The Confession - Charles Todd [25]
Behind the bar, with its gleaming brass, the wood polished from age and generations of elbows, stood a very tall, thin man with receding gray hair. He straightened when he saw that the newcomer wasn’t a regular, and he watched Rutledge stride toward him without a word of welcome. His eyes gave away nothing, but there was a tightening in the muscles around his mouth.
His first words were, “Police, are you?” The men at the two tables turned to stare.
“My name is Rutledge,” he began without further identification, and as he passed the photograph across the bar, he repeated what he’d said before, that he was searching for the man’s family.
“Coming into money, are they?” the man asked.
“I won’t know until I succeed in finding them.”
“How did he die, then?”
“He was found in the river.”
The barkeep’s eyebrows rose, his first sign of interest. “In the Hawking?”
“Nearby,” Rutledge replied. After all, the Thames passed Tilbury. That, in terms of distances in this part of Essex, could be called nearby.
“Never seen him before,” the man said finally.
“How long have you been barkeep here?”
The question was met with silence.
“My guess is a good ten years,” Rutledge continued. “I’m told the dead man once lived here in Furnham. I should think you’d know your custom by face if not by name.”
“I have a very poor memory,” the barkeep answered him, and lifting his voice, he asked, “You there, at the corner table.”
The man had gone back to his sandwich and now looked up, his craggy brows lifted in surprise at being addressed.
“Have I ever called you by name?”
The man at the table hesitated.
“Well, have I?”
“No. Never,” the man responded at last, taking his cue from the barkeep’s tone of voice.
“There, you see?” he said to Rutledge. “And do I remember,” he went on, to the cribbage players, “do I remember your favorite beverage when you come in?”
They shook their heads, eyes wary as they stared from Rutledge to the publican and back again.
“Sorry I can’t be of help, Mr. Rutledge or whoever you are. But there it is.”
Rutledge said, “Then how could you tell that I was a stranger?”
That caught the man off guard just as he was beginning to grin at his own cleverness.
“You’d have asked what I’d have. Instead you identified me as a policeman.”
The barkeep pushed the photograph back across the bar.
“No one here can help you,” he retorted. “You’d be better off looking elsewhere, if you take my meaning.”
“Scotland Yard doesn’t take kindly to threats. I’ll have you closed down within the day.”
“On what charges?” the man demanded.
“The bar is greasy with spilled beer. The plates you’ve used to serve those men have leftover food clinging to them. And this floor is so filthy I should think a meal here would send a healthy man to his grave. The Chief Constable will be glad to know of these conditions. And as he isn’t likely to trouble himself to travel all the way to Furnham, he’ll take my word for what I’ve seen.”
“It’s all a lie. You wouldn’t dare—”
“Try me,” Rutledge said, his voice cold. And he turned toward the door, ignoring the barkeep, who was shouting abuse after him.
Rutledge had almost reached the door, his back to the bar, when Hamish said, “ ’Ware!”
He turned in time to see the man coming toward him, the heavy wooden club usually kept behind the bar raised in one hand. Rutledge had expected no less.
“Put that down, you fool. Killing me won’t stop the Yard, and you know it.”
The barkeep hesitated, a flash of uncertainty in his eyes. And then it was gone, and his intent was clear—he would finish what he’d begun.
In the next instant he was bent back over the bar, the club across his throat, and Rutledge was saying through clenched teeth as he put pressure on the length of wood, “If anyone else in this room moves, I’ll break his damned neck.”
There was a scraping of chair legs against the floor as the other patrons hastily sat down.
“Now,” Rutledge said to the