A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [41]
“Put yourself in the murderer’s shoes,” Rutledge suggested to the young man as they drove past the square and out of Marling on the way to Seelyham. “How well would you need to know this part of Kent, in order to find a quiet place for a killing?”
Constable Weaver brightened, as if no one had asked his opinion before. “I’d say ours are fairly well-traveled roads,” he answered after a moment’s thought. “Anyone coming down them in the direction of Marling would see the empty stretches. You’d only have to keep in mind where.”
Which meant, Hamish pointed out, that the possibilities were wide open.
“Were the three dead men heavy drinkers?”
“They’d not say no to a pint, sir, if someone was buying. They didn’t have the money for much else.”
“They hadn’t developed a taste for wine, in France?”
“There’s a story about that, now you mention it. Some of the Marling men took shelter during a storm in a burned-out French farmhouse. It had a wine cellar, and the men helped themselves. They were sick as dogs for two days, after drinking the lot.” Weaver chuckled. “Tommy Bilson brought home the silver cream jug he found there under a mattress. And it shined up something wonderful. I told him I ought to arrest him for stealing it.” He suddenly remembered who sat beside him in the motorcar and cast an anxious glance in Rutledge’s direction.
It was as old as warfare, this propensity to appropriate souvenirs. Rutledge had seen countless small acquisitions while boxing up possessions of the men he’d lost. There had been no way to discover where these objects had come from, much less who might have owned them once. For the most part he’d closed his eyes to them and sent them home. One of the most touching had been silver buttons, for a bride who would never wear them to the altar. . . .
Weaver pointed just ahead, where a line of trees marched along a winding stretch of road, giving some protection from the sun or rain. Rutledge pulled the motorcar to the verge. The constable was saying, “Seelyham’s not more than three miles in that direction. Inspector Grimes was called to have a look at what a farmer had found, and he sent for us.”
They got out to stand by the trunk of an ash tree. Its thickness offered an ideal place for a man to rest if he was drunk or tired. Shadowed by tall grass and the branches overhead, it was also an ideal spot where a body might be disposed of.
There were no cottages or farms within sight just here, no windows overlooking the road, but a hundred yards or so in the direction of Marling an overgrown drive wound between leaning stone pillars to a house protected from view by trees and a thick shrubbery. Only its roof and several chimneys were visible over the treetops. Too far away to hear anything, too far to see the road. Still . . .
“Who lives there?” Rutledge asked, pointing out the gates.
“Nobody now. The family died, and the lawyers are trying to find the heirs. Gone to New Zealand for a fresh start, or so I’m told.”
“Tell me about this first victim. What was his name? Taylor?”
“That’s right. Will Taylor. He worked in the hop gardens before the war. But there’s not much call for a one-legged man in that line. He’d found a job in Seelyham, putting up a fence that had blown down with the last storm. Good with his hands, and married, with two children.”
“Did you know him?” Rutledge asked. Weaver had missed the war by a matter of months, too young to serve, but probably eager.
“He was my brother’s age—Simon was lost off Gallipoli, when his ship went down,” Weaver replied somberly. “And I know Taylor’s wife, as well. Alice was in school with my sister. Too young to marry, but her mother signed the papers.”
“The sort of man who’d find himself mixed up with something he ought to leave alone?” Rutledge asked, looking up and down the quiet road.
“I never knew Will to be dishonest. He used to complain about the hop pickers from the East End. Light-fingered and always after the girls, he’d say.”
Hop picking was labor-intensive. Help was