He’d been in caves before, and in the tunnels under the trenches that had been dug to blow up the enemy line. But he hadn’t been claustrophobic then—not until the night on the Somme when the whole of the sector had all but vanished as a shell fell short and buried him, his men, and the man he’d just shot.
But he was beginning to feel a rising panic, the deeper he went, as if there was something about the nature of this passage into the earth that was tangible, as if the walls were closing in on him—something that seemed to move up from the balls of his feet thought his entire body, shaking his resolve. Even Hamish was silent.
It was as if a presence was there in the darkness behind him, and he whirled, casting the light from side to side almost in the same instant that he realized the presence might be Hamish, visible at last. His heart pounding now, he sent the torch light spiraling upward before turning it off.
He was looking back the way he’d come, toward the dwindling daylight in the forecourt. He could swear that he wasn’t alone. And yet there was nothing to see.
He was alone . . .
Taking a deep breath, he turned his back on the passage, then flicked on the torch again.
He had reached the rounded end, like the end of a basilica.
He clenched his teeth. It was his claustrophobia, nothing else, he told himself grimly. He’d come here on purpose, and he was damned if he would leave before he’d finished what he’d come to do.
He cast the light around him, slowly and carefully, forcing himself to pay attention to what he was seeing. Yet there was nothing to be seen but how perfectly the stones had been set up to form this rounded, rather elegant space. There were no bones that he could see, no sign of fires, nothing. Just bare stone.
A gust of wind swept into the forecourt, and he heard his horse snort and move restlessly.
He turned to leave, first moving the light down the passage again. Something caught his attention, and he brought the beam back for a better look.
There, he thought, just there. An oddly shaped darkness. The question was, what was it?
He forced himself to walk slowly back down the chamber to that spot, and when he reached it, he raised the torch so that its beam spread into what he could now see was a narrow cavity. A polecat’s cozy home?
Instead something black reflected the torch beam.
Rutledge hesitated, then with his gloved hand, slowly reached toward what he’d seen. As his fingers brushed it, he realized it was solid, and yet it moved slightly.
Intrigued, he closed his fingers over the thing and carefully lifted it out.
Black leather.
A woman’s purse.
He stood there, staring at it. Good-quality leather, with two handles and a clasp. And far more modern than the stones that had hidden it. He felt the sides, and his excitement rose: there was something in it.
He looked once more into the cavity, but it was empty now.
Whatever had seemed to be there, following him, had vanished, but he could hardly breathe. Holding tightly to the purse, he moved forward, scanning the walls again as he went.
He was finally at the end of the chamber, almost into the forecourt. He took a deep breath, but the unease he’d felt inside didn’t leave him. And he couldn’t find the courage to turn and throw the torch beam back toward its rounded end. He was suddenly reminded of what Constable Henderson had said about the rising sun on the equinox that had sent that unexpected beam of light around the chamber walls.
He could understand now what the man had been saying—that there was something here that wasn’t at Silbury Hill or at Avebury. Not a haunting. Just—something. The imprint of an ancient people—
Stepping out into the open, into what was now dusk, he was glad to see his horse was still there. Looking down, he switched off the torch, but kept it close.
The forecourt was shadowy. Rutledge debated looking into the purse there and then, or taking it back to the inn.
But his curiosity got the better of him. Opening the clasp, he peered inside.
A woman’s things. Toward the end of the forecourt was a flat bit of ground, and kneeling, he turned on the torch again and then began to remove the contents, setting them out one by one in a tidy row.
A lady’s comb. A linen handkerchief—no initials. A pretty compact holding face powder. Several hairpins. Three coins—two English pennies and a half-penny.
Surely a destitute man would have taken those?
He’d come to the bottom. There was nothing left as far as he could see.
No identification, no papers, nothing that would tell him who had owned it.
A surge of disappointment swept him.
The purse could have belonged to anyone. A woman in Cornwall or Northumberland. It could have been stolen a fortnight ago or weeks earlier. The stone chamber would have kept it safe and dry for a very long time.
He began to collect the items, but as he picked up the compact, he realized that it was silver, and just beginning to tarnish. There was a pretty design on the top, and he thought it must have been rather expensive. Or a gift, perhaps? He turned it over. On the bottom, near the rim, he could just make out the name of a French shop. L’Oreille. But such things could probably be bought in any large English town. Hardly proof of who had owned it. He was about to drop it back inside the purse when his hand brushed the torch, and it shifted a little. He was still looking at the compact, and as the light moved, he realized that what he’d thought was a mere design, intended to be pretty and nothing else, wasn’t a design at all but three initials beautifully and intricately entwined. He turned the compact this way and that in the torch light, to see them better.
kLe. The L was slightly larger, as if it was her surname.
Katherine?
14
Rutledge knelt there on the cold ground, looking at the compact in the palm of his gloved hand.
He desperately wanted this to belong to the dead woman. The first thing of hers he’d found, save for that burnt bit of a hat.
Turning the purse upside down, he gently emptied it again, then felt around in the silk lining, his fingers urgently searching. Would she have been worried enough to hide something personal where prying eyes couldn’t see it?
At first all he discovered was a small rip in the silk lining, and he pulled it out to have a better look.
Something fell by his knee with a delicate ring.
He looked down at it.
A small silver pin, shaped like a crescent moon. And caught in it was a long, fine black hair.
He didn’t touch it at first. Almost afraid that it wasn’t there, that it was only wishful thinking on his part.
Whoever had burned the gray hat couldn’t bring themselves to burn the pretty pin as well. But it couldn’t be kept, that was too dangerous. Too many awkward questions might be asked.
Instead, it had been slipped inside the lining. Out of sight. And even if someone did find it, it would have been meaningless to most people.
On the reverse, there was the same stamped name. L’Oreille.
Only a killer, a dead woman, and Rutledge knew about the crescent moon. And he’d known only because a sharp-eyed port official had noticed it. The woman wearing it was pretty and had caught his attention.
But who had put it here, in the purse lining?
Who, for that matter, had hidden the purse here, in a dark crevice behind a boulder that supported the stone chamber?
The dead Corporal? Or his killer?