A little further up the street the curtains in the front-room window of Church Cottage twitched as he passed. He noticed the material moving, almost as if it were being blown about by a draught. Marcia Spry missed nothing that moved in Chalmpton Peverill, but that was something else Charlie didn’t know about.
The weather had changed dramatically in the last few minutes. Typical March, he supposed, although the climate seemed so much more important to him in this picture-book village than it ever did in Bristol. You don’t notice the weather nearly as much in cities, he thought. A few spots of rain were just beginning to fall as he approached the Dog and Duck, and a look inside the pub suddenly seemed like an exceptionally good idea. However the reactions of a closed community to an alien-looking stranger became no longer a mere feeling in the air. In the public bar of the Dog and Duck a group of working men were enjoying a lunch-time pint, and every head turned at once towards Charlie Collins as he entered. He could sense the wheels of half a dozen or so brains creaking into action. There was a busy flurry of nodding and muttering.
Charlie ordered a pint of Guinness. The publican served him silently, and Charlie suspected that the small assembled throng were beginning to guess exactly who he was — there had been enough publicity after all.
The man on Charlie’s left somewhat deliberately turned his back on him. Charlie was by now pretty sure that his suspicions were right and wondered whether it was worth even trying to get into conversation with anyone. He supposed that was what he had been intending when he entered the pub, but he was no longer entirely sure.
While he was still contemplating what to do next the door opened and a tall young man wearing a cloth cap and a Barbour jacket with the collar turned up took a step into the bar. Charlie thought he looked familiar even before he removed his cap. The young man stopped suddenly in his tracks, stood hatless in the doorway for just a few seconds, then swung around and walked smartly out again.
‘Young William don’t like the company, and neither do us much,’ commented the man on Charlie’s left in a conversational manner. He still kept his back to Charlie.
Charlie downed the rest of his pint in one and also left the pub. He didn’t want trouble — and, more importantly, he was quite sure he had met the young man with the Barbour and the cap once before.
He remembered from newspaper reports and from conversations with Rose Piper that William was the name of Constance Lange’s son, and Charlie was deep in thought as he strode quickly back through the village to his parked car. The rain was falling quite heavily now and he had left his leather jacket in the BMW. He was getting soaked and he was in a hurry for that reason as well as all sorts of others. The curtains of Church Cottage twitched again as he hurried past. This time he caught a glimpse of an elderly woman with a rather mean-looking mouth peering through the window at him. The Lange farm was still and silent, almost unnaturally so.
Charlie realised that even if the sun had been still shining he would no longer want to hang around. Chalmpton Peverill was just too uncomfortable for him. He could feel the hostility now almost as clearly as if he could reach out and touch it. And in any case he now believed that the truth was at last within his grasp.
All the way home Charlie concentrated hard on his brief encounter with William Lange. He was becoming increasingly more certain that he had not been mistaken. And suddenly the whole terrible affair made devastating sense.
He called Rose Piper from his mobile phone while he was coasting down the Portway. She was not in her office. He left a message on her voice mail saying he needed to speak to her urgently. Charlie was born into the computer age, into the era of the Internet and automatic answering services. Nonetheless he hated voice mail. He muttered to himself under his breath. This was important. But he wasn’t kept waiting long enough, in spite of his impatience and his anxiety, to start fretting about what to do next if he couldn’t raise Rose.
His mobile rang just as he was pulling into the car park beneath his apartment block. It was DS Mellor who had picked up the message Charlie had left for Rose. The DCI was in court, explained Mellor. Charlie remembered then — the immoral earnings case against Paolo and Terry Sharpe had started in the Crown Court. Damn! He really needed Rose.
‘Can I help?’ he heard Mellor ask in a tone of voice which indicated that he would actually like to do anything but.
Charlie had never had any doubts about the sergeant’s opinion of him from the first time he had met him. He had felt not only the superiority but the anger in Mellor who had made his distaste for Charlie and everything that he stood for abundantly clear. But Charlie wasn’t really any more put off by Mellor than he would have been by anyone except Rose Piper. It was only Rose that Charlie wanted, only Rose that he trusted.
‘No, you can’t help,’ he said bluntly, his voice much louder and more highly pitched than usual, he realised. ‘I need to see Rose. Just get to her. Tell her it’s important. Urgent. I know she’ll come.’
Peter Mellor noted the use of his superior’s Christian name. Charlie sounded nervous and over-excited, but Mellor thought that the boy was right about one thing — Rose Piper would go to him sure enough, even if it meant walking out of court he wouldn’t wonder. He sighed to himself. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew he didn’t like it.
He contacted the Crown Court — even Rose Piper with, in Sergeant Mellor’s opinion, her quite cavalier disregard for procedure and regulations, would not dare leave her mobile switched on there — and asked for an urgent message to be delivered to the Detective Chief Inspector. A response came back within minutes. DCI Piper was about to give evidence but a note had been passed to her. She had indicated that she would go to Charlie Collins as soon as her evidence had been completed — which the court official who called Sergeant Mellor reckoned would be in no more than forty-five minutes.
Mellor made no comment beyond thanking the official for dealing with his request so promptly. When the phone call was over he sniffed his disapproval to himself, but, scrupulous as ever, considered only the close proximity of the court house to Charlie’s home down by the Floating Harbour before calling the boy back. However, when Charlie picked up the phone, Mellor could no longer disguise his dislike of the entire proceedings, and neither did he make any attempt to do so.
‘She’ll be with you within the hour,’ he said frostily and hung up without giving Charlie a chance to reply.
The doorbell rang less than forty-five minutes later. It had seemed much longer to Charlie. Thank God, he thought. He couldn’t believe that he would ever be quite so pleased to see a police officer.
He flung open the door without thinking, without attempting to check who was there.
His assailant pushed Charlie back into the room with the violent thrust of one hand and brought the heavy lump hammer carried in the other hand crashing down on to Charlie’s head.
There followed a torrent of blows, but most of them were quite unnecessary.
Charlie’s skull had been crushed by the first one and he died almost at once.