“First, someone to bandage his shoulder. It was bleeding heavily. I did what I could, but I’m no doctor, I didn’t know what to do. He ordered me to take the bullet out, but when I looked, it had gone through.” He shook his head. “He didn’t believe me, he said it was bleeding because the bullet was still in the wound.”
“What else did he want?”
“I’ve a small boat. I keep it in the river, not the estuary. He wanted me to take him there and row him upriver.”
“And you didn’t?”
“She’s in Brooks’s boatyard. Planks need recalking. He told me to go and get her, but she’s not seaworthy, she’ll take on water faster than I could bail. He was angry, I’ve never seen him so angry.”
“Where did he go from here?”
“I don’t know. I was glad to be shut of him. I locked the door and turned out the lights.”
“Just now? I saw the light go out just now.”
“Sally come over to ask what the yelling was about. I’d just come finished locking the doors. I didn’t want her to see the bloody towels, but she lit the lamp before I could stop her.” He sighed. “I tried to keep her out of it. For a bit there, I thought he was going to take her with him. To be sure I didn’t tell anyone he’d been here. I’ve never seen him like that,” he said again.
“All this time—when we were searching—you must have known what your brother was.” Rutledge was angry now.
“But I didn’t know,” he retorted. “He came to my door four or five weeks back, telling me he was down on his luck, asking me to find him work. I didn’t even recognize him at first.”
That fit the timing that Rutledge knew. Franklin had left France after trying to kill Vermuelen, and then made his way to Essex somehow. Without attracting attention.
“And he’s not my brother,” Johnson was saying, aggrieved. “He’s my half-brother. Ma took me back to Essex when my father died. Miles was left in Wiltshire with his grandmother—his mother’s mother. When she died—the first wife—my father married again, and I was born. I hadn’t seen Miles since he was ten.”
“He was here—at the airfield—through the entire bloody war!” Rutledge snapped.
The surprise on Johnson’s face was genuine. “He couldn’t have been—you’re wrong. I’d have known.”
That was very likely true—Franklin hadn’t used his own name. There was no reason why a grown man in uniform, by the name of Reed, would have meant anything to Johnson. But how did Franklin know where Johnson lived?
He was still talking. “I tell you, he knocked at my door, told me he’d just come back from Australia, and said he wanted to find work so that he could move on to Staffordshire, where he had friends. He said he’d had to leave the village where he’d been living, that the woman’s husband had turned up and brought his brothers with him. I didn’t know whether it was true or not, any of it, but I told him they were looking for work at the Home Farm. He said he’d go there and ask. I was glad to be rid of him, I was afraid he’d want to work at the pub. When he pounded on my door tonight, I tried to persuade him to go to Dr. Wister. He told me then he’d killed a dozen people, and I’d be next if I didn’t help him. Sally too.” He wiped his face with his hand, still shaken. “He was always strange. I never liked him.”
“And yet when he came to you, asking your help, you found him work at the Home Farm. How did he find you, if you’d lost touch with him?”
“His grandmother must have known where my mother was going. Or they corresponded. How the hell do I know? I was only six when my mother took me and left.”
Rutledge, watching his face, couldn’t be sure whether Johnson was lying for his daughter’s sake, because she’d known nothing about this half-brother until now, or if Johnson was telling the truth. And it didn’t matter.
“Stay here, keep the doors locked, the lights off. And pray we find him before he has nowhere else to run.”
Rutledge tracked down the Constable by the harbor, searching among the boats anchored there. “Any luck?” he called as he approached.
“None, sir. And no one answers in the shops and either of the pubs. I don’t know where else to look.”
“House to house, then. Test the locks on all the shop doors as well. The outbuildings. He’s armed, he’s killed before. Don’t take any chances.”
Another Constable came running down the hill, sent to join them.
Rutledge was growing restless. There was no sign of Franklin, but more urgently, no sign of the horse. Had he turned back after luring the hunt to Walmer? Had Johnson bandaged his wound, and afterward Franklin had set off toward the Abbey?
He turned to the newly arrived Constable, told him where, so far, he and Brown had searched, and told him he would be back shortly.
As he retrieved his motorcar and drove up the hill toward the High, Rutledge felt a compelling need to hurry. But Hamilton stopped him at the other end of the village, flagging him down. “I thought you were searching the harbor.”
“The man was there—but I can’t find the mare. He may have doubled back when he discovered we were searching. And Lady Benton is alone in the house. With a broken door.”
“Then go on. The Chief Constable will blame me if she comes to grief.”
The road was empty—he made good time, but when he reached the gates to the stable yard, he left his motorcar outside, vaulting the gate, and then made his way around the house to the private garden.
The doors were still broken but someone had pushed a bench across in front of it.
Lady Benton, he thought. Waiting somewhere now with her late husband’s revolver? He wouldn’t have put it past her to go upstairs for it the minute his back was turned. He stopped at the bench, called to her, added his name and then called again.
He was about to call a third time when he heard a low bark, and Bruce came dashing down the passage and through the door into the garden room, leaping over the bench in his eagerness to greet someone he knew. His momentum carried him through the doors and out onto the terrace, launching himself to hit Rutledge full in the chest. He had all he could do to stay on his feet as the dog tried to lick his face.
Lady Benton appeared in the doorway to the room, the revolver in her hand. “He likes you. Where is Reed or Franklin or whatever that man’s real name is? Did you kill him? I thought I heard a gunshot.”
“Clipped his shoulder. He got as far as Walmer, but I haven’t found the mare. I thought he might have decided to double back.”
“Oh dear—I hope he hasn’t harmed her. I’ve sat in the library, on guard.”
He saw that she had wrapped something around her left wrist. “There was no time to see if you were all right.”
“I think I’ve strained it a little,” she said, lifting her arm. “I came down on it rather hard.”
“I’ve got the motorcar by the stable gates. Come back with me. Until we know where he is.”
“There’s the dog. He was terribly unhappy being locked away from all the excitement.”
“We’ll take him with us.”