Paragon Walk (30 page)

But the thoughts were hardening, clearing in Charlotte’s brain. All kinds of questions were at last falling into order, finding answers. The knife, why Pitt had found no blood on the road, Hallam’s confusion, Fulbert, everything at last made a pattern, even the love letters Hallam had kept.

“They weren’t from his wife, were they?” she said aloud. “She didn’t sign them because she didn’t write them. You did!”

Jessamyn’s eyebrows rose in perfect arches.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“The love letters, the love letters to Hallam that the police found. They were yours! You and Hallam used to be lovers. You must have had a key to the garden gate. That’s how you went to him, and that’s how you got in the day Fulbert was killed. Of course, no one saw you!”

Jessamyn’s lip curled.

“That’s idiotic! Why should I want to kill Fulbert? He was a miserable little wretch, but that’s not worth killing for.”

“Hallam admitted raping Fanny—”

Jessamyn winced, almost as if she had been struck a physical blow.

Charlotte saw it.

“You can’t bear that, can you, that Hallam wanted another woman so much he took her by force, least of all innocent, ordinary little Fanny?” She was guessing now, but she believed it. “You sucked him dry with your possessiveness, and when he wanted to let go, you clung onto him, driving him to escape in drink!” She took a deep breath. “Of course, he didn’t remember killing Fanny, and there was no knife and no blood on the road! He didn’t kill her. You did. When she stumbled into your withdrawing room and told you what had happened, your rage and jealousy all spilled over. You had been put aside, rejected for your own insipid little sister-in-law. You took the knife—maybe as easy as the knife from the fruit plate on the sideboard—and you killed her, right there in your own room. The blood was all over your clothes, but you could explain that! And you just washed the knife and put it back in the fruit. No one even looked at that. So simple.

“And when Fulbert knew you too well, with his prying eyes, you had to get rid of him too. Perhaps he threatened you, and you told him to go to Hallam, if he dared, knowing you could go there along the back path and surprise him. Did you even know Hallam was out that day? You must have.

“What a surprise you must have had when no one found the body. You knew Hallam must have hidden it, and you watched him come apart, tormented by fear of his own insanity.”

Jessamyn’s face was as white as the lilies on the grave, and they were both wet with the rain, their floating muslins clinging to them like shrouds.

“You’re very clever,” Jessamyn said slowly. “But you can’t prove any of it. If you tell the police that, I’ll just say you are jealous over Paul Alaric. You don’t belong in the Walk.” Her face narrowed. “And I know you don’t. For all your airs, your dresses are made over ones of Emily’s! You are trying to crash your way in here. You are saying these things out of revenge, because I know it!”

“Oh, the police will believe me,” Charlotte felt a surge of power inside her and intolerable anger for Jessamyn’s indifference to all the pain. “You see, Inspector Pitt is my husband. You didn’t realize that? And there are the love letters. They are in your hand. And it is very hard to wash all the blood off a knife. It gets in the crevices where the handle fits the blade. They’ll find all these things, you know, once they know what to look for.”

Jessamyn’s face changed at last. The alabaster calm broke and the hatred came flooding through. She lifted the scissors and plunged them toward Charlotte, missing her only by inches as her foot slipped on the wet clay.

Charlotte galvanized to life, turning and running back over the rough grass and the great roots of the yews, under them and into the graveyard, her wet clothes slapping and clinging to her legs. She knew Jessamyn was behind her. The rain was pouring down now, guttering in yellow rivers over the baked ground. She jumped over graves, caught her feet in flowers, and banged herself on the wet marble of the gravestones. A plaster angel loomed up in front of her, and she shrieked involuntarily, plunging on.

Only once did she turn back to see Jessamyn yards behind her, light gleaming on the scissors, her corn silk hair in streamers.

Charlotte was bruised now, legs spattered, arms hurt on the protruding corners of the stones. Once she fell over, and Jessamyn was almost on top of her before she scrambled to her feet, fighting for breath, sobbing. If only she could reach the street, there might be someone there, someone sane and ordinary who would help her.

She was almost there, turning back one more time to make sure Jessamyn was not on her, when she banged into something hard and arms closed round her.

She screamed, imagination sending the scissor blades lunging through her flesh as they had through Fanny’s, and Fulbert’s. She struck out, kicking and punching.

“Stop it!”

It was Alaric. For a long, breathless second she did not know whether she was more afraid of him or less.

“Charlotte,” he said quietly. “It’s over. You were a fool to have come here alone, but it’s over now—finished.”

Very slowly she turned round and faced Jessamyn, mudstained and wet.

Jessamyn let the scissors fall. She could not fight both of them, and she could not hide anymore.

“Come on,” Alaric put his arm round Charlotte. “You look appalling! I think we’d better call for the police.”

Charlotte found herself smiling—yes, send for the police—get Pitt! More than anything else—get Pitt!

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1981 by Anne Perry

cover design by Jason Gabbert

978-1-4532-1906-5

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media

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