Charles Todd - Wings of Fire

“An interesting story. But as you said, there’s no proof.”

“No. It could still do a great deal of harm, all the same. And there’s Richard.”

“The one in leading strings?”

“Yes, that’s right. He was lost on the moors when he was five. There was a family picnic, and he and Olivia went for a walk. She came back without him, and although we searched until dark and again through the night, with lamps brought from the nearest houses, we never found him. Or his body. He had simply disappeared.”

“And you think Olivia killed him, somehow hiding the body?”

“God knows. Speculation was rampant. Some said the gypsies had taken him. He was a handsome child, very fair and more like Rosamund than Nicholas, who was dark. Others believed he’d fallen down one of the old mine shafts. The point is, Olivia had walked away with him and Olivia came back without him. He may have wandered into one of those bottomless pools on the moors. Or he may have been thrown in. The pool nearest the picnic was dragged, with no luck. I wouldn’t have thought about Olivia killing him-if I hadn’t been a witness to Anne’s death. And that left only the two, you see, Olivia Marlowe and Nicholas Cheney. James Cheney died soon afterward. Cleaning his guns. That was the verdict at the inquest. I often wondered if it was grief over Richard that made him careless. He was distraught-they had to lash him to a horse to get him off the moors. Rosamund, Rosamund was always a pillar of strength. I’ll never forget her tramping through the darkness, lamp in hand, determined, silent, tears on her face, but not a single word did she speak. I went with her. I thought if anyone could find the boy, she might. She had this streak of-I don’t know-intuition. She hadn’t wanted to go on the picnic, but there were guests from Wells, and James thought it would please them. That haunted him to the end.”

“There’s still no proof,” Rutledge said, as Hamish took up the theme of intuition. Rutledge had nearly lost his own in the aftermath of war and in the struggle to regain his balance. Now he fought against the deep voice in his head, reminding him of the last time he’d used that intuition. Warwickshire. Not a time he wanted to dwell on. Instead, he said to FitzHugh, “You tell me these things, but they could all be lies. Someone else could have done the killings. Or they could have been accidents, misfortunes, not murder.”

FitzHugh drained his glass, then rose to set it on the mantelpiece. “As you say. But for God’s sake, man, bear it in mind, what I’ve told you. And don’t be the hero, don’t drag Olivia Marlowe or O. A. Manning or any of the rest of us through the tribulations of exposure. If I’m right, and Nicholas died at Olivia’s hand, let it go down as suicide. Can you do that much for us?”

“And Stephen FitzHugh? Your half brother?”

“He lost half of his foot in the war. He fell down worn stairs. But it was my fault, if you want the truth. When he stuck his head out the window to say that he would be no more than five minutes, I was impatient, I had a train to catch, and I told him that he’d damned well better make haste or we were leaving without him. And he did make haste. And he died. I’m still waking up at night in a cold sweat, trying to call back those words.”

“But he was the only family member who was against selling the house, as I understand it. Now it can be sold without any problems.”

“And I’m very likely to buy it,” Cormac FitzHugh said, reaching for Rutledge’s empty glass and setting it beside his own. “That’s what brought me down this morning. I’d toyed with the idea. I’m looking for a house in the country, but I was thinking of something closer to town than this. Now I feel guilty about the house as well. Letting it go out of the family. I can’t follow Stephen’s plan, I can’t turn it into a museum for O. A. Manning-God, the scholars would have a field day if they stumbled over what I’ve just told you! Olivia would not only be famous, she’d be notorious.”

Rutledge stood up. “Which window did your brother call from, before he fell?”

FitzHugh stared at him blankly. “Which window? It was from the room that had been Father’s. To the right of the stairs. Do you want to see it?”

“No, that’s not necessary. Not this morning. I’ve taken enough of your time. I’ve work to do in the village. Will you be staying here? In the house?”

“If I can find Mrs. Trepol and persuade her to make up my room.” He grinned. “I’m not useful in that regard. Horses I know, and contracts, and how to handle stockholders at a meeting. Sheets and towels are beyond me.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I have a business in the City. FitzHugh Enterprises. Made my fortune in iron and steel, branched out into other interests. Oil. The Navy’s looking into that.” He smiled, immense charm, Irish charm, changing his face. “They call me a war profiteer in some quarters. Because I made money on the killing. But the men in the trenches, when the first tanks came over the barbed wire, didn’t worry about their cost, only about what they could do to the Germans. I saved lives, if you come right down to it.”

“Were you in the war as well as profiting from it?”

The grin faded. “Oh, yes, Inspector, I was. That surprises most people. I was one of the code breakers. I have a skill at mathematics that certain people at Cambridge remembered quite well. I don’t think I could have gotten into the real fighting-I was more useful where I was. Boring work. You never knew whether what you’d just decoded was the most important secret of the campaign or the least important. You just did your best. Like everyone else.”

Rutledge closed the front door behind him and stepped out into the drive. The sunlight now was brilliant, the mists gone, the sea such a deep blue it hurt the eyes to look at it. He walked down the drive and took the path towards what turned out to be a shingle strand, long and narrow and swept by the tides in every gale, but this morning busy with gulls and choughs and a pair of ravens that were squabbling over something the water had brought in. It appeared to be what was left of a fish. The headland shut out the wind, and there was unseasonable warmth by the water, and a stillness of the air that reminded him of France, just before the artillery barrages began. He stood there, looking out to sea, watching a wisp of steam that came out of Wales and sailed, below the horizon, to faraway ports. It was peaceful here, but there were straggles of rocks again to his right, jutting out where the land began to rise once more, tumbled and rough and water-sprayed. He wondered if in the past wreckers had stood here with their lanterns and lured ships onto a stormy shore. Cornwall had always lived from the sea, one way or another.

Shadowed, the headland on his left was massive and dark, white water creaming at its base. And the house was invisible from here, only the line of the roof and the clipped lawns foretelling its presence.

There was the sound of footsteps on the shingle behind him, and he turned to see Rachel Ashford coming towards him. He waited for her, and she said, “Has he gone yet?”

“Cormac FitzHugh? No, I left him in the house.”

Chewing her lip for a moment, she thought about it. “Well, I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow, won’t I? For the ships.” Then she looked up at him, shading her eyes with her hand. “I know,” she said, answering what she read in his face. “I wasn’t actually ready to fetch them anyway. It’s just-” After a moment, she went on in different voice, “You’ve been in there. What did you feel?”

She meant the study upstairs. And he couldn’t pretend to misunderstand.

He said, looking out to sea, “I don’t know.”