He’d been a right fool the last time to leave his bicycle where anyone on the main road could have glimpsed it. He was sure that that was what had betrayed him.
The wood lay on the north side of Dudlington, beyond Church Lane, in a fold of the land where the Dower Fields ended. This time Hensley kept the trees between himself and the village, using it as a shield. Approaching it now, he wondered what it was about this one dark place in a landscape of open fields that seemed so evil.
Why hadn’t the Harkness family, who’d owned this land for generations, cut it down centuries ago and set the land to the plow? He’d have had it done in a fortnight, in their shoes.
He’d been hardened in London; he’d seen death in many forms. He was a policeman, for God’s sake, hardly likely to be moved by nonsense about old bones. And this was just a stand of trees, the undergrowth just a tangle of briars and vines and fallen boughs.
But then countrymen were a superstitious lot. It was their stories that had set Frith’s Wood apart from the beginning. Passed down from father to son, over centuries. “Don’t go in there—the dead walk there. Restless, because they’d had no time to pray before they were cut down. Shun the wood, if you know what’s best for you.”
In spite of his bravado, the closer he got to the trees, the harder his heart seemed to pound. Still, the note had been real enough. Ghosts didn’t put pen to paper.
But what if he was walking into a clever trap?
He stopped at the edge of the wood.
In for a penny, in for a pound, he told himself, bracingly. And he stepped into the shelter of the trees, grateful for the respite from the cold wind that had pursued him across the bare fields.
He walked slowly, studying the ground as he always did, poking at briars and the dried stalks of shrubs to see if the matted tangle beneath had been disturbed.
He was only some thirty feet into the trees when the hairs on the back of his neck seemed to stand stiffly against his collar.
Stupid sod! he scolded himself. There’s nothing here but your own wild fancy. The sooner you do what you came here to do, the sooner you’ll be away again.
He walked on, catching himself on the verge of whistling. He was nearly through the wood now, and he’d found nothing suspicious—no one had been digging here or shifting rotted logs—nothing that could explain what had brought someone else here.
Had this been a wild-goose chase? Then what had that damned note been about?
There was a sound behind him, and he whirled, not sure what he was going to see.
Nothing.
Another five yards. Ten…Fifteen.
God, he’d looked back four times already! It was the wind, rubbing dry branches together. Flicking the dry heads of dead wildflowers against one another. He should have thought about the wind.
Another twenty feet. Not much farther, now. But he’d have to go back the way he’d come, back through the whole damned wood.
This time the sound was nearer. He turned quickly, listening for the shuffle of feet in the dead, wet leaves.
Instead he heard a bird in flight, feathers riffling through the air.
Something struck him in the back, a blow like a fist, piercing his body, tearing into him like a hot poker jammed hard into his ribs. His breath went out in a frosty gust and had trouble sucking in again.
Even as he realized what it was—even as he knew for a certainty that it was a human agency and not a phantom that was intent on destroying him—he could feel his knees buckle and a terrifying sense of doom sweeping through him.
He’d been shot by an arrow. His fingers could just reach it, the shaft round and smooth. And he’d be found here, in Frith’s Wood, with all the village knowing he couldn’t stay away.
He mustn’t die here!
But he knew he was going to. It was his punishment.
He sank to his knees and then fell forward, blacking out before the pain touched him.
6
Inspector Smith, dining with Rutledge at The Three Feathers in Hertford after the court had adjourned, said, “While you were waiting for the verdict, we caught your assassin.” His voice was smug, as if he enjoyed showing this man from London that provincial policemen were every bit as good as those at the Yard.
Rutledge, looking up quickly from cutting his cheese, said, “Who is it? Anyone I know?”
“Hardly an acquaintance—a local boy. He came forward of his own accord, I’d no more than got my question out before he was telling me he’d done it.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Just that he thought it was a good day to go out shooting.”
“Why did you question him in the first place? Has he shot at people before this?” And where, Rutledge added to himself, had a boy found those cartridge casings, to hang them so conveniently at the scene?
Smith, not liking the direction Rutledge’s questions were taking, frowned. “We went to him because he’s generally roaming about the countryside in fair weather. He’s particularly fond of the Massingham grounds—they include the pasture you described. Mrs. Massingham is kind to Tommy, and he sometimes takes advantage of that to go hunting.”
“With a revolver?” Rutledge asked, eyebrows raised.
Smith shook his head. “Slingshot. He couldn’t tell me where he’d got the weapon. Not very bright, is Tommy Crowell. Never a troublemaker before this, you understand, but there’s a first time for everything, and he’s old enough to get into mischief you’d forgive a younger boy. My guess is, he found the weapon somewhere—in a house or barn—and simply helped himself to it, without a thought of asking permission. He’s always had a weak grasp of private ownership. Not thievery so much as just ‘borrowing for a bit,’ as he’d put it.”
“There can’t be that many loaded revolvers lying about in Hertford!” Rutledge persisted. “Does your Mrs. Massingham have one?”
Smith was on the defensive now. “Her husband was a cavalry officer. He kept his weapons locked away. To my knowledge, she hasn’t touched them since he was killed in the Boer War. She said as much.”
“Which means,” Hamish responded in the back of Rutledge’s mind, “that she wouldna’ know if one was missing.”
And Smith, in awe of the Massinghams, most certainly wouldn’t have questioned her word.
“I’d like to see this Tommy Crowell for myself.” Rutledge folded his serviette and nodded to the woman who had served their meal. She turned to bring him the reckoning. “Where does he live? Or have you taken him into custody?”
“Now?” Smith asked, gulping the last of his tea. “There’s no need—”
“But there is,” Rutledge told him, already scanning the charges. “I’m leaving for London early tomorrow. No, don’t bother, I’ve taken care of it.”
Smith almost ran at his heels on their way to the door. “The boy can’t pay for the damages to your windscreen,” he said, huffing with the effort. “I’ve already spoken with his mother. There’s no money—”
“I’m not interested in money,” Rutledge answered as he reached his motorcar in the yard behind The Three Feathers. “Where is he now? Have you charged him?”
“I wasn’t intending—I was going to hold him overnight to put the fear of God into him, in the hope he’d show me where he tossed that revolver. But his mother begged me—”
“Then take me to where they live!”
Smith cranked the motorcar for Rutledge and then climbed into the passenger’s seat. “A mile from the Massingham estate, there’s a lane that turns down to the east. Follow that another mile or so, and I’ll tell you where to stop.”
Rutledge drove out of Hertford, back the way he’d come, and found the lane with no difficulty. It was rutted, and the motorcar bounced unpleasantly for some distance before the row of cottages came into view, smoke from their chimneys wreathing the roofs in the cold night air.
Smith indicated the third house on the left, and Rutledge came to a halt. “Let me speak to the mother. You’ll terrify
her, Scotland Yard invading her sitting room.”
He got out and knocked at the door. A worn woman of perhaps forty answered, and then stared in alarm over his shoulder at the tall man behind Smith, dressed in a London-made coat and hat. “You’re not going back on your word?” she began accusingly. “I promised I’d keep him to home.”
“There’s nothing to worry you, Mrs. Crowell. I’d just like to speak with Tommy for a bit. This is Mr. Rutledge. It was his car that was damaged, but he hasn’t come about repayment.”
They stepped under the low lintel and into a small, cluttered room. It was apparent that Mrs. Crowell took in laundry. There were baskets of neatly folded clothes and bed linens set in every available space, and the odors of hot irons and strong soap permeated the house.
Apprehensive, her eyes on Rutledge, she called Tommy from his room under the eaves. He came clattering down the steps, a big, rawboned child of about sixteen, his face changing from open curiosity to frowning uncertainty as he saw his mother’s guests.
Stopping short, he looked from his mother to Inspector Smith, his expression shifting with every thought that passed through his head.
Before Smith could speak, Rutledge stepped forward and held out his hand. “Hallo, Tommy. My name’s Rutledge. I’m from London. You’re quite a good shot, you know. Hit the windscreen dead center!”
Tommy Crowell burst into shy smiles at the praise as he shook Rutledge’s hand. “Thank you, sir. I’ve had a good deal of practice.”
“Ever thought about the Army?” Men hardly more than a year or so older than Tommy had served under him, as Hamish was reminding him.
Mrs. Crowell began to protest, but Rutledge sent her a warning glance.
“The Army?” Tommy hesitated. “Ma wouldn’t allow it.”
“What do you prefer, when you’re hunting? Shotgun? Revolver?”
A wariness crossed the boy’s face. Rutledge noted it, and added, “I’m a better shot with a revolver myself.” And as the words came out of his mouth, he saw himself standing over the body of Corporal Hamish MacLeod, and drawing his service revolver to deliver the coup de grâce, looking down into the pain-ridden eyes begging for release. The cottage room suddenly seemed small, airless, sending an instant of panic through him.
“Fiona…” Rutledge could hear the name as clearly as he had that night on the Somme, as the improvised firing squad stood there watching.
A hand touched his arm, and Rutledge nearly leapt out of his skin.
It was Smith, and for an instant he couldn’t remember where he was, or why.
“I’m sorry?” he said, swallowing hard. He’d missed the boy’s answer.
Tommy said, repeating his answer nervously, “I’ve never fired a real weapon.” He turned to his mother, and she nodded. “I’m better at this.” He reached on a shelf by the mantel and took down a slingshot. It was strong and well made. And someone had carved and stained it to look like horn. He held it out with a mixture of pride and anxiety. “You won’t take it, will you? Ma won’t let me use it anymore, but I like to look at it.”
Rutledge examined it, turning it in his hands, asking, “And you shot out my windscreen with this?”
Tommy nodded. “I must have done. It’s what I was shooting.”
But Rutledge had dug a bullet out of the frame of his motorcar where it had buried itself after narrowly missing him. “Then where’s the revolver?”
He shook his head in confusion. “I don’t know, sir, truly I don’t. I must have lost it!”
Smith started to speak, but Rutledge was there before him. “Did you lose it in the pasture? Where the horse was grazing? Were you lying by the hedgerow, and dropped it after firing at my car? Where the road bends,” Rutledge added, as Tommy seemed unable to grasp the exact location.
“That’s the Upper Pasture, where the road bends.” The boy’s face changed. “Inspector Smith didn’t say it was the Upper Pasture—I—he said where the horses are, and that’s the home paddock. I don’t go to the Upper Pasture, not anymore.” The vehemence in his voice was unmistakable, and his face had paled, making him look even younger than his years.
“Why? Because of what you’d done there?”
“No, sir, no—I don’t like the dead soldier there. I’m afraid of him.”
Rutledge had quartered every foot of that ground, and there had been no dead soldier. Nor even the makings of a grave.
But it was clear that Tommy had seen someone there. Or something.
In spite of Rutledge’s efforts, he got no other information from the Crowell boy. Whatever had caused his terror had emptied his mind of details, and he shook his head over and over again, saying, “I don’t—I don’t know.”
In the end, Rutledge handed back the slingshot and said, “That’s a nice piece of workmanship, and I think your mother ought to allow you to have it again.” With Smith at his heels, blustering, Rutledge went out to the motorcar and cranked it himself. The night had turned cold, with frost, surely, by morning. Pulling on his gloves, he got behind the wheel.
Smith was still protesting.
Rutledge said, “I don’t believe he ever touched a revolver. Whatever you ask him, he agrees with. ‘Where is the revolver?’ ‘I don’t know where it is, sir.’ That’s the literal truth—he doesn’t. Because he never had it. You’ve asked him a direct question and he gives you the best answer he knows how. But whatever—whoever—was in that Upper Pasture must have done the firing.”
“A dead soldier? That I knew nothing about? You didn’t buy that cock-and-bull tale, did you?”
But then, Hamish was saying, Smith knew nothing about the .303 casings.
“Not even a suicide?”
Smith answered, “Look, if the boy is lying about the revolver, he’s lying about the dead man as well. It’s a matter of self-preservation. He doesn’t remember what he did with the weapon, and so he gives you a corpse instead. You’re a policeman, and corpses are what you deal with. Even Tommy Crowell understands that.”
“He doesn’t lie. Simple people seldom do. He told you he didn’t know where the revolver is, and he doesn’t. If he saw a dead man in that pasture, he described him in terms he could understand.”
He recalled Tommy’s exact description. “He was dead, buried. I saw him and I didn’t like it. And I ran.”
“Buried, as in a churchyard?”
“No, not in a churchyard. There were no flowers, and no tombstone. Still, he was lying there, buried.”
“I can hardly scour Hertfordshire for a dead soldier! It’s a waste of my time and the time of my men.”
“No. Whoever was in that pasture couldn’t have been a local man.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
Rutledge glanced at him, saw the angry face etched by the motorcar’s headlamps, and answered him carefully. “It’s your patch. You know it best. If you find out anything, you know where to reach me in London.”
“If it’s not a local man,” Smith said, pursuing the issue doggedly, “it was no accidental shooting, was it? He knew where he was aiming.” When Rutledge said nothing, he fell silent, thinking it through. Where the rutted lane met the main road and the motorcar’s tires fought for a grip in the icy mud as Rutledge turned, Smith went on. “You have an enemy out there, then. I’d not care to be in your shoes.” He turned his head to look behind Rutledge, as if searching out Hamish. “I’ll thank you to take your troubles out of Hertfordshire as soon as you can. We don’t need them.”
7
Bowles was pacing his office by the time Rutledge had received his summons and knocked at the door.
“Where the hell have you been?” the Chief Superintendent demanded angrily. “I sent for you a good half hour ago! And what’s happened to your face?”
“I’ve just got in from Hertford, sir—”
“I don’t give a dance in hell where you’ve come from. You’re leaving for Northamptonshire straightaway. There’s trouble in a place called Dudlington in the north of the county
. A constable has been shot with a bow and arrow, for God’s sake!”
“A bow—” Rutledge began, surprised, but Bowles cut him off.
“He’ll live, no thanks to the bastard who did it, leaving him in the weather to die of his wound. It was intentional, this shooting, we’re certain of that. And I want whoever it is brought to justice now. Do you understand me? Hensley’s one of my men, or was, when I was an inspector in Westminster. He went north over my objections, and look where it’s landed him.”
Bowles’s face was red and blotched with fury. He shoved a file of papers at Rutledge.
“Well, don’t stand there, man! I want you to interview Hensley tonight, if those fool doctors will let you, and get to the bottom of this business. They’ve got him in hospital in Northampton, and the local man says he’s just out of surgery.”
It was useless to plead fatigue or other pressing business. Bowles was not a man who cared about anything but getting his own way. And blustering anger was a well-tested method of keeping his subordinates from arguing with him.
Rutledge took the file and left.
Down the passage he ran into Sergeant Gibson in conversation with the man sweeping the floor.
Gibson turned away to speak to Rutledge and said dourly, “If you want the truth of the matter, Hensley left under a cloud. I never did know the ins and outs of it. A personal matter. He managed to keep it from Old Bowels’ ears, I’m told. The Chief Superintendent thought he was the perfect copper. Threw him up to us any number of times.”
Rutledge said dryly, “Then there’ll be no end of suspects for this attempt at murder.”
Gibson caught himself before he grinned. Instead he retorted, “How the mighty are sometimes brought low.” And with that he was off down the passage, leaving Rutledge standing there.
Dudlington was a tiny village of stone-built houses topped with gray slate roofs and a single, slender-towered church, huddled together in the midst of open fields, as if for warmth or comfort. The rich brown of plowed acres and the yellow green of winter pasture lay like a blanket around them, but the houses turned their backs to the land, as if ignoring it, and the barns were a low afterthought, tucked here and there, as if no one had known what to do with them. It lay north of the county town, but Rutledge’s first call was in Northampton.
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