Chapter 53
L ate that night, a new wave of storms swept in from the North Sea, bringing with it an even fiercer wind and great pulses of lightning that split the sky.
Sebastian lay awake, watching the quick electric flashes light up the room and listening to the rumble of the thunder and the patter of raindrops hitting the window glass. He kept going over what he knew about the day Nicholas Hayes died and trying to tease out how what they’d learned from Kate Forbes and Mrs. Poole should alter their perception of the critical hours surrounding the murder. Then he became aware of a subtle change in the room’s energy and looked over to find Hero lying awake beside him, watching him. “Maybe if you got some sleep,” she said, “it would all make more sense.”
He gave a smothered laugh and drew her close. “You’re always saying that.”
“Because it’s true . . . even if it is impossible.”
She fell silent, her head on his chest, one hand resting on his stomach, and he knew that she too was running through the day’s revelations and what they meant. She said, “It’s somehow the height of irony that whoever hired Poole to murder Nicholas Hayes now thinks that Poole actually did kill him, when he didn’t. Someone else did.”
Sebastian ran his hand up and down her bare arm. “I suppose it’s possible ‘the nob’ killed Hayes himself and simply paid Poole to make the ex-Runner go away and shut up. But I doubt it.”
“So of the four men who had reason to worry that Hayes came back to London to kill them, one tried to have him murdered and another actually did kill him. Nicholas Hayes had a collection of ugly enemies.”
“That he did. It’s also rather ironic that whoever hired Poole is the one person we can be fairly certain didn’t actually kill Hayes. He only thinks he’s responsible.”
“Is it possible that Seaforth hired Poole, and then Poole killed him?”
“It’s possible, although I can’t imagine why Poole would have killed him.”
“Perhaps because Seaforth only paid half of what he’d promised,” suggested Hero.
“According to Mrs. Poole, Titus was laughing about how he’d suckered ‘the stupid nob’ into paying him. So while Poole only received half of what he’d been promised, he knew he hadn’t actually done anything to earn it.” Sebastian paused as the wind gusted up, throwing the rain against the house in hard sheets. “Although that’s not to say that Poole didn’t kill Seaforth—only that I don’t think the money was the reason.”
She propped herself up on one elbow so she could see him better. “Now that you know Titus Poole didn’t kill Hayes, the alibis of your suspects become more important, don’t they? Didn’t Seaforth say he spent the afternoon at his club before going to the Regent’s reception for the Allied Sovereigns?”
“He did. And Lovejoy confirmed it. Which means that unless the Earl somehow managed to leave and come back without anyone at White’s noticing, it’s unlikely that he was responsible for the sickle in Nicholas Hayes’s back. As for LaRivière, he wasn’t only at the reception. He even dined with the Regent—as did Sir Lindsey, according to his wife. But given the timing of the murder, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that either man could have worked in a quick trip to the tea gardens before going to Carlton House.”
“Gibson did say it’s unlikely the killer had much blood on him.”
“He did.”
“What about Brownbeck?”
“Brownbeck refused to give any account of his movements that day, and it’s hard to ask Lovejoy to look into the man without giving away Lady Forbes’s secrets.”
“So he could have done it.”
“He could have.”
“Lady Forbes had her abigail with her in Hatchards when she spoke to Hayes. It’s possible the woman overheard them making the assignation and told Forbes. But she also could have told her mistress’s father. I wouldn’t be surprised if Katherine Forbes has had the same abigail since she was Miss Kate Brownbeck.”
“Now that’s something I hadn’t considered,” said Sebastian, thrusting his splayed fingers through the heavy fall of Hero’s dark hair to draw it away from her face. “I think I might take another trip up to Somer’s Town tomorrow.”
Her gray eyes shimmered in a sudden pulse of lightning. “Why?”
“I want to talk to that gardener whose sickle somehow or other ended up in Nicholas Hayes’s back.”
“Surely you don’t think he’s responsible?”
“No. But I’ve been thinking about that testimony he gave at the inquest—how he said he’d been cutting grass in the clearing and didn’t realize he’d left his sickle until he found it missing the next morning.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“Not exactly. I suspect that by the time Nicholas’s body was discovered near the west boundary wall, that gardener knew damn well he’d forgotten his sickle. Only for some reason he didn’t want to admit it. And I want to know why.”
Friday, 17 June
The next morning dawned overcast and chilly, with a flat white light that made the day feel dreary and vaguely depressing.
“I know it ain’t really cold,” said Tom as they drove through gloomy, rain-drenched streets. “But it feels cold.”
“It’s cold,” said Sebastian as a fine, miserable mist hit them in the face.
Bernie Aikens was up on a ladder, tying in the arching new-growth canes of the roses on an arbor near the tea gardens’ central ornamental pond. The rows of climbing roses were covered with fresh green leaves and thick with swelling buds only just beginning here and there to burst into blooms of soft pink and a white so pearlescent as to almost glow in the gloom of the cloudy day. The smell of wet vegetation and damp earth and the sweet perfume of the roses hung heavy in the air, and Aikens was whistling as he worked, the tune a vaguely familiar sea ditty Sebastian couldn’t quite place.
The gardener cast a quick glance toward Sebastian as he paused beside the nearest arch, then ignored him. But when Sebastian continued to quietly watch him, the gardener grew visibly self-conscious and finally said, “Can I help ye there, yer honor?”
“You’re Bernie Aikens, aren’t you?”
A wary look settled over the man’s weathered features. He had a long, bony face so lean that the structure of his prominent cheekbones and jaw was clearly visible beneath his sun-darkened skin. “Aye.”
“I’m Devlin.”
The man’s hands stilled at his work. He might not have remembered Sebastian’s face from the inquest, but the name had obviously stuck with him. He stood motionless on the ladder, his hands now gripping its sides, his gaze fixed on nothing in particular in the distance.
“I mean you no harm,” said Sebastian quietly, watching him.
Aikens sniffed. “Yer here ’cause of that dead man, are ye?”
“Yes.”
“I said everything I got t’ say at that inquest. Don’t know nothin’ else.”
Sebastian tipped his hat back on his head. “I’ve been wondering if your ability to recall that day might have been hampered by the stress of testifying at an inquest. It’s a shocking thing, murder. It can make it difficult for a man to remember the exact sequence of events.” Sebastian paused. “Wouldn’t you say?”
“Aye,” said the gardener, the big bones of his jaw flexing beneath the skin.
“I’m told you’re a good, reliable gardener, a responsible man.” It wasn’t true, of course; Sebastian knew nothing about Aikens beyond his own observations. “That kind of man tends to check his tools and make certain they’re clean and in good order before he puts them away for the day. So I’m wondering if perhaps you actually realized you’d left your sickle in that clearing earlier than you thought when you were trying to remember things at the inquest. Now, some men might simply shrug and put off retrieving a tool until the next morning. But a responsible man like yourself wouldn’t do that, would he, Mr. Aikens? That kind of man would go back right away.”
Aikens stared out across the rose garden to where a couple of crows were pecking at a section of recently turned earth. When the silence stretched out, Sebastian said, “About what time was it when you reached the clearing?”
For a moment, Sebastian thought his gambit had failed. But Bernie Aikens was obviously a man with a conscience, and the lie he’d told at the inquest must have been weighing heavily upon his soul. He leaned his body into the ladder and brought up both hands to swipe them down over his face and cover his mouth. “I don’t know what time it was, exactly,” he said, his voice half-muffled by his hands. “We start picking up and puttin’ stuff away an hour before closing time, so it was about then.”
“And Nicholas Hayes was already dead by the time you arrived at the clearing?”
Aikens nodded and swallowed hard.
“What did you do?”
He squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could somehow block out the bloody vision that he must be seeing over and over again in his mind. “I didn’t know what to do. At first, all I could think about was just grabbing me sickle and gettin’ out of there. But I realized quick enough that’d be a mistake. I mean, what if somebody’d seen me with that bloody sickle and thought I was the one who’d killed the fellow?”
You’d have been hanged, thought Sebastian. But all he said was “So what did you do?”
Aikens swallowed. “Nothin’. I jist turned around and walked away. I was shakin’ so bad, I was afraid me legs was gonna give out beneath me.”
“Did you see anyone else in that part of the gardens?”
“No. No one. I was walkin’ fast, trying to get as far away as I could, and it was late enough that the gardens was already startin’ to empty—folks know we close early on Thursdays. The only person I seen in that part of the shrubbery at all was Mrs. Bowers.”
“Who’s she?”
“A milliner. Comes here often, she does, which is how I happen to know her.”
Sebastian took a breath, and for a moment he was seeing not dripping trees and a heavy gray sky but an aging widow with a bruised neck lying dead on a stone slab. “A milliner?”
“Aye. Heard she was found murdered herself just the other day. I’m tellin’ ye, the streets has gotten right dangerous, they have. I mean, who’d want to kill some old widow woman who never done anybody any harm?” Bernie Aikens turned his head to look directly at Sebastian as if earnestly seeking an answer to his question. “Who’d do that?”