A cold treachery - Charles Todd [86]
“Was he relieved?” Rutledge asked. “To hear that he would survive?”
“I didn't have time to waste on Josh. The twins were large and I feared a breech birth. I was busy trying to save them.”
Hamish said, “The boy was crying for help—”
“So he resented the arrival of the twins, you think?”
“Resented? I would've said he feared them, if that didn't seem so far-fetched. And yet after they were born, he was fiercely protective of them. As if to make up for any earlier hostility.”
“How did Gerald Elcott treat Josh after the twins were born? Was the boy made to feel a part of this new family?”
“I never saw any difference in their relationship. Gerald told me once that he'd liked the boy from the start and was willing to be patient. It might have worked out quite well. But then the natural father turned up, after everyone had thought him dead. It must have been impossible for young Josh to decide exactly where his allegiance lay.” Jarvis finished his sherry and offered Rutledge a second, but Rutledge shook his head.
“In my experience,” the doctor said, “boys that age are nearly inarticulate. They can hurt inside and hide it very well. Even if they want to confide in someone, they often don't know where to find the words.”
He took Rutledge's empty glass and set it on the tray by the bookcase. “I don't know what's behind these questions. They've disturbed me. I shan't rest until we get to the bottom of this wretched business!”
Janet Ashton was at the kitchen table, staring moodily out the window at the snow gleaming in the last of the light. Rutledge walked into the room before he saw her there, for the lamps hadn't been lit.
There was no unobtrusive way to back out. And so he came in and sat across from her. After a moment he asked if she were feeling better, and she nodded absently, as if her injuries weren't important compared to whatever was on her mind.
“Tell me about Josh,” he said, then.
She turned to look at him, scorn in her face.
“No, don't tell me about Paul Elcott. And I asked you to tell me about the child—not defend him,” Rutledge said equably.
She flushed. “So you did. An ordinary boy. Troublesome at times, and wild at others.”
“How did he get along with his stepfather?”
“Well enough. Josh wasn't bred to sheep farming. It's cold and wet and dirty work. The lanolin in the sheeps' wool irritated his hands. Made them blister and crack. But he understood that sheep put the food on his table, and he tried to do what he could to help his stepfather. They seemed to respect each other, after a fashion.”
“And after the twins were born?”
“He wasn't excited about the twins, before they arrived. Grace wrote to say that he was restless and unhappy, and she put it down to the pregnancy. She'd had a difficult one this time—I expect that bothered the boy. She was very sick in the morning for five months, and then after that, her feet and hands were bloated. But the delivery went smoothly enough, and she recovered quickly, amazingly so. She would laugh and say, ‘I was eating for three, Janet, it was horrid! I felt like a house!'”
“Tell me about Elcott. What did you know about him?”
She got up to stand at the window, her back to him. “Actually I introduced Gerald to Grace. I knew him before she did.” The words were reluctant, as if the admission was painful.
“Where did you know him?”
“I lived just down the street from Grace, in Ellingham. Hampshire. I went to London—it was the first year of the war—for six months, trying to help my firm overcome the shortage of men. I was a typist, and I became a clerk and then actually drove the delivery lorry for a time. When Grace wrote that Hugh had been killed, I went back to Ellingham. It was Gerald who gave me a lift. He was on his way to see a friend in hospital there. I rather liked him, and he came to see me a number of times before he was sent back