Anatomy of Murder (Westerman and Crowther 2) by Imogen Robertson

Author:Imogen Robertson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thrillers, General, Suspense, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781101560228
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-02-16T05:00:00+00:00

5

Jocasta arrived at the hedgerow at a smart pace, picked up Boyo by the scruff of his neck and dropped him into Sam’s arms.

“Did he find something, Mrs. B?” And when Jocasta frowned at him: “Mrs. Bligh, I mean to say . . . ma’am.”

She looked back into the grass without replying. The way was scattered with odds from the kiln behind them. The fires must have been burning there for fifty years, and it had had the time needed to throw its offcuts around. When the man who owned this field now turned them up with his plow, or the boy walking in front to guard his blades found any, they were picked up and chucked to the edges—thickened and twisted slices of unglazed slate, half-bricks. She took a step or two from the path and reached down to where Boyo had been snuffling. There was a little pile of stones here; not so raggedy and fallen-about-looking as the others, and whereas between all the other little heaps and falls, grasses had stuck their heads up and fallen back, no living thing had been given time to crawl up among these.

Jocasta lifted the topmost piece and put it aside, then pushed away one or two from the edge. The bitter and sick taste crawled into her mouth.

“What is it, Mrs. Bligh?” She felt the lad come up and look over her shoulder. “Oh. I see it.” His shadow slunk away again.

Under the top slate sat a half-brick, with a jam of red on it and a little swirl of hair. The ends not caught up in the blackening slick gleamed guinea gold in the last of the daylight. Jocasta carefully placed the slate back on the pile, and looking about her added a couple more, then sat down on the stile and stared back the way they’d come.

Sam tucked Boyo through the hedgerow beside her, so he could gad about without snuffling at the little stone tent she’d made.

“Fools,” Jocasta said at last. “If they’d left that rock lying in the path, I might have said, ‘Jocasta, old girl, the cards are taking you scrambling.’” She patted the stile beside her. “Might have thought, the girl could have stepped up here and fallen off and knocked her head on one of these stones. Easy enough to do. Might have thought all those lies in the cards were just chatter and they were no more than mocking me with an accident to come. But no. Those two hid the stone—and that means they are as guilty as the serpent himself.”

Sam put his head on one side. “But you’ve got them now, haven’t you? I mean, if you bring the constable out here or take him the brick . . .”

“It’s the placing that tells the story, lad. They can say I did that if we don’t know the whys as well as the ways. Let it bide there. If we have a fuller story, then they’ll see it with our eyes.

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