Charles Todd - A test of wills

"Yes, all right. I was afraid for Mark. I still am. He wouldn't have killed Charles! You come in here from London, asking questions, making assumptions. You judge people even though you know very well they're under a great deal of stress. But it isn't the same as getting under the skin, is it? You can't do that, you can't know them. Not in a few days' time. You haven't got that skill!"

He'd had it. Once. Refusing to be sidetracked, Rutledge said only, "He had means. Opportunity. Motive. It's all there now. Out into the open."

"Then why are you telling me this? If you know so much!" She cocked her head to one side, considering him. "Why were you driving out on the Warwick road when you had all the evidence you need? Why are you involving me?"

"Because I wanted to know what you would say when you heard."

She set down her teacup. "And are you satisfied?" He didn't answer. After a moment she asked, "Have you told London yet?"

"No. Not yet. I'll call Superintendent Bowles early tomorrow morning. I'd prefer to have everything finished before the funeral services on Tuesday. Upper Streetham will be full of people then. Harris's friends, fellow officers, dignitaries. They shouldn't be distracted from their mourning by police business."

"There'll be a great hue and cry when you do it. It will upset the King, and everyone else, including the Prime Minister. He's got enough on his plate right now, with the peace talks. It will bring the wrath of Scotland Yard down on your head. It will ruin Mark. It could very well ruin you! I'd be very careful before I did something I couldn't undo."

She was a very perceptive woman. And she knew London.

"That doesn't matter. If he shot Charles Harris, why should Mark Wilton go scot-free?"

"He couldn't have shot Charles! He's marrying the man's ward! You don't seem to understand the importance of that!"

"The wedding has been called off."

"Of course it has, Lettice is in mourning. But by next spring-or in a quiet ceremony at Christmas, since she's got no family and needs Mark's support-"

"No. Charles himself stopped the wedding. And that's why he was killed."

Catherine shook her head. "Called off the wedding? Before he died? You can't be serious!"

"Why would he joke about that? Why should I?"

"No, Mark was going to marry her! And he will, once this nonsense is finished. I'll help him find someone in London to take his case if you go through with this. I refuse to believe that Mark could have done anything of the sort! Or Charles, for that matter! Whoever told you such a thing is either crazy or vindictive. Or both. I absolutely refuse to believe it!" He left soon afterward, stiffly thanking her for the tea and then finding his own way out. Catherine said good-bye with equal reserve, and added as he reached the solarium doorway, his coat over his arm, "Don't be hasty, Inspector. You owe that to Mark. You owe it to Charles. Be very sure before you act!" Rutledge drove back to Upper Streetham and left the car at the rear of the Inn, going in by the door he'd used on the night of his arrival. The back stairs were empty, the Inn silent.

He felt bone weary. Emotion was drained out of him, and his body ached with tension.

I need to find Forrest, he told himself. I need to attend to that warrant, bring Wilton in. The sooner the better.

"And where's he going?" Hamish demanded. "He's no' the kind of man who'll run, or he wouldn't have been so good at killing Germans."

"Shut up and keep out of it! I thought you wanted to see the dashing Captain hanged!"

"Aye," Hamish said, "I do. But I'm not ready to see you crawl back to yon clinic, and doctors that will stuff your mind full of drugs. Easing you into oblivion where there's no pain and no memory and no guilt to savage you. I've not finished with you yet, Ian Rutledge, and until I have, I won't let you crawl away and hide!" An hour later, Rutledge found himself at Sally Davenant's door. The maid Grace opened it to his knock and said, "Yes, sir?"

"I've come to see Captain Wilton. Will you tell him Inspector Rutledge is here. On official business."

She caught the nuances in his voice and her face lost its trained mask of politeness. Concern filled her eyes, and she said, "Is there anything wrong, sir?"

"Just tell the Captain I'm here, if you please."

"But he's in Warwick, sir. He and Mrs. Davenant have gone to dine there. She wasn't herself all afternoon, and the Captain suggested an outing to take her mind off the unpleasantness at the church this morning. I doubt they'll be back much before eleven o'clock, sir."

He swore under his breath. "Very well. Tell him I'll expect to see him here at eight o'clock tomorrow morning." He nodded and walked off down the scented path, among the peonies and the roses.

There was, actually, a certain irony about that appointment, he thought, driving back to the Inn. It was exactly one week from the time Charles Harris died. The rain came back in the night, and Rutledge lay there listening to it, unable to sleep, his mind turning over everything he'd learned in the past four days. Thinking about the people, the evidence, the way it was coming out now. One or two loose ends to finish tomorrow, and then he'd be on his way back to London.

But the funeral was on Tuesday, and he found himself wanting to be there, to watch Lettice walk down the aisle of the church on-on whose arm? To see her one more time, and in the light. To exorcise the witchery Hamish had been so worried about? He could contrive it; there was enough to do, he needn't hurry back to that tiny cubicle in London, where his mind was dulled by routine and Hamish had freer rein. It wasn't a night for sleeping, in spite of the rain drumming lightly on house roofs and muffling the normal sounds of the village. Rutledge could hear the gutters running, a soft, ominous rush that echoed in his head, and once, a carriage rattling down the High Street. The church clock tolled the quarter hours, and still his mind moved restlessly in a kaleidoscope of images.

Of Catherine Tarrant's paintings, vivid reflections of her inner force. Of Lettice Wood's unusual eyes, darkening with emotion. Of Royston's shame as he watched the faces of parishioners outside the church. Of Carfield's swift retreat from confrontation. Of Wilton's lonely grief, and a child's terror. Of a woman hanging out clothes in the sunlight, a goose penned in the yard behind her. Of Sally Davenant's cool shell, hiding emotions she couldn't afford to feel. Of Charles Harris, man and monster, alive and bloodily dead… Of Mavers with his amber goat's eyes… At Mallows, Lettice Wood lay on her bed and wished with the fervor of despair that she could turn back the slowly moving hands of the ornate porcelain clock on the table by her pillow. Turn them back to that moment when she had said, with the blitheness of loving, "I've never known such happiness-I want it to go on and on forever-I want to feel it in old age, and look back on years full of it, and you, in the center of it."

And his warm indulgent voice, laughing at her, promising. "My dear girl, when have I ever been able to deny you anything you wanted? We'll be together always, as long as the seas run and the stars shine and the earth lasts. Is that pledge enough for you?"

The seas still ran, the stars still shone, and the earth was there still. But her happiness had poured out with a man's blood in a field of wildflowers, and there was no way she could put it back again. And there was nothing-nothing- that would turn back time to that single, glorious gift of love. Catherine Tarrant sat in her studio, in a darkness lit by heat lightning, the patter of rain on the surrounding glass a counterpoint to her tears. On the easel in front of her was the wrapped portrait of Rolf Linden. She didn't need to take the cloth off, she knew it by heart. But it was Mark Wilton she was thinking about, and Charles Harris-and how the body ached with longing for a man who would never come back to her. She could forget, sometimes, when she was painting, or in London. Somehow Charles's death and Mark's dilemma had stirred her feelings into life again, and left her vulnerable. While memories, like long-buried ghosts, crept around her in the silence, she made herself remember too what she owed Mark. He was awake as well, metaphorically setting his house in order, arranging his affairs and steeling himself to meet what was coming. There was no way out for him, he had to accept that. Still, he'd found the courage he needed in France, and it hadn't deserted him yet. It would be there when he needed it now. From hero to gallows' bait, a great comedown for a proud man, he thought with heavy irony. If only he could guess what Lettice would do-But there was one final duty to perform, and after a while, he decided that the best way to achieve it was with honesty rather than guile… But in a cottage on a hillside above Upper Streetham, a small child slept with the deepness of death, without dreams for the first time in days.