Tragedy at Two by Ann Purser

night. Everything was tidy, with the wrecks of caravans still hot to the touch, and against each one a bender tent constructed from bent saplings securely anchored and covered with tarpaulin.
    Inside the half circle, a fire was leaping and smoking, and most of the gypsy families sat around it. A black pot simmered, and Lois caught the scent of rabbit stew. They were silent, except for the children, who ran around as usual, and when they saw her, pointed and shouted, and not in a friendly fashion.
    Athalia saw her, too, and walked over to where she stood. “I thought I told you to stay away!” she said crossly. “There’s a lot of sad and angry people here this morning. We shall be moving on shortly, and then you can forget about us. The police have been here, and given us twenty-f our hours to be gone.”
    “But can you get your caravans on the road by then? Looks like the fire did a lot of damage.” Lois thought how great it would be if a group of the village men came down to help. But she knew this was pie in the sky. Nobody but Alf Smith would help these people.
    “We’ve sent for help from our own. Now go away and don’t come back.” She turned, but looked back at Lois and said, “No hard feelings, Mrs. Meade. Not your fault. People don’t change, neither them nor us.”
    “Can’t I help at all?” Lois asked sadly.
    “Yes,” Athalia said, and Lois brightened. “You can find the man who killed your Rob, and stop them hounding us for a crime we had nowt to do with.”
    “Lois! Lois!” It was Derek, running towards her. “For God’s sake get back home,” he said. “That Cowgill’s on the phone and won’t go away until he’s talked to you.”
    “Goodbye, Athalia,” Lois said. “And good luck. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.”
    “I doubt it,” said Athalia, and disappeared into her tent.
     
     
    “WELL? WHAT D’YOU WANT?” LOIS FELT SUPREMELY TIRED AND depressed. And, worst of all, she felt ashamed of living in a village that had done this to an almost certainly innocent group of outsiders.
    “I need to talk to you. Can you come down to the station? It is perfectly legit. About the fire in the gypsy encampment.”
    “No,” Lois said. “I had nothing to do with it. I’m not on the parish council, nor neighbourhood watch, nor any other of the do-gooding lot who stood by last night and did nothing. If you want to talk to me, you’ll have to come here, with a very good reason. And ,” she added, “an explanation of why people whose homes have been destroyed have got to move on in twenty-four hours, or else.”
    “Eleven o’clock,” Cowgill said. “I’ll be with you at eleven o’clock.”
    On the last stroke of the church clock, Cowgill knocked at the door. Gran opened it and, as instructed, showed him into Lois’s office. Lois was sitting behind her desk and motioned him into a chair opposite her. Now she felt in the driving seat, and in control of the conversation.
    “The fir st question is mine,” she said. He nodded.
    “Why do they have to get out of this village in such a short time? What did they do wrong? Aren’t they the victims of this bloody awful crime?”
    “That’s three questions, Lois,” Cowgill replied, attempting a smile. Lois immediately wiped it off his face.
    “I warn you, Cowgill,” she said. “If you want my help, just get on with it and don’t try your winning ways on me.”
    “Right,” he said. “In answer to your question, we have given them notice to move on, and there’s no ‘or else’ about it.”
    “You’re evicting them,” Lois said angrily. “No need to mince words.”
    “As I said, we have given them instructions to move on for their own safety, and they are well aware of this. Feeling must be running high in Farnden for someone to do such an efficient job of setting the whole encampment ablaze. And anyway, Lois, they were going soon to get to Appleby for the fair.”
    “And how are they supposed to get there now?”
    “They