their car had gone. He stood, uncertain what to do next, thinking he might just call into his own house for a snatched cup of good coffee and a moment’s peace, when he saw Marston in the distance on the ridge of the bank that separated the marsh from the river. It was a still day, misty and overcast, and the man was little more than a silhouette from here. Marston was staring out towards the estuary, not moving, with his back to where Matthew was standing. Matthew pulled his car further down the track and parked close to his house. There was a moment of panic when the man disappeared out of his sightline, hidden by one of their outbuildings, a crumbling boathouse. Matthew worried that Marston might have moved on. He could have walked away towards the point. Matthew thought it would be ridiculously undignified to chase after the man, to arrive breathless and sweating to ask his questions.
When he got out of the car, however, he saw that Marston was still there, still staring out over the water. The outline of the opposite bank was blurred by drizzle. Any birds that flew out of the mist would only be silhouettes. The man turned when he heard Matthew climbing the bank towards him.
‘I’m glad I saw you,’ Matthew said. ‘I went to your house but nobody was in.’
‘Hilary’s at work.’ His focus was still on the shore.
‘That’s okay. It was you I wanted to talk to.’
‘Oh?’ Now the man gave Matthew his full attention.
‘You were at the Woodyard centre yesterday morning.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I’m there every Thursday. Unless we decide to do a field trip, but those are only once a month.’
‘What is it you do there?’
‘I teach a course for the U3A, the University of the Third Age. Natural history. Mostly ornithology, but I’ve become more interested in botany recently, so I can cover that too.’ Marston paused. ‘I’m rather enjoying it. Sharing my knowledge, you know, to interested beginners. I only started at Christmas. The original tutor was taken ill and I was asked to take over.’
Matthew could picture him at the front of a class, showing his images of birds, explaining plumage details and distribution, a little pompous, getting the validation for his hobby that he never received at home.
‘Did you ever see Simon Walden at the Woodyard? He’s the man who was killed here on Monday afternoon.’
‘We’ve been watching the news of course. It’s of special interest because it happened so close to home. But I didn’t know him. He certainly wasn’t a member of our group.’ Marston paused. ‘We’re all over fifty in the U3A and most of my students are considerably older.’
‘You didn’t see him elsewhere in the centre? Mr Walden was a regular. He volunteered in the cafe kitchen. You never saw him there?’
There was a moment’s hesitation before Marston shook his head. ‘I seldom use the cafe. It always seems noisy and a little overpriced. I take my own coffee in a thermos flask.’
It was the sort of thing Matthew’s mother might have said. Thrift came very close to godliness in her book. Matthew wondered if that was why he found Marston so tricky. He was a man who’d turned his personal likes and dislikes into a moral code; because he didn’t enjoy spending money in the Woodyard cafe, there was something morally suspect about the people who did. The Brethren had been much the same. Matthew thought they’d created a God in their own image, hard, cold and inflexible.
‘And that was your only contact with the Woodyard? You just ran the natural history course?’ Matthew was looking out over the estuary. It was low tide and the mist was clearing a little to show the far shore, the ridged wave patterns on the sand. He couldn’t see what possible motive Marston might have for killing Walden, but this seemed another coincidence, one too far.
‘For the time being. I have given some informal legal advice to the trustees and I hope to become more involved when we move to Barnstaple.’ Away from his wife, he seemed more confident, and Matthew decided he liked the man less because of it. Pity had turned to active antipathy. ‘I think they could possibly use my organizational skills and Hilary’s always telling me to find more useful ways of spending my time than birding.’ He turned towards Matthew Venn. ‘Really, the administration there is a total shambles at the moment. If anyone came to