A Fearsome Doubt - Charles Todd [62]
“He came in the autumn, then, for the picking?”
“And sometimes the haying before that. Depended on the weather, you see, when one finished and the other began.” He finished his soup with a sigh of satisfaction.
“At any rate,” Dowling went on, “Ridger was soon off to fairer fields of endeavor. He ran away to London with an older boy, and his mother didn’t have the energy to care. Nothing was ever proved against Ridger. But there was a trail of near misses. Petty theft, some minor forgery, cheating old women out of their savings—the sort of trouble a boy is likely to fall into, running with the wrong crowd.”
“I’m surprised you followed his career.”
Dowling grinned. “Hardly that. From time to time I’d be contacted by London when they’d run out of likely places to look for him.”
“He kept his ties in Kent?”
“I doubt he cared tuppence for Marling. It was more a case of going to earth when London got too warm for him. One spring he came back to work in the orchards, and after that he moved on to the hop gardens. He disappeared one day and then was back in the autumn with a swollen eye and a cut on his chin deep enough to leave a scar. I suppose he never had a home of his own in the true sense. His mother was a decent enough woman, but she produced children like rabbits and never seemed to know where half of them were. They fell into rivers and out of trees and over walls—we’d clean them up and send them back to her for a scolding.”
Rutledge said, “Not a vicious man, then, Ridger.”
Dowling frowned. “No, I’d not call him vicious. On the other hand, Ridger was out for himself. And that sort can sometimes turn violent.”
“He was in the war?”
The woman serving tables brought them a platter of roast chicken, and Dowling’s eyes gleamed with hungry relish. He fell to with an apologetic smile.
After a few mouthfuls, he answered, “He joined the army here in Kent, with the rest of the men hereabouts. He told Sergeant Burke at the time that he felt closer to them than to his friends in London. Or trusted them more, is my guess. Still, Ridger had a wonderful way with him, when it suited him. He could call the birds from the trees, as my grandmother was fond of saying. And from all reports, he was a good soldier. And the best scavenger in the regiment.”
Rutledge had known more than a few of those himself. A Scot in his company, a man called Campbell, had a knack for disappearing and then coming back hours later with a full haversack. Tins, biscuits, matches, even a cold roast hen with cold potatoes, probably scooped up from some French farmer’s abandoned kitchen. Campbell had found dry socks after a week of rain, and gloves in the middle of winter, and whisky for those too well to go back to aid stations and in too much pain to stand their duty. Officers tried to keep the thievery to a minimum, but what they didn’t see they couldn’t stop.
“What became of Ridger after the war?” Rutledge asked.
“He’s back in London, I expect.”
“Unless he’s gone to earth again,” Hamish suggested, “and someone thinks he’s in Kent . . .”
The Campbells of this world, excellent scavengers though they were, occasionally forgot the rules and made enemies.
Dowling ordered a flan for his dessert, and Rutledge settled for a plate of cheese.
The inspector sighed as he put down his spoon. “I must thank you,” he said with a wry smile. “I feel blissfully content.”
AFTER DOWLING HAD left the hotel, Rutledge searched for the man who usually served behind the desk. Haskins was his name, and he had just finished his own meal in the kitchen, his napkin still under his chin. He pointed out the telephone, and Rutledge put in a call to London.
Sergeant Gibson’s gruff voice came over the line. “Yes, sir, you wanted to speak to me?”
“I’m looking for a man named Jimsy Ridger.” Rutledge gave Gibson a brief sketch of Ridger