The recording was on Bull’s telephone.
It had begun at 6:37 p.m. Whether he had meant to activate the recorder was unclear. Most of the file consisted of muffled movement and scraping, and it had initially been set aside as unusable.
The review Relf requested recovered enough to hear voices.
He brought a copy to Eleanor.
“Listen first,” he said.
There was rustling, then footsteps. Something scraped against a hard surface.
Bull’s voice came through.
“Ready?”
A second man answered.
“Yes.”
Eleanor glanced at Relf. He kept watching the screen.
A low wooden rumble followed.
“Stop,” Bull said.
The movement ceased.
Then:
“Again.”
More noise.
“That’s it. I can see the lower line.”
A pause.
“H … A …”
The sound broke up. Eleanor leaned towards the speaker.
“Good God,” Bull said.
The other voice answered from farther away.
“What?”
Bull’s reply was distorted. She caught only the end.
“… not Hale.”
Relf stopped playback.
“What did you hear?”
“Not Hale.”
He played the section again.
This time she thought she heard the beginning too.
“It’s not Hale.”
There was something after it, perhaps another word, but the recording dissolved into noise.
Relf let it continue.
“A little more,” Bull said.
They heard movement.
Then his voice rose sharply.
“No—”
An impact overwhelmed the microphone.
For several seconds afterwards there was only faint noise.
Relf stopped the file.
Eleanor sat with her hands resting on the table.
“The second voice. Marris?”
“We need a proper comparison. It sounds like him.”
“Bull asked for more movement.”
“Yes.”
She looked at her notes from the tower.
“We read Hale.”
“The casting was worn.”
“Bull saw it from closer.”
Relf closed the laptop.
“We need to look again.”
Martin met them at the church after ten.
He complained about the hour while unlocking the door, then asked what they had found. Relf told him about the recording.
At the top of the tower, Martin checked that the tenor was secure before allowing them near the frame.
They lit the small mark from one side.
H A—
Eleanor moved her torch. The shadows changed.
What she had taken for the third letter’s upright had another faint stroke beside it.
“Not an L,” she said.
Relf leaned nearer.
“An R?”
Martin brought his light across from the opposite side.
They studied the final letter.
“Could it be Hare?” Relf asked.
Eleanor shook her head.
“The last stroke isn’t right.”
Martin changed the angle again.
“Hart.”
She looked back at the whole mark, resisting the urge to read what he had just suggested.
H A R T.
“Yes,” she said. “I think so.”
They examined it from the first angle once more. The worn strokes were difficult to separate from the roughness of the casting, but she could see how they had mistaken them.
Relf stepped back.
“What is it?” Eleanor asked.
“I remember that name.”
“From where?”
“Customs. A man who disappeared years ago.”
“Did you know him?”
“No. I saw a photograph during an inquiry.”
Martin lowered his torch.
Eleanor waited while Relf looked again at the lettering.
“Do you remember his face?”
“Not clearly enough.”
“But it reminds you of someone.”
Relf turned towards her.
“Weller.”
“Tom Weller?”
“Yes.”
“Are you saying they’re the same man?”
“I’m saying I need to find that photograph.”