Ellis Peters - George Felse 07 - The Grass Widow's Tale by Ellis Peters Page A

It’s known to have driven north out of England during the night. Constable at Muirdrum believes he saw the same car go past about three hours ago, heading for Arbroath, but he’s no’ sure of the number. We’re checking up and down all these roads, just in case. But there’s no call for you to worry, ma’am, you’ll be fine here.”
    So no one, it seemed, was looking for her just yet. No one had mentioned that there’d been a woman aboard, most likely no one knew. Obviously they knew it hadn’t been a woman driving.
    “NAQ 788,” she repeated thoughtfully. “A black Rover. I could get in touch with you if I do see anything of it, of course.”
    “Ay, you could do that, ma’am. But I don’t think you’re likely to catch sight of him, I doubt he’s as far north as he can get by now.”
    “What do you want him for?” Bunty asked inquisitively. A woman without curiosity would be suspect anywhere. “Has he run somebody down, or something?”
    “Well, no’ just that!” She hadn’t expected a direct answer, and clearly she wasn’t going to get one, but his business-like, unalarmed attitude told her most of what she needed to know. “Constable somewhere down south had a narrow squeak, though,” he vouchsafed, after due consideration. And that was all she was going to get out of him; but it seemed that he had given a second thought to getting something out of her in exchange.
    “We’ll be on our way then. Sorry if we disturbed you. And by the way, maybe I should have your name and home address, ma’am, just for information.”
    She hadn’t been expecting that, but she was equal to it. Startled by her own readiness, she responded without hesitation: “I’m Rosamund Chartley—that’s
Mrs
. Chartley, of course…” The young one, if not the other, had long since assimilated the significance of her ring. “And I live at 17 Hampton Close, Hereford.” She couldn’t be sure how much he would know in advance about the Alports, but her use of their name had registered immediately, she might as well play for safety and assume that he knew their home town, too. She watched him write down her instant fiction, and smiled at him as he put his note-book away; not too encouragingly, on the contrary, with a slight intimation that if that was all she could do for him she would like to go back to her interrupted breakfast.
    “Thank you, ma’am, we won’t keep you any longer now. And I’m sure ye needna be at all uneasy. Good morning, Mrs. Chartley!”
    He re-adjusted his cap on the grizzled heather he wore for hair, summoned his subordinate with a flick of a finger, and they departed. She closed the door, and leaned back against it for a moment, listening. They had a car, they must have turned it on the gravel and withdrawn it into the shelter of the trees before knocking at the door. She heard it start up and wind away into the convolutions of the lane. Only then did she re-bolt and lock the door, and go back into the living-room.
    The young man was sitting bolt upright on the settee, dark against the brilliance and shimmer of the sea, every nerve at stretch, his eyes fixed wildly on the empty doorway, waiting for her to reappear there. The gun was in the clenched right hand that lay on his knee, and his finger was crooked on the trigger.
    She saw it instantly, and instantly understood. He must have lowered his hand in sheer stupefaction when the meaning of that astonishing performance of hers penetrated his mind, with his death only the tightening of a nerve away.
    Oh, God, she thought, suppose he hadn’t waited to hear? Why didn’t I take it from him before I went to the door? But there’d been no time to consider everything. And thank God, he
had
waited, and confusion and bewilderment had kept him from dying. Or curiosity, perhaps, curiosity can be a valid reason for going on living, when no other is left.
    So the first thing she had to do, without delay but without any hasty gesture that could startle