The Confession - Charles Todd [103]
“His solicitors have had no word of him. I’ve spoken to them.”
There was a sadness in her voice that she couldn’t quite conceal. “Justin went his own way, and Wyatt has been damaged by the war. Ben is dead. It makes me aware of how fleeting life is. How little we can hold on to anyone or anything. I wish I could understand why he’d been the way he was. What the shadows were in his life.”
It wasn’t his place to tell her about Justin Fowler’s past. But he said, “Something happened before he came to River’s Edge. The shadows were there before you knew him.”
She nodded. “Thank you for telling me that. It helps. I always had the feeling that he was waiting. For something to happen or someone to come. It was one of the reasons he didn’t go into Furnham. He liked the isolation of River’s Edge. He told Aunt Elizabeth once that he felt safe there. I know, because I happened to overhear him.”
He thought about the boy Justin Fowler had been. His parents had been murdered, he himself had nearly been killed. Was he afraid that the unknown killer would come for him one day and finish what he’d begun? It was a dreadful burden for a child to bear.
“If he went to River’s Edge on one of his leaves, how would he have got there?”
“Aunt Elizabeth’s motorcar. Harold Finley brought it to London when he enlisted and stored it in the mews behind Wyatt’s house. All of us used it from time to time. Mostly it just sat there, of course. But I drove it to Dover once, and another time to Cornwall for a friend’s wedding.”
“Do you remember who used it in the summer of 1915?”
“No, of course not. Not now. I can tell you that the few times I wished to borrow it, it was always there in the mews.”
As he rose to leave, she said, “There’s something I just remembered. The first warm weather we had, after he’d come to River’s Edge, we went swimming in the river. I saw Justin’s chest. It was horribly scarred. I asked him what caused them. He said he’d been in hospital for a long time. I thought he meant he’d had some sort of surgery. It explained how pale and thin he was. I was young, easily put off. But I realize now the scars were not the sort that come from surgery. I helped with the wounded during the war—reading to them, writing letters, keeping their minds off their suffering. It never occurred to me at the time—those scars of his were wounds.”
He said nothing.
“Did his parents—were they responsible?”
“Not his parents,” Rutledge replied. “A stranger.”
“Dear God. I wish someone had told me. I wish I’d known.”
“I don’t think Mrs. Russell wanted you to know. She understood that it was important to forget.”
“But did she tell Wyatt?”
“Probably not. For the same reason.”
She took a deep breath. “If you find him, will you let me know—if he’s all right?”
“If that’s what he wants me to do.”
And she had to be satisfied with that.
Chapter 19
The first person Rutledge met as he walked into the hospital was a nursing sister he had dealt with earlier. As they walked together to the ward where the Major was being kept under observation, he asked if there had been any change in his condition.
She reported, “He’s been rather restless, and the doctors are quite concerned about a fever. That would mean infection. He needs sleep, but he keeps trying to remember what happened to him.” She paused, then said diplomatically, “It might be best if the rector left for a time. There would be less temptation to talk.”
Russell had in fact dropped into a light sleep when Rutledge walked into the ward. Morrison was not there, and so Rutledge took the empty chair by the bed.
He himself had left River’s Edge at a little after two the previous night. And he had seen no one, had heard no shots. Morrison had told him that the Major had left the Rectory after one o’clock. Where had he been between half past one and half past two? Or to look at this problem another way, who had encountered Russell on the road—or in the marshes? Was it a planned meeting—or simply opportune?
Who came to the house at night, who kept those terrace doors unlocked