Part 13 (1/2)
”What's that?”
”That she never got it here.”
”Oh?”
”There's some that don't.” She looked round the crowded little store, saleable goods protruding from every square inch of wall and ceiling s.p.a.ce, and lining most of the floor too. ”They like where bigger.”
Sloan saw what she meant. The sales point of the billhook was practically making itself felt.
”Especially,” said Mrs. Ricks in her infinite wisdom, ”if it isn't as much as they'd like you to think. Sergeant, wasn't he?”
Sloan nodded.
Mrs. Ricks sniffed. ”Sometimes they were. Sometimes they weren't.”
Calleford Minster rose like an eminence grise above and behind the cl.u.s.tered shops at the end of Petergate. Mr. Arbi-can of Messrs. Waind, Arbican & Waind would be very happy to see Henrietta but her appointment with him was not until a quarter to three. Farmers as a race lunch early and Henrietta and Bill Thorpe had time to spare.
Henrietta turned towards the Minster. ”It's lovely, isn't it?”
Bill Thorpe turned an eye on the towering stone. ”It's more than lovely. Do you realise it could be useful to you?”
”To me?”
He nodded. ”That chap in the photograph...”
”My father,” responded Henrietta a little distantly.
”He was-what did you say?-a sergeant in the East Cal-les.h.i.+res?”
”That's right. What about it?”
”He was killed, wasn't he?”
She flushed. ”So I understand.”
”Well, then...”
”Well then what?”
”Calleford's their town, isn't it?”
Henrietta sighed. ”Whose town?”
”The East Calles.h.i.+res,” explained Bill Thorpe patiently. ”The Regiment. They've got their barracks here. Like the West Calles.h.i.+res have theirs in Berebury.”
”What if they have?”
He pointed to the Minster. ”If this is their home town then I think we might find their memorial in the Minster here, don't you?”
”I hadn't thought of that,” she said slowly. ”He-my father-'ll be there, won't he?”
Bill Thorpe led the way towards the Minster gate. ”We can soon see.”
The East Calles.h.i.+res did have their memorial in the Minster. Henrietta followed Bill Thorpe into the Minster and down the nave. She lagged behind slightly as if she did not want to be there, glancing occasionally at the memorials to eighteenth-century n.o.blemen and nineteenth-century soldiers.
An elderly verger led them to the East Calles.h.i.+re memorial on the North wall of the North transept.
”It catches the afternoon light just here, you know,” he said. ”Nice piece of marble, isn't it?”
”Very,” said Bill Thorpe politely.
”They couldn't get no more like it,” the man said. ”Not when they came to try. Still, they weren't to know they were going to need a whole lot more less than twenty years later, were they?”
Bill Thorpe nodded in agreement. ”Indeed not. That knowledge was spared them.”
”So that,” went on the man, ”come 1945 they decided they would put those new names on these pillars that were there already. Quite a saving, really, though the money didn't matter, as it happened.” He signed. ”Funny how often it works out like that, isn't it?”
”Very,” said Bill Thorpe.
”The same crest did, too.” It was obvious that the man spent his days showing people around the Minster. His voice had a sort of hushed monotone suitable to the surroundings. ”That's a nice bit of work, though they tell me it's tricky to dust. They don't think of that sort of thing when they design a monument.”
”I suppose not.”
The verger hitched his gown over his shoulders. ”You two come to look somebody up?”
”Yes,” said Bill. ”Yes, we have.”
”Thought so. People never ask unless they particularly want to see someone they was related to.” He looked them up and down and said tersely, ”First lot or second?”
”Second.”
He sucked his breath in through gaps in his teeth. ”It'll be easier to find them.”
” 'An epitaph on an army of mercenaries' ” said Bill Thorpe sadly as the old man wandered off.
Henrietta wasn't listening.
”Bill,” she tugged his sleeve urgently. ”Look.”
”Where?”
She pointed. ”There...”
”It goes,” agreed Bill Thorpe slowly, ”from Inkpen, T. H. to Jennings, C. R.”
”There's no one called Jenkins there at all,” whispered Henrietta.