An Inquiry Into Love and Death (4 page)

I set down my cup and obeyed, my feet moving before I was even aware of it. As I opened the door, he was coming up the steps, taking them with effortless grace. He reached up and removed his hat as he approached. “Miss Leigh, I presume?”

“What is it?” I managed. “Just tell me, please.”

He read my expression and frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

I shook my head. “It’s too late for that. Yes, I am Jillian Leigh. I’ve already worked out that you’re not a solicitor or an undertaker, and that it’s something terribly bad. So just tell me what it is, then, if you would.”

I had surprised him; he thought this through for a moment, and I realized he was incredibly handsome, and that I was viscerally, almost painfully aware of it.

“Very well then,” he said at last. “I need to speak to you, if you have a few moments. I’m Inspector Merriken, of Scotland Yard.”

S
cotland Yard?” I stared at him in horror. “What does Scotland Yard want with me?”

“Perhaps we could discuss that inside.”

If I slammed the door in his face, perhaps all of this would go away. I bit my lip and looked at him. He waited patiently, his hat in his hand. His gaze traveled over me casually, but I wasn’t fooled.

“Miss Leigh?”

I stepped back from the door. “All right. All right then. Please come in.”

He moved forward and I closed the door behind him. Up close, I could see that his suit was well tailored, his shirt crisp, the tie knotted flawlessly at his throat. A man who dressed with care, then, on whatever an inspector’s salary was. It was easy for him to be sartorially perfect, as he had a frame that would give most men’s tailors fits of joy: tall, broad shouldered, slim hipped, sleekly muscled. He wore both the suit and the coat with an ease that bespoke a man who took his physique for granted. He smelled of chill fall air and wool.

I stepped back and thumped into the wall of the tiny hall. I knew what he saw when he looked at me—a raw, inexperienced girl, barely dressed.
Take hold of the situation, Jillian
. I’d spent too long in a girls’ school, the only men of my acquaintance aged professors and fellow students in home-knitted jumpers. Old men and boys, really.

“I’m sorry,” I managed. “That wasn’t much of a greeting. I’m not usually so rude.”

“It’s quite all right,” he said.

“Would you, ah, would you like tea?”

“If you have some, yes.”

I nodded. “Follow me.”

I led him down the hall, conscious of the fact that I’d been caught in my studying clothes yet again. I was aware of my bare legs and feet, of the hem of my dress brushing the backs of my knees, in a way I hadn’t been in the presence of Mrs. Kates or even Edward Bruton. Likely Inspector Merriken considered me slovenly and unkempt. I wrapped my cardigan more closely around myself as I walked.

If the inspector thought anything of my appearance, his expression gave nothing away. When we reached the kitchen, he took a seat at the table as I put the kettle back on the hob and found more cups.

“I’m sorry about your uncle,” he said.

His tone was quiet and sincere, and I turned my back to him, busying myself with the tea things. “Thank you.”

“I was in Barnstaple yesterday,” the inspector continued. “I got there shortly after you did, as it happens. I met with the magistrate.”

“He told me my uncle’s case was an accident,” I said to the dishes I was arranging. “He said it was official.”

“Yes. He told me the same thing.”

I set the tea on the table and looked at him. “Then I’m sorry for asking, but why are you here?”

He had not removed the dark coat, and it folded around him where he sat at the table, the edges of the fine wool spilling off his chair. He had placed his hat on one long thigh, and his hand rested atop it, the fingers spread and graceful. He tipped his head just the slightest degree as he watched me. “Mr. Hindhead was rather concerned about you,” he said by way of reply. “He said you didn’t weep or, indeed, appear the least bit upset. He told me he could only conclude that instilling education in women produces in them a decided lack of natural feeling.”

I was shocked for only a second, until anger took over. I crossed my arms. “I didn’t realize that viewing my uncle’s body was a test of my decorum,” I said tightly. “I mistakenly thought it was the most horrible experience of my life.”

The inspector’s gaze held mine. I thought I saw something flicker across it—a flash of approval, perhaps, though I was too angry to care. “Then we are of the same mind about Mr. Hindhead’s opinions.”

It took me a second to understand what he was saying. Before I could gather myself to form a reply, the inspector tapped the cover of
A History of Incurable Visitations
, which lay along-side the watch on the table before him. “Were these your uncle’s?”

“Yes.”

He picked up the book, read the title on the spine. He lowered it again and leaned toward me across the table. “All right, Miss Leigh, let’s be clear. Forget about the magistrate for a moment. Your uncle was an unusual man.”

I swallowed. “Yes, he was.”

“Most people, you see, fit some sort of pattern at the heart of it. Your uncle was not one of those people. He was a stranger here, and he had no reason to be on those cliffs. No one knows, or will admit to knowing, who hired him to come here. I cannot quite see the pattern, and it bothers me.”

My heart pounded in my chest. I had assumed Toby had been here on a job, called here by someone as usual. “But the coroner . . .”

“The coroner at Barnstaple,” the inspector said, “knows more about foxhunting and trout fishing than he knows about death. He likely made a ruling so he could go home to supper. I don’t particularly care what he wrote on that piece of paper. I don’t answer to the coroner.”

I lowered myself into the chair opposite him. “I don’t think I can help. I don’t have any of the answers. To tell the truth, I barely knew my uncle.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Eight years ago.”

“Were you close before that?”

I thought of the afternoons reading, of the day on the beach. “He was kind to me.”

“Why hadn’t you seen him in so long?”

I shook my head. “I can’t answer that. He had some kind of rift with my parents. I never knew what it was about. He just disappeared one day; that was all.”

“And your parents are in Paris.”

“Yes.”

He looked away, calculating. He had a face of constant clear yet subtle expression, somber, inquisitive, suspicious. Already I was fascinated by it. In repose, he was handsome, but it was the play of thoughts behind his eyes that made him almost searing to look at.

He turned back to me. For a long moment his gaze took me in, unmistakably assessing me, as if for that moment I were the only person in existence. The force of it was unsettling, but I kept my chin up and stared back.
Take hold of the situation, Jillian.

He seemed to make a decision. “Your uncle,” he said without further preamble, “was found on the beach at the foot of the cliffs. A fisherman in a passing boat spotted him from the water. It’s an open spot, but hard to see from land. We’re lucky someone saw him when he did. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and your uncle had been dead for three to five hours.”

I swallowed. The tea sat untouched between us on the table.

“I ask myself the question,” he continued, “whether a healthy, sober man simply slipped off a cliff in daylight. Don’t you?”

“Yes.” My voice was barely more than a whisper.

“Did your uncle have any enemies?”

I shook my head. Inspector Merriken, I realized, was taking advantage of my shock and pressing me. He was very skilled at it. “You forget that he may have killed himself.”

He leaned forward again. “That’s why I’m here. You knew him. Do you think he killed himself?”

I looked down at the table. I had set my hands flat, and I stared at the backs of them, at the spread of my fingers. “I don’t—I can’t picture—” I tried again. “He was alone; I do know that. He’d never married or had children. He was considered eccentric. He was estranged from my parents, who were his only family.” It felt traitorous even to be saying these things. “Still, the idea that he would . . . just
do
that—I don’t think I believe it.” I looked back up and watched the expressions on Inspector Merriken’s face—skepticism, disappointment perhaps. “I suppose the family members never believe it, do they?”

“It’s an understandable reaction.”

Anger rose in my throat again, surprising me. “There’s nothing understandable about this. Nothing.”

He only nodded, and took a small notebook and pen from the breast pocket of his jacket. “Now you see why I’m here.”

He bent to the notebook and wrote, obviously some kind of notes for himself. I waited during a moment of silence, the only sound the scratching pen. I looked at his handsome face and realized I was still angry at his calculated manipulation of me, at his effortless control, at my own attraction that tempted me to give in. I wanted to shake him.

“Why not me?” I said at last.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Why not suspect me of murder? Perhaps I had a motive.”

He did not look up. “Because you were in school at the time he died, in a tutorial with three other students and a professor named Martha Mackenzie. I’ve talked to the professor already.”

I was speechless. He finished writing, closed the notebook with a snap, and looked up at me.

“You suspected me of murder?” I said.

“I suspect everyone of murder,” he replied. “Where was your uncle’s room?”

•   •   •

Toby had taken the master bedroom, which featured a double bed of unpolished brass, a few thin blankets, a dresser, and an old writing desk. The bed was made, a few of Toby’s clothes tossed carelessly on it. A shaving mirror was propped on the dresser, next to a tray containing his other shaving items. A toothbrush, a comb. None of this was remarkable.

The window and the suitcases were remarkable.

The window, by my calculation, looked over the front of the house. But there was no view through it, for behind the heavy, drawn curtains we could see that the glass was blocked. The inspector pulled one of the curtains back. Someone—Toby—had taken a wool blanket from the linen cupboard and nailed it into the four corners of the wooden window frame. Then he had covered the dark square with the heavy curtains, which he had fastened shut.

The effect was one of sinister gloom. The sunlight only barely penetrated, and the details of the room were hard to see, as if we were in a watercolor painting.

“Hmm,” said the inspector. “Perhaps your uncle had insomnia. There are people who can’t sleep unless they’re in total darkness.”

I said nothing. I stared at the window, my stomach sinking. It seemed to stare back at me. It made me think of the scratching at my window last night, that long, slow sound, and I pushed the thought away.

Inspector Merriken moved on to two large suitcases that were stacked against the wall. They looked heavy; the smaller one was on top of the larger one, and the writing desk had been pushed out of the way to make room. The suitcases were far too big to contain clothing, unless Toby had a wardrobe that would put a Hollywood actor to shame.

I moved over to the inspector’s shoulder as he unlatched the top one and lifted the lid. We both stared down into the case. Then the inspector picked up the carefully packed objects there one by one, removing them from their dark velvet lining.

“A clock,” he said. “No, two clocks—one is a stopwatch. A thermometer. An electric torch and a spare. A compass. A measuring tape. Canisters of film . . .”

“Ghost-hunting tools,” I said. “This is my uncle’s ghost-hunting kit.”

His eyes caught mine for a second. “Are you certain?”

“It must be,” I said. I pointed to the items one by one. “A clock to note when the sightings appear. A stopwatch to time them. A thermometer to measure air temperature changes. A torch for nighttime work, and a spare in case the first is broken. As for the film . . .” I looked around us. “The camera is in a case next to the bed, over there. To try to capture the ghosts on film, of course.”

He looked back down into the case, perplexed. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. You have a rather interesting family.”

“Thank you.”

He touched some of the items again, brushing his hand over them as if they could tell him something, as absorbed as a dog on a scent. Then he shut the lid. “Has anyone else been through the house since your uncle died?”

I shook my head. “The landlady told me she doesn’t even have a key. She’s lost her copy.”

“And have you touched anything? Gone through his belongings?”

“No.”

He hauled the smaller of the two cases off the larger one and onto the bed, then opened the larger case. This one we stared at for even longer, trying to figure out—at least on my part—what the thing could be.

It was a single object, carefully placed in a case that was obviously custom-made to transport it. There seemed to be a large metal base, a battery, knobs. Protruding from the top of the inexplicable thing was a metal gauge etched with numbers, measured by a long, narrow needle.

“What in the world is it?” I said.

“It’s hard to tell in this light.” He opened the smaller case again and pulled out one of the electric torches, which he shone on the etched metal numbers as he leaned close to read them. The light spilled over his profile, making him into a black-and-white photograph, like the pictures of film stars they put in magazines.

“I believe it’s a galvanoscope,” he said.

“And what is that?”

He shut off the torch and replaced it. “It measures electromagnetic energy fluctuations. We used them in the war to detect submarines.”

I shook my head. “This is nothing like I thought it would be.”

“What do you mean?”

I gestured at the cases. “It’s all so scientific. Electromagnetic fluctuations? I think I imagined him doing séances, or something similar. But this equipment—the galvanoscope alone must have been expensive. He must have had it custom-made, unless he was secretly in the navy.”

“The navy doesn’t give them out, no. At least, not that I’m aware of.”

I stopped, realizing he was a few years older than me, the right age to have been in the war. “Were you in the navy?”

He turned away, closed the lid to the case containing the clocks and torches. “No. RAF.”

“You were a pilot?”

“Yes.”

I could picture him as a pilot. The RAF was celebrated for its fearless fighters with nerves of steel. The newspapers and newsreels had had a heyday with them during the war. “It sounds heroic.”

He raised his head and looked at me, his eyes glinting in the dim light, shadows smudged under his cheekbones. He gave a sort of grim laugh, a sound that was pure darkness. “Not exactly.”

I hadn’t met many soldiers; I had no brothers or cousins, and I’d been too young to volunteer myself. My father had done some kind of job for the War Office that kept him in London; Toby hadn’t served that I knew of, and as he’d left our lives, what Toby had done during wartime was now one of his many mysteries. I knew of the butcher’s son who had come home missing a hand, and my tutor’s grandson who hadn’t come home at all. At Somerville, I knew girls who had lost brothers and cousins, and it was a common refrain among all the girls that there was a lack of marriageable men.