by Charles Todd
Hamish’s voice came out of nowhere.
“Ye’re no’ deid.”
He wasn’t sure he cared.
But the voice had done something else besides define his condition.
His head was aching now so badly he felt nauseated.
Lie still.
He lay there trying to recover the nothingness. But it was too late. The thunder in his head felt as if it would split his skull. Nothing relieved it.
Clenching his teeth, he lay there and endured. After a while the blessed darkness came back again and took him away.
When he woke next, there was a nursing Sister by his bed. She must have seen him open his eyes, for she smiled down at him. “Hallo,” she said quietly.
His voice didn’t work. He tried again. “Hallo.” It sounded wrong.
She nodded, as if pleased that he’d responded. Then she finished what she’d been doing and gave him her full attention.
“How are you this morning?” she asked. “Can you tell me?”
“What happened?” he asked, and then endured as the thundering in his head began again.
“Early days to worry about that,” she said. “Tell me how you feel.”
“My head. Aches.”
“Yes, I expect it does,” she said sympathetically. “But we can’t give you anything for that until we know it’s safe to do so.” She picked up a carafe and poured him a glass of water. “Thirsty?”
“Yes.”
She lifted his head and helped him drink through a glass straw. The water tried to choke him, but he got it right the second swallow and kept it down. When he spoke again, his voice sounded a little more like his own.
“Why am I here?”
“We don’t know,” she told him, lifting first one eyelid and then the other. “You were brought in with a gunshot wound to the head.”
“What?”
“The revolver was still in your hand. Your neighbor thought you had tried to shoot yourself.”
He felt cold run through him and shut his eyes to keep them from betraying the fear that swept him.
Had he tried to shoot himself? In the name of God—why?
She was still watching his face when he opened his eyes again. “He was rather put out with you—the neighbor—for doing that in the front walk for all to see, rather than decently going out to the back garden where you could have been private about it.”
He stared at her.
Then his mind started to work again. She was trying to assess his mental state. If he was still suicidal.
“Rather cold-blooded of him,” he managed to say. “Weapon?”
“Service revolver.” She spoke the words as if that was what they all used. The suicides.
“I don’t remember,” he told her then. It was the truth, and all he could give her.
“There are quite a few people outside waiting to speak to you. Your sister, I believe. People from Scotland Yard. A Sergeant Gibson for one.”
“Not yet,” he managed to answer. “Not up to it.”
“No. Matron told them that.” After a moment she added, “I was to tie you to the bed, if you still wanted to harm yourself.”
“Please—no—claustrophobic,” he pleaded, trying to lift his head. “No.” He could see he wasn’t getting through to her. “Buried—I was buried alive in France. The war. I can’t—please no.”
The pain was blinding. But she put a hand on his chest, pushing him down again, and for an instant of sheer panic, he thought she was about to reach for the belts.
Something in his face must have stopped her.
“I was in France,” she said. “I treated men who were blown up.” Considering him, she said, “If I don’t tie you down, I’ll be responsible if you try to harm yourself again.”
“I swear to you.”
Still regarding him intently, she said, “Very well. But I am telling you this. If you do try again, there will be worse measures than being tied to the bed.”
“I swear it.” He could feel his heart racing with the panic, the fear running through him. “Please, no.”
“Then we’ve come to an agreement? Good.” She moved slightly, away from the bed. “If I bring you something to eat, can you keep it down?”
“I don’t know. Head.”
“Then I’ll bring just tea and toast, then see where we are. It might help the pain in your head.”
Moving briskly now, she turned and walked toward the door.
He called after her, “Thank you.”
But she didn’t turn.
By an effort of will he kept down the tea and managed to eat most of the toast. It did help his head. And by that time he’d made two discoveries. His body was all right. His forehead was covered in thick bandaging and the sticking plasters were pulling at his hair.
He lay there most of the day, trying to stay quiet, trying not to think.
Why had he tried to kill himself?
He kept porridge down later, and more tea. More toast. The nurse he’d seen earlier was replaced at some point by an older woman with a severe face. His head still hurt like the very devil, but he made an effort to remain docile, quiet. Speaking only when he was spoken to.
The first nurse was there again when he woke up. Presumably morning.
She smiled at him as she prepared to feed him his breakfast. “You kept your promise.”
“Yes. I can feed myself.”
“Sometimes people have double vision.” She held up fingers, waggling them. “How many do you see?”
“Three.”
“Then you can feed yourself. You’ll have a bath and then those waiting for you will have to come in to speak to you.” She was busy helping him sit up. “I can’t hold them off any longer. And you must be shaved,” she added, looking at his beard.
“I can manage.”
“Yes. All right. But I must be here while you use the razor. Eat your breakfast, and I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour.”
“Don’t worry,” he responded, struggling to keep his voice light. “I don’t fancy cutting my own throat.”
She was as good as her word, and when he was presentable again, she studied him once more, then said, “Your sister is insistent. But Sergeant Gibson is here again, from the Yard. He’ll have to speak to you first.”
“I’ll manage,” he said, words he was finding useful in helping her make her decisions.
“Very well.” She picked up the shaving tray and started toward the door. But she stopped halfway there.
“If it helps, I don’t know any reason why you should want to kill yourself. I haven’t seen anything that explains what happened.”
“Thank you.”
They hadn’t discovered the shell shock.
The relief was so great, he felt suddenly dizzy.
She went out of the little room and was back almost at once with Sergeant Gibson at her heels.
He walked in, walked up to the bed, and looked at Rutledge.
“Sergeant.”
“You look terrible.” Gibson was always nothing if not blunt. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything. I was in my flat. I know that much, and everyone says so. And then I was here. What went on in between is missing.”
Gibson nodded. “The doctor said it might be. That it happens with head injuries.”
He cleared his throat. “The Constable on your street reported this. Your neighbors heard a shot, and when they came to see what it was, they found you just inside your open door, shot in the head and a revolver by your hand. You missed. An ambulance took you to Casualty. Then everyone was told you were being held for observation before being allowed to speak to anyone. Even Jameson came.”
The Chief Superintendent.
Rutledge groaned.
“Aye. Matron stood him down, and he left. I was told not to come back to the Yard until I’d got your side of the account.”
“I don’t have a side,” Rutledge answered. “I don’t remember.”
“Think back.”
“I’ve tried. I remember getting out of bed and dressing. Breakfast. I have no memory of taking out my revolver.”
“It was just gone ten when the shot was heard. And you were fully dressed. No outer garments, just your clothing as if you were preparing to leave for the Yard. But it was already late for work, you understand.”
“Yes. I understand.” He tried to think. “I was in Worcester yesterday. No, not yesterday. The day before. The day before the shot.”
“What were you doing there?” Gibson demanded. “I don’t show you going to Worcester.”
Rutledge frowned. “No. I discovered something I felt was important. I went there to find out if it was true.”
“Was it?”
“Yes. No. I must have thought it was true. I came back to London and slept in my own bed.”
“It was already made up. Constable wasn’t sure.”
“I must have done.”
“Anything personal? Upsetting? In Worcester?”
“Validation. I went to find out some information about a man whose name I’d come across in reviewing the case file for the inquiry into Barrington’s life.”
“What name is that?”
Rutledge closed his eyes for the briefest moment. “Maitland.” He hadn’t wanted to use that name. Not in connection with Barrington. But there was no choice.
“There’s no Maitland in the Barrington file.”
“Not the actual name, no,” he amended, striving to sound logical. “But there was a reference that finally led me in that direction.”
“Found Barrington, have you?” Gibson the policeman speaking.
“No. Not yet. I’ve ten years to search.”
“Jameson says you’re off the inquiry until this little matter is cleared up.”
“I’m all right.” He hadn’t seen the wound, he didn’t know how close he’d come, shooting. A bandage still covered it. But he could feel it, deep and raw right across his forehead. Not deadly. But serious enough to be considered as an attempt at suicide.
“This says you aren’t.”
“I didn’t try to kill myself.”
“It looked that way to Constable Harris. He was shocked to his boots to see you lying there.”
Rutledge counted to ten. “What he saw was shocking. I can imagine that. I don’t remember any wish to kill myself.”
“No. Maybe not. But what if it comes back again?”
“You found the revolver?”
“Service issue. The war.”
He held on to that thought with a tenacity that made his head feel as if it was about to burst.
“I didn’t carry an Army-issued sidearm. I bought my own. Many of us did.”
They went around that several times.
Rutledge said, “Look. I can prove it. As soon as I reach the house.”
Gibson answered him. “You might have had the service issue. And your own. And used the one nearest to hand.”
“For the love of God, Sergeant,” he said, holding on to his sanity as best he could. “This makes no sense.”
“No, sir. But Jameson doesn’t hold with suicide.”
Rutledge lay back against his pillows. “I have no recollection of shooting myself,” he said, tired of fighting. “I have already informed the nurse that I have no wish to harm myself now or in the future.”
“The spell could come over you again,” Gibson said darkly. “My neighbor shot himself three days after he came home from France. In the back garden. Without a word of warning. Not even a good-bye. It happens. I was first on the scene, with my torch, searching for him in the garden, his wife screaming the house down and the children crying. It wasn’t a pretty sight. He’d gone for the chin. And he hadn’t missed.”
“I didn’t go for the chin,” Rutledge said. “I must have wanted to live.”
“There’s that,” the Sergeant answered him, his face lighting up at the thought. “I’ll say as much to his lordship.”
He picked up his helmet from the foot of the bed and left the room.
Rutledge steeled himself for Frances to come through the door next. She would be upset, and he didn’t know how to comfort her. Could tell her so little.
But as the door swung wide it was a man in the white coat of a doctor.
And Rutledge recognized him at once.
Fleming was older than a bare two years could account for. His Scottish red hair liberally threaded with gray now, lines on his face. But his back was still straight and his blue eyes were as sharp as Rutledge remembered.
Dr. Fleming. The man he’d tried to kill because he’d got the truth out of his patient.
The door was firmly shut against prying eyes and ears, then Fleming walked across the room before saying, “You’ve got yourself in rather a pickle, I see.”
Rutledge blinked. “I didn’t expect you.”
“No? Who else would Frances turn to? She’s married, I see. Happily. That’s good news.”
“Before Christmas.”
Fleming looked around the bare little room, picked up the only chair and brought it forward, to sit on it backward, facing the bed.
“Yes.” He looked at Rutledge, nothing in his gaze but concern. “What happened, Ian?”
“I don’t know. That’s wrong. I can’t remember. But it comes down to the same thing.”
“Still have those nightmares?”
He hesitated. But the truth mattered here. “Yes. Not as often. Sometimes.”
“Could you have turned to your revolver to stop this one?”
“I have never reached for it before.”
“Yes, that’s something, isn’t it? What was your first thought when you woke up here in hospital?”
Rutledge turned his head. “I realized I wasn’t dead.”
Fleming’s brows rose. He didn’t say anything, he simply waited.
Truth, Rutledge told himself again. No one could help him without the truth.
But he couldn’t make himself form the words.
He should have known it wouldn’t matter whether he formed them or not.
After a time, Fleming said, “Did you tell yourself that you were alive? Or were you told?”
Rutledge shut his eyes.
“So you were told. Hamish is still with you?” No answer. “I’ll take that as a guess, then. A very good guess.” He waited once more, then added, “I’m glad it was Hamish, you know. That’s actually a good sign.”
Rutledge opened his eyes to stare at him. “I don’t see how.”
“The man you brought home in your mind, in your head, is part of you, Ian, whether you want to accept that or not. I told you two years ago that he was a way to cope with information the mind can’t bring itself to address. I told you also that he would either kill you or you would kill him, if things went bad. It appears to me that you’re still coping. Even if you haven’t faced the truth yet.”
“Then why did I shoot myself?” He couldn’t keep the anguish out of his voice. “The Yard knows—Frances knows—everyone knows now. Why didn’t I shoot straighter? I wouldn’t have to face them now.”
“They don’t know anything. I’ve talked to that man Jameson. Your Chief Superintendent. He’s a fool, I grant you, but he’s intelligent enough to know that he can’t go around telling the world that one of his brightest Inspectors just tried to kill himself. Looks bad for the Yard. As for Frances, I have already explained to her that I don’t think you were aware of what you were doing. That it wasn’t an act of intent so much as an act of exhaustion and overwork.”
“You’re a damned good liar,” Rutledge said, holding his voice steady with an effort of will that set his head off again.
“No. I’ve bought you a little time, that’s all. Time is good medicine, Ian. A little leave will be just the thing, get you out of the Yard for a bit, and hopefully out of the flat, even out of London. Where would you prefer to go until this dies down and people around you stop staring at you as if you suddenly g
rew two heads?” The corners of his eyes wrinkled with amusement. “Sorry, wrong analogy for you, isn’t it?” The amusement faded. “You must not return to the flat. That’s to be avoided. You’ll simply worry yourself into a state trying to remember, and that’s not going to help. If it comes back at all, it will be later rather than sooner.”
Rutledge tried to think. He had a wide circle of friends. But he couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask them to take in a possible suicide. They had responsibilities. Families. He couldn’t do it.
“There was a woman you cared about. You wouldn’t let me tell her about Hamish or the shell shock.”
“Oh, God, no, not Melinda Crawford.” He couldn’t keep the horror out of his face. “She’s Army—she’ll see through me before I’m past the door. No.”
“Is it so wrong that she might?”
“She was a friend of my parents. She knows me too well. I don’t think I could bear to watch her turn away in disgust.”
Fleming considered him. “Are you so very sure she would?”
“I don’t want to find out.”
He took a deep breath. “Suicide might have turned her away. Did you consider that?”
“I wouldn’t be here to see it.”
To his surprise Fleming smiled again. “True. What weapon did you use? What did the police find in your hand?”
“Service revolver. Her house is littered with weapons. I could take my choice of them.”
“Perhaps that’s a good thing. Temptation is what is forbidden. If we took away your revolver—and I assume the police did—there are knives. The river. Laudanum. You’ll find a way if that’s what is driving you.” Then he added, “But I don’t think it is, somehow.”
Taken aback Rutledge said, “I don’t follow you.”
“I’ve dealt with men in every stage of grief and pain and horror you could imagine in a lifetime’s effort of trying. I’ve dealt with men who are struggling with suicide and who have tried and who will go on trying until they find what they believe is going to be peace at last.”
“If I can’t remember why I tried to kill myself, it means the reason is still there.”
“True. But you don’t remember, and you may never remember, and so this will have to stand as a watershed in your recovery. An act out of character. You can dwell on that. Or you can build on that.”