Death on a Branch line

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Come five o’clock, we were watching the cricket game.

I stood on the boundary by the three poplars; the wife, being restless, was making a circuit of the ground. I was thinking about how, coming out of the woods, we’d struck two of the coppers in the search party. I’d asked them whether they’d come upon any scent of ‘their quarry’, and one of the two had said, ‘The quarry? That’s over yonder, en’t it?’ which had made me think John Lambert might yet escape them.

We’d just given up a hunt of our own: for young Mervyn. Our best hope seemed to be to find him and hustle him into saying what he knew, but Mervyn was not at his set-up and had evidently not returned to The Angel, for we’d come across Mrs Handley who’d told us that she was also searching for him. She had not been over-anxious, though: the boy was allowed the run of the woods and fields, and would often tramp off to East or West Adenwold and stay out all day.

The cricket game was being played against a great wall of grey sky that was darkening by the minute, and which made the players’ whites seem to glow. A woman I’d never seen before stood by the pavilion twirling a lacy parasol, and I thought: That’ll have to do duty as an umbrella before long. A second charabanc had brought the second team (the two motors were now drawn up alongside the pavilion), and she must have come in with them.

The first innings had ended after a shockingly short period of time, and the Reverend Ridley was giving directions to his team, who — having batted and scored thirty-six — were now about to go out and field.

The pep talk concluded, some of the players performed physical jerks as they strode out, for all the world as if they were about to do something strenuous. There might have been raindrops already flying, or it might just have been the colour of the sky that made me think so.

The players were now all arranged.

A fast bowler ran up and, reaching the wicket, leapt and pedalled his legs as though cycling — seeming, as he rose, to make the shape of a sea-horse in the air. He landed running; the ball flew past the batsman, who turned and watched it rise into the hands of the wicket keeper, who, having caught it, chucked it to another fielder and gave the batsman the evil eye for a while.

Then it all started again.

The wife was now at my shoulder on the boundary.

I asked her: ‘Did you hear what the vicar was saying?’

‘Something to someone about not sending a lot down on the leg side to Pepper. He said they’d be absolutely slaughtered if Pepper got a lot to leg. He’d only have to start glancing at their legs, and they’d all be finished.’

‘I expect Pepper’s the man in bat just now,’ I said. ‘What are the teams called, do you know?’

‘The Enemies and the Friends,’ the wife said, in a vague sort of way.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think you can have that right.’

The wife, pointing at the umpire, asked, ‘Why is the referee wearing two hats? It’s not sunny and he’s wearing two sun hats.’

‘That’s exactly why he’s wearing two,’ I said.

A third ball was bowled. The wicket keeper failed to stop it, and he looked down at his white boots as if he’d never seen them before while another fellow went into the woods to collect the ball.

‘The umpire might end up wearing any number of hats and woollens,’ I said. ‘The players give him whatever they don’t need.’

Another ball was bowled, and the batsman stopped it dead. He did the same again twice more, and then there was a general collapse into chaos as everyone began walking long distances in different directions.

‘What’s going on now?’ said the wife, sounding quite alarmed.

‘End of the over,’ I said.

At the end of the disturbance another bowler stood ready, but the wife was still interested in the umpire.

‘He’s the man in charge of the game?’

‘He is.’

‘How can he command any respect if he’s wearing two hats?’

‘I suppose he must rely on force of character.’

I turned towards the wife, but she was walking away again along the boundary.

‘Hold still,’ I called, for another ball was about to be bowled.

‘Why?’ she called, turning about.

‘You shouldn’t move behind the bowler’s arm,’ I said. ‘It’s distracting.’

‘How can I distract him if I’m behind him and being perfectly quiet?’

‘It distracts the batsman.’

‘What rot,’ the wife said, and she set off again.

Well, we were just lingering out the hot, grey afternoon, wasting the time. I could not influence the wife in the slightest degree, let alone prevent one death and solve the mystery of another. For want of anything better to do I counted the men on the fielding side, going clockwise from the vicar, who stood only a little way from my boundary position. Having counted them once, I did so again.

I could make them only ten.

I began pacing the boundary, as though I might discover another player by viewing the game from a different angle. I had not seen one of them make off during the game. Had they arrived at the ground as ten? But no, the vicar wouldn’t have stood for that.

… It was just that I was that bloody tired. I started counting again as another ball was bowled, and the batsman smashed it for six into the woods. The fielder nearest to me put his hands on his hips and said, ‘Oh my eye.’

One by one, most of the fielding players disappeared into the edge of the woods. The ball was lost. The two batsmen met in the middle of the pitch for a confab, and the wicket keeper took one of his gloves off and examined his hand, which was evidently just as fascinating as his boots. The wife came wandering up to me again.

‘What’s happened now?’

‘They’ve lost the ball.’

She rolled her eyes.

One of the fielders, on the border of the woods, was looking agitated and calling to the others, but it wasn’t until the two batsmen broke off their talk that I knew something was up. I half-ran, half-walked across the pitch, and when I came to the edge of the woods, I saw the players gathered around some object. I could not at first make it out, for they surrounded it, and it lay in long grass. I pushed my way through, and saw in the grass a dead dog. Half its head was perfect, and the other half was not there.

‘Shotgun,’ said one of the cricketers, eyeing me.

The dog was a terrier — Mervyn’s, name of Alfred.