by Charles Todd
There must be colleagues he could turn to, someone who would offer him temporary shelter, money to move on—and silence. It was, by necessity, a closed fraternity, this showman’s world. People who traveled from place to place to earn their living put down no roots, and counted on the goodwill of their own in place of family. Many of them had had scrapes with the law, and they’d believe Walsh when he claimed he was innocent. The police were a common enemy.
A closed fraternity also meant that not even the redoubtable Sergeant Gibson at the Yard had a ghost of a chance to trace him once Walsh disappeared into it. Big as he was, he could still vanish. The key was to stop him before he reached that safety.
Rutledge bent to turn the crank and then got behind the wheel of his motorcar. But if the object of this exercise was to block Walsh’s escape, the question became How? Cutting across country as he was, he could be anywhere.
Hamish said, “What precipitated his escape?”
“At a guess, he chose tonight because Franklin was on duty—young enough and naive enough to be gulled. Innocent or guilty, men of Walsh’s ilk don’t rely on justice to set them free. Blevins and his people made no secret of the fact that they were eager to see Walsh hang. Or— perhaps he wanted to find out for himself that Iris Kenneth was alive.”
“No man would choose to die by the rope,” Hamish reminded him.
Rutledge turned west. It was instinct and not reason that guided him now. Somewhere before Hunstanton on the north coast, Walsh must pick up the road to King’s Lynn. Key to the rest of England.
Inland from the coast road were a hundred hills and meadows that would provide better cover. But on the other side of the coin, estates like Lord Sedgwick’s and villages like East Sherham would block Walsh’s path, forcing him slightly north . . . toward the road.
Hamish was swift to remind Rutledge that he was counting on unadulterated luck.
Yet Rutledge had the strongest feeling that if he drove as far west as the turning for Burnham Market, and then began to follow the tangle of roads that led back to the east from there, he might just have that stroke of luck. . . .
The sky was lighter now; he could no longer see his face reflected in the dark windscreen. And—thank God—never Hamish’s.
He scanned the horizons, eyes only half on the road.
A horseman silhouetted against the horizon wouldn’t attract much attention. But Walsh would be no ordinary horseman. He was a huge man on a large, heavy mount, blundering through fields and across plowed land, depending on his sense of direction to keep him heading west. He risked stirring up sheep and their guardian dogs—and eventually someone was bound to see him.
The marshes on Rutledge’s right were dark expanses of grass and shadow now, caught for an instant in his headlamps and then gone. A badger ambled along the road, picked out by the light, and scuttled into the underbrush around a small clump of trees. A night bird swooped across his path, and eyes followed his passage, gleaming for the space of a heartbeat, and then vanishing in the grasses. This was no place for a man . . . and Walsh hadn’t been bred to the marshes. They would be a barrier.
He would avoid them.
Another seaside town ghosted into view, straggling along the main road, rising out of the marshes before turning toward the vanished sea.
A uniformed constable stood at the turning, watchful and alert. The message from Blevins, then, had traveled this far west. Rutledge raised a hand, slowing so that the man could see he had no one else in the vehicle. Except Hamish . . .
The constable saluted as Rutledge passed.
The early morning was cool, but he was grateful for the freshness of it, keeping him awake. The tires bumped on the uneven surface of the roadbed and clattered over a small bridge. Buildings loomed and then were gone, trees spread heavy branches over the road, casting deep shadow. From time to time he saw other constables walking the streets or, a straggle of men with them, cutting across country toward outlying farms, poking into hay bales, searching outbuildings, scanning the ground with torches for tracks.
Ahead was the turning Rutledge was watching for. A church marked it, stark against the sky, malevolent and dark and secretive, huddled beside the road.
Hamish said, “Yon church is no’ a comfort in this light. Small wonder that half the world is superstitious! The night changes shapes and conjures specters in the shadows.”
Rutledge thought, Better them than you . . . He could drive past the rest of them, secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t follow—
He headed south now, then turned a little east, passing through village after village, his eyes scanning the fields and peering into the light mist that was rising in the shallow valleys.
A horseman could pass unseen in its folds. He stopped and scanned the white sea. Later, wishing for his field glasses, he studied one valley with care, but there was only a cluster of thornbushes along a stream, in the haze bent like the backs of hiding men. From time to time there were other constables stationed at crossroads, or climbing through the sheep toward an outbuilding on the side of a hill.
Wending his way from road to road, still following his instincts, Rutledge traveled in a zigzag back in the direction of Osterley. Down this road—turning here—only to turn back again—all the while searching, making the connection and deciding as he ran through sleeping villages where that war-honed intuition might carry him next.
It required patience, and a mind focused and determined. Tiring, he stopped once and rubbed his eyes with cold fingers, wishing for a pot of tea and twenty minutes of rest. His nerves, tautly stretched to their limit, kept him awake at the same time they drained his reserves of energy.
And all the while, Hamish doubted Rutledge’s intuition and his decisions.
If Rutledge was wrong—if Walsh had gone directly south—then Blevins’s counterparts would be in need of every man available to widen their own search. But were they having any better luck?
And when full daylight came, what were Walsh’s chances then? How close would he be to Norwich, if that was his goal?
Thinking of Norwich brought Monsignor Holston to Rutledge’s mind. A priest who searched for shadows outside his window as night drew on, and listened to the creaking of his house, afraid of something he couldn’t identify.
Like Sims . . .
What would Monsignor Holston feel if he knew that the man accused of killing Father James was on his way to Norwich? Fear? Or acceptance—
But there were no horsemen riding out in the dawn in this part of the county, save for a farm boy kicking the sides of a horse twice his size as he made his way across a stream.
By breakfast, Rutledge had circled back as far as the Sherhams—now all too aware that he’d wasted the hours, wasted his energy, and for what? Nothing.
Had Walsh passed him just over the crest of a hill or behind a screen of trees, or lost in the shadows that collected in the mists along small streams bisecting the land?
A bitter thought. And Hamish, as tired and grim as Rutledge was, seconded this honest indictment of his abilities.
“You arena’ the man you once were. You havena’ come to terms with yoursel’, nor wi’ Scotland—”
And yet Rutledge would have sworn, if asked, that he’d been right in his decision to work back from the west.
Another thought struck him—had Walsh already been captured?
No. Rutledge had seen constables still guarding the roads west, and at the junctions running through villages. He’d seen men searching—
And Walsh would have seen them, too. As the day brightened, he might even go to ground.
The intuition he prized so highly was failing him. Rutledge accepted the truth: One man alone in a motorcar bound by the roads had no chance to work a miracle when Walsh had the flexibility of so much space.
And today luck was favoring a fleeing man who must be as weary as his pursuers, and as determined, but with Fortune—or Fate—on his side.
CHAPTER 21
&nbs
p; BETWEEN THE SHERHAMS AND OSTERLEY, RUTLEDGE’S fatigue swept over him like a heavy blanket.
It was Hamish who shouted the warning, barely in time to prevent the motorcar from heading straight off the road into a ditch that ran with black water.
Rutledge pulled carefully to the verge and rubbed his face. The autumn dawn had broken, drawing long golden shadows across the road and among the trees, and the flickering of light and dark had mesmerized him before he had even realized it.
He took out his watch and looked at it. Most of Osterley would be at breakfast now, and the searchers straggling in like lost sheep, ready to sleep before going out again.
But it would be useless. Blevins had been stubborn— and wrong.
Walsh wasn’t in Osterley. The man was well away, on the road to Norwich, watching his back and praying that the next dip in the land didn’t bring a police blockade into view, choosing their spot where the twisting road allowed no escape, even for a man on horseback. If he had ridden the mare hard, as her owner, Randal, had feared, he would have made good time. If he’d handled her with some care, she could take him a long way in the morning light. Hunched on the saddle, his head drooping in weariness, his profile would be different. . . .
Rutledge put the car into gear again and drove several yards farther, where he could stop safely and sleep for ten—twenty—minutes. He thought of trying for Osterley and his bed, but the exhaustion went too deep.
Hamish was saying something about duty, but Rutledge didn’t hear him, wasn’t paying any heed. He slumped between the door and the seat, where his head would be cradled, and was already falling heavily into merciful sleep.
A horn blew loudly—once—twice—a third time. Rutledge came up out of waves of blackness, confused and unable for an instant to remember where he was or why.
Another car was coming up behind him, slowing, voices shouting at him.
Fighting off the last dregs of sleep, he sat up and tried to focus on what they were saying.
It was Blevins, who pulled alongside. “For God’s sake, wake up, man! What are you doing out here? Where have you been? I’ve had half of Osterley searching for you!”
Rutledge cleared his throat. “I was driving back to Osterley when I nearly ran off the road. What’s happened? Have you found Walsh?”
“A report came in just half an hour ago, and I wasted fifteen minutes hunting for you. Get in, and I’ll tell you on the road. Constable, take the Inspector’s car, will you, and follow us.”
The constable got out and started toward Rutledge’s motorcar. In an instant of absolute panic, Rutledge found himself saying, “No! I’ll follow you—”
He couldn’t leave Hamish in the rear passenger seat, with a stranger driving the car—
“Don’t be bloody-minded! Constable, do as I say.”
But Rutledge was wide awake now, well aware that where he himself went, Hamish would follow. Yet in that wild half-world between waking and sleeping, he had responded out of habit—Hamish always occupied the rear seat. . . .
As Blevins took over the wheel, Rutledge turned his own motorcar over to the grinning constable. Coming around the boot, he noted the bicycle lashed to the back of the motorcar Blevins was driving. The Inspector snapped, “Hurry, man!” and barely waited for Rutledge to close his door before the car was off down the road at speed.
“That’s Jeffers, from Hurley. It’s a town southeast of the Sherhams. He was sent to bring me back to where they’ve found a body. Some fool thinks it could be Walsh, but I can’t for the life of me see how he came to be there.”
Rutledge felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “Body, you said?”
“That’s right. A body. Constable Jeffers doesn’t have any information. The other constable, Tanner, who was out on foot searching the area, stopped a woman on her way in to the Hurley shops, and asked her to send Jeffers on to Osterley. Jeffers couldn’t find a motorcar and had to bicycle in. Took the devil’s own time doing it, too!”
“And the horse?”
“They didn’t say anything about a horse. That’s why I’m willing to wager this is a wild-goose chase. If Walsh has already run the mare into the ground, he wouldn’t be shy about finding himself another mount. Why would he be on foot?”
Because he had started on foot—
Hamish’s voice rang through Rutledge’s head.
They were silent the rest of the way. Carts were on the road at this early hour, and people walking to their fields or leading out the cows. Small boys on their way to school were trotting behind a pair of squawking geese, laughing as the geese darted at first one boy and then another and they dodged the attack. Blevins shouted at them to mind what they were about, and they dropped back sullenly.
“You wouldn’t have seen that sort of behavior before the War,” he told Rutledge. “There’s a generation growing up wild. Mark my words.”
It was a frequent refrain in rural England these days.
When they reached the outskirts of Hurley, there was a farmer in boots and brown corduroy trousers standing by the road. An old hat was jammed on his head and he wore a heavy green sweater with a ragged hem straggling down one hip.
“Inspector Blevins?” he called as the motorcar slowed. “The doctor’s been and gone. Take the road just there, to your left, before you get into the village proper. Follow it near half a mile, and you’ll see the farm gate.”
Blevins found the road, and it soon dwindled into a lane, hardly worthy of the name. A farmhouse faced a sloping hill of pasturage, where the white backs of sheep caught the morning spears of light. The lane continued, little more than a wagon wide now, last summer’s wildflowers brushing dry heads against the coachwork on either side. Within a few minutes they came to an open gate, where a muddy and well-rutted farm track began. “Here, I should think,” Blevins said, turning in.
The track climbed a hill for some distance, angling toward the shoulder and a cluster of young trees. Blevins followed it for some fifty yards, and then pulled in where bruised grass indicated that the doctor had stopped as well. Beyond that, the track’s ruts offered a challenge. Blevins said shortly, “I’d not like to find myself bogged down up there.”
Rutledge got out and Hamish said, at his shoulder, “Walsh could ha’ made it this far.”
It was true. They trudged in silence toward the copse of trees, and a constable stepped out of it, standing there waiting. Blevins was finding it hard to get his breath, and Rutledge glanced at him.
The Inspector’s face was nearly gray with strain, his jaw set and his body tense. With each stride he began to swear softly, trying to contain the pressure that was building in his mind. Rutledge’s longer legs made easy work of the hill, but his chest burned from the night of driving.
The constable, hunched against the morning chill, touched his hat to Blevins, and nodded to Rutledge. “Constable Tanner, sir. I thought you’d want to see this. The doctor says he’s dead, and they’re sending up a cart from the farm, to bring him in.”
“Who the hell is it, man?” Blevins halted as if unable to walk another ten yards. But it was his fear of the answer that had stopped him.
“It’s Walsh, sir. Just beyond the trees.” Tanner turned to lead the way, and Rutledge followed. Blevins moved slowly in their wake, as if unwilling to confirm the truth.
Tanner continued his report to Rutledge. “I can’t say how long he’s been dead—just before dawn, I’d guess, or not long after. His clothes are damp.”
Just beyond the trees, the land sloped again, this time to the south. And about ten feet beyond the crest lay the sprawled body of a man. Rutledge could see at once that it was Walsh—the size of the shoulders, the length of the awkwardly bent legs defined him before they had reached the head.
Rutledge looked down at the bloody dent in the temple, and had no need to squat on his heels and feel the hand nearest him for warmth or touch the throat for a pulse. But he did it anyway to give Blevins time to recover.
The hand wa
s cold, damp. There was no pulse in the equally cold bare flesh beneath Walsh’s collar. The giant-sized Matthew Walsh seemed shrunken, a bundle of discarded clothes, lying here on the wet grass, his trousers soggy with dew, and Rutledge found himself remembering what Dr. Stephenson had said about Father James. When the power of the personality had gone . . .
By that time Blevins had stopped just at Rutledge’s back, and Rutledge could feel his gaze running over the corpse of his prisoner.
He rose slowly to his feet, not turning. Hamish said, “He died quickly. How do you think it was?”
But Rutledge was silent. Tanner, watching Blevins’s face, shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for his superior to speak to him.
And then Blevins said harshly, anger and grief thickening his voice until it was unrecognizable, “I wanted to see him hang!”
No one spoke for what seemed minutes. Then Blevins said, “All right, Tanner, tell me what happened.”
Tanner flinched, as if he’d been accused of murdering the man himself. He was young and all elbows and knees, but he said with a confidence that belied his years, “If you’ll look just over here, sir—”
He led them some six feet from the body and pointed down at the iron half-circle lying in the grass. “See here, there’s a shoe. And I backtracked the horse some distance. He cast it perhaps a quarter of a mile back—I found a muddy patch where you could see clearly that the off hind hoof was bare.”
Blevins grunted, then squatted by the shoe. “All right. Go on.”
“It’s my thinking, sir, that the rider didn’t want to do anything about it, exposed as he was. It’s fairly open on the hill; with the farmers out early, he’d have been wary of being seen. But he brought it along with him, and here, with the trees to screen him from the farm, looked to see what the damage was, and if he could continue with this mount, or if he needed to find himself another.”