Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

“That I’ve found the killer.”

Silence. In it, he could hear the fi re crackling in the sitting room. Leo was chewing industriously on a ham bone. He had it locked in his paws against the floor, and the sound resembled someone planing wood.

“You’re sure.” His father’s voice was wary. “You’ve evidence?”

“Yes.”

“Because if you cock this up any further, you’re done for, boy-o. And when that happens—”

“It’s not going to happen.”

“—I don’t want you crying to me for help. I’m through covering your arse with HuttonPreston’s CC. You got that?”

“I’ve got it, Pa. Thanks for having confi dence.”

“Don’t you give me your bloody—”

Colin hung up the phone. It began ringing again within ten seconds. He let it ring. It jangled for a full three minutes while he watched it and pictured his father at the other end. He’d be cursing steadily, he’d be aching to batter someone into pulp. But unless one of his pieces of sweet female flesh was there to oblige him, he was going to have to face his furies alone.

When the phone stopped ringing, Colin poured himself a tumbler of whisky, returned to the kitchen, and punched Juliet’s number. The line was still engaged.

He carried his drink to the second bedroom that served as his study and sat down at the desk. From its bottom drawer, he took the slim volume. Alchemical Magic: Herbs, Spices, and Plants . He set it next to a yellow legal pad and began to write his report. It flowed easily enough, line after line, piecing fact and conjecture into an overall pattern of guilt. He had no choice, he told himself. If Lynley was asking for a female PC, he meant to start trouble for Juliet. There was only one way to stop him.

He had just completed his writing, revised it, and typed it when he heard the car doors slam. Leo began to bark. He got up from the desk and went to the door before they had a chance to ring the bell. They would fi nd him neither unprepared nor unaware.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” he said to them. He sounded a mixture of sure and expansive, and he felt good about the sound. He swung the door home behind them and led them into the sitting room.

The blond — Lynley — took off his coat, his scarf, and his gloves and brushed the snow from his hair as if he intended to stay for a while. The other — St. James — loosened his scarf and a few buttons of his coat, but the only things he removed were his gloves. These he held and played through his fi ngers while the snowflakes melted into his hair.

“I’ve a WPC coming up from Clitheroe,” Lynley said.

Colin poured them both a whisky and handed the glasses over, uncaring of whether they chose to drink or not. Not was the case. St. James nodded and set his on the side table next to the sofa. Lynley said thank you and placed his on the floor when he sat, unbidden, in one of the armchairs. He beckoned Colin to do likewise. His face was grave.

“Yes, I know she’s on her way,” Colin answered easily. “You’ve got second sight among your other gifts, Inspector. I was twelve hours away from phoning Sergeant Hawkins for one myself.” He handed over the slender book first. “You’ll be wanting this, I expect.”

Lynley took it and turned it over in his hands, putting on his spectacles to read the cover first and then the descriptive copy on the back. He opened the book and ran his glance over the table of contents. Pages were folded down at the corners — the result of Colin’s own perusal of the book — and he read these next. On the floor by the fire, Leo returned to gnawing his ham bone. His tail thumped happily.

Lynley fi nally looked up without comment. Colin said, “The confusion and the false starts in the case are my fault. I wasn’t on to Polly at first, but I think this clears things up.” He passed the stapled report to Lynley, who handed the book over to St. James and began to read. He went through the pages. Colin watched him, waiting for a fl icker of emotion, recognition, or dawning acceptance to move his mouth, raise his eyebrows, light his eyes. He said, “Once Juliet took the blame and said it was an accident, that’s what I focussed on. I couldn’t see that anyone had a motive to murder Sage and when Juliet insisted that no one could have had access to the root cellar without her knowledge, I believed her. I didn’t realise then that he was never the target in the fi rst place. I was worried about her, about the inquest. I wasn’t seeing things clearly. I should have realised earlier that this murder had nothing to do with the vicar at all. He was the victim by mistake.”

Lynley had two pages left to read, but he closed the report and removed his spectacles. He replaced them in his jacket pocket and handed the report to Colin. When Colin’s fi ngers were on it, he said, “You should have realised earlier…An interesting choice of words. Would this be before or after you assaulted her, Constable? And why was that, by the way. To get a confession? Or merely for pleasure?”

The paper felt weightless beneath his fi ngers. Colin saw that it had slipped to the fl oor. He picked it up, saying, “We’re here to talk about a murder. If Polly’s turning the facts so that I’m under suspicion, that should tell you something about her, shouldn’t it?”

“What tells me something is that she hasn’t said a word. About being assaulted. About you. About Juliet Spence. She doesn’t act much like a woman who’s trying to hide her culpability.”

“Why should she? The person she was after is still alive. She can tot the other up as a simple mistake.”

“With a motive of thwarted love, I take it. You must think a great deal of yourself, Mr. Shepherd.”

Colin felt his features hardening. He said, “I suggest you listen to the facts.”

“No. You listen. And you hear me well because when I’m done you’ll resign from policework and thank God that’s all your superiors expect from you.”

And then the inspector began to talk. He listed names that had no meaning to Colin: Susanna Sage and Joseph, Sheila Cotton and Tracey, Gladys Spence, Kate Gitterman. He talked about cot death, a long-ago suicide, and an empty grave in a family plot. He sketched the vicar’s route through London, and he laid out the story that Robin Sage — and he him-self — had pieced together. In the end he unfolded a poor copy of a newspaper article and said, “Look at the picture, Mr. Shepherd,” but Colin kept his eyes where he’d placed them the moment the man had started speaking: on the gun cabinet and the shotguns he’d cleaned. They were primed and ready and he wanted to use them.

He heard Lynley say, “St. James,” and then his companion began to speak. Colin thought, No. I won’t and I can’t, and he conjured up her face to hold the truth at bay. Occasional words and phrases pierced through: most poisonous plant in the western hemisphere…root stock…would have known…oily juice upon cutting an indication of…couldn’t possibly have ingested…

He said in a voice that came from so far within him he couldn’t quite hear it himself, “She was sick. She’d eaten it. I was there.”

“I’m afraid that’s not the case. She’d taken a purgative.”

“The fever. She was burning. Burning .”

“I expect she’d taken something to elevate her temperature as well. Cayenne, probably. That would have done it.”

He felt cleaved in half.

“Look at the picture, Mr. Shepherd,” Lynley said.

“Polly wanted to kill her. She wanted to clear the way.”

“Polly Yarkin had nothing to do with any of this,” Lynley said. “You were a form of alibi. At the inquest, you’d be the one to testify to Juliet’s illness the night Robin Sage died. She used you, Constable. She murdered her husband. Look at the picture.”