Charles Todd - A Bitter Truth

Bates read my face even before I could speak.

Moving quickly down the remaining stairs, he was coming across Reception directly toward me. And I was all that was between him and the door. And escape.

I stayed where I was, wishing that I still had that small pistol that Simon had once given me.

The hotel clerk stepped out of the inner office, saying, “Miss Crawford?” and for an instant distracted my attention. And in that same moment, Constable Bates walked straight into me and spun me toward the desk. My ribs took the brunt of the blow, and I caught my breath with the pain. And then, with both hands gripping the edge of the desk, ignoring my ribs, I pushed myself away and turned as quickly as I could to go after him, well aware that he had nothing to lose.

Behind me the desk clerk cried, “Miss? Constable?”

I ignored him. Bates was moving briskly toward the motorcar standing in the corner of the inn yard. I thought it was Mrs. Ellis’s vehicle.

He bent to turn the crank, his eyes on me, gauging my approach. The motor caught, and he was behind the wheel in a flash. Without warning he spun it and turned toward me, gunning the motor, heading straight for me at speed.

I stood there for an instant, uncertain which way to move. And then at the last second, ignoring my ribs again, I flung myself toward the inn’s door.

He veered just in time to avoid hanging up the front wheels on the inn’s steps and kept going out the Groombridge road, toward the north.

I ran for Simon’s motorcar, just beyond where Mrs. Ellis’s vehicle had been left, and turned the crank like a madwoman. It was late enough that the road was empty, and I gave the big motorcar its head, the headlamps sweeping the road.

Someone darted out in front of me, waving, and I spun the wheel to miss hitting him, seeing Simon’s face at the last minute.

I pulled on the brake with all my strength, and the vehicle slithered to a sputtering stop, spraying stones and earth in almost a bow wave.

Simon swung himself into the vehicle, and I was able to keep the motor from stalling. Straightening us up, I went after Constable Bates as fast as I dared.

“Where were you?” I asked, not turning my head.

Simon, out of breath, said, “Arguing with Rother. I saw what happened. You shouldn’t have taken on Bates alone. He’s dangerous. He’s killed four men, counting that officer in France, and he did his best to kill Willy. He won’t stop at you.”

“He’s already tried,” I told him, and heard the low growl in his throat.

“We’ll see about friend Bates,” he said and leaned forward to watch the road. In a straightaway I could just pick out the round red rear lamp ahead of us. But I was closing the gap quickly.

“Why did Bates have to kill Dr. Tilton?” I asked. “He wasn’t at the court-martial.”

“Dr. Tilton conducted Merrit’s postmortem. He tied the two deaths together. That’s why Inspector Rother abandoned the idea of suicide, even though at first it appeared to be one. The question is, what else did Tilton find? Or what was Constable Bates afraid he’d found?”

“Inspector Rother wouldn’t tell us anything. Simon-what if he didn’t know ? What if Dr. Tilton had told Constable Bates what he’d discovered, but Bates never passed it on because it would change the whole investigation? Yes, of course. That’s why Inspector Rother was going around in circles. If he was getting impatient-if he was on the point of speaking to the doctor himself-” The wheel jerked in my hands as we hit a deeper rut this time.

“Keep your attention on the road!”

I set my teeth, concentrating on driving. The rear lamp was brighter, sharper now.

“Should I try to stop him? Or just keep up with him for now?”

“For God’s sake, don’t use my motorcar as a battering ram. Try to run him off the road if you can.”

“Yes, all right.”

I caught up with Constable Bates finally and began to torment him. I’d seen my male friends play this game with each other-making an effort to pass, rushing up and then pulling back a little, flashing the headlamps. It was a dangerous business, but it was the only weapon I had.

And then I realized that I was making Constable Bates jittery. He could drive, but he wasn’t an experienced driver. The constant threat of us passing him on this narrow road was requiring all his coping skills, and when he veered the wrong way, trying to second-guess me, I took advantage of the small space he’d given me and sped up.

Beside me, Simon swore in Urdu, but I ignored him.

The verge of the road was only a little rougher than the unmade center with its winter ruts and holes. I bounced over low-growing gorse, gave the motor more power to deal with it, and forged ahead.

For a second I thought that Constable Bates was going to sideswipe us in his fright. But trying to watch me and manage the motorcar at the same time was too much. Suddenly he lost complete control, and the vehicle thundered wildly across a field lumpy with last summer’s crops toward a copse of trees that marked a bend in the road.

Simon yelled, “Watch yourself,” but I had the motorcar under control and began to slow for the bend, even as Constable Bates came to a grinding halt. And I thought, That’s how George Hughes must have felt when he nearly collided with that length of tree trunk.

Simon was out the door almost before I had slowed enough to make it safe for him to find his footing. Then he was sprinting across the rough field, and I watched, holding my breath, for fear he would twist an ankle as he leapt over obstacles and dealt with the deeper rows between the remnants of the crop.

Constable Bates, stunned by his abrupt contact with the steering wheel and the windscreen, was not as quick. But he was running before Simon could reach him, heading for the deep shadows of the trees. They were just disappearing from my sight in the darkness when I saw Simon hurl himself after Bates, and then they both went down.

I swung the motorcar so that the great headlamps pointed in their direction, and it was like watching a shadow show, one minute seeing only silhouettes and the next, a shoulder or an arm raised high, a head flung back.

I scrabbled in the floor of the motorcar, looking for a torch or any other weapon that I could use.

Just under the other seat, my fingers closed over a sheet of crumpled paper. I brought it up and tried to read it in the glow of the headlamps.

Get out of Forest, or child dies.

It was intended for Simon, the Army man. And in the dark we hadn’t seen it where the wind must have tossed it off the seat.

Furious, I pulled on the brake, leaving the motor running, and was out of my door, running through the long bright beams of the headlamps, my shadow looming ahead of me like some black, disembodied thing with a will of its own. I nearly tripped over a length of fallen branch, and reaching down to retrieve it, I kept going.

I could hear them clearly, the grunts and blows of two men who were well matched, and I knew fear of capture must be driving the constable. There was nothing left to him but the rope. Simon nearly had him subdued when Bates’s hand came up and raked the long wound that ran down Simon’s face. As Simon arched back, out of reach, Bates ducked and plowed his head straight toward Simon’s chest.

Simon had seen the move coming, and as nimble as a bullfighter, he sidestepped before bringing both fists down in a single blow to the unprotected back of the other man’s head.

Constable Bates went down as if he had been poleaxed, and Simon, stepping clear of the man’s body, turned to me, breathing hard.

“And what the hell did you think you were going to do with that tree limb?” He pointed to the length of wood I was holding like a cricket bat. “That’s rotten. Didn’t you see?”