by Charles Todd
“Why there?” Mark demanded.
“Because it’s where this began.”
Mark drove out of the circle and turned the bonnet back down the lane, cutting toward the water when he reached the turning.
And there, as we rounded the corner of the first of the warehouses, was a motorcar standing by the open doorway where Alex Craig worked on his boat.
“Stop. Mark? Please,” I asked quietly.
But he moved up another ten feet before drawing to a halt.
“Does that motorcar belong to Alex Craig?”
“No. He runs a Sunbeam,” Mark answered. “I think we’ve found our man.” I reached for the handle to the door. “Wait. It’s not safe, Bess,” Mark said urgently. “He’s armed, remember?”
“Let her go,” Simon told him. “I’ll be right behind her.”
“Here—” the Vicar began, but he was ignored.
“You aren’t armed. Neither am I.” Mark put out a restraining hand.
But Simon was out his door, turning to help me down. “Go on. I’ll be behind you.”
Simon had fought Pathan warriors hand to hand. He didn’t need a weapon. I walked briskly toward the door that was open, and as I came nearer, I could hear voices. Without looking back, I dropped my hand and made a tamping-down motion, and Simon flattened himself against the nearest door.
I reached the end of the opening next but one to Alex Craig’s, and listened.
“—I tell you, I want your boat. I can’t sail those.” He must have gestured toward the small craft floating now in the incoming tide. “You can carry me across and say nothing. You owe it to me.”
“And be shot for my troubles as soon as you’ve landed on Sheppey?”
“Why should I shoot you?”
“Because I know something no one else does. That you were in Canterbury and drunk that Saturday night before the explosion. I saw you stagger out of that pub. And you were too hungover Sunday morning to drive back to Cranbourne. You told Ashton you were in Canterbury for the morning church service. If the Army had known you’d lied about where you were and what you were doing, you’d have been cashiered on the spot. Dereliction of duty, it’s called.”
“How do I know that you haven’t already told someone? Why else was I stripped of my captaincy and sent to handle enlistments? Instead of going to France. I’d have been given an increase in pay, I’d have been able to hold my head up.”
“Put the revolver away, Collier. You won’t shoot me. You can’t handle this craft on your own. Not against the incoming tide.”
“I’ll take one of the smaller craft, then.”
“It won’t work, I tell you.”
“You can’t refuse to help me. I’ve nowhere else to turn. They won’t think to look in Sheppey for me.” There was rising fury now in Collier’s voice. “You’re just like the Ashtons, you’ve never had to scratch for a living. Looking out for yourself first, thinking about no one but yourself. Well, I won’t be caught because of you.”
“Don’t—” Alex Craig said sharply, and in almost the same instant, a shot rang out, echoing loudly in the enclosed space, and I heard someone grunt in pain.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I RAN TOWARD the sound, into the small space between the boat Alex Craig was building and the wall, and the first thing I saw was Collier with his revolver still pointing at the fallen man. The side of his face was swollen, and there was blood crusted in his officer’s mustache. His voice was thick from a puffy nose. The handle of the cane had done quite a bit of damage, and I thought it must hurt like the very devil, which made him even edgier. I found that I felt no remorse.
Collier was saying, “You aren’t that badly hurt. Get up and take me where I want to go, or the next time, I will shoot to—” He broke off as he heard me, realizing that he and Alex Craig were no longer alone. Whirling, he leveled the revolver in my direction.
“The Sister. All right, then, you can help me with the bloody boat.”
There was no way to take him. I was in Simon’s path, and the revolver was steady.
I said, “I’m not alone, Lieutenant. The Army is here. You’re surrounded.” I raised my hand, as if in a signal, and at that same moment, Simon came in behind me.
“Surrender your weapon,” he said sternly, the voice of authority, as if he had half a hundred men at his back.
“I’m damned if I will.” He put one hand on the hull of the boat, vaulted over it, and was out the door as Simon wheeled in pursuit.
I ran to Alex Craig, and he looked up at me rather ruefully as the fire in his shoulder registered. “How he thought I could manage her in this state—” he began, and fell back, unconscious. I knelt beside him, paying no heed to the shouts outside. I tore at the simple shirt he was wearing to work on the boat, but it was a clean wound, I didn’t think it had struck the lung or embedded itself in bone. Feeling around on his back, I found the exit wound, and then began to tear the shirt in strips to bind it up and stop the bleeding.
I moved swiftly, efficiently, and then laid him back gently on the ground. He was already coming to, frowning as the pain hit in full force.
“I’ll be back,” I said as I heard the revolver firing again.
I reached the door and looked out. The Lieutenant was wading across the Cran, nearly chest deep, struggling against the current. His revolver was still in his hand. Simon was standing on the embankment, holding his arm. I could see the blood darkening the khaki of his uniform.
Mark was shouting, “Upstream. We can cross there.”
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Collier had reached the wet, slippery opposite bank and as he scrabbled up, his feet skidding, his hands finally grasped the tufts of grass that hung above his head. By sheer effort he got himself up the slope, knelt in the heavy growth of two years, his head down, catching his breath. I could see his chest heaving from where I stood. And then he was up and running toward the rubble-pocked ruins.
Swearing, Simon dashed toward the motorcar, even as Mark was hastily reversing, and they roared away. I could hear the Vicar protesting, but they didn’t stop. Leaving me alone with Alex Craig.
I went in to be certain the bleeding had stopped. His eyes were closed, his mouth a tight line. Blood was already seeping through my makeshift bandages, and I pulled off my apron and used it to tighten the bandaging and put more pressure on the wound. Finishing that, I went back to the open door, and gasped as a muddy, dripping Lieutenant Collier stepped toward me.
He had doubled back, unseen.
“And where’s the Army now?” he demanded.
“You wasted your time. Craig is in no condition to row you anywhere, much less porter the boat as far as the water. And I’m not strong enough to help you carry it.”
“I’ve changed my mind. Come on, into the motorcar with you.”
“I won’t go,” I said. Backing into the narrow space, my hands behind me, I felt for a tool, anything I could use as a weapon. But Alex Craig was too tidy, there was nothing within easy reach.
“Look, I don’t particularly like killing people, but I’ll shoot him in the head this time if you don’t move fast.”
He leveled the revolver at the man on the floor.
I couldn’t chance it. I said quickly, “Very well,” and hurried toward the motorcar.
Alex Craig protested vehemently, trying to get to his feet, but Lieutenant Collier ignored him.
He stood with his revolver still pointing at the wounded man. “Can you crank the damned thing?”
I went to the front of the bonnet and did just that. Then I walked to the passenger’s door and got in.
Only then did he turn away, moving swiftly, swinging himself into the seat beside me.
“Where are we going?” I asked, praying that he would tell me, and that Alex Craig would hear it, and was conscious enough to remember it.
“Dover,” Lieutenant Collier said. He was cornered now, there wasn’t a great deal of choice. But once in Dover, he might convince someone he’d lost his orders, and sail for France.
“Dover?” I repeated. “Why there?”
“I have friends there. They’ll help me. They told me Britton had been brought back to England.”
He was reversing now, and soon we were flying down the line of warehouses and turning up the hill toward the town.
And then the motor began to sputter.
Swearing, he stamped his foot on the gas pedal, trying to make the motorcar climb the hill. It did, catching well enough to make it, but a little past the lane that ran down to Abbey Hall, almost to where the gate to the ruins of Cranbourne Abbey stood open, it simply coughed several times and died.
Lieutenant Collier pounded his fists on the steering wheel in red-faced fury, and for an instant, I feared he might turn on me, blaming me for what had happened. But the town-dweller whose vehicle this was hadn’t counted on the drive to Cranbourne, he hadn’t seen the necessity of filling up with petrol.
The Lieutenant was out of his seat, flinging his door wide, and then coming around to drag me out as well. “It’s your doing, all of this,” he said savagely. “I told Britton I didn’t want you killed, but he said you were dangerous. And he was right, damn it.”
He had my arm in a bruising grip, and was shoving me ahead of him toward the open gate. Just in time I remembered the queue of children marching in that direction for a school outing. They’d be coming out soon, and the last thing I wanted was for this angry man to confront them.
“You can’t do this,” I said fiercely.
“Tell me I can’t,” he said through clenched teeth, still pulling me toward the gate.
“You’ll be boxed in,” I told him. “There’s no other way out. They’ll corner you, and I don’t want to be caught in the crossfire.” I prayed it was true that there wasn’t a postern gate. “What’s more, you’ve only four shots left.”
I don’t think he’d ever fired his revolver in anger. Not until today. He wasn’t very good with it, but he had managed to bring down Alex Craig and shoot Simon.
He stopped so abruptly I stumbled. His hand was all that kept me from going down on my knees.
“There’s a better way,” he said, and abandoning the ruins, abandoning the commandeered motorcar, he started back the way we’d come. And I realized as I saw the lane ahead, that now, with no hope left, he was going to the Hall.
My fault. But I couldn’t have let him come near those children. He carried me along with him, turning down the lane. It was no longer shaded by the trees, which were bare branches over our heads now. He seemed to come to his senses a bit, casting a look around, trying to see if anyone was watching. He tucked his revolver in his belt and said to me, “Don’t try to escape. Hear me? I’ll shoot the first person I see, if I can’t shoot you.”
I wasn’t sure he meant it, but I couldn’t take a chance. I let him march me along the abbey wall, and put my energies toward trying to think what to do.
How long would it take before Mark and Simon realized they were on a wild goose chase on the far side of the Cran and come back to look for me and for Collier? I tried to work it out. But Alex Craig had heard Collier say we were heading for Dover. Would they see the motorcar where it had been left, or take the turning for the main road through Cranbourne, heading for the coast? Not coming near it . . .
“Who was Corporal Britton to you?”
“A nasty little housebreaker,” he said roughly. “They gave him to me for my batman. We both wanted to go to France, that was what we had in common, but the Army wouldn’t hear of assigning another officer to the powder mill. And so there we were. I think he’d have blown up the mill himself, if he’d known how to do it. I kept him away from it as much as possible. And away from Ashton and everyone else.”
“But why torment the Ashtons?” I asked breathlessly, trying to keep pace but finding it hard to do with my arm in his grip. That threw off my gait. “It’s senseless.”
“Damn it, it got out of hand. I thought if I gave the Army Philip Ashton, convinced them that he’d set off the explosion for his own reasons, they’d reward me by giving me back my rank and sending me to France. They’d overlooked him, but if I could make them believe—the bloody war’s nearly over, for God’s sake, and as soon as the Yanks got to the Front, I could see it wouldn’t last much longer. I didn’t want to be a Lieutenant with no battle experience for the rest of my life, when there were enough officers coming back from France to fill several peacetime armies. I’d live on a pittance, looked down on, no memoirs to write, nothing. I’d be a nobody.”
“Even so, I don’t see how you persuaded half a village to do your bidding.” And yet, in his friendly, helpful way, he’d convinced me to trust him. I’d even gone back to look for that frog. How difficult would it be for such a man to work on the feelings of those who’d lost so much?
Almost as if he’d heard me, he was saying, “It wasn’t as easy as I expected. Anonymous letters, a few whispers, a suggestion here or there—I thought they’d take root. In the end, I was driven to despair trying to find enough disgruntled people to persuade the rest that Ashton was guilty.” He added sourly, “Even Inspector Brothers was slow off the mark, although I must say later on he was happy enough to get his own back against Worley for overturning some of his soundest cases. And then suddenly everyone was convinced Ashton was a monster. They weren’t satisfied with his arrest. They wanted blood. It was like something out of the French Revolution, I couldn’t control it any longer. Mrs. Branch and that confounded dog—she found one hen dead in her coop, and she went haring off to Constable Hood with her tale. I tried to tell her it was ill-advised, but she wouldn’t listen. I sent the Benning woman an anonymous letter about the cigarettes, and she was adamant she’d seen just that herself. But there was talk of the Germans capitulating, and I was still in Kent. No closer to getting to France.”
He sounded angry and put out, as if all the blame belonged to the survivors of the dead. No scrap of pity for the Ashtons, or for using grieving families. All I could think of was how the Ashtons would ever find a way back through this tangle. Unless Lieutenant Collier stood trial himself and people could see how completely they’d been used.
But how to get all of us out of this business alive?
I could see the house ahead now. It had seemed such a short distance, coming down the drive in Mark’s motorcar. On foot, it seemed to take forever. I kept stumbling over my own boots.
Trying to think of a way to warn Mrs. Ashton and Clara, I considered breaking free and making a run for it. But he was angry enough now, he’d kill me and both of them.
He stopped just short of the door, catching his breath, looking up at the windows, as if he could tear the walls down and leave them nothing but a heap of stone. Like the mill.
And then he turned to me. “We’ll knock at the door. You’ll tell them that you’ve brought a friend of Mark’s home with you. Anything to get us inside.”
With my free hand I gestured toward his uniform, caked with mud, splotched with water. His face already bruising, his nose an ugly red. “You don’t look like a friend.”
He jerked my arm, and it hurt. “Tell them Craig had taken me out in his boat and there was trouble. I need to clean up before returning to Canterbury.”
I was afraid that would work too well. But he was already pushing me toward the door. I stood there for a moment, my turn to catch my breath. My cap was awry, but I straightened it as best I could with one hand. Then I smoothed my skirts.
“Hurry,” he said roughly, looking over his shoulder down the lane. “Get it over with.”
I reached for the heavy knocker, lifted it, and let it drop. Hoping no one would hear it.
No one came.
“They’re awa
y. In Canterbury.”
“Again,” he snapped. “Harder this time.”
And I did as he asked. I could hear the sound echoing in the house. After a moment the door opened.
“Mark—” Clara began, and then stopped short. “Sister Crawford?” she asked tentatively, her gaze moving from me to the disheveled man beside me. He’d managed a smile, but it was more ghastly than friendly.
“I’m so sorry,” I began. “The Lieutenant here was trying out one of Alex Craig’s boats, and it came to grief. I suggested bringing him here to clean up a bit.” As far as I knew, she had never set eyes on the man who was liaison for the army at the mill. And so I didn’t give his name straightaway.
“I thought you were in Canterbury,” she said, frowning.
“We were. Mark and Simon are over by the ruins. They’ll be coming back shortly.”
“Yes, of course.” She swung the door wide and we stepped in. Moving quickly, Lieutenant Collier shut the door behind us with some force, and Clara, on the point of leading us upstairs, already talking about the room he could use, stopped and turned to look at us in fright.
“Don’t panic, Clara, please don’t,” I said. “This man means you no harm. You aren’t a member of the family.”
She stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.
Before the Lieutenant could speak, I added, “Go downstairs to the servants, and tell them we won’t be requiring them for several hours. Keep them down there, if you can. Please? You must protect them.”
She was on the point of arguing, when I said in Matron’s voice, “Do as I say, Clara.” I would have given anything to know where Helen Ashton was. I prayed she wasn’t in her enclosed garden. It was a trap, and there would be bloodshed getting Lieutenant Collier out of there. Worse than the abbey ruins.
Standing her ground, Clara said in a worried voice. “Bess? What’s happening?”
“Nothing to worry you about,” I said. “If you do as I ask.”
“But who is this man?”
“Someone the Ashtons knew in the past.” I could feel the man beside me stirring impatiently. He had let me deal with Clara—I wasn’t sure he knew who she was—because he would be getting his way without any trouble. He was as aware of those last four shots as I was. He didn’t intend to waste them. And he wouldn’t brook much more interference on her part. “Go on, Clara, please.”