The Confession ir-14

by Charles Todd

  The alternative was the first-floor master bedroom, with its long windows looking down to the water, giving a wide view of the lawns and the edges of the marsh.

  There was no escape for Morrison from either place, if he himself could get in the first shot. But there was only one cartridge left in the revolver beneath his coat.

  He could feel the rush of adrenaline now, as he had on the battlefield as he went over the top. Knowing what was waiting for him out there, knowing what his chances of survival were. But until he knew where Cynthia Farraday was, whether she was alive or dead, his hands were tied.

  There was nothing for it but to walk out into the open and challenge Morrison.

  Rutledge had taken the first step out into the open when he heard voices. Someone had come out onto the terrace. He moved swiftly back into the shelter of the house and pressed himself against the wall.

  He could just hear Cynthia Farraday saying, “But I don’t wish to sit in that chair. Bring me another.”

  She was alive, then, and being used as a Judas goat. Rutledge waited.

  “You’ll sit where you’re told. I shan’t kill you until he’s dead. Or at least I hadn’t planned to. Push me too far, and I won’t wait.”

  “He isn’t coming. You said yourself he had taken those other men to hospital. He won’t leave until he’s certain they’ll live. Those men are his witnesses, don’t you see?”

  “He’s not the sort to leave a prisoner tied to a post any longer than needful. It’s hot today. He’ll remember I have no water. No shade. He’ll arrive at the Rectory and discover that I’ve escaped. Then he’ll come here. He knows me very well, Rutledge does. But I know him even better. He’ll die to save you. Wait and see. I have only to say, Show yourself, and I’ll let her live. He’ll step out then, and you’ll walk down to the launch, as I told you to do. He won’t know I’ve disabled it. He’ll watch you go, he’ll stand there and watch you step into the launch. And then I’ll kill him. It’s quite simple.”

  A silence fell.

  Then she said, “You can’t watch both of us. I can swim, I can leap out of the boat and you’ll never find me in the marshes.”

  “I’ll come back for you one day. As I did for Justin Fowler. Remember that. You will never know when. My life had taught me patience. Russell learned that too.”

  “Did you kill Mrs. Russell?”

  “Oh, yes. I had to be quiet about it, so I cut her throat and then tied her to a stone. She’s still down there on the river bottom, as far as I know. It’s important that you understand me. Wherever you go, I shall find you. Eventually. Or now. It doesn’t matter to me when you die. I’ll even let you choose.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” she said with heavy irony.

  Another silence fell. It lasted longer this time. Rutledge weighed the distance, and how quickly Morrison would react.

  He didn’t know how Morrison was armed. He didn’t know whether he had brought out both shotguns or only one. Far more urgent was the question of what Cynthia Farraday would do. Whether he could depend on her to stay out of the way. It was just as likely she would try to throw Morrison off balance, and in that instant, put herself directly into his own line of fire.

  There was no way to plan. No way to calculate the odds. Once he stepped out in plain sight, there would be chaos, with no chance to do anything but try for a kill with the first shot. After two years, was he still quick enough?

  “You canna’ fash yourself over the lass. If Morrison brings ye doon, she willna’ live verra’ long afterward. Ye canna save her. You mustna’ even consider it.”

  “Not by my shot, please God.” But Hamish was right. He had to stop Morrison any way he could. If he wanted to protect Cynthia Farraday, he himself would have to survive.

  Bringing out the revolver, he checked again to be sure. One shot. That was all he had.

  Then he put it back again.

  One deep breath to steady himself, and then he walked out of the shelter at the corner of the house and into the open.

  He heard Cynthia Farraday gasp. And Morrison turned to look his way.

  There was no time to think, he’d been right about that. Waiting had dulled Morrison’s wits. Danger had sharpened his.

  Before the shotgun could swing up and be aimed, Rutledge had retrieved the revolver and fired.

  The upward motion of the shotgun hadn’t stopped. Rutledge had no defense.

  He watched the man’s finger close spasmodically on the trigger and prepared to throw himself to one side. Cynthia Farraday had her hands in the air, and then he realized in the same instant what she was doing.

  Pulling the long pin from her hat, she rammed it into Morrison’s side.

  He didn’t cry out. But his fingers clenched prematurely, and the shotgun went off even as his knees buckled and he went down. Rutledge could hear the shot raining down somewhere to the left of him, but he was already in a dead run toward the terrace.

  Morrison had died by the time he got to the man, Rutledge’s shot in his heart. In some far corner of his mind, he could hear Cynthia Farraday crying, and peripherally he could see that her hands had covered her face.

  Rutledge’s shot had been true. He wasn’t sure how he had managed it, there had been no time to take careful aim. Still, he’d used his revolver all through the war, he had learned to make every shot count.

  He was not proud of the skill.

  Pushing the shotgun to one side with his foot, he turned to Cynthia. She pulled her hands down.

  “I wanted him to hang, ” she cried, staring at Rutledge with horror-filled eyes. “He murdered my family too. Why did you kill him?”

  He reached out to her, but she spun away, running down the steps, across the lawns to the water. She leapt into the launch, and when she failed to start it, she sat down and stared at him numbly.

  Leaving Morrison where he lay, Rutledge walked down to the landing and said, “Let me drive you back to London. There are some things you need to know.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything,” she told him, turning her back on him. “Why won’t this launch start?”

  “He told you. He disabled it. Leave it. It can be brought in later.” He squatted on the landing, next to the launch. “Listen to me. Wyatt Russell is alive. Notice of his death was a way of advertising for information to help us find this man.”

  She half turned her head and said, “Is it true?”

  “I’ll take you to him. He’s in my flat at present.”

  After a moment, she said, “I think you’re the cruelest man I’ve ever known.”

  “The motorcar is by the gates. I’ll meet you there. There’s something I must attend to first.”

  She wouldn’t take his hand. Stepping out of the launch herself, she started toward the house.

  He walked as far as the terrace with her, then without speaking, she veered to the nearest side of the house and left him to do what he had to do.

  He returned the chairs to the garden room, spread a dust cloth over Morrison’s body, and closed the house door, taking the shotgun and the revolver with him.

  The drive to London was made in a tense silence. There was one stop on the road, and that was in Tilbury, where he spoke again to the doctor in the casualty ward.

  “Both men are out of danger. Did you reach Mrs. Barber?”

  He had not. But his day hadn’t ended.

  He also begged the use of the only telephone, and put in a call to Inspector Robinson in Colchester.

  He caught the man just leaving for his dinner.

  Rutledge said, “Your murderer is lying on a terrace behind River’s Edge.” He gave directions to the house. “I’m sorry. I had to kill him. There was a hostage.”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. “He’s dead, you say? Damn it, Rutledge, I wanted him to stand trial.”

  Rutledge rang off, rubbing his aching elbow.

  Leaving the Casualty Ward, he debated telling Cynthia Farraday the truth about Justin
Fowler.

  And then he decided that it was not his truth to tell. Fowler had made a life for himself in the north of England. He was content. He was safe. Best to leave it that way.

  “Ye must tell him so.”

  That too could be done, an unsigned letter to a tobacco shop in Chester.

  Cynthia Farraday looked away as he turned the crank and got in beside her.

  It would be after midnight before he reached Furnham again, he realized, hearing a church clock in the distance striking the hour. He hoped to be in time to meet Inspector Robinson there, after speaking to Abigail Barber.

  As he drove through the familiar outskirts of London, Cynthia Farraday said, “I have a confession to make.”

  “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “In the beginning, when I believed you were a solicitor for the Russell family, I liked you very much. I told you I wanted to buy River’s Edge so that I’d have an excuse to see you again. I was flattered when you tried to follow me to my house. I thought it meant you liked me as well. Instead, you dragged me into a murder inquiry.”

  “You were involved long before I came on the scene,” he told her.

  “Did you know he held a knife to my throat when he caught me inside the house? I smiled at him when I first saw him in the doorway, thinking he’d come because he was looking out for River’s Edge. That he had heard about Wyatt and wanted to offer comfort. He told me he’d hurt his arm and had walked up to the house, hoping to find something to use as a sling. I could see it for myself, it was red, bruised. And when I turned to look for a strip of cloth, he came up behind me and I felt the coldness of metal against my skin. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted, I was afraid-but later he told me he’d cut Aunt Elizabeth’s throat. I had no idea you were coming for him until he took out the shotgun. He was the rector. I’d known him for years, trusted him, and yet he told me he was going to kill me. I thought Wyatt loved me. And yet he burst into my house and shouted at me and even slapped me. That was your fault too. In the past few hours I have learned to hate you.”

  He said, his voice tired, “Then why did you stab him with your hat pin, to stop him from shooting me as he went down?”

  “For the same reason I wanted him to hang. I wanted him to feel the pain he’d made the rest of us feel. Justin, Wyatt, Aunt Elizabeth. Me.” She took off the hat and tossed it into the back of the motorcar, discarding it as she was discarding the truth. “You showed me how evil people are. You showed me how impossible it is to trust anyone ever again. You showed me that I can’t even trust my own judgment. Even the war hadn’t showed me those things.”

  There was nothing he could say. And so he drove on to his flat and signaled the nursing sister to allow Miss Farraday to come inside.

  That done, he started for Furnham, to face another woman’s anger, even though it was not his fault that Jessup and Barber were shot.

  He had almost reached the corner of his street when he heard someone calling his name.

  Turning his head, he saw that Miss Farraday had come out of his flat and was running down the street toward him. He waited where he was, and as she got closer he could see that she was flushed, her eyes bright.

  He took it for anger. And he didn’t think he could endure another denunciation.

  “Please? I’m sorry-so sorry,” she said, stumbling over her words as she caught the door of the motorcar with one hand. “I was-it was-you saved my life and I never even thanked you.” She broke off, bit her lip, and walked slowly back toward his flat, her head down.

  He watched her until she had stepped inside and closed the door.

  Epilogue

  As he made his way out of London, Rutledge remembered the boxes that were in his sister’s attic. He hadn’t had an opportunity to tell Cynthia Farraday about them. Tomorrow, when he took her statement, would be soon enough. He would have to explain as well that they held what must be the only remaining copy of Willet’s third and last book. Whether she chose to see that it was sent to France was her decision to make. He was of two minds about its publication.

  He stopped briefly in Tilbury, was told that both patients were resting comfortably, and drove on toward the Hawking. Passing the gates of River’s Edge, he didn’t look down the drive. He didn’t want to see the ghosts that must inhabit it now. He didn’t believe in ghosts. Still, he did not look for them.

  He wondered if the house would ever be opened again. Too much had happened there, and memory could be an uneasy companion. But he rather thought that if Cynthia Farraday wanted it opened, Wyatt Russell would do that for her. After her ordeal today, perhaps her love for the marshes was tainted too.

  He didn’t want to think about the dead man lying on the terrace. That would come later. He must come to terms with shooting a man. Not a German in the war but a murder suspect, and he went through those last seconds once more, to judge himself. There had been only one cartridge left in the revolver. He’d had to shoot to kill, he couldn’t be certain of disabling Morrison. Even so, he had been lucky that it had hit its mark. That didn’t make the fact easier to live with.

  In some ways, he thought, Willet and Morrison had been alike. Selfish enough to go after what they wanted with little regard to the consequences in the lives of others. Willet knew his second and third books would anger everyone in Furnham, but he had written both of them anyway, and at the end of his life had salved his conscience by reporting Fowler’s death instead of going home and facing his family. It would have been easier for him to die alone in Paris.

  Passing the turning that led to the Rectory, such as it was, and thence to the burned-out shell of the old church, he considered Morrison. The man could have put the education his mother had blackmailed Fowler into providing for her son to better use. He could even have become a good priest. And yet he had hidden behind his calling, comforting Abigail Barber even though he had killed her brother. Believing the lies he’d been told because he wanted to think of himself as the neglected child of a rich man instead of the son of a felon who died in prison.

  Ahead lay the lane that led to Abigail Barber’s house. She must be frantic with worry, but at least he could assure her that her husband and her uncle would live.

  A small victory. He accepted it as he turned off the headlamps and prepared his tired mind for the hour ahead.

  Hamish said as Rutledge left the motorcar and walked toward Barber’s house, “Ye must put this inquiry aside. Ye canna’ hold on to it.”

  And Rutledge realized that that was precisely what he’d done. Held on. Seeking absolution?

  He remembered Cynthia Farraday’s flushed face as she had thanked him for saving her life. That would have to serve.

  He felt a flickering of peace as he knocked lightly on the door and heard anxious footsteps hurrying to answer the summons.

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