Anne Perry's Silent Nights: Two Victorian Christmas Mysteries Read online

  It was almost silent, a faint whisper of water behind him. London had never offered him such infinite peace. There was always noise, some kind of clatter of human occupation, an end to vision, to possibility.

  He began climbing upwards, away from the shore. Perhaps he was wrong, and he had allowed himself to believe in limits where there were none, except those he made for himself. He thought of the past with a different view, almost as if he were regarding someone else. He saw in himself a man of practical common sense, one whose judgment of character was usually right but without empathy. He lacked a passion, an understanding of dreams. Had he guarded himself from such things, afraid to face his own smallness? He had hated Monk’s anger and his fire, his impatience with stupidity, his arrogance. Or more truly, was he afraid of it, because it challenged the conformity that was so much less dangerous?

  Was that what Olivia had done, too, challenged conformity? She had climbed these hills, he knew that from Naomi Costain. She might even have stood on this level stretch of the path and stared at the fire of the setting sun, as he was doing, and looked at the horizon where the sky and the sea became one.

  Thinking of Olivia, Runcorn realized that small people like himself who want to be safe, who have no driving hunger, are afraid of those who upset their world, remove the boundaries that close them in and excuse their cowardice. He had hated Monk for that. Who had hated Olivia? Not Naomi. But what about Costain? Did she question this edifice of his faith, the daily justification of his status, his income, his reason for being? Could he forgive her for that?

  Or was he simply a good man who did not understand a difficult sister who was his responsibility to feed and clothe, and keep within society’s bounds, for her own sake?

  The sun was a scarlet ball on the horizon, and even as he watched, it dropped below the rim, spilling fire across the sea. He decided he would stand here as darkness gathered and closed in, wondering what Olivia had felt. What visions had she seen, and perhaps died for? Was Melisande anything like her, except in his imagination? But he was a practical man, trained from years of making himself fit the mold of necessity, and the only real service he could perform now was to discover the truth. It might help no one to name the guilty, but it was surely a necessary service to free the innocent from blame, of others and their own.

  In the morning Runcorn rose early and ate the rich breakfast Mrs. Owen cooked for him. She seemed to enjoy filling the plate to overflowing with bacon, eggs, and potato cakes, then watching him make his way through it. He did not really want so much, and initially he ate it only to satisfy her sense of hospitality. But in succeeding days, as he worked his way through the meal he had talked to her and learned with growing interest her opinions of various people in the village and involved in the case. Her perception was simple, but sometimes surprisingly acute.

  “Just the right man for the vicarage here, Mr. Costain is,” she said. “Poor soul, his wife. Lonely I think. No children. Doesn’t know how to talk without really saying anything, if you know what I mean? People don’t always want to think. Like Miss Olivia, she was.”

  Runcorn had his mouth full and was unable to ask her to explain further, and he worried that if he did, she might think that perhaps she had said too much, and be more discreet in the future.

  “Like some more tea, Mr. Runcorn?” she offered, the pot in her hand.

  “Helps a lot of things, from a headache to a broken heart. Lovely girl, Miss Olivia was. Quick to sorrow, and quick to joy, God rest her. Never found anyone for herself, that I know of, in spite of what they said.”

  Runcorn swallowed his mouthful whole and nearly choked himself. “What did they say?” he asked huskily, reaching for the tea to wash it down.

  “Just silly gossip,” she replied. “Nothing to it. Would you like another piece of toast, Mr. Runcorn?”

  He declined, finished his tea, and set out to look for Kelsall. This time he found the curate in the church, tidying up.

  “Do you know something new?” he asked, striding towards Runcorn, black cassock swinging.

  Runcorn felt a twinge of failure, as if he should have done better. “Not yet.”

  “Perhaps if we leave, we will not be interrupted,” Kelsall suggested. “Here I am always ‘on duty,’ as it were. It’s cold outside, but at least it’s not raining.” He suited his actions to the words without waiting to see if Runcorn agreed. In the graveyard he matched his steps to Runcorn’s and guided their way out of the gate and onto a road leading out of the village towards the open hillside.

  “Why do people kill others, Mr. Runcorn?” he asked. “I have been thinking of it all night. If any man knows, it is surely you. It is such a … a barbarous and futile way to solve anything.”

  Runcorn looked at his earnest face and knew that the question was perfectly serious. Perhaps it was one he should have asked himself in more detail days ago. “Several reasons,” he said thoughtfully. “Sometimes it is greed, for money, for power, for property such as a house. Sometimes for something as trivial as an ornament or a piece of jewelry.”

  “Not Olivia,” Kelsall said with certainty. “She had no possessions of any note. She was entirely dependent on her brother.”

  “Ambition,” Runcorn continued. “It can drive people to violence, or betrayal.”

  “Olivia’s death helps no one,” Kelsall responded. “Anyway, there is nothing around here to aspire to. It is all predictable, small offices, of no great power.”

  Runcorn turned over all the past cases he could think of, particularly those of passion. “Jealousy,” he said grimly. “She was beautiful, and from what people say, she had a quality unlike anyone else, a fire and a courage different from others of her age and position. That can also make people feel uncomfortable, even threatened. People can kill out of fear.”

  Kelsall walked on in silence. “What kind of fear?” he said at last.

  Runcorn heard the change in his voice and knew that suddenly they were treading delicately, on the edge of truth. He must act slowly, he might be about to rip the veil from a pain that the young man had been keeping well covered.

  “All kinds,” he said, watching Kelsall’s face in profile, his eyes and the lines of his mouth half hidden. “Sometimes it is of physical pain, but more often it is fear of loss.”

  “Loss,” Kelsall tasted the word carefully. “What sort of loss?”

  Runcorn did not answer, hoping Kelsall would suggest something himself.

  They walked another fifty paces. The wind was easing off, although the clouds were low and dark to the east.

  “You mean fear of scandal?” Kelsall asked. “Or ridicule?”

  “Certainly. Many victims of blackmail have killed their tormentors.” Was this what had happened? Perhaps Olivia had learned a secret that somebody was afraid she would use against them. He looked at Kelsall as closely as he dared, but he could see no change in the curate’s expression. He still looked hurt and confused.

  There was no sound but the wind in the grass and, far away, the echo of waves breaking on the rocks.

  “Olivia wasn’t like that,” Kelsall said finally. “She would never repeat anyone’s secrets, still less would she use them. What for? The things she wanted could not be bought.”

  “What did she want?”

  “Freedom,” he said without hesitating to think. “She wanted to be herself, not the person convention said she should be. Perhaps we all want it, or think we do, but few of us are prepared to pay the price. It hurts to be different.” He stopped and faced Runcorn. “Is that why she was murdered, because she made other people aware of how ordinary they were, how easily they denied their dreams?”

  “I doubt it,” Runcorn said gently. “Wouldn’t someone able to see that quality in her also know that killing her would make no difference whatever to their own … futility?”

  “Not if she laughed at them,” Kelsall replied. “Some people cannot bear to be mocked. Ridicule can hurt beyond some people’s power to bear, Mr. Runc
orn. It strikes the very core of who you believe yourself to be. One can forgive many things, but not being made to see yourself as ridiculous, a coward at life. That kind of rage is acid in the soul.”

  Was he speaking of himself? Runcorn almost wondered for a moment if he was on the brink of hearing a confession. It would hurt. He genuinely liked the young man. He had seen his gentleness with the frail and old, help given as a privilege, not a duty.

  “What do you know, Mr. Kelsall?” he asked. “I think it is time you spoke the truth.”

  “I know that Newbridge and Barclay were at daggers drawn over her, but I don’t know if either of them really even wanted her, or simply hated each other because the battle was public. Some people do not take to losing with grace.”

  Runcorn struggled to follow. “If that were so, would they not kill each other, rather than her?”

  Kelsall shrugged, and started walking again. “I suppose so. Or even Faraday. Although it’s a bit late for that now.”

  “The chief constable?” Runcorn caught up with him. “What has he to do with it?”

  “Oh, he courted her too, a while ago,” Kelsall replied. “The poor vicar thought that would have been an excellent match, even though he was quite a few years older than she. He thought it would settle her down a bit. But she gave him no encouragement at all, and he soon grew tired of it.”

  “Faraday?” the word burst from Runcorn in amazement, and a kind of dull and momentary anger. He had courted Olivia, and now he was going to marry Melisande. Olivia had refused him. And Melisande had been obliged to accept him.

  Runcorn was being ridiculous, he knew it, and still his thoughts raced on. He might have lost interest in Olivia because she was flighty, a dreamer, irresponsible. He might love Melisande because she was gentler, a visionary still capable of loving the real, the human and fallible. A woman not only beautiful but brave enough to accept an ordinary man, and perhaps in time make of him something greater.

  Kelsall was still talking, but Runcorn had stopped paying attention. He had to ask the curate to repeat himself, and to drag his own attention back to the one thing he was good at, the skill that gave him his identity.

  “You said something about Mr. Barclay,” he prompted. Kelsall shook his head a little. “I think the vicar envies him.”

  “Why?” Although he feared that he knew the answer.

  Kelsall smiled without pleasure. “Barclay’s sister does not argue with him. He has a way of making her understand what has to be done, what life requires of us, if we are to survive. I think Barclay would have persuaded Olivia as well, only he stopped wishing to, just before she died. I have no idea why, or I would have told you. The vicar thought Barclay a fine match for her. Only Mrs. Costain did not care for him.” He gave a slight shrug. “But then, she did not care for Newbridge, either, so far as I could see. The vicar accused her of wishing Olivia to remain single because she was such a good companion. But of course it was no good for her. She should marry and have her own home, and children, like any other woman. And to be honest, it is something of an expense on a clergyman’s stipend to dress and provide for two women.” He looked deeply unhappy. “Fear of poverty is not the same thing as greed, Mr. Runcorn. Really, it is not.”

  “No,” Runcorn said quietly. “No, it is a very human and natural thing. Perhaps Miss Costain was not aware of the drain she was on his resources.”

  “No. I think she was not always very practical,” Kelsall conceded. “It takes a long time for a man of the cloth to earn enough to keep a wife, never mind a sister as well.” There was loneliness and self-mockery in his voice, and he did not meet Runcorn’s eyes.

  “Or a policeman,” Runcorn responded. “But then a policeman’s wife would expect far less.” There was self-mockery in his words too. On his salary he could not keep a woman like Melisande for a month, let alone a lifetime. It was not only social class that divided them, or experience and beliefs—it was money and all it could buy, the comforts a woman of Melisande’s background accepted without even noticing them.

  Kelsall caught the shadow of Runcorn’s pain, and looked at him with new intensity and a sudden flame of gentleness in his eyes. He was tactful enough to say nothing.

  Runcorn reported to Faraday just before dark as he had been commanded to do. It was an uncomfortable interview, and largely fruitless. He was leaving the vicarage and walking across the churchyard when Melisande caught up with him. She had come out of the house hastily and had no cloak with her. The wind blew her hair off her face and whipped long strands of it out of its pins. It looked soft, giving her a dark, wild halo and showing the pallor of her skin. She was frightened, he could see it in her eyes, but he did not know if it was for herself, or for the ugly things she could see unraveling before her, pulled at by the fingers of violent death.

  He longed to be able to comfort her, and found himself wordless, standing there among the grass in the wind.

  “Mr. Runcorn,” she said urgently. “Forgive me for following you, but I wished so much to speak with you without my brother knowing. Might we go into the lee of the church?”

  “Of course.” He wondered whether to offer her his arm over the uneven ground. He would like to feel her touch, even through the thickness of his jacket. He could imagine it. But what if she refused? She might think it was impertinent. It was asking for humiliation to assume more than plain politeness, even for an instant. He kept his arm by his side and walked stiffly over to the shelter of the church walls. The silence was so painful that he started to speak as soon as they were there.

  “I am learning a great deal more about Miss Costain.” He told her most of what Kelsall had said, but more gently phrased, and he did not mention that Faraday had courted her, too, although he wondered if perhaps she knew. “It seems she was unwilling to accept any marriage her brother recommended for her,” he finished. “And it was causing some ill-feeling, and a degree of financial stress.”

  “You mean Mr. Newbridge?” she said quickly.

  He did not know how to answer. He had been clumsy. In trying to tell her something of meaning he had put himself in a position where either he had to lie or admit that it also meant her brother, and her own suitor.

  Too quickly she understood. Her smile was self-mocking. “And John,” she added. “It is no secret that he courted her as well, although I think he became a little disillusioned with her some short time before her death. I think he requires in a woman more sense of the practical than she was willing to give.” She looked away from him and sighed in exasperation. “I’m sorry, that is such a foolish euphemism. Olivia was an individual, she had the courage at least to attempt to live her dreams. They were not so very unreasonable. She wanted to travel, but she would have worked to achieve that. Of course a vicar’s sister is not supposed to work at anything. What is there that a respectable woman can do?” There was an ache of longing in her voice, as if she were speaking of herself, not a friend she understood too well.

  “She had no real skills, and not a great deal of practical knowledge of the world,” she continued. “One cannot survive without at least some money. If one had been born poor one might at least have learned to do something useful. Sometimes I wonder if necessity might not be a better spur than dreams, don’t you think?” Without warning she turned to look at him, meeting his eyes with fierce candor. “Do you like what you do, Mr. Runcorn?”

  He was at a loss to answer her. He could feel his face flaming, as if she would see his emotions drowning him. “I … not always. I … it …” This was his one chance to be honest with her. “Sometimes it is terrible, painful, you see awful things, and cannot help.”

  “Isn’t that better than seeing nothing at all?” she demanded. “And at least you can try!”

  She was so vivid he almost felt as if he were touching her in the sharp air. Suddenly the words came easily.

  “Yes. And at times I succeed. I can’t bring back the dead, and catching the guilty doesn’t always make sense, or justice
, but it eases, and it explains. Understanding gets rid of the sense of confusion, the helplessness to know what happened and why.”

  She smiled. “You are fortunate. You have something worth doing, even if you don’t always manage to complete it, at least you know you have tried.”

  He had never thought of it like that. Barclay had defined his job as clearing up the detritus of other people’s crimes and follies, a sort of sweeper-up of dirt. Melisande clearly saw something more. “Is that how you see it?” he asked uncertainly.

  She shook her head. “Oh, don’t think of John. Sometimes he takes pleasure in being offensive. He denigrates what he doesn’t understand. It’s a kind of … fear. We are all afraid of something, if we are honest.”

  “What was Olivia afraid of?” He hardly dared ask. Were they even speaking of Olivia, or of Melisande herself?

  She looked away again. “Of loneliness,” she answered. “Of failure. Of coming to the end of your life and realizing all the passionate, beautiful things you could at least have tried to do, but you didn’t have the courage. And then it’s too late …” She stopped, not as if she had no further thought, but as if she could not bear to speak it aloud.

  Perhaps he should have turned to the stark outline of the church, or even to the carved and ornamental gravestones beyond, but he did not. Her grief filled the air, and he knew it was not only a compassion for Olivia but also an acute awareness of her own suffering and emptiness. He had never so intensely wanted to touch anyone, but he knew he could not, not even the cold, ungloved hand at her side. There was no comfort he could offer except his skill, and now he was increasingly afraid that what he might learn further of Barclay would prove uglier than she could imagine.

  But he, too, had to follow the truth, wherever it led. This wide, clean land with its endless distances had awoken a disturbing awareness of his own deficiencies, the narrowness that Monk had so despised. Suddenly he wanted to change, for himself, not even for dreams of Melisande, however sweet or hopeless. He was aware of a gaping hole, of a loss he could feel but not name. The silence of the air was a balm, but something inside him ached to be filled.