by Charles Todd
Mr. Morgan bowed his head for a moment, then said, “I’ll step around shortly. They will need the Lord’s comfort. Will—how will the body be brought home?”
Before he could stop himself, Rutledge said, “I’ll see to that. Still, I’d not want them to open the coffin. Time—er—time has taken a toll that would be painful for his family to see.”
“I understand. You said he was found in the open. Poor Andrew. He deserved better.”
That was the epitaph that Rutledge carried with him on the long journey south.
And all it did was stoke his anger.
He arrived in London late at night, went to his flat, and slept poorly, Hamish busy in the back of his mind, until close to dawn.
Rutledge had gone through his mail before going to bed, but there was nothing from Haldane. Disappointed, he’d had a small glass of whisky to help him sleep, then turned and tossed restlessly instead.
He had seen Chief Inspector Leslie. The man was back in London, the inquiry in Yorkshire clearly at an end.
If he wanted to speak to Leslie, it must be now, before he was sent God knows where on his next assignment.
But not at the Yard. That wouldn’t do for many reasons. Leslie had friends there, but more to the point, it was not the best place for a confrontation, with an audience of policemen watching and judging.
He waited until close to the lunch hour, and went to stand outside the building and about fifty feet away, hoping to see Leslie come out.
He didn’t.
But at four in the afternoon, some ten minutes after Rutledge was back in position, he recognized Leslie’s walk, and moved forward to intersect him.
Leslie looked up, frowned in surprise when he saw Rutledge, and then said, “I must congratulate you.”
“Indeed?” Rutledge said, falling in step beside him. They were almost of a height, although Rutledge was a little taller.
“You found the man who broke into my house in Stokesbury. I hear the Constable in Avebury—Henderson is his name, isn’t it?—also suspects the ex-soldier for that poor woman’s murder. He sent word to the Yard, only this morning.”
Had he?
“Early days,” Rutledge said equably. “I haven’t written my report yet.”
“Chief Superintendent Markham is quite pleased, or so I understand. You should be as well.”
“I was hoping for a confession,” Rutledge answered.
Leslie glanced at him. “Were you, now?”
“It would be helpful to know what name to put on the woman’s gravestone. And what connection there might have been between the two, victim and killer.”
“As we both know, nothing ever turns out quite the way we’d hoped. Still. Case closed. I expect the poor man couldn’t live with his guilt.”
“As to that,” Rutledge said as they reached the corner by the bridge, “I’m not completely convinced that Katherine ever met the dead man.”
Leslie almost broke stride, then pointed to the bridge, and they turned together to start across it. “Well done. You’ve identified her, then?”
Rutledge smiled, but there was a grimness to it. He didn’t answer.
They were halfway across the bridge, walking in silence, when Leslie stopped, and Rutledge followed suit. They stood together, looking over the stone parapet into the dark, tumbling waters below. There had been heavy winter rains to the west, and the Thames was in spate.
He found himself thinking that a body, tossed into the river, would disappear for days. If it was ever found. Boats plying up and down were just as likely to slice it to shreds. He moved slightly, away from his companion.
“Who is she?”
“It will be in my report.”
Leslie couldn’t ask again, and he knew it.
Instead, he said, “There won’t be a trial, of course. But when the inquest is over, I should like to have the items he stole from my wife returned to us. I don’t know that these will make her feel any safer in that house, still, I think she would be pleased to have them.”
“I’ve already returned the lapis beads.”
“Yes. Unfortunate, that, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter. I have the witness who found them. And where. I know the owner reclaimed them.”
“I doubt that will matter to the inquest. In my experience, the coroner’s jury will wish to see them. If they can’t be produced, they won’t be deemed important evidence.”
“Ah well, I expect I shall have to rely on my powers of persuasion.”
Leslie laughed briefly. “Be grateful for the dead soldier. Otherwise, who knows? The evidence might point in any number of directions. I’ve heard that those who suffer from shell shock have been known to run mad or hear voices in their heads that drive them to murder.”
He couldn’t know . . . There was no way he could have learned about Hamish!
In almost the same breath, he heard Hamish speak as clearly as if he too stood on the bridge with them.
“Yet canna’ let him rattle ye.”
Rallying his wits with an effort of will that left him gripping the stone parapet in front of him, Rutledge said dryly, “I’ll keep that in mind, while I’m looking for this particular killer. But if you want my personal opinion, the man I’m after is probably as sane as you are.”
Leslie turned to look at him. But the light was fading, and Rutledge’s face was hard to read, shadowed as it was by his hat.
Leslie said thoughtfully, “We should be grateful for our blessings. The inquiry is closed.” He was about to turn and walk back across the bridge.
Rutledge said, “I should still like to know why she had to die. And if the child she bore and lost belonged to you.”
He thought for an instant that he’d gone too far. Leslie stopped.
I’ve hit a nerve too, Rutledge realized, and braced himself for the blow that he knew would surely come.
Instead he watched Leslie fighting for control. And then the man said softly, black menace in his voice, “Be careful. She wasn’t a whore.”
And he was gone, striding for the end of the bridge with fists clenched.
Rutledge stayed where he was, watching him out of sight.
When he was certain that Leslie had gone, that he wasn’t lurking in the shadows at the far end of the bridge, Rutledge walked back the way they’d come.
It wouldn’t do for two Scotland Yard Inspectors to go at it almost on its doorstep. Wigs on the green. He was fairly sure he could take Leslie in a fair fight. They were of a height, but he was younger and he thought his reach was a little longer. But this wasn’t the time to bring down the condemnation of the Yard on both of them. It would only serve to make any arrest he made look like a petty revenge.
And the woman’s killer had used a knife, silent and swift and deadly. He wondered if Leslie still had it. Or if it was lying somewhere on the plain close by Avebury, waiting to be found, any traces of blood long since lost to the weather.
He rather thought the latter. Leslie was married. He wouldn’t want his wife to find something he’d hidden, and ask questions.
She wasn’t a whore.
The dead woman meant something to Leslie, then.
If that was true, why did she have to die?
Because he was married and back in England now? He’d been married well before the war broke out.
When he left France to return to England at war’s end, had Leslie believed that she was dead?
There was another answer. But Rutledge didn’t like it.
What if Leslie had thought she was dead because he was sure he’d killed her? Or left her for dead in France. It would have been a terrible shock to learn she’d come to England.
Reaching the riverbank, he went back to his motorcar, and late as it was, he set out to speak to Haldane.
He might have doubted his own conclusions before. But not any longer. Leslie had known the dead woman. Had known her in France during the war? And he’d hidden that knowledge from the start.
; He’d fully expected to find that Haldane had gone out for the evening.
Instead he was told that Haldane was dressing for the evening, and he would be down shortly. Rutledge was shown into the man’s study, offered a drink, and when he refused, was left alone.
Twenty minutes later, Haldane came striding into the room. He was quite striking in his dress clothes as he nodded to Rutledge.
“My apologies. I’m expected at a party in half an hour. You’ve come about the woman?”
“Yes. Have you found anything that might shed light on who she is?”
“I have. She was a refugee from Armenia who made it to France in late 1915. There is a record of that, although how she escaped from Turkey is sketchy. One version says she somehow reached Egypt and got to Europe from there, another says she made it to Hungary, Vienna, and then Switzerland. Her family had connections, money. I expect a combination of bribes and friends got her out, and she was trying to protect them. In Paris she was very ill—she nearly died of grief and exhaustion. This was early spring of ’16 before the Somme offensive. She disappeared for a time, and then when the Paris peace talks began in early 1919, she was one of a group of people who were advocating for the Young Turks to be punished for what they’d done.”
Rutledge knew what he was talking about. The Armenians were a Christian minority in Anatolia, a part of the Ottoman Empire, and there had been some talk about bringing them to power if the Allies defeated the Turks during the war. Whether it was true or not, it became the excuse the increasingly militant Muslim faction had been looking for. And in the spring of 1915, the Armenians were forcibly removed from where they lived. Some were deported, others starved or killed in what was little short of a massacre. He had heard stories about thousands being driven out of their homes, men, women, and children, on forced marches. Anyone who couldn’t keep up was savagely beaten or killed. A world at war could do little, but the account of atrocities began to spread to Europe. She was damned lucky to make it to France.
“What was her name?”
“Karina. I don’t know if that was her true given name or not. No one did. She was afraid that the people who had helped her escape might be hunted down and killed. Some of them were Turks who knew her family and did their best to protect her.”
Karina. The port official had remembered her name as Katherine. Close enough? Or had she deliberately used Katherine when she applied for her papers?
“Does the Government know she came to England?”
Haldane fiddled with his cuffs. “I can’t answer that, you see.”
Which meant that they did. “Do they know why?”
“It was purely personal. Nothing to do with the cause she’d espoused.”
“‘Personal’ may have got her killed.”
“So it would appear. But we don’t know.”
“And you’re telling me she wasn’t followed, once she landed?”
“Apparently not. Her papers were in order, she arrived quite openly. She reached London and made no effort to contact any known organization. Surveillance was discontinued.”
But it might have saved her life, Rutledge thought.
He phrased his next question very carefully. “While she was in Paris, was there someone in England she worked with? Someone she might have come here to see?”
“There is a woman on the Armenian Refugee Committee. She volunteers with them. A number of small groups have taken up the cause. They believe matters in Turkey will be worse before they are better. But she hasn’t seen Karina.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I do. She’s quite straightforward about what she does. And there’s no reason to lie.”
“Do you have a name?”
“A Mrs. Brooke-Davies.” He gave an address.
“Was Karina troublesome? In Paris, during the conference?”
“She was—effective. I’m told her firsthand accounts of the massacre were moving. It was nearly too much for her. As for troublesome, the answer is no. Unless of course you were one of the new breed of hotheads calling themselves the Young Turks. Do I believe she was deliberately assassinated? No. Of course not. If they’d intended to get rid of her, it would have been in 1919.”
The little French ormolu clock on the mantelpiece delicately chimed the hour, and Haldane pointedly glanced at it.
“That reminds me,” Rutledge said. “L’Oreille. A French maker of fine things. Do you know it?”
“Yes. A small but elegant shop in Paris. Quite fashionable. Why?”
“She carried a compact from there. And wore a silver pin from the same firm.”
He frowned. “Rather out of her range, I should think. Unless someone bought them for her.”
She was not a whore.
The words of a man who cared. Who might have given a very attractive woman fine things. Then why had he killed her? What had she wanted from him that he couldn’t give her? A wedding ring? Had she known he was married? If she hadn’t, it might have come as a shock. And like it or not, he’d had to decide what to do about her.
“Thank you,” Rutledge said. “You’ve been very helpful.” He couldn’t keep what he was thinking out of his voice. Would Haldane have told him anything about Karina, if he hadn’t come in person to inquire?
Haldane’s gaze came back to Rutledge’s face, suddenly intent.
But Rutledge was already on his way to the door, wishing him a good evening.
Haldane stopped him. “Is there something more I ought to know?”
“I don’t believe so.” Rutledge nodded. “Good night.” And he was walking down the passage from the study to the outer door, not waiting to be shown out.
Haldane didn’t follow him.
Mrs. Brooke-Davies lived in Kensington, in a house not far from the palace.
She answered the door herself when Rutledge knocked. A stout woman with iron-gray hair and gray eyes.
He gave her his name but didn’t mention the Yard.
“Actually I’ve come to see if you might help me find a friend. She sent word she was coming to England, but I’ve heard nothing more. I believe you worked with Karina in Paris?”
She stared at him for several seconds, then invited him inside. The parlor was filled with small treasures, many of them from Europe. They held pride of place in what was otherwise an ordinary room. Horsehair sofa and chairs, a tilt-top tea table against the front wall, and a thriving green plant in the window. Very English, he thought.
“I haven’t seen her,” she said, frowning in worry. “I should have thought she might get in touch with me, if she was coming.”
“You don’t correspond?”
“Alas, no. We’re quite a small group, as you probably know, but we’ve done what we could to help the cause. I met Karina quite by accident, did she tell you? She was visiting a hospital where a friend was convalescing, and I was there to speak to someone who had taken ill in Egypt, a scorpion bite or some such. Rather nasty, at any rate. She was sitting alone outside the ward, and we exchanged a few words. I listened to her accent, and then I asked if she was Armenian. She was. We talked for over an hour.”
“When was this?”
“The summer of ’16, I believe. Yes, that’s right.”
“Did she give you her surname?”
“No. There were people at risk. They could be killed for helping her, she said. Some of them were Turks, still living in the country. They’d known her family. Sadly, they were faceless, that multitude of displaced people. No one helped most of them. Karina’s own family had been killed straightaway, because her father was an important man. She’d been in Izmir, visiting friends when the massacre began. She stayed with them as long as she dared, then was passed on to others willing to shelter her. Finally, she was given a false passport, and with that she managed to get passage on a ship.” She considered him again. “There was a young British officer in Paris, he found her lying in the street, ill with exhaustion and too little food. That was in March, before the Somme. He got
her to hospital, and visited her as often as he could before he was cleared for duty and returned to his regiment.” Her head on one side, she smiled hopefully. “But perhaps you know all this. Was that officer you?”
“She didn’t tell you his name?” he parried, returning the smile.
“She didn’t want to cause him any trouble, you see.”
“That was kind of her.”
“I’m concerned. If you haven’t heard—and I have heard nothing—what has become of her? Do you know where she is, if she is safe?”
Rutledge knew he ought to tell her the truth. That Karina was dead. Instead he asked, “Do you have a photograph of her?”
“No, she never gave me one.”
He reached into his pocket and took out the photograph the Rector’s wife had given him. Without a word, he passed it to Mrs. Brooke-Davies.
She took it, smiling, and the smile faded as the significance of what she was seeing reached her.
Her face crumpled. “Where did you get this? Did they do this to her?”
“She died in England, and is buried in Wiltshire. No one in the village knew who she was.”
Tears rolling unheeded down her face, she said, anger in her voice, “Who are you?”
“My name is Rutledge. I’m with Scotland Yard. I’ve been tasked to find out who she was.”
“How did you find me?” The words were sharp, abrupt.
He couldn’t give her Haldane’s name. “I was trying to find someone who might have known her. Someone who worked with the Armenian community.”
Looking back at the photograph again, she said forlornly, “She’s suffered so much. Had seen so much. Why couldn’t she have found a little happiness?” After a moment, she asked, without raising her head, “How did she die?”
Rutledge took a deep breath. “She was murdered. We didn’t know who she was, we don’t know who might have killed her. Or why.” Then he added, “The doctor who examined—he told me that she died at once. No time for fear or pain.”
The woman across from him in the cold room nodded slowly. “I always feared she was living on borrowed time. And yet I told myself she had earned happiness. That one day she’d find it.” Finally looking up from the face in the photograph, she said, “That officer. Do you know who he is?”
