An Inquiry Into Love and Death

by Simone St. James

  I was nearly sobbing now, I was so afraid. “Who are you?” I screamed again, my voice cracking and rasping this time. “Answer me!”

  It listened. I knew it did. I took a breath to scream again, when something touched me. I jumped and let out a sound that was unholy, but it was a warm touch, a human hand on my shoulder. I turned, and Drew was there.

  “Jillian,” he said, grasping my shoulders. “We’re getting out of here. Now.”

  “Did you see it?” I gasped. “Can you see it?”

  He shook his head. His hair was damp. A sheen of sweat shone on his throat. “Move,” he said, pulling my arm.

  I let myself be pulled, but he stopped, stilled. He was looking at something behind me. His face bore no expression. I turned and followed his gaze back toward the water.

  My footprints were there, in the dark sand. And Drew’s were there, larger, coming toward mine. Behind both sets, just where the water lapped the shore, was a third set. It was unmistakably two human feet, standing still. There were no prints leading to them and no prints leading away.

  The prints faced away from the water, toward me. It had been standing behind me, watching me as I screamed into the wind.

  Drew moved closer, bent down. I was still locked in terror, but whatever it had been was gone. I jerked my legs into motion and followed him.

  The surf was washing the prints away. Next to them were words, also being swallowed by the water:

  MAKE M

  The other letters were already gone. Water washed into the footprints, filling their hollows. I noticed the prints had a large, V-shaped gap between the big toes and the others; then the footprints were gone as well.

  Drew took my arm again, and I let him pull me. But the sight of those prints never left my vision as we made our way back toward the trees.

  Sixteen

  I washed my hands in the kitchen sink, letting the water run icy. I shook with exhaustion, and a kind of lassitude had come over me; the aftereffects, I supposed, of so much terror and confusion, the body and the mind draining themselves. The cold water brought my thoughts into reluctant motion again.

  We had taken the track back through the woods and up the slope. I realized, once I was no longer in the grip of terror, that the path I had found must be a smuggler’s track, cut deep into the earth so it would be easier for travelers to remain unseen. This must once have been the route used to haul cargo from the beach.

  The woods had been quiet on the way back, cold and peaceful, the full moon peering through the treetops. Whatever had chased me on the downward journey had disappeared.

  I twisted off the water now and turned to face Drew. He was leaning a shoulder against the kitchen door, where he’d pushed it closed, as if he’d momentarily lost the strength to go farther. Our eyes met for a second; then both of us looked away.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  I realized my hands were dripping at my sides, so I picked up a rough towel and dried them, dabbing around the bandage on my thumb. “Yes.”

  He took my bandaged hand by the wrist. “I should check this. Change the dressing.”

  “What was it?” I said. “What was that writing? What was it trying to say?”

  “I don’t know.” His hand moved up my arm. “You’re freezing. Where’s your sweater?”

  I found my old men’s cardigan hanging on the back of a chair and slid it on, wrapping it around me. Drew turned to leave, but on impulse I grabbed his arm and leaned into him, pressing my cheek into the wool of his sweater. I just inhaled him, feeling the warmth of his collarbone under my cheek as he put an arm around me.

  “I told you not to follow,” he said, after everything managing some frustration in his voice. “I told you to wait.”

  “You were gone too long. I was worried.”

  “It wasn’t that long.”

  “An hour,” I said.

  That gave him pause. “Was it? It was so strange. I suppose I didn’t track the time properly.”

  I pulled away and looked up at him. “What happened to you out there?”

  He frowned. “Well, when I was in the garden I saw someone in the trees, or so I thought.”

  “Yes, I was watching you.”

  “Were you? Well, I thought someone was there, so I shut off my light and went to find him, calling out that I was the police. Then I saw the light—there was a light. Did you see it?”

  “Yes. William mentioned a signal house, where the smugglers would signal the boats from the water. I thought that must be what it was.”

  “It’s likely, yes. Though who was signaling from there, and why, I don’t know. So I made my way toward it, to find whoever it was.”

  “I thought you might have. I went that way, too. But I got lost and went down the slope instead.” I swallowed, thinking of what had hunted me down the path. “He followed me—Walking John did. Did you see him?”

  Drew sighed. “I saw nothing but a lot of brambles and wet grass. There is a break through the woods, where you can get ’round to the other promontory without going down, but it’s a hellishly dangerous path, and I had to go slowly. I never did quite get all the way; there must be a simpler path, probably hidden, that is best found in daylight. In any case, I got turned halfway down the slope myself, and then I heard you screaming.”

  “It was chasing me,” I managed.

  He gave me a long, searching look. “I believe you. Those footprints—my God. I came right down the beach and I saw nothing.”

  “Drew, I don’t—” I was near tears with exhaustion and helplessness. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Hush,” he said. “It’s gone now, whatever it was. Get some sleep; that’s the first thing.” If he was afraid, if he was uncertain, he gave no sign.

  “You’re going back out there,” I said.

  “In the morning, yes, early. I want to know what’s going on in those woods—because something is. Someone was lighting that beacon.”

  “It may not have been a person.” But the words from Toby’s journal rang in my mind. A person. At least I was not seen. I have no choice. . . .

  “We’ll see about that,” Drew said. “We’ll see.”

  • • •

  In my bedroom, I pulled my nightgown over my head. I thought of the sound of the creaking gate outside the window, of Sultana staring at that strange cold spot on the landing just outside the door.

  I don’t want to be alone, I thought, crossing my arms. But there was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go in the middle of the night. And to say those words to the man in the next room seemed like a very bad idea.

  My body flushed hot and cold as I remembered how he’d kissed me. How I’d kissed him. That moment had been madness, the maddest thing I’d ever done. I pressed my toes into the cold floor and searched through my feelings, looking for shame. I had been raised to behave properly, after all.

  And yet what came to mind was my mother’s story of the day she’d met my father. I took one look at him and I knew, she’d told me. I ran out like a madwoman the next day and bought sleeveless dresses. Even though it was March, I wore nothing but sleeveless dresses until he noticed me. I froze, darling, but it was worth it.

  But my parents had fallen in love; they were still in love more than twenty years later. And my father had not been a Scotland Yard inspector with other girls’ notes in his pocket and plans to leave in the morning.

  A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. I opened the door as my insides somersaulted. “Yes?”

  In the hall, Drew held a lantern brought up from downstairs, which he had relit. He raised it a little, and the light sent shadows playing over his face. “Are you all right?”

  I kept my voice amazingly calm. “Yes, thanks.”

  “I’d like to check your room, if you don’t mind.”

  I stood back and
motioned him in. He twitched the blanket on the window and glanced out at the back garden, then looked around the room, holding up the lamp. “It was too dark in here before,” he said. “I didn’t notice the bed. Who moved it?”

  He would guess, of course; there were marks on the floor under the window where the bed had been. “I did. After the first night.”

  “And the blanket on the window?”

  “Me again.”

  He glanced at me, though I could not read his expression in the dark. “You should try to get some sleep.”

  I shrugged. “I won’t sleep.”

  “Jillian, whatever was here is gone.”

  Two things, I thought. There were two things, one outside and one inside. And we were right in between. I wondered whether Toby would have been afraid. I wondered whether what he’d possessed was fearlessness or simply the will to go forward in the face of fear; those were very different qualities, and I suspected Toby had more likely had the latter. It made me admire him more.

  I crossed to the bed and sank down on the edge. I wasn’t Toby. I hadn’t his courage, his passion for pursuing the dead. I hadn’t any expertise in solving murders or making sense of things. I rubbed my hands over my face, my skin numb with exhaustion and the aftermath of terror.

  The bed frame creaked and the mattress sagged as Drew sat next to me. His arm came around me, warm and strong, and as always seemed to happen with Drew, my body responded before my mind could protest. I leaned into him, seeking his heat, and I realized he was tugging me down, laying me gently on the bed, tucking himself behind me.

  “Drew,” I said, faintly alarmed through my haze of exhaustion.

  “Be quiet” was all he said in reply. He pulled the cover over me. He stayed on the other side of the blanket like a gentleman, fully dressed even to his shoes. But I could feel his chest against my back, his knees behind mine, his solid arm pulling me closer, and despite the layers of clothes and blankets, the effect was anything but gentlemanly.

  “Do you know what happens at a women’s college?” I asked softly after a moment.

  “No,” he said, nuzzling my hair.

  “Nothing. Nothing, ever. Remind me to be missish in the morning.”

  “I’ll leave you a note.”

  “I’m a fool,” I said as I closed my eyes. “You do this to all the girls.”

  He was still. For a long beat, his breath stopped against my neck. “No. I do not.”

  I opened my eyes again. I could see nothing in the muffled light as the moon outside began to wane. “I feel as if the earth has tilted. As if I’m seeing things through a glass. Or as if I’ve suddenly had a glass removed. I can’t decide which it is.”

  His arm was heavy over the curve of my waist, his large hand resting on the coverlet before me. “It’s been a long night.”

  “You don’t seem shaken. It’s as if you’ve seen something like this before.”

  “Like this? Jillian, no one has ever seen anything like this.”

  Something about the tone of his voice alerted me. “Not exactly like this, perhaps. But you’ve seen something. Haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Then: “It was years ago.”

  The war, I thought. It has to do with the war. I took a breath. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t even know how to describe it.”

  I knew the feeling. “Try. Start at the beginning.”

  He sighed. “In early ’eighteen, we fought a battle near Valennes. It’s just a tiny French town, and the Germans had taken it in ’sixteen. We took the town back. I was air support, along with the other fellows—our job was to fight off enemy aircraft, strafe where we could, and spot artillery positions and infantry movements while avoiding the antiaircraft guns. You could get good at it if you lived long enough.”

  The words seemed to come easier the more he spoke, so I did not interrupt, but lay there and listened.

  “We’d taken the town,” he continued, “and I was flying back to base. I’d been knocked in the head—nothing bad, but I wasn’t feeling right. I saw one of our bases and thought I’d land for an hour, get myself straight so I could fly again. I was descending low, almost all the way down to the makeshift runway on the airfield. I looked down and saw four officers leading a line of German prisoners below me, taking them to the holding cells. They had seven men—six in tight formation, three close rows with an English officer at the four corners of the square. The seventh prisoner lagged behind. I thought it was strange that they’d let the seventh man go like that. There are certain rules when you’ve caught the enemy—but still, you don’t turn your back on him for a march, even if you’ve disarmed him. Even a prisoner who has surrendered can be a problem. But they all just marched ahead of this fellow, and he was trailing them at his own pace.

  “I got closer—when you landed one of those planes, in an open cockpit, you could see the heads of the daisies. I could make out that the seventh man was injured. The neck, it looked like . . . he had blood all down both the front and back of his uniform, as if he’d bled quite badly. Something in the way he walked bothered me, too. An uneven gait, not like a man in pain, but a little like a man on two false legs, staggering one step after the other. But bloody determined—even from the sky I could see that. It was doubly strange that they’d just ignore an injured man like that. Enemy or no, that wasn’t usually the way we treated our prisoners.

  “It wasn’t until an hour after I landed that I met one of the officers in the mess hall, and I remembered to bring it up. I told him he’d taken a hell of a risk, and he might not get so lucky with a lapse like that again. He gave me a funny look and asked what the hell I was talking about, and when I told him I’d seen his seventh prisoner and that the man should see a medic before being put on the train, he told me he’d only brought in six. There were six prisoners, and that’s all he’d had.”

  Again he was quiet, and again I said nothing.

  “I know what I saw,” he said. “I knew it then. He was there plain as day. I was close enough to see the blood on him, for God’s sake. I saw the color of his hair. I thought about going to the medic’s tent to see if the seventh prisoner had been admitted. I thought of going to the prisoners’ quarters to ask the other men, though I don’t know a word of German. I thought of going back the way I’d come to see if the man had just fallen dead by the side of the road—God knew there were enough men on both sides who had done just that.

  “But I didn’t do any of those things. I got some headache pills and took off, even though I’d been planning to stay longer. I wanted to get out of there. I told myself it was just one of those things. But I think the reason I didn’t ask about the seventh prisoner is that I didn’t want to know.”

  In the dim light, I could see his hand curled in front of my body. It was a hand that had held guns, fired them. It was not easy to reconcile the war with the men I saw at home. One didn’t want to think that the baker or the banker had shot other men from the air, had machine-gunned them on the ground, dropped bombs on men as they ran, used knives and bayonets and gas. That the man in bed with you had done such things. Sometimes it seemed as if the men had all put down their guns only a moment ago, washed the blood from their hands, and gone back to work.

  “You see,” he said, “by then, near the end, when things really started to go haywire . . .” He cleared his throat, and his voice sounded strangled. “By then I had started . . . I started to think I’d gone mad. I was forgetting things—simple things. I was hearing things, like my name when no one had said it. I had dreams that didn’t feel like dreams, and times when I thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t really sure. The men who went mad—they were despised. Everyone looked down on them as weak, and secretly everyone was afraid of them. And I thought it was happening to me.”

  “And then you saw the prisoner,” I said.

  “Yes. I couldn’t admi
t what I’d seen to anyone. I buried it and tried to forget about it. I did forget about it, until tonight. I had to.”

  I thought of his ruthless competence, the focus that pushed him into wanting no connections, and I began to understand. “Working for Scotland Yard makes it better, doesn’t it? It helps keep the memories of war away.”

  “Jillian, work is the only thing that keeps me going. The only thing. It’s why I have no wife, no family, just a few phone numbers on slips of paper. Because if I stop working, if I let anyone in, if I let anything go, then I lose my grip completely.”

  A slice of pain, deft as a needle, went through my heart. But it had been a long night, and I ignored it. Instead I put my hand over his and squeezed. “I don’t know how you bear it,” I said. “The war. I don’t know how you go on.”

  “You go on, that’s all. You simply do.”

  “My father says the war was a cataclysm created by greed. He says it was a bunch of old men rattling their sabers and planning the deaths of thousands like pawns on a chessboard.”

  “Jillian.” His voice had a note of pained amusement. “I don’t give a damn what it was. All I give a damn about is that it’s over.”

  But he tucked me closer. I felt the scratch of his rough cheek on my neck.

  “Go to sleep,” he said as I closed my eyes, “and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Seventeen

  I awoke the next morning alone. Pale dawn light was just faintly visible around the edges of the sealed-off window. I lay staring at the ceiling for a long time, feeling the warmth dissipate from the bed beside me.

  Through the quiet hush of early morning, I imagined I heard the faint hum of a motorcar starting and driving away. Drew had parked his motorcar down the lane to avoid suspicion. I closed my eyes, listening. Was it even possible to hear the car from here, or was it wishful thinking? He’d said he would go into the woods this morning. Had he already done it? I wished I’d been awake when he left, wished I could have asked him, wished I could have said . . . But I didn’t know what I would have said.