A Pale Horse

by Charles Todd

  “Ian. I’m not likely to make stupid remarks, and I’m not likely to criticize him or wear my heart on my sleeve. You aren’t helping.”

  He laughed. “I’m a policeman, not a seer.”

  “And a very good policeman at that,” she retorted. “But you’ve given me an idea. I think I’ll invite Meredith Channing to have lunch with me.”

  He was immediately on alert. “Frances. I think that’s a very poor idea. Mrs. Channing isn’t going to look into a crystal ball and tell you what’s in Simon’s mind. Or heart.”

  “I don’t expect her to look into a crystal ball. She’s a very astute woman, Ian, she can give me her opinion. And it could be what I need, to understand how to go on. I mean, people are asking. We’ve been seen together more than a little these last two months. I don’t know how to answer them. ‘Where’s Simon, my dear? I saw him last night at the Collinses’ and you weren’t with him.’ Or, ‘What’s happening between you and Simon? Has there been a falling-out, a quarrel? Have you lost interest in him?’” Her eyes filled with tears but she refused to let them fall.

  “And how do you answer these questions?”

  “I say that I’ve been terribly busy and so has Simon. Or that I couldn’t make the Collinses’ party, I had other plans. But it’s growing old.”

  She stood up. “You’ll be late, Bowles will be clamoring for you. I’ll go and speak to Meredith Channing. If nothing else, she’ll cheer me up. I’m in need of cheering right now.”

  And she was gone, despite his protests, smiling at him over her shoulder as she went out his door.

  He spent the better part of the morning scouring London for news of Simon Barrington. There was no one he could ask outright, and so he had to make time to listen to various friends they held in common.

  Hamish was not pleased with his decision.

  “It willna’ help, even if ye find him. Ye ken that as well as I do. Ye canna’ speak to him.”

  “I don’t intend to speak to him. Or try to fix whatever happened between Barrington and my sister. But if there’s something wrong, something I ought to know, then the sooner the better.”

  “Aye, but are ye the brother now? Or the policeman?”

  He couldn’t answer that. And at the end of the day, there was still nothing he could point to as a reason why Barrington should avoid his sister without explanation. The closest he came to an answer was an offhand remark by Tommy Aspell. That Simon had something on his mind and had been damned poor company for a fortnight or more.

  With that he had to be satisfied.

  It was close to nine in the evening when he arrived in Berkshire. But The Smith’s Arms was well lit, the bar noisy with shouts of laughter and the stamping of feet. Not a drunken crowd, from the sound of it, but one where men were relaxed and enjoying themselves.

  Rutledge went to the tiny desk in Reception and signed the register. Then he walked into the bar.

  There was a sudden silence as patrons looked up at the newcomer and judged him from his clothes.

  Half a dozen lorry drivers were busy with a game of darts. One man, in the process of taking his turn, scowled at the interruption. Two farmers were watching the proceedings from the bar, keeping to themselves.

  Rutledge nodded to them as the game resumed and found himself a table in a corner by the front windows. He smiled as Mrs. Smith came over to him and asked what he’d have.

  “A room, if you please. I’ve signed the register. And dinner, if there’s any left.”

  “This lot isn’t staying over. There’s the room you had before, and a bit of roasted ham and some bread left. Mustard sauce as well.”

  “That will do very well.” He’d missed his lunch, and could hear the growling of an empty stomach.

  “What will you have to drink, luv?”

  “A Guinness, if you please.”

  “Smith u’ll bring it shortly.” She skirted the players and disappeared into the kitchen as another burst of laughter met a wild throw.

  Rutledge watched this leg end in a victory for the bald man with a birthmark on his face. The man went to the bar to claim his wager, another glass of his choice. A shorter man, broad in the shoulders, called out to Rutledge, as he pulled the darts out of the board. “This is a worthless lot. Will you have a turn?”

  It was a dare, not an invitation.

  Rutledge got to his feet, shrugging off the long drive, and answered, “I’ll give it a try.”

  They eyed him with interest as he took the three darts and lightly hefted them in his hand. Judging his skill. Or lack thereof.

  Hamish was saying, “I won best of three in the canteen.”

  Suddenly, without warning, Rutledge could feel himself slipping back, reliving a night in France.

  He had been invited to the canteen by his men. It had been his birthday, and he never knew how they’d found that out. Darts was a working-class pastime, but he’d held his own with a good elbow and a better eye. He’d been grateful not to disgrace his men in front of the other onlookers.

  Hamish had stood them all down, the quiet young Scot already respected by his men, his corporal’s stripes still new on his uniform.

  It had been a brief respite from the Front, tired men pulled back for a few days of rest after a hard week of fighting, and nowhere to go in the rain and the mud and the dark save the popular canteen set up in a small stone barn—all that was left of a French farmhouse—that had been too rat infested to serve as a field hospital. Rumor was, officers turned a blind eye to the use it was put to by a trio of enterprising Welshmen, miners at home outside Cardiff but sappers now.

  Someone had found a great gray and black tomcat, and it soon made short work of the earlier residents. A broom and some odds and ends of scavenged paint, and a rough bar built from whatever wood could be found or stolen, and the canteen was in business. A large oil painting of a French officer of the Napoleonic wars had materialized from somewhere, hung at one end of the barn by a length of scorched rope. It had become a habit to salute the officer on entering.

  Evenings were usually rowdy, some of the strain and fatigue draining away as young soldiers old before their time had tried to forget the war.

  He and his men had walked through the door and lifted the blanket behind it. Lamps had been hung from the rafters, the room was smoky from cigarettes, and the scent of moldy hay still lingered. Rusted kettles were whistling on a wood stove that gave off sufficient heat to keep the building just barely comfortable.

  When Rutledge took the mug of steaming tea handed to him by one of his men, he nearly choked on the first swallow. In lieu of sugar, someone had added a liberal spoonful of brandy to it. But he said nothing, aware of anxious eyes on his face.

  They had played darts after that, though the numbers on the board were badly worn and the colors had faded to a uniform brown. But the sisal still held each throw firmly where it landed.

  At the end of the evening, Rutledge had returned to his quarters feeling not relaxed but burdened by guilt. How many of the men who had shared this wartime birthday tonight would be alive by month’s end?

  Ten had died the first day back in the line. And he’d heard a year later that the Welshmen had died outside Ypres when a tunnel they’d been digging had collapsed prematurely, burying them alive. By the time help reached them, it was too late.

  Rutledge brought himself back to the present as a lorry driver, a man his mates called Jimmy, said, “Loser buys drinks all round.”

  There was general agreement to the terms, since the general opinion was that the man from London would pay the accounting.

  Rutledge found the rough line drawn on the floor, put the outside of his right foot against it and considered the target. This one was worn too, but from long use, not from rain and mud and countless journeys across northern France in haversacks.

  He forced his mind to concentrate on what he must do.

  Hamish warned, “They’ll want to see your mettle.”

  His fingers closed a
round the first dart. Worn, like the board, and comfortable in his grip. He pumped his hand twice, gauging his shot, then threw firmly toward the board.

  It landed precisely where he’d intended—in the wood above the board. From the bar, Smith called, “Here! That’s my wall.”

  “Sorry,” Rutledge apologized as the lorry drivers and even the farmers slapped their knees and bent over laughing at his expense.

  He waited for the racket to die down and took his second throw. This time the dart landed in the number ring, between eleven and fourteen.

  There was more laughter, and the bald-headed man said to Smith, “Set them up, man, this ’ull be a short leg.”

  “Nay, he hit the board, didn’t he?” another driver answered. “We could go on all night.”

  The point of the game was to put his dart somewhere in the pie-wedge-shaped section numbered 20.

  Rutledge took aim for his third and final throw—and this time his dart landed perfectly in the triple in section 20.

  There was an intake of breath, and someone said, “You’re a damned lucky man.”

  He’d made his three. He walked to the board, pulled out his darts, and scored his throw, amid much joshing.

  It was still his turn.

  This time the section was 19, to the bottom and left.

  His first dart hit the black.

  One man said, “Not bad, for a toff.”

  He missed his other two throws, and went to retrieve his darts.

  His opponent, a slim, dark man called Will, came forward to take them from him, and showed off his own skill, earning a second turn and then a third. But he was off on his next throw and that jarred him just enough to make him miss again. He wound up losing his turn, and went to fetch the darts for Rutledge.

  Rutledge threw well this time, keeping pace with his opponent. There was partisanship among the observers now, the farmers taking his part and the drivers banding together behind their man.

  Rutledge could have hit the outer bull with ease, but he chose to put two throws into the inner bull, the third one missing its mark.

  Still, he had finished the leg just behind his opponent. There was general celebration and someone slapped him on the back as Smith handed him his glass before setting up for the rest of the men.

  They stopped after splitting two more legs, sitting down at the bar or the nearest tables instead to talk to Rutledge about London and eventually the war. Four of them had served in France, while the other two had been in the navy.

  Rutledge let them talk and then led them into stories about their experiences on the road.

  “Ever give a lift to someone who wanted to go to, say, Liverpool or York?”

  They shook their heads.

  “I’d be sacked,” one of them said, “if it got out.”

  “Not for any amount of money,” the bald man added. “Can’t say I like company on the road.”

  “Why, do you want to go to Manchester tonight?” Will, the thin man asked, finishing his beer. “I’ll give you a lift.”

  “I’ve been to Manchester,” Rutledge answered him. “Once is enough.”

  They laughed, and someone said, “Nay, Manchester’s not all that bad.”

  Soon talk shifted to the struggles these men faced making a living wage, the hardships of being away more often than they were at home, coping with the growing tangles of traffic and the winter’s toll on the roads.

  “Although it’s a damned sight better than being shot at by the Hun’s aircraft, I swear,” one of the men said. “My mate was blown up by the Red Baron. I saw that Albatross coming in and blew the horn but there was no time. Never is. He was carrying shells, and my windscreen blew out with the force of the blast. They never did find anything of my mate to bury. I took his wife a bit of the lorry, that’s all I could do. If anyone had been sitting beside me, he’d have had his head took off when something slammed into the seat and carried it through into the bed. I don’t miss France, I don’t.”

  Hamish said, “They’ll no’ tell you, if they had taken up yon dead man.”

  But Rutledge had been watching faces as he’d asked his questions. And if Partridge had got himself out of Berkshire with a lorry driver, he’d have wagered it wasn’t one of these men.

  Smith was calling time, and Mrs. Smith said to Rutledge as he looked around for it, “I’ll bring up your dinner, if you like.”

  He hadn’t touched it, hadn’t had the time, hungry or not.

  He bought a final round, then said good night, leaving the drivers to drink in peace. The farmers had already left half an hour before.

  Mrs. Smith met him at the stairs as he came out of the bar, his plate on a tray.

  “Were you thinking about Mr. Partridge?” she asked him. “When you wanted to know if someone might find a ride with a driver?”

  He was caught off guard.

  “Yes, I was, as a matter of fact,” he answered, lowering his voice.

  “He was here, once. Playing darts and later asking about traveling to Liverpool. But it was the roads he wanted to hear about. What sort of time he could count on making.”

  “When was this?”

  “Six months ago, at a guess. Longer, for all I can remember.”

  The state of the roads.

  “You’re certain it wasn’t the prelude for asking for a lift?”

  “No, sir, he has his own motorcar, I can’t think why he would need a lift with the likes of them.”

  “How well do you know Mr. Partridge?”

  “He wasn’t one to come around in the evening, as a rule.” She smiled ruefully. “I think it’s when he can’t stand his own company any longer.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, he’s a widower, isn’t he?” There was pity in her voice.

  “Did he tell you he was?”

  “Lord, no, sir, we never spoke about his private life. No, it was young Slater who said he’d lost his wife and hadn’t much use for company. Mr. Partridge kept to himself at his cottage, and seldom went out. We were that glad to see him, when he did come.”

  And yet this wasn’t the sort of pub a man like Partridge would frequent. Granted it was the nearest one to the cottages, but he wasn’t working class, if the army was keeping an eye on him.

  That reminded him of the dead man in Yorkshire, whose hands were soft and uncallused.

  Hamish said, “Why did ye no’ show her the drawing?”

  Rutledge wasn’t sure himself why he hadn’t. But he wanted no rumors reaching the Tomlin Cottages before he himself could go there in the morning.

  He slept poorly that night. As if the memory of the dart game on his birthday had stirred up the past too deeply, he could hear the guns in France, and men calling and screaming and swearing, bringing himself up out of the depths to lie awake until the sounds receded. And then he would drift into sleep again for another quarter of an hour, sometimes longer, before the guns started shelling his position. Muzzle flashes in the distance seemed to light up the sky, and the flares were sharp, brilliant, nearly burning his eyes.

  Once when he awoke, he could hear Hamish talking to someone, and then he realized that the someone was himself, answering the familiar voice of a dead man, even in his sleep.

  “I’m trained to it,” he said aloud, and then lay still listening. But from the other rooms came the regular snores of occupants luckier than he was, comfortable in their beds. “Like a dog who knows his master’s voice.”

  Hamish’s laugh was harsh. “Oh, aye? More like a man wi’ blood on his conscience, who canna’ find peace.”

  “You left me no choice but to execute you. You wouldn’t heed me when I warned you what would follow, if you didn’t relent and obey the orders given you. I warned you, and you didn’t listen.”

  “I couldna’ watch more of my men die while the colonel who gave the orders sat safe and ignorant miles behind the lines. You knew, you knew as well as any of us that it was hopeless.”

  “No more so than the
whole bloody campaign. We did what we were told, because there was no other choice left to us but to obey. One man, two men, a dozen, couldn’t have stopped the madness. We had to carry on to the end, and die if we had to.”

  “I wasna’ afraid of dying. Ye ken that well. I couldna’ bear to watch the ithers die. There had been too many, for too long.”

  “You refused an order under fire. You left me no choice, damn you!”

  “Aye. And afterward, ye couldna’ let me go.”

  “You didn’t want to go. Then or now.”

  Hamish said, something in his voice now that was unbearable, “I didna’ want to die. But I couldna’ live, no’ even for Fiona. I couldna’ stand before my men and break as we went o’wer the top. It was a question of pride. I’d have shot mysel’, else.”

  “But you let me do it instead. You let me call up the men and order them to shoot you. My men, your men. You put that on their souls and mine. If I could ever understand why, I’d find some peace. Why not let the Germans do it for you. You wouldn’t have been the first. Nor the last.”

  “Aye, it’s what ye did, but no’ even the Hun could touch you. You were left wi’ your shame. Ye ken, it’s why I willna’ go. No’ now, no’ yet.”

  “For God’s sake, tell me why!”

  There was a knock at his door, cutting through the darkness in his mind. Smith called out, “Mr. Rutledge? Are you all right?”

  He realized that the snoring had stopped—had been stopped for some time, for all he knew. And his shouting could be heard all over the inn.

  Rutledge cleared his throat.

  “I’m sorry, Smith. It was a bad dream. I didn’t mean to disturb the house.”

  There was a moment of silence on the other side of the door. “If you’re sure then?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He listened to the man’s footsteps receding across the passage, and a door shutting.

  Rutledge lay back against his pillows, his body still tense, his fists clenched, not certain when he’d sat up in bed or for how long the exchange with Hamish had been loud enough to be heard.

  Hamish said, in the darkness, “But they canna’ hear me. Only you can.”