Charles Todd - Wings of Fire

There was beauty and strength, dignity and love there. Warmth. A woman who had much to give in her own right, and in the arms of her family. A woman who had lost three husbands and two of her children, but never faltered, a veritable pillar of life even in death.

He touched the cold marble cheek, and almost swore he could feel its own warmth against his hand. But it was an illusion, and he knew it.

On the wall to his left were several family memorials. The one for Stephen, set between his father’s and a slender pillar that supported the chapel, was inscribed with his name, dates, the Trevelyan and FitzHugh coats of arms, and his rank and regiment in the war. And in the back, their newness brightening the darkness there, were two blocks of black marble, side by side. Incised in them were, simply, the names and the dates of the dead. Olivia and Nicholas. Plain, for suicides.

For a moment he stood looking at them, wishing he could reach the living people they had been. But it was too late for that, except in Olivia’s poetry. Extending his arm, he again laid his palm against the marble, seeing its reflection against the lettering as if in a black mirror. The long fingers, the strong palm. His hand, no one else’s.

“Was it you, Olivia? Or Nicholas,” he asked aloud.

“… Nicholas…” the echo repeated softly.

“And you are free of guilt.”

“… free of guilt…” it replied.

“Who was your lover? Was it Cormac?”

The echo caught the question in his voice as it responded.

“… Cormac…?”

“And who is the Hound of Gabriel?”

“… rial…?”

“Do you know? If so, where will I find the answer?”

“… answer…”

“Is it in your papers-or your poetry?”

“… poetry…”

He stepped across the small space to where he could touch Nicholas’ memorial, ignoring the forcefulness of Hamish’s voice, calling it witchcraft to question the dead, warning him not to meddle in such matters, to leave it be.

“I talk to you. How is that so different!” he retorted in his mind.

After a moment he asked the shining black face of Nicholas’ marker, “Were you the killer Olivia protected?”

But in that single step he’d shifted the odd acoustics of the chapel and there was no echo to answer him. Only the sound of his own breathing. As if even in death Nicholas knew how to hold his peace.

Back at the inn Rutledge ate a fast meal in one corner of the dining room, an old book he’d found in the parlor propped in front of him to ward off conversation from either Trask or any other diners. But it was still early, and he had the place to himself. Asking for another pot of coffee and a cup, he went up to his own room to open the books of poetry again.

They seemed to raise more questions than they answered, but he thought it might be his own frame of mind raising doubts, not the lines he read over and over.

The last volume, Lucifer, had very little of the lyricism of Keats, and more of the strength of Milton. The writer was coming into maturity, looking at life and death as if they were the same, a coming from darkness and a returning to it, a brief, bright, glorious span that was often marred by man’s own incapacity to learn and trust.

He found the poem that had disturbed Inspector Harvey, and read it first. What Harvey hadn’t remembered was the title. It was, oddly enough, “The Failure.” Rutledge thought about that for a time, then moved on.

The poem about Eve seemed on the surface to answer the question of the tree of knowledge, from which she’d taken the apple. Eating it had opened her eyes to the realities of life and cost her the Garden of Eden.

But looking at it not as verse, instead as the experience of a young girl faced suddenly and shockingly with the death of a loved one-her own twin-Rutledge saw something else. Something he’d have missed if he hadn’t delved so deeply into the history of the Trevelyan family. Eve was Olivia, tasting of the knowledge that evil existed, and struggling to understand it, to find a place for it in her small, comfortable, once-safe childhood world. Losing her own Garden of Eden. Watching helplessly as the serpent twined itself into the branches and plucked the apple. But it was Anne who had fallen, and the last lines proved it to him.

The apple was one I knew, had loved, and would not wish to fall – lt was myself, my other self and terrified, my soul denied it all

Denying that murder had taken place? Refusing to believe in it?

But then Anne’s death was the first to happen. And they were all children at the time. Whatever Olivia might have seen, whatever she might have understood-or feared-murder was not a reality she was ready for. Cruelty, perhaps, she’d comprehend that, because children are capable of great cruelty. A knowledge of murder would come afterward. Meanwhile, Olivia had lived with silent, terrified grief.

He sat there, forgetting to watch the sunset, forgetting the coffee growing cold in his cup, his mind focused on the finely printed words on the richly watermarked page. Then after a time he moved on again.

Several pages later, when he had nearly convinced himself that the interpretation he’d given to “Eve” was subjective, not objective, he found the next movement in a symphony of pain and grief.

The title was “The Prodigal Son,” and it seemed to capture the story of the youngest son who left home, taking his share of his inheritance with him, leaving older brothers to support their aging father. But life had not been kind to him, and he returned a failure, expecting to be a slave in his father’s holdings, only to be treated like the lost and golden boy he’d been.

Richard.

It could be no one else. Richard-still alive? No, that was impossible! But still a threat to his brothers, because his body hadn’t been found. They would be left to wonder what had become of him. To wonder if he might someday come home in truth.

Rutledge thought about that.

The second murder.

There had been a long and intense search for the boy. No sign of him had been found. Flyers and posters had been sent out, gypsies and tramps questioned, farms fringing the moors turned inside out. He himself, reading over the reports and the final verdict, had believed that the killer had hidden the corpse-no body, no evidence of foul play. But, what if that was all wrong?

What if murder had been made to look like an accident? A drowning, a fall, a boy’s game of hide and seek that had tragically pitched him headfirst into a mine shaft? Knocked down and trampled by wild ponies? There were any number of possibilities. Then consider Someone else had found the body-not a search party of half a dozen men, but one person. Who might well have known for other reasons-or guessed-who was behind this carefully arranged scene. And who might have decided that Richard’s death-irreversible in itself-might still be a threat to his murderer. Gathering up the corpse, carrying it away in the night while the searchers were occupied on the moor, taking it where it might never be discovered, someone had altered the murderer’s design. Left a question mark in his mind, a doubt, a worry. And later, near where the body had been lying, the clothes had been buried. In case the murderer came back to search on his own for the child that the searchers ought to have found…

Hamish was busy picking the concept to pieces, but Rut-ledge ignored him. You couldn’t bury Richard in the church or the churchyard. Any digging or movement of stones there would have been suspect. Nor at the Hall. There were gardeners-they would have seen the first signs of a grave large enough to hold a five-year-old. Most of the villagers had gardens too, digging in them every season, turning them over, disturbing the soil. The wood then? No, it was too close to the Hall, within sight and sound of the village as well. The sea? It sometimes failed to give up its secrets, and other times, it brought them back to shore. All right, none of the obvious choices, then. But somewhere safe… for the boy as well as the person who’d moved him…