out, nowhere did he hear Connor or the Ashertons mentioned. They glanced curiously and a little shyly at Kincaid, but no one spoke to him. He followed the crowd out into the churchyard, but instead of returning to the hotel, he turned his collar up, stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered among the headstones. Distantly, he heard the sounds of car doors slamming and engines starting, but the wind hummed against his ears. Leaves rustled in the thick grass like small brown mice.
He found what he had been halfway looking for behind the church tower, beneath a spreading oak.
“The family,” said a voice behind him, “seems to have been more than ordinarily blessed and cursed.”
Startled, Kincaid turned. Contemplating the headstone, the vicar stood with his hands clasped loosely before him and his feet spread slightly apart. The wind whipped his vestments against his legs and blew the strands of thinning, gray hair across his bony skull.
The inscription said simply: MATTHEW ASHERTON, BELOVED SON OF GERALD AND CAROLINE, BROTHER OF JULIA. “Did you know him?” Kincaid asked.
The vicar nodded. “In many ways an ordinary boy, transformed into something beyond himself by the mere act of opening his mouth.” He looked up from the headstone and Kincaid saw that his eyes were a fine, clear gray. “Oh yes, I knew him. He sang in my choir. I taught him his catechism, as well.”
“And Julia? Did you know Julia, too?”
Studying Kincaid, the vicar said, “I noticed you earlier, a new face in the congregation, a stranger wandering purposefully about among the headstones, but you did not seem to me to be a mere sensation seeker. Are you a friend of the family?”
In answer Kincaid removed his warrant card from his pocket and opened the case. “Duncan Kincaid. I’m looking into the death of Connor Swann,” he said, but even as he spoke he wondered if that were now the entire truth.
The vicar closed his eyes for a moment, as if conducting a private communication, then opened them and blinked before fixing Kincaid with his penetrating stare. “Come across the way, why don’t you, for a cup of tea. We can talk, out of this damnable wind.”
* * *
“Brilliance is a difficult enough burden for an adult to bear, much less a child. I don’t know how Matthew Asherton would have turned out, if he had lived to fulfill his promise.”
They sat in the vicar’s study, drinking tea from mismatched mugs. He had introduced himself as William Mead, and as he switched on the electric kettle and gathered mugs and sugar onto a tray, he told Kincaid that his wife had died the previous year. “Cancer, poor dear,” he’d said, lifting the tray and indicating that Kincaid should follow him. “She was sure I’d never be able to manage on my own, but somehow you muddle through. Although,” he added as he opened the study door, “I must admit that housekeeping was never my strong suit.”
His study bore him out, but it was a comfortable sort of disorder. The books looked as if they might have leaped off the shelves, spreading out onto every available surface like a friendly, invading army, and the bits of wall space not covered by books contained maps.
Setting his mug on the small space the vicar had cleared for him on a side table, Kincaid went to examine an ancient-looking specimen which was carefully preserved behind glass.
“Saxton’s map of the Chilterns, 1574. This is one of the few that show the Chilterns as a whole.” The vicar coughed a little behind his hand, then added, out of what Kincaid thought must be a lifetime’s habit of honesty, “It’s only a copy, of course, but I enjoy it nonetheless. It’s my hobby—the landscape history of the Chilterns.
“I’m afraid,” he continued with an air of confession, “that it takes up a good deal more of my time and interest than it should, but when one has written a sermon once a week for close on half a century, the novelty pales. And these days, even in a rural parish like this one, for the most part our work is saving bodies, rather than souls. I can’t remember when I’ve had someone come to me with a question of faith.” He sipped his tea and gave Kincaid a rather rueful smile.
Kincaid, wondering if he looked as though he needed saving, smiled back and returned to his chair. “You must know the area well, then.”
“Every footpath, every field, or close enough.” Mead stretched out his legs, exhibiting the trainers he had slipped into upon returning to the house. “My feet must be nearly as well traveled as Paul’s on the road to Damascus. This is an ancient countryside, Mr. Kincaid—ancient in the sense the term is used in landscape history, as opposed to planned countryside. Although these hills are part of the calcareous backbone that underlies much of southern England, they’re much more heavily wooded than most chalk downlands—this, and the layer of clay with flints in the soil, kept the area from extensive agricultural development.”
Kincaid cradled his warm mug in both hands and positioned his feet near the glowing bars of the electric fire, prepared to listen to whatever dissertation the vicar might offer. “So that’s why so many of the houses here are built from flints,” he said, remembering how incongruous the pale smooth limestone walls of Badger’s End had seemed, glowing in the dusk. “I’d noticed, of course, but hadn’t carried the thought any further.”
“Indeed. You will also have noticed the pattern of fields and hedgerows in the valleys. Many can be traced back to pre-Roman times. It is the ‘Immanuel’s Land’ of John Bunyan’s
“My point, Mr, Kincaid,” continued the vicar, twinkling at him, “lest you grow impatient with me, is that although this is a lovely countryside, a veritable Eden, if you will, it is also a place where change occurs slowly and things are not easily forgotten. There has been a dwelling of some sort at Badger’s End since medieval times, at the least. The facade of the present house is Victorian, though you wouldn’t think it to look at it, but some of the less visible parts of the house go back much further.”
“And the Ashertons?” Kincaid asked, intrigued.
“The family has been there for generations, and their lives are very much intertwined with the fabric of the valley. No one who lives here will forget the November that Matthew Asherton drowned—communal memory, you might say. And now this.” He shook his head, his expression reflecting a genuine compassion unmarred by any guilty pleasure in another’s misfortune.
“Tell me what you remember about that November.”
“The rain.” The vicar sipped his tea, then pulled a crumpled, white handkerchief from his breast pocket and gently patted his lips. “I began to think quite seriously about the story of Noah, but spirits sank as the water rose
