Thomas Cook - Instruments of Night

“Yes, but it wasn’t Warren Davies who killed her. When Faye died, he was exactly where he said he was. In Britanny Falls. First with Brinker. Then with Portman.”

“But he might have hired someone to do it,” Eleanor insisted. “An outsider.”

“Except that he had no reason to kill Faye,” Graves said. “Because Davies never knew that Grossman had told her anything. And even if Faye had confronted him when they sat together in the gazebo that morning, Davies wouldn’t have had time to arrange for her murder only a few hours later.”

Eleanor walked on a few paces, then stopped. “So you are going to let him get away with it?”

Graves suddenly saw the black car pull away, Kessler’s freckled arm waving back to him. For an instant he feared that Eleanor might chase him all the way to the chamber where he kept such visions locked away, strike a match, then stagger back in horror at what her light revealed.

“Warren Davies, I mean,” Eleanor continued. “You could tell Miss Davies what her father did to her best friend.” Before he could answer, she said, “But what would be the point? He’s dead. So is Faye. What good would it do to tell Miss Davies anything? So, we’ve reached the end of our investigation. What will you do now?”

Graves’ constricted life had room for only one answer. “I’ll tell Miss Davies that I have no story for her. Then I’ll go back to New York.”

“When do you plan to tell her?”

“Tonight, I suppose. And leave tomorrow morning.” He’d said it without thinking, and now the fact that he would be leaving Eleanor within hours struck him as an irretrievable loss.

Eleanor seemed to sense his descending mood. “Then we should have a farewell dinner, Paul,” she said with a quick smile. “But not here at Riverwood. I suddenly can’t abide the place. I noticed a little restaurant outside of town. We could go there tonight.” She didn’t give him time to refuse her. “Just come by my cottage at seven.” With that she turned away.

Graves stayed in place, watching her go. He could feel himself releasing her, although reluctantly, as if she were a rope strung over the abyss, something to which he’d briefly clung, his fingers loosening now, readying the fall.

There seemed no point in postponing it. So after Eleanor had returned to her cottage, Graves walked back to his office in the main house. Once there, he arranged all the files in their proper order. To the materials Miss Davies had previously collected, he added only the few notes he’d compiled during his own investigation. He took nothing having to do with Faye Harrison’s death from the room, except the letter Mrs. Harrison had written to Miss Davies, and which he thought should be returned to her personally.

He found her in the gazebo, lost in thought, the darkness gathered around her like a scented cloak. “Good evening, Mr. Graves,” she said as he joined her. “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

“Miss Davies, I’ve come to tell you that I haven’t been able to find a story for you. At least not one that would satisfy the terms of our agreement. I’ve read all the notes regarding the investigation and interviewed everyone I could find who was living at Riverwood at the time, but I haven’t found anyone with both the motive and the opportunity to have murdered Faye.”

Miss Davies smiled quietly. “You will, in time,” she said confidently.

“No,” Graves replied evenly. “I won’t.”

She looked puzzled. “So where does that leave us, Mr. Graves?”

“With a conclusion you’re not going to like very much, I’m afraid.”

“What conclusion is that?”

“I think a stranger killed Faye,” Graves answered. “Someone who just came upon her in the woods. More or less by accident.” He saw Kessler’s car as it closed in behind a girl, one he’d never seen before, a lovely teenage girl with long chestnut hair. “This man, whoever he was, had never met Faye. He simply saw a girl. Alone. With no one to protect her.” The look in Kessler’s eyes was raw and savage, the delight of one animal as it prepares to pounce upon another. “This man had no motive but the pleasure he took in cruelty. That’s why he murdered Faye. For the pleasure of it.” He saw the blade slice the rope, saw Gwen’s bloodied body drop to the floor. He felt his soul tighten, almost physically, as if determined to close off his breath. “And when he was finished with her, he took the rope”-Kessler’s freckled arm swung in the morning air, the rope that had been used to hang his sister waving from his hand-“as a souvenir.”

Miss Davies faced him sternly. “That’s the only story you’ve come up with?”

“Yes.”

Anger flashed in her eyes. “So, you’re leaving Riverwood without giving me a solution to Faye’s death?”

“I have no solution.”

“You intend to make no further effort?”

“There’s no point in any further effort. There’s no point in my staying on at Riverwood either. You can have Saunders pick me up tomorrow morning.”

Miss Davies stared at him as if he were some artifact she’d rashly purchased, and whose authenticity she now doubted.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Graves told her.

“You should be sorry,” Miss Davies said sharply. “But for yourself rather than for me. Sorry that your imagination deserted you.”

“Faye didn’t die an imaginary death,” Graved reminded her.

“That wouldn’t have been a problem for Slovak.” Miss Davies’ tone was bitter and resentful, as if she were addressing a servant who’d given her false references. “I brought you here to imagine a solution. That’s what Slovak would have done. But you got bogged down in facts.” She seemed to spit the word out. “The facts were only supposed to inform your imagination. Clearly, you let them dominate it.”

“I couldn’t accuse a person of murder without believing I was right,” Graves said. “Not even in a story.”

“So what should I do now, Mr. Graves? Where can I go? To whom?”

“I don’t know.”

“And so you’re not only abandoning the work, you have no suggestion as to how I might continue to pursue it?”

“No, I don’t,” Graves replied. “All the material you gave me is still in the office.” He took Mrs. Harrison’s letter to her from his pocket. “Except for this,” he said as he held it out to her.

But she did not take it from him. “Keep it.” Her voice was scalding. “As a souvenir. Of your failure.”

Graves pocketed the letter.

“And what should I say to Mrs. Harrison?” Miss Davies demanded.

Graves faced her squarely. “That she has to accept that she’ll never know what happened to her daughter.”

Miss Davies’ eyes took on a terrible ire. “Let it go, you mean?” she demanded shrilly. “Just leave Faye’s death unanswered? Is that what you’ve done, Mr. Graves?” Her contemptuous accusation fell upon him like a heavy weight. “Have you accepted that you’ll never know what happened to your sister?”

Graves still felt the bite of Miss Davies’ departing words as he packed his clothes in the usual methodical style. He arranged each item in his suitcase, obeying the rigid sense of order he imposed on everything. He knew that this compulsion sprang from the hideous chaos that had once engulfed him, his sister’s agony carried out by sheer whimsy, tortures conceived then immediately implemented, trivial objects transformed by the moral vacuum that ruled the moment, matches and pliers turned toys in Kessler’s fearful game of “things to do.”

A dreadful taunt sliced the air, You won’t tell nobody.

Graves glanced toward the living room and saw Gwen standing beneath its broad beam, her dress hanging upon her like a bloody rag, arms dangling limply at her sides. Kessler stood behind her, his hand beneath her chin, lifting her battered face. Pretty, pretty, once so pretty.