Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [34]
What had this woman done to stir up such dark passions?
It was odd, he thought, crossing the quiet street to his car. First the venomous letters and then the one to the minister—Elliot? The finding of one body that didn’t match the crime, and another that did. Persistence, patience—and what else? Luck? Or persecution?
It smacked of the latter. Hamish, in the back of his mind, agreed.
Rutledge stopped before turning the crank and looked back at The Reivers. The accused owned this inn. Did someone covet it? She had a small child to provide for, never mind whether it was rightfully hers or not. Did someone covet the child? Or want it taken away to punish the accused, a twisted revenge for a real or imagined grudge? And these were the more obvious reasons for wanting the woman in prison and out of the way. What others might there be? Was there something in the inn that no one knew about, which mattered to another person? Or was it something in the past of the accused that put another person in jeopardy? Hanging was a certain way of silencing her.
He found himself thinking of the child again. Torn away from its mother, from the only home it had known, put to live with strangers. There was a cruelty in that.
Then why hadn’t she lied to protect the boy? “I don’t have my marriage lines—my husband took them, to show the Army. . . .”
Why hadn’t she left the town as soon as the shunning had begun? But he thought he had the answer to that—the shunning had reduced custom at the inn to the point that she might not have had the money to go away. Had that been the intent of it—?
The woman’s voice behind him startled him. “Are you looking for someone?”
Rutledge turned and removed his hat. Hamish, responding to his surprise, was suddenly alert, watchful. She was tall and plump, dressed in black but young, perhaps twenty-four or -five. A little girl of six or seven held her hand.
“I was admiring the inn. I’d heard it might be for sale.”
The woman shook her head. “Early days to know that!” She turned to the door of the house in front of which he’d left his car. A neighbor, then . . .
“I understand the owner is to stand trial on some charges.”
Her face hardened. “She is.”
He found himself asking, “Do you know the name of her barrister? I might speak with him.”
“Armstrong’s his name, but he doesn’t live in Duncarrick. Jedburgh, I think I was told.”
Rutledge smiled down at the little girl. She smiled shyly back. He wondered if she’d played with the child living in the inn but couldn’t ask in front of the mother. And as if the thought had sprung from his mind to hers, the girl said in a soft, sweet voice, “I used to play with him. The little boy at The Reivers. But he’s gone away. I miss him.”
“Hush! You were told never to speak of that again!” the woman commanded, and the child turned her face into her mother’s skirts, flushing with shame, as if she had transgressed horribly.
The woman opened the house door and went inside, shutting it firmly behind her. Shutting out Rutledge and his questions. Unwilling to gossip—to speculate—or to defend.
9
RUTLEDGE DROVE BACK TO TREVOR’S HOUSE RATHER than take a room at The Ballantyne, unwilling to move himself into Duncarrick until he’d spoken with Oliver. It was a courtesy, but often small courtesies lubricated the wheels of change. The long drive gave him time to think. That evening over dinner, he told David Trevor how he had spent his day.
Trevor smiled. “Once a policeman, always a policeman.”
Rutledge grinned in return. “Blame human nature. Curiosity is man’s besetting sin.”
“The Garden of Eden,” Trevor agreed. “Eve is always blamed for offering Adam the apple, but it’s my view that he had been looking for an excuse to see how it tasted. He would have bitten into it on his own in a day or two.
“What I find interesting about the situation you described,” Trevor went on, “is that I know the Chief Constable in that district. Robson. A good man. So is the fiscal, by reputation. I can’t quite see Robson railroading a