Stephen and Meg Butterfield. Parents of Damien, another member of the flying club. He was retired from publishing; she part-owned a boutique in Moreton-in-Marsh. In the country but not of the country, as Stephen put it; in the country, but happy to pop up to London twice a month to eat, visit friends, catch a play, “remember what civilisation feels like.” But happy too to wear a tweed cap, a green V-neck, and carry a silver-topped stick. In the country and blending in nicely, more like. He asked River:
“How goes the writing business?”
“Oh, you know. Early days.”
“Still researching?” said Meg. Though her eyes were on River, her long, nervous fingers toyed with the smoking equipment in front of her: packet of tobacco, Rizla papers, throwaway lighter. Her graying blonde hair was under wraps tonight, coiled beneath a black silk headscarf; and this too, and the wrinkles at her eyes, and even her clothes marked her out a smoker—the ankle-length skirt glittering with silver threads, and the black cardigan with deep pockets, and the red-fringed shawl she wore like a displaced Bedouin. In London, he’d have dismissed her as a superannuated hippie; here, she seemed more like an off-duty witch. He could see her knocking up a remedy for lovesick swains, if that was still a word. Probably was round here. Not much call for it in the city.
The couple sat next to each other on the bench, which River thought sweet. “Ninety per cent of the job,” he said. Funny how simple it was to be an expert on writing. “Getting it down on paper’s the easy part.”
“We were talking about you with Ray. You met Ray yet?”
River hadn’t, though the name was all too familiar. Ray Hadley was the maypole around which the village danced: he was on the Parish Council, on the school’s board of governors; on everything that required a name on a dotted line. He was the
“I haven’t, no.”
Because Hadley always seemed to have just left, or was expected any moment but didn’t turn up. There weren’t many places in Upshott that weren’t the pub, but Hadley had contrived to find most of them these past few weeks.
“Ray was great mates with the brass at the base,” Meg went on. “Always in and out of there. Wasn’t he, darling?”
“Give him half a chance, he’d have joined up. Still would. The chance to fly one of those Yank jets? He’d have given his right bollock.”
“I can’t believe your paths haven’t crossed yet,” Meg said. “He must be hiding from you.”
“Actually, I might have seen him this morning, heading for the shop. Tall bald man, yes?”
Meg’s phone rang:
Stephen Butterfield began a lengthy explanation of what it sounded like was wrong with Damien’s car, waggling an apologetic eyebrow at River, who made a no-matter gesture and returned to the bar.
The pub had oak rafters onto which paper currency had been pasted, and whitewashed walls on which farm implements hung. In a corner were photographs of Upshott through the years. Most had been taken on the green, and showed groups of people metamorphosing through black-and-white austerity to the Hair-Bear Bunch fashions of the ’70s. The most recent was of nine young adults, more at ease with their youth and good looks than earlier generations had been. They stood on a strip of tarmac, three of them women; Kelly Tropper at their centre. In the background was a small aeroplane.
He’d been looking at this photo on his first evening there, and had recognised the woman who’d just served him a pint, when a man approached. He was about River’s age though broader, and with a head like a bowling ball: hair trimmed to the skull, an equally sparse fuzz prickling chin and upper lip, and eyes sharp with cunning or suspicion. River had seen similar eyes in other pubs. They didn’t always spell trouble, but when trouble broke out anyway, they were usually right near the middle.
“And who might you be?”
Let’s be polite, thought River. “The name’s Walker.”
“Is it now.”
“Jonathan Walker.”
“Jonathan Walker,” the man repeated in a sing-song voice, to underline the effeminate nature of anyone limp-wristed enough to be called Jonathan Walker.
“And you are?”
“What makes that your business?”
And now a third voice chimed in, and here was the bartender, offering a brisk “Behave, you.” To River she said, “His name’s Griff Yates.”
“Griff Yates,” River said. “Should I repeat that in a stupid voice? I’m not sure I’ve grasped the local customs yet.”
