Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (13 page)

No trees, no grazing horses or cattle, no sheep, no birds hopping along the rows in the fields, not even the distant sound of a dog barking.

Just—emptiness.

Rutledge was nearly to Wriston when he met someone coming the other way. An elderly man on a bicycle, a knife and scissor sharpener, pedaling slowly home after a day of making his rounds.

Chapter 8

R
utledge had nearly reached Wriston when he saw a signpost on a rutted lane that led in an irregular fashion to a farmhouse in the distance. He’d passed it on his way to Burwell but had missed the significance of the small bird painted on the sign.

A swift . . . Swift?

On impulse he turned down the lane, disregarding the warning from Hamish that he would rue his decision. But before very long he had to abandon the motorcar where it was and continue on foot when the lane dwindled to little more than a track. How anything but a horse, he thought, could manage this, he didn’t know.

Ahead he could see the farmhouse. Like so many others here, it was built on one of the tiny bits of dry earth rising like islands in the peaty marshes of the Fens. It had been rebuilt at some point, possibly around 1900, Rutledge thought, for now it was two stories, brick and substantial.

This track led not to the door of the house but to the farmyard, where farm equipment and a pony cart, a small carriage and a stable, were fitted into the space like a puzzle, using every inch of high ground. To one side was a small kitchen garden, cut out of the surrounding fields and protected by banks. One of the rows held flowers for cutting—zinnias, marigolds, stalks of what must have been foxglove.

Walking around the house he could hear voices in the kitchen, but he proceeded to the front door, smiling when he saw the newer lane that led up to it. He had come in the back way, probably the original approach.

He knocked, and after a moment a woman in an apron came to ask his business.

“I’m looking for Mr. Swift. Brother to the man who was killed in Wriston.”

She stared at him, uncertain what to do.

“I’m from Scotland Yard, I’ve taken over the inquiry into what happened to Mr. Swift and Captain Hutchinson.”

Her frown disappeared in an uncertain smile.

“Do you have anything to prove who you are?”

Rutledge took out his identification, and she looked at it carefully.

“I’m sorry,” she said when he had put it back in his pocket. “But we’ve been worried, you see. We saw you coming down the track, and we didn’t know . . .”

He understood her alarm. Nodding, he said, “I didn’t know there were two ways into the property. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

She led him to the sunny kitchen where her husband was standing, clearly listening to what had transpired at the door. Rutledge saw that there was a shotgun leaning against the wall behind him.

“Mr. Swift? I’m from Scotland Yard. My name is Rutledge. As you may have heard, I’m here to look into the death of your brother.”

“I’m Swift,” the man said, his accent definitely Fen country, his face browned by the sun, and his hands rough from working the land. His hair was rather long and bleached almost to whiteness, it was so fair, and thinning. Rutledge thought he must be older than his wife by several years. But that might also have been put down to the life he led. “I’ll trouble you for that identification, if you don’t mind.”

He studied it as his wife had done, then passed it back to Rutledge.

“Sit down, then,” he said, nodding to the chair nearest Rutledge. “The two men who work for me are in the fields today. I didn’t see a weapon, but then I don’t think my brother did either.”

“Were you in Wriston that night?”

“No, I wasn’t, thank God. Summer work on the land goes on to dark, and then you’re up at four to start again. I don’t see Wriston from week to week.”

“I understand your brother chose the law and you chose the farm.”

“There was some trouble over that in the beginning. He wanted his share of the land to pay for setting up his chambers. But we settled it to suit us, in the end. If you’re asking if I still carried a grudge, the answer is no. I expect I’ve done better than he did. In many ways.” He glanced at his wife.

“You work harder for your living than he did.”

“If I’d shot him twelve times over, what good was his law to me?”

“Surely you inherit?”

“After burying him, there’s the wait for the will to be settled. And then I’ll have to find someone to buy the house where he had his chambers. I’ll see nothing for a while. Besides, if there was a bad year on the land, I could borrow from him. I always paid it back, and he knew I would. So he helped when I asked. That’s finished. And I don’t think his death will bring me any new way of finding the money.”

“I should think the farm pays well.”

“It does. But it’s not selling the crops that matters. It’s the buying of the seed and sowing and waiting to learn what sort of spring we’re to have, then seeing that the crop is watered enough and not too much, looking out for it in the storms and watching for breaks in the banks that guard the ditches. We have ten milk cows on another part of the farm, it came with my wife, and we have a man to take care of them. I make a living, a good one in good years. I also pay the wages of the men who work for me.”

Rutledge couldn’t decide whether the man was listing his troubles to impress Scotland Yard with his very different life from his brother’s or to prove he had no reason to kill him. And Hamish was silent on the subject.

“Did your brother have enemies?”

“I doubt it. He wasn’t the sort of man who would make trouble or look for it.”

“He was a widower, I understand.”

“Yes. He worked in Glasgow for the Admiralty during the war, couldn’t stand to be alone in that empty house. He studied charts, checked them for accuracy, that sort of thing. He was a civilian, all the same, and perhaps that’s why he came back calmer than he’d been when he left. I think he stayed too busy to think. It was what he needed.”

“His wife died in childbirth? With the child?”

“Yes. A fever took her, and the child didn’t thrive. I thought he’d run mad with grief. He shut himself up in the house and wouldn’t see anyone or talk to anyone. He gave Susan good references and told her he didn’t need her anymore. It took Ruth, here, three days to put my brother’s house to rights after he’d left for Scotland. You’d have thought it had been lived in by Travelers. We were glad he came to his senses and found a new housekeeper to keep him in good order up there.”

“Who is Susan?”

“She works at the Rectory now. A good woman, steady and dependable. Rector says she’s a blessing. But she nursed my brother’s wife during those last months before the child was born. Eileen should never have got pregnant in the first place, and it was trouble from the start. The doctor told my wife he didn’t think it would end well. And it didn’t. But they were over the moon with joy about the child, it was what they both wanted. Or thought they did. I wondered sometimes if he regretted it when she died. If he blamed himself.”

Rutledge remembered what Jason Fallowfield had told him about Hutchinson’s wife, that there had been whispers of suicide when she lost her child. The hazards of childbearing were many, from complications to fevers to stillbirths. That grief Swift and Hutchinson had shared.

“Did your brother often go to London? On behalf of a client, perhaps? Or for a holiday with his wife?”

Swift laughed. “I doubt he’d been farther south than Cambridge, where he read law. He dreamed of Greece and Rome but never strayed far from the Fens until he went to Glasgow.”

“So everyone says. But he might have gone farther, without telling you.”

“There’s that. But I’d not like to take a wager on it.”

“There’s no reason you can think of for your brother to be killed?”

“None. And it’s what keeps me anxious.”

“But if he had no connection to the Captain who was killed at Ely, why did his murder follow hard upon the first death? And why should yours follow hard upon your brother’s?”

“The only man who can answer that shot them both. If I had to answer to God tomorrow, I can tell you I had nothing to do with it.”

“Were you in the war?”

“Six months in 1915. I lost three toes to frostbite and was invalided out.”

“Did you bring a rifle back with you as a souvenir?”

He laughed without humor. “I spent two of those months in hospital. How was I to bring home my rifle? They took it from me when I was carried by stretcher to the aid station.”

Rutledge believed him. He’d seen the alarm in Mrs. Swift’s eyes and the wariness in her husband’s when he’d arrived unannounced. Born of fear, not guilt.

“I understand there was a third brother. Anson.”

“He left Wriston as soon as my father died and the will was read. There’s been no word of him or from him since then. And if it was Anson, why would he shoot that Captain? It would make more sense to come for the two of us.”

Rutledge thanked them and left. It was one hell of a struggle to turn the motorcar and retrace his steps to the main road.

So much, he thought, for exploring out here on his own.

W
riston was not on the telephone, Rutledge was told when he arrived at the inn and went up to his room to wash his hands. It would be necessary to travel to Ely to find one.

He thanked Miss Bartram and avoided a question about how he’d spent his day.

He wasn’t ready to talk about Hutchinson and Burwell, although he knew very well that Priscilla Bartram was eager to hear more. She would have no trouble guessing where he’d gone. He could pass it off lightly, and make no mention of his visit to the Swifts.

And so when he came down later to join her for dinner, he was prepared.

She had roasted a hen, and with it there were potatoes and a dish of stewed apples. Serving him, she asked, “Did you find your way to Burwell, then?”

“Larger than Wriston, isn’t it? Interesting church, as well. But a wasted journey, all the same.”

Miss Bartram had clearly hoped her information would prove to be more useful.

“Did you speak to the Rector there?”

“I did, and he recalled meeting you. Apparently Vera Clayton, the sister of the dead man, remembered your grandfather.”

She smiled, pleased. “Yes, I did tell her of the connection. I wasn’t sure she was old enough to have any memories of her own grandfather. He was interested in collecting stories about the old days in the Fens. There’s a family that claims descent from Hereward the Wake, who fought the Normans when they tried to bully their way north. Did you know? They called him an outlaw. He interviewed the family to see if they could tell him more about Hereward, if there were family documents or legends or the like. Hereward’s something of a hero to Fen people. And there’s no proof he was executed or exiled. Perhaps he made his peace with the Normans in the end.”

Rutledge encouraged her to tell him more about the elder Clayton, and she was soon confiding in him that the inn had once been the home of one of the Dutch engineers who had drained the land and set up the first windmills.

“The village is named for him. Wriston. Although of course that wasn’t his name, it was as close as anyone could come to it.”

The conversation moved on to the fishing that was once a popular sport in the Fens, and he wondered if somewhere in this house there might be displays of pike and roach and bream, with whatever else her father or grandfather had caught.

It was still early, and he decided after his dinner to drive back to Ely to find a telephone. He reached the Yard without difficulty but was told that Sergeant Gibson wasn’t there. The gruff Inspector who had answered the call added that Gibson was away on official business and there was no certainty when he’d be back.

Rutledge hadn’t given his name, he’d simply asked for Gibson. He was glad afterward that he’d been circumspect.

It was late when he reached Wriston. It would have made better sense to stop at The Deacon Inn. But his valise was at The Dutchman, and he knew Miss Bartram would be watching for him, for he had given her the impression he intended to return.

He left the motorcar in front of the inn and decided to stretch his legs. There was no mist tonight—the wind had picked up a little and small clouds were scudding across the sky, promising a change in the fair weather.

Turning in the direction of the mill, away from the village greens, he saw the ghostly shape of a white cat walking toward him down the road.

Kneeling, he called to her by name, and she came trotting to him, wrapping herself around him. But when he tried to lift her, to carry her back to the house, she turned and scampered away.

He followed her, and after a moment or two, he saw Miss Trowbridge, not at her gate or even in her doorway as he’d have expected, but standing in front of the mill, looking up at the arms moving above her head, the creak of their wooden parts almost soothing in its regularity. Like a rocking cradle, he thought, for no reason at all.

Afraid of startling her, he called, “I was out for a walk and encountered Clarissa.”

Miss Trowbridge turned quickly, as if he’d interrupted something he shouldn’t have seen.

“Mr.—Rutledge.” She was pretending to have difficulty recalling his name, but he knew very well she remembered it.

“Looking up at the stars? When I was in France, on clear nights I watched for Orion as we moved toward autumn. He was familiar. Comfortable.”

“Yes. The hunter.”

He realized that she was referring to him obliquely.

And then she surprised him. “I was just going to put on the kettle. Would you care for a cup of tea before you go back?”

He thought she assumed he was staying in Ely. He answered only, “Yes, I’d like that. If it isn’t too late.”

She said nothing, just walked to the gate, opened it, and preceded him up the path. The cat was there, a white streak in the darkness, leaping through the door almost before there was room for her to pass.

When he entered the cottage, Clarissa had already claimed her chair, as if to warn him off.

He followed Miss Trowbridge to the kitchen, as he had before, and watched as she put the kettle on.

Hamish, in the back of his mind, was asking why this young woman had invited him into her home at such an hour—it must be going on ten o’clock. But the answer could be that she had no near neighbors to gossip.

Did she also want to know how the inquiry was going?