A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [102]
She said, “Make sense of whatever you like. Just leave me out of it.”
“Do you hate your father so much that you’d prefer to see his killer go free?”
She glanced down, so that he couldn’t see her eyes. “I’ve told you, I don’t really care.”
“Did you know that one of the other people in those cottages was murdered last night? A Mr. Willingham. I need to know what connection he might have had with your father.”
She looked up then, startled. “I don’t believe you.”
“Ask Inspector Hill, in Uffington. He’s handling that case.”
Leaning back in her chair, she considered him, her mind working. “I don’t know anyone named Willingham. A coincidence. It must be.”
“That’s possible, of course. But in such a small community two murders in a few weeks has to be regarded with suspicion. I’m forced to wonder what Mr. Willingham might have known about your father’s disappearance. If he saw someone come for your father and take him away. The bicycle your father sometimes rode and his motorcar were both where he kept them. Surely your father didn’t walk all the way to Yorkshire.”
He thought her mouth was dry. She ran her tongue over her lips and said, “If you’ll summon Mrs. Smith, I believe I’ll have that tea now.”
It was a surprising change of heart. Rutledge was wary.
He went to find Mrs. Smith, though Hamish warned him that Rebecca Parkinson would be gone when he returned. It was a risk he had to take.
He was relieved when he came back, tray in hand, to find she was still at his table.
Rutledge passed her the fresh cup, waited until she had added milk and sugar, then taken the first sip.
“I spoke to your sister last night.”
She nearly choked. “I don’t believe you. You don’t even know where to find her.”
“She’d come to stand on the hill by the White Horse. I don’t know what it was she was thinking. But I distinctly heard her crying.”
“Sarah has always had a soft heart. She’s like my mother, taking in lost kittens and stray dogs, worrying about young men we knew who went to France and stayed there in unmarked graves.”
“Still, I had the strongest feeling that she must know more about your father’s death than she’s comfortable with, and her conscience is tormenting her. It’s rather too much of a coincidence, isn’t it, that she came to grieve the night after Willingham died.”
Rebecca Parkinson stood up so quickly she knocked over her cup and tea splashed onto the skirt of her dress.
“You leave my sister alone, do you hear me? Don’t go near her again. Or I shall have you up for harassment. Do you understand me?”
“What are you afraid of, Miss Parkinson? That she’ll break before you do? Murder doesn’t always sit easily on one’s conscience. But sometimes a second killing is necessary to protect the secrets of the first. The police may consider that possibility, you see, in investigating Willingham’s. Whatever part she played in your father’s death will eventually drive her to confess. What will you do to stop her?”
Rebecca Parkinson leaned forward, and with all the strength of her shoulder behind the blow, slapped Rutledge as hard as she could across the face. “Leave my sister alone!”
And then she was gone, slamming the door hard behind her.
Mrs. Smith came hurrying from the kitchen. “I heard such a noise—and look at the tea, spilled all over my clean floor! What happened?”
“I’m afraid the young woman who was here has a chink in her armor,” he said. “And I’ve just found it.”
Rutledge walked down to the cottages and tapped lightly on the smith’s door.
Slater, looking as if he hadn’t slept, opened it and said, “I don’t think Inspector Hill wants you to talk to me.”
“Not about Willingham, no,” Rutledge said, stepping inside before Slater could shut his door. “I’m here to talk about Mr. Partridge. Did you know that he had two daughters?”
“No, of course I didn’t. He never talked about his family. I thought he must not have any. No one came to spend a Sunday afternoon with him, that sort of thing. It was just a guess that the girl