Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [24]
“There must be a fine view from yon tower,” Hamish said. “It’s verra’ high.”
“A landmark from the sea as well, I should think.” The town of Boston in Lincolnshire had used its church tower as a beacon for centuries.
The woman walked back into the church. Frances, Rutledge thought, would have approved of the hat she was wearing. Dark red, with silver and blue feathers on one side that gave it a stylish air. He was tempted to get out and pay a visit to the church, to see her better. Just then a man came up the hill from the village, not by the road but through the churchyard, and went inside. A workman from the look of him, wearing a smock and heavy shoes. She’d been waiting for him, perhaps.
He turned his attention back to the terrain.
Ahead of the motorcar’s bonnet, the lane disappeared into a small copse. He thought there must be five or six houses scattered beyond it, but decided not to trust his axles to that twisting, rutted stretch of muddy road. He could just see a few chimneys rising above gabled roofs, and at the far end, what might have been a barn, judging from its bulky silhouette.
Across the lane from the church stood the vicarage, half hidden behind a flint wall, its drive disappearing into old trees that gave some hint of its age.
He turned the motorcar and went back down the lane to the main road. Just on the corner of a street to the right—Water Street, the sign informed him—stood the police station.
Rutledge pulled up in front of it, and got out to pay his courtesy call on Inspector Blevins. But there was a notice posted on the door, dated this morning: Gone to Swaffham. In the event of an emergency, contact East Sherham police station. A number was given.
He opened the door and looked inside. The front room was silent, uninviting as a place to wait.
“Aye, and for how long?” Hamish asked querulously. Rutledge closed the door again.
Starting the motorcar, he decided his time would be better spent exploring the village and calling on Mrs. Wainer. That could be viewed as an extension of his original brief—putting Bishop Cunningham’s mind at rest—rather than an infringement of the local man’s investigation.
Water Street clearly went down to the quay. It ran along there for some distance before turning back to the main road, as if disappointed by what it had found at the harbor. But he passed that turning and stayed on the main road, interested in the size and general layout of Osterley. It appeared to be prosperous enough, no ugly areas of run-down housing or noticeable poverty, but without signs either of money to waste on ostentation.
There were some half a dozen streets running inland to his left, short streets for the most part, although he thought that Sherham Street went on to the next village, for it appeared to vanish over the hill into farming land. Two streets turned to his right, Old Point Road and Marsh Lane. Down Old Point Road he saw the second church in the village, and decided that it must be St. Anne’s.
And then as suddenly as he’d come upon Osterley, he was out of it.
A muddy farmyard on the right, a house half glimpsed on a rise to his left, and the main road west dropped sharply down a hill and ran along the marshes that spread to his right as far as the horizon.
Even Hamish was struck by the splendor of the view, and Rutledge turned into a small stony cul-de-sac to look out at the scene. Grasses and marshes covered the land like a rough brown-gold blanket, and a few stunted trees bowed before the wind, on the point of giving up against its force. The grasses moved as if with a will of their own as the wind ran capriciously through them. Here ducks and geese and sea birds owned the silence. A thin line of white at the very fringes of the marshes marked the sea. It was wildly beau iful, and Rutledge thought, Here is something man hasn’t destroyed.
Hamish said, “Aye, but give him time!”
A small falcon rose from the thick grass