Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [28]
It gave the public house a decidedly eccentric air, as if more than one seaman had settled his account with whatever souvenirs he had in his kit.
Hamish commented, “I canna’ say the goose is an encouragement to a man’s drinking.”
The barmaid came toward the table with Rutledge’s lunch—chunks of freshly baked bread and sharp cheddar cheese, a pickle, and a pot of mustard. As she set them before him, she tilted her head to the room at large and said, “We’re generally busier than this, but it’s market day at East Sherham, and most people won’t be back before two o’clock.”
She went to draw his pint, and added, friendly gossip that she was, “Here on business, are you?”
He answered that he was, and she continued to chatter for a few minutes longer, telling him that she had been born in Hunstanton and had come to Osterley with her husband, who had since died fighting a house fire, and that she and her two daughters had found a good home here. She seemed to ignore the man in the corner, as if he was another fixture along with the elephant and the mask.
Rutledge said, “I was shocked to hear that a priest was murdered in Osterley a week ago. It doesn’t strike me as the sort of town where such a thing could happen.”
She shook her head. “I never thought it, either. None of us has got over it, I can tell you. I keep my girls close, and lock the doors at night. If he’d kill a priest, he won’t stop at children, will he? I shudder to think what sort of devil could do such a thing! I haven’t slept deep since it happened.”
Rutledge was on the point of asking her another question when a group of men strode in, hailing her with accounts of their success bidding on a pair of rams at the sale in East Sherham and eager to relive it blow by blow. She went off to serve them, and listened with good grace to their rambling story of the day’s best bargain. Underlying their enthusiasm was a more somber thread of strain, and they seemed to be intent on ignoring it. Their laughter was a little loud, a little forced. The barmaid—Betsy, they’d called her—soon had them settled with pints to celebrate their success.
Rutledge decided, from the strong noses that marked each weather-beaten face, that they were father and sons. He finished his meal amid the general hilarity and a rash of newcomers bringing their own news of the market. It was, as far as he could tell, the only topic of conversation of interest just now: who was there, what they’d bought or failed to buy, how the prices ran, and any gossip gleaned. For an hour or so, the shadow of the priest’s death was being resolutely lifted.
The man at the corner table had not moved, as far as Rutledge could tell, nor had he turned a page in the newspaper. No one encouraged him to join in the good-humored banter or asked him to drink with them.
Settling his account, Rutledge left the pub and went out to start his motorcar.
“It doesna’ appear to be a town with dark secrets,” Hamish said. “And they didna’ stare at you—a stranger— with suspicion.”
“Interesting, wasn’t it? But then market day generates its own excitement. When the euphoria of a bargain wears off and night begins to fall, people will begin to look over their shoulders again.” He’d been to towns where the silence hung heavy as mist, faces shut and unfriendly, where there was no distraction from fear and uncertainty. Here there seemed to be a determined refusal to acknowledge that Osterley had been touched by evil. He wondered why.
Where Water Street turned at harbor’s edge to run back up to the main road, there were two horse-drawn carriages outside the green-grocer