long.'
'I hurt. All over.'
He tried to smile. 'That's good. It means you can feel. Stay quiet, I'll be here.'
From the lorry he could hear the sound of a door creaking open.
Singleton was still alive.
He did nothing. Said nothing. And listened.
After a time a voice from the darkness called, 'I can see you, even if you can't see me. I'll kill both of you if you try to stop me.'
'You aren't my case. You're Hill's. Go on.' He snapped off his torch.
'You aren't armed. I am.'
'I said, go on.'
He could hear footsteps crunching in the dirt of the road and then fading as Singleton reached the grass verge.
Hamish said, 'He'll no' leave witnesses.'
But Rutledge remained silent, listening from where he knelt at Sarah Parkinson's side.
To Hamish he said, 'I'd swear he wasn't armed.'
'You canna' chance it. He's Hill's case. You said so yourself.'
'Yes.'
He could hear the crank turning, and then the motor came to life. The driver's door shut. Singleton was backing Rutledge's car into the road. He could see the sweep of headlamps across the sky.
For an instant Rutledge thought Singleton might try to run them down, but the ground was too roughjust where he was kneeling by Sarah, and the risk of doing serious damage to the motorcar was obvious.
And then the moment came where if Singleton was armed, he would fire.
Does he have a service revolver?
Many of the enlisted men had brought them home as souvenirs…
The motorcar idled in the road. Rutledge held his breath, keeping his back to Singleton, making sure that he was between the killer and the girl on the ground at his feet.
She said, 'What's wrong? I heard a motorcar. Is it Rebecca?'
Rutledge didn't answer, counting the seconds as he waited.
And then Singleton was driving away, leaving them there in the night.
He could feel the tension in his back. To Sarah he said, 'She'll be here soon.'
It couldn't have been more than ten minutes later that Rebecca was back, braking hard, calling to her sister. A door opened. A man carrying his medical bag hurried toward them. Rebecca was maneuvering the motorcar until the headlamps shone directly on her sister, giving them light to work.
The doctor was there beside Rutledge. 'What's most urgently needed?'
'The head wound. It's bleeding heavily.'
Rebecca hadn't emerged from the car. Rutledge thought he could hear her teeth chattering over the sound of the engine.
'Head wounds generally do. Next?'
'Right arm. Broken, I think. Cuts and bruises. I don't know about her back. But she can feel pain. All over, she says.'
'A good thing.' He began to work, slowly at first and then with greater assurance as he learned the extent of Sarah Parkinson's injuries. He did what he could to brace the broken arm, put bandaging over the head wound, and then turned to Rutledge.
'She'll be all right, but I daresay there's concussion, and shock is setting in. We need to get her to hospital.'
Rutledge said, 'There's a rug-' But his motorcar was gone. He called to Rebecca Parkinson. 'Do you have a rug, there?'
'Yes, I think-'
He could hear her getting out now, coming toward them. 'Is she alive?' Her voice was under control, but tense with stress.
'She's all right,' he told Rebecca and took the rug from her, helping the doctor wrap Sarah in it. Between them the two men carried her to the motorcar and lifted her into the rear seat. It must have hurt like the very devil.
The doctor got in after her and made certain she was comfortable. Then he turned to Rutledge. 'Anderson's the name.'
'Rutledge.' He nodded to Rebecca. 'I'll drive.'
'All right, I'll direct you. Can we get around that lorry?'
'I think so.'
'That's the fastest way. What's become of the driver? Is he dead?'
'He went for help.'
Anderson nodded. 'Then we needn't concern ourselves with him.'
Sarah regained consciousness several times, complaining of feeling cold and hurting. Anderson reassured her, but Rebecca, next to Rut- ledge, didn't look back or answer her sister.
They drove into a medium-size town where there was a hospital of sorts near the church. It had, Anderson was telling him, been a lying- in hospital before the war and after that had been turned into a burn treatment center. 'But most of the patients have been sent elsewhere now, and the town has taken it over.'
'Where are we?'
'Salverton.'
'I need to find a telephone as soon as possible. The lorry is still blocking the road.'
'Yes, of course. The hotel just down that street should have one. Give me a moment to find someone with a stretcher. Then you can go.'
Rutledge stayed until Sarah Parkinson was in a room on the first floor, nurses working over her with quiet efficiency. Rebecca, still silent, was with her. No one noticed as he slipped quietly out and went to the stairs.
The clinic had been a bank in an earlier life, Rutledge thought, noting the marble pillars in Reception and the ornate staircase sweeping up to the first floor. His footsteps echoed as he crossed to the door. A nursing sister passing through nodded to him.
He found the hotel, The White Hart, without any difficulty, put in a call to Uffington, and after a time heard Hill's voice on the other end of the line.
Rutledge gave the inspector a brief report, and asked about the cottages.
'We couldn't save the empty ones where the fire had been set inside. We couldn't get enough water to them. The rest, the ones still occupied, will be habitable. Where's Singleton?'
'I wish I knew. I told you, he left in my motorcar.'
'He wasn't injured in the crash?'
'Not as far as I could tell.'
'Surely you could have stopped him.' Hill's frustration came to the fore, backed by anger.
'I couldn't leave the woman he ran down.'
'But she'll live, you say?'
'It appears that way. Early days.' He saw again the doctor's grave face as he examined the head wound and tested Sarah Parkinson's reflexes. 'The next twenty-four hours will tell us.'
'Where do you think Singleton went?'
'Where does he feel safe? I don't know. I expect he'll abandon my motorcar as soon as possible and find other means of transport. It could be a country bus or a train. One that isn't crowded, I should think.'
'We haven't got enough men to watch train stations.'
'No.'
Hill said, 'I delayed, waiting to hear from London. Singleton wasn't cashiered from an Indian regiment. That was all a lie. He'd been in the regular army, and was called up again in 1915. Seems he killed another soldier on the transport ship to France. Used a knife then, as well. He was put in irons, but somehow in the confusion when they docked, he got away. London thought he was still in France, hiding in the south, but he probably came home with
