A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [118]
Hamish said, “You canna’ know the answer to that. But at a guess, he comforted himself with their condition.”
“Yes, I can understand that. Those women weren’t going to recover, and they were probably afraid of dying alone and neglected, of lying there until someone came in and found them. They must have looked forward to his visits.” He’d learned early on that murderers often could convince themselves of the rightness of what they had done.
“Still, there’s the connection with Mrs. Cutter. Was her son involved? Was she trying to protect him? Or did she use him to try to put the blame on Mrs. Shaw?”
“Aye, the locket. George Peterson could have pocketed that. To gie to his mother.”
“Yet she never used it against the Shaws. Why did Peterson kill himself? Because he didn’t like police work, as we’ve been told? Or was there more to the story?”
“He wouldna’ be the first policeman to die by his own hand.”
It was true. After the first long months of working with the worst of human nature, of seeing violent death and recognizing evil for what it was, a callous disregard for the lives and property of others, either a policeman developed a hard shell against the nightmare of his job or he began to drink. Sometimes when the shell cracked or the drinking failed to dull the mind, a man withdrew into himself, and built not a shell but a wall against any emotion at all. Or he put an end to all of it.
Rutledge himself, drawn to law enforcement because of a firm belief that the police had the power to give the dead a voice, to offer in a courtroom the evidence of the scene and the body, had discovered soon enough that he was losing his objectivity. And it had been a long, difficult climb to a level of professionalism that had allowed him to function without losing his humanity.
Young George Peterson might never have succeeded in reaching that level. . . .
As the lights of London came closer and he could see the city shining in the misting rain, the smell of the river borne on the wind and the heavy odor of coal fires hanging between the clouds and the rooftops, he turned toward Sansom Street and finally pulled up in front of the Shaw house.
Every light seemed to be burning, the house startlingly lit like a beacon. In the West End, it would signify a party. In Number 14, Sansom Street, it was an omen.
Rutledge got out of the motorcar and stretched his shoulders, postponing the moment of walking up to the door and lifting the knocker.
Margaret Shaw was there as if she had been waiting just on the other side, and he walked into the narrow hall.
A passage led to the back of the house, with narrow stairs climbing to his right and doors into rooms standing open on his left.
Margaret was in tears, her face red and streaked, as if she’d been crying for hours.
“Mama is upstairs,” she said. “I’ve been that frantic. I think it’s her heart!”
“You should have called a doctor, not me,” he said, and then regretted it.
“The doctor came,” Margaret told him. “And left. He said it was something she’s eaten. He gave her a digestive powder—she won’t touch it, she says it’s poison, and she just lies there clutching her chest and asking God why he deserted her.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Mama sent him to stay with a friend. I don’t know what excuse she made, but they agreed to keep him for a day or two.”
Rutledge followed Margaret up the stairs and into a bedroom that faced the street.
The bedclothes were rumpled and tossed, half on the floor, half covering the fully clothed woman lying in their midst. Her hair was a bird’s nest, tangled and spiked with sweat, her shirtwaist and her skirt wrinkled and twisted.
As he walked toward the bed, she turned her head to see who was there, and froze.
“Dear my God!” she cried, staring at him, and sat up with such hope blazing in her eyes that Rutledge turned away.
He said to Margaret, “Bring your mother water and towels. A brush for her hair. Then put her in that