A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [3]
Rutledge shuddered and forced his mind back to the road ahead. The day he saw Hamish, he’d end it. He had promised himself that….
It was very late when he reached Upper Streetham, the rain still blowing in gusty showers, the streets of the town empty and silent and shiny with puddles as he made his way to the Inn on the High Street.
“Highland towns are like this on Saturday nights,” Hamish said suddenly. “All the good Presbyterians asleep in their beds, mindful of the Sabbath on the morrow. And the Catholics back from Confession and feeling virtuous. Are you mindful of the state of your soul?”
“I haven’t got one,” Rutledge answered tiredly. “You tell me that often enough. I expect it’s true.” The black-and-white facade he was looking for loomed ahead, ghostly in another squall of rain, a rambling, ancient structure with a thatched roof that seemed to frown disparagingly over the faded inn sign swinging from its wrought-iron bar. The Shepherd’s Crook, it read.
He turned in through a wisteria-hung arch, drove past the building into the Inn yard, and pulled the motorcar into an empty space between a small, barred shed and the Inn’s rear door. Beyond the shed was what appeared in his headlamps to be a square lake with pagodas and islands just showing above the black water. No doubt the kitchen garden, with its early onions and cabbages.
Someone had heard him coming into the drive and was watching him from the back steps, a candle in his hand.
“Inspector Rutledge?” the man called.
“Yes, I’m Rutledge.”
“I’m Barton Redfern, the landlord’s nephew. He asked me to wait up for you.” Rain swept through the yard again as he spoke, and he hastily stepped back inside, waiting to hold the door open as Rutledge dashed through the puddles, his bag in one hand, the other holding on to his hat. A minor tempest followed him across the threshold.
“My uncle said you were to have the room over the parlor, where it’s quieter at night. It’s this way. Would you like a cup of tea or something from the bar? You look like you could use a drink!”
“No, thanks.” There was whiskey in his bag if he wanted it—if exhaustion wasn’t enough. “What I need is sleep. It rained all the way, heavy at times. I had to stop beyond Stratford for an hour until the worst had passed. Any messages?”
“Just that Inspector Forrest will see you at breakfast, if you like. At nine?”
“Better make it eight.”
They were climbing a flight of narrow, winding stairs, the back way to the second floor. Barton, who looked to be in his early twenties, was limping heavily. Turning to say something over his shoulder, he caught Rutledge’s glance at his left foot and said instead, “Ypres, a shell fragment. The doctors say it’ll be fine once the muscles have knit themselves back properly. But I don’t know. They aren’t always as smart as they think they are, doctors.”
“No,” Rutledge agreed bitterly. “They just do the best they can. And sometimes that isn’t much.”
Redfern led the way down a dark hall and opened the door to a wide, well-aired room under the eaves, with a lamp burning by the bed and brightly flowered curtains at the windows. Relieved not to find himself in a cramped, narrow chamber where sleep would be nearly impossible, Rutledge nodded his thanks and Redfern shut the door as he left, saying, “Eight it is, then. I’ll see that you’re called half an hour before.”
Fifteen minutes later Rutledge was in the bed and asleep.
He never feared sleep. It was the one place where Hamish could not follow him.
Sergeant Davies was middle-aged, heavyset, with a placidity about him that spoke of even temper,