Penrith was stubborn. “You’ve put me off long enough. I have my share, I’ll spend it as I please.”
“You do that, and I’ll tell them you stole the money while I was trying to save the lieutenant.”
In the end, Quarles put the wind up Penrith, who was afraid of Quarles and would be for years to come. They each took up positions at a merchant bank, Penrith as the doorman because of his fair looks and his air of breeding, and general work for Quarles, with the ugly scars on his hands. His eyebrows had never grown out again properly, giving him a quizzical expression. But he was a big man with pale red hair and a charm that he practiced diligently, turning it on at need.
The account he gave of his burns elicited laughter and sympathy, for he kept the story of rushing into a burning house to save a child droll rather than dramatic. There was no mention of the army or South Africa. And as far as anyone knew, neither Penrith nor Quarles had ever left the country.
Quarles had been good at numbers in school, and that training, together with a clever mind, was put to work. It wasn’t long before he caught the eye of one of the junior partners, and six months later, he was promoted to Mr. James’s clerk.
On that same day Quarles said to Penrith, “I can see that there’s a way to be rich without suspicion,” and outlined his plan.
Penrith, ever slow to see what might be to his own advantage, said,
“But we’ve got money, we don’t need to work. You promised—”
Quarles looked at him. “Have you counted what you’ve got? It’s nothing compared to what comes in and out these doors every day.
It looked like a king’s ransom, there on the veldt, but I know better now. I’ve asked Mr. James if he’d be kind enough to invest what an old aunt left me. I told him I’d run through it in six months, else. And he’s agreed. You’d be smart to do the same. Soon we’ll be twice as rich, and then there’s no stopping us.” He smiled. “Mr. James sees a coal miner’s brat with brains in his head. He’s a snob, he thinks I’m a clever monkey doing tricks to amuse him. But in the end, it’s Mr.
James who’s jumping through hoops of my making. I’m a clerk now, and mark my words, I’ll go higher, as high as I please. And if you’re a wise one, you’ll hang on to my coattails. I didn’t do you a bad turn in the Transvaal, did I? We haven’t hanged yet, have we?”
Penrith said, “You’re a clever monkey, all right. The question is, do I trust you? And how far?”
Quarles laughed harshly. “Suit yourself. But don’t come whining to me when your pittance runs out and there’s no way to replace it. And don’t think you can blackmail me into saving your arse. You’ll hang beside me.”
3
SOMERSET, NEAR EXMOOR
May 1920
There was a stone terrace on the northern side of the house, with a dramatic view down to the sea. The town of Minehead was invisible around the next headland to the east, and to the west, Exmoor rolled to the horizon, empty as far as the eye could see.
Not even a gull’s cry broke the stillness, though they sailed on the wind above the water, wings bright in the morning sun. Rutledge sat in a comfortable chair by the terrace wall, more relaxed than he’d been in some time.
Half an hour later a faint line of gray was making itself known in the far distance, storm clouds building somewhere over Cornwall. A pity, he thought, watching them. The weather had held fair so far. All that was needed was barely another twenty-four hours, for tomorrow’s wedding. After that the rain could fall.
He had taken a few days of leave. Edgar Maitland, a friend from before the war, had asked Rutledge to come to Somerset to meet his bride and to stand up with him at the wedding.
This had been Maitland’s grandfather’s house, and Rutledge could understand why his friend preferred to live here most of the year now, keeping his flat for the occasional visit to London. Edgar had also inherited his grandfather’s law firm in nearby Dunster and appeared to be well on his way to becoming a country solicitor.
Rutledge and Maitland had lost touch after 1917, but when Maitland had come to town in April to buy a ring for his bride, he’d tracked Rutledge down at Scotland Yard. France had changed both men, but they understood that these differences were safest left unspoken. What had drawn them together at university had been an enthusiasm for tennis and cricket; what had made them friends was a feeling for the law, and this each of them, in their own way, had held on to through the nightmare of war, seeing their salvation in returning to it.
Maitland had often good-naturedly berated Rutledge for choosing to join the police. “A waste, old man, you must see that.”
And Rutledge always answered, “I have no ambition to be a K.C.
I’ve left that to you.”
When Rutledge had met Elise on his arrival in Dunster, he’d had reservations about the match. She was young, pretty, and in love.
The question was whether she was up to the task of caring for a man who’d lost his leg in France, and with it, for many months, his self-worth. Unlike the steady, happy man Rutledge had seen in London, now Edgar was by turns moody and excited as the wedding day approached. And that boded ill for the future.
Indeed, last night when they were alone on the terrace, darkness obscuring their faces and only their voices betraying their feelings, Edgar had said morosely, “I can’t dance. She says she doesn’t care for dancing. Or play tennis. She doesn’t care for tennis. She says. But that’s now. What about next year, or the year after, if she’s bored and some other bloke asks her to dance, or to be his partner in a match?
What then? Will she smile at me, and ask permission, and be relieved when I give it?”
Rutledge had grinned. “Cold feet, Lieutenant? Where’s the bane of the sappers, the man who never backed out of anything, even a burning tunnel?”
“Yes, well, I was brave once too often. And it’s cold foot, now. Do you know, I can still feel pain in my missing leg? Phantom pain, they call it, the nerve endings looking for something that isn’t there and worrying themselves into knots.”
“That’s common, I think?”
“Apparently. But it’s damned odd when it’s your foot itching, and there’s nothing there to scratch.”
They had laughed. But Edgar had drunk a little too much last night and was sleeping it off this morning.
Rutledge watched that thin line of gray cloud for a time, decided that it was not growing any larger, and turned his attention to the sea below, tranquil before the turn of the tide. Behind him, the terrace door opened, and he looked up, expecting to see Edgar.
Elise came out to join him. He hadn’t heard her motorcar arriving in the forecourt, but she must have driven over from Dunster, looking for Edgar.
He wished her a good morning as he rose to bring a chair forward for her. She sat down, sighed, and watched the gulls in her turn.
“A penny for your thoughts?” he asked after a time.
“I wish I knew what was worrying Edgar. It’s frustrating, he won’t talk to me. That makes me feel young, useless. And the wedding’s tomorrow.”
He realized that she had come to find him, not Maitland. “You’re several years younger in age,” Rutledge pointed out gently. “And a hundred years younger in experience.”
She shrugged irritably. “I know. The war. I’ve been told that until I’m sick of it. It doesn’t explain everything!”
“In a way it does,” Rutledge replied carefully. “It marked most of us. I expect that it will stay with us until we’re dead.”