Allen, who in fact was dying, had gone off like a wounded animal to spend his last days away from friends and family. The general belief was that he'd wanted nothing to do with surgery or cures, and expected to die within the first six months. He hadn't been that fortunate.
There was no information on the man who called himself Quincy, and none on Miller or Brady. Gibson suggested that Brady was using a name other than his own, and there were too many Millers to be sure which one was living in the shadow of the pale horse. And with only one name to go on, Quincy hadn't turned up in the files or memories of the policemen Gibson had spoken to. Rutledge found himself thinking that perhaps Quincy had spoken the truth, that he was a remittance man back in England and careful to conceal that fact.
Willingham had a rather sordid past, as it happened. He had been involved in dubious schemes designed to leave the investor poorer and himself richer. Skirting the law carefully, he had managed to avoid trouble, but in the end, bitter and running out of money, he'd come to a place where he felt safe from persecution as well as prosecution. Although a few of his former clients had threatened to sue him over the years, the general consensus had been that in doing so they would reveal their own avarice and their willingness to bend the rules to their own advantage. Still, more than one had voiced physical threats.
'He's been there for more than ten years, and the taste for revenge must have grown cold by now,' Gibson concluded. 'But then you never know.'
'This didn't appear to be a case of revenge. As far as I can tell, the intent was to make his death appear to be a suicide. Not much satisfaction there.'
'None,' Gibson agreed. 'On the other hand, it would confuse the police.'
Rutledge thanked Gibson and put up the receiver. On his way back to the inn from Uffington, he wondered at what point Willingham's death would bring attention round to Parkinson's empty cottage. Until it did, he would leave Hill to it.
He stayed away from the cottages, but by nightfall he was restless. He could feel the tension building, and Hamish, in his mind, was a bleak shadow that threatened to break through his guard.
He walked to Wayland's Smithy, back again to the inn, and from the road watched the moon rise. After a time he strolled on toward the White Horse, revealing itself as he neared it, and felt the tug of its spell. The graceful gallop was marvelous, and he thought about the hand that had created it, guiding the men who dug the sod from the chalk with antler spades until its dimensions were revealed. What must it have felt like to see it complete for the first time, shimmering in the moonlight, magic in its own way?
He was suddenly distracted by something he could sense but not clearly see. Surely there was someone at the foot of the horse? And instead of looking up, whoever it was had his back to the horse.
Rutledge stood very still, letting all his faculties tell him what was there.
Hamish said, his voice soft in Rutledge's ear, 'Whoever it is, it isna' stirring. Else I'd hear it.'
Rutledge was thrown back to the trenches, and scanning No Man's Land in the dark for any activity. Scanning until his eyes ached, and he had to rub them with his fingers before opening them again. His men's lives had depended on his alertness, his ability to see a sniper crawling to a vantage point, or men changing the watch along the line of trenches opposite, sometimes even parties going out to look for their wounded. Once or twice he'd caught the faint sounds of fresh men settling at the machine gun far across the pitted landscape. Hamish had been better than any of them at the game, his ears attuned to sounds most couldn't hear.
The slightest movement caught Rutledge's attention, dragging him back to the figure. No sound, just a minute change in position as if someone had been standing there too long and was beginning to feel stiff or chilled in the night air.
He waited, slowly dropping until he was squatting and no longer a silhouette against the sky.
There it was again. A figure in black. He couldn't tell if it was male or female. Only that it was as quiet as a carving, its shape altered by arms wrapped around its body, giving it a bulkier outline.
In the day of the White Horse, he'd have believed in ghosts or totems of a clan, he told himself. But this was human, this figure, and tiring.
After a bit, it seemed to lengthen, as if it too had been squatting or bent over, peering toward the cottages.
And then it began to move, away from Rutledge, back to the far side of the horse, and toward a clump of trees that grew across the road. He rose slowly to his feet, and followed in its wake.
He was closer now, and he'd been right. The figure was bent over, as if in pain, and its arms were wrapped tightly around its body.
Hamish said, 'Yon motorcar.'
Indeed there was one, left in the dark shadows cast by the trees.
A sound drifted back to him, human and grieving. A sob, he thought, that rose in spite of intense self-control and for an instant broke free before being smothered again.
He was closer still, the figure never turning to look back, never dreaming that someone followed it.
It reached the motorcar and leaned against a wing, as if struggling with some emotion, then it went forward to the grill and reached for the crank.
As the engine fired, Rutledge broke from the side of the hill and raced forward, catching the figure just as it turned toward the driver's door.
It fought, with tooth and nail and shoe, but he was stronger, saying over the sound of the engine, 'I'm not going to harm you. I'll let you go, if you don't cry out. Neither one of us wants to be heard over there at the cottages.'
There was a stillness, and then a nod. He stepped back, ready to move again if it was a trick.
He knew who his prisoner was. A woman. Rebecca Parkinson. And yet what he found almost incomprehensible was the pain he'd sensed in someone who had clearly hated her father and reveled in his death.
'What do you want?' The voice was husky in the darkness. 'Who are you? ' And there was fear in that question as well.
'My name is Rutledge, Miss Parkinson. You know me. We talked at your home.'
'You're lying.'
'No, truly, I was at Pockets-'
She threw her head back, and said, 'I don't live at Pockets.'
So the housekeeper was right about children. Here was the sister to Rebecca.
'I'm sorry. If you aren't Rebecca, what's your given name, Miss Parkinson.'
'It's Sarah.' Grudgingly spoken, he noted.
'Where do you live?'
'Near Porton Down. In one of the old cottages. What possessed you to attack me in that outrageous way?'
'I'm from Scotland Yard. I've been trying to speak to your sister, and she's done her best to avoid me. It's about your father.'
She was still for an instant, and then she said, 'My father's dead. At least to me he is, as he has been for the past two years.'
'Yet you come here, to where he lived.' He hazarded a guess. 'And someone saw you here once before, knocking at his door. Then sometime later, sitting in what must have been this motorcar, alone and crying.'
She appeared to be shaken by his knowledge of her movements. 'Have you been watching me?' she demanded. 'What is this? I don't understand why the Yard would take any interest in my father.'
'He hasn't been seen for some time. We think he's dead, and that he may have been murdered.'
He could hear the quick drawn breath, as the shock of his words hit her.
'I don't believe you.'
'Nevertheless. His body has been found in Yorkshire.'
She broke down then, turning away from him and burying her face in her hands. He let her cry, standing patiently behind her until she was calmer.
'I hated him,' she said after a time.
'I think you must have loved him as well.'
'How could I, after what he'd done to my mother? She killed herself, no matter how hard they tried to put a better face on it. She killed herself! Do you know what it is to come home from a party and find the police in your
