Ellis Peters - George Felse 03 - Flight Of A Witch by Ellis Peters Page B

defected again, it mustn’t be while she was in their charge.
    ‘So from Thursday morning you were free,’ said George mildly, undistracted by these digressions. ‘What did you do with your freedom?’
    ‘I was home all Thursday afternoon. I washed some things, and played a few records, and wrote one letter. And my mother had two more to post, so about half past three I said I’d go and post them, and then go for a walk. I said I’d be back to tea. I met Mr Kenyon just at the gate, and he offered to post the letters for me, but I told him I wanted some air and was going for a walk. It was just beginning to rain, but I didn’t mind that, I like walking in the rain. I posted the letters in the box by the farm, and then I went on up the lane and over the stile on to the Hallowmount. I climbed right over the hill and went down into the valley by the brook, on the other side. I remember coming to the path there, this side of the brook. I can’t remember how much farther I walked. I can’t remember noticing which way I went, or when it stopped raining. But suddenly I realised it was dark, and I turned back. It wasn’t raining then. I thought I’d better get home the shortest way, so I climbed over the hill again, and there the grass was quite dry, and so were my shoes, and the moon was out. And just below the rocks there I met Mr Kenyon and my father, coming to look for me. They
said
they were looking for me. It seemed silly to me. I thought I was only a couple of hours late. But they said it was Tuesday,’ she said, eyes wide and distant and grave confronting George Felse’s straight regard. ‘They said I’d been gone five days. I didn’t believe it until we got home, and there was a letter for me, an answer to the one I’d posted. But I couldn’t tell them any more than I’ve told you now, and I know they don’t believe me. All the week-end, they say, they’ve been trying to find me, and covering up the fact that I wasn’t here.’
    George sat silent, studying her thoughtfully for a moment. Nothing of belief or disbelief, wonder or suspicion, showed in his face; he might have been listening to a morning’s trivialities from Mrs Dale. Annet knew how to be silent, too. She looked back at him and added nothing; she waited, her hands quite still in her lap.
    ‘You met no one on the hill? Or along by the brook?’ It was hardly likely on a rainy Thursday afternoon, but there was always the possibility.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Mr Kenyon saw her,’ said Mr Beck quickly.
    ‘I was driving back along the lane about four,’ confirmed Tom, ‘on my way home for the week-end, and I happened to look up at the Hallowmount just as the sun came out on it. I saw her climbing towards the crest, just as she says.’
    ‘Could you be sure it was Annet, at that distance?’
    ‘I’d seen her go out, I knew just what she was wearing.’ Carefully he suppressed the aching truth that he would have known her in whatever clothes, by the gait, by the carriage of her head, by all the shape and movement that made her Annet, and no other person. ‘I was sure. Then, when I got back here on Tuesday evening, and found she’s been missing all that time, I told Mr and Mrs Beck about it, and we went there on the off-chance of picking up any traces. We didn’t expect anything. But we found her.’
    ‘She was surprised to see us,’ said Beck eagerly. ‘She asked what we were doing there, and if anything was the matter. She said she knew she was very late, but surely we didn’t have to send out a search party.’
    ‘She was particularly surprised to see me,’ added Tom. ‘She said she thought I should have been home by then, and surely I didn’t stay behind because we were worried about her.’
    They were all joining in now, anxiously proffering details of the search for her, of her return, of the terrible consistency of her attitude since, which had never wavered. George listened with unshakable patience, but it was Annet he watched. And