Charles Todd - Wings of Fire

Rutledge had written down her words, and afterward, when he’d made more tea and coaxed her out of weariness and the peace of forgetfulness, with his help she read them over and with a shaking hand, signed at the bottom of the last page.

Now, now he could walk into a courtroom with all the evidence any barrister might need. Except for what Stephen hadn’t trusted to Olivia’s boxes. The FitzHugh family history.

It was late when Rutledge walked through the woods, trying to cope with the emotions that still consumed him, listening to his own footsteps on the path, the soles of his shoes grinding on the gritty flint and earth like the mills of the gods. Slowly but surely-But he didn’t want slowly, he wanted a reckoning now, bloody and final and with vengeance driving it.

And Hamish, ferociously wrestling for control, was losing.

As he rounded the last bend in the trees, there were lights ahead of him. And behind the bright windows, the heavy thunderheads of a storm building. Flashes of reddish gold lightning laced the clouds, dancing among them as the roll of distant sound like guns firing out to sea reached him. Rutledge felt a cleaving tightness in his stomach.

“Before the battle, aye,” Hamish remembered with him, “always the guns. But in God’s name, you’re not in France now, not tonightl That’s a storm coming in fast, and yon house has nae claim on you now. Nor the man in it! Your work’s done. This is no’ your fight, man!”

Pausing in the shelter of the darkness, he turned his eyes back to the house. There were lamps in several rooms. The drawing room. The study where Olivia and Nicholas had died. An upstairs bedroom that had been Rosamund’s…

An invitation, then. Of a kind. “I’m here. I know what you’ve done this day. Come and face me yourself, if you dare!”

Hamish said, “Not when ye’re sae angry! Not with the darkness on ye! It’s not worth dying for, just to see how he’ll take his defeat!”

“I’m not dying in there. And neither is he, if I can help it. He’s laid down the challenge. I won’t walk away from it. Olivia didn’t.” But he knew very well it was the heat in his own blood speaking.

Hamish retorted, “This isna’ the law, it’s vengeance! And it’s for her-all for that bluidy woman!”

He didn’t answer, his mind already busy, calculating, weighing There was a scent of pipe tobacco on the breeze that ruffled the leaves over his head. Faint but real. Then the sound of feet walking closer.

Rutledge turned his head. Behind him on the path the rector’s voice came out of the darkness, low and passionate.

“The people of Borcombe are simple, but they aren’t stupid. They’ve talked to each other, and put most of the story together by now. So have I. And I’ve spent my day trying to undo the harm you’ve done here. You’ve shaken their faith, and in the end they’ll blame themselves for all those deaths. They’ll shoulder the burden for twenty-five years of wickedness, for not recognizing or stopping it.”

Rutledge said, “I’ve seen it happen before in murder cases. 7 could have prevented it. ‘ But not this time. Not with this killer. Tell them that.”

“If I understood why…”

Rutledge turned his attention back to the headland. Gauging the storm and what was waiting in the house. The lamps were still burning.

“The bedrock of my faith is redemption. That everyone can be saved, because deep down there’s some goodness to search out and nurture,” Smedley said tiredly. “I want to help.”

“No. There’s no goodness to find here. Go back to the village and leave this to me. Here, take this with you.” He handed Smedley the statement he’d taken from the old woman. “Keep it safe for me.”

“What is it?”

“Just give it to Harvey. It’s finished. Or it will be, in a little while.”

“That’s what frightens me. Finished how? Olivia wouldn’t have wanted it to end in violence. As a man of God, I can try to reach out, to offer the church’s solace and forgiveness.”

Rutledge, on edge and wishing the rector back in his church, said savagely, “I’ll make it plain. This man has killed for the sake of killing. Whatever he may tell you, whatever reasons he may offer, whatever logic he can bring to bear for his defense, he killed because it suited his purpose! And because the opportunity was there. And the power of shaping his own fate with his own hands he found exhilarating. Whatever went wrong in him, it isn’t going to be exorcised by the church. Or by you.”

“No! There is good in every human being. I believe it devoutly!”

“Then go down on your knees before the altar and pray for guidance. I need it! Or, if you want to be useful, find Inspector Harvey and tell him I require a warrant. But send Constable Dawlish around to the beach by boat. Just in case he tries to leave in that direction.”

“By boat? There’s a storm coming.”

“I know. Hurry, man! There isn’t much time.”

Rutledge was already walking away as he spoke. Smedley stayed in the enclosed darkness of the trees as the Londoner came to the end of the path and started up the drive, not concealing his presence, not slowing his pace.

Hamish said roughly, “All right then, ye’ll be fighting his darkness and your own, but ye’re a clever man, and ye canna’ show weakness, it’s what he’ll watch for. Let the words roll off his tongue and your back.”

But Rutledge didn’t hear.

Slowly, one by one, the lamps were extinguished, plunging the house into darkness. All but one he could see in the drawing room, with its faint glimmer in the hall’s tall windows.

The thunder made him flinch again, his nerves raw, his senses already at fever pitch.

Lightning flickered, and through the windows of the room where Olivia had died, it seemed to dance fleetingly, as if there was a living presence there.

At the steps, Rutledge hesitated, but the door didn’t open, and he took out the key he still kept in his pocket.

The shaft of light falling from the drawing room door like a spear was very bright after the darkness outside, making him blink, and he hesitated, aware of what might come out of the hall’s shadows at him. Then he turned towards the drawing room, his footsteps brashly loud in the stillness.

There was an airlessness too in the house that seemed to suffocate him, in spite of the high ceilings and the open door behind him.

He could smell the trenches again, feel the earth shaking under his feet as the barrage began. The sappers were still deep underground. He wasn’t sure they’d make it out in time-they’d be buried alive in moving earth, as he’d been, breath shut off by tons of soil rising high into the night sky and then collapsing in on them-on him-shutting out everything, sight, hearing, air Hamish stirred, uneasily calling out to him.

Rutledge forced himself back into the present, making himself concentrate on the light, not the dark.

On the threshold of the drawing room, he stopped again. There was a decanter and two glasses on the small table by the hearth, beneath Rosamund’s portrait. One of the glasses was half full. The other empty.

As if waiting for him… they’d both been right, he and Hamish

…

Leashing his anger with an iron will, he crossed the silent room and stood looking at the portrait for a time, his eyes seeing it, his ears listening to the sounds of the house. It seemed to be electric with tension.

And then Cormac FitzHugh was standing in the doorway.

“She belongs here, doesn’t she? I was sorry that Susannah insisted on taking her away.”

As if Rutledge was a guest, and Cormac, the host, was making idle conversation before dinner. Rutledge turned to see the man’s face, and felt a coldness in his blood.