The Confession - Charles Todd [39]
Had they known anything about Ben Willet’s death? Or had they believed that it was only an excuse to look into other matters?
The inn was only a short distance ahead, but Rutledge waited until he was certain there were no watchers guarding the backs of the three men. He was just about to move when someone detached himself from the recessed doorway of The Rowing Boat and turned to jog up the High Street, disappearing into the small village school.
He waited another ten minutes, in case the watcher left the school and went home. Finally, satisfied that he was in the clear, he stepped quietly out of the shadow of the plane tree and walked without haste toward the inn.
Rutledge had seen Barber—or in point of fact, heard him—at the kitchen door of the inn hardly more than an hour ago. Therefore he couldn’t have been one of the three coming up from the river. Nor was he the watcher in the pub’s doorway, for that man was smaller in stature. Still, Rutledge wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Barber was the force behind the smuggling.
Smuggling wasn’t unheard of along the southern coast of England even in this day. Fisherman had long ago learned that they could supplement their meager living from the sea by dropping in at a French port and making quiet arrangements with their opposite numbers. War or peace, men needed to eat, and His Majesty’s Excise be damned. But this last war, with submarines as well as Naval vessels and German raiders patrolling the seas, must have curtailed the usual cross-Channel trade, much less fishing. Times would have been hard for villages like Furnham. The question was, why had the village turned its back on the airfield, which could have brought in much-needed revenue to the shops and pub?
He reached The Dragonfly without incident and, as silently as possible, climbed the stairs to his room. The innkeeper was nowhere in sight. And his room was as he’d left it. No one had come in to search it in his absence.
Rutledge wouldn’t have put it past the inn’s owner.
The next morning, Rutledge was grudgingly served his breakfast in the small dining room overlooking the street. There were five tables, crowded together cheek by jowl, but he was the only guest.
“Tell me about the airfield,” he said to the young woman who was serving him.
She was pretty, fair hair tending to curls in spite of rigorous attempts to keep it out of her face, and her eyes were hazel. He wondered if this was the Molly who had brought news of Ned Willet’s death.
“I dunno much about it, sir,” she said. “I was only twelve when they came to build it, and my mother saw to it that I had nothing to do with the young men who were posted here. She said they’d break my heart by dying, and there was no use to befriend them. And she was right about the dying. We saw three of them go down out over the water, trailing smoke. I was glad I didn’t know them then.”
“Still, the airfield must have changed the way of life in Furnham. By sheer numbers if nothing else.”
She cast a wary glance toward the kitchen door, firmly shut. “It did that. There was a scuffle or two between some fishermen and the men up at the farm. After that, they were ordered to stay behind the fence, and we were left to ourselves. Still, we got to hear things. How they carried on in London on leave, like there was no reckoning tomorrow. How they took up with the girls and ruined them. How they made the younger lads restless and eager to try things they had no business trying. One of my brothers ran away to enlist. He was mad to fly, but he was only fifteen. My father had to go and fetch him home. It was a terrible time, really. The men would roar up the road in their motorcars and motorcycles, and three or four even had boats of their own, and it was hard enough fishing without them stirring up the river. We were that glad when the war ended and they went away.”
Someone in the kitchen began to bang pots and pans. She reached for his empty toast rack and hurried toward the kitchen to refill it, putting an end to any conversation.