Wings of Fire

by Charles Todd

  She began to weep, tears running down her white, withered face in ugly runnels, as if there had never been places for them to fall before, and now they couldn’t find a way.

  Rutledge found himself breathing hard, his body tight with black and wordless rage. He gave her his handkerchief and

  she took it, fumbling in the blindness of the tears. She touched her face with a dignity that was heart wrenching, because these were not tears for herself. She still hadn’t cried for herself.

  26

  After a long silence, Rutledge asked, “Why did Olivia choose to die? And why did Nicholas die with her?”

  Sadie shook her head. “If she wanted you to know that, she’d of told you. In her poetry. Somehow.”

  And, God help him, she had.

  Huskily Rutledge said, “More to the point, did she tell you?”

  “She didn’t have to. I may be old and tired and useless, but there was more to me, once, and a heart to match it. I knew without the telling!”

  “Was Cormac ever in love with Olivia?”

  “He was deathly afraid of her, if I’m a judge. It was the only thing he ever showed fear of, and that fear was nigh on to superstitious! Miss Olivia said he didn’t believe in God, but that he believed with whatever heart he had, her death would surely be his death.”

  For the first time in a very long hour, Hamish stirred and spoke as clearly as if he’d sat there at the table with them from the start. Or because of the tension that held him like a vise, had Rutledge himself formed the words aloud? Somehow he was never, afterward, sure.

  “She’s wrong there, it was no’ her death that brought him down, but Nicholas Cheney’s. And yon lassie not understanding it, and sending for the Yard.”

  Sadie looked up at him, her eyes no longer clear and sharp. “Aye, it’s true enough,” she answered. “It was Mr. Nicholas dying. But how could he have left Mr. Nicholas alive? He’d have come for Mr. Cormac with his bare hands the instant anything happened to Miss Olivia. However carefully it were done. That’s all that saved Mr. Cormac for twenty years, Miss Olivia not wanting to see Mr. Nicholas hanged! No, they had to die together. That was the only chance Mr. Cormac had in this world.”

  Rutledge had written down her words, and afterward, when he’d made more tea and coaxed her out of weariness and the peace of forgetfulness, with his help she read them over and with a shaking hand, signed at the bottom of the last page.

  Now, now he could walk into a courtroom with all the evidence any barrister might need. Except for what Stephen hadn’t trusted to Olivia’s boxes. The FitzHugh family history.

  It was late when Rutledge walked through the woods, trying to cope with the emotions that still consumed him, listening to his own footsteps on the path, the soles of his shoes grinding on the gritty flint and earth like the mills of the gods. Slowly but surely—But he didn’t want slowly, he wanted a reckoning now, bloody and final and with vengeance driving it.

  And Hamish, ferociously wrestling for control, was losing.

  As he rounded the last bend in the trees, there were lights ahead of him. And behind the bright windows, the heavy thunderheads of a storm building. Flashes of reddish gold lightning laced the clouds, dancing among them as the roll of distant sound like guns firing out to sea reached him. Rutledge felt a cleaving tightness in his stomach.

  “Before the battle, aye,” Hamish remembered with him, “always the guns. But in God’s name, you’re not in France now, not tonightl That’s a storm coming in fast, and yon house has nae claim on you now. Nor the man in it! Your work’s done. This is no’ your fight, man!”

  Pausing in the shelter of the darkness, he turned his eyes back to the house. There were lamps in several rooms. The drawing room. The study where Olivia and Nicholas had died. An upstairs bedroom that had been Rosamund’s ...

  An invitation, then. Of a kind. “I’m here. I know what you’ve done this day. Come and face me yourself, if you dare!”

  Hamish said, “Not when ye’re sae angry! Not with the darkness on ye! It’s not worth dying for, just to see how he’ll take his defeat!”

  “I’m not dying in there. And neither is he, if I can help it. He’s laid down the challenge. I won’t walk away from it. Olivia didn’t.” But he knew very well it was the heat in his own blood speaking.

  Hamish retorted, “This isna’ the law, it’s vengeance! And it’s for her—all for that bluidy woman!”

  He didn’t answer, his mind already busy, calculating, weighing—

  There was a scent of pipe tobacco on the breeze that ruffled the leaves over his head. Faint but real. Then the sound of feet walking closer.

  Rutledge turned his head. Behind him on the path the rector’s voice came out of the darkness, low and passionate.

  “The people of Borcombe are simple, but they aren’t stupid. They’ve talked to each other, and put most of the story together by now. So have I. And I’ve spent my day trying to undo the harm you’ve done here. You’ve shaken their faith, and in the end they’ll blame themselves for all those deaths. They’ll shoulder the burden for twenty-five years of wickedness, for not recognizing or stopping it.”

  Rutledge said, “I’ve seen it happen before in murder cases. 7 could have prevented it. ‘ But not this time. Not with this killer. Tell them that.”

  “If I understood why ...”

  Rutledge turned his attention back to the headland. Gauging the storm and what was waiting in the house. The lamps were still burning.

  “The bedrock of my faith is redemption. That everyone can be saved, because deep down there’s some goodness to search out and nurture,” Smedley said tiredly. “I want to help.”

  “No. There’s no goodness to find here. Go back to the village and leave this to me. Here, take this with you.” He handed Smedley the statement he’d taken from the old woman. “Keep it safe for me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just give it to Harvey. It’s finished. Or it will be, in a little while.”

  “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.r />
  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, hissing 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?”