A Pale Horse Part 23

"Who is it?" he asked, bracing himself. "Not Melinda-"

Melinda Trent, the intriguing elderly woman who'd lived through the Great Indian Mutiny of 1857, had been a friend of his family for as long as he could remember, and cared for him as well. He returned that love in full measure, leavened by a strong suspicion that she saw through him more often than not. If she'd found Hamish in his shadows, she had spoken of that only obliquely. Her home was in Kent, and he promised himself he would find a way to go on there tonight, taking Frances with him.

"No." She crossed the room to greet him, hands on his shoulders, and said, "Oh, my dear, I don't know how to tell you."

"Quickly would be best," he replied tightly.

"It's Jean," she told him then. "She's dead."

"Jean-"

The woman he should-would-have married, if there had been no war.

He had got over her, he had told himself that often enough through a long dark year. Now it struck him that he had never said good-bye. That day in the clinic when he'd broken off their engagement so that she wouldn't have to ask him to set her free, letting her go because it was what she desperately wanted and didn't know how to tell him, she had walked out of his room promising to come again as soon as she could. But she never had. He had known she wouldn't be able to brace herself for another visit.

Dead- He could feel Frances's hands on his shoulders, hear her voice, and knew that she was there.

"Who told you?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely. "How did you find out?"

"Melinda telephoned to me. A friend of hers had sent her a cable from Canada. It was in the papers in Toronto."

That too was a blow. That Jean had died and he had felt nothing.

"How did it happen?"

"Complications of pregnancy. She lost her child-a miscarriage-and infection set in afterward. They did all that was possible to save her."

Women died in childbirth every day. Only he hadn't expected one of them to be Jean.

"Is she coming back to England?"

"The obituary says she'll be buried in Canada. Her husband is still serving there."

And so he would never say good-bye. Not now.

The last time he'd seen her, she was coming out of St. Margaret's Church, where she was soon to be married. A cl.u.s.ter of her friends surrounded her, their voices traveling to him where he stood. Her face was s.h.i.+ning with happiness and excitement as she discussed flowers and candles and ribbons. It had broken his heart-and yet he had never hated her for leaving him. He had known what sort of husband he would have made. She was better off without him.

Still, he felt a surge of guilt for letting her go.

If she had stayed in England- But that was pointless.

Rutledge set Frances aside and went to the window to look out on the street, not seeing it.

She went away, and came back presently with a cup of tea.

Rutledge drank it, the hot strong liquid cutting through the shock of Frances's news.

There was nothing he could do. No word of comfort for the bereaved husband-who probably had never known Rutledge existed-and no flowers for the raw earth of the grave.

He finished his tea and said, "I need to walk. Will you wait?"

"Of course."

He had never taken off his coat. He just went out the door.

An hour later, he saw that there was a church on the next corner, smoke-stained stone, with a spire that gleamed in the sun.

The door was unlocked and he went inside into the silent dimness. His footsteps echoed against the stone walls, and he got as far as the first row of chairs. There he sat down. It wasn't the comfort of G.o.d he sought so much as the need to be alone. And Hamish, mercifully, was quiet.

He hadn't expected it. That was the problem. The loss was emotional, sharp.

Their engagement had not been spent growing closer to each other, settling into a warm and responsive companions.h.i.+p that would carry them into old age, as it should have been. Four years of war had seen to that and changed them both. She was another man's wife, now. Not his, never his. And while he grieved for the girl he had asked to marry him in 1914, she had left a long time ago.

He rose after a while and walked back the way he'd come.

Hamish, at his shoulder, said only, "It was verra' different with my Fiona. I should ha' come home to her, and left you dead in France. Your Jean wouldna' have missed you..."

The voice was sad, as if half convincing himself that this was true.

Together the two men, one of whom didn't exist, went back to the flat.

15.

Frances was waiting, as she'd promised.

She said as he came through the door, "The Yard sent someone. You are to come at once."

Rutledge swore silently. There was never any time...

"Yes, I'll go. Shall I give you a lift home?"

"As far as Trafalgar Square, if you don't mind. Ian-are you all right? Do you want me to call the Yard and ask them to give you an hour or two?"

"Work," he said bitterly, "is its own panacea. But thanks."

He stopped long enough to change clothes. And then he shut the flat door behind them as he led the way to his motorcar. He couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before he crossed his threshold again without remembering the news that had been waiting here today.

Frances kept him busy with trivial gossip until he put her down in the square, and she leaned across to kiss him before she got out.

He watched her walk briskly in the direction of St. Martin's in the Fields, and then turned toward the Yard. He hadn't mentioned seeing Simon Barrington. It hadn't seemed the right moment, and then too important to be a parting remark.

It was Simon's business and none of his, after all. As long as Frances wasn't hurt. But he thought she was going to be.

His eye was caught by a familiar figure walking toward him along the street. It was Meredith Channing, dressed in a becoming dark red coat and matching hat. She didn't look his way, but he could have sworn she had seen his motorcar and recognized it as quickly as he had recognized her.

Bowles was waiting for him at the Yard and almost as he walked in the door asked abruptly for his report.

"There's no time to write it out, but I want to know what's going on."

Rutledge gave it orally, as Bowles stood fuming by the window.

When he'd finished, Bowles grunted, and Rutledge couldn't tell whether he was satisfied or still irritated. It was often difficult to read the man's moods.

"Stepping on toes is never prudent. I want you back in Berks.h.i.+re tonight. I want to see the end of this business with Partridge or Parkinson or whatever his name is. Finish it as fast as you can, and report to me. Yorks.h.i.+re is complaining we're playing merry h.e.l.l with their inquiry, and giving them d.a.m.n all in return. They still have that G.o.dforsaken body, and don't know what to do with it."

Rutledge was as eager to leave London as Bowles was to send him away. But he said, "If I get too close to the truth, Deloran will be knocking at your door, complaining."

"And that's when I'll know you're doing your job. Get on with it."

Rutledge had been driving for three days, but he said only, "I'll be leaving within the hour."

Somehow the road west seemed longer this time. But in the end Rutledge saw the familiar shape of the White Horse galloping silently across its gra.s.sy hillside. He drove on, pa.s.sing it, then stopped in the darkness to look up at it.

What had it seen, this chalk horse? Why had it brought Parkinson here, and why had he died in Yorks.h.i.+re, and not in Berks.h.i.+re?

He got out and walked a little way up the hill. Somehow it seemed peaceful and comforting. The horse had been there since time out of mind. Rutledge squatted in the dew-wet gra.s.s and studied the dark, silent cottages.

Hamish said, "No one wants this dead man."

"Except to use him," Rutledge answered aloud. "A convenience. Sad, isn't it? The cottages are the end of the road for most of the people down there. A place to grow old and die without fuss. Did death come looking for Parkinson, or did he go out to find it?"

"It's a long way to Yorks.h.i.+re fra' here."

There was movement below. Rutledge could just make out the smith coming home. He slowed for an instant, as if he sensed being watched, then walked on toward his door.

A curtain twitched in Brady's cottage, a sliver of lamp light flas.h.i.+ng briefly and then vanis.h.i.+ng. The lane was quiet again.

Rutledge was content to sit here on the hill and listen to sounds of the night. His mind was tired, and even the puzzle of Parkinson's life and death failed to interest him. It could wait until tomorrow.

A cat-Dublin?-trotted across the open s.p.a.ce between Quincy's cottage and Mrs. Cathcart's. A dog barked in a farmyard a long way off, the sound carrying without urgency.

For a moment Rutledge wondered why he had ever chosen to become a policeman and deal so closely with death. And he knew the answer even as he posed the question. It was still the same as it had been at eighteen, when he'd told his father that he intended to join the metropolitan force when he came down from Oxford. Tired he might be of death, yet he was still here to speak for the dead. Only it was proving more difficult to speak for Parkinson. It was possible, he thought, that Parkinson didn't want anyone to learn the truth about him. That he would be glad to lie in an unmarked grave and be forgotten.

Then, without warning, as if it had been busy this last quarter hour without his knowing it, his mind offered Rutledge a solution to the puzzle of Gerald Parkinson.

He had been working on the theory that the man had had something to hide, like the other residents of the Tomlin Cottages. And perhaps it was true. But the overriding factor behind what had brought Parkinson here was guilt. A strong sense of guilt.

And that was where to begin, if Rutledge expected to unravel the puzzle of this man's life and his death.

Rutledge stood up and walked back down the hill, cranked the motorcar, and drove on to The Smith's Arms. It took him several minutes to wake Mr. Smith and bring him down to unlock the door.

"Back again, are you? Your room's empty, if you want it. We'll settle on that tomorrow."

"Fair enough." Rutledge thanked him and followed him up the stairs in the wake of his flickering lamp. As he opened his door, the room smelled of lavender and fresh air, as if the sheets had dried in the sun.

He undressed in the dark and went to bed.

Tomorrow he'd find out why guilt had changed Partridge's life.

After breakfast, Rutledge drove on to Wilts.h.i.+re, a good two hours one way, then found again the turning for Partridge Fields, the house where Parkinson had lived.

Once more there appeared to be no one about as he walked through the gate, leaving his motorcar in the lane.

The sun was slanting through the trees beyond the house and long shafts of golden light barred the lawns and gardens. It was a tranquil scene, and he wondered again why Parkinson had preferred the cottages to this place.

He went around the house, through the gardens and the shrubbery that shut off the kitchen yard, listening to a silence broken only by a bird calling from the miniature dovecote birdhouse in the kitchen garden. Was no one ever here?

Moving on, he was just on the point of taking the stone path through to the far side of the house, when a shrill voice stopped him in his tracks.

Hamish said, "'Ware!" in warning, and Rutledge turned slowly.

"Here! What are you about?"

A plump woman wearing an ap.r.o.n was standing in the door to the yard, arms akimbo and a frown on her face.

"I didn't think anyone was at home," he said in apology, "or I would have knocked. My name is Rutledge, and I've come down from London-"

"I couldn't care less where you're from. What are you doing here?"

"Looking, I think, for Mr. Parkinson."

"You're not one of them people from the newspaper, are you?" There was a challenge now in her tone. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again, he's not here, nor will he be here any time soon, and you might as well march yourself back the way you've come and leave the premises. Close the gate behind you or I'll see the police have a word with you for trespa.s.sing."

She was about to shut the door in his face, and he said quickly, "I'm from the police. Scotland Yard."

Her face altered, the hostility giving way to concern mixed with irritation. "The police, is it? What are you here for? Is there bad news you're bringing?"

Rutledge was walking back toward her now, and she stood her ground with the ferocity of an old and trusted servant.

"Here, you're not coming in this house, policeman or no!"

"I'm trying to locate Mr. Parkinson," he replied, his tone indicating a need for help rather than ulterior motive. "It's a police inquiry, you see, and I should like to ask his a.s.sistance." He'd left the sketch in his valise at the inn, and swore to himself. She would surely have recognized it.

"Well, you won't be finding it here-he's not in residence, and that's a fact." She looked Rutledge up and down. "You'd think a London London policeman would know that." policeman would know that."

He said, drawing on his experience dealing with watchdog servants, "My superiors don't always tell me everything they know. Much to my regret. How long has he been away? Surely he must have told you where to send along his mail."

"He doesn't receive any. None, that is, I'm aware of. And he left just a week after his wife died in the spring of 1918. Here, are you certain you aren't from the London papers?"