Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

“Which one?”

“Don’t play games with me. You know why I’m here. You didn’t expect it. And Juliet’s taking the blame made it unlikely that anyone would ever come looking for you. But I’ve smoked you out, and I want the truth. How often do you use the footpath?”

“You’re mad.” She managed to put another inch between them. Her back was to the door, and she was clever enough to know that a glance over her shoulder would announce her intentions and give him the advantage which she currently seemed to believe was hers.

“Once a month at least, I should guess,” he said. “Is that right? Doesn’t the ritual have more power if it’s performed when the moon is full? And isn’t the power more potent if the ritual takes place in the direct light of that moon? And isn’t it true that communication with the Goddess is more profound if you perform the ritual on a holy site? Like the top of Cotes Fell?”

“You know I worship on the top of Cotes Fell. I make no secret of that.”

“But you’ve other secrets, haven’t you? Here. In this book.”

“I haven’t.” Her voice was weak. She seemed to realise what weakness implied, because she roused herself to say, “And you’re frightening me, you are, Colin Shepherd,” with an edge of defi ance.

“I was up there today.”

“Where?”

“Cotes Fell. The summit. I hadn’t been in years, not since before Annie. I’d forgotten how well you can see from there, Polly, and what you can see.”

“I go there to worship. That’s all and you know it.” She put another inch between them, saying more quickly, “I burned the laurel for Annie. I let the candle melt down. I used cloves. I prayed—”

“And she died. That very night. How convenient.”

“No!”

“During the harvest moon, while you prayed on Cotes Fell. And before you prayed, you brought her soup to drink. Do you remember that? You called it your special soup. You said to make sure she ate every bit.”

“It was only vegetables, for both of you. What’re you thinking? I had some myself. It wasn’t—”

“Did you know that plants are most potent when the moon is full? The book says that. You must harvest them then, no matter what part you want, even the root.”

“I don’t use plants that way. No one does in the Craft. It’s not about evil. You know that. P’rhaps we find herbs for incense, yes, but that’s all. Incense. For part of the ritual.”

“It’s all in the book. What to use for revenge, what will alter the mind, what to use for poison. I’ve read it.”

“No!”

“And the book was behind the cistern where you’ve kept it hidden…how long has it been?”

“It wasn’t hidden. If it was there, it just fell. There was lots of things on the cistern, wasn’t there? A whole stack of books and magazines. I didn’t hide this—” She touched it with her toe and withdrew, gaining yet another inch of distance from him. “I didn’t hide a thing.”

“What about Capricorn, Polly?”

That stopped her cold. She repeated the word without making a sound. He could see the panic beginning to take hold of her as he forced her closer and closer to the truth. She was like a rogue dog when at last it’s cornered. He could feel her spine stiffening and her legs wanting to splay.

“Hemlock’s strength is in Capricorn,” he said.

Her tongue whisked across her lower lip. Fear was a scent on her, sour and strong.

“The twenty-second of December,” he said.

“What about it?”

“You know.”

“I don’t. Colin, I don’t.”

“The first day of Capricorn. The night the vicar died.”

“This is—”

“And one thing more. The moon was full that night. And the night before. So it all fi ts together. You had the instructions, your how-to for murder, printed in the book: dig the root out when the plant is dormant; know its strength is in Capricorn; know it’s deadly poison; know it’s most potent when the moon is full. Shall I read it all for you? Or would you prefer to read it yourself? Look under H in the index. For hemlock.”

“No! She put you up to this, didn’t she? Missus Spence. I c’n see it on your face as big as c’n be. She said go see that Polly, go ask her what she knows, go ask her where she’s been. And she left it to you to think up the rest. That’s how it is, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Colin?”

“Don’t even say her name.”

“Oh, I’ll say it all right. I’ll say it and more.” She stooped and snatched the book from the floor. “Yes, it’s mine. Yes, I bought it. I used it as well. And she knows that — damn her— because I was fool enough once — more’n two years back when she first came to Winslough— to ask her about making a tincture from bryony. And more the fool I was, I even told her why.” She shook the book at him. “Love, Colin Shepherd. Bryony’s for love. So’s apple in a charm. Here, want to see?” She fl ipped a silver chain from beneath her pullover. A small globe hung from it, its surface fi ligree. She yanked it from her neck and threw it to the floor where it bounced against his foot. He could see the dried bits of the fruit inside. “And aloe for sachets and benzoins for perfume. And cinquefoil for a potion that you wouldn’t ever drink. It’s all in the book, with everything else. But you only see what you want to see, don’t you? That’s the way it is now. That’s the way it’s always been. Even with Annie.”

“I won’t talk about Annie with you.”

“Oh, won’t you? AnnieAnnieAnnie with a halo on her head. I’ll talk about her just as much as I want because I know what it was like. I was there just like you. And she wasn’t a saint. She wasn’t a noble patient suffering in silence with you sitting at the bedside, putting flannels on her brow. That wasn’t how it was.”

He took a step towards her. She held her ground.

“Annie said, Go ahead, Col, you take care of yourself, my precious love. And she never let you forget it when you did.”

“She never said—”

“She didn’t need to say. Why won’t you see it? She lay in her bed with all the lights off. She said, I was too ill to reach for the lamp. She said, I thought I would die today, Col, but it’s all right now because you’re home and you’re not to worry a jot about me. She said, I understand why you need a woman, my love, you do what you must do and don’t think about me in this house, in this room, in this bed. Without you.”

“That’s not how it was.”

“And when the pain was bad, she didn’t lie there like a martyr. Don’t you remember? She screamed. She cursed you. She cursed the doctors. She threw things at the wall. And when it was worst, she said, You did this to me, you made me rot, and I’m dying and I hate you, I hate you, I wish you were dying instead.”

He made no response. It felt as if a siren were sounding in his head. Polly was there, mere inches away, but she seemed to be speaking from behind a red veil.

“So I prayed on the top of Cotes Fell, I did. At first for her health. And then for…And then for you alone after she died, hoping that you would see…would know…Yes, I got this book”—She shook it again—“but it was because I loved you and I wanted you to love me back and I was willing to try anything to make you whole. Because you weren’t whole with Annie. You hadn’t been for years. She bled you in her dying, but you don’t want to face it because then you might have to face what living with Annie was like as well. And it wasn’t perfect. Because nothing is.”

“You don’t know the first thing about Annie’s dying.”

“That you emptied her bedpans and hated the thought of it. Don’t I know that? That you wiped her bum with your stomach at the boil. Don’t I know that? That just when you needed most to get out of the house for a breath of air, she knew and would cry and take a bad turn and you always felt guilty because you weren’t ill, were you? You didn’t have the cancer. You weren’t going to die.”