Anne Perry s Christmas Mysteries Page 0,63

way nobody could have been proved to be here at the right time. Then they closed the door, and probably took his cases away, so people would think he had already gone on his holiday. Only they forgot about his painting things...and his favorite Bible."

He was frowning. "Do you really think so? Why? That doesn't sound like a quarrel in the heat of some...some dispute. It's perfectly deliberate and cold-blooded."

"Yes, it is," she agreed reluctantly. "I suppose he must have known something about one of the people here that was so terrible to them, they couldn't afford to trust that he would never tell anyone."

"He couldn't tell," Dominic argued. "They would know that. Not if it was confessed to him. No priest would."

"Then maybe it wasn't confessed to him." She would not let go of the idea. "Perhaps he found it out some other way. He knew lots of things about all sorts of people. He would have to. He's been here in Cottisham for ages. He must have seen a great deal."

"What could possibly be worth killing over?" He was putting up a last fight against believing.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"But he wrote to the bishop saying he was going on holiday," he pointed out. "So he obviously intended to. Is that coincidence?"

"Did he?" she asked. "Or did someone else write, copying his hand? It wouldn't be too difficult, and if the bishop didn't look closely, or compare it with other letters, it would be easy enough. And plenty of people in the village could have letters or notes the Reverend Wynter had written at one time or another."

Dominic said nothing, trudging steadily through the snow. The light was fading rapidly; the shadows under the trees were already impenetrable.

"That's what we have to find out," she insisted quietly, her voice heavy with the burden of what she was thinking. She would very much rather have been able to say they should let it go, pretend they had never known, but it would be a lie that would grow sharper all the time, like a blister on the tender skin of one's feet. "Christ was kind; He forgave," she went on. "But He never moderated the truth to make people like Him, or pretended that something was all right when it wasn't, because that would be easier. I think the Reverend Wynter was killed for something he knew. What do you think, really?" She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'll do whatever you decide." That was so difficult for her to say.

He gave an almost jerky little laugh. "You can't do that, Clarice. You'd grow to hate me. I think he was probably killed. Either way, I can't pretend I don't know. The Reverend Wynter deserves better; and if someone did kill him, then they deserve better, too. They need justice more than he does. Justice heals in the end, if you allow it to." He walked a few more yards in silence. "I suppose we need to find out what he knew, and about whom."

A wave of relief swept over her. "We'll begin in the village," she said. "We can't get out of it now anyway."

"Whom do we trust?" he asked, glancing at her quickly.

"No one," she said simply. "We can't afford to. We have no idea who it was."

They spent a long, quiet evening by the fire. Neither of them talked very much, but it was one of the most companionable times she could remember, despite the ugly task that awaited them the following days. The fire crackled and the coals grew yellow hot in the heart of it. The snow deepened in blanketing silence outside, except for the occasional whoosh as it grew too heavy on the steep roof and slid off to the ground. There was nothing to discuss-they were in agreement.

***

Sunday morning was awful. Dominic was so anxious, he barely spoke to her as he ate breakfast before church. He picked up books and put them down again, found quotes, then discarded them. One minute he wanted to be daring, challenge people to new thought; the next to be gentle, to reassure them in all the old beliefs, comfort the wounds of loneliness and misunderstanding, and say nothing that might awaken troubling ideas or demand any change.

A dozen times Clarice drew in her breath to say that he had no time, in three short weeks, to stay within safe bounds. No one would listen; certainly no one would remember anything about