Free Murder in the Afternoon by Frances Brody

bridge. Pausing to watch the fast-flowing water, I could feel myself back in a different age, when the bridge was first built, and the quarry an untouched hill. Something crashed into my legs, startling me out of my reverie.
    It was a black and white dog, a sheepdog, a length of string tied to its neck. The dog wagged its tail, asking to have its head patted. I obliged. It waited with me, and we trotted across the bridge together.
    At the railway line, the dog halted, and looked left and right, then up at me, as if to say, it’s safe to cross. In the distance, a train hooted its way from Horsforth Station.
    I had expected this hamlet to be deserted, except for the farm, but we passed an inn and brewery, and beyond that an abandoned cottage, its roof half collapsed. A brilliant laburnum tree flowered yards from the broken front door that hung by a single hinge.
    After the deserted cottage, the lane narrowed. The east wind treated me to the stench of muck-spreading.
    Beyond the parish boundary stone, a narrower track lay to the right. Dry-stone walls enclosed fields where sheep grazed, nibbling daintily at rough grass, lambs hobblinguncertainly beside them. In the next field, a cow lifted its amiable head, still munching hay as it stared at me.
    The dog waited patiently until I opened the farm gate, and then bounded ahead, leaving me behind.
    The two-storey farmhouse must have been a couple of hundred years old. It looked in good repair, with a solid slate roof. Smoke billowed from the chimney. Round about were several old barns and sheds. A couple of pigs spotted me before I spotted them. They snorted loudly, and a little derisively.
    My feet squelched into foul-smelling mud. After that I was busy watching where I stepped. From the barn to my left came the bleating of a sheep and a low voice.
    ‘Hello?’ I peered in, my eyes taking a moment to become accustomed to the gloom. The friendly dog, now without its string, greeted me.
    The man, whose wild grey hair sprouted from under his cap, knelt beside the silent ewe. He did not turn his head from the task of sticking his hand inside her as he said, ‘You fetched the dog back?’
    Guessing he was not addressing the ewe, I answered, ‘He fetched himself.’
    He nodded at the dog. ‘Where was he?’
    ‘On the bridge.’
    ‘Not like him to disappear.’ The dog looked from him to me, knowing himself to be the subject of conversation. ‘Come on, old girl,’ he cajoled the ewe. ‘You’re righted now.’ He leaned back on his haunches, wiping his hands on an old cloth. A lamb’s head appeared. We both watched as the lamb squeezed itself into the world. The small creature, its pale fleece striped with blood, struggled to find its feet.
    ‘I’m looking for Arthur.’
    ‘Then you’ve found him.’
    ‘I’m Kate Shackleton, helping Mary Jane Armstrong look into the disappearance of her husband. Sorry, I don’t know your last name.’
    ‘Thah needn’t bother wi’ that.’
    ‘Arthur, I believe Harriet came to you in her trouble on Saturday.’
    ‘Aye, and a right bad turn it gave me when she came with her tale.’
    His eyes were on the lamb as it found its feet. ‘I believe she came for Bob Conroy. Was he not here?’
    ‘She brayed on t’farmhouse door all right and come to me when she got no joy.’ He stood up and stretched. ‘I were milking.’ He gestured at the ewe. ‘This ’int my job. I’m herdsman but it’s that kind of set up here, all turn our hands as necessary.’
    ‘It was kind of you to go with her.’
    ‘Course, Ethan weren’t there.’ Arthur took out his pipe as he watched the ewe lick the lamb’s head. ‘I’m glad young Harriet didn’t find Bob Conroy.’
    ‘Why’s that?’
    ‘Don’t thah know? Bob’s own younger brother Simon met his end in that quarry last lambing time.’
    ‘What happened?’
    Arthur struck a match on a stone. ‘He got word that a lamb strayed into the quarry. It were a Sunday, so no quarrymen about. Simon