by Charles Todd
With images of Mrs. FitzPatrick lying bleeding in the rain, he reached for the brake.
It was the Rector’s wife coming up from the direction of the church.
She stopped, a little startled, and then looked up at him, clearly expecting him to slow and speak to her.
His first thought as he turned toward her was that she was about to demand the photograph.
“Good morning,” he said, offering her a smile. “Not that it is,” he added.
She didn’t return his greeting. “You are wanted,” she said, as if he’d been delinquent on purpose and failed in his duty.
“What happened?” he asked quickly, braced for the worst.
“Constable Henderson and Dr. Mason have gone out to the Long Barrow. Do you know it? The doctor left a message for you. Apparently, he wasn’t certain when you’d return.”
“Yes, I know it. How long ago did they leave?” Rutledge asked.
“I’ve no idea. I went to the surgery just now for more of the Rector’s headache powders. The doctor wasn’t there, of course. I couldn’t help but see the message. It’s on his desk, prominently placed.”
“Then I’ll go directly to the surgery myself.” Touching his hat to her, he moved on.
Drawing up in front of the gate he got down and walked up to the door. It was not latched, and he stepped into the silent house. Turning to his right, he went through the door by the stairs and into the part of the house where Mason saw his patients—where the body of the dead woman had been brought.
He walked through the tiny reception area just inside the separate surgery entrance, and into the doctor’s office. On Mason’s tidy desk a sheet of paper lay on the green blotter. As he reached for it, Rutledge heard Hamish saying, “Ye ken, this isna’ a verra’ guid sign.”
Ignoring the voice in his head, Rutledge lifted the sheet from the blotter and scanned it before reading it a second time.
Rutledge. If you see this, we’re just going, Henderson and I, to the Long Barrow on the plain beyond Silbury Hill. The far end. You’ll see my carriage. There’s my other horse in the stable behind the house. Your motorcar won’t make it after all the rain we’ve had.
As an afterthought, Mason had left the date and time.
An hour ago . . .
But he had neglected to say why he was on his way there with the Constable. To prevent anyone who stopped in the surgery from spreading word before whatever it was could be confirmed?
That must mean another body.
He turned and went back into the house proper, walked into the kitchen, and saw that Mason must have just finished his breakfast. Dishes had been left on the table, nothing cleared away. The ends of toast, a smear of yellow yolk, congealing. The teapot was cold.
Going out into the yard, he crossed the puddled garden on the narrow path that separated vegetables and the house flower beds. He could hear the horse in the small stable, stirring as if eager for his breakfast as well.
Opening the door, he saw there were two stalls and an open space for feed and for the doctor’s carriage. In the nearest stall was a tall chestnut gelding with a lopsided white blaze on his nose. It gave him a slightly tipsy appearance, but as Rutledge approached the stall’s door and spoke to him, he reached out and sniffed Rutledge’s clothing. He nodded his head, blowing a little, and waited.
Rutledge found bridle, blanket, and saddle on the wall beside where the carriage was kept. Carrying them back to the stall, he talked to the horse as he worked, and found it more eager to get out into the brisk air than objecting to what Rutledge was doing. Finishing the straps, he led the animal out into the small stable yard, and mounted.
It had been some time since he’d ridden, but once in the saddle, he felt at home and urged the horse forward. It set off at a steady trot, almost as if it knew where it was heading. But when they had passed through the two stones at the far end of the avenue and he turned the animal toward his left, it hesitated, as if more used to going in the opposite direction. There wouldn’t be much call for a doctor on the broad and empty plain.
“Not this time, old son,” he said, and the horse obediently followed the touch of his heel.
It was impossible to see any marker that would lead him to the Long Barrow. But he started forward, counting on his sense of direction to guide him. Or failing that, he thought wryly, the horse knowing where his stable mate might be. The ground beneath his mount’s hooves was soggy with moisture, the chalk unable to absorb any more rain.
And then fifteen minutes later, the perfectly conical shape of Silbury Hill appeared out of the mist, to his right. He kept going, thinking that he might well collide with the Long Barrow before he could see it. He recalled the opening was at the east end of the long earthen, almost loaf-shaped mound. But that wasn’t necessarily where Dr. Mason and Henderson would be. For all he knew, they’d already passed him, going back to the village. Sound traveled peculiarly in this heavy a mist.
Hamish said, “Ye should ha’ left a message of ye’re ain.”
“He’ll see my motorcar by the house.” Rutledge was beginning to think he’d overshot his goal, traveling onward across the plain. Just then he heard a horse calling, his own mount responding.
Rising slightly in his stirrups, Rutledge shouted, “Mason? It’s Rutledge.”
“Damn it, man, I can’t see a thing.”
Following the direction of the voice, he trotted on. He’d walked through this green, quiet plain as a student on holiday, stopping here to eat his lunch before moving on. It had been an impressive trek, through prehistoric mounds and barrows. He’d had a compass then, and a good survey map. But he hadn’t gone inside the barrow.
Mason called again, and Rutledge adjusted his direction. Then without warning, he was almost on the mound. Turning the horse to the right, he saw the back of a carriage appearing out of the mist, and then a horse, tail swishing in a steady rhythm.
Mason said, “Over here.”
Rutledge dismounted, looped his reins over the high rear wheel of the carriage, and walked past the horse in the shafts to the line of misshapen stones that guarded the entrance to the barrow. Mason was waiting for him by one of them.
“Good, I’m glad you made it. This way.” He rested a hand on a stone, guiding Rutledge back to where rough steps led through a narrow opening.
Hamish, busy in the back of Rutledge’s mind, was not eager to go farther.
Ignoring the voice, Rutledge followed the doctor. He was in a sort of forecourt, now, the chamber to his left, a square stone blocking the exit from the forecourt to his right. Rainwater had darkened the rubble underfoot.
Henderson appeared out of the mist. He looked wary, as though he was not as pleased to see the Yard as Mason was.
“Just there. Behind the Constable,” Mason was saying, and Henderson moved out of the way.
13
For the first time Rutledge saw what had brought them all here. A worn pair of boots, then trouser-clad legs, a greatcoat, and finally a head.
Thin dark hair framed a ravaged face.
Rutledge’s first thought was, It’s a man. Somehow, in the back of his mind, he’d feared they’d found another female victim. And then, We’ll have the devil’s own time identifying him.
For the man had been dead some days, he could see that clearly. Scavengers had been at the soft tissues, and worms as well. Along the chin, the bridge of the nose, and the ridge above the eyes, white bone showed through the torn flesh in places. The teeth were bared in a macabre grimace, lips and part of the cheeks missing.
His gaze moved down the body again. The greatcoat the man was wearing was an officer’s, threadbare in places and dark with rainwater.
“Great God—” he began, and stopped. They didn’t know, Mason or Henderson, about the break-in at the Leslie house, did they? Unless gossip from Stokesbury had already reached their ears.
“He won’t be pleasant to take up,” Henderson said sourly, as if agreeing with what Rutledge had been abou
t to say.
The mists moved again, hiding the poor face.
“Does he come from Avebury? One of the other villages?” Rutledge asked. “Can you recognize him?”
Henderson shook his head. “There’s not enough left to know. But from the look of him, he’s a vagrant.”
“How did he die? Doctor?”
Mason took a deep breath. “I can’t be sure. There’s a gin bottle over there, by the chamber entrance. Do you see?”
Rutledge leaned forward. He could just see the mouth of it.
“Drank himself into oblivion and died of the cold, most likely,” Henderson added.
But why out here in the open, when he could have sheltered inside the narrow chamber, well out of the weather?
“Anything in his pockets? Have you checked?” Rutledge looked from one man to the other.
“Best to wait until I have him in the surgery.”
“How long has he been dead? Can you tell?” he asked Mason.
“Hard to say until I’ve examined the remains. Less than a week, I’d guess, but he’s lain out here in the elements. That changes a body. There were crows at him when we got here this morning. And not the first time, either. It took some doing to scatter them.”
Crows, the traditional scavengers on battlefields.
“Who found him?”
“That was Mr. Downing,” Mason said. “He lives on the far side of the church. He has two young retrievers he’s training. Brings them out to run. One of them disappeared over the steps, and Downing feared it had cornered a polecat. He went after the dog, and damn near fell over the body. He came for me, and I collected Henderson. I asked Downing if he’d touched anything, he or the dog, but he told me he hadn’t.”
“How did the body come here? Any signs that he’s been moved?”
“We’d scouted about the entrance when we got here,” Henderson said. “Best we could in the circumstances. If there were any tracks, we couldn’t find them. Not even Downing’s. From the state of the corpse’s boots, my guess is that he was caught out in the open when the rain started, and he took shelter here. There’s a hole in one of them.”
“How did he know there was a chamber here? A dry place? Unless he was local?”
Henderson shook his head. “There’s no other shelter out here.” He gestured toward the shrouded plain beyond—isolated, empty. Very wet. “Hard to say just where he might’ve come from, or even where he might be going. For all we know, he didn’t want to show his face in Avebury or West Kennet.”
“Have you gone into the chamber?”
It was Mason who answered him. “Only into the entrance. We hadn’t thought to bring a torch. Not with this mist. From what we could see, he hadn’t been living there.”
The dead man wasn’t tall. Five foot eight, perhaps? He himself had carried men of that size over his shoulder, across No Man’s Land, or to the connecting trench, the dead sometimes left unceremoniously where no one could see them. Bad for morale if they were underfoot or propped against the trench wall to wait for the stretcher bearers.
“Is there a road nearby? I can’t remember.”
“A track of sorts. If you knew where to find it. If you’re thinking he might have come that way, it makes sense.”
“A motorcar might come that far?”
Mason said, “You needn’t worry about that. We can get him into the carriage, I think.” He pulled his coat tighter around him. “If you’re finished, I’ll fetch the sheet.”
Rutledge glanced at Henderson, who said, “I’m satisfied.”
Mason disappeared in the mist. Henderson was looking over his shoulder, as if half expecting someone to come out of the inner chamber.
When he saw that Rutledge had noticed his unease, he said, “I came here once as a lad. On a dare. It was at the September equinox. I was never so frightened as I was that night. There’s something odd about what’s inside there. I could feel it in my bones, and I slipped out, slept rough, rather than stay there. Just before sunup, I went a step or two back inside, before the others came to see if I’d spent the night in the chamber. I was shivering, wishing they’d hurry, when a spear of light came in through a crack over there, with the rising sun.”
He gestured over his shoulder. “It started here, just inside. And it moved slowly around the wall until it reached the chamber at the rear. Then it moved down the other side, so bright I had to look away. When I opened my eyes, it was just about to vanish. As if it had never been. I couldn’t have sworn what I saw was real. And I couldn’t tell anyone, for fear they’d laugh at me. I’d never been afraid of the stones or the hills or the barrows before, but then I was. Took me years to get over it.”
“I daresay the builders planned the opening that way.”
“I didn’t know that at ten, did I? It was a wonder I didn’t lose my wits. The other lads thought I was brave. I never told them.”
Mason came back into the forecourt, a bundle of canvas under his arm. He handed one end to Henderson, and they set about rolling the body onto it. That took some doing. Rigor had long since passed off, and they finally had to grip the shoulders of the greatcoat and ankles of his boots in order to shift him. The head lolled to one side and one arm dragged until Rutledge caught the sleeve and lifted it across the body.
Working the body out of the forecourt through the narrow, uneven opening was the next problem, but they finally managed to get clear of the stones and carry the dead man to the carriage. The final hurdle was setting it on the floorboards. While Mason was catching his breath, Rutledge went back to the chamber and retrieved the empty gin bottle. He scanned the ground where the body had lain, but it was as if the dead man had left no trace in the place where he’d died.
When he got back to the carriage, Henderson had already taken his place and Mason was just climbing in. Rutledge handed them the bottle, then took up his own reins and mounted.
The rest of the way to the doctor’s surgery, Rutledge considered the dead man.
Was he the ex-soldier whom Leslie claimed had broken into his house on the night that the unknown woman had died? Rutledge had almost been convinced he hadn’t existed.
But why was he still in the area now? If he was a thief, why had he lingered, in constant danger of being seen and taken up by a local Constable?
Hamish said, breaking the silence, “Unless he wasna’ here at all, and it took his killer time to find a likely ex-soldier?”
Henderson and Rutledge stood to one side of the table as Dr. Mason began to cut away the dead man’s clothes. The room was cold, but the smell of rotting flesh rose from the sodden clothing, with a strong odor of gin and wet wool. There was also a pervasive smell of chalky soil, where the back of his clothing had rested so long against the ground.
Mason worked at the seams, so as to destroy nothing that might prove useful, slowly removing the greatcoat, then the uniform beneath. It bore Corporal’s stripes, and the insignia of the Royal Engineers. Mason, looking up, said, “The outer coat might have been given him when the weather changed. Or come from a charity?”
After a while, the thin white body lay on the table, exposed, oddly vulnerable.
“Poorly nourished,” he went on. “He’s been out of work for some time, I think. I’d put his age at early thirties. A young man. No recent wounds on the body to indicate foul play. But those scars—” He pointed to a long, badly healed one on the man’s right leg, then to more across his shoulders, puckered and ugly. “War wounds. Shrapnel, on the shoulders.” They helped him turn the remains over, and then he scanned the back. “Nothing new here, either. And there’s not enough left of his fingers to judge whether he was in a fight, but the lack of bruising tells me there are no internal injuries that might have killed him. He didn’t sustain a beating.” He nodded, and they restored the body to its original position, faceup, damaged eyes staring at nothing. “I’ll have to look inside later. So far I can’t find anything that would call for more than the briefest of inquests.”
“We still don’t know who he is,” Rutledge commented.
“There’ll be something here.” Mason moved on to the pile of clothing on a nearby table. The uniform yielded only his rank, the insignia of the Royal Engineers, two shillings, tuppence, and a farthing.
Rutledge, impatient now, said, “Try the coat pockets.”
Mason picked up the greatcoat, reaching into the right-hand pocket first. “Something here . . .”
He pulled out the crumpled wrappings of a packet of biscuits. Rutledge stared at it but said nothing. It was a popular enough name.
Setting that half of the greatcoat aside, Mason took up the other half, reaching into the pocket. “You’d think he’d carry some identification. If he fell ill—no, this pocket is empty as well. Wait—” He withdrew his hand, opened the palm, and in it lay a pair of earrings.
Frowning, he looked down at them. “Earbobs,” he said. “My wife has a similar pair—a rather nice pearl set in gold. Rather expensive for a down-on-his-luck ex-soldier. He could have sold them for enough food to see him through what’s left of the winter.”
Earrings had been taken from the Leslie house.
Rutledge said, “The tunic. Look at the pocket lining.”
“I have already searched that pocket. It was empty.”
“No, the lining itself.”
The doctor retrieved the front of the dead man’s tunic.
“Turn it over, please.”
Mason glanced at him, but did as he was asked. There on the cloth of the pocket was a patch of faded ink that had run, and the rain hadn’t helped it. He held it up, close to his eyes. “Something’s written there. You’re right.”
“Men in the trenches sometimes wrote their names inside their pockets. To be sure they were identified.” He gestured to the body on the table. “Still, we’re assuming that that’s his own uniform, that it wasn’t given to him, like the officer’s greatcoat.”
“Look in that drawer. There’s a glass there. It magnifies.”
But try as they would, they couldn’t make out the letters.
“Reilly,” Henderson said at length, peering at the blue smudges on the cloth. Then he passed the glass to Mason again.