The Language of the Dead (34 page)

LAMB, HARRIS, AND THE CHILDREN WALKED DOWN THE PATH
to the village, past the place where Michael Bradford had been killed. Natalie took Lamb's hand. From the path, the children could not see their father's body in the race, where Winston-Sheed was finishing his work.

They found Harding waiting for them near Blackwell's cottage, along with Wallace and a woman Lamb didn't recognize. She was a young woman, not more than twenty-five or so. She wore white gloves on her hands.

“This is Miss Perkins from Castle Malwood,” Harding said. “She'll take care of the children.”

Mike was expressionless; the girls seemed confused. “I want to stay with the man,” Natalie said. She squeezed Lamb's hand, breaking his heart.

Lamb squatted, faced her and took her hands in his. “There, now, love,” he said. “Miss Perkins is a very nice lady. She's going to take
you to a very nice place where there's a nice comfortable bed for you to sleep in. Does that sound good?”

Natalie nodded.

Lamb handed the tin of butterscotch to Natalie. “Now, you're a big girl,” he said. “Can you be the guardian of these, please? Make sure your brother and sister get a few as well?”

“Yes.” She clutched the tin.

Lamb put his hand gently on her head. “That's very good. I'm very proud of you.”

Miss Perkins squatted next to Lamb. “Hello, Natalie,” she said. She offered her hand to Natalie, who took it.

“Do you have the sandwiches?” Lamb asked Wallace.

Wallace handed Lamb three cheese sandwiches wrapped in waxy paper. Wallace smiled at the children. “Fresh from the pub,” he said. “Cheese
and
pickle.”

“How nice,” Miss Perkins said. She took the sandwiches from Lamb. “You can eat them on the way,” she told the children. Natalie smiled, but the other two seemed shocked into a kind of quiet submission. Miss Perkins guided Natalie and Vera toward a big black saloon. Mike hesitated; he looked back at Lamb. Lamb smiled at him.

“It's okay, Mike,” he said. “You're safe.”

Miss Perkins opened the back door of the car and gently herded the children into it. Once they were seated, she handed them the sandwiches. She turned to Lamb, Harding, Wallace, and Rivers. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said. “We'll take good care of them.”

“I trust you will,” Harding said.

“There are some formalities to attend to, obviously, but those can be handled later. Right now, I think it's best that we get the three of them settled.”

“Let me know what you need and I'll provide it,” Harding said.

Miss Perkins shook their hands and then got behind the wheel of the car. A few seconds later, the car crossed the stone bridge and left Quimby.

“A tough break,” Wallace said as they watched the car leave.

“So it's another murder, then?” Harding asked, turning to Lamb.

“Yes.”

“And do you think the same man killed Blackwell?”

“I don't know,” Lamb said. “The boy just admitted to me that he saw Lord Jeffrey Pembroke on the hill sometime before he came upon Blackwell's body.”

“Pembroke?” Harding said. “But what does Pembroke have to do with any of it?”

“I'm not entirely sure yet. But his presence makes sense. As I said, I'm certain that the two boys—Peter and Thomas—figure in both killings. And then there's Pirie. All three of them put Pembroke in the picture. And Pembroke knew Blackwell and Emily Fordham, though I haven't established yet if he knew Bradford. But I think Bradford might have approached him.”

Harding was silent for a moment. He looked at Lamb and said, “I don't have to tell you that we must move with delicacy where Pembroke is concerned.”

“All due respect, sir, but why should we move with delicacy as regards Lord Pembroke?” Rivers interjected. Although Rivers spoke in a respectful tone, Lamb couldn't quite believe that Rivers now was openly challenging Harding. Apparently the talk Lamb had just had with Rivers hadn't penetrated him. Or he didn't bloody care. He seemed unable to be anything other than insubordinate. Even so, his question was one Lamb himself had intended to ask Harding in private.

Harding glared at Rivers. “I should think the reason is obvious,” he said coldly.

“What if the boy, Peter, did it and Pembroke is covering for him?” Rivers asked, seemingly unaffected by Harding's obvious ire. But he refused to be left behind, kept in the dark. He had been sorting a few new theories of his own regarding the killings—theories that, he had to admit, were partly down to what Lamb had discovered—and believed the time had come to air them.

“The fact is, we don't know anything about the mute boy,” Rivers continued. “We've only made bloody assumptions about him. He
could very well have killed the old man, and the girl. Maybe the old man upset the boy in some way and so he bashed in the old man's head. Then Pembroke, the boy's guardian and protector, comes along and drives home the scythe and the pitchfork to shift blame from the boy because nobody is going to believe that a mute idiot would have known to have added the black magic touches.”

Harding looked at Lamb. Despite himself—and Rivers's insubordination—he quietly believed the scenario a good one. It explained much. He'd left the delivery of Wallace's penalty up to Lamb. But
he
would give Rivers a bloody boot up the arse later. Still, for the moment, he had to consider what Rivers was saying.

“What do you think, Tom?” Harding asked, shifting the focus to Lamb.

“It's a good theory, but I'm wondering where Pirie fits in.” He nodded toward the race. “And Bradford, and Emily Fordham.”

“The boy could easily have killed the girl too,” Rivers said. “She also upset him, though that time Pembroke wasn't around to neaten things up.”

“And Bradford?” Lamb asked. He nodded at Rivers, remembering their talk of a half hour before. “Speak freely, Inspector,” he said. Not that Rivers seemed to care.

“His son told him the story he just told you—that he saw Pembroke on the hill. And Bradford, being a stupid greedy lush, went to Pembroke and asked for a little something to keep his mouth shut. Except that Pembroke knows full well that a man like Bradford is incapable of keeping his mouth shut.”

“So what, then?” Harding asked. “The bloody lord of the manor tromps over here and crushes the man's skull in?”

“No. He hires someone to do the job. He's got plenty of money.”

“And Pirie?” Lamb asked.

“Maybe Pirie is exactly what he appears—a pervert who buggers little boys. If he is, and Pembroke found out about it, then it would have been in Pembroke's interest to keep it hushed up. Otherwise, Pembroke's little Bloomsbury experiment is ruined, shown to be a bloody fraud.”

“Or Pembroke doesn't know about Pirie,” Wallace said. “Or about Thomas.”

“What's next?” Harding asked Lamb.

“I must speak again with Pembroke, obviously. But he's in London until at least tomorrow.”

Rivers sneered. “How bloody convenient,” he said.

That night, Wallace walked through the darkness to Delilah's. He felt that he must see her again. Beyond that, he wasn't sure what he was doing, or why.

He found Delilah's house dark, the windows blacked out. He went to the door and rapped on it. He could sense no light or movement within. “Delilah,” he shouted. He didn't care if anyone heard or saw him.

He waited for the sound of Delilah unlocking the bolt on the door. He heard someone passing on the sidewalk behind him and turned suddenly, expecting an attack. But the walker was a lone woman, her head covered in a kerchief. She glanced at Wallace, as if she thought him dangerous, and hurried on.

He turned to the door and rapped on it again. “Delilah!” He rattled the knob and, to his surprise, found the door unlocked. He stepped into the foyer. The house was dark except for the small lamp above the cabinet in which Delilah kept her whiskey.

Wallace went to the cabinet and found beneath the lamp a white envelope with his name on it. It contained another note. Wallace's heart dropped.

David,

I knew that when I asked you to stay away that you would not listen. You are too proud and valiant to listen. You are the most valiant man I have ever known. I'm sorry that I did not know you in another time and place, when I could have loved you.

I've gone away. I can't say where. Please do not try to find me.

I am dreadfully sorry that I hurt you. I was a fool playing a foolish game. I wish you only the best, David. I hope you believe that. Please don't hate me.

Delilah

Wallace crumpled the note and tossed it onto the cabinet. He hoped she was safe, though he doubted it. He'd been stupid and reckless but regretted nothing. He was certain that she hadn't loved him—not really—though she might have thought that she had. She didn't love her husband either, and Wallace wondered if the poor bloody sod knew it, had always known it. And he wondered if Delilah's husband had loved her—if he'd been too bloody dense to see what he had right in the palm of his hand.

Please don't hate me
.

He didn't hate her.

He started for home, his flat on the other side of Winchester.

On the way, he passed The Fallen Diva, which was darkened for the blackout, though he heard muted merriment coming from within. He badly wanted a drink; but he turned from the door of the pub and walked away. In that moment, he didn't care that he might disappoint himself if he entered the pub.

But he couldn't quite bring himself to disappoint Lamb.

Across the Channel, the engines of eighty German bombers came to life on an airfield near Cherbourg. They were on their way to deal a fatal blow to the Spitfire factory in Southampton. Among the pilots was Hermann Seitz, who firmly believed that he was about to die.

That night, too, Vera walked up Manscome Hill alone.

The hour was late, past midnight, but she hadn't been able to sleep. The news that another man had been killed in the village distressed her deeply. Though she hadn't known them, really, or their father, she had seen the Bradford children darting about the village. Once
or twice she had tried to speak to them, but they'd always run from her, just as Peter always ran. She wondered whether it was wise to go out alone, given all that had occurred in the past few days—and, yet, strangely, she felt safe on the hill. She wondered if this, too, had something to do with the war—of how squaring yourself to the idea that the Germans might invade any day caused you to be brave in other ways.

As she trod the goat path, the dark outline of the wood that marked the border between Quimby and Brookings loomed on her left. Roughly a half mile to her right was the place where Will Blackwell had died, and beyond that the ancient footpath upon which, according to legend, a demon dog had appeared to him sixty years earlier. On the other side of the wood lay the ruins of the mill and its race, freshly stained with the blood of Michael Bradford. Farther still, beyond the mill and the village, was the spot upon which a deranged man had murdered an innocent milkmaid more than sixty years earlier. And in between and all around these places, life breathed.

She made it halfway to the crest before she began to tire and, feeling as if she now might sleep, turned for home and bed. But as she descended the hill, the dark figure of Arthur Lear suddenly appeared among the tall grasses and thistle in front of her. She could not mistake the stub hanging from his right shoulder.

At the same moment, Hermann Seitz maneuvered his Heinkel over the Solent, following the path of the German air armada heading for Southampton. The last time he'd crossed the British coast, he'd nearly died. Although a Spitfire had shot up his port wing, he'd been able to get his bomber back to Cherbourg in one piece, though badly damaged. The plane he now piloted was new, fresh from a factory in Hamburg. To Seitz, the thing handled like a busted-down lorry, turgid and recalcitrant, insufficiently broken in. Once again, fat Goering had sent them on a suicide mission, into the dark, without proper escort.