Anne Perry's Silent Nights: Two Victorian Christmas Mysteries (23 page)

“Daniel, is it?” he mused, and a lull in the wind made his voice seem loud.

“So he says. You sound surprised. Do you know him as something else?” She heard the harshness of her words, the edge of her own fear showing through.

“I don’t know him at all, Mrs. Radley,” he repeated, but he did not look at her, and the misery in his genial face deepened.

She put her hand on his arm, holding on to him hard, obliging him either to stop, or very deliberately to shake her off, and he was too well mannered to do that. He stopped in front of her.

“What is it, Father Tyndale?” she asked. “It’s the storm and Daniel, and something else. Everybody’s afraid, as if they knew there was going to be a ship go down. What’s wrong with the village? What is it that Susannah really wants me here for? And don’t say it’s family at Christmas. Susannah was estranged from the family. Her love was Hugo Ross,
and perhaps this place and these people. This is where she was happiest in her life. She wants me here for something else. What is it?”

His face filled with pity. “I know, my dear, but she is asking more than you can do, more than anyone can.”

She tightened her fingers on his arm. “What, Father? I can’t even try if I don’t know what it is.”

He gave a deep sigh. “Seven years ago there was another storm, like this one. Another ship was lost out in the bay; it too was trying to beat its way around to Galway. That night too, there was just one survivor, a young man called Connor Riordan. He was washed ashore half dead, and we took him in and nursed him. It was this time of the year, a couple of weeks before Christmas.” He blinked hard, as if the wind were in his eyes, except that he had his back to it.

“Yes?” Emily prompted. “What happened to him?”

“The weather was very bad,” Father Tyndale went on, speaking now as if to himself as much as to her. “He was a good-looking young man, not unlike this one. Black hair, dark eyes, something of the dreamer
in him. Very quick, he was, interested in everything. And he could sing—oh, he could sing. Sad songs, all on the half note, the half beat. Gave it a kind of haunting sound. He made friends. Everyone liked him—to begin with.”

Emily felt a chill, but she did not interrupt him.

“He asked a lot of questions,” Father Tyndale went on, his voice lower. “Deep questions, that made you think of morality and belief, and just who and what you really were. That’s not always a comfortable thing to do.” He looked up at the sky and the shredded clouds streaming across it. “He disturbed both dreams and demons. Made people face dark things they weren’t ready for.”

“And then he left?” she asked, trying to read the tragedy in his face. “Why? Surely that wasn’t a bad thing? He went back home, then probably out in another ship.”

“No,” Father Tyndale said so quietly the wind all but swallowed his words. “No, he never left.”

She crushed on the fear rising inside her. “What do you mean? He’s still here?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Manner … what kind of manner?” Now that she had asked, she did not want to know. But it was too late.

“Over there.” He lifted his hand. “Out towards the point, his body’s buried. We’ll never forget him. We’ve tried, and we can’t.”

“His family didn’t … didn’t come and take his body?”

“No one knew he was here,” Father Tyndale said simply. “He came from the sea one night when every other soul in his ship was lost. It was winter, and the wind and rain were hard. No one from outside the village came here during those weeks, and we knew nothing of him except his name.”

The cold was enlarging inside her, ugly and painful. “How did he die, Father?”

“He drowned,” he replied, and there was a look on his face as if he were admitting to something so terrible he could not force himself to say it aloud.

There was only one thought in Emily’s mind, but she too would not say it. Connor Riordan had been murdered. The village knew it, and the secret had been poisoning them all these years.

“Who?” she said softly.

He could not have heard her voice above the wind in the grass. He read her lips, and her mind. It was the one thing anyone would ask.

“I don’t know,” he said helplessly. “I’m the spiritual father of these people. I’m supposed to love them and keep them, comfort their griefs and heal their wounds, and absolve their sins. And I don’t know!” His voice dropped until it was hoarse, painful to hear. “I’ve asked myself every night since then, how can I have been in the presence of such passion and such darkness, and not know it?”

Emily ached to be able to answer him. She knew the subtle and terrible twists of murder, and how often nothing is what it seems to be. Long ago her own eldest sister had been a victim, and yet when the truth was known, she had felt more pity than rage for the one so tormented that they had killed again and again, driven by an inner pain no one else could touch.

“We don’t,” she said gently, at last letting go of Father Tyndale’s arm. “I knew someone quite well, once, who killed many times. And when in the end everything was plain, I understood.”

“But these are my people!” he protested, his voice trembling. “I hear their confessions. I, above all, know their loves and hates, their fears and their dreams. How can I listen to them, and yet have no idea who has done this? Whatever it was, they could have come to me, they should have known they could!” He spread his hands. “I didn’t save Connor’s life, and infinitely worse than that, I didn’t save the soul of whoever killed him. Or those who are even now protecting him. The whole village is dying because of it, and I am powerless. I don’t have the faith or the strength to help.”

She could think of nothing to say that was not trite and would sound as if she had no understanding of his pain.

He looked down at the sand shifting and blowing about their feet. “And now this new young man has come, like a revisiting of death, as if it were all going to happen again. And I am still useless.”

Emily hurt for him, for all of them. Now she understood what it was that Susannah wanted resolved before she died. Did she think Emily could do it because of the times she and Charlotte had involved
themselves in Pitt’s cases? They had found facts, but she had no idea how to detect from the beginning, understand what mattered and what didn’t, and put everything in its right place to tell a story. Always a tragic story.

Hugo Ross had been alive when Connor Riordan had been here. What had he known? Was Susannah afraid that he had been involved somehow, shielding someone from the law because they were his own people? Or was she afraid that they would blame Hugo, once she was gone and could no longer protect his memory?

Emily wanted to help, with a fierceness that consumed and amazed her, but she had no idea how.

Father Tyndale saw it in her face. He shook his head. “You can’t, my dear. I told you that. Don’t blame yourself. I have known these people all of their lives, and I don’t know. You’ve come here just days ago from a foreign land—how could you?”

But that was no comfort to Emily as she unpacked the shopping on the kitchen table for Maggie to put away.

She went into the drawing room, to find Daniel up
and dressed in clothes that were far too big for him, but at least were of the right length. They must have been Hugo Ross’s, and one look at Susannah’s face confirmed it to her.

“Thank you for your care, Mrs. Radley,” Daniel said with a smile that gave him a sudden warmth and that kind of acute but gentle intelligence that comes with humor. “I feel fine, except for a good many aches and some bruises a prizefighter would be proud of.” He shrugged. “But I still can’t remember much, except choking and freezing, and thinking I was going to die.”

“What did the other men call you?” Emily asked curiously.

He hesitated, racking his memory. “Daniel, I suppose. That’s all I can remember.”

“And them?” she pressed.

“There was a … a Joe, I think.” He frowned. “There was a big man with a lot of tattoos. I think his name was Wat, or something like that. Are they all gone? Are you sure?”

“We don’t know,” Susannah answered him. “We
waited all night, but no one else was washed up here. I’m sorry.” Her voice was gentle but her eyes searched his face. What was she looking for, traces of a lie? A memory of something else? Or did she see in him the ghost of Connor Riordan and the tragedy he awakened?

“What day is it?” Daniel asked suddenly, looking from Susannah to Emily, and back again. “Saturday,” Emily replied.

“There must be a church here. I saw a priest. I’d like to go to Mass tomorrow. I need to thank God for my own deliverance and, more than that, I must pray for the souls of my friends. Perhaps God will grant me my memory back. No man should die so alone that his name is not said by those who survived.”

“Yes, of course,” Susannah said immediately. “I’ll take you. It isn’t far.”

Emily clenched inside. “Are you sure you are well enough?” She wanted to find any way, any excuse for her not to. It was natural that Daniel should wish to go and say Mass for his comrades—what decent man
would not? He had almost certainly never heard of Connor Riordan, whose death had nothing to do with this storm, or this loss. But the village could see ghosts in his face, and one person at least would feel guilt.

“Yes, of course,” Susannah said a trifle sharply. “We’ll all feel better tomorrow.”

But in the morning Susannah was so weak that when she came into the kitchen she had to clutch at the back of a chair to keep from losing her balance and falling.

Emily leaped to her feet and caught her, steadying her with both arms and easing her to sit.

“I’m all right!” Susannah said weakly. “I just need a little breakfast. Have you seen Daniel this morning?”

“Not yet, but I heard him up. Susannah, please go back to bed. You aren’t well enough to walk to church. The wind is still strong.”

“I told you,” Susannah said sharply, “I’ll feel far better when I’ve had a cup of tea and something to eat—”

“Susannah,” Emily cut across her, commanding her attention, “you can’t go to church like this. It will embarrass everyone, mostly you. We should be there to thank God for Daniel’s life, and to pay our respects to those who were lost, whoever they were.”

“Daniel can’t go alone …” Susannah started.

“I’ll go with him. The church can’t be difficult to find.”

“You’re not Catholic,” Susannah pointed out. There was a very slight smile in her eyes. “I know you don’t even approve, never mind believe.”

“Do
you?”
Emily asked. “Or was it for Hugo?”

Susannah smiled ruefully. “To begin with it was for Hugo. But afterwards, it was for myself.” Her voice dropped. “Especially after Hugo died. I believed it because he had. It reminded me of all that he was.”

Emily felt an overwhelming sorrow for her. And she realized with a stab of ugly surprise that she knew Jack’s politics in detail. She had helped him in all kinds of projects and battles and she was proud of what he had achieved. But she had no idea what his religious beliefs were. They both went to church on
most Sundays, but so did everyone else. They had never discussed why.

“This would be a good time for me to look,” she said aloud. “Ignorance is not a reason for disbelieving anything.”

“But you don’t know—”

“Why you want to go?” Emily finished for her. “Yes I do. Father Tyndale told me.”

Susannah looked confused. “Told you what? About the church?”

“No, about Connor Riordan—seven years ago.”

“Oh! He told you …”

“Isn’t that why you wanted me here?” Emily persisted. “To help you look for the truth?”

“I didn’t know there was going to be a storm this bad,” Susannah said quietly, her face ashen. “And no one could have known Daniel would come.”

“Of course not. But you still needed to know who killed Connor and be sure in your own heart that Hugo was not protecting someone he cared for out of loyalty, or pity.”

Susannah was so pale it seemed as if there could be no blood under her skin. Emily felt pierced by
guilt, but to retreat now would leave the matter torn open, yet still unresolved, worse than if she had not touched it.

“I’ll take Daniel to church,” she repeated. “I’ll watch, and tell you what happens. Don’t worry about luncheon. There’s cold meat, and a few vegetables will take no time at all.”

She walked along the road beside Daniel, who was dressed in one of Hugo’s better suits. It was too large for him, but he made no comment on it except to smile at himself, and touch the texture of the cloth with appreciation.

They spoke little. Daniel was still weak and bruised, and it took him both effort and self-discipline to move with the appearance of ease, and to keep up a reasonable pace against the wind.

Emily thought of her family at home, and wondered with a touch of self-mockery what Jack would think if he could see her walking briskly along a rough road in a village she did not know, accompanying a young man washed up by the sea. And to crown it all, she was taking him to a Catholic church. It could hardly be what he had intended
when he had coerced her into leaving her children at Christmas!

Then as the wind buffeted her and blew her skirts, almost knocking her off balance, she thought of Susannah and her marriage to Hugo Ross, and wondered if her father had ever met Hugo, or if he had shut Susannah out without knowing what she had chosen instead of a conventional marriage he would have approved of, and she would have hated. She had done that once, obediently, in her youth. The death of her first husband had freed her. She had married Hugo for love. Losing him took the heart from her life. She walked on alone towards that horizon beyond which they would be together again.

Emily and Daniel reached the low stone church and went inside. It was only half full, as if it had been built for a far larger congregtion. She saw a startled look on Father Tyndale’s face, and that was possibly what caused several other people to turn and stare as she and Daniel found seats towards the back. She recognized the women from the shop, sitting with men and children who must be their families. She also saw Fergal and Maggie O’Bannion, and
Mrs. Flaherty with Brendan beside her, head bent. She knew him only from his thick, curling hair. She thought the straggling gray head belonged to Padraic Yorke.