A cold treachery - Charles Todd [82]
The next morning, before anyone else had walked in the yard, Rutledge went out to look for prints. But the rain had begun at first light, and any that had been made in the dark were washed away. Even his own.
Necessity in the North was the main consideration in all matters.
And the rector who came every other Sunday to the little stone church to preach to the handful of villagers collected there in the cold sanctuary was called on to bury the dead while he was here. Mr. Slater was a middle-aged man who appeared to have a dour outlook on life, his eyes pouched and his eyebrows sprouting dark wiry hairs above the rims of his spectacles.
He went off to dine with Dr. Jarvis, and at two o'clock was prepared to conduct the funeral of the five victims of Urskdale's unknown killer.
There were a number of people present—not as many as Rutledge had anticipated, but Inspector Greeley, standing with him in the back of the unadorned plain stone nave, tried to explain. “Stock need tending to.”
“But if the Elcott family was well liked, I'd have expected half the village to be here. Stock or no stock.”
The line of coffins before the altar was heartbreaking. The twins would be buried with their mother, who had died trying to protect them. Hazel had her own small casket, and someone had found a bouquet of white silk roses to place on the top. The empty space where her brother might have been seemed to stand out with a cold clarity, as if pointing out the failure of the men of Urskdale to find his body.
The rector spoke of Fate, and the need to be prepared to meet Death, since no one knew when and how it might reach out to pluck its next victim. Rutledge, listening, considered it a macabre funeral oration, raising the specter of a murderer roaming the dale in search of new prey. Even Inspector Greeley seemed to shiver at the images the thin voice carried to every cranny of the church.
And then, with surprising compassion, the rector addressed each of the family members in turn, painting a warm portrait of each of the five victims that may or may not have been true.
Rutledge, observing the mourners with a policeman's eye, read nothing in their features except sympathy as they sat patiently through the service. For the most part, they appeared to agree with Mr. Slater's words, and once or twice he saw women resorting to their handkerchiefs as the rector touched a chord of memory. Children, restless beside their elders, stared at the rafters and the single stained-glass window, and sometimes at the coffins. There were a number of boys close in age to Josh Robinson. Rutledge noted them, and saw nothing in their behavior to indicate they kept any secrets about their missing classmate. Mrs. Haldnes sat upright, as if in judgment, with her own sons around her. Mrs. Peterson had not come. The Hendersons were there, with a young child who fidgeted in pain. Henderson put his arm around the boy and drew him closer, as if afraid of losing him.
It was a somber party who gathered under dripping umbrellas in the churchyard. Beyond the yews, someone had scraped away the snow, and the sexton had managed to dig three graves in the soggy earth. With no flowers and the sun hidden behind heavy clouds, the rain an uncompromising drizzle now, and the rector reading the last words of hope and resurrection as if they were a curse, the depression of the mourners only deepened.
It was a bleak service, the wind howling around their shoulders, the ground gaping cold and hard. The rector was hoarse, his voice barely audible and half buried in his black muffler.
Paul Elcott stood as if alone, head bowed, face scourged with grief. Nothing in the slump of his shoulders and the tight grip of his hands on the bone handle of the umbrella indicated that he was comforted by the service.
Beside him was Hugh Robinson, face unreadable, his emotions locked too far away to be touched. His eyes weren't on the coffins but on the heights, as if saying good-bye to his son as well as his daughter.
Farther away, closer