Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [119]
Rutledge lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, his eyes following the pale ripples of light that clouds threw across the beautifully plastered finish as they moved in front of the half-moon.
Hamish talked about the War, about the men they’d lived with for days at a time in the trenches and in the holding areas, waiting for their turn. Most read, talked, played cards, wrote letters home, anything to while away the hours of boredom before the wild wash of fear when they were ordered to fall in. No one spoke of the dead, then. It was not superstition as much as dread that this time their own names would be added to the long rolls of missing, wounded, and killed. This time, they wouldn’t come back. The chances were never good. Luck—sometimes skill—sometimes mere instinct—could change the odds in your favor. But there were so many dead, so many. As if the War were a monstrous beast, hungry for flesh and impatient for bodies.
No man who had fought in battle remembered it afterward without the rich coloring of his own fears. Scenes replayed themselves in slow motion, unwinding like a ribbon of terror, and a soldier’s greatest fear was that his own gut-wrenching cowardice would let his mates down. And so he was brave in spite of himself, but never brave enough, never able to save them all, and he dragged the unlucky ones back to the trenches while they screamed to him to leave them, it hurt too much, and he held them as they died, and all the while furtively thanked God that he himself was whole. Only to lie awake at night, drowning in guilt because he had lived somehow.
Was that the fear that May Trent carried with her? That she had let the elderly woman in her care die? That somehow in darkness and terror and confusion, she had let go of a hand, to save herself—hurried too fast, to save herself—been blind, when she should have seen—
Guilt was what scoured the soul after it was over. And she would protect the darkness because it was comforting. Or because she feared the truth about herself.
Was that enough to drive her to murder, when Father James pushed her to remember—? He’d have turned his back on her . . . unwitting. Perhaps walk to the window and look out at the night while she found her handkerchief and pretended to wipe away tears. And she would have found it easy to silence the voice that was, somehow, reaching into the depths of her mind and hurting.
What had Dr. Stephenson said? That Father James had had such a beautiful voice and knew how to use it as a tool of his work.
Hamish growled, “Yon Inspector wouldna’ care whether it was Walsh or this woman he hanged. Ye ken, it doesna’ matter as long as it isna’ someone from Osterley.”
Drifting into sleep, Rutledge heard himself answer. “Virginia Sedgwick wasn’t from Osterley, either. . . .”
CHAPTER 19
RUTLEDGE AWOKE FROM A DEEP SLEEP to the sound of thunder. The guns, he thought, as he tried to shake off the dullness that weighed so heavily on his body, like a mattress, muffling and distorting the noise. They’ve started firing again—
He could hear one of the Sergeants calling his name, and cleared his throat to answer, but couldn’t.
And then sleep fell away and he realized there was a pounding on his door, and the voice calling him wasn’t one he knew.
Rising swiftly, he went to open the door and found a young constable standing there, blood on his cheek and shoulder, his face white. Rutledge struggled to recall his name. Franklin—
“Inspector Blevins asks, sir, if you’ll come straightaway.”
Rutledge opened the door wider. “Yes, all right. Tell me what’s happened.” He crossed to the chair by the window and began to dress, adding a sweater under his coat.
The constable was saying, “All hell’s broke loose, sir!” His voice was still high-pitched from shock, but steady enough. “That man Walsh has escaped—he struck me over the head and was gone before I could do anything. When I got my senses back, I ran to wake up