a tune as she walked briskly along the road towards her uncle’s cottage. She reached Matt’s gate and walked up the neat path between trim flower-borders to the front door. She turned the handle and went in. Half an hour’s pleasant chat with her uncle, leaving in good time to catch the bus outside the pub on the village green.
Three quarters of an hour later she stepped on board the bus. She settled back luxuriously into her seat at the rear.
She looked forward with pleasure to her outing. A ten-minute ride would deposit her in the centre of Cannonbridge, bustling and lively on market day. A good prowl round the shops – mustn’t forget Mrs Foster’s colour shampoo, light golden blonde.
Pity Mrs Foster was going grey so early, she’d had such pretty soft pale hair when Alma first saw her – must be eight years or more now, she calculated with fleeting surprise at the swift passage of the years.
After the shopping, a long browse in the public library, stocking up with the historical romances she loved. Then she would call in, as she did every Thursday, at a little terrace house in an Edwardian crescent behind the library, to have a substantial high tea with Rosie Trewin, a friend she had known for some years. Rosie used to work at the pub by the green in Abberley, but she’d left a couple of years ago to marry a Cannonbridge man; they now had a six-month-old baby.
Alma opened her handbag and took out a fruit pastille; she popped it into her mouth. At the prospect of the afternoon and evening before her she sighed with pleasure. What more could anyone reasonably ask?
Seventy miles away in Lowesmoor a church clock struck three quarters. Gerald Foster paused for a moment and glanced at his watch, then he resumed his careful pacing of the building site, the third of four he had driven over to see.
He always inspected and assessed on his own, couldn’t tolerate an agent at his heels, interfering with the keen flow of calculation through his brain.
Gerald considered Lowesmoor a vigorous, thrusting town, poised for expansion, definitely a place to invest in. He left the site and climbed a small eminence nearby in order to view the terrain from above. No insoluble problems, no difficulties with access, altogether satisfactory.
He went back to his car and drove slowly about the district, gauging the tone and character of the neighbourhood. When he was satisfied, he found a phone kiosk and rang the agent’s office. It was now almost half past five.
‘I’m ready to talk terms,’ he told the agent. ‘What about dinner at my hotel this evening?’ Tomorrow was already mapped out and Gerald wasn’t a man to watch with any pleasure the long hours of evening slip unprofitably away in idle recreation.
‘Good idea,’ the agent said, and they arranged a time. The agent was a bright young fellow, a bachelor, still under thirty.
He pondered for an instant the possibility of suggesting to Foster a visit after dinner to one of the local night spots. There was a new place of which he’d heard encouraging reports, dim lights and bright girls. But after a moment’s reflection he dismissed the idea. Foster didn’t strike him as the type to welcome the suggestion.
‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘The lounge of the Falcon. A quarter to eight.’
At eight o’clock Alma Driscoll and her friend Rosie Trewin left Rosie’s little terrace house and went along to the local pub for an hour or two while Rosie’s husband obligingly kept an eye on the baby.
At half past ten Alma caught the last bus back to Abberley and made her way along the lane to Pinetrees. She looked in on the old couple, made them hot drinks, settled them down for the night and went off to bed, well pleased with her day.
Next morning she was awake early; she never slept late. By a quarter to seven she was washed and dressed, had tidied her bedroom and was on her way downstairs to make tea and take it up to the old folk.
She wasn’t required to make breakfast or help them to wash and dress. A woman came in from the village at half past seven on alternate Friday mornings to see to all that and to keep an eye on things till the housekeeper returned on the mid-morning bus.
Alma carried the tray up to the main bedroom and knocked softly on the door. They were already awake, looking forward to a cup of tea.
Promptly at half past seven the village woman arrived and Alma was free to go back to Lynwood.
It was a fine morning, clear and mild, with a slight rustle of breeze. She met no one as she walked along the road, but the village was already stirring. She could hear the engine of a farm machine starting up, the lowing of cows, someone calling a dog across the fields.
She rounded a bend in the road and came in sight of Lynwood. The tall mass of the house was sharply outlined against the pearly blue sky. How well it looks standing up there, Alma thought, as she often did, admiring the elegant proportions, the lovely classic lines.
The lights were on in the front bedroom; no other lights showed in the house.
She quickened her pace. Mrs Foster was probably lying awake, restless after a poor night’s sleep, finding time dragging till the door opened and someone carried in a welcome tray of tea.
Not much hope of the poor lady getting an early cup from Miss Jordan, Alma reflected; Miss Jordan was not the earliest of risers. It was usually eight o’clock before she showed her face downstairs, though always neat and trim when she did appear.
Alma reached the Pritchards’ cottage, the nearest dwelling to Lynwood. Ned Pritchard was a retired farmworker, a widower, living with his son Bob who worked as a relief milker in the area. Ned still did a certain amount of work as a jobbing gardener and regularly put in a couple of days a week at Lynwood.
As Alma went past the cottage Bob Pritchard came out of an outhouse, carrying a bucket. He raised his hand and called out a greeting. She waved in reply and gave him a casual friendly word.
She went on up to the house and let herself in. Everything was quiet, no one stirring. She attended first to the cooker, glancing in at the oven to make sure the porridge was nicely done, but clicked her tongue in irritation when she found the porridge wasn’t there.
Oh well, never mind, she thought after a moment. A nice pan of rolled oats wouldn’t take long to cook on top of the stove, Mrs Foster wouldn’t have to mind for once.
She set the pan on the stove, then put the kettle on to boil. She laid a tray and then at last took off her outdoor things. Mrs Foster’s shampoo, she remembered, and put it on the tray beside the milk jug.
A few minutes later she carried the tray quietly up the back stairs. No sound from Miss Jordan’s room – she must still be sound asleep.
As she approached Mrs Foster’s bedroom she caught the sound of the radio, playing music. The poor lady had probably been lying awake goodness knew how long, with only the make-believe jollity of the disc jockey for company.
She knocked at the door. No reply. She knocked again, more loudly. Still no reply. She frowned, knocked again, even more loudly, without result.
She put her mouth against the door panel and said, ‘Mrs Foster – it’s me, Alma. I’ve brought you some tea.’ Only the sound of the music came back to her, light and lilting. She tried the handle but the door was locked.
She set down the tray on a nearby table and went rapidly along the corridor into Mr Foster’s room. She crossed to the
