A Game of Fear: A Novel (Inspector Ian Rutledge #24)(15)

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Three of my own men didn’t make it back.” He set the pen aside, and looked across the desk at Rutledge. “The thing was, Fred Newbold, Jack’s son, was rejected by the Army. All his mates marched off to war, and he was left behind. It—affected him. He hasn’t been himself since then.”

“Why was he rejected?” What he’d seen of the man on the stairs, he was healthy enough to have served.

“Something to do with the heart. Doctor Wister can explain it, if need be.”

Rutledge thanked him and left.

As he drove on to the hotel’s yard, Hamish said, “In the old days, a public house like yon would belong to smugglers.” The deep Scots voice coming from the rear seat was as real as it had been in life.

Without thinking, Rutledge answered aloud. “What else is it hiding?”

He was about to turn into the yard when he heard laughter coming from the open windows of the lounge.

Given that warning, he left his motorcar in the yard, and walked around to the rear where the garden tables were set out. The door there led by the kitchens, and he stopped in, asking a harried young woman if he could have a tray in the room.

“When this lot has gone, sir—would that be soon enough?”

“Yes. That’s fine.”

“There’s a menu in Reception. Just tell them what you’d like.”

He went on down the passage, which came out by the stairs and Reception, and he found himself in the overflow of guests, standing about chatting. Making his way through them, he found the menu on a stand outside the dining room, made his choice, and gave it to the grinning woman at Reception.

She made a note of it, and then said, “It does make the heart light to see a happy young couple.” When he didn’t immediately agree with her, she went on. “There wasn’t much time for engagement parties during the war. People got married when and where they could, didn’t they?”

The memory of his own engagement party came flooding back, and he made some answer, then turned and went up the stairs to his room. The sound of voices seemed to follow him, even when he shut the door.

Jean Gordon’s parents had held the affair in their own home, and he remembered doing his duty, asking all the women who had no partners to dance, and Melinda was there, although he knew she wasn’t particularly pleased that he’d proposed to Jean. He’d not been particularly pleased himself that she hadn’t been as glad for him as he’d hoped. But he’d been in love, blind to the truth.

He’d danced with Kate that night, Jean’s cousin, and saw reflected in her eyes a sadness for him, and tried to ignore it. Jean was bright, beautiful, spirited—and utterly selfish. And Kate knew that. He wished now with all his heart that he’d been a wiser man and had chosen Kate instead. But it was too late.

Too late . . .

His room looked out on the back garden he’d just come through. Several people had taken tables there, the murmur of conversation drifting up to him, but not the words. They were dressed for the party and had gone out for a breath of fresher air. He crossed the room and looked down at them. Then knew he had to get away.

Leaving the motorcar where it was, he began to walk. And soon found himself in front of St. George’s churchyard, two streets over. Above his head the westering sun struck the tower, touching it with light.

Hamish said, out of the blue, “Where did they bury the Captain?”

There was an iron gate set in the stone wall surrounding the churchyard, and he opened it, stepping onto the path that led to the church door. But he turned aside and began reading the names on the gravestones. He walked by many too old to be deciphered and searched instead for newer ones.

Hamish was saying, “There mayna’ be a stone.”

It didn’t matter, he couldn’t go back to the hotel until the guests had left. And so he kept on, ignoring the voice, moving about the uneven ground as he searched.

He finally discovered what he was looking for well behind the apse, as if those who had provided a place of burial had been of two minds about how the man had died.

Clearly there hadn’t been any family to claim the body . . .

It was a plain stone with only the man’s name—Roger Anthony Nelson—his rank of Captain, and his dates. Rutledge realized that he would have been twenty-nine on his next birthday, had he lived.

There was no information about his parentage or how he’d died. And there was no one else by that name close by, no one who might remotely be related.

Why hadn’t the body been sent back to wherever his family lived?

He was still standing there, considering the stone, when someone spoke just behind him.

“Did you serve with him?”





4


Rutledge turned sharply to find a young woman a few feet from him. Her approach across the thick grass had been almost silent. Even Hamish hadn’t heard her.

“Sadly, no.”

“He would come into the pub sometimes—the Salt Cellar, down by the harbor. If he was still there at closing, he’d walk me home.” She had brown hair and brown eyes, and was pretty in a very soft way. “I liked him. Quiet, nice manners. I’d have gone out with him, if he’d asked. But he never did.”

“What did you talk about, as he walked with you?”