by Charles Todd
There was beauty and strength, dignity and love there. Warmth. A woman who had much to give in her own right, and in the arms of her family. A woman who had lost three husbands and two of her children, but never faltered, a veritable pillar of life even in death.
He touched the cold marble cheek, and almost swore he could feel its own warmth against his hand. But it was an illusion, and he knew it.
On the wall to his left were several family memorials. The one for Stephen, set between his father’s and a slender pillar that supported the chapel, was inscribed with his name, dates, the Trevelyan and FitzHugh coats of arms, and his rank and regiment in the war. And in the back, their newness brightening the darkness there, were two blocks of black marble, side by side. Incised in them were, simply, the names and the dates of the dead. Olivia and Nicholas. Plain, for suicides.
For a moment he stood looking at them, wishing he could reach the living people they had been. But it was too late for that, except in Olivia’s poetry. Extending his arm, he again laid his palm against the marble, seeing its reflection against the lettering as if in a black mirror. The long fingers, the strong palm. His hand, no one else’s.
“Was it you, Olivia? Or Nicholas,” he asked aloud.
“… Nicholas…” the echo repeated softly.
“And you are free of guilt.”
“… free of guilt…” it replied.
“Who was your lover? Was it Cormac?”
The echo caught the question in his voice as it responded.
“… Cormac…?”
“And who is the Hound of Gabriel?”
“… rial…?”
“Do you know? If so, where will I find the answer?”
“… answer…”
“Is it in your papers-or your poetry?”
“… poetry…”
He stepped across the small space to where he could touch Nicholas’ memorial, ignoring the forcefulness of Hamish’s voice, calling it witchcraft to question the dead, warning him not to meddle in such matters, to leave it be.
“I talk to you. How is that so different!” he retorted in his mind.
After a moment he asked the shining black face of Nicholas’ marker, “Were you the killer Olivia protected?”
But in that single step he’d shifted the odd acoustics of the chapel and there was no echo to answer him. Only the sound of his own breathing. As if even in death Nicholas knew how to hold his peace.
20
Back at the inn Rutledge ate a fast meal in one corner of the dining room, an old book he’d found in the parlor propped in front of him to ward off conversation from either Trask or any other diners. But it was still early, and he had the place to himself. Asking for another pot of coffee and a cup, he went up to his own room to open the books of poetry again.
They seemed to raise more questions than they answered, but he thought it might be his own frame of mind raising doubts, not the lines he read over and over.
The last volume, Lucifer, had very little of the lyricism of Keats, and more of the strength of Milton. The writer was coming into maturity, looking at life and death as if they were the same, a coming from darkness and a returning to it, a brief, bright, glorious span that was often marred by man’s own incapacity to learn and trust.
He found the poem that had disturbed Inspector Harvey, and read it first. What Harvey hadn’t remembered was the title. It was, oddly enough, “The Failure.” Rutledge thought about that for a time, then moved on.
The poem about Eve seemed on the surface to answer the question of the tree of knowledge, from which she’d taken the apple. Eating it had opened her eyes to the realities of life and cost her the Garden of Eden.
But looking at it not as verse, instead as the experience of a young girl faced suddenly and shockingly with the death of a loved one-her own twin-Rutledge saw something else. Something he’d have missed if he hadn’t delved so deeply into the history of the Trevelyan family. Eve was Olivia, tasting of the knowledge that evil existed, and struggling to understand it, to find a place for it in her small, comfortable, once-safe childhood world. Losing her own Garden of Eden. Watching helplessly as the serpent twined itself into the branches and plucked the apple. But it was Anne who had fallen, and the last lines proved it to him.
The apple was one I knew, had loved, and would not wish to fall – lt was myself, my other self and terrified, my soul denied it all
Denying that murder had taken place? Refusing to believe in it?
But then Anne’s death was the first to happen. And they were all children at the time. Whatever Olivia might have seen, whatever she might have understood-or feared-murder was not a reality she was ready for. Cruelty, perhaps, she’d comprehend that, because children are capable of great cruelty. A knowledge of murder would come afterward. Meanwhile, Olivia had lived with silent, terrified grief.
He sat there, forgetting to watch the sunset, forgetting the coffee growing cold in his cup, his mind focused on the finely printed words on the richly watermarked page. Then after a time he moved on again.
Several pages later, when he had nearly convinced himself that the interpretation he’d given to “Eve” was subjective, not objective, he found the next movement in a symphony of pain and grief.
The title was “The Prodigal Son,” and it seemed to capture the story of the youngest son who left home, taking his share of his inheritance with him, leaving older brothers to support their aging father. But life had not been kind to him, and he returned a failure, expecting to be a slave in his father’s holdings, only to be treated like the lost and golden boy he’d been.
Richard.
It could be no one else. Richard-still alive? No, that was impossible! But still a threat to his brothers, because his body hadn’t been found. They would be left to wonder what had become of him. To wonder if he might someday come home in truth.
Rutledge thought about that.
The second murder.
There had been a long and intense search for the boy. No sign of him had been found. Flyers and posters had been sent out, gypsies and tramps questioned, farms fringing the moors turned inside out. He himself, reading over the reports and the final verdict, had believed that the killer had hidden the corpse-no body, no evidence of foul play. But, what if that was all wrong?
What if murder had been made to look like an accident? A drowning, a fall, a boy’s game of hide and seek that had tragically pitched him headfirst into a mine shaft? Knocked down and trampled by wild ponies? There were any number of possibilities. Then consider Someone else had found the body-not a search party of half a dozen men, but one person. Who might well have known for other reasons-or guessed-who was behind this carefully arranged scene. And who might have decided that Richard’s death-irreversible in itself-might still be a threat to his murderer. Gathering up the corpse, carrying it away in the night while the searchers were occupied on the moor, taking it where it might never be discovered, someone had altered the murderer’s design. Left a question mark in his mind, a doubt, a worry. And later, near where the body had been lying, the clothes had been buried. In case the murderer came back to search on his own for the child that the searchers ought to have found…
Hamish was busy picking the concept to pieces, but Rut-ledge ignored him. You couldn’t bury Richard in the church or the churchyard. Any digging or movement of stones there would have been suspect. Nor at the Hall. There were gardeners-they would have seen the first signs of a grave large enough to hold a five-year-old. Most of the villagers had gardens too, digging in them every season, turning them over, disturbing the soil. The wood then? No, it was too close to the Hall, within sight and sound of the village as well. The sea? It sometimes failed to give up its secrets, and other times, it brought them back to shore. All right, none of the obvious choices, then. But somewhere safe… for the boy as well as the person who’d moved him…
Who could be trusted to keep such a dark and horrible secret?
Someone who might n
ot know what it was…
Rutledge got up and went to the wardrobe. He’d brought a heavy sweater with him, dark wool-with dark trousers he was nearly invisible in the night. And there was an entrenching tool in the boot of his car. Changing quickly, he shut the door of his room and went downstairs. No one was around, though he could hear voices from the back, by the kitchens. Letting himself out the front door, he went around to his car, found the small shovel, and set off on his macabre errand.
He’d learned, in the war, to move silently in the darkness. Snipers, trip wires, booby traps, mines-every step might bring sudden death. Where you put your feet and how decided whether you came back safely and unseen, or not at all. And so he walked with stealth and care, leaving the village, circling well out of his way, letting the starlight and his own sense of direction guide him. After half an hour he came to the small cottage half-nestled, half-crouched in its narrow valley. There was lamplight at one of the windows, and he stood in the shadows of the hillside, waiting and listening.
Women like Sadie sometimes had a sixth sense. And the cat she kept would hear him if she didn’t. The lift of its head, the twitching ears, the eyes narrowed and still-it was as good as any alarm.
After a time, moving with extreme care, the wind blowing towards him to carry both scent and sound away, he searched the gardens,
When he’d asked whether or not she grew pansies, Sadie had answered that they didn’t dry well. That was probably true. But he’d taken it to mean that she didn’t have any of the plants in her garden. And that had been his mistake.
How much did the old woman know?
Or, perhaps more to the point, how much had she known? She hadn’t always been senile… there might have been a time when she was a willing party to what was happening. But just as it was impossible to turn back the clock, it was nearly impossible to lift the veil in that old and tired brain.
Well, then, make some assumptions. Could Richard have been brought here without in any way involving Sadie?
If the boy had been buried here, could Sadie have been told that a small patch of pansies set apart from her own flowers was a reminder of a brother lost, a private place to grieve? Possible, yes. Likely, no. On the other hand, she might have pretended to believe. And whatever suspicions she might have harbored deep in her unsettled mind, she’d have kept them to herself. It all came down to how much she understood about the killings at the Hall. And whether she knew the face of a murderer.
He made each step with minute attention to the ground, so as not to leave prints in the earth or crushed blossoms in his wake, his eyes roving this way and then that. Not near the cottage, no, and not where the herbs and flowers grew best. Not where heavy rains might wash the bones out, nor where the boy wouldn’t be under the eye of his mentally frail and possibly unwitting guardian. And disguised, somehow, the kind of place that wouldn’t draw attention to itself or tempt anyone to rearrange it.
And he found it on the hillside, just where a small natural outcropping formed the anchor of an asymmetrical rock garden. It was no more than a few feet wide in any direction, yet large enough for a child’s curled body. A spill of unusual white stones brought from somewhere else lay like a small river tucked in among the flowers. Pansies, and some sort of small, narrow leafed things that formed a mat. Plants that would reseed themselves, half tame, half wild, clinging among the stones and holding the earth with their roots.
He squatted there in the darkness, studying the rock garden.
Very simple, not the sort of thing that would catch the eye of a casual observer, a little patch of color above an outcropping that lent itself to this one use only, wild and half-neglected, unimportant and oddly touching.
There was the sound of a door opening, and he froze, keeping his silhouette low and dark against the greater darkness of the hillside.
Sadie stood for a moment, a hunched figure against the lamplight behind her, in the open doorway. Rutledge could feel her eyes on him, although he knew she couldn’t possibly see him where he was.
‘‘Who’s there?” she called. After a moment, she went on, “Have you come for me?”
His mouth tightened in anger at himself for disturbing her, giving her a fright. It had been the last thing he’d wanted.
“But she has a sixth sense,” Hamish reminded him.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, when Rutledge didn’t answer her. “Come again in the light, if you have honest business here.”
He was very close to standing up and identifying himself. But she shut the door again, and in a minute or two more, the lamp was snuffed out.
His legs were stiff from squatting, but he waited for a little longer, then turned his attention back to the garden.
If the body had been hidden here, how much would be found now? The long bones, perhaps, the jaw. Kneeling, feeling the night’s damp soaking into his trousers, he lifted a few of the stones very carefully from their bed and touched the soil beneath. His fingers worked down into it, among the plant roots and the friable earth, spreading and probing. There were no tree roots here, on the hillside. If there had been a body in this ground, some trace would remain to a trained eye. He mustn’t disturb it too much.
It was useless to dig. In the dark. Leaving behind signs of his presence. Wait until later, and let the experts His fingers struck something rough and hard. In spite of himself, a coldness swept over him even though common sense told him he couldn’t have found bone at this shallow depth. And not the boy’s bones.
Someone had been here before him, lifting the rocks in the center just as he’d done, loosening the soil. He should have realized that as soon as he touched the earth-it would have made sense if he’d had his wits about him.
Working carefully, winkling it and using his other hand to clear a little space here, a little there, he very soon had the long slender length of wood out of its hiding place.
A carving. No, something else, the sides were too smooth.
He let his fingers gently feel the thing in his hand. It was not old wood-he knew the texture of that. They’d used and reused whatever lumber came to hand in the trenches, scavenged for boardwalks to keep their feet dry above the filth, for shelter from the rain, for a place out of the hot sun or the cold wind. On the Somme the generals had forbidden even such simple, rough comforts, while the Germans had lived in tunnels they’d efficiently dug deep in the earth. No, this wood was hard and firm and new to the ground it had been buried in. Three sides were smooth as sanding could make them. The fourth had something cut into it. Deeply incised, and at midlength. Like a blind man he worked at the shapes, slowly letting his sense of touch and not his eyes tell him what was there. There was a flow to the shapes, but they were separate. Letters, then.
R, yes, most certainly an R. Then a space before the next. A. Next to that an E, he thought. No, he was wrong. H. And the very last, C.
He thought back to the photographs he’d been given by Rachel Marlowe, and the names on the reverse. Richard Allen Harris Cheney.
Nicholas had left his calling card. And not very long ago…
21
Rutledge put everything back exactly as he’d found it, brushing the pansy leaves clean of any bits of earth, using his hands to smooth and press the disturbed earth. Then he got to his feet and thought about what he’d done, whether he’d left any task undone. Then he remembered the entrenching tool, and groped for that.
With the same care he’d exercised coming here he made his way out of the valley and back to the inn, returning the tool to its place in the car before going upstairs again to his room. Looking down at his shoes, he grimaced. The caked mud reminded him of the trenches. Taking them off, he set them outside his door for the boot boy.
Washing his hands well, then blotting the worst of the dew out of his trouser knees, he went back to his earlier task. The poems.
It was in some ways quite unnerving to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Like working out the obituaries of people he knew. But Oli
via seldom failed him once he learned the technique of what she had tried to do. All the members of her family were here, cleverly disguised by the allegorical themes she’d chosen for each. Sometimes, like “Eve,” they were given biblical names, at others wrapped in Cornish legends, or cloaked in bits of well-known history-whatever fit her purpose, but always with such artistry that the mask itself had a life and drama of its own. He marveled again at such talent, and the tragedy of its loss. She had barely reached her prime…
Of course she wasn’t the first to use poetry as a vehicle for her own designs. Poets-Swift and Wordsworth were the first names he thought of-had employed their pens to mock political figures or make literary allusions to famous events or writers. Some employed satire and a vicious humor to bring down governments or ruin reputations and careers. But to his knowledge this was the first time one had grimly catalogued a murderer’s career.
“Bathsheba,” the faithful wife whose husband had been placed in the forefront of battle because King David desired her, had become Rosamund. Olivia described her as an unwitting pawn of a cruel and passionate man who wanted her at any price, and took from her the mainstay of her life, the kind and thoughtful husband who had filled her with happiness. James Cheney? Or Brian FitzHugh? Which had been killed because he was Rosamund’s husband?