It remained one of the best of all possible motives for murder. If Poppy had been the victim instead of her husband.
Hector squinted up at the sky. 'We'll have rain soon. Must get on with things, unless you'd like a shot with a spade too.' And nodding towards a cottage half hidden by tress, 'I live over there. If you change your mind and feel like some healthy exercise any time.'
'I'll bear it in mind.' Faro pointed to the standing stones outlined against the sky. 'Meanwhile I think I'll brave the headless women.'
Hector grinned. 'Walk round the field unless you want an encounter with the farmer - an earful of his bellowing could be more scaring that our stone ladies' vocal qualities.'
Faro smiled. 'Constable Dewar warned me.'
Hector regarded him coolly. 'You don't look to me like a man who scares easily. What was it you said you were - an insurance assessor?'
And his accompanying laugh, with its note of disbelief, reminded Faro how thin his disguise was.
As he climbed the steep hill, the sun beat down straight into his eyes. The stones seemed to shiver in the glowing transparent light. Occasionally he stopped and shaded his eyes. Once or twice he could have sworn he saw a dark shadow move swiftly across his line of vision.
At last, following the rough path, he reached the perimeter of the circle. His mind far away, he almost leaped from his skin when a woman's face stared down at him.
Not stone, but flesh and blood with dark red hair and green eyes. A face as cold as the stones, whose response to his friendly greeting was to gather up her papers, tuck them swiftly into her valise and jump down the other side of the circle.
'Wait,' he called, 'I didn't mean to intrude. Don't let me disturb you.'
Whether she heard him or not, he couldn't tell, his efforts rewarded by her fleeing back, her hair flowing out like a burning bush behind her as she leaped through the stony field.
Obviously she feared an irate farmer less than himself, Faro thought. And watching her swift progress, half amused, half exasperated, he realised he had almost forgotten Imogen Crowe's existence.
About to retrace his steps, he noticed a slim book lying face downward where she had been sitting.
Glancing at the title, The History of Civilisation, he thrust it into his pocket, only mildly curious about this dramatic change in reading matter or what interesting mission his arrival had interrupted to cause her precipitate flight. He would hand in the book to the lodge sometime. A nuisance, and her own fault if she lost it. He turned his attention to the stones when he heard a cry.
A human cry...
Chapter 13
The cry had issued not from the headless women behind him, but from the stony field.
Faro stared down from the perimeter of the circle. Imogen Crowe was lying on the ground about thirty yards away. She looked up, saw him and called: 'Help me, will you, please.'
What an irresistible invitation, he thought grimly and made his way carefully down the rough ground of the field.
'Are you hurt?' he asked, bending over her.
She struggled to sit up. 'Of course I'm hurt. I wouldn't call for help otherwise. My ankle, I think I've broken my bloody ankle. No, don't you touch it. Don't dare-'
And thrusting his hand away she seized her ankle between her hands and began to rub it vigorously, moaning a little as she did so. 'I twisted it on that bracken root. I just shot forward -and here I am.'
Faro stared down at her. 'You should have come up by the path at the edge of the field.'
'I did that.'
'Then why on earth didn't you go back the same way? Racing down the field like that...'
She shrugged and chose not to answer what was perfectly obvious and equally embarrassing: her eagerness to escape from him.
With a sigh, Faro looked down at her, held out his hands, still waiting to be thanked for his assistance: 'Can you stand?' he asked gently.
She stood up, wavered and with a cry would have fallen again but for Faro. She looked indignantly at his steadying hand on her arm as if she'd like to brush it off, given half a chance and a more reliable balance.
If only her damned ankle wasn't so sore. Now she had to rely on this wretched man. Nodding towards the still-distant road, she said, 'Help me down there, will you.'
'Of course.' And bending over, he picked her up bodily.
'What do you think you're doing?' she demanded angrily.
'Isn't that rather obvious, seeing that you are incapable of walking?'
‘Put me down - at once.'
'As you wish,' Faro said coldly, setting her down so unceremoniously that she moaned, clutching her ankle as she tried to regain her balance.
'I-I can't.'
'Then will you allow me to assist you?' She put her arms around his neck and struggled no more as he carried her once more towards the stone circle.
'This isn't the way to the road.'
'I'm quite aware of that. But this is the way we are both going. The way we both came up. Unless you want us both to have twisted ankles - or worse. A broken neck might be the answer...'
She struggled in his arms. 'This is nonsense. Put me down. I'll manage.'
Faro stopped, and again set her on her feet. 'Listen to me. Either you do as I say or I will leave you to make your own damned way back to Elrigg. I don't care either way.'
She was silent, staring at the ground.
'Agreed?'
She nodded and, with a sigh, he said: 'Off we go then.'
Lifting her more carefully this time, he clambered up the last few yards very carefully. The terrain was strewn with smaller stones, boulders from the circle that had been eroded through the ages, washed by wind and weather down the field and were now barely but dangerously concealed by
