The Confession (17 page)

He used the mental map from his previous visits to guide him now. Up the drive, striving to keep to the flattened paths that he'd made before, he took his time. If Russell wasn't here now, he would surely come at some point, and there was no need to make him unduly nervous.

The night felt empty, like a house where no one was at home—indeed, like Russell's house in London. But he still took no chances. Alert, slowly feeling his way, keeping to the shadows, he finally came within sight of the house rearing up before him.

No lights, he thought, scanning this front. But he would have to step into the open to reach the house from where he stood. Casting about for a better approach, he heard the soft flutter of feathers, and without warning an owl soared out of the trees directly over his head, swooping downward to scoop up its prey. A sharp squeak, broken off, and then the same flutter of feathers as the owl lifted off again and came back to his roost.

It had had all the earmarks of an ambush, and Rutledge felt the rush of adrenaline through his veins, setting his heart to pounding. He stayed where he was for several minutes until it had slowed.

Staying within the shadows as much as he could, he reached the corner of the house and then, bending low, crept across the open ground, keeping his silhouette short and as inconspicuous as possible. If there were guns in there, would Russell use them? Or had his anger burned out?

Rutledge stayed in the shadow of the house for all of five minutes. But nothing happened, and keeping as close to the walls as he could, he worked his way toward the terrace. He was nearly sure that Cynthia Farraday had either been able to force one of the French doors or had left it unlocked for future visits. She had spoken of a key, but he wasn't certain he could believe her.

The terrace was empty. He got as far as the doors and waited again for any sign that he'd been spotted. Five minutes later, he tried the French doors and found that one of them was unlocked, as he'd expected.

He stepped inside and stood waiting again, before beginning a silent and methodical search of the house.

He walked from room to room, sometimes caught off guard by a dust sheet that was unexpectedly as tall as a man or a board that squeaked loud enough to echo.

In the study he found the gun case. In the dimness, he used his hands to identify the contents. Standing upright were four shotguns for hunting the ducks and geese that wintered here on the river. They were well oiled and cared for. In the case below were two revolvers, one a service revolver and the other a smaller caliber that could have been a souvenir. They too were clean and oiled. To one side of the case were several daggers mounted on the wall, the sort a military man might collect on his travels.

When he had made a full circuit of the ground floor with no sign of an intruder, Rutledge started up the stairs, careful not to step on the center of the tread but to stay as close to the wall as he could. At the top he waited and listened before going on. It was late enough that a weary Russell might be sleeping in one of the beds.

But the first floor yielded nothing either. Mattresses had been rolled on the beds to discourage mice, most of the drapes had been drawn, and there was nothing to indicate that a man, tired from a long journey, had tried to rest here.

Still, he went from room to room, as a rule standing in the doorway and listening before going inside to search.

He had reached the master bedroom, which faced the river, with long windows overlooking the lawns and the water. This too offered nothing, and he went into the dressing rooms on either side, before turning to go.

Hamish said, “The kitchen quarters.”

In the hope of finding a tin of tea and a kettle as well as a hob to heat it on, Russell could have fallen asleep at the servants' table, unwilling to climb the stairs to find a more comfortable place to rest. It was worth taking the time to have a look.

Afterward he was never quite sure why he decided to go to one of the windows. He had already reached the doorway, his hand on the knob, on the point of shutting it behind him. Instead, he turned and crossed the room a second time, lifting an edge of the drapes to peer out into the night.

The ambient starlight seemed brighter than it had before, as if the moon was about to rise, just touching the horizon. The shadows on the lawn were dark as pitch by comparison, and the reeds and salt grass along the water's edge were nearly as black. But the water itself was bright in contrast, a pewter ribbon making its way to the sea beyond.

He thought at first that his eyes were playing tricks on him. And then he realized that someone was standing on the landing stage, his silhouette blending with the boards, irregular and almost undetectable.

He couldn't tell if there was a boat tied up below, out of his line of sight, or if the man had walked there from the house itself.

Was it Russell? It was impossible to judge height or shape. The only thing he could be certain of was that the figure was not that of a woman. Whoever it was, he was wearing trousers.

Rutledge stood there, watching him for several minutes, and then, as if the man felt his gaze, he turned and looked toward the house, staring up at it intently. The light touched his upturned face, and his eyes were black holes in the paleness.

Chapter 15

R
utledge stayed very still, certain that he had been spotted. That something, some inadvertent movement, had given him away. Then, finally, the man turned back to his contemplation of the water.

Even now he couldn't be sure. Was it Russell standing there? Or someone from the village?

He let the edge of the heavy drapes fall gently back into place and was across the room in swift long strides, shutting the door and making his way to the staircase. It had taken him fewer than two minutes to go down the stairs and reach the room overlooking the terrace.

But when he looked out, he saw no one on the landing stage or on the lawns.

Whoever had been there was gone.

And he had no idea where.

He searched the landings, the grounds, and the park for nearly three-quarters of an hour, but if Russell had come to River's Edge, he'd disappeared.

There was still the chance that he'd seen someone from the village, but Rutledge was unconvinced. What would possibly bring them out this far at this hour of the night?

There had been no indication that the house had or was being used to store contraband, although it wouldn't have surprised him to find that it had been on occasion.

An empty house on the water was always a great temptation. A boat could easily come up this far on a dark night, put in at the landing long enough for the goods in bulk to be unloaded and carried up to the terrace doors. A fairly decent livelihood. But this gift had been handed to them at the same time that crossing the channel had become impossible. The villagers must have cursed their luck. And if the smuggling that he had witnessed was any example, they hadn't reestablished their contacts or else they were unable to afford more than three men could carry.

Hamish said, “They're a suspicious lot at best. They wouldna' trust strangers in France any more than strangers in yon village.”

Rutledge had to agree with him.

He gave up the search finally. Whoever had been here had gone, either by boat or on foot. Quietly and without being seen. Walking down the choked drive to his motorcar, Rutledge was glad he'd left it some distance from the stone gates.

All the same, he was relieved to find it just as he'd left it, motor and tires intact. He had no taste for walking all the way to Furnham.

T
he Dragonfly Inn was dark, but when Rutledge tried the door, it opened. A small lamp burned in the little room behind Reception, and he called to the man who was usually there. No one answered. He wondered how the inn made enough money to stay open, given the owner's aversion to strangers.

And then he realized the answer to that.

Ordinarily this was where the contraband was brought—except when a man from Scotland Yard had stubbornly taken up residence. It could be sorted and passed on at leisure but more importantly controlled by the chosen few involved. The three men in the run he'd witnessed had had to make other arrangements, no doubt cursing the intruder from London every step of the way.

He grinned in the lamplight, amused.

Turning the register around, he saw that one other person had stayed here in his absence, one Frederick Marshall. A single night. A fisherman? Or someone who had once served at the airfield? Rutledge couldn't imagine a sudden attack of nostalgia bringing one of the airmen or their crews back to Furnham.

He signed his name, put down the number of the room he'd been given before, and went up the stairs. In his absence, it had been cleaned and the bed newly made, fresh towels on the rack by the washstand.

Without bothering to turn on a light Rutledge undressed and went to bed, but it was some time before he actually fell asleep.

Hamish was awake and busy in the back of his mind, and Rutledge found himself mulling over the night's events.

Who had been standing on the landing stage? And where had he gone?

Rutledge didn't believe in coincidences. It had to be Russell, and it was very likely that he'd borrowed or taken a boat to make the long journey down the Hawking, reaching the house by river rather than over the road. Why he hadn't stayed was anyone's guess. At least for the night, late as it was. Bruised and tired as he must have been. Or had this simply been reconnaissance—to be sure, before he brought in supplies and prepared to stay, that no one was waiting for him here?

Because there was no other place, really, where Russell could go.

Sleep overtook Rutledge then, and the first rays of dawn were coming in the window when he awoke. The man behind the desk—clerk or owner, Rutledge had never been sure—was startled to find Rutledge coming down the stairs as he arrived the next morning.

It took several minutes of explanation and exclamation before the clerk would accept the fact that Rutledge intended to stay at the inn and wanted his breakfast. When it finally came, it consisted of overcooked eggs, burned toast and tea strong enough to walk back to London on its own. There was no sign of Molly, and he wondered if she was called in only when there were guests to serve.

As he was finishing his meal, he asked the man about the visitor in his absence, Frederick Marshall.

“Here, you're not to be reading the register. It's none of your affair!” the clerk told him, angry.

Rutledge said, “It's done. Who is he?”

“He came to see if there was any good sport fishing here,” the clerk said, clearly against his will. “The other rivers in this part of Essex have a fair amount of it, and he thought the Hawking might as well. He was of a mind to buy land and set up a yacht club, if it was promising.”

“And is it promising?”

“I sent him over to the pub. He was told that the war had put paid to any good fishing, what with the Zeppelins and the fighters at the airfield, and the Coastguard mining the mouth of the river.”

“I should think Furnham would prosper with more contact with the rest of the country. It would mean some changes, but they're inevitable.”

“And that's what we don't need,” the clerk said, goaded. “What will we do with ourselves when Furnham is overrun with strangers and there's not a spot we can call our own? What we saw in the war will last us a lifetime. Prying, taking us for fools who didn't know our elbow from our nose, cheating us where they could, laughing at us behind their hands. I saw it for myself, the way they lorded it over the rest of us. Loud and brash and not taking no for an answer when it was something they wanted.” He was incensed now. “It was a trial of the spirit, the four years they was here. If it hadn't been for the war, we'd have run them off in the first six months. I wasn't the only one went off to fight the war, not knowing if my wife would be mine when I got back, if this inn would still be standing after one of their wild parties. Betwixt the Coastguard and the airmen, it was four years of hell.” He turned and walked out of the dining room, leaving Rutledge sitting there.

He rose and left as well, but the clerk was nowhere in sight when he walked through Reception and went out to his motorcar.

This wasn't the only village that war had disrupted and overrun. But for people more or less left to their own devices for hundreds of years, it was harsh reality with no respite, and for some of them, it was impossible to go back to the past.

Hard as Furnham was trying, he didn't think the village would win. Men like Frederick Marshall were always looking to the main chance, and in the end, the villages along rivers like the Blackwater and the Crouch and the Hawking would succumb. Thanks to the motorcar they were too close to London now to survive for very long.

He walked down to the water and stood looking toward the sea. The day was fair and already warmer than usual. Far out in the North Sea he could just make out a ship steaming by, the smoke of its funnels a thick gray line above a hull that was nearly invisible from here.

Barber spoke just behind him, and Rutledge turned quickly. He hadn't heard him walk down to the water's edge. The lapping of the river on the strand had covered the sound of his footsteps.

“What brings you back to our fair village?” he asked.

“Ned Willet's funeral,” Rutledge said, keeping his voice light. “When is it to be?”

“It was yesterday. You missed it,” the man replied, with some satisfaction.

“I'm sorry.”

“We're not.” Barber reached down and picked up something from the strand. It was a flat stone, and he sent it skimming across the water. “Not bad. Seven skips,” Barber went on. Then he turned back to Rutledge. “You'll be leaving then?”

There was nothing to keep him here. Except for the search for Russell. And yet the man's eagerness to see the last of him aroused his suspicions.

He took a chance. “Making another run to France, are you? Before the moon is full?”

Barber's face was a picture of dismay and anger, then wariness. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Rutledge picked up a stone just by the toe of his boot and sent it skimming across the river. It skipped nine times. “Hypothetically, of course.”

Weighing the word, Barber stared at Rutledge, then looked out to sea as Rutledge himself had done earlier. But not before Rutledge had caught the doubt in his eyes.

He had pushed far enough. After a moment Rutledge added, “My only interest is what happened to Ben Willet. I've told you. Help me there, and I'll be on my way.”

“I don't know who killed him.”

“Nor do I. Was it you, because when he came home from France he was different, no longer a villager, prepared to keep village secrets? Or was it Major Russell, perhaps out of jealousy? Or because Willet knew too much about the death of Justin Fowler? Miss Farraday, because Willet presumed on her friendship?”

Barber picked up another stone, looked at it, and let it drop to the strand again. He was silent so long that Rutledge thought he wasn't going to answer at all.

Finally he said, “The answer could lie in France. Have you thought about that? He wouldn't be the first one to want to stay, hanging about with that useless lot in Paris, drinking and whoring and posturing with the rest of them, rather than coming home and doing right by his family. It would have killed the old man.”

Rutledge turned to look up the river so that Barber couldn't read his face.

On the postal card Willet had sent to Cynthia Farraday a few days before his murder, he'd told her he was intending to visit his father and then return to Paris and finish his last book. But Abigail claimed he hadn't come home since the war. And if he hadn't, why did Sandy Barber suspect his brother-in-law had chosen to stay in Paris after 1918?

A footman from Thetford, son of a fisherman in Furnham, would have been eager to return to the Laughton house where his former position was awaiting him.

“Why should you think that Ben Willet would be one of them?” he asked, his eyes on a shorebird flitting here and there after whatever the current had on offer.

Barber lifted a shoulder in irritation. “I don't know. Someone—Jessup, I believe it was—said something after—” He cleared his throat. “He said better men than Ben had been tempted to stay on.”

What had Barber been about to say before he'd caught himself ?
After one of his runs to France for contraband? After meeting Ben Willet in London or Tilbury or on the road to Furnham?

“That was an odd remark,” Rutledge said, facing him. “Did he know Ben so well?”

Barber flushed. “I don't know what the hell possessed him to make it. It doesn't matter, does it? The point being that once Ben was free from Furnham, he never looked back, not really. Too good for the likes of us, I expect. In his cast-off clothes and his airs, he made fun of the household in Thetford. And most likely he kept the kitchen staff in Thetford rolling on the floor with his imitations of us.” There was an intensity of bitterness in his voice that was unexpected.

He loved his wife, Rutledge thought, and was angry for her sake. But this was a new intensity.

What did he know?

And as if he knew he'd already said too much, Barber turned on his heel and walked away without a word.

Tales of the wild bohemian ways of Paris, painted in lurid detail, had come home from France with returning soldiers. Most of them had never seen Paris, but most knew someone who had, and those who had were not above embellishing for greater effect. For Ned Willet's son to prefer that world to the staid life of service in a respectable household was unimaginable to someone who had rarely left this backwater of Essex.

Rutledge turned to follow him. “Will you let me speak to your wife?”

Barber shook his head. “She can't help you. And besides, she's still cut up about her father's death and Ben not making it back here in time. She told me this morning that she couldn't understand why he hadn't written. What am I to do? Tell her that he's dead as well? She even asked me to go to Thetford and see if he's all right. What's more, the whispers have already started. Someone talked to his wife, despite my warning. And when I find out who, I'll kill him myself.”

Rutledge said, “She'll have to know the truth sometime.”

“Let her heal a little first. When will they release his body?”

“I can give the order tomorrow.”

“That's too soon.”

With a nod Barber turned and walked away again. Rutledge let him go this time.

Hamish said, “There's more to him than meets the eye.”

“I agree.” Then Rutledge added thoughtfully, “He would kill Ben Willet himself, if he thought Willet was going to hurt Abigail. But there's nothing he can do. The man is already dead. And that's grief he has to carry.”

“It's verra' possible that he did kill him. Gie him a little rope . . .”

“Meanwhile, I have to find Major Russell.”

And that meant returning to River's Edge.

Halfway to his motorcar in the inn yard, Rutledge saw Nancy Brothers coming toward him, a market basket over one arm. She hesitated, and he thought perhaps she didn't wish it to be known that he had come to the farm to interview her. But after that brief moment she walked on, ducked her head in a diffident nod, and passed him without a word. He touched his hat, but didn't speak, in accordance with her unexpressed wish.