Anne Perry - A Christmas Beginning

Perhaps that was why he was almost upon the body before he realized what it was. She was lying at the base of a carved cross, her white gown frozen hard, her face stiff, her black hair spread out in a cloud around her like a shadow. The only color was the blood drenching the lower half of her body, which flooded scarlet with the strengthening daylight.

Runcorn was too horrified to move. He stood staring at her as if he had seen an apparition, and if he waited, his vision would clear and it would vanish. But the cold moved into his bones, the fingers of light crept further around her body, and she remained as terribly real. He knew who she was, Olivia Costain, the girl in green who had walked up the aisle of the church as if on a grassy lea.

He moved at last, going forward to bend onto one knee and touch her freezing hand. It was more than cold, the fingers clenched and locked in place. Her eyes were wide open. Even here, like this, something of her beauty remained, a delicacy to the bones, which wrenched inside him with pity for what she had been.

He looked down at the terrible wound in her stomach, clotted with thick blood, the flesh itself hidden. She must have been standing close to the grave, with her back to the cross, facing whoever it was that had done this to her. She had not been running away. He studied the ground and saw no damage to the grass except what he himself had done, bending over her. There was nothing to say she had fought, no marks on either of her hands, or on her arms or throat. Her killer could not have taken her by surprise from behind, they had stood face-to-face. The attack must have been sudden and terrible.

From such an injury she would have bled to death very quickly, he hoped in just moments. It was bright, arterial blood, the force of life. Surely it would not be possible to stand close enough to someone and inflict such a blow without being stained by blood oneself?

He stepped back and automatically cast his eyes about for the weapon. He did not expect to find it, but he must be certain. He could see nothing, no trace of red in the white daylight, no irregularity in the frost-pale grass, except the way he himself had come, as both she and her killer must have also, before the dew was iced hard.

People would pass this way soon. He must find someone to watch the body, keep anyone else from disturbing it. He must report it to the local police. At the very least he must prevent Costain from seeing her himself.

Who’d be closest? The sexton. But where to find him? He turned slowly, seeking a well-worn path, another gate. There was nothing. He went a few steps to the east, but there was nothing but more graves. Increasing his pace, he went in the opposite direction, around the corner of the church tower, and saw a more trodden way and a path at the end. Running now and slipping a little, he turned to the wall and the small cottage beyond nestled in its apple orchard. He banged on the back door.

It was answered by an elderly man, clearly in the middle of his breakfast.

“Are you the sexton, sir?” Runcorn asked.

“I am. Can I help you?”

Runcorn told him the harsh facts and asked him to stand guard over the body, then he followed the man’s directions to the cottage of Constable Warner, who would still be at home at this hour.

Warner was just finishing his breakfast and his wife was reluctant to disturb him until she saw Runcorn’s face in the inside light, and the shock in his eyes. Then she made no demur. She passed him a cup of tea, and insisted he drink it while he explained his profession and his errand to Warner himself, a large, soft-spoken man in his early forties.

“I suppose you’ll be used to this, coming from London, an’ all,” he said a little huskily, after Runcorn had described the scene to him, and the little he had deduced from it. “I never dealt with murder before, ’cepting as you’d call a fight that ended badly murder.” His face was filled not only with sorrow but with a kind of helplessness as the enormity of his own task dawned on him. Runcorn could see his fear.

“If I can help,” he offered, and immediately wondered if he had trespassed already, implying however obliquely, that the local force was inferior. He regretted it, but it was too late.

Warner swallowed. “Well, we’ll be getting someone from the mainland, no doubt,” he said quickly. “Maybe the chief constable, or such. But I’d be mighty grateful if you’d lend a hand until then, seeing as you have the experience.”

“Of course,” Runcorn agreed. “First thing, someone’ll have to tell her family, and as soon as possible, get a doctor to look at her. Then we should have her put somewhere decent.”

“Yes.” Warner looked bewildered. “Yes, I’ll do that. Poor vicar.” He pushed his hand up over his brow, blinking rapidly. “What a terrible thing to happen.” He glanced at Runcorn hopefully. “I suppose it couldn’t be an accident of some kind? Could she have … fell, somehow?”

“No,” Runcorn said simply. He did not bother to go over the details again, or even mention the absurdity of Olivia Costain walking alone at night in the graveyard carrying a knife large enough to cause an injury like the one he had seen. She had not tripped, she had fallen backwards from the weight of the assault. The blade had not been found.

Warner sighed, his face pale but flushed unnaturally across the cheeks, his eyes downcast. “Sorry, I just …” He looked up again suddenly. “We aren’t used to this kind o’ thing here. Known Miss Olivia since she were … little. Who’d do this to her?”

“We have to find that out,” Runcorn said simply. “It’s where our duty gets hard and ugly, and it matters we do it right.”

Warner rose to his feet, scraping the kitchen chair on the floor as he pushed it back. “I’ll go an’ tell the vicar, an’ Mrs. Costain. She’ll be torn to bits. They were very close, she an’ Miss Olivia, more like real sisters they were, not just in-law, like. Will you … will you go and find Dr. Trimby? His house is hard to find, my wife’ll take you. Then I’d better get a message to the inspector in Bangor, and no doubt he’ll be sending for Sir Alan Faraday from Caernarfon.”

Runcorn accepted without further discussion. A few moments later he was walking beside Mrs. Warner as she led him through a hasty shortcut across the road and through one back street after another until they arrived at the door of Dr. Trimby’s house. It was now nearly nine o’clock on a gusty morning, the streets were busy, and there were three or four people already waiting in his surgery.

Trimby’s name did not suit him. He was short and stocky with flyaway hair, a shirt that defied the iron, and a cravat as unfashionable as it was possible to be. Nothing of his apparel matched anything else. However, his attention was instant and complete. Once Mrs. Warner had told him who Runcorn was, he listened with a mixture of grief and total concentration. He made no notes at all, but Runcorn had no doubt that he remembered every detail. His blunt, asymmetrical face was heavy with sadness.

“I suppose you’d better take me to her,” he said, hauling himself to his feet. On the way out he picked up his bag, good leather once, but now bearing the scars of twenty years of service in all weathers.

They walked back up to the graveyard more or less the way Runcorn had come with Mrs. Warner, and found the sexton still standing guard alone and shivering with cold.

Trimby looked past him at the body and his face bleached so pale Runcorn was afraid for a moment that he was going to collapse. But after a painfully intense effort, he regained his composure, then bent and began to make his professional examination.

Runcorn excused the sexton and waited quietly in the rising wind, growing colder and colder as the minutes passed.