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over-curious strangers, he thought, almost smiling.
    There was more to see of Sleath if he proceeded north, but he had already spotted what he’d been looking for and besides, there would be plenty of time later to reconnoitre. He drove past more quaint dwellings and the three shops - a post office, a hardware store, and a butcher’s - that the green bus had stopped in front of earlier, and pulled up outside the Black Boar Inn.
    A faded painting of the inn’s namesake, its tusks fairly bristling along with the dark hairs on its back, its eyes glaring down at him, hung from a bracket over the main door. There were benches outside the inn, presumably for customers who liked to observe the world passing by as they imbibed; they were unoccupied, but then not much of the world was passing by at that particular hour.
    Ash took a moment to study the inn before leaving the car: the façade was timber-framed with red bricks, certain sections of these laid in a herringbone pattern, infilling the close-set studs; all the windows were leaded and wisteria, with drooping racemes of purple-blue pea-flowers, climbed up from the ground to cling to the walls around them while still leaving large segments of wood and timber exposed for admiration. Again he wondered how the tourist guides had missed this place and hoped the interior wouldn’t be a disappointment.
    Ash stepped out onto the pavement and locked the car. The sign above him creaked as it was swung by a rogue breeze, and he took another, more leisurely look. The animal was depicted in all its natural ferocity, but time and weather had tempered the effect.
    He entered the Black Boar Inn and the escape from the sun’s fresh-found brightness came as a relief. Inside it was cool andshadowy, although rays of sunshine had just begun to blaze though the windows onto the worn red-patterned carpet. There were two bars, lounge and public, both attractive in their own way, the latter gloomy with wood panelling yet welcoming, the former brightened by cream walls, stout scarred beams, and the sun-filled windows themselves. In this, the lounge bar, there were high-backed settles to protect drinkers from cold draughts, and at the far end was a large inglenook fireplace fitted with leather-covered brick benches at the sides and shelves behind, presumably where food would have been kept warm in another era. Naturally there was no fire burning, but logs were piled high in the grate. The counter itself was of polished oak with brass pumps set on its top, and it stretched through both bars, a low panelled partition dividing the two. Neither bar was busy with customers at that time of day: an elderly couple sat drinking coffee in a settle by the window, while a late-middle-aged man sporting a check jacket and olive-green corduroys read a broadsheet newspaper at one of the lounge’s small round tables. At a corner table sat two other men, deep in conversation until they noticed him by the door. One wore spectacles and looked to be in his sixties, while the other might have been a little younger, his dark hair greying at the temples. He was big-framed and wore a black suit and open-necked shirt; his eyes were pale and for a moment Ash felt uncomfortable under their gaze. In the public bar two gentlemen of mature years and clothing to match, their ruddy faces declaring a lifetime’s outdoor toil, were playing dominoes, and at the L-shaped counter a young man in denim shirt and jeans supped a pint of beer. A dartboard adorned the wall at the end of the room, the door next to it marked GENTLEMEN . Ash had paused no more than a second or two to take all this in, and now he went to the bar in the lounge area.
    Behind the counter a girl, with short blonde hair whose cut would have been severe had her face not been so engaging, glanced up from wiping glasses and walked down to meet him.
    ‘Good morning,’ she said with a smile that did not quite reachher eyes. Ash noticed dark blemishes around them,