by Charles Todd
I felt cold. Had someone accidentally stumbled on Simon’s tracks? But he would have been very careful there. He’d gone behind German lines and knew the importance of making certain he wasn’t discovered.
“How do you know they’re strange tracks?”
“Terrence Butterworth’s a cobbler. He mends our shoes regularly. And he didn’t recognize the sole.”
Oh dear. “If I were going to wander about in the dark, I’d make certain no one suspected me,” I said briskly. “It would be foolish to wear boots anyone could recognize.”
He seemed unconvinced. “Something’s going on, and I’m trying to get to the bottom of it. You’re sure you didn’t see anything in Stephenson’s clothes to tell you what he was doing out there by the water’s edge?”
“I saw nothing of interest in his clothing except wet sand,” I replied. Half of the truth—I needn’t tell him what I’d seen in the wound. “But Mrs. Stephenson said he’d sat up with a cow about to calve, and after the birth, he’d gone down to the sea.”
Burton shook his head. “That’s not like him.”
“How do you know what he might or might not do?”
“I’m saying he saw something. It’s the only explanation for him being down there.”
He was making the facts fit his suspicions. It was clear to me, an outsider, that anxiety and worry had conspired to lead men out on the Down to read too much into the dead man’s movements.
And then, as if to prove me right, Mr. Burton said, “We were all right when no one got too greedy. That’s the trouble. Someone wants more than his rightful share.” With an abrupt nod to me, he turned and walked away.
I watched him turn down the path there by the hedge and disappear from view. When I looked toward the Griffith house, I saw the silhouette of a man’s head at the window. He’d witnessed the conversation between Mr. Burton and me—I wondered what he’d made of it.
Had he also shared in the silver washed in by the sea? His wife had been a local girl, and she would surely have had some claim to the treasure.
I realized that he didn’t run cattle, and he no longer had the men from the coast guard station coming to his shop. How did he live, if it wasn’t by a share in the silver?
I turned away and walked back to the house.
Chapter 16
Rachel and Hugh were waiting in the front room when I came through the door. I looked up from unbuttoning my coat and said, “He thinks that someone is looking for silver. That Oliver was attacked because he was helping Ellen search for her grandfather’s. And that Mr. Stephenson was killed because he was down by the sea and either found something or saw something that someone else didn’t want known.”
“And had he?” Rachel asked.
“There’s no way of answering that. He was dead when he was found. Whatever it was—if indeed it was anything at all—he didn’t live to tell anyone. Mr. Burton thought that I might have seen what was in Mr. Stephenson’s pockets when I helped his wife undress him. She only wanted to know if he’d suffered and died alone. But Mr. Burton claims she burned what he was wearing. She probably did, because the clothes were soaked with his blood. Not because there were any secrets to be kept.”
“We told you it was best not to go with her,” Rachel warned.
“I couldn’t very well refuse to put her mind at ease,” I replied. “What’s happening out here? Is the silver beginning to run out? Have people found less and less and are worried that there’s no more to be discovered? Is that why someone is willing to kill for more?”
“It’s been washing in for centuries,” Rachel said, as if she believed it should last forever.
But just how much had the treasure ship been carrying? Most of the silver must surely have been lost in the sea. And what was left, what the tide could capture and bring in, must have been only a part of that original amount. Still—this village’s needs were small enough. They had survived, not squandered. A queen’s dowry would last out here. But not forever, of course.
Perhaps that was the trouble. Someone believed that there was still a fortune out there. And that sooner or later, someone was going to devise a way of getting to it. Failing that, whatever was left of Ellen Marshall’s grandfather’s fortune would do very well. Only I thought it was already gone, years ago.
That stirred another line of thought. Folding my coat over my arm, I asked, “Who is money-hungry out here? Who needs it badly enough or wants it badly enough that he’s willing to kill for it?”
Rachel and Hugh stared at each other, then she said, “We could all use a windfall. I don’t know anyone out here who isn’t struggling to survive. The treasure ship has been a godsend. For a long time. It’s even more necessary for the foreseeable future. There’s no call for cattle now the war’s over, and the same is true for wool. There’s been talk of taking advantage of the climate out here and growing foodstuffs for Swansea or Cardiff, but how would we get them to market?”
I said, “That’s different from being desperate. Or greedy.”
She shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone willing to kill.”
But she knew these people out here, and she couldn’t be objective about them, she couldn’t see them as murderers.
I tried another tack.
“Who is the strongest man out here?”
Hugh answered. “That would be Heaton’s son. Philip. His father died when he was young, and he’s been a handful ever since. He’s been something of a ne’er-do-well from the time he was twelve. So I’ve been told.”
Philip Heaton.
“What size man is he?”
Hugh said, “If you’re asking if he could beat someone to death, he could. He’s large for his age, heavy shoulders. Still, I find it hard to believe that he’d do such a thing. A troublemaker, yes, I grant you. Over the years, everyone has had words with him. Including Tom.”
Was he defending Philip Heaton because he already knew that he wasn’t guilty?
What I found so hard to understand was how much that treasure ship coming ashore had changed this village. It was as if that slow trickle of silver over the centuries had drained away the conscience of those who had benefited from it. They would do anything to protect it, to avoid having the authorities come here and question them and perhaps stumble on a secret that mattered more than human life.
But it was useless to try to change the minds of these people. Even Hugh, who had been here such a short time, had succumbed to their way of seeing things. Although to be honest, I rather thought it was his feelings for Rachel that had changed him. If she believed, so would he . . .
“Where does this man live?” I asked.
“On the road here. Just beyond the rectory.”
With a nod, I turned to carry my coat up to my room. I’d only just started up the stairs when I heard Rachel say to Hugh “You shouldn’t have told her that. It’s dangerous.”
I didn’t hear the Captain’s reply.
It was nearly dusk, and I was helping Rachel water the last of the seedbeds when we saw a flickering light, bright orange, coming from the front of the house and even visible over the rooftop.
Rachel drew in a breath as she saw it. “Fire,” she said, staring at it.
It was what everyone feared, for so many cottages and houses all over Britain were built of wood and vulnerable.
She dropped her watering can, lifted her skirts, and ran toward the corner of the house. I followed on her heels, and as we rounded the side, I saw that it wasn’t a fire, but a group of men moving silently with flaming torches lighting their way.
I reached out and caught Rachel’s arm. “Stop,” I whispered.
I almost plowed into her as she came to a halt.
“What are they doing?” she asked. “Where are they going?”
“I don’t know. Wait and see.”
The men’s night vision was ruined by the torchlight, but still we pressed ourselves against the side of the house, where we were less likely to be seen.
&
nbsp; From the kitchen garden, I heard Hugh calling us, but I stayed where I was.
The parade of men—I counted seventeen—moved up the road past the churchyard, the smoke from the torches spiraling up into the night sky, and the flames sending shadows dancing among the gravestones. And then they were passing the church, and I suddenly guessed where they were heading: Philip Heaton’s house.
“Find Hugh,” I told Rachel. “He’s looking for us. Tell him what’s happening.”
She was reluctant to go, but I put a hand on her shoulder. “Hurry. Before he’s worried enough to go out there, trying to find you.”
“All right.” She moved past me and was gone in the darkness behind me. I waited until she was out of sight and started after the men.
There was so little cover out here, so few trees, no buildings on this side of the road, and even with my coat on and a wool cap on my head, no way to hide who I was from the marchers. But I stayed back, along the verge of the road, hoping they were too intent on what they were doing to notice me.
They walked past the rectory and the house beyond it, coming to a stop finally at the cottage where Philip Heaton lived.
Somehow these men had come to the same conclusion that Hugh had reached, that Philip Heaton was physically the most likely person to have beaten Edward Stephenson so viciously. Or had someone covered his own tracks by pointing everyone’s attention in that direction? For here was a party set on meting out a rough justice of their own.
Now I could hear a voice harshly shouting Philip’s name. I moved forward to where I could see his cottage door more clearly.
It didn’t open.
“Come out, Heaton. Or we’ll set the cottage alight,” another voice shouted.
The door opened and a woman stepped out. She was wearing an apron but no coat, as if they’d interrupted her preparing dinner.
“What do you want with my son?” she demanded, wrapping her arms around her for warmth. “State your business with him, or go home,” she added when no one answered her.
“Send him out. He has to answer for what he’s done.”
A figure appeared behind her. He was young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, but tall and broad for his age. Somehow I’d expected him to be older. He stepped in front of his mother, even though she tried to force him back.
“I’m no coward, hiding behind my mother’s skirts,” he said. “You have no quarrel with her. Leave her be.”
“You’re suspected of killing Edward Stephenson,” Mr. Burton said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Why should I kill him? Or anyone else?” Philip Heaton retorted.
“You had words with him. Last week.”
“That was about money he owed me for helping with his cattle.”
This was news—I’d not heard about an earlier quarrel.
“And you threatened him.”
“What if I did? It was money owed. I’d earned it. And he kept putting me off.”
“And you set upon him down on the strand. What were you doing that hour of the morning, when he saw you there?”
“I was asleep in my own bed. I didn’t see him nor he me.” There was belligerence in his voice, and I saw his mother reach out to touch his arm. He shook it off. “If anyone says anything to the contrary, he’s a liar.”
“He was here,” his mother put in. “I’d vouch for that.”
But it did no good.
“What were you doing down there by the strand at that hour?” Burton’s voice repeated. “What were you after?”
“I was after nothing. I wasn’t there, I tell you.”
“You’re the strongest swimmer in the village,” another voice called out. “You’ve bragged about it often enough. What did you find?”
And that, I thought, was the crux of the matter, more important to these men than Edward Stephenson’s death.
Philip Heaton, unaware of his danger, tried to brazen it out. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he shouted back at them, a sneer in his voice. “None of you own the sea.”
He’d misjudged the mood of the men confronting him. I watched in horror as they surged forward and shoved Mrs. Heaton to one side, grabbing her son’s arms and dragging him kicking and struggling from the cottage door.
They carried him bodily out to the road, and there they set him on his feet. His mother came running after them, using her fists to forge through the mob—for that’s what it had become now—to reach her son’s side.
“Step aside, woman, this has nothing to do with you.”
“He’s my son, and I won’t let you hurt him.”
Someone roughly pushed her aside, and Philip fought to protect her, calling the men names and lashing out with fists and feet. Someone behind him hit him over the head with something, and he sagged in the grip of those holding him. His mother cried out, and tried to get to him, but they shoved her away.
Half a dozen men dragged the half-conscious Philip Heaton forward, while others held his mother back, and as they turned to come down the road toward me, I could see their faces. If someone didn’t do something, I realized, their victim wasn’t likely to survive the night.
I was about to run forward to stop them when someone else appeared out of the shadows. It was the small form of Mrs. Stephenson, and I saw the torchlight reflected on the revolver in her hands.
She shouted something, and as one, the cluster of men around Philip Heaton turned toward her in surprise.
“Are you telling me it was him who killed my husband?” she demanded, pointing a shaking finger at the still half-conscious Heaton. “Are you so certain he’s the one did it?”
“As sure as can be,” someone called out.
“Then he’s mine. By rights. Stand him up and step back.”
They were about to ignore her but she raised the revolver and fired a shot into the air. The noise was loud even over the flickering of the torches.
“He’s mine,” she said again. “Move aside, or I won’t vouch for my aim.”
The revolver was leveled now, the barrel pointing straight at Heaton’s chest.
I could see enough of her face to know that she meant exactly what she was saying, and if no one stopped her, she was going to shoot Philip Heaton.
“Not before we find out what he was doing there on the strand,” Mr. Burton responded, standing his ground.
Behind him, Mrs. Heaton was still struggling with the men holding her back.
Her son, shaking his head and trying to clear it, stared blearily at Mrs. Stephenson.
“He owed me money,” he tried to say, but it came out as a mumble. Still, she heard it, and she took three steps forward, for a better shot.
I couldn’t stand there and let it happen.
I hurried toward her. “Stop this now,” I said in my best imitation of Matron’s voice, infusing all the authority of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service into the words. I heard Hugh call out my name from the darkness behind me. “I saw Mr. Stephenson’s body. If you don’t want to make a mistake you’ll regret for the rest of your lives, you’ll hear me out.”
I strode into the torchlight until I was close enough to reach for Mrs. Stephenson’s gun hand, if I had to, to keep her from firing.
“Stay out of this,” Mr. Burton warned in an angry growl.
“I won’t stand by and see murder done,” I snapped. “Now I am going to approach Philip Heaton and I’m going to examine him. And if you really want to know who killed your husband,” I added to Mrs. Stephenson, “you’ll lower your weapon.”
To my astonishment, after a moment she did. Ignoring the angry faces holding Philip Heaton, I walked through the cluster of men and looked straight at their prisoner.
“Show me your hands,” I ordered.
Somehow the words reached him, although he frowned as if he hadn’t really understood me. Slowly he raised his hands and held them out in front of him.
I stepped forward and took them in my own, one at a time.
&nbs
p; They were calloused and not as clean as they could be. But there was no bruising on the knuckles and no scratches or bloody scrapes on the backs. I looked into his face. There were patches of red that would turn into bruising given time, but these were recent, not several days old.
“See for yourselves,” I said, stepping back. “Look at his hands. Some of you saw what had been done to Mr. Stephenson. Tell me that anyone could have delivered such a beating without even so much as a bruised knuckle.”
I had already said something about this to Mr. Wilson, but apparently he hadn’t thought to pass it on.
“He was wearing gloves,” someone called. It was Anna’s father—the man who had proposed to Rachel and who—I could think of no one else with a reason—attacked Hugh and knocked him down. “Stands to reason he would.”
“As you did, when you hit a man on crutches?” I demanded, and he flushed as his fellow conspirators turned to stare at him.
“I didn’t touch him.” But his denial lacked conviction.
“Then show me your hands,” I said.
He backed off.
Mrs. Stephenson had come up beside me. She reached out and caught Philip Heaton’s hands. He started to pull away, then let her examine them. She looked at me.
“On your oath,” she said. “He couldn’t have done it?”
“Look at him. His face. His hands. You saw your husband’s hands. Even with the difference in weight and height and reach, he made an effort to defend himself.”
She turned without a word and walked back the way she’d come, the torchlight flickering on her straight, angry back until she had passed on into the shadowy darkness beyond.
The men watched her go, then slowly released Heaton. I thought for a moment he was going to collapse onto the road. But he fought to keep his senses, and he stood up as straight as he could. And then his mother was beside him, offering him the support of her shoulder. She was shaking with the cold and with relief, but her face was red with anger still, and she shoved the men nearest her aside and made a way for her son to stumble after her, back toward their cottage.
“Go home,” I said to Mr. Burton as he turned to argue with me. “You’ve nearly made a dreadful mistake. Remember that.”
