The Hard Way

CHAPTER 60

LIKE THE GOOD soldier he was Taylor kept his eyes on Reacher long enough to assess the threat level. Pauling’s arrival behind Reacher’s shoulder seemed to reassure him. A well-dressed man, a refined woman, a couple, tourists. He looked away. Turned back to his beer. Beginning to end he had stared only a fraction of a second longer than any man would in a barroom situation. And actually shorter than the farmers. They were slow and ponderous and full of the kind of entitlement a regular patron shows to a stranger.

Reacher led Pauling to a table on the other side of the room from Taylor and sat with his back to the wall and watched the farmers turn back to the bar. They did it one by one, slowly. Then the last one picked up his glass again and the atmosphere in the room settled back to what it had been before. A moment later the bartender reappeared. He picked up a towel and started wiping glasses.

Reacher said, “We should act normally. We should buy a drink.”

Pauling said, “I guess I’ll try the local beer. You know, when in Rome.”

So Reacher got up again and stepped over to the bar and tried to think back ten years to when he had last been in a similar situation. It was important to get the dialect right. He leaned between two of the farmers and put his knuckles on the bar and said, “A pint of best, please, and a half for the lady.” It was important to get the manners right too, so he turned left and right to the four farmers and added: “And will you gentlemen join us?” Then he glanced at the bartender and said: “And can I get yours?” Then the whole dynamic in the room funneled toward Taylor as the only patron as yet uninvited. Taylor turned and looked up from his table as if compelled to and Reacher mimed a drinking action and called, “What can I get you?”

Taylor looked back at him and said, “Thanks, but I’ve got to go.” A flat British accent, a little like Gregory’s. Calculation in his eyes. But nothing in his face. No suspicion. Maybe a little awkwardness. Maybe even a hint of dour amiability. A guileless half-smile, a flash of the bad teeth. Then he drained his glass and set it back on the table and got up and headed for the door.

“Goodnight,” he said, as he passed by.

The bartender pulled six and a half pints of best bitter and lined them up like sentries. Reacher paid for them and pushed them around a little as a gesture toward distribution. Then he picked his own up and said, “Cheers,” and took a sip. He carried Pauling’s half-sized glass over to her, and the four farmers and the bartender all turned toward their table and toasted them. Reacher thought: Instant social acceptance for less than thirty bucks. Cheap at twice the price. But he said, “I hope I didn’t offend that other fellow somehow.”

“Don’t know him,” one of the farmers said. “Never saw him before.”

“He’s at Grange Farm,” another farmer said. “Must be, because he was in Grange Farm’s Land Rover. I saw him drive up in it.”

“Is he a farmer?” Reacher asked.

“He don’t look like one,” the first farmer said. “I never saw him before.”

“Where’s Grange Farm?”

“Down the road apiece. There’s a family there now.”

“Ask Dave Kemp,” the third farmer said.

Reacher said, “Who’s Dave Kemp?”

“Dave Kemp in the shop,” the third farmer said, impatiently, like Reacher was an idiot. “In Bishops Pargeter. He’ll know. Dave Kemp knows everything, on account of the post office. Nosy bugger.”

“Is there a pub there? Why would someone from there drink here?”

“This is the only pub for miles, lad. Why else do you think it’s so crowded?”

Reacher didn’t answer that.

“They’re offcomers at Grange Farm,” the first farmer said, finally completing his earlier thought. “That family. Recent. From London, I reckon. Don’t know them. Organic, they are. Don’t hold with chemicals.”

And that information seemed to conclude what the farmers felt they owed in exchange for a pint of beer because they fell to talking among themselves about the advantages and disadvantages of organic farming. It felt like a well-worn argument. According to what Reacher overheard there was absolutely nothing in its favor except for the inexplicable willingness of townsfolk to pay over the odds for the resulting produce.

“You were right,” Pauling said. “Taylor’s at the farm.”

“But will he stay there now?” Reacher said.

“I don’t see why not. Your big dumb generous American act was pretty convincing. You weren’t threatening. Maybe he thought we’re just tourists looking at where our dads were based. They get them all the time here. That guy said so.”

Reacher said nothing.

Pauling said, “I parked right next to him, didn’t I? That farmer said he was in a Land Rover and there was only one Land Rover in the lot.”

Reacher said, “I wish he hadn’t been in here.”

“This is probably one of the reasons he chose to come back. English beer.”

“You like it?”

“No, but I believe Englishmen do.”

Their sandwiches were surprisingly good. Fresh crusty home-made bread, butter, rare roast beef, creamy horseradish sauce, farmhouse cheese on the side, with thin potato chips as a garnish. They ate them and finished their beers. Then they headed upstairs to their room. It was better than their suite in Bayswater. More spacious, partly due to the fact that the bed was a full, not a queen. Four feet six, not five feet. Not really a hardship, Reacher thought. Not under the circumstances. He set the alarm in his head for six in the morning. First light. Taylor will stay or Taylor will run, and either way we’ll watch him do it.