finished school. And she's been an ornament to the community ever since. We're all very fond of her.'
Over the rim of his cup, Carfield was quickly assessing the Inspector, noting his thinness, the lines of tiredness about the mouth, the tense muscles around the eyes that betrayed the strain behind his mask of polite interest. But Carfield misunderstood these signs, putting them down to a man out of his depth, one who might prove useful.
'She's taken her guardian's death very hard.'
'After all, he was her only family. Girls are often very attached to their fathers, you know.'
'Harris could hardly be termed that,' Rutledge commented dryly.
With a graceful wave of his hand, Carfield dismissed the quibble over ages. 'In loco parentis, of course.'
'From all I hear, he may well have walked on water.'
Carfield laughed, but it had an edge to it. 'Harris? No, if anyone fits that description it's Simon Haldane, not the Colonel. He was too good at killing, you know. Some men become soldiers because they've no imagination, they don't know how to be afraid. But Charles Harris had an uncanny aptitude for war. I asked him about that once, and he said that his skills, such as they were, came from reading history and learning its lessons, but I found that hard to believe.'
'Why?'
'The Colonel was the finest chess player I've ever met, and I have no mean skills at the game myself. He was born with a talent for strategy that few of us are given, and he made the choice about how to use it. He fully understood that choice, that war meant playing with men's lives, not with prettily carved pieces on a game board, but battle was an addiction he couldn't rid himself of.'
Rutledge said nothing. Carfield sipped his coffee, then added as if he couldn't stop himself, 'Men from Warwickshire who served under him worshiped him; they tell me that on the battlefield he was charismatic, but I call it more a gift for manipulation. I don't suppose you were in the war, Inspector, but I can tell you that sending other men into battle must rest heavily on one's soul in the end.'
Hamish stirred but made no remark. He had no need to. Rutledge found himself saying, 'Then the Kings of Israel must not be sleeping peacefully in Abraham's bosom. As I remember, they were at war most of the time.'
Carfield nodded graciously to parishioners who had just come in, a man and his wife, then turned back to Rutledge. 'Make light of it if you wish. But something deep down in Charles Harris was frightened by the man he was. He was a Gemini, you see, two forces in one body. In my opinion he needed to come home to Mallows from time to time because it brought him peace, a sense of balance, proof that he wasn't a man who actually enjoyed killing, however good he might be at it. His much-vaunted devotion to the land was perhaps merely a charade for his troubled conscience.'
'And Captain Wilton? What do you think of him?'
'An intelligent man. And a brave one-one would have to be to fly, don't you think? When Ezekiel saw the wheel, high in the middle of the air, he claimed it was God at work. We've come a long way since then, haven't we? Man has finally set himself on a par with the archangels. The question is, are we morally ready for such heights?'
Hamish made a derisive snort and Rutledge busied himself with the caramel flan. When he had choked down his amusement, Rutledge asked, 'But would he kill a friend?'
'Wilton? None of us can see into the souls of others, Inspector, least of all me. I've always tried to understand my parishioners, but they still have the power to surprise me. Just the other day-'
'Is that a yes or a no?' Rutledge asked, looking up and catching an expression in Carfield's eyes that interested him. The man was ably playing the role of wise village priest, enamored by the part, but his eyes were cold and hard as he answered Rutledge's question.
'I would be lying if I said I liked the man. I don't. He's a private person, keeps himself to himself. I think that may be why he enjoys flying-he's there alone in his aeroplane, out of reach and accountable to no one. And a man who likes his own company more than he ought is sometimes dangerous. Hermits have been known to come out of their isolated cells and lead crusades, haven't they? But murder?' He shook his head. 'I don't know. Possibly. If he were angry enough and determined enough, or if it was the only possible way to get exactly what he wanted. I think he's been used to that, getting his own way. People tend to idolize handsome daredevils.'
For 'people,' substitute Lettice Wood, Rutledge thought to himself. But discounting the jealousy, Carfield had offered a better evaluation of Harris and Wilton than anyone else.
Sometimes hatred saw more clearly than love.
And it might be a very good idea to add Carfield's name to the very short list of possible suspects, though what purpose Harris's death might have served in the Vicar's eyes was yet to be seen. He went over his notes after dinner, sitting in his room until the walls seemed to close in on him. No illumination came, no connections. Faces. Voices. Yes. But so far leading nowhere. Except, possibly, to Wilton? He remembered his father saying once, after a tiring day in court, 'It isn't actually a question of guilt or innocence, is it? It's a matter of what the jury believes, once we've told them what evidence there is on either side. Given the proper evidence, we could probably convict God. Without it, Lucifer himself would walk free!'
It was late when he got up to walk off a restlessness that prodded him into activity, useful or not.
Before the war it had been the case that drove him night and day-partly from a gritty determination that murderers must be found and punished. He had believed deeply in that, with the single-minded idealism of youth and a strong sense of moral duty toward the victims, who could no longer speak for themselves. But the war had altered his viewpoint, had shown him that the best of men could kill, given the right circumstances, as he himself had done over and over again. Not only the enemy, but his own men, sending them out to be slaughtered even when he had known beyond any doubt that they would die and that the order to advance was madness.
And partly from his fascination with a bizarre game of wits. Like the Colonel, who was far too good at strategy, he'd had a knack for understanding the minds of some of the killers he had hunted, and he had found the excitement of the hunt itself addictive. Man, he'd read somewhere, was the ultimate prey. And the police officer had the reinforcement of Society to indulge in that chase.
Rutledge had tried to explain his reasons to Jean once, when she had begged him to leave the Yard and take up law instead, like his father before him. But she'd stared at him as if he had spoken to her in Russian or Chinese, then laughed and said, 'Oh, Ian, do stop teasing me and be serious!'
Now it was his own uncertainties that left him with no peace, his illusions as shattered as his mind. Why could he feel nothing about this murderer? Why?
He heard something in the shadowy alley to his left, between the baker's shop and a small bootery, a muffled cough. And then Hickam stumbled out, singing to himself. Drunk again. If anything, worse than before, Rutledge thought with exasperation. But at least he wasn't back in an imaginary France, and there might still be a chance of getting a little sense out of him.
Overtaking him in five strides, Rutledge put a hand on the man's shoulder to stop him, speaking his name. Hickam shrugged it off irritably. 'I want to talk to you. About Colonel Harris,' Rutledge said firmly, prepared to block his retreat down the alley or a dash across the street. 'I've come from London-'
'London, is it?' Hickam asked, slurring the words, but Rutledge suddenly had the feeling that he wasn't as drunk- yet-as he wished he was. 'And what does London want now? A pox on sodding London! A pox on sodding everybody!'
'The morning that the Colonel died, you were in the lane, drunk. That's where Sergeant Davies found you. Do you remember?' He forced the man to face him, could smell the alcohol on his breath, the unwashed body. The fear.
Hickam nodded. His face was ghastly in the moonlight, tired and strained and hopeless. Rutledge looked into eyes like black plums in a pudding, and flinched at what he read there, a torment much like his own. 'Did you see the Colonel? Charles Harris. Or anyone else?'
'I didn't shoot him. I had nothing to do with it!'
'No one claims you did. I'm asking if you saw him. Or saw anyone else that Monday morning.'
'I saw them-the two of them.' He frowned. 'I saw them,' he added, with less certainty. 'I told Forrest-'
'I know what you told Forrest. Now tell me.'
'He was angry. The Captain. Pleading. They were sending us across to take the guns, and he didn't like it. You could hear the shells-the bombardment had started.' He was beginning to shake. ' 'I won't give up that easily,'
