A False Mirror - Charles Todd [4]
“With so many people in the Park, it isn’t likely that another murder will occur there,” Rutledge pointed out.
“And that’s what I’m hoping, don’t you see? We throw our man off balance, make it difficult for him to plan.” Phipps paused long enough to crack his knuckles, one by one. “Once the killer has lured his target into the park, it won’t be easy to shift him to another site.”
“What if he’s already killed the two men he’d intended to murder?”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a very likely possibility! We’ve got ourselves a trend here, don’t you know. He’ll come to the Park, all right. Wait and see. And he’ll have told his victim where and when to meet him, I should think. Safer than arriving together. Someone might see them and remember.” He was pacing again, rubbing his jaw with the back of his nails. “Very well, then, we’re looking for two men, arriving separately, then meeting. They’ll go off together toward the shrubbery, for privacy. That’s when we’ll have them. Bevins is to bring his dog to the Yard at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Be here and make certain that you have a change of clothes—we shan’t want to be noticed!”
Hamish said, “Aye, but the dog will be the same dog.”
But Rutledge’s mind was elsewhere. It was cold, the trees bare, the wind brutal coming down the Thames. Huddled in a greatcoat, he thought, who would know whether he was wearing a blue or a gray suit beneath it? But a change of hat and shoes might well be in order….
Phipps was at the door, tapping the frame as he changed his mind again.
“No, perhaps you ought to be the policeman on foot—”
“I hardly look like a young constable. The dog and I will manage well enough.”
“Unless he decides to bite you. I’ve heard that Bevins’s dog has a nasty disposition.”
And with that he was gone.
Rutledge, leaning back in his chair, wished himself away from this place, away from London. Away from the wretchedness of torn bodies, bloody scenes of crimes. Although he suspected Frances, his sister, had had a hand in it, he’d just been invited to Kent, to stay with Melinda Crawford, whom he’d known for as long as he was aware of knowing anyone other than his parents. As a child, Melinda had seen enough of death herself, in the Great Indian Mutiny. He could depend on her to keep him amused and to thrust him into her various projects, never speaking about what had happened in November, not twenty miles from her. Even a long weekend would be a godsend. But there was nothing he could do about it.
As it happened, Bevins’s dog was a great, heavy-coated black monster with more than a little mastiff in him. He slavered heavily as he greeted Rutledge and then trotted sedately at his side as the two of them left the Yard and headed for Green Park.
In the back of Rutledge’s mind, Hamish was unsettled this morning. The voice was just behind his shoulder, clear in spite of the traffic that moved through the streets even at this early hour or the jostling of people as they hurried past or stepped aside with a murmured comment about the dog on its leather lead.
“Ugly brute,” one man said, and as if the dog understood, he raised his massive head and stared back. The man turned into the nearest shop, out of reach of the strong white teeth grinning malevolently almost on a level with his throat.
Hamish was saying, “Ye’ve been reduced to this, then. A distraction any green constable on probation could ha’ provided.”
“Not by choice,” Rutledge answered curtly, under his breath.
“Aye, he’s a bad enemy, yon chief superintendent. M’ Granny would ha’ found him in the bowl of water, and put a curse on him.”
“I wonder what my godfather would have to say to that.”
“He’s no’ a Scot. He wouldna