A Christmas Beginning Read online

  It was Mrs. Costain who rescued him. “Forgive my husband, Mr. Runcorn. He is always hoping for new parishioners. We shall not press you into staying beyond your pleasure, I assure you. Is this your first visit to the island?”

  He recognized her kindness with surprise. As a member of the police, he was not used to such acceptance from her social class. He had lost his sense of where Melisande was in the crowd, but he knew precisely where Barclay was standing, only yards away, looking at him with distaste. How long would it be before he told Mrs. Costain that Runcorn was a policeman?

  But Barclay was not actually looking at Runcorn, he was staring at the girl in green, his eyes so intent on her face that Runcorn knew she must be aware of it, even uncomfortable. There was a brooding emotion in Barclay that seemed a mixture of longing and anger, and when the man with auburn hair who had also watched her approached, his face tight and bitter, for an instant the tension between her and Barclay was so palpable that others were momentarily uncomfortable as well.

  “Morning, Newbridge,” Barclay’s voice was curt.

  “Morning, Barclay,” Newbridge replied. “Pleasant weather.”

  Everyone else was silent.

  “I doubt it will last,” Barclay responded.

  “Do you imagine we will have a white Christmas?” Reverend Costain put in quickly. “It is in little over a week now. It would be nice for our party.”

  Barclay’s eyebrows rose. “White?” he said sarcastically, as if the word held a dozen other, more pungent meanings. “Hardly.”

  The girl in green glanced over at him with amusement and then a sudden little shiver, hunching her shoulders as though she were cold, although she was well dressed and there was no wind.

  “Olivia?” Costain said anxiously, as if to distract her. “Come meet our visitor, Mr. Runcorn. Mr. Runcorn, my sister, Miss Olivia Costain.”

  “Don’t fuss,” his wife’s voice was soft. Had Runcorn not been standing so close he would not have heard her.

  The vicar was visibly disconcerted. He looked from Barclay to Olivia and clearly did not know how to address the deeper meaning that was understood between them. The attempted introduction was lost in the tension between them.

  Barclay nodded curtly and walked over towards Melisande, who was waiting for him on the path by the lych-gate. Runcorn watched him go, and then for a moment his eyes met Melisande’s and he was unaware of anyone else. Newbridge brushed past him, breaking the moment. He reached Olivia and said something to her. She replied, her voice cool and light. Her words were courteous, her face almost empty of expression. Then she turned and walked away. Runcorn was certain in that instant that she disliked Newbridge.

  He thanked Mrs. Costain for her kindness, glanced briefly at the others in acknowledgment, then excused himself. He made his way across the graveyard between the headstones, the carved angels, and the funeral urns and into the shadow of the yew trees beyond. He walked out of the farther gate into the road, his mind still whirling.

  It was his profession to watch people and read reactions. There was so much more to investigating than attending to the words given in an answer. It was as much the way these words were said, the hesitations, the angle of the head, the movement and the stillness that told him of the passions beneath. That small group in the churchyard had been torn by emotions too powerful to control except with intense effort. The air was heavy, tingling on the skin like that before the breaking of a storm.

  In spite of his separateness, his observation of it so intellectually cool, he was as much a victim as any of them. He was just as human, as vulnerable and every bit as absurd. What could be more ridiculous than the way he felt about Melisande, a woman to whom he could never be more than a public servant that she had been able to assist, because she had had the courage to do the right thing in spite of her brother’s disapproval?

  He went back to Mrs. Owen’s house because he knew she had cooked Sunday dinner for him and it would be a graceless thing not to return and eat it, despite already feeling as if the comfortable walls of the house would close him in almost unbearably. And the last thing he wanted was trivial conversation, no matter how well meant. But he was a man of habit, and he had learned the cost of bad manners.

  At least he had an excuse to leave quickly. The weather being exceptionally pleasant for December, he was determined to walk as far as he could and still return by dusk. The wild, lonely paths along the shore with the turbulent noise of breaking water and screaming gulls fit his mood perfectly. It was nature eternal and far beyond man’s control. It was an escape to become part of it, simply by hearing the sounds, feeling the wind in his face, and looking at the limitless horizon. It was big and impersonal, and that comforted him. He saw in it a kind of truth.

  The next day Runcorn walked the shore all the way from Beaumaris north and east to Penmon Point. He stood and stared at the lighthouse and Puffin Island beyond. The day after he went in the other direction, all the way past the Menai Bridge until he could see the great towers of Caernarfon Castle on the opposite shore, beneath the vast, white-crowned peaks of Snowdonia. The following day he walked aimlessly in the hills above Beaumaris until he was exhausted.

  Even so, he did not sleep well. He rose at seven, shaved and dressed, and went outside into the winter dawn. The air had a hard edge of ice on it, so sharp he gasped as he breathed it in. But he found a perverse pleasure in it, also. It was clean and bitter, and he imagined he could see the distances it had blown across, the dark, glimmering water and the starlight. Eight days to go. Perhaps they would have a white Christmas after all.

  Without realizing it he had walked uphill towards the church again. Its tower loomed massive against the lightening sky. He went in through the lych-gate and up the path, then around through the graveyard, picking his way across the grass crisp with frost. The dawn was sending pale shafts of light up in the east and throwing shadows from the gravestones and the occasional marble angel.

  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 h
ad 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.

  Finally Trimby stood up awkwardly, his legs stiff from kneeling, his balance a little uncertain.

  “No later than midnight,” he said hoarsely. He coughed and began again. “Far as I can tell from the rigor mortis. But you can see that yourself with the frost, I expect. Cold, exposure makes a difference. Look for whoever saw her last, if you can trust them. Can’t … can’t make a wound like that without getting blood on yourself. She didn’t fight.” His voice broke and he took a long, difficult moment to regain his self-control. “Nothing much else I can tell you. Can’t learn anything more from this. I’ll get her out of here, get her … decent.” He turned to go.

  “Doctor …” Runcorn called out.

  Trimby waved a hand at him impatiently. “You can see as much as I can. This is your business, not mine.” He continued to walk rapidly between the gravestones.

  Runcorn’s legs were longer and he caught up with him. “It’s not all you can tell me,” he said, matching his step to Trimby’s. “You know her, tell me something about her. Who would have done this?”

  “A raving madman!” Trimby snapped back without turning to look at him or slacken his pace.

  Runcorn snatched his arm and pulled him up short, swinging him around a little. It was a thing he had never done before in all the violent and tragic cases he had ever dealt with. His own emotions were more deeply wrenched than he had imagined. “No, it was not a madman,” he said savagely. “It was someone she knew and was not afraid of. You know that as well as I do. She was facing him, she wasn’t running away, and she didn’t fight back because she wasn’t expecting him to strike her. Why was she here anyway? Who would she meet in a graveyard alone, late at night?”

  Trimby stared at him, angry and defensive. “What kind of world do you live in where a man who would do that to a woman is considered sane?” he asked, his voice trembling.

  Runcorn saw the profound emotion in him, the bewilderment and the sense of loss far deeper than what he must have felt from the expected deaths he encountered in his practice from time to time. Olivia had presumably been his patient and he might have known her all her life. Runcorn answered honestly. “When we say ‘madman,’ we mean someone unknown to us, who acts without reason, attacking at random, someone outside the world we understand. This wasn’t someone like that, and I think you know it.”

  Trimby lowered his gaze. “If there were anything I could tell you, I would,” he replied. “I have no idea who it was, or why this happened. That is your job to find out, God help you.” And he tu
rned and strode away through the last of the gravestones, leaving Runcorn alone, cold, and spattered by the first heavy drops of rain.

  It was a miserable day of small duties before Runcorn finally met again with Constable Warner and told him what Trimby had said. The medical evidence, such as it was, confirmed his own deduction, but added nothing that was of help. Olivia Costain had been stabbed in the stomach with a broad blade. The single thrust had severed the artery and she had bled to death within moments, falling backwards from where she had been standing. As Runcorn had supposed, there were no defensive wounds on her hands or arms, or anywhere else on her body.

  “She probably died before midnight,” he finished.

  Warner looked tired, his eyes red-rimmed as if he had been sleepless far longer than one interminable day. They sat at the same kitchen table as they had in the morning, again with a pot of tea between them.

  “I told the vicar,” he said miserably. “Poor man was shattered. I think Mrs. Costain took it even harder. Very close, they were.”

  “Did you find out who was the last to see Miss Costain alone?” Runcorn asked, bringing him back to the facts. He had seen constables profoundly shaken by death before. The first few times were the hardest, especially when the victim was particularly vulnerable, young, old, or in some other way helpless. It helped to concentrate on the little they could do now that was of use.

  Warner looked up. “Oh. Yes. Housekeeper saw her leave at about ten, or a few minutes after. Said she was just going for a walk. Seems she did that quite often, walked alone, even after dark. Didn’t go far.”

  “So there are two hours during which she could have been killed?”

  “Yes, seems like it,” Warner agreed. “I asked everyone where they were. Not a lot of help. The vicar was in his study, Mrs. Costain was in the library reading until she went to bed at about eleven. Their neighbors in the big house up the road would be Mr. John Barclay and his sister, Mrs. Ewart, widow so they say. He went out to visit a friend, but he walked home alone and didn’t disturb the servants when he got in. So there’s no proof where he was after about half past ten. She was in bed, but she dismissed her maid, so we’ve only her word.” Warner looked more and more unhappy. “And the curate, Kelsall, lives alone in a little cottage half a mile away. Mr. Newbridge, who had been courting Miss Olivia until recently, lives about two miles away, and he was working in his study until eleven. But he dismissed his manservant after dinner, so we have only his word also.”