Anne Perry - A Christmas Secret

“Why?” he interrupted. “What difference would it make?”

“So nobody would know when it happened, of course.” The ideas came to her as she spoke. “That way nobody could have been proved to be here at the right time. Then they closed the door, and probably took his cases away, so people would think he had already gone on his holiday. Only they forgot about his painting things…and his favorite Bible.”

He was frowning. “Do you really think so? Why? That doesn’t sound like a quarrel in the heat of some…some dispute. It’s perfectly deliberate and cold-blooded.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed reluctantly. “I suppose he must have known something about one of the people here that was so terrible to them, they couldn’t afford to trust that he would never tell anyone.”

“He couldn’t tell,” Dominic argued. “They would know that. Not if it was confessed to him. No priest would.”

“Then maybe it wasn’t confessed to him.” She would not let go of the idea. “Perhaps he found it out some other way. He knew lots of things about all sorts of people. He would have to. He’s been here in Cottisham for ages. He must have seen a great deal.”

“What could possibly be worth killing over?” He was putting up a last fight against believing.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“But he wrote to the bishop saying he was going on holiday,” he pointed out. “So he obviously intended to. Is that coincidence?”

“Did he?” she asked. “Or did someone else write, copying his hand? It wouldn’t be too difficult, and if the bishop didn’t look closely, or compare it with other letters, it would be easy enough. And plenty of people in the village could have letters or notes the Reverend Wynter had written at one time or another.”

Dominic said nothing, trudging steadily through the snow. The light was fading rapidly; the shadows under the trees were already impenetrable.

“That’s what we have to find out,” she insisted quietly, her voice heavy with the burden of what she was thinking. She would very much rather have been able to say they should let it go, pretend they had never known, but it would be a lie that would grow sharper all the time, like a blister on the tender skin of one’s feet. “Christ was kind; He forgave,” she went on. “But He never moderated the truth to make people like Him, or pretended that something was all right when it wasn’t, because that would be easier. I think the Reverend Wynter was killed for something he knew. What do you think, really?” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll do whatever you decide.” That was so difficult for her to say.

He gave an almost jerky little laugh. “You can’t do that, Clarice. You’d grow to hate me. I think he was probably killed. Either way, I can’t pretend I don’t know. The Reverend Wynter deserves better; and if someone did kill him, then they deserve better, too. They need justice more than he does. Justice heals in the end, if you allow it to.” He walked a few more yards in silence. “I suppose we need to find out what he knew, and about whom.”

A wave of relief swept over her. “We’ll begin in the village,” she said. “We can’t get out of it now anyway.”

“Whom do we trust?” he asked, glancing at her quickly.

“No one,” she said simply. “We can’t afford to. We have no idea who it was.”

They spent a long, quiet evening by the fire. Neither of them talked very much, but it was one of the most companionable times she could remember, despite the ugly task that awaited them the following days. The fire crackled and the coals grew yellow hot in the heart of it. The snow deepened in blanketing silence outside, except for the occasional whoosh as it grew too heavy on the steep roof and slid off to the ground. There was nothing to discuss—they were in agreement.

S unday morning was awful. Dominic was so anxious, he barely spoke to her as he ate breakfast before church. He picked up books and put them down again, found quotes, then discarded them. One minute he wanted to be daring, challenge people to new thought; the next to be gentle, to reassure them in all the old beliefs, comfort the wounds of loneliness and misunderstanding, and say nothing that might awaken troubling ideas or demand any change.

A dozen times Clarice drew in her breath to say that he had no time, in three short weeks, to stay within safe bounds. No one would listen; certainly no one would remember anything about it afterward.

She nearly said so. Then she saw his slender hand on the back of the chair, and realized that the knuckles were white. This was not the right time. But she was afraid there never would be a right time. The next sermon would be for Christmas. One pedestrian sermon now, safe and colorless, might be all it would take to lose the congregation’s sympathy, and their hope.

“Don’t quote,” she said suddenly. “Don’t use other people’s words. Whatever they are, they’ll have heard them before.”

“People like repetition,” he said with a bleak smile, his eyes dark with anxiety and the crushing weight of doubt Spindlewood had laid on him.

In that moment Clarice hated Spindlewood for what he had done with his mealy mouth and grudging, time-serving spirit. “Do you remember how terrible it was when Unity Bellwood was murdered, and how the police suspected all of us?” she said quietly.

“Of course!”

“Tell them what you said to me about courage then, and how it’s the one virtue without which all others may be lost,” she urged him. “You meant it! Say it to them.”

He did so, passionately, eloquently, without repeating himself. She had no idea whether the congregants were impressed or not. They spoke politely to him afterward, even with warmth, but there was no ease among them. She and Dominic walked home through the snow in silence.

O n Monday, the wind sliced in from the east like a whetted knife. Straight after breakfast Dominic set out to make his calls.

Clarice started where she had traditionally been told lay the root of all evil, although actually she thought it was far more likely to find its roots in selfishness—and perhaps self-righteousness, which was not such a different thing when one thought about it. Still, money was easier to measure, and she had ready access to the vicar’s ledgers both from the church and from the household.

She had barely begun examining them when she was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Wellbeloved carrying two hard white cabbages and a string of very large onions. She looked extremely pleased with herself, stamping her feet and shedding snow everywhere.

“Said as it would be cold. Tree fell over with the weight of it an’ the road south’s blocked.” She announced it as a personal victory. “ ’Less you want to go all ’round Abingdon an’ the like. An’ there’s no saying you can get through that, either. Could all be closed.”

“Then we are very fortunate to have coal and food,” Clarice replied warmly.

“Onions.” Mrs. Wellbeloved put them on the table. Not that anyone could have mistaken them for something else.

“Thank you.” Clarice smiled at her. She already knew from the brief glance at the accounts she had taken that Mrs. Wellbeloved had done all the shopping for the vicar. She wanted to tell her of their discovery of the body in the cellar, but Fitzpatrick had asked them not to, and his implication had been clear enough. Still, Clarice felt guilty saying nothing. “That’s very kind of you,” she added.