Free The Salisbury Manuscript by Philip Gooden Page A

daylight.
    ‘Didn’t I predict we’d meet again?’ said the Canon. ‘Salisbury is a small place. How did you find The Side of Beef and that chatterer Jenkins?’
    ‘The landlord is certainly too curious for comfort,’ said Tom. ‘But the food is good and the bed isn’t hard and it will more than do.’
    ‘Good, good. Now, Mr Ansell, can I direct you somewhere?’
    ‘How did you know I was looking?’
    ‘For sure, you are not one of our visitors come to gawk at the spire. And you are carrying a little case which suggests that you are in the close on business, yet I noticed just now that you were pausing in your progress as if not quite certain where to go next. So ask away.’
    ‘I am searching for Venn House. It’s about here some-where, I believe.’
    Tom gestured towards the ranks of fine houses which lay to the north and west of the cathedral. When he turned back to look at Eric Selby he observed the Canon grimacing as though he had bitten into a sour apple. There was a change in his voice when he answered too. The friendly tone was replaced by something more guarded.
    ‘You are going to see the Slaters, Mr Ansell? Yes, well, obviously you must be if you are searching for Venn House. It’s on the south-west corner of the close, near the end of West Walk. Look out for a fine wall of red brick.’
    Tom thanked him and hesitated as if to give Eric Selby the chance to say more. But the Canon seemed disinclined for further conversation and merely nodded before resuming his own progress towards the north transept of the cathedral. Wondering what it was about the Slaters – about Felix Slater presumably – which caused Selby to look displeased, Tom followed the path that led to to his right. Then he turned into a tree-lined road which he took for the West Walk. There were fewer people about here, it was quieter and seemed more like a country village than a town. A carriage was waiting outside the iron gates of one of the larger mansions. The coachman was huddled up against the sharpness of the morning. A workman passed Tom, pushing an empty hand-barrow. The roadway and the grass verges were speckled with frost in places where the sun hadn’t reached.
    Then Tom saw someone standing outside the entrance to another of the houses, someone whose presence gave him a slight start. It wasn’t that he knew the person. But his uniform showed that he was a police constable. The man was gazing right and left, but with no sense of urgency. He acknowledged Tom with a nod. Had this been his own street or town, Tom might have stopped and asked the constable what was going on. (Not that anything appeared to be going on.) But he was a stranger here. Any crime or wrongdoing was no concern of his.
    Tom went a few paces further then glanced back, conscious of someone walking quickly behind him on the road in the same direction. It was a woman. The policeman was looking at her. Tom turned his head back and felt his face grow warmer. He was fairly sure it was the woman he’d met the previous evening outside The Side of Beef. The same large hat and, he thought, a flash of the same yellow skirt beneath her coat. He recalled that he’d seen her for a second time yesterday, staring up at his room through the fog.
    Now the idea that she had been following him, perhaps since he’d left the inn this morning, seized his imagination. If so, to what purpose? But it was all nonsense. Why should she be following him? She could hardly be intending to proposition him in the cathedral precinct, not on a cold and frosty morning. Not with the presence of a policeman outside a neighbouring gate. He debated for a moment slowing down and allowing her to pass . . . or letting her speak to him, if that was what she wanted. But instead he quickened his pace, on the lookout for the wall which fronted Venn House. When he reached it he would allow himself one quick look behind, to check on the woman’s identity.
    And here, towards the end of the West