‘Caught a fish, Mervyn?’ I enquired, for he’d given that as the reason for his fires.
‘I en’t,’ he said.
‘Then what are you burning?’
The wife hung back; Mervyn Handley looked at the fire, and I could see very well what he was about. He was trying to work himself up to a lie, but he could not do it.
‘Bones,’ he said.
The white sticks in the flames were bones.
‘Dead birds if you ask me,’ I said, looking into the flames, ‘and disappearing fast.’
I looked at Mervyn, and he gave a brief nod before looking away.
‘Pheasant?’ I said.
‘Moorhen,’ said Mervyn. ‘Moorhen and kestrel.’
‘Bagged ’em with that, did you?’ I said, with a glance at the shotgun.
‘I wouldn’t shoot a kestrel,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t.’
‘Too fast, I suppose,’ I said, ‘and they fly too high?’
‘Not that one,’ said Mervyn, nodding down at the flames, which had now all-but consumed the bones. ‘’Alf-dead to begin with, he were.’
‘What happened, Mervyn?’ put in the wife.
‘Kestrel attacked the moorhen … Never would’ve done it if he hadn’t been half-starved … Pair of ’em scrapped in air, then they come down together like a stone.’
The kestrel was ‘he’; the moorhen ‘it’.
‘As they fought, they’d forgotten to fly,’ said the wife.
‘That’s it,’ said Mervyn, looking at her.
‘And you kept the bones,’ I said.
‘Aye,’ said Mervyn.
‘… Until now, anyhow,’ I said, and he made no answer to that. ‘Why until now?’ I asked, after a beat of silence.
‘Wanted shot of ’em,’ he said, moving his hair away from his eyes.
There came another fast, scuffling sound from the woods, and Mervyn Handley crouched down and took up his shotgun. I found myself taking a step back. He was armed, I was not. And what sort of kid was this anyway? The scuffling sound came again, louder this time. A rabbit flew into the clearing, and it was running for its life even before Mervyn levelled the rifle, took aim and blasted. A great flash of flame came from the gun; the rabbit somersaulted twice in the air and lay still. But Handley made no move towards it. Instead, he continued to eye me directly and levelly, as if to say, ‘Now look.’
‘What do you know about the killing of Sir George, Mervyn?’ I asked him, as something scuttled in terror through the trees.
‘Nowt,’ he replied, and I was certain that I had finally driven him to a lie.
We walked back fast from the woods, without quite knowing why. The rain had stopped, and we came by the cricket pitch just as it was lit by a flash of sun. We gained the second green, and approached the hedge-tunnel, but we had to wait as the second charabanc of the week-end came into view. It contained the coppers from Scarborough. Most of them smoked, as did the motor, which was driven by a man who looked to be concentrating harder than he ought.
We walked on up the hedge-tunnel and past the station, which was silent and empty.
‘Who needs trains when a motor’s available?’ asked the wife, and I wondered whether it would ever come that there were road police to go alongside the railway force.
The Angel was fairly bustling, and as I stepped towards the bar – where Mr Handley was serving – I heard one fellow say, ‘Will’s been on cracking form in the nets,’ and realised that at least one cricket team was in, even though nobody had yet put on their whites. I also spied Woodcock and the signalman in the corner. Both wore rough suits, and twisted greasy neckers, and both might have been waiting to appear before the magistrates at any police court in the country. Of course, there was no question of me seeing Woodcock without him seeing me and he lifted up his glass in a sarcastic sort of way, saying, ‘Journalist!’
Of the Reverend Martin Ridley there was no sign, even though I had the idea that he was the keenest cricketer of the lot. He would no doubt be preparing for the game by drinking wine of a better vintage than was offered by The Angel.
The wife was craning to see all around the bar. She wanted to find Mrs Handley, I knew, and to talk to her about Mervyn.
‘Rain’s holding off, boys,’ said one of the cricketers, and his remark for some reason made me feel anxious. I put my hand in my inside pocket, and brought out the letters I’d taken from the Hall. I looked each one over quickly, before passing it on to the wife. They were written by Hugh Lambert, either to the man Paul, or to John Lambert. They’d been sent from London hotels or a house in Bayswater, London W. The dates were 1907 and 1908 – well in advance of the murder. They were about poems and parties; and some were about nature and country matters. As I was reading, I heard the wife say, ‘These are some of Hugh Lambert’s letters, Mrs Handley. Jim borrowed them from the Hall.’