Sir Henry Lovejoy stood with his hat in one hand, his head bowed, his breath a ragged tear that soughed in and out. The afternoon was warm and golden-bright, the blue sky above only faintly smudged with coal smoke, the grass between the surrounding tombs and headstones such a vivid green that it hurt his eyes. He could hear the droning of the bees buzzing at the scattered clover in the grass, smell the pungent odor of damp earth and damp stone, feel the oppressive weight of the centuries of death and sorrow that permeated this place.
How many times had he stood here like this? he wondered. One day, one year following the next, going by in a blur until here he was, fourteen years later. Fourteen years.
“Ah, my darlings,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I miss you so.”
There had been a time when he used to come here every day. He’d stand erect and determinedly dry-eyed even as agonizing waves of howling grief coursed silently through him. Then one day, as surely as if she’d been there beside him, he’d heard his Julia say, Enough of this, Henry. All your grief and steadfast devotion won’t bring us back. You think this is what I want? For you to come here every day and torture yourself like this? You must find some other way to honor us.
And so, ever since then, he’d tried to come only every other day.
He became aware of a tall, fashionably dressed gentleman working his way toward him through the crowded tombs. “Goodness gracious, whatever happened to your face, my lord?” said Lovejoy as Devlin paused some six or seven feet away, on the far side of the granite table tomb that contained Lovejoy’s wife and daughter.
“Someone sent me a message. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
Lovejoy suspected it was, in fact, worse, but all he said was, “How did you know where to find me?”
“A hunch.”
Lovejoy nodded, his throat working as he turned his head to gaze out over the sea of gray, lichen-covered stones. “If only the dead could speak, or at least find some way to communicate with us. Tell us what happened to them. Help us find a way to see that justice is done.”
“If only.”
He brought his gaze back to the Viscount’s face. “I’ve been giving more thought to what you said, about how someone might be doing this—echoing what happened to Julia and Madeline—to torment me. But if there is anyone out there with that kind of sick grudge against me, I don’t know who they are.” He paused, then said, “And I honestly don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here.”
“Probably not,” said Devlin.
Lovejoy moved his hands along the brim of his hat. “I can’t remember if I told you that one of my constables discovered that Cato Coldfield lied. He wasn’t confined to his bed too ill to move until Sunday evening; he was seen in Richmond that very morning. He claims he only went out to buy bread, but it’s conceivable he could have killed Lady McInnis and her daughter. The problem is, what possible motive could he have had for killing Gilly Harper? We can’t find any indication he even knew her.”
“It’s always possible Gilly’s murder has nothing to do with what happened to Laura and Emma McInnis. The bodies weren’t posed in exactly the same way.”
“No. But the idea of there being two such killers is unlikely, surely? We learned this morning that Hiram Dobbs does indeed observe the Lord’s Day as a day of rest. He attended church services in the morning, but has no real alibi for that afternoon. Of course, his little climbing boys swear he was with them all day, but I suspect the poor lads are too frightened of their master to dare contradict him. I don’t think either Julia or Madeline knew him, but I could be wrong. And the man’s predilection for quoting Scripture would certainly help explain why the bodies were posed in the way they were.”
Lovejoy saw something flicker in the depths of Devlin’s strange yellow eyes before he lowered them and said, “There is that.”
Lovejoy knew what Devlin was thinking—it was the same thing his colleagues at Bow Street were thinking. That Lovejoy was distorting this investigation by refusing to concede that they could be dealing with a copyist. By constantly trying to tie the new murders back to what had happened to Madeline and Julia fourteen years ago. That he was too close to these murders, too emotionally involved. That he ought to step back and let others handle it.
He cleared his throat and nodded to the ugly wound high on the Viscount’s cheek. “You’ve no idea who attacked you last night?”
Devlin reached up to touch the cut and darkening bruise, then let his hand fall, as if the gesture had been unconscious. “Not exactly, although I strongly suspect it was courtesy of Mr. Basil Rhodes—a warning not to look too closely into affairs he’d rather keep secret. Then again, I suppose my friends could have been sent by McInnis. They should have been more specific when they told me to mind my own business.”
“McInnis? You’ve learned something new?”
“It turns out Sir Ivo had a violent argument with his wife the Wednesday before she was killed, during which he accused her of having an affair. It’s probably when he left those bruises on her shoulders.”
“Good heavens. Was she involved with someone?”
“I’m not convinced she was having an affair, although I’ll admit I could be wrong. I do know she was close to an old childhood playmate who recently returned to London after being wounded at Waterloo—Major Zacchary Finch is his name. He claims they were nothing more than friends, but what matters at this point is that McInnis believed they were having an affair, and the man has an ugly temper. Do we know exactly where he was last Sunday?”
“Not earlier in the afternoon, no, although we can certainly look into it—quietly, of course. Except . . . surely his daughter’s murder must still preclude McInnis being considered a suspect?”
“Unless he had a reason to want to kill Emma, too.”
Lovejoy found himself staring down at the tomb between them, his voice a broken whisper as he said, “I can’t understand how any man could deliberately kill his own child.”
“Yet it does happen.”
He drew a deep breath and raised his head to meet the Viscount’s steady gaze. “Yes. Yes, it does.”