A Lonely Death

by Charles Todd

  Rutledge sat down on the cot, staring at the walls, hearing in the back of his mind the distant French guns, and then the artillery from the English lines. Before very long, he knew he’d begin shouting commands to his men, and then he would be lost.

  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He had even lost track of where he was, the tramp of men’s boots as they formed a line in the trench, waiting their turn to go up the ladder and follow their officers into battle, had seemed so real he could smell the stench of the water in the bottom of their trench and hear the whispered prayers of men who knew they could die in the next five minutes. He was preparing to blow his whistle for the charge when the present intruded.

  The sound of voices drifted down the passage and then grew louder. After a moment the constable appeared to unlock Rutledge’s door. The relief that swept over him as the door swung wide was almost physical, and for a moment he had to struggle with the images fading into the back of his mind.

  “You’re wanted in Inspector Norman’s office,” the man said and stepped aside.

  Rutledge got up from the cot and walked out the door. He knew that Hubbard must have arrived, and when he stepped into Inspector Norman’s office, the first person he saw was the Chief Inspector.

  “A mistake has been made,” the Chief Inspector was saying to him. “I’m sorry.”

  Rutledge stood by the doorway, waiting.

  Inspector Norman said to Rutledge, “Come in.” He pointed to the other chair.

  Rutledge joined them. But still he said nothing.

  Chief Inspector Hubbard turned to Inspector Norman. “Chief Superintendent Bowles was misinformed. Inspector Rutledge was visiting friends in Kent when the murder occurred. We’ve spoken to Mrs. Crawford. She was quite clear. Inspector Rutledge couldn’t have left her house, driven to Eastfield, and returned without the staff or she herself being aware of his absence. What’s more, his leave had been requested before the subject of Mrs. Farrell-Smith’s complaint had been brought up with him.”

  It was an outright lie, blandly told.

  “She’s made a second statement this morning. She claims she saw Rutledge speaking to Mickelson and then taking him up in his motorcar the night before the attack was discovered. How do you answer that?”

  Hubbard was clearly unprepared for this information. He recovered quickly. “She reported this to Constable Walker?”

  Norman hesitated. “Not straightaway. No.”

  “Had you sent your men to look for Rutledge in Eastfield, after you spoke to the Yard?”

  “I saw no harm in sending Constable Petty to keep an eye on things. Until someone arrived from London.” He shot a glance in Rutledge’s direction, then returned his attention to Hubbard.

  “And Mrs. Farrell-Smith didn’t speak to Constable Petty about what she’d seen?”

  “He’s still in Eastfield,” Norman said, grudgingly. “I don’t know. She didn’t mention having spoken to him.”

  Chief Inspector Hubbard said, “I must wonder why she felt it necessary to leave the school and come directly here to you, when there were other avenues in Eastfield open to her. Mrs. Farrell-Smith, it appears, prefers not to deal with underlings.”

  Norman said, “You haven’t read her statement. But you’re convinced her evidence is flawed.”

  Hubbard took a deep breath. “Inspector, I shall be speaking with Mrs. Farrell-Smith myself in due course. But understand this. If Mrs. Crawford swears that Rutledge did not leave her house, as a witness she is more reliable than Mrs. Farrell-Smith.”

  “And who is Mrs. Crawford, when she’s at home? I know nothing about her.”

  “Mrs. Crawford’s veracity is vouched for by Neville FitzThornton at the Home Office. On the other hand, it’s possible that Mrs. Farrell-Smith has lied to the police before this.”

  Rutledge smiled to himself. The police and the Yard answered to the Home Office. He wondered how Melinda had come to know FitzThornton. But the fact that she did cheered him. The thought of returning to the confinement of that cell left him feeling cold.

  Inspector Norman said, “My advice is to leave matters the way they are until someone is able to question Mickelson. Then the veracity of witnesses won’t come into it.”

  “And very good advice it is. But I’m told that the Inspector is on the point of undergoing surgery to relieve the pressure of the swelling on his brain. He may not be able to speak to us at all.”

  In the end, Hubbard got his way, by rank if not by persuasion. Rutledge’s belongings were accounted for and returned to him. As he signed the receipt, Inspector Norman asked, “What am I to do with Carl Hopkins?”

  It was a question designed to irritate Hubbard. It failed.

  Hubbard said blandly, “He stays where he is until the inquest. And at the moment, that must wait on Mickelson’s recovery.”

  “I’d like five minutes with Hopkins,” Rutledge interjected, speaking for the first time as he accepted his watch and his keys from the constable.

  Hubbard hesitated. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

  “It isn’t a matter of wisdom. Come with me, if you prefer. But if I’m to take over this inquiry again, I need to know where Hopkins stands.”

  “Take over—it was understood that I should carry out Inspector Mickelson’s brief.”

  Rutledge turned to him. “You know why I was removed from this case. You know why I found myself in these straits today. You owe me a chance to redeem my character.”

  “This is not the time nor the place to decide this. Propriety—”

  “Propriety be damned.” He turned and walked to the door, continuing down the passage toward the cells at the rear of the police station, listening for the order to stop. And none came.

  He found Carl Hopkins lying on his cot, one arm over his eyes. Rutledge wished he had had the forethought to ask the constable for the cell keys. But it was too late to go back. He looked at Hopkins’s cell. It was a mirror of his, and he could feel that frantic sense of being closed in sweeping over him again.

  He had been buried alive on the Somme, when their salient had been blown up by a shell falling short of the German lines. The miracle was he had lived through it, but lying in the suffocating darkness, pinned there by the weight of the body under which he lay and the heavier earth above them both, he had known no one could reach him in time. He could hardly breathe, as the minutes turned into what seemed like hours, and then just as the small pocket of air that had sustained him was used up and his mind was beginning to struggle to keep track of where he was in that cold black void, help had finally come. Hands dug frantically, the weight lifted, and as he was pulled out, loose earth cascading from his hair and uniform like water, he had seen the face of the man who had saved him. It was Hamish MacLeod’s dead body, and the pocket of air that had been a gift of life had been created by Hamish’s clothing. The shock had left him unable to speak, and his rescuers had put that down to near suffocation.

  It was not until he’d reached the aid station and was given a few hours of rest that he’d heard Hamish MacLeod’s voice in his ear, taunting, reminding him that his men were dead, and he had no excuse for being alive.

  Getting a grip on the memory now, Rutledge called Hopkins’s name, and the man dropped his arm, swung his legs to the floor, and looked toward the barred window of his cell. He hadn’t been asleep. That was obvious. “What do you want? Is this another trick?”

  He was a tall man, slim and very fair, Nordic fair rather than English, with dark blue eyes. But he had broad shoulders and was at second glance a great deal stronger than he first appeared. Deceptively so, Rutledge thought.

  “We’re keeping you here for a few more days,” Rutledge told him. “For your own safety. But I need to know. What was your relationship with the four Eastfield men who have died? Did you go to school with them?”

  “I was apprenticed at the furniture works when I was young. We were in school together for perhaps three years. And then my mother taught me i
n the evening, when I came home with Mr. Kenton at the end of the workday.”

  “What do you remember most about them?”

  Hopkins didn’t need to think about his answer. “They were all of an age. Except for the Pierce brothers. And good at sports. Less so in the classroom. I was far better in mathematics, I remember. And better at spelling as well.”

  “Were they troublemakers?”

  “No more so than most boys.”

  He changed the subject. “I’m told you hated the English for what happened to your family during the war.”

  Hopkins got up from the cot and crossed to where Rutledge was standing at the door. “It made me ill for a time. I hadn’t been able to serve, you see. I wasn’t there to help them. I’d try to sleep at night and I’d wonder what their last thoughts were, if they’d called to me and were hurt that I didn’t come. I didn’t even know when they died until weeks afterward. I’d been living my life, talking with friends or working—even sleeping—as they were struggling for their last breath. When I’d see a British soldier, I’d want to ask, were you there? Did you try to save them? Did you even care? Some would boast of the Germans they had killed. Callous bastards. I wanted to hit them, make them suffer too.” He shrugged. “It was stupid of me, but there was so much pain I couldn’t think straight. I even considered suicide. But when I spoke to Rector about what comes after, he didn’t know. All the words he preached, and he didn’t know what was on the other side. What use was it to kill myself, if I couldn’t be with them again? The happiest days of my life were spent with those two. My English brother and my German cousin. And when people called my cousin a butcher, a Hun, and hoped he’d gone to hell, I hated them with all my heart.”

  He stood there, not crying, not cursing, his shoulders slumped.

  Rutledge said after a moment, “Did you hate them enough to kill them?”

  “I thought about it. If I’d known where to find a gun, I might have tried. But I didn’t. I could only curse them all.” He looked away. “That takes courage, acting on what you believe. I didn’t have it.”

  Hamish said, “He wouldna’ creep up behind a man and garrote him.”

  But Rutledge silently answered him, Not in the cold light of day. But after a sleepless night?

  His intent on coming back here to the cells had been to hear Hopkins defend himself face-to-face. He’d almost believed the man earlier. Now, he was not so sure.

  Hamish argued, “Ye were in yon cell yoursel’ and no’ thinking clearly.”

  Rutledge considered the prisoner. He looked older than his years, a defeated, sallow figure with nothing to buoy him up and carry him through the loss that was eating him alive. It was possible that Carl had taken his own sense of worth from that brother and the cousin, and was unable to find his way alone. Would killing alleviate some of the pain? Or would it only add to the distressing burden of guilt that Hopkins already shouldered?

  “Who do you think attacked Inspector Mickelson?” Rutledge asked.

  “The man from Scotland Yard? He badgered Mrs. Winslow, and made old Mr. Roper half ill. Mrs. Jeffers came into Eastfield and told Constable Walker that the Inspector had made her cry, wanting to know about the war. Then he discovered from someone at the hotel that Mr. Kenton had come to speak to you there, and soon enough he badgered me too. I live alone, I didn’t have any proof I hadn’t killed those men. He was a policeman, and that’s what policemen do, when they’ve got the upper hand. They badger.” He looked Rutledge in the eye for the first time. “I didn’t like him well enough to mourn when I was told he’d nearly been killed, and I hadn’t cared for what I saw of him when he was alive. Maybe I wasn’t the only one.”

  With that he turned his back on Rutledge and went to sit again on his cot, his head in his hands. Rutledge stood there watching him, then walked away.

  15

  When Rutledge came back again to Inspector Norman’s office, it was clear that the two men had been having words. He could almost feel the tension, and their faces were flushed.

  “I didn’t learn anything of interest,” he said. And with a nod to Inspector Norman, he walked out to where he had left his motorcar. After a moment Chief Inspector Hubbard joined him.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” he asked.

  Rutledge said, “By the water.”

  They drove toward The Stade, pulling over where they could. The fishing boats were in, and the air smelled of salt, tar, and fish. The tall net shops were black against the sun, almost sinister, and the headland above them was a deep, rich green.

  “That’s where they found Mickelson. In one of those sheds, hanging from a hook,” Chief Inspector Hubbard told Rutledge.

  “Good God!” After a moment Rutledge said, “I assumed he’d been found in Eastfield. Small wonder Inspector Norman was unwilling to step aside. As it is, he’ll keep probing. That man of his, Petty, is very good.”

  “The fleet goes out very early,” Hubbard went on. “That means he must have been put there while it was still dark. The killer brought a length of rope from somewhere, to pass over the hook. Or he found it in one of the sheds.”

  Hubbard turned to face Rutledge. “If Carl Hopkins hadn’t been in custody—and if Mickelson had been garroted—I might find myself wondering if you hadn’t been very very clever. He very nearly got you killed. Twice over, if I remember.”

  Rutledge laughed grimly. “You know damned well I didn’t touch him. You also know what Chief Superintendent Bowles was playing at, calling me to book for misconduct. He must have panicked when he heard about Mickelson. He must have thought he was next.”

  Hubbard said only, “I wouldn’t joke about that, if I were you.”

  “He was protected by Bowles. If I’d been tempted to kill the man, I’d have done it in London and put his body into the river somewhere east of The Poole. By the time they’d fished him out, there would be no way of knowing how he died, where he died, or by whose hand. They would be lucky to know who he was. I might as well have hung a placard around his neck with my initials on it, leaving him in that net shop. I’m not that much of a fool. And I have no wish to hang.”

  “Then who met him outside the churchyard and lured him into a motorcar? Assuming, that is, Mrs. Farrell-Smith is remotely telling the truth.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “Fishermen coming for their nets. Must have scared them out of ten years’ growth, I should think. Why the hell are they so tall and narrow, these net shops?”

  “A blow to the tax man, I’m told. When the town tried to levy new taxes on building footage here, the fishermen looked at their long drying sheds and thought, why not build them vertically? They did, the taxes were eventually revoked, but the sheds stayed. They must burn from time to time or fall over in a gale, but the fishermen thumbed their noses at the authorities.”

  “You haven’t answered my question about the motorcar,” Hubbard pointed out.

  “If it’s true, if Mickelson was met by someone, then the killer came looking for him.” He gestured toward the dark red bonnet of his motorcar. “In the dark that could be red. Or green. Or even blue or black. She saw the shape of a touring car, not the color. Or possibly she saw the two men talking, and invented the motorcar to throw suspicion in another direction.”

  “Why should she do that?”

  “She could have thought it was Daniel Pierce. She’s been waiting here for him to return since before the war. And he did come home, to stay in Eastfield only a matter of a few weeks.”

  “She’s in love with him?” Hubbard asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rutledge said, “whether she wants to have him or kill him. It depends on whether or not she killed her husband for him.”

  “Quite,” Hubbard said as Rutledge turned the motorcar and drove out of Hastings. As they climbed toward Eastfield, he added, “But Mrs. Farrell-Smith is not our business at the moment. Are you certain these killings aren’t war related?”

  “I’m sure of nothi
ng. Someone knows the answer—but that someone may not realize the importance of it. Whatever happened, it appears not to have made a deep impression on the victims of these murders. That makes it all the more personal to the murderer.”

  “Then I should think this man Hopkins fits the bill very well indeed. From what I was told he held a grudge that no one else knew about.”

  They were silent for the rest of the drive, but as they were coming down the Hastings Road into Eastfield, Hubbard said, “I’m not comfortable, leaving you to cope alone.”

  “Then you still believe I struck Mickelson.”

  “Be reasonable, man. It was a misunderstanding.”

  But Rutledge remembered the feel of that cell and the walls closing in on him, and the miasma of fear and hopelessness embedded in the very paint. He stopped the motorcar at the hotel and said, “I’ll find someone to drive you to the nearest railway station after you finish your business here.” As he got out of the motorcar, he added, “I’ve lost the promotion. I understand that, even if Mickelson lives to clear me. You can tell Chief Superintendent Bowles—”

  He left the sentence unfinished, and walked away.

  Chief Inspector Hubbard had the good sense not to follow him.

  Of all the people he could think of who would talk to him, Theo Hartle’s sister seemed to be the best choice.

  He found her just clearing away the tea things, and she said as she came to her door, “We’ve just finished—would you care for some tea?”

  “Thank you, no. I need to talk to you, Mrs. Winslow. It’s a pleasant afternoon. Will you walk a little way with me?”

  She cast a glance over her shoulder. “I think my husband has nodded off in his chair. I ought to be here, if he wanted anything when he wakes up.”

  “He’s just had his tea. I shouldn’t think he’ll need you straightaway.”

  She came reluctantly. “Where’s the other man, then? If you’re back again?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” But he could see she hadn’t.

  “We’re not often in the village,” she explained. “I only go when I really need something.”