“Of course. Be right there.”
He hung up, and he told no lies before he did. No matter how long a walk it was, he strolled into the room within minutes.
“Fucking hell,” he said after he took one look at me and then moved quickly across the room to wedge his hip next to mine on the couch. “What’s in those letters?”
“Harmony killed Arthur Hughes-Davies.”
Battle reared back.
“With all the kerfuffle last night…” I began.
He gave me a warning look at describing it as a kerfuffle.
I ignored him and carried on, “I forgot all about finding some newspaper clippings in a diary Prue uncovered in the attic. Harry brought them out to the studio yesterday. Right before the whole…” I tried to find a word that wouldn’t tick him off. I settled on, “Thing went down, I looked into the box and found a journal. It was Aileen Flannery’s. The clippings were in that journal. And Aileen was Harmony and Unity’s maid. Her entries around the date in question were also cryptic, but one thing wasn’t. She recorded that Hughes-Davies invited himself to a house party at The Downs the weekend he went missing.”
“Bloody hell,” he whispered.
I kept with the story.
“Aileen was under the impression that Marie was courting him to marry Harmony. However, Hughes-Davies wasn’t interested in Harmony. He liked them younger.”
His brows shot up. “Unity?”
I nodded.
“How old was she then?”
“Fifteen.”
“Jesus Christ,” he bit.
“Yes,” I agreed.
“How old was he?”
“Thirty-four.”
A smidge of his homicidal look came back, but since the homicide (as such) had already occurred, I reached to one of the journals.
Harmony’s journals.
Harmony’s journals that would, at the time, see her possibly hanged if anyone got to them, and she wasn’t able to prove what happened.
Self-defense.
So she hid them under the floorboards.
I waved it side to side before I set it down again.
“Harmony was onto his game. It was one of the reasons she was putting off Charlie. Hughes-Davies was sniffing around a lot, and that around would be around Unity, and Harmony was terrified he’d try something.”
“Fuck, Vivi.”
“I know,” I agreed, and kept going. “She fretted about telling Charlie, because she knew, if she did, he’d be on the next boat or plane to, as she noted, ‘take care of this nasty man.’ Apparently, Charlie liked Unity quite a bit. As she did him, according to Unity’s journals. Sadly, Harmony decided not to involve him. Or any of her family, mostly due to the fact Marie was fond of Hughes-Davies, so Harmony thought her father was too. Though, she knew Bishop thought he was a blackguard.”
Battle’s mouth tightened.
“During that fateful house party,” I continued, “she got a bad feeling, and she switched rooms with Unity. Her feeling was correct. Hughes-Davies snuck in with malintent. Fortunately, Harmony was ready for him. Unfortunately, Hughes-Davies decided he’d take whatever he could get. He assaulted Harmony. It was bad, but not as bad as it could be. Still, it was bad. She did manage to get her hands on the letter opener she had waiting. She also managed to plunge it into his neck.”
