An Inquiry Into Love and Death (24 page)

But he had asked, for the second time, for me to tell him. And suddenly I wanted him to know. I wanted him to be the first person I shared this with, even if it meant I was sentimental and foolish.

I took Toby’s letter from my pocket, approached Drew across the kitchen, and lifted the lapel of his coat. I slid the letter into his pocket, letting my fingers linger slowly on the warmth of his body just for a moment. Then I pulled away.

“Read that,” I said, “when you have a moment.”

Surprise flickered across his face, but he nodded. “We have to go.”

“Whatever happened to William,” I said, “he went out the front door and down the road toward Rothewell.”

His brows lifted. “How do you know that?”

“Because Poseidon is his dog, and Poseidon is sitting at the front door, looking down the road. It’s the last place he saw his master, and he’s waiting for him to come back.”

“Infernal intelligence,” he said, and for the first time his voice softened a little. “It strikes again. Teddy and I are leaving Rothewell within the hour. We need to make it look like Scotland Yard has cleared out and gone home. But we won’t be far; we’ll be nearby, getting everything together for tomorrow night.”

I followed him to the front door. As we came down the front steps, Rachel Moorcock appeared. She was riding a large bicycle, her long legs pumping under her skirt, her low heels jammed awkwardly in the pedals. Her grip on the bars had her hands nearly white, and wild, sweaty locks of hair stuck to her neck.

She stopped the bicycle. She looked directly at me and ignored Scotland Yard. “It’s my father,” she said. “I’m worried about him.”

I took a step toward her. “Has something happened?”

“He’s upset.” Her face was red and her breath drew deep. “I haven’t been able to calm him down. It started when he first saw you. He wants to talk to you again.”

I could feel both inspectors watching me. “Me?”

“You.” She shrugged quickly. “That girl he thinks you are. He keeps talking about his fishing boat, and something terrible he thinks he’s done, but it doesn’t make much sense. He’s particularly bad this morning. He won’t eat. I’m worried.”

“I’ll come, then.” I looked at Drew and Teddy. “Would you mind giving me a ride into town? My motorcar is . . . indisposed.”

“Yes,” said Drew. He had regained his aloofness, though Teddy Easterbrook was avidly curious. “Of course.”

“Wait.” I turned back to Rachel. “You’re all alone down there. Did you leave Sam and your father on their own?”

She shook her head. “It’s all right. I left them with the vicar.”

Alone with Aubrey Thorne.
And William’s strangely empty house sitting open behind me. I turned and saw an expression on the inspectors’ faces that must have mirrored my own.

“What?” said Rachel to the three of us. “What is it?”

“We’ll meet you down there,” said Drew. “Let’s go.”

W
e drove as fast as we could down the hairpin turns into Rothewell, with Drew in the driver’s seat, but still Rachel beat us. She must have pedaled like the devil to have arrived so fast, spinning downhill at breakneck speed. She was flushed and windblown as she led us to the back of the store and opened the door.

“I’ve put up the Closed sign,” she said. “I haven’t been able to deal with customers this morning.”

It was quiet inside. I didn’t hear George York raving, or calling, or making any sound at all. Teddy touched Rachel’s arm as she headed down the hall. “Please,” he said softly. “Let us go first.”

She looked at him in confusion and fear, but stepped aside. She motioned to the door to her father’s room and watched them enter. I moved next to her.

“Thorne?” said Drew as he approached the door. “Are you there?”

There was a pause, then a low voice. “Yes. Come in.”

The two inspectors exchanged a look of some kind of wordless readiness, and Drew opened the door.

Nothing happened. I heard no excitement, no raised voices. I followed and looked into the room.

George York lay on the bed, as he’d been the last time I saw him. His eyes were closed, and he had one hand folded neatly across his chest. The other hand was held between the large, long-fingered hands of Aubrey Thorne, who was sitting in a bedside chair, looking up at us. I stared at George for a long moment.
He looks dead,
I thought.

“Well, well,” said Aubrey, and his voice was tired. “Scotland Yard is here.”

“Papa!” Rachel pushed between us and ran into the room. “What’s happened? Are you all right?”

My heart fell; then George turned his head as she touched his forehead and opened his eyes. “Dear girl,” he said fondly.

“What’s gone on?” Rachel looked up at the vicar. “What happened? Where’s Sam?”

Aubrey looked at her, and his expression was utterly unreadable. “I’ve been sitting with your father, as you asked,” he said. “He’s calmed down.”

“He was beside himself when I left!” Worry made her voice shrill, almost accusing. “What did you do?”

“Rachel, my dove,” said her father. “This is the vicar. Do you know him?”

She looked down at him, making an effort to gentle her voice. “Yes, Papa. How are you feeling?”

“The vicar has saved me from Walking John.”

For a second we were all stunned, taking this in. “Papa?” said Rachel.

“He saved me. Walking John came for me. But the vicar . . .” He smiled, his lips stretched painfully across his teeth. “He
saved
me. It’s all right now.”

“Thorne,” said Drew. “What happened?”

Rachel’s voice cracked.
“Where is Sam?”

Aubrey looked at us, and for a moment I thought he was going to tell us that Walking John had really come into the old storeroom, right there in daylight, and tried to take the old fisherman from his bed. Instead he put a hand on his forehead, rubbing slowly. I noticed his eyes were sunken with worry, dark circles beneath them. “Nothing,” he said softly, and seemingly with effort. “Nothing happened. George thought . . . he thought Walking John was here. I told him I’d made the ghost go away. A little fiction, that’s all. I sent Sam to see Mrs. Trowbridge at the post office.”

“It was wonderful,” said George. “You should have seen him go.”

Rachel shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” said Drew.

“There’s nothing to explain,” said Aubrey. He pitched his voice lower. “George was agitated. His mind wanders. He thought he’d seen Walking John coming for him. It was the only way I could think of to calm him.”

“And you sent the boy off down the street,” Easterbrook added.

For a second, fear flashed in Aubrey’s eyes. “I didn’t think Sam should see his grandfather like this, that’s all. I thought it would be better if he left. Mary Trowbridge will take good care of him, I’m sure.”

Rachel pressed her father’s knobbed old hand. “Well, thank you,” she said to Aubrey, still unsure. “Though I’ll have to get Sam back. I don’t like to impose on the neighbors. Sam is used to seeing Papa like this, anyway. Whatever happened, you seem to have calmed Papa.”

“Elizabeth!”

George had caught sight of me. Everyone looked at me.

“Come!” said George, motioning to me. He tried to sit up in the bed, but he was so frail, the motion was almost pitiful. “Come! Rachel, it’s all right. Send the vicar home. Elizabeth will take care of me now.”

He was agitated again, and I regretted having come into the room. I wanted to protest, but it seemed that would only excite him further, so I stepped forward. Aubrey stood, and I moved into his place. I sat down and took George’s thin hand in my own. “Ah,” I said. “Hello.”

“I have much to tell you,” he said, leaning toward me.

I patted his hand, unsure what to say, and he leaned back in his pillows. I felt everyone’s gaze on me. No one in the room knew that the girl I’d been mistaken for was my mother. It must have seemed utterly inexplicable to them, but there was nothing for it. I patted the old man’s hand again.

Aubrey moved to the door, but didn’t yet leave. Instead, he said to me, “Miss Leigh, I must apologize.”

I raised my eyes reluctantly to his. A rush of cold, tingling numbness came over me that I recognized as fear. It was instinctive, born of how close I’d come to death only yesterday, and it had nothing to do with the pain I saw in his face.

“I never had a chance to say how sorry I am about the fire,” he said.

I made an effort to speak without screaming.
He can’t hurt you, not with two policemen here.
“I’m sorry you lost your archives.”

“It was just paper,” he said softly.

I couldn’t look at him anymore. If he knew who had locked me in that room—or if he had done it himself—he said nothing. He showed no guilt, no innocence. I turned away.

I heard him leave the room, and the inspectors followed. I looked down into my lap.

Rachel adjusted her father’s pillows. He seemed to have melted back into the bed now, his bones nearly sinking into the mattress. I surmised I wouldn’t have to sit here very long before he drifted off to sleep.

“I don’t suppose you know what that was about,” said Rachel. “What do a couple of police inspectors want with Aubrey Thorne?”

I tried to think of what to say. “William Moorcock seems to have disappeared.”

She straightened and looked at me in shock. “Disappeared?”

“His house was found empty, the doors open, and his dog let go.” I had put Poseidon back in the house before we left, though he had been reluctant. “Have you seen him?”

She shook her head. “And they think Aubrey—”

“They don’t know. They just want to question him.” I couldn’t tell her about Germans, fires, and dangerous smuggling operations, but I couldn’t leave her in the dark, either. “Rachel, you must be careful.”

She was refilling the water glass by her father’s bedside. “Of course. I’m always careful.”

“No, I mean truly be careful. There are some strange things going on, and I’m not sure what it’s about or what’s going to happen. Please promise me you won’t trust just anyone.”

She gave me a look. “I’ve known Aubrey Thorne all my life, and William, too. Those two have always been best friends, inseparable, at least until the war came. It does make sense that if William has gone off somewhere, Aubrey might know where he is.”

“You don’t like William,” I said.

“I didn’t have much to do with him until I married Ray.” She passed a tired hand over her forehead, tried to smooth the wisps of her hair. “I tried to like him.”

“William said he and Ray were very close.”

“Did he?” She shook her head. “William adored Ray; that much is true. And Annie dotes on William, though he barely notices her. That’s how it went in that family. Annie adored William, and William adored Ray.”

“And Ray?” I said.

“Ray wanted to get away from both of them. That’s what he told me after we married—that he was glad to get out of that house.”

George’s hand twitched in mine, and I looked down at him. He was drifting off to sleep, his breathing shallow in his narrow chest. “I’ve been in that house twice,” I said through the thickness in my throat. “Alone. With William.”

“He had that horrible sickness during the war,” said Rachel. “No one thought he would live. He came back different. He had always been calm and gentle, but when he came back he was wild, unsettled. Aubrey was the same. They both seemed so . . . disaffected, somehow. They’d come home when the war was still on—they’d been invalided out—and I think it bothered them to be at home while others were fighting. They didn’t work; they said they wanted to have fun. They stole fishing boats and tried to race them, though neither of them knows how to drive one. They’d go up to the cliffs at night and drink until they passed out—one wrong step and they’d have gone over. William said he could swim anything, so Aubrey dared him to go into the ocean on the coldest day of winter. William swam until he was nearly unconscious, and two fishermen had to get in their boats and haul him out before he died. That sort of thing.”

I swallowed. It didn’t sound fun, or funny, to me. It sounded like the actions of men who wanted to die.

“Aubrey’s parents were worried to death,” Rachel continued, “and Annie nearly had a breakdown. The war ended, and we thought it might calm them down, but it made no difference. Then Aubrey met Enid. She had an amazing effect on him. He stopped doing all those crazy things, quit drinking, and became vicar. Will calmed down as well, perhaps only because Aubrey did.”

When I was sure George had fallen asleep, I gently slipped his hand from mine and laid it on the coverlet. Rachel slid into my place as I rose, a book in her hand. “In case he wakes,” she said. “Reading seems to make him feel better.”

“I’ll come back later.”

The smile she gave me when she heard this was heartbreaking in its pleasure. “Will you? I think he’d like that. I know he thinks you’re someone else, but . . .”

“I know.”

I left the room, closing the door softly behind me. Aubrey had gone, and Drew and Teddy were standing in the empty store, arguing under their breath.

“God,” Teddy was saying. “How unbelievably frustrating to have to let him go. What I want to do is go to that vicarage and turn the bloody place upside down.”

“It wouldn’t do us any good,” said Drew.

“It would put an end to it. I had a quick look at Moorcock’s, but there could be lots of places in that little house where he’s stashed it. What I wouldn’t give to go back there and toss it.”

“Teddy, we’re leaving, just like we were told.”

“And what if the information’s wrong? What if nothing happens tomorrow, and they’ve gotten wind? Get the evidence now, I say. For all we know, that book burned up in the fire.”

“What book?” I said.

They stopped and looked at me. Drew opened his mouth, but Teddy spoke over him. “You needn’t concern yourself, Miss Leigh.”

I came toward them down the aisle. “I’d say I’m already concerned. I want to know. What book are you talking about?”

Drew held my gaze, but it was Easterbrook who spoke. “How thoroughly did you go through the books in the old archive before they burned?”

I didn’t look away from Drew. His mouth became a hard line of resignation, but he nodded.

“I looked at them,” I said.

“Closely?” Teddy went on. “Each one?”

I thought back, remembered. “I read all the spines.”

“And you saw nothing out of the ordinary?” This was Drew. “Did you open them all? Look at the pages?”

“I didn’t open them all, no. The only thing I noticed was the
Book of Common Prayer.
It was worthless, and it was stuck in the bookshelf with all the antiques.”

“What about that one?” This was Teddy. “Did you open it?”

“Yes. It was truly the
Book of Common Prayer.
”

Teddy gave Drew a meaningful look, and Drew said, “He moved the book, then. He put something else there to fill the gap.”

“Unless they’re lying to the Germans.”

“Look,” I said. “You may as well tell me. I know enough about it as it is. Perhaps I can help. What book are you looking for?”

Drew put his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. He loomed big in the dimly lit store, and I pushed away my memory of the muscles moving in his shoulders as they flexed bare under my palms. “We don’t know for certain,” he said. “There’s no proof.”

“For goodness’ sake, what is it?”

Teddy glanced at Drew. “You tell her,” he said. “I won’t be the one to spill a bloody state secret.” He walked out of the shop, and we heard the back door close behind him.

Drew and I were quiet. From the other room I could faintly hear Rachel reading to her father, her voice soft and steady as she spoke the words. There was no movement among the tins and bags in the aisles.

“If I tell you,” said Drew, “you must promise to leave. Tonight.”

“I already told you I would,” I said.

“I’m asking you again, and I’m making you promise. Tonight, Jillian.”

“Yes. I promise.”

“Very well, then. Yes, we think that the next transaction is going to be for a book. A codebook.”

“Codebook?”

“We used code during the war for radio communication, especially at sea. The Germans did the same. That way, if the other side picked up reception of the signal, it would be meaningless and they wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“I see.”

“In order for everyone to know what code they were using, every captain was given a book. The codebook. So he could encode and decode messages from his fellow ships. When ships were taken or captured, the books were valuable, as you can imagine.”

“If you had the book,” I said, “you could decode the enemy’s messages.”

“Exactly. We got a number of the German books, but they never got very many of ours. The intelligence tells us that they’re buying a thing they call Mercury, and they’re excited enough to pay a lot of money for it. Mercury was the name of one of the codes we used that the Germans never captured.”

“Do we still use it?” I asked.

“Yes. I don’t know where this book has been since the war, or why it’s surfaced only now. Our orders are to find the book and stop the transaction as a top priority, because a compromise in the Mercury code is a threat to our merchant ships.”