say.”
“He admitted that he didn’t have long to live.”
“You know him then. Does he have a name?”
“As a matter of fact, he does. Wyatt Russell, Furnham Road, Essex. It’s the name he gave when he came to the Yard recently to report a crime. At this stage we haven’t found any evidence to indicate that his information is true. But we also can’t prove that it isn’t. The question is, does his murder nearly a fortnight later have any bearing on what he told us? What did he intentionally-or unintentionally-stir up? Who else is involved in this?”
Hamish spoke, his voice jarring in the small office. “Ye ken, ye asked yoursel’ that same question, when the man wouldna’ gie ye any details about the murder.”
Rutledge nearly lost track of Adams’s reply. He had to repeat himself.
“What sort of crime was he reporting?”
“A murder.”
“Well, there you are. Someone will have taken exception to that.”
“Except that my visitor claimed he was the killer.”
“Did he, by God!” Adams pushed his glasses back to the top of his head. He sat there for a moment, then asked, “Have you considered the extent of his cancer? He must have been in almost intolerable pain and taking a fair amount of drugs. You have to wonder if he was in his right mind. He could have felt responsible for a man’s death and finally convinced himself that he’d actually killed him. Guilt can take many forms.”
Rutledge was all too aware of that.
“We’d have to ask a medical man. Russell himself had made some remark about the morphine speaking.”
“I’m glad it’s your case and not mine. Will you want the body? No one so far has claimed it. Potter’s field seems an ignominious end. He must have a family somewhere.” He opened his desk drawer and fished out a small packet. “This was around his neck. Whoever killed him missed it when going through his pockets.”
He tossed the packet to Rutledge, who caught it deftly and unwrapped the brown paper.
Inside was an oval gold locket on a gold chain. An ornately scrolled E graced the front. The locket itself was either old or worn, possibly both. Rutledge found the clasp and opened it. Inside were two small spaces for photographs. The right-hand oval was empty, but on the left there was a woman’s face. Despite the water stains, he could see that she was pretty, young, the just visible collar of her dress fashionable, her hair drawn softly back into a knot behind her head. It was impossible to judge her coloring, but he rather thought her hair was a light brown.
“I wondered if this was hers, and she was dead. That would explain why he’s wearing a woman’s necklace,” Adams said. “A sentimental gesture.”
“Russell lost his wife in childbirth a little less than a year after they were married. Neither her Christian name nor her maiden name began with an E.”
“So much for sentiment,” Adams said dryly.
Still considering the face in the locket, Rutledge said, “He knew he was dying. That means he’d seen a doctor. Possibly in London. We’ll need to find him and speak to him.”
“I thought you told me he lived on the Furnham Road in Essex. That’s on the Hawking, isn’t it?”
“The house there is closed. When I met him, he was staying in The Marlborough Hotel. Someone there should be able to tell us more.” Rutledge frowned. “Are we absolutely certain that Russell didn’t fire that bullet into his own brain? To avoid a worse death?”
“Impossible, according to the doctor. Unless the man was a contortionist. Would you like to see the remains?”
Rutledge accompanied Adams to the hospital where the body had been taken. Down in the bowels of the building they walked through a series of passages to where a small morgue had been set up. The other three bodies had died in the hospital, Adams explained, and were awaiting the undertaker. In the far corner lay their murder victim.
When Rutledge pulled back the covering over the body, he recognized Russell instantly. The likeness was stronger than that of the photograph, which must have been taken in poor light. “Yes. I’d swear to his identity in the witness box.” He moved the dead man’s head slightly to look at the entry wound of the bullet. “Your doctor is right, he couldn’t have shot himself. Who did you say found the body?”
“A waterman by the name of Acton. He got it into his boat and brought it in. You can speak to him if you like. He should be back in Gravesend in about five hours.”
“You have his statement? It’s satisfactory?”
“On my desk. And yes, Acton has been on the river for years. No reason to think he had anything to do with Russell’s death.”
“Then I’ll take the statement rather than wait.” As he replaced the sheet over the dead man, Rutledge said, “If you learn any more about him-if anyone in Kent comes to you searching for him-let me know. But I rather think you’re right about London being the place to begin.”
“I’ve already gone through our list of missing people. No one fits his description, and he’d have been missed by now. Surely someone would have come looking for him.”
“What about Tilbury, across the Thames from you?” Rutledge asked as they left the hospital.
“We sent a photograph to the police there at the same time we sent one to the Yard. I followed it up with a telephone call, and my opposite number didn’t know him or have him on any lists there. Still, I’ll ask again, now that I have a name to give them and I know he once lived in Essex.”
Rutledge thanked him, taking with him the locket, a copy of the statement from the ferryman, and the report of the postmortem.
They lay in an envelope on the seat beside him as he drove back to London. And from the rear of the motorcar came the voice he knew as well as his own, and dreaded to hear.
Hamish said, “You didna’ believe him. Russell. Ye ken, if ye had, he might well be alive.”
“No. He made his choice. He wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know. He made a mystery of what he had to say because he didn’t want to incriminate himself. Or betray someone else.”
There was a derisive chuckle.
Hamish wasn’t there. Rutledge had told himself that a thousand times, but it was no comfort. Hamish was dead and buried in France, and that was no comfort either.
The doctors had called it shell shock, this hearing of a voice that was so real Rutledge answered it in his head-or sometimes to his absolute horror, aloud. Corporal Hamish MacLeod had fought beside Rutledge almost from the start, a young Scot, but with a grasp of military tactics well beyond his years. A bond had grown between the two of them, officer and man, because each knew he could trust the other implicitly, and both knew that the care of the men under them was paramount. Watching the maimed and the dying through two years of heavy fighting had taught them that. Green men, facing battle for the first time, had only a slim chance of survival. If their officers could double those odds, it counted for much.
And then on the Somme, in those first bloody weeks of fighting, Hamish MacLeod had put Rutledge in an untenable position: he had refused an order outright, in front of his men. His reasons were sound-he knew going over the top one more time after a well-concealed German machine-gun nest was insane, that more men would die needlessly. And yet HQ had ordered that it be taken out at any cost before the next assault, and Rutledge had had no alternative but to try, for the sake of the hundreds of British soldiers who would be crossing No Man’s Land in only a matter of hours. The good of the few-or the good of the many. That was the choice. Hamish had chosen his bleeding and exhausted company.
No amount of argument could sway him. Even when, as an example to other weary and dispirited men, Rutledge had to threaten his corporal with a firing squad, it had not changed his mind. And Rutledge had had to carry out that threat, against his better judgment and against the weight of his own guilt. He had had to deliver the coup de grace to the dying man, taking out his pistol and firing it point-blank, and watching the anguished eyes go dull.
He hadn’t wanted this, he hadn’t wanted Hamish MacLeod on his soul. Even his own mind had refused to accept what he had done. The burden of guilt had been insupportable. And in the way of damaged minds, his had created a living Hamish, proof that the young corporal hadn’t died. Keeping him alive through two more years of grinding stalemate and death, bringing him home in the only way he could.
