Free Death on a Branch Line by Andrew Martin

she said. ‘Do you suppose that man from Norwood is connected to the Moroccan business?’ she went on.
    ‘Well …’ I said, for the question knocked me.
    ‘He’s up to devil knows what,’ said the wife. ‘Do you suppose it’s too late for violets?’ she said, as we came out into a clearing.
    We looked about, and I said, ‘That fellow’s made you sit up, hasn’t he? Do I take it you believe something’s going on?’
    ‘No,’ said the wife, ‘I don’t for one minute.’
    I put my hands in my trouser pockets, and eyed her coolly.
    I said, ‘But it’s true about the German papers?’
    She nodded once, briefly.
    ‘There are fixed agents,’ the wife said cheerfully, ‘and there are travelling agents. The Germans have a brigade of spies in Britain … I’m just thinking of all the lies I’ve read in the newspapers … Honestly, it’s all such rubbish. Why shouldn’t a man have German documents about him? He might be half-German for all we know.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but given what I told you at the inn …’
    She was shaking her head, wouldn’t have it. She had chosen her side in Britain’s battles. The folk who talked up the German menace were the ones who talked down the women’s movement, and you couldn’t believe in both.
    I saw by the presence of telegraph poles that we were hard by the railway line. Swallows flew fast through the evening air, making a high, singing noise as they swooped over the wires. I might once have taken this for the sound of the wires themselves, for I had been told in my early days on the railways that it was possible to hear the electrical signals as they flew from pole to pole. But this was not true. You could not hear the signals however close you stood.
    Just then, two sharp cracks came from the wood; a cloud of birds rose up from it, and moved away to the left like smoke.
    ‘It’s fucking happened ,’ I said.
    ‘You will not …’ said the wife, but I was straight back into the woods and crashing through the branches as a third shot came.
    ‘You there!’ I called out. ‘Police! Stop firing!’
    I felt panic as I clashed through the trees, but my curiosity was stronger than my fear.
    ‘Give over, mister!’ came a high voice through the trees – a boy’s voice. ‘It’s only t’ rabbits I’m after.’
    It was Mervyn Handley, the kid from the inn, but I had to march on for a good half-minute more until I clapped eyes on him. He stood amid fallen trees in the woodsman’s clearing I’d seen from the train, and he held a double-barrelled shotgun pointed down. His powder flasks and shot pouches were too near the fire thatbent the warm air behind him. His ferret – which was tied to the skeleton frame of a steam saw – was too near the terrier that was tied to the thickest branch of a fallen log, the result being that the dog was barking fit to bust, and the ferret was giving a constant thin scream. In the clearing, patches of ferns grew, and there were two dead-straight rows of sunflowers. Some of the timbers had been used to make a low shelter with a tarpaulin slung over the top. At the entrance, I saw a dead rabbit, a woodsman’s bill-hook, a funny paper for boys and a sack.
    The boy was calming the dog – and so also the ferret – as I spoke up.
    ‘Do you know of a John Lambert?’ I asked him.
    The boy nodded.
    ‘Stops up at …’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Up at t’ all.’
    ‘The Hall? Is he the squire, so to speak?’
    Mervyn Handley frowned.
    ‘Well … there’s t’ new man.’
    But surely , I thought, John Lambert – being the eldest son – would have inherited the house? He would be the new man. But this might be a rather complicated matter. I tried a different tack.
    ‘John Lambert’s father died, didn’t he?’
    ‘Aye, mister,’ the boy said, and he looked at me levelly. After an interval, and still eyeing me, he said, ‘Shot to death.’
    ‘And who shot him?’
    Silence for a space. Then the boy said:
    ‘His son. Master