The Language of the Dead (18 page)

“Yes,” he said to Rivers.

Rivers grinned in triumph. Lamb finally seemed to be seeing sense.

“But we'll do it legally.”

He sent Rivers to Winchester to get a warrant to search Abbott's and Lydia Blackwell's cottages. Less than two hours later, Rivers returned with the warrant, and the group of them left the hill and trudged up the path to Abbott's cottage, sending Abbott's sheep trotting away yet again.

Rivers banged on the front door. “Open up—police!” He stepped back and looked at Lamb. “He's not there.”

“Try again.”

“He's not bloody there,” Rivers protested.

“Again,” Lamb said evenly.

Rivers sighed peevishly. “Abbott, police!” he yelled. “Open the bloody door!” He turned back to Lamb.

“Excuse me, sir, but I thought I might have heard a woman scream inside just now,” Wallace added. He smiled and winked at Larkin.

“Okay,” Lamb said. “Break it down.”

Rivers heaved his shoulder against the door. The old metal latch that held it fast splintered away from the jamb and the door popped open.

Rivers and Wallace headed up the stairs to Abbott's bedroom, while Lamb searched the sitting room and Larkin the kitchen. It took Rivers a scant five minutes to find something worthwhile. Beneath Abbott's bed he found a leather satchel stuffed with cash. “Here,” he said to Wallace. He pulled the satchel from beneath the bed and he and Wallace performed a quick count of its contents. It contained nearly two hundred pounds in cash.

“A bloody fortune,” Wallace murmured.

They took the money downstairs. “There's nearly two hundred quid here,” Rivers said. “No way a man like Abbott saves that much, especially if he's up to his arse in it at the bloody track.”

Lamb agreed—though he wondered where
Blackwell
had gotten so much cash—if indeed the money
was
Blackwell's. And if Abbott had
done a runner with Lydia, then why had he left the cash behind? He pulled a pencil and pad from his pocket, wrote Albert Gilley's name and telephone number on it, and handed it to Rivers.

“Get back to the nick and call this man,” Lamb said. “He's my contact at Paulsgrove. He knows everything that goes on at the track. I want you to get down there this afternoon and meet him. If Abbott's there with Lydia Blackwell, I want you to find them and bring them back.”

Rivers took the paper and held his tongue. He continued to believe that the chances of Abbott having run off to Paulsgrove were slim. Still, Lamb had been right about the mill—or he'd at least made a lucky guess that it might contain useful evidence. Even so, Rivers couldn't resist asking the obvious question. “If he's on the run, why didn't he take all of it?”

Lamb looked at Rivers. “Because he intends to come back.”

They descended the hill. Rivers went on his way, while the rest of them went to Lydia Blackwell's cottage. Lamb knocked on the door but received no answer. He tried the knob and found the door unlocked. He stepped into the house, followed by the others. “Miss Blackwell?” he said. Nothing.

He set Larkin to search the ground floor while he and Wallace mounted the narrow stair to the second. He entered Blackwell's sparsely furnished bedroom, stood in the middle of it and looked around. He pulled the drawers from the dresser and put them on the bed, but found no place within the dresser or the drawers in which Blackwell might have hidden the tin box. He moved close to the walls and examined them but saw no sign of concealed panels. He checked the frame of the wooden bed but also found nothing.

He went to the closet, knocked on its walls, and found them to be solid. He glanced at the floor of the closet and noticed a small notch in the right side of a floorboard that was wide enough to accept a man's finger. He bent, put his finger in the hole, and lifted the board; it came away easily from its narrow slot. The space beneath it was empty.

Lamb went to the top of the stair and asked Larkin to bring the box into Blackwell's room. The three of them stood by Blackwell's closet as Larkin slipped the box into the space.

It fit perfectly.

“We've got him,” Larkin said.

That evening, Wallace arrived at The Fallen Diva an hour before last call. But Delilah wasn't there. He asked the landlord if she'd been in.

“Not tonight, mate. Sorry.”

Fifteen minutes later, having made his way through the blacked-out streets to Delilah's little house, he rapped on the door. He waited for what he considered a reasonable time for her to answer before knocking again. “Delilah?” He listened but heard no movement within the house. He tried the knob but found the door locked.

He moved to the window that faced the street but could see nothing through the blackout curtains. He rapped on the window. He wondered if she was sleeping.

“Delilah? It's David.”

He moved to the door again and knocked, but received no answer. He looked for a note at the foot of the door but found none. He'd thought she would have left him a note, or perhaps even a key, some signal that she expected him.

He stood on Delilah's doorstep for a few seconds deciding what to do. “Delilah,” he called again, louder this time. He heard the sound of the lock being unbolted from within. Finally she'd heard him. But the door did not open. He pushed the door open onto a darkened foyer; he could just make out Delilah's figure standing several feet from the door. She was in her sleeping gown. Every light in the house was out.

“Close the door,” she whispered.

She was playing another game, like the one she'd played on the first night when she'd doused herself in whiskey, he thought. Wallace
did as she instructed. But she merely stood there, indistinct and silent. He stepped toward her. “Delilah?”

She didn't answer. He found her arms with his hands. He could barely make out her features in the darkness. “I can't see you. Why have you turned out all the lights?”

“I was trying to sleep.”

“But I can't see you.” Something was wrong; she was not in a playful mood—unless that, too, was part of the game. He moved toward the door and the light switch he knew was next to it. Delilah grabbed his sleeve. “No,” she said. “Don't.”

“Why?”

She pulled him back toward her. “Just don't.”

“What's wrong?” he asked. She began to cry, just as she had done in bed that morning.

He found the switch and flicked on the light in the foyer. Delilah covered her face with her hands.

Wallace moved to her; she buried her face in his shoulder. “Tell me what's wrong,” he said. He gently maneuvered her away from his shoulder so that he could see her face.

She looked at him, tears streaking her cheeks. Her eyes were blackened and swollen. The sight of her wounds shocked him.

“By God,” he said. “What happened?”

“I fell.” She looked away.

He didn't believe her. Someone had beaten her; that was obvious. “You didn't fall. Someone hit you. Who was it?”

“It's nothing,” she said. She looked at him. “Please, David, forget it. It's nothing.”

“What do you mean, it's nothing? Tell me who did this to you.”

“I can't. Please promise me you'll let it go.”

“Let it go? I'll bloody fucking kill him. Who is he?”

“Please, David.”

“Delilah.”

She looked away. “I deserved it.”

“What in bloody hell are you talking about?”

She threw her arms around him and pressed her face against his chest. “Please, David,” she said. “I love you. Please don't ask me any more questions.”

At twilight, Arthur Lear had knocked on the door of Vera's billet. She went to the door with trepidation. She had become firm in her decision that she must tell Arthur that they could no longer be lovers. She hoped he would understand and accept her reasoning, but doubted that he would—doubted that he would merely accept what amounted to her rejection of him.

She opened the door to find Arthur holding a bunch of purple foxglove in his hand. He smiled and held out the flowers to her. “For you,” he said. The gesture touched her but did not change her mind.

“Thank you,” she said. He stepped inside. She put the flowers in an old jam jar she found in the cupboard above the gas ring and placed the makeshift vase in the middle of the table. She and Arthur stood near each other. Vera understood that Arthur expected something in return for his flowers and this notion only steeled her against giving it to him. She'd allowed herself to be too easily bought. But no more.

“I'm sorry about the other night,” Arthur said. “I shouldn't have said those things. I wouldn't blame you if you're angry with me.”

He looked at her with a pleading look in his eyes that she found pathetic.

“Why don't we go for a walk,” she suggested. She wanted to get him out of her billet. They would walk and, hopefully, Arthur would relax. Then, when they returned to her billet, she would beg off, claim that she was tired. In that way, she might be able to fend him off gradually.

They walked up the hill at an easy pace. When they reached the wooden bridge over Mills Run, by the dead sycamore, Arthur said, “Let's go see the place where old Blackwell was killed.”

“Do you really think we should?” Going to the site seemed ghoulish. Still, Vera was curious.

“I just want to see it.”

They turned off the trail into the meadow. Farther up the hill, George Abbott's sheep grazed placidly, while the crows that had pecked out Blackwell's eyes silently watched Vera and Arthur from the crooked branches of the sycamore.

“He didn't talk to people much, old Blackwell,” Arthur said as they moved through the meadow. “When I was a boy, we kids mocked him—pointed at him and called him a witch and the rest of it. And we told stories about him—that he would boil you in a big black pot and eat you if he caught you. He might have saved himself a lot of trouble if he'd just been a little friendlier. It doesn't pay to be standoffish in a village. I don't think anybody in Quimby will miss him, save his niece.”

“That's very sad,” Vera said.

Arthur shrugged. They were nearly to the hedge.

“I saw someone up here yesterday—an older boy with long blond hair,” Vera said. “I was on the other side, near the estate. He stood below me, just off the path, and stared at me; I thought he wanted something. But when I tried to speak to him he ran into the wood, as if I'd frightened him.”

Arthur turned to her, alarmed. “He's loony,” he said. “Stay away from him.”

“He seemed harmless.”

“He can't speak—or he doesn't,” Arthur said. “He's unpredictable. I shouldn't wonder that he killed Blackwell. He's capable of it.” Arthur looked at Vera disapprovingly. “You shouldn't let yourself be fooled by him, Vera. Just because he looks harmless doesn't mean he is. I've seen him around; he lives like a wild animal.” He thrust his chin in the direction of Brookings. “He's one of Lord Pembroke's experiments in breaking down the social order—a kind of Frankenstein's monster.”

They reached the hedge and walked around to the place where Blackwell's body had lain. Speaking of the boy seemed to have made
Arthur angry. Vera wondered if the walk hadn't been a bad idea. Perhaps she should have just turned him away at her door and been done with it. But she had been afraid of turning him away—afraid of how he might have reacted.

The ground along the base of the hedge still was black in the places where Blackwell's blood had saturated it.

“Let's go, Arthur,” she said.

Arthur touched her arm. “Hold on.” He moved closer to the killing site and crouched. He pushed the index finger of his lone hand into the soil, then quickly withdrew it; he looked quizzically at the tip of his finger, which was stained a vague reddish color that made it appear as if he'd been picking berries.

“It's still wet,” he said, staring at the ground. “With the old man's blood, I mean.” He looked at his finger, then held it toward Vera. “Witch's blood.”