A Death in Norfolk

"And yet, Cooper is nowhere to be found."

I glanced at the dark windmill. "Perhaps he and Ferguson quarreled, Cooper agitated because he wanted the task finished before you arrived. The quarrel grew violent, and when Cooper saw that he'd killed Ferguson, he fled."

Denis finally turned to me, eyes icier than ever in the light of my lantern. "Ferguson was one of the best fighters in England. He was younger than Cooper, and he had a fiery temper. Why is it not Cooper lying dead?"

"A man may be a magnificent fighter and still lose against a stout beam of wood. Cooper might have landed a fatal blow out of great luck. I still wish that you would let a coroner look at Ferguson."

"And I said, a coroner can tell me nothing I do not know already."

"Not necessarily true. He could tell whether the man met his death because of the blows, or whether his face was disfigured after death."

"Why should he be beaten afterward?"

"I have no idea. But I'd rather be certain."

Denis returned his gaze to the gray horizon, none of the anger I sensed showing on his face. "I know a surgeon I can summon."

One who would obey Denis to the letter. "The local people will wonder why you've taken over Easton's house. It might not be a good idea to stay here."

"On the contrary," Denis said. "I own the house. I have for several years now. Easton was leasing it back from me."

I should not have been surprised. Denis was very good at arranging things. "Even so, the world here is small and closely knit. Strangers are not tolerated."

"The world is changing, Captain, even here. The war changed it, and now peace is changing it still more." He looked at me again. "But I take your point. How fortunate for me that I have a native son to vouch for me."

My irritation rose, but I said nothing. Let him make what he would of my silence.

"I want you to find out what happened, Captain. Discover who killed Ferguson and why, and bring the man to me, not to the magistrates."

Of course I'd find out what happened. I wanted to know as much as he did. "You are not the law."

"He faces me first," Denis said, ignoring me. "And, do, find Cooper."

Now I heard worry. Quite a range of emotions this night for a man who rarely let any show.

"If Cooper killed Ferguson, he might be far from here," I said. "On the sea already."

Denis settled his hat against the wind. "Cooper did not kill him. This, I know. But find him. He might be a witness to whoever did."

Another tweak to his hat, and Denis set off up the path to the house, leaving me alone with the windmill in the darkness of the night.

I went back inside the windmill. I had one tiny lantern and no idea what I looked for, but I searched the dusty wooden floor for anything I might have missed.

Ferguson's blood had spattered across the room. The walls, once whitewashed, were gray with grime and now splashed red. Already, insects had come to inspect and feed.

I wanted to wash the place clean, but at the moment I had nothing with which to do so. I brought in handfuls of damp earth to spread across the floor where most of the blood had pooled, but that was all I could do.

I left the windmill and closed the door. I wanted to lock it, but the hasp of the lock had broken. I noticed that while the windmill, one of the older ones, was crumbling, the lock was new. Now it was broken. Had Ferguson done that, or his killer?

I looked up the hill to Easton's house, Easton's no longer. Most of the windows were lit, Denis wealthy enough to afford to illuminate any room he wished.

I wondered what the domestics had done-the butler who'd admitted me and Easton's cook and other household staff. Had they taken the holiday I'd commanded them to, or had Denis recruited them to wait upon him?

I turned from the house's warmth and made my slow way back across the fields toward my own home. The going was slow, the wind coming across the land, chill. I went carefully, my eye out for Cooper or any murderous wretch still in the area.

The Lacey house sat on a rise of ground among low hills, a bulk in the darkness. Unlike Easton's place, all my windows were dark.

Behind the house, the bonfire still flickered, but no one had remained to man it. Most of the wood, brittle and old, had burned quickly. I smothered the fire the best I could, bringing in sand from the bottom of the garden to scatter over it. I waited until the fire had died to a tiny smolder before I left again.

The horse I'd borrowed from Lady Southwick's stables was nowhere in sight. Horses had an uncanny knack for finding their way back to their own barns, so he might have gone home, or else someone had come across him wandering and taken him. I'd have to hunt for him in the morning or be prepared to give Lady Southwick the cost of the beast.

I made my way on foot a mile and half north to the village called Parson's Point, a tiny place south of Stifkey marsh on the coast. Local history said that in medieval times, the village had been a port, with an inlet cutting to the center of the village. Drainage and time now put it half a mile inland. The village had begun life as a Roman camp, renamed Parson's Point a few hundred years ago.

I needed to hire a horse or put up for the night. I'd never walk to Lady Southwick's, five or so miles away, on my stiff leg in the cold.

The public house in Parson's Point beckoned me with warm light. I was tired, my leg hurt, and the wind howled. I entered the brightness of the taproom with relief.

This was the first time since my arrival that I'd sought familiar haunts. I stood in the doorway, struck with a strange feeling of time whirling backward. Since I'd left Norfolk at age twenty, I'd experienced war, hardship, and loss, yet also intense friendships and a wild joy at being alive. But it seemed that the world of Parson's Point had stayed in an untouched bubble while I'd been gone.

The faces I'd left twenty years ago were still here. The publican, Mr. Buckley, had been thirty-five, just taking over from his elderly father. He was fifty-five now, but still had the fat cheeks and ruddy complexion of his youth. Fishermen I recognized sat in the corners, nursing pints and smoking pipes. The shopkeepers and boat makers took up benches in the middle of the room. In a corner, a man scraped a bow over a fiddle, playing softly.

But, I realized as I stood there getting my bearings, that there had been changes. Some of the older faces had been replaced with younger ones, sons who were near replicas of their fathers but not quite. One of the shopkeepers I did not recognize at all, and in the shadows, I saw men I'd known, now broken and battered, soldiers home from war.

Buckley the publican saw me. "Now then, young master. Best bitter for you?"

The few gazes that hadn't yet turned to me did so now. About half the room nodded in a quiet way, unsurprised that I'd walked into the public house twenty years after I'd walked out of it. Others sang out greetings, lifting tankards in my direction, and still others regarded me sullenly. My father hadn't been well liked, and the saying, The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, was a popular one.

I put down my coin and lifted the ale, taking a pull. I swallowed, refraining from making a face. The ale was different, not nearly as good as I remembered it. Either they'd changed brewers or experience had made my palate more particular.

I sat down at the middle table, uncomfortable but not wanting to be standoffish. I leaned my cane against the table and saw gazes go to it. One soldier in the corner was missing an arm, another's face had been burned.

"Come back to the land of your fathers, have you?" a boat maker asked. "Hope you'll open the old house again. It's been a blight on the land these eight years gone."

Buckley said from the bar, "Saw you'd brought some fellows from London to help you go at the place. You didn't need to. Plenty here that will do it for you."

One of the soldiers spoke. "Hard, when work's going begging. What about it, Lacey?"