Proof of Guilt

by Charles Todd

  “What did the body look like?”

  “He hadn’t been in the water long. No distinguishing marks. Nothing that stood out in my mind. He was dressed well, smooth hands. Not as tall as you, not as dark, strong jawline.” Billings shrugged. “I didn’t stay. There was too much at stake elsewhere.”

  Rutledge could understand that.

  “Did you follow up later?”

  “The local police couldn’t identify him, decided he was a suicide, and buried him.”

  “Why a suicide?”

  “He’d drowned. There was a mark across his shoulders, bruising while he was still alive, but that could have been the rail of a ship. They notified the ports where sportsmen keep their boats, but no one was reported missing. I doubt they tried as far as Portsmouth.”

  “A wild goose indeed,” Rutledge said thoughtfully.

  “Yes, well, make of it what you like. But if you’ve lost someone from a docking ship, it’s possible he wasn’t on her when she docked.”

  And that was a very perceptive remark.

  “I can’t quite see how this would fit into what I’ve been working with. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t.”

  Billings got to his feet. “I don’t myself. And I’m off to Staffordshire. The inquiry there is running into difficulties. Again.”

  “I’ll keep this to myself for the moment.”

  “I thought you might.”

  And Billings was gone, striding out the door and letting it swing shut behind him.

  Rutledge considered what he’d just been told.

  The assumption was that Gooding had killed Matthew Traynor and buried his body somewhere on the London road.

  Hamish said, “Traynor was last seen by the rail, ye ken, wanting to watch the coast come up.”

  “It would depend on how close to shore Medea was. And how the tides were running. If a man was thrown overboard and he kept his head, he might try to swim. But in the end, he could have tired or developed a cramp.”

  He got up quickly and ran for the door, after Billings. Rutledge caught up with him just as he was walking out of the Yard.

  The Inspector turned and said, “Forgot something?”

  “Yes. Two things. Was the body shod? And was he wearing a coat?”

  “No to both. But then a coat might be identified. Or else—” Billings considered Rutledge, appraisal in his eyes. “Or he tried to save himself by swimming.”

  Rutledge smiled. “I would have done, in his place.”

  “So would I.” Billings nodded and walked on.

  Rutledge walked back into the Yard, satisfied.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rutledge was kept busy for what was left of the day, finishing three reports on cases coming to trial. His mind was half on what he was doing and half on the possibilities tumbling over themselves in his head.

  And Hamish too was there, arguing first one side and then the other, a distraction he couldn’t escape.

  It was nearly eight o’clock when he left the Yard. The days were growing shorter, the long hours of sunlight dwindling toward autumn. He had hated the long days in the trenches, the sun beating down, bringing up the stinking miasma that was always there, until he could smell it even when he’d left the front lines, as if it had been absorbed by his pores. Hot, unable to escape the heat, helmets seeming to burn straight into the brain, thirsty, never enough water, never mind fresh water, and then the final agony, charging across No Man’s Land. No chance to bathe, shaving only because the gas mask had to fit, even a fresh uniform filthy before it could be enjoyed, and always the knowledge that if rain came, it would be worse, and sometimes the low-lying mists afterward hiding the deadly gas. He was never sure that winter was any better, the helmet cold, the strap chafing chapped skin, and half-frozen fingers on the trigger of his revolver.

  He shook himself, walked to the motorcar, and drove to the flat, grateful to have time to think.

  But it wasn’t to be.

  Frances was there, waiting for him, asking him to take her to dinner.

  “All my friends are out of town. Let’s go somewhere jolly, shall we, and pretend we’re having fun.”

  He laughed. “It’s too late for dinner.”

  “Well, I haven’t eaten, and I’m sure you haven’t either. Come home with me, and I’ll find something to cook. We can talk.”

  He had got to the bottom of it. Something was wrong.

  “All right. Give me five minutes to clean up and change.”

  She waited restlessly in the parlor, walking about, touching things, moving them a little this way or that, in constant motion, it seemed to him in the bedroom, listening to her footsteps as they crossed the polished floorboards, then the carpet, back to the floorboards again.

  When he came out of the bedroom, she turned, relief on her face, and then managed to smile.

  “You’re looking remarkably handsome. I like that tie.”

  “You should. You gave it to me for Christmas.”

  “Did I? I have good taste.”

  He took her out to the motorcar, and they drove in silence to the house where they had both lived as children and that now belonged to Frances.

  She said as she walked in the door, “Does it ever seem to you that the house echoes when you’re the only one at home?”

  “I’d never thought about it that way. I suppose it does.”

  Leading the way through to the kitchen, she began to open cabinet doors and peer into the pantry.

  “I’m not particularly hungry,” he said after a moment.

  “Well, there’s soup left over from my lunch and some roast beef, I think. Pickle. Apples. Cheese. Will you make the tea?”

  He picked up the kettle, rinsed it, and then filled it with fresh water.

  Frances put down the bread she was starting to slice and then said, “Ian. Peter Lockwood? Do you remember him? You were in school with him.”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” he answered as casually as he could.

  “He was a pilot in the war. Came back home to marry the girl he loved—and she had already married someone else. He was quite bitter about it. He left England and went to Kenya. But that didn’t suit, apparently, because he’s back now. I’ve run into him quite a lot recently. His father’s dead and he’s taken over the farm. I think it suits him.”

  Lockwood’s father had been a gentleman farmer. No title, no great estate, but land that had been in his family since the Armada if not the Domesday Book. Old money, a long tradition on the land, and deep roots there.

  “Yes, I should think it would.” He braced himself for what was to come.

  “He’s asked me to marry him,” she said baldly.

  “And what did you say?”

  “I told him I wanted to think about it. And I do. Ian, there was someone in the war, someone I cared for very much, but it was impossible. There were . . . impediments, and we agreed not to start something we might both regret.”

  He’d always suspected it. He even believed he knew who the man was and what the impediment was. And that the man hadn’t lived to see the end of the war.

  He said, choosing his words carefully, “I shouldn’t be surprised. That you’d met someone. For a time I thought Simon might make you happy. But it didn’t seem to last.”

  “No. I like him very much. I really do. But he’s—he’s not considerate. The way he kept his sister’s illness from everyone. He could have said that family affairs had called him away. Instead he simply disappeared from time to time to be with her through the worst of it. I admired that. I felt a little selfish, to tell you the truth, for wanting to know where he was, if there was someone else, if he cared at all. He could have thought of that, couldn’t he? A little thing, really, but I wondered if life with him would be full of little things. And if in the end, I could be happy, always waiting for him to tell me what was on his mind. What worried him. What was important to him.”

  Frances was the least selfish person Rutledge knew. He felt sud
denly angry with Simon for making her feel she was.

  “And Peter?” he asked after a moment.

  “I’m so comfortable when I’m with him. When I’m not, he’s still a part of my day, and when he comes to take me to dinner or to a play or just to walk in the park, I feel as if the sun is shining, whether it is or not. Isn’t that odd? I haven’t felt this way since—since the war. I feel safe when he’s with me.”

  The kettle was ready and he made the tea, keeping his back to her, letting her talk.

  “Then I don’t see a problem,” he said finally.

  She was busy with the bread again, cutting slices, the knife clinking against the plate in the silence. He waited until the pot was ready and then poured her tea, placing it on the table beside her.

  Setting the bread aside, she said, “I don’t want to leave you alone in London.”

  Surprised, he could only stare at her.

  “I know how you suffered when you came home from France. Dr. Fleming didn’t tell me a great deal—he said it was better for you if I didn’t know the whole of it—but he was worried about you, and I’ve been as well. You’ve come back to the Yard and done brilliantly. But you aren’t happy, Ian, and you haven’t found anyone since Jean. I don’t know that you’ve tried. I understand that—I know how Peter felt about the loss of his fiancée, you see, and how long it has taken him to get over her desertion. He told me that it was his fault, he’d spent four years dreaming about a woman who didn’t really exist. He just hadn’t realized that when he went off to France. He’d come home to her, not to the woman who had already married another man without bothering to tell him.”

  Rutledge didn’t know what to say. He’d never told her that Jean had been terrified by the man she’d seen in hospital, and that somehow he’d had the good sense to set her free, however much it had hurt at the time. He’d never told Frances what he’d felt for Meredith Channing, either. It had been too personal, too unexpected, too soon. Too difficult, even to admit to himself that he’d cared.

  In a way, he realized, Meredith had deserted him as well.

  “I’ve been too busy to fall in love,” he said, striving to speak lightly. “It was hard, returning to the Yard after four years in the trenches. I’ve had to catch up. And there have been times when I didn’t feel very much like going out in the evening. That’s the nature of being a policeman.”

  She knew him too well to be satisfied with that.

  “Ian—”

  “You needn’t worry,” he said, summoning a convincing smile. “I’ll be all right. When I meet the right person—as you’ve clearly done—then I’ll be as happy as you are now.”

  He could hear Hamish in the back of his mind. He looked down, busy stirring his tea, so that she couldn’t read his eyes.

  “Peter is a good man,” he said after a moment. “I could see how you would suit.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.” Ignoring the wave of loneliness that was sweeping him, he added, “Now that we’ve settled this between us, do you think you could finish those sandwiches?”

  She laughed and leaned across the table to kiss his cheek, then picked up the bread again.

  Rutledge didn’t know if he’d convinced her that he was all right or if she wanted so much to believe it that she would.

  The next morning, after a night of little sleep, Rutledge drove down to the coast, to Dungeness Light.

  It took him the better part of two hours to find the fisherman who had first discovered the body on the long stretch of stones that passed for a beach.

  The man was suspicious at first, facing an Inspector from Scotland Yard.

  “What is it you want from me?”

  They stood there looking out toward the sea, the Lighthouse behind them.

  “We think we may have stumbled on his identity. The question is, could he have come off a passing ship?”

  “It would depend, wouldn’t it, on how well he could swim.” The man turned to squint up at Rutledge. “The sea takes what it wants. If he could fight it and not tire, he could reach a point where he would wash ashore here. Dead, he’d float for a time, bloated and all, then sink to the bottom. This ’un could have made it, I’m thinking, because he was fit enough and the light would guide him the right way. It was just a bit farther than he had the strength to make. Tides are funny things. Predictable as night and day, but the current, see, the current’s another matter. It’ull catch a body and spin it, and take it the wrong way, then capricious, it will turn it another direction. This one hadn’t been in the current too long.”

  “His pockets were empty. No identification. Not even a coat.”

  The fisherman looked out to sea again. “If I were to want to kill a man, I’d do it quiet, just squeezing the back of his neck until he blacks out, then empty his pockets before heaving him overboard. No signs of harm done, see, no way to identify him. And hope that far out, the sea wants to keep him.”

  Rutledge smiled. “You’d make a good murderer.”

  The fisherman didn’t return the smile. “I killed men in France. Any way I could, so’s they wouldn’t kill me first. And I didn’t hate those I killed. That’s the odd thing. I just did it, to be sure I was the one who saw the next day’s sunrise. I wasn’t proud of it.”

  “I meant no offense.”

  “None taken. But I’ll never kill again. Not even to save myself. If that’s all you wanted, I’m off.”

  And without waiting for an answer, the fisherman walked away, heading toward one of the little shacks where men kept their gear and sometimes lived when the fish were running.

  Rutledge let him go, standing there alone, the wind whipping his trouser legs against his ankles, the whisper of the waves rolling in coming to him, calling to him. He went closer to them, after a while, his shoes crunching through the stones all the long way, trapping his feet in much the same fashion that heavy sand might, pulling at the muscles of the calves until they ached. The tide was out, hadn’t yet turned.

  He could imagine a man making it this far, tired, almost spent, and then the struggle with the stones would defeat him, and before he could quite reach the safety of the tide line to fall down to sleep, he fell to his knees, and then was knocked over by a wave, drowning because he couldn’t lift himself out of the oncoming water.

  Not a pretty way to die, within sight of living.

  Rutledge stayed where he was a little longer, then turned and made his slow, laborious way back to his motorcar.

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  There was some truth to that old adage, Rutledge thought as he crossed the Thames and headed to Essex.

  He had left a note on his desk, saying that he was tying up a few loose ends. And that would have to do.

  He reached Dedham finally and then drove on to St. Hilary.

  This time Miss French was willing to see him.

  She had, he could tell, much on her mind.

  “All these years,” she said, “we trusted that man Gooding. Out of pity we gave his granddaughter freedom of this house, even allowed her to become engaged to my brothers, and that wasn’t enough. He wanted more, and look at the grief he’s brought us.”

  “Are you so sure he’s guilty?” Rutledge asked with interest, taking the chair she indicated.

  “The police say he is. That’s good enough for me.”

  “What would it gain Mr. Gooding to kill your brother?”

  “I expect he didn’t think he would be found out. He would go on running the firm, in the hope that eventually I’d have no choice but to make him a partner because I depended on him so. His granddaughter avenged, his own ambition satisfied. Now I must travel to London and try to salvage the firm. I don’t know anything about wine, I was never asked if I wanted to learn. It will serve my father and my brothers right if I botch it. But I can’t afford to, can I? It’s my own livelihood at stake too. And what I shall face on Madeira I don’t know. I can’t even speak the language. I was never encouraged to learn it.�
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  “Why should Gooding wish to harm Traynor? If it was revenge he was after?”

  “How do I know what was going through his mind? He must have thought that Matthew would make choices about the London office that didn’t include him. One seldom promotes even a chief clerk to head of firm.”

  It was a good argument, and would be telling if Miss French was called on to testify.

  “I wondered why we’d had no news of Matthew’s arrival. So strange, so unlike the man to be so inconsiderate of us. And all this time, Gooding had kept it secret so that he could meet Matthew himself. Odd how things turn out. My father, I think, had hoped that I’d marry Matthew, but he became involved with some woman out there. Perhaps if my father had allowed me to visit Funchal, I’d have had a chance in that direction. Shortsighted, wasn’t it? And serves him right.”

  The diatribe ended. Rutledge thought she was about to cry, but she mastered the urge—if there was one—and said briskly, “You didn’t come all this way to listen to me complain.”

  “Do you remember that when you were a child someone came to the house looking for your grandfather? He caused such an uproar the constable had to be called to restrain him.”

  “Is that true? Who told you such a thing? Was it Gooding?”

  “I don’t know that Gooding was told. It was something your grandfather wanted to keep in the family.”

  “How odd. Lewis had nightmares when he was a child. He said he saw Papa with blood all over his shirt. It was summer, not quite dark, late as it was. Papa was standing below the Nursery window, talking to the doctor and the constable, and Lewis thought they were about to take him away. They kept urging him into the doctor’s carriage, and he refused to go. Michael’s new tutor was here the next morning. Mama brought him up to meet us, not Papa, and Lewis was frightened that something had happened. Lewis began to cry and ask for Papa. Mama told him not to be silly, he’d see Papa at tea. After she’d gone downstairs again, Lewis asked the tutor if he’d come because Papa was dead. The tutor was quite shocked. He told Lewis that he’d spoken to Papa at breakfast. But we didn’t see him until the next afternoon at tea. Lewis refused to go to sleep that night and several nights thereafter, afraid the dream would come back again. I know because he was still in the Nursery and kept me awake as well. But I don’t think it did reoccur. Perhaps because it wasn’t a dream after all. But who came here? Was it someone we knew?”