Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [25]
Rutledge said, “Even if I’m assigned to the case, I can’t see what I could accomplish that you haven’t.” And it was clear that McKinstry himself was not objective. Rutledge found himself wondering what his relationship was—had been—with the accused.
“Show me,” McKinstry pleaded, “how to prove she’s harmed no one. How to stop the whispers before this case comes to a trial. I’d not like to think my failure has sent her to the gallows. But it’s going to happen. I’m helpless to prevent it.”
WHEN MCKINSTRY HAD gone, Rutledge turned to Morag. “He shouldn’t have come. It was wrong.”
He could hear Trevor running lightly down the stairs, opening the door, whistling for the dogs. The weekend had given his godfather a new energy.
“What harm did it do?” She reached for the frying pan. “Alistair’s an honest lad with a wish to do what’s right. Should I have sent him away without a hearing? As if I couldn’t trust you to be just?”
“No. But it isn’t my case, you see. It’s Inspector Oliver’s. And McKinstry doesn’t know me. I could have made trouble for him, reported him for going over the head of his superior. Or put him in jeopardy for trying to influence my actions.” Bowles would have done so, for one. Another thought occurred to him. “Could the child be his?”
“He was in France. And he does know you. He met you at an aid station behind the front lines. He’d been shot in the leg. He said you were one of the bravest men he’d ever met. You’d just brought in three men who’d been gassed and left for dead near a German outpost. Somehow you found them and got them out. Alistair was glad to shake your hand.”
Trevor was striding down the passage, speaking to his dogs. The big kitchen suddenly seemed small, close, and overheated. Hamish, alive in his mind, was as loud as a voice in the room. Rutledge could barely remember that day at the aid station, and certainly not the face of the soldier lying on a stretcher close by who had shaken his hand. As the doctors cleaned a cut on his wrist, he’d stood there grimly, unaware of pain. It had happened not too long after Hamish’s death, and Rutledge had purposely taken risks, wanting to die. It hadn’t been courage, it had been desperation—anything to silence the voice in his head. Even death.
Morag was talking, but her words failed to register. Trevor was greeting him, and the dogs frisked noisily about his feet.
Trevor said, “Ian, are you all right?”
Rutledge shook his head to clear it. “Yes, I’m fine. Morag was telling me about a relation of hers. It brought back some memories, that’s all.” To Morag he said, “I’m sorry. I don’t seem to place him.”
But afterward, as he walked down to a stream with Trevor, talking about his work, he found himself thinking again about McKinstry. What the young policeman had wanted from him was some semblance of hope. The promise that if he took over the case, he’d be objective, not swept up in the conclusions already drawn.
It didn’t matter. There was no reason for him to be involved. He’d finished his business with Lady Maude, and the rest of the case would be in the hands of the courts. He didn’t want to stay in Scotland.
ON MONDAY MORNING, Rutledge put in a telephone call to London from David Trevor’s study.
Bowles, summoned to the telephone, answered brusquely, “Rutledge, is that you?”
“Yes.” He quickly summarized his conversation with Lady Maude and ended with his own view. “It’s hard to say. In my opinion, she doesn’t know where her daughter is presently, and it’s quite possible that she’s at one of the teaching