The Confession by Charles Todd Page A

himself. “As to the woman in the photograph, her name is Cynthia Farraday. She came to live at River’s Edge when her parents died of typhoid. Her father and the late Malcolm Russell were cousins, I believe. She was too young to live on her own, and Mrs. Russell, his widow, was made her guardian. She was alive then. Mrs. Russell, I mean. Wyatt’s mother. And then one day in the summer of 1914—August, it was—Mrs. Russell simply disappeared. ”
    â€œWere the police called in?”
    â€œYes, the police from Tilbury. When it was realized that she was missing, there was a frantic search for her by the family and the staff. And then someone was sent posthaste to Tilbury. Men were brought out from Furnham to help, because they knew the marshes so well. But she was never found. The inquest concluded that she had drowned herself, for fear her son would die in the war. She’d lost her husband in the Boer War. Her son remembered that when she was a girl, a gypsy had read her hand and predicted that war would take all she loved from her. Her husband’s death convinced her that the prediction was true.”
    There had been a great deal of speculation that summer, after the Austrian archduke and heir to the Hapsburg throne had been assassinated in Sarajevo. Rutledge remembered it well. Would Austria demand a reckoning with the Serbs? And what would Germany do, if Russia insisted on protecting her fellow Slavs? Would France be drawn in, as an ally of Russia? Governments began to mobilize. And in the end, armies began to march. And Belgium, tiny Belgium with open borders and only a small army, had been overrun by the Kaiser’s forces on their way to France, in spite of Britain’s pledge to protect her. Britain had had no choice then but to declare war on Germany. And all Europe burst into flame.
    No one had believed it would happen. And then everyone had believed that it would all be over by Christmas, that the heads of state would come to their senses.
    Instead, the war had dragged on for four bloody years. Mrs. Russell had had every reason to be afraid for her son, although no one could have guessed it at the time.
    â€œWas this a strong enough reason for her to kill herself ? Surely further inquiry would uncover a better motive for her disappearance? And I should think that if she had drowned, sooner or later her body would have surfaced?”
    â€œYou didn’t know her,” Morrison said wearily. “Elizabeth Russell was obsessed with the news, reading everything she could find. She had daily newspapers sent down from London by special messenger. She corresponded with a friend who’d married a Frenchman, and a telegram was sent telling her when the Germans had marched. And in spite of everything, her son joined the Army not a fortnight after she vanished.” He shrugged. “The local people, in their wisdom, were just as glad she hadn’t been found. The stigma of suicide, you see, and where to bury the body. They put up quite a fuss even when Russell wanted to set up a memorial to his mother in the family’s mausoleum. I must say, that surprised me. Furnham is not a very religious parish, as a rule.”
    â€œYou said the local people had helped in the search. Could they have seen to it that her body wasn’t discovered?”
    â€œDear God.” He was shocked. “I never thought of that.”
    â€œWhere is this Furnham mausoleum? Is there a churchyard associated with your parish?”
    â€œAh. The churchyard. The water table is too high, this near the river. It’s the reason there isn’t a crypt in this church. There’s a turning between here and the village. It doesn’t appear to be more than a dusty cart path. It leads to higher ground. The Rectory is there as well.”
    â€œForgive me, Rector, but isn’t it odd to have a church this far from a village? And the churchyard in another place?”
    â€œIt’s a