Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [88]
Hamish was already pointing out that it meant nothing, but Rutledge felt the coldness in his bones.
Suddenly tired and out of spirits, Susannah added, “I don’t want to think about death and unhappiness. What you’re doing in Borcombe is a waste of time. It distresses Daniel, and that always disturbs me. Richard is dead, and so is everyone else, and I don’t see why Scotland Yard should care a ha’penny about any of us. Stephen’s gone, and you can’t bring him back, however hard you try. Nobody murdered him, he just fell! And as far as I know, that’s still not a crime, is it? So just go away and let us get on with life!”
Jenny Beaton was about to interject a change of subject, but Rutledge was faster.
“Did your brother take Olivia’s papers from the house? Those she left him regarding her writing?”
“Stephen took hardly anything. I feel so guilty now about how we all behaved over that. Like—like dustmen quarreling over the bins! You were as bad as the rest of us, Rachel!” she ended accusingly, her face flushing with emotion.
Rachel was on the point of denying it, then closed her mouth firmly.
Mrs. Beaton hastily overrode her anyway, extending an invitation to stay for luncheon, but Rutledge thanked her and claimed pressing business back in Borcombe. He and Rachel left soon afterward.
“A fine diplomat you are!” she accused him, back on the main road. “She’s supposed to have rest, tranquillity!”
“She seemed perfectly capable of looking after herself. Susannah is a lot stronger than you give her credit for.”
“You aren’t a doctor—”
“No, and neither are you! Now tell me about Cormac and Nicholas.”
“Tell you what? I thought I’d made that plain at the Bea-tons. They never found common ground. They were envious of each other, Nicholas because Cormac was older, Cormac because Nicholas was Rosamund’s son and he wasn’t. What’s wrong between you and Cormac? Why do you bristle at each other? Explain that, and you’ll see why Cormac and Nicholas didn’t get along.”
Rutledge knew why he and Cormac bristled. They were at opposite ends of the pole. Cormac wanted the family skeletons packed away where they couldn’t rattle, and he, Rutledge, was in the process of digging them out and displaying them on the village green. Antagonists. Two men used to having their own way—and each finding the other blocking it.
He found himself wondering suddenly if it was Cormac’s City reputation that he was protecting so ardently—or a woman he’d wanted to love but couldn’t.
Hamish said, out of the blue, “The heart doesna’ care what she is, if he wants her badly enough. But the head doesna’ rest easy on the pillow when she’s a killer.”
Which was true.
He, Rutledge, still wanted Jean, though he knew—he had seen for himself—that she couldn’t bear to have him come near her ...
They were nearly back to the village when Rutledge pulled into a farmer’s muddy lane and switched off the engine.
Turning to Rachel, he said, “You told me about a letter last night. Whether you want to remember telling me or not, it’s up to you. But it will save all of us a great deal of time and fuss if you simply finish what you started.”
“What will you do, if I don’t? Make me walk back to Borcombe from here?” she retorted.
“You know I wouldn’t do that. Rachel for God’s sake, you may well be concealing evidence.”
“No, I’m not!” she said fiercely, turning in her seat to face him. “The letter was to me! Not to the police or an inquest full of prying eyes. I don’t know how you managed to make me speak of it. If I’d been myself, if you hadn’t tricked me, I never would have!”
“You told me, the day you sent for Scotland Yard,” he said tiredly, ignoring Hamish’s accusations