“Marry me,” he said.
Claire drew back from him.
“Your injury…”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I…”
“No, don’t be sorry.”
“Entirely inappropriate of me. Percy Erwood has his eye on you, I know. It’s an excellent match.”
“I can’t stand Percy Erwood. I can’t stand any of the men my father wants for me. They’re all spoiled little boys who care for nobody but themselves. They love their money and they love the way other people look at them. I am not an accessory.”
“Yes, Erwood’s an excellent match,” Day said. “My head is simply … Again, I apologize most sincerely and I hope you’ll mention nothing of this to your father.”
He stood again and lurched past her, out into the center aisle. He stumbled, regained his footing, and walked steadily past the sanctuary and out the back door into the vestibule. When he looked back through the small window in the door, Claire was standing by the far pews under a stained-glass window, blue light shimmering in her hair. She wasn’t looking in his direction, hadn’t watched him leave. He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to speak to her again.
Outside, he took a moment, leaned his hand against the cool stone of the church wall. Far away, across the marshes, he could see a figure moving slowly toward him. The air in front of him wavered and the figure split into two men, moving side by side, then merged back into one. He closed his eyes again.
When he opened them, Inspector Adrian March was standing over him.
“You look rocky, Constable,” March said. “Your head’s still bleeding.”
“Did you catch him?”
March snorted and stretched his hand out to indicate the marshes behind the church. Green and brown, they extended as far as the eye could see. Day could smell the rotting plant life and hear the desperate insects calling out to one another. Their lives amounted to a handful of days in which to find love and leave their legacies.
“Sanders could be almost anywhere by now. I can find no sign of him out there. He knows this territory far better than I,” March said.
“If you hadn’t stopped to check on me you might have caught up to him.”
“I couldn’t very well leave you to die.”
Day’s knees went out from under him and he fell back against the wall.
“You need to lie down, Day. I wish we had more men like you at the Yard. You saved that girl’s life, you know.”
March leaned in close to him and Day grabbed his shoulder as if he were steadying himself. He put his lips close to March’s ear and whispered, “He’s on the roof. I saw him run past the windows.”
March nodded, but he didn’t look up. He gazed across at the marshes and spoke too loudly.
“It’s too bad about Sanders,” he said. “What’s behind those marshes?”
“The river.”
“He could be anywhere, then. No doubt he’ll have taken a boat by now. Let’s get you back inside.”
March put his arm around Day’s shoulders and they entered the vestibule. Inside, out of earshot of the man on the roof, March set Day down on a bench. Across from the bench was a single door. Day pointed at it.
“Inside that closet there’s a ladder to the roof. Sanders has to come back through here to get down. He’s trapped himself.”
“I’ll bring him down.”
“Give me a moment to get my bearings and I’ll go with you.”
“You stay here. If he gets past me, stop him in this room.”
“He might still be a danger. You shouldn’t face him alone.”
“You forget, you’ve already disarmed him. You broke his weapon in two with your rocklike head.” March jiggled the closet doorknob. “Locked.”
“Where’s the parish priest?”
“He’s outside. We cleared this place out. If I go out to get him, Sanders will know we’re on to him.”
March knelt in front of the door and pulled a flat leather case from his jacket pocket. Inside was an assortment of odd-looking keys. He tried each of them in turn and the third key fit the lock. He turned it and a soft click echoed through the tiny room.
“Skeleton keys. I collect them. When you become an inspector, buy a good set and remember to have them on your person at all times. You never know when they’ll be handy.”
“I’ll never be an inspector, sir. I’m content here.”
“It is more important to use your gifts well than to settle for being content. You were the only one who saw the significance of the missing horseshoe. You’d make a fine detective.” March smiled. “And the bump in salary you’d receive would make that young lady happy.”
“Which young lady do you mean?”
“You may observe things that others miss, Constable, but I’m still better at it.”
He disappeared through the door. Day could hear his footsteps fading up the ladder to the roof.
“Constable?”
The voice came from outside. For a moment Day thought it was March, already calling down from the roof, but then it came again.
“Walter? Where are you?”
Day stood up too fast and had to steady himself with a hand on the wall. He stared at the forest-green pillow on the bench and waited for the swimming sensation to stop. When the world around him came back into focus, he noticed that the green was newly dotted with thick wet splashes of burgundy. He turned the pillow over to hide the blood and hurried outside.
“Claire?” he said.
He heard a noise from above and took a few steps back from the building. He looked up in time to see Adrian March heave into view through the trapdoor on the church’s roof. He scanned the length of the roof that was visible on this side and saw nothing, but a portion of the clerestory jutted out at the front of the building. It was the only place Sanders could be hiding. He nodded gently in that direction and saw March nod back.
“Walter?”
When he turned and saw Claire, everything else disappeared.
“Miss Carlyle, you must leave. Sanders is still at large.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Well, I do. Leave before you’re hurt.”
“I will not. You asked me a question and it would be rude to leave without answering.”
“I apologize for that. I’ve had a blow to the head.”
“Don’t apologize. You have every right to ask me a simple question.”
“Not the one I asked. It was unforgivable of me.”
“You didn’t wait for my answer.”
“I don’t require an answer.”
“I think you do.”
“Your father has already arranged things with Mr Erwood.”
“My mind is made up on that matter. I am not some chit to be traded back and forth over a business matter.”
“Of course you aren’t. I never meant to-”
“Stay back, March.”
Day looked up. Sanders had emerged from behind the stones at the front of the church roof and was pulling himself up the rusted downspout bolted to the side of the clerestory. There was nowhere to go from there. March had a gun in his hand, but wasn’t pointing it at Sanders.
“Stop where you are, Sanders. You’re under arrest, on Her Majesty’s authority, for the murder of Zachariah Bent.”
“I’m innocent. I never did it.”
“I will never marry Percy Erwood,” Claire said.
Day pulled his attention back to the girl in front of him and took a step toward the shadow of the church where she stood.
“Please, Claire,” he said. “It’s dangerous here. You must leave.”
“Come back to London with me, Sanders,” March said. “You’ll get a fair trial.”
“I’ll hang for it and you know it, March.”
“I’ve always fancied you,” Claire said.
“I didn’t know,” Day said.
“I’ve done everything short of throwing myself off a horse in front of you, but you never so much as glanced my way.”
“It would have gone better for you if you’d cooperated, Sanders,” March said. “You shouldn’t have run.”
“They’d have carted me off to prison. You don’t know what it’s like there.”
Day was growing dizzier trying to keep up with the conversation between March and Sanders while talking to Claire at the same time. Too much was going on and all of it was of vital importance. He held a hand to his head and shut his eyes. Above him, metal scraped against stone and a great wrenching noise filled the air.