“Well?” he demanded as soon as Hunter was inside. “How did you get on?”
Hunter shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “ Robson’s theory won’t work. Jane Massie was really committed to the campaign to stop the houses being built. I believed her. She showed me evidence, too. She wrote lots of letters all the way through. There’s no way that the campaign collapsed because she dropped out, and she says that the same committee ran the thing all the way through. No-one made any excuses to leave or not pull their weight.”
Ramsay was listening intently. “Did Henshaw make any approaches to her while the planning process was going through?” he asked.
Hunter shook his head again. “ Not until it was all over,” he said, “and then he gave a donation to the village playgroup. Jane Massie runs that, too.”
Then Ramsay lost patience. He had been waiting long enough. He wanted to talk to Henshaw again, to confront him with his wife’s statement that he had left the house on Saturday night after Alice Parry’s visit. He felt that the builder was mocking him.
“Stay here,” he said to Hunter. “I’m expecting someone from the village to make an approach. Be gentle with them. I don’t want them frightened off.”
He slammed the door behind him and walked quickly across the green to the Otterbridge Road. Perhaps it was because he was so angry and preoccupied that he made the same mistake as he had on the night after Alice Parry’s murder and walked into the Greys’ farmyard instead of the Henshaws’ drive. The place was quiet. He felt rather ridiculous, standing in the muddy farmyard looking round him absentmindedly, and the embarrassment of his previous mistake returned. He imagined Celia Grey looking down on him from one of the upstairs windows, sneering at his indecision. It would be impossible now to turn round and go away. Charlie Elliot’s body had been found on Grey’s land, so he had a perfectly good excuse for being there. So, still imagining that he was being watched, trying to present an air of purpose, he walked towards the back door. If it had not been for his pride, he would never have seen Henshaw’s Rover tucked into one of the machinery sheds. Only the bumper was showing.
The back door was slightly open and the kitchen was empty. He knocked and called, but no-one answered. He waited, still thinking that his approach had been seen, then pushed open the door and went inside. The farmyard had been full of late-afternoon sunshine and long, warm shadows. When he entered the shadow of the kitchen, he shivered. He put his hand on the top of the range, but it was cold. The kitchen was much tidier than it had been on his previous visit, the sink and draining board empty, the work surfaces clear except for a bowl of rather mucky, recently collected eggs. The tile floor had been washed and in one corner it was still damp. He moved on through the door that led into the rest of the house, into the entrance hall where he had stood with Celia Grey on his last visit, trying to persuade her to allow him to talk to her son. The sun came in from an upstairs window and lit the specks of dust in the stairwell. There were two other doors leading from the hall. Both were huge and heavy and must have blocked out all sound. Both were shut tight. He called out and his voice echoed over the stone flags:
“Mrs. Grey! Are you there?” Immediately after speaking he opened the nearest of the doors.
They were sitting together in a small living room. Ramsay guessed that Celia Grey would consider it her own room. It would not be used by the rest of the family. It had no television and he could not imagine a teenage boy in here. The windows were small and it was still in shadow. There was a brick fireplace with a bowl of dried flowers on the grate. On a small sofa Henshaw and Celia sat close to each other. Henshaw was turned towards her, holding one of her hands in both of his. When he saw Ramsay, standing just inside the room, he jumped to his feet.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded. “I thought you needed a search warrant before you did this sort of thing.”
“I did knock,” Ramsay said mildly. “I was hoping to talk to Mrs. Grey, but it’s convenient that you’re here, too.”
“You can’t talk to her now,” Henshaw blustered. “Can’t you see that she’s upset? You know what they found on their land earlier this week. It’s been a terrible shock.”
“Did Mrs. Grey have a shock on the evening of Alice Parry’s death?” Ramsay asked:
“What do you mean?”
“You came here, didn’t you, on Saturday night?” Ramsay asked. Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Celia Grey. “I think your husband was away,” he said, “and you sent your son out into the village. But Mr. Henshaw was late. He had an unexpected visitor. Someone it was hard to get rid of. Was Mr. Henshaw still here when Ian came home? Perhaps we should ask your son.”
“What are you saying?” It was Henshaw again, red-faced with anger and concern. “Bob and Celia are neighbours, friends. I’m here because I heard that Charlie Elliot had been found in the barn. I wanted to offer my help. He’s a good chap, Bob, but not very imaginative. I thought she might need some support.”
“Do you always park your car in the shed so it can’t be seen from the road?” Ramsay asked reasonably, and Henshaw’s outburst seemed unbalanced and irrational.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Henshaw said. “ You should watch what you’re saying.”
Celia Grey stood up and both men fell silent. “It’s no good, Colin,” she said. “He knows. I told you it would all come out in the end.”
“It’s none of their business,” Henshaw muttered. He gazed at her sentimentally. “How could anyone else understand?”
“I’m afraid it is my business,” Ramsay said. “Do you realise that you’re a suspect in a murder enquiry, Mr. Henshaw? We believe that Charlie Elliot was murdered by the same person as Alice Parry. We’re still looking for her killer. If you have any information that would eliminate you from our enquiries, it would be in your interest to give it.”
“Colin was here when Alice Parry was killed,” Celia Grey said. “You were right. My husband was visiting his mother in hospital in the Lake District. I’d rather you didn’t ask my son, but you were right about that, too. Colin was still here when he arrived home.”
“What about Monday evening?” Ramsay asked. “Was Mr. Henshaw here then, too? Is that why you didn’t notice any noise in the farmyard?”
She nodded.
“Thank you,” Ramsay said. They were a strangely matched couple, he thought. She seemed so upright and cold. He could picture her dressed in Puritan black and white as one of the New England settlers, motivated by principle and guilt.
Henshaw, in contrast, was driven by greed and ambition and seemed to have no sense of morality at all. Yet he looked at her now with tenderness and admiration and he had done everything in his power to protect her. “ It would have been easier,” Ramsay said, “if you’d told me straightaway.”
“I couldn’t have Celia bothered,” Henshaw muttered. “ I had to consider her reputation. She has her position in the village to think about. Don’t you know she’s chairwoman of the WI?”
There was no irony in his voice. It seemed to Ramsay then that Henshaw was the innocent and Celia Grey was the corrupter of souls. He wondered when and how the relationship had started. He thought it could have no future.
“Now I know all about your affair,” he said. “Perhaps you could tell me what really happened in your conversation with Alice Parry.”
“Nothing,” Henshaw said rudely. “I’ve told you everything that happened. There’s nothing more to say.”
Ramsay did not believe him, but time was slipping past and he was no nearer to reaching a solution. He left them, closeted in the half darkness, sharing their secret, frightened affection.