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‘Depends what he’s guilty of.’
‘The worst thing you can imagine,’ the stranger slurred. ‘I’ve killed a man and I had to leave someone else to take the blame.’
Jacob froze with his tankard halfway to his mouth. A glance at Meg showed she’d heard what had been said too, the hand that had been about to readjust her cloak suddenly falling still.
The landlord, however, merely scoffed. ‘I’ve heard worse things than that in here. Sit down; I’ve some good spirits out the back if you’ve a mind to drown out your conscience.’
The man didn’t need telling twice. With a thud he collapsed onto one of the stools drawn up to the bar and immediately put his head in his hands, a more wretched picture of humanity it was difficult to imagine. ‘Hurry, will you? I can hardly bear my own thoughts a moment longer.’
With another unsympathetic chuckle the landlord disappeared through a door behind the bar, leaving his suffering customer alone. The other men who had been leaning nearby had drifted away, so there was no one to catch the wide-eyed stares that passed across the table between Jacob and Meg.
‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered. ‘Do you think…?’
‘It could be,’ Jacob murmured back. ‘We need to find out more.’
Meg nodded. She was watching their suspect so closely now Jacob was amazed the man couldn’t feel it. With his head downturned and his face in his palms he seemed oblivious to the rest of the world, however, only looking up again when the landlord returned with a bottle of questionable liquid and a smeared glass.
‘There you are, friend. Have at that.’
The man snatched both immediately. Pouring himself a generous dose, he knocked it back and refilled his glass at once, although this time he nursed it against the crumpled front of his shirt.
‘Much obliged. I’ll settle up when I’m finished.’
The landlord didn’t reply. He had a half-full glass of his own behind the bar and, picking it up, he swaggered away to join one of the more raucous groups on the other side of the room—much to Meg’s obvious glee.
‘Good. Now he’s gone, I’m going to sit with him.’
‘What? No!’ Alarmed, Jacob leaned over the table, only just in time to grab her wrist as she stood up. ‘He might be dangerous. He said himself he’s killed a man. We don’t know he meant Anthony—he could be a lunatic!’
She pursed her lips. ‘He doesn’t look dangerous to me. He looks like he needs someone to talk to, and I’ve been told I have a very sympathetic ear.’
‘Meg…’
He wasn’t able to get any further. With a deft movement she freed herself from his restraining grasp and slipped away, approaching the solitary figure at the bar as purposefully as a fox creeping up on a rabbit.
‘Meg,’ Jacob hissed after her. ‘Come back!’
She paid him no heed. Without even the swiftest of backward peeps, she slid onto the empty stool beside the stranger, leaving Jacob with nothing to do but watch as she began her offensive.
He heard her start to speak. Her voice had reverted to its usual pleasant cadence, worlds away from the more guttural one she’d used for the landlord’s benefit.
‘You seem as though you’re having a bad night,’ she began with winning sympathy. ‘Is something amiss?’
The man grunted. ‘Bad night, bad day. Everything’s bad for me.’
‘Oh dear. That sounds miserable indeed. What’s happened to make you so unhappy?’
Jacob saw the stranger shoot Meg a sullen glare. ‘Why should you care? You don’t know me.’
She tilted her head to one side, in much the same appealingly innocent manner as a curious dog. ‘That’s true. Does one need to know a person, however, to have compassion for their distress?’
There was a pause. Jacob wondered whether her investigation was about to stutter to a halt before it had even properly begun, but then…
‘I am distressed.’ The man’s tone shifted from distrustful to plaintive, as if glad to finally have the chance to unburden himself. ‘I wasn’t before this mess began, but now… Now I can’t see a way out.’
‘A way out of what?’
He shuddered. ‘I’ve done something—something very bad.’
