Watchers of Time - Charles Todd [8]
Fear was seldom ruled by reason; it reacted to danger first and logic afterward. The first blow must surely have been fear—the succeeding blows could have been fear, or could have been cunning, the need to silence. How was anyone to know, until the priest’s killer had been found?
Sims tried not to look into the faces of the people of Osterley and speculate. But he couldn’t stop himself from doing it. Human nature was human nature. He was no different from the rest of his neighbors.
The War had taught Sims that frightened men did whatever they had to do to stay alive. And in the trenches, killing had become a natural reaction to peril. He wondered if the priest’s attacker was an unemployed former soldier, one so desperate that he’d felt no compunction about taking life.
One man in Osterley came close to meeting those criteria. Sims refused to entertain the likelihood that he would ever kill again.
The Vicar scolded himself for such unchristian speculation. Surely not even a war-hardened veteran would kill a priest!
All the same, how far would the few pounds stolen from the rectory go? How long before empty pockets drove the killer—whoever he was—to strike again?
That night—for the first time since he’d come to Osterley nine years before—Mr. Sims locked his doors. The vicarage stood behind a high wall in an expanse of wooded lawn, old trees that had always been his pride and given him a sense of continuity with those who had served Holy Trinity before him. Now the house seemed isolated and secretive, hidden away and intolerably vulnerable.
He told himself it was merely a precaution, to lock his doors.
In bitter fact, he was coming to terms with the unexpected discovery that the Cloth, which had always seemed his armor and his shield, was neither, and that a man of God was no safer than any other householder.
CHAPTER 2
OCTOBER 1919
London
RUTLEDGE CUT HIMSELF SHAVING AND SWORE.
His sister Frances, sitting in the chintz-covered chair by the window, winced but said nothing. When he did it again, she couldn’t stop herself.
“Darling, must you carve up your face on your own? Or could I do it for you? Surely I’m a better butcher than you are?” The words were light, intentionally.
He shook his head. “If I’m to return to work, I must learn to manage.” He was on medical leave from the Yard, and it was dragging on, day into endless day, chafing his spirit.
She regarded the heavy bandages that swathed his chest, still binding one arm close to his body. “I’m surprised the Yard will allow you back until that comes off. Surely there are regulations? You can barely button your own shirt, and I’ve done up your shoes for you all these weeks. A half-dressed policeman is hardly a proper representative of the majesty of the law?”
“Frances. Shut up!”
“Yes, I know, it isn’t a pleasant reminder, is it? I’m sorry. But I do think you may be acting prematurely.”
He put down his razor, splashed water on his face, and groped for a towel. The razor went sailing across the room. This time he swore silently.
Hamish, reflecting his anger, said, “Aye, it isna’ a brave thing you do, merely foolhardy.”
Rutledge said, “I am going mad cooped up in these rooms.” The words served to answer both of them.
Frances said, deliberately misunderstanding him, “Yes, you must be. I did ask you to stay longer at the house. It’s still warm enough to sit in the gardens in the afternoon, or walk across the street into the square. You can come back again, if you like.” She had brought him there from hospital, and found a nurse to care for him until he could fend for himself, then taken over the chore of getting him dressed and undressed each day while he impatiently healed. Wounded tigers, she had thought more than once, would have been less of a handful.
But in the beginning, when she’d been summoned