Catching the Wind(70)

“She’s not going to detonate.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “At least not publicly.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re going to pay her a visit early tomorrow, before the inspector arrives. And not the kind involving biscuits and tea.”

“You want me to—”

“Hush,” she snapped.

Unbidden, his feet paced to the tree across the knoll and back again. He was an innovator. A photographer. And a gardener for Lady Ricker. But an assassin?

Plenty of people had died as a result of his work, but he was much more comfortable in his role as an accomplice. Even if he despised Rosalind—and he did hate the woman for her utter disdain—he’d never directly taken a life before.

“It’s imperative that you do this, Eddie,” Lady Ricker implored. Then she removed a brown bag from her reticule and held it out to him. “Here’s enough money for you to disappear until the war is over.”

He stared at the bag. Blood money.

“If you don’t stop her, Scotland Yard will have more than enough evidence to hang you and me.”

Eddie sighed, resolute. He had no other choice. “I’ll leave at first light.”

Lady Ricker patted his face, not like a lover but as a mother would do for her child. And in that moment, he knew she was saying good-bye. At least for now. They would keep each other’s secrets until they celebrated together under Hitler’s reign.

“I will find you, after the war.”

“Perhaps you will,” she said, but her words lacked conviction.

They’d had plans for their future, to share the bounty of treasure from Hitler’s cache. He wouldn’t be dismissed with a bag of pounds sterling for killing her daughter.

“I will find you,” he repeated so she would understand. He expected much more for all he’d done—and was about to do.

When she turned to walk away, he called out. “What should I do with the German girl?”

She glanced back. “Whatever you’d like.”

Leaning against the tree, he glanced into the bag at the stack of crisp new banknotes.

At least there was a lining of silver in this situation.

After Rosalind was gone, he could do exactly what he wanted with the girl.





CHAPTER 41





_____

Annie, the Newhaven librarian, yanked out a long drawer from the catalog file and began searching through hundreds of cards for a reference on Eddie Terrell. “Did you find your street?”

“I did,” Quenby said. “It was close to the River Ouse.”

“You never know what you’re going to find along that river. Or in it, for that matter.”

“I prefer to stay above the water.”

“I don’t blame you. Did you know Virginia Woolf drowned in the river, up near her home in Rodmell?”

Quenby shook her head.

“She filled her pockets with stones during World War II and stepped right into the current.”

Quenby shivered. She’d known the writer had committed suicide, but not the details. The thought of it only added to the creepiness of the river, the ghosts that lingered.

“Here.” Annie plucked out a card. “What name did you say again?”

“Terrell. Eddie Terrell.”

“There’s no Eddie recorded in here, but I have a card on an Olivia Terrell.” She held it out. “Would you like to see it?”

“Very much.” Quenby took the handwritten card. In 1943, it said, there was a newspaper article recording Olivia’s death.

Had Eddie and Olivia died together that year?

“Do you want me to retrieve the microfilm?” Annie asked.

“Yes, please.”

“It will take me a few minutes.”

As Quenby waited in a chair, she checked her e-mail again. Alexander had replied to her note, confirming that he could meet her tomorrow, early afternoon, at a tearoom near the riverfront in Jacksonville. Seconds after she replied, Annie returned with a reel containing the Sussex Express.

“Do you want me to set up the reader for you?” she asked.

Quenby shook her head. “I can do it.” She might not know how to operate a microscope, but she had plenty of experience with microfilm.

“The article ran the second week of April.”

After threading the film, Quenby turned on the light and began ticking through the pages. It didn’t take long to find the story. Three paragraphs to commemorate the life and death of Olivia Terrell. It was longer than an epitaph, she supposed, but it still didn’t seem nearly long enough to remember someone’s life.

According to the article, Olivia had been residing at a house near Camford Mill. She was taken into custody on suspicion of treason, though she was never convicted of this charge. Several days after she arrived at London’s Holloway Prison, she hanged herself in her cell. No one knew how she obtained the rope.

Mr. Williams, the postman, said Mrs. Terrell had been living at the Mill House for approximately two years while her unnamed husband was soldiering for the British army. She received regular parcels, packaged with no return post. And he told investigators that, to his knowledge, she never sent any mail.

According to Mr. Williams, Mrs. Terrell had a daughter living with her, though upon inquiry, a child was never found. Police requested any additional information as to Mrs. Terrell’s activities be directed to them.