“Of course. But I’m not sure her methods of educating her offspring were particularly sound. She could be a real termagant when pushed to the edge. Sid always claimed it was her name: What else can you expect from someone called Hortense, Sidney’d demand after we’d suffered a whipping for one infraction or another. I, on the other hand, tended to believe she was saddled rather than blessed by motherhood. My father kept late hours, after all. She was on her own, despite the presence of whatever nanny David and Sid hadn’t managed to terrorise into leaving yet.”
“Did you feel yourself abused?”
St. James buttoned his topcoat against the chill. There was little breeze here — the church acted as a break against the wind that otherwise funnelled through the dale — but the falling mist was frost in the making, and it lay upon his skin in a clammy webbing that seemed to seep through muscle and blood to the bone. He stifled a shiver and thought about the question.
His mother’s anger had always been terrifying to behold. She was Medea incarnate when crossed. She was quick to strike, quicker to shout, and generally unapproachable for hours — sometimes days — after a transgression had been committed. She never acted without cause; she never punished without explanation. Yet in some eyes, he knew, and especially in modern eyes, she would have been seen as extremely wanting.
“No,” he said and felt it to be the truth. “We tended to be an unruly lot, given half a chance. I think she was doing the best she could.”
Lynley nodded and went back to his study of the church. As far as St. James could tell, there wasn’t much to see. Moonlight glinted off the crenellated roofline and sketched in silver the contour of a tree in the graveyard. The rest was one variation or another of darkness and shadow: the clock in the belltower, the peaked roof of the lych- gate, the small north porch. It would be growing close to the time for evensong, but no one was readying the church for prayers.
St. James waited, watching his friend. They’d brought away from the study the odd bits carton, which St. James was carrying under his arm. He set it on the ground and blew on his hands to warm them. The action roused Lynley, who looked his way and said, “Sorry. We should be off. Deborah will be wondering what’s happened to us.” Still he didn’t move. “I was thinking.”
“About abusive mothers?”
“In part. But more about how it all fits. If it all fits. If there’s the slightest possibility that
“The girl didn’t say anything to suggest abuse when she spoke to you today?”
“Maggie? No. But she wouldn’t, would she? If the truth is that she revealed something to Sage — something he felt he had to act upon and something that cost him his life at her mother’s hands — she wouldn’t be likely to reveal it a second time to anyone else. She’d be feeling responsible as hell for what happened.”
“You don’t sound as if you’re keen on that idea, despite the phone call to Social Services.”
Lynley nodded. The mist made a penumbra of the moonlight in which his expression was moody, with shadows drawn beneath his eyes. “‘When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.’ Did Sage intend the prayer to refer to Juliet Spence or to himself?”
“Perhaps neither. You may be making too much of nothing. It may have merely been a chance marking in the book. Or it may have referred to someone else entirely. It could be a piece of Scripture that Sage was using to comfort someone who had come to him to confess. For that matter, since we know he was trying to woo people back to the Church, he could have been using the prayer for that. Doeth that which is lawful and right: Worship God on Sundays.”
“Confession’s something I hadn’t thought of,” Lynley admitted. “I keep the worst of my sins to myself, and I can’t imagine anyone else doing otherwise. But what if someone did confess to Sage and then regretted having done so?”
St. James mulled the idea over. “The possibilities are so narrow that I think it unlikely, Tommy. According to what you’re attempting to set up, the regretful penitent would have to be someone who knew Sage was going to Juliet Spence’s that night for dinner. Who knew?” He began to list. “We have Mrs. Spence herself. We have Maggie—”
A door slammed with an echo that bounded across the street. They turned at the sound of hurried footsteps. Colin Shepherd was opening the door to his Land Rover, but he hesitated when he caught sight of them.
“And the constable, of course,” Lynley murmured and moved to intercept Shepherd before he left.
At first, St. James remained where he was at the end of the drive, a few yards away. He saw Lynley pause fractionally at the edge of the cone of light cast by the interior of the Rover. He saw him remove his hands from his pockets, and he noted, with some uneasy confusion, that his right hand was balled. St. James knew his friend well enough to realise that it might be wise to join them.
Lynley was saying in a chillingly pleasant tone, “You’ve apparently had an accident, Constable?”
“No,” Shepherd said.
“Your face?”
St. James reached the edge of the light. The constable’s face was abraded on both the forehead and the cheeks. Shepherd’s fingers touched one of the scratches. “This? Roughhousing with the dog. Up on Cotes Fell. You were there yourself today.”
“I? On Cotes Fell?”
“At the Hall. You can see it from the fell. Anyone up there can see anything, in fact. The Hall, the cottage, the garden. Anything. Do you know that, Inspector? Anyone who chooses can see anything below.”
“I prefer less indirection in my conversations, Constable. Are you trying to tell me something, aside from what happened to your face, of course?”
“You can see anyone’s movements, the comings and goings, whether the cottage is locked, who’s working at the Hall.”
“And, no doubt,” Lynley finished for him, “when the cottage is vacant and where the key to the root cellar is kept. Which is, I take it, the point you’re trying to make, however obliquely. Have you an accusation you’d like to share?”
Shepherd was carrying a torch. He threw it into the front seat of the Rover. “Why don’t you start asking what the summit is used for? Why don’t you ask who goes hiking up the fell?”
“You do yourself, by your own admission. And it’s a rather damning one, wouldn’t you say?” The constable made a sound of disdain and began to climb into the car. Lynley stopped him by noting, “You seem to have eschewed the accident theory you were espousing yesterday. Might I know why? Has something caused you to decide your initial investigation was incomplete?”
“Those are your words, not mine. You’re here at your own desire, no one else’s. I’ll thank you to remember that.” He put his hand on the steering wheel, a prefatory movement to entering the car.
“Did you look into his trip to London?” Lynley asked.
Shepherd hesitated, his expression guarded. “Whose?”
“Mr. Sage went to London in the days before he died. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“Polly Yarkin didn’t tell you? Did you interview Polly? She was his housekeeper, after all. She’d know more about the vicar than anyone else. She’d be the one who—”
“I spoke to Polly. But I didn’t interview her. Not offi cially.”
“Then unofficially? And recently, perhaps? Today?”
The questions hung between them. In the silence, Shepherd removed his spectacles. The mist that was falling had sheened them lightly. He rubbed them against the front of his jacket.
“You’ve broken your glasses as well,” Lynley noted. They were, St. James saw, held together across the bridge by a small piece of tape. “That’s quite a bit of rough-housing with the dog. Up on Cotes Fell.”
Shepherd replaced them. He dug in his pocket and brought out a set of keys. He faced Lynley squarely. “Maggie Spence has run off,” he said. “So if there’s nothing else you’d care to remark on, Inspector, Juliet’s expecting me. She’s a bit upset. Evidently you didn’t tell her you’d be going by the school to talk to Maggie. Headmistress thought otherwise, as I understand. And you spoke with the girl alone. Is that how the Yard operates these days?”
