“She would have protected him. She might well have forced him into killing himself to keep the truth hidden. When she was afraid she couldn’t go on controlling him.”
“Yes, that’s a very fine idea. The only problem is, it doesn’t work!”
“Then why didn’t Nicholas love Rachel?”
“At first I thought it was because she was there so much of his childhood. Like another half sister, familiar and unexciting. Rosamund was very fond of Rachel, treated her like one of her own children, and that’s hardly the stuff great romance is made of. Then—later—when Rachel married Peter, I realized that Nicholas was probably protecting her, forcing her by his very indifference to find someone else to love. If he hadn’t, I think Olivia might have killed her too.”
The voice in the darkness was oddly strained.
“Are you telling me that what Olivia held over Nicholas most of his life—the way she bound him to her—was the threat of harm to Rachel?”
“It was the only way I can think of for Olivia to make Nicholas swallow that laudanum. Unless of course she tricked him. I don’t want Rachel to know what I think, I don’t want her to carry unnecessary guilt around for the rest of her life. But if you keep digging, that’s what’s going to happen. You’ll solve your case quite neatly, and she’ll never have a chance of finding love again. If you’ve got any compassion at all, send her back to London. Or better still, take her back.”
“No.”
“It’s quite true, what I told Rachel. I’ve considered going over your head, pulling strings to have the Yard close this case officially. I know enough people in high places, to get it done. And it’s what Daniel wants. But even that can cause more grief than good. That’s the trouble with this wretched affair, there’s no damned solution any way I turn!”
When Rutledge didn’t respond, Cormac was goaded into saying more than he’d intended. “I’ve half a notion to find out why you aren’t in London working on this new Ripper— why you’ve spent a week in Cornwall with nothing but speculation and a good deal of vexatious prying to show for it. I thought we’d been sent a proper investigator, someone who knew his business and was just taking precautions, because of Olivia’s sudden fame.”
“If you were expecting a rubber stamp,” Rutledge said, “you don’t have much experience of the Yard.”
“No, I wasn’t expecting a rubber stamp. Just a man who knew his job. I can’t quite understand what makes you tick, Inspector. And why the odd persistence in a case that’s finished, even if Nicholas and Olivia between them slaughtered half the village!”
“Be patient,” Rutledge told him as he held open the inn’s door. “And you’ll be sure to find out.”
It was what his father had often said to him, when he was pestering his parents to know what was inside the birthday wrappings, or under the silver paper on Boxing Day. The way an adult put off a child, and sure to aggravate.
He was delighted to see that it worked perfectly well for a grown man.
Cormac was gone in the morning, whether back to London or to the house, no one seemed to know. In any event, as Rutledge had no need to go back to the Hall straightaway, it didn’t matter.
Rachel came, as she’d promised, to take him to call on Susannah. They went in Rutledge’s car, the sun bright through the glass and the wind bringing with it first the smell of the sea and then the smell of the land.
“Cormac is right, you ought to see her yourself,” Rachel said after a long silence. “Susannah, I mean. You’re a very hard man. I’ve never met anyone quite like you. You ought to see the results of your handiwork. It might shame you into respecting the feelings of others!”
As he had seen the results of his handiwork last night, though for reasons of her own she refrained from mentioning that. Rutledge was as aware of the omission as Rachel was.
“I don’t see how talking to her is going to deter me,” Rutledge said. “And I owe you an apology for last night. I most particularly owe you one for embarrassing you in front of your cousin. It was—awkward. I’m sorry.”
Clearing the air. It had to be done.
“And didn’t serve any purpose,” she reminded him.
“On the contrary,” he said, risking a glance at her. “It served a variety of purposes.” The roads in this part of Cornwall weren’t metalled, just winding lanes for the most part, hardly wide enough for a horse and cart. Puddles from the rains hid deep washouts, while the mud itself was sometimes as slick as black ice. He knew he ought to concentrate on what he was doing. “Rachel, you told me you’d had a letter from Nicholas, before he died.”
“Did I?” He gave her another swift glance, and saw that she was frowning. “I don’t remember saying that.”
Or didn’t want to. He let it go for the moment.
They were heading inland, away from the sea. The high hedgerows shut off the view, and the deep-cut roads tended to come suddenly out of a curve and into a crossroads, where a heavy dray or a small cart was often and unexpectedly in his way. He nearly missed the turning they were after, but soon found the gates to the Beaton house at the head of a pretty valley.
It was one of those medieval monstrosities the Victorians had loved to build, with half-ruined towers, crenelations, and even a mock Gothic gatehouse. There was so much ivy climbing the walls that when the wind blew, the leaves ruffled and quaked as if the walls themselves were in imminent danger of collapse.
“Gentle God!” Rutledge said, slowing the car to stare.
“Yes, well, I’m told the family knew Disraeli, and admired his novels enormously. They couldn’t wait to tear down the old house and replace it with this. If you say one word, you’ll hurt their feelings! Jenny Beaton is a lovely person. She doesn’t deserve to be made unhappy.”
“I’m incapable of comment,” Rutledge answered weakly.
Mrs. Beaton was a lovely person. The house, built on the foundations of a much older structure, had its finer points, for one an exquisite fan ceiling in the great hall that served as a dining room. The craftsman who created it knew how to turn plaster into a work of art. The drawing room, with its coffered ceilings and stained-glass windows, looked as if it had escaped from a stage set. When asked his opinion of it, Rutledge answered, “it’s stunning!” Mrs. Beaton was satisfied. Rachel glared at him.
Susannah was lying on a chair with a footstool, a white lacy shawl thrown over her lap, but she looked perfectly healthy to Rutledge.
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been ordered to rest. I hope it doesn’t mean complications of any kind,” he said, taking her hand in greeting.
“No,” she said irritably, “just a fussy doctor and an equally fussy husband. I’m perishing from boredom!” She glanced wryly at Jenny Beaton.
“She’s a terrible patient,” Jenny agreed, smiling warmly at her friend. She was dark and very pretty, with small hands and feet, and Harnish had noticed her before Rutledge had. “We’d toss her out on her ear, if she had anywhere else to go. Sad, isn’t it?”
“Daniel’s in London, he’s running himself thin trying to be in two places at once. But the doctor refuses to let me travel just now,” Susannah added, “even by easy stages.” She cocked her head and looked at Rutledge. “They say you’re searching the moors for Richard.”
“Susannah!” Jenny Beaton exclaimed. “Who told you that!”
“I may be pregnant. I’m not deaf! Well, is it true?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Rutledge told her.
“Why on earth are you interested in a child who died over twenty years ago? Do bodies even last that long? I don’t see any point in it!”