They drove in silence back to Eastfield, and Constable Walker pointed out where the dead man's sister lived.
It was a simple bungalow in a street of similar houses, single story, squat roof, and a small garden behind.
Constable Walker broke the silence as they got out of the motorcar. "I've done this three times now. Pray God it's the last."
Together they went up the walk. A curtain twitched in the room to the left of the door.
Even as they reached for the knocker, a woman was opening the door to them, her face anxious, her fair brows drawn together in a frown of uncertainty.
"Constable Walker," she said, her glance flicking to Rutledge's face.
She was very unlike her brother, Rutledge noted. Smaller boned, fair hair where his was the color of wheat, her face softer and her eyes a pretty brown. Behind her, just visible in the shadows over her shoulder, was a man in a wheeled chair, his face pinched and sour.
"Mrs. Winslow, this is Inspector Rutledge from London-"
Her face crumpled. "It's Theo, isn't it? Oh, my God, I knew it-I knew it when he didn't stop by last evening-"
"I'm afraid so, Mrs. Winslow. He was found early this morning in Hastings."
She put her hands to her face and began to cry.
Behind her, her husband put out his hand, as if to offer comfort, and then dropped it.
Rutledge gently led her from the door and into a small sitting room, where he'd seen the curtain twitch earlier, settling her on the stiff horsehair sofa. The man in the invalid chair followed them into the room, saying, "What happened to him then? Tell me what happened?"
Rutledge turned slightly toward him and said, "In due course. Constable, perhaps Mr. Winslow will show you where you could make some tea. I think his wife will be grateful for it."
At first he thought Walker would refuse, but then the constable realized that getting the husband out of the room was important at this stage. He turned to Winslow and said, "Where's the kitchen, then?" as if in such a small house it would be hard to find.
Winslow cast a glance at his wife, then looked at Rutledge and saw that the suggestion was, in fact, a command that brooked no argument. He spun his invalid chair and with poor grace led the constable away.
Rutledge found a clean, dry handkerchief in an inner pocket and gave it to the weeping woman. She took it gratefully. He said, his voice pitched not to carry beyond this room, "Was your brother in the war?" It was an attempt to distract her from her immediate grief.
She nodded.
"With the rest of the Eastfield volunteers?"
A muffled yes came from behind the handkerchief. And then she raised her eyes to meet his gaze, a slow and awful truth dawning. "He-was he-like the others?"
"I'm sorry. Yes."
"I thought-I thought perhaps there had been an accident on the road. He wasn't feeling well, but he went to Hastings anyway yesterday, taking the van. The shipment of varnish from London hadn't come. Mr. Kenton asked him to see if he could find a few tins to tide them over. He shouldn't have been driving at all, but he wouldn't tell Mr. Kenton that. I thought-I thought he might have taken his own life. Trying not to shame us."
Her voice failed, and Rutledge found himself thinking of Rosemary Hume. Murder was sometimes not the worst news to reach a household.
"Why did you fear he might do himself a harm?" he asked, after giving her a moment to collect herself. In another room he could hear the rattle of cups and low voices as the two banished men talked quietly.
"His stomach. It hasn't been the same. He was always one to like his food, but now he had to watch what he ate. No cheese or rich sauces, not even an occasional curry. Nothing with spices. And he did like his mulled cider of an evening when it was cold. He had to give it all up. Only the plainest of boiled meats and potatoes and vegetables. His favorite dish was parsnips roasted in goose drippings, but he couldn't have it. Everything was tasteless, he said, and still his stomach would reject everything sometimes, and he'd be violently ill, you could hear him all over the house. Virgil said it kept him half nauseated as well, but I felt for Theo, and lay there in bed listening to him, and praying he wouldn't begin those terrible dry heaves that went on for hours."
"Your brother lived with you?"
"When he first came out of hospital. There was no one else. Mum and Dad were gone, and Mary and the baby died of the Spanish influenza before ever he was wounded. That must have broken his heart, but he never mentioned them when he came home. He went to the churchyard by himself, not even asking me to come and show him where they were. And as soon as he could, he went back to the farm and lived there alone. It wasn't a working farm anymore, but it was our home. He felt comfortable with his memories. That's what he said. Comfortable. As if he could talk to them somehow. Mum and Dad, Mary and the baby."
"How was the relationship between your brother and your husband?"
"Not very good," she told him with resignation in her voice. "Theo didn't want me to marry Virgil, you see. He thought it was pity I felt, and not love." She hesitated, and then asked, "Was it quick? How my brother died?" She waited, braced for his answer.
"Quickly enough," Rutledge said. "You know about the other deaths?"
"Oh, yes, it's all over Eastfield, that's all anyone talks about. I expect they'll be gossiping about poor Theo now. I feel guilty, I've done my share of the gossiping, and now I see it wasn't right."
"Did your brother have enemies? Did anything that happened in the war seem to worry him?"
"He never talked about the war. Not to me. He just came home, put away his uniform, and got on with his life. I asked him once if it was very bad, being wounded, and all he said was, it was the ticket out."
"Was he closer to someone in particular? A friend in the Army, someone here in Eastfield?"
"There's no one I know of who would harm Theo. Why should they? He was a good man, he never was any trouble growing up. He helped his father at Kenton's and never complained. They liked him there. They did from the beginning…" Her voice trailed off as she stared into space, reliving another time and place. "I can't see any point to killing him. I mean, there's no money to speak of, although he was never in debt."
"When he came back from France, was he on good terms with the men he'd served with? Did he have any problems with Anthony Pierce?"
"I don't know. I mean, he never spoke of trouble. He never went looking for it, for that matter. They'd all changed-they didn't sit about talking over what they'd done in the trenches. It was as if it hadn't happened, in a way. But of course it had, hadn't it?" She frowned. "Theo was given a medal. He must have been brave. But I don't know what he did."
It was something Rutledge had heard often enough since his own return to England. Censorship, of course, meant that letters home could say very little about where men were or what they were doing. And many of those at home in England had no means of knowing what war in the trenches-or on board ships for that matter-was really like. The images they had were often so far off the mark in many instances that no one would recognize in them the reality of France. He had spoken to a woman who had told him quite proudly that her dead son had had a good bed and clean sheets every night he was away from home. He'd told her so himself. Rutledge hadn't disabused her of the notion-one her son had no doubt cultivated for her sake. And to her question about his own situation on the Somme, he had assured her that he too had slept well. He'd been rewarded by a smile and a nod, as if she had been happy for him. Of course many families had known the truth of the savagery their loved ones were caught up in, but even they had sometimes preferred lies.
Hamish said, "What we did was to die. For naught."
Rutledge flinched.