The Evil that Men Do by Jeanne M. Dams Page B

although we didn’t know it was happening till we got there. We live in Sherebury.’
    â€˜You’re American, though, aren’t you?’
    â€˜By birth. I’ve lived in England for a good many years, now, but I guess I’ll never quite lose the accent.’
    â€˜It isn’t just the accent, you know, love,’ put in my husband, with an amused smile.
    â€˜Well, I don’t see what else it is! I buy all my clothes here, for heaven’s sake. I know how to pronounce Gloucester and Worcester and Leicester, and I think it’s a mean trick that Cirencester is pronounced with every single letter given its full value. I watch English television and read English books. I love fish and chips and steak and kidney pie. Why am I instantly spotted as an American?’
    Alan and the sidesman looked at each other and shook their heads. ‘Can’t put it in words, ma’am, but you just look American. Something about the way you walk?’
    I rolled my eyes. ‘And I suppose we just look as if we’ve come from Broadway this morning.’
    â€˜Well, maybe. I happen to know Fred, your driver.’
    He said it without the hint of a smile, and Alan replied as gravely, ‘Ah, well, that would help.’
    I swear I’ll never know for sure when an Englishman intends to be funny. Maybe that’s one of those indefinable things marking me for ever as American.
    â€˜Terrible thing that was, poor Bill Symonds getting killed the other day,’ said the sidesman, now certainly serious. ‘You’ll have heard about that, I expect?’
    Alan took my arm and pinched me, rather hard. ‘We did hear something about it, yes. Did you know him?’
    â€˜Sixty years and more. Went to school together, been sidesmen here long as I can remember. I stood up at his wedding.’
    â€˜I thought—’ I began, and Alan’s pinch grew stronger.
    â€˜He was married, then?’ he said mildly.
    â€˜Widower. His wife died years ago, trying to have their baby. He’s lived alone all these years, but for his friends.’ The man took a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose fiercely. ‘A good man, he was, and coped wonderful well, for all he was deaf as a post. You’d never have known it, talking to him. He could read lips as well as you and I can read a book.’ He paused, and then said, with a dark intensity more convincing than a shout, ‘Whoever did that to him is a devil from hell, and if I find out who he is, that’s where he’s going.’
    â€˜Why didn’t you want to talk about it?’ I asked Alan as we got back into the car. ‘And did you need to pinch quite so hard? I’ll be black and blue.’
    â€˜Sorry, love.’ He pulled me over to him and kissed the spot. ‘There. That’ll make it better. And in answer to your question, I don’t quite know. Old policeman’s habit, I suppose. Ask more than you tell. It probably wouldn’t have mattered at all, and I’m truly sorry I hurt you.’
    â€˜I’ll mend. But goodness, he was upset, wasn’t he?’
    Alan ran his hand down the back of his neck. ‘The man Symonds was well-loved, they told me in Broadway. Of course everybody knows everybody in a place like this. It’s unusual, when someone has died, to find no one with an axe to grind, but in this case all the clichés seem to hold true.’
    â€˜Not even some ill-natured gossip at the Post Office about goings-on with the widow next door, or a deal gone wrong over pigs, or anything?’
    â€˜Not a thing. They’ll be proposing him for canonization any day now.’
    â€˜Oh, dear.’ Like all policemen, Alan hated cases that were not only unsolved, but apparently incapable of solution. This looked like being one of those, and even though it wasn’t his, he was going to brood about it.
    It was nearly lunchtime when we got to Winchcombe, so we