A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [135]
Rutledge left then, knowing it was too late but driving anyway as fast as he dared toward Pockets, the house where Rebecca Parkinson lived.
When he got there, Sarah’s motorcar was gone. He wasn’t surprised, but she hadn’t passed him on the road, and he thought he knew where else she might have gone.
And he’d guessed right. She was at Partridge Fields, sitting in the motorcar just outside the gates, crying.
He pulled up behind her and got out. She looked up, and said, “You’ve done enough damage. Go away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. I went to Rebecca to ask what we were to do, she and I. And she said there was nothing we could do. If you arrested us, so be it.”
“A charge of murder is a very serious matter.”
He looked up. Rebecca Parkinson was peddling toward them on her bicycle. She hesitated when she saw Rutledge’s car pulled in behind her sister’s. And then she came on, resolute.
“Sarah? Are you all right? I was worried,” she said, ignoring Rutledge.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Come inside. It’s one of Martha’s days. She may still be here. She can make us some tea.”
“I’m not sure I want to go in.”
“Then why did you come?”
“There was nowhere else to go.” It was said with great sadness.
“I know. Come along in, and it will be all right, I promise you.”
Sarah cast a glance in Rutledge’s direction. “What about him?” she asked her sister. “I don’t think I can bear any more.”
“If he comes after us, I’ll have him up on charges of trespassing.” Rebecca turned to Rutledge, challenging him to argue with her.
Leaving the motorcar where it stood in the middle of the road, Sarah opened her door and crossed to where her sister was still astride the bicycle.
Rutledge waited.
Sarah said, her back to him, “There’s something you’ve forgotten, Mr. Rutledge. In your concern for my father, and whatever justice it is you seem to want for him, you didn’t have to live in this house all your life. We did. Push too hard, and we could choose the way out that our mother chose, because right now there isn’t much left of our future. If you really want justice, what about a little for us? As for those men in the cottages, I’m sorry about them, but I didn’t know them, and neither did Rebecca. I won’t take their deaths on my soul.”
Rutledge said, “Your father is dead. He doesn’t care now what you think of him, what you owe him, or what he made you suffer. For all you know, his own life was as wretched as yours.”
Sarah started through the gate, still not looking at him. “Then we’re even, aren’t we, he and the two of us.”
Rebecca followed her, propping her bicycle just inside.
There was triumph now in the glance she cast over her shoulder toward Rutledge.
Hamish said, “She’s got her sister under her spell.”
And they were gone up the path, walking side by side in silence.
Rutledge swore. It was as if they drew their strength from each other, secure in the knowledge that if neither of them confessed what they knew, there was nothing the law could do to them.
Hamish reminded him that one of the lorry drivers had seen a woman alone and crying in a motorcar drawn to the side of the road, near Wayland’s Smith.
“I’ll give you odds,” he answered aloud, “that it was Sarah, while her sister returned their father’s motorcar to the shed. Waiting to take her back to Pockets when it was finished.”
The timing would be about right, although it would be hard to prove exactly which night that was. Or find the lorry driver who had seen her.
It was late, but there was still one thing he could do. He drove back to the crossroads and began searching for a doctor’s surgery. If Butler had been called to attend Mrs. Parkinson during her pregnancy, he must be near enough to summon at need. And whoever took over his practice might still have Butler’s records.
In a village not two miles distant to the west, he found the first of them, and then another just a little farther to the east. A third was due north. But none of them had treated the Parkinson family, or knew what had become of Dr. Butler’s records.
He kept moving,