THURSDAY MORNING. The little church in Wexford Crossing was called St. Julian’s, after St. Julian the Hospitaller—patron of innkeepers and repentant murderers. Its exterior was faced with flint: jagged black and bone white, like broken seashells sunk into mortar. Inside, the walls were smooth plaster. Stained-glass windows over the sanctuary, depicting the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the final judgement, cast coloured light down onto the simple casket containing Albert Kenneth Benson, late of the Britannia Club. The rest of the windows were tall lancets of clear diamond-paned glass; through them, you could just see the tops of the churchyard yews swaying in the wind. Above them, fleecy white clouds sped across a bright blue sky.
It was a modest country church, boasting perhaps twenty ancient pews polished smooth by generations of worshippers, but it was barely a quarter filled. Benson didn’t have much in the way of family. There was, apparently, a sister in America, who could not reasonably be expected to make the journey in time. She’d telegraphed, instead, instructions for the ordering of an especially elaborate funeral wreath, and that was the extent to which she was allowed to convey her grief.
The Britannia Club was represented by just Wolfe, Saxon, and Eric himself.
Some of the local villagers made an appearance, more for his widow’s sake than for Benson himself. Eric got the impression that most of them regarded Benson as an interloper at “the big house,” though none were so crass as to speak ill of the dead. Mrs. Benson, pale as alabaster and straight-backed in her mother’s black dress, simply stood alone in the front pew throughout the service, a respectful distance between her and everyone else. No one expected her to speak, and she said nothing. There was no eulogy.
The funeral was part of a requiem service. Mrs. Benson had insisted on it, even though it appeared that Benson himself had been a Quaker. That meant the sacrament of Holy Communion, and Eric came forward dutifully to receive it. Wolfe and Saxon followed, the first studiously expressionless and the second with his head deeply bowed. Turning to return to his pew, Eric caught sight of a figure at the back of the church, half hidden behind a column: Inspector Parker, on his knees, watching the proceedings with beady eyes. Light from the clear lancet window above made his scar shine like a thunderbolt on his cheek. He did not rise to receive Communion. Perhaps he was only here on duty, but if so, why kneel when he could sit?
Saxon, Eric noticed, remained on his knees until the end of the service when everyone rose for the interment.
There was a blast of light and wind as they opened the doors to the churchyard and carried the casket through. The wind had grown significantly stronger while they’d been inside at the service. It tore at the vicar’s vestments and whipped swirls of autumn leaves through the mourners. The sky overhead was still a bright blue, but there was a line of slate grey in the clouds speeding in from over the Channel, turning steadily blacker as it approached.
Eric found Saxon and Wolfe afterwards, standing by the front doors of the church. They were partly sheltered by the steeple. Ivy crawled up the flint beside them and trembled against the gathering wind. Most of the village mourners had already departed for the public house across the village green.
“I’m surprised Bradshaw didn’t come,” Eric remarked. He was equally surprised that Wolfe and Saxon should be the ones to make an appearance, though he did not say so.
“Bradshaw’s a busy man, Peterkin.” Wolfe lit up a cigarette and blew a smoke ring into the air. The wind shattered it immediately. “Far too busy to attend the funeral of every club member with the bad taste to drop dead on his watch.”
“He came to my father’s funeral.”
“Ah, well, that was the passing of an era: your father was the last of the Peterkins.”
Eric swallowed the temptation to punch Wolfe’s smirking face into the rough flint wall of the church. Wolfe just grinned and took a long drag on his cigarette.
Saxon, focused on devouring an apple, seemed not to notice.
“What about Aldershott?” Eric asked, pretending not to grit his teeth. “As the club president, you’d think it would be his responsibility to make an appearance.”
“Aldershott’s responsibility is to the living,” Saxon remarked. He was still munching on his apple, and gave no indication of being part of the conversation at all. Eric wasn’t sure if he meant it as an excuse, that Aldershott was busy with the still-living members of the club, or as a criticism, that Aldershott really ought to be here to support Mrs. Benson in her grief. Hadn’t Mrs. Benson said that they had a business relationship outside of the club?
“And then there’s Norris.”
Here, Wolfe gave a bark of laughter, and Saxon looked around. “God forbid Norris see anything so unpleasant as death,” Wolfe said. “I don’t know how the little bounder survived the trenches. By playing the clown, no doubt. There isn’t a responsible bone in his body.”
“That’s not quite fair,” Saxon rumbled, frowning.
“Oh, isn’t it? Don’t forget, dear Saxon, that the first thing he did after we were elected to the board was to do a flit … to Italy, as I understand it. ‘For his muse.’ Bradshaw had to cover his duties for the next three months while he ‘amused’ himself.”
“What exactly are the duties of the board of officers?” Eric asked, curious.
“Never you mind!”
Saxon stuck the remains of his apple into the ivy covering the church wall. “I think we’re done here,” he said. “Are the two of you staying around much longer?”
“I think I’d better have a word with Mrs. Benson,” Eric said.
“Ever the respectful gentleman,” said Wolfe. “Suit yourself. I see the motor coach approaching, but if you’d prefer to wait for the next one, be my guest.”
“I can give you a ride to Chichester,” said Saxon, indicating the green Crossley he’d motored down in. “But you’ll want the train if you’re going back to London. I’ve got some business to take care of in Southampton.”
“And sit among all your rotting apple cores, in seats sticky with spilled lemonade? Thank you, but I’d rather suffer the smell of the provincial motor coach.” Wolfe strode swiftly off to where the coach was waiting, and in another minute, he was gone.
Saxon shrugged, and trudged off to get into his motorcar. It coughed, backfired once, then zoomed off down the country roads with a little more speed than was wise.
Mrs. Benson was standing alone in the churchyard, watching the gravediggers from a distance as they finished filling in her husband’s grave. Black was the expected colour among mourners, but Mrs. Benson still seemed out of place in the bright sunlight, with a carpet of golden autumn leaves underfoot. The black fabric of her skirt flapped as more of the red and gold leaves danced in the wind. She looked up at Eric’s approach, and a small smile flickered across her pale features.
“Mr. Peterkin. This doesn’t paint too unpleasant a picture for you, I hope.”
“Not at all. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Everybody’s ‘sorry for my loss.’ I don’t know if Albert was ever really mine to lose.”
This was awkward. Eric changed the subject. “I thought Aldershott would be here,” he said. “I thought you had some business dealings with him outside of the club.”
“Yes. He was renting the old groundskeeper’s cottage from us, and … well, it’s not important.”
Ask no further, in other words.
“I wasn’t expecting to see him,” she continued, “so you can rest easy on that score. It was only business: impersonal and terribly mercenary. Though he did give us the idea of what to do with the house, for what it’s worth now. I wonder if I should continue. It won’t be easy for a woman on her own.”
Aldershott was the reason the Bensons were able to afford those renovations, Eric realised. He said, “This idea of a rest home, is it what you want?”
She didn’t have to say anything. There was a resolute set to her shoulders that hadn’t been there two days ago.
They turned to walk back together to the churchyard’s lychgate. The other mourners had all gone: the villagers back to their daily work, and the very few outsiders, like Saxon and Wolfe, home by whatever means they had at their disposal.
“You won’t have much time for your painting,” Eric remarked.
“It might be worth it to be part of things again. I know Albert would have agreed.” She was silent a moment, then said, “I’ve been thinking, you know, about our last conversation. I said then that Albert shouldn’t have run off to chase after whatever happened to Emily, but he thought it was the right thing to do, and … I think perhaps it was. And now you’ve taken it on yourself to finish what he started, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been looking into things, yes.”
“I hope you find the truth, Mr. Peterkin. About Albert … and about Emily, too. Mr. Bradshaw’s been very helpful about keeping things discreet and respectable, but I’m not sure anymore if that’s what I want. We can’t close our eyes to unpleasantness if it means living with lies. And I’ll admit there’s a far less noble part of me that simply wants to see someone pay for what they’ve done.”
The sky to the south and southeast was a roiling darkness, though the churchyard was still bathed in bright sunlight. They were just rounding the back of the church now. Overhead was one of the sanctuary’s stained-glass windows, and Eric thought it must be the one depicting the crucifixion. It occurred to him that the scene was more terrible than anything Mrs. Benson had put on canvas, though centuries of familiarity had blunted its visceral impact.
“We are alike in this respect, I think. We both need to finish something that Albert began. I need to finish what Albert started at the house, and you need to finish what he started at the club. I don’t know why it had to be you, specifically, but I’m glad somebody’s taken up the torch, as it were.”
“This business with the house … I hope it’s not only because Benson wanted it.”
Mrs. Benson shook her head.
They continued on in silence until they reached the lychgate. Stopping in its shelter, Mrs. Benson suddenly turned to Eric. The low lychgate roof made it dark, and the bright daylight outside made it seem darker still. Mrs. Benson’s black dress and finger-curled hair melted into the shadows, turning the pallor of her face into a white blaze.
Eric remembered the rustle of her crepe dress against his shirt front, and he took a step back.
“You’ve been very kind, Mr. Peterkin,” she said. “And I really would like to paint you one day. Promise me you’ll call … not today, perhaps; I—” She glanced, searchingly, over Eric’s shoulder to the green outside the church, then turned back to him. “Soon. Not too long from now.”
Her fingertips, cold from the October wind, brushed lightly against Eric’s jaw and touched his neck. Then Mrs. Benson turned and hurried away.
The daylight was fading quickly with the approaching storm clouds. A drop of rain hit Eric as he emerged from the lychgate, and then another. He had better hurry to put the top up on the Vauxhall, he thought, or motoring back to London would be a miserable experience indeed.
Looking around, Eric realised that not all of the mourners had departed after all. Inspector Parker was watching from the shade of a nearby tree, his scar rendering his expression unreadable. Before Eric could hail him, the inspector’s eyes dropped to check his pocket watch, and then the man strode away to his own waiting vehicle.