Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [133]
“Yes. I suppose that’s true.” Blevins’s voice was flat. He wasn’t interested in how Walsh had died. He felt cheated and was already trying to come to terms with that.
“The doctor says when he has the man in his surgery, he’ll be able to tell if there’re any grass bits in the wound, but he’d be surprised if his first opinion changes,” Tanner finished diffidently. He had grown used to the corpse, guarding it. But the Inspector from Osterley seemed to be dazed, like a grieving relative.
Blevins got heavily to his feet, as if he’d aged ten years in the last ten hours. Looking around him at the empty hillsides and the long twist of the lane below, smoke rising from the farmhouse where a man in boots was hitching two horses to a long cart, he was silent.
“I hadn’t counted on it ending like this,” he said.
“There’s no other way it could have happened,” Tanner answered, as if Blevins had challenged his account. “If the horse wasn’t his, it might have taken exception to Walsh’s handling. Especially if he was angry about the shoe, and rough.”
Rutledge walked back to the body.
It made sense. He sat on his heels and studied Walsh’s face. The expression was one of faint surprise, as if he had died even as he saw the blow coming. But was the shape of the wound right?
Hamish said, “It’s deep. The rim of the shoe must ha’ caught him. I canna’ think what else would have struck such a blow. But it’s tae bluidy to be sure.”
“She’d have lashed out blindly, and put some force behind it. Catching him before he could leap away.” Behind him, he could hear Tanner and Blevins talking quietly. “He isn’t the first or the last to die this way. And he was close to giving us the slip. Still—if he’d stayed on this route, with luck I’d have crossed his path somewhere near East Sherham.”
Hamish said, “Ye ken, horses pulled Walsh’s cart. He’d have known how to handle the mare. He saddled her and got her out of the barn without fuss.”
Below the hill, the farmer was bringing the cart through the gate, to fetch the body.
Rutledge put out his hand and roughly measured the wound without touching it. As the sun’s light began to brighten the clouds, he could see a blade of grass in the bloody edge. The doctor was here—what, a good half an hour earlier? While it was still dark enough to make such small details nearly invisible. . . .
He got to his feet as Blevins came to stand once more at Walsh’s head.
“I’ve let him down. Father James,” the Inspector said with a heavy sigh. “I swore I’d find out who killed him. And I did! This was an easy way for the bastard to die!”
Rutledge’s motorcar arrived, pulling up at the gate just as the farm cart reached the trees. Blevins went to meet the farmer, calling, “Leave the cart there. Better to carry him across to it than to muck up the ground.”
“I’ll just lower the tail, then.” The farmer, red-faced from years in the wind, took out a handkerchief and wiped his glasses. “Doctor says he was kicked by a horse. The dead man. Not one of mine. They never left their stalls last night.”
“No. Not yours.” Blevins answered curtly.
The other constable was climbing toward them now, the smooth movements of a countryman in his stride.
With the farmer holding the horses’ heads to steady the cart, the four men lifted Walsh, grunting under his weight. The body shifted awkwardly in their grip, mocking them in death as it had in life. They tried to move in step over the uneven ground, until one of the constables slipped, barely regaining his balance in time to prevent pulling the others down with him. It was as if Walsh were still struggling to stay free, fighting their efforts, and they were breathing hard by the time they got him to the wagon.
Heaving the corpse into its bed, they misjudged the weight again, and the head brushed along the