Error of Judgment by Roy Lewis

Author:Roy Lewis [Lewis, Roy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books mysteries
Published: 2018-10-13T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

The hotel was no more than an hour’s drive from Sedleigh, but that had been necessary for their arrangements: it meant they could spend the maximum time in each other’s company and yet not run the risk of their arriving back late at their respective homes, or at work. It was a small hotel, with low ceilinged bedrooms, creaking floors and twisting stairs: there was a funny, ancient atmosphere about the place that gave a romantic tang to it for lovers. As they had been.

Five times they’d stayed there. Five glorious occasions when they kissed and loved and held hands and walked in the sunshine and felt the whole world coming alive for them. The first time had been late autumn, last year, and on that first afternoon at the hotel they had walked out, nervously, hands touching, too aware of each other to be at ease, and they’d gone down to the small stretch of open fenland, treading lightly as shadows between the pools of black gaseous ooze fringed by moss and bleached tassels of horsetails. The pennant leaves of the reeds had been streaked with gold, and guelder rose bushes had reached up like pillars of crimson flame. She had chattered to him, over-anxious to appear natural, and they had brushed past the great seed-heads of water docks, rust-red among the rushes and he had told her that he loved her. He had known then that what he felt for her meant a permanency, a flowering of affection and love. Soon, they went back to the hotel.

They had come again, four times after that; the last occasion had been just recently and they had walked to the fen once more. It had been an exhilarating time and they had wrapped their arms around each other and laughed and kissed away the enforced partings that had occurred during the last weeks. She pointed out the March bedstraw to him: she likened it to their love. When they had first come to the hotel and the fen, the bedstraw had been black with seeds, sprawling in a great confused tangle supported by taller sedges and reeds, but now, in the early summer, it was bright with minute white starry flowers. So had their love been confused and sprawling, disoriented, she had said, where now it was shining and happy and alive. That had been only a week ago, days ago, hours ago in his mind.

But now she was dead.

The white flowers were trampled under his feet and Rosemary was dead. He turned and trudged back across the fen towards the hotel. The air was cool in the late afternoon and the weight in his chest, the dull ache of distress and disillusionment, was heavy to bear. He crossed the field, his hands thrust deep in his pockets and he came out into the lane where he and Rosemary had walked and leaned against the wall and kissed in the spring evening.

She was dead.

On the path the flints moved and scraped under his feet.

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