The Confession - Charles Todd [129]
“Why do you think it stopped for five years? The killing?”
“I expect whoever he is, he was satisfied. And Wyatt stayed away. There was no temptation. No opportunity.”
“Did you know that Cynthia Farraday often went out to River’s Edge for the day? She was there fairly often, I expect, and a perfect target.”
But he remembered—she borrowed a launch. There was no telltale motorcar outside the gates. Still, there could have been an encounter—it was only a matter of luck that she hadn’t been seen by whoever watched the house.
“Dear God.” Fowler seemed to fold into himself, hunched over, almost as if he were in physical pain.
“Why didn’t you tell the police what you suspected when Mrs. Russell vanished?”
Fowler roused himself to stare at Rutledge. “I told you. I hoped it was all my imagination. Besides, the Tilbury police didn’t know about my past. I was afraid that if I told them, they’d think I’d run mad. The Colchester police were suspicious enough. In the beginning, if they could have shown that I’d killed my parents, they would have been very pleased. I was young, but not so young that I didn’t understand where their questions were leading. If I’d reported a body at River’s Edge, what do you think would have happened? I’d have been the chief suspect. I decided to let the fishermen report him for me. Four people dead, Rutledge, and I was present each time. What’s more, I don’t think Tilbury would have any better luck finding the killer than Colchester had done.”
“But they never reported a body.”
“Are you sure? Did you ask that man Nelson? The constable? They should have found him in the shallows. I’d emptied my pockets and put everything in his. I was in such a funk I forgot and left the pounds he was carrying and my own in the wallet.”
“How much money was there?”
“I don’t know. I had almost fifty pounds with me because I was expecting to stay in a hotel in London for a few days. He could have had twenty or so. I cursed myself, I can tell you. That money would have made my disappearance a lot smoother. I dared not touch my inheritance.”
Had Jessup found the corpse—and just as his ancestor had done aboard The Dragonfly, had he taken the pounds and left the body in the water?
Jessup had much to answer for.
“You gave no thought to Finley’s family?”
“He had none. That’s why he went into service. But he was a decent chap, and I thought long and hard about what I was doing. He was still serving us, in a way. And if after the war, Wyatt reopened the house, he’d be all right. Safe.”
Rutledge remembered the man he’d seen at the landing. Looking. Waiting.
After a time he said, “Is there anyone—anyone at all—who could have been stalking your family before they were killed? Anyone you felt the slightest suspicion of ?”
“I was eleven.”
“Sometimes children see more clearly.”
“Do you think he would have taken that risk? That he’d be among the people the police interviewed?”
“I’ll have to look through the statements the Colchester police took at the time. Meanwhile, what will you do? Where will you go? Is there a way to contact you?”
“I’ve made a life of sorts for myself. Perhaps not what I’d have wanted, if none of this had happened. But I was content. You can imagine what I felt when I read about Wyatt in the Times. My God, that was a shock, I can tell you. I had to make a choice then. I had to come forward.”
Hamish spoke suddenly in the stillness of the motorcar. “Do ye trust him?”
And Rutledge, weighing all the evidence, wasn’t sure.
“I shall go to Colchester tomorrow and look for the statements. Meanwhile, there’s something you should know.”
He told