The Confession - Charles Todd [70]
“I’m on my way to Essex,” he told her. “I shan’t be able to reach you, but I have a feeling that Russell is returning to River’s Edge.”
“My understanding is that the house is closed, the staff dismissed,” she said, doubt in her voice.
“That’s true. But given his present state of mind, he may not care.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Inspector. I shall look forward to hearing from you again.”
“And should he turn up meanwhile, will you call Sergeant Gibson at the Yard and leave a message for me?”
She promised, and he rang off.
After a brief stop at his flat, he drove out of London. It would be dark well before he reached his destination, and given his lack of sleep the night before, he ought to wait until morning. But in Essex, he would also be out of reach of recall.
“He doesna’ have his revolver with him,” Hamish said some time later. “If he didna’ go to yon house.”
“Not unless he stopped at the London house before he went to see Miss Farraday. But I don’t think he would risk that. Not before he spoke to her. The question is, what weapons are in the Essex house?”
“Ye ken, his father was in the Boer War.”
“He was buried in South Africa. There’s no way of knowing whether his service revolver was sent home in his trunk.”
“Or if he kens where it is.”
“It’s too bad that Willet—when he was confessing to the murder of Justin Fowler in Russell’s place—didn’t tell me how the victim was killed.”
Some miles outside London Rutledge stopped for petrol, and then realizing that he hadn’t eaten for nearly two days, he drove on to a pub overlooking the Thames and ordered his dinner. It was slow in coming.
Darkness was falling by the time he was on the road again, the sun a deep red ball behind him, the last of its rays reflected in the Thames, flickering on the current. Ahead, over the North Sea, the sky was a luminous purple.
Hamish said, “It’s best to wait until daylight.”
“But safer in the dark,” Rutledge answered aloud. “He won’t see me coming.”
He stopped briefly for a cup of strong tea when the food he’d eaten made him drowsy. Then he drove on, the night air warm in the motorcar and adding to his drowsiness. At length he picked up the pitted road that followed the Hawking east toward Furnham, where there was only starlight to guide him, and his headlamps tunneled through the darkness, marking his way. The wheel bucking under his hands was enough to bring him fully awake again.
The gates of River’s Edge were ghostly as the glare of his headlamps picked them up just ahead, alternately white and shadowed.
He drove past them some little distance, and then stopped the motorcar, turning off the headlamps. Taking out his torch but not flicking it on, he walked down the middle of the road as far as the house gates, guarding his night vision.
Reaching the gates, he stood for a moment, listening to the night. The marsh grasses whispered to themselves, and he could hear scurrying as small creatures hunted and were hunted. Insects sang in the warm darkness, or perhaps they were frogs of some sort.
But there was no sound of a man moving on the overgrown drive. It wasn’t likely that Russell was just ahead of him, but there was no way of knowing how successful the Major had been finding transportation. Rutledge knew he couldn’t afford to be careless.
He used the mental map from his previous visits to guide him now. Up the drive, striving to keep to the flattened paths that he’d made before, he took his time. If Russell wasn’t here now, he would surely come at some point, and there was no need to make him unduly nervous.
The night felt empty, like a house where no one was at home—indeed, like Russell’s house in London. But he still took no chances. Alert, slowly feeling his way, keeping to the shadows,