perhaps to disengage themselves from the scene of the tragedy (or from Macalvieâs stare), several of the villagers repaired to the pub, there to overhaul their former estimate of life in sleepy little Wynchcoombe.
âPretty place,â said Macalvie, qualifying it with, âif you like this sort of village.â
It was indeed a pretty place, with its stone cottages huddled around the Green and the spire of Wynchcoombe Church rising above it. An enviable peal of bells told them it was six.
âI need a drink,â said Macalvie.
âThe George?â Its sign claimed it to be a fourteenth-century coaching inn.
He grunted. âYou kidding? With all the regulars in there having a crack about what happened? Thereâs a pub a couple miles away I go to when I feel especially masochistic. How Freddie â youâll love Freddie â gets any custom on that stretch of road beats me.â
Macalvie looked off across a ground mist just beginning to rise. âItâs not far from a village called Clerihew Marsh. I want to tell you a story, Jury.â
FOUR
H ELP the Poor Struggler was the pubâs full name, a wretched box of a building on a desolate stretch of road, whose ocher paint had dulled to the color of bracken from the smoke of its chimney pots. Its sign swung on an iron post over its door and the windows were so dirty they were opaque. The building listed from either dry rot or rising damp. Only the desolation of pub and traveler alike would tempt one to join the other.
There was no car park. What custom the pub got had to pull up by the side of the road. Two cars were there when Macalvie and Jury pulled in.
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Brian Macalvie was now pursuing, with what Jury supposed was the customary Macalvie charm, a line of questioning directed at an arthritic, elderly woman who was swabbing down the bar. The âsaloonâ side was separated from the âpublicâ side only by gentlemenâs agreement. The public bar off to the left had most of the action: pool table, video game, Art Deco jukebox that was pummeling the customers with Elvis Presleyâs âHound Dog.â
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âWhereâs Sam Waterhouse, Freddie?â Macalvie didnât so much ask for as demand an answer.
âI donât naw nort,â said Freddie. âYâm mazed as a brish stick, Mac. Dâyuh niver quit?â She was wall-eyed, wattle-armed, and skinny, and with her stubby gray hair sitting in a lick on her head, she reminded Jury even more of a rooster. He guessed her sexual identity had been scratching with the chickens long enough to get lost.
âI never quit, Freddie. You treated Sam like you were his auld mum, the dear Lord help him.â
âHa! Yuâm a get vule, Mac, the divil hisself. Cider hisses when yu zwallers it.â
âHell, this ciderâd hiss on a stone. Youâre thick as two boards and your right hand hasnât seen your left in forty years,â said Macalvie, picking up his cider and moving to a table.
Freddie grinned at Jury. âWhat cân I do ver âee, me anzum?â
Jury grinned back. âIâll try the cider. Youâre only young once.â
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âIt was the stupidist arrest the Devon-Cornwall cops ever made.â Macalvie was talking about the Rose Mulvanney case. âHereâs this nineteen-year-old kid, Sam, whoâs living in Clerihew Marsh and indulging in fantasies, maybe about Cozy Rosie. Rose Mulvanney could start breathing heavy over anything in pants. In the U.S. sheâd freak out in a cornfield over the scarecrows.â
From what Macalvie had told Jury during their drive to the pub, it was certain the divisional commanderâs heart was in America â his mother was Irish-American â even if his body was in Devon. Obsessive as he was about police work, still he took his vacation every