Henrietta Who Part 11

"Was it damaged?"

"I only saw the back."

"Then take a look at the front, Sloan, somehow. I don't care how."

"Yes, sir."

"Bill, will you do something for me?"

Bill Thorpe throttled back the tractor to silence point and started to climb down from his high seat. "Not something." He grinned. "Anything."

In spite of all that had happened, Henrietta smiled.

"Changed your mind about coming to the farm to sleep?" asked Bill. "Mother'll be pleased. She's been worried about you down here on your own these last two nights."

"No, Bill, it's not that." Henrietta pulled her coat round her shoulders. "I'm not leaving Boundary Cottage even for one night."

"It was just that..."

"I feel it's the only link I've got now with things like they used to be."

"I expect you're bound to feel like that for a bit," he said awkwardly. "I daresay it'll wear off after a while."

"No, it won't..."

"I see."

She shook her head. "No, you don't, Bill. But-it's difficult to explain-but the cottage and the things in it are the only things that seem real to me somehow."

"I'm real," said Bill Thorpe. And indeed he looked it, foursquare against the spring sky.

"I know you are. It's not that."

"Well, what is it, then?"

She shivered. "I feel I need to actually see the things I know there. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise what?"

"Otherwise," she said soberly, "I think I shall go out of my mind."

"Here," protested Bill. 'Take it easy. No one can make you leave if you don't want to."

"Can't they just!" retorted Henrietta. "That's what you think, Bill."

"You're a protected tenant," insisted Bill firmly. "No one can make you leave. I'll see to that. Besides, Mr. Hibbs would never turn you out. He's not that sort of man."

"I don't think he would either," said Henrietta slowly. "He's always been very kind." She looked at Bill and opened her eyes wide. "He's always been very kind."

"Yes, yes," said Thorpe impatiently. "I know. I think you're worrying about nothing."

"I'm not." She paused, then "Bill..."

"Yes?"

"I've got something to tell you." She swallowed twice in quick succession. "You're not going to like it."

"Try me," he said evenly.

"The police say Grace Jenkins wasn't my mother." Now it was out she felt better. "And," she added defiantly, "I don't know who was."

In the event his reaction was surprising.

He kissed her.

And then: "You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that."

Henrietta looked up at him in astonishment-he was half a head taller than she was-and said, "Why?"

"I thought it was me."

"You thought what was you?"

"The reason why your mother wouldn't let us get married."

"She wasn't my mother," said Henrietta automatically.

"Exactly." Bill Thorpe was beaming all over his face.

"I don't see what that's got to do with us not getting married."

"Don't you?"

"No."

"Silly." He looked down at her affectionately. "We couldn't get married without her permission because you weren't twenty-one."

"I know that..."

"She couldn't give it."

"Why not?"

"Because she wasn't your mother. You've just said so."

"I never thought of that," said Henrietta wonderingly. "I thought it was only because she wanted me to finish my three years at university."

"And I thought it was because she didn't like Bill Thorpe," said Bill Thorpe ruefully.

"And all the time," whispered Henrietta, "it was because she didn't want me to know I wasn't hers."

"Until you were twenty-one," concluded Thorpe. "I reckon you were to be told then."

She shivered. "Now we may never know."

"Don't you believe it."

"Bill..." tentatively.

"Yes?"

"There must be some... some reason why she didn't want me to know."

He nodded. "Knowing your mother I should say a good reason." He hesitated. "She'd got all this worked out, hadn't she?"

"It rather looks like it. I... I don't know what to think."

Bill Thorpe looked at the sky. It was the subconscious glance of a farmer. "What was it you wanted me to do, then?"

"Take me to Calleford this afternoon."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

"Where are we now, Crosby?"

It was a rhetorical question. Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby were, in fact, walking from Boundary Cottage towards Larking Post Office.

"We thought we didn't know about the mother," responded Crosby. "Now we don't know about the father either."

"Not well put, but I am with you."

"In fact," went on Crosby morosely, "we hardly know anything." He did not like walking.

"We know a woman was killed by a motor vehicle in- er-unusual circ.u.mstances."

They were not far now from the fatal bend in the road. Crosby looked up and down. "You couldn't not see someone on a road as narrow as this."

"No." Sloan reverted to Grace Jenkins. "We know that she was childless."

"But," put in Crosby, "that she pretended not to be."

"Just so," said Sloan. "An interesting situation."

"And that's all we do know," concluded Crosby flatly.

"Try again," advised Sloan, "because it isn't."

Crosby's brow became as furrowed as one of the Thorpe's ploughed fields.

There's something fishy about the photograph and the medals?"

"There is." Sloan was already listing in his own mind the inquiries which would have to be made about the photograph and the medals. "But go back to the woman for a moment..."

Crosby's brow resumed its furrows.

"Why," asked Sloan helpfully, "was she killed?"

There was a long pause. "Search me," said Detective Constable Crosby at long last.

"If Sergeant Gelven wasn't on annual leave, Constable, I wouldn't have to," said Sloan crisply.

"No, sir."

They had pa.s.sed the bad bend now and were walking towards the centre of the village. The Hall lay over on their right, nestled into the folding countryside in the sheltered site selected in their wisdom by its Tudor builders. It would be in the best situation for several miles around and there would have been a spring or a good well nearby.

They walked past the gates. They were well hung and newly painted. Nothing, thought Sloan, gave you as good a view of the state of a property as the gates. Mr. James Hibbs was clearly a man of means who was prepared to pay attention to detail.

"I think we know why she was killed," said Sloan.

The church had come into view now. It, too, was on the right of the road. If Sloan knew anything about landowners there would be a gate through into the churchyard from the grounds of The Hall. The ultimate in status symbols.

"Do we?" said Crosby cautiously.

"You mentioned adoption..."

"Yes, sir."

"There comes a point when-like it or not-it is customary to tell the adopted child the-er-truth about its parents or lack of them."

"Twenty-one," said Crosby.

"Just so. All wrong, of course. The right time is before they can understand."

"Yes, sir. The psychologists say ..."

"I understand," said Sloan coldly, not liking the word, "that you should stress that they are chosen." He looked Crosby up and down. "Not an unhappy accident of fate like everyone else's children."

"No, sir."

They could see beyond the church now to the Rectory and the patch of gra.s.s that presumably did duty as a village green. No one could have called Larking picturesque-which probably meant it was spared a good deal-but it was by no means unattractive.

"I think she was killed because the girl is going to be twenty-one next month."