A cold treachery - Charles Todd [121]
It was a sad remark to make.
When Rutledge didn't answer, he said, “Well . . . I must look to the fires. Please let us know if there's anything we can do. For Paul.”
Maggie watched the boy feeding the dog, coaxing Sybil to eat. But the dog was too busy licking the boy's pale face.
“I don't think she cares much for toast. Put some of the drippings on it. She'll like it better.”
He got up and went to the bowl Maggie kept by the sink. Sybil, knowing what he was about to do, went with him, drooling with anticipation. Her tail wagged furiously.
How could Sybil be wrong about him? Or had he killed in a moment of madness, long since carried away by the cold and the snow?
She refused to believe what she'd heard with her own ears. But that chilling “Bang! Bang-bang! Bang—” echoed in her brain. He had been there when the killing was done. That much was certain. The searchers had all but said he could be a witness. What they hadn't said was that he'd done this terrible deed. But perhaps they hadn't known, in the first rush to find the only survivor . . . Perhaps that came later.
She cursed her bad leg. She daren't go into Urskdale village to listen to the gossip. The journey there and back would put her in bed for a week. Longer. The London policeman had come three times. Suspicious, wanting to know about the old drift road that went over the Saddle and through the narrow cut that led south. A child could never have made that journey, not in summer even. What was it about the old road that intrigued the policeman? That one man could pass there, without being seen in the village?
Closed to sheep it might be, but her father had made his way over the rocks when he was sixteen, and found the way to the coast. His father had given him a lashing with the leather belt for frightening his mother by disappearing for several days. But he'd had pocket change with him and bought a small pillow slip with Morecambe Bay embroidered on it to beg forgiveness, saying that he'd not realized it was so far to walk.
It was the only time her father had ever left the dale. He'd told her once that the sea wasn't much to look at and he'd decided that roaming didn't suit him after all. . . .
She went to the cupboard where her father had kept his belongings. The boy, idle now, watched her as she rummaged through the shelves. Frustrated, she leaned against the wall for a time until she could muster the energy to begin again.
And then she had a better idea and went out to the barn, dragging her foot after her as she searched for the clothes that had belonged to the sheep man who had died at Mons. A flat cap . . . leather, like some of the Londoners wore. Or so he'd said, jauntily clapping it on his head and laughing at her. She'd told him he looked a fool, but he had laughed again and said, “The girls in shops don't think so.” She called him cheeky, and had turned away, hiding her smile. But she had understood why the girls in the London shops found him dazzling . . .
Sentimental she was not, though he had been a wonder with the sheep, a blessing after her father's death. She took the hat out of the suitcase it had lived in for the duration of the war and carried it back to the kitchen. The boy was curious, but she didn't tell him what she was planning.
An hour with an old cloth and saddle soap made the hat look better, and she turned it this way and that, studying it.
It would do.
She took it back outside and tossed it into the snow that had drifted higher against the shed.
When the Londoner came back, she was ready for him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Elizabeth Fraser found Rutledge still in the dining room. She had brought with her a pot of tea and some sandwiches, a cup and saucer, and the sugar bowl and creamer.
“Everything looks better on a full stomach,” she said, edging her way through the door, the tray balanced on her lap. He hurried to help her, taking the tray from her and setting it