The Confession - Charles Todd [138]
“I’ll see to it. Thank you.”
“Are you hurt?” the doctor said, looking him up and down.
“I’m all right,” Rutledge said again, and the doctor reluctantly let him go.
But he was stopped once more as he was about to leave the ward. A very angry man stood on the threshold, asking for the gunshot victims.
He was Inspector Hayes of the Tilbury Constabulary, and he’d been in the maternity ward with his wife when he heard there had been a shooting.
It took Rutledge another quarter of an hour to pacify him. “It’s Inspector Robinson’s case, in Colchester,” Rutledge said. “If you disagree, take it up with him.”
And as he walked out the door, he was fairly certain that Hayes would indeed contact Robinson.
Once more in his motorcar, he cursed Hayes for wasting precious time. He was fairly sure that Morrison would be unable to escape, but he felt an urgency he couldn’t explain.
He was already into the turning for Furnham and the River Hawking, when he saw the van coming toward him. He didn’t know the driver, but he recognized the van. He’d left it sitting outside the Rectory.
Someone from the village had found it, and he had a sinking feeling that whoever it was had found Morrison as well.
Picking up speed, driving with attention fueled by the certainty that he was too late, he covered the miles as best he could. But he could see even before he’d reached the Rectory that Morrison was free. His bonds lay scattered across the grass, and the cottage was empty when he stepped inside.
Rutledge took the time to search each room as well as the back garden, alert for an ambush at any moment.
Where had Morrison gone? To the village?
No, he couldn’t be sure who beside Jessup and Barber knew the truth. The village was for all intents and purposes a trap.
“In the van,” Hamish said. “As far away as he can go.”
Possible. Very possible. Still, he hadn’t been driving. And Rutledge had a feeling he hadn’t chosen to go that far. Not yet. There was unfinished business to attend to first. He knew Rutledge would be coming back for him, and he intended to choose his ground for that encounter.
Rutledge had taken Morrison’s revolver. But there were other guns in the case in the house at River’s Edge.
Had the van carried him that far? Or had he gone by way of a shortcut through the marshes? He’d said once that he didn’t know his way through them, but that had been a lie. The only way he could have reached River’s Edge ahead of Major Russell was to take an even shorter path.
Retrieving his torch from where Jessup had dropped it, Rutledge went back to his motorcar.
When he reached River’s Edge, he left his motorcar by the gates for what he hoped would be the last time. And after removing the revolver from the boot and shoving it under his coat, he walked up the overgrown drive.
There were shotguns in the glass case in the study. The question was, did Morrison know where to find the shells?
“Ye ken, he was in and oot of yon house often enough. It wouldna’ take him verra’ long to find them and load.”
As carefully as he’d trod the dark approaches to No Man’s Land, looking for snipers, Rutledge walked toward the house.
The sun was bright, but not bright enough to penetrate the deeper shadows. He moved cautiously, watching for movement, for the slightest sign that he had been seen. There was nothing he could do about the upper windows overlooking the drive. And so he ignored them. The undergrowth and the untrimmed trees offered more immediate danger.
The final sprint across the open lawn leading to the main door took him to the shelter of the house, and he pressed himself against the warm brick while he caught his breath.
Still no sign of Morrison.
Perhaps, Rutledge thought, I was wrong. He was in that van, out of sight among the crates and boxes.
But he had to be sure, and after two minutes, when nothing had happened, he quietly moved around the house toward the riverfront and the terrace, ducking under windows where a watcher could see him.
He reached the corner of the house,