A Game of Fear

Book 24: Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries

by Charles Todd

Genres: Ghost

Synopsis

In this newest installment of the acclaimed New York Times bestselling series, Scotland Yard’s Ian Rutledge is faced with his most perplexing case yet: a murder with no body, and a killer who can only be a ghost.

Spring, 1921. Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Rutledge to the sea-battered village of Walmer on the coast of Essex, where amongst the salt flats and a military airfield lies Benton Abbey, a grand manor with a storied past. The lady of the house may prove his most bewildering witness yet. She claims she saw a violent murder—but there is no body, no blood. She also insists she recognized the killer: Captain Nelson. Only it could not have been Nelson because he died during the war.

Everyone in the village believes that Lady Benton’s losses have turned her mind—she is, after all, a grieving widow and mother—but the woman Rutledge interviews is rational and self-possessed. And then there is Captain Nelson: what really happened to him in the war? The more Rutledge delves into this baffling case, the more suspicious tragedies he uncovers. The Abbey and the airfield hold their secrets tightly. Until Rutledge arrives, and a new trail of death follows… 

Release date: February 1, 2022

Publisher: William Morrow

Print pages: 320

Sample

1

London, Late Spring 1921

Too often, Rutledge thought as he shut the door of the flat, carried his valise to the motorcar, and set out for the coast of Essex, humor has a malicious twist to it.

Word had got around that Markham had assigned him the murder inquiry in Essex, and as he quickly cleared his desk and took the remaining files down to Sergeant Gibson, he was accompanied by a cacophony of noises that were supposed to represent ghostly sounds. He made the best of it, but he knew that in some cases the noises were intended to remind him of his haunted war years. Of shell shock. Sharper sounds, pencils rapidly tapping the edge of a desk, more like the rattle of machine-gun fire than Marley’s chains—faces hiding their intent behind friendly grins, while their eyes, staring at him, were cold—and Markham in his doorway, watching without any expression at all . . . He’d had to clench his teeth to prevent swearing at them and instead pretend to be amused.

When he’d questioned Markham about the need to send the Yard to Essex in the first place, the Chief Superintendent had said shortly, “Well, something happened, that much we know. I don’t put much stock in the rest of it. Sort it out. The Chief Constable feels obligated. He says he knows the family. Otherwise he’d have left it to the local man.”

Spring was coming to Kent as Rutledge crossed the county line. The orchards were in bloom, great splashes of white or a soft pink everywhere he looked. The hop fields were a low, bright green, just breaking through the soil, not yet ready for the hordes of Londoners who came down to string up the vines.

The reason he’d chosen to drive this roundabout way, rather than through East London, was a light lunch with Melinda Crawford, at her house. He’d promised her more than once that he would come down, then had had to put off his visit. Not that he was deliberately avoiding her. Twice she’d stood by him in a time of great need. Once when word had come that his parents had been killed in a boating accident off the Isle of Skye. And again when he himself had not known where to turn or who to trust. What’s more, she’d been a close friend of his parents and a part of his childhood. He’d always been fond of her.

The thing was, she saw him too clearly—knew him too well. And he’d had to struggle since war’s end to keep Hamish from her. The voice in his head that had never left him, never given him peace, since the Battle of the Somme in ’16. She knew a little of that part of his war—but not the worst of it.

She was Army, generations of Army. And he wasn’t sure how she would feel about his guilt.

And so he tried to keep his distance when he could.

She was expecting him. When he came up the drive, the door opened as he braked to a halt by the steps.

“Hallo,” she said, smiling. “You made good time.”

Rutledge grinned in response. He’d let the big touring car out on the straight stretches. As she must have known he might.

He got down, walked up the steps, and kissed the cheek she presented.

“You’re looking well,” he told her, and meant it. She was wearing a woolen dress in a shade of dark red that she preferred, and with it a heavy gold locket on a gold chain. He knew what was inside it—her late husband’s likeness, painted by a master, giving the sitter a warmth and life that had intrigued Rutledge as a boy. He could remember asking often “to see the Colonel, please, may I?” And she would open the tiny clasp and show him the handsome man in the uniform of another century.

“Come in. Lunch is in half an hour. And you can tell me about this latest inquiry of yours.”

“I don’t know that it will turn out to be much of an inquiry at all,” he said, following her into the high-ceilinged hall, where Shanta was waiting to take his hat and coat.

He didn’t add that it was one of the reasons he felt he could spare the time to come this roundabout way through Kent.

“Essex, you said on the telephone?”

“Yes, the village of Walmer, on the coast.”

He followed her into the library, where she offered him a whisky, then poured a sherry for herself before sitting down across from him.

“The problem is, a murder was witnessed—but no body was found at the scene. Nor has one turned up. At least it hadn’t, by the time I’d left the Yard.”

“Surely sooner or later someone will be reported missing?”

“That’s always what we hope will happen. The witness, meanwhile, has told the local man that she recognized the killer.”

“Then why has the Chief Constable asked for the Yard to step in?”

“A very good question, one I asked Markham.” He smiled wryly. “Except for the fact that the name she gave him is of someone who is already dead. The killer, apparently, is a ghost. And for all we know, the victim is one as well.”

Melinda was clearly intrigued. But she said only, “Well. If anyone can get to the bottom of it, you will. Now, give me the news from London.” She went on, asking about his sister, Frances, and a number of friends they had in common, until Shanta appeared in the doorway, announcing that lunch was served.

It wasn’t laid out in the long dining room, which could seat twenty guests with ease. Instead, a small table had been set in Melinda’s sitting room beside the fire that was always blazing at any time of the year. She’d spent her youth and the early years of her marriage in India, and claimed that she had never learned to tolerate the English chill.

It was a pleasant hour or so. Rutledge, looking up at the clock on the mantel, reluctantly rose to take his leave. “Duty calls,” he said.

Melinda didn’t protest. She understood Duty.

She hadn’t mentioned the inquiry at all after that initial bit of conversation when he arrived. Now, at the door seeing him off, she said, “There’s an airfield very close by Walmer, as I remember. Is it anywhere near this house where your only witness lives?”

“There are several wartime airfields along the Essex coast. How close one may be to Benton Hall I don’t know. Why?”

Melinda frowned. “As I recall, there was an incident there during the war. A death that was never explained. You might keep that in mind.”

Rutledge regarded her for a moment. “How did you come to know that? Nothing was said about any incident in the report I was given.”

She looked up at the tall man standing on her doorstep, and said blandly, “A friend of mine was the commanding officer there when it happened. He took it quite hard.”

Melinda Crawford was probably the most astute woman he’d ever met. In her lifetime she had experienced more than most, and her contacts among Army and Foreign Office people were legendary. He was never really certain what she’d had a hand in, for she never spoke of victories—or defeats.

He said, “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“No. I only remember it because it upset a friend.”

Rutledge let it go—he knew her well enough to understand that this was all she intended to say. Otherwise she wouldn’t have waited until he was leaving. He kissed her again and went out to his motorcar. She waved farewell as he left, her dark red dress a splash of bright color against the facade of the house as he rounded a bend in the drive.

He made good time to Gravesend, where the ferry crossed the Thames to Essex.

 

It was another two hours to Walmer, up the main north road and then a turning into a network of country lanes. It was flat terrain, crops and grazing, with fertile soil that often turned to mud after the winter rains. He was delayed twice, by a slow-moving muck cart, and again by half a dozen geese waddling across the road from a farm pond.

The village proper was set on a hill that sloped down to the water. Here the River Chelmer met the Blackwater Estuary, where long fingers of land protected it on either side all the way to the sea, like a deep inlet.

Rutledge drove through the streets, noting the odd tower on one of the churches, then found his way down to the harbor. The sea was invisible from here, but the estuary glinted in the sunlight. He found several pubs and the usual shops that catered to several fishing boats and one or two smaller craft. One of the pubs was called The Salt Cellar, with its large wrought iron cellar hanging above the door, and the other The Viking, with a sign of a suitably fierce and bearded figure brandishing an axe. Weather had faded the painted background to a dull gray, but someone had touched up the head of the axe, and the brightness caught the eye. The windows were grimy, the general appearance as faded as the sign above the door.

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.”

“What did local gossip have to say?”

“Nobody wanted to call it suicide. They seemed to prefer to believe his luck had run out. Just as he’d said. That it was a freak accident.”

“That hardly makes him a ghost.” Rutledge watched the gulls overhead, waiting for the Inspector to answer. “Did he haunt the field afterward?”

“No.” Hamilton hesitated. “But the odd thing was, the story got around that he was sometimes seen on the field as a pilot took off—but only by a pilot who didn’t come back. That he foretold bad luck. Warned a man of his danger. However you might look at it.”

“Has he been seen since then?”

“That’s even odder. The Ministry was starting to dismantle the field after the war, and before the work was finished, a half dozen village lads decided to go there one night to find the ghost for themselves. And they saw him. They came home frightened out of their wits. When a number of the village men went back to see what was happening—more likely to hunt for a human prankster than a ghost—the airfield was empty. They didn’t even start a hare or a stoat. But the boys couldn’t be persuaded that there was no ghost. They were that certain of what they’d witnessed.” Clearing his throat, he added, “My youngest son was one of them.”

“He still claims it was a ghost, even today? Or has he forgot his fright?”

“Oh yes. He won’t talk about it. But one look at his face when he came home convinced my wife he’d seen something. I tried to talk to him about it when I got home, but he refused to say anything. Whether it was a ghost or not, who can say?”

“And the woman who lives in the house? Does she believe in ghosts?”

“Lady Benton? The Hall had once been a small monastery, a sister house to one in France. Under Henry VIII the monks were turned out and the abbey was about to be dismantled when it was granted to a Benton ancestor for some prowess or other at a tournament. He’d unseated the King or some such, depending on which historical record you want to believe. The ancestor came posthaste to have a look at his new property, tore down parts of the abbey, and turned what was left into a manor house. Quite a handsome one, in fact. It would probably be poetic justice to say the ghosts of the dispossessed monks got their own back by haunting the house. What’s more, the village has a long memory—you’ll hear the house referred to as ‘the Abbey’ more often than it’s called the Hall.”

“Most manor houses claim to have ghosts,” Rutledge commented.

“If there’s one here, I’ve never heard tales about it. Although they do tell visitors at the Abbey that one kitchen maid a century or more later swore she heard bells in the night, calling the monks to their prayers.”

Rutledge smiled. “Indeed. What about the victim in this case?”

Hamilton shrugged. “Apparently she didn’t recognize him. Nor could she say whether he was real or imaginary.” He toyed with the handle of the knife on his plate. “I can’t tell you what has caused her to be so wholly convinced that she saw a ghost do murder. I even spoke to Dr. Wister, to see if there was any medical reason. And he knows of nothing that might cause her to have such hallucinations.”

“How will she take to my poking about?”

“Truthfully? I think she’ll welcome it. This business has unsettled her. Not surprisingly.”

Hamilton began to rise, collecting his papers. “You could do worse than staying here at the hotel, by the way. There’s a small inn not far from the Abbey, but it’s mostly for drinking. Not much of a kitchen and only two very small rooms.”

Small rooms. The thought made Rutledge shudder inwardly, his claustrophobia awakening with a vengeance. He’d been buried alive in the trenches and had barely survived, leaving him with a dread of confined spaces. It was one of the reasons he never took a train anywhere, the thought of sharing a cramped compartment putting him off.

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll bespeak a room here.”

As they crossed the garden to the rear door of the hotel, Rutledge asked, “Who was the victim of the airfield ghost?”

“That’s just it. We’ve no idea. Nor does Lady Benton. Captain Nelson had no enemies. Unless you count the Hun pilots.”

 

It was going on seven o’clock, but Rutledge went to call on the doctor after settling into the hotel.

“You’ve come about Lady Benton,” he said, after Rutledge had introduced himself.

“Inspector Hamilton told me that he’d spoken to you about her.”

“Good man, Hamilton. He told me about his village while I was digging a bit of shrapnel out of his shoulder, just outside Ypres. I remembered that when I was finished with the Army. I wanted a quiet surgery where there were no broken bodies lined up on stretchers and no time to do a decent job on any of them. And Walmer suited me when I came here to take a look.”

Dr. Wister was young, perhaps thirty-five or six, but he looked ten years older. Rutledge wondered if he drank—there was something about his eyes that suggested long nights and unpleasant dreams. As if sleep was hard to come by.

Physician, heal thyself. It didn’t always work.

Wister gestured to the chair in front of his desk, as he walked around it and sat down. “She’s perfectly sane. I’m not convinced her eyesight is what it ought to be. But this business with the ghost and a murder . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know what she actually saw—only what she believes she saw. It was late, dark—and Hamilton would be happy to learn that it was nothing more than a bit of undigested dinner. Like Scrooge. He’s used to dealing with evidence. And apparently there isn’t any.”

“For a start, could she describe the victim? What sort of weapon was used? Was any blood found at the site? I understood from Hamilton that Lady Benton believes she recognized the killer. But was she as certain about any other details?”

“I don’t think anyone actually asked that many questions. I expect Hamilton searched, but never found any evidence to support what she’d told him. Including blood. He’s always thorough. Still . . .” He cleared his throat. “Women living alone sometimes start at shadows. Hear noises where there are none. They worry about their safety, and she lives in a very large house with no live-in staff.”

“What did you do for her? Give her a sedative, to help her sleep?”

“Well, it was the next morning, when she came in to report what had happened. Hamilton brought her to me, because she appeared to be in some distress. I got the rest of the story out of her over some very hot, very sweet tea. Apparently she’d locked herself in her room until first light, then drove herself in. No breakfast, of course. But I’m a doctor, I listened closely, and I didn’t judge. Because I could see that she believed every word of her story.”

Changing the subject, Rutledge asked, “Who did the post mortem on Captain Nelson, when he was killed?”

“Dr. Gregson, my predecessor. He died in the influenza epidemic, but he was a fine record keeper.” He gestured toward a cabinet against the wall by the windows. “I looked up the report, after speaking to Lady Benton. Just to satisfy myself that Nelson was dead. Internal injuries were severe. The wheel crushed his chest. That hedge is very old, with trunks as thick as trees, and at the rate of speed he was said to have been going, the motorcar suffered heavy damage as well. Otherwise, he was a healthy young man, nothing physically that might explain what happened, like a sudden heart event—and nothing that might have worried him to the point of ending his life. That’s to say, no fatal illness developing. Emotionally—that’s another matter. I dealt with men in France. Gregson didn’t. There might have been something that he missed.”

Rutledge looked away so that Wister couldn’t read his eyes and see what was there. But the doctor had something else on his mind.

“A suggestion?”

“By all means.”

“Be careful. Interviewing Lady Benton. You don’t want to make matters worse by making her doubt herself. Not doubting her account, you understand—herself. There’s a difference.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? It’s important that you do. I’m the one who will have to pick up the pieces long after you go back to the city.”

Rutledge stood up. “You will have to trust that I know what to do. How do I find the house?”

Wister reluctantly gave him her direction.

Then, at the door, Rutledge asked, “What became of the motorcar? Afterward?”

“According to Gregson, it was left there until after the inquest. In the event it was needed. And then there was the wait while the Captain’s sister was reached in America. Finally the commanding officer saw that it was removed and disposed of—it was bad for morale. And Lady Benton insisted as well. She told him it was distressing to her staff to see it there. The Major cleared it with Gregson, of course. He made a note of that too. For the record. What became of it after that I can’t tell you.”

Rutledge thanked him, and left.

When he drove out to the Hall, several miles north and east of the village, he passed the ruins of the gatehouse that had once marked the entrance to abbey lands. The base was flint, but there wasn’t enough left to judge more than its size. A mile farther along he came to gates of the house itself, set into the high wall that appeared to encircle the estate. They were closed.

He could see what must have become of the original gatehouse, for the wall was flint, the tall pillars on either side of the gates as well. The original builders hadn’t wasted good materials.

He’d hoped to find them open, even at this hour, but perhaps after what had happened, he thought, Lady Benton wasn’t eager to have either visitors or curiosity seekers.

It was as he was reversing to return to Walmer, that he noticed the gates themselves.

Tall, wrought iron, inset into the pillars and rising in a graceful arch. There was half of a brass scroll on each that came together in the center when the gates were shut as they were now.

He’d taken for granted that it simply gave the name of the property. But it wasn’t the name, it was a single word.

Lachrymosa

Rutledge stared at it.

Latin. A place of weeping . . . Tearful.

He could feel Hamish stirring in the far corners of his mind, and as he drove back to the village, he knew he was in for a long night.

 

Rutledge ordered his dinner standing at the desk in Reception, then went up to his room. The sky was still clear and sunlight lit the roofs he could see from his windows, but it didn’t brighten his mood.

His meal was brought up, and he’d barely finished it when the darkness began to come down.

 

Corporal Hamish MacLeod was dead. His bones lay in the black mud that was once a battlefield and now a cemetery. Yet it was more difficult for Rutledge to think of him there than it was to deal with the voice in his head that seemed to come from outside it, just by his shoulder. Where Hamish had stood through so many night watches, waiting for the dawn and another attack across No Man’s Land. They had shared a friendship, two very different men from very different backgrounds, brought together by war. The young Scot had been a natural soldier, with an eye for tactics and strategy, a good mind, and a strong sense of duty. His acute hearing had often saved them from night attacks and quickly pinpointed the source of a concealed sniper’s shots.

Yet it was that strong sense of duty that had led to Corporal Hamish MacLeod’s death. During the bloody and seemingly endless battle of the Somme, ...