“You did na’ need yon second dead lassie to prove that. You know and I know where the answers are. And I do na’ think she’ll change what’s happened in Charlbury. You’ve got a murderer to find there, and the sooner the better! Unless, like Hildebrand, ye’re satisfied to put it on Mowbray’s head.”
He couldn’t. Even Hamish knew that it was impossible.
By the time Rutledge arrived at Charlbury—breakfastless and in a moody frame of mind—the news had flown before him. In the form of a man in the pub of the Wyatt Arms who had enjoyed regaling anyone who would listen with all the gruesome details.
From the sound of them, Rutledge knew, the man had not seen the body.
“Another killing,” he was telling a fresh recruit to his gathering audience, “just like the one in Singleton Magna. That man they’ve got in jail there—might not be the first time he’s gone looking for his missing wife. Left a trail of bodies over half of England if you want to know what I think. Sees a woman out on her own, walking along a road, like, or waiting for someone to come fetch her, and the first thing pops in his head is ‘There’s my wife, by God!’ And before Bob’s your uncle, he’s killed her!”
Rutledge, taking a late breakfast in the corner by the window, tried to shut out the voice. Looking out into the back garden, he realized there was a woman sitting there at one of the empty tables under the trees where the Women’s Institute had met. She was turned away from the windows, a glass of something in front of her. The soft green of her dress made her oddly invisible in the leafy shadows.
It was Aurore Wyatt.
He took his tea cup and went out to the garden.
She looked up as he said, “May I join you?”
He indicated the vacant chair at an angle to hers. The wind was softly stirring the leaves, giving a sense of tranquility to the garden compared to the uproar of voices in the bar.
Her eyes looked tired, as if sleep were something she knew very little about. “Is it business? I’ve heard them talking in there. There’s been another body found, I’m told.”
“No, not business. I missed my breakfast. Now I’ve been served bones with my toast. I came out here to escape.”
“Then, please, I’d be happy to have company more cheerful than my own thoughts!” She waited until he sat down. “How did you miss your breakfast? Tell me lies, please! Something humorous, and a little silly.”
Rutledge grinned, all at once feeling better. “There was a giraffe loose in the kitchen of the Swan in Singleton Magna. The police are still investigating. What are you drinking? I’ll fetch another.”
She smiled, the light coming back into her eyes. “Lemonade. It’s very good. Yes, I’d enjoy another glass.”
He brought it to her, along with a fresh pot of tea for himself, and sat down again. Aurore thanked him and said, “Tell me more about the giraffe.” She pronounced it “jirraffe.”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t stay long enough to find out its history. Sorry.”
She turned to study his face, watching the light and shadow of the leaves playing across it. “Then tell me about yourself. But nothing that is sad.”
Which put Jean and Hamish and the war and his last two cases off limits. He gave the question some thought. “My father followed the law, and my mother was a very gifted pianist. I grew up in a house full of music and law books. The fanciful and the practical.”
“And your parents, did they expect you to follow in their footsteps? Law or music? Or were they pleased you chose to become a policeman?”
“I think my father would have been happy to see me in the law. But it wasn’t my calling. In the end I think he realized it.”
“You are quite practical, I have seen that. And fanciful?” She tilted her head and he felt the intensity of her scrutiny this time. “You are very sensitive to what people are thinking. It is a gift. And a curse. To be able to put yourself in the minds of others. Is that how you come to find your murderers?”
The light mood had vanished. “Sometimes,” he said.
And Hamish stirred, knowing what lay behind his answer.
She said, “Elizabeth came again this morning. She told us she needed work to keep her from worrying too much about Margaret. And so she is helping Simon in the museum today. I couldn’t stand it any longer. This was the only place I could think of where it might be quiet. And then there was the affair of the bones, to spoil my escape.”
“They don’t have anything to do with you,” he said gently. “Or with Margaret Tarlton.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” she told him, but she didn’t sound glad.
The sun was warmer now and brighter. He could feel it on his back. It probably would turn out to be a fine day after all. “She won’t stay, once this is finished. Once we know what has happened to Margaret, there won’t be an excuse to keep her here.”
“But will it be finished?” Aurore asked. “I don’t think so. I used to believe—as a child, you understand!—that it was very sad when someone died suddenly. That is, without knowledge that it was going to happen until it was there, facing one. I used to think that for such people, it was a severe shock, they were not prepared to die, and so they became ghosts. Intent on coming back to the world to finish whatever it was they had left undone. I’m beginning to believe that Margaret is such a one—the stuff of ghosts.”
Rutledge said quietly, “She’s dead, Mrs. Wyatt. All that’s left is to find out who killed her. And if possible, why.”
Aurore sighed. “Yes. I know. But I prefer not to think about any of it. Only, with Elizabeth Napier invading my house and my life, I am not allowed to forget!”
She drained the last of her lemonade and set the glass aside. “I must go to the farm. Cows do not care about ghosts or dead bodies. They are practical creatures, they know when it is time to be milked and time to be let out to pasture, and time to be brought in at the end of the day. The man who took care of them while Simon was away at war is too old now to carry the burden of so much work. I persuade him when I can to sit in the sun and advise me.”
She hadn’t said anything before about someone else at the farm who might have seen her there, nursing a heifer with colic.
Rutledge asked, “I’d like to speak to him. He might have seen you on the day Margaret left.”
Aurore smiled. “I don’t think so. He was suffering from a rheum—a cold—and avoided me when he could. I think it was actually too much ale, and a sour stomach. In France we say it is the liver rebelling. At his age, any rebellion is a revolution.”
“He didn’t know you were at the farm? Surely if one of the livestock was ill …?”
“From the barn he doesn’t see where I leave my car. Sometimes I go and come without meeting him at all, if he is out in one of the fields.”
“But he might have heard the motorcar.”
“Well, perhaps. It is kind of you to look for someone who can tell you positively where I was—and was not.”
“It isn’t kindness, it’s necessity,” he said, more harshly than he’d meant. “I have witnesses who saw your motorcar in Charlbury that morning and who would swear to that. And to the presence of Margaret Tarlton in it with you.”
She shrugged. “I cannot invent witnesses for myself.” Despite the shrug, she wasn’t indifferent to her predicament. There was an intensity beneath her stillness that he could feel. A very real fear.
The tranquility here under the trees had vanished like smoke on the wind. After a few minutes she excused herself and was gone.
He sat where he was, remembering what Frances had said about the Wyatt finances and wondering if there was enough money in their coffers to pay for a first-class barrister to defend Aurore. Or would Simon abandon her, to preserve his precious museum?