Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [150]
“I know.” She smiled at him, and there was a warmth in her he found it impossible to disbelieve. If it was indeed Doyle behind Finn Hennessey and the bomb, she was never going to heal from this. It would be a mortal wound. Half of him wanted to stay and offer whatever understanding or compassion was possible, the other half wanted to escape before he said or did something, or what he feared for her was betrayed in his face. He hesitated a moment.
She looked at him with increasing anxiety, as if she read his indecision and perceived the reasons.
He turned to Piers.
“There is no point in delaying what must be done,” he said grimly. “It is best to begin.”
Piers took a deep breath. “Yes, of course.” He glanced at his mother, seemed on the edge of saying something, then it eluded him. He moved to the door ahead of Pitt and held it open for him.
They went together, without speaking again, down the stairs, across the hall, through the baize door and along the passage past the kitchens and servants’ hall. Pitt collected the lanterns and led the way past the stillroom, gameroom, coal room, knife room, and general other storage and workplaces to the icehouse. He put the lantern down and took out the keys. Beside him Piers was standing rigidly, as though his muscles were locked. Perhaps Pitt should not have asked this of him? He hesitated with his hand on the key.
“What is it?” Piers asked.
Pitt still could not make a certain decision.
“What’s wrong?” Piers said again.
“Nothing.” It would not make any difference in the end. He put the key in the lock and turned it, then bent and picked up the lantern and went in. The cold hit him immediately, and the damp, slightly sickly smell. Or perhaps it was his imagination, knowing what was there.
“Is there a light?” Piers asked with a tremor in his voice.
“No, only the lanterns. I suppose they usually get the meat out during daylight,” Pitt replied. “And I expect leave the door open.”
Piers closed it and held the other lantern high. The room was quite large, stacked with blocks of ice. The floor was stone tile, with drains to carry off the surplus water. Carcasses of meat hung on hooks from the ceiling: beef, mutton, veal and pork. Offal sat in trays, and several strings of sausages looped over other hooks.
A large trestle table had been moved in, and the outlines of two human bodies were plainly visible under an old velvet dining room curtain, faded now.
Pitt took the curtain off and saw the white, oddly waxy face of Ainsley Greville. The other face, Lorcan McGinley’s, was so swathed in the remains of the study curtain to hide the blood and the injuries that it looked far less obviously human.
Piers took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“What am I looking for?” he asked.
“His neck,” Pitt replied. “The angle of his head.”
“But he’s been moved. What does it matter now? He was hit from behind. We already know that.” Piers frowned. “What are you thinking, Mr. Pitt? What do you know now that we didn’t then?”
“Please look at his neck.”
“That blow wouldn’t break it.” Piers was puzzled. “But if it had, how does that alter anything?”
Pitt looked down at the body and nodded very slightly.
Piers obeyed. There was a very slight moment of reluctance, the knowledge of who it was he was touching so professionally, then he placed his fingers on the skull and moved it gently, then again, exploring, concentrating.
Pitt waited. The cold seemed to eat into him. No wonder meat kept well here. It was not far above freezing, if at all. The damp from the ice seemed to penetrate the flesh. The taste of dead things filled his mouth and nose.
The lanterns burned absolutely steadily. It was totally windless, almost airless in there.
“You’re right!” Piers looked up, his eyes wide and dark in the uncertain light. “His neck is broken. I don’t understand it. That blow shouldn’t have done that. It’s in the wrong place, and at the wrong angle.”
“Would that blow at the back have killed him?” Pitt asked.
Piers looked unhappy.