Lynley was not about to be played like a fi sh on the line. “What is it you’d like us to know about Ezra Farmington, Mr. Parrish?”

Parrish’s startled glance betrayed that he hadn’t quite been expecting so direct an approach. “Aside from the fact that he’s just the teeniest bit of a village Lothario, there’s what happened on the Teys’s place that you ought to know.”

Lynley found Ezra’s romantic inclinations to be neither here nor there, although obviously they were of interest to Parrish. “What happened on the Teys’s place?” he asked, ignoring the other dangling line.

“Well…” Parrish warmed to his topic but a sad glance at his empty glass cooled the fi res of the story.

“Sergeant,” Lynley said tonelessly, his eyes on the other man, “would you get Mr. Parrish another-”

“Courvoisier,” Parrish said with a smile.

“And one for me.”

Havers obediently left the table. “Nothing for her?” Nigel asked, face wrinkled with concern.

“She doesn’t drink.”

“What a bore!” When Havers returned, Parrish treated her to a sympathetic smile, took a genteel sip of the cognac, and settled down to his story. “As to Ezra,” he said, leaning into the table confidentially, “it was a nasty little scene. The only reason I know about it is that I was out that way. Whiskers, you see.”

Lynley had gone in this direction once before. “The musical dog.”

“Pardon?”

“Father Hart told us that Whiskers liked to lie on the common and listen to you play the organ.”

Parrish laughed. “Isn’t it the absolute devil? I practise my fingers to the bone, dear ones, and my most enthusiastic audience is a farm dog.” His words dealt with the matter in a lambent fashion-as if nothing on earth could really be more amusing. Yet Lynley could see it was a brittle performance, a facade made frangible by the force of a current of bitterness that ran, swift and sure, just beneath the surface. Parrish was working at joviality and rather too industriously.

“Well, there you have it,” he continued. He turned the snifter in his hands, admiring the variety of colours that the cognac produced as it caught the light. “A virtual Sahara of musical appreciation in the village. In fact, the only reason I play at St. Catherine’s on Sundays is to please myself. God knows no one else can tell a fugue from a scherzo. D’you know that St. Catherine’s has the finest organ in York-shire? Typical, isn’t it? I’m sure Rome purchased it personally to keep the RCs in control in Keldale. I’m C of E, myself.

“And Farmington?” Lynley asked.

“Ezra? I don’t think Ezra’s religious at all. Except,” seeing no amused appreciation on Lynley’s face, “what you probably mean is what do I have to say about Ezra.”

“You’ve certainly read me, Mr. Parrish.”

“Ezra.” Parrish smiled and took a drink, perhaps for courage, perhaps for solace. It was difficult to tell. He lowered his voice momentarily, however, and as he did so, a brief glimmer of the real man emerged, brooding and moody. But the chatty gossip replaced him almost at once. “Let me see, loves, it must have been about a month ago when William Teys ran Ezra off the farm.”

“Was he trespassing?”

“Absolutely. But according to Ezra, he has some sort of ‘artistic licence’ that allows him to trespass everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. He was doing what he call ‘light studies’ of High Kel Moor. Your basic Rouen Cathedral sort of thing. Start a new picture every fi fteen minutes.”

“I’m familiar with Monet.”

“Then you know what I mean. Well, the only way-let’s say the quickest way-up to High Kel Moor is right through the woods behind Gembler Farm. And the way to the woods-”

“Was across Teys’s land,” Lynley fi nished.

“Exactly. I was trotting along the road with Whiskers in tow. He’d put in his usual appearance on the common and, as it seemed late to let the old boy find his own way home, I was taking him there myself. I had hoped our darling Stepha might be willing to do the job in her Mini, but she was nowhere to be found. So I had to drag the old thing out there on these poor, stiff legs.”

“You don’t own a car?”

“Not one that runs with any reliablity, I’m afraid. Anyway, I got to the farm and there they were, right in the road having the most god-awful row I’ve ever seen. There was William in his jimjams-”

“Excuse me?”

“His pyjamas, Inspector. Or was it his dressing gown?” Parrish squinted at the ceiling and considered his own question. “It was his dressing gown. I remember thinking, ‘Lord, what hairy legs old William has,’ when I saw him. Quite like a gorilla.”

“I see.”

“And Ezra was standing there, shouting at him, waving his arms, and cursing in ways that must have made poor sainted William’s hair stand on end. The dog got hot into the action and took quite a piece out of Ezra’s trousers. While he was doing that, William ripped three of Ezra’s precious watercolours into shreds and dumped the rest of the portfolio right onto the verge. It was dreadful.” Parrish looked down as he concluded his story, a mournful note to his voice, but when he lifted his head his eyes said clearly that Ezra had got what he’d long deserved.

Lynley watched Sergeant Havers climb the stairs and disappear from view. He rubbed his temples and walked into the lounge, where a light at the far end of the room illuminated the bent head of Stepha Odell. She looked up from her book at his footsteps.

“Have we kept you up to lock the door?” Lynley asked. “I’m terribly sorry.”

She smiled and stretched her arms languidly over her head. “Not at all,” she replied pleasantly. “I was nodding a bit over my novel, however.”

“What are you reading?”

“A cheap romance.” She laughed easily and got to her feet, which, he noticed, were bare. She had changed from her grey church dress into a simple tweed skirt and sweater. A single freshwater pearl on a silver chain hung between her breasts. “It’s my way of escaping. Everyone always lives happily ever after in a romance novel.” He remained where he was, near the door. “How do you escape, Inspector?”

“I don’t, I’m afraid.”

“Then what do you do about the shadows in your life?”

“The shadows?”

“Chasing murderers down. It can’t be a pleasant job. Why do you do it?”

There was the question, he admitted, and knew the answer. It’s penance, Stepha, an expiation for sins committed that you couldn’t understand. “I never stopped to think about it.”

“Ah.” She nodded thoughtfully and let it go. “Well, you’ve a package that’s come. Brought by a rather nasty man from Richmond. He wouldn’t give me his name, but he smelled like a large digestive tablet.”

An apt description of Nies, Lynley thought, as she went behind the bar. He followed. She had evidently been working in the lounge in the late afternoon, for the room was scented richly with beeswax and the yeasty smell of ale. That combination took him right back to Cornwall, a ten-year-old boy hurriedly wolfing down pasties in the kitchen of the Trefallen farm. Such delicacies they were to him, meat and onions folded into a flaky shell, fruit forbidden and unheard of in the formal dining room of Howenstow. “Common,” his father would snort contemptuously. And indeed they were, which was why he loved them.

Stepha placed a large envelope on the counter. “Here it is. Will you join me for a nightcap?”

“Thank you. I’d like that.”

She smiled. He noticed how it curved her cheeks, how the tiny lines round her eyes seemed to vanish. “Good. Sit down then. You look exhausted.”

He went to one of the couches and opened the envelope. Nies had made no effort to put the material in any sort of order. There were three notebooks of information, some additional photographs of Roberta, forensic reports identical to the ones he already had, and nothing whatsoever on Whiskers.

Stepha Odell placed a glass on the table and sat opposite him, drawing her legs up into the seat of the chair.