A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [27]
Hamish pointed out, referring to the Shaw investigation, “It isna’ a good time to bring up the past.”
It wasn’t. Rutledge shut his door against the mayhem and sat down at his desk. He had made notes from the Shaw file, and with luck there would be a few free hours in the morning to visit one or two of Mrs. Shaw’s neighbors. Discreetly.
He drew the sheets of paper out of his drawer and prepared to read through them again, seeking any missed clue. He had given himself two days to find a sense of perspective about the case. Instead, other emotions had driven it from his mind. And yet, with the commemoration of the Armistice safely behind him, almost as if turning a leaf in a mental book, he felt a return to a sense of balance.
Hamish, reflecting Rutledge’s tiredness from the drive out of Kent, doubted there would be anything worthwhile to be found in his notes. “For ye read them on Sunday, and you’re no’ so puir a policeman that you couldna’ see it was all trim and proper then.”
Still, Rutledge persevered.
But the pages were not in proper order. And an extraneous letter, an invitation to a retirement dinner for another officer, was in among them.
It had been lying on his blotter Sunday when he had walked out of the room. In plain sight.
He stared at the sheets in his hand, trying to remember how he had left them. Hamish was right about one thing—he wasn’t so poor a policeman that he would mix up his files like this. He had learned early on in his career that a meticulous attention to detail was essential to giving evidence in court. A muddled record of any investigation was a death knell—the defense would swoop down on the policeman like an eagle after prey, and tear him apart.
Pages two and five had been reversed. He sorted through them again. One. Five. Three. Four. Two. And just after five, that extraneous letter.
A thought struck him then. And with it came cold alarm.
Someone had been in his office and gone through his desk in his absence.
What had they been looking for? And in their search, had they taken note of this sheaf of pages—or simply set it aside while hunting for another file?
More to the point, what present inquiry of his was urgent enough that new information couldn’t wait three days for his return?
He thumbed through the copied notes again. He had nothing to hide. The original file had been returned to its cabinet, after he had abstracted the information he wanted. He had disturbed no one—he had left no particular trail.
In fact, he had simply tried to be circumspect, knowing Chief Superintendent Bowles would be the first to be annoyed by any resurrection of his own past—the inquiry that had begun his climb to his present position.
No. It wasn’t Bowles; there would be no reason for him to come to Rutledge’s office. If he’d needed a folder, he would have sent someone else to locate it.
And whoever it was, no doubt in a hurry, had sifted through the drawer’s contents with only one thing on his mind: satisfying Bowles.
Rutledge went through his entire desk with great care. As far as he could determine, nothing was missing. The files he was presently working on were as he’d left them. Whatever had been taken must also have been returned.
Coincidence.
It was the only explanation. . . .
But neither he nor Hamish found it satisfactory.
10
THE NEXT MORNING RUTLEDGE REPORTED FOR DUTY, AND then at midday, after a meeting ended earlier than expected, he found his way again to the street of soot-blackened houses where the Shaws had lived their entire married life. Winter sun splashed the roofs and walls, bringing out every flaw, like an aging woman who had ventured out too early into the merciless morning light. Even the mortar of the bricks seemed engrained with coal smoke, and in the windows, white lace curtains mocked it.
Number 14 was very like its neighbors, upright and lacking any individuality that would offer a hint about the occupants within. The iron knockers on several doors were Victorian whimsy, mass-produced rather than a reflection