A cold treachery - Charles Todd [47]
Nothing moved. There was no sound at all.
But as he watched, someone rose to fill the doorway, a slim figure standing straight, no more than a shimmering silhouette against the snow, breath like a wraith blowing into the room with the cold blast of air.
It was Miss Fraser, standing in the doorway, staring up at the fell that rose beyond the yard, a great white mass that had no beginning and no end from where Rutledge watched, the sky blotted out by its shape.
She took one step and then another, clutching at the door frame. And then after a long moment, she moved back, as if defeated, slowly subsiding into her chair again. With a last look into the snowy shadows of the fell, she wheeled herself back far enough to allow the door to be closed.
Rutledge heard the bolt slide home.
He didn't stay to be found there watching. Keeping close to the passage wall where he couldn't be seen if Miss Fraser turned, he reached the hall, and then without a sound was walking swiftly down the corridor to his room.
Hamish said, “She isna' as crippled as yon chair siggests.”
Rutledge answered slowly, “I don't know. Was it wishful thinking? Or the torment of wanting what isn't there . . .”
“Aye,” Hamish said, “It's no' much of a life for a lassie.”
Breakfast was nearly ready when Rutledge came down to the kitchen again. But it was Mrs. Cummins standing by the stove, busy with a pan of eggs. She looked up at her London guest.
“Good morning, Inspector! I'm afraid I've burned the toast—but only a little.”
The teakettle was whistling noisily, and he offered to pour hot water into the pot for her.
Relieved, she said, “Would you? I seem to be all thumbs—”
He made the tea, found butter in the pantry off the kitchen, brought in the cream, and was setting the table when Inspector Greeley arrived.
Surprised to see Mrs. Cummins, he said, “Good morning, Vera. Inspector.”
Rutledge said, “Any news?”
“Depends,” Greeley said, watching Mrs. Cummins. “The searchers have been to every farmhouse, combed the ruins they knew of, looked anywhere a child could hide. They're ready to admit defeat. Three days, and nothing.”
“What's your feeling about it?”
“The boy is dead, he has to be. Either frozen in the snow or tracked down by the killer. It was what we feared from the start. . . .”
Mrs. Cummins set the pan of eggs off the stove, humming a little to herself as if Greeley had been exchanging views on the weather.
“I hate to quit. I've never been one to quit,” he said, pulling out the chair. “That tea fit to drink?”
“Just steeped.” Rutledge poured him a cup. Greeley drank it thirstily.
“Come and talk to the men. See if you can give them new hope,” he said after a moment. “I've run out of words.”
“They know the land far better than I do. But I'll try.”
“Let's go, then. We'll take your motorcar. It's warming up, this morning, enough to melt the worst of the ice. We can make better time if you drive.”
The two policemen found the roads either slushy enough to mire the tires or hard enough to make speed dicey. Greeley swore as they nearly got bogged down in the first drive they turned into. But they found a cluster of men in the yard behind the house, drinking mugs of tea and talking among themselves. The farmer, red-faced and weary, was gesturing towards the land that rose in the watery sun like a heavy blanket of snow and stone. The sky was a hazy blue.
The men turned at the sound of the motorcar, and came to greet Inspector Greeley, then to stare with curiosity at the stranger from London.
“Well, I've brought no news,” Greeley began, raising his voice so that all could hear him. “But Inspector Rutledge here is asking us for one more effort, another day at least, a searching of the mind as well as the terrain, trying to think where a lad like that could find shelter—a place he might have discovered on his own, a small space we as grown men might not think about, but a lad could crawl into—”
Hamish said, “He's making the speech for you!”
One of the searchers interrupted Greeley. “We've done that and more.