Free Walking Into Murder by Joan Dahr Lambert

wool merchants made great fortunes and invested them in churches and other town buildings. Laura strolled slowly along, enjoying the antiquity that surrounded her. Some of the houses lining the cobbled street were so old they leaned against each other at odd angles. Glorious riots of flowers spilled from their front gardens and from the enormous pots hanging above them.
    It was all so different from her neighborhood, Laura mused, where no one seemed to have time to grow flowers, and even when they did, their gardens didn’t flourish as they did here. Houses weren’t spread across the countryside as in American suburbs either, but were clustered in villages where people could walk to the butcher, the baker, the vegetable stand and the news agent.
    Wishing nostalgically that she could too, Laura strolled on to the marketplace, the oldest structure in the village. It had a thickly thatched roof but no sides. Looking down, she saw that the stones under her feet were pitted and hollowed by the hard boots of generations of farmers and villagers. It seemed to her that she could feel the pulsation of all those lives coursing up to meet her. Not all of them were happy lives, either, she reflected, spotting the old wooden stocks where miscreants had their heads and arms thrust through holes and clamped there. The villagers came to gape or throw rotten produce at their helpless victims.
    Fanning out in all directions from the town center were the sheep alleys. Long ago wool merchants had driven their sheep from the surrounding fields through these alleys into the marketplace. Laura ducked into one of them and was immediately enclosed in a tunnel where sunlight never penetrated. The walls on each side rose far above her head, and the alley was so narrow that when a woman came the other way Laura had to squeeze flat against the cold stones to let her pass. Narrowness was the point, she supposed. The sheep had no choice but to head for the other end and whatever fate awaited them.
    Time for a coffee break, she decided, and eyed the shops clustered around the square in search of a bakery. Some windows featured fine antiques or gifts; others offered tourist trinkets or more prosaic fare, like the great hunks of meat hanging on hooks in the butcher’s window and the rows of beautiful fresh vegetables on the greengrocer stand. There was also an ironmonger’s, which turned out to be a hardware store. Remembering her need of the night before, Laura bought a flashlight.
    The window next door was filled with mouth-watering pastries and cakes, and the interior looked dim and cozy. Perfect, Laura decided. She regarded her mud-covered boots with disfavor. They weren’t fit to go in anywhere, so she took them off and left them just outside the door.
    A bell tinkled faintly as she opened the door, and a beaming face appeared from behind a curtain. “Take any table you like,” the woman said. “I’ve just opened, and you’re my first customer.”
    “Thank you,” Laura sank down gratefully into a creaky chair. “I’ve been walking and it’s good to sit.”
    “What can I bring you?” The woman smiled again. “I’ve just made some scones, if that tempts, and there’s clotted cream and jam.”
    Laura could smell them and was definitely tempted. “I would love some!”
    “I’ll get them right away. Coffee or tea?”
    “Coffee, I think,” Laura answered. The woman, whose name was Maude according to the pin on her apron, bustled away and soon returned with a pot of coffee and two of the biggest scones Laura had even seen.
    ‘These look delicious,” Laura told her, lathering them with clotted cream and jam, and pouring a steaming cup of coffee.
    “On your own, then, are you?” Maude asked comfortably. “Must be peaceful, I should think.”
    Laura laughed. Yesterday had hardly been that. “Most of the trip has been,” she answered, “but I got lost yesterday and that wasn’t peaceful at all.”
    Maude looked alarmed. “Dreadful,