Charles Todd - A test of wills

Claustrophobia, the doctors had called it, a natural fear in a man who'd been buried alive in a frontline trench, suffocated by the clinging, slippery, unspeakable mud and the stinking corpses pinning him there.

Too soon, his sister Frances had said. It was much too soon to go back to work! But he knew that if he didn't, he'd lose what was left of his mind. Distraction was what he needed. And this murder in Warwickshire appeared to offer just that. He'd need his wits about him, he'd have to concentrate to recover the long forgotten skills he'd had to put behind him in 1914-and that would keep Hamish at bay.

"You're to turn right here."

The voice in his head was as clear as the patter of rain on the car's roof, a deep voice, with soft Scottish inflections. He was used to hearing it now. The doctors had told him that would happen, that it was not uncommon for the mind to accept something which it had created itself in order to conceal what it couldn't face any other way. Shell shock was an odd thing, it made its own rules, they'd said. Understand that and you could manage to keep your grip on reality. Fight it, and it would tear you apart. But he had fought it for a very long time-and they were right, it had nearly destroyed him.

He made the turn, glancing at the signs. Yes. The road to Banbury.

And Hamish, strangely enough, was a safer companion than Jean, who haunted him in another way. In God's blessed name, how did you uproot love? How did you tear it out of your flesh and bone?

He'd learned, in France, to face dying. He could learn, in time, how to face living. It was just getting through the desolation in between that seemed to be beyond him. Frances had shrugged her slim shoulders and said, "Darling, there are other women, in a year you'll wonder why you cared so much for one. Let go gracefully-after all, it isn't as if she's fallen in love with another man!"

He swerved to miss a dray pulling out into the road without warning from a muddy lane running between long, wet fields.

"Keep your mind on the driving, man, or we'll both be dead!"

"Sometimes I believe we'd both be better off," he answered aloud, not wanting to think about Jean, not able to think about anything else. Everywhere he turned, something brought her back to him, ten thousand memories waiting like enemies to ambush him. The car… the rain… She'd liked driving in the rain, the glass clouded with their warm breath, their laughter mingling with the swish of the tires, the car a private, intimate world of their own.

"Ah, but that's the coward's road, death is! You willna' escape so easily as that. You've got a conscience, man. It won't let you run out. And neither will I."

Rutledge laughed harshly. "The day may come when you have no choice." He kept his eyes pinned to the road, as always refusing to look over his shoulder, though the voice seemed to come from the rear seat, just behind him, almost near enough to touch him with its breath. The temptation to turn around was strong, nearly as strong as the desperate fear of what he might see if he did. He could, he had found, live with Hamish's voice. What he dreaded-dreaded more than anything-was seeing Hamish's face. And one day-one day he might. Hollow-eyed, empty of humanity in death. Or accusing, pleading in life Rutledge shuddered and forced his mind back to the road ahead. The day he saw Hamish, he'd end it. He had promised himself that… It was very late when he reached Upper Streetham, the rain still blowing in gusty showers, the streets of the town empty and silent and shiny with puddles as he made his way to the Inn on the High Street.

"Highland towns are like this on Saturday nights," Hamish said suddenly. "All the good Presbyterians asleep in their beds, mindful of the Sabbath on the morrow. And the Catholics back from Confession and feeling virtuous. Are you mindful of the state of your soul?"

"I haven't got one," Rutledge answered tiredly. "You tell me that often enough. I expect it's true." The black-and-white facade he was looking for loomed ahead, ghostly in another squall of rain, a rambling, ancient structure with a thatched roof that seemed to frown disparagingly over the faded inn sign swinging from its wrought-iron bar. The Shepherd's Crook, it read.

He turned in through a wisteria-hung arch, drove past the building into the Inn yard, and pulled the motorcar into an empty space between a small, barred shed and the Inn's rear door. Beyond the shed was what appeared in his headlamps to be a square lake with pagodas and islands just showing above the black water. No doubt the kitchen garden, with its early onions and cabbages.

Someone had heard him coming into the drive and was watching him from the back steps, a candle in his hand.

"Inspector Rutledge?" the man called.

"Yes, I'm Rutledge."

"I'm Barton Redfern, the landlord's nephew. He asked me to wait up for you." Rain swept through the yard again as he spoke, and he hastily stepped back inside, waiting to hold the door open as Rutledge dashed through the puddles, his bag in one hand, the other holding on to his hat. A minor tempest followed him across the threshold.

"My uncle said you were to have the room over the parlor, where it's quieter at night. It's this way. Would you like a cup of tea or something from the bar? You look like you could use a drink!"

"No, thanks." There was whiskey in his bag if he wanted it-if exhaustion wasn't enough. "What I need is sleep. It rained all the way, heavy at times. I had to stop beyond Stratford for an hour until the worst had passed. Any messages?"

"Just that Inspector Forrest will see you at breakfast, if you like. At nine?"

"Better make it eight."

They were climbing a flight of narrow, winding stairs, the back way to the second floor. Barton, who looked to be in his early twenties, was limping heavily. Turning to say something over his shoulder, he caught Rutledge's glance at his left foot and said instead, "Ypres, a shell fragment. The doctors say it'll be fine once the muscles have knit themselves back properly. But I don't know. They aren't always as smart as they think they are, doctors."

"No," Rutledge agreed bitterly. "They just do the best they can. And sometimes that isn't much."

Redfern led the way down a dark hall and opened the door to a wide, well-aired room under the eaves, with a lamp burning by the bed and brightly flowered curtains at the windows. Relieved not to find himself in a cramped, narrow chamber where sleep would be nearly impossible, Rutledge nodded his thanks and Redfern shut the door as he left, saying, "Eight it is, then. I'll see that you're called half an hour before."

Fifteen minutes later Rutledge was in the bed and asleep.

He never feared sleep. It was the one place where Hamish could not follow him. Sergeant Davies was middle-aged, heavyset, with a placidity about him that spoke of even temper, a man at peace within himself. But there were signs of strain in his face also, as if he had been on edge for the past several days. He sat foursquare at Rutledge's table in the middle of the Inn's small, cheerful dining room, watching as Redfern poured a cup of black coffee for him and explaining why he was there in place of his superior.

"By rights, Inspector Forrest should be answering your questions, but he won't be back much before ten. There's been a runaway lorry in Lower Streetham and the driver was drunk. Two people were killed. A nasty business. So's this a nasty business. Colonel Harris was well respected, not the sort you'd expect to get himself murdered." He sighed. "A sorry death for a man who went through two wars unscathed. But London will have gone over that."

Rutledge had spread homemade jam on his toast. It was wild strawberry and looked as if it had been put up before the war, nearly as dark and thick as treacle. Poised to take a bite, he looked across at the Sergeant. "I'm not in London now. I'm here. Tell me how it happened."