The Confession Read Free Page A

would have to be involved. With any luck, I shall be dead before it reaches that stage. Tell the policeman to mind his own business until then. I’ve no doubt you’ll not let this matter drop, but once I’m not there to answer your questions, you won’t be able to do any harm.” He signaled the waiter, and then said to Rutledge, “I’m very tired. It’s one of the curses of my condition. I shan’t be able to see you out.”
    â€œIs there anything that I can do? Help you to your room?”
    â€œThank you, no. I can still manage that.”
    Rutledge rose and held out his hand. “If you change your mind at any point, you know where to find me.”
    â€œYes, I do. Thank you, Inspector.”
    Rutledge turned to walk away, and Russell said, “Actually—there is one thing you might do for me.”
    Facing Russell again, Rutledge asked, “What is it?”
    â€œPray for my soul. It might help. A little.”
    M otoring back to the Yard, Rutledge considered Wyatt Russell. If he’d been telling the truth, that he’d come to confess a murder that was weighing on his soul, why had he been so reluctant to tell the whole truth, and not just a part of it?
    Was someone else involved?
    And that was very likely the answer. But then why not simply continue to live with the secret, and die without confessing it? When Russell learned he couldn’t have it both ways, he had retreated from that confession.
    Was that someone else a partner in the crime? Or the reason for it?
    As he got out of his motorcar at the Yard, he was examining a map of Essex in his head. North of the Thames, north of Kent on the other side of that river, it was threaded with marshes, the coastline a fringe of inlets and a maze of tidal rivers that isolated the inhabitants in a world little changed with the passage of time. Until the war, the people of that part of Essex had known little about the rest of their county, much less their country, content with their own ways, in no need of modern conveniences or interference in a life that contented them.
    As Essex moved inland, it was a different story entirely, with towns, villages, and a plethora of roads. Basildon, Chelmsford, Colchester might as well be the antipodes as far as the marsh dwellers were concerned, as distant to their way of thinking as London itself. And Rutledge, nodding to the sergeant on duty and mounting the stairs to his office, was certain that a murder in villages even in that part of the countryside wouldn’t go unnoticed. Unless, of course, Russell had been very clever indeed at disposing of an unwanted body.
    Something had been said about an airfield.
    Rutledge walked on past his office and went to find Constable Greene, who had served with a squadron based near Caen.
    Greene, a spare, affable man with unruly fair hair that to his chagrin curled when the weather was damp, was thirty-three, coming late to police work. After the Armistice, he had decided to join the Metropolitan Police, and it wasn’t long before he had come to the attention of the Yard. Before the war he had owned a bicycle shop in Reading that had just begun to cater to motorcars when hostilities broke out. He had been mad to fly, but heights had made him ill, and so he had maintained and repaired the machines he loved. In the constant struggle to find parts to keep his pilots flying, he knew most of the other airfields in France. He might well know one in Essex.
    Looking up as Rutledge came toward his desk, he smiled. “Afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?”
    â€œI’d like to borrow your memory. From the war.” He described what little Russell had told him about the airfield and asked, “Can you possibly place it?”
    Greene frowned. After a moment he said, “There were several out there. At a guess, I’d say you’re looking at Furnham. On the River Hawking. They had a good deal of trouble there. Not the