It mattered because the real killer, whoever he or she was, would, literally, get away with murder, and that idea was one that deeply offended me. I could have argued that a man like Jasper Fairbrother wasn’t worth troubling myself about; that a nasty man had met with a nasty end, just as he deserved. But I should have been betraying one of my most deeply held convictions. I had once, five years ago, in Plymouth, blinked my eyes at murder, but the circumstances had been exceptional. Generally speaking, however unpleasant the victim, I wanted to see the perpetrator brought to justice. For I have firmly believed all my life that a person who kills for the first time will find it easy to kill again. And again. And probably will.
I shivered, as though a shadow had passed over my grave, and, at the same moment, the sun was lost behind a cloud. A sudden, chill breeze blew down from the heights, ruffling my hair. Then, just as quickly, it died, the sun reappeared and once more the open grassland, with its peppering of gorse bushes, lay hot and still all around me. I told myself sternly that I did not believe in omens, and set my feet to mount one of the many paths that lead to the high plateau of ground to the north of the city.
While I climbed, I mulled things over in my mind. I did not despair of finding some trace of the stranger, in spite of the failure of the posse to pick up his trail. After all, if men will go galloping all over the countryside in a heavy-hooved, official manner that announces to the meanest intelligence, We are the Law, they can hardly be surprised when no one owns up to encountering someone obviously suspected of being a criminal. Even if the meeting were entirely innocent or accidental — the giving of directions or a cup of water to a thirsty traveller — who wants to attract attention by admitting it? And especially not to a couple of thickheads like Jack Gload and Peter Littleman, who were so transparently incapable of telling how many beans make five.
Another thought struck me. I had assumed from the start that the stranger was a foreigner, a Breton. Why? In my mind’s eye I pictured the scene when I had first noticed him descending the gangplank of the Breton ship. He had spoken to one of the sailors in the man’s own language and, later, Walter Godsmark had confirmed that his master’s visitor had been a foreigner. (‘He spoke English well. . but with an accent.’) Yet why would a native Breton choose to work for Henry Tudor? The dynastic struggles of England could mean nothing to him. Money was the simple answer, but there was another.
No name had ever been put forward by Richard Manifold for this Lancastrian spy, and I guessed that it was unknown. Whichever of our own agents in Brittany had issued a warning of the man’s arrival, he had probably been ignorant of it himself. Suppose, therefore, that the spy were a Welshman. The Welsh tongue was closely akin to Breton: it would be easy enough for a Welshman, exiled in the duchy for many years, to pick up his hosts’ language without much difficulty. And his Welsh accent might persuade Walter Godsmark that he was foreign. It might also allow for the fact that the man must be able to speak good English if he were to make contact with Lancastrian sympathizers in this country.
It was now about noon, and the sun, as it had done for the past week or more, shone down relentlessly from a cloudless sky. The English are always unsettled by good weather. We have never trained ourselves to lie down and sleep during the warmest part of the day — mainly because, in general, there is no warmest part of the day, even in summer. (Especially in summer!) But now, worn out by the heat, I was forced to drag my aching feet into the shade of a large oak, beside one of those streams I have already mentioned, that flow downhill to supply the Carmelites’ great cistern. I scooped up some of the water in my hand to quench my thirst, leaned back against the tree trunk and, in little more time than it takes to tell, I was asleep.
The sound of boyish voices roused me. I opened my eyes to see two young lads, who had tied a small, stray dog to a nearby tree and were throwing stones at it. My lethargy went flying. I was on my feet in an instant and had knocked their heads together with a resounding crack almost before I knew I was awake.
‘You young louts!’ I roared, releasing the terrified animal, who at once, shivering and whimpering piteously, leapt into my arms. I cradled it against my chest. At least, unlike Jane Overbecks’s dog, it didn’t repay me by peeing all down my jerkin.
‘It’s only a bloody stray,’ the taller of the two boys grumbled furiously, rubbing his sore crown. ‘There’s dozens of ’em roaming about up here. My father reckons they all ought to be destroyed. He reckons they’re a menace.’
‘That’s right,’ concurred the second boy. ‘My father says the same.’
They both spoke in the rough, local dialect; two young bravos in the making, swaggering about the countryside and terrifying the wildlife.
‘We managed to catch him and were getting rid of him,’ explained the first boy self-righteously.
‘Not while I’m around,’ was my terse reply.
I was relieved to discover that they seemed unresentful of my interference. Judging by the various bruises on their faces and bare forearms, I guessed they were accustomed to submitting to adult authority. The little dog was calmer now, so I put him down and he scampered away. With my eyes upon them, daring them to give chase, the boys made no effort to follow.
On a sudden impulse, I enquired, ‘You haven’t seen any strangers in the neighbourhood these past few days, by any chance?’
‘Only you,’ grunted the shorter boy, pointedly rubbing his head again. ‘And that’s one too many.’
‘Wait a minute, Will!’ The first boy, having assessed my height and girth, seemed anxious to propitiate me. ‘There was that man with the funny way of talking. Foreign-sounding. The one we met day before yesterday when we were on our way home to supper. You remember! Asked us which was the path for Westbury College.’
‘Oh, ah!’ Will agreed. ‘Yeah! I do remember him, now you’ve jogged my memory.’
‘What did he look like?’ I asked.
This seemed a harder question to answer. They glanced at one another, scratched their heads and then shrugged dismissively.
‘Ordinary.’
‘Tall? Short? Fat? Thin?’
‘Shortish,’ volunteered the boy, who answered to the name of Will.
‘Thickset,’ added his companion.
The description, poor as it was, fitted my memory of the stranger.
‘You say he had a funny way of talking. A foreigner? Could he have been Welsh?’
‘I suppose.’ The taller boy sounded doubtful, but added defiantly, as though I had somehow accused him of lying, ‘Well, the Welsh are foreigners, aren’t they?’
‘You’re certain it was Monday afternoon you met him? Not yesterday?’
‘Certain. I wasn’t allowed out yesterday.’ The taller boy rubbed his buttocks reflectively, and the shorter one grinned.
‘Get another beating, did you, Tom? Been after that girl again?’ He turned to me. ‘Can’t keep his hands off girls, he can’t. He’s always trying to-’
‘Yes, I’m sure he is,’ I cut in, not wishing to hear the sordid details of their burgeoning love lives. I’d been young myself, once. I knew what growing lads got up to. ‘And this meeting would have been around suppertime?’ They both nodded. ‘And the man asked you the way to the college at Westbury?’ More nods. ‘When you’d shown him the right path, did he take it or turn back towards Bristol?’