Was the airfield haunted? Not in the sense of ghosts wandering the runway to warn pilots of their impending deaths. More likely because of something that had once happened here—and wasn’t finished even now. Even with the war over, and the aircraft taken away. And he didn’t know why. Or how it was related to what had happened to Lady Benton. Who was searching? Who had unfinished business here?

  And what had it to do with Patricia Lowell?

  Flicking on the torch again, he started back to the airfield.

  Even with better light, there was nothing in the tall shed that he could see. A broken door, a damaged rope hanging from the rafters, the overturned stool, which he’d righted and stood on to cut down the dead woman.

  How had Mrs. Lowell managed her own death so well? He wouldn’t have expected it of the woman he’d met in the undercroft. Capable, yes, trustworthy, as Lady Benton had described her. But wandering the airfield in the dark, carrying a stool to the shed, putting the rope over the only beam—how had she known these things were there? If she was afraid of passing The Monk’s Choice when it was busy, how had she found the courage to come to the airfield and search it for what she needed in order to die?

  Surely she would have felt safer using a shed on her own property. Or one of the trees beyond the house, if the shed had not worked.

  What had brought her here?

  And where was her bicycle? Useless here on the field with the foundations and weeds—but it would have carried her safely past the pub, and down the lane. Yet it hadn’t.

  Her killer had been particularly careful. If this was murder . . .

  Why not, if the intent was to let the world believe she was a suicide, have her hang in her own home? It was what a woman would choose to do, rather than end her life among the cobwebs in the rafters, the smell of oil and damp, a place where her late husband had never served. Even cutting her wrists over his grave might appeal to her, so that her blood ran down into the emptiness under the stone. Either was a more likely death for Patricia Lowell.

  But it might well come to be the last straw for Lady Benton, who had not been frightened away by the pantomime in her private garden.

  There was going to be a long wait before his motorcar came back . . .

  He made up his mind, and picked his way as quickly as he dared over the rough ground back to the hedge, and there he set out at a jog down the farm lane toward the road.

  He’d often walked on holidays when he was at Oxford. For the exercise and because he’d liked exploring, finding his way over unfamiliar ground. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend. He was accustomed to it.

  Rutledge’s intention was to search Mrs. Lowell’s house again, this time not so much trying to discover where she might have gone—or what had happened to her—but to find out what there was in her life that would explain her death.

  He’d been walking on the road for what he estimated must be a mile and a half, when Hamish said softly “Hist!”

  Rutledge stopped short, flicked off the torch, and as the sound of his footsteps faded, he heard voices. Not close by, he couldn’t distinguish words. And the mist effectively disguised where they were coming from.

  He reckoned he must be close to The Monk’s Choice, but he couldn’t see the pub. Not even the glow of lamplight from its windows. He might, he thought, be a quarter of a mile short. But voices didn’t travel that far, even in mist. Still, there were not that many buildings along this stretch of road, much of it farmland belonging to the Abbey.

  He waited. Listening.

  What had seemed to be a low conversation grew louder, taut with anger now. As if they were walking this way as they talked.

  Rutledge wasn’t sure of the time. One o’clock? Possibly two? Who were they—and why were they on foot along the road? But then they might ask the same of him . . .

  Two men. He could distinguish that much. And they didn’t sound inebriated. Just very angry.

  He tried to move a little closer, but a stone rolled under his foot—and silence fell. He could hear his own breathing, he tried not to hear Hamish’s.

  Someone was moving away quickly, trying not to make any noise, and then another set of footsteps set off in a different direction, masking each other’s sounds.

  And a few seconds later, he had the night to himself again.

  When he was certain he was alone, Rutledge walked on, toward what he thought was where the voices had been standing. Moving slowly, prepared for anything, he could feel the road becoming grass beneath his feet.

  “Ware—”

  The sense of something in his path came too late. Without warning, his right foot caught in what felt like tangled wire. He struggled to keep his balance, but his left foot slipped in the wet grass as it tried to take his weight, and he went down hard, his ribs striking something and sending a searing pain through his side.

  His last thought as he lost consciousness was that Hamilton, returning soon with his motorcar, would have no idea where he was.

  Then the pain and the blackness took over.

  When he regained his senses, he could feel cold grass under his face. In place of the mist, no more than shreds now, a wind had risen, breaking it up. It was still dark, and cloudy, because he couldn’t see any stars.

  He couldn’t remember at first why he was lying on the ground, but when he tried to sit up, his ribs sent a surge of pain through his body, and as he lay back, something hard brushed against his head.

  Still dazed, he felt around him with his hands, and finally his fingers touched the torch he’d dropped as he went down. Fumbling with it, he found the switch and the light blinded him for a few seconds.

  Then he saw what he had fallen over.

  A bicycle.

  Not a man’s bicycle, a woman’s . . .

  Mrs. Lowell’s? There was a basket on the handlebars, small, neat, and tied with a blue ribbon.

  Surely someone at the Abbey would recognize it, if it was.

  But what the hell was it doing out here, in the middle of nowhere? He flashed the light this way and that, looking for the pub or some other building. There was nothing except farmland.

  He tried to get to his feet, but finally had to turn so that his weight went on his arms, without using his chest muscles. It was still difficult enough that he grunted from the pain. He had to squat to retrieve the torch, then managed to right the bicycle.

  He was standing there, wondering if he could manage riding it when something caught his eye. There was a small orange glow in the distance.

  Even as he watched, it vanished.

  A window, a lamp near it. Judging from the height of that orange glow, the room was on the first floor. A bedroom?

  He began to walk in the direction he’d seen the light, keeping it in his mind’s eye as he moved, using the torch to light his way so that he wouldn’t fall again. When he was close enough to recognize the building just ahead, he stopped.

  It was the pub. The Monk’s Choice. Dark now, no light showing, although he walked around it at a distance, to be sure.

  Somewhere a dog began barking.

  Ignoring it, he spent several minutes within sight of the pub, waiting to see if anyone came out the door. Whether the lamp meant someone was finished for the night or about to leave the room—and the building.

  When there was no sign of anyone moving in or out of the pub, he finally turned and went back the way he’d come.

  He was used to measuring distances. He knew to a few yards where he’d fallen over the bicycle.

  But when he got there, it was gone.

  Casting his light about, he searched for half an hour. It was nowhere to be seen.

  Rutledge remembered the dog barking.

  Someone had come back for the bicycle and taken it away.

  Swearing, he finally gave up his search and started back. Back to the lane and the hedge, where he was to meet Hamilton. There was no time now to reach the Lowell house and return.

  Tomorrow.

  He was beginning to find it difficult to breathe, and had to slow his pace. He didn’t think his ribs were broken, there hadn’t been that sense of shock and nausea that came with broken bones. Still, his right side hurt like the very devil. And he thought he must have hit his head as he went down. A lump above his left ear was growing larger with every step, but his mind seemed clear enough.

  He was wary when he saw distant headlamps, growing larger by the minute. Moving slowly, as if the driver was searching for something.

  Hamish said, “Was yon bicycle real?”

  But Rutledge shut away the voice, watching the oncoming vehicle. While he still had time to get out of the high-beam glare.

  Then he recognized the familiar shape of his own motorcar, and stayed where he was.

  Hamilton slowed as he recognized the figure his headlamps had picked out of the darkness at the edge of the road.

  “What the hell—” he said, tired and short-tempered. “Rutledge, I’ve searched the damned airfield for you—I was going back to gather a search party—is that blood on your forehead?”

  Rutledge put his hand up, and found a cut, wet with blood but not bleeding profusely. He remembered now, hitting it on the rim of the bicycle’s tire as he tried to sit up.

  “Never mind that. Did you take Mrs. Lowell’s body to the surgery? Is there anything you could see there that might help us?”

  “Yes, of course—and no, we didn’t. Nothing obvious. Wister will know more tomorrow. But it doesn’t appear she was interfered with. Clothing intact. Get in, man, or it will be dawn before we see our beds. Do you want to drive?”

  “No.” It was difficult climbing into the motorcar. He had to set his teeth against the pain.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I tripped over a bicycle, of all things. Lying along the road near where I’d heard two men arguing. I think it was Patricia Lowell’s.”

  “Then let’s take it back with us. You should never have left it.”

  Rutledge was in no mood for it. He said tersely, “It’s gone now. But I can describe it.”

  Hamilton was cross. “Damn it, you should never have let it out of your sight. Who was arguing? Why is it gone?”

  “Just drive. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.”

  Grumbling, Hamilton reversed, and started back toward Walmer.

  They drove in silence after that, until they were in sight of the first house in the village. Then Hamilton said, “We’ll go back at first light. In case you misjudged where you saw it.”

  “Go if you like. It isn’t there.”

  Hamilton left the motorcar in the hotel yard, started to walk away, then turned back.

  His words echoed Hamish’s but he spoke quietly, so as not to wake up anyone in the rooms above.

  “There’s that cut on your head. Are you sure there was a bicycle? Or was it on your mind when you fell?”

  Rutledge turned. He hadn’t bruised his ribs on grass. But he said, “I’ll know when I’ve described it to Lady Benton and her staff.”

  He went in the hotel’s door and closed it behind him, then walked down the passage to the stairs. They seemed insurmountable, suddenly.

  In the morning, Rutledge looked at his chest in the mirror as he was shaving.

  A slanting red and blue line marked his ribs on one side. The knot above his ear had come down, although combing his hair just there reminded him quickly where it had been. But the cut on his forehead had stopped bleeding. It was small enough, he thought, not to attract attention, now.

  He managed to dress, and at nine o’clock he was at the door of Wister’s surgery.

  The man looked as tired as he felt.

  “Come back at two. I have patients until noon.”

  He drove instead to where he had stumbled over the bicycle. The pain in his ribs was not as sharp now, but it had not gone away.

  Rutledge couldn’t be sure of the exact spot, but it didn’t matter—there was no bicycle to be seen in any direction. He found scuffed, bruised grass some forty yards from the pub, but even that might have been caused by any number of things.

  Driving on to The Monk’s Choice, he knocked at the door. It was several minutes before Newbold came to answer the knock. He looked as if he’d had too much to drink, eyes bloodshot, his clothes rumpled.

  “We’re closed.”

  “I haven’t come to drink. Where were you last night?”

  “You’re asking too many questions for a man who came here before asking for a room,” he said harshly. “Rumor says you’re police. The Yard.”

  “And you can talk to me now or talk to me at the police station in Walmer. Your choice.” Rutledge’s voice was cold. Newbold tried to bluster.

  “Here. Where the hell do you think I might be?”

  “A woman was killed near here last night. Did you see or hear anything suspicious that might help us pinpoint where it happened, or how?”

  Newbold blinked. “What woman? I don’t know anything about anyone being killed. I closed early. Toothache. Drank myself to sleep finally, took more than I bargained for to do the job.”

  “There was a witness who said he heard men’s voices, arguing in the fog. Not too far from here.”

  “Yes, well, I daresay it was someone angry about the pub being closed. There was banging on the door, calls for me to open. And I wasn’t having it,” he added sourly.

  Hamish was saying, “Aye, he was drunk, ye can smell it on his clothes and his breath. But it was no’ his tooth that was troubling him.”

  Nor was his jaw swollen.

  “If the toothache was that severe, why aren’t you on your way to see a dentist this morning?”

  “All the way to Chelmsford? And who’s to pay for it, if I get there? Whisky is a damned sight cheaper.”

  He made to shut the door, but Rutledge stopped him.

  “If I’d heard shouting outside my window at two in the morning, I’d have taken a look. Did you? And see more than you bargained for?”

  Something shifted in Newbold’s gaze. But it looked more like fear than guilt. Yet not fear of Rutledge . . .

  Newbold moved uneasily. “All right. I heard shouting in the night. But I didn’t go down or look out. Trouble on the road late at night? I mind my own business, and I don’t have to look whoever it is in the eye when they step through the door the next evening. Like it or not, that’s the truth.”

  Rutledge considered him. He didn’t think Newbold had killed Patricia Lowell, the man hadn’t been in the war, and watching a woman slowly die would have taken more than simple lust or anger or even revenge. But it was clear he must know something. About the bicycle? But why that and not her death?

  He left ten minutes later, unable to break the man’s stubborn refusal to admit to anything but hearing voices. Newbold clung to that account with a fierceness that had more in common with a drowning man clinging to anything that would keep him afloat rather than hiding a murder.

  Whatever the man knew—or suspected—it would keep for the moment. It was more important to speak to Lady Benton before someone else brought her the news.

  It was quiet on this Friday morning. The gates were closed, and he had to go round to the stable entrance.

  There was a knocker, and he used it.

  After a time Lady Benton came to the door. She was wearing men’s trousers, her son’s very likely, a heavy jumper, and a kerchief round her head.

  “No tours this morning?”

  “None is booked. I’m just as happy about that.” She gestured to her apparel and smiled a little. “I’m so sorry. The lady of the manor has been working in one of the rooms.” The smile faded. “The truth is, if I don’t stay busy, I’ll go mad with worry. Do come in. Do you have any news for me? About—?”

  She had been covering her embarrassment about last night, running on without really looking at him, but now she stopped in midsentence, something in his silence warning her. Her gaze swept his face, then faltered.

  “No. Oh, no.” Her hand over her mouth, she turned away but not before he saw the tears filling her eyes.

  “It’s best to talk in your sitting room. Not here,” he said gently, and guided her with a hand on her arm to the door.

  It was as tidy as ever, although breakfast dishes were still on a tray, and there was a work basket by the side of one of the chairs.

  She sat down, clearly bracing herself. “Was it a motorcar? I’d worried about her bicycling home. It isn’t a busy road, but what traffic there is sometimes flies . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she regarded him helplessly, waiting.

  Rutledge took the chair across from her. “It wasn’t a motorcar. We found her in one of the sheds on the airfield. It appeared to be a suicide—”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, not Patricia. She’d weathered the grief for her husband. She was herself again, cheerful and hopeful,” she told him firmly. “I refuse to believe she would do such a thing. She had a strong faith, she simply wouldn’t.”

  He said nothing about the bicycle. This wasn’t the time. And she hadn’t asked how Mrs. Lowell had died. He didn’t want to tell her, unless she wanted to know. But he added, “If it wasn’t suicide, the only alternative would be murder . . .” Testing her.

  She found a handkerchief and wiped at the tears. “I don’t—that’s hardly a comfort.” Steadying her voice with an effort, forcing herself once more to face and deal with the unthinkable, she said, “Who would harm Patricia? She’s—she had a little money, but she wasn’t rich by any stretch. There’s nothing to be gained by her death.”

  “There’s the house. The property.”

  “The Old Rectory? At her death, it was to go to the school she’d attended. In Surrey, I think. To be dealt with as they saw fit. She had no one else, and there was no money for an endowment. I know this because she asked me to be her executor.”

  When he said nothing, she went on, her voice husky with grief. “I can’t wrap my mind around this! I can’t think beyond the news that she’s dead.” She sat there, staring at the tapestry on the wall. And he watched as she struggled to cope. As the unthinkable struck her suddenly. Turning to him, alarm in her eyes, she said, “You don’t believe—surely this has no connection with Friday last and what happened here.”