you interested in the rest of us?'
'Making sure we've got the right man,' he said, and thanked her.
Hill was waiting. 'What was that all about?'
'Mrs. Cathcart had heard some of Willingham's shouting matches. Did you find the Brady sketch in his cottage?'
'No, but then he'd have burned it, wouldn't he? If he'd been guilty.'
'I don't think Willingham drew any of them. There was no paper, no special ink, no pens in his desk. How had he done them without the proper tools?'
'Look, Rutledge, we're doing our best. If you want to point a finger, then get on with it. If not, leave us to our work.'
'Start with Singleton. He and Brady were both in the army. There might have been something there. Singleton might not have known that in the beginning. Brady kept his past to himself, I should think. When the truth came out, Singleton might have thought that Brady knew more than he should.'
'Singleton makes no secret about being cashiered.'
'He didn't, did he? Perhaps it was too late when he realized he'd been better off keeping his mouth shut.'
'Then why kill Willingham first?'
'Willingham irritated everybody. Kill two birds with one stone, and put the blame on Brady before setting up his death.'
Hill glared at him. 'You're not serious.'
'Do you have any better suggestion? Go talk to him, but watch your back if you're going to make accusations.'
Hill looked at the cottages, the way they were set out, to give each one maximum privacy. 'Willingham could have seen anyone going into Brady's cottage, couldn't he? A good soldier would have taken him out, then launched his main attack.'
Rutledge walked back to his motorcar and said as he took up the crank, 'Good luck.'
Hill was dragging his feet. 'I'll ask the army for information,' he said. 'I've been wrong once already. I don't relish a second time.'
'Your decision,' Rutledge agreed, and drove off.
Hamish said, 'He doesna' believe you.'
Rutledge answered, 'I think he does. He's just covering his back.'
He turned the car and went to call on Sarah Parkinson, on his way back to London.
24
Sarah Parkinson was just leaving her house when Rutledge drove up. She was riding the bicycle today.
'Miss Parkinson-'
'No. Go away.' She mounted the bicycle and pushed off, leaving him there.
Rutledge turned the motorcar and caught up with her, slowing his speed to a crawl to match hers.
'I haven't come to talk about your father.'
'I'm uncomfortable being hunted this way. Is this what the police do, drive you to distraction until you can't sleep or eat or think?'
'Put your bicycle into my motorcar and I'll take you to your sister, or to Partridge Fields. Wherever you're setting out to go.'
He could see her hesitate. She wasn't as skilled with the bicycle as her sister, and she had wobbled once or twice.
'I can manage very well, thank you.'
'You can't. Get down before you're hurt. I swear, I won't ask you any questions on the way.'
The front wheel jerked and almost threw her into a bank of late thrift, where the road narrowed a little.
Rutledge sped up and cut her off.
Getting out, he said, 'You shouldn't be riding this in your state of mind. Go on, let me put the bicycle into the back. I've given you my word.'
She stopped just inches from where he stood.
'I may be your enemy,' he said gently, 'but accepting a lift from me doesn't convict you of anything but good sense.'
'I hate you, did you know that?' she said with some force, but when he reached for the handlebars she dismounted and let him have the bicycle. He set it in the back, more concerned about invading Hamish's space than anything else, his hands shaking as he maneuvered it to fit.
Hamish chuckled derisively, saying only, 'When I'm ready to be seen, ye canna' hide.'
Rutledge got back behind the wheel, his mind on Hamish, and nearly choked the motor.
Sarah Parkinson said tartly, 'You're no better driver than I am.'
She was goading him, and she'd succeeded, but Rutledge kept his promise, only asking where she wanted to go.
'To Pockets, my sister's house.'
He took off the brake and set out. As they passed the cottages, she shivered, as if her father's death were still too raw a reminder.
He said nothing, letting the silence grow heavy between them. Finally Sarah Parkinson said, 'If you will let me out a mile before her house, I'll pedal the rest of the way.'
'As you like.'
It was almost as if the silence accused her. Again she broke it first. 'You weren't there when my mother died. You can't even imagine how we felt. And my father standing over her, after we'd summoned him, and saying that it had been a long time coming. Then why hadn't he tried to prevent it? Why hadn't he made her happier when it mattered?'
He didn't answer her.
'Sometimes in the dark while I'm trying to fall asleep I can see all of it again. People talk about nightmares, but this was real, and it happens over and over again until I'm half sick, my head aching, my mind struggling to forget. You have no idea what that's like. You must sleep well at night, duty done, and you have no idea what it's like'
But he did. He wanted to tell her that she was wrong, others suffered as she did, and that his hovering spirits were as fearsome as hers.
She must have read something of it in his face, for she snapped, 'Oh, don't sit there, pretending you can't hear me.'
'Then I'd have to ask you if you killed your father to stop your nightmares. If it helped at all, to punish him for what he'd done to your mother and to you. I'd like to know. I can't kill my ghosts, you see. I left them all on the battlefield in France.'
She stared at him. 'You were in the war?'
'I was in France, yes.' He fought to get himself under control. 'It was worse than anything you can imagine. Worse, even, than finding your mother dead. And it went on for four years, relentless, without respite. And there was no one to kill except the Germans, and even that wasn't as easy as we'd thought. In the night sometimes you could hear them singing. Men's voices, homesick and as frightened as we were. And the next day you were firing at them, trying to make every shot count, and using your bayonet when you had to, and trying to stay alive one more minute, one more hour, and after a while, you didn't even care about that, only about not letting your men down, shaming them in the face of the enemy, trying to set a good example that they could follow. And the worst of it was, they trusted me, and I led them to slaughter as surely as if I'd been the judas goat at an abattoir. If you want to compare nightmares, Miss Parkinson, you've chosen the wrong man.'
She sat there stunned, her face pale, and her hands shaking in her lap, the gloves she wore bicycling clenched into fists to stop it.
