Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,22

Like a porcelain doll, he was.”

Sebastian squinted against the sinking sun as he studied the garden’s eight-foot-high brick wall. “Is there another entrance to the tea gardens?”

“No, your honor. This is the only one.”

“I thought your father said something about a gate in the western boundary wall.”

“Well, there is a gate goes out to Cow Lane. The gardeners use it to haul in manure and such. But it’s kept locked otherwise.”

Sebastian fished in his pocket for a coin and paid his entry fee. “What time do you close?”

The girl handed him a ticket with another smile. “Not till midnight, your honor. We only close early on Thursdays.”

“Thank you.”

Walking up the tea garden’s main promenade, Sebastian was conscious of following in the footsteps of Nicholas Hayes and the missing child. He kept trying to imagine the dead man and Ji relaxing and enjoying these flowery walks and shady arbors, but he could not. A string quartet was playing chamber music in the great room, and the strains of Haydn drifted through the open windows to the horseshoe-shaped arrangement of booths, where a chattering, laughing crowd was eating syllabubs and cakes washed down with tea and ale. And all Sebastian could think was What an incongruous spot for murder.

Circling around a bowling green and skittles yard, he came upon an ornamental pond where he paused to watch the half dozen or so children gathered there sail toy boats. A splashing fountain played merrily; the children laughed and called to one another. And Sebastian found himself wondering, Why would Nicholas Hayes arrange to meet someone here of all places? Why Pennington’s Tea Gardens, a fading pleasure spot that had once attracted the “better sort” but now catered more to shopkeepers and apprentices? Was that the reason? Because it was so out of the way and unfashionable? It was, after all, why Hayes had chosen to stay at the Red Lion.

It made sense, Sebastian decided. But it did nothing to explain whom Hayes had come here to meet, or for what purpose.

“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian under his breath, and turned away.

He followed a narrow path through the shrubbery until he hit the brick wall that bounded the garden on its western side. Winding back around, he soon ran across the small clearing where Nicholas Hayes had died. His corpse might be gone, but his death was still an almost palpable presence here, the grass flattened by both his body and the boots of Lovejoy’s constables. A bare patch of earth showed dark from his blood.

Going to stand in the center of the clearing, Sebastian could hear the distant play of the fountain, the laughing voices of the children, the liquid crystal song of a robin lost somewhere in a nearby clump of holly. The evening sun filtering down through the leafy branches overhead felt hot on his shoulders, and he stood silently for some minutes, trying to understand what had happened here. Searching for answers that eluded him.

Frustrated, he was turning to leave when a flash of white caught his eye. Someone had spread a small square of white cloth in the shade of a peony. On the cloth rested a clutch of blossoms—foxglove and white lilacs and lady’s lace—along with two oranges and a pile of ash surrounding the remnants of what he realized was a joss stick. If he breathed deeply, Sebastian could just catch the faint scent of sandalwood hanging in the air.

He quickly crossed the clearing and crouched down beside the makeshift altar to touch the ash. It was still warm.

“Ji?” he said, rising to his feet. His gaze raked the surrounding shrubbery as he listened intently for the faintest footfall or hushed sound. “Are you there, Ji? I’m a friend—Calhoun’s friend. I won’t hurt you. I want to help you.”

He paused. For a moment he imagined he could feel the weight of the child’s grief still lingering in this death-haunted clearing as unmistakably as the scent of the wafting incense.

“Ji?” he called again.

But he was alone.

Chapter 16

T hat night, Sebastian watched his wife stand at their bedroom window, one hand on the heavy curtain at her side. She was staring at the darkened street below, but he knew her thoughts were far, far away.

“We’re trying,” he said, coming up behind her to slip his arms around her waist and hold her close. “That’s all we can do.”

She tipped her head back against his, her gaze on an elegant chaise dashing up the street below, a crest emblazed on its