He regretted going to speak to Meredith Channing. It had achieved nothing, and he felt he’d betrayed more than he’d learned.
It had been unsettling to hear that she’d seen him in France. It was what he’d considered from the beginning, and he hadn’t been pleased to confirm it.
For the next thirty miles, he debated her role in what had happened. He couldn’t picture her shooting at him from behind a hedgerow.
“It was a dead soldier,” Hamish reminded him. “So the lad said.”
“Dead soldiers don’t lie in wait with a real revolver. Whatever Tommy Crowell saw, it wasn’t a corpse.”
But then what had it been?
“It doesna’ signify,” Hamish told him. “You have a duty to yon constable.”
“It won’t help Hensley if I’m dead before he is,” Rutledge retorted.
He stopped in Northampton. Matron was not pleased to see him, but late as it was, he received permission to step into the ward and have a look at Hensley.
“But you’re not to wake him, do you hear? He’s still in a great deal of pain, and we’ve just given him something to ease it so that he can sleep.”
“I won’t speak to him,” Rutledge promised.
When he walked quietly down the row of beds, he was accompanied by a cacophony of snores. He couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could sleep through the noise.
He reached Hensley’s bed and went to stand beside the man stretched out there, half on his back, half on his side. Lines of pain marked his face, visible even in the dim light of the single lamp on the ward sister’s table, and Hensley was not snoring. The sleep was deeper, drugged. One hand was curled into a fist, as if it had been clenched as Hensley drifted into unconsciousness.
After a moment, Rutledge turned and walked back the way he’d come.
The sister at the table said quietly, “You look very tired, Inspector. I hope you don’t have far to go tonight.”
“Thank you, no.” She wasn’t the plump nurse who had been angry with him on his first visit. A much younger woman, with kind eyes and a pleasant smile. A face it would be nice to wake up to, in the morning, if you were ill or in pain.
And even as he thought it, he realized how tired he actually was.
By the time he reached Hensley’s house in Dudlington, closer to dawn than to midnight, he felt bone weary. Still, he walked through the rooms, torch in hand, and searched them carefully.
In one corner of his mind, he’d half expected to find the shell casing that he’d left in Chelsea sitting somewhere here, waiting for him.
14
The cold rain had given way to colder sunshine, and Rutledge felt the stiffness in his body that came from heavy sleep in a room without a fire.
Hamish, apparently already awake, said sourly, “The Oaks would be mair comfortable.”
“That’s very likely.” Rutledge swung his feet out of bed and looked at the clock. He’d missed his breakfast. Mrs. Melford would be furious with him for missing his meals yesterday as well.
Just then he heard her calling to him from the foot of his stairs, and remembered that there was no key to the house door.
“Inspector! Your eggs are growing cold, and I shan’t keep them warm more than five minutes longer.”
The outer door slammed, and Rutledge went to fetch his shaving gear.
In the event, he was a good seven minutes late, and Mrs. Melford glared at him as he came into her dining room. But she brought his breakfast, and he found he was hungry.
“Any news of the constable?” she asked, as if assuming his absence had been spent in Northampton.
“Resting.”
She went to fetch a rack of toast and set it before him with a pot of marmalade.
“Are you any closer to finding whoever it was shot him?”
“Not yet.”
“Yes, well, we’d all expected the Yard to be more efficient.”
“The Yard,” he answered her shortly, “works with information. Apparently in Dudlington, there’s none to be had.”
She disappeared again and came back with warmed milk. He found himself thinking how different mornings had been in Westmorland, where the kitchen had seemed an oasis of warmth and brightness. Had it been love he’d felt there, three weeks ago—or only his loneliness responding to something rare: unforced companionship? He’d probably never know the answer to that now. And he must learn not to wish for more than a brief friendship. The letter from Elizabeth Fraser had been clear. Don’t come back—
Hamish was restless, urging him to finish his meal and leave the past where it could do no harm. “Ye canna’ marry anyone. It’s no wise.”
Mrs. Melford was saying, “Everyone in Dudlington has been wondering why it was you interviewed Grace Letteridge.”
He came back to the present with a jolt.
“Do you suspect her of complicity in Hensley’s attack?” he countered.
Her mouth tightened. “Really, Inspector!”
“Miss Letteridge had spent some time in London. In the early years of the war. I spoke to her about that.”
Disappointed, she said, “She’d been a good friend to Emma. We were wondering if that had anything to do with your visit. So soon after you’d spoken with Mrs. Ellison.”
“You knew Emma Mason, then?”
“Everyone did, Inspector. She was a bright, pretty, sweet-natured girl.”
“What does Dudlington think happened to her?”
“She’s buried somewhere in Frith’s Wood. That’s what they say. Although the wood was searched and there was no overturned ground or other evidence of digging. Still, whoever it was could have waited until after the search to put her into the ground,” she added ghoulishly.
He thought about the empty rooms in Hensley’s house, and how easy it would be to leave a body there until it could be moved.
Hamish reminded him of the unlocked door.
That’s true. But no one appears to go beyond the parlor. More to the point, Hensley is Caesar’s wife—a policeman and above suspicion, he answered silently. And then aloud he asked, “I’d have thought her grandmother would have contacted Emma’s mother, to ask if Emma was there.”
“Poor woman, she doesn’t know where her daughter is. She won’t admit that, you know, but Miss Arundel, our postmistress, says that letters have come back marked Unknown. For years now.”
“Which means Emma could indeed be in London with her mother. And Mrs. Mason doesn’t intend to send her back to Dudlington.”
Mrs. Melford frowned. “I suppose that’s true.” But her tone of voice indicated that she was far from believing it was.
He finished his tea and rose to leave. “Thank you for waiting for me this morning. It won’t happen again.”
Without acknowledging his apology, she turned and went back to her kitchen. He found his account on the table by the stairs and paid it.
Rutledge walked down Church Street to the far end. Beyond the rectory stood the barn from which Ted Baylor had heard his dog barking.
Baylor was a younger man than Rutledge had expected. Dressed in muddy boots, dark corduroy trousers, and a heavy coat that emphasized the width of his shoulders, he stopped stock-still as the man from London came down the stone-flagged passage between the milking stalls where cows were lined up head-in, their rumps steaming in the cold air.
“Mr. Baylor? Good morning,” Rutledge said. “I’ve been told it was your dog that alerted you to trouble in Frith’s Wood the day that Constable Hensley was shot.”
Baylor regarded him warily. “It was.”
“Had you noticed anything else unusual that day? Crows taking flight across the field, for example, or other signs that there might be something going on?”
“Never saw the crows,” he answered.
“Perhaps the dog had, and that’s what started the barking.”
“Pity you can’t ask him,” Baylor retorted.
“Does he bark at the wood from time to time? Scenting rabbits—”
�
�Not much of anything lives in Frith’s Wood.”
“What about your wife—or children?”
“I have no wife—nor any children. My half brother lives with me. And he doesn’t tend the cattle.”
“I’d like to ask him, all the same.”
Baylor shrugged. “He won’t see you. Now I have work to do.”
“Not just yet,” Rutledge replied briskly. “What did you see when you went into the wood?”
“I saw nothing but trees, and I didn’t much like that. I was about to leave when the dog started rooting around, and it was then I saw a foot showing from behind a bush. Went around to the other side of the bush, and there was the constable, facedown in the leaves, white as a sheet, and cold into the bargain.”
“Had he been moved, do you think? From where he’d been shot?”
“I didn’t notice. But there were scuff marks, as if he’d dragged himself a bit.”
Signs lost, Rutledge thought to himself, when the men came in to rescue Hensley. “Did you point these marks out to anyone else?”
“No, why should I have done? He’d lain there for two hours or more, it was natural he’d tried to help himself.”
“You work with cattle. Could you have lifted Hensley and carried him some distance?”
“Look here! I never touched him.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. My question was, could you have carried him to safety, out of the woods, if you’d had to?”
“I very much doubt it. Not with that arrow in his back. It was obscene, him lying there, cold as a fish, and an arrow jutting from him, for all the world as if Red Indians had been at him. I’d not have touched him, without the doctor asking me to try. Besides, once I’d told the doctor to come right away, I fetched a hurdle from the barn and took it back with me. And some others heard me shouting and came to help.”
He slapped the flank of a cow, moving her over a little, and added, “Bad enough when Dr. Middleton had us hold Hensley firmly while he broke the shaft well above the wound. You’d have thought he’d done it all his life, he was so clever at it. Hensley never moved.” His voice was admiring. “Not something you see every day. Not even in the war.”
“How do you explain someone using a bow and arrow in Frith’s Wood?”
“I don’t. That wood is not like any other I’ve ever seen. If I were a drinking man, I’d swear the place is full of God knows what, and Hensley was a fool to tempt whatever it is lives in there.”
“Was he looking for Emma Mason’s grave?”
A change in expression crossed Baylor’s face. “The whispers say she’s buried in there. I was in France, I don’t know the truth of it. But in my view, there’s no one who’d have gone in there to dig a grave, in the first place. There’s no telling what might have come to light.”
“Hensley went there. At least once.”
“The constable comes from London. What does he know about Frith’s Wood? I saw you going in there, walking about. What did you think of it?”
Hamish said, “It’s a challenge.”
Rutledge was on the point of quoting Hamlet, that there were more things in between heaven and earth than were dreamt of in most philosophies. Instead he replied, “I don’t know that I’d like living so near to it. As you do.”
“The cows won’t go near it, even when they’re in the pastures closest to it. Not for shade in summer or protection from the weather when it rains. But I’m safe enough here.” He turned and looked in the direction of his house, even though he couldn’t see it from inside the barn.
“Why do you think the dog barked?”
“He heard the constable groaning, very likely. He’s trained to work the animals, he’d have paid heed to it.”
Rutledge thanked him and left.
Hamish said, “A stiff man. And honest enough. But with something worrying him, all the same.”
“The half brother, perhaps,” Rutledge answered.
He stopped at the kitchen door and knocked, but no one came to the door or to any of the windows overlooking the back garden and the sheds.
He made himself a note to ask about the elusive half brother. If Mrs. Melford wouldn’t tell him, Dr. Middleton might.
Walking back to Holly Street, Rutledge decided to stop in the shops on Whitby Lane and found himself in the greengrocer’s, stepping over a basket of apples from the south. He remembered the wizened, sour ones that were good only for jelly in the Lake District, where the growing season was so much shorter.
The sign over the door had read FREEBOLD AND SON, and Rutledge nodded to the man standing behind the cabbages. “Mr. Freebold? Or son?”
“Son. My father and grandfather, God rest them, have gone on to their just rewards,” he responded affably. “How may I serve you, sir?”
Turning his back on the two or three women in the shop, Rutledge introduced himself and said, “I’m interested in Frith’s Wood. Everyone tells me it isn’t a safe place to go. And yet Constable Hensley appears to have gone there, of his own free will. I’m trying to find someone in Dudlington who might have seen him walk that way.”
“I’ve not heard of anyone,” Freebold answered, glancing over Rutledge’s shoulder at the women in his shop. Apparently they had shaken their heads, for Freebold turned back to Rutledge and said, “Someone did say early on that he was seen leaving for Letherington that day.”
“On his bicycle?”
“Yes, he was a great one for the bicycle.” Freebold patted his own girth and added, “My days on two wheels are long vanished, right enough.”
Behind him, Rutledge could hear one of the women titter.
“Then what became of the bicycle, do you think? I’m told no one found it there in the wood.”
“Which isn’t to say he didn’t come home and go out again. He wasn’t what you’d call overworked here in Dudlington. He’d take an hour or so and pay a visit to The Three Horses in Letherington, if he found that Inspector Cain wasn’t about. He was something fond of The Three Horses.”
“Why not stop at The Oaks?”
“I expect Constable Hensley and Frank Keating didn’t see eye to eye,” Freebold answered with some reluctance. “You’d best ask Keating about that.”
Rutledge thanked him and left.
Half an hour later, he was walking into The Three Horses, in Letherington. It was a sizeable village, with two churches to Dudlington’s one, and three pubs. The Three Horses was the oldest, with a smoky interior and old oak walls set with horse-racing memorabilia.
The owner, it transpired, had once been a jockey.
“Rode three winners,” he said to Rutledge, pride in his eyes. “Derby winners at that! Josh Morgan is the name.” He was a small, wiry man with a large head and lively gray eyes.
Rutledge asked for a pint and, when it was brought, engaged Morgan in conversation about his winners and then asked, “I understand Constable Hensley came here when he was in Letherington.”
“Oh, yes, we were blessed often enough with his company. A quiet man, except when he got to talking about London. Then he could go on for an hour without repeating himself!”
“Much of a ladies’ man?”
“He would chat up whoever was in the saloon, but it was more in aid of his own view of himself. He never gave them—or me—any trouble, I will say that for Constable Hensley.”
“You’ve heard about the arrow in his back?”
“Inspector Cain was telling us what happened. I’m glad to hear the constable survived. Nasty piece of business! But then I’m told Frith’s Wood isn’t a place to meddle with. I’ve never been there, you understand. I’m not what you might call superstitious, except perhaps on race day, but I believe in leaving well enough alone.”
“Had he been in Letherington that day? I hear he sometimes stops in at The Three Horses when he knows Inspector Cain isn’t likely to find him taking his time getting back to Dudlington.”
“He didn’t show himself here,” Morgan answered, shaking his head. “And that
would be unlike him. Always one for the road, he’d say. Not a drinking man, mind you,” he added hastily. “But he’d have a pint, sometimes two, before heading back. Ale was his choice. The darker the better. And he could carry what he drank. No harm done.”
“What did he talk about, as a rule?”
“Racing. He was a football man as well, and he hated Manchester with a passion. Nearly came to blows over that one once, when we had a Manchester man in the bar. Lorry driver, he was. Big as a house.” Morgan grinned. “I was on my knees praying there’d be no brawl. They could have wrecked half the bar, between them. But Constable Hensley said he must get home to the missus, and he left. I offered Manchester a drink on the house, to see him on his way. Just to prevent the two from meeting on the road somewhere.”
“I didn’t think Hensley was married,” Rutledge commented. The house in Dudlington was empty. Was there a wife hidden away somewhere else?
Morgan laughed again. “There’s a woman who nags him if he’s late for his dinner. He always said it was as good as being married, but without the fuss.”
Barbara Melford, then. She would be furious to learn she was being described as Hensley’s “missus.”
“Do you think Hensley was afraid of someone? Or worried about being followed?”
“He never said as much to me. Of course it’s possible. He was a policeman, wasn’t he? They’re after telling everyone what to do, if we get out of line. Hensley was no exception. It wouldn’t endear him to everyone.”
No one else at the pub was helpful, although they appeared to be concerned about Hensley’s condition and wished him well. A far cry from the attitude just a few miles away in Dudlington.
On his way back to the motorcar, Rutledge heard Hamish say, as clearly as if he had followed at Rutledge’s heels, “The bicycle was hidden in the field, but he didna’ ride it this far.”
“Which means,” Rutledge answered, “he either changed his mind about coming to Letherington, or was waylaid before he could get here.”
“It’s verra’ likely,” Hamish said, “that he lied about where he was going.”
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