by Charles Todd
“Was he in charge of some aspect of testing? Or even some sort of training?” I asked. If he’d been working on something that was secret, he might not be reassigned. It was the only reason I could think of for indefinite leave.
Inspector Jester shrugged. “I don’t think he ever said. I’m not sure he even told his sister.”
We were always being warned that enemy ears might be listening.
“We’re straying from the point,” he went on. “He’s dead. It’s likely that the man you escorted to Buckingham Palace was his murderer. And I still haven’t heard the full story of how Wilkins eluded everyone and disappeared.”
“Hardly eluded,” I said. “He removed his bandages and walked out of the hotel, one of dozens of officers and other ranks passing through Reception at that time. As he went striding out the door, who would have taken him for that pathetic creature in the invalid chair, upstairs resting? I myself looked in on him twice. But he’d requested a Sister, you see, and so there was no orderly to stay in his room. Only the man who had brought him down to London and then was on his way to France, and later the man who came to escort the sergeant back to Shrewsbury.”
“He was getting a medal, you say. Did he earn it?”
“Actually, I’m told he had. One can be quite brave under fire and still be a murderer.”
“But we don’t expect that to be the case, do we?” He put his napkin on the table. “If you’ve finished . . .”
“Yes, thank you, I am,” I replied, and gathered my belongings.
Rose came over to the table. I had a feeling she resented my presence, that she was accustomed to having the Inspector to herself when he came in for a meal.
He settled our account with a smile for her and a joking word about the brown eggs.
“If the war lasts much longer, you’ll be grateful for them,” she scolded him, but it was lightly said and with an answering smile. “There’s eel for lunch,” she added. “I’ve put some by for you.”
The Inspector thanked her, and we left. I followed him out of the small shop and we walked back toward the bridge. The sky, so clear and bright when I arrived, was now grayer, and the river was dull, a pewter in the pale light.
“Rain,” he said, glancing up at the sky. “Very well, Sister Crawford, tell me what it is you intend to accomplish by coming here? I won’t have you disturbing Lessup’s sister, or allow you to speak to a witness. It’s just as well they don’t know what role you played in this business. For your own sake, mind you. Lessup was well liked, and I don’t think you’d be happy caught up in the backlash of his murder.”
“You’re saying I’m not safe here, if I go about asking questions?”
“I’m saying nothing of the sort. But I don’t have the time to follow you about. Nor the inclination, come to that. Just tell me what it is you want and respect the limits I’ve set. And I’d take it as a kindness if you don’t add to the trouble I already have. I don’t want Scotland Yard sending someone up to sort out my patch. I have every intention of doing it myself. However long it takes,” he ended grimly.
“But that’s the point. I don’t want to upset anyone or quarrel with you over duty. I simply want to understand why this man did what he did. Are you still searching for him?”
“We’ve been searching since we found Lessup’s body. I’d already questioned half the village before we learned who the killer might be. I don’t have the manpower, nor do my colleagues in Coalport, to go too far afield. Still, I’ve alerted every constable in a twenty-mile radius. He’s got to show his face sometime. In a shop, buying food, in a coach stop or railway station looking to move on. Raiding a henhouse, if it comes to that. Any stranger seen anywhere will be reported to me.”
In my opinion, Sergeant Wilkins had long since left the circle where Inspector Jester was casting his net. He’d have been a fool not to. Cornwall, Northumberland, Kent, he could be anywhere, and attracting little or no attention to himself.
We had reached the middle of the bridge again. I looked down at the dark water hurrying through the narrow gap that was the Gorge.
I could see why, if a ferry had been the only way to cross this river, a bridge had been a godsend, for mills and forges and farms alike. Arched and high above the water, it was a stately bridge, a thing of beauty as well as utilitarian. But why hang a man from it? Why not simply kill him and toss his body down into the water below, and let it carry the corpse away? By the time it was found, the killer could have covered many miles in any direction.
“A personal killing?” I asked. “Do you think?”
“I expect the sergeant wanted Lessup to suffer. To know he was dying and helpless to save himself.” He leaned over the railing and looked down. “If that’s what you mean by personal, then yes.” Looking back the way we’d come, he went on. “Do I trust you, Sister Crawford?”
“I have no reason to cause any trouble. You’ve answered most of my questions. Except one.” I was watching a young man peddling by along the road. “Has anyone reported a bicycle missing?”
“A bicycle? Do you think that’s how he escaped? Or do you know it?”
“I don’t even know how he got here. But if I’d just done murder, I’d want to move away quickly. A bicycle would be a fairly easy thing to hide, if he brought it with him. If he walked from Coalport or elsewhere, then it would be something he’d look for, I should think. To take him as far as possible as fast as possible.” Even walking would depend on the state of his leg, according to Sister Hammond. A bicycle might be beyond him as well.
“We’ve sent out word. So far no one has reported a bicycle missing.”
“Then perhaps he arrived on one he’d stolen elsewhere.” I gestured to the edges of the river. “There are enough trees down along the water, he could have hidden it there.”
“Don’t leave Ironbridge without saying good-bye,” Inspector Jester told me, touching the brim of his hat in a rather sardonic gesture of courtesy. “I should hate to have to bring you in as an accomplice. But I will. Your superiors won’t be best pleased.”
With a nod he was gone. I stayed on the bridge, watching him walk up into the village. It was not really a village by Somerset standards, more a place that had grown up around industry and its ever-pressing need for water. I was surprised that it ran to an Inspector. On the other hand, at one time, with all the mills and foundries and whatever other industry had thrived here since the bridge was built, there would have been a need for someone to keep the peace.
The land rose precipitously on either side of the Gorge, houses perched where they could find space. Industry would have kept to the riverbanks—again, for the precious water and water power. And the village was small enough for everyone to know everyone else, as well as the denizens of the farms beyond.
Sergeant Wilkins had taken quite a risk to walk into this place and do murder. He could have been caught in the act. But perhaps he had such a deep hatred for the man he’d killed that it wouldn’t have mattered to him.
Assuming, of course, that the witness was right and Sergeant Wilkins was the man she’d seen.
I found a pub—The Ironmaster—with a few rooms above, and took one of them. The woman who was behind the bar looked askance when I inquired about a room. For how long, she wanted to know.
“For tonight. I’ve only stopped to see the marvelous bridge. I’ll be going back to Shrewsbury.” I wasn’t certain how I was to get there, but she was not to know that. When she still looked uncertain about letting me have a room, I added, “I’ve come from a hospital on the outskirts of that town. Lovering Hall. I don’t have enough leave to travel all the way to London.”
That seemed to satisfy her. If I belonged in Shrewsbury, I wasn’t quite the stranger I’d appeared to be in the beginning.
And I could understand her concern. The war had brought about many changes, people moving about the country under orders from the Army or the Royal Navy, nursing Sisters appearing to staff a country house turned clinic, that had b
een a private residence not many weeks before, then the influx of wounded, strangers most of them, attended by doctors and orderlies and visited by staff officers and London specialists. It was unsettling, and no one seemed to know what to do about it. Even Ironbridge had very likely seen more unfamiliar faces in the last four years than in the past fifty.
The room, when she showed me up the stairs and down the passage, looked out on the bridge and the river. Comfortable but not grand, it would do nicely, and I thanked her.
She handed me an iron key that appeared to be as old as the bridge outside, and then walked away. It wasn’t until much later that I realized she and her family lived in rooms down the passage in the other direction. Small wonder she was careful about guests.
Mrs. Hennessey had turned her own home into lodgings for strangers. It must have been very difficult for her at first. I wondered how many times we’d been a trial to her before she got to know us better.
That reminded me of one of my earliest flatmates, a Scottish noblewoman who had surprised all of us by becoming a very fine Sister. She had told me later how appallingly small her bedroom had seemed the first day she arrived at Mrs. Hennessey’s, and how hard she’d found it, sharing such a tiny space with others.
I put my kit down on the bed, then stood by the window, wondering what to do now.
It was clear I’d already learned everything I could here. Who the victim was, how he’d died, and what the evidence was against Sergeant Wilkins. And any contact with Sergeant Lessup’s grieving sister or the only witness was forbidden.
I wished I could talk this over with Simon, but I had no idea where he was. More to the point, he didn’t know where I was.
Standing here was no solution. But as I turned to go, the rain was upon us, blowing down the Gorge in sheets. I was glad to have a roof over my head. It was late afternoon before it finally moved on. I went out then, not bothering to lock my door. For the next hour or so, I walked around the village, and then crossed the bridge to the tollbooth on the far side. I paid my fee, then walked up the road into some trees, looking about at this side of the river. I had paused, trying to decide just how far to explore when the young woman coming toward me stopped.
“Are you looking for someone?” she asked, smiling. There was a wooden basket over her arm filled with cut flowers still damp from the rain. She was also expecting a child. I thought she must be six months into her pregnancy.
“I’m—exploring,” I said with a smile. “Do you live in Ironbridge?”
“Yes, my mother has the milliner’s shop.” She gestured to the flowers in the basket. “She also makes silk flowers. I thought she might like a few real ones.”
“They’re very pretty.”
“My father-in-law owns Ashe Farm. I walk up there every afternoon to see if he’s all right. He works too hard, all his tenants joined the Army, and now most of them are dead.” Blushing a little, she added, “I do apologize. I was asking you if you were looking for someone.”
“I’ve had a few days of leave,” I said, repeating the story I’d given to Inspector Jester. “And so I came to see the bridge.”
“You live in Wolverhampton?”
“No, I came from Shrewsbury.”
She nodded. “I’ve been there two or three times.” We turned and walked together down the slope toward the tollbooth and the bridge. “There’s a tea shop there where we’d always stop. Do you know it?” She described it for me.
Of course I didn’t, but she went on talking about Shrewsbury. We had paid our toll and were halfway across the bridge when she began to walk faster, not looking down at the water or up at the view ahead of us. I realized what must be disturbing her—the murder. But I said nothing about it, just keeping pace as she went on breathlessly. “I must hurry, Mother will be wondering where I am.”
“I hope she enjoys the flowers,” I said, just as she stumbled. I caught her arm, saving her from a nasty fall. That rattled her as well, and she nearly dropped her basket of flowers.
“Here, let me carry that.” But I couldn’t convince her to slow down until we were off the bridge, and by that time she had recovered her composure.
“Silly of me,” she said, clutching the basket. And then she added, “Something happened on the bridge not long ago. I’ve not got over it.”
“I’m so sorry,” I answered, guessing that she must mean Sergeant Lessup’s death, and not knowing what else to say, thinking she wouldn’t wish to talk about it.
But I was wrong.
“It—someone was murdered. I’d never known anyone who was murdered.”
“A friend?” I asked, wondering if she had some connection with the victim.
She shook her head. “I knew him by sight. He’d worked in one of the foundries before the war.” She hesitated. “What’s worse is that I saw the face of the man Inspector Jester believes killed him.”
The witness? And yet—she was coming across the bridge in late afternoon. She’d just told me she walked this way every day.
“How trying for you,” I said, and meant it, all the while wishing she might tell me more. It was something that obviously preyed on her mind.
“I was walking home from the farm—I shouldn’t have stayed so late that day, but my father-in-law asked me to help him take down the curtains for washing. I rested afterward, which made me even later. I’d paid the toll and the man was walking toward me. I saw he was a soldier. But I didn’t know him. As he came even with me, he spoke to someone just behind me. He said, ‘Well, well, there you are. I’ve come about Who.’ ”
“Who?” I repeated, uncertain what she meant.
“Yes, I’m sure I heard him right. And the other man, the one behind me, asked, ‘What’s that to do with you?’ His voice was rather surly. I hurried on, not thinking any more about them. And the next morning, I learned that someone had been killed on the bridge. It wasn’t until later in the day that I discovered it was murder. Inspector Jester was asking everyone who’d been on the bridge what time they’d been there and who they’d seen. That afternoon, while I was reading the newspaper to my father-in-law, I remembered where I’d seen the man’s face before. There were photographs, you see, of several of the men being given medals. That newspaper hadn’t gone into the fire yet, and so I went through the bin to find it and be sure. I went back to the police, everyone said I must. But I didn’t like giving such evidence. I mean, what if that man wasn’t the killer? Someone else could have come along afterward, couldn’t they have? And I didn’t see the man behind me. I couldn’t swear it was Sergeant Lessup. Yet it must have been. The timing was right. The police told me I’d been a witness.” She shivered, uncomfortable with the role that an unexpected encounter had thrust upon her. “I don’t know why I’ve told you. You won’t repeat it?”
I smiled. “I won’t be staying here long. And I don’t know anyone to tell.” I glanced back at the bridge. “What about the man in the tollbooth? Surely he saw something?”
“Unfortunately he’d just gone home to his dinner. It’s been worrying me so,” she went on. “I shouldn’t have burdened you with my troubles. But they tell me it’s best not to brood, in my condition.” She bit her lip. “And yet I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Try not to,” I said. “You must take good care of yourself.”
We talked about her pregnancy for a bit and about her husband, still in France. And then she said, “Oh, just look at the time. Mother will be worried about me. I must go. It was a pleasure talking to you, all the same. I hope you’ll come back to Ironbridge soon.”
“I’ll try, if my duties allow it,” I said, not wanting to make a promise I couldn’t keep. And with a nod and a smile, she was gone.
The soldier she had encountered on the bridge might not be Sergeant Wilkins. And she was right, there might well have been someone else who spoke to the murdered man after the soldier—whoever he was—had moved on.
But the timing had been perfect. Close to the dinner hour when even the m
an in the tollbooth had gone home. The days were shorter, it would have been dark early, just as it was now.
It was damning evidence and would require a court of law to untangle it. But what on earth had brought Sergeant Wilkins to this place? He was in fact a stranger here, since no one had recognized him. Was it the other man on the bridge he’d come to see? How had he learned he was here? Or had he known all along? Had some casual remark been made one morning or afternoon in the hospital in Shrewsbury that set this whole affair in motion? Remember Sergeant Lessup? You’ll never guess. He’s home on extended leave. Lucky devil.
And Sergeant Wilkins need only ask, Where’s home, then?
Less than twenty miles or so from here. A village called Ironbridge.
I’d have liked to ask the grieving members of Sergeant Lessup’s family if the sergeant had known anyone in Shrewsbury’s hospital. But there was no excuse I could make for disobeying the Inspector’s direct order, and I couldn’t risk being reported to my superiors for interfering in the inquiry into Sergeant Wilkins’s affairs.
I looked down at the racing waters of the Severn, then up the Gorge. Such a lovely place, so wrong for a vicious murder.
Leaving the bridge, I turned toward The Ironmaster pub. Halfway there, I met Inspector Jester just coming out of a shop.
“I hope you’ve come to say good-bye. That you’re leaving Ironbridge.”
“I was. I am. The problem is, I don’t quite know how to go about it. There isn’t a train from Coalport until morning, and as I don’t know anyone here, I can hardly ask for a lift to Shrewsbury.”
“There’s a very early train. I’ll drive you over to Coalport myself in time to take it.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I replied, wanting to add that I would be as happy to go as he would be to see the last of me.