The third man laughed. “You’ve never needed to lie before. Now there’s a reason.”
They began to pull against the incoming tide, heading for the mouth of the inlet, towing the body behind them. The first man scanned the shoreline as they passed.
“I don’t see anyone about, looking this way. Do you think they can see what’s at the end of the rope?”
“It just appears that we’ve forgot to bring the rope inboard.”
“What if he comes back again?” the first man asked, glancing over his shoulder. He was finding it a struggle to row against the current with that sluggish weight pulling at the rope attached to it.
“He won’t,” the third man promised. “He hasn’t been in the water all that long. You can tell, the fishes haven’t truly got at him yet. But they will. And no one will be the wiser.”
But there he was wrong.
Chapter 2
London, Summer 1920
Sergeant Hampton had brought the man to Rutledge’s office, saying only, “Inspector Rutledge will help you, sir,” before vanishing back down the passage.
The visitor was a walking skeleton, pale except for his dark hair and his pain-ridden dark eyes. Sitting down gingerly in the chair that Rutledge offered, he seemed to feel the hardness of the seat in his bones, for he moved a little, as if hoping to find a more comfortable spot.
“My name is Wyatt Russell,” he began in a voice thinned by illness. “I’m dying of cancer, and I want to clear my conscience before I go. I killed a man in 1915 and got away with it. I want to confess to that murder now. There won’t be time to try me and hang me, but at least you’ll be able to close the file and I’ll be able to sleep again.”
Rutledge considered him. People confessed for a good many reasons, not the least of which was to salve their conscience before facing a more lasting justice than that of the Crown. Sometimes they confessed to protect someone else.