Watching him in her turn, she said, “I saw the photograph. She wasn’t a woman a man would forget easily.”
Interested, Rutledge said, “How do you mean?”
“She wasn’t a woman of the streets. She was respectable. And if she came all this way to find him, she wanted something. Needed something from him.”
“And he killed her because he couldn’t do as she asked?”
Mrs. Dunlop looked at him almost with pity, as if he knew nothing about women. “It could be his wife saw her first.”
And that was a view of the murder no one else had considered. Both he and Leslie had questioned every man in Avebury, but they’d spoken to the wives of these men only to verify their husbands’ statements.
“Who in this village is jealous enough that she’d kill to keep her husband away from the woman searching for him?”
“I could name you three or four who wouldn’t like it. Only I don’t see them doing murder, however much they might want to. My grandmother, now, she could have done it. She was a farmer’s wife and could dress a pig or kill a chicken. Blood didn’t bother her. I was afraid of her as a child.” She stopped and looked at the ceiling above her head. “Mrs. Parrish is moving about upstairs. You’d best go.”
“If not a wife, could there have been a widow, trying to protect her husband’s good name from scandal? A soldier’s wife who didn’t want his memory tainted?”
“A widow would be more likely to laugh and send her packing. What could her man do for that woman, if he was in his grave?”
A woman living in Avebury wouldn’t have needed a tandem bicycle.
“Is there a woman in Avebury whom either Chief Inspector Leslie or I have failed to speak to?” he insisted. “Someone like your grandmother?”
She was ushering him out of the kitchen as she replied, her attention on the movements upstairs. “Not since the war. The war changed everything.”
He was about to thank her, but she shook her head to silence him, then shut the door quietly as soon as he was clear of the threshold.
Rutledge went on to the inn, mulling over what Mrs. Dunlop had told him. Was she a great reader of the more sensational novels? Or was her imagination that lively?
All the same, her views on the women of Avebury made sense. He’d need to keep an open mind in spite of her denials.
Walking through the door to the inn, he found the barmaid polishing glasses. Smiling, asking for a cup of tea, he added, “Did you have any guests staying here the night the woman was murdered by the stone?”
He knew what the answer would be—Leslie had been there before him.
“Guests? Not that night, no. We’re often empty in winter.” Disappearing into the kitchen, she was back soon with a tray.
That made Avebury an attractive place to do murder. There would be no strangers wandering about, and on a cold night, the local people would likely be in their beds, asleep.
As he drank his tea sitting at the bar, he considered what that offered as a possibility.
What if the woman had been told that a person she was looking for—hoping to meet—was already here in Avebury and waiting for her? And then he’d arranged to meet her somewhere and bring her the rest of the way?
That opened up an entirely different line of questions.
A plausible excuse to get the victim to a place where neither of them were known, and she could be killed with impunity.
“It’s not the best weather for coming here to see the stones, is it?” the young woman behind the bar was saying, putting the towel aside and leaning on her elbows, glad of someone to talk to. “We had three people here in early January, and they were caught out in bad weather. After that, only Chief Inspector Leslie before you. It’s a good thing the people here like the food we serve, or the Bryants would have to shut down much of the winter.”
He let her chatter, all the while his mind explored the new direction. Then the door opened, someone else came into the pub, and she moved on to greet him.
Hamish said, “She’s no fra’ this place, ye ken. Yon dead woman. No’ fra’ the villages close by. It would be easy to lie to her.”
Rutledge stood and walked to the window, looking out across the road, beyond the grassy stretch to the standing stones. They appeared to be smaller at this distance. Less threatening. Or perhaps that was because so many had been pulled down. Most of them were misshapen, irregular now, worn by the wind and rain for several thousand years. Had they always been that way? Or had they been shaped alike at the start so that the circle appeared to be regular, perfect? Had that mattered to those ancient builders? He tried to imagine it that way.
It would have been impressive. Taller than any man-made stone structures those builders had ever seen. Powerful.
Given that this woman hadn’t been local, she could be persuaded to see the stones up close, before moving on to the inn where—supposedly—her killer was staying.
It’s an amazing stone circle. Wait until you see it. Best at night too, and we’ll have to pass them on our way. After that, we’ll rouse the Bryants and have something warm to drink, a fire in the room . . .
He paid for his tea, collected his hat and coat, and left the inn. After a moment’s hesitation, he walked on as far as the stone where the woman had died.
In the gray light, it was surreal, a great figure whose shrouded head was bowed almost as if in sorrow, its arms about to reach out and offer shelter. The face veiled, unclear.
Rutledge shook himself. It was only a megalith.
But was that how the woman had been persuaded to cross the grass to reach the stone?
It’s something you won’t see anywhere else. My favorite stone. We’ll walk the bicycle the rest of the way . . .
He could hear the man’s voice in his ear. Cajoling, gently urging. A whisper.
A woman was more likely to trust someone she knew. More likely to pedal out into a dark, unfamiliar landscape filled with ancient tombs and monuments looming out of whatever ambient light was there.
And while she was looking up, trying to see what the voice was telling her about the stone rising above her head, the knife had come out. Had something warned her? A slight movement? Or had her killer softly spoken her name so that she turned, only to be shoved back against the rough stone as the knife went in?
It was fanciful, a reflection of his need to find answers, to take them back to London and throw them in Chief Superintendent Markham’s face.
Sorry about the bicycle. The horse was out all day, they said I couldn’t borrow the carriage after all. So I brought this. Do you think you can manage? Well, it will be an adventure of sorts. And it’s not far. And who will think to look for us here, in this godforsaken place?
That brought Rutledge up short. Was this an assignation, a Miss Palmer tricked into thinking she was loved and would be safe?
This woman must have had a valise too. Toothbrush, brush and comb, a change of clothes. She’d insist on it, to look her best. Not like a Gypsy, windblown, her boots muddy. She’d have dressed well to meet him, expecting a motorcar—a carriage at the very least. She hadn’t seemed to be the kind of woman used to rough living.
Everything she needed or might want would be in that valise. So where was it now? What had her killer done with it?