They stared at each other, faces tight with self-absorbed emotions; then she managed a wry smile. “Look, we’d better both get out of the way, or someone else will fly around that bend and finish us off! Take me home and I’ll offer you some tea. You look as if you could use it. I know I could.”
He walked past her, lifted the bicycle, and carried it to his car. She helped him put it in the back—he had an instant’s sharp sense of the ridiculous, thinking that it would crowd Hamish out—and then came around to the passenger side, not waiting for him to open her door.
He cranked the car, got in, and said, “Did you miss the rain?”
“I was at the Haldanes’ house. They’re away, I just went by to pick up a book Simon promised to lend me.” She lifted a large, heavily wrapped parcel out of the basket behind her and set it in her lap. “He brought it back from Paris and thought I might want to see it. Something on the Impressionists. Do you know them?”
They talked about art as he backed the car and drove to her house, and she left a servant to deal with the bicycle, striding past the handsome staircase and down the hallway toward her studio without looking over her shoulder to see if he followed. Setting the borrowed book on a stool, she took off her hat and coat, then said, “Get out of that coat, it will dry faster if you aren’t in it.”
Rutledge did as he was told, looking about for a chair back to drape it on.
Catherine sighed. “Well, Mavers most certainly put the wind up everyone in Upper Streetham this morning! What did you think of his little show?”
“Was it a show? Or was he upset?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? The damage is done. I think he rather enjoyed it too. Lashing out. It’s the only way he can hurt back, with words. Nobody pays any attention to his ideas.”
“Which is one of the reasons he might have shot Charles Harris.”
“Yes, I suppose it is—to make us sit up and take notice. Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing him arrested for murder and taken off to London or wherever! I didn’t enjoy having my own life stripped for the delectation of half of Upper Streetham—the whole of it, come to that! Everyone will talk. Not about what he said of them, but about everyone else. Those who weren’t there will soon be of the opinion that they were.” Catherine moved about her paintings, touching them, not seeing them, needing only the comfort of knowing they were there.
“That’s a very bitter view of human nature.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve learned that life is never what you expect it will be. Just as you come to the fringes of happiness, touching it, feeling it, tasting it—and desperately hoping for the rest of it—it’s jerked away.”
“You have your art.”
“Yes, but that’s a compulsion, not happiness. I paint because I must. I love because I want to be loved in return. Wanted to be.”
“Did you ever paint Rolf Linden?”
Startled, she stopped in midstride. “Once. Only—once.”
“Could I see what you did?”
Hesitating, she finally moved across to a cabinet in one wall, unlocking it with a key she took from her pocket. She reached inside and drew out a large canvas wrapped in cloth. He moved forward to help her with it, but she gestured to him to stay where he was. There was a little light coming in through the glass panes overhead, and she kicked an easel to face it, then set the painting on it. After a moment, she reached up and undid the wrappings.
Rutledge came around to see it better, and felt his breath stop in his throat as his eyes took it in.
There was a scene of storm and light, heavy, dark clouds nearer the viewer, a delicate light fading into the distance. A man stood halfway between, looking over his shoulder, a smile on his face. It was somehow the most desolate painting that Rutledge had ever seen. He’d expected turbulence, a denial, a fierce struggle between love and loss, something dramatic with grief. But instead she’d captured annihilation, an emptiness so complete that it echoed with anguish.
He knew that anguish. And suddenly he was convinced that Lettice Wood knew it also. That that was what he’d responded to in her.
Catherine was watching his face, unable to hear Hamish but seeing the flicker of fear and recognition and a deep stirring of response, while Hamish—Hamish wept.
“It’s never been shown—” It was all he could manage to say into the silence.
“No,” she answered with certainty. “And never will be.”
A maid brought in the tea, and Catherine quickly covered the painting, putting it carefully back into its vault, like a mausoleum for her love. Turning back to pour a cup for Rutledge and then for herself, she said unsteadily, “You’ve been there, haven’t you?”
He nodded.
“The war?”
“Yes. But she’s still alive. Sometimes that’s worse.”
She put sugar into her tea and handed him the bowl. He helped himself, finding relief in the ordinary movements of his hands, then accepted the cream.
“Where were you going when you nearly ran me down?” she asked, finally sitting down, allowing him to do the same. It was an overt change of subject. She had closed the door between them again.
“Anywhere. Out of Upper Streetham.”
“Why?”
He reached for one of the small, iced tea cakes as an excuse not to meet her eyes. “To think.”
“What about?”
“Whether or not I have enough evidence to arrest Mark Wilton tomorrow morning. For Harris’s murder.”
He could hear her suck in her breath, but she didn’t say anything.
Looking up, he asked, “Why did you track down Daniel Hickam? On the Thursday you spoke to me? No, don’t bother to deny it! I have witnesses. You stopped him, talked to him, and then gave him money.”
“I felt sorry for him…. Most people have forgotten that before the war he was a very good cabinetmaker. Better than his father ever was. He made the frames for my first paintings. And that easel. Now—he probably shakes too much to drive a nail straight, much less do finer work. I try to keep an eye on him.”
“No. You wanted to know what he’d said about Wilton. I don’t know yet how you found out about Hickam. Possibly from Forrest.” He watched that guess go home. She wasn’t as good at hiding her thoughts as Lettice Wood.
“Yes, all right. I was afraid for Mark. I still am. He wouldn’t have killed Charles! You come in here from London, asking questions, making assumptions. You judge people even though you know very well they’re under a great deal of stress. But it isn’t the same as getting under the skin, is it? You can’t do that, you can’t know them. Not in a few days’ time. You haven’t got that skill!”
He’d had it. Once. Refusing to be sidetracked, Rutledge said only, “He had means. Opportunity. Motive. It’s all there now. Out into the open.”
“Then why are you telling me this? If you know so much!” She cocked her head to one side, considering him. “Why were you driving out on the Warwick road when you had all the evidence you need? Why are you involving me?”
“Because I wanted to know what you would say when you heard.”
She set down her teacup. “And are you satisfied?” He didn’t answer. After a moment she asked, “Have you told London yet?”
“No. Not yet. I’ll call Superintendent Bowles early tomorrow morning. I’d prefer to have everything finished before the funeral services on Tuesday. Upper Streetham will be full of people then. Harris’s friends, fellow officers, dignitaries. They shouldn’t be distracted from their mourning by police business.”
“There’ll be a great hue and cry when you do it. It will upset the King, and everyone else, including the Prime Minister. He’s got enough on his plate right now, with the peace talks. It will bring the wrath of Scotland Yard down on your head. It will ruin Mark. It could very well ruin you! I’d be very careful before I did something I couldn’t undo.”