Charles Todd - A test of wills

"What child?" he asked, thinking only of Lizzie.

"Why, little Helena, of course. Mr. Royston ran over her in his car-in Colonel Harris's car. And the check he sent was in the Colonel's name. So we thought-all these years we thought-but it wasn't the Colonel. Helena got it all wrong." There was a sudden spark of triumph in her eyes, as if it gave her some obscure pleasure to think that Helena had been wrong. "Aunt Mary and Uncle Martin always said she was better than I was, so pretty, so smart, so fearless-they said they wished the car had killed me, not Helena. I was only adopted, you see, I wasn't theirs-" There was a lifetime of suffering in her words, a lifelong misery because the wrong child had died in an accident and she had been blamed for living. "They asked for all that money, and it wasn't enough to satisfy them, they wanted her back again. But she was dead. And I was alive."

He wasn't interested in Maggie's childhood; he had a man bleeding to death on his hands, and God knew what behind that closed, silent bedroom door.

"So when Helena discovered that the Colonel lived here, just across the wall-that he was our neighbor-"

Getting up from his knees, his breathing still erratic and harsh, he ignored Maggie and started across the room to the bedroom, forcing himself to face what had to be faced. Hamish had been babbling for the last five minutes, a counterpoint to Maggie's slow, painful confession, but Rutledge shut him out, shut out everything but the long, bright streak of blood down the door panel, on the handle of the knob Somehow Maggie was there before him. "No! Leave her alone, I tell you! I won't let you go near her-let her die!" And with such swiftness that he couldn't have stopped her if his own life had depended upon it, she was through the door and into the room, turning the key in the lock behind her.

"Maggie!" he shouted, pounding on the door, but he could hear only her sobbing. She'd taken the ax with her. There was nothing to do but try to break the door down with his shoulder or kick it down.

It took him three tries. When it finally swung wide on broken hinges, he was into the room before he could regain his balance.

There was only one bed, narrow, neatly made, now covered in blood. And only Maggie, collapsed across the pretty lemon-colored counterpane like a heap of rags, stained and worn. The ax was on the floor at her feet. He turned wildly, surveying the small room, finding no one else, the window closed, the closet empty. Then he was beside the woman on the bed, leaning over her, lifting her gently. Black lifeblood welled beneath her, thick and pungent. The heavy, ivory- handled knife had plunged too deep. There was nothing he could do.

Her eyes were not able to see him. But she was still alive. Just.

"I had to do it," she said. "I couldn't stand it anymore. She knew that. She always knew things before I ever did. But for once she was wrong-about the Colonel. She'll go to hell, won't she, for killing him? And I'll go to heaven with the angels, won't I? We couldn't share anymore. Not with that on her conscience."

"Where did she kill him?" Rutledge asked.

"By the wall. When he came to speak to Maggie. She had the shotgun hidden there, among the roses, where he couldn't see it. And she tried to ask him if he'd been the one driving the car that killed Helena. But he wouldn't listen, he told her not to be a fool, that she was upset and not thinking clearly. So she shot him-she lifted the gun and shot him and his head flew everywhere, and the horse bolted before he'd stopped bleeding, and it was the most awful…"

Her voice faded. He could see the blood trickling out of her mouth. The way the body lay, graceless and heavy. It would only be a matter of minutes. There was nothing he could do to stop the bleeding, nothing anyone could do to put the torn flesh back together. But he sat there beside her until her eyes told him she was dead. Then he got to his feet and began to search the cottage.

He found the shotgun in a closet. And signs of one breakfast on the table. And only one bedroom occupied, the other with the mattress still rolled up and wrapped in a sheet. Two trunks holding clothes. He went through each cupboard and closet, looked under anything that might hide a body. But there was no one.

He wasn't surprised. Taking a sheet with him, he hurried out to bind up Royston's bloody shoulder. The goose, smelling the blood, had backed off behind the car in the drive. Royston's car. He'd come to take Helena to church… Royston was very weak, but alive. Rutledge, with some experience in war wounds, did what he could to stop the bleeding, and then called his name, trying to rouse him. Royston opened his eyes, stared at Rutledge with a frown, then groaned with the mounting pain. "In there," he managed hoarsely. "It's over," Rutledge said curtly. "I got here a little early. I was talking to Maggie, and she began to ask me about the-accident. All those years ago. Mavers had said something, Helena had told her about it, she said. Then she went into the bedroom to fetch Helena. And Helena came out with the ax. I didn't-there was nothing I could do. If you hadn't come-" "Stop talking." "You can't leave Maggie here! Not with that madwoman!" "Maggie's dead." "Gentle God!" "And Helena died with her." "What? She killed her cousin?" "You killed Helena. In Colonel Harris's car. When you were twenty. You told me so yourself." "I don't understand-" "There never was a Helena. Only-Maggie, and years of being told that Helena was better and brighter and stronger than she was-until she believed it. And tried to be Helena herself. And couldn't. But somehow she created Helena inside herself." He shivered, thinking of Hamish, wondering if one day in the future, he'd create the man's image in his own flesh and be a divided soul, like Maggie Sommers. "And it was-Helena-who shot Charles Harris."

He got Royston to his feet and somehow to the car. Then he was driving as fast as he could toward Upper Streetham, watching the man's face, watching the rough breathing. Someone fetched the doctor from the church, and then Warren threw them all out of his surgery as he worked over Laurence Royston. All except Rutledge, who stood in the doorway watching the gentle, swift hands moving across the savage wounds of the ax. "I don't know how this happened," Warren said over his shoulder. "It will be touch and go, if he lives. But he's got a strong constitution. I think we can save him. I won't give up without a fight-"

The front door opened and Rutledge could hear Wilton's voice, and then Forrest's.

He went out to speak to them, leaving Warren to his work.

Later, he called London. Bowles growled at him, wanting to know what he'd done about Wilton.

"Nothing. He's in the clear. I've found the murderer. She's dead-"

"What do you mean? She? What she?"

So Rutledge told him. Bowles listened, grunting from time to time. At the end of it, he said, "I don't understand any of this business-"

"I know. But the poor woman lived in such wretchedness that I can't blame her for trying to bring Helena back to life. You'll have to check with the police in Dorset, see what's known about Maggie. It's going to be routine, I think. I don't expect any surprises."

"How can two women live in one body?"

Rutledge was silent. How could he explain? Without betraying himself? And oddly enough, he'd liked Helena… Someday, would other people like Hamish better than Ian Rutledge? It was a frightening thought. The doctor had told him he wasn't mad to hear Hamish-because he, Rutledge, knew that Hamish didn't exist. But Maggie was different. She'd wanted Helena to exist. Not out of madness but out of a bleak and lonely need to satisfy two vicious, selfish adults, trying to become the daughter they'd lost and mourned, a desperate bid for love by a shy, bewildered child… until she'd made Helena live again. And one day, coming across Charles Harris in a town far from home, suddenly Helena wanted vengeance. Maggie lost control-was in danger of losing herself-and when Helena attacked Laurence Royston, Maggie had somehow found the strength to stop it. Once and for all.