“Oh!” She sounded thoroughly startled. “Oh, well!” She gripped his arm as if she was in very real danger of falling. “That would be very nice, I’m sure. When the weather is better, I should be very pleased to come. When there isn’t so much snow, you know. Thank you so much. I am nearly home now. Just around the corner.” She pulled her arm away. “Do have a nice evening. Good night, Vicar. Thank you for your kindness. So nice to see you.” She doubled her speed and disappeared into the gloom, swallowed by the shadows of trees and garden hedges until she was indistinguishable from the other shapes in the night.
There was no point in standing here as if she might change her mind and come back. And yet Dominic had been certain that she had wished to say something more to him. Had he put her off by speaking? He had only asked her to tea at some time in the future.
Did she already know that the Reverend Wynter was dead, or did she perhaps fear it? Had he confided in her? Or perhaps living alone with little to do, and with no relatives nearby, she watched and listened in the village. It would not be snooping, just the instinct of a lonely person with time on her hands, but she might have seen or deduced all kinds of things for herself.
He should have asked her. Could she even be in danger herself?
He was freezing in the bone-deep cold. He was beginning to shake now that he had stopped moving. He turned and began to walk back across the snow toward the spires of the church, black against the first stars. He knew the vicarage lay to the right of it, invisible in the trees, its lights kept to a minimum for economy’s sake.
When he opened the front door, the warmth engulfed him, and after a moment he smelled the hot pastry, oil lamps, coal, and lavender furniture polish.
“Clarice!” he called out eagerly. “Clarice?”
She was there a moment later, hugging him. She gasped when the ice on his coat touched her neck and throat, then ignored it and held him tighter.
After supper they sat by the fire opposite each other. Outside, the wind rose, whipping the branches, and now and then clattering small twigs against the glass. He told her about speaking with Peter Connaught.
“Did he tell you anything useful?” she asked, leaning forward, eyes intent upon his.
“I don’t think so,” he admitted.
She caught his hesitation. “You think, you aren’t sure?”
He looked at her face with its large, tender eyes and vulnerable mouth. Had he brought her into the presence of murder again, into the violence and tragedy of human hatred? He remembered how much she had been hurt the last time, and how frightened he had been himself. She had never doubted him, no matter what the facts had appeared to be. He owed her honesty, but he also owed her protection. He did not wish her to be hurt, ever. And yet if he shut her out, he was alone. He could not tell her half-truths-not without destroying the thread between them that was so infinitely precious.
“It wasn’t what he said so much as a look in his face,” he said, feeling ridiculous.
“He believed you!” she said, understanding instantly. “You told him the Reverend Wynter was murdered, and he knew you were right!”
He felt a warmth inside deeper than anything the fire or the room could give him. “He believes someone has a secret, and that the Reverend Wynter could have learned it,” he said in confirmation. Should he tell her the rest: the impression only barely formed in his mind?
She was waiting for him to finish. She had something urgent to say also. He could see it in her eyes, in the clenching of her hands in her lap.
“I think he was almost relieved,” he said. “As if he had feared it, and now that it had happened it could be faced, and he was no longer alone.”
“He isn’t alone,” she said quickly. “And I told John and Genevieve Boscombe as well. I couldn’t help it. Dr. Fitzpatrick may be furious, but I couldn’t ask their help and then lie to them. They wouldn’t have helped me anyway, because I had no sensible explanation for what I’d done.”
He was confused, then touched by a tendril of fear, just a tiny thing, but unmistakable. “What have you done?”
She blinked with guilt, lowering her eyes.
“I wasn’t accusing you!” He leaned far forward enough to grasp her hand. “Clarice! I only meant…” What had he meant? He gulped, and then clenched his teeth. “I was afraid for you. If someone in this village really lured the Reverend Wynter to the cellar steps and then hit him so hard he died as a result, then it would be foolish to think we are safe if we go looking for the secret that provoked them to it. Despite the snow and the peace, the kindness, Christmas in a few days, there is still something very terrible here. Just because we haven’t lived here all our lives doesn’t mean we are safe from it. We have made ourselves part of whatever it is. I’m sorry!”
She took his hand, closing her fingers around it. “Don’t be. The only way to be safe is not to be alone at all. I shall be very careful.”
“No you won’t!” he contradicted her sharply. “I know you! You’ll go charging in, doing whatever you think is right. Safety, or anything to do with sense, will be the last thing on your mind!”
She sidestepped the issue. “I looked at the books,” she told him. “Very carefully.”
He was confused. “What books?” It appeared to be irrelevant.
“The ledgers!” she said impatiently. “The accounts!”
“Oh. Why? I’m sure we can manage until the bishop makes a decision.” He heard the unhappiness in his own voice. He had not meant to allow himself to care so much, certainly not to let Clarice know. But he wanted to belong here, have his own church, his own congregation to teach, to care for, and to learn from. Already he dreaded going back to the Reverend Spindlewood and his gray, sanctimonious ways, his tediousness of spirit.
“The accounts are not right!” Clarice said firmly. “There are inconsistencies in the last seven months or more.” Her voice was low and tense, and she was staring at him, demanding his attention. “Someone was stealing tiny amounts from the church collections. Just pennies quite often, never more than a shilling or two. The Reverend Wynter was putting the amount back from his own money. His own ledgers were balanced to the farthing, except for those amounts. If you look carefully, they tally up.”
He frowned, trying to understand. “Why?”
“I don’t know, and neither does John Boscombe, but there is something bigger behind it, something they really care about. The Reverend Wynter was hiding it for a reason, until he could find what that is. John Boscombe didn’t say so, exactly, but I saw the moment in his face when he knew it. I will be careful, Dominic, I promise, but we have to find out what it is. How could we stay here and just pretend this hasn’t happened, or that we don’t know? We do know!”
“But maybe…” He stopped.
Her look was withering. “If there really is a God-and I can’t bear to believe that there isn’t, despite anything Mr. Darwin says-then He knows that we know. In the end that’s all that counts, isn’t it?” Now she needed an answer, not just to that question but to all that was wrapped within it, for all of their lives.
He closed his eyes for a second, two seconds, and three. She had a way of smashing through pretense that left one nowhere to hide. “Yes, of course that’s all there is,” he answered her. “We must find the truth and deal with it. But please be careful, Clarice. Whoever it is has a secret, which to them is so terrible they will kill a priest to keep it. It could be anything-even another death we don’t yet know of. Or something that to us seems trivial, but to them is so grave, they cannot bear it. If anything happened to you, it would be unbearable to me. I love you so much I don’t know how I would be any use without you, to myself or to others. I might once have worked alone quite well, but not since I’ve known you. I’ve known something too good to forget.”