Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [94]
As Rutledge carefully worked with the little gold trophies, he realized all at once that Nicholas might well have included himself among the dead, before swallowing his laudanum. But not Olivia. That’s why there was no trophy for Olivia. She had escaped through her poetry. He had waited too long to kill her—if that’s what he’d done, if that was what had actually happened. She’d already found her wings of fire.
18
Rutledge drove thoughtfully back to Borcombe, and didn’t realize, until he stepped around the men seated on their sun-warmed bench before the inn door, drinking their beer, that he’d missed his lunch.
Hamish pointed out that the dining room had already closed.
Which did nothing to improve Rutledge’s mood.
He felt he was ready to start taking statements from his witnesses: Mrs. Trepol and Wilkins the gardener, Rachel and Cormac, Smedley, Dr. Penrith and Dr. Hawkins. Getting it on paper where he could sort it, challenge it, or use it to move forward.
But Borcombe was a tiny place, and everyone knew everyone’s business. To speak to people, to ask them for a general picture of the family at the Hall and the events that might—or might not—impinge on matters that concerned him, stirred up talk and rumors. To ask for official statements was tantamount to providing a blueprint for exactly what he was after: old murders, not new ones. Room for Constable Dawlish and his choleric superior to raise hell with London. Bringing Bowles down on him like a cyclone, demanding to know what he meant by stirring up the county, causing problems for the Yard when it already had its hands full. Room too for Cormac to have him recalled summarily, citing harassment of a prominent family, never mind the local police.
And he’d be forced to reveal more than he could, at the moment, defend. Publicly. But he knew he was right. All his experience at the Yard, his own intuition, the facts that he could be sure of, pointed to a long, cold-blooded series of killings that had spanned years. Cunningly planned, meticulously carried out, skillfully concealed.
A few more days—
He’d have to wait, damn it! On the statements. It would be foolhardy to push on and wreck everything.
Which merely added to his frustration, and Hamish was there, already taking advantage of it. Rutledge tried to shut him out. The clamor in his head was ferocious, and he forced himself to ignore it.
Very well, then, he promised himself. Wait he would— until he had finally talked to the local man, Inspector Harvey, and seen the way the wind blew there. It could make a difference in his planning, he had to accept that.
Sidestepping someone coming down the stairs as if he owned them, Rutledge settled for mentally laying out his schedule, which of the villagers should give statements first, what approach he was going to take in the questions asked, how he might draw out of each witness exactly what he wanted without arousing rampant speculation, and how fast he could accomplish the lot. There was also the dilemma of what had become of Olivia’s papers. He was going to have to find them—
He realized the man on the stairs was staring hard at him, eyes narrowed and angry. Rutledge looked up at him for the first time, and swiftly shelved his own thoughts.
“Rutledge?” the stranger demanded. “Inspector Rutledge?”
“I’m Rutledge, yes.”
“Inspector Harvey,” the man retorted with equal curtness. “I’ve come to speak to you.”
Swearing silently at the timing of Harvey’s unexpected appearance—splitting headaches were not the frame of mind in which to conduct painstaking interviews with choleric Cornishmen —Rutledge led the way to the small parlor, where today sunlight tried fretfully to light the gloom. “We can have privacy here,” he said, holding open the door. And advantage to me, on my own ground, he thought to himself. It appeared that he well might have need of it.
Harvey followed, still huffing from the stairs.
He was a bluff man, neither tall nor short, but heavy in build, with a red complexion and thinning dark hair. There