Death on Lindisfarne (16 page)

Lucy whipped round on him. He saw the alarm in her face. “I didn't say that! God knows she had reason enough to wish her life over. It's just…” The capable shoulders hunched now into her windcheater. “I wish he'd looked more as if he really wanted to find the truth. She deserved that.”

Aidan thought for a while. He looked down over the battlements below. Members of their group were beginning to gather on the middle
ward, where Lucy had asked them to meet. He struggled with the truth that was on both their minds. If Rachel's death wasn't suicide or an accident, then… Could someone else on Holy Island have had reason to want her dead?

Valerie Grayson? He watched her tall figure from above. Ridiculous. The somewhat irritating but otherwise inoffensive Cavendishes? Elspeth Haccombe was a more forceful character, but surely nothing could have happened between her and Rachel in just twenty-four hours to warrant such a startling assumption.

There was Peter, of course. He'd known her far longer than anyone else. Could his air of anxiety, his protective presence at Rachel's shoulder, be masking something more possessive?

And back on Holy Island, the more enigmatic and controversial figures of James and Sue. Did James remember now how he came by that head injury on the day of Rachel's death?

“There'll be a post-mortem, won't there? They'll find how Rachel died.”

“It might not help. There's more than one way for someone to drown.”

She straightened her shoulders in that characteristic way. The professional smile was back.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spoil your afternoon away.”

He was saved from the need to reply by Melangell bouncing back, curls whipped by the wind, eyes shining. “If I
was
a princess, I'd want to be like those girls down there, galloping my horse through the waves.”

“You don't have to be a princess to do that,” Lucy said. “Do you want to sit on an Anglo-Saxon throne?”

Outside in the inner ward stood a replica of the yellow sandstone throne, the remains of which they had seen in the museum. With a cry of glee, Melangell climbed up and threw herself onto it.

As she sat, gazing royally out to sea, a chill thought struck Aidan:
If Lucy is looking at every one of us, assessing if we might have anything to do with Rachel's death, what is she thinking when she looks at me?

L
UCY FELT THE WIND BUFFETING THE CAR
as she drove back across the causeway. She concentrated on holding a steady course along the roadway between the advancing sea. While they had been at Bamburgh Castle the tide had turned. It was flowing in again over the rose-tinged sands.

In the back seat, Frances was chattering about the treasures of Bamburgh Castle. She sounded more animated than at any time since the Cavendishes had arrived on Saturday. It was as if Rachel's death had not happened.

Beside Lucy, Peter seemed sunk in gloom.

She glanced briefly in the rear-view mirror and raised her voice to the couple behind. “You enjoyed it, then?”

“Oh, yes! The King's Hall was lovely. All those portraits, and the beautiful china, and the furniture and everything. You could tell by that gorgeous carved roof that it was centuries old.”

“It's fake, you know,” Peter said. “Nineteenth century. It's not as historic as it looks.”

“Well… Still, I mean, looks like the real thing, doesn't it? And the family are living in it. You can imagine how it was. Not like those old things you keep telling us about. Everywhere we go, you say, ‘Of course, this wasn't St Aidan's abbey. That was pulled down long before.' And, ‘This isn't King Oswald's castle. The Normans built this one.' You can't show us anything that's real from back then.”

“But I did!” Lucy protested. “We stopped at the church on the way back. I took you inside and showed you the black beam in the roof. The one that legend says St Aidan was leaning against when he died.”

“Yes, well,” Frances conceded grudgingly, “only that was so high up, you practically had to break your neck looking at it. Beats me how he could have been leaning against it.”

Lucy sighed. She had explained to them how the ancient church had become a site of pilgrimage until it burned down, and how that post alone had survived the conflagration. When a new church had been built, the sacred beam had been installed, not in its original position on the outside wall, but inside as part of the roof over the baptistery.

She wondered how much more of what she had said had gone over Frances's head.

But Melangell had loved it. She had lain down on her back on the flagstones of the nave and gazed up at the blackened beam with eager wonder.

It must be great to be eight years old. To live for the moment. A pity she came from a broken family; that it had to be her father bringing her, not her mother Jenny Davison, who had written those books about Celtic saints. Lucy felt a sudden anger against Aidan. What had he done to bring that marriage to an end? She remembered that flash of temper and flinched.

The crossing was ending. She swung the car round, following the road that skirted the sandy southern shore of Holy Island.

A cold dismay was creeping over her. What had possessed her to revive her doubts to Aidan in the keep? There was no proof that there was anything more to Rachel's death than what Detective Inspector Harland clearly thought it was. It was her own evidence, more than anyone else's, that had convinced him suicide was the most likely verdict. There must be some logical explanation for why the body had been found on that beach.

So why was that insistent voice still telling her it was neither suicide nor a tragic accident?

The improbability that anyone Rachel had met in those fatal twenty-four hours on Lindisfarne could be implicated in her death struck home. It simply didn't bear thinking about. What if Aidan told the rest of the group? It was as good as accusing one of them of murder.

The word made her feel physically sick. Peter gave a startled cry and shot out a hand as the car swerved.

“Sorry,” Lucy said, bringing them back on course.

She tried to imagine herself a young policewoman again. Just a uniformed constable, never a detective. What if she had gone to the senior investigating officer in a case like this and said, “I don't think this is suicide”?

Images were gathering in her memory. The frown on the older coastguard's face. Rachel's unexplained absence on Saturday evening. The bitterness of Sue's complaint about James's relations with his young female congregation.

No proof. Just a deep-down conviction that there were more questions to be answered than DI Harland appeared to be asking.

She turned the car in at the gates of St Colman's and parked in front of the house.

James and Sue's car was back. At last she might find out what really happened at Lindisfarne Castle yesterday afternoon. If it
was
there that James had met with his head injury.

She got out. The detectives' car had gone. They were on their own.

Lucy had hardly got inside the house before Mrs Batley accosted her.

“Reverend, I want a word with you.”

Her heart sank at the landlady's accusing manner. She could understand that Rachel's death had been as shocking for Mrs Batley as for any of them. The reputation of St Colman's House was at stake. And she had rallied round with remarkable efficiency when James had come back dripping blood over her carpet.

But just now, Lucy had other things on her mind. Where were James and Sue?

“Could you give me a moment? Is James back? I really do need to talk to him.”

Mrs Batley sniffed. “You needn't worry yourself about him. He's out in the garden, holding court with his young lady as usual. And looking
not much the worse for that knock on the head. Not like that poor girl of yours. But I really need…”

“Thanks. Excuse me. I'll be right back.”

She sped towards the door at the back of the hall. Whatever complaint Mrs Batley wanted to make, it could wait.

James was sitting at one of the wooden tables on the lawn. Glasses and bottles glinted in the sun. Sue jumped up and went to stand behind him. Her hand rested protectively on James's shoulder. Whatever tangled relationship linked these two, Sue had evidently swallowed her indignation towards James. In the face of the outside world, she was positioning herself on his side.

“James! You're back.” Lucy's quick eyes took in the shaved hair, the considerable swathe of plaster on the right side of his head. James managed to make even this look dashing. She should have known.

“Like a bad penny.” He flashed her a superior grin.

She fought down the temptation to jealousy that he could assume so easily that aura of charisma and authority that Lucy herself had to work at as an ordained minister.

She sat down on the bench opposite him. Elspeth and Valerie were making their way to their chalet room.

“The prodigal returns!” Elspeth boomed across the lawn.

The door closed behind the two of them. The Cavendishes made their quieter way to their own room, with only a curious stare at James.

Lucy leaned forward on her elbows. “I'm so glad it wasn't any worse. I take it they've given you a clean bill of health, if they've let you out. You're not going to pass out on us again?”

“Concussion. No permanent harm, thank the Lord.”

“Can you remember what happened? Not surprisingly, you weren't exactly coherent yesterday.”

The grin faded to a frostier look. “If you don't mind, I've been over all that with the police. I don't know what you told them, but from the way they questioned me, you'd have thought it had something to do with that poor girl's death. I told them, I'd barely met her. If she had troubled relationships with anyone, it would have to be you and Peter. You've been involved with her for years. Not like me.”

How like him,
Lucy thought,
to go on the offensive. All I've done is show the natural concern of a leader for a member of her group; of any decent human being. And he acts as if I've accused him of something and then throws it back in my face.

“James,” she said, trying to hold herself calm, “I'm not the police. Not these days. I'm a minister of religion. I'm running the course that brought you here. I can't help feeling a bit responsible if you get injured on my watch. I'd just like to understand what happened.”

A glance passed between James and Sue.

“If you must know, we were in the garden near the castle. Have you seen it? The planting's supposed to have been planned by Gertrude Jekyll. Anyway, Sue was keen to go on to Emmanuel Head, but I could see the heavens were going to open before long. I opted to head back here. I slipped. That's all. Easy to do on wet stone. When I came round I was lying in a pool of blood and in danger of drowning in a rainstorm. The rest you know.”

Lucy looked past him at the obstinate set of Sue's mouth.

He's lying,
she thought.
Aidan and Melangell heard them quarrelling and then Sue stalked off. James would never take that kind of rebellion lying down. He'd have to go after her and try to dominate her again. They must both have been out among the rocks around the headland. I'm sure of it.

But were they alone? Was it remotely possible they had come upon Rachel there? Much of Holy Island was bare of hiding places, but those coves and rock stacks were one place a wounded soul might hope to find privacy.

If James had come across her, alone and vulnerable, what would he have done? How would Rachel have reacted? What might have happened between the two of them?

And was there any way that Sue would ever tell?

The insistent voice murmured in her mind:
That wouldn't answer the question. How did her body get to a beach so far to the west?

She got up from the bench. “Well, I'm glad you're back and no permanent damage done. I'm sorry you missed our outing to Bamburgh Castle. I'll see you both at supper.”

She tried to make her parting smile as genuine as she could.

“And what romantic story did you spin them this time?”

“I told them about St Wilfrid, the worm in the rose of Celtic Christianity.”

He raised his eyebrows, and winced as the movement puckered the skin around his wound.

“I sometimes wonder if your beloved Celtic Christians weren't a touch too close to heathenism.”

She fought back the flash of anger.

“If you mean they had a love of God's creation and didn't think it sinful, that they gave positions of authority to women, then I think they were ahead of their time.”

She was striding towards her room, all the refreshment of the afternoon at Bamburgh gone, when she remembered that Mrs Batley had wanted to talk to her urgently.