Search the Dark - Charles Todd [9]
“In the face, mostly. Repeated blows, eight or ten, the doctor says. But there’re marks on her neck too. As if he’d caught up with her, running, and grabbed her by the throat, pulled her down, and then went for the face. That’s often what you find where jealousy is the motive—make her so hideous even in death that the rival can’t bear to look at her anymore. Doctor says the force used was savage, as if driven by terrible anger or fear.”
“And no blood on Mowbray or his clothing?”
“No. But then he could have cleaned himself up, couldn’t he? Changed shirts even. There’s no way of telling how many he’d brought with him. We found one other work shirt in his satchel, and a white one for Sunday. He might have had more.”
Rutledge closed the file. “I’d like to see Mowbray, if f may.”
Hildebrand got to his feet. “Much good it’ll do you!” he said willingly enough. “Let me fetch the key on the way.”
They went along the same dark hallway to the end, where the key was kept in a small cupboard. Then Hildebrand turned to another door just to his left and unlocked it. The iron key made a scraping sound that jangled the nerves. As the door swung open, Hildebrand said, “Someone to see you, Mowbray. Scotland Yard. On your feet, man!”
The man on the cot, lying on top of the gray blanket, slowly swung his feet to the floor and stared up at his visitors. His face was empty, and he made no effort to do more than sit, as if doing even so much had drained him of life and hope.
Rutledge picked up the chair on the far side of the narrow cell and brought it over nearer the cot. The room was wider than it was long, and there was no window. The air was stale, seeming to hover in visible layers around them as he sat down. In the back of his mind Hamish was pointing that out, over and over again. After a moment Rutledge said, “Mr. Mowbray?”
The man shifted his feet a little and nodded.
“Did you kill the woman who was found in the field? The woman dressed in pink?” Rutledge kept his voice low, quiet, no hint of accusation in it, only curiosity.
“She was my wife, I’d never harm her,” he said gruffly after a time.
“The cabby has said you threatened to kill her—” Hildebrand began from the doorway, but Rutledge waved him into silence.
“You were angry with her, weren’t you? For deceiving you, for putting you through such anguish. When you believed you’d come home and buried her with the children? And then—suddenly—she was alive, and so were they, and the first emotion you felt was anger. A great, fierce anger.”
“It was the shock—and the train wouldn’t stop—I was beside myself—I said things I didn’t mean. I’d never harm her.”
“Not even for taking your children and going to live with another man?”
Mowbray sat with his head held by the palms of his hands on either side of his temples. “I’d want to kill him” he said huskily, “for getting around her. Making her do it. I’d blame him, not her.”
“His solicitor’s just left,” Hildebrand put in again. “told him what to say. You’ve heard more from him already than I have! It’s—”
But Rutledge ignored him, cutting across the flow of words as if they hadn’t been spoken. “Where did you leave the children? Can you take us to them? Let us help them?” He waited for an answer, then added gently, “You’d not want the foxes or dogs to find them first.”
Mowbray raised his head, and the pain-filled eyes made Rutledge swear under his breath as he met them. “I don’t know,” the man said wretchedly. “I don’t know where they are. Tricia was always afraid of the dark. I’d not leave her alone out in the dark! But I can’t remember—they tell me I killed her, and my Bertie, but I can’t remember! Night and day—that’s all I can see in my mind. The children. It’s driving me mad!”
Rutledge got up from his chair. He’d seen men break, God knew he of all people could recognize the signs! There were no answers to be had now from Mowbray. The haunting images he’d seen—or been told he’d seen—had been seared deep into his brain, and separating them from reality would be nearly impossible.
Hamish, in the back of his