Charles Todd - Watchers of Time

As Rutledge followed Hadley back into the street, he found himself thinking about what Blevins had said-that Walsh would be counting on the miles between himself and Osterley to see him safe.

Was that true? His mind reviewed the road system he’d scanned on the map. Walsh was no fool. He might well lay a false trail. He’d planned his escape, and while it was a matter of luck that he’d stumbled on Randal’s farm, where a horse could be taken without arousing the household or sending the dogs into frenzies of barking, there must be a dozen farms where the barn was far enough from the house to allow Walsh to break in.

And the yellow dog must have been an unwitting accomplice, delighted to be set free and not questioning the manner of it.

Sims was grateful for the news. He looked haggard. “I’m not afraid of Walsh,” he said, and oddly enough Rutledge believed him. “Although Blevins seems to think I was quaking in my shoes for fear I’d be the next victim! And I’m not convinced, somehow, that Walsh is guilty of murder.”

“Why do you say that? Have you seen him, met him?”

“No. Which is why I’ve kept my mouth shut. But I’ve had long nights to think about Father James and his death. It seems to me that Walsh took a chance coming back here weeks after the bazaar, expecting to find money at the rectory. Most churches live hand to mouth. It would have been easier to break into a house if he was desperate. Besides, if he was wandering about in the rectory the day of the fair, as Mrs. Wainer claims he was, he’d have seen for himself that there was very little to steal.”

“He must have assumed,” Rutledge said, echoing Hamish in his head, “that no one would connect his presence at the fair with a theft a good two weeks later.” That was Blevins’s opinion. “Someone at the fair could have calculated, roughly, how much money had been taken in. And there was a last payment to be made on the new cart, before it would be handed over to Walsh.” He was playing devil’s advocate, to give Sims an opportunity to get to the bottom of what he wanted to say.

Sims took a deep breath. “That’s a tidy assumption. On the other hand-was Walsh that clever? If so, you’ll play merry hell catching him now!”

“Then who killed the priest?”

There was a long silence. “I don’t know,” Sims finally answered. “But I have the oddest feeling sometimes. Of being watched. Our festival is in the spring. June. Why would anyone take an interest in the vicarage, if money was all they were after? Look around you-”

Monsignor Holston had also had the feeling that he was watched.. ..

Sims was saying, “You’re fairly certain, are you, that what I heard was Walsh chiseling off his shackles?”

“Certain enough. We found the chains in the church. You identified the tools as yours, and the latch on the shed door was broken,” Rutledge reminded him. “It seems clear that Walsh came looking for a shed or outbuilding he could break into. And the church was a perfect place to hammer off the chains. No one lives close enough to hear the racket. Except perhaps for you.”

“Yes, well, from what you say, he’s running now and not likely to hang about in Osterley.” He rubbed tired eyes. “All right, thanks. Tell Blevins if he needs me, I’m available. I won’t sleep anyway after all this excitement.”

“I must be going. I’m to make sure Miss Connaught is safe. Blevins has been trying to see that all the people living alone are warned.”

A wry smile crossed Sims’s face. “Yes, go by all means. I’ll be fine.”

But as Rutledge walked out the door to the car, he heard the bolt shot home behind him.

Hamish said, “Was the laughter real-or his imagination, yon Vicar?”

Rutledge answered silently. “I don’t know. Shock can play strange games with the mind. On the other hand, it’s easy to hear what you expect to hear.”

“Aye. Well. He heard something.”

Priscilla Connaught lived in the house at the edge of the marshes, lonely and isolated, where the wind bent the trees and shrubs into Gothic shapes and the grasses rustled like whispers. The walk to the front door was dark, flowers leaning dry seed heads and wilting blossoms over the path. Rutledge could hear the seeds crunching underfoot. Out on the marshes, a bird called, low and forlorn, like a desolate soul looking for solace.

Hamish said, “This is no’ a place for a woman alone!”

But Rutledge thought that it must have appealed to Priscilla Connaught, who carried secrets with her and preferred to use her life as a weapon against a man she hated.

He knocked loudly on the wooden panels, and then pitching his voice to carry, he called, “Miss Connaught? It’s Ian Rutledge. From Scotland Yard. Will you come down, please? I’d like to pass on a message.”

A light came on in a window on the first floor, and he stepped back so that it would fall on his upturned face. A curtain twitched, and he could feel her eyes. Hat in hand, he stood there and said again, “It’s Ian Rutledge.”

After a time another lamp was turned up, and another, tracing her progress through the house. The front door opened a crack. “What do you want?”

There was something in her voice that struck him. A resistance, as if she was prepared to turn him away. He thought for an instant that there was someone else in the house with her, and then realized all at once that she was braced against his next words.

He said, warily, “Inspector Blevins asked me to come and see that you were safe. Walsh has escaped, and we’re trying to make certain that he’s not still hiding in Osterley-”

“Escaped? How? When? ” Her surprise seemed genuine.

“In the middle of the night. We’ve tracked him east of town, but it’s as well for you to be aware of the danger.”

“But you said he’d killed the priest!” she cried. “How could you let him go?”

“We didn’t offer him the key, Miss Connaught. He escaped.” Rutledge was tired, and in no mood to mince words. “Have you seen or heard anything-”

She cut across his words, saying quickly, “I can’t stand here in the night air-I must go-”

“Are you all right?” he asked again. “Would you like me to search the house, or the grounds, to be sure?”

“I don’t care what you choose to search. Where did you say he was last seen, this man Walsh?”

“We’ve found evidence that he was moving east of Osterley. Toward Cley, or possibly south in the direction of Norwich. There’s a horse missing from Tom Randal’s farm out on the east road. Inspector Blevins would be-”

“Where is this farm, for God’s sake?” she demanded impatiently.

He told her, adding, “Inspector Blevins has asked-”

But she was gone, the door slamming shut in his face. He could hear her behind the door, a scream of outrage, as if Walsh’s escape had been designed to torment her. And then silence.

He stood for a time on the walk in front of the house. He saw the lights turn off, and then the twitch of the curtain in what must be her bedroom. He turned, knowing that she must be watching, and walked back to the car. Winding the crank, he found himself debating with Hamish what to do.

In the end, he drove off, then left his car down the road, out of sight in a bank of thick shrubbery. On foot, now, he had barely reached her road when he heard the sound of a motorcar coming from the direction of the marshes. There were no lights.

Standing in deep shadow, he waited. The motorcar was small and there was only a driver to be seen, silhouetted against the clouds out to sea. A woman’s profile, stiff beneath a cloche hat. He watched as she came to the intersection with the main road. Without hesitation she turned out into it, gunning the motor with angry force. The tires screeched in the grit of the road, and then the car was gone, speeding east-toward Cley.