important to use the money for this cottage, a home for the sexton. So the rent covers all the costs. They promised Grandad, the last vicar did, that he could have it for life. Now she wants him out. Sheâs gonna sell it, and the rent from the Clock Fieldâs going to help meet costs. Thatâs what she said to his face: help meet costs. Nice woman.â
There was something wheedling about Vincent Haig that set Drydenâs nerves on edge. When he spoke his shoulders moved as if he was trying to flex an arthritic neck. His manner annoyed Dryden; he was like one of those charity workers who insist on shaking their collecting tin in your face.
âWas the promise made in writing?â asked Dryden.
Vincent Haig looked sideways. âThatâs not how these things work. For Grandadâs generation your word was good enough.â
Drydenâs sympathies were with Albe, but he wondered what they would find if they could spool back to the moment the promise was made. What would they really hear? A cast-iron promise, or just a form of words? It was only human nature, after all, to hear what you wish to hear, and to miss the get-out-clause.
But there was a story here.
Hard-hearted vicar evicts blind man from his home of thirty years.
What made Dryden uncomfortable was the feeling that Vincent Haig had fed him the information, like bait on a hook. It was also an oddly calculating thing to do as they sat surveying a murder scene. Was this really the right time to discuss a row over who paid the rent on Sexton Cottage?
The old man came back with a pot of tea on a tray with three mugs. His movements in the small garden were perfectly calibrated, shuffling between chairs and plant pots without error. As he set the mugs down, his free hand checked the flat surface.
Then he stood looking across the Clock Holt to the church. Dryden wondered what he could see in his mind: a jigsaw of memories, perhaps, in black and white.
âSo you heard the thieves in the night?â asked Dryden.
âBut I didnât hear a gunshot,â said Albe. He shook his head. âThatâs not right, is it? I hear everything.â
Vincent Haig stiffened in his seat and set his hand on the table edge, the fingers splayed. Dryden saw that the top of his right index finger was missing â just a half-inch.
âWhat
did
you hear?â asked Dryden.
âThey were good; I said to that copper they were professionals. I didnât hear a van, nothing on the road at all. But to get the lead off they needed to lever it off the rafters, where itâs been pinned down. I heard that.â He pulled the lobe on his right ear.
âDid you look?â
It was the wrong thing to say but the old man was nodding. âI went to the bedroom window. They were up and down in ten minutes. They tried to keep quiet, but there were a few words.â
âEnglish?â
Albe Haig shook his head. âForeigners. People want easy lives now,â he added, and Dryden thought he was searching for his grandsonâs face. âAs if God owes them that. âSpecially foreigners.â
Dryden stiffened, hoping that this man who he liked â admired, even â wasnât going to reveal a bitter prejudice.
âYou donât know that, Grandad,â said Haig, an easy, mocking swagger in his voice. âJust because the one that died was ethnic Chinese, doesnât mean they all were.â Dryden noted Vincent Haigâs careful political correctness.
âI heard them,â said his grandfather. âThe voices travel because theyâre light â like when we had a choir. Not English, something different.â He struggled to find the right word. âGirlish. But men. Chinese, I reckon, like the copper said.â
âHow many?â asked Dryden.
âThree, I think. Unless others didnât speak.â
âBut no argument? You didnât hear shouting?â
Albe Haig sat down. âNo
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