A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [61]
“We’re holding the Inquest tomorrow. And it will be adjourned. I need more time,” he answered, trying to keep the tenseness, the uncertainty out of his voice.
There was an appreciative silence at the other end of the line, and then Bowles asked, “I’m being pushed for results myself, you know; I can’t put them off with ‘Rutledge needs more time.’ What kind of progress have you made?”
“We’ve found the shotgun. At least, I think we have. The owner has witnesses that place him elsewhere at the time of the murder, but the general consensus is, he’s got the best motive for killing the Colonel. The problem is, I don’t see what it achieved—why now? This feud between them is of long standing. Why not twenty years ago, when it all started? But the man’s house is unlocked, it’s isolated, and anyone who knew about the shotgun could have walked in and taken it. And several people did know. It would have been a simple matter to put it back afterward. I’m presently exploring who had the best opportunity.”
“Not Captain Wilton, I do hope?”
Rutledge answered reluctantly. “Among others, yes.”
“The Palace will have a collective stroke if word of that leaks out. For God’s sake, say nothing until you’re absolutely sure!”
“Which is why I need more time,” Rutledge pointed out reasonably. “Can we afford to make a mistake? Either way?”
“Very well. But keep me informed, will you? I’ve got people breathing down my neck. I can go out on a limb for you at the moment, but we’ll need something soon or heads may start to roll. Mine among them!”
“Yes, I understand. I’ll call you on Monday morning. At the latest.”
He waited, let the silence drag on, but Bowles had finished and cut the connection.
Rutledge hung up, unable to see the pleased smile at the other end of the line as Bowles replaced the receiver. The situation in Warwickshire, in Bowles’s opinion, was progressing exactly as he had planned.
Still turning their conversation over in his mind, Rutledge told himself that the exchange had gone well enough. The Yard wanted answers, yes, but it was also prepared to accept his judgment in the field rather than forcing him into hasty decisions. A sign that nothing had been held back intentionally?
Badly needed encouragement, then, whether the Yard realized it or not—he should feel only a sense of relief.
But Hamish, who had a knack for cutting to the heart of Rutledge’s moods, asked softly, “Why hasn’t he asked about Hickam, then?”
Stopping by Warren’s surgery as he walked toward the Inn, Rutledge asked the housekeeper for a report on Hickam.
“He’s still alive, if that’s any help. But he just lays there, for all the world a dead man. Do you want to know what I think?” She gave him a penetrating look. “He’s gone away, so far back into that mad war he came from that he can’t find his way home again. While he’s there on the bed, not moving, not seeing, not hearing, I keep wondering what’s happening inside his head. Where we can’t follow him.”
“God only knows,” Rutledge answered her, not wanting to think about it.
She frowned. “Do you suppose he’s afraid? I watched him on the street sometimes, and saw the anger in him, and the strangeness that unsettled everybody—well, of course it was unsettling, we didn’t know what to do about it, whether to ignore him or shout at him or lock him up! But when he was sober I saw the fear too, and that worried me. I’d not like to think that wherever he’s gone, he’s taken the fear with him, as well as the horrors of the war. When he can’t move, he can’t run from it.”
Rutledge considered her. “I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “You’re probably the only person in the town who cares.”
“I’ve seen too much suffering in my life not to recognize it, even in a drunkard,” she said. “And that man suffered. Whatever he did in the war, good or evil, he’s paid for it every hour since. You’ll remember that, won’t you, when and if you can talk to him? I don’t suppose you were in the war, but pity is something even a policeman ought to understand. And