The Confession - Charles Todd [30]
Had worry for her son really taken her there? And had that worry been strong enough to drive the woman to suicide?
Nevertheless, she’d vanished. The police had been satisfied. Still, it was possible that they had heard what they wanted to hear. And when there was no evidence to the contrary, it was easier to accept the unlikely.
Nor had her son questioned the verdict or appealed to the Chief Constable for Scotland Yard to intervene.
It would be easier to accept a confession by the false Wyatt Russell that he had killed his mother, not Justin Fowler.
That brought up another issue. Would Elizabeth Russell have killed herself and left behind the three children that she had once thanked God for giving her?
There seemed to be no good reason to suspect murder.
Unless, of course, Wyatt Russell had learned almost a year later that Fowler had killed his mother and hidden her body.
If that was the case, how did Ben Willet come to have Mrs. Russell’s locket?
Standing there watching the river moving silently toward the North Sea, he found himself wondering why, when Mrs. Russell had disappeared, the family had sent for the police in Tilbury, more than an hour away. And it had been Tilbury who had asked for the help of the villagers, not Wyatt Russell.
On both occasions when he’d been in Furnham, Rutledge had seen neither a police constable walking along the street nor a police station. He himself hadn’t sought out the local man because he was still in the early stages of the inquiry and Willet’s murder had occurred in London, not River’s Edge. But there must be a constable in the village. Surely—
A woman’s angry voice cut into his reverie, and Hamish was warning him to beware.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing? This is private property!” She came striding through the French doors at his back, and he knew her as soon as he turned, although the expression of the living face was very different from the one in the locket he had carried with him to Furnham.
“Miss Farraday, I think?” he asked pleasantly and watched her go as still as if she had been carved from marble.
“Who are you?” Her voice was guarded, cold.
“My name is Rutledge,” he told her. “And I may ask you the same question. What are you doing here? This property, as far as I know, was not left to you by the previous owner.”
It was a shot in the dark, but it struck a spark.
“Are you Wyatt’s solicitor?” she snapped.
“At the moment I’m representing him,” Rutledge replied.
She was very attractive, with more spirit than he’d expected from her photograph. She had also changed in other ways. There was a maturity about her that wasn’t present six years ago. The girl had grown into a very self-assured young woman.
“I’m looking to buy the property. Is it for sale?” she asked. “Is that why you’re here?”
“Even in its present sad condition, I doubt that you could afford to buy it and then keep it up.”
An angry flush flared in her cheeks. “I have come into my inheritance,” she retorted. “You can speak to my own solicitors if you don’t believe me.”
“How did you arrive here? I didn’t see a motorcar or a carriage in the drive.”
“I came by boat.”
But he hadn’t seen a boat by the landing stage either.
“It’s a launch, I rented it upriver. It’s tied up out of sight.” She read the doubt in his face. “There’s another place where a boat can tie up.”
“The tradesman’s entrance?”
To his surprise she laughed. “Yes, as a matter of fact. The Russell who built River’s Edge didn’t wish to see viands and coal and other goods carried across his hard-won lawn. The path leads directly to the kitchen. What do you do, come here once a fortnight to see that all is well? I noticed, when last I came, that someone had walked up the drive. The grasses were bent over, and even broken here and there.”
“How often do you come?”
“When the spirit moves me,” she countered.
“How did you get into the house?”
“When I left, no one thought to ask me for my key.”
“When did you leave?”
“Before the war,” she answered evasively.