A Game of Fear: A Novel (Inspector Ian Rutledge #24)(3)

Beyond the harbor were the salt flats and the weathered wooden sheds where seawater from the flooded flats was pumped into basins, cleaned, boiled, then dried, before the flakes were raked up and shoveled into tubs. The business of supplying salt had once been king here, just as wool had before it, but it was no longer quite so profitable, and so Walmer had faded into a quiet backwater. Rutledge had a sudden memory of his grandmother keeping Walmer Salt in a special jar with a ceramic top.

Satisfied that he had a general plan of the village in his head, Rutledge turned back to the police station on one of the side streets just off the High. There he was informed that Inspector Hamilton was having a very late lunch in the back garden of an hotel just down the way.

He left his motorcar at the station and walked there. The High was fairly busy, women stepping in and out of shops as they did their marketing, while overhead gulls swooped and called. It was impossible to see the harbor from this part of the village, much less the sea. It could, he thought, be any inland village, except for the gulls. It was almost as if Walmer had turned its back on the water, now that it was no longer the main source of income.

The Swan Hotel was small, no more than four stories, gray stone with large windows. He stepped inside and was shown to a rear door leading out into the garden. Half a dozen tables had been set out there, for dining and drinking in fair weather, but the lone man seated at one of them was paying little attention to the sunny day. His head was buried in what appeared to be reports, spread out in the space where his empty dishes had been pushed aside, and he didn’t look up as Rutledge crossed to his table.

“Just set it there,” he said, motioning beyond the dishes. “Where it won’t drip.”

“Inspector Hamilton?”

He looked up then. A small man, slim but strongly built, with graying dark hair and a trim moustache, he was at first annoyed by the interruption. Then realizing that Rutledge was neither a waiter nor anyone else he recognized, he got to his feet and said, “You must be the man from London.”

“Yes. Ian Rutledge.”

Hamilton nodded, collected the papers he’d been studying into a stack and tucked them into a slim case by the table leg, before indicating the other chair. “I’m almost embarrassed to speak to you,” he began with a sigh. “But the Chief Constable insisted that we call in the Yard. He’s actually related to the woman who is the only witness. His daughter was married to her late son. The war.”

Rutledge sat down. “Is she a reliable witness, do you think?”

Hamilton sighed. “Until this past weekend, I’d have said yes. She’s nearing fifty, I expect, in good health, has a good head on her shoulders. At the start of the war, an airfield was laid out on part of her property. Requisitioned, not by her choice. But she made the best of it, looked after the men stationed there, most of them young lads a long way from home. Well, her own son was in France. She gave them the run of her tennis courts and the gardens, with the stipulation that nothing be destroyed, and even allowed them to drink at tables she set up just beyond the maze.” He smiled. “Kept them out of mischief, she said. And gave them a place to unwind after a flight, without coming all the way into town. Not that it kept them from enjoying the fleshpots of Walmer, mind you, especially on a Saturday night. Quite popular those men were too. Or so I heard. I was glad I didn’t have a daughter.”

“Widow, this witness?”

“Yes. Her husband died in 1910, and she had only the one lad. He was a pilot himself, had sixteen kills to his credit before he was shot down. That nearly broke her, but she soldiered on, and the men at the airfield rallied round, taking turns looking after her. It was rather nice of them.”

“Tell me about the ghost who is said to be our killer.”

Hamilton watched the gulls for a moment, then said, “I wasn’t here when it happened, of course. But about halfway through the war, one of the officers at the field got into his motorcar, heading for the lane that led out to the main road, but he was going at a great rate of speed. Then without warning he veered into the hedge that separated the house grounds from the airfield. He hit it full force. Never slowing, according to witnesses. When the lads got to him, he was dead, his chest crushed by the steering wheel. It was quite a shock.”

“Accident or deliberate?” Rutledge asked. He could hear the echo of Melinda’s words in his head.

Hamilton shrugged. “They couldn’t find anything wrong with the motorcar. But apparently Captain Nelson had been having a rough patch. He’d had three close calls in the air, barely making it back to a field in one case, coming down in the water in another, and limping home in a third. Forty verified kills to his credit, a fine pilot. Most of the lads didn’t last as long as he had. Half the town came to his funeral. He’d told a friend he was out of luck, and that seemed to haunt him. That came out at the inquest, but other than that, no one could understand what had happened.”

“How old was he?”

“About your age. Not quite thirty, at a guess.”

“You seem to know quite a bit about it. Even though you weren’t here.”

Hamilton moved his chair slightly and stretched out his legs. “My wife sent me cuttings from the local paper. It’s only a weekly, but some of the other newspapers carried the story as well. Must have made a change from the war news, which wasn’t very hopeful at the time.”