19

Long Shadows

Once we’d arrived at the centre of Moxham Heath, Hawthorne asked the driver to stop and we got out and continued on foot. Neither of us spoke. Maybe Hawthorne was trying to absorb the atmosphere of the village, imagining what it must have been like for the Longhursts as they adapted, unsuccessfully, to their new home. Or perhaps his mind was dwelling on what John Lamprey had told us. Mine certainly was.

For somewhere that had been the cause of so much sadness, Moxham was strikingly beautiful, the sort of place that turns up in jigsaw puzzles or Harry Potter films. In the summer it might be crowded with visitors, but on this bright April day – not quite the weekend yet – it seemed completely authentic; less a tourist attraction, more somewhere to live. We had been dropped off at the bridge, which formed the centre point of the community, its two stone arches spanning a stream doing its best to pretend it was a river. The houses and shops on either side were constructed out of Bath stone, with that warm glow no other building material has ever replicated, and one by one my eye picked out the little details: the ivy, the mullioned windows, the chimneys, the stone urns with their spring flowers bursting through, the original lamp posts, the war monument and the stone trough for horses. I could imagine the Longhursts arriving here for the first time and seeing the gurgling water, the church spire in the distance. Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that they had decided to stay. It was hard to believe that Chippenham, with its ring roads and business parks, and the six-lane M4 motorway to London were just a few miles away.

There were only three shops. We passed a newsagent’s and a butcher’s-cum-grocery-store before we came to the Ginger Box, still open, selling sweets and souvenirs. This had been the target of Stephen and Wayne on their shoplifting spree and it reminded me that as much as I had fallen for the charms of Moxham Heath, it must have been insufferably dull to a rich boy who had grown up in London. There were a few people in the streets, none of them under sixty. A vicar walked past on the other side of the street and smiled at us. A vicar! Had I accidentally wandered into an episode of Midsomer Murders?

But as we climbed the hill towards the church, the twenty-first century began to impose itself. Suddenly there were yellow lines and – paradoxically – more parked cars. A modern house and a bungalow stuck out like teeth added by a blindly inept dentist. I was glad to see that the village had its own library, but it was a 1960s monstrosity. We came to the church – St Swithin’s – and seeing the name, I wondered if we were going to visit the grave where Major Alden was buried. I should have known better. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who was less of a sentimentalist than Hawthorne and he didn’t even glance that way.