Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [126]
“No. There’s no goodness to find here. Go back to the village and leave this to me. Here, take this with you.” He handed Smedley the statement he’d taken from the old woman. “Keep it safe for me.”
“What is it?”
“Just give it to Harvey. It’s finished. Or it will be, in a little while.”
“That’s what frightens me. Finished how? Olivia wouldn’t have wanted it to end in violence. As a man of God, I can try to reach out, to offer the church’s solace and forgiveness.”
Rutledge, on edge and wishing the rector back in his church, said savagely, “I’ll make it plain. This man has killed for the sake of killing. Whatever he may tell you, whatever reasons he may offer, whatever logic he can bring to bear for his defense, he killed because it suited his purpose! And because the opportunity was there. And the power of shaping his own fate with his own hands he found exhilarating. Whatever went wrong in him, it isn’t going to be exorcised by the church. Or by you.”
“No! There is good in every human being. I believe it devoutly!”
“Then go down on your knees before the altar and pray for guidance. I need it! Or, if you want to be useful, find Inspector Harvey and tell him I require a warrant. But send Constable Dawlish around to the beach by boat. Just in case he tries to leave in that direction.”
“By boat? There’s a storm coming.”
“I know. Hurry, man! There isn’t much time.”
Rutledge was already walking away as he spoke. Smedley stayed in the enclosed darkness of the trees as the Londoner came to the end of the path and started up the drive, not concealing his presence, not slowing his pace.
Hamish said roughly, “All right then, ye’ll be fighting his darkness and your own, but ye’re a clever man, and ye canna’ show weakness, it’s what he’ll watch for. Let the words roll off his tongue and your back.”
But Rutledge didn’t hear.
Slowly, one by one, the lamps were extinguished, plunging the house into darkness. All but one he could see in the drawing room, with its faint glimmer in the hall’s tall windows.
The thunder made him flinch again, his nerves raw, his senses already at fever pitch.
Lightning flickered, and through the windows of the room where Olivia had died, it seemed to dance fleetingly, as if there was a living presence there.
At the steps, Rutledge hesitated, but the door didn’t open, and he took out the key he still kept in his pocket.
The shaft of light falling from the drawing room door like a spear was very bright after the darkness outside, making him blink, and he hesitated, aware of what might come out of the hall’s shadows at him. Then he turned towards the drawing room, his footsteps brashly loud in the stillness.
There was an airlessness too in the house that seemed to suffocate him, in spite of the high ceilings and the open door behind him.
He could smell the trenches again, feel the earth shaking under his feet as the barrage began. The sappers were still deep underground. He wasn’t sure they’d make it out in time—they’d be buried alive in moving earth, as he’d been, breath shut off by tons of soil rising high into the night sky and then collapsing in on them—on him—shutting out everything, sight, hearing, air—
Hamish stirred, uneasily calling out to him.
Rutledge forced himself back into the present, making himself concentrate on the light, not the dark.
On the threshold of the drawing room, he stopped again. There was a decanter and two glasses on the small table by the hearth, beneath Rosamund’s portrait. One of the glasses was half full. The other empty.
As if waiting for him ... they’d both been right, he and Hamish ...
Leashing his anger with an iron will, he crossed the silent room and stood looking at the portrait for a time, his eyes seeing it, his ears listening to the sounds of the house. It seemed to be electric with tension.
And then Cormac FitzHugh was standing in the doorway.
“She belongs here, doesn’t she? I was sorry that Susannah insisted on taking her away.”
As if Rutledge was a guest, and Cormac, the host, was making idle conversation before