“Did you know a Gerald Dunn? A mechanic, I think. He is said to have deserted.”
The name meant nothing to her. “Some of the men didn’t choose to come to the lawns. Should I have had a reason to know him? In particular?”
“No, not at all. I happened to learn that he was actually from Walmer.”
“Then perhaps he spent his free time with his family.”
“It’s possible,” he agreed, and said goodbye.
Rutledge stopped in at the police station, found Hamilton in his office, and said, “Know anything about one Gerald Dunn, a mechanic at the airfield?”
“I’ve told you—I wasn’t here during the war.”
But Rutledge thought that Hamilton had known exactly who Gerald was, and his mother as well. He stepped into the cluttered room and sat down. “What became of him?”
“Look, I don’t hold with deserters. The rest of us stood and fought—and died as well. He ran.”
“He was posted to an airfield in England, where no one was shooting at him. Where he could walk home if he liked, whenever he was given leave. It makes no sense that he should desert. Did you look into Mrs. Dunn’s repeated requests to investigate, when you came home?”
Hamilton shook his head in exasperation. “Two years later? When it had already been looked into officially? Everyone at the airfield had left by then, the buildings were coming down. It would have been an exercise in futility even to try.”
“And no body, no unexplained bones, perhaps, came to light, as the work was being done?”
“No. That would have come to my attention.”
Rutledge stood up. “Was Dunn’s desertion before—or after—Captain Nelson’s death?”
Hamilton looked down at his blotter. “That was in late May. 1917.” He looked at Rutledge again. “Are you trying to tell me you think the two events are connected?”
“As you say. Everyone at the airfield has left. There’s no way of knowing. But your replacement here during the war should have wondered about the possibility. Instead everyone labeled Gerald Dunn a deserter, and so nothing else was even considered, as far as I can tell. Gerald understood how aircraft worked. He could just as easily have known something about motorcars.”
And Rutledge turned toward the door, leaving Hamilton sitting at his desk, consternation on his face.
Hamish said as Rutledge reached the street again, “Do ye believe what you told yon Inspector?”
Truthfully? he answered silently. I don’t know. But I don’t believe in coincidence when it comes to murder.
6
“It doesna’ explain what Lady Benton saw fra’ her window. No’ when the Captain is long dead, and for a’ we know, yon lad Dunn as well,” Hamish said as Rutledge walked back to the hotel, where he’d left his motorcar.
“Then why let her believe that one of the men was Captain Nelson?”
“To frighten her for anither reason. To punish her, even.”
Which could very well be true. But that meant that someone who knew just how close she was to Roger Nelson must be behind the little scene in the garden. Otherwise, why not pretend to be her dead son instead?
But there he could answer his own question. No one could be sure just how she would react to seeing Eric in her dark garden. She might have rushed down to open the terrace doors, rather than watch what was happening from her window.
Melinda Crawford had told him that she knew a little about Walmer from a friend, who had been distressed by what had happened to Captain Nelson. What if there was more to learn?
Reaching his motorcar, he got in, pulled out of the yard, and started out of the village, heading north to Colchester. He needed to speak to Melinda, and he preferred to do it far away from anyone who might be interested in how he viewed the inquiry so far.
It was only twenty-five miles or so to this old Roman camp that had become a town. He’d passed through it a number of times in the past, sometimes stopping to dine in the Rose and Crown, one of the oldest inns in the country, a fascinating jumble of nooks and stairs and smoke-blackened timbers, a medieval gem.
The city was mostly Victorian now, and he found a telephone where he could speak privately.
Melinda was at home, and came directly to take his call.
“Ian,” she said, and he could hear a certain wariness in her voice. “And how is your inquiry progressing?”
“Well enough. But I’d like to speak to the friend you mentioned as I was leaving. I need more information about the airfield and Captain Nelson.”
“Ah,” she answered him, the reluctance in her voice coming down the line to him. “That was Major Dinsmore. I’m afraid he took his own life shortly after the Armistice was declared and he was relieved of his command.”
“Do you know why?” he asked, making certain his voice was steady. “Was it related to events at the airfield?”
“It was ill health, I was told. I hadn’t seen Andrew for some time, the war kept him close to the airfield, but in August of 1917, I was passing through Chelmsford, and he tore himself away from his duties long enough to dine with me there. I was shocked by the change in him. He’d aged—thinner and grayer. Of course the war had taken a toll everywhere, and at first I put it down to that. But before very long I began to wonder if it was something more—more personal, perhaps. Not just his responsibilities. I heard later that he was unwell in September 1918, that he’d had a very serious bout with the influenza. But he recovered and soldiered on, hoping the war would end by Christmas. As it did. Knowing Andrew, he returned to his duties far too soon. Several letters from him spoke of the fatigue and the cough that troubled him even in November.”
“Personal—in the sense of his family, worrying about them?”
“I don’t believe it was that at all. I spoke to several of his fellow officers at the funeral service, and they were remarkably reticent.”
Melinda had a way of looking beyond the facade people put up. He himself had been all too aware of it, and had had to put up defenses against it when he was with her.
“Do you think he might have confided in someone else?”
He could hear her sigh. “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s easier to tell a priest or a stranger what’s worrying you, than it is to tell those close to you.”
“Was he married?”
“You’re thinking he might have confided in his wife. I doubt it. She lived in Cornwall during the war—as far away from Zeppelins and soldiers marching off to fight or at home on sick leave as she could manage. A rather timid woman to be married to a soldier. He was quite fond of her, but she and I had little in common.”
He could believe that. Melinda’s life and the Army were closely intertwined, and she would have little to say to a woman who couldn’t support her husband in time of war.
There was a silence down the line, and then Melinda said, “I was of two minds about telling you anything at all—I wasn’t certain that the little I knew could be useful. That this inquiry was more about the present than the past.”
“I’m not very sure what it’s about,” he told her frankly. “Just now, any thread could lead me to an answer.”