A Lonely Death

16

R utledge encountered Constable Petty on the High Street as he was walking back to the hotel.

Petty stopped, saying, "I was about to report to Inspector Norman."

"Did you take anything from Inspector Mickelson's room when you searched it earlier today?"

"No, sir, I did not. I made an inventory of his personal belongings. Inspector Norman was waiting for instructions from Scotland Yard regarding their disposition."

"Is Mickelson in hospital in Hastings?"

"I was told he had been transferred to Chichester. There's a man there who knows a good deal about head injuries. It wasn't considered wise to try to move him to London."

"No, I understand. I want a daily report on his condition. If you're here to keep an eye on things for Inspector Norman, then you might as well serve me too."

"Sir, I-"

"Yes, yes, I understand. You're Hastings police. But I'll have that report each day. I think you'll find that Inspector Norman will raise no objections."

"Yes, sir."

"Did Chief Inspector Hubbard leave?"

"He found someone from the hotel willing to take him to the station. Or so I was told."

"How did you get here, Petty?"

"Bicycle, sir."

"There's something else you can do. Keep an eye out for motorcars similar to mine, but the color scheme may not be the same. I'd like to know where they're going and who is driving them. If there's one in Hastings Old Town that doesn't belong there, I want to hear about that as well."

"I'll do my best, sir."

Rutledge nodded and walked on.

Petty had only one loyalty. But Rutledge needed his eyes.

He brought back to mind the man he'd seen at The White Swans. Most likely Daniel Pierce, not Tommy Summers. The descriptions differed.

Hamish said, "Aye, but ye canna' judge how the Summers lad looks now."

And that was an important point.

As agreed, Constable Walker had collected his nephew, Billy Tuttle, Hector Marshall, and Alex Bullock, and they were waiting for Rutledge in the Eastfield police station.

They sat on the bench, stony faced, as if expecting Rutledge to lock them up again, already resisting what he was about to say.

But there was new information since he had summoned them, and so he asked, "Do you recall a village child called Summers? He and his sister attended school with you."

They stared at him.

"His father moved north when the boy was about ten, I should think-not all that many years ago. Tommy Summers."

Tuttle turned to Bullock. "I don't think there was a Summers lad, do you?" Looking back to Rutledge, he added, "He must have been younger. Or older, even."

Marshall said, "Summers. There was a girl by that name. My sister's age. Long blond plaits down her back."

"Was she the Summers girl? I thought she was dark."

They argued amongst themselves, but the upshot was, they had no recollection of Tommy Summers at all.

Rutledge said, "You tried once to drown him as a witch."

Something stirred in Marshall's eyes, but he shook his head.

Tuttle shrugged. Bullock looked at the far wall, as if expecting more to follow, and this was somehow a trick to lull them. They were more interested in the present than the past.

Rutledge said, "Someone fought with Daniel Pierce for defending the boy."

Walker said, "I remember that. Was Summers his name?" He pulled out his watch and added, "It's growing late."

"Yes, all right. Take them home, Constable." There was no use pushing the issue. He watched them go, grumbling amongst themselves at the waste of time. As Hamish was pointing out, it was high summer and their busiest months.

And as if he'd overheard the remark, Marshall said in a voice intended to carry to Rutledge's ears, "He hasn't volunteered to milk the bloody cows, now has he? Londoner." But there was bravado in the words.

Walker admonished him and followed the men into the street.

They had gone no more than twenty yards when Tuttle turned and glanced at Rutledge, as if of half a mind to call to him or go back, but Walker said, "Come along, then, it's getting dark," as if he were all too aware of Inspector Mickelson's fate. The sanctity and authority of a policeman had been shattered. He was taking no chances being out in the night alone.

Rutledge waited until he'd returned, reluctant to leave the police station until he was sure Walker was all right.

The constable came in after Rutledge had lit the lamps, and shut the door with undue haste, as if he were shutting out the shadows waiting in the street.

"You're still here, then."

"I waited to ask you the same question I'd asked the others. You told me once, I think, about a boy being bullied. Do you remember any other details?"

"Not bullied, exactly. He was just one who never quite fit in. I'd have intervened if they'd done any real harm," he said dismissively. "They were young lads. It happens."

But words could hurt as much as blows.

"Where did the father go, to take up his new position?"

"Did I tell you that?" Walker was surprised. "North, I think. Staffordshire?"

"Has Constable Petty left for Hastings?"

"Half an hour ago." He hesitated, and after a moment asked, "Is the killing over, do you think? We assumed, after Hopkins was taken into custody, that it was. Then Inspector Mickelson-it doesn't make sense, does it?"

Which was precisely why the police had come for Rutledge, but he said nothing.

Walker added, "I did tell the others to take the same precautions as before. To be on the safe side." He grinned. "Marshall called me an old woman. But his wife told me once it's dark, he's under her feet."

"We'll patrol the streets until Inspector Mickelson regains consciousness and can tell the police what happened. Did he call on the rector that night, before he was attacked? Or was it a coincidence that he encountered someone near the rectory?"

Walker shook his head. "Rector never mentioned it. I think he would have, under the circumstances."

'I'll take the first four hours, as soon as it's full dark." It was the most dangerous time, based on the earlier killings. "I'll come for you, shall I, when it's your turn?"

Walker opened his mouth and then shut it again. "I'll be awake. Good evening, sir," he called finally as Rutledge was about to close the police station door behind him.

Hamish said as Rutledge was on his way to the hotel, "It would ha' been best to give yon constable first watch. Or to share it. Ye're no' a trustworthy witness, ye ken that. The ithers will believe what he tells them, but no' you."

He's older. Rutledge almost said the words aloud, stopping himself just in time. And not as fit.

"And what if there's no trouble atall?"

I've wasted four hours of sleep.

He recalled his impression of Carl Hopkins. Whatever anger the man harbored, Rutledge couldn't quite imagine him using a garrote. Physically, he could probably have managed it, but was there the strength of mind needed to kill four men with it?

"But ye havna' seen him in a frenzy. Only despondent in yon cell."

Which was a very good point. There had been three days between each of the murders, three days in which a man could whip himself into another killing temper.

"It willna' be easy returning to the Yard," Hamish warned, "if Mickelson doesna' recover, and Hopkins is convicted."

As he put out his hand to open the hotel door, Rutledge heard someone call his name. Turning, he saw that Tyrell Pierce was coming toward him. He paused and waited for the older man to catch him up.

"I'd expected you to call today," Pierce said without greeting him. "Sad business about Inspector Mickelson. But I would be lying if I said that I wasn't glad to have you back in charge. What happened, anyway? You were here, and then you weren't. Walker wouldn't tell me anything, so I had to assume he knew nothing to tell."

Rutledge didn't answer him directly. "Who do you think attacked the inspector?"

"I daresay it was the killer. I'm not particularly happy to be out at this time of evening myself." As he reached Rutledge, light spilling from the windows was reflected in his face. There was tension around his eyes, a grimness to the set of his mouth.

"Then why didn't he use the garrote?" Rutledge asked him.

"Yes, I wondered about that myself. I decided he must not have had it with him. Well, I shouldn't care to be walking around with the damned thing in my pocket, in the event I was stopped because I was a stranger in town. Walker stopped someone just yesterday. Did he tell you? A man on his way to Hastings, as it happened. That's what my foreman told me-he'd witnessed the incident. According to him, the man might have been able to handle a garrote, but he'd have been hard-pressed to use it on Theo Hartle." He gestured toward the door. "Have you had your dinner? I was just going to the hotel hoping to find you."

They walked in together, and as they paused on the threshold of the dining room, they saw Mr. Kenton sitting by one of the windows. He looked up at the same time, and beckoned to them. They joined him, and as Rutledge sat down, Kenton said, "I didn't expect Carl to be taken into custody. I merely told you about him out of a sense of duty."

He had ordered his dinner but it hadn't arrived. The woman serving meals that evening brought over a menu, and Rutledge, after scanning it, made his selection.

While Pierce was considering his choice, Rutledge turned to Kenton. "I never passed on that information to Inspector Mickelson. Nor to Walker. Someone else saw you with me."

He could tell that Kenton didn't believe him.

"I should have thought that what happened to Mickelson proved beyond a doubt that Carl isn't guilty."

"We don't know if that attack and these murders are connected-"

"Any fool will tell you that there aren't two murderers running loose in a village the size of Eastfield! Carl is one of my best workers. I'm going to have to find a replacement soon. And I don't want to do that. I wish I'd never come to you. I expected you to ask him a few questions, clear the air." But that wasn't the impression Rutledge had got when Kenton first approached him.

Hamish said, "Second thoughts."

Pierce turned to them and said, "What's this about Carl?"

"I was just saying he was one of my best workers. I've known him all his life, I can't see him committing murder."

Rutledge thought that when Kenton was speaking to him about Hopkins earlier, he had been driven by his own uncertainty, perhaps even the fear that if the killer was shown to be an employee as well as a personal connection of the owner of Kenton Chairs, it might seem that Kenton had protected him.

Pierce said, "I'm of two minds there. Anthony would have trusted him, if he'd come into the brewery looking for him."

It was to Pierce's advantage, Rutledge knew, to distract the police from any interest in his son Daniel. But would the man go as far as letting another person take the blame? He reminded himself that Pierce might have attacked Mickelson if he had been on the verge of finding new evidence that pointed in Daniel Pierce's direction.

Kenton scowled. "And why, pray, would Carl need to find your son, in the brewery or out of it?"

"I'm only saying-" He broke off as their soup arrived, and then added, "How is Inspector Mickelson? Any news in that direction?"

"Just that he's alive and holding his own," Rutledge told them. He hoped that it was still true.

Pierce said, "Nasty business. I suppose he hasn't spoken yet?" The question wasn't as casual as it seemed. Rutledge understood now why Pierce had sought him out when he'd failed to come to the brewery.

"He was found in Hastings, I'm told. Just as young Hartle was," Kenton put in. "I don't see why that shouldn't clear Carl."

They argued through the first course and well into the second. Rutledge was heartily sick of it. And then Kenton asked, "When is Daniel coming back to take his brother's place? He'll require some training, I should think. He was never as interested in the business as his brother was, although I wondered if that was only a facade. He said to me once, before the war, that there was no room for him at the brewery and it was all he knew. What has he been doing since the Armistice? New interests of some sort?"

Pierce said shortly, "When he's ready, he'll take his place at Pierce's."

"You're not growing any younger," Kenton pointed out. "I'd considered leaving Kenton Chairs to Carl, before all this happened. Now I'm not so sure if it's the right thing to do. Last thing I heard about Daniel, he was going into business with someone. Mrs. Farrell-Smith's husband, as I remember. But then the man died rather suddenly, and nothing came of it. Race horses, was it?"

He was goading Pierce, using Rutledge's presence to keep the moment civil.

Rutledge thought, Kenton has heard rumors about Daniel Pierce, and the father's smugness has irritated him.

Pierce was outraged. "Race horses? Good God, where did you hear that nonsense? I grant you they were at school together-Anthony was there as well. As for any business venture, they were hardly of an age before the war to be thinking about such matters. In fact, as Mrs. Farrell-Smith can attest, she and her husband were only just married, and Daniel was considering the law as a profession."

"My mistake," Kenton answered, smiling. "Shall we take our tea in the lounge?"

Pierce signaled to the woman who had served them. "It's late, and I really must look in at the brewery." He rose and said good night.

Kenton watched him go. "He's in trade as well as I am. But you'd think the brewery set him up higher than the rest of us. I never could abide self-importance."

"You rode him hard," Rutledge said. "His son is one of the victims."

"He was prepared to believe that Carl had been to the brewery the night Anthony was murdered," Kenton retorted. "Anthony moved in such exalted circles he probably wouldn't have recognized Carl on the street. Ironic, isn't it? Pierce wanted the Yard here in Eastfield. And I trusted the Yard, to my sorrow."

Rutledge left shortly thereafter. It was nearly time to start his patrol of the streets, and he went first to his motorcar to fetch his torch.

The shops had closed hours before, and the sun had vanished behind a bank of clouds. Shadows had deepened along the High Street, and beneath trees there were already pools of blackness. A gray cat trotting past a stationer's shop disappeared around the corner, leaving him alone as he left the hotel behind and turned toward the brewery. He turned again to walk down the side street by the Misses Tate School, and doubled back toward the Hastings Road before moving on in the direction of the rectory. It was a random pattern, his ears attuned to the silence around him, his faculties alert.

Hamish said, "It's an uneasy quiet."

It was. A warm evening usually drew couples out to walk, holding hands in the darkness, or men talking together and laughing as they headed to the pub or sat on the bench outside the baker's, having a last smoke. Instead, doors were shut, closing the sound of voices and laughter in, rather than letting it spill out into the night. Occasionally he'd seen a curtain twitch as someone looked out, then quickly pulled it across the window again.

The gate to the rectory was just ahead. He looked up at the long window that marked the staircase to the first floor, a hanging lamp glowing softly through the glass. As he did, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw movement in the churchyard beyond, and he turned his head for a better look.

It was that time of night when objects lost their color. Beneath the trees in the churchyard were patches that seemed impenetrable they were so thick with shadow, gravestones irregular splotches of gray, the church itself a stark silhouette beyond.

He stepped through the rectory gates, crossed the lawn to the wicket into the churchyard that rectors time out of mind had used to reach the church. The gate hinges squeaked a little, betraying his movements, but he walked on, wishing he could turn on his torch to prevent himself from stumbling over the settling ground and the footstones nearly hidden in summer grass. But to do so would mark his progress and take away his night vision.

It was near that tree, he thought, using a beech to keep himself oriented. He couldn't tell whether someone was still near the thick trunk or if the figure had moved on. After a moment, he stopped, trying to listen.

Hamish said, "There. By the corner of the kirk."

His eyes were adjusting to the gloom, and he could almost swear there was a figure disappearing toward the south porch, used sometimes for funerals when it was raining. He changed direction and followed, nearly sprawling headlong as the toe of his boot caught in something, tripping him up. Swearing silently, he reached the corner of the church and paused, one hand on the cooling stone.

It was very dark here, the grass and wildflowers heavier under foot. He could barely pick out the thicker blackness of the church porch, against a patch of sky.

The hair on the back of his neck seemed to rise.

Someone was there, he was sure of it. But in the porch, or in the darkness on this side of it?

Hamish muttered, " 'Ware!" but Rutledge was already debating the wisdom of going forward.

Was he being lured? As the first victim, William Jeffers, could have been? Or was the unseen figure as eager to see him turn away as he himself was to go?

He moved on, keeping one hand on the church wall as he walked. He was halfway to the porch when he heard the slight grating of the door into the church, as if someone had gone inside.

But he wasn't convinced. He thought the man must still be inside the porch, waiting for him.

"I know you're there," he called softly into the shadows. "Come out and let me see you."

Silence followed.

And then movement again, as if someone had slipped out of the porch and was going east, toward the apse.

But then a footfall on pavement, a shoe scraping in the gritty entrance as someone turned back to the porch, came to him.

A trap, then. Set with care. For him? For Walker? Did the figure ahead of him know who was following?

Forewarned, he kept his eyes on the porch, one hand still brushing the stone wall of the church, his feet thrusting through the thick summer grass with care. Sinners and saints alike wished to be buried as near to the church wall as possible. And on that thought, his felt his foot strike the edge of a gravestone.

His quarry must have heard it as well, and this time the figure ahead of him slipped out of the porch and disappeared.

Rutledge continued until he'd reached the porch himself. He kept one hand on the wall as it jutted out to form the porch, guided himself to the opening into the porch, and with one hand out before him, made certain that the small space was empty.

He stepped out of it, again using its shape to judge where he was going, and moved on toward the apse.

But he sensed now that there was no one ahead of him. While he had been investigating the porch, the fox had eluded the hounds, slipping around the apse and up the far side.

Rutledge rounded the church himself, and moved quickly up the north side and on toward the gate in the churchyard wall.

He had left it half open, but it was standing wide now.

Stepping through it, he closed it and crossed the rectory lawn again, fairly certain that he had lost whoever it was. But where had he gone? Up the Hastings Road or down it? There was no way of guessing which he'd chosen. And his head start had allowed him to vanish up a side street or into the shadows of a doorway.

Why was he out in the night? His movements had been furtive, and that boded trouble.

Rutledge turned back toward The Fishermen's Arms, trying to recall any detail about the figure that would help identify him. Tallish, he was sure of that, and quick as a cat on his feet, because he had either known the churchyard well or had eyes better adjusted to the night.

And then in the distance behind him, he heard a motor turn over. He whirled but could see nothing, not even the flash of headlamps. No vehicle came his way, and after a moment, he was fairly certain that it had disappeared in the direction of Hastings.

There was no way he could catch it up. By the time he had reached his own motorcar, this one would have too great a head start, disappearing into the busy streets of the town.

Rutledge went to find Constable Walker. Wearing shirt and trousers, his mouth wide in a yawn, he came to the stairs in the police station as Rutledge called his name. "I'm up here. What's happened? I was just dozing off."

"Someone was in the churchyard." Rutledge gave him a swift account of what he'd seen, and by that time, Walker was wide awake.

"I'll just fetch my tunic," he said, and disappeared. A lamp was turned up, and when Walker came back to the stairs and started down them, he had his torch in his hand. Rutledge was already out the station door, ahead of him.

They searched the churchyard carefully, and even went into the church. There their torch beams were lost in the high ceiling arching over head, and the pews were dark shapes that cast long shadows, the spaces between them stretches of pitch blackness. Their footsteps echoed on the bare paving stones as they moved forward in concert. The pulpit looked like the prow of a ghost ship, and the choir stalls could have concealed half a dozen bodies. But there was no sign the intruder had ever been inside. Even the choir loft was empty.

What's more, there was no body tumbled into the high grass or hidden behind a buttress or a gravestone.

It took them a good forty-five minutes to be sure. As they were on their way back to the High Street, Walker said, "He saw you. That probably saved someone's life. But what's this, if Carl Hopkins is in gaol in Hastings?"

"We don't know why he was here." He looked up at the rectory as they passed. "That light in the rectory stairwell. It's been burning for some time. Is that usual?"

"No, it's not." Walker turned to Rutledge, alarm on the pale oval that was all Rutledge could see of his face. "You don't suppose it's Rector he's after? My God!"

They reached the gate between the churchyard and the rectory in long strides, going through it to the house door.

Walker was there first, his fist pounding on the wood panels.

Rutledge, staring up at the long window, watched the stairs, but no one came. He said, "Try the latch."

The door was unlocked. Rutledge swore. Mr. Ottley had far too much trust in the sanctity of his office-or too much faith in the goodness in human beings.

They went in. Rutledge took the stairs two at a time, calling Ottley's name while Walker went through the ground floor, searching each room. He was soon at the bottom of the staircase calling, "Any luck? He's not down here."

"Nor in his bedroom. Or in the other rooms. I'm going to the attics."

But in spite of his torch, that took longer than he'd anticipated. He came back to where Walker was waiting. "He's not here. Where would he be at this hour?"

"At Mr. Roper's? Jimmy's father. He's taken the loss of his boy hard."

To save time they went back to the hotel for Rutledge's motorcar and drove out to the Roper farm.

The house was dark, not even a light in an upstairs room.

"Do we knock at the door?" Walker asked in a low voice, staring up at the bedroom windows.

"If Ottley were here, there would be a light showing. No, let's not frighten the old man. The rector must have gone elsewhere."

He backed carefully down the drive until they had reached the lane.

"I don't know where else to look," Walker said. "Unless we start a search of the village. Is he dead, do you think?"

Rutledge said, "Why would someone kill the rector?"

"I don't know. That motorcar-you said it was driving toward Hastings. Do you suppose the rector was in it? That he was destined for those net shops? Or the cliffs?"

"It doesn't make sense." Rutledge turned back toward Eastfield.

"Mrs. Farrell-Smith saw that motorcar just outside the rectory gates. She saw Inspector Mickelson talking to the driver, and then leaving with him. The rector could know something about that," Walker argued.

"If he had, he'd have told you."

"There's that," Walker agreed. The rectory was just coming into view. Walker, peering through the windscreen, said, "Who is that?"

Rutledge could see the man some twenty yards from the rectory gate. He pointed the motorcar's bonnet in that direction so that the headlamps pinned the man in their great twin beams.

Walker exclaimed, "Look, it's Rector! Is he all right?"

Rutledge slowed as they reached the man standing staring into the light, as if mesmerized by it.

"I was just looking for you," he said as he recognized Rutledge and the constable in the vehicle. "But they told me at The Fishermen's Arms that you'd gone out. I've remembered something. I think it may be important."