AUGUST 1912
LONDON
The prisoner was standing in the dock, face strained, eyes
on the foreman of the jury. His fingers gripped the wooden
railing, white-knuckled, as he tried to hear the portly,
gray-haired man in the jurors' box reading the verdict.
But the roaring in his ears as his heart pounded hard
enough to suffocate him seemed to shut out the words. He
swallowed hard, then leaned forward a little,
concentrating on the juror's lips.
"--guilty on all charges--"
The foreman's voice rose on the last four words, as if he
found them distasteful, his glance furtively flicking
toward the accused and away again. A greengrocer, he was
not sympathetic to theft and murder.
The prisoner's face swung toward the judge as he lifted
the black silk square and settled it neatly on his heavy
white wig, prepared to pass sentence.
". . . taken from this place . . . hung by the neck . . ."
The prisoner blanched, and turned in anguish toward his
wife, seated in the gallery watching, her gloved hands
clenched tightly in her lap.
But she offered no comfort, staring straight ahead. Her
face was closed and empty. He couldn't look away. His
sister, on the far side of his wife, was weeping into her
handkerchief, hunched into her grief, but he hardly
noticed. It was his wife's coldness that riveted him.
He thought, "She believes it now--"
Inspector Ian Rutledge, the young officer from the Yard
whose evidence had all but placed the rope around Ben
Shaw's throat, turned away and quietly left the courtroom.
He did not enjoy sending any man to his death. Even this
one, whose crimes had shocked London. At such a time he
was alwaysmindful of his father, a solicitor, who had held
strong views on the subject of hanging.
"I don't believe in it. Still, the dead had no choice in
their dying, did they? The murderer did. It's on his own
head, what becomes of him. He knew from the start what
justice would be meted out to him. But he always expects
to avoid it, doesn't he? There's an arrogance in that
which disturbs me more than anything else--"
Ben Shaw hadn't been arrogant. Murder hadn't set well on
his conscience. Hanging might come as a relief, an end to
nightmares. Who could say?
Certainly not Rutledge himself--he had never taken a life.
Would that alter his view of murder, would it in any way
change his ability to understand a crime, or his attitude
toward the killer? He thought not. It was the victim who
had always called out to him, the voiceless dead, so often
forgotten in the tumultuous courtroom battle of guilt
versus innocence.
It was said that Justice prevented Anarchy. Law
established Order.
Cold comfort to the elderly women Ben Shaw had strangled
in their beds.
Still, the silenced victims had not gone unheard in this
courtroom. . . .
5 NOVEMBER, 1919
MARLING, KENT
The bonfire had been piled high with the debris from a
dozen gardens and enough twigs and dead boughs to outlast
the Guy. The celebrants were gathered about the square,
talking and laughing as if the gruesome spectacle they
were about to witness was far more exciting than
frightening. The match had yet to be tossed into the pyre,
but two men in flowing wigs and faded satin coats awaited
the signal. Their sober faces were flushed with wine and
duty. The taller leaned toward his companion and said in a
low voice, "All this hair itches like the very devil!"
"Yes, well, at least your shirt fits! This lace will end
up strangling me, wait and see! I'm ready to kill whoever
thought up this charade."
"Won't be long now."
It was the close of Guy Fawkes Day, and tonight the
stuffed effigy of a traitor was about to be paraded around
the village square and then thrown into the flames.
Bonfires were a long-standing English tradition, marking
the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 when the real Guy Fawkes had
been caught with his coconspirators attempting to blow up
the Houses of Parliament and King James with them.
A macabre way of reminding schoolchildren, as they went
round their villages and towns collecting pennies to buy
Roman candles, what becomes of traitors.
As a rule it was a family affair, held in the back garden,
the fire as fat or sparse as the family could manage, the
Guy dressed in cast-off clothes stuffed with straw. In too
many households during four and a half years of war the
celebration had dwindled to a token affair; the dearth of
able-bodied men and the hardships of families struggling
to survive without them made the effort increasingly a
burden. The village of Marling had decided to revive the
custom with a public flourish.
Ian Rutledge had given his share of pennies to the local
children this morning, while Hamish, in his head,
disparaged the whole affair. "It's no' a Scottish
tradition, to waste guid firewood. It's too hard to come
by."
Remembering the barren, stone-scarred mountains where
Hamish had grown up, Rutledge said, "When in Rome . . ."
"If ye came for Hogmanay, now, a good fire on the hearth
was hospitality after a long ride in the cold."
Rutledge knew the Scottish holiday, the last day of the
year, when the children demanded gift cakes and the whisky
flowed freely--and not necessarily whisky upon which any
tax had been paid. He had commanded Scottish troops in the
war, and they had brought their traditions as well as
their traditional courage with them. He had turned a blind
eye on more than one occasion, the policeman subverted by
the compassion he felt for his homesick men--many little
more than boys--trying to forget how short their lives
were destined to be by remembering home.
Tonight, 5 November, he wasn't on duty in London; he was
standing among the revelers in an attractive village high
on the Downs, and beside him was the widow of a friend who
had died in the Great War. She had invited him to come
down for the occasion. "You must, Ian! It will do both of
us a world of good. It's time to put the war behind us,
and try to rebuild our lives. . . ."
He had no life to rebuild, but she did, and Frances, his
sister, had urged him to accept the invitation. "Elizabeth
has mourned for two years. It won't bring Richard back,
will it? I think we should encourage her, if she's ready
to shut the door on all that. And it will do you good as
well, to see more of old friends. You've buried yourself
in your work for months now!" The last accusing. And then
Frances had added, hastily, "No, I'm not matchmaking. She
would do as much for either of us, if we were in need, and
you know that as well as I do."
It was true. Elizabeth was one of the most generous people
Rutledge knew. Richard Mayhew had been very fortunate in
his choice of wife.
She was a slim woman in her late twenties, with sparkling
dark eyes and a wry sense of humor. Her presence was
brightness and warmth and a belief that life could be
good. It was--almost--contagious.
And just now, he was in need of warmth and brightness, to
chase away other shadows. . . .
Clinging to his arm in the press of people, Elizabeth was
saying, "Richard loved all this, you know. He loved
tradition and the . . ."
Rutledge lost the thread of her words as the Guy,
flamboyant in dress and hanging from a long pole, was
brought into the square and carried triumphantly around
the unlit fire. A deafening shout of approval rose, and as
Rutledge glimpsed the painted mockery of a face, its wild
eyes and flaring nostrils, the grinning mouth, the bits of
someone's wig straggling about the ears, he had to laugh.
What was lost in talent had been made up in exuberance.
"Aye, exuberance," Hamish agreed, "with a wee touch of
Auld Clootie . . ."
The Devil. Only a Scot with generations of Covenanters in
his family tree would make such a comparison.
Rutledge responded silently, "The first James was your
king as well as ours. Or have you forgotten?"
Hamish, considering the matter, replied, "We didna' care
o'ermuch for him."
The Guy was closer now, dancing a jig on the pole, and
Elizabeth was laughing like a girl. "Oh, Ian, look, he's
wearing those masquerade clothes I found in the attics and
donated to the committee. Wouldn't Richard have been
delighted--"
On the far side of the crowd, someone had lit the fire,
and the flames began to fly through the dry brush,
reaching for the harder wood. Applause greeted them. In
the garish light, the Guy took on a realistic life of its
own, the straw-stuffed limbs jerking in time with the
booted feet of its minders as it was paraded before an
appreciative audience. Shouts of approval and the
word "Traitor!" mingled with laughing cries of "Into the
flames with him!" and "God Save King James and
Parliament." The shrill, giggling voices of children
taunted the Guy, a counterpoint to parents warning their
offspring not to venture too close to the fire: "Mind
now!" or "Stand clear, do!"
And in the light of the flames, lit just as garishly as
the Guy, was a face that Rutledge's gaze passed over--and
returned to--and recognized--
But from where?
He went cold with a sense of shock he couldn't explain. A
knowledge that was there, buried deep in the brain,
concealed by layers of denial and blank horror. And yet
rising to the surface with the full force of his being was
a single realization--He didn't want to know the answer--
There was danger in searching for the answer--
He stood motionless, his body rigid, his arm stiffening in
Elizabeth's grip. But she was entranced by the spectacle,
and unaware. He was physically caught up in his
surroundings, the voices of people on every side of him,
the heavy smell of smoke as the wind blew it his way, the
warmth of Elizabeth's hands on him, the coolness of the
night air, the rough feel of the wool coat across his
shoulders, the shadowed brick facades looming above him--
and at the same time, emotionally, he was firmly locked in
a private hell that mirrored the flames rising into the
black sky above. As the seconds passed, it seemed for a
fraction of an instant that the eyes of his enemy sought
and found his before moving on. The odd light lent them a
ferocity that stunned him.
As if acknowledging a connection between them, a
connection built on--what?
And how did he know this was an enemy?
"Gentle God," Rutledge whispered under his breath--and
then the face vanished, a will-o'-the-wisp in the November
night, a figment of murky imagination lost in the smoke.
Suddenly he doubted his own senses.
He had seen it--Dear God, surely he had seen it!
Or--had it been no more than a fleeting memory from the
last days of the war--a moment's aberration, a flash of
something best buried in the dim reaches of his mind, best
unresurrected?
In this past week uneasy memories had surfaced and
disappeared with disconcerting irregularity, as if the
approaching anniversary of the Armistice had jarred them
into life again. Rutledge was not the only soldier who was
experiencing this phenomenon--he'd heard two constables
who had survived the trenches warily questioning each
other about lapses in concentration. And several men in a
pub dancing uneasily around who was sleeping well and who
wasn't. There had been the officer sitting on a bench by
the Embankment, staring at the river water with such
obsessive fascination that Rutledge had stopped and spoken
to him. The man had traveled a long way back to the
present, and looked up at Rutledge as though wanting to
ask, "Were you there?" And saying instead, "The water's
bitter cold and gray today, isn't it?" It was almost a
confession that drowning had been on his mind.
As if uncertain, all of them, whether or not they were
going mad, and grateful to discover they were not alone in
their fears. As if that made it more tolerable, not being
alone. . . .
Just this need had sent him down to Kent.
He found himself searching among the villagers gathered in
a ring around the fire's blazing gold and red light, but
the face he sought was no longer there. Not now.
Not ever?
Hamish, alarmed and accusing in the back of his mind, was
exclaiming, "It canna' be. Ye've gone o'wer the edge, man!"
Badly shaken, Rutledge had lost sight of the perambulating
Guy, making a lap on the far side of the bonfire. Now the
grotesque effigy was coming round once more, a final
circuit while the lengths of harder wood smoked and began
to burn hot enough to consume the fire's prey.
Over by the bronze statue of a mounted cavalier that stood
at the point of the square where the main road curved away
from the High Street, there was hilarity as a police
sergeant gathered older boys around him and gave his
orders. The bronze cavalier's back was turned on the
antics of his descendants, his face haughty and withdrawn
under the brim of his plumed hat, the aristocratic arch of
his nose and the smooth sweep of his cheekbones
highlighted by the fire's blaze.
As the first Roman candles went streaming noisily skyward
from the cluster of children, Rutledge flinched. At the
Front, flares had been used to test the wind--
The crack! and the rat-a-tat-tat of the smaller charges
sent his heart rate soaring. He felt exposed, caught out
in the open, as the sounds of war surrounded him again.
His immediate inclination was to shout orders to his men,
to bend into the run that would carry him across No Man's
Land--
Elizabeth, suddenly aware, looked up at the tension in his
face and cried, "Oh--I didn't think--are you all right?
It's only the children--"
Rutledge nodded, unable to trust his voice.
Just then the Guy went sailing into the heart of the
blaze, like a living creature struggling to escape as the
heat rushed toward him. The onlookers were ecstatic,
roaring at the top of their lungs as the straw-stuffed
figure jerked and twisted as if in torment. The candles
streamed wildly above the tongues of flame, and the noise
was deafening.
Rutledge was still scouring the faces illuminated by the
flames. A policeman was trained to observe, to remember
the shape of a nose, the width of a mouth, the way the
eyes were set and the height of the forehead.