Free Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

he opened the garden gate and went through to knock at the door.
    A young woman with pretty strawberry blond hair opened the door and said, “Ah, you’re just in time, if you want to see the doctor. Five more minutes, and he’d have gone through to his luncheon.”
    “Mrs. Hawkins?” he asked, guessing.
    “Yes, and if you’ll just wait here a moment,” she answered, leading him into a small sitting room fitted out with bits and pieces of worn furnishings that had been relegated here from the rest of the house, “I’ll tell him you’re here. The name, please?”
    Rutledge gave it to her, and she disappeared through the door beside him. A moment later she whisked back into the waiting room. “Dr. Hawkins will see you now.” She held the door wide, ready to shut it behind him.
    Rutledge went through into the tidy, surprisingly bright surgery. “Dr. Hawkins?” he said to the short, thickset man behind the desk. He was not as young as his wife, but not much beyond thirty-five, he thought.
    “Indeed, and what can I do for you this morning?” His eyes raked Rutledge, from crown to toe. Seeing more than Rutledge cared to have him see. “Having trouble sleeping, are you?”
    “No, I’m having no trouble at all, as it happens,” Rutledge said stiffly. “I’m Inspector Rutledge, from Scotland Yard—”
    “Oh, Lord, and what’s happened now !”
    “It isn’t what is happening now that concerns me. I’ve been asked to look into the deaths of three of your patients, Stephen FitzHugh, Olivia Marlowe, and Nicholas Cheney.”
    Hawkins stared at him, then threw his pen on the desk with such force that it bounced and nearly rolled off the edge. “Those deaths are history. Closed. The Inquest agreed with my first impressions and my considered opinion. An accident and a double suicide. Surely you’ve read the medical report?”
    “I have, and it’s very thorough. All the same, there are questions I must ask. And that you are required to answer.”
    “I know damned well what I’m required to do,” Hawkins said irritably. “And I’ve done it.” His eyes narrowed and he looked at Rutledge with sudden suspicion. “You aren’t planning to dig up the bodies, are you? That’s all I need right now!”
    “In what way?”
    “Look, I’ve been a good doctor here. I took over from my wife’s father, who’s nearly gaga now, war finished him, too much to do, too little energy to do it. I’ve built a decent practice, and I’m being considered for a partnership in Plymouth. I learned my craft in the war, doing things I’d never thought in school I’d be expected to do. Sew up the dying,send the living back to the Front, find a way to keep the shell-shock cases from being shot for cowardice—” he saw Rutledge flinch, and added with relish “—and even deliver forty-seven babies to refugees who had no place to sleep themselves, much less with infants to nurse! I’ve paid my dues, I’ve earned the right to move on to better things, and if my future partners get wind of the fact that three —three— of my cases are being exhumed, under Scotland Yard’s eager eye, I’ll be dead, stuck here forever. No chance at Plymouth, no hope of London in the end.”
    “The fact that Scotland Yard has an interest in these deaths in no way is a reflection on you—”
    “The hell it isn’t! For God’s sake, man, I filled out the death certificates! It has everything to do with me!”
    “Then you’re convinced that there’s nothing in either of the suicides or in the accident that could warrant further police interest?”
    “That’s exactly what I am! Convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt!”
    “It hasn’t occurred to you that something in the pasts of these three people might change the circumstances enough that what appeared to be suicide was actually murder and suicide? To use an instance I came across recently.”
    Hawkins threw up his hands. “ Murder and suicide? You’ve been drinking, I can smell it on