A cold treachery - Charles Todd [131]
There was no response. And then the door opened and Josh Robinson stood there with the double-bladed ax in his hand, defiant and ominously silent.
Beside him Sybil stood guard, her ruff raised and stiff, and growls sounding deep in her throat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
What does a man say to a child who may be a killer? What could mitigate the nightmare that must be locked in his mind?
“Ye willna' have a second chance,” Hamish warned quietly.
“Josh? My name is Rutledge. You may call me Ian, if you like. I've come from London to find you—”
Rutledge stayed where he was, and kept his voice level, as if there was no danger in the confrontation between them. Feeling his way.
The defiant face drained of color and the boy began to shake. But the ax was still clenched in his hands.
“'Ware!” Hamish cautioned.
Rutledge quickly revised what he was about to say. “I was a soldier, like your father. I've been through some rough patches in the war,” he went on. “But nothing like you've been through. If you will let me come in and talk—”
“He's mute,” Maggie said, just behind him.
“Fair enough. I'll ask you a few questions, Josh, and you can nod your head or shake it, to let me know if I'm right or wrong. I'm not here to harm Maggie Ingerson. She's a very brave woman, and I have a high regard for her.”
“Ask him if he'll go away again and leave us as we are,” she told Josh. “Then you'll know where he stands!”
The boy's eyes switched anxiously from Rutledge's face to hers and back again.
“She knows I can't go away,” the policeman answered honestly. “For days now we've been afraid that you were dead. We were worried, we searched everywhere, well into the night sometimes. Your aunt Janet is in Urskdale, at the hotel. More than anything she wants to know you're safe. She's grieved for you, fearful that you'd lost your way in the snow or were hurt, unable to call for help. And your father has come from Hampshire—”
A shriek of anguish was ripped from the child, and he slammed the door so hard it seemed to bounce on its hinges.
And Rutledge, moving swiftly towards it, heard the fever pitch of his anger from inside.
“You're lying—you're lying!” he shrilled over and over again, and they could hear the ax striking the floor in rhythm with the words.
They stood in the cold, side by side but without speaking until the thuds stopped and the screams became broken sobs. It seemed, Rutledge thought, like hours before silence fell, and he looked at Maggie.
“Go in and comfort him.”
“He doesn't like to be touched.”
“All the same—and leave the door wide.”
She finally did as he asked, opening the door with some trepidation, and a wave of warm air thick with the smell of cooked porridge washed over them. The boy lay on the floor, his arms around the dog, the ax forgotten. But in the floor were raw gouges where he had pounded the edge into the wood.
“Sybil has done more than I ever could,” Maggie said, a forlorn note in her voice. She stooped to brush the tear-wet hair out of the child's face and he flinched.
Rutledge stepped in behind her and managed to shut the door. The heat of the room was stiffling after his long night in the cold. He pulled off his coat and set it with his hat on a pail by the door.
Maggie had gingerly retrieved the ax and held it now as if she was debating using it.
Rutledge knelt on the floor. “I could do with a bowl of that porridge,” he said, “and a cup of tea. You won't need that.” He nodded to the ax.
She looked down at the blade of the ax and then set it aside. But she didn't move.
“I won't hurt him. Go on. Make his breakfast, and I'll share it. I need to reach him, and that may be the best way.”
Reluctantly she went to the dresser and found three bowls. Rutledge looked at the curled-up figure of the boy, and then gently picked him up in his arms. It was as if Josh had burrowed so deep into himself that he wasn't aware of what was happening, for he put up no resistance. Rutledge carried the child to the chair where Maggie usually sat—where her