, that was not far off from his expectations, but unfortunately Florence had other ideas. Without warning she whirled, and there was a quick ringing sound, not unlike the noise of a rope being cut by a heavy blade, or perhaps the guillotine, which Maintenon in the course of his duties had actually heard once. Florence snatched a saber off the wall, and her sudden slashing attack had Gilles headed for the windows. This was another mistake, as when he got nearer, he saw the bolts fastened securely, and there was no time to do anything about it.

Dashing away to the far end, he tried to keep the table between them. She was very close on his heels. It was a question of relative age and fitness. The thought brought him no comfort.

"Madame! Surely this is madness," he gasped. "My advice is to put the sword down and call a lawyer!"

His heart was already pounding uncomfortably, and his hands trembled. To be unarmed was to be naked on a cold day in a busy street, for one such as Maintenon.

"Hah!" she said.

Florence dashed to the end of the table, and Gilles was forced to retreat again. Thankfully, she slipped on a loose rug, buying him a few heart-beats of time. Red-faced, angry, sweating now profusely, he cursed when he realized that he had run right past the other sword, still stuck up on its escutcheons on the wall.

"Merde!' he groaned.

She kept coming at him, and rather than keep going around in circles, he made a mad hop straight up onto the table. He was lucky to pick a spot where two tall-backed chairs had been pulled aside. He almost slipped over backwards when his heels came down on three or four layers of notebooks and texts. He half-spun in a futile attempt to avoid them.

"Argh," he grunted in raw anger, and he kicked madly at the books, just as Florence took another swipe at his midriff, but then dashed away at the sudden perceived threat. She didn't want to slip again.

Discretion being the better part of valour, Gilles backed away. He saw the edge of the narrow table coming up in his peripheral vision as he did. He wanted to keep the table between them. Spinning quickly, hooking his toes over the table top, he dove for the far wall, trying to land on the wide bottom surface of the shelving unit, and in the open place in the shelving where the swords, battle-axes and shields were displayed so prominently.

Behind him the thudding of her sturdy shoes prodded him to action, and he had the sword lifted off in a heartbeat. He just had time to leap down and away from her. He caught his balance in a trice. A quick swish of the sword in her face drew her up short. She dropped into a natural-looking attack stance, but there was no room to circle, and he studied her while he could. It would not be for very long, he saw...

Her eyes gleamed at his from just over two metres away. Both of them were breathing raggedly, but Gilles was willing to back up and play for time. She had no choice but to attack. He saw the moment before she did, and was expecting it.

With a quick riposte, he evaded her slashing, cutting, jabbing attack. She wasn't bad, he realized.

"You've done this before," he noted firmly, left hand behind his back and legs braced wide for stability. "You must know that this is all pointless!"

"Oh, no, Monsieur Maintenon! It's anything but pointless," she grated, coming at him in desperate fury.

Gilles stood his ground, and the snapping of the blades would be the sole clue to the duel to the death going on in the library.

He could only hope and pray that someone with some presence of mind would hear it and come running.

***

With blades crossed in front of them, toe to toe and face to face, with her hot breath in his nostrils, Gilles stared into the eyes of death. But he was the stronger, and her breath was short, coming in short spurts now. She was working her jaws and desperately shoving at him, trying to get enough purchase with slippery leather-bottomed shoes on a floor worn smooth by generations of use.

With a strong push, he sent her backwards, but she recovered quickly and he parried her slashing blade by sheer dumb luck and a reflexive twist of the arm. He darted back, holding a defensive position. She would try again, and yet he felt no need to call out for the help that was just steps away.

She lunged again, and that was when Gilles sidestepped to his left, switched hands, pulling his other arm way back, and then stabbing desperately at her middle.

It was a killing blow, and she stared at him in wonderment, impaled by the cold blade of glittering Sheffield steel. Her throat engorged with blood, she tried to speak. She gaped at his sword butt sticking out of her chest in disbelief. Gilles shook his head. He let go of the pommel and she dropped like a stone to his feet. He stepped back to avoid the splash.

The library door burst open, hitting the wall with a bang, and Freddy and Inspector Luddle stood there open-mouthed. More voices and footsteps followed closely behind.

"Has that bloody kettle boiled yet?" asked Maintenon, still with some wit and grace about him as Florence twitched and gasped hot wet gore onto the worn old area rug.

"Lord, have mercy on her soul," said Freddy, looking at Maintenon with the sorrow of the ages etched on his long and pallid face.

"Good job," noted Luddle with an approving nod. "Are you going to be all right, old chap?"

Gilles just nodded, shoulders slumping in exhaustion as he moved over to the window. The emotions visible on his face were complex, a mixture of grief, repressed until now, and satisfaction. Perhaps even a kind of humility mixed with triumph, but the adrenalin was still running strong in Gilles. His knees seemed to wobble as Luddle peered at Florence and Freddy gaped in awe.

"Let's let some fresh air and daylight in here," he said. "This is altogether too gloomy!"

Luddle grinned tightly, unsure of what to say, or even what questions to ask. In some ways the thing was obvious, and in some ways still impenetrable. In his experience, this was unusual in a murder case, even a multiple murder case. Maintenon's face was worth watching. Even Freddy had no questions. He was all big eyes and open mouth though, backing up slightly as he saw the other sword on the floor at her side. He covered his mouth with his hand, and stared around at Luddle and Gilles.

Maintenon stood in the window a long time, breathing deeply of the fine, crisp autumn air, replete with decayed leaves, wet straw, recent horse buns and a couple of pies cooling on a distant kitchen window ledge. Birds and crickets sang and chirped. In the distance, dogs barked and voices could be heard from somewhere out behind the big house, perhaps out in the kitchen garden. The wind picked up and loose leaves rattled down the drive, bouncing end over end over end and drowning out the voices. It was fairly cold outside, with a strong gust of wind at the window, and he shivered in reaction.

Whether he liked it or not, in spite of everything else going on in the world, it was still good to be alive.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

An English Club

They sat in the companionable silence of an English club, not too far from Sir William Reynolds' office at the Yard.

"The case against James Martin was convincing enough," said Gilles. "But it was based upon such a limited number of facts. It was only when we began to get more facts, many more, when we began to see other possibilities."

"Yes, you've said that before," agreed his old friend."He just made things worse for himself, didn't he?"

"Yes. When he pretended not to recognize Harold Hardy, that was sheer impulsiveness."

Sir William's thoughts went unspoken.

"Realizing this almost immediately, he came back later, " said Gilles. "But it shows how hasty the plan actually was. He must have been stumbling around in a kind of shock. The Royal Air Force lost a good pilot there. He's surprisingly cool under pressure. Perhaps he should take up acting."

"He's definitely out of a job, now," grunted Sir William.

Gilles sipped at a neat whiskey. Since the conclusive outcome of his investigation, he had this abiding sense of ennui, as if all the weeks and months of his life counted for nothing, and none more especially so than this case.

"It's a pity Mister Martin will never know exactly what you did for him," murmured Sir William.

Gilles inclined his head gravely.

"You were the only one, other than his adoptive mother, who believed in him. Not so much for the facts of the case, as for who he was," Sir William observed.

"He is an archetype," noted Gilles with a genuine smile, which felt foreign to his face lately.

Both men were occupied with their thoughts. Gilles' thoughts were of Luddle, and Dawson, sitting silently at his side, and the other Bobbies who overcame their certainty and prejudice to do the right thing for Martin in the end. They also sat in silence.

"To err is human, to forgive is divine," said Gilles. "I hope that young James will find the courage to forgive, himself, and I think maybe us, too."

As for Esther, and whether Gilles could forgive himself, that remained an open question and only time would tell.

Bill picked up his pencil after a sip and wiping his lips with a napkin.

"Can you put it all together for me in twenty-five words or less, Gilles?" he joked.

He watched as Gilles settled deeper into the wing-backed chair. His eyes lost their focus and he seemed far away.

"When Florence came to the Manor, she was a mere slip of a girl," he began. "Whereas the Squire was colonel of the local regiment, you could even say, regime. He was the centre of social life, while she began as shy and retiring, although very sharp. In terms of the business, she was a very strong woman, to have steered that ship through the thick and thin of the last quarter-century."

Sir William recalled from detailed notes and briefings that no one had an unkind word to say about the Squire, yet the impression that still rang through was a kind of doughty innocence. Familiar with the type, the Squire would be a man of the hunt in only the most trivial sense, venery and venality in about equal proportions. He would have been impervious at best, and profligate without purpose at the worst. The Squire was beloved by all and respected by none. Except the Vicar, who idealized him for the cachet of respectability that wafted from him when in close proximity.

"James was born in the Boer War, when the Squire was in Bloemfontein, or whatever," said Gilles. "For all we know, Edwin was born during the siege of Khartoum! He's about the right age. But now that we know what questions to ask, much of this will fall into place as a matter of routine legwork. After the birth of James, the time-line shows she quickly converted to Catholicism for whatever reason. It might have been some kind of atonement."

"Yes, I agree," nodded Sir William.

He paused, picking his question.

"So what actually happened?"

"James and Harold were playing tag on the fire escape at James' building," Gilles said. "When Harold fell, breaking his neck, all Jimmy could think of was to call someone—someone other than the police or authorities."

"And?" asked Bill, taking a quick gulp of his own scotch whiskey.

"The Vicar. He called the Vicar of his parish, the only person other than this mother that he felt confident in trusting," explained Maintenon. "Imagine, Edwin Plover, racing through the night in a borrowed vehicle he had taken home for a test drive and James somehow hiding the body."

"You say he hid it?" gasped Sir William.

"Yes," nodded Gilles. "It would be a simple matter of pulling him further back from the light of the street, and depositing him behind the trash receptacles. It was impulsive, but when he had a little time to think, it was clearly untenable. Hence the phone call, again, impulsive."

"You're sure of this?" asked Sir William. "That would account for the missing day of his leave—and the lack or rigour mortis. One wonders why he couldn't just call police and own up to it."

Gilles nodded.

"That bit about not recognizing the body was strictly amateur," Sir William added after a moment's thought. "As for Edwin, we found his car abandoned in London. We're watching all the ports, but he is very resourceful...he must have figured out we were watching him, and bolted for it."

He waited for Gilles to gather his thoughts.

"He never could have taken it back up the stairs again," muttered Gilles. "The body, I mean. The Vicar confirmed everything. He didn't have all of the details, as it was an emergency. Their plan was hastily conceived. Later James was arrested and he had no further contact. But Florence crept into Esther's house, who knows, maybe with a basket of eggs in hand, or some stratagem that was typical of the woman. And she killed Esther. As for James, his whole world was shattered by the death of his friend, and he wasn't thinking very clearly."

"Esther must have known something," said Sir William. "That was the original surmise."

Calmly regarding his old friend, Sir William wondered if Gilles harboured any anger towards James, for surely he was the indirect cause of Esther Phelps' murder. Otherwise none of this would have happened.

"The question in my mind was when she knew it," Gilles went on. "It didn't have to be immediately. It came later, when she was on the way to visit her horses. They are kept just up the road at another farm. She saw the Vicar coming out of the wrong laneway. It was the blue car. This was long before he should have actually been in possession of it. He hurried off and tested other cars, as a cover-up. Simply put, that was the car he wanted, and disposing of Hardy was nothing more than a nuisance."

"Ah," said the other man. "Which laneway was it, the barn where the parachute was buried?"

"Yes," nodded Gilles. "Of course at the time, it meant nothing to Esther. But it meant something to Edwin, and also to Florence. He went to look for any clues that James might have left, so he could eradicate them."

"So who flew the plane?" demanded Sir William.

"Martin, of course," said Gilles, sounding very pleased with himself. "Finally, it all makes logical sense!"

Martin was the only one other than Hardy who could have done it.

"At one time I seriously wondered if the Vicar might have flown an aircraft, successfully, across country, taking off at night, without professional training," said Gilles. "The only logical answer was 'no'. For him to jump out by parachute would be almost psychologically impossible. But someone clearly did. And yet I did not, and do not, believe James murdered Hardy."

"It's been confirmed that the Squire had some deciding influence when it came time to appoint a replacement for the previous Vicar, and that the name Edwin Plover came up," allowed Sir William. "And in your scenario, Florence would have been the deciding influence with the Squire?"

"Yes, she would of course be interested in the fate of both boys," said Gilles. "Somehow the Vicar found out, possibly through his position in the Church of England, that he was adopted and that she was his mother. Finding out about Jimmy must have been quite a surprise," noted Maintenon. "When he found the hospital record of his own birth, he also found Jimmy's. But he saw the opportunity. He must have thought he could abandon me in that hole and that would be it...mad. Just mad. But the priests have to make a living, and it is a kind of career."

"Pardon me?" asked his friend politely. "I understand that you must be very tired."

"So. I am also saying that Florence had a sister, who according to Freddy died in 1914. That must have been where she stayed when she began to show," noted Gilles. "That should be easy enough to confirm. Somewhere in Kent, I believe. We will find that a younger woman, one perhaps presented as a cousin or as a friend of a friend, came and stayed at the sister's place at the time of the births."

"The possibility that Edwin could have killed you down there must have entered your mind," said Sir William. "So how did she know that they were involved in the Hardy death?"

Gilles rubbed his stubble and shrugged affably.

"When James was arrested, she first became aware of it, but then when the Vicar asked for a substantial sum of money because of his help for James, she decided to take the heat off of him in some other way," explained Gilles. "And in some ways it did. We decided James could not possibly be the killer, when there was actually a more innocent explanation. It was a strong motive to kill Esther, or quite frankly, anybody. Florence would protect her sons at any cost."

"A bloody sword fight in the library," said his old friend. "Murderous old bitch!"

Gilles couldn't help but nod agreement.

"So Edwin was raised as a natural son, and as a member of the Church of England," said Sir William. "And when James came along, she...she didn't want to make the same mistake twice?"

"Something like that!" agreed Maintenon.

People's motivations were often quite mystifying.

"No one ever said religion was rational," said Gilles.

"What about Avery's beating?" asked Sir William.

"Edwin admitted that he told Florence about seeing a stranger. They must have communicated back and forth extensively."

"Jesus," said Sir William.

"Yes, but it is over now," Gilles said. "Oh! What about Dawson's bones?"

Sir William knew what he meant.

"Could be twenty, could be a hundred years old," he said. "They're still testing, but while people have gone missing and remain unaccounted for, these particular remains don't match with any of the more obvious missing persons' descriptions. If someone filed a missing-persons report in Sheffield, or Brighton, thirty or forty years ago, ah, we will eventually hear about it. If the bones are that old, the case is not a high priority. One for the history books, more than anything. And who knows, maybe one more local legend."

Gilles contemplated the anonymous stranger's lonely fate in silence.

"James is the most fascinating one of the bunch," thought Sir William. "So it's shame then? A sense of guilt?"

"Martin is motivated by guilt, even though Hardy died by accident and through no real fault of his," sighed Gilles. "Two allegedly mature young men, drunk and playing tag on a fire escape. And I suppose there is the whole interference with a body charge. "

"That's probably good for time served and not much else," admitted the other.

He thought for a moment.

"Was it really, ah, one hundred percent necessary to kill her? Florence, I mean?" asked Sir William.

"Not really," admitted Gilles.

There was a long silence.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," he added with a frosty smile and hooded eyes.

Sir William exchanged a long look with Luddle and Dawson, the pair of them sitting silently with eyes gleaming through all of these revelations, although neither one of them was taking notes of the proceedings.

"No charges forthcoming here," chuckled Roy Luddle, sitting up with his hands decisively on his knees.

"Self defense all the way," agreed Avery Dawson.

Roy raised his whiskey glass in toast.

"To France!" he said. "And here's to our good friend Inspector Maintenon!"

It was heartening indeed, to hear Sir William's firm 'well done,' and to see the affection on his gaunt and homely face.

Gilles Maintenon uttered a deep sigh.

"Thank you, my friends," was all he said.

Epilogue

His own bed was a foreign country, and he tossed and turned all that night. As if to put the icing on a cake from hell, upon his return to the flat, still smelling warm and homey from the housekeeper's long sole occupancy as well as her cooking, he learned that the cat had gotten out of the building and was killed by a passing bus. That was about a week ago, or so she said.

One final blow and it seemed to put the dark underline on a particularly bitter chapter of his life.

Gilles shaved and showered carefully, rising early and taking his time as was his custom. Grief, for his wife, and Esther, and so many others, even Edwin Plover, in some ways, was suddenly dwarfed by an illogical guilt at the fate of Simon, his cat, their cat of eighteen years. She had loved that cat, and the strong feelings of angst proved that he must have too.

Of course he had loved Simon. He still did, in fact.

Catching sight of water in the corner of his tired, faded old eyes in the mirror, he resolutely broke away from all forms of self-pity and tried to get on with his day. He managed to gag down a light breakfast, and the more welcome two cups of coffee. The coffee, at least, was like an old friend, dark and strong and bittersweet. A quick check revealed his briefcase was in order, with all of the right things in it.

It was time to go back to work.

***

Gilles stepped out of the cab and glanced up at the imposing building on the Quai as he trotted lightly up the steps. It was not that he was so eager to return to the daily grind of sordid and not particularly engaging homicide after homicide, often for the most pitiful ends.

The wages of sin was death.

It wasn't even so much that he had missed all of his old friends and fellow officers, for in some ways he did not. It was not so much that there would be much catching-up to do, some of it unpleasant.

Rather it was that he preferred not to drag his feet, or reveal any reluctance, or to allow any hint of his internal dialogue to be visible, even to his most intimate and trusted friends. The temptation to turn around and walk away from it all was very strong this fine autumn morning, stronger than at any time since his first few really hard days as a young gendarme.

It was not a happy man who returned to work this day. Ignoring the lift, he made for the stairs.

Gilles paused, the sounds from other rooms, and the smell of the corridor close around him. The doorknob was warm under his fingers. He forced himself to turn it and go in. They were all standing clustered around the big chalkboard where cases were listed, investigators assigned, and resolutions noted.

A half-circle of familiar faces stopped in suspended animation, turning to him as if of one mind, and then the smiles lit up.

"Hey! Inspector!" beamed Andre Levain, bulky as ever, looking more like a street-corner tough than a decorated senior sergeant. "So tell us. How was your vacation?"

The End

Louis Shalako began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines. His stories appear in publications including Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time.

http://shalakopublishing.weebly.com

