Search The Dark Part 16

"You're not a local man," the farmer said, shading his eyes from the sun to stare at Rutledge's face. His fingernails were crusted with dirt from working in the vegetable gardens, and his chin was poorly shaved, as if he couldn't see to use his razor.

"No. I'm from Scotland Yard."

"Ha! London, is it?" He spat. "That Truit needs all the help you can give. Whoring son of a b.i.t.c.h, can't keep his eyes or his hands to himself. Or Or hold his liquor!" There was disdain and disgust in the loud voice. " hold his liquor!" There was disdain and disgust in the loud voice. "Constable, my left hind foot!" He considered Rutledge for a moment. "I thought they'd caught the man who'd done the killing." my left hind foot!" He considered Rutledge for a moment. "I thought they'd caught the man who'd done the killing."

"We don't know if we have or not, Mr.-" He left the sentence unfinished.

After a moment the caretaker said, "Jimson. Ted Jimson." He was still watching Rutledge closely.

"How long have you worked here?"

"Worked here? Nigh all my life! What's that to do with a murder?"

Rutledge said idly, as if it was more a matter of curiosity than anything else, "I understand that Mrs. Wyatt was here on fifteen August, from around eleven o'clock until well into the afternoon, working with a sick animal."

Jimson thought for a time. "The fifteenth, you say? Aye, as I recollect, she was. That colicky heifer had to be fed from a bottle and cosseted. d.a.m.n near lost it, and we'd paid high enough for the bull! Stayed till nigh on four, I'd guess, getting it back on its legs. I'll say one thing, French or not, she has a way with cattle!" He gave the impression that he was of two minds about his mistress.

"And where were you?"

"Loitering in my bed, waiting for the servants to bring me my breakfast! Where the h.e.l.l do you think I might be? Working, that's what! Besides the milking, there was rotting boards in the loft that had to be sh.o.r.ed up and potatoes to be dug, and the fence in the chicken yard had rusted, some of the little 'uns was running loose." Yet Aurore had said he had had a cold ... or a hangover.

"Could you see Mrs. Wyatt from where you worked?"

"You don't keep a heifer in the loft, nor with the chickens!"

"Could she see you?"

"I doubt she could, but she wouldn't miss the hammering in the loft. What's this in aid of, then? You think I I had something to do with this killing?" had something to do with this killing?"

Rutledge felt a sense of tension in the man, as if he had told the truth but skirted the edges of lying. How far would he go for Aurore-or for Simon Wyatt?

"We need to be sure where everyone was that afternoon. Often people aren't aware that they are witnesses. Was Mrs. Wyatt driving that day, or did she walk here?"

"Aye, driving. I saw her when she came up the lane in the Wyatt car. She waved to me when she got out. But it didn't appear to me she wanted to talk."

"Did the car leave during the time you thought she was here?"

"Not that I could say. But I didn't set and watch it either."

"And so Mrs. Wyatt stayed with the sick heifer, missing her luncheon?"

"How should I know? When I'd finished with the chickens and wanted my own meal, I didn't look for her to ask permission!"

"You didn't offer her lunch?"

"Lord, no! What I cook ain't fit for a lady's taste!" he said, horrified. "Bacon and cheese, it was, with onionsl" onionsl"

A countryman's meal. But the French took the same simple ingredients, added eggs and herbs, producing an omelet. It was all, Rutledge thought, in what you were used to.

"You are sure neither Mrs. Wyatt nor the car went away, from the time she arrived to the time she left. From eleven, let's say, until four."

The watery gray eyes flickered. "I didn't see her leave," Jimson answered. "But she'd come in to wash up, her boots was out by the kitchen door."

"You mean she didn't leave between eleven and four, or you didn't see her go home at four?" He couldn't seem to get a straight answer from Jimson.

"I didn't see her go at four. When I came back from mending a fence down by the water, closer to five it was, the car was gone. I know, because I went around the house to fetch the milk cans from the road, and the lane was empty."

Rutledge turned and looked back the way he had come. The trees were old, heavy with late summer leaves, the shadows under them dark and cool. Once this had been a thriving farm, children had been born and patriarchs had died in the house behind him, smoke had risen from the chimneys, was.h.i.+ng had hung on the lines, the smell of fresh bread and baked pies had wafted from open windows. Dogs had run in the yard and flowers had bloomed in the weed-grown beds. Until the first Wyatt discovered the power and authority of Westminster, and the family had bettered itself.

"Do you live in the farmhouse?" he asked Jimson.

The man didn't answer. Rutledge turned around and repeated the question, his mind still probing the past. If Simon Wyatt hadn't gone to war, Aurore his wife would never have come to England and this place. Was it very like the home she'd left? Was this farm her sanctuary, however run down it was, because it reminded her of her parents and peace and a life very different from the one she lived in Charlbury?

Jimson said testily, "I've a room at the back. That and the kitchen, it's all I want-or need."

"Does anyone else use the other rooms?"

"Aye, we've got the King in one and the Queen in t'other! Are ye daft?"

"It's a large house for one man."

"The Wyatts always had a tenant and his family living here. I come over daily from Charlbury then. Mr. Oliphant, he went to New Zealand in 1913, and that was the end to that. The other dairymen went off to fight the Hun. Mrs. Wyatt says there's no money to hire 'em back now, nor nor to fix the barn roof! I moved to the house after my wife died, just to keep an eye on the place. Mrs. Wyatt, she keeps some things in one of the upstairs rooms. Towels and coveralls." to fix the barn roof! I moved to the house after my wife died, just to keep an eye on the place. Mrs. Wyatt, she keeps some things in one of the upstairs rooms. Towels and coveralls."

Rutledge had run out of questions. And yet he had a strong feeling that because he'd been partly distracted, he had overlooked something. What?

Jimson watched him, waiting.

The man wasn't lying, Rutledge was fairly certain of that. Jimson was telling the truth as he saw it. But police work had taught Rutledge that a witness could reply to questions exactly, even honestly-and still manage to avoid the whole truth.

And suddenly the answer was there, in the man's very watchfulness.

Jimson hadn't heard the sound of Rutledge's engine-and he wouldn't have heard the Wyatt car leave-or return. Speak to him directly, while he stared at your face, and he could follow a conversation well enough to give reasonable answers. It took concentration and to some extent a painfully learned ability to read lips. This most certainly explained the tension in him.

The man wasn't lying. He was going deaf. He had told Rutledge what his eyes had seen, but there was no way for him to know what sounds he might or might not have missed. Anyone could have come-or gone-from here. And at any time. Jimson could only say with any certainty when Aurore had come.

As an alibi for Aurore Wyatt, he was useless.

Yet she must have known... so why had she left her own safety to hang on such a fragile thread? so why had she left her own safety to hang on such a fragile thread?

Rutledge asked if he might look through the house or the barn, but Jimson shook his head. "Not without permission," he said staunchly. "I don't have authority to let you go poking about in Mr. Wyatt's property. He might not like it, policeman or no."

The last thing Rutledge wanted to do was ask Aurore for permission.

Neither Hildebrand nor Bowles would authorize a search warrant. Both of them would be far more likely to read him a lecture on the exact nature of his responsibility in this inquiry.

If the suitcase was here-the hat-even the murder weapon-they would have to remain here until he had enough evidence to show cause to search.

And yet as he stood in the drive, he had a feeling that this farm had played a role in Margaret Tarlton's death. How or why, he wasn't sure. Alibi-or evidence? For-or against Aurore Wyatt?

Instinct, light as the breeze that ruffled the leaves of the trees and toyed with the gra.s.s at his feet, made him say to Jimson, "No matter. It was purely curiosity, not police business. This was quite a prosperous dairy in its day."

"Aye, it was," Jimson said, sadness in his voice as he looked around him. "The best dairy in the county, to my way of thinking. Now we've not got thirty cows in milk, and I see to all of them, with Mrs. Wyatt's help. I was that proud to work here, man and boy. That's the trouble with living too long. In my time I've seen more change than I liked. Mrs. Wyatt, now, she says change is good, but I don't know. I'll be dead and in the ground before this place turns around. There's no money, and no hope here. If I was her, I'd go back to France tomorrow and leave it to rot, instead of watching it fall slowly to pieces."

"She has a husband. She can't leave."

"Simon Wyatt's not the man his father was. I never saw such a difference in all my life as when he came home from the war. What's he want that museum for? Dead, heathenish things!" He shook his head. "Mrs. Daulton, now, she says it might be better for him than standing for Parliament. Choices are a good thing, she says. There weren't no choices when I was a lad, you did what your pa did, you counted yourself lucky to find a good woman to marry, and you raised your children to be decent, G.o.d-fearing Englishmen. And the dead didn't wander about in the night, talking to fence posts and trees, looking for their soul!"

Startled, Rutledge said, "Who wanders about in the night?" The first name that came to mind was Henry Daulton. He wasn't sure why, except that Henry must find his mother's steadfast belief in his full recovery overwhelming at times.

"Ghosts!" Jimson said direly, gesturing around him, and turned to walk back to the barn. Rutledge called to him and then swore, remembering that the caretaker was deaf.

But no amount of persuasion could pry another word out of the old man.

18.

The police spent all day trying to find a connection between the corpse that had been discovered in the field near Leigh Minster and any of the communities ringing the location-Leigh Minster itself, Stoke Newton, Singleton Magna, or Charlbury.

But just as the constables had reported, there were no missing women. And no newly hired domestics who had failed to appear at the time set for them to begin work. No cousins, daughters, wives, sisters-in-law, or other female relatives unaccounted for. She was clearly a stranger, then. Except that there were seldom any sound reasons for killing strangers.

Hildebrand marked her down as an unsolved murder and went back to looking for the Mowbray children. He drove the teams of searchers with a determination that was both praiseworthy and single-minded.

Dr. Fairfield, a small man of few words, established the time of death at approximately three to four months earlier.

"She couldn't have been in the ground longer," he told Rutledge later, stripping off his white coat and hanging it on a hook behind the door of the bare room where he kept the dead. "And her clothing supports the timing. This is August. I daresay she died in late April, early May. Cool enough weather to have her coat with her. Cause of death? I'd say she was choked but not killed by strangulation. It was the beating about the head that finished the job. I found a fracture just above the temple, small but sufficient. I don't think she was s.e.xually molested. There's no indication of it, from what I can see now, and her clothing is oddly tidy, as if whoever buried her had laid her out carefully on the coat."

"Was it the same person, do you think, who killed the Mowbray woman? Or Margaret Tarlton, as she may be?"

The doctor frowned, rubbing his chin. "That's harder to say. This one's skin is gone, you don't see the damage as readily. But yes, it might have been the same killer. Might, Might, mind you! I'm not an authority on murder. Still, both women appear to have been attacked by someone who clearly intended to kill them but, in the end, didn't know how to finish the job quickly or properly. When it's anger that runs amok to the point of destructive force, there's generally more damage-to the head, the throat, the shoulders. Then the blows land randomly, you see, driven by rage and intended to inflict as much hurt-and therefore as much satisfaction-as possible. Here the blows were confined to the head, mainly the face, as if to conceal ident.i.ty as well as to kill." He looked up at the taller man before him. "Does that seem odd to you? What I'm saying?" mind you! I'm not an authority on murder. Still, both women appear to have been attacked by someone who clearly intended to kill them but, in the end, didn't know how to finish the job quickly or properly. When it's anger that runs amok to the point of destructive force, there's generally more damage-to the head, the throat, the shoulders. Then the blows land randomly, you see, driven by rage and intended to inflict as much hurt-and therefore as much satisfaction-as possible. Here the blows were confined to the head, mainly the face, as if to conceal ident.i.ty as well as to kill." He looked up at the taller man before him. "Does that seem odd to you? What I'm saying?"

"Not to a policeman. No."

The doctor sighed. "Of course murder is seldom premeditated, is it? That is, with planning and preparation. And the fact is, the human being isn't easy to murder, without the proper tools. A knife. A firearm. A garrote. Even a hammer will do. Whoever killed these two women-whether it was the same person or two different people-it was emotion that drove him or her in the beginning. And then necessity took over. He had to silence the victim, you see. And he had a quite nasty job there. If I were you, having to search for the right person, I'd find someone who"-he paused, seeking the right words-"who was determined to go on, however gruesome the task, until the woman's pulse stopped."

"That can run either direction-a secret to be kept, or merely the realization that a live victim can point a finger at his attacker," Rutledge responded, thinking about it.

"Hmmm. Secrets take many forms, don't they? From the sins of the flesh to the sins of the soul." The doctor smiled, but without humor or lightness. "This one is terrible enough that the killer was willing to suffer horror himself-herself-in order to keep it safe. Until you've battered someone to death, Inspector, you can't conceive of how much blood and flesh and bone are spattered about. Only a madman can relish that, or someone so deranged by emotion that the flecks are not even registered, until it's over. Or someone grimly carrying on to the bitter end." He turned out the light in the hall and led the way to the side door of his surgery. "Does what I've told you help at all?"

"Yes," Rutledge said tiredly. "Unfortunately, I think it does."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," the doctor said, taking up his own coat and putting it on. "I'm late at a dinner party, and my wife won't be happy about that. Hildebrand didn't find my information useful. He's a good man, Inspector, but he makes up his mind to suit the facts. If I took the same approach in medicine, I'd have filled the churchyard with my mistakes!"

Rutledge walked back to the Swan, thinking about what the doctor had said. Hamish, in the back of his mind, was reminding him that blindness could be worse than deafness. Rutledge ignored him as long as he could and then said, "It isn't blindness. Human nature enters into it. I can't see Aurore Wyatt beating anyone to death. You said as much yourself once."

"Women," Hamish said, "will kill to protect their bairns-and their man. Margaret Tarlton was Simon Wyatt's past, returned to haunt him. She She did na' want that. And the woman wasn't going away, she was staying." did na' want that. And the woman wasn't going away, she was staying."

"Jealousy? No, I don't see Aurore Wyatt being jealous of Margaret or anyone else." Yet she was afraid of Elizabeth Napier.

"Who's spoken of jealousy?" Hamish demanded.

Rutledge stopped, watching a carriage coming up the hill toward the inn. The streets were deserted, it was just the dinner hour. He stood still and could hear laughter coming from the house on his left, and people's voices. The carriage rattled past and disappeared among the trees at the top of the hill. A cat stepped out of the inn's yard, ears twitching, catching the distant sound of a dog's raucous bark. Something fluttered overhead-a bat, he thought.

But deeper was another thought. Why had Simon Wyatt turned away from his future in Parliament? What was the real real reason? reason?

A foreign wife might not be an a.s.set-but with the proper backing, even that might be overcome. If Elizabeth Napier's father had turned against Wyatt for rejecting his daughter and putting in her place a French n.o.body, he was-by all accounts-an astute enough politician to know that you didn't have to like like the men you backed, you only needed to be sure of their support in the future. The Wyatt name had been magic in this part of Dorset for more than one generation. A safe seat for this const.i.tuency. the men you backed, you only needed to be sure of their support in the future. The Wyatt name had been magic in this part of Dorset for more than one generation. A safe seat for this const.i.tuency.

Simon and Aurore blamed his decision on the war. But what if there was something more than war weariness-or a devotion to his other grandfather-that made a very able and personable man choose seclusion over a brilliant career? A small museum without the resources to grow, hidden away in the Dorset countryside where visitors were few, where the exhibits would surely have a very narrow appeal, however interesting they were in their own right ... It didn't quite add up.

"It's no' what I was saying-" Hamish began.

But Rutledge cut him short. His eyes moved across to the police station where Mowbray still sat in his gloomy cell, watched day and night. "It's a beginning, isn't it?" he responded. "That's all that matters!"

The station door opened and Hildebrand came out, then paused as he saw Rutledge looking toward him. An instant's hesitation, and he walked on, as if the man on the other side of the street didn't exist.

"You've spoiled his investigation," Hamish pointed out. "He will na' thank you for it."

"Mowbray might," Rutledge said. "n.o.body else seems to care about him."

After eating his dinner without being aware of what was on his plate or his fork, Rutledge went out to his car and turned it toward Charlbury.

It was late in the evening to be calling on police business, but often the unexpected worked more successfully than the routine.

The road was dark, nearly empty, except for a dog that trotted into the undergrowth as the car's headlamps flicked over the crest of the rise. But Charlbury was brighter, and the Wyatt house looked as if it was expecting the King. There were lamps lit in most of the rooms, and in the museum wing. He left his car up by the church and walked back, making his way to the wing on foot. He thought: Curious ... so much light and no sounds of voices, of people shouting or talking or laughing.

The museum was empty. The masks leered at him in the brightness, mouths agape or dark slashes, eyes black with speculation or alarm, and the weapons, doubled with their own shadows, gave the rooms an air of tension. He walked through the three main areas, into the small, empty office, and then into the room across from it, hardly more than a large broom closet. He had never been there before. It held a bed with only a blanket, military in its folds, a chair, and a wooden table of indeterminate age, rescued from the attics or a jumble sale. A cupboard held a pair of shoes and some underwear, a clean s.h.i.+rt and a folded, freshly pressed pair of trousers.

Rutledge stood there in silence, not needing Hamish's comments to tell him that this was where Simon Wyatt spent most of his nights.

A gasp from the doorway made him spin around.

Aurore was there, grasping the frame with fingers that were white. "For a moment I thought-" She stopped. "Were you looking for Simon?" Her voice had steadied, sounded nearly normal. "Couldn't you have come to the door and knocked, as everyone else does?"

"-that I was Simon?" he asked, finis.h.i.+ng her first, unguarded reaction. "I didn't come to the door because I saw the lights here and thought he was in this wing. I preferred not to disturb the household, calling so late."

"Simon ... is out," she said.

But her eyes were showing the strain of worry, and he said, "What's wrong?" His words crossing hers.

She let the door frame go, then shrugged, that French expression of I wash my hands I wash my hands. ... "He doesn't sleep well. At night. He hasn't since the war. He rests here sometimes, when he doesn't want to disturb me, moving about the house in the dark. Or if he's very tired, sometimes in the afternoon. That's why the bed is here. It doesn't signify."

It was an apology for her husband. Perhaps for the state of her marriage. And an attempt to distract him. But the tension in her was palpable.

He read her eyes, not her words. "What's wrong?" he repeated.