A cold treachery - Charles Todd [23]
“We'll find him,” he told her. “It may take time, but we will. You needn't worry.” But Hamish was not as certain. Rutledge could feel the resistance in his mind. A comforting lie . . .
They could hear a raven high on the ridge, the deep call echoing.
Elizabeth Fraser tilted her head to listen. As if following up on an earlier thought, she said, “This is such an isolated valley. Sometimes I find it very lonely. Just now I find it very frightening.”
“Why do you stay?” he asked, and then wished he could bite back the words. For all he knew she was dependent on the Cumminses for her keep. A companion-housekeeper of sorts to a drunken woman.
But she smiled. “I like the stillnesses. And the wind. I like the wildness. Everything is pared down to the bone in a place like this. It's a wonderful antidote for self-pity. I'm as bad as the summer walkers, aren't I? They come only for ‘splendid vistas and noble panoramas.' I should be telling you that I admire the hardiness of the people or the bracing climate. Something unselfish and fine.”
She watched him pace restlessly, his mind on the search parties.
“You aren't used to waiting, are you?” she asked.
“No. I'm afraid it shows.” Hamish, still agitating in the back of his mind, was keeping him on edge, and the wait for Greeley was beginning to get on his nerves. There must be people he could speak to, evidence he could begin to pull together. But most of the men of Urskdale were out there on the fells, beyond his reach. And the killer could very well be among them. Had Greeley taken that into account?
A gust of wind came round the corner of the house and brought with it a shower of snow from the roof over their heads. Reluctantly Miss Fraser turned her chair and went back inside. After a moment, Rutledge followed her, closing the door and latching it.
“You know these people, do you?” he asked. “Here in Urskdale?”
“You mean, do I know any of them well enough to point my finger at one and call him a murderer?” She drew her chair to the window, where a rare patch of pale, early sun was reaching through the clouds. She turned her face up to it. “Yes. I suppose I do.”
He crossed the room and found a chair near the table, taking up one of the napkins there and folding it into triangles and then squares. It soothed his restlessness, a contrast to her peacefulness. How had she learned to accept her disability so tranquilly? Or was it a hard-won lesson, a victory he knew nothing about? “It may be that there was no outsider . . .”
“I hope I don't know anyone who could kill like that,” she began pensively. “A grudge simmers, doesn't it? It grates and warps a man until he can't bear it any longer. Short words—angry looks behind someone's back—glares in the butcher shop or at the smithy. Something he's feeling seeps out, surely? But I can't remember ever seeing anyone show that kind of animosity towards Gerald Elcott. I don't recall anyone telling me that they'd overheard a quarrel or seen indications of bitterness or envy. I don't want to think that someone could conceal such anger so well. It smacks of madness, doesn't it?”
“Even madmen have reasons for what they do.” Rutledge remembered Arthur Marlton, the prisoner in the dock in Preston. “Look at it another way. Why the Elcotts? They seemed to have lived a rather ordinary life. Not very different from a dozen other families, surely? Then suddenly someone sweeps down on them in a fury and destroys them. Where did this fury come from? Was it directed at them? Or were they merely the closest target?”
“The Elcott family has deep roots here. And it's true old resentments are nursed, kept alive for years.” Her back was still to him. “I've told you, this is a hard land, and the people on it are hard as well. They don't have much to give, except perhaps trust, and when that's betrayed, they do know how to hate—”
She was interrupted as the kitchen door opened and a man came in, his boots in his hand.
“Morning, Miss,” he said to the woman in the chair, before turning to the man at the table. “You're