The Confession ir-14

by Charles Todd

  “He’s lucky his assailant was a poor shot. Or possibly he came up on Russell sooner than he’d expected-” He broke off as he saw Russell’s eyelids fluttering.

  And then he was fully awake, grimacing in pain. Recognizing Rutledge, his gaze swung around the room, eyes wide with alarm. Then he made a sudden movement, as if to sit up, and sucked in a breath between teeth clenched in a grimace as he fought the fire that seemed to explode in his shoulder. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he lowered himself gently onto the pillows again.

  “Lie still,” Rutledge admonished him. “The doctors are worried enough, and so am I.”

  “The motorcycle?” Russell asked, his voice rough and without much force. It was clear that he had lost track of everything since going into the ditch with the Triumph.

  “You survived that well enough. Someone tried to kill you at River’s Edge. You’re in a London hospital where you were brought from there. Do you remember anything at all about going to the house?”

  The Major struggled to assimilate that bit of information. Finally he managed to say, his gaze on Rutledge’s face, “Shot?” as if it was as alien as the fact that he didn’t recognize his surroundings. “When?

  “Last night. Do you remember sleeping in the church ruins outside Furnham? Being brought your meals by Nancy Brothers?” It took some time to take Russell step-by-step from the crash of the Trusty to leaving the Rectory in the middle of the night. Finally Rutledge asked, “Who shot you? Do you know?”

  He shook his head slightly, as if afraid the movement would bring back the fierce pain. “He-betrayed me,” he said, his gaze moving on to Morrison’s face.

  “In point of fact, he probably saved your life. He came for me when he couldn’t find you this morning.”

  “Told me-he told me he couldn’t lie if you asked-if you asked where I was.”

  “If we hadn’t found you in the marsh, you’d be dead by now. As it was, it was a close run thing.”

  One hand lifted vaguely in the direction of his chest. “Dying?”

  “Probably not. But we need to know who shot you. Do you remember anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If there’s anything on your conscience, I’d advise you to clear it. Morrison will hear your confession, if you like.”

  Russell closed his eyes. “Hurts. The very devil.”

  He asked Morrison to summon one of the nursing sisters. When he was out of earshot, Rutledge said in a low voice, “Before I go, I must ask you. It’s my duty. Did you kill Justin Fowler?”

  “God, no.”

  “Did you kill Ben Willet?”

  “Told you. No. Refused.”

  Hamish said, “Do you believe him?”

  Rutledge didn’t answer him. Morrison was coming back with the sister, and she carried a tray with water and a small medicine cup.

  Russell’s good hand tried to clutch at Rutledge’s arm, his fingers grasping at air.

  “As I fell. Silhouette. I remember now.” He paused, and when the sister was about to hold the water to his lips, Russell shook his head, still watching Rutledge’s face. “Am I-will they send me back to St. Margaret’s?”

  “Speak to Dr. Wade. He will have to work that out.”

  Yet Rutledge understood how the Major felt about the clinic. He himself had left Fleming’s clinic a month before the doctor felt he was ready. And the doctor, as it turned out, was right, he hadn’t been prepared for Warwickshire.

  Russell leaned back, taking the medicine the sister had brought. Rutledge waited until he had swallowed it, and then he left, promising Morrison to drive him back to Essex as soon as possible.

  As he walked back to where he had left his motorcar, he debated his next move. And he came to a conclusion. He drove back to the center of London and once more availed himself of The Marlborough Hotel’s telephone, reluctantly shutting himself into the tiny closet and putting in a call to someone he knew in the War Office.

  George Munro listened to what Rutledge had to say, then replied, “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  “I do. A great deal of time and work. My present inquiry revolves around finding the answer. ”

  He could hear the sigh down the line. “I know. I owe you, Ian. I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you.” He put up the receiver.

  George Munro had been a fellow officer during the third battle of the Somme. The bullet that tore through the femoral artery in his leg should have killed him. But Rutledge had managed to stop the bleeding and drag him back to his own lines, sending him to a forward dressing station where a doctor named MacPherson and three nursing sisters had saved Munro’s life-and more important than that to Munro, his leg. He walked with a permanent limp thereafter and had complained bitterly when he was sent to the War Office after his release from hospital rather than back to the front lines. In the end, he’d stayed in the Army and at the War Office, glad of the decision that had taken him where his knowledge of strategy and tactics had seen him promoted.

  Meanwhile, his wife had named their first son Ian MacPherson, in gratitude for her husband’s life.

  He had been absent from the Yard long enough. Reluctantly Rutledge left his motorcar in the street and climbed the stairs to his office.

  No one seemed to have noticed his absence. Gibson had come in and taken several of the files on his desk, replacing them at some point with several more. He sat down and scanned them, added his signature to two, and noted that two others were ready to be filed.

  Someone tapped at his door, and Sergeant Gibson came in.

  “Sir. Constable Greene told me he thought he’d seen you.”

  “What news is there of Chief Superintendent Bowles?”

  “Resting comfortably. It was a near run thing. It appears now that he’ll live. But whether he’ll come back to the Yard-or when-is uncertain at best.”

  “What do the Yard punters have to say?”

  Gibson grinned sheepishly. “As to that, sir, it’s currently five to one against his returning. Much of that may be wishful thinking.”

  Rutledge smiled.

  “Superintendent Williamson has taken over as of this morning, and Chief Superintendent Bowles has been placed on medical leave for the present.”

  Rutledge had not had many dealings with Williamson. The jury was out on whether he was a good man kept on a short leash by Bowles, or whether he was a weaker imitation of Bowles.

  “At any rate,” Gibson was saying, “we’re to go on as we were. Any questions, his door is open. Otherwise, he expects us to do our duty as if the Chief Superintendent is here.”

  Rather trusting of him, Rutledge thought, but said nothing. The Yard as a whole was professional and responsible. And Williamson was wise not to appear too eager to step into his predecessor’s empty boots.

  It was clear that Gibson was waiting for him to comment.

  “Good man,” he said, then asked, “Any progress on the requests I’ve put in?”

  Gibson frowned. “I’ve not been able to find this Justin Fowler. He appears to have dropped out of sight. Last known address as far as I can judge was River’s Edge, the Furnham Road, Essex.”

  And that would fit with what Rutledge had been told, that Justin Fowler had been the last to leave the house, save for Finley, the driver. Had he felt obliged to go so that the house could be closed, the servants released from their duties?

  “Where did he go when on leave?” Hamish asked.

  His family home in Colchester had been sold, the money put in trust for him. And it was doubtful that he would have wished to return there, given the memories of his parents’ deaths in the house. Unless he’d taken a flat or bought a house in London, River’s Edge was his home.

  Was that why he had gone there while on leave in 1915? Because he needed to remember a happier time before the war? He couldn’t have stayed there, but he could have spent a few hours on the grounds or in the house, if he still had a key.

  And that brought up another problem Rutle
dge hadn’t considered until now. How had Fowler reached the River Hawkins?

  Aware that Sergeant Gibson was still talking, Rutledge said, “Sorry! I was fitting together pieces of the puzzle. Go on.”

  Gibson said, “Have you spoken to Miss Farraday or Major Russell? I should think they ought to know where Fowler is.”

  “They’ve been less than helpful. If he’s alive, where is Fowler now? If he’s dead, why hasn’t it been reported?”

  “In my view, sir-for what it’s worth-you must assume the worst.”

  Twenty minutes later, Rutledge set the last of the folders in the basket for filing. There had been no telephone call from Munro, although he’d given the man more than an hour. Not a good sign, as Hamish was pointing out.

  There was one other person he needed to speak to before he went back to the hospital and from there to Essex.

  Miss Farraday was at home. She said, when he was shown into her sitting room, “I’ve had enough unpleasant news. I hope you aren’t here to add to that.”

  “Where did Justin Fowler live, after the house at River’s Edge was closed?”

  “He went into the Army in late September, I think it was, and on his first leave he took rooms at the Prince Frederick Hotel. He invited me to dinner one night, and we talked. Mostly about the Army and about our years at River’s Edge. I asked if he’d like me to write to him, and he said he thought it would be better if I didn’t. He was still quite upset about Aunt Elizabeth’s disappearance. I think one of the reasons he stayed on at the house after Wyatt and I left was the hope she might come back and someone ought to be there if she did.”

  “And after that?”

  “The Prince Frederick was flattened in one of the Zeppelin raids, worst luck, because in my opinion, the hotel restaurant was the best in London. I don’t know where he stayed after that or even if he came to London at all. If he did, he never got in touch with me. His name never appeared on the lists of killed, wounded, and missing. I’ve heard since that not all of the missing and dead were ever accounted for.” She looked away. “Perhaps he found someone he liked and spent every minute of any leaves with her.”

  He detected the faintest note of jealousy.

  “His solicitors have had no word of him. I’ve spoken to them.”

  There was a sadness in her voice that she couldn’t quite conceal. “Justin went his own way, and Wyatt has been damaged by the war. Ben is dead. It makes me aware of how fleeting life is. How little we can hold on to anyone or anything. I wish I could understand why he’d been the way he was. What the shadows were in his life.”

  It wasn’t his place to tell her about Justin Fowler’s past. But he said, “Something happened before he came to River’s Edge. The shadows were there before you knew him.”

  She nodded. “Thank you for telling me that. It helps. I always had the feeling that he was waiting. For something to happen or someone to come. It was one of the reasons he didn’t go into Furnham. He liked the isolation of River’s Edge. He told Aunt Elizabeth once that he felt safe there. I know, because I happened to overhear him.”

  He thought about the boy Justin Fowler had been. His parents had been murdered, he himself had nearly been killed. Was he afraid that the unknown killer would come for him one day and finish what he’d begun? It was a dreadful burden for a child to bear.

  “If he went to River’s Edge on one of his leaves, how would he have got there?”

  “Aunt Elizabeth’s motorcar. Harold Finley brought it to London when he enlisted and stored it in the mews behind Wyatt’s house. All of us used it from time to time. Mostly it just sat there, of course. But I drove it to Dover once, and another time to Cornwall for a friend’s wedding.”

  “Do you remember who used it in the summer of 1915?”

  “No, of course not. Not now. I can tell you that the few times I wished to borrow it, it was always there in the mews.”

  As he rose to leave, she said, “There’s something I just remembered. The first warm weather we had, after he’d come to River’s Edge, we went swimming in the river. I saw Justin’s chest. It was horribly scarred. I asked him what caused them. He said he’d been in hospital for a long time. I thought he meant he’d had some sort of surgery. It explained how pale and thin he was. I was young, easily put off. But I realize now the scars were not the sort that come from surgery. I helped with the wounded during the war-reading to them, writing letters, keeping their minds off their suffering. It never occurred to me at the time-those scars of his were wounds.”

  He said nothing.

  “Did his parents-were they responsible?”

  “Not his parents,” Rutledge replied. “A stranger.”

  “Dear God. I wish someone had told me. I wish I’d known.”

  “I don’t think Mrs. Russell wanted you to know. She understood that it was important to forget.”

  “But did she tell Wyatt?”

  “Probably not. For the same reason.”

  She took a deep breath. “If you find him, will you let me know-if he’s all right?”

  “If that’s what he wants me to do.”

  And she had to be satisfied with that.

  Chapter 19

  The first person Rutledge met as he walked into the hospital was a nursing sister he had dealt with earlier. As they walked together to the ward where the Major was being kept under observation, he asked if there had been any change in his condition.

  She reported, “He’s been rather restless, and the doctors are quite concerned about a fever. That would mean infection. He needs sleep, but he keeps trying to remember what happened to him.” She paused, then said diplomatically, “It might be best if the rector left for a time. There would be less temptation to talk.”

  Russell had in fact dropped into a light sleep when Rutledge walked into the ward. Morrison was not there, and so Rutledge took the empty chair by the bed.

  He himself had left River’s Edge at a little after two the previous night. And he had seen no one, had heard no shots. Morrison had told him that the Major had left the Rectory after one o’clock. Where had he been between half past one and half past two? Or to look at this problem another way, who had encountered Russell on the road-or in the marshes? Was it a planned meeting-or simply opportune?

  Who came to the house at night, who kept those terrace doors unlocked for easy access to the guns in the study? Who stood by the landing stage and stared out over the river to the far side, as if lord of all he surveyed?

  The only people who were usually abroad late at night were the smugglers.

  And while they wouldn’t brook any interference in their business, it seemed unlikely that they would go out of their way to stalk Major Russell through the marshes.

  Although Timothy Jessup might well have his own reasons for seeing that River’s Edge remained closed. Hadn’t he asked if Rutledge was interested in the property? On that first encounter when he was here with Frances?

  Perhaps it was time to find out who would inherit River’s Edge if the last of the Russells died. Rutledge realized he knew very little about the Major’s father, who had been killed in the Boer War. Cynthia Farraday was distantly related to him. Who else might be? Surely not Jessup. But stranger things had happened. Men sometimes committed indiscretions in their youth-witness Justin Fowler’s father-that they kept firmly locked away in their past.

  Dr. Wade, Rutledge thought, was right. The Major seemed to live a charmed life. The war wound, the motorcycle crash, and now this gunshot. Any one of them should have killed him.

  Hamish said, “He willna’ escape the hangman.”

  “We must prove he killed Fowler first.”

  He was suddenly aware that the Major was awake and staring up at him. His first thought was that he’d answered Hamish aloud, without thinking.

  Russell said after a moment, “Have you come back-or have you never left?”

  “I was at the Yard. Where is Morrison?”

  “He went to the canteen. He wanted a
cup of tea.”

  “Just as well. Do you feel like talking?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “If you had died of this gunshot wound, who stands to inherit River’s Edge?”

  “I made a will leaving it to my wife. After she died, I left everything to Cynthia. Why?”

  “Are there any other cousins?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember much about my father. Or his side of the family for that matter. A grandmother, I think, when I was very young. She read to me, and I remember her voice, not her face.”

  “Do you know where Justin Fowler stayed, when he was on leave during the war?”

  “There was a hotel in London he liked. A little out of the way for my tastes, but it suited him, he said. Cynthia went there to dine with him, I think. But don’t trust that memory. I was jealous and could have imagined it.”

  “I’m told the hotel was destroyed in a Zeppelin raid.”

  “Was it?”

  “Did he go back to River’s Edge, after it was closed?”

  “I ran into him in France and he told me he’d gone down to Essex a last time before being sent over with his regiment. That it was all right. I’d heard that one of the raids had taken out a windmill and some houses, but he told me that that was on the Blackwater. Or maybe the Crouch. I don’t remember.”

  “When was this?”

  “Early in 1915, I think. He’d seen some fighting, and I was in the relief column. He told me he’d borrowed my motorcar and driven out to Essex.”

  “Did he stay at the house? Or just spend a few hours there?”

  “He built a fire in my mother’s sitting room, he said. It was damned cold, the house had been shut up for months. He’d brought tea in a Thermos and a packet of sandwiches, and he ate them by the fire rather than on the terrace as he’d planned. I asked if the chimneys were all right-I didn’t relish the idea of the house burning down. But he’d checked them first, he said, and made certain the fire was out before leaving.”