by Charles Todd
The doctor shook his head. “It looks more like Raleigh, I think.”
Rutledge, taking his turn, finally said, “Radleigh.” He brought the glass closer to the fabric, frowning. “A. And either J or L.”
“If you say so,” Mason replied. “Your eyes are the younger. All the same, I’d keep Raleigh in mind if I were you. Meanwhile, I’ll see what’s inside of him that might shed some light on the cause of death.” He looked at the pale, thin body. “Made it through the war, didn’t he, only to die alone with a bottle. Where is his family, I wonder?”
All the way to Marlborough, Hamish argued with Rutledge over the telephone call he was about to put through.
“You’ll know the sooner if ye ask Haldane.”
“No.”
“If ye speak to yon Sergeant, word will get back to the Chief Inspector that a body has been found.”
“It will reach him soon enough, once Constable Benning is told. And he’ll have to be informed. He’ll see that Leslie knows, as the householder.”
“It will close the inquiry. In Avebury and in Stokesbury.”
“Not if I can help it,” Rutledge said grimly.
“Then speak to Haldane.”
In the end, Rutledge compromised and spoke to a friend in the War Office.
“Corporal A. J. or L. Radleigh? Possibly the Royal Engineers? Good God, Rutledge, it’s an impossible task.”
“The war is over. You aren’t all that busy, are you?” Rutledge countered.
Edwards laughed. “We’re preparing for the next one. It will take Parliament that long to agree to fund it. No, seriously. Do you at least have a village or even a county to narrow the search?”
“Sorry. No. I’ve just found his body.”
The voice on the other end of the line changed. “Pity. Murder, then? Or you wouldn’t be asking me.”
“We aren’t sure. He’s been out in the elements, you see. He could be from any part of England, wandering about looking for work. He’s been at it for some time, and he must have gone hungry more often than not. The doctor who examined him has given his age as early thirties. Wounded twice, in the leg and across the shoulders. Light brown hair. Possibly brown eyes. Five eight at a guess. Thin build.”
“Well. Let me see what I can do.” There was resignation in the voice now. “Where are you?”
Rutledge told him. “I’ll be back in two days’ time. Will that work?”
“God knows. But I’ll try.” He rang off.
Rutledge put up the receiver, but he stood there for several minutes staring into space, mulling over the discovery of the soldier’s body, and what it might mean. It wasn’t until someone tapped impatiently on the glass doors that he stirred, and left the little room to the red-faced man in the passage.
When he got back to Avebury, he borrowed Mason’s horse again, and set out for the Long Barrow.
Mason, questioning him, had said, “But what do you expect to find? The man died of acute alcohol poisoning. A pity,” he added, echoing Edwards at the War Office. “But it’s Henderson’s inquiry, now, not yours. Hardly a Yard matter, drinking oneself to death.”
“It’s a matter of being thorough,” Rutledge said, and he left it at that.
It was already late afternoon. The wind had risen, dispatching the mist and sending scudding dark clouds across the sky. What light there was came and went, and the stones in Avebury seemed to change shape with the changing shadows. He felt the full force of the wind out on the plain. A brief patch of sunlight threw Silbury Hill’s long shadow across the land, and then he watched it shrink as the clouds closed.
Beyond lay the Long Barrow, and soon he could see the line of stones guarding the chamber at its eastern end, a stark cluster, misshapen and sinister in this light. It was odd, he thought, that only these monuments to the dead or whatever gods their builders worshipped were all that remained of such a distant past. No houses or huts or marketplaces, no graveyard or drawings or testaments to what they believed and why.
Shrugging off his mood, he guided the horse to circle the outside of the barrow, moving at a walk down one length and up the other, looking for anything that might tell him why a man had died here. But whoever he was, he’d left nothing behind.
And then Rutledge was back once more at the makeshift steps that led into the forecourt. He’d remembered to bring his torch, to look inside the chamber itself.
The horse was skittish in the wind, and Rutledge was careful to loop the reins around a stone. He had no desire to walk back to Avebury in the dark, even with a torch. The plain was littered with barely visible stones, a certain way to sprain an ankle or break one’s neck.
He climbed into the forecourt. There was nothing to show now where the body had been found. Taking his time, he examined his surroundings, and then turned toward the chamber.
Recalling what Mason had said, that the dog’s owner had been afraid he’d cornered a polecat, Rutledge flicked on the torch and shone it around the entrance to be sure. But nothing stirred, no eyes reflected the beam, and he walked inside.
It was noticeably chillier in here, and his footsteps crunched on the grit under his boots, echoing eerily. How had men five thousand years ago brought these heavy stones here and matched them well enough to build the outer passage, much less this chamber? Some of the stones were smooth, some rough, whether by design or not he couldn’t judge. With no tools except for horn and human muscle, they had created two sides, a roof projecting a little beyond the opening to keep the entrance dry, and, as he could see ahead, a rounded alcove at the far end. All of it balanced perfectly, then the barrow had been mounded over with earth and chalk. It was still, he thought, just as they had left it, whoever they were.
As he proceeded, the dim light from the forecourt faded to darkness, and the torch beam grew brighter. Yet the roof was higher than his head, giving a sense of space around him.
Huge boulders stood on either side of him, a seemingly solid wall of them, and the skill with which they had been matched and set in place was impressive.
He could find no indication that the dead man had spent any time here, no blankets or bedding, no cache of food. No signs of a fire.
He’d been in caves before, and in the tunnels under the trenches that had been dug to blow up the enemy line. But he hadn’t been claustrophobic then—not until the night on the Somme when the whole of the sector had all but vanished as a shell fell short and buried him, his men, and the man he’d just shot.
But he was beginning to feel a rising panic, the deeper he went, as if there was something about the nature of this passage into the earth that was tangible, as if the walls were closing in on him—something that seemed to move up from the balls of his feet thought his entire body, shaking his resolve. Even Hamish was silent.
It was as if a presence was there in the darkness behind him, and he whirled, casting the light from side to side almost in the same instant that he realized the presence might be Hamish, visible at last. His heart pounding now, he sent the torch light spiraling upward before turning it off.
He was looking back the way he’d come, toward the dwindling daylight in the forecourt. He could swear that he wasn’t alone. And yet there was nothing to see.
He was alone . . .
Taking a deep breath, he turned his back on the passage, then flicked on the torch again.
He had reached the rounded end, like the end of a basilica.
He clenched his teeth. It was his claustrophobia, nothing else, he told himself grimly. He’d come here on purpose, and he was damned if he would leave before he’d finished what he’d come to do.
He cast the light around him, slowly and carefully, forcing himself to pay attention to what he was seeing. Yet there was nothing to be seen but how perfectly the stones had been set up to form this rounded, rather elegant space. There were no bones that he could see, no sign of fires, nothing. Just bare stone.
A gust of wind swept into the forecourt, and he heard his horse snort and m
ove restlessly.
He turned to leave, first moving the light down the passage again. Something caught his attention, and he brought the beam back for a better look.
There, he thought, just there. An oddly shaped darkness. The question was, what was it?
He forced himself to walk slowly back down the chamber to that spot, and when he reached it, he raised the torch so that its beam spread into what he could now see was a narrow cavity. A polecat’s cozy home?
Instead something black reflected the torch beam.
Rutledge hesitated, then with his gloved hand, slowly reached toward what he’d seen. As his fingers brushed it, he realized it was solid, and yet it moved slightly.
Intrigued, he closed his fingers over the thing and carefully lifted it out.
Black leather.
A woman’s purse.
He stood there, staring at it. Good-quality leather, with two handles and a clasp. And far more modern than the stones that had hidden it. He felt the sides, and his excitement rose: there was something in it.
He looked once more into the cavity, but it was empty now.
Whatever had seemed to be there, following him, had vanished, but he could hardly breathe. Holding tightly to the purse, he moved forward, scanning the walls again as he went.
He was finally at the end of the chamber, almost into the forecourt. He took a deep breath, but the unease he’d felt inside didn’t leave him. And he couldn’t find the courage to turn and throw the torch beam back toward its rounded end. He was suddenly reminded of what Constable Henderson had said about the rising sun on the equinox that had sent that unexpected beam of light around the chamber walls.
He could understand now what the man had been saying—that there was something here that wasn’t at Silbury Hill or at Avebury. Not a haunting. Just—something. The imprint of an ancient people—
Stepping out into the open, into what was now dusk, he was glad to see his horse was still there. Looking down, he switched off the torch, but kept it close.
The forecourt was shadowy. Rutledge debated looking into the purse there and then, or taking it back to the inn.
But his curiosity got the better of him. Opening the clasp, he peered inside.
A woman’s things. Toward the end of the forecourt was a flat bit of ground, and kneeling, he turned on the torch again and then began to remove the contents, setting them out one by one in a tidy row.
A lady’s comb. A linen handkerchief—no initials. A pretty compact holding face powder. Several hairpins. Three coins—two English pennies and a half-penny.
Surely a destitute man would have taken those?
He’d come to the bottom. There was nothing left as far as he could see.
No identification, no papers, nothing that would tell him who had owned it.
A surge of disappointment swept him.
The purse could have belonged to anyone. A woman in Cornwall or Northumberland. It could have been stolen a fortnight ago or weeks earlier. The stone chamber would have kept it safe and dry for a very long time.
He began to collect the items, but as he picked up the compact, he realized that it was silver, and just beginning to tarnish. There was a pretty design on the top, and he thought it must have been rather expensive. Or a gift, perhaps? He turned it over. On the bottom, near the rim, he could just make out the name of a French shop. L’Oreille. But such things could probably be bought in any large English town. Hardly proof of who had owned it. He was about to drop it back inside the purse when his hand brushed the torch, and it shifted a little. He was still looking at the compact, and as the light moved, he realized that what he’d thought was a mere design, intended to be pretty and nothing else, wasn’t a design at all but three initials beautifully and intricately entwined. He turned the compact this way and that in the torch light, to see them better.
kLe. The L was slightly larger, as if it was her surname.
Katherine?
14
Rutledge knelt there on the cold ground, looking at the compact in the palm of his gloved hand.
He desperately wanted this to belong to the dead woman. The first thing of hers he’d found, save for that burnt bit of a hat.
Turning the purse upside down, he gently emptied it again, then felt around in the silk lining, his fingers urgently searching. Would she have been worried enough to hide something personal where prying eyes couldn’t see it?
At first all he discovered was a small rip in the silk lining, and he pulled it out to have a better look.
Something fell by his knee with a delicate ring.
He looked down at it.
A small silver pin, shaped like a crescent moon. And caught in it was a long, fine black hair.
He didn’t touch it at first. Almost afraid that it wasn’t there, that it was only wishful thinking on his part.
Whoever had burned the gray hat couldn’t bring themselves to burn the pretty pin as well. But it couldn’t be kept, that was too dangerous. Too many awkward questions might be asked.
Instead, it had been slipped inside the lining. Out of sight. And even if someone did find it, it would have been meaningless to most people.
On the reverse, there was the same stamped name. L’Oreille.
Only a killer, a dead woman, and Rutledge knew about the crescent moon. And he’d known only because a sharp-eyed port official had noticed it. The woman wearing it was pretty and had caught his attention.
But who had put it here, in the purse lining?
Who, for that matter, had hidden the purse here, in a dark crevice behind a boulder that supported the stone chamber?
The dead Corporal? Or his killer?
By the time the weather warmed and walkers and visitors came to explore the Long Barrow, the forecourt and the chamber, even if one of them discovered the purse, who would connect it to an unknown woman found dead in Avebury over the winter? Even if it were reported to Constable Henderson by some conscientious visitor, this purse wouldn’t shed any light on her past or her identity.
Hamish spoke, making him jump. “If it was hidden here by yon killer, it wasna’ the cleverest idea to leave a dead man here as weil.”
“Unless it was intended that he be blamed for the woman’s death as well as the break-in at Stokesbury. A case could be made for that. He might have seen her walking along the road, and followed her to Avebury, killing her when she spurned his advances.”
“It makes a verra’ good story.”
It did. One easily believed at an inquest. No one would think that a Chief Inspector at the Yard could possibly be involved.
But the question remained. Why was he involved? What did this woman have to do with him?
Rutledge knew he should take what he’d discovered to Chief Superintendent Markham. Yet if he did, the strange business of a murdered woman found in Avebury would surely become a closed file, he’d be ordered to look no further. This was the sort of tidy ending that Markham preferred. And he himself would be given the credit for solving a murder that even Chief Inspector Leslie had failed to unravel.
It would go a very long way toward mitigating the shame he’d endured in that last business about Alan Barrington. It could, in fact, resurrect his standing at the Yard.
Any man would be tempted.
But one person would know that none of it was true. That the evidence had been laid out for Rutledge by a clever killer who was experienced at covering his tracks.
And he would laugh.
“I can’t believe the dead man was clever enough to have done all this,” he said aloud. “And why hide the purse? If he’d kept it with him this long, why hide it now?”
“Aye,” Hamish agreed. “But ye havena’ found out why. And until ye do, who do you think yon Chief Superintendent will believe? You, with the shame of your past? Or the Chief Inspector, who has the respect of the Yard?”
That stung. But it was true.
Letting it go for the moment, Rutledge made certain he’d collected every
thing that had come from the black purse, then he got to his feet.
If the purse was here, if it had been left here to connect the dead Corporal to the murder of the woman in Avebury, what about the weapon? The knife?
That meant going back into the chamber.
He didn’t think he could face it again. Not so soon.
He had no choice. It had to be done.
Picking up the torch and clenching his teeth, he ignored the thundering of his heart as he stepped back into the shadows.
It was an empty stone barrow, he told himself. There was nothing here, nothing to fear except his own imagination.
It took all the will he possessed to search every crevice he could find. There aren’t that many of them, thank God, he told himself as he shone his torch in first one and then another, moving slowly deeper and deeper into the chamber.
But the feeling of not being alone, of sounds beyond his range of hearing, kept pace with him. When he reached the end, he could hear his own ragged breathing as he started down the other side. The opening was a black rectangle when he cast the light from his torch in that direction. And then the torchlight began to dim and flicker. He was barely a yard from the end, but forced himself to persevere, finally stumbling into the open forecourt and gulping in deep breaths of fresh, cold air.
If there was a knife hidden in the chamber, he had failed to find it. But he would have wagered his life that he had been careful and thorough enough to find it, if it had been there.
His face was bleak as he left the barrow and walked back to his patient horse.
Hamish was right. Who would believe a man everyone suspected of being shell-shocked? A moral coward, who might blacken a fellow officer’s good name in an effort to win favor with his superiors, one of whom kept Rutledge’s letter of resignation in a drawer of his desk?
It was fully night by the time he reached Avebury. Overhead the stars were brilliant in the black dome of the sky, and he picked out constellations he remembered from the trenches of France. He’d let the horse have its head, giving himself whatever time he needed. And slowly but surely the odd sensations of the Long Barrow chamber faded until Rutledge wasn’t sure he hadn’t conjured them up out of the echoing darkness.
