A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [132]
Rutledge followed him inside, and as Quincy worked, went into the room with the birds.
“You were lucky the cottage didn’t burn down with you in it,” he told his host. “It was a near thing.”
“And I haven’t got rid of the smell yet. Did you notice it? I expect that’s why I decided to make chili. I brought spices back with me when I came to England, and they’re running out. I need to find a way to stock them in again.”
“Surely you left behind friends who could oblige you.”
Quincy came back with the tea. “No, I didn’t. I burnt those bridges. I didn’t want someone showing up in England to surprise me. Here you are. What fascinates you about my birds?”
“How you killed them, before you mounted them.”
“That’s what Partridge asked me as well. Sorry to disappoint you, but I had others do it for me. I didn’t like that part of it. But birds live and die, either by the hand of a small boy with a slingshot or in the jaws of a predator stalking them on the jungle floor. I knew what birds I wanted, and I paid to have them brought to me. I’ve told you.”
So he had. But Rutledge still had his doubts.
Quincy said as he passed Rutledge sugar for his tea, “I borrowed the sugar from Allen, by the way. I knew you’d come calling again. All right, let’s look at the broader picture. If I’d killed Willingham and Brady, I’d have done it more efficiently. Taken my shotgun and seen them off quickly and with a minimum of fuss.”
“And a maximum of noise.”
“There’s that,” Quincy acknowledged. “But I’m not one for carving up my enemies with a knife. It’s a favorite weapon in Central America, but I never took to it. The same holds for why I didn’t kill these birds myself. I don’t have to feel guilty every time I look at them for how they may have died.”
“Everyone here has secrets. You said as much yourself. I know most of them now, and none of them appears to be worth a murder. Much less two.”
“Yes, well, there are secrets and secrets.”
“And yours might be that if your brother demands that you leave England again, you don’t dare show your face in Central America.”
Something flickered in his eyes, but Quincy said, “The world is wide, and there are other places to hide.”
Hamish said, “He canna’ return. Or he wouldna’ ha’ risked coming home.”
Rutledge smiled. “There are ways to find out if there are warrants out for your arrest.”
“I’m not so worried about the police, damn it. There’s a family out for my blood and likely to have it if I’m not careful. It’s easy to hire an assassin where people are poor and desperate. I’d never know the face of my murderer until he was on me. And so I paid a few bribes of my own and got out.”
It had the ring of truth.
But that left Allen and Miller and Singleton. As well as Rebecca Parkinson.
“Ye forgot the smith,” Hamish warned Rutledge.
He had. Finishing his tea, he asked, “What secrets did Willingham have?”
“That made him a victim? Who knows? If you caught the rough edge of his tongue, you might want to kill him on general principles.”
Rutledge rose to leave. “But you were nearly a victim as well. After Brady died.”
“Yes. We might need to ask ourselves, what set something in motion that can’t be stopped? And that’s why I sleep with the shotgun to hand. If he comes in here, I’ll be ready for him.”
It was an interesting remark, and it stayed with Rutledge after he left Quincy’s cottage.
We might need to ask ourselves, what set something in motion that can’t be stopped?
He climbed the hill and sat down on the chalk edge of the great horse’s foreleg.
Secrets within secrets…Something set in motion that can’t be stopped.
What had changed in this tiny hamlet of nine cottages over the past two years?
Partridge had come to live here, and then Allen had unwittingly given him away to someone who passed the news of Parkinson’s whereabouts to Deloran. Brady had then taken over the cottage vacated by Miss Chandler,