They did not, in case they needed to escape, but when they'd reached the outskirts they decided on the foreshore as the tide was low, tethered their horses, and mingled with the crowds around the Hayling Island causeway. The smell of mud from off the creek was keen, and Will snuffed at it with deep appreciation, although Sam was less enamoured. The village was a scattered one, so they strolled towards the mill and the cottages beyond, where Will had come ashore once and thought the fisher folk and smugglers -most likely lived. On the shingle, in fact, above high-water mark, there were some women working on nets, and one or two small children.
Making contact, it came into them, making the first move, was going to be the hardest trick of all. The sun was out despite the cutting wind, so to begin the job they found a shingle bank above the beach, and sat. The women three young, two older, one a matriarch glanced at them uninterested, then ignored them, bending to their task. The children ran around about their business, and it occurred to Will that the robuster of the two young wives, aged somewhere not too far off twenty-five if he could judge, could well be Mary Broad, as he had guessed at that earlier time he'd come. What should he say or do, then? "Hallo, mistress, I knew Jesse Broad. Not only knew him but I watched him die'? In the bottom of the creek, between the island and the mainland mud, the water ruffled to a gust of breeze, and Will was cold. It was hard, so hard.
The children did it for them in the end. They ran near them, a girl, two boys, in a wild and frantic chase, and one boy sprawled headlong almost at Sam's feet. Before his screeches came, while he drew in a monstrous breath, Sam lifted him, and he did not struggle, but looked astonished for a moment, until the wail burst out for his mamma. All the women stopped as both men stood, and the boy kicked and pumped with legs and arms until the one that Will had noted walked across, not hurrying, but calm and purposeful. She had an open face, fiercely tanned from wind and weather, clear eyes and full kindly mouth. She put her hands out for the child, and he wriggled into them and bawled.
"Thank you, sir," she said. "Now Jem, my Jem, my little love. Come on, Mamma's got you, where does it hurt? Your knee?"
Jem. The name struck into Will, the memory of Jesse Broad stabbed home. He'd talked of Jem, sometimes, to soothe Will in his fevers. He'd talked of Jem, and goodwife Mary, and of home.
"Mistress," he said. He almost stumbled. "I think I know you, I think you're Mistress Broad. I knew your husband. My name is Bentley. William."
She did not start, she did not shriek or drop the child, but stared at him. She was a little taller than he was, and more robust, in dark grey wool and a dull red skirt. She held the child, and patted him and cooed, until the squall of tears passed by. The tension in the air, for Will and Sam, was extraordinary, but she was oblivious. Pats, and coos, and cuddles, and a level, daunting gaze.
"I know your name, sir. I am pleased to meet you, after all these years. I never did expect to see you here."
"Mary!" called the youngest woman. "How does it with Jem? Peter wants his playmate back, he says."
It was a check to see she was not needful, and Mary glanced across her shoulder, smiling.
"I must return my little boy," she said. "Jesse's little boy, poor mite. What do you here, sir? An accident, a passing-by, a social call? You have left the Navy, I suppose, they said that was the strongest rumour. Do you have business hereabout?"
"Peter! Peter!" cried the little boy. "Mamma, I want to play with Peter!"
She slipped him down on to the shingle and he scampered off. The other women were still watching, halfway to suspicious. She waved to reassure them, but was in no hurry to return. Sam, visibly, was relaxing, but William blushed furious. In all his life before he had never known women so prepared to talk out loud to men, and now it was a day-to-day occurrence. Except she called him sir, this one could have been his equal, it would seem. Yet Sam was grinning, and suddenly sprawled down to sit on the bank again, without a by-your-leave. Scandalous.
"Mistress," he said. "My name is Samuel Holt and I'll level with you while Will here tries to get his knots untied. I may die for saying this because we don't know you, but what the hell's life for if not to take risks? Despite our togs, despite the crazy headgear, we're in the Navy still and we sought you for a reason not your company, however excellent that has proved to be, pardon my boldness. Will knew your husband nay, I may tell you that he loved him and you seem well disposed to Will. We need some information, madam. Pray say you'll talk to us."
Mary's eyes were glistening, perhaps with tears. She turned to William. Who had the need for honesty, however deadly.
"Your husband ... Jesse ... was a smuggler," he said, to those unflinching eyes. "We know this, Mistress Broad, he told me, and he made me understand. We are seeking smugglers. We are seeking men who've murdered a Customs officer, and may have murdered two. It is a matter for a friend, Sam's unc... A friend who suffers badly from this case. Please: we need your help."
"The men are fishing," said Mary, carefully. "Off the island, all of them." Behind her the old woman was moving towards them, stooped but purposeful. Mary was aware of it. "Yes," she said. "I have heard of what you did, sir. We do get messages from off the hulks sometimes, from those poor prisoners. I know the case, as well; the officers you're talking of. Our men are all at sea, sir. We shall talk."
The old matriarch was up beside her, watching them through washed-out eyes that were as hard as pebbles.
"These are seamen," she said, in a voice both harsh and breathless. "What do they tell you, Mary? Their clothes are wrong. They're Customs, or the Navy. They're of the sea."
Samuel, who had stood at her approach, removed his hat and bowed.
"Aye," he said. "Well spotted, mother. Sam Holt's my name, midshipman. My friend is Will, Will Bentley."
She uttered a harsh sound, that might have been a laugh almost. She gripped her stick and forced her head back so she could see him better.
"God's blood," she said, "God's blood and bones. We were going to have you killed, young man, one day. Well, here's a fine one to come calling, isn't it?"
The talking took three days, by the end of which Will felt that they had scratched the surface and Samuel that they had got much farther. The first evening they talked solely to the women, and rode the long road back to Chichester to sleep in safety, but by the second they were confident enough to stay in Havant, at the inn. They did some local travelling from the second day, escorted by men of the fraternity to visit other men, but it was all by water, and over short distances. The man who seemed the leader of the Langstone crew although leadership was not a notion they would allow in their secret trade was called Isa Bartram, and was the husband of Mary's friend and neighbour Kate. He was a lean and dour sort, with beetle's eyebrows, who was not disposed to openness with them, or to trusting anyone outside the tight-knit fellowship of men who used the twin havens joined by the drying creek he lived on. Two of the meetings indeed, so great was his suspicion of the land bound were held on a fishing lugger off the East Winner shoals. And fishing did go on, too authentically to be just done as cover. William almost lost two fingers to a skate, and Sam was seasick.
The first talk, soon after the introductions on the beach, was in some way a false dawn. Mary, it appeared, was as strong a person as Jesse Broad had been, who handled the old woman with grace and firmness. She introduced her as Seth Hardman's mother, Hardman having died, she said, with her eyes on William, the night the Welfare's men had pressed her husband. Murdered, she then added, another intelligence that had come from the incarcerees inside the prison hulks in Fareham creek. In the nature of a rebuke it was sufficient to satisfy the old woman, then Mary rebuked Samuel openly but with equal kindness for using words like 'midshipman', and Will Bentley's name, in front of people he did not know. Even in a village as small as Langstone, she pointed out, not everyone was to be trusted, and Widow Hardman said with delightful humour could have been a spy.