The Confession Page 5

  As if I’m being watched, Frances had said.

  It would tend, he thought, to make a man with a guilty conscience nervous. Was that why the house stood empty? The whispers that a man’s mind turned to accusation?

  He drew up before the church. He had no idea where to look for the Rectory, although there must be one. But with luck, he might find someone inside who could direct him.

  The sign announcing that this was the Church of St. Edward the Confessor had a new message today on the hoarding below: Seek and ye shall find. He will welcome all who come to Him.

  Rutledge hoped that a welcome would prove to be true. It had not in Furnham.

  He opened the door, listening to the squeal of rusty hinges as he stepped into the plain, Victorian interior.

  “Ye willna’ have to seek anyone. Yon caterwauling will bring them running.”

  And Hamish was right. A door at the rear of the sanctuary opened and a man stepped through.

  He was wearing a clerical collar and an anxious expression on his square, sun-browned face. It was difficult to judge his age. He was one of those men who would appear boyish well into their forties. Rutledge found himself thinking that this must be a drawback for a clergyman trying to project an image of experience and wisdom.

  He didn’t come forward. He merely stopped where he was, seeing a stranger, and asked in a strong voice that belied his anxiety, “Are you lost?”

  “Mr. Morrison? I’m from London. Scotland Yard. I’d like to speak to you about one of your parishioners.”

  “Indeed?” It was a question, not a statement. “We have the usual number of reprobates here, but I can’t recall that any of them has lately come to the attention of Scotland Yard.”

  “Is there somewhere we could talk?” Rutledge asked.

  The man gestured to the pews that filled the sanctuary. “There are seats aplenty here. Shall we take one of them?”

  Rutledge walked forward, and the other man didn’t move until he had come to the last row but one. “Will this do?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” The man stepped forward and finally held out his hand. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me.”

  “Inspector Rutledge.”

  “Ah. Well, Mr. Rutledge, I must confess that I’m not in the confidence of many of my flock, but I’ll do what I can to help.”

  They sat down on the hard wood of the pew, facing each other. Rutledge reached into his pocket and took out the locket on its delicate chain. Opening it, he held it out, but he already knew the answer to his question before he asked it. “Do you know this woman?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did,” Morrison replied slowly, reaching for the locket, although it was clear he didn’t require a closer look. “She once lived nearby.”

  “Could you tell me her name?”

  “Where did you find this locket? May I ask?”

  “In Gravesend,” Rutledge answered. When the rector said nothing more, his eyes on the photograph, Rutledge added, “The police found it around the neck of a body taken from the Thames.”

  “Dear God!” The rector closed the locket with a snap, as if he couldn’t bear to look at it any longer. He turned his gaze toward the altar. “Who—has the body been identified?”

  “We have reason to believe that it is, was, one Wyatt Russell.”

  The relief filling in the rector’s eyes was almost painful to watch. Rutledge looked away. “Did you know him?” he asked.

  “I—yes, I knew him. He lived not far from here.”

  “At River’s Edge, in fact.”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “He came to see me shortly before his death. You haven’t told me who the woman is.”

  “Was he a suicide?”

  “He was murdered,” Rutledge replied shortly. “What is her name, Rector?”

  “God rest his soul,” Morrison said fervently, crossing himself. “As to the woman in the photograph, her name is Cynthia Farraday. She came to live at River’s Edge when her parents died of typhoid. Her father and the late Malcolm Russell were cousins, I believe. She was too young to live on her own, and Mrs. Russell, his widow, was made her guardian. She was alive then. Mrs. Russell, I mean. Wyatt’s mother. And then one day in the summer of 1914—August, it was—Mrs. Russell simply disappeared. ”

  “Were the police called in?”

  “Yes, the police from Tilbury. When it was realized that she was missing, there was a frantic search for her by the family and the staff. And then someone was sent posthaste to Tilbury. Men were brought out from Furnham to help, because they knew the marshes so well. But she was never found. The inquest concluded that she had drowned herself, for fear her son would die in the war. She’d lost her husband in the Boer War. Her son remembered that when she was a girl, a gypsy had read her hand and predicted that war would take all she loved from her. Her husband’s death convinced her that the prediction was true.”

  There had been a great deal of speculation that summer, after the Austrian archduke and heir to the Hapsburg throne had been assassinated in Sarajevo. Rutledge remembered it well. Would Austria demand a reckoning with the Serbs? And what would Germany do, if Russia insisted on protecting her fellow Slavs? Would France be drawn in, as an ally of Russia? Governments began to mobilize. And in the end, armies began to march. And Belgium, tiny Belgium with open borders and only a small army, had been overrun by the Kaiser’s forces on their way to France, in spite of Britain’s pledge to protect her. Britain had had no choice then but to declare war on Germany. And all Europe burst into flame.

  No one had believed it would happen. And then everyone had believed that it would all be over by Christmas, that the heads of state would come to their senses.

  Instead, the war had dragged on for four bloody years. Mrs. Russell had had every reason to be afraid for her son, although no one could have guessed it at the time.

  “Was this a strong enough reason for her to kill herself ? Surely further inquiry would uncover a better motive for her disappearance? And I should think that if she had drowned, sooner or later her body would have surfaced?”

  “You didn’t know her,” Morrison said wearily. “Elizabeth Russell was obsessed with the news, reading everything she could find. She had daily newspapers sent down from London by special messenger. She corresponded with a friend who’d married a Frenchman, and a telegram was sent telling her when the Germans had marched. And in spite of everything, her son joined the Army not a fortnight after she vanished.” He shrugged. “The local people, in their wisdom, were just as glad she hadn’t been found. The stigma of suicide, you see, and where to bury the body. They put up quite a fuss even when Russell wanted to set up a memorial to his mother in the family’s mausoleum. I must say, that surprised me. Furnham is not a very religious parish, as a rule.”

  “You said the local people had helped in the search. Could they have seen to it that her body wasn’t discovered?”

  “Dear God.” He was shocked. “I never thought of that.”

  “Where is this Furnham mausoleum? Is there a churchyard associated with your parish?”

  “Ah. The churchyard. The water table is too high, this near the river. It’s the reason there isn’t a crypt in this church. There’s a turning between here and the village. It doesn’t appear to be more than a dusty cart path. It leads to higher ground. The Rectory is there as well.”

  “Forgive me, Rector, but isn’t it odd to have a church this far from a village? And the churchyard in another place?”

  “It’s a long story,” Morrison answered. “And not a very pleasant one. I don’t know all of it myself. Suffice it to say, this church was built several years before Victoria ascended the throne. It was felt by the Bishop of that day that one was needed in Furnham parish. But over the years very few people in Furnham have availed themselves of it. I have a handful of elderly farmers’ wives, a few young children preparing for their first communion, often a bride and groom, and occasionally those who have nowhere else to turn in the
ir misery but to God. I hadn’t expected to serve in a parish like this. It has tried my spirit, I can tell you.”

  And Morrison had very skillfully directed Rutledge away from his questions about Russell and the woman in the locket.

  “When was the last time you saw Russell?”

  “I don’t believe he came home again once he’d joined the Army. Or if he did, I never saw him. I did learn that he was a major. His name appeared on a list of wounded.”

  “And Miss Farraday?”

  “Without Mrs. Russell there to act as chaperone, Miss Farraday went to London. A sad state of affairs, that. With Russell off to war, she might have stayed in the house without any criticism. But when she came to see me to say good-bye, she told me that the house was haunted.”

  “Literally?”

  “I asked her that question myself. She answered that it was filled with the ghosts of what might have been. It was ‘not a happy house,’ to use her words.”

  “I understand that Russell was married.”

  “Yes, on his last leave before sailing for France. I don’t believe he ever brought his bride to River’s Edge. I’d have liked to meet her. Later I heard she died from complications of childbirth, and the baby with her.”

  “Perhaps that was why Miss Farraday chose to leave. Because of the marriage.”

  Morrison smiled, a sadness in his eyes. “If anything it was the other way around. Russell would have married her on the instant. It was my understanding that she refused him. I feared that he’d married just to provide an heir for River’s Edge. If he did, it was not given to him, was it? But I understand he survived the war. So much for his mother’s superstitions.”

  Rutledge reached for the envelope again and brought out the photograph of the dead man, taken in Gravesend. “I need confirmation that this is, indeed, Wyatt Russell. If you have any reservations, I’ll be happy to take you to Tilbury for the ferry to Gravesend.”

  “Let me see the photograph, first.”

  Rutledge passed it to him. Morrison took it and held it to the faint rays of sunlight coming through the plain glass windows high up in the sanctuary wall.

  “But this isn’t Russell,” he exclaimed. “What led you to believe it was?”

  “It’s not Russell? You’re quite sure of that? You haven’t seen him in six years,” Rutledge countered, making an effort to conceal his consternation.

  “I’d stake my life on it!”

  Chapter 5

  “Could this be Justin Fowler?” Rutledge asked.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Then you knew Fowler too?”

  “He was a connection of Mrs. Russell’s, although I don’t believe she had known his family very well. She told me before he came that she’d lost touch with his mother after she married Mr. Fowler. I had the feeling that Mrs. Russell didn’t approve of him. That’s to say, of the husband. This was just after the solicitor had come to ask her to take the boy in. She said that God in his wisdom had seen fit to give her only one child. But to make up for it, God had sent her the daughter she’d never have and now a second son. I wondered later if she was as happy as she’d expected to be. They weren’t that easy to mother. They weren’t hers, after all. Then she was gone, and the boys—they were young men by that time—left to join the Army. I don’t know if Justin Fowler survived or not. I drove him in Mrs. Russell’s motorcar to meet the train to London, and that was the last time I saw him. A quiet boy, kept to himself. I didn’t know him well. But he was afraid of something. I never knew what it was.”

  “Then who is the man in this photograph?”

  Morrison frowned as he considered the face again. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him before. But you said he’d come to call on you at the Yard? The man in this photograph? How did you come to believe he was Major Russell?”

  “It was the name he gave me,” Rutledge said trenchantly.

  “How very odd! And you tell me he was wearing the locket with Miss Farraday’s likeness in it when his body was pulled from the river?”

  “According to those who found him.”

  “Then I should think you ought to find her and ask her if she knows this man.”

  “Before I do, what else can you tell me about the Russell household? Are there any of the staff still living in the vicinity? Perhaps in Furnham.”

  “There was only a small staff. A housekeeper, of course, and several maids. A cook. An elderly groom. And I believe there was a man who acted as butler when there were guests, but generally drove Mrs. Russell when she went out. The household didn’t get on well with the local people and kept to themselves more often than not. The groom died soon after Mrs. Russell disappeared. And the cook went to live with a member of her family, when the house was closed. Mrs. Broadley. I remember how apt her name was. An excellent cook! I don’t know what became of the housekeeper, Mrs. Dunner. I was told she found employment in the Midlands. Harold—the chauffeur—stayed on as caretaker in the first few weeks of the war, then was called up. There was no one at River’s Edge after that.”

  “The maids?”

  “I’d nearly forgot. Nancy married a farmer’s son on the other side of Furnham. Samuel Brothers. The others went their ways.”

  “Tell me how to find this farm?”

  “You must drive through Furnham, and when the road curves to the left, just continue along it. The second farm you come to belongs to Brothers.”

  Rutledge thanked him and took his leave. Morrison walked with him up the single aisle of the church and to the door, like a good host seeing a guest on his way.

  He said as they reached the door, “I hope you can identify that poor man in the photograph. I shall pray for him.”

  “Thank you, Rector.”

  And then the door was closed behind him, and the rector’s footsteps seemed to echo in the emptiness of the sanctuary as he walked back down the aisle.

  “He was in love with the lass. In yon locket,” Hamish said as Rutledge crossed the narrow strip of lawn to his motorcar.

  “Morrison?”

  “Aye, the priest.”

  Rutledge remembered the sadness in the rector’s eyes as he said that Russell would have married Cynthia Farraday. Russell was more her equal than a country parson. It could explain why Morrison had found it difficult to discuss her.

  He paused as he reached for the crank, and in the silence he could hear the whispers in the grass. It was easy to imagine people hidden among the reeds, some of them taller than a man. For that matter, it would be hard to find someone even twenty feet away from where one stood. It explained the difficulty in searching for Mrs. Russell.

  He left the church, turning toward Furnham.

  Who the hell was the man who had come into his office, claiming to be Wyatt Russell and swearing he’d murdered Justin Fowler? More to the point, who had killed that man not a fortnight later? And were the two events related? Or was there something else in the victim’s past that had led to his death?

  Hamish said, “The lass in the locket will know.”

  “Yes, very likely.” But finding her was going to be another matter.

  Making a point to look for the turning Morrison had spoken of, he saw it to his left three-quarters of a mile from the church. He drove on, passing through Furnham and out the other side, turning away from the river’s mouth toward the farms and pasturage wrested from the marshes. The farms were not large, but they appeared to be prosperous enough. Dairy herds, mostly, he thought, judging from the cows grazing quietly. With only enough acreage for the corn and hay to feed them. He could just see the green tips of the corn in a field beyond, moving with the light sea breeze.

  He found the Brothers farm and took the rutted turning that led to the house. Beyond it stood a weathered barn and several outbuildings.

  No one answered his knock, and after a moment he walked round to the kitchen door at the rear. There he found a woman in a black dress that had seen happier days, inside a wire pen scattering
feed for the chickens bunched and clucking around her ankles. She looked up as Rutledge came toward her, her eyes wary.

  It was an expression he was growing accustomed to, here on the River Hawking.

  She said, politely enough, “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Good morning. My name is Rutledge. I’m looking for Mrs. Brothers.”

  “And what would you be wanting with her, when you’ve found her?”

  “I’m trying to locate anyone who knew the family at River’s Edge. The rector at St. Edward’s, Mr. Morrison, has told me Mrs. Brothers was once a housemaid there.”

  Nodding, she emptied the bowl she was holding in the crook of her arm and walked out of the pen, latching the gate behind her. “Come into the kitchen, then.”

  He followed her down the path and over the stepping-stones that led between the beds of herbs, flowers, and vegetables flanking the kitchen entrance. Someone, he noted, took pride in the gardens, for they were weeded and the soil between the rows had recently been hoed.

  Inside the kitchen, he saw the same care. The cloth over the table was not only clean but also ironed, and both the sink and the cabinets below it were spotless, as was the floor.

  “I’m Nancy Brothers,” she said, offering him a chair and going to stand in front of the broad dresser. “Why are you looking for anyone from the house?”

  “I’m not precisely sure,” Rutledge answered her. “This locket has been found, and I’m trying to trace the woman shown inside.” He took it from his pocket and held it out to her by the gold chain. “I was told she might have lived at River’s Edge.”

  Instead of reaching for the locket, Mrs. Brothers asked, “Are you a lawyer, then? Or a policeman?”

  He told her the truth. “I’m from Scotland Yard. We don’t ordinarily search for the owner of lost property. But in this case, it could help us in another matter of some importance.”

  Mrs. Brothers took the locket, found the clasp, and opened it. “Oh.”

  “You recognize her?” Rutledge prompted as she stood there staring at the tiny photograph.