Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel)

by Malliet, G. M.

  He had summarized for Awena the contents of Gabby’s letter, and the copies of the e-mails she had left behind. Cotton had told him the police had broken into the e-mail account she’d created, where she wrote letters to her mother as if she were alive, as if her mother had survived the war. The password she’d used was Claude.

  “Those e-mails…” Awena began.

  “She used them as a sort of diary that could be hidden from prying eyes, but it also was her way of keeping in her life the woman who had been taken from her with such brutal finality.”

  “It is strange to think how Melinda got involved in the first place. If not for the time change … I suppose she’ll be in some trouble for this as soon as she’s recovered—as an accessory.”

  Max nodded. “The time change was something that dogged me throughout the case—every hour on the hour, in fact, since Maurice generally forgets to ‘spring forward’ and ‘fall back’ the church bells. It was what kept reminding me of the time issue, and I began to wonder if it might come into the equation. Gabby was caught in the act because Melinda anticipated the time change on Saturday night and set her watch forward. Gabby never wore a watch, because her hands were in water and dyes and chemicals all day, and so she vaguely thought she had an extra hour to dispose of Thaddeus and all the evidence. She simply forgot; Melinda could have died because of her own efficiency—an efficiency I’d say was uncharacteristic. Melinda kept quiet about what she knew, but Gabby couldn’t trust such an uneven personality to keep quiet forever.”

  “It took a certain amount of daring, didn’t it?” Awena said. “Gabby’s method of killing Thaddeus, of working her way into the confidence of both Thaddeus and Melinda. I suppose we could say she inherited from both parents a certain strain of boldness.”

  “And then there was this: Gabby’s day-to-day work often involved mixing chemicals, measuring effective amounts of peroxide and whatnot. She was comfortable in that world. It’s no stretch to think she could work out the right dose to kill Thaddeus—and the right amount of poison to kill Melinda, if she’d wanted to. Although I gather in Melinda’s case she made a slight miscalculation.”

  “But … they were good friends,” said Awena musingly. “Gabby and Melinda.”

  “They may have developed something like a real friendship, partly because Melinda was so frequently in the shop, but in the beginning Gabby was in intelligence-gathering mode—tracking down those earrings, and learning about Thaddeus’s early life, his current habits, and so on. Eventually Melinda spilled nearly everything to Gabby—her unhappiness with Thaddeus, even details of her relationship with Farley. Gabby knew exactly which way Melinda’s thoughts were drifting, particularly when she found her with those mushrooms. It was highly likely Melinda would botch the job; I somewhat suspect Gabby wanted to make sure the job was done right.”

  Awena settled against him, listening to the rumble of this chest as he spoke.

  “Otherwise, she’d have let Melinda kill him,” she said. “And maybe—this is a terrible thought, but maybe she wanted to keep that pleasure to herself.”

  Max said, “I think you may be right. Anyway, the clues at times were nebulous. When someone—especially someone like Thaddeus—does or says something that makes no sense at all, I look for the reason. There is always a reason. Sometimes it’s just that they’re embarrassed to say what the small matter is.” He set his lips grimly together. “And sometimes there’s a darker reason.”

  Awena lifted her head to look at him. “I know what you mean. Sometimes they are masking something that would really be no big deal, if they’d just come out with it. But the small lie grows to look like a big one.”

  “In this case, I remember that Thaddeus claimed not to remember the war. But he was ten. How credible is it he would be too young at ten to remember anything? The world—his and everyone else’s—was turned upside down.”

  “It’s not really possible he just didn’t want to remember, is it? Even though the mind plays tricks…” Awena added wonderingly, nearly echoing Gabby’s words, “That a ten-year-old was capable of this…”

  “I’m not sure he saw it as anything more than a bit of mischief. Still, by that age he should have been able to realize the consequences could be fatal. His kleptomania seems to have blinded him to anything beyond his immediate wants. I would imagine that particular form of illness is worse before the impulse control most adults share has fully set in.”

  Max added, “There were other inconsistencies, small ones. I was nearly certain Thaddeus was not native to this country, but I tied no significance to that at first. He talked about someone attending ‘the New College in Oxford’—no British person would say that. It’s logical but wrong to add that ‘the’ before ‘New College.’ It was an oddity, just something I noticed at the time, nothing more.”

  There was a long pause as they sat listening to the crackle of the fire. Raindrops pelted softly against the windows. Awena said, “What do you think happened with Gabby? Was she adopting her mother’s personality? Trying to become her? The e-mails…”

  “You are thinking of something like multiple-personality disorder? No, I don’t think that is the case, not at all. Gabby knew full well who she was, and who her mother was, and that they were two separate people. She just became obsessed with what had happened to her mother. I think she felt that by absorbing what she knew of her mother’s life and personality and experiences into her own, she could become closer to her somehow, feel what her mother had felt, and, by putting on the mantle of this woman she never knew, fill the enormous void left in her own life, particularly after her husband passed.

  “I think Gabby was trying to relive everything she imagined her mother—and all the women caught up in that hellish experience—had gone through. Trying, almost, to become like the person she imagined her mother might have become, had she lived. I suppose it’s some form of survivor guilt—I’m not expert enough to say.”

  Max thought back to one of the Bible verses Gabby had left for him to find, the Psalm about the orphans. “They slay the widowe and the stranger: and murder the fatherlesse.” Only now he could see how obvious a clue it was to Gabby’s identity. As he and Cotton had discussed, she must have wanted to be caught. She had been orphaned so young, her mother and widowed grandmother both killed. The quote fit the wreckage of her young life, even to the fact the father she’d never known had been a stranger, a sojourner in France who had met his own death trying to escape. Gabby had been engulfed by unthinkable loss, betrayed by the malice of an evil child. Thaddeus may have suffered from his uncontrollable impulses to steal from an early age, but there was a cruelty to his actions that Max thought went beyond his mental illness. He had ruined the lives of innocents for no better reason but that he could—almost as a form of entertainment, like watching a play. Max could easily picture him bringing his secret knowledge to his parents, certain of their approval. Knowledge, then as now, was power.

  “I agree. I don’t think she was insane,” Awena was saying.

  “Not in the legal definition. She knew what she was doing. She knew her mother wasn’t alive. She simply kept her alive in her own mind. And she killed Thaddeus with full knowledge that killing him was wrong.

  “But I could make a long list of mitigating circumstances. Her chance to know her family in the normal way—mother, father, grandfather and grandmother—had been taken from her. She’d been robbed of all their lives. And of every personal possession, by the way—her home and belongings. We perhaps mourn more intensely over unexpected or sudden losses, or when we can only imagine the loved one, with only a photograph to gaze at, and wonder at what might have been. Losing her beloved husband, that sudden loss … all these injuries she suffered were at a cellular level.

  “She learned the details of her mother’s fate not long after her husband died. The timing of these meetings with Annabelle, so soon after his death, probably unbalanced her mind. To learn such terrible details, when she was already bereft—it c
ould send anyone over the edge. Seeing the article about Nether Monkslip—seeing that photo of a woman wearing her mother’s earrings—it all seemed like a sign from God to her, bringing her to this place.

  “And there was her enemy, alive and healthy, out enjoying himself with friends, living the life others should have been around to enjoy. Tracking him down gave her a purpose, but I think it finally unhinged her, too. The thought of avenging her mother—avenging all those who had suffered so greatly—these thoughts took over her mind in a ruinous way.

  “All we can say with certainty is that the atrocities occupied her mind, tipping the normally stable balance of her thinking.”

  Awena stood and held out her hand for his glass. On her return with a refill, Max said, “I have come to realize how Gabby sprinkled little clues of wartime experiences throughout. She talked about making do, about makeshift strategies for makeup, like using berry stains for lipstick and rouge, or red pencil lead. She could have been talking simply of wartime shortages. But she was talking of the ruses the women used to fool their captors into thinking they were healthy enough to be worth keeping alive. Otherwise, they’d have been singled out for execution. Gabby’s excellent posture and her attention to her health were all part and parcel of the same, well, fear that she lived under. Only the strong and fit—and the very, very lucky—would survive the unspeakable conditions to which her mother had finally succumbed.”

  Awena said, “Gabby’s mother must have been a remarkable woman in every way. I would like to have met her, too. One wonders if one would have had the courage to do what she and others like her did.”

  “Please God we never have the need to find out,” said Max. “Gabby’s story has had me rereading some of the history from those days. About the convents that were used to hide weapons and ammunition, as well as to shelter from the Gestapo the children who otherwise certainly would have died. The friend of Gabby’s grandmother, the Mother Superior at the convent where Gabby was raised—she must have known the enormity of the risk, and Gabby’s mother must have known in advance she would, unquestioning, accept the risk.

  “The strategies used by the Resistance were so clever. Sometimes a priest would stage a funeral leaving the occupied zone, with the mourners issued a pass by the Germans. The “body” and some of the mourners would then escape.

  “They didn’t always avoid detection, of course, and ruses like that would work only once. Betrayals were common: It was often a way to settle old scores. One nun was denounced for calling Hitler the Antichrist, which was possibly even true—both that she said it and that he was. At any rate, it was a view many came to share. Certainly he brought hell to earth.”

  “And all these years later, the ripple effect…” Awena began.

  Max nodded. “All these years later. Not long ago, a death camp suspect was located, age ninety-seven.” He paused, thinking how crimes cast a long shadow, seemingly to the horizon.

  “The question may be how many other people would feel the same, in Gabby’s shoes,” said Awena.

  Max nodded. “First she lost everything dear in the world, before she was old enough to even be aware of the loss. Then one day she locates the man who had cost her her mother’s life, and she tracks him here. Maybe that’s all she meant to do—to track him, out of curiosity, as she claimed. But then having met him, and seen how appalling a person he was…”

  “I can see that happening, very easily,” said Awena. “The switch from thought to action.”

  “Well,” said Max. “Three guesses what the topic of my sermon will be this Sunday.”

  “I thought your sermons were always the same.”

  “Thanks very much.”

  “I meant, are they not always about doing unto others? About being a force for good in the world?”

  “I suppose they are.… But this one may be a bit different.”

  He stared a moment into the fire, enveloped by the peace of being in Awena’s company.

  “By coincidence,” she said, “this year Passover intersects with Easter. It all flows together from the lunar calendar.”

  “Right—Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday.” He set down his glass. “You’ll be at the church service, won’t you?”

  She nodded. “The zither and banjo will make a nice change.”

  “Hmm,” said Max neutrally. He had lost that particular debate.

  “Once I’ve paid my respects to Ostara, the goddess of spring, at dawn,” Awena continued, “I’ll be there. I’ve already decorated my hat.”

  She leaned across him and turned off the lamp at the table by his side. They were left with only firelight.

  “When you realize,” she added softly, “how many of the old traditions were absorbed by the Church, it’s remarkable the way people go out of their way to emphasize differences.”

  Max looked at Awena, her skin glowing like white Carrara marble, now looking up at him out of those limitless eyes. He touched her chin, almost as if making sure she was real.

  “When we’re married, you’ll have to move over to the vicarage,” he said.

  There was a silence that went on a beat too long for Max’s comfort.

  “At least that would be the traditional thing to do,” he added. “I realize you’ve built a life for yourself here in your cottage.”

  More silence.

  “And it’s so beautifully decorated,” he went on, guessing now as to what the matter could be. “I’m sure we can find some middle ground. Obviously, I have to live in the vicarage.… I mean, I guess I have to.…” He trailed off.

  She took his hand in hers, her hand small and warm, comforting. Finally, she spoke.

  “Think about it, Max. Our differences are religious, which makes them as fundamental as differences get. Especially in this instance.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” said Max, surprised but calm.

  She said nothing, but looked at him quietly and patiently, as if waiting for him to catch up to her. Max had never felt so vulnerable. All along, his concern had been getting his heart’s desire past his bishop, past officialdom. He had never questioned whether Awena, who owned his heart, would follow.

  “We never spoke of marriage,” she said.

  And suddenly they were starring in a reprise of Sayonara. Max said, “It was never not in my thoughts, Awena. This was never from the beginning anything casual or ordinary for me.”

  “For me either,” she said quickly, assuring him. “As far as I’m concerned, in my heart I’ve already chosen you. I’m wedded to you. All the rest is merely…”

  “Window dressing? Paperwork?”

  She looked down, hiding from him those Awena eyes, like sea glass, clear and pale.

  “No … Yes. Sort of.”

  Oh God, he thought. Somehow he’d thought—what had he thought? Not that she would officially convert to his religion, never that. Awena was too much her own person with her own beliefs to simply fall in with whatever might be convenient to the situation; she would never simply put aside her own beliefs, so passionately lived and held, even for appearance’s sake. Max thought of his own faith as a flowering of mercy, an unasked-for gift, and so he well knew that beliefs arrived in their own ways and guises.

  He had thought, he supposed, if it could be called thinking, that they’d cross that marriage bridge when they came to it. Certainly if he’d planned things better, he’d have fallen in love with a devout Anglican woman, her doctrines as lined up in conventional rows as the pearls about her neck. Instead, he’d fallen in love with an exuberant, stunningly attractive, magnetic woman who with her scattershot, all-embracing approach to life and religion embodied all that his own religion taught him to admire and emulate: kindness, compassion, and empathy. Her basically sweet and open nature could not be doubted. It was just that her beliefs were outside the “norm,” as the Church in the person of his bishop would see it, and not that her beliefs and practices were in any way abnormal.

  As often in these situations, the choice o
f a life partner had been beyond his control. What would be right and proper for a man in his station in life had not mattered, and he’d barely paused to consider anything beyond his soul’s joy at finding its mate at last.

  Right now he was too frightened of losing her, of frightening her off, to say this, or anything more.

  In the uncanny way she had, Awena mirrored his thoughts.

  “I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But Max, it will become an issue one day. No one who doesn’t know us well will see our partnership as anything but, well, unorthodox. And I don’t have the answers, either, except that we both should pray on it.”

  Dueling prayers, thought Max. Or were they? Awena would hold they were all the same prayers to the same deity.

  There was a longer pause this time. Another Oh God I’m losing her pause.

  “What about children?” she said at last.

  The relief rushed through him. “Yes, of course, as many as you want.”

  “I meant, what religion would they be raised in?”

  Now there was a longer pause as he bit back the automatic, unthinking reply.

  “This isn’t fair,” she said. “I’ve had a little more time than you to think about this.”

  He had almost missed it, but the look on her face told him there was more meaning behind her actual words. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  She drew a deep breath but said nothing.

  “What?” he asked. “What is it? You have to say.”

  She looked at him from those extraordinary, luminous eyes, which now blazed in the golden light thrown by the fire. “I’m pregnant, Max,” she said. “I began to realize, when I was at Denman. It must have happened the night of the Winter Solstice, when we were first together. At first I couldn’t believe … I thought it was because so much has been going on in my life.…”

  Max’s jaw literally dropped. For a full minute, he was rendered speechless.