by Charles Todd
“No. FitzHugh found me abandoned along a country road. Half starved, filthy, and sickly. And he took pity on me. But you’re absolutely right about London, especially since the Troubles and that 1916 uprising in Dublin. England saw it as an unforgivable stab in the back, in the middle of war. Being Irish just now is the same as being a traitor. A bastard Irishman—an upstart and a nobody—Stephen swore he’d use that to ruin me in the City if I didn’t help turn Trevelyan Hall into a mausoleum. Rosamund’s house! The Hall is all I ever truly desired in this world. Even the money I’ve earned was only a bridge to owning it. And I wanted to come here by right, not with my tail between my legs!”
Before Rutledge could read anything more than light amusement in the man’s eyes, he’d moved, swift as lightning, without conscious preparation, like a snake striking without warning.
Rutledge, expecting it, dodged, but not quite fast enough. His head, jerked back by Cormac’s stiff forearm, hit the wall with a loud crack, and as light flashed behind his eyes, Cor-mac moved in to follow up with a blow that had the full force of his shoulder behind it.
Rutledge felt his knees buckle and his senses reel under the impact. He was nearly unconscious, Hamish fiercely yelling at him to hold on, when the third and final blow brought down a pall of blackness.
27
He awoke to block nothingness, lashed out in the primeval primeval fear of blindness, and realized suddenly that the lamp had been taken away and he was alone. A flash of lightning told him that he was in Stephen’s room, where Cormac had left him. He moved gingerly, and everything worked.
Shaking his head to clear it, Rutledge felt a wave of dizziness that threatened to send him back to his knees. Using the table’s edge to pull himself to his feet, he leaned on his hands for precious seconds, willing himself into full control of his senses again. The amazing thing, he told himself, dazed still, was that he was alive.
Rutledge stumbled across the room and in the next flash of light, saw his way through the door. Thunder rattled the windows behind him.
The passage was black but there was still a lamp in the drawing room to guide him down the stairs. He ran across the hall and looked through its door.
The portrait was there, but Cormac had gone.
Where had the man hidden his car? Or had he come by boat, as Rutledge had anticipated. It was the most silent, the most secretive means of coming and going unseen. But was it still there? The boat?
Swearing as the rising wind caught the big door when he opened it, Rutledge went out into the night, down the steps, towards the strand. Ahead of him was Cormac, moving through the darkness. Which meant that he, Rutledge, couldn’t have been unconscious very long.
Rutledge called out to him, shouting his name.
Cormac turned and lifted an arm mockingly.
“He wants you to come after him! That’s why he didna’ finish it in the house!” Hamish exclaimed. “Will you no’ stop and think, man!”
Rutledge said nothing, his eyes straining to follow the figure ahead of him. But Cormac was no longer taking the path to the beach; he’d veered off towards the headland, picking up his pace. Swearing again, Rutledge plowed on, the wind tearing at his face and his coat, pushing him sideways. His head seemed to split open with the pounding pace he’d set, but he clenched his teeth and ignored it.
At the headland, where it curved to its highest point, Cormac turned. In the lightning, his pale hair blowing in the wind, his shirt white against the black clouds beyond, he seemed to glow with malevolence.
“Lucifer—!” Hamish warned.
Rutledge saved his breath and ran on until he was within a few yards of the other man.
“The way it will look,” Cormac yelled, “you broke under the strain tonight. Unable to sleep, disoriented, you came out here to the headland to watch the storm, and in a wild moment of self-doubt, you went over the edge. Thunder brought back the guns, and guilt, and all the nightmares.”
“Did you kill Olivia? Or did she choose her own death?”
“Ah, Olivia. She mesmerizes you as Rosamund mesmerized me. I meant what I told her the weekend before. That I wouldn’t hesitate to tell London that she and Nicholas were lovers. The Lucifer poems created quite a stir. And I had the feeling another collection was coming out. That she hadn’t finished with me. I wasn’t sure I could ruin O. A. Manning, but I knew how to kill Olivia Marlowe.”
“How did she answer you?”
“She laughed in my face and said that she might welcome the darkness, if it brought me harm. And promised to burn any new poems. She’s been a sword in my flesh since I was twelve. We’ve been bound together like lovers, by the bonds of a mutual fear. But the tide’s turning and I have to go.” Then he said very distinctly, “They were not quite dead when I slipped into the house that night. I think she must have known I was there—”
The wind was snatching his words away, but Rutledge heard them and hated the man with a ferocity that was deep and cold.
Cormac, for a second time in his life, miscalculated.
This time Rutledge moved first, with such speed and anger behind it that he caught Cormac off guard and sent them both reeling back, then before either man could brake their momentum, over the edge of the cliff.
It wasn’t a sheer drop. It was rock eroded by wind and weather. It was clumpy grass and earth, punctuated by straggling shrubs and heaved outcroppings. A long and rough slope that took its toll on bone and flesh as they tumbled down towards the fringe of boulders where the surf crashed whitely. The noise rose to meet them, so mixed with the thunder that there was only an endless, deafening roar.
As Rutledge’s shoulder hit the slope, he grunted with the force of it, then forgot it as Cormac’s body slammed into his, nearly winding them both. They grappled for a hold as they rolled and slid, yelling, cursing, pure fury fueling flailing knees and fists. Rutledge tasted blood and salt on his lips and felt a warm wetness just under his ribs, where something had ripped through the skin. Cormac’s flesh was also taking a beating, but he was ignoring it with the single-mindedness of a lifetime.
Rutledge fought with the cunning and strength of the battlefield, the ruthless, unforgiving training of hand-to-hand combat. He found himself wishing fervently for a bayonet, a rifle butt, a weapon of any kind. He could feel if not hear the sucking in of breath, the grunts from the savage effort Cormac made to match him hold for hold, blow for blow. There was grit in Rutledge’s teeth, one eye was half closed, and his left elbow felt numb as they came suddenly to the end of the long, ragged slope and pitched with savage momentum into the cold, wild water, shocking both of them.
In his grasp Cormac went limp.
Rutledge heaved himself up through the rough sea and pulled the other man with him.
“You aren’t dead—I won’t—let you die!” he shouted, gasping for air, but Cormac made no response as his face came out of the water. “Damn it—you’ll hang yet!”
There was a dark smear across Cormac’s forehead where he’d struck rock under the water, laying open the skin. It was bleeding ferociously.
Now Rutledge was fighting the great rocks and the surf rolling in haphazardly before the wind, and the storm seemed to be tearing at the headland above, downdrafts sending a sandpaper of grit and dirt against his face.
He clenched his teeth with the effort, feeling his body tightening then tiring in the cold water, feeling the pull of the current and the edges of the rocks and the weight of the other body he was dragging after him.
Hamish was screaming at him, and he ignored it, concentration centered on keeping Cormac’s head above water even when his own sank and he seemed to swallow half the sea, unable to breathe, feeling himself choke and sputter. And start to fail. From somewhere in the whirling darkness he heard Hamish calling his name, forbidding him to die.
“Not now—not yet—by God, I won’t let you go this easily!”
Or was that what he was telling Cormac, over and over in his mind?
Panting
and coughing, he broke the surface again, and brought Cormac with him. The other man’s weight seemed lighter now, as if he’d come to his senses again, yet he made no effort to swim or struggle.
Every muscle seemed stretched beyond its limit, but Rutledge kept one hand locked in the collar of Cormac’s shirt and with the other fended off the rocks as his feet and legs pushed and pulled and dragged them against the pull of the water, in the direction of the strand. The numbed elbow sometimes gave way and they both crashed into rocks, were washed high on the inpouring of heavy surf, and then were slammed back into the headland, but Rutledge refused to give up, sheer will keeping the two of them afloat. Water was everywhere, there seemed to be no end of it. He dug with his heels, bobbed, bumped, thundered into sharp edges, felt the bruising and lacerations on his back, and still held on.
I didn’t survive the damned war to die in a Cornish sea! he swore to himself, again and again. I’ll live to see this bastard hang!
So absorbed was he in the ordeal of surviving, he wasn’t even aware that his feet had struck the shingle of the beach where it met the rocks. It caught him ill-prepared for the next surging wave.
The tide was flooding in and he was swept forward with such force that he lost his grip on Cormac. They both were dragged up the shelf, the water and the sand unmerciful to their faces and hands, then the salt burning fiercely where the flesh had been scoured open.
He lay there, digging in with his fingers and toes as the water worked to suck him out again, the tide pulling with an energy he’d long since lost. Then it was past him, and he fought now for breath, trying to stop the shuddering of his lungs and the pounding of his heart.
Beside him he heard Cormac breathe as well, roughly at first, then a long, deep draught of air. And then the man was on his knees, something in his hand, raising it high above his head and bringing it down with all the strength he’d hoarded while he let Rutledge struggle to save them both.
Hamish shouted as Rutledge rolled, and the stone came thudding down without sound, ploughing deep into the wet sand, unstoppable with the renewed power of Cormac’s whole body behind it.
Enough, damn it, was enough!
Rutledge swung his foot and caught Cormac in the groin. He’d lost one shoe, but the toe of the other came into the soft flesh with the might of fury driving it, and Cormac screamed in a high-pitched howl of pain that could be heard above the sound of the water and the screech of the wind, rising in a gurgling, choking cry that was cut short as he doubled over in anguish, sobbing and spluttering as the next wave came in.
The cold water, Rutledge thought with fierce satisfaction, breathing hard with the effort he’d had to make, had turned out to be an ally after all ...
Reducing Olivia’s Lucifer to the human plane of mortal suffering.
He lay there on his back on the wet shingle, rain pouring down over his face, and felt the scrapes and bruises and aches begin to come alive. His elbow throbbed with an intensity that made him wonder if it was broken or only cracked. Under his ribs there was another sensation, of fire and ice, where something sharp had gone in, and his head was still splitting with pain. Every muscle burned with exhaustion. He wanted only to sleep.
After a long, suffering silence Cormac said, in one shuddering breath, “I knew—when I first saw you that—you were different—mettle.”
“Why did you kill them?”
“You’re the policeman,” he said after a time. “You tell me.”
There was silence again.
Then an odd passion filled Cormac’s cracked voice. “The first day—the first day I came here—the Hall held me fast. There was a warmth about it—I don’t know. But—Anne laughed at me, when she heard me tell a groom I’d give anything to live in such a place. I wanted to choke it back in her throat, that laughter! Instead I had to walk away and pretend I didn’t care. When she fell—when I pulled at her sash to make her fall out of the tree—and she died on the grass in front of me, I realized I’d just found a way to have everything I wanted—if I was careful, and patient. After that, after that they were none of them safe.”
“What about the man on the moors? Did you kill him too?” Rutledge asked, suddenly remembering.
“The tramp. There was a chance—they never found Richard, you see—I thought he’d come back one day—yes.” He was still doubled over, hugging his body, his face grimacing as the waves of pain subsided in their own good time.
From somewhere in the distance they could hear voices calling.
Cormac lifted his head in the darkness, and stared at Rut-ledge.
“You had better kill me now. If you don’t, I’ll ruin you in the courtroom. They’ll blame you—before I’m done—”
For a split second, there was an overwhelming temptation to take him at his word. Rutledge clamped down on it, the policeman in him routing the soldier who’d swiftly calculated the odds, and he heard Hamish growl when the policeman won. In satisfaction? Or regret. He was too spent to care.
“Or will they be glad to convict the Irish bastard whose deception took in half the City?” Rutledge answered, and got slowly, achingly to his feet. He reached down a hand, and then thought better of it, grabbing the back of Cormac’s collar instead and dragging him to his knees.
Cormac managed to stand, half bent over, then suddenly found the strength of will to stand straight, eye to eye with Rutledge.
Lucifer had been stopped but not vanquished. Not yet.
Down the strand Constable Dawlish appeared in the heavy rain, peering towards them and shouting, “I think they’re over here!”
Inspector Harvey, with Smedley at his back and Rachel coming up at the run, something in her arms—blankets, he thought as she stumbled and slipped down the path from the lawns.
Cormac swung to face them and smiled as Harvey clapped handcuffs over his wet wrists. Watching, Rutledge unconsciously braced himself. It would be an appalling trial. The tragedy—as always, in Rutledge’s eyes—was that the murderer could never be charged with the havoc he’d brought to other people’s lives, only with the deaths laid at his door. Smedley was right, it wasn’t over for the villagers of Borcombe. Not for Rachel and Susannah. Not even for Olivia and Nicholas and Rosamund ...
“And you. They’ll be after breaking you on the stand,” Hamish warned.
“They can try,” he answered, silently.
Rachel, looking up at him, said in a low, strained voice as she gripped his arm with wet, icy fingers. “I have to know. Was it me that Nicholas loved, or was it Olivia?” The words seemed to be torn from her, as if they had never been allowed to surface from the darkness of her dread. Until now.
Rutledge shook his head. And consciously told a lie, out of infinite compassion. “He didn’t want her to die alone,” he said. “It took courage to make such a choice. Forgive him for it.”
She bowed her head and began to cry.
When they’d taken Cormac away, and Rachel, her face set and pale, had followed Smedley back towards the village, Rutledge was left on the headland alone. Pulling one of the blankets she’d brought tighter against the cold air that had followed the storm, he limped across to where the black patch of burned grass had once been, even its shadowed outline filled in with green now, the ashes long since washed away.
He knew what had perished here in the fire Nicholas had built. Why Olivia and Nicholas chose that moonlit night of beauty in which to end it.
A love they couldn’t have.
After a time ... “I envy you both,” he said softly in the night, lifting his head to look up at the room where they had died.
As he turned towards Borcombe, the wind followed, but Rutledge wasn’t aware of it. He stopped at the end of the drive and looked once more at the house below the headland. It stood there dark and silent, man-made and vulnerable, yet somehow invested with a grace all its own.
And he knew, without knowing how, that Olivia was finally at peace.
But that he would be possessed, for a very long time,
by the woman she had been.
Here s an excerpt from
Charles Todd’s next book
SEARCH THE DARK
Now available from
St. Martins/Minotaur
Paperbacks!
The murder appealed to be a crime of passion, the killer having left a trail of evidence behind him that even a blind man might have followed.
It was the identity of the victim, not the murderer, that brought Scotland Yard into the case.
No one knew who she was. Or, more correctly perhaps, what name she might have used since 1916. And what had become of the man and the two children who had been with her at the railway station? Were they a figment of the killer’s overheated imagination? Or were their bodies yet to be discovered?
The police in Dorset were quite happy to turn the search over to the Yard. And the Yard was very happy indeed to oblige, in the person of Inspector Ian Rutledge.
It began simply enough, with the London train pulling into the station at the small Dorset town of Singleton Magna. The stop there was always brief. Half a dozen passengers got off, and another handful generally got on, heading south to the coast. A few boxes and sacks were offloaded with efficiency, and the train rolled out almost before the acrid smoke of its arrival had blown away.
Today, late August and quite hot for the season, there was a man standing by the lowered window in the second-class car, trying to find a bit of air. His shirt clung to his back under the shabby suit, and his dark hair lay damply across his forehead. His face was worn, dejection sunk deep in the lines about his mouth and in the circles under tired eyes. He was young, but youth was gone.
Leaning out, he watched the portly Stationmaster helping a pale, drooping woman to the gate, the thin thread of her complaining voice just reaching him. “... such hardship” she was saying.
What did she know about hardship? he thought wearily. She had traveled first class, and the leather dressing case clutched in her left hand had cost more than most men earned in a month. If they were lucky enough to have a job.