Free Anne Perry's Silent Nights: Two Victorian Christmas Mysteries by Anne Perry Page A

somehow deceitful, but then, to defend someone guilty of such a crime would be even worse, wouldn’t it?” It was half a question, the answer assumed.
    Runcorn found the words sticking in his throat, but he had to force himself to agree. “Yes sir, I regretthat murder frequently exposes many smaller sins that can change the quality of our lives forever afterwards.”
    Barclay stared at him, an expression in his eyes that was impossible to read: anger, triumph, a knowledge of his own power, an uncertainty.
    “Thank you, Mr. Barclay,” Runcorn said quietly. “I appreciate your assistance. I wish everyone were as honorable in their duty.”
    If Barclay detected any sarcasm, he did not show it even by a flicker.

T he curate, Thomas Kelsall, was utterly different. His slender figure was bent forward as he walked and there was tension in the angle of his shoulders. Runcorn caught up with him as he strode doggedly through the pounding rain on his visits to the parish’s old and needy. Some of them would normally be Costain’s duty, but considering the circumstances, young Kelsall had taken it upon himself.
    “You may think it arrogant of me,” he said to Runcorn as they kept pace with each other. “Some people might prefer to see the minister himself, but just now not only is he spending time with poor Mrs. Costain, but he does not know how to answer people. What can they say to him? That they are sorry? That she was the most charming, the most vividly alive person they ever knew, and her death is like God taking some of the light from the world?” He kept his face resolutely forward. “And what can he say, except agree, and try to keep from embarrassing them with his pain? It is better I go. At least they do not feel as if they have to comfort me. I can address their problems, which is what I am there for.”
    “But you did know her well, and feel her death very hard.” Runcorn knew it was brutal, but stretching it out with euphemisms would be like pulling a bandage off slowly. And it was less honest.
    “We were friends,” Kelsall replied simply. “We could speak to each other about all manner of things, without having to pretend we felt differently. If something was funny we laughed, even if sometimes people like the vicar thought it was inappropriate. He was her brother, and my superior, but our eyeswould meet and we would each know the other thought the same. We both understood what it was to have dreams … and regrets.” His voice trembled a little. “I cannot imagine I will ever like anyone else quite so much, so fully.”
    Runcorn looked sideways at him, plunging forward into the wind and rain, and did not know for certain whether it was tears that wet his cheeks or the weather. They reached the house of one elderly parishioner, and Runcorn waited outside shivering in the lee of the porch until Kelsall returned. They set out walking again.
    “Is it true that she refused Mr. Newbridge’s offer of marriage?” Runcorn asked after forty or fifty paces.
    Kelsall hunched his shoulders and walked more intently forward. Thunder rumbled around the horizon. “She was a woman of deep feelings,” he said, shaking his head a little and fumbling for the right words. “Visionary. You could never have tied her down to petty things. It would have broken her. He couldn’t see that. He didn’t love her, he liked what he thought she was, and did not look closely enoughto see that he was utterly wrong. I don’t think he even … listened.” He looked suddenly at Runcorn. “Why do people marry someone they don’t even listen to? How can they bear to be so lonely?” He was shuddering, waving his hands as he strode. “Of course she refused him. What else could she do?”
    Runcorn did not reply. In his mind for a moment he saw the face of the girl in green as she had passed him in church, then he saw Melisande, and the bland, handsome features of Faraday, and he was filled with the same helpless despair that he