Read Anne Perry's Silent Nights: Two Victorian Christmas Mysteries for Free Online Page B

truth, and Alan will not tell me.”
    “Then …” he started, and stopped. She was inviting him to tell her something that the man she was going to marry had refused her.
    “Your silence is answer.” She turned away from him, her voice tight with disappointment.
    He could not bear it. “No, it was someone she knew,” he admitted. “She was facing him, not running away.”
    She looked at him again, her expression filled with grief. “Poor Olivia. Can you think of anything more terrible? I want to ask you if she felt much pain, but I am not sure if I can endure the answer.”
    “No,” he said quickly. “It can only have been a few moments at most.”
    “Thank you.” Her voice was soft. “I’m sorry to have … Mr. Runcorn, will you please help us? I don’t think we know how to deal with this. We are not used to such … discomfort of the mind, such feelings of pain and fear when we don’t know what to do.”
    He was stunned, and yet this was exactly what hehad wanted, to help! Had she any idea what she asked of him? He had no authority, no rights here at all. Faraday would resent it. Barclay would be furious. He should tell her that, explain all the reasons why he could not do it. Instead, he simply said, “Yes, of course I will.”
    “Thank you.” The faintest smile softened her mouth for a moment. “I am very grateful. I should not have kept you standing here in the cold so long. Good night, Mr. Runcorn.” And slowly, with intense grace, she turned and walked away.
    He was too overwhelmed to reply. He remained where he was, shivering in the wind until he could no longer see her figure in the shadows, then at last he turned to go back to Mrs. Owen.

T here was only one obvious place to begin, and that was with Constable Warner.
    Runcorn arrived at Warner’s kitchen the next morning at eight o’clock, having risen when it wasstill dark and walked up the incline so as to know exactly when Warner turned his light on.
    “Doing everything we can think of,” Warner said, offering Runcorn fresh, hot tea, which was accepted gratefully. The day was bitter, a raw wind edged with sleet blowing in from the east. “Hard to know what to do next,” he went on, bending to open up the stove so the heat spread out into the room. He did not look at Runcorn. “Porridge?” he asked.
    “Thank you.” It had been too early to expect breakfast from Mrs. Owen, and actually he had barely thought of it.
    “I feel helpless,” Warner added, his voice full of misery.
    Runcorn recognized it as an oblique way of telling him that Faraday was making no progress, and possibly had little idea what to do next. He had painted himself into something of a corner with his assumption that it was a madman. It was easy enough to understand why he had done so, faced with the brutality of the crime and the horror it had awoken in everyone, family and stranger alike. The whole townsuffered under a weight of shock as if life had been darkened for all of them. Something irreparable had been destroyed.
    Warner was too loyal to say outright that Faraday was floundering; in fact, he would not even look Runcorn in the eye as he tried to find the right words, but that was what he meant.
    “He’s going to have to acknowledge that it was someone she knew,” Warner said aloud. “Nobody’ll want to think so, but you can’t get away from it.” He stirred the porridge a final time. “Then you can start asking the questions that’ll lead us to the truth.” His voice carried more confidence than he must have felt.
    Warner ladled the porridge into two bowls and brought it to the table, along with milk and spoons and both salt and sugar. “But what kind of questions?” He faced Runcorn fully now, the awkwardness of pretending he was not really looking for help had been negotiated.
    They both started to eat while Runcorn thought carefully of how to reply. The porridge was thick and smooth and the more he ate, the more he liked it. He wondered