"If you two think you can go together," she said more warmly, "and have a go at patching things up, that would suit me down to the ground. I really can't contemplate the idea of my Tess being—well, thrown over." Archery did not answer. "The number's Uplands 62234," she said.
Kershaw had an extension of his own and a bright cockney secretary.
"I want to write to Painter's commanding officer," Archery said when the civilities had been exchanged.
Kershaw seemed to hesitate, then said in his usual eager, vital voice, "Don't know the bloke's name, but it was the Duke of Babraham's Light Infantry he was in. Third Battalion. The War Office'll tell you."
"The defence didn't call him at the trial, but it might help me if he could give Painter a good character."
"If. I wonder why the defence didn't call him, Mr. Archery?"
The War Office was helpful. The Third Battalion had been commanded by a Colonel Cosmo Plashet. He was an old man now and living in retirement in Westmorland. Archery made several attempts to write to Colonel Plashet. The final letter was not what he would have wished, but it would have to do. After lunch he went out to post it.
He strolled up towards the Post Office. Time hung heavy on his hands and he had no notion what to do next. Tomorrow Charles would come, full of ideas and extravagant plans, but comforting, an assistant. Or, knowing Charles, a director. He badly needed someone to direct him. Police work is for policemen, he thought, experts who are trained and have all the means for detection at their disposal.
Then he saw her. She was coming out of the florist's next door to the Post Office and her arms were full of white roses. They matched and mingled with the white pattern on her black dress so that you could not tell which were real and which a mere design on silk.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Archery," said Imogen Ide.
Until now he had hardly noticed the beauty of the day, the intense blue of the sky, the glory of perfect holiday weather. She smiled.
"Would you be very kind and open the car door for me?"
He jumped to do her bidding like a boy. The poodle, Dog, was sitting on the passenger seat and when Archery touched the door, he growled and showed his teeth.
"Don't be such a fool," she said to the dog and dumped him on the back seat. "I'm taking these up to Forby cemetery. My husband's ancestors have a sort of vault there. Very feudal. He's in town so I said I'd do it. It's an interesting old church. Have you seen much of the country round here yet?"
"Very little, I'm afraid."
"Perhaps you don't care for clerestories and fonts and that sort of thing."
"Quite the contrary, I assure you. I'll get the car and go over to Forby tonight if you think it's worth seeing."
"Why not come now?"
He had meant her to ask him. He knew it and he was ashamed. Yet what was there to be ashamed about? In a way he was on holiday and holiday acquaintances were quickly made. He had met her husband and it was only by chance her husband was not with her now. In that case he would have accepted without a qualm. Besides, in these days there was no harm in a man going on a little excursion with a woman. How many times had he picked up Miss Baylis in Thringford village and driven her into Colchester to do her shopping? Imogen Ide was much farther removed from him in age than Miss Baylis. She couldn't be more than thirty. He was old enough to be her father. Suddenly he wished he hadn't thought of that, for it put things in an unpleasant perspective.
"It's very good of you," he said. "I'd like to."
She was a good driver. For once he didn't mind being driven, didn't wish he was at the wheel. It was a beautiful car, a silver Lancia Flavia, and it purred along the winding roads. All was still and they passed only two other cars. The meadows were rich green or pale yellow where they had been shorn of hay, and between them and a dark ridge of woodland ran a glittering brown stream.
"That's the Kingsbrook," she said, "the same one that passes under the High Street. Isn't it strange? Man can do almost anything, move mountains, create seas, irrigate deserts, but he can't prevent the flow of water. He can dam it, channel it, pass it through pipes, make bridges over it..." He watched her, remembering with wonder that she had been a photographic model. Her lips were parted and the breeze blew her hair. "But still it springs from the earth and finds its way to the sea."
He said nothing and hoped she could sense if not see his nod. They were coming into a village. A dozen or so cottages and a couple of big houses surrounded a sprawling green; there was a little inn and through a mass of dark green foliage Archery could see the outlines of the church.
The entrance to the churchyard was by way of a kissing gate. He followed Imogen Ide and he carried the roses. The place was shady and cool but not well-tended and some of the older gravestones had tumbled over on their backs into the tangle of nettles and briars.
"This way," she said, taking the left hand path. "You mustn't go widdershins around a church. It's supposed to be unlucky."
Yews and ilexes bordered the path. Underfoot it was sandy, yet green with moss and the delicate tufts of arenaria. The church was very old and built of rough-hewn oaken logs. Its beauty lay in its antiquity.
"It's one of the oldest wooden churches in the country."
"There's one like it in my county," said Archery. "At Greensted. I believe it's ninth century."
"This one's Nine something. Would you like to see the leper squint?"
They knelt down side by side and, bending forward, he peered through the small triangular gap at the base of the log wall. Although it was not the first of its kind he had seen, it pained him to think of the outcast, the unclean, who came to this tiny grille and listening to the Mass, received on his tongue the bread that some believe is the body of God. It made him think of Tess, herself an outcast, condemned like the leper to an undeserved disease. Within he could see a little stone aisle, wooden pews and a pulpit carved with saints' faces. He shivered and he felt her shiver beside him.
They were very close together under the yew boughs. He had a strange feeling that they were quite alone in the world and that they had been brought here for the working out of some destiny. He lifted his eyes, and turning to her, met hers. He expected her to smile but instead her face was grave, yet full of wonder and a kind of fear. He felt in himself, without analysing it, the emotion he saw in her eyes. The scent of the roses was intoxicating, fresh and unbearably sweet.
Then he got to his feet quickly, a little quelled by the stiffness of his knees. For a moment he had fell like a boy; his body betrayed him as bodies always do.
She said rather brightly, "Have a look inside while I put these flowers on the grave. I won't be long."
He went softly up the aisle and stood before the altar. Anyone watching him might have taken him for an atheist, so cool and appraising was his glance. Back again to look at the unassuming little font, the inscriptions on wall plaques. He put two half-crowns in the box and signed his name in the visitors' book. His hand was shaking so badly that the signature looked like that of an old man.
When he came out once more into the churchyard she was nowhere to be seen. The lettering on the older stones had been obliterated by lime and weather. He walked into the new part, reading the last messages of relatives to their dead.
As he came to the end of the path where the hedge was and on the other side of the hedge a meadow, a name that seemed familiar caught his eye. Grace, John Grace. He reflected, searching his mind. It was not a common name and until quite recently he had associated it only with the great cricketer. Of course—a boy had lain dying in the road and that death and that boy's request had reminded Wexford of another, similar tragedy. Wexford had told him about it in the court. "Must be all of twenty years..."