Havers said, fidgeting in her seat. "Believe me, it was very forgettable, sir." She got out of the car, letting in a gust of air that commingled the faint odours of the sea, dead fish, and rotting debris, and strode over to the first building, disappearing behind its weathered black door.
By pub hours it was early yet, the drive from London having taken them less than two hours, so Lynley was not surprised to fi nd the door locked when he tried to enter Wine's the Plough across the street. He stepped back from the building and looked above to what seemed to be a flat, but his observation gained him nothing. Limp curtains served as a barrier against prying eyes. No one was about at all, and there was no automobile or motorbike to indicate that the building was currently under anyone's ownership. Nonetheless, when Lynley peered through the grimy windows of the pub itself, a missing slat in one of the shutters revealed a light shining in a far doorway that appeared to lead to the building's cellar stairs.
He returned to the door and knocked upon it soundly. Within moments, he heard heavy footsteps. They trudged to the door.
"Not opened," a man's gravelly voice said behind it.
"Mr. Darrow?"
"Aye."
"Would you open the door please?"
"Y'r business is?"
"Scotland Yard CID."
That got a reaction, although not much of one. The door was unbolted and held open a mere six or seven inches. "All's in order in here." Eyes the shape and size of hazel nuts, the colour of a brown gone bad with yellow, dropped to the identification that Lynley held.
"May I come in?"
Darrow didn't look up as he considered the request and the limited responses available to him. "Not about Teddy, is it?"
"Your son? No, it's nothing to do with him."
Apparently satisfied, the man held the door open wider, stepped back, and admitted Lynley into the pub. It was a humble establishment, in keeping with the village it served. Its sole decoration appeared to be a variety of unlit signs behind and above the Formica-topped bar, identifying the liquors sold on the premises. There was very little furniture: half a dozen small tables surrounded by stools and a bench running beneath the front windows. This was padded, but the cushion was sun-bleached from its original red to rusty pink, and dark stains patterned it. A stinging burnt smell tinctured the air, a combination of cigarette smoke, a dead fire in a blackened fi replace, and windows too long closed against the winter weather.
Darrow positioned himself behind the bar, perhaps with the intention of treating Lynley like a customer in spite of the hour and his police identification. For his part, Lynley followed suit in front of it although it meant standing and he would much rather have conducted this interview at one of the tables.
Darrow, he guessed, was in his mid-forties, a rough-looking man who projected a decided air of suppressed violence. He was built like a boxer, squat, with long, powerful limbs, a barrel chest, and incongruously small, well-shaped ears which lay flat against his skull. His clothes suited him. They suggested a man able to make the transition from publican to brawler in the time it would take to ball up a fist. He wore a wool shirt, with cuffs turned up to reveal hirsute arms, and a pair of loose-fitting trousers for ease of movement. Evaluating all this, Lynley doubted that any fi st fi ghts broke out in Wine's the Plough unless Darrow himself provoked them.
He had in his pocket the jacket of Death in Darkness, which he had taken from Joy Sinclair's study. Removing it, he folded it so that the author's smiling photograph was facing up. "Do you know this woman?" he asked.
Recognition flickered unmistakably in Darrow's eyes. "I know her. What of it?"
"She was murdered three nights ago."
"I was here three nights ago," Darrow replied. His tone was surly. "Saturday's my busiest. Anyone in the village'll tell you as much."
It wasn't at all the reaction Lynley had been expecting. Perhaps surprise, perhaps confusion, perhaps reserve. But a refl ex denial of culpability? That was unusual, to say the least.
"She's been here to see you," Lynley stated. "She telephoned this pub ten times in the last month."
"What of it?"
"I expect you to tell me that."
The publican seemed to be evaluating the even quality of Lynley's voice. He appeared disconcerted that his show of belligerent uncooperation produced virtually no reaction in the London detective. "I was