"But afterwards. Didn't you tell anyone then?"
She had talked about finding the body and said it was terrible, but then there had been affectation in her voice. A child finding a murdered woman, he thought. Yes, all the world would recoil in shock from that. Yet for her that had not been the worst. Now as he asked her about afterwards he saw the trance begin once more to mist her face as the spectre of Painter—Painter on this very spot—rose before it.
"He'd find you," she mumbled. "He'd find you wherever you were, wherever he was. You wanted to tell her, but she wouldn't listen to you. 'Don't think about it, Baby, put it out of your mind.' But it wouldn't go out..." Her features worked and the blank eyes flickered.
"Miss Crilling, let me take you home."
She was standing up now, moving mechanically towards the house wall, a robot whose programming has failed. When her hands touched the bricks she stopped and spoke again, talking to him but into the house itself.
"It wouldn't go out. It went in and in, till it was just a little black wheel spinning and playing the same thing over and over again."
Had she realised she was speaking in metaphor? He had thought of a medium's utterances, but now he knew it had been more like a discordant record, playing the same horror each time it was pricked by the stylus of association. He touched her arm and was surprised when she followed him meekly and limply back to the chair. They sat in silence for some minutes. She was the first to speak and she was almost her normal self.
"You know Tessie, don't you? She's going to marry your son?" He shrugged. "I think she was the only real friend I ever had," she said quietly. "It was her birthday the next week. She was going to be five, and I thought I'd give her one of my old dresses. Sneak it round when she was with the old girl. Generous little beast, wasn't I? I never saw her again."
Archery said gently, "You saw her this afternoon in the chemist's."
Her new tranquillity was very finely balanced. Had he pushed it too far?
"In the white blouse?" she said in a dead even voice, so low that he had to lean forward and strain to catch it. He nodded.
"That girl who hadn't got any change?"
"Yes."
"She was standing beside me and I never knew." There was a long silence. The only sound was the faint rustling of wet bushes, water-loaded gleaming leaves on the coach-house walls. Then she tossed her head. "I reckon I don't notice women much," she said. "I saw you all right and the boy that was with you. I remember I thought the talent's looking up in this dump."
"The talent," Archery said, "is my son."
"Her boyfriend? I never would have told you!" She gave a low cry of exasperation. "And, my God, I never would have told her—not if you hadn't caught me out like that."
"It was chance, coincidence. Perhaps it's better that I do know."
"You!" she said. "That's all you think about, you and your precious son. What about me?" She stood up, looked at him and moved towards the door with the broken pane. It was true he thought, ashamed. He had been prepared to sacrifice all these other people to save Charles, the Crillings, Primero, even Imogen—but his quest had been doomed from the beginning because history could not be changed.
"What will they do to me?" Her face was turned away from him and she spoke softly. But there was such urgency and such fear in those six short words that their impact was as if she had shouted.
"Do to you?" He could do no more than get to his feet and stand helplessly behind her. "Why should they do anything to you?" He remembered the dead man on the crossing and he remembered the needle punctures, but he said only, "You've been more sinned against than sinning."
"Oh, the Bible!" she cried. "Don't quote the Bible to me." He said nothing for he had not done so. "I'm going upstairs now," she said strangely. "When you see Tess would you give her my love? I wish," she said, "I wish I could have given her something for her birthday."
By the time he had found a doctor's house he felt all hand, nothing but hand, a throbbing thing that beat like a second heart. He recognised Dr. Crocker at once and saw that he, too, was remembered.
"You must be enjoying your holiday," Crocker said. He stitched the finger, filled a syringe with anti-tetanus serum. "First that dead boy and now this. Sorry, but this may hurt. You've got thick skin."
"Really?" Archery could not help smiling as he bared his upper arm. "I want to ask you something." Without stopping to explain he put the question that had been troubling him all the way from Victor's Piece. "Is it possible?"
"Beginning of October?" Crocker looked closely and not unsympathetically at him. "Look, how personal is this?"
Archery read his thoughts and managed a laugh. "Not that personal," he said. "I am, as they say, enquiring for a friend."
"Well, it's extremely unlikely." Crocker grinned. "There have been cases, very few and far between. They make minor medical history."
Nodding, Archery got up to go.
"I shall want to see that finger again," the doctor said. "Or your local G.P. will. You'll need another couple of injections. See to it when you get home, will you?"
Home ... yes, he would be home tomorrow. His stay in Kingsmarkham had not been a holiday, anything but that, yet he had that curious end-of-a-holiday feeling when the resort one has stayed in becomes more familiar than home.
He had walked along this High Street every day, more frequently even than he trod the main village street at Thringford. The order of the shops, chemist, grocer, draper, were as well known to him as to the housewives of Kingsmarkham. And the place was certainly pretty. Suddenly it seemed sad that he should hardly have noticed its prettiness—more than that really, for prettiness does not go with grace and dignity—but would associate it forever with a lost love and a failed search.
Street lamps, some of them of ancient design and with wrought iron casings, showed him alleys winding between stone walls, coaching yards, flowers in a few cottage gardens. The weak yellow light bleached these flowers to a luminous pallor. Half an hour ago it had been just light enough to read print by; now the darkness had come down and lamps appeared in windows fronting the street. The sky had a rainy look and stars showed only in the crevices between bulbous bloated cloud. There was no moon.
The Olive and Dove was brightly lit and the car park full. Glass doors separated the hall from the cocktail bar and he saw that it was crowded. There were groups and pairs of young people, sitting on high stools, gathered round the small black oak tables. Archery thought he would give everything he possessed to see Charles among them, throwing back his head in laughter, his hand resting on the shoulder of a pretty girl. Not a beautiful, intellectual, tainted girl—just someone pretty and dull and uncomplicated. But Charles was not there. He found him alone in the lounge writing letters. Only a few hours had elapsed since his parting from Tess, but already he was writing...
"What on earth have you done to your hand and where have you been?"
"Hacking away at the past."
"Don't be cryptic, Father. It doesn't suit you." His tone was bitter and sullen. Archery wondered why people say that suffering improves the character, why indeed he had sometimes thoughtlessly said it to his own parishioners. He listened to his son's voice, carping, querulous and selfish. "I've been wanting to address this envelope for the past two hours, but I couldn't because I don't know where Tess's aunt lives." Charles gave him a sour accusing look. "You wrote it down. Don't say you've lost it."