Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [37]
“Hindsight. Yes, it’s common enough.” Rutledge thanked him and left.
He drove back to the outskirts of Norwich, to the hotel there, and left a message with Sergeant Gibson at the Yard that he was staying over. Within half an hour Frances telephoned him to see how he was managing and to pass on the good news that a mutual friend had just given birth to a daughter, mother and child doing well, father recovering.
She had always managed to pry information out of Gibson. The crusty old Sergeant was apparently water in her hands.
There was still an hour before dinner, and Rutledge sat down in the most comfortable chair in his room and shut his eyes against the lamplight.
His chest ached with a vengeance, and he could feel the waves of exhaustion that swept him, too strong to allow him peace. Too much driving, too much strain on the still-healing flesh. But it had been worth it. Away from London, he found he was free of that obsessive need to appear to be unchanged by what had happened to him in Scotland. Here, no one knew his past, or cared about his future.
Rest seemed to elude him, his body tense with pain.
And yet at some point he slept, the quiet in the room giving way to the sound of battle, the distant roar of artillery, the chatter of machine guns cutting down the men struggling across No Man’s Land. The rain that beat against the windows in a sudden squall became mud underfoot, slippery, black. He went down, unsure whether he’d been shot or lost his footing. He lay there, unable to find the will to rise again, hoping he was dying. Corporal MacLeod’s voice was shouting at him, asking if he’d been hit. He scrambled to his feet, wondering why his chest felt heavy, wondering when there had been time to bandage it. It was hard to breathe as he ran, calling to his men, his eye on the barricaded hole where the Hun gunners lay hidden. He could hear the thump of bullets all around him, the screams of the wounded, the prayers and cries of angry, terrified men. His men. He couldn’t reach the gunners, he couldn’t get within range—the spotters had given him the wrong coordinates, it was a slaughter, and he couldn’t get to the gunners—!
And then a well-hidden sniper’s rifle fired, and somehow he heard it over the din of battle, and it fired again, and at the third shot, for a mercy the machine gun nest fell silent—
CHAPTER 7
RUTLEDGE ATE DINNER IN THE QUIET little restaurant attached to the hotel. Most of the other diners were local people, and he belatedly remembered, thinking about it, that it was Saturday evening. The hats of the ladies lacked style but were worn with pride, and the suits of the younger men were pre-War, ill-fitting, as if the weight lost in whatever theater they’d served hadn’t been regained. Couples chatted self-consciously, keeping their voices low and falling silent from time to time as though they had no idea what to say to each other. Four–five years of war left gaps in their lives that would be slow to mend.
He wondered what Jean had to say to her Canadian diplomat. How long, even, she had known him. Not that it mattered . . .
As the door from the lounge bar opened, Rutledge looked up. In that brief instant he thought he recognized the man standing by the hearth drinking down what appeared to be a Scotch and water. But when the door opened again the man was gone.
It was the same man he’d seen bringing in the boat at the Osterley quay, he was nearly sure of it. Edwin, his name was. . . .
The hotel’s food was simple but well cooked: carrot soup, roast mutton and potatoes, with a side dish of cabbage and onions, and an apple tart to finish. With only Hamish for company, Rutledge’s mind, unbidden, returned to the murder of Father James.
Why is it, he found himself thinking, that there has to be meaning in an unforeseen death? All of nature kills without compunction. Why should Everyman die with a fanfare of trumpets, like another Hamlet? In London he, Rutledge, had seen his share of wanton murder, where life had