by Charles Todd
And he found it on the hillside, just where a small natural outcropping formed the anchor of an asymmetrical rock garden. It was no more than a few feet wide in any direction, yet large enough for a child’s curled body. A spill of unusual white stones brought from somewhere else lay like a small river tucked in among the flowers. Pansies, and some sort of small, narrow leafed things that formed a mat. Plants that would reseed themselves, half tame, half wild, clinging among the stones and holding the earth with their roots.
He squatted there in the darkness, studying the rock garden.
Very simple, not the sort of thing that would catch the eye of a casual observer, a little patch of color above an outcropping that lent itself to this one use only, wild and half-neglected, unimportant and oddly touching.
There was the sound of a door opening, and he froze, keeping his silhouette low and dark against the greater darkness of the hillside.
Sadie stood for a moment, a hunched figure against the lamplight behind her, in the open doorway. Rutledge could feel her eyes on him, although he knew she couldn’t possibly see him where he was.
‘‘Who’s there?” she called. After a moment, she went on, “Have you come for me?”
His mouth tightened in anger at himself for disturbing her, giving her a fright. It had been the last thing he’d wanted.
“But she has a sixth sense,” Hamish reminded him.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, when Rutledge didn’t answer her. “Come again in the light, if you have honest business here.”
He was very close to standing up and identifying himself. But she shut the door again, and in a minute or two more, the lamp was snuffed out.
His legs were stiff from squatting, but he waited for a little longer, then turned his attention back to the garden.
If the body had been hidden here, how much would be found now? The long bones, perhaps, the jaw. Kneeling, feeling the night’s damp soaking into his trousers, he lifted a few of the stones very carefully from their bed and touched the soil beneath. His fingers worked down into it, among the plant roots and the friable earth, spreading and probing. There were no tree roots here, on the hillside. If there had been a body in this ground, some trace would remain to a trained eye. He mustn’t disturb it too much.
It was useless to dig. In the dark. Leaving behind signs of his presence. Wait until later, and let the experts—
His fingers struck something rough and hard. In spite of himself, a coldness swept over him even though common sense told him he couldn’t have found bone at this shallow depth. And not the boy’s bones.
Someone had been here before him, lifting the rocks in the center just as he’d done, loosening the soil. He should have realized that as soon as he touched the earth—it would have made sense if he’d had his wits about him.
Working carefully, winkling it and using his other hand to clear a little space here, a little there, he very soon had the long slender length of wood out of its hiding place.
A carving. No, something else, the sides were too smooth.
He let his fingers gently feel the thing in his hand. It was not old wood—he knew the texture of that. They’d used and reused whatever lumber came to hand in the trenches, scavenged for boardwalks to keep their feet dry above the filth, for shelter from the rain, for a place out of the hot sun or the cold wind. On the Somme the generals had forbidden even such simple, rough comforts, while the Germans had lived in tunnels they’d efficiently dug deep in the earth. No, this wood was hard and firm and new to the ground it had been buried in. Three sides were smooth as sanding could make them. The fourth had something cut into it. Deeply incised, and at midlength. Like a blind man he worked at the shapes, slowly letting his sense of touch and not his eyes tell him what was there. There was a flow to the shapes, but they were separate. Letters, then.
R, yes, most certainly an R. Then a space before the next. A. Next to that an E, he thought. No, he was wrong. H. And the very last, C.
He thought back to the photographs he’d been given by Rachel Marlowe, and the names on the reverse. Richard Allen Harris Cheney.
Nicholas had left his calling card. And not very long ago ...
21
Rutledge put everything back exactly as he’d found it, brushing the pansy leaves clean of any bits of earth, using his hands to smooth and press the disturbed earth. Then he got to his feet and thought about what he’d done, whether he’d left any task undone. Then he remembered the entrenching tool, and groped for that.
With the same care he’d exercised coming here he made his way out of the valley and back to the inn, returning the tool to its place in the car before going upstairs again to his room. Looking down at his shoes, he grimaced. The caked mud reminded him of the trenches. Taking them off, he set them outside his door for the boot boy.
Washing his hands well, then blotting the worst of the dew out of his trouser knees, he went back to his earlier task. The poems.
It was in some ways quite unnerving to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Like working out the obituaries of people he knew. But Olivia seldom failed him once he learned the technique of what she had tried to do. All the members of her family were here, cleverly disguised by the allegorical themes she’d chosen for each. Sometimes, like “Eve,” they were given biblical names, at others wrapped in Cornish legends, or cloaked in bits of well-known history—whatever fit her purpose, but always with such artistry that the mask itself had a life and drama of its own. He marveled again at such talent, and the tragedy of its loss. She had barely reached her prime .. .
Of course she wasn’t the first to use poetry as a vehicle for her own designs. Poets—Swift and Wordsworth were the first names he thought of—had employed their pens to mock political figures or make literary allusions to famous events or writers. Some employed satire and a vicious humor to bring down governments or ruin reputations and careers. But to his knowledge this was the first time one had grimly catalogued a murderer’s career.
“Bathsheba,” the faithful wife whose husband had been placed in the forefront of battle because King David desired her, had become Rosamund. Olivia described her as an unwitting pawn of a cruel and passionate man who wanted her at any price, and took from her the mainstay of her life, the kind and thoughtful husband who had filled her with happiness. James Cheney? Or Brian FitzHugh? Which had been killed because he was Rosamund’s husband?
No, Rutledge told himself, from the description it had to be Cheney, the kind and thoughtful man who’d replaced the dashing soldier.
The hidden depths of feeling in the lines, the understanding of love and lust, gave them a soaring beauty that worked at any level, but it was also a devastating portrait of a killer scheming to have what he wanted most, at any price.
He went on, skimming again, looking for something, missing it at first glance, then turning back again to see.
It was a short poem. Two men standing at the water’s edge argued over possession of the land that stretched out behind them, rich and fallow in the sun. Anger turned to blows, and one was killed. To that point the lines seemed to follow the death of Brian FitzHugh, and then it took an odd twist as the killer stared down at the bleeding body. “My hand it was that gave you this, Mine that takes it from you!” And the dying man answers, “Was it so—was it yours to give? I’m glad I never knew.”
Nicholas? Somehow Rutledge couldn’t quite see that parallel. What could Nicholas have given and taken away again from Brian FitzHugh? He reread the poem, and shook his head. Be patient, man! he told himself. Olivia knew the answer to that—she’d leave it for him somewhere if not here.
Hamish, in the back of his mind, was more or less agreeing with Harvey about women penning such lines. “A tormented soul—” he began.
“Yes. And a damned brave one,” Rutledge retorted.
Later there was a reference to a man passing through a wood, finding Death waiting for him there, and facing it with courage and disdain. Death struck, and laughed.
The man managed to break away, but felt no sense of victory, only of postponement.
For Death could come again, and it was not what he
desired ...
Not yet, with so much of life in his grasp.
So much of life . .. and yet Nicholas had chosen suicide.
Rutledge was tired, his eyes burning, his head spinning from the effort he was making to follow the remarkable thread set out for him. To sort through Olivia’s allusions, to find the bedrock of accusation beneath. And yet he felt he was missing something. What was behind what Olivia was trying to tell him? She hadn’t written a great body of poetry just as a memorial to her family’s suffering. Or just as a record for any astute policeman who might stumble over the evidence she’d documented in it. It was a warning. A very public forum of denunciation, but to what end? She must have said. Somewhere . . .
Then where had he, Rutledge, gone astray? Surely it wasn’t just his own stubborn insistence on closure, surely Olivia would have wanted that too. Then why hadn’t he seen it? What didn’t he know about the Trevelyan family that might have guided him now?
Another poem to Rosamund was moving, a tribute that made his eyes sting with tears as it spoke of her life, her loves, her deep belief that she could find peace for herself and her family.
And the last line left him chilled.
“When he couldn’t have her, the hound of Hell destroyed her.”
They were all there. Anne, Richard, Rosamund, James, Brian. All of them. Except the last pair to die .. .
He went through the book again, searching. Finding nothing. And then he saw something unexpected. It was in a poem—on the surface—about Rome, and two small children suckled by a wolf. Romulus and Remus, who grew up to found a great city. Only this was not a city, this was a tower of the heart. He’s missed it, confused by the legend. Mistakenly taking the wolf literally, as an animal and not as a childhood nightmare of death and fear that drove two people to a strange and tender interdependence.
I have loved, and he has listened, both have given
holy grace.
In his eyes I saw my soul, then found my life in his
embrace ...
Unexpected—and enlightening. If it was true, it explained so much.
But it was only half of the final answer. He was sure of it now.
It was well after three o’clock—he’d heard the church clock strike the hours since midnight, and felt time passing like a heavy burden. His mind was worn and his spirits had sunk like a stone, the earlier enthusiasm already attacked by doubt. Writers often used their own experience for inspiration. Was that all she’d done? Had he counted too much on her, wishing his own need into her words?
No, that was all wrong, all wrong. He just hadn’t learned to see it in the right way yet. With exhaustion nagging at him, caught in the tumult of his own depression and Hamish’s prodding, he’d failed her. Not the other way around.
He rubbed his eyes, then got up and washed his face in the cold water from the pitcher. The coffee was even colder, but he forced himself to drink it, and then stretching his shoulders as he’d done a thousand times on night watches in the war, he finally sat back down again. Giving up was defeat. And by God, he wasn’t going to face the shaving mirror in the morning with excuses and evasions. He’d start all over again, if he had to. At the beginning if that’s what it took to cudgel his wits into action.
“There’re still the papers,” Hamish reminded him. “If ye’re half the detective ye think ye are, you’d have found them by now.”
The finest moment in the final volume was “Lucifer,” the centerpiece of the book, a description of the great and glorious prince whose ambition reached too far. To Milton he’d been the archangel who had dared to envy God, finally to be disgraced and hurled, headlong and flaming, into the pit of Hell to reign over the damned.
To Olivia Marlowe, he’d been the dark angel of death.
Rutledge read the lines again, and this time the image created by the words took shape in his mind.
The dark angel. Beyond her power to control, beyond her power to condemn. Beyond her power, nearly, to understand.
But not an angel, not an allegory of Death. A man.
Clever, unemotional, his own law. Resolute, fearless. Without compassion. And immutable. However long it took, however dangerous it was, however destructive, he got what he desired.
A man who was neither good nor evil, merely unbound by the constraints of humanity or God. A glittering archangel, perhaps, but without a soul. And yet, like Lucifer, filled with envy and the need to possess what to him was omnipotence. Only, his heaven had been earthbound.
A Gabriel Hound, the old woman called him, heathen.
It was a chilling portrait, and it was the most truly devastating study of cold, hard ego, of a core of being without light or grace, that he’d ever seen.
By the time Rutledge had finished the poem the last time, he felt an exaltation in his blood that had nothing to do with poetry or Olivia Marlowe, and everything to do with the great courage of O. A. Manning.
He knew now the name and face of the Gabriel Hound. Proving it was going to be very dangerous. And Rachel would be brought to tears if he succeeded.
22
Rutledge found it hard to sleep, and Hamish, ever vigilant for an opening, was there in his mind, critical, disagreeing, ridiculing, citing all the objections to his arguments. Pointing out over and over again— “You havena’ found a why. You havena’ got the reason!” “I don’t need reasons. Leave that to the lawyers—” “Lawyers are no’ policemen, they’ll twist the truth until it’s lost!”
“All I need is proof, and Olivia gave me that—” “Proof, is it? A muckle of lines, that’s what ye’ve got! Would ye stand and recite in yon courtroom, while your fine jury nods in their seats and yon judge begs you to get on with it before he declares a mistrial? Och, man, it’s no’ a case, it’s professional suicide!”
“What about her papers? You’ve reminded me of them yourself. You must have thought they were important when you did.”
“They’re gone, man, face it. Ye havena’ found them, and never will.”
“Nicholas wouldn’t have destroyed those out on the headland, she wouldn’t have let him! Cormac might have, if he found them first, before the lawyers and Stephen got there. But somehow I don’t think he did find them. I think he’s been looking as hard as I have. I can’t believe he wants anyone to know the truth about what happened between him and Olivia. Before I’m finished, I’ll find those bloody papers!” “Oh, aye, we’re back again to a dead woman’s poems! A
dead woman’s papers! What you need is a live killer. And a
confession. A witness to confront him! And there’s no’ any
hope of finding those.”
“No,” Rutledge retorted bitterly. “But I’m not beaten yet.”
He rose at five o’clock, his head feeling stuffed with cotton wool from an hour’s heavy sleep at the very end. Shaving with cold water, he dressed and hurried down the back stairs, startling the elderly scullery maid setting out the crocks of butter and putting the new-baked bread into cloths in a basket in the kitchen.
“Lord, sir! You gave me such a fright!” she cried, looking up at him and then burning her fingers on a hot loaf of bread, nearly dropping it. “Was it coffee you were wanting, sir? It’s not been put on yet.”
“Is there someone here who can carry a note over to Mrs. Otley’s house for me?”
Her eyebrows flew up. “A note! At this hour, sir? Surely not!”
“As soon as may be,” he said testily.
“There’s the boy taking out the ashes—”
“He’ll do.” He was already writing several lines on a sheet from his notebook, frowning as he worded it to his satisfaction, then ripping it out to fold and address on the outside. “Bring him here.”
She went to fetch the boy, looking at Rutledge over her shoulder as if he’d lost his wits. The sleepy child, no more than n
ine or ten, took the note, opened his eyes wider at the sight of the sixpence in Rutledge’s hand, and paid close heed to his instructions.
Then he was off.
Rutledge followed him out of the kitchen and down the hall, watched him drag open the inn door and set off through the early mists up the hill towards the Otley cottage.
It was ten minutes before he was back, breathless and red-faced, but smiling.
“She wasn’t that happy with me, sir, for waking her. She said I was to tell you that, and say that I’d earned a shilling for the trouble it took to bring Mrs. Otley to the door.”
It was highway robbery, but Rutledge handed over a shilling, and the boy went dashing back down the passage towards the kitchens.
Rachel’s reply was hardly more than a scrawl. “If you haven’t run mad, you soon will. But if this is what it takes to send you back to London, I’ll do it.”
Grinning, he stuffed the paper into his pocket and went around to the back of the inn where his motorcar was parked in one of the disused sheds.
Within five minutes he was driving up to Mrs. Otley’s cottage, the sound of the car loud in the street, and down near the wood someone’s dog was barking in savage displeasure at the racket. The dog the rector had warned him of? You could hear the damned thing all over Borcombe!
Rachel came down the cottage steps ten minutes later, dressed in a dark coat and a hat she’d tied down with a scarf.
Rutledge got out and held the door for her. “Are you sure you can drive this automobile?”
She looked at him in disgust. “Of course I can. Probably better than you do, on these roads. I know them, you don’t.”
“And you’ll tell Susannah that if she’ll grant this one wish, I’ll be leaving for London as soon as I’ve tied up all the loose ends?”
