Ashworth Hall - Anne Perry [163]
“I gotter get the water,” she said, finishing the last of her tea. It was cool enough now. “Mrs. Pitt’ll be gettin’ up.”
“I doubt it,” he replied. “She was probably woken when Mr. Pitt went to bed. I expect she’ll want to sleep in.”
“P’r’aps, but I’d better see.” She did not want to stay there with Tellman, of all people. She started towards the door.
“Gracie …”
She could not just ignore him. “Yeah?” she said without turning.
“Whoever killed Mr. Greville was the kind of person who’s used to killing people. It wasn’t done out of passion, or self-defense, or revenge or anything like that. I mean … I mean, if it had been Doll Evans, or Mrs. Greville, or someone like that, you could understand it. It’d still be wrong, of course, but you could understand it.”
She turned around slowly. “It weren’t Doll, I know that, ’cos I saw ’oo done it. She weren’t as tall as Doll. It were Mrs. Greville or Mrs. McGinley, I reckon.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he said, his face tight with emotion, his eyes steady on her. “The woman you saw tried to kill him, but he was already dead. She didn’t know that, but his neck was broken. That’s what we found out last night.”
“Broken? How d’yer know that?”
“You don’t want to hear that And don’t you go saying anything to anyone, do you understand? That’s confidential police business. It’s a secret. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Why did yer?”
“I …” he hesitated, looking unhappy. “Gracie … I … I hate to see you hurt like this.” He was acutely uncomfortable, there was a flush on his hollow cheeks, but he would not stop now he had begun. “But I thought it might help to know that whoever killed Mr. Greville was professional at it. You don’t just kill someone that easily, with one blow, if you’ve had no practice.” He was more wretched by the moment. “I daresay they think what they’re doing is right, but it isn’t right by any of the sort of things we believe in. You can’t get freedom for people by murdering other people just because you think they stand in your way. What kind of a person does that make you?”
What he said was true. In her heart she already knew it. It had been a glimmer, like a door opening, the minute she saw the dynamite. It had been growing wider, more certain since then. She had not lost something real, she had only lost a dream. But dreams can matter very much, and it was too soon to feel anything but pain.
“Yeah, I know,” she conceded, not looking at him. “I gotter take the water up all the same.”
“Gracie!”
“What?”
“I wish … I wish I could make you feel better ….”
She looked at him standing by the table, awkward, so tired he looked hollow-eyed. He was lantern-jawed. No one could have called him handsome, or even charming, but there weis a tenderness in him which startled her. Had it not been so obvious, she would not have believed it, but he cared for her, it was there, naked in his face.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Yeah, I reckon you would. It’s nice of you. I … I gotter take the water. She might be awake any’ow.”
“I’ll carry it,” he offered. “It’s heavy.”
“Thank you.” It was his job anyway, at least to carry the water for Pitt, but she did not feel like saying so, not this time.
He walked to the door and held it open for her while she went through, then filled the jugs and carried them upstairs for her, not speaking again. He did not know what else to say, and she knew that. It did not matter.
When she got upstairs, far from waiting for her, Charlotte was still sound asleep, as Tellman had said she might be, and looked so tired Gracie did not have the heart even to make a noise, let alone draw the curtains. She left the water and crept away again. If Pitt had to be up, that was another