Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [29]
“I understand that Inspector Oliver is in Jedburgh,” Rutledge began, taking the chair McKinstry had pointed out. “Let’s be clear about that from the start. I came to see him. You were right, the Yard has put me in charge of a part of this case, and I need to know the rest of the details as soon as possible. Can you tell me when he’s expected back?”
McKinstry said, “Not until dinnertime, so I’m told, sir. The Inspector said he was attending to a private matter.” Or tactfully out of sight. “Would you like me to take you to the Chief Constable instead?” He looked down at his coveralls and grinned. “As soon as I change out of these.”
“No, I’ll speak to Oliver first. In the meantime, I’d like to hear something about the town and the people here. You’ve given me a fairly comprehensive picture, but now I need more.”
“I was just having my tea, and I’d be honored to have you join me.”
Over tea and a lemon cream cake that had come from the baker’s, McKinstry chose his words with great care, trying to see Duncarrick through a stranger’s eyes.
“You’d call it provincial, coming from London. We don’t have broad horizons. But most people have known each other all their lives, depended on each other in hard times, seen each other through the worst and the best that happens to them. Weddings. Funerals.” He passed Rutledge a wedge of the cake on a delicate china plate. “If I fell ill tomorrow, I’d have the neighbors bringing me tea and soups and fresh bread. My washing would be done, clean sheets for the bed, someone would think to bring me a few flowers—a book to read. And not because I’m the constable. It’s our way.”
He cut himself a slice of lemon cake, savored it, then said, “Sorry, I don’t have any sandwiches—”
“No, this is enough,” Rutledge said. “Carry on.”
Hamish had been listening, commenting on the examples McKinstry had given, agreeing with most of them. “In my experience, it would be the lassies, with the flowers! Hoping to be noticed.”
“But there’s the other side of the coin too, sir. We’re a rigid lot when it comes to sin. It’s black and white, no gray in between. We can be small-minded. We know each other’s business. That’s a help to me, as I told you at Mr. Trevor’s house. I can guess who’s chasing the Youngs’ cat or borrowing Tim Croser’s horse when he’s drunk and not likely to notice. That would be Bruce Hall, who is courting a lass between here and Jedburgh, and hates walking when he can ride. But his pa won’t give him the loan of a horse because he doesn’t approve of the girl.”
“And yet you can’t put your finger on the author of these letters.”
McKinstry frowned and set down his cup.
“And that’s what I find most disturbing,” he said, considering it. “Why can’t I go and knock on a door and see guilt written in the face answering it? I walk down the street on my rounds, and I look into the eyes of the people I meet. I stand and talk to them for a time. I watch them go about their daily business. And there’s nothing about them that I can put my finger on and say, ‘Now, that’s the action of a guilty woman.’ ”
“Why are you so certain it’s a woman?”
“Because why would a man think to warn a laundress that her soul was in danger, washing a whore’s sheets? Or warn a young mother that her small daughter had a bastard for a playmate and was likely to see goings-on at the inn that weren’t fit for an innocent child’s eyes?”
Hamish was already there, but Rutledge set aside his plate and finished his tea before saying, “A man might write such things to throw you off the scent. Or he may recognize that it’s the women in Duncarrick who form public opinion—”
McKinstry’s face darkened. “Then he’s a bloody coward. Begging your pardon, sir!”
Rutledge asked for a chronology of the case, and McKinstry painstakingly gave it to him, this time leaving out nothing that he considered important. Rutledge paid close attention, noting facts as well as listening for nuances. When McKinstry had finished, he said, “Well done.” Hamish, silent in his head, stirred