Changing his mind, he walked on to the Yard. The Duty Sergeant looked up, greeted him, and was about to resume checking a list when Rutledge said, “I thought I saw Leslie on his way here.”
“He was, sir. Just stopped long enough to drop off a file for Sergeant Gibson. Then he left.”
“Heading home, was he?”
“He didn’t say, sir.”
Rutledge left, found his motorcar a second time, and drove with great care, watching for the shapes of pedestrians at every crossing.
In the aftermath of shock at the woman’s death, he tried to bring back the image of Leslie driving past where he’d been standing at the corner. But it was hazy, almost unreal. Still—Leslie had stopped in at the Yard. He’d been close by.
Had that been Leslie’s motorcar coming at him out of the fog? Try as he would, the only thing he could remember was the flash of chrome as the huge round headlamps flared in his eyes. Leslie’s motorcar possessed those. As did his own. In the almost white brightness, he couldn’t see past to the windscreen behind them, the radiator between them—not even the wings on either side. They had been blotted out.
Rutledge gave up trying.
Hamish said, “The police arena’ likely to find him. Whoever he is.”
Tempted, he took the next turning and made his way toward Carlton Square, where the FitzPatricks lived. It was not as fashionable a street as some, but the houses were handsomely kept up and spoke of old money. He drove past number 7, with its black trim and railing, leading down the pair of steps to the street. The lamps were lit in the front rooms, and he glimpsed a tall green-and-white vase with silk flowers in one of the windows, framed by what appeared to be matching dark green drapes.
Rounding the square, he drove on to the house where the Leslies lived. But there was no motorcar standing in front of it. Nor in front of any of the other houses. Which meant there was a mews in which they could be kept.
He looked for it, found the old horse stabling that had been converted behind some squares to house motorcars, but when he searched it, the Leslie vehicle wasn’t among the half dozen kept there, although there was one with a black body that was very close to his.
There was no point in driving on to the silent, empty flat. The unseen driver of the motorcar must surely have felt the wing strike Rutledge a glancing blow. He had most certainly felt the weight of Mrs. FitzPatrick’s slight body colliding with his headlamp and wing as he lost control of his forward speed. Let him wonder, then, just how much damage he had done.
He turned the motorcar toward the western road, but it was a good forty miles before he ran out of the fog into patches of light rain.
Tired and concerned about his own driving, late as it was, he found an inn in a small village well east of Marlborough and took a room. It was already ten o’clock, and he’d been on the road for some time. But he asked for warm water from the kitchen and sponged all traces of Mrs. FitzPatrick’s blood from his coat, then brushed out the wet areas. He’d learned in the trenches how to keep his uniform tidy, how to sew on buttons, and even how to mend small tears. Necessity, he thought as he worked, was often the best teacher. They’d been given small sewing kits. His batman had been all thumbs when it came to a needle—but one of the best shots Rutledge had ever seen. It had been, he’d thought at the time, worth the aggravation of doing such tasks himself. Grant had very quickly taught German snipers to keep their heads down or risk a bullet between the eyes.
Spreading his coat over the back of the only chair, he paused. Private Archie Grant had died on the Somme of gangrene from a wound in the calf. There had been no time in the heat of that first battle for seemingly lighter wounds to be treated. Even the severest cases had been ignored while the doctors tried to save those who would live. There had been too many casualties to tend half of them . . . And in his dreams Rutledge still heard the moans and cries of the dying.
Hamish said, “He was a guid soldier. It wasna’ an easy way to die.”
His leg black and swollen three times its size, Grant had stood at his post until fever and exhaustion took its toll. He’d died of blood loss in a forward aid tent as they tried to take the limb.
Shaking off the memory, Rutledge washed his face and hands in what was left in the pitcher of warm water, then undressed.
There was a darkening bruise at his hip. It could have been worse.
He was too tired to dream.
He got a very early start the next morning. It had been raining steadily since sometime after midnight, and by sunrise a heavy mist had settled over the countryside. Once more he drove with care, having no wish to run off the road and lose an axle, for he could see barely five feet in front of the bonnet. Finally reaching the avenue into Avebury shortly after nine, he paused briefly between the two stones at the entrance. Here the mists had thinned slightly, the great stones on his left looming out of it like gray, ghostly sentinels, appearing and disappearing. Even accustomed as he was to this place, he felt a slight shiver.
He moved on down the avenue, and at the junction with the street that ran down by the church or right toward the inn, he was about to turn when a woman’s figure materialized seemingly out of nowhere, directly in his path.
With images of Mrs. FitzPatrick lying bleeding in the rain, he reached for the brake.
It was the Rector’s wife coming up from the direction of the church.
She stopped, a little startled, and then looked up at him, clearly expecting him to slow and speak to her.
His first thought as he turned toward her was that she was about to demand the photograph.
“Good morning,” he said, offering her a smile. “Not that it is,” he added.
She didn’t return his greeting. “You are wanted,” she said, as if he’d been delinquent on purpose and failed in his duty.
“What happened?” he asked quickly, braced for the worst.
“Constable Henderson and Dr. Mason have gone out to the Long Barrow. Do you know it? The doctor left a message for you. Apparently, he wasn’t certain when you’d return.”
“Yes, I know it. How long ago did they leave?” Rutledge asked.
“I’ve no idea. I went to the surgery just now for more of the Rector’s headache powders. The doctor wasn’t there, of course. I couldn’t help but see the message. It’s on his desk, prominently placed.”
“Then I’ll go directly to the surgery myself.” Touching his hat to her, he moved on.
Drawing up in front of the gate he got down and walked up to the door. It was not latched, and he stepped into the silent house. Turning to his right, he went through the door by the stairs and into the part of the house where Mason saw his patients—where the body of the dead woman had been brought.
He walked through the tiny reception area just inside the separate surgery entrance, and into the doctor’s office. On Mason’s tidy desk a sheet of paper lay on the green blotter. As he reached for it, Rutledge heard Hamish saying, “Ye ken, this isna’ a verra’ guid sign.”
Ignoring the voice in his head, Rutledge lifted the sheet from the blotter and scanned it before reading it a second time.
Rutledge. If you see this, we’re just going, Henderson and I, to the Long Barrow on the plain beyond Silbury Hill. The far end. You’ll see my carriage. There’s my other horse in the stable behind the house. Your motorcar won’t make it after all the rain we’ve had.