by Charles Todd
“I’ll go to see her tomorrow,” Rachel said. “I’ll even take Inspector Rutledge with me. He’s made the muddle, let him set it to rights again!”
But somehow Rutledge didn’t think that was what Cormac wanted.
He could sense the stiffness in the man as they said good night to Rachel at the cottage gate, and watched her walk up the path.
Continuing towards the inn, Cormac said harshly, “I don’t understand why you don’t pack it in. I don’t see what you can hope to achieve here—combing the moors for Richard isn’t going to solve any riddles. Or is rumor for once telling the truth? You’re here for other reasons?”
“What other reasons might there be?” Rutledge parried.
Cormac sighed. “I don’t have any idea.” They walked in silence for a dozen yards, listening to the sound of their shoes crunching along the road. Then Cormac went on, his voice weary. “What really happened in that house tonight?”
“It’s a police matter,” Rutledge said, refusing to be drawn.
“Don’t give me that bloody rot!” Cormac fumed. “If you’re trying to protect Rachel, I’ve known for years how she felt about Nicholas. What I couldn’t understand for a very long time was why he didn’t love her.”
“Are you quite sure Olivia is the killer? Anne’s killer, and possibly Richard’s?” Rutledge asked, hoping to take him off guard.
Cormac stopped in his tracks, peering at Rutledge’s face, trying to see his eyes. They were of a height, and a world apart. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I was just wondering if I ought to put my money on Nicholas, instead.”
Cormac swore, inventively and viciously, as they walked on. Even in the darkness Rutledge could see the handsome brows drawn together in an angry frown. “No, of course it wasn’t Nicholas! I may be many things, but I’m not a fool. I know what I saw in that apple tree. Nicholas was a pawn.”
“She would have protected him. She might well have forced him into killing himself to keep the truth hidden. When she was afraid she couldn’t go on controlling him.”
“Yes, that’s a very fine idea. The only problem is, it doesn’t work!”
“Then why didn’t Nicholas love Rachel?”
“At first I thought it was because she was there so much of his childhood. Like another half sister, familiar and unexciting. Rosamund was very fond of Rachel, treated her like one of her own children, and that’s hardly the stuff great romance is made of. Then—later—when Rachel married Peter, I realized that Nicholas was probably protecting her, forcing her by his very indifference to find someone else to love. If he hadn’t, I think Olivia might have killed her too.”
The voice in the darkness was oddly strained.
“Are you telling me that what Olivia held over Nicholas most of his life—the way she bound him to her—was the threat of harm to Rachel?”
“It was the only way I can think of for Olivia to make Nicholas swallow that laudanum. Unless of course she tricked him. I don’t want Rachel to know what I think, I don’t want her to carry unnecessary guilt around for the rest of her life. But if you keep digging, that’s what’s going to happen. You’ll solve your case quite neatly, and she’ll never have a chance of finding love again. If you’ve got any compassion at all, send her back to London. Or better still, take her back.”
“No.”
“It’s quite true, what I told Rachel. I’ve considered going over your head, pulling strings to have the Yard close this case officially. I know enough people in high places, to get it done. And it’s what Daniel wants. But even that can cause more grief than good. That’s the trouble with this wretched affair, there’s no damned solution any way I turn!”
When Rutledge didn’t respond, Cormac was goaded into saying more than he’d intended. “I’ve half a notion to find out why you aren’t in London working on this new Ripper— why you’ve spent a week in Cornwall with nothing but speculation and a good deal of vexatious prying to show for it. I thought we’d been sent a proper investigator, someone who knew his business and was just taking precautions, because of Olivia’s sudden fame.”
“If you were expecting a rubber stamp,” Rutledge said, “you don’t have much experience of the Yard.”
“No, I wasn’t expecting a rubber stamp. Just a man who knew his job. I can’t quite understand what makes you tick, Inspector. And why the odd persistence in a case that’s finished, even if Nicholas and Olivia between them slaughtered half the village!”
“Be patient,” Rutledge told him as he held open the inn’s door. “And you’ll be sure to find out.”
It was what his father had often said to him, when he was pestering his parents to know what was inside the birthday wrappings, or under the silver paper on Boxing Day. The way an adult put off a child, and sure to aggravate.
He was delighted to see that it worked perfectly well for a grown man.
Cormac was gone in the morning, whether back to London or to the house, no one seemed to know. In any event, as Rutledge had no need to go back to the Hall straightaway, it didn’t matter.
Rachel came, as she’d promised, to take him to call on Susannah. They went in Rutledge’s car, the sun bright through the glass and the wind bringing with it first the smell of the sea and then the smell of the land.
“Cormac is right, you ought to see her yourself,” Rachel said after a long silence. “Susannah, I mean. You’re a very hard man. I’ve never met anyone quite like you. You ought to see the results of your handiwork. It might shame you into respecting the feelings of others!”
As he had seen the results of his handiwork last night, though for reasons of her own she refrained from mentioning that. Rutledge was as aware of the omission as Rachel was.
“I don’t see how talking to her is going to deter me,” Rutledge said. “And I owe you an apology for last night. I most particularly owe you one for embarrassing you in front of your cousin. It was—awkward. I’m sorry.”
Clearing the air. It had to be done.
“And didn’t serve any purpose,” she reminded him.
“On the contrary,” he said, risking a glance at her. “It served a variety of purposes.” The roads in this part of Cornwall weren’t metalled, just winding lanes for the most part, hardly wide enough for a horse and cart. Puddles from the rains hid deep washouts, while the mud itself was sometimes as slick as black ice. He knew he ought to concentrate on what he was doing. “Rachel, you told me you’d had a letter from Nicholas, before he died.”
“Did I?” He gave her another swift glance, and saw that she was frowning. “I don’t remember saying that.”
Or didn’t want to. He let it go for the moment.
They were heading inland, away from the sea. The high hedgerows shut off the view, and the deep-cut roads tended to come suddenly out of a curve and into a crossroads, where a heavy dray or a small cart was often and unexpectedly in his way. He nearly missed the turning they were after, but soon found the gates to the Beaton house at the head of a pretty valley.
It was one of those medieval monstrosities the Victorians had loved to build, with half-ruined towers, crenelations, and even a mock Gothic gatehouse. There was so much ivy climbing the walls that when the wind blew, the leaves ruffled and quaked as if the walls themselves were in imminent danger of collapse.
“Gentle God!” Rutledge said, slowing the car to stare.
“Yes, well, I’m told the family knew Disraeli, and admired his novels enormously. They couldn’t wait to tear down the old house and replace it with this. If you say one word, you’ll hurt their feelings! Jenny Beaton is a lovely person. She doesn’t deserve to be made unhappy.”
“I’m incapable of comment,” Rutledge answered weakly.
Mrs. Beaton was a lovely person. The house, built on the foundations of a much older structure, had its finer points, for one an exquisite fan ceiling in the great hall that served as a dining room. The craftsman who created it knew how to turn plaster into a work of art. Th
e drawing room, with its coffered ceilings and stained-glass windows, looked as if it had escaped from a stage set. When asked his opinion of it, Rutledge answered, “it’s stunning!” Mrs. Beaton was satisfied. Rachel glared at him.
Susannah was lying on a chair with a footstool, a white lacy shawl thrown over her lap, but she looked perfectly healthy to Rutledge.
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been ordered to rest. I hope it doesn’t mean complications of any kind,” he said, taking her hand in greeting.
“No,” she said irritably, “just a fussy doctor and an equally fussy husband. I’m perishing from boredom!” She glanced wryly at Jenny Beaton.
“She’s a terrible patient,” Jenny agreed, smiling warmly at her friend. She was dark and very pretty, with small hands and feet, and Harnish had noticed her before Rutledge had. “We’d toss her out on her ear, if she had anywhere else to go. Sad, isn’t it?”
“Daniel’s in London, he’s running himself thin trying to be in two places at once. But the doctor refuses to let me travel just now,” Susannah added, “even by easy stages.” She cocked her head and looked at Rutledge. “They say you’re searching the moors for Richard.”
“Susannah!” Jenny Beaton exclaimed. “Who told you that!”
“I may be pregnant. I’m not deaf! Well, is it true?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Rutledge told her.
“Why on earth are you interested in a child who died over twenty years ago? Do bodies even last that long? I don’t see any point in it!”
“I’m interested in what became of him.” He paused, then said, “If he’s still alive, he’s one of the heirs, isn’t he? Nicholas’ younger brother.”
He heard Rachel gasp, across the small inlaid table from him, but he didn’t look up at her. It was Susannah’s response he was interested in.
“If he’s alive, why hasn’t he turned up? Even a child of five knows who he is, where he came from. You’d think he’d have found a way home by now. Somehow.” Susannah was fidgeting with the fringe on her shawl, more from exasperation, he thought, than nervousness.
“Yes, there’s always that possibility. But he hasn’t. I’m just being thorough, that’s all. Did you ever hear stories of what happened on the moor? As you were growing up?”
“No, it wasn’t the sort of thing discussed around children, and by the time I was old enough to be curious about Richard, or Anne, or even my father, Rosamund always managed to change the subject. I remember my father, but of course not the early years, before he married Rosamund.”
“He was brought up a Catholic, I’m told. What about you? And Stephen. Or Cormac?”
“We’re all Anglican. Well, I suppose Cormac was born a Catholic, but he never practiced, as far as I know. What difference does it make?”
“Does he have close ties in Ireland? Has he ever talked about the rebellions and the uprisings? Michael Collins? The black and tans?”
“He’s not interested in politics. Never was, as far as I know. Cormac is typical of the City—he’s very good at what he does, he enjoys making money, and he behaves himself. Reputation is money, he says.”
“He’s an attractive man. Wealthy. Socially acceptable. Why hasn’t he married? In his position a hostess is almost indispensable.”
“Yes, I know, I’ve acted for him often enough. So has Rachel.” She shot a sidelong glance at Rachel. “I always wondered—growing up, watching them together—if there might be something between Cormac and Olivia. The tension between the two of them and the way they very carefully avoided each other. She never married. I thought perhaps he was the reason, I wondered if she was ashamed of her bad leg, and wouldn’t marry him. But wanted to, very badly.”
“You know that’s all in your imagination,” Rachel said, suddenly restless. She shifted so that her face was out of the light coming through the stained glass in vivid shades of port wine and honey, dappling the walls and the floor and her shoulder. “They never seemed to have much in common, and I was around them for years before you were born.”
“Which tells me,” Susannah said, “that they had a lot in common! Didn’t you find Cormac attractive? All my school friends were desperately in love with him! Everyone wanted to come down to the Hall for weekends.”
Jenny Beaton laughed. “I was fondest of Stephen. I had such a crush on him when I was twelve. Do you remember that?”
“Cormac’s very attractive,” Rachel answered defensively. “But I never really thought of him in that way—”
“Nicholas didn’t like him, and so you didn’t!” Susannah retorted.
“Why didn’t Nicholas like him?” Rutledge asked before Rachel could answer. Jenny was watching them, her face inquisitive, but he kept his eyes on Susannah and Rachel.
“Nicholas was the oldest son. Until Cormac’s father married Rosamund,” Susannah said. “It put his nose out of joint, I think. This newcomer lording it over him. Except that Cor-mac didn’t lord it over anyone.”
“That’s not true! Nicholas was never jealous. It was something else, something I never did really understand until I asked Rosamund about it once, and she said that Cormac’s father replaced Nicholas’ father, and sons often found that hard to swallow.” She turned quickly, her eyes flying to Rut-ledge’s face. “I’d forgotten that conversation,” she said, surprised. “I don’t know why it suddenly came to mind. What happened last night must have jarred my memory—”
“What do you mean, what happened?” Susannah broke in, sitting up straight, her face sharp with curiosity. “What are you talking about!”
But Rutledge knew what Rachel was thinking, that he had stirred up the past, like a stick spun in muddy water, churning up what lay at the bottom, wanted or not.
“Family relationships,” Rutledge answered for her. “We were discussing them. After dinner.”
Disappointed Susannah lay back against her cushions again. “Well, Nicholas never took any resentment out on Stephen or me,” she said. “And we were the children of that marriage! Why blame Cormac? It certainly wasn’t his doing that Mother chose to marry his father. It probably changed his life far more than Nicholas’, when you stop and think about it.”
From the mutinous expression on her face, Rutledge could tell that Rachel strongly disagreed. But remembering Susannah’s health, she held back the defense that seemed to be burning on the tip of her tongue.
“But I was fond of Nicholas myself,” Susannah went on complacently. “He had more patience with us than most boys his age. When Father died, I remember sitting on his knee, terribly frightened about putting Father into that huge, cold vault in the church. I kept telling everyone that he’d want to be out in the light, where he could hear the horses running and the sea coming in and children playing. And Nicholas said, That’s why he died out on the strand, so he could be free. What we’re putting in the vault tomorrow is only a token, a place where Rosamund can put flowers.’ Then he took us on a pirate’s hunt, looking for Father’s gold crucifix to put in the coffin. But we never found it. I don’t know whether he did later, or not.”
Hamish was already pointing out that it meant nothing, but Rutledge felt the coldness in his bones.
Suddenly tired and out of spirits, Susannah added, “I don’t want to think about death and unhappiness. What you’re doing in Borcombe is a waste of time. It distresses Daniel, and that always disturbs me. Richard is dead, and so is everyone else, and I don’t see why Scotland Yard should care a ha’penny about any of us. Stephen’s gone, and you can’t bring him back, however hard you try. Nobody murdered him, he just fell! And as far as I know, that’s still not a crime, is it? So just go away and let us get on with life!”
Jenny Beaton was about to interject a change of subject, but Rutledge was faster.
“Did your brother take Olivia’s papers from the house? Those she left him regarding her writing?”
“Stephen took hardly anything. I feel so guilty now about how we all behaved over that. Like—like dustmen quarreling over the b
ins! You were as bad as the rest of us, Rachel!” she ended accusingly, her face flushing with emotion.
Rachel was on the point of denying it, then closed her mouth firmly.
Mrs. Beaton hastily overrode her anyway, extending an invitation to stay for luncheon, but Rutledge thanked her and claimed pressing business back in Borcombe. He and Rachel left soon afterward.
“A fine diplomat you are!” she accused him, back on the main road. “She’s supposed to have rest, tranquillity!”
“She seemed perfectly capable of looking after herself. Susannah is a lot stronger than you give her credit for.”
“You aren’t a doctor—”
“No, and neither are you! Now tell me about Cormac and Nicholas.”
“Tell you what? I thought I’d made that plain at the Bea-tons. They never found common ground. They were envious of each other, Nicholas because Cormac was older, Cormac because Nicholas was Rosamund’s son and he wasn’t. What’s wrong between you and Cormac? Why do you bristle at each other? Explain that, and you’ll see why Cormac and Nicholas didn’t get along.”
Rutledge knew why he and Cormac bristled. They were at opposite ends of the pole. Cormac wanted the family skeletons packed away where they couldn’t rattle, and he, Rutledge, was in the process of digging them out and displaying them on the village green. Antagonists. Two men used to having their own way—and each finding the other blocking it.
He found himself wondering suddenly if it was Cormac’s City reputation that he was protecting so ardently—or a woman he’d wanted to love but couldn’t.
Hamish said, out of the blue, “The heart doesna’ care what she is, if he wants her badly enough. But the head doesna’ rest easy on the pillow when she’s a killer.”
Which was true.
He, Rutledge, still wanted Jean, though he knew—he had seen for himself—that she couldn’t bear to have him come near her ...
They were nearly back to the village when Rutledge pulled into a farmer’s muddy lane and switched off the engine.
