thirty and dressed pretty dapper for a copper. Was he a nancy boy? But then he saw the way Sixsmith looked atHannah the barmaid, polishing glasses at the bar, and knew he was not for sure. Sixsmith came up to him and introduced himself then Jenny to the publican. They all shook hands.
There was no one in the pub as yet other than the staff and Jethroe. Sixsmith told it like it was, ‘We’re setting up here in your pub,’ and took out his ID to flash it under Jethroe’s eyes.
‘Who’re you investigating?’ he asked, although he knew very well it had to be Olivia.
‘Look, Mr Wiley, we want to be as discreet as possible about what we’re doing here. My boss is out strolling around the village now. I think you’d better ask him on his return. But in the meantime we have a hell of a lot of equipment to get up and running. Can you give us a hand?’
That was all it took. Jethroe was intrigued. Liked the idea of being once more on the fringes, a voyeur policeman, part of the detective’s game. He very nearly forgot he had no intention of allowing Olivia to be captured, any more than anyone else in the village did. Not that any of them had come out and said as much. They hadn’t needed to.
Jethroe’s perverse nature was amused. He saw himself as a double agent, so to speak, playing the law at its own game to make sure Olivia was safe. Then for a few minutes he forgot about playing games and felt cut to the heart, the very soul, because he knew instinctively he would never see or hear from her again.
Harry Graves-Jones greeted several people on his tour of the village. They rightly assumed he was one of The Fox’s guests. There was something more romantic than chocolate box English countryside about the place. Its situation was certainly beautiful but far from a stereotype. Life here seemed to be idyllic but lived in slow motion. Harry passed the school house and was impressed to see it was still in use though closed for the summer holiday.
In a back street he came upon a butcher’s shop and smiled at the sight of the butcher with his straw boater. Two cars arrived one after the other and he watched a pair of elderly couples enter the shop. The greengrocer’s was across the narrow cobbledstreet and Harry saw that the stock was all organically grown by local market gardens.
Back in the centre of the village, he saw several people with shopping baskets over their arms, a few toddlers who should have seemed out of place but didn’t. A tall, slender woman with jet black hair tied back in a chiffon scarf caught his eye. A floppy bow at her ear sprang up and down with her every stride. She was dressed in a thin white linen dress and the sun behind her outlined a slender yet sensuous body. Life, passion, an awareness of self, seemed to be pumping through her veins like blood. Now
she
was more like a reason for Olivia to seek help here than anything he had seen so far.
The woman wore no make-up save for her dramatically accentuated almond-shaped eyes. She seemed to emanate power and intelligence and there was about her a sexiness that spoke of freedom and joy. It made Harry smile.
He had been sitting close to the edge of the pond on an old weather-worn bench, enjoying the sun and thinking of Olivia. Who had come to her aid in this village? Instinct told him someone or some group of people had spirited her away from this place. Who would be so devoted to her that they would risk a criminal conviction for aiding and abetting a murderer?
Harry rose from the bench and started walking towards the eastern beauty striding into the village from the direction in which the abandoned car had been found. Their eyes met and Harry recognised the woman as being a famous feminist writer and academic who had forged herself a huge career as writer and media pundit with a brand of casuistry that periodically turned male theories upside down. A rebel with a perennial cause. That made his smile even wider.
Would that he could remember
There was no one in the pub as yet other than the staff and Jethroe. Sixsmith told it like it was, ‘We’re setting up here in your pub,’ and took out his ID to flash it under Jethroe’s eyes.
‘Who’re you investigating?’ he asked, although he knew very well it had to be Olivia.
‘Look, Mr Wiley, we want to be as discreet as possible about what we’re doing here. My boss is out strolling around the village now. I think you’d better ask him on his return. But in the meantime we have a hell of a lot of equipment to get up and running. Can you give us a hand?’
That was all it took. Jethroe was intrigued. Liked the idea of being once more on the fringes, a voyeur policeman, part of the detective’s game. He very nearly forgot he had no intention of allowing Olivia to be captured, any more than anyone else in the village did. Not that any of them had come out and said as much. They hadn’t needed to.
Jethroe’s perverse nature was amused. He saw himself as a double agent, so to speak, playing the law at its own game to make sure Olivia was safe. Then for a few minutes he forgot about playing games and felt cut to the heart, the very soul, because he knew instinctively he would never see or hear from her again.
Harry Graves-Jones greeted several people on his tour of the village. They rightly assumed he was one of The Fox’s guests. There was something more romantic than chocolate box English countryside about the place. Its situation was certainly beautiful but far from a stereotype. Life here seemed to be idyllic but lived in slow motion. Harry passed the school house and was impressed to see it was still in use though closed for the summer holiday.
In a back street he came upon a butcher’s shop and smiled at the sight of the butcher with his straw boater. Two cars arrived one after the other and he watched a pair of elderly couples enter the shop. The greengrocer’s was across the narrow cobbledstreet and Harry saw that the stock was all organically grown by local market gardens.
Back in the centre of the village, he saw several people with shopping baskets over their arms, a few toddlers who should have seemed out of place but didn’t. A tall, slender woman with jet black hair tied back in a chiffon scarf caught his eye. A floppy bow at her ear sprang up and down with her every stride. She was dressed in a thin white linen dress and the sun behind her outlined a slender yet sensuous body. Life, passion, an awareness of self, seemed to be pumping through her veins like blood. Now
she
was more like a reason for Olivia to seek help here than anything he had seen so far.
The woman wore no make-up save for her dramatically accentuated almond-shaped eyes. She seemed to emanate power and intelligence and there was about her a sexiness that spoke of freedom and joy. It made Harry smile.
He had been sitting close to the edge of the pond on an old weather-worn bench, enjoying the sun and thinking of Olivia. Who had come to her aid in this village? Instinct told him someone or some group of people had spirited her away from this place. Who would be so devoted to her that they would risk a criminal conviction for aiding and abetting a murderer?
Harry rose from the bench and started walking towards the eastern beauty striding into the village from the direction in which the abandoned car had been found. Their eyes met and Harry recognised the woman as being a famous feminist writer and academic who had forged herself a huge career as writer and media pundit with a brand of casuistry that periodically turned male theories upside down. A rebel with a perennial cause. That made his smile even wider.
Would that he could remember
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