“Well, then, I expect it was better than dying of that tumor.”
They took her back then. Rutledge had already asked an orderly to see that the body was presentable and that no other corpses were in the room.
As the door opened, he watched as Abigail Barber squared her shoulders, as if bracing herself as she followed Inspector Adams into the morgue. It was chilly and the light was glaring pools in the dimness, but she walked resolutely to the table where a body lay under a freshly ironed sheet.
Inspector Adams asked, “Are you ready, Mrs. Barber?”
“Yes,” she answered stoically. But Rutledge put a hand on her shoulder, as comfort.
Adams pulled back the sheet. She flinched. “It’s Ben,” she said, and then tentatively reached out to touch her brother’s face, drawing back quickly at the coldness of the flesh. “He’s a man, isn’t he? He was a boy when he left us to go to Thetford. Now he looks very much like Joseph.” After a moment, she leaned down, as if to whisper in his ear. Adams turned aside to offer her a little privacy. And then she straightened.
“I want to take him home,” she said.
Adams glanced over her head at Rutledge, who nodded once.
“Yes, all right, I shall see that the paperwork is completed. There’s a good man here in Gravesend. The- undertaker. He’ll take care of the rest.”
“Thank you.” Before they could move, she reached out and drew the sheet back over her brother’s face, her hands gentle. And then she was walking quickly out of the room, as if she couldn’t bear it any longer.
Rutledge thanked Adams and followed her out of the hospital and half a block down the street. She stopped there suddenly, as if she couldn’t go any farther, and broke down, crying inconsolably. He put a hand again on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.
When she lifted her head finally, to his shock her eyes were blazing with anger.
“If you know where Cynthia Farraday lives, you tell her for me. If she ever shows her face in Furnham again-if she even thinks of coming to the service for my brother-I’ll kill her myself.”
He summoned a cab, and without a word she got into it.
It was very late when he delivered Mrs. Barber to her home in Furnham. Her husband, peering anxiously out the window, saw them arrive and hurried out to open the motorcar door for her. He was about to demand where she had been when he caught the look that Rutledge gave him. Instead he said, as if it had been what he intended in the first place, “Come in, love, there’s tea waiting.”
Rutledge didn’t get out. But he waited until the Barbers had walked into their house and shut the door.
Driving on, he cursed whoever had killed Ben Willet.
“And it willna’ do you any guid to damn him.”
Still, he went to the Rectory to find Mr. Morrison, to tell him what had transpired, and to ask him to call on Abigail Willet. But the Rectory was dark and silent. No one answered his knock. At the church then? At this hour?
He came to the junction in the road and soon after saw the church just ahead. It was dark except for a dim light in the nave, just visible through the plain glass of the high windows.
Stopping the motorcar at the verge of the road but leaving it running, he crossed to the church door and quietly began to open it so as not to disturb the rector if he was at his prayers.
He had not swung it more than two inches wide when the sound of voices came to him, echoing in the empty church. He couldn’t see anything but the opposite wall without pushing the door wider. But he knew the voices and could put a name to both of them.
That was the rector, saying, “What is it you wish to confess, my son?”
And the response came from Major Russell.
Chapter 18
His voice was hoarse, but still recognizable. “Damn it, Morrison, there’s nothing to confess. I just need to talk to someone. The police are after me, I’ve left the clinic again, and I don’t know where to turn. River’s Edge is closed, there’s no refuge there. The house in London has very likely already been searched.”
There was a long pause. And then Morrison said, “Why do the police want you, Major?”
“I took a man’s motorcycle. Well, it was the only way I could get out of that clinic and reach London. Then I frightened Cynthia, which I didn’t mean to do. I just wanted to know-never mind that. I sometimes muddle things. It’s getting better, I think, but then there are days of torment, pure hell, when I can barely remember who I am.”
“They’ve come to Furnham. The police. I’ve been told that Ben Willet has been murdered. And possibly Justin Fowler as well. I don’t know what to think. And there’s your mother’s disappearance. Is River’s Edge cursed? Or is it Furnham? I grew up in a quiet village where murder was unheard of. I have no answers to give you.”
“They aren’t connected, if that’s what you’re afraid of. There’s no madman out there picking us off every year or two. It’s the war, people are different. The England I nearly died for is gone. I don’t recognize anything.” There was despair in his voice. “For that matter, I’m not the same either.”
“We must have faith that God in his wisdom-”
“I don’t know that I believe in God any longer. He damned well wasn’t there in the trenches when we needed him. Did you know that Willet has written a book? A novel? I saw something about it in a newspaper a year ago.”
“So it’s true, then. Gossip had it that the French believed it was his father who’d written a book. It caused a great deal of hilarity, I can tell you, among Ned’s friends. Were these books something he was ashamed of? Is that why Ben never told his family about them?”
“I have no idea. Apparently one’s all about smugglers in Essex before the war. I suppose I should have read it. But I wasn’t ready to revisit Furnham. Or River’s End.”
Morrison was still concentrating on the books. “It’s just as well everyone thought it was a good joke. Otherwise it could have got him killed. Jessup hadn’t forgiven Ben Willet for becoming a footman. Putting Furnham into a book would have angered everyone.”
“I doubt it would have led to murder. I saw Willet in London quite recently. Twice, as it happens. The last time there was a crash on Tower Bridge, and I couldn’t get through.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I didn’t recognize him at first. But he knew who I was and spoke. He asked how I was faring, and I asked why he looked so ill. We commiserated on our war, and I told him I’d seen a mention of his book, asked him if he was still writing. He said he was just finishing another manuscript. And then he told me he wished once it was finished that someone would shoot him and put him out of his agony. I told him not to be a fool. I thought he was asking if I’d do it, and I wouldn’t. I couldn’t understand why he believed I could do such a thing. I hardly knew the man.”
“Then why were you meeting him a second time?”
“He told me there was something he must tell me. Before he died.” Wyatt took a deep breath. “I didn’t come here to talk about Willet. Will you risk it, Rector? Taking me in? I can’t ask Nancy to do any more than she has done. She must be afraid her husband will find her out. I had trouble enough persuading her to bring me food in the old church ruins.”
There was another silence.
Russell said irritably, “If you’re afraid I’ll murder you in your bed, I’ll find somewhere else to go.”
“It isn’t that,” Morrison began, then before Russell could speak, he added, “there’s hardly enough room for one in the Rectory. Much less two.”
“I’ll sleep in a chair if I have to.”
But he must have read something in the other man’s face, because without waiting for an answer, Russell went on, “Yes, all right, I understand. I think there’s a bicycle in one of the outbuildings. It was used by the servants. I can manage. At least let me clean up a little. I’ve slept rough too long and I can’t very well bathe in the river in plain sight of anyone coming upstream.”
Rutledge eased the door closed, careful not to let the latch click to, and went back to his motorcar, driving off
