A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [101]
“I told you, I’m from Scotland Yard. But I have met the man. Now, why should you think that someone had been in the house at Partridge Fields?”
Returning to the grievance that had brought her here, she said, “The gardener at one of the houses down the road was coming home late last night from a wedding, and he saw lights moving from room to room. He’s known my family for ages, my mother and he often exchanged plants. He came to find me this morning, to tell me that something was wrong. Something about the lights troubled him, and he was afraid to investigate. He’s an old man and he may have thought it was my mother’s spirit. But I knew better. It wasn’t my mother’s poor ghost, it was you. When you couldn’t badger me, you went to the house on your own, thinking no one would learn of it.”
He had been careful not to show a light. And he remembered the flicker of movement he imagined he’d seen in the shadows near the horse fountain. Had someone else been there after he left? Deloran might have had reasons of his own for taking the risk of searching the empty house. If so, what was he looking for?
“He wouldna’ go himself, ye ken,” Hamish remarked. “His hands are clean.”
Rutledge said to Miss Parkinson, “But you yourself couldn’t see evidence of someone there?”
“Of course not. You’re a London policeman, you aren’t going to leave muddy footprints in the passages. What I want to know is what you took away?”
“If I was there, it was without any legal right to take anything from the house.”
“I should have known you wouldn’t have the decency to tell me the truth.”
Rutledge smiled faintly. “Yes, all right, I was there. But I touched nothing. I wanted to see what drove your father away from his home—why he chose to live where he did. I was hoping that if I could understand that, I could explain some of the other things I don’t understand. Please, sit down, and let Mrs. Smith bring you a cup of tea. I have a few questions to ask you and we might as well get them over with.”
She was still angry. “You went into my mother’s room. Where she died. Why should I want to talk to you? I wouldn’t give you that satisfaction.”
When she had first confronted him, he’d noted how much like her mother she looked, but in the course of their conversation Rutledge could see how much stronger she was than her mother must have been. Her spirit, he thought, must have come from her father. However much she would fiercely deny it.
Before she could turn and stalk out of the inn, he said, “I can arrange to have you taken into custody to help us with our inquiries if you prefer that.”
“On what charges?” she demanded. “I’ve done nothing except refuse to speak to you. And I can’t be forced to speak, as you well know.”
“On the charge that you murdered your father.”
Rebecca Parkinson sat down. “That’s utter rubbish.”
“Yes, but I rather think I could prove it. It might be worth a cup of tea to find out what I know.”
“I don’t want tea. Whatever you have to say, it had better be said quickly, or I’m leaving.”
“I told you the first time we met. We’ve found your father’s body.” It was blunt and intended to be.
Her angry flush faded. “He’s alive and well, and living in those wretched cottages under the White Horse.” Her denial wasn’t completely convincing. As if she knew her father was dead but must keep up the pretense that it was a lie. Her vehemence on their first meeting had been stronger.
“But he went missing, you see. And now his body is lying unclaimed in a Yorkshire village. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Or the fact that he might have been murdered?”
“It has nothing to do with me.” The line of her jaw was defiant.
“He didn’t die where we found him. That’s why we have to suspect murder. I’m here to make sense of what little we do know, and that means I have to follow him if I can every step of the way from those cottages to Yorkshire. To do that, I