An older woman and a younger man: the very pairing that Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus had been overheard gossiping about at the Bloxham Hotel. I was definitely making progress. “So she was supposed to marry the ne’er-do-well, but then chose a more substantial man instead?”

“No, not the ne’er-do-well,” said Stoakley impatiently. Then his eyelids flickered. He smiled and said, “Ah, but Patrick! He had greatness within his grasp. She saw it. She understood. If you want women to fall in love with you, Mr. Catchpool, show them you have greatness within your grasp.”

“I don’t want women to fall in love with me, Mr. Stoakley.”

“Whyever not?”

I took a deep breath.

“Mr. Stoakley, could you please tell me the name of the woman you were talking about—the one you wish hadn’t come here, who fell in love with a more substantial man and who told the unforgivable lie?”

“Unforgivable,” the old gnome agreed.

“Who is Patrick? What is the rest of his name? Are his initials PJI? And is there, or was there ever, a woman by the name of Jennie in Great Holling?”

“Greatness in his grasp,” said Stoakley sadly.

“Yes, quite. But—”

“She sacrificed everything for him, and I don’t think she would say she regretted it, if you asked her today. What else could she do? She loved him, you see. There’s no arguing with love.” He clutched at his shirt and twisted it. “You might as well try to rip out your heart.”

Which was rather how I felt after a further half hour of trying to extract some logic from Walter Stoakley. I applied myself until I could bear it no longer, and then gave up.

10. Slander’s Mark

Slander’s Mark

I STEPPED OUT OF the King’s Head Inn with great relief. A light rain had started to fall. In front of me, a man wearing a long coat and a cap broke into a trot, no doubt hoping to reach his house and get himself inside before the weather worsened. I gazed out across the field that was opposite the pub, beyond a low hedge: a sizeable expanse of green, bordered by rows of trees on three sides. Again, that silence. Nothing to hear but the rain on the leaves; nothing to see but green.

A country village was the wrong place to live for anyone who wanted to be distracted from their own thoughts, that was for sure. In London, there was always a car or a bus or a face or a dog whizzing past, making some sort of commotion. How I longed for commotion now; anything but this stillness.