“Yes, please.”
“What is your name?”
“It’s Edward, sir. My friends call me Eddie.”
He followed the boy down the street, toward a long line of houses where the shops ended. They were much alike, wooden, two-story, sometimes three, well-enough kept up. As Rutledge and his guide reached one midway down the street, the boy pointed, and they went up the two steps. He opened the door and waited for Rutledge to enter before shutting it again.
“Mama?” the boy called.
She came out of the kitchen, walking down the passage toward him. A slim woman with gray in her brown hair and a tired face. “You’re the policeman from London?” she asked.
“Inspector Rutledge. Mrs.—?”
“Dunn. Mary Dunn.” She nodded to the boy, and he opened the door just to Rutledge’s right, standing aside so that he could enter. Mrs. Dunn followed, sitting on one of the upright chairs in the small parlor, leaving the single upholstered seat to her guest. He could see the effort she was making to keep her anxiety from showing.
“How can I help you?” he asked as he took the seat she pointed to.
“There was a murder at the House. The Abbey. Last week. But I’ve heard of no body being found. How can there be a murder without a body?”
“We don’t yet know who the victim was.”
“Did the Flying Corps hide it? The body? Is that why you can’t tell who it is?”
Surprised, he asked, “Why should they do such a thing?”
“They didn’t care much for deserters.”
“Who is the deserter?” he pressed.
“Well, he wasn’t one, was he? But they came here and told me to my face that he’d deserted. Why would they lie?”
“I’m afraid I’ve not heard about a deserter, Mrs. Dunn. Perhaps it would be for the best if you started at the beginning.”
“I asked Inspector Hamilton. But he won’t tell me anything.”
He glanced at the silent boy standing by the front window, his face hard to read with his back to what was left of the light. Then Rutledge turned again to the woman sitting as upright as the chair itself.
“Nor can I answer your questions, until I know what they’re about. Are we talking about someone in your family? A husband—son—?”
“My older son,” she said reluctantly. “Gerald. He was mad about those airplanes. Not flying them, mind you, what made them run. If he heard of one close by, he’d go and look at the motor. And he could tell you all the parts, how they fit together, why they worked. How to fix them. When the war came, he volunteered. He’d just turned eighteen, and he wasn’t interested in fighting, he wanted to work with the aircraft, and for a mercy—or so I thought at the time—he was posted here. Not in France.”
She took a deep breath, as if to give her the strength to carry on. “All I cared about was having my boy close by. He’d come home when he could, and all he talked about were the aircraft, and the men who flew them. But that was all right, he was safe, wasn’t he, and nobody shooting at him. Then one day in June of 1917, he didn’t come home for his lunch, even though he’d promised he might, and after a bit, I sent Billy, my neighbor’s boy, out to the field on his bicycle, to see what was keeping Gerry, I’d heard the flights go out just after dawn, and they’d come back just at tea. And the officers told me they hadn’t found him, they’d looked everywhere, even London, but they hadn’t found him. And then they said that when they did find him, he’d be shot.”
5
Mrs. Dunn’s voice broke on the last word. Then she cleared her throat and added, “Eddie and I didn’t sleep for a week, listening for him at the door. Praying he’d come home. What I couldn’t understand was why he’d give up what he loved doing, and leave without a word to anybody. Not even to me. When the war ended, and they began to tear down the airfield, all the buildings, I thought, he’ll come home now, wherever he’s been hiding. But he never has. And even when I asked his commanding officer why Gerry would even think of deserting, he just shook his head.” Her gaze was fearful as she said, “Did he try to come home after all, and they found out and came and shot him anyway?”
Hamish was alive in the back of Rutledge’s mind, as he tried to find an answer for the woman sitting ramrod straight in her chair, braced for the worst.
“That isn’t how it’s done,” he said finally, putting as much kindness into his voice as he could. “Not in circumstances like these. He would have been court-martialed—tried in a military court. And whatever sentence was passed, it would be carried out at a different date and place.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I’ve never asked. Until now, I didn’t want to know.”
Dear God, was he sure? But he managed to say, “There are exceptions. But not in Gerald’s case.” He hadn’t been on a battlefield, it wasn’t in the midst of a push, with the men under him waiting, watching to see whether Hamish was going to obey the orders given him—
“You are lying to me, I can see it in your face.”
“No. I give you my word as an officer of the law.” But not an officer in the trenches, faced with mutiny—
Rutledge forced the images from his mind. Forced himself to concentrate on the desperate woman across from him.
“Who else could it be, a dead man on the grounds of that house? Just there by the airfield?” She was pleading now.
“We don’t know, Mrs. Dunn, if anyone has been shot.”
“He’d wait there, maybe, and try to find someone to bring me word. I know Gerry—”
“Mrs. Dunn. Do you have a photograph of your son? In the event I find any evidence that Gerald has reappeared?” It was all he could think of to give her a little peace.
She rose, went to a table by the window, opened the single drawer, and took out a frame. Bringing it to him, she said, “This was his photograph in uniform.”
Rutledge took it. Gerald looked very much like his younger brother. The same snub nose and round chin, given a few more years of maturity. His hair appeared to be brown, like his mother’s.
“Thank you.” He made to rise, handing the photograph back to Mrs. Dunn.
“I’m grateful,” she said, clasping the frame to her chest. “Inspector Hamilton isn’t a very sympathetic man. He was in the war himself, you see. He sees Gerry as a traitor, a deserter, and he couldn’t care if he ever comes home. I’m Gerry’s mother, and I know my son. He would never turn his back on his mates. He didn’t desert. Something happened, and if I can’t ever have Gerald home again, I want at least to know where he’s buried.”
He walked back to the hotel along streets that were nearly empty now. Since the war had ended and the airfield on its doorstep had been dismantled, Walmer seemed to have drifted back into its prewar tranquility.
Rutledge tried to keep his mind on what he’d just heard. He had no idea what had become of Mrs. Dunn’s son. In France it would have been different. Deserter—missing in action—blown up as a shell came in—taken prisoner. A man might easily disappear. Here in England? A great deal more difficult.