She glanced back; realizing he wasn’t pressing to overtake her, she eased the mare to a safer pace.
Ahead, through a screen of trees, the river glimmered. Penny slowed even more as the track became steeper. It ended in a small clearing above the river; beyond lay lowlying, reed-infested marsh.
Penny swung left onto the even narrower path that followed the bank upriver. Lined on the landward side by a stand of thick trees, it was reasonably well surfaced but barely wide enough for a cart. She cantered along through the shadows, searching for a clearing.
She was almost past the cottage before she realized. Alerted by a glimmer of moonlight on stone, she abruptly drew rein, wrestling the mare to a halt, peering through the trees at a single-roomed cottage-more a hovel-gray and unwelcoming; any paint that might once have brightened the door and shutters had flaked away long ago.
Not a flicker of light shone through the shuttered windows, but it was after midnight.
Charles, coming up hard on the mare’s heels, swore, rearing and wheeling his big gray.
She glanced at him; for an instant, in the silvery moonlight with his curling black hair, he appeared a black pirate on a moon-kissed steed, performing a dramatic maneuver that should have demanded his full attention-yet his attention was fixed on the cottage.
His horse’s front hooves touched ground; Charles urged him under the trees screening the front of the cottage. She turned her mare and followed.
Charles halted under the trees between Penny and the cottage. His senses, honed by years of danger, had tensed, condensed; something was wrong.
He took a moment to work out what. Even at night, even if there was no human about, there were always insects, small animals, always a faint, discernible hum of life. He couldn’t detect any such hum in or around the cottage. Even the insects had deserted it.
He’d seen death too often not to recognize its pall.
He dismounted. “Stay here with the horses.” He tossed his reins to Penny, briefly met her eyes. “
He turned to the cottage, went forward silently even though he felt sure there was no one there. The door was ajar; his sense of foreboding increased.
Glancing back, he saw Penny, dismounted, tying the reins of both horses to a tree. Looking back at the cottage, he put out a hand, pushed the door wide, simultaneously stepping to the side. The door swung inward, almost fully open before it banged on something wooden.
No other sound came from within.
Charles glanced inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness, then he saw a form slumped unmoving on the floor.
He swore, scanned with his senses one last time, but there was no one else there, then stepped to the doorway. The smell told him what lay in the cottage wasn’t going to be a pretty sight. He sensed Penny drawing nearer. “Don’t come any closer-you don’t need to see this.”
“What?” Then, more weakly, “Is he
No point pretending. “Yes.”
He saw tinder and a candle on a rough wooden table. Hauling in a breath, he held it, then stepped over the threshold. The wick caught, flared; he shielded the flame until it was steady, then he lifted the candle and looked.
His senses hadn’t lied.
He heard Penny’s sharp, shocked gasp, heard her quit the doorway, slumping back against the cottage wall. His gaze locked on the body strewn like a broken puppet on the rough plank floor, he moved closer, holding the candle up so he could better see.
After a moment, he hunkered down, through narrowed eyes studied the young man’s face.
“What happened?”
He glanced at the doorway, saw Penny clutching the jamb, looking in.
“Is it Gimby?” she asked.
He looked again at the face. “I assume so-from what the old man told us, he’s the right age and build.”
Putting out a hand, he unfurled one of the youth’s slack, crumpled hands, and found the calluses and ridges marking him as one who earned his living from the sea. “Yes,” he said. “It’s Gimby Smollet.”
Again his gaze went to the youth’s face, noting the ugly weals and bruises. He recognized the pattern, could predict where on the youth’s body other brusies would be found-over his kidneys, covering his lower ribs, most of which would be broken. His hands and fingers had been methodically smashed, repeatedly, over some time, hours at least.
Someone had wanted information from Gimby, information Gimby either had refused to give or hadn’t known to give. He’d been beaten until his interrogator had been sure there was no more to learn, then Gimby had been dispatched, his throat cut with, it seemed, a single stroke.
Charles rose, his gaze going to Penny. “There’s nothing we can do, other than inform the authorities.”
Waving her back, he joined her, pulling the door closed on the dead youth, careful to keep buried all signs of the deep unease flooding him.
“He was murdered, wasn’t he?” Penny said. “How long ago?”
A good question. “At least yesterday, possibly the day before.”
She swallowed; her voice was thready. “After we started asking questions.”
He reached for her hand, gripped hard. “That may have nothing to do with it.”
She glanced at him; he saw in her eyes that she believed that no more than he. At least she didn’t look to be heading for hysterics.
“What now? Who should we tell?”
He paused, considering. “Culver’s the local magistrate-I’ll ride over and inform him first thing in the morning. There’s no sense in rousing him and his staff at this hour-there’s nothing anyone can do now that won’t be better done in daylight.” He looked at Penny, caught her eye. “Incidentally, you aren’t here.”
Her lips tightened, but she nodded. She glanced back at the cottage. “So we just leave him?”
He squeezed her hand again. “He’s not really there.” He drew in a breath, filling his lungs with cleaner air, noting the faint breeze rising off the estuary. “Before we go, I want to look at his boats.”
Leaving that to the morning was a risk he was no longer prepared to take. Someone else was there, someone with training similar to his own.
Someone with a background similar to his own.
He didn’t let go of Penny’s hand. Towing her with him, he checked she’d tied the horses securely, then crossed the track to the river. They were both local-born; they knew what they were searching for-a tiny inlet, a miniature cove, a narrow gorge cut by a minor stream-some such would be the Smollets’ mooring place.
They found it a hundred yards upriver, an inlet carved by a minor stream just wide enough for a boat and heavily overhung by the arching branches of the trees that at that spot marched down almost to the river’s edge.
The rowboat, moored to a heavy ring set in a tree trunk, bobbed on the rising tide. A quick glance inside revealed nothing more than the usual fisherman’s clutter-ropes, tackle, two rods, assorted nets, and two lobster pots.
Charles turned his attention to the second boat, hauled up out of the water and lashed to trees fore and aft. One glance and his eyes widened; the old sailor hadn’t been embellishing-the craft was a superb piece of work, sleek and trim. Under sail, it would fly.
Penny had already gone to it. When he came up, she was sitting on a log beside the prow; with one hand she was tracing, it seemed wonderingly, the name painted there.
Charles hunkered down beside her.
“It’s my mother’s name.”
He glanced at Penny; he couldn’t see well enough to read her eyes. He reached for her hand, simply held it.
“Her name was Julie-everyone knew her as that, just Julie. Only my father ever called her by
He stayed beside her, let a few minutes tick by, then rose. “Stay there. I need to search inside.”
Not as easy as with the rowboat; the yacht, for it was that, just a very small one, had a canvas cover lashed
