A Pale Horse

by Charles Todd

  She said, “What’s wrong? I heard a motorcar. Is it Rebecca?”

  Rutledge didn’t answer, counting the seconds as he waited.

  And then Singleton was driving away, leaving them there in the night.

  He could feel the tension in his back. To Sarah he said, “She’ll be here soon.”

  It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes later that Rebecca was back, braking hard, calling to her sister. A door opened. A man carrying his medical bag hurried toward them. Rebecca was maneuvering the motorcar until the headlamps shone directly on her sister, giving them light to work.

  The doctor was there beside Rutledge. “What’s most urgently needed?”

  “The head wound. It’s bleeding heavily.”

  Rebecca hadn’t emerged from the car. Rutledge thought he could hear her teeth chattering over the sound of the engine.

  “Head wounds generally do. Next?”

  “Right arm. Broken, I think. Cuts and bruises. I don’t know about her back. But she can feel pain. All over, she says.”

  “A good thing.” He began to work, slowly at first and then with greater assurance as he learned the extent of Sarah Parkinson’s injuries. He did what he could to brace the broken arm, put bandaging over the head wound, and then turned to Rutledge.

  “She’ll be all right, but I daresay there’s concussion, and shock is setting in. We need to get her to hospital.”

  Rutledge said, “There’s a rug—” But his motorcar was gone. He called to Rebecca Parkinson. “Do you have a rug, there?”

  “Yes, I think—”

  He could hear her getting out now, coming toward them. “Is she alive?” Her voice was under control, but tense with stress.

  “She’s all right,” he told Rebecca and took the rug from her, helping the doctor wrap Sarah in it. Between them the two men carried her to the motorcar and lifted her into the rear seat. It must have hurt like the very devil.

  The doctor got in after her and made certain she was comfortable. Then he turned to Rutledge. “Anderson’s the name.”

  “Rutledge.” He nodded to Rebecca. “I’ll drive.”

  “All right, I’ll direct you. Can we get around that lorry?”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s the fastest way. What’s become of the driver? Is he dead?”

  “He went for help.”

  Anderson nodded. “Then we needn’t concern ourselves with him.”

  Sarah regained consciousness several times, complaining of feeling cold and hurting. Anderson reassured her, but Rebecca, next to Rutledge, didn’t look back or answer her sister.

  They drove into a medium-size town where there was a hospital of sorts near the church. It had, Anderson was telling him, been a lying-in hospital before the war and after that had been turned into a burn treatment center. “But most of the patients have been sent elsewhere now, and the town has taken it over.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Salverton.”

  “I need to find a telephone as soon as possible. The lorry is still blocking the road.”

  “Yes, of course. The hotel just down that street should have one. Give me a moment to find someone with a stretcher. Then you can go.”

  Rutledge stayed until Sarah Parkinson was in a room on the first floor, nurses working over her with quiet efficiency. Rebecca, still silent, was with her. No one noticed as he slipped quietly out and went to the stairs.

  The clinic had been a bank in an earlier life, Rutledge thought, noting the marble pillars in Reception and the ornate staircase sweeping up to the first floor. His footsteps echoed as he crossed to the door. A nursing sister passing through nodded to him.

  He found the hotel, The White Hart, without any difficulty, put in a call to Uffington, and after a time heard Hill’s voice on the other end of the line.

  Rutledge gave the inspector a brief report, and asked about the cottages.

  “We couldn’t save the empty ones where the fire had been set inside. We couldn’t get enough water to them. The rest, the ones still occupied, will be habitable. Where’s Singleton?”

  “I wish I knew. I told you, he left in my motorcar.”

  “He wasn’t injured in the crash?”

  “Not as far as I could tell.”

  “Surely you could have stopped him.” Hill’s frustration came to the fore, backed by anger.

  “I couldn’t leave the woman he ran down.”

  “But she’ll live, you say?”

  “It appears that way. Early days.” He saw again the doctor’s grave face as he examined the head wound and tested Sarah Parkinson’s reflexes. “The next twenty-four hours will tell us.”

  “Where do you think Singleton went?”

  “Where does he feel safe? I don’t know. I expect he’ll abandon my motorcar as soon as possible and find other means of transport. It could be a country bus or a train. One that isn’t crowded, I should think.”

  “We haven’t got enough men to watch train stations.”

  “No.”

  Hill said, “I delayed, waiting to hear from London. Singleton wasn’t cashiered from an Indian regiment. That was all a lie. He’d been in the regular army, and was called up again in 1915. Seems he killed another soldier on the transport ship to France. Used a knife then, as well. He was put in irons, but somehow in the confusion when they docked, he got away. London thought he was still in France, hiding in the south, but he probably came home with the wounded, and just walked off. He must have thought Brady recognized him, and when you came nosing about, he was sure you were searching for him. We’ll find your motorcar for you. Pray God we find Singleton too.”

  Rutledge walked back to the hospital. He found Rebecca sitting in the small waiting area down the passage from her sister’s room. Someone had kindly brought her a cup of tea, but she was holding it between her hands as if she didn’t know what to do with it.

  He sat down across from her, waiting until she broke the silence.

  “I told you, we quarreled. I should have never let her go back on that bicycle, but I was angry, I thought she deserved to suffer too. But not this, I never imagined this.”

  “There was no way you could.”

  “It’s partly your fault. You upset her, more than you know. She didn’t kill our father. Leave her alone.”

  “I’d come to the conclusion she hadn’t. I don’t think it’s in her nature to kill.”

  “Are you saying it’s in mine?” She looked up at him, holding his gaze, challenging him.

  “I don’t know. You must tell me.”

  “I haven’t killed anyone,” she said wearily. “At least not until tonight. She wouldn’t have been on that road if I’d kept her at Pockets or even driven her home.”

  “What did you quarrel about?”

  “She wanted to go to Yorkshire and bring home Father’s body. I was just as happy to leave him there to rot.”

  “Why did he die?” He waited, and when she didn’t answer, he said, “Look, you might as well tell me what happened. I know most of the story, and can guess the rest of it.”

  She gave him a withering glance. “Oh no. You couldn’t in your wildest dreams guess what happened to Gerald Parkinson. I don’t think any of us know.”

  A young nursing sister stuck her head round the door. “Your sister is awake, Miss Parkinson, and asking for you.”

  Rebecca got up and followed her. Rutledge, after a moment, went as well.

  Sarah’s head was bandaged, her face pale, and by morning she’d have a very black eye. Her arm was in a cast, and she lay there trying to stand the pain.

  “They can’t give me anything,” she said as her sister came into the room. “Not until they’re sure about the concussion. I can’t tell you how much it hurts. I feel sick with it.”

  “I’m sorry, Sarah, truly—I had no way of knowing this would happen. I never meant for you to be hurt.”

  “I thought I was going to die. It was terrifying. When the lorry struck the bicycl
e, I was thrown through the air. Can you imagine watching yourself die? And when I landed, there was such pain. I didn’t expect to live. But I did. For a reason. We might as well tell him, Becky. I want to get it off my conscience at least, but I can’t say anything without your consent. Please, will you let me tell him?” Her eyes were pleading, but dry. As if she’d already cried as much as she could.

  Rebecca answered her with a coldness that startled her sister. “I thought we swore. On Mama’s memory. I thought it was agreed, Sarah.”

  “You sound like Father, you’re as hard as he was.”

  Rutledge stepped forward before Rebecca could vehemently deny the charge.

  “There’s a solution here. I can take Rebecca into custody, and let the courts sort it out. The publicity will be painful, but that was your choice when you started all this.”

  “Go ahead,” Rebecca told him defiantly.

  Sarah said, “We neither of us killed him, you know. He was dead when we found him.”

  Rebecca opened her mouth to deny it, but Sarah went on relentlessly. “He’d come to the house sometime in the night. We found his motorcar there the next morning. He hadn’t been there in two years, and we were horrified. When we went through the house looking for him, he was in Mama’s room, lying on her bed, and the room was filled with gas. We shut it off, opened windows—but it was too late. He was already dead, and had been for several hours.”

  Her sister turned on her heel and went out the door.

  Sarah watched her go, and then said, “It’s all true. I’ll swear to it under oath. What happened next was awful. We didn’t want him to be found there. Not in Mama’s bed. So between us we dragged him out of there and down the stairs.” She began to cry. “Do you know what it’s like to move a dead man? It was awful, but we were angry with him, and all we could think about was being rid of him. It was Rebecca’s idea to drive him away from the house. We got him into his motorcar, found the opera cloak in the attic and wrapped him in it, pulled his hat down over his face, and set out. I think we drove all day and part of the night. By that time we were beginning to come to our senses, but Rebecca wouldn’t take him back. I couldn’t bear to dump him at the side of the road. I wouldn’t have done that to a dog. And then we saw the wood. It seemed like a good idea, and we managed to get him that far. That’s when I glimpsed the abbey just beyond the trees, and I made her help me carry him there. Heavy as he was. She wouldn’t leave him in the nave. It was holy ground, and he didn’t deserve it. So we took him into the cloister and left him there, and she put the gas mask on his face, because she said it was his epitaph.”

  He could picture them, the anger feeding on itself until they found the strength to do what had to be done. As the anger faded, a cold reality had set in, but Rebecca was still adamant. He had to be punished…

  Sarah was saying, “When we got back to Berkshire, I waited by the side of the road in our motorcar, while Rebecca took his to the shed and left it, as if he hadn’t gone far and would be back soon. I was so exhausted, so anxious, I began to cry, and she told me I was not very brave. But then I saw she’d been crying as well, and she swore it was because she hadn’t killed him herself.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  “Of course I did—I was there with her when we found him. She couldn’t have been so shocked, if she’d already known. I saw her face. It wasn’t a lie.”

  For the first time there was a ring of truth behind her words.

  “Why does Rebecca hate your father so much?”

  “She was older. She saw more. I don’t know. You must ask her.”

  Sarah lay back against her pillows, exhausted. “Now it’s done. Over with. I can sleep at night.” She closed her eyes for a time, then said, “Are you still there, Mr. Rutledge?”

  “I’m here.”

  “When I was hurtling through the air, all I could think of was, God, let me live, and I’ll make amends, I swear I will.”

  “It wasn’t a bad bargain.”

  He stayed with her for some time, asking that a few more details be cleared up, but he couldn’t catch her in a lie or a mistake.

  Afterward he found Rebecca in the waiting room, sitting there, he thought, like a martyr waiting to be led to the flames.

  “I have no regrets.” It was all she said.

  “No, I expect not. What had he done to you, Rebecca, that you could hate so well? I’d like to understand why a daughter could be—as your sister just said—so cold.”

  She turned on him. “My mother lost a child when we were small. I didn’t know why she was ill, only that she stayed in her room with the curtains drawn for week after week. But then one day when I’d been a nuisance, the housekeeper we had then, Mrs. Fortner, told me what no one wanted us to know. The child was born alive, a boy. And so badly deformed that no one could bear to look at him. He died almost at once, and it was a blessing. My mother told my father it was because of all the things he did in the laboratory—that he’d brought something home that maimed and killed their son. And nothing was ever the same again.”

  She broke down, alone and wretched and confused. “My mother was never the same either. And when she killed herself, she was holding the christening gown that was meant for my brother. Don’t tell me it was long ago in the past! She grieved for him until the day she died.”

  Rutledge said, “He was born full term and died from natural causes. There was nothing in the doctor’s report to say he was deformed. I’ve read it.”

  “But he was. The housekeeper was there.”

  He remembered the words in the late Dr. Butler’s diary. “Had long talk with Parkinson, explaining situation. Question about who should see to burial. He left arrangements with me.”

  What had that long talk been about?

  And why had Parkinson slashed his hand in an angry moment in his lab?

  Hamish said, “It isna’ wise to tell the lass aboot that.”

  “I think your mother grieved for her son, and possibly even blamed your father for the child’s death. That much must be true. But the housekeeper created a monster for reasons of her own. She left shortly afterward, with no notice given. It’s likely your father discovered what she’d told you.”

  Rebecca said, “I never told Sarah. I never wanted her to know. But I can remember the day, and the words spilling out of the housekeeper’s mouth, and her face leaning down to mine. I remember feeling sick, and not being able to eat my dinner. There must have been some truth to the story. Or my father would have come to me and tried to explain that Mrs. Fortner was lying.”

  “He may not have known how to explain such cruelty. He could have told himself you’d forget in time. Remember, your father had suffered a great loss too. He couldn’t have been himself.”

  After a moment, she got slowly to her feet. “I must talk to Sarah—”

  Rutledge caught her arm to stop her. “You don’t intend to tell her this, do you? It would serve no purpose now.”

  “No. Never. I couldn’t bear her to know.” She left the room.

  Rutledge went to find transportation back to Uffington. That done, he put in a call to the Yard.

  Hamish said, “How can ye be sure it was suicide and not murder?”

  “Because,” Rutledge said, “it explains Rebecca’s behavior. That’s why she was ready to humiliate a dead man, because he wasn’t there to hate any more. If he came back to Partridge Fields to be buried in a churchyard, like a decent man, then it was over, he’d won. To be abandoned in Yorkshire was to leave him outside God’s grace, so to speak.”

  He said good-bye to Rebecca. Sarah was resting and didn’t answer as he stepped briefly into the room. But Rebecca raised haunted eyes to his.

  Then his driver was at the door and Rutledge left.

  By the time he reached the inn, it was early morning, and Hill had left a message for him.

  “Your motorcar is in Oxford. My sergeant will drive you there. As for Singleton, he was caught in the train station, as you’d exp
ected. It’s finished.”

  25

  Rutledge arrived in London and went to his flat to change his clothes.

  His first duty, he knew, was to go to the Yard and report.

  After that he would find Frances and talk to her about Simon Barrington. He knew his sister. All she needed was to be told Simon hadn’t deserted her. She’d be able to cope after that.

  The Yard was bustling, the passages crowded. He asked Inspector Peterson as they met turning a corner what was happening and Peterson said, “There’s been a murder in Kensington. It’s taken most of our manpower to cover the ground. On top of everything else on our plate. Old Bowles is in a foul mood. Walk clear of him if you can.”

  Rutledge took the warning to heart. But there was no avoiding the upcoming meeting.

  Chief Superintendent Bowles lived by the philosophy, rock everyone’s boat but mine. Only it wasn’t working today. He’d been called on the carpet for lack of progress.

  Still, he sat there and listened to what Rutledge had to say about Berkshire, then nodded. “It’s been a bugger here, everything at sixes and sevens. I want you ready to help Chief Inspector Johns with Kensington.”

  There was to be no respite, then. Rutledge said, “I’ll do my best.”

  “See that you do.” Bowles went back to the letter he’d been reading when Rutledge had knocked. Rutledge took that as his dismissal.

  But Bowles stopped him at the door as he was about to open it.

  “I explained matters to Martin Deloran after your preliminary report from Salverton. Whoever he may be when he’s at home, Deloran’s a nasty piece of work. This letter came an hour ago. Here, read it.”

  Rutledge took the letter from Bowles and scanned it quickly, then read it more slowly.

  Martin Deloran was a bad enemy.

  The letter said,

  It has come to my attention that Inspector Rutledge is being considered for advancement to Chief Inspector.

  My recommendation is that he is not ready for greater responsibility. His handling of the recent affair in Berkshire showed a lack of understanding of the facts and a grievous failure to follow instructions. The feeling in certain quarters is that Inspector Rutledge has not earned promotion at this time.