An Inquiry Into Love and Death

by Simone St. James

  I stared at the shoreline, dark and narrow. “What are we doing?” I said, my voice a rasp.

  William glanced over his shoulder at me, and away again. “You shouldn’t have run.”

  I pitched forward, tried to balance awkwardly on my bound hands, and struggled to move my numb legs, to get my knees under me. “Of course I ran.”

  “I didn’t want to hit you,” he said.

  I gazed back at the shoreline. It was too far to swim, the water too cold. “I take it we’re meeting the Germans.”

  “They’ll be coming by momentarily, yes.”

  “I’ll scream.”

  He glanced at me again. That strange calmness was back in his eyes. His voice held no inflection. “Jillian, I can kill you now, or I can kill you later. It’s up to you.”

  I tried to push my sodden hair from my face with my tied hands. “It’s kind of you to give me the choice.” Anger began to warm me now, overtaking the abject terror. “Perhaps I’ll take your precious codebook and throw it in the water. It would be only fitting, since you stole it from the water in the first place. From the bodies of drowned men.”

  He paused rowing and turned to me, looking at me full for the first time. He’d not bothered to put his cap back on, and the wind ruffled his hair. “You’ve been talking to George.”

  “He’s still alive. It seems you missed committing one murder as you went down your list.”

  A spasm of angry disgust crossed his features. “I didn’t miss it. Or I wouldn’t have, but for Aubrey. I told you, it’s all gone wrong. And it was George, I’ll remind you, who took the book from the sea.”

  A picture came into my mind as clear as a photograph: of Aubrey Thorne sitting at George York’s bedside, the old man’s hand in his, a look in his eyes of unutterable exhaustion as he watched us come into the room. Well, well, Scotland Yard is here.

  And George York smiling up at us. The vicar has saved me from Walking John.

  We’d been so afraid, seeing Aubrey alone with the old man like that—afraid he’d do some kind of harm. But that hadn’t been why he had been there at all.

  “You tried,” I said to William now. “And Aubrey stopped you.”

  “Aubrey,” William spat, “has never been the same since he married that woman and decided to reform.”

  “The old man thought you were Walking John.” I thought of Aubrey sending Sam away, telling him to go down the street to the postmistress. Had he done it as he heard William coming to the door, knowing the boy would be in danger?

  “Did he? At least that’s a compliment. He’s an old man, for God’s sake. A pillow on his face and we’d be done in minutes. Who would know or care? But Aubrey wouldn’t let me. He said he’d call the police. The police!”

  “He wouldn’t let you kill your only witness.”

  “Don’t paint Aubrey the hero. It was he who set that fire, though I had to threaten him. Now he claims he’s consumed with guilt over it, but I know Aubrey. I think he’s just scared of Hell.”

  I couldn’t speak. I thought I was going to be sick.

  “We were partners, friends,” William said. “We’ve known each other since we were children. He owed me some loyalty.” He turned and began to row again, anger powering his movements. “It was my idea when we came back from the war—to look for sinking merchant ships. It was simple enough to do. Aubrey thought like I did in those days—we missed the war, the thrill. We didn’t want to be a part of normal life anymore. Going after the merchant ships was a risk like no other, and incredibly profitable. We didn’t even need to find gold or silver—just rationed items, coffee, cotton, silk. It was worth plenty of money on the black market. George was desperate, and he had a fishing boat. We used Blood Moon Bay because everyone was too frightened to go anywhere near it. Walking John was the perfect cover.”

  “How did it go?” I said. “You’d pick up a distress signal on the radio, and the two of you would go rouse George York. You’d put to sea in his fishing boat, and you’d . . . you’d . . .” I struggled with the words.

  “Say it,” he said simply.

  “You’d find the ship that had put out the distress call. A ship that had been in battle, or had been torpedoed. You’d catch up with it in your little boat as it was sinking, as the men were dying. And you’d take your boat through the wreckage, collecting loot.”

  “There’s a long tradition on this coast,” he said without turning to me, “of wreckers scavenging sunken ships. The legends say that in some places they even put out false signals on their lighthouses to lure ships to the rocks.”

  “But that isn’t what you did, is it?” I cried. “You robbed your own countrymen—merchants bringing in supplies, and fighting sailors. Men of your own Royal Navy! You went to their graves, where they’d fallen in battle, and you robbed them.”

  “We stop here.” We had nearly reached the mouth of the bay. He set down the oars and reached for me. For a second I flinched, but he just grabbed my roped hands and began tying them to the oarlock. We were rocking up and down now, as the rain whipped the water and the crosscurrents tossed the boat, but William held steady, his knees braced on the seat.

  “And what about since the war?” I said. “When the ships stopped sinking, and the black market dried up. What did you do then?”

  He looked at me for a long moment, then turned away. I wanted to scream. I was wet with rain and sea spray now, my coat nearly soaked through, and I was shivering. I pulled on the ropes that held me to the boat, and my eye scanned the line of beach behind us, now almost impossibly far away. There was movement there, in the trees. A person, or more than one.

  “This place is beautiful, isn’t it?” said William, as he looked out to the bay. “Do you know, when I came back to Rothewell, the first thing I did was go into the woods and lie on the ground for an entire afternoon, just looking at the sky.” He looked up. “The sky is different here, I think.”

  Drew, I thought. Please be Drew.

  It was impossible to tell from here who it was, or whether it was a man or a woman. But my eyes didn’t deceive me when they saw the moonlight glint off metal in a slow, dull flash.

  William was looking up; I hoped he wouldn’t notice. He was sitting tall in the seat of the boat, smoking a cigarette, his hands resting on his knees. He lowered his gaze and looked for the German boat to come.

  “I’d made contacts to sell the goods,” William said at last, “and after the war, they started calling me. They wanted to use Blood Moon Bay, and they needed a signalman. I knew the woods, and none of their men would go anywhere near the signal house. I did it, of course. For a hefty fee.”

  “What about Walking John?”

  “I told you, he had quiet periods. I’d wait for one, and I’d get them a message. I don’t know how big the operation is, or who runs it. I just know I’d send a message, and I’d signal the boat that it was safe to come in. And then I’d get my money with no one the wiser.”

  “What about Aubrey?”

  “Aubrey found God. And Enid. He wanted nothing more to do with it. But he couldn’t exactly blow the whistle, could he? If it all came out, what we’d done, he’d lose everything. And he suddenly decided he cared.”

  A dull crack sounded. Six feet short of the boat, a thin line of water splashed upward. Another crack came, and another splash. I crouched down to the bottom of the boat.

  William turned, but he didn’t duck. He scanned the shore, his eyes narrowing, the cigarette balanced between his lips.

  “I think that’s your inspector,” he said, as the third shot came.

  I couldn’t bear it. “William, please turn around. He’s going to kill you.”

  He glanced at me and took the cigarette from his mouth. He still sat straight as an arrow. “How good a shot is he, do you think?”

  I didn’t know, but I could guess. “Very good, I think.
”

  “Do you?” Another shot came, this one only five feet from the boat, and to the left. “He must like you a great deal.”

  “William, please—”

  “He’s mad, though. He can’t possibly hit at this range, with the sea as choppy as it is. And with the two of us so close together in this little boat.” His eyes glinted. “Why, he could easily hit you.”

  I stared at him as the wind tore my sodden hair and froze my hands to ice, and for the first time I understood exactly what was going on. I’d been assuming that when the deal was over, he’d threaten me if I were lucky, or kill me as his latest silenced witness, in his plot to get away.

  But William was sitting straight in the line of fire in a flimsy rowboat. He had no gun, or any other weapon. He was going to meet the Germans unarmed. And he was going to kill me, but it wasn’t in a plot to get away. William was not planning to get away at all.

  I now understood the lack of concern on his face, the strange distance in his eyes. It was the look of a man who had come to a perfect resolve that he was about to die, and after this night he would never have to worry about anything again. I thought of the clean, empty house, the pie plate on the counter, the opened doors. I told my dog to go find a new owner. I had walked into the middle of his determined, well-planned suicide.

  The thought struck me with such panic that I wanted to thrash at my ropes and scream. I had no chance. This was the last hour of my life, there was no escape, and the man who brought me could not be bargained with.

  Another shot came, and he looked at me. He must have seen something in my eyes.

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t do this.”

  He looked away, toward the shore again. “It won’t hurt.”

  “William!” Now I did thrash, pulling on the ropes, kicking with my legs. “For God’s sake—you’re ill. Please!”

  “We’ll go together.” A dreamy note entered his flat voice. “I was going to go alone, but when I saw you tonight . . .” He sighed. “I can’t leave you behind. It’s best.”

  “Why?” There was warmth on my face; I may have been weeping, though in the rain I couldn’t tell. “Why are you doing this? For money? Why?”

  The shots had stopped. He reached up and scratched his head, as if thinking of what to say. Finally he turned back to me. “Do you know how my brother, Raymond, died?”

  I said nothing. His face convulsed with a spasm of emotion, and he rubbed his hand over it, as if scrubbing the memory away. “He took a shot to the face. It blew off half his lower jaw. He lived for three days like that. Three days. My brother died in agony, without me, and I never even knew.”

  You go on, that’s all, Drew had said. You simply do. “William, it was terrible. Everyone suffered. But it’s over.”

  He lunged and grabbed me, his hands gripping my shoulders. “That’s just it,” he said, furious, his face close to mine. “It’s not over.”

  “Yes, it is. It is.”

  “You don’t see. I was there. They say I had a fever for months. But what I had . . . what I had was a revelation.” His eyes were alight now. He reached down and grabbed the codebook, still wrapped in its oilskin. “If it’s over, why do the Germans want this?” He tossed it to the floor of the boat. “What we call peace, they call an insult. Germany is defeated, but she is seething. She has not lain down and died. Every corner is alive with unrest. It will happen, Jillian. Germany will rebuild, rearm, and amass a new army. The seeds of it are already planted. And it will happen all over again.”

  I shook my head. I felt sick. “That isn’t possible.”

  “It is. It was shown to me while I was in that filthy hospital waiting to die. The angels told me. They said there would be no true armistice. That the war would only start again. I had to live with that knowledge, and I’ve suffered for it. But when I found the book, I knew. It was a sign. A sign that I could do something to stop it.”

  “William, you’re not making any sense!”

  “Read the newspapers, Jillian. The German people are already humiliated. They’re already angry. It’s not only possible; it’s already begun.”

  “No!” I cried. “There’s no way we’ll go to war again. England won’t stand for it. Someone will stop it. Someone will make sure.”

  “Wake up, my girl. No one is going to stop anything. There is no justice, no sense of right. It’s going to happen, and when it does . . . it’s going to be worse than anyone has ever imagined. It’s going to be so terrible—I lie awake at night, thinking about it. I can’t go through it again—I can’t. And I don’t want you to, either.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  But he only shook his head. “My little brother died in agony. They buried him somewhere in the mud over there, and they never even shipped him home. And he died for nothing. That is your wonderful twentieth century.” He looked away. I couldn’t tell whether he was weeping, just as I couldn’t tell whether I was. The rain was coming down too strong.

  I shivered in the bottom of the boat, sick and miserable. “But why loot ships? Why sell the code to the Germans? Why commit treason?” I said. “For money?”

  “I send all my money away,” he replied, tired now. “There are forces in Germany—new organizations that are struggling against the power. They need money. Have you heard of the Nazi Party? I doubt you have. Everyone underestimates them, believes them mad. But they are fighting for a new government, and they are gaining ground. I send all the money to them. When I found the Mercury book, I knew they would want it, even though the war is over. Because the war isn’t over for them.” He turned to me. “And I’m not selling this book to the Nazi Party. I’m giving it to them as a gift.”

  “But why? You’ve said you could stop the war. Why commit treason to start it?”

  “Because if this new regime comes into power, if they overthrow the corrupt old government, then perhaps we’ll have peace. And if not . . . if they have the codebook and the advantage on us, if they have already won . . .” He shrugged, hopelessness in the gesture. “Perhaps we won’t fight.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but two things happened at once. First, a boat appeared out of the rain.

  And second, another shot rang out, and William fell.

  Thirty-six

  The rowboat jolted, and I lost my balance, landing hard on my elbow. William had gone down on the other side of the seat, and I couldn’t see anything but his crumpled legs. I dared not raise my head to go to him, so I called his name.

  Above us, the boat William had been waiting for came out of the misting water. It was a fishing trawler. As it approached, I could see its peeling paint, the coils of rope on the deck, the water rushing past the hull. A man in a dark sweater and watch cap stood on the front deck, his back to us, gesturing to one of the crew I couldn’t see. He waved his arm once, twice.

  I looked back at William’s legs, and for a wild moment I thought the Germans had shot him from the trawler. Then another shot hit the hull of the trawler, sending up a shower of splinters, and the man in the watch cap dropped to a crouch, his shouts faint over the sound of the engines and the ceaseless rush of the water.

  I gingerly lifted my head. The shots were far too close to still be coming from the beach. I could see nothing.

  The Germans were moving now. The ship began to turn.

  I called to William again. I slid over the seat, crouching as low as I could, rolling to accommodate my tied hands. “William!”

  He moved then, twisting onto his back, trying to get up. I struggled, wishing I could keep him down, even though he’d kidnapped me, even though he wanted to die. His coat was soaked with rain, and in the dark I couldn’t see blood.

  “Are you hit?” I called to him.

  He swore, seemed to come to himself again, and pushed himself up. “Where are they? Where are they?”

  I thought he meant
the shooters. “I don’t know,” I said, but he meant the Germans. Their boat had fully turned now and was steaming away. I could see the word Cornwall painted on the hull.

  William shouted at them to stop until his voice was hoarse, but it was for nothing. The Germans, it seemed, had no interest in being shot at. In minutes they had receded out of range, and soon after that they were gone.

  He sat heavily on the seat of the boat. His face was ashen. He hung his head for a long moment, his hands braced on his knees. Now I could see a darker stain spreading across the front of his coat, just under the breastbone.

  We’d been drifting for too long now without anyone at the oars, and the boat was pitching wildly. We’d turned so the side of our hull went into the waves; the water sprayed over us with each assault, soaking us with freezing spray. The current was carrying us toward the mouth of the bay. We were headed toward the open water, where, even if I could get free and pick up the oars, I had almost no chance of fighting my way back to shore.

  If I was to get free, I had to do it now. “Please,” I said to William, making my best attempt—ragged, I’m sure—to sound rational and sane. “Let me help you. Untie me.”

  “I don’t want help,” he said, not looking at me.

  I opened my mouth to try again, and then I stopped.

  Over William’s shoulder, past the end of the boat and across the water, I was now facing the rocky shore at the outer edge of Blood Moon Bay. It was the jumble of overgrown, impossible terrain that I hadn’t thought anyone could navigate. Incredibly, there was a rowboat in the water there, and two figures pushing off.

  This, then, was where the second volley of shots had come from—farther up the coast toward the ocean, in much closer range to our boat. Having hit William and chased off the Germans, the marksman and one other—I had my money on Drew and Teddy Easterbrook—were making their final play. They were coming to get me.

  I glanced at William. He was struggling to raise his head, his breathing growing harder. He hadn’t seen them. I thought quickly. The men must know that William wasn’t armed; if he had been, he’d have shot back at them already. They must also see that the boat was drifting farther and farther out of the bay. They were coming in their own boat, betting on the fact that William was shot, that he was unarmed, that if he threw me into the sea, they’d get close enough to catch me before I drowned. It was far from a foolproof plan, but to wait until our boat disappeared was no plan at all.