Page 84 of Who Cries for the Lost

Chapter 47

Sibil staggered, then pivoted slowly to face Sebastian, her eyes wide with shock and surprise, her features contorted in agony, the bodice of her blue satin gown a wet sheen of dark red.

“Hell,” swore Sebastian, leaping forward to catch her as she crumpled and drag her back behind a nearby table tomb. He was aware of the shooter running away, his movements quick and agile, not those of an old man at all. The urge to give chase was strong, except Sebastian couldn’t leave the dying woman in his arms.

“I didn’t do it, you know,” she said hoarsely, her agonized gaze locked with his. “I didn’t send Gabriel after Sedgewick.”

“And me? Did you set Gabriel against me?”

Her head moved restlessly from side to side. “No. The people on Fouché’s list, yes. But not you. Why would I?”

“Did Sedgewick sell you the list?”

“No.”

“So how did you get it?”

She coughed, sending a torrent of blood flowing from her lips. “Gabriel...”

He raised her shoulders and head higher so that she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. “Who is he? What is his real name?”

She stared up at him, her eyes swimming with pain and fear, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she brought up one hand to clutch at the sleeve of his coat.

“Damn it, he’s just killed you! Tell me.”

“No,” she whispered, her eyes sliding shut.

“Tell me!”

But she was beyond answering him, perhaps even beyond hearing him. He cradled her in his arms, conscious of the rush of the damp wind against his face and the hum of the bees buzzing around the gnarled red rosebush beside them. He listened as each agonized, gasping breath shuddered her ruined chest, her breaths coming farther and farther apart until at last they came no more.

“Damn,” said Sebastian, easing her down into the long, rank grass. Damn, damn, damn.

Sir Henry Lovejoy stood with his shoulders hunched against the growing wind, his gaze on the dead woman at their feet. “And you have no idea who the shooter might be?” he said after a moment, looking up at Sebastian.

“At this point, the only thing I know is, he’s not old,” said Sebastian, remembering the nimble way the man fled through the graveyard’s jumble of tombs and ancient headstones. “But he’s obviously very good at sinking his real self into an assumed persona. I found the rifle and his tattered old greatcoat abandoned on the far side of the church.”

“So it was a disguise?”

“Gabriel is said to be a master of disguise.”

“Like you.”

Sebastian took a deep breath and said nothing.

Lovejoy dropped his gaze again to the dead woman at their feet. “Why kill her?”

Sebastian shook his head. “He must have decided she was a threat to him in some way. But why, I don’t know.”

Lovejoy stared off across the churchyard to the lych-gate, where a couple of his constables were holding back a crowd of curious onlookers. “We’ve heard from Sedgewick’s bootmaker, by the way; that boot you found out at the old tannery was his. And there was indeed a wherryman who was stabbed that same night, although of course we’ve no way of knowing if the two deaths were in any way connected.”

“Any idea where or when the wherryman was last seen?”

“Actually, yes. Another boatman saw him picking up two men from the Whitehall Stairs shortly after nine o’clock. The waterman says he remembers hearing the bells of the Abbey tolling the hour.”

Sebastian stared down at Sibil Wilde. In death, the anger and aura of danger had both eased from her face, leaving her looking peaceful, almost childlike.

Lovejoy said, “That’s important. Why?”