The Twisted Root

against the sky.
    "Where do you think we should start?" Robb asked.
    She was grateful he had spoken of them as together, not relegating the search to her idea in which he was merely obliging her.
    She had been thinking about it as they had traveled in silence.
    "It cannot have been very far," she said, staring across the grass. "She was not in a state to run a distance. If the poor woman really was murdered—beaten to death, as Miriam apparently said—then whoever did so would not have committed such an act close to the road." She pushed away the thought, refusing to allow the pictures into her mind. "Even if it was a single blow—and please God it was—it cannot have been silent. There must have been a quarrel, an accusation or something. Miriam was there; she saw it. She, at least, must have cried out—and then fled."
    He was staring at her, and in the light of the lantern she saw him nodding slowly, his face showing his revulsion at what she described.
    "Whoever it was could not follow her," she went on relentlessly. "Because he was afraid of being caught. First he had to get rid of the body of the woman—"
    "Mrs. Monk... are you sure you believe this is possible?" he interrupted.
    She was beginning to doubt it herself, but she refused to give up.
    "Of course!" she said sharply. "We are going to prove it. If you had just killed someone, and you knew a girl had seen you, and she had run away, perhaps screaming, how would you hide a body so quickly that if anyone heard and came to see, they would not find anything at all?"
    His eyes widened. He opened his lips to argue, then began to think. He walked across the grass towards the first trees and stared around him.
    "Well, I wouldn’t have time to dig a grave," he said slowly. "The ground is hard and full of roots. And anyway, someone would very quickly notice disturbed earth."
    He walked a little farther, and she followed after him quickly.
    Above them something swooped in the darkness on broad wings. Involuntarily, she gave a little shriek.
    "It’s only an owl," he said reassuringly.
    She swung around. "Where did it go?"
    "One of the trees," he replied. He lifted the lantern and began shining it around, lighting the trunks one after another. They looked pale gray against the darkness, and the shadows seemed to move beyond them as the lantern waved.
    She was acutely glad she was not alone. She imagined what Miriam must have felt like, her child lost, a woman she loved killed in front of her, and herself pursued and hunted, bleeding, terrified. No wonder she was all but out of her mind when Cleo found her.
    "We’ve got to keep on looking," she said fiercely. "We must exhaust every possibility. If the body is here, we are going to find it!" She strode forward, hitching up her skirts so as not to fall over them. "You said he wouldn’t have buried it. He couldn’t leave it in plain sight, or it would have been found. And it wasn’t. So he hid it so successfully it never was found. Where?"
    "In a tree," he replied. "It has to be. There’s nowhere else!"
    "Up a tree? But someone would find it in time!" she protested. "It would rot. It..."
    "I know," he said hastily, shaking his head as if to rid himself of the idea. He moved the lantern ahead of them, picking out undergrowth and more trees. A weasel ran across the path, its lean body bright in the beam for a moment, then it disappeared.
    "Animals would get rid of it in time, wouldn’t they?"
    "In time, yes."
    "Well, it’s been over twenty years! What would be left now? Bones? Teeth?"
    "Hair," he said. "Perhaps clothes, jewelry, buttons. Boots, maybe."
    She shuddered.
    He looked at her, shining the light a little below her face not to dazzle her.
    "Are you all right, Mrs. Monk?" he said gently. "I can go on my own, if you like. I’ll take you back and then come back here again. I promise I will..."
    She smiled at his earnestness. "I know you would, but I am quite all right, thank you. Let’s go forward."
    He hesitated for a moment, still uncertain, then as she did not waver, he shone the lantern ahead of them and started.
    They walked together for forty or fifty yards, searching to left and right for any place that could be used for concealment. She found herself feeling more and more as if she was wasting her time—and more important, Robb’s time as well. She had believed Miriam’s story because she wanted to, for Cleo’s sake, not because it was really credible.
    "Sergeant Robb," she began.
    He