Martin Vale brought a list of names.
There were fourteen regular ringers, six who came when they could, and three former members still living locally. Visiting ringers were harder to account for. Martin had written down those he remembered.
Relf laid the sheets on the table.
"Who knew Bull personally?"
"Peter. Susan, probably. Me."
"Did he get on with people?"
Martin took a moment before answering.
"Mostly. He could be difficult."
"How?"
"If he'd decided something was right, you had a job persuading him otherwise."
Eleanor sat on the windowsill. She waited while Relf marked the three names.
"What did he usually want when he came here?" he asked.
"Inscriptions. He'd ask to see the bells, spend an hour making notes, then we might not see him for months."
"Did anyone come with him?"
"Usually he was on his own."
Martin looked down at the list.
"Though I did see him with someone at Brookland."
"When?"
"Summer. June, I think."
"Tell me what you remember."
"A man. About my age, perhaps a bit older. Sixties."
"Did you speak?"
"No."
"Would you recognise him?"
"I didn't get a good look."
Relf waited.
"He had a limp," Martin added.
Eleanor kept her eyes on Martin. Relf's pen remained above the page.
"What did you notice?"
Martin frowned.
"Perhaps limp isn't quite right. One leg seemed stiff. He walked awkwardly."
"Which leg?"
"I couldn't say."
"Anything about his clothes or shoes?"
"Ordinary clothes. I don't remember the shoes."
Relf wrote that down too.
Outside, Eleanor waited until they were clear of the door.
"You didn't tell him about the marks in the tower."
"If I had, we wouldn't know whether he remembered the man's walk or was trying to help us."
"Does his description fit?"
"It gives us something to check. We still need to establish when he saw them and whether they were together."
He unlocked the car.
"Find me the church at Brookland."
The church was locked. A telephone number beside the porch brought them Miriam Cole, who arrived twenty minutes later on a bicycle.
She leaned it against the wall and took a bunch of keys from her coat.
"I'm the churchwarden. What is it you need?"
Relf showed his identification and explained. Mrs Cole read the card before returning it.
Inside, she remembered Bull readily.
"He came twice."
"Was he alone?"
"The first time. There was another man on the second visit."
"When was that?"
"June."
"Did Bull introduce him?"
"Not that I remember."
She led them farther inside, still carrying the keys.
"What did they do?" Relf asked.
"Dr Bull went up to look at the bells."
"And his companion?"
"Stayed below."
"In the ringing chamber?" Eleanor asked.
"Yes."
Relf asked whether the man had rung or handled a rope. Mrs Cole had not seen him ring. She could not remember him touching anything.
Her description gave them little: an older man, grey-haired, of medium height, with an English accent.
"Was there anything that particularly caught your attention?" Eleanor asked.
Mrs Cole shook her head, then reconsidered.
"He had a stick."
Relf turned to a fresh page.
"What sort?"
"A wooden walking stick. Dark wood, with a curved handle."
"Did he lean on it?"
"Not much, as far as I noticed."
"Which hand did he carry it in?"
"I don't know."
"Do you remember how he walked?"
"No. I wasn't watching his legs."
Relf wrote down her answer.
"Did they leave together?"
"No. The other man went first. Dr Bull stayed."
"Had there been an argument?"
"Not that I heard."
She waited while Relf finished writing, then led them towards the door.
Halfway there she stopped.
"The lights."
Relf looked up.
"I was going to show him the switch, but he'd already turned them on."
"Had he visited before?"
"He said he hadn't. That's why I remember."
Relf asked her to show him where the switch was. He looked at it, made another note, and thanked her.
Outside, Eleanor glanced back at the church.
"So he'd been here before."
"He found a light switch. Mrs Cole thought that was odd enough to remember."
"And said he hadn't visited."
"Yes."
"Do you think it was the man Martin saw?"
"It may be. We've got a stiff leg in one account and a stick in the other."
Relf paused beside the car.
"Bull had given up driving eighteen months ago. His eyesight."
Eleanor looked along the lane.
"Someone may have brought him."
"That's worth asking about."
Mrs Cole remembered a dark car. A resident opposite thought it had been blue. Another said grey.
The clearest account came from a twelve-year-old boy who had been playing football in the lane.
"An old Jag," he said.
His mother stood beside him at the front door.
"Are you sure, Oliver?"
"It was an XJ."
Relf asked its colour.
"Dark green."
"You told the other policeman blue," his mother said.
"No. He asked if it was dark. I said yes."
"Did you see the registration?" Relf asked.
Oliver shook his head.
"What else do you remember?"
"A scratch on the back bumper. Left-hand side."
"How did you notice that?"
The boy looked at his mother.
"I kicked the ball against it."
"Oliver."
"The scratch was already there."
Relf gave him time before asking the next question.
"Was anyone in the car?"
"The man."
"What happened?"
"He got out and shouted."
"Can you describe him?"
"Old. About fifty."
Eleanor looked down at her notebook.
"Anything else?" Relf asked.
Oliver thought, then shook his head.
"Did you notice how he walked?"
"No."
They thanked him and were almost at the gate when he called after them.
"He dropped his keys."
Relf turned back.
"When he got out?"
"Yes. They fell on the road."
"What did he do?"
"He had trouble picking them up."
Oliver stepped away from the doorway to show them. He kept one leg almost straight, bent the other and lowered himself awkwardly, reaching towards the ground.
"Like that."
"Which leg did he keep straight?" Relf asked.
"The right."
"Was that before or after he shouted at you?"
"Before."
Relf asked him to go through it once more. Then he closed his notebook.
In the car, Eleanor said, "That fits better."
"Yes. He remembers something the man did. Nobody's told him about the marks in the tower."
She checked her notes.
"Dark green Jaguar XJ. Older model. Scratch on the left rear bumper. Driver who had difficulty bending his right leg."
Relf started the engine.
"Let's see if we can find it."
They had no registration and no name.
The description produced cars worth checking, but none they could connect to Bull. Ownership records led to former addresses, companies and people who had sold their Jaguars years earlier.
Bull's diary gave them more.
It was a small black book found on his desk, separate from the notebook recovered at the church. Most of its pages were blank. He kept appointments on his telephone; the diary held birthdays, anniversaries and a few reminders.
Three dates carried the same initials.
B.H.
One matched his first visit to Brookland. Another matched the second. The third was two days before his death.
Relf laid the diary open.
"Do those initials occur in any of his other papers?" Eleanor asked.
"Nothing we've found yet."
She looked at the third entry. Beneath it, the paper was faintly marked.
"Something's been rubbed out."
Relf leaned closer. Pencil traces remained in the grain, with shallow indentations where Bull had pressed harder.
He angled the diary towards the light.
Eleanor could make out separate words, but not enough to read them.
"Can they recover it?"
"We'll send it for examination."
He laid the book down and opened an evidence bag.
"What do you think the last word is?" she asked.
Relf looked once more before putting it away.
"I think it might be 'tenor'."