A cold treachery - Charles Todd [103]
He could hear the crunch of snow even before he saw the beam of the torch. Tired footsteps, making no effort to hide their approach, came nearer with every breath.
And then, as the torch's light grew brighter in the churned snow, Rutledge stepped out of the shadows. Dark and half seen against the house.
A cry of alarm was cut off as the intruder realized that a man, not a ghost, stood in its way.
Then it turned and tried to run back the way it had come.
Rutledge, faster, was at its heels, and as it missed its step on the stony track, he caught up to it and brought it down.
The bundled figure writhed in his grasp, crying out in pain.
“No—my ribs—”
He rolled off Janet Ashton and swore.
“What the hell are you doing out here at this hour of the night?”
She answered, “I could ask you the same thing! God, but you frightened me!”
She was shaking.
“Come on, up with you.”
He gave her his hand and helped her to her feet.
“Back to the house,” he ordered, “where I can light a lamp and see you.”
But she pulled away from him in a fierce effort to free herself. “No! I won't go in there! You'll have to carry me, fighting all the way!” Her voice rose as she struggled.
“The barn, then,” he said roughly, catching her arm and dragging her with him.
The barn was marginally warmer. With the stock taken away to be cared for elsewhere, there was none of the comforting security of animals in their stalls. He took her into the depths of the cavernous darkness and shone his torch into her face. Tears streaked her cheeks, but she stared defiantly back at him.
“What brought you here?” he asked.
“I was afraid whatever it was you thought you'd discovered here would distract you. Josh lived on this farm! He might have used a candle up there in the hut any time. You don't understand him, the way he worried about his mother, the way the twins changed his life. I can imagine him slipping out of bed and running away for an hour or two, to get his head together again. But that's no proof he's a murderer. I don't care what Hugh says, I knew Josh just as well—better, probably—and he isn't a murderer!”
“It was a foolish thing to do. To come here—alone—at night.”
“Yes, but I found something up there—look!”
He expected her to show him the cuff link he'd concealed hours earlier.
But in the palm of her gloved hand was something entirely different.
He turned the torch to see it clearly.
It was the black button from a man's coat.
Hamish mocked, “She's as clever as you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Janet Ashton closed her fingers over her find. “All you have to do is look for a coat with a missing button—”
“I don't believe you found it there!”
“Why not? Because you overlooked the button earlier? It's sheer folly for me to play that game. Oh, I know you think I was as likely to have killed them as Paul—or Josh. But you can't have three murderers in a family, can you? If you have to choose, who will it be—?”
She broke off as the horse gently blew, as if it had picked up a scent it didn't like.
“Shhh—” Rutledge said, turning off his torch and stepping swiftly to the barn door.
There was someone above the shed, on the hill.
Rutledge slipped to the shed and laid his hand across the horse's nose, to keep it quiet, all the time talking to it in a low voice as he urged it out of sight.
Janet Ashton was beside him. “Who is it?” she demanded in a fierce whisper. He could feel her shaking as her hand came to rest on his arm. “I could have run into him!”
“Shhh—” he said again. “Here, hold on to the horse. Don't let him make a sound!”
And he was gone, out of the shed and into the starlit yard.
Above him he could see movement, but the line of sight here wasn't as good as it had been in the upper floor of the house.
But the figure didn't seem to be moving towards the hut. Instead he seemed to be looking at the house from the fell. Searching for a better angle.
What was it he wanted? A man, surely—not a