He leaned forward. Slowly, one by one, sheet by sheet, he fed the letters into the flames. When the last had flared and lay in ashes on the topmost log, Jonathan leaned back in his chair. ‘Consumatum est,’ he said. ‘It is all over.’ He shut his eyes, and when he spoke again they remained closed. ‘I have lived with the shooting of Willis all my life. I know I deserved to stand trial for murder. When I did, I never felt that it was wholly unjust.’ He opened his eyes. ‘I lied to the court at my trial, Mr Benson, but, as I said, I was not content to be convicted of the murder of David Trelawney.’
The last of the ash of the last letter fell into the embers and he said, almost in a whisper, ‘Well, was what I did murder? I intended to kill him. But it was Trelawney himself who completed what I had started. So was it murder?’
He had his head lowered as he said this. Now he raised it and looked directly at Harold. ‘Am I guilty, Mr Benson, of the murder of David Trelawney?’
For a long time neither spoke nor moved. Then Harold said, almost in a whisper, ‘No, Sir Jonathan. No.’ He rose from his chair and stood looking down at the white head of the old man staring into the fire. He bent to pick up his briefcase, and as he did so he heard Jonathan say, ‘Don’t abandon me, Mr Benson.’
‘I won’t,’ Harold said. He walked across the room to the door, opened it and stood for a second in the light that poured in from the hall, looking back. He could see Jonathan’s head, turned towards the fire. Then he went out into the empty hall, and out of the house.
For a while he sat in the car. How lonely we both are, he thought. But it cannot be long for him. For me, it will be longer. Then he drove home. No, he would never abandon Sir Jonathan Playfair.
In his chair, Jonathan heard again Beau’s voice. They were standing under the cedar tree which David and he had been climbing after the accident with the tractor seventy years ago. His father was holding his hand.
‘It doesn’t do to run away,’ Beau said, as they walked back to the house. ‘It never does.’
And David had come running towards them.
Also by Peter Rawlinson
Fiction
The Columbia Syndicate
Hatred and Contempt
His Brother’s Keeper
The Caverel Claim
Nonfiction
A Price Too High: An Autobiography
The Jesuit Factor: A Personal Investigation
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
INDICTMENT FOR MURDER. Copyright © 1994 by Peter Rawlinson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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First published in Great Britain by Chapmans, an imprint of Orion Books Ltd.
First U.S. Edition: February 2000
eISBN 9781466876026
First eBook edition: June 2014
Indictment for Murder Page 28
