14
Louisa Orchard accepted the pint she had ordered and moved away from the bar in The Village Green to take a seat at one of the tables. The pub was not very busy just then, though she supposed it was busy enough for a village pub at lunchtime, or just after lunchtime anyway. She imagined that most people were either busy on their farms or working in town.
The people that she could see, nine by her count, not including the landlord or the woman who flitted in and out of the area behind the bar — she presumed she was the landlord’s wife — were split into two distinct groups.
Louisa was sure that the quartet at a table near the door worked together somewhere near the village and were on a late lunch, while the five men and women who were lined up along the bar and talking with the landlo
