“You have time. Claire’s got weeks to go, and we’ll be leaving Blackhampton on Friday.”
“True enough, I suppose. Still, I worry.”
The two men stood side by side in the snow, quietly studying the crystalline landscape. The setting sun reflected through a million tiny prisms and sparked an electric red wire on the horizon. Behind them, out of sight over the hills, the train they’d arrived on sounded its bell and chuffed slowly away.
“The child is the father of the man,” Day said. “I quite like that.”
4
Anna Price shivered and hugged herself against the cold breeze from the open door. A few brave snowflakes circulated through the room as Constable Grimes slammed the door shut, and Anna edged around the small crowd to get closer to the fire. When Peter touched her shoulder, she jumped, but before she could turn around, he said, “Where’s the other policeman? The one from London?”
“Mr Grimes has his bag,” Anna said.
The children watched Constable Grimes cross the room, stamping snow from his boots, a black suitcase dangling from one meaty hand.
“So he has luggage,” Peter said. “I don’t care about luggage. Where’s the detective?”
“If he has the detective’s luggage, then the detective must be close behind him. Use your head, idiot.”
Peter ignored the insult. He was practically thirteen years old, but his sister often treated him like a baby, even though she was a year younger. “He could be out there talking to her even now,” he said.
“How would he even know to talk to her?”
“He’s a detective, isn’t he?”
“But he’s just now got here.”
“What if he does talk to her?”
“She’ll be quiet.”
“There’s evidence.”
“What evidence? A shriveled eyeball? That means nothing.”
“And there’s Hilde. He’ll talk to Hilde.”
“God, you’re such a numpty,” Anna said. “Let him talk to Hilde. All she knows is that she found an eye and then she fell down onto her great round bottom and broke it.”
“Be nice,” Peter said.
“Yes, let’s do be nice. Let’s be as considerate as we can be to the constable’s new friend from Scotland Yard and, while we’re about it, let’s tell him all we know. Then we can continue to be nice to all the people in prison for the rest of our lovely nice lives.”
“You’re in a fine mood today.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “but this is all such a mess, and now we have this new policeman to muck about in it and make everything ever so much more difficult for us.”
“Well. .”
“Well, what?”
“There’s the reverse of that to consider, isn’t there?”
“The reverse of what? Oh, please do speak in complete sentences, would you?”
“That was a complete sentence.”
“But it made no sense whatsoever.”
“Only because you’re too busy pouting to use that pretty little head of yours.”
“Do you really think I’m pretty?”
“Do shut up,” Peter said.
“Tell me,” Anna said.
“All right, if the detective can make things difficult for us by stomping about in it and asking questions, then can’t we also make it difficult for him by answering his questions?”
She almost hugged him. Instead, Anna smiled for the first time in weeks and clapped her hands. “Of course. I mean, of course we would have lied to him if he’d asked us anything, but it didn’t occur to me. . We can lead him round in circles by the nose, can’t we?”
“Right. We’ll be ever so helpful.”
“I’ve never felt more helpful in my life.”
“And when he tires of chasing his own tail, he’ll retreat back to London and everything will return to normal.”
“As normal as it can ever be again.”
“Right. Not very normal at all, but at least the fuss will die down.”
“I’m almost looking forward to meeting him now.”
And, as if he had been listening to them speak, a man opened the front door and entered the inn. He was tall and earnest-looking, his shoulders broad and his eyes wide. His hands were clean and his back was straight, and it was clear that he had never set foot inside a coal mine. He appeared to be taking in everything around him, as if memorizing the room, and she took a step back to avoid his gaze. The detective stepped aside and held the door, and a moment later, a second man entered. Anna gasped. There were two of them. One detective was bad enough, but two was simply too much. This second man was thinner and quite handsome in an oblivious sort of way. He seemed more intense than his companion and, after shaking the snow from his damp hair, he peered about the room as if he suspected everyone of wrongdoing.
Anna sucked in her breath and the second man turned and looked directly at her. Then his gaze moved on to some other random spot in the room, and she slowly let the air out of her lungs in a long sigh.
The fire at her back felt almost unbearably hot.
5
Hammersmith surveyed the inn’s great room. There was a long bar across from him on the back wall and two large fireplaces, both of them lit with cheery fires that cackled and whispered at each other across the long room. To his right, a stag’s head over the far fireplace stared back at Hammersmith and, beneath it, a roast dangled on a chain, twisting and swinging as it cooked, a big copper pot set under it to catch the drippings. Dark lamps hung from the high vaulted ceiling, but windows filtered the fading sunlight that had seemed grey outside, and here the walls glinted with orange and yellow and green from glass panels set above the bar. There was an inner door between the bar and the farthest fireplace that presumably led to a dining room and a kitchen, and on the other side of the bar, next to the fireplace on Hammersmith’s left, was a wide arch with a staircase leading up to a gallery above. Everything was scratched and faded wood, scarred leather, and smoke. The room was huge, plenty of space for the handful of villagers gathered at the farthest fireplace. They stole glances in his direction and murmured amongst themselves. The air hummed with their excited energy. Hammersmith shuffled his feet back and forth across the rug to get the snow off and then he hurried after Day, who was talking to a heavyset bearded man.
“You’d be the sergeant,” the bearded man said when Hammersmith joined them at the bar. The man’s shoulders were broad and rounded, and he stooped forward as if the weight of his gleaming pink head were nearly more than he could carry. He reached across the bar and pumped Hammersmith’s hand up and down. “Name’s Bennett Rose,” he said. “This is my place. Mine and the wife’s.” He turned back to Day. “Like I was sayin’, we only put aside two rooms, one for Mr Day and one for the doctor what’s comin’ tomorrow. But we’ve got plenty others. Only got one other guest right now, so it’s no trouble to make up another room.”
“It seems nobody here expected me,” Hammersmith said.
“That might be my fault,” Constable Grimes said. “Could be I read the cable wrong. But we’re glad enough to have you here. The more eyes out there lookin’ for the missin’ family, the better.”
Hammersmith tried a smile, but he feared it looked insincere.
Bennett Rose reached to untie his apron, his thick fingers fumbling with the knot under his belly. “The missus would be glad to meet you herself,” he said. “But she’s not feelin’ well.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Day said.
“Lotta people round here have taken ill since the Price family disappeared.”
Hammersmith pointed to the gathering of people at the fireplace. “These people look healthy enough. Who are they? You say you’ve only got one guest.”
“And he’s one of ’em there. The big gentleman watchin’ us. The others are here to get a look atcha.” Rose pointed here and there among the gathered crowd. “The vicar and his wife, the schoolteacher, and-”