by Ellis Peters
He didn’t resent that; it was, after all, badinage of a kind rather flattering to his ego. He was busy arranging within his mind what he could and could not tell, and stepping delicately round the places where they overlapped, and by the time George came in, closed the door, and sat down beside the bed, Bossie was ready for him.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked George. ‘Fit to talk about it?’
‘Yes.’ He had made up his mind to that, but there was still a certain tentative look about him, as though a degree of editing was going on behind his corrective lenses. His right cheek was grazed and swollen, but the damage was not great, and beauty had never been Bessie’s long suit. ‘I was walking home from the bus,’ he began briskly, for this was only the preface to the real story, ‘and I was just past the end of the lane from the farm, when all of a sudden this car came rolling down the slope and out on to the road, and turned after me. There hadn’t been a sound until then. He never switched on his engine or his lights until he was out, and then he came straight at me. I jumped for the hedge, but the wing hit me and knocked me down, and I was sort of stunned.’
‘And he stopped when he was past you?’ prompted George.
‘Yes, a few yards past. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move, and I could see his rear lights right in front of me.’
‘So it looks, doesn’t it, as if he meant to do the right thing, and stop and salvage you, and report the accident, if he hadn’t lost his nerve when he heard another car coming? You know, don’t you, that Mrs Rainbow’s car came along, and she called the ambulance and the police, and came down here with you?’
‘No, really? Was that who it was?’ Momentarily sidetracked into the recollection of all that indignant beauty bending sympathetically over him, Bossie gaped and dreamed. ‘You know, I don’t remember ever seeing her close to, before, only going past in the car. She didn’t come to church, only once or twice.’ Not surprising, thought George; Rainbow’s preoccupation was her respite. ‘But it wasn’t like that,’ said Bossie returning to the matter in hand. ‘It wasn’t an accident. And he didn’t stop because he’d hit me – he stopped because he’d missed me. He stopped to have another go.’
After a moment of silence, though not of complete disbelief, George said reasonably: ‘You’ll have to justify that, you know. Go into detail. There must be certain things that have given you that impression. Now you tell me. You were lying half-stunned, but you say you could see his rear-lights only a few feet away. Then you must also have been able to see his number-plate, though you may not be able to recall it now.’
‘No,’ said Bossie, with a hint of satisfaction, ‘I not only don’t remember, I never saw his number. There was only a blank between the rear lights. Dull, like sacking. I think he’d got his number-plates covered.’
‘He’d get picked up if he was seen on populated roads like that.’ But he was on a road practically deserted at night, and it wouldn’t take many minutes to swathe a number-plate, or many minutes to uncover it again, once safely away from the spot. ‘Go on, you’ve got something more to say, haven’t you?’
‘He started backing the car,’ said Bossie.
George forbore from pointing out the grisly reasons why no sane assassin, having failed in a forward hit, would then back over his victim, but Bossie’s next delivery was unnerving evidence that he had thought of them for himself.
‘Oh, not straight towards me, over to my left. He started backing past me. His front wheels were about by my shoulder when he suddenly changed his mind and shot off at speed and left me there, and I only realised then that there was another car coming along from the village, and he’d heard it and run for it. Before they could come on the scene and get a look at him. If they hadn’t come,’ stated Bossie positively, ‘he was going to straighten out again behind me – nothing would have shown on the road – and run me over. It would have passed for a hit-and-run, and if he got away all right he’d have plenty of time to clean up the car.’
‘So what you’re asking me to believe,’ said George neutrally, ‘is that somebody was actually lying in wait for you there. Expressly for you. Well, before we go into that, can you give us anything on the car? Registration, obviously not, but anything about it? Description, colour, size?’
Bossie showed embarrassment for the first time; of all the things this noticing child failed to notice, mechanical objects held the least interest for him, even in broad daylight, and this had happened in the dark. ‘Middling-sized,’ he hazarded dubiously, ‘and dark, but I never really saw what it was like. But it had a good sort of sound when it took off – you know, quiet and fierce…’
‘Hmmm, pity, but let it go. Now, if this was a deliberate attempt on you – you are saying that, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Bossie with finality.
‘Then how would the person concerned know you’d be passing there at that time?’
‘I think,’ said Bossie carefully, ‘he followed the bus up from Comerford, or maybe from somewhere in between. There was a car went past just as I was getting off the bus. I did have a sort of feeling I heard the same sound again, ahead, when I was walking home. I’m better at sounds, you see, I notice them more. If that was him, he’d have had time to get into position before I got near the place.’
‘In which case he’d have to know in advance who you are, where you live, which way you’d be walking.’
‘I think he does. Even which night I go to music-lesson. It isn’t often I’m out in the dark on my own, he’d need to do his homework on that, wouldn’t he?’
The surprising child was actually becoming involved in this puzzle, even enthusiastic about it. From the safety of a bed in hospital the terrifying aspects were gratifyingly distant and vague. Sitting snugly here under police protection, he was beginning to feel like the hunter instead of the hunted.
‘Right, now tell me one good reason,’ said George gently, ‘why anyone in the world should be lying in wait for you – specifically you! – with murderous intent?’
‘Because,’ said Bossie, taking the plunge, ‘I was hanging about in the churchyard the night Mr Rainbow was killed, and he’s afraid I may be able to identify him.’
He was relieved to observe that there was going to be no out-and-out disbelief, no exclaiming, no time wasted in casting doubts on his memory or his veracity. George merely asked at once: ‘And can you?’ Bossie approved that. First things first.
‘No, that’s the hell of it, I don’t know a solitary thing that would pick him out from anybody else. But he can’t be sure of that, can he? Because I did see him, if you’d call it seeing, when it was among the trees there, and pitch-dark.’ He gazed rather deprecatingly at George, and said apologetically: ‘It’s a long story. I ought to have told you before, but we were scared. But it was only a leg-pull to start with, we never meant to do any harm.’
‘Suppose you tell me now? Do you want to wait until your parents come? They’ll be in to collect you in an hour or so, you can hang on until then if you like. Or we can have in Sergeant Moon and listen to it now, if that’s what you want.’
Bossie scorned the idea that he needed his hand held while he trotted out his confession. ‘They won’t mind you and Sergeant Moon,’ he assured George generously. ‘I’d rather you heard it first.’ The protecting arm of the law might be valuable in more directions than one.
‘All right, then, that’s what we’ll do.’ And George went to summon the sergeant, who came in placidly nursing a notebook, and greeted the patient with a cheerful lack of condescending pity. He had known him from birth.
‘A fine how-d’you-do you set up for us last night,’ he said accusingly, and against all regulations made himself comfortable on the bed. ‘You can tell the docs aren’t worrying about you, or they wouldn’t turn us loose on you. All right. I’m set. Get on with it.’
Bossie squared himself sturdily back against his pillows, and got on with it.
‘It started with an idea I had, when nobody seemed to kno
w what to do to get rid of Mr Rainbow.’ The infelicity of this opening, luckily, did not strike him. ‘Nobody liked him, everybody wanted him to up-anchor and go away somewhere else, but nobody was doing anything about it, and the longer he hung on, the harder it was going to be to shift him. So I had this idea. I thought if we trailed some bait for him, some sort of an antique, and made a fool of him in front of everybody, that was the one thing he wouldn’t be able to stand. Like these art critics, after they’ve been had for suckers by fake pictures. Well, I had a thing I thought might do the trick. It was a leaf of real parchment, with bits of at least one lot of writing on it in Latin, only I think it had been cleaned, but not very well – you know, to use again. It was pretty faint, anyhow, but it was really old, and I did it up for him specially. I borrowed one of Dad’s books for a copy, and cooked up just a few words in Latin here and here, sort of half faded out, so you could just read a bit about some land with its ’purtenances, and I got in the word “gold”, I knew that would fetch him. And at choir practice I stayed behind and showed this to him, and told him where I’d found it, and asked him what it was all about, and if it was important…’
‘And where did you find it?’ asked George, as Bossie paused for breath. ‘You told him. You haven’t told us.’
‘In one of those old chests up above the bell-ringers’ room,’ said Bossie without hesitation. ‘I was up there with Mr Llewelyn, you know, when he went to take the swarm that got in there.’
‘Why hadn’t you shown it to the vicar, or your father?’
‘I never thought much about it, I just kept it as a trophy. I still don’t think it’s anything much,’ said Bossie, shrugging it off with disdain, ‘but I made it look good for him. And he bit like anything. He behaved very offhand, but I knew he was interested. He said he’d take it home and study it properly, and he asked me if I’d shown it to anyone else, and when I said no, he said better not, until we found out whether it was of any importance, but he doubted if it would be. So I knew if it looked good to him he was going to keep it for himself. It didn’t really matter, though, whether he went rushing to the vicar to boast of a great find, or hung on to it and never said a word, because either way we could show him up for a fool or a thief, and either way he’d be the laughing-stock of the place. He’d never stand that, he’d pull up his roots and go right away. That’s what everybody wanted,’ said Bossie simply, ‘but they left it to us to do something about it.’
‘But for heaven’s sake,’ said George helplessly, ‘how could you hope to take him in? He can’t be an expert on everything, but at least he’d know a genuine membrane of parchment when he saw one – ’
‘But it was, you see! According to Dad’s books, the writing on it, what you could make out, was about thirteenth century. So I made my bits from a copy rather later, to be on top of the old one. It looked pretty good. Anyhow, he took it fast enough, didn’t he?’
‘Quite! He wouldn’t pass up the chance, however small, I suppose. But it wouldn’t take him long to see through it. Even the modern ink would give you away.’
‘It wouldn’t, you know. Oh, it wasn’t proper thirteenth century ink, but it was seventeenth – I got the recipe out of The Compleat Houfewife, with walnut-shells and skins and all, and oak-galls. It came up a sort of faded brown. He might think it a bit fishy, but he wouldn’t find it was modern, because it wasn’t. And I cut a proper quill to do the writing with. And he was taken in! He must have been, because the next week at choir practice— That was the night it happened,’ said Bossie, suddenly stricken at the recollection. ‘I asked him if it was anything special, and he said no, it turned out to be quite worthless. But he didn’t give it back! And after practice he stayed behind, and he’d asked me specially where these chests were. We were all going along home, and I heard the organ playing again, and I knew he was staying behind to have a look up there privately. So I went back. I was wary of going in, so I just waited among the trees, where I could watch the door. I knew I should hear when the organ stopped, and then I was going to creep into the porch and watch what he did. But I gave him a few minutes to come down from the organ, and I was just on my way to the door when somebody came walking out.’
‘Somebody came out? Mr Rainbow himself?’
‘No, it wasn’t him. I thought at first it must be, and after all he was just going home, quite innocently. But I had to duck out of sight myself round a corner, not to be spotted, so I never did get a look at whoever that was. But I realised at once it couldn’t be Rainbow, because he didn’t stop to lock up, he just walked out of the lych-gate and went away. Then I didn’t quite know what to do, but I hung around for a bit, and I was just making up my mind to go home and forget it, when he fell. Crashing down among the grave-stones. I didn’t even understand what it was that had fallen, I thought a piece of the parapet must have dropped off. I was even going round that way to have a look, when I heard somebody else coming along between the tombs from the church door. I was among the bushes, a fairish way off, and I lay low there, and saw this sort of dark, stooping shape hurrying along, almost running. But that’s all it was, just a shape. Then he stooped, and stooped down lower, and switched on a flashlight, and his other hand was just turning up something to look at it in the light. I knew the way it moved it wasn’t stone, and then I saw it was Mr Rainbow’s face. He was dead,’ said Bossie, flat-voiced and huge-eyed, ‘I knew he was dead. He couldn’t have been anything else.’
‘What about this chap standing over him?’ demanded Sergeant Moon briskly, deflecting the fixed gaze to a more bearable target. Bossie blinked and shook himself, and ceased to stare.
‘It was very dark, and the torch went out very quickly, and made it seem even darker. I just don’t know! I’ve been trying and trying to think of anything special about him, but I couldn’t even tell whether he was tall or short, he was stooping and running. I’m sure it was a man, but that’s all I’m sure of. Honestly, if he thinks I could recognise him again, he’s crazy. But he’d be even crazier to take the risk. wouldn’t he?’
‘Assuming he knew you were there at all, yes,’ agreed George cautiously. ‘But up to now there’s no reason to suppose that he did.’
‘Oh, yes, he knew. I was in the bushes, and I must have made some movement that made them rustle, because this man suddenly straightened up and seemed to be staring right at me, and I just turned and ran for it, and I knew he was coming after me, and then after all he stopped, and I just went like a bat out of hell for home.’
‘There you are, then,’ said Moon with monumental calm. ‘He may know there was somebody there watching, but he still doesn’t know who.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Bossie, with a superiority at once smug and desperate, ‘he does. It wasn’t till I got home I found I’d lost my copy of the anthem we’d been practicing. It was Locke – “Turn Thy Face from my sins,” ’
‘Very appropriate,’ murmured Moon, but Bossie was not to be soothed or diverted.
‘I had it folded and stuck in my blazer pocket, you see, and it was too long, and stuck out rather a way, and it must have fallen out while I was running. I looked for it the next day, after you’d all finished and gone away, but I never found it, and I bet you didn’t, either. Because I reckon he found it first. It had my name and address on it,’ said Bossie, between terror and triumph.’ That’s why he was waiting to come at me out of the farm lane, last night.’
CHAPTER SIX
« ^ »
Well,’ said George later, when Bossie had been handed over to his parents, and they were comparing notes in sober retirement, ‘true or false? You’re the expert, you know Bossie better than I do. How much of that story are we to take absolutely seriously?’
‘All of it,’ said Moon. ‘We can’t afford not to. He isn’t a liar, he’s never had to be, not having had the slightest reason to be scared of telling all to his folks. But there are one or two things that bother me. I’d say it was the truth, but not necessarily nothing but the truth, and probably
not the whole truth. Anyhow, Sam confirms that Bossie asked about early scripts, and borrowed a book from him, and was shut up with it over a couple of evenings, concocting this fake of his. He’ll have to come clean to his parents now, maybe they’ll get more out of him.’
‘He certainly had a genuine leaf of parchment, or Rainbow would never have been hooked. He told Rainbow he’d found it among the junk in the tower, and Rainbow shrugged it off as junk like the rest, but he didn’t give it back, and he discouraged further interest in it. It really looks as if he may have intended – even begun – searching through the rest of the stuff up there. Hunting for more of the same?’
Sergeant Moon shook his head dubiously. ‘Even if manuscripts weren’t his forte, he could hardly be taken in by Bessie’s little effort. I don’t believe it for a moment – even if it were a marvel in its way.’
‘Neither do I, Jack. But don’t forget this was a genuine leaf, with the incompletely erased traces of previous use on it. Maybe Rainbow saw through Bossie’s palimpsest in more ways than one, and saw something he thought might turn out to be very valuable indeed. Because it looks as if he went hunting where he was told this leaf had been found. What did he think he’d got hold of? One membrane of some church accounts? A leaf of a chronicle? A poem or a lampoon of the time? That sort of thing could send an antiquarian up the wall, let alone up the tower. It might even get him killed, if somebody else with the same acquisitive instincts nosed in on the scent.’
Sergeant Moon eyed him steadily in silence for some minutes, and thought about it. ‘It fits. But we’re back to the point that was sticking in my gullet. Bossie says he found that among the oddments in that chest. If what you’ve just suggested is anywhere near the truth, and that thing we’ve never set eyes on was a real find from centuries back, then Bossie never found it where he said he did. We’ve been through all that lot, interesting enough, but not a thing there goes back beyond seventeen-seventy, and most of ’em are Victorian. Why should one leaf survive there on its own? And how could the Victorians miss it, when they made the place over and dumped their own contemporary magazines? No, not a chance. That isn’t where he got it.’
