A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [13]
Someone had told Rutledge—a neighbor two houses away—that she’d heard that Ben Shaw had come from better stock than his wife, who “had pulled him down, if you want the truth. Common, she is,” determined though she was to give her children opportunities to rise above their station. “I’ll say that for Nell Shaw, she never tried to hold either of them back, on her own account!”
Rutledge would have put his money on Mrs. Shaw as the killer, if there had been the slimmest chance of that. He hadn’t liked her, for one thing, and he’d felt some sympathy for her husband after enduring her sharp tongue in the early stages of the investigation. Nell Shaw had been angry, defending her family like an enraged tigress, accusing the police of failing at their own duty and having nothing better to do than badger a poor man into night terrors.
But neither Rutledge nor Nettle had ever fully explored the background of the neighbors—what opportunities they might have had to meet the three dead women, what reasons they might have had to commit murder. There was no evidence at all that pointed in their direction, even though Henry Cutter’s wife seemed to know more about the victims than Mrs. Shaw had. She had read about them in the newspapers . . . so she claimed.
Instead he had focused on two facts: that Ben Shaw was often in the homes of the deceased. And that after he was charged, Ben Shaw had all but admitted he was the murderer.
But what if he hadn’t been—what if, afraid from the start that his wife might be guilty, he’d confessed to distract the police from her?
Hamish said, “Or fra’ someone else he cared for.”
It wouldn’t be the first time that a husband or wife risked hanging out of fear of the truth coming out. Or out of fear that the other was in danger. . . .
What if, looking deeper, Rutledge found himself thinking, he’d come across unexpected evidence that proved clearly that the most obvious pointers were not the most likely after all . . . ? In one case in ten, digging deeper brought out new facts. And yet at the time, he was convinced that he had dug deeply—
Speaking up after a long and brooding silence, Hamish said, “What if ye find that I’m no’ the first victim whose death can be laid at your door? What if this man died a worse death than mine, because ye were no’ the clever policeman you thought you were?”
As Rutledge laid the last of the pages aside, he wondered if he would come to regret his decision to retrieve the file.
But he was committed now . . . whatever he learned about himself.
6
THERE WAS NOTHING MORE RUTLEDGE COULD DO THAT DAY about his promise to Nell Shaw. Nor the next, as he drove south of London and back into Kent.
But it was like a sore tooth nagging in the back of his mind. And after he had crossed Lambeth Bridge, he made his way south and east, to the part of south London where the Shaws—and the Cutters—lived. It was familiar ground, and yet as the motorcar turned down street after street, he could see that the once prosperous working-class houses were showing signs of neglect after nearly five years of war and shortages of manpower and materials. England had impoverished herself to win, and Rutledge found himself thinking that here was the invisible cost in human suffering and hardship.
Many of the factories had shut down, and the residential streets were grim in November’s gray chill. Not even a dog wandered in the gutters sniffing for scraps.
Those who could escape had done so long ago, especially those who had found a way of prospering from the war. Those who were doomed to finish out their lives here had fallen prey to despair and hopelessness.
Among them, Mrs. Shaw and, so it seemed, Henry Cutter. . . .
Not for the first time, Rutledge asked himself how Henry Cutter’s wife had come by that missing locket.
“Ye canna’ be sure she did! There’s only one woman’s word for it.”
Rutledge replied grimly, “It wasn’t in the Shaw house when it was searched. I’d stake my career on that.”
“Aye, it’s what you’re doing.”
“The problem is, why would Shaw have given the locket to Cutter