Charles Todd - The Confession

“On my desk. And yes, Acton has been on the river for years. No reason to think he had anything to do with Russell’s death.”

“Then I’ll take the statement rather than wait.” As he replaced the sheet over the dead man, Rutledge said, “If you learn any more about him-if anyone in Kent comes to you searching for him-let me know. But I rather think you’re right about London being the place to begin.”

“I’ve already gone through our list of missing people. No one fits his description, and he’d have been missed by now. Surely someone would have come looking for him.”

“What about Tilbury, across the Thames from you?” Rutledge asked as they left the hospital.

“We sent a photograph to the police there at the same time we sent one to the Yard. I followed it up with a telephone call, and my opposite number didn’t know him or have him on any lists there. Still, I’ll ask again, now that I have a name to give them and I know he once lived in Essex.”

Rutledge thanked him, taking with him the locket, a copy of the statement from the ferryman, and the report of the postmortem.

They lay in an envelope on the seat beside him as he drove back to London. And from the rear of the motorcar came the voice he knew as well as his own, and dreaded to hear.

Hamish said, “You didna’ believe him. Russell. Ye ken, if ye had, he might well be alive.”

“No. He made his choice. He wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know. He made a mystery of what he had to say because he didn’t want to incriminate himself. Or betray someone else.”

There was a derisive chuckle.

Hamish wasn’t there. Rutledge had told himself that a thousand times, but it was no comfort. Hamish was dead and buried in France, and that was no comfort either.

The doctors had called it shell shock, this hearing of a voice that was so real Rutledge answered it in his head-or sometimes to his absolute horror, aloud. Corporal Hamish MacLeod had fought beside Rutledge almost from the start, a young Scot, but with a grasp of military tactics well beyond his years. A bond had grown between the two of them, officer and man, because each knew he could trust the other implicitly, and both knew that the care of the men under them was paramount. Watching the maimed and the dying through two years of heavy fighting had taught them that. Green men, facing battle for the first time, had only a slim chance of survival. If their officers could double those odds, it counted for much.

And then on the Somme, in those first bloody weeks of fighting, Hamish MacLeod had put Rutledge in an untenable position: he had refused an order outright, in front of his men. His reasons were sound-he knew going over the top one more time after a well-concealed German machine-gun nest was insane, that more men would die needlessly. And yet HQ had ordered that it be taken out at any cost before the next assault, and Rutledge had had no alternative but to try, for the sake of the hundreds of British soldiers who would be crossing No Man’s Land in only a matter of hours. The good of the few-or the good of the many. That was the choice. Hamish had chosen his bleeding and exhausted company.

No amount of argument could sway him. Even when, as an example to other weary and dispirited men, Rutledge had to threaten his corporal with a firing squad, it had not changed his mind. And Rutledge had had to carry out that threat, against his better judgment and against the weight of his own guilt. He had had to deliver the coup de grace to the dying man, taking out his pistol and firing it point-blank, and watching the anguished eyes go dull.

He hadn’t wanted this, he hadn’t wanted Hamish MacLeod on his soul. Even his own mind had refused to accept what he had done. The burden of guilt had been insupportable. And in the way of damaged minds, his had created a living Hamish, proof that the young corporal hadn’t died. Keeping him alive through two more years of grinding stalemate and death, bringing him home in the only way he could.

Military necessity had been paramount. Rutledge had almost hated Hamish for breaking, for forcing his own hand. But close as he was to breaking himself, he had known that the young corporal was right. Still, Duty was all. Compassion had no place on a battlefield. Obeying orders was the paramount rule.

There had been times when Rutledge himself had wanted to die, to shut out the voice hammering at him. And he couldn’t, because when he himself died, Hamish would finally be dead as well. He’d led a charmed life in the trenches those last two years of the war-his men had commented on that again and again. But Rutledge had understood it for what it was. God had not wanted him. A murderer…

To put an end to the memories threatening to overwhelm him, Rutledge pulled to the verge and stopped the motorcar. Reaching for the envelope on the seat beside him, he took out the locket. Opening it, he looked down at the face of the woman whose photograph had been so carefully placed inside.

Who was she? Why had she been important in the life of one Wyatt Russell?

The woman staring up at him was silent, and after a moment he closed the locket and returned it to the envelope. Why had the dead man been wearing it?

Perhaps if he knew the answer to that, he told himself, he would know why Wyatt Russell had died.

When he reached London, Rutledge went directly to The Marlborough Hotel, where he and Russell had dined. If Russell’s belongings were still in his rooms there, it was possible they could tell him more about the man than he’d wanted to reveal when he was alive.

There was a couple just arrived, and it took several minutes before they had registered and relinquished their luggage to the man waiting to carry it to their room. As they walked away, Rutledge stepped forward and asked to see the register for the date, twelve days ago, when he’d come here with Russell.

The clerk was reluctant at first until Rutledge quietly identified himself as Scotland Yard. And then he insisted on checking the register himself.

After going through the guest book, the clerk shook his head. “I don’t find a Mr. Russell for that date or any other close to it,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“If you would, go back through it again. He indicated he’d taken a room here. He wasn’t well.”

The clerk ran his finger down the list of hotel guests, turning the pages slowly.

“No, Inspector, I’m sorry. I don’t see that name.”

Either Russell had lied about where he was staying-or he had lied about his name.

Rutledge thanked the clerk and left. By the time he’d returned to the Yard, Chief Superintendent Bowles was waiting for him. Gibson gave him a warning, with an I-told-you-so expression on his face.

Knocking on the Chief Superintendent’s door, Rutledge stepped inside. “You wished to see me, sir?”

“What’s this business about Gravesend and a cadaver?”

“I recognized the photograph they sent to the Yard, and I went to see the body for myself.” He gave a brief account of Russell’s visit and the information he’d learned in Gravesend. But he said nothing about the lunch with Russell or stopping at the hotel before returning to the Yard.

“And you’re sure of this dead man’s identity?”

“I’m sure he’s the same person who came to my office,” Rutledge answered carefully. “I’d like to go to Essex, to verify the information I was given. And there may be people there who can tell me more about Russell.”

“Yes, yes, by all means. I don’t put much stock in his confession, I suggest that you not waste your time in that direction. It’s his death that concerns us.” He paused, taking up his pen and rolling it in his fingers, as if it might produce answers for Rutledge if he stared at it long enough. Then he said, “I’m acquainted with Inspector Adams’s superior. It wouldn’t do to let this matter drag on. If you take my meaning?”