A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [103]
“And where’s he going?” Hamish demanded. “He’s no’ the kind of man who’ll run, or he wouldn’t have been so good at killing Germans.”
“Shut up and keep out of it! I thought you wanted to see the dashing Captain hanged!”
“Aye,” Hamish said, “I do. But I’m not ready to see you crawl back to yon clinic, and doctors that will stuff your mind full of drugs. Easing you into oblivion where there’s no pain and no memory and no guilt to savage you. I’ve not finished with you yet, Ian Rutledge, and until I have, I won’t let you crawl away and hide!”
An hour later, Rutledge found himself at Sally Davenant’s door. The maid Grace opened it to his knock and said, “Yes, sir?”
“I’ve come to see Captain Wilton. Will you tell him Inspector Rutledge is here. On official business.”
She caught the nuances in his voice and her face lost its trained mask of politeness. Concern filled her eyes, and she said, “Is there anything wrong, sir?”
“Just tell the Captain I’m here, if you please.”
“But he’s in Warwick, sir. He and Mrs. Davenant have gone to dine there. She wasn’t herself all afternoon, and the Captain suggested an outing to take her mind off the unpleasantness at the church this morning. I doubt they’ll be back much before eleven o’clock, sir.”
He swore under his breath. “Very well. Tell him I’ll expect to see him here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.” He nodded and walked off down the scented path, among the peonies and the roses.
There was, actually, a certain irony about that appointment, he thought, driving back to the Inn. It was exactly one week from the time Charles Harris died.
The rain came back in the night, and Rutledge lay there listening to it, unable to sleep, his mind turning over everything he’d learned in the past four days. Thinking about the people, the evidence, the way it was coming out now. One or two loose ends to finish tomorrow, and then he’d be on his way back to London.
But the funeral was on Tuesday, and he found himself wanting to be there, to watch Lettice walk down the aisle of the church on—on whose arm? To see her one more time, and in the light. To exorcise the witchery Hamish had been so worried about? He could contrive it; there was enough to do, he needn’t hurry back to that tiny cubicle in London, where his mind was dulled by routine and Hamish had freer rein.
It wasn’t a night for sleeping, in spite of the rain drumming lightly on house roofs and muffling the normal sounds of the village. Rutledge could hear the gutters running, a soft, ominous rush that echoed in his head, and once, a carriage rattling down the High Street. The church clock tolled the quarter hours, and still his mind moved restlessly in a kaleidoscope of images.
Of Catherine Tarrant’s paintings, vivid reflections of her inner force. Of Lettice Wood’s unusual eyes, darkening with emotion. Of Royston’s shame as he watched the faces of parishioners outside the church. Of Carfield’s swift retreat from confrontation. Of Wilton’s lonely grief, and a child’s terror. Of a woman hanging out clothes in the sunlight, a goose penned in the yard behind her. Of Sally Davenant’s cool shell, hiding emotions she couldn’t afford to feel. Of Charles Harris, man and monster, alive and bloodily dead…Of Mavers with his amber goat’s eyes…
At Mallows, Lettice Wood lay on her bed and wished with the fervor of despair that she could turn back the slowly moving hands of the ornate porcelain clock on the table by her pillow. Turn them back to that moment when she had said, with the blitheness of loving, “I’ve never known such happiness—I want it to go on and on forever—I want to feel it in old age, and look back on years full of it, and you, in the center of it.”
And his warm indulgent voice, laughing at her, promising. “My dear girl, when have I ever been able to deny you anything you wanted? We’ll be together always, as long as the seas run and the stars shine and the earth lasts. Is that pledge enough for you?”
The seas still ran, the stars still shone, and the earth was there still. But her happiness had poured out with