Wings of Fire ir-2

by Charles Todd

  “That’s what frightens me. Finished how? Olivia wouldn’t have wanted it to end in violence. As a man of God, I can try to reach out, to offer the church’s solace and forgiveness.”

  Rutledge, on edge and wishing the rector back in his church, said savagely, “I’ll make it plain. This man has killed for the sake of killing. Whatever he may tell you, whatever reasons he may offer, whatever logic he can bring to bear for his defense, he killed because it suited his purpose! And because the opportunity was there. And the power of shaping his own fate with his own hands he found exhilarating. Whatever went wrong in him, it isn’t going to be exorcised by the church. Or by you.”

  “No! There is good in every human being. I believe it devoutly!”

  “Then go down on your knees before the altar and pray for guidance. I need it! Or, if you want to be useful, find Inspector Harvey and tell him I require a warrant. But send Constable Dawlish around to the beach by boat. Just in case he tries to leave in that direction.”

  “By boat? There’s a storm coming.”

  “I know. Hurry, man! There isn’t much time.”

  Rutledge was already walking away as he spoke. Smedley stayed in the enclosed darkness of the trees as the Londoner came to the end of the path and started up the drive, not concealing his presence, not slowing his pace.

  Hamish said roughly, “All right then, ye’ll be fighting his darkness and your own, but ye’re a clever man, and ye canna’ show weakness, it’s what he’ll watch for. Let the words roll off his tongue and your back.”

  But Rutledge didn’t hear.

  Slowly, one by one, the lamps were extinguished, plunging the house into darkness. All but one he could see in the drawing room, with its faint glimmer in the hall’s tall windows.

  The thunder made him flinch again, his nerves raw, his senses already at fever pitch.

  Lightning flickered, and through the windows of the room where Olivia had died, it seemed to dance fleetingly, as if there was a living presence there.

  At the steps, Rutledge hesitated, but the door didn’t open, and he took out the key he still kept in his pocket.

  The shaft of light falling from the drawing room door like a spear was very bright after the darkness outside, making him blink, and he hesitated, aware of what might come out of the hall’s shadows at him. Then he turned towards the drawing room, his footsteps brashly loud in the stillness.

  There was an airlessness too in the house that seemed to suffocate him, in spite of the high ceilings and the open door behind him.

  He could smell the trenches again, feel the earth shaking under his feet as the barrage began. The sappers were still deep underground. He wasn’t sure they’d make it out in time-they’d be buried alive in moving earth, as he’d been, breath shut off by tons of soil rising high into the night sky and then collapsing in on them-on him-shutting out everything, sight, hearing, air Hamish stirred, uneasily calling out to him.

  Rutledge forced himself back into the present, making himself concentrate on the light, not the dark.

  On the threshold of the drawing room, he stopped again. There was a decanter and two glasses on the small table by the hearth, beneath Rosamund’s portrait. One of the glasses was half full. The other empty.

  As if waiting for him… they’d both been right, he and Hamish

  …

  Leashing his anger with an iron will, he crossed the silent room and stood looking at the portrait for a time, his eyes seeing it, his ears listening to the sounds of the house. It seemed to be electric with tension.

  And then Cormac FitzHugh was standing in the doorway.

  “She belongs here, doesn’t she? I was sorry that Susannah insisted on taking her away.”

  As if Rutledge was a guest, and Cormac, the host, was making idle conversation before dinner. Rutledge turned to see the man’s face, and felt a coldness in his blood.

  There was nothing there of anger or tension or a desire to kill. If anything, Cormac’s expression was pleasant, welcoming. But the brilliant blue eyes were fire.

  Answering him, Rutledge said, “Yes. She’s the spirit of the house.”

  Cormac smiled at him. “That’s a very Irish way of putting it.”

  “Is it?”

  Cormac came to the table and picked up his drink, then gestured with the glass. “Won’t you join me?”

  Rutledge said nothing, and Cormac went on easily, “There’s no laudanum in it. Will you join the search for this new Ripper?”

  “He isn’t my business. Never was. But Olivia Marlowe is.”

  “Ah.” He lifted the glass again, gesturing this time to the portrait. “You didn’t know her as I did. Olivia was only a pale shadow of Rosamund.”

  “She had a remarkable talent. Olivia.”

  “Her poetry? But talent is transient. Fame is transient. We are all going to die some day, more’s the pity. It seems man has learned to do everything except live forever. When we achieve earthly immortality, I suppose we’ll finally have the power of God.”

  “I’m not sure I’d want that. Immortality. To live forever would be-tiresome. Eternal youth, that might be more useful.”

  Cormac laughed, the handsome face lighting from within. “Would you choose now, or before 1914?”

  “Before. I have no fond memories of the war.”

  “No, I don’t think you have. I’ve read your medical reports-I still have connections in London with the people I worked with during the war. And most things are available for money. A very intriguing file. I’m amazed you survived. But you’ve nothing to fear from me. I don’t plan to expose you.”

  No, Rutledge thought. You’d much rather kill me.

  He said aloud, “It doesn’t matter. I never expected to keep my secrets forever. If they come out, I’ll find something else to do with my life.” But he knew how great a lie that was…

  “Or end it?” Cormac asked softly, responding to the silent thought.

  “You can pray for that. Will you be here when I leave?”

  “It depends on what you’ve come to find.” For the first time something echoed in the quiet voice.

  After a moment Rutledge said, “Why should I make it easy for you?” and walked past Cormac, back into the hall. To his surprise, Cormac actually let him go. But he could feel the man’s eyes still watching him, and he knew it wasn’t over.

  He crossed the hall, taking the stairs two at a time while Hamish reminded him that Stephen had fallen here, the words tumbling like the man had done, over and down and crashing into the floor below. Yet only Rutledge could hear them. At the top of the steps in the gallery, he made his decision, then took up the small lamp from the table where it had been set, waiting, nearly lost in the surrounding blackness.

  Down the passage to the left, not the right, past the closed doors of bedrooms, the darkness here astir with feelings Rutledge couldn’t name as the lamplight made a circle of orange light around him. The oil was hot beneath the glass, warming his hand. He thought of Olivia, and of Nicholas. Did one ever come back from the dead? It was an interesting question. He hoped it would be some time before he discovered the answer to it.

  The silence in Stephen’s room was palpable. In the lamplight the furnishings seemed stark and somehow dauntingly empty, heavily shadowed.

  He paused in the Norway for a moment, listening to the sound of his own breathing and Hamish’s trepidation.

  ‘‘Leave now!” the soft Scottish voice repeated over and over. “Now !”

  But Rutledge crossed to the bed and knelt, his hands moving along the struts that held the springs in place. Fingers careful, sensing their way over the strips of dusty wood.

  His nails struck the book’s binding, his fingers stretched and closed around it, drawing it out with infinite circumspection.

  Then it was in his grasp.

  He stood, and in the silence there was now a humming of tension, like the distant baying of hounds. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted in a primeval reaction. Hamish, h
issing malevolently, heard it too.

  There was very little time.

  He opened the slim book. Thumbed through the pages once, then again. Found the family genealogy that had been written carefully here, ever since a century-dead FitzHugh had held this prayer book in his hand at confirmation. Long ago in Ireland. In another time and another world…

  The sound was louder, the tension something that made his body tighten with anticipation. It was like waiting for the Huns to come over the top, and yet-different. The first rumble of nearby thunder shook the house, and his pulses leaped, as if the first shells had landed.

  “Hurry!” Hamish urged him.

  With one swift movement he drew his pocketknife, opened it, and gently slit the handwritten pages at the binding so that they fell out in his hands.

  He checked once more as the footsteps rang out on the bare wood, coming closer, boldly stalking down the passage towards him.

  Yes. He’d gotten them all. The records of a family-and a single line at the end: “Cormac FitzHugh. Mother unknown. Father unknown. Taken from a ditch along the road to Kilarney. FitzHugh by courtesy, not adoption.” And the date. The Gabriel Hound, unblessed-and cursed. Without a name or blood of his own.

  Lifting out the book on Irish horses from the others Stephen had kept on the table by the window, Rutledge slipped the pages inside, then returned the heavy volume to its place and the closed knife to his pocket.

  Was it his imagination or did the echoes seem to double, triple the number of footfalls? As if there were hordes in the passage, crowding it, elbowing each other, cutting off all space and air.

  Sudden panic seemed to choke him. He fought it down, refusing to give in to it. But he was trapped here. Damn it, he wasn’t in France, this was Cornwall!

  He was facing the open doorway, the little prayer book in his left hand, his balance even, ready for whatever was coming for him.

  And then once more Cormac FitzHugh came out of the darkness and into the light. He was in his shirtsleeves, now. His eyes went directly to the book Rutledge held.

  “I wasn’t sure my father had kept it. After turning Anglican for Rosamund. Stephen swore he had it,” he said. “But he wouldn’t tell me where he’d put it before he died. I thought it was probably a lie, but I had to keep searching. Thank you for sparing me further trouble over it.”

  “He must have found it-and hidden it-that same morning. Did you kill him?”

  “The fall would have, I think. But I gave him a more merciful end. He couldn’t move. Whether it was true paralysis or temporary, I can’t tell you. I twisted his neck until it snapped, then shouted for Susannah and Rachel. Give me the prayer book now, if you please.”

  “Interesting reading,” Rutledge said, thumbing the pages lightly. “Apparently you’re illegitimate. Not the stigma it once was, of course, but you have lived a public lie for many years, haven’t you? Stepson to the Trevelyans. Even these days, the news wouldn’t sit very well in London business circles, would it, where a gentleman’s word is his bond? Especially not if it came from Stephen Trevelyan, in banking himself. His doubts, dropped in the right quarters, could have ruined you.” He flipped the book closed. “Did you ever learn who your real parents were?”

  “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 wh
en 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!”