An Inquiry Into Love and Death

by Simone St. James

  I came out of my melancholy thoughts as Poseidon finished his dinner and lay in his accustomed spot by the unlit fireplace. He gave me a look of impossibly deep sadness, almost apologetic, from his beautiful brown eyes. Something is wrong, and I know it, but I can’t help feeling hungry and sleepy; I’m sorry. I’ll just lie here and wait.

  I rubbed his ears and told him everything would be all right. He thumped his tail once, as if appreciating my effort. I wondered whether Annie Hughes would like a dog.

  Back outside, I skirted the edge of the woods, looking for the path Julia had told me was there. It took me some twenty minutes, but eventually I found it, narrow and barely visible, a thin line through the trees. John Barrow would have taken this path on nights when the ships were due to come in; he would slip out his back door and through the dark woods to the signal house to send the message to the captain whether he should land. Two and a half centuries later, my own steps followed the same path.

  It wasn’t easy. The trail was overgrown, thick with brush, and it completely disappeared in places where heavy rainfall had washed in piles of debris. The still-full moon provided the only light. One section of the path was thickly lined with bushes crowned with particularly vicious thorns, and I had to move as gingerly as I would through a lion’s jaws. The wind, cold and damp, howled in the trees, and I began to wonder whether I’d wandered into an enchanted wood from a fairy tale, and either a gnarled witch or a handsome prince would appear on the next bend of the path.

  The way took me much longer than I’d thought it would. From the smell and sounds of the sea I could tell I was skirting Blood Moon Bay, following the cupped semicircle of it across the complicated tops of the cliffs instead of along the windblown beach. I saw no sign of Julia along the path and wondered whether she was ahead of me or behind. I looked for a hawthorn tree as I walked, and when I found one, bare and denuded of leaves, I quickly pulled off six small branches and stuffed them in my inside coat pocket.

  Finally I sighted a clearing off the side of the path. The trees thinned a little here, and the sound of rushing water was stronger. I picked my way through the brush as gulls wheeled and cried overhead. Before me was a rough wooden structure built low to the ground, with knotted planks for walls and birch shingles on the roof. It was about the height of a man and looked—I couldn’t help but think it—just a little like a very old, rather decrepit privy. But what I found when I went through the narrow door was nothing like a privy at all.

  A window had been cut into the wall facing the bay. There was no glass, and the wind blew sharply through the little enclosure. Leaves piled in the corners, and the ground—for there was no floor—was littered with decades of blown-in debris. I lowered my head to the opening and found a perfect view of Blood Moon Bay, the rounded expanse of the beach, the restless water, and the entrance to the ocean beyond. From this spot, the signalman could indeed look for approaching vessels, and even see individuals on the beach or at the edges of the woods. He could then lift his lantern—which was protected from wind and rain by the primitive hut—and give the agreed-upon signal. It would be a lonely outpost, but the long hours in the cold and damp would be worth it for the treasure brought by the incoming ships.

  I stepped back from the lookout hole and gazed around the rest of the hut. There was barely room to move in there or to stand straight, for it had been built to be as small and hidden as possible. The only item I could make out in the gloom was a wooden box to be used as a chair. I sat on it and waited, listening to the wind and the water. A rustle on the primitive roof suggested that the rain was finally beginning. I rubbed my hands over my eyes.

  George York had told me everything.

  It had required a tight clamp of control for me to sit and listen as his weakened voice went on and on. Before she married, Elizabeth Winstone had nursed Rachel’s mother through two miscarriages after Rachel’s own birth, caring for the mother while looking after the little girl; she had been a trusted family confidante, a quiet girl who had never complained and never gossiped. In the wispy haze of his memories, George saw her as the final person he could trust, the only one left with the strength to withstand the truth—Rachel, of course, must be shielded—and the moral fortitude to understand it. Elizabeth’s pregnancy, disgrace, and death had vanished from his mind, and I had sat there in my mother’s place, wondering what she would think about the fact that this man’s old age had granted her forgiveness.

  I must tell you. I must tell you what we did. . . .

  It weighed on me. I hoped fervently that my message had somehow made it to Drew. I’d go to Barnstaple in the morning and lay it all before him, just as it had been laid before me.

  But first I would try my best to lay John Barrow to rest. These woods had been haunted too long, the bay left deserted. John Barrow begged for sleep. And tomorrow night’s operation by Scotland Yard would go more smoothly without a ghost’s interference.

  But mostly I wanted to do it because this was what Toby had come here for: to put this ghost to rest, as he had helped so many others. To put some of his own ghosts to rest, as well. I couldn’t help him heal, but I could do this one thing for him. I could do this as my father’s daughter.

  I moved on my seat, and it creaked beneath me, the wood bowing under my weight. I realized the box I sat on was hollow, and one side had a hinge—not a seat at all, then, but a container. I stood up and lifted the lid.

  Metal gleamed dully up at me, and brass. A cold, heavy black square, it chilled my fingers as I lifted it from the box and examined it. My first thought was that it looked much like my father’s galvanoscope. After a moment, I saw the headphones still in the box, and I realized it was a radio.

  A crystal radio—my father, Charles, had one and had tinkered often with it in the garage, usually on rainy afternoons. It’s an incredible little machine, he’d told me once. If you have a clear signal, you can hear for miles.

  If you have a clear signal.

  I turned to the little window and looked out. For miles, yes. Tonight was clouding over with cold rain, but on a clear night, it would be easy. Anyone sitting here with this little receiver would be able to get a radio signal, even from somewhere far out to sea.

  They always knew, George York had said. They’d come to my door early or late, and tell me we had to get the boat and go. I just followed. They always knew where they were going.

  And Sidney Corr, when I’d asked him about looting merchant ships. You’d have to be there right when the ship was sinking, wouldn’t you? And how would you know where to be, and when?

  I set down the radio. So they’d used this place, then. This little shack out in the woods had been part of their plan. I looked in the box again.

  The radio’s headphones were there, and something else as well. A square, wrapped in oilskin. I pulled it out and unwrapped it, revealing a book the size of my hand with a thick leather binding. The pages were yellowed and damp. Stamped in the leather of the cover were the letters Hg.

  For a second I blinked at the letters. They were familiar to me, but I couldn’t place them; were they initials? My shocked brain took a painfully long time to whir into motion, to tell my eyes what they had seen so many times. My father was a chemist by profession. Hg was a symbol on the periodic table of elements. It was the entry for mercury.

  I held Drew Merriken’s fabled book in my hand. For the past half hour I’d been unwittingly sitting on England’s Mercury code.

  I gingerly flipped the book open and glanced through the yellowed pages. I could understand none of the columns of letters and symbols, but a code breaker, I imagined, could sit with a book like this for several hours or days, methodically building an understanding. He’d finish with a recipe to decode England’s radio signals. I held treason in my hands.

  I could burn it. If I could find a match, I could destroy the book entirely and be done with it forever. It would take only minute
s. But that wouldn’t put away the men who had stolen it and meant to sell it. Drew wanted the deal to go through so he could have arrests, trials. Justice.

  A sound came from outside, the strike of a shoe in the dirt. Julia was here. I hurriedly wrapped the book again and put it in the box. I put the radio on top of it, where it had been before, and closed the lid.

  I stepped outside into the growing dark. It was beginning to rain, just as I had thought, the wet mist coming down in cold drops that drummed on the roof. I put my hands in my pockets, ignoring the scratches of the hawthorn branches, and stared at the person who stood before me. I clenched my fingers and tried not to tremble.

  For I knew who used the radio, and who hid the book. I knew who had killed Toby, and I knew what expression he had worn as he did it. It was a look of perfect calm, beautiful in its serenity, terrifying in its utter detachment. It was the expression he wore now, looking at me, as he put a cigarette to his lips and lit it.

  Thirty-four

  Jillian,” said William Moorcock, taking me in with his curiously blank eyes. “You look lovely.”

  My mouth was dry. There seemed nothing to say, so I said nothing.

  He smoked the cigarette and squinted at me through the haze. “Did you find my dog?”

  “Yes,” I managed. “He—he came to me.”

  “I thought he might.” He smiled a little, and just a spark of it reached his eyes. “I told him to go find a new owner. My dog has excellent taste in women.”

  “Where—” I made myself speak. It would not do to show how terrified I was, though he must have suspected. “Where have you been?”

  “Were you worried?” At my expression, he nodded. “I see. Yes, I see. You thought perhaps I’d come to some mishap. I’m sorry to have worried you.” He shrugged, looked around at the trees and the darkening woods. “I’ve been in the woods. In this place.” His brow furrowed, then cleared. “I don’t quite remember.”

  He was so unlike the William I’d last seen—the kind, friendly man who had listened to my troubles and told me tales. And yet, in a way, he was recognizable—without artifice, without his willingness to please. This man wanted nothing from me, nothing at all. I wondered whether this was the aftereffects of that awful sickness, with its forgetfulness and delusions. If so, he would be impossible to reason with. My fear dug a little deeper.

  “William,” I said, as gently as I could. “What happened?”

  He sighed. He was wearing a lined coat of dark corduroy and a peaked cap, which he adjusted now. The cigarette burned between his fingers. “Everything has started coming down. Everything at once. Ever since I found the book on George’s ship. Do you know he hid it for years, and I never suspected it was there?” He shook his head.

  “But you found it,” I said.

  “I did. Rachel said she wanted to sell the boat, and I went over it from top to bottom. And there was the book, just sitting in the bottom of a locked trunk. It took me some time to figure out what it was. And when I did, you could have knocked me over with a breath of wind. George York, of all people!”

  “He didn’t know what it was,” I said, “but he suspected it was important. He’d thought he’d keep it as insurance, at first, and keep you out of it. But he realized that without you he didn’t know how to sell it. By then it was too late to tell the truth. And then he got sick.”

  “Well, I got it anyway, didn’t I? I took it off the boat, but I had to hide it while I did some negotiations. Aubrey kept it for a while, in his disgusting old vicarage. He said we should destroy it, but I said no. Then he said he wanted no part of it. Aubrey continues to disappoint me.” He dropped the cigarette. “I moved the book here, but your uncle followed me. We stood right in this spot, as a matter of fact—though he was the one standing here, and I was the one coming out the door.”

  “It was you.” I couldn’t help the crack in my voice. “It was you.”

  He shook his head. “I am sorry. If you saw it my way, you’d understand. There’s too much at stake. To his credit, he put up a good fight. But not quite good enough.”

  I took a step back. It was an involuntary action, clumsy, but William didn’t notice, and I began to wonder whether I would be able to run. “He didn’t have to die.”

  “Jillian, please. Of course he did. I hit him over the head, and then I carried him to the cliffs. He wasn’t even dead when he went over, which is why the coroner couldn’t tell. He’d have been bruised everywhere; a man already dead would not have been. I was very careful about that. What baffles me, however, is how he came to know about the book. I wish I’d had a chance to get that from him before he died. I’ve thought about it, and I think he may have overheard a meeting I had in St. Thomas’ Gate with one of my German allies.” He looked at me. “It seems your family has a penchant for eavesdropping. It was you in the yard that night, was it not?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I can’t blame you, not really. I sent Poseidon out, but it did no good. Even my dog let me down.”

  “What about the fire?” My voice was nearly a whisper. “Was that you?”

  “God, no.” He seemed disgusted. “That was Aubrey.”

  “He burned his own archives?”

  “A decent strategy, I admit, but my God! I told him it had to look like an accident, the same way I’d handled Toby. How was I to know he’d make such a ridiculous botch of it? You see what I mean—I can’t do everything.” He patted his pockets as if looking for another cigarette, then dropped his hands again. “You were going too fast, Jillian—that was what worried me. And now you have everything, don’t you?” He glanced at me, and his eyes were canny, knowing.

  Julia, I thought. Where is Julia? I prayed she was off in the trees somewhere, listening before coming any closer. Or, even better, already running the other way.

  “It doesn’t matter,” William said. Irritation crossed his face, then vanished again. “It doesn’t matter. Not after tonight.”

  My stomach dropped, and my hands turned icy in my pockets. “Tonight?”

  William smiled at me now. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “We have a little errand to run in Blood Moon Bay.”

  Tonight. Drew and Teddy had left Rothewell, thinking to come back tomorrow. There was no help to be had. And the handoff to the Germans was happening tonight.

  William was shaking his head at me. “I can see you’re a little surprised. Never trust leaked information, Jillian. I could have told your blond inspector that. You never know when it’s wrong.”

  I lifted my chin and met his eyes squarely. After a moment, he looked away.

  I ran.

  Fear gave me speed. I sprinted down the path, back toward town, my legs churning, my heart pumping in my chest. If I’d had any breath, I would have screamed; as it was, the only sound that came from me was a high, gasping whistle as I swallowed breath. I took the first curve of the path and swerved off into the trees, hoping beyond hope to lose my pursuer, whose steps pounded just behind mine.

  It was no use; I was smaller and slower than he, encumbered with a dress and heels. William was on me as I’d barely disappeared into the trees. He grasped the collar of my coat first, jerking me back, then swept his leg under mine and sent me crashing to the ground. As I thumped to the dirt he came down atop me, his strong, slim body over me, his knees digging into my thighs, his hands pinning my wrists. The breath flew out of me for a nauseating instant, then came back into my lungs. This time I did scream, as loud as I could.

  His cap had come off, and as the shrill sound came out of me, his face reared back in surprise. He pushed my wrists together and held them with one hand, his fingers locked around my wrists with cold, shocking strength. He pushed himself upward, his legs digging painfully into mine.

  “Jillian,” he said, his voice cracking.

  I stopped screaming. There was
something in his face, just for a second, that I couldn’t put a name to.

  Pain shot up my back and through my shoulders where he held my arms pinned. I opened my mouth and drew breath to scream again.

  “It’s only for a minute,” he said, and his fist came down on my face, and I fell into darkness.

  Thirty-five

  Gulls were crying, and I was icy cold. I opened my eyes.

  Dark sky sprawled above me, the torn clouds crossing the moon. It rose low on the horizon, and I looked at it for a long moment, my vision blurring in and out as I wondered where I was.

  Next to me came a creak, then another. “You’re awake, then.”

  I turned my head. I was lying on damp, hard wood, my knees drawn up, my chin tilted back as I looked at the sky. As I moved, bolts of painful stiffness came down my neck and shoulders. The creak came again.

  I struggled to sit up and realized my hands were tied together in front of me. I wiggled and squirmed in the damp. The world rose and fell, rose and fell, and the creak came again. I was on a boat.

  I pulled up and looked around me. I was sitting on the bottom of a rowboat, bobbing in the waves of Blood Moon Bay. The wind blew icy this far out on the water, and spray came over the sides, misting my face and my freezing legs. Two feet away, William sat at the oarlocks, his back to me, rowing us steadily out to sea.