A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [96]
The astonishment of it was still in his voice. “I saw you kneel and start to do something with a dressing. And then everything went black. I thought he’d probably kill you as well, but when I asked the men who’d found me, they said there wasn’t another body. Just mine. I decided you’d simply walked away, and never looked back.”
Rutledge drew a harsh breath. “I don’t know what happened after that. I suppose someone thought at first I was a released prisoner. Later—back in England—someone came to visit me in hospital. Out of curiosity, I expect. Or the doctors may have sent for him. But I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. And the nursing sister came and took him away.” He cleared his throat.
He couldn’t tell this man, dressed in ordinary civilian clothes and a long way from the Front, how badly shell-shocked he’d been. How confused those months in hospital had been.
“Head wounds,” Hauser was saying. “They do strange things.” He made as if to shrug it off, as if it were too far in the past to matter anyway. “The question now is, what are you to do with me?” He swallowed the rest of his whisky at a gulp, set down the jam jar, and waited, his eyes fixed on Rutledge’s face.
23
RUTLEDGE GOT TO HIS FEET, ONE OF HIS LEG MUSCLES CRAMPING, and lifted the dressing on Hauser’s chest. The blood had stopped running and was beginning to make dark clots along the edge of the wound. He thought, It must be painful for the man to breathe. . . .
Hamish said, reversing fields, “If ye take him to the police, they’ll clap him in irons and close the case.”
Silently arguing, Rutledge said, “He’s probably guilty.”
“Aye. But first ye find the one that did the wounding . . . and why.”
Aloud Rutledge answered the question Hauser had asked. “I could take you in, let them charge you, and come to the hanging. Or I could leave you here until I’ve looked into your story. I don’t think you’re up to walking far.”
Hauser gave a grunting laugh. “Not tonight. I won’t promise tomorrow.”
Rutledge turned and examined the cupboards. The German had brought in tins, bread, a sausage, and a bowl of apples. There was cheese wrapped in a cloth, and the pitcher for water.
Watching him, Hauser said, “I couldn’t risk a fire. Smoke rising from the chimney would have attracted attention. I’ve bathed and shaved in cold water. No different from life in the trenches, when you think about it. Although we were a damned sight more comfortable in ours than you were in yours.”
Which was true.
“I’ll leave the decanters here. For the pain, not to give you Dutch courage for an escape. Does Mrs. Mayhew know where you are living? Is she likely to come here searching for you?”
Outraged, Hauser swore. “Mein Gott, nein! No!” He struggled to get to his feet and failed. “She and I have met, yes, but she knows nothing about me. I have Dutch papers. She came into the church in Marling, where I was trying to stay warm, out of the wind. She thought I was praying. We talked about the greenery she was bringing for the service that Wednesday evening. I’d seen something much like it in the gardens around this house, so I thought she might have come here. I was worried. But she had found them on her own property. Then we talked about the flatness of Holland, and the tulips. I met her again on the train to London, quite by accident. We talked about the war, and books, whatever we could think of. We have only talked.”
But for a lonely woman, Rutledge thought, companionship was precious, and a meeting of minds was but a stepping-stone to wishful thinking. . . .
He left then, still unsure how far he could trust the German, and drove back through the gates, toward Marling. Tired to the bone, he ignored Hamish and concentrated on the road. Dairy cows were making their way to pasture, streaming across just ahead of him, forcing him to