A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [70]
“Surely not a letter from his ward? That wouldn’t have been shoved in a sack with dozens of others and forgotten?”
This time Wilton stood up. “You’re putting words into my mouth, Rutledge. I don’t know what went wrong over Linden. I don’t suppose anyone does. I’m sure that Charles would have done his best for the pair of them, he would try to help Catherine. My God, he did what he could for anyone in Upper Streetham in one way or another, so why not her? What the War Office did is anybody’s guess. Some ignorant fool sitting at a cluttered desk in Whitehall might have felt it his personal duty to prevent any relationship between prisoners and the home population, whatever the Colonel said about it. Bad for morale and all that. And come to that, it wouldn’t have mattered; the war was nearly over, and if he’d lived, Linden could have spoken for himself. Who could have guessed that Linden would die of influenza. Still, it decimated the country, for God’s sake, no one was immune.”
“But because he was sent from here, he died alone, and no one told Catherine. Not until long afterward.”
Wilton laughed harshly. “In war you can’t keep up with every poor sod you send out to die. I was a squadron leader, I knew the hell of that. A man’s blown to bits in a trench, shot down in flames, chokes on gas and lies rotting in the mud. You do your best, you write letters about his bravery, how much he’d done for his country, how much his comrades looked to him for an example—and you don’t even recall his name, much less his face! Linden took his chances, like any soldier. At least she knows what became of him, where he’s buried!”
Rutledge watched his face, remembering how Catherine Tarrant had looked when she spoke of searching for Linden. And remembering what Sally Davenant had said about Wilton’s love of flying changing to agony in the heat of battle and death and fear.
“That’s cold comfort to a grieving, passionate woman.”
“Is it? After all the killing, I came home to a hero’s welcome. Safe and whole. Invited to the Palace and to Sandringham. Treated like royalty, myself. But I was there in a hospital in Dorset when they brought in a man they’d found wandering in France. Didn’t even know who he was, whether he was British or German—a shell of a man, starving and begging on the roadside for a year or more, more animal than human, worse than Hickam, and I looked at him, and thought, I used to have nightmares about burning to death in a crash, but there are worse things than that! Worse than being blind or without a limb, lungs seared with gas, face shot away, guts rotted. Coming home safe—and not knowing it’s over—that’s the bleakest hell I’m capable of picturing!”
Rutledge felt the blood run cold in his body. Wilton nodded and walked away, unaware of what he’d done.
In the dark recesses of his mind he heard Hamish laughing, and finished his whiskey at a gulp. It burned going down, almost bringing tears to his eyes as he fought to keep from choking. Or were the tears for himself?
Think of anything, he commanded himself roughly. Anything but that! His mind roiled with emotion, then settled into the dull pain of grief and despair. Think, man, for God’s sake!
What was it they’d been talking about? No, who? Catherine Tarrant.
What to do about Catherine Tarrant, then, how to find a key to her? Waving Redfern away and getting to his feet, the whiskey still searing his throat, he walked out of the bar.
The person to answer that question was another woman. Sally Davenant.
11
The next morning just before the Inquest Rutledge had an opportunity to ask Inspector Forrest if he knew the source of Mavers’s pension. But Forrest shook his head.
“I didn’t know he had one. But that explains why he’s never had to lift his hand to a stroke of work if he didn’t feel like it. His father served the Davenants. Ask Mrs. Davenant if she knows anything about it.”
The Inquest, held in one of the Inn’s parlors, was crowded with a cross-section of spectators who settled in early for the