Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(95)
Somerset was gone.
Chapter 52
Sunday, 6 February
“How many people were killed last night?” Sebastian asked as he walked with Sir Henry Lovejoy along the terrace of Somerset House. The ice-churned waters of the Thames raced swift and deadly beside them.
“I doubt we’ll ever know,” said Sir Henry with a heavy sigh. “I’m told dozens of booths were carried off with much loss of property. But who’s to say how many lives were lost with them?” The magistrate paused to look out over the runoff-swollen river. Some of the abandoned booths and tents were still out there, perched precariously on the last remaining stretches of solid ice. But they wouldn’t be for long. “Last I heard they’d pulled four bodies from below the bridge. But most will probably never be found.”
“None of them was Somerset?”
“No.” The magistrate paused, then said carefully, “I’m told by the palace this must all be hidden from the public.”
Sebastian nodded. He’d had a short, terse conversation with his father-in-law in the small hours of the night. Jarvis’s men had torn Somerset’s office and workshop apart, looking for the Hesse letters. But there’d been no sign of them, and Sebastian suspected Jane Ambrose had successfully destroyed them after all. He wondered if the young Princess appreciated that her beloved piano instructor had died trying to save her from the repercussions of her own folly, but he doubted it. Royals were like that. Typically, any sacrifice on the part of their subjects—no matter how great—was simply accepted as their due.
“‘Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it,’” said Sir Henry softly to himself.
Sebastian glanced over at him in inquiry, and the magistrate cleared his throat self-consciously. “The Book of Deuteronomy, chapter twenty-one. It says that if someone be slain and found lying in an open place, then the elders of the nearest towns must behead a young heifer on the spot and wash their hands over it, saying, ‘Be merciful, O Lord, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people’s charge.’ And then the blood debt is forgiven them.” Lovejoy shook his head. “I’ve always found it an odd passage, given that an all-seeing God must surely know the identity of the guilty party.”
Sebastian found himself faintly smiling. “True.” The smile faded. “Do you ever think that sometimes these things might best be left to fate?”
“‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord’?” Lovejoy studied him with wise, compassionate eyes. “Neither Edward Ambrose’s death nor Christian Somerset’s is on your hands, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“Not exactly. And yet . . . my determination to bring murderers to justice has always been driven by the obligation I believe we the living owe to the dead. Yet I can’t believe Jane Ambrose would have wanted to see her only surviving brother die, even if he did accidently kill her. It wasn’t deliberate. And my attempts to uncover what happened to her led directly to her husband’s death.”
“Perhaps. But the fault was all Somerset’s, not yours. The Bible also says, ‘All things work together for God to them that love him.’”
“You think in this instance things worked ‘for God’?” asked Sebastian.
Lovejoy turned his face into the wind, his eyes troubled. “Only God has that answer.”
Later that afternoon, Sebastian found himself sitting in one of the worn pews of St. Anne’s, Soho. He tilted back his head, his gaze on the gloriously hued light streaming in through the stained glass window above the altar. He was not a religious man; his belief in the teachings of his youth had been swept away by six brutal years at war. Yet he was not immune to the sense of enveloping peace that a church could bring to those in need. And he was in need.
After a while he heard the echo of a distant door opening and closing, followed by soft footsteps. Liam Maxwell came to sit beside him, his elbows on his spread knees and his hat in his hands. They sat in silence for a time. Then Maxwell said, “I heard about Christian’s death. He’s the one, isn’t he? It was Christian who killed Jane.”
“Yes. By accident. And then he panicked. He was terrified of being sent back to prison. Or hanged.”
Maxwell stared straight ahead, his jaw held tight. Sebastian expected him to ask next about Ambrose’s death, but he did not. And Sebastian realized it was because the journalist must already have figured it all out.
He’d obviously known his friend very well indeed.
The sun was slipping lower in the sky, the vibrant colors of the stained glass darkening to somber tones as the light began to fade. “I’ve loved her nearly half my life,” said Maxwell, his voice a raw whisper. “I don’t think I know how to go on living my life without her in it to love.”
“Yet you will,” said Sebastian.
Maxwell nodded, his lips pressed together, his throat working hard as he swallowed.
“I honestly believe she had decided to leave Ambrose for you,” said Sebastian. “I don’t know if that makes everything easier or harder to bear.”
Maxwell’s chin quivered. “Maybe both.”
Sebastian nodded. This time he was the one who couldn’t quite trust his voice to speak.
He stood, his hand resting briefly on the other man’s shoulder. Then he turned and left him there, with his grief, and his memories of the past, and his yearning for a tomorrow that would never be.