‘I really don’t know what I think, child. One hates to think that one might be the corpse in the library!’

CHAPTER 15

The Gun

‘Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young Lambs bound

As to the Tabor’s sound!’

William Wordsworth

Politicians whose lives are threatened go about with a police guard but are expected to act as though assassinations are figments of the imagination. Mrs Bradley behaved in this way, but she was not a politician and she had no police guard. Her nephew, therefore, insisted upon accompanying her wherever she went. This chivalrous conduct worried Mrs Bradley because she knew how horribly scared Deborah must be all the time that Jonathan was out of the house.

She tried to persuade him not to come, but he was determined to escort her. What was more, he always carried a gun.

‘The anemones are beginning to come out,’ said Mrs Bradley on the third morning of her stay. ‘I shall go out today and gather them.’

‘Oh, no, not today!’ said Jonathan. ‘To begin with, they fade as soon as you pick them, and then I’m on the bench from ten o’clock onwards.’ Mrs Bradley grinned triumphantly.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Just for once, I want to go out by myself.’

Jonathan and (for his sake) Deborah protested, but Mrs Bradley had an object in mind beyond wood anemones, so at just after nine she set off, accompanied by Will North as far as the village. At the lane by the inn she left Will, and turned up by the same way as the party had taken on a previous occasion when Mansell had been their guide.

Her objective was the lonely bungalow, and her business was with the woman in the blue dress. How far she was justified in obtruding herself into this woman’s affairs she neither knew nor cared, but she was still intrigued by the theory that the woman was Tiny Fullalove’s wife and not Bill Fullalove’s widow.

The uphill walk seemed shorter than it had done on the previous occasion, and soon she was within sight of the long barrow. She had plenty of time on her hands and had told Deborah not to wait lunch, so she walked on up the hill to find out whether Mansell had been able to begin work.

She could make him out from some distance away. He was certainly digging and he had two companions. One she recognized at once as Miles Obury. The other, when she came nearer to him, proved to be the young choirmaster, Emming. Of village helpers there was no sign at first, and then she noticed Ed Brown. He was on his knees pegging out a measuring string, and Mansell’s body at first had screened him from view.

All four men were so much absorbed in what they were doing that they did not notice her until she spoke.