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up there on that ladder, Mrs Aston?’
    â€˜Yes, thank you, Mr Twelvetrees.’ Her reply was automatic. Her eye had been caught by a small greyish area on the plastered wall high above Rufus Fitzroy’s head. It couldn’t be accounted for by the shadow thrown by a wooden beam or carved corbel head. Surely not a damp patch? That was a problem they’d been spared so far. If it was, it would have to be reported to Father Holland.
    â€˜That don’t look too good a ladder to me. You wants to get on to the church to buy a new one.’ The newcomer tapped the ladder with his stick.
    Fat chance, thought Ruth. She really couldn’t ignore that grey patch. Someone would have to inspect it but she couldn’t reach up so far from her stepladder nor did she fancy teetering up there at that height. She’d ask Kevin Jones if he’d bring a long ladder from the farm and climb up and have a look. Kevin was very obliging about that sort of thing.
    â€˜The rain’s stopped. Fair old downpour, wasn’t it?’ Her visitor persisted in his side of the conversation despite the lack of response.
    â€˜I was in here,’ mumbled Ruth.
    He changed tactic. ‘That’s a fine bit of marble.’
    Ruth surrendered. She paused in her labours and climbed half way down her stepladder to where she could turn her head without unbalancing herself.
    There he was, William Twelvetrees, Old Billy Twelvetrees, so-called because there was a Young Billy, his son, even
though Young Billy no longer lived in the village. Old Billy was broad as he was tall and as sturdy as this old church. He had a thick shock of white hair despite his fourscore years. He was red-faced from a lifetime in which every working day had been spent in the fields and every evening in the snug of the Fitzroy Arms. Old Billy’s only infirmities were a dodgy hip, hence the stick, and an occasional spasm of angina which gave him the excuse not to attempt anything strenuous, however minimal. He raised the stick now and pointed it at the monument.
    â€˜I don’t like it much,’ she said. ‘It’s too fancy and morbid.’
    â€˜They knew how to do a proper monument in those days,’ said Billy reproachfully.
    â€˜How are you today, Mr Twelvetrees?’ asked Ruth, refusing to be drawn into a discussion on Georgian funerary art.
    â€˜I still get them twinges.’ Billy tapped his chest. She was spared more detailed medical information because, as it turned out, Billy’s mind was on something else. ‘You seen the police car?’
    Ruth stared at him. ‘Which police car?’
    Though he was pleased that she’d not yet heard the news and he’d be the first to tell her, yet there was a petulance in the way he spoke, as if his daily routine had been upset by the unexpected event with its unknown origins. ‘He come out of the blue, roaring past, near on an hour ago and he hasn’t come back. There’s a speed limit in this village, police or no police. What do they want here, anyway? I looked over and saw you hadn’t left your little house yet. I see your car wasn’t parked out front here, so I reckoned you might not know.’ He put one gnarled finger alongside his nose.

    Ruth, who was a retired teacher of English, thought crossly that of course you couldn’t see something which wasn’t there.
    Old Billy was still grumbling.
    â€˜He ought to be reported. He drove through the village like a bat outa hell. Why ain’t he come back?’
    Ruth glanced apprehensively towards the chancel and murmured, ‘Perhaps you oughtn’t to use that expression in here, Mr Twelvetrees.’
    He brushed this aside. ‘They’ve gone up to the woods, that’s my reckoning. Don’t know what they want up there.’
    â€˜Are you sure?’ Ruth asked sharply. She tried to drive away the unwelcome feeling of something bad about to happen.
    â€˜There’s