Death After Evensong by Douglas Clark

Author:Douglas Clark [Clark, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-08-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

It was Masters’ first view of Maria Binkhorst. The sergeants had returned to say that Peter Barnfelt had been in the Nutmeg Tree from about nine o’clock on Sunday night until half past ten when the bar closed. He had been alone and had drunk steadily. Which was evidently unusual for him. The barman had heard he’d had a row with Miss Barrett, who usually accompanied him to the roadhouse, and put his solitary drinking down to an effort to drown the sorrows of a lovers’ quarrel. Masters was satisfied with the report. He was even more satisfied to find Maria waiting on them at table.

‘Is this your mother’s night off?’

‘She’s in the saloon bar,’ Maria replied. ‘Dad didn’t think I was well enough to be in there from half past five till half past ten. So Mum took over.’

‘And gave us the exclusive pleasure of your company. We’re definitely lucky. But we were sorry to hear you were ill.’

‘It’s . . . nothing.’

‘We’re pleased you’re up and about again.’

She placed tureens on the table. Inviting, pale green crockery, white lined, that showed up baby carrots and peas to advantage. The duckling she brought on whole. No rice. No orange slices. Plain cooking. Masters said: ‘Fit for a king. I’ll carve.’ He turned to Maria. ‘D’you want any of this back?’ She shook her head. ‘Good.’

She held the plates for him as he carved. He had a chance to sum her up. As Hill had said, she was slender. But the Italian early maturity was there. She was a woman, not a girl. Dark-haired, pale complexion, with dark eyes very alive. Her lips were strangely full, but not petulant. Masters seemed to remember they were what his mother used to call ‘bee-stung’. They had an inviting smoothness that stirred memory for him. Her figure was lithe. He supposed the real term was sinuous. As he carved the breast of the duckling his thoughts were not on the job. He was thinking that Maria knew how to dress, too. He guessed her skirt was less than eighteen inches long. Her legs, not too heavily thighed, erotically shapely. He was sorry when she’d handed round the plates and left. He ate in silence, thinking about her. To him she had none of the external signs or symptoms of a girl who is unwell.

Green ate voraciously. He called for beer with his meal. Masters took no liquor. He preferred to savour the food. Even so he was not really aware of what he ate. Hill and Brant kept quiet. They were used to Masters tacit at some stage in every enquiry. Suddenly he looked across at them and said: ‘When you saw the workmen, was one of them injured? Bandaged?’

Brant nearly choked. Hill said: ‘How did you know that?’

‘I didn’t. I asked.’

‘Sorry. Pieter’s labourer had a chisel cut on his left thumb. A big bandage, stained yellow.’

‘Acriflavine?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Orange-yellow. Antiseptic. Germicide. Wound disinfectant?’

‘That sounds like it.’

‘When did he get it?’

Hill said: ‘I asked him.

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