Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [46]
Rutledge unexpectedly found himself remembering Cornwall, and Olivia Marlowe. “It must be far worse, in its fashion,” he agreed evenly. “But since I am not God, I don’t presume to judge my fellow human beings. I want to find out the truth about Fiona MacDonald. It’s my duty as a policeman. To her. To you. To society.”
“Examine your own motives first, Inspector, and the truth will become clear. Wishful thinking is not the truth. Be careful that your own loneliness does not become a trap of error.”
Rutledge could hear Hamish, a rumble of hostility. Whether against him or against Elliot, it was hard to say. He said, in response to Hamish, I see her as you saw her—
Aloud he said carefully, “We’ve wandered from the purpose of this conversation. I’m here to ask if you can give me any information about the accused that will help me find the boy’s mother.”
“The boy’s mother is dead. Otherwise she would have come forward to take her child. There has been widespread publicity. By now she would surely have come.”
“What if—for very good reasons—she can’t step forward?”
Elliot picked up a book and put it down again, signaling that the interview was over. “Then she is an unnatural mother. A tigress will defy death for her young. No, I am satisfied beyond a shadow of a doubt that the poor woman died at Fiona MacDonald’s hands, giving her son life. May God rest her soul!”
AS THE YOUNG woman—the housekeeper, he thought— saw him to the door, Rutledge paused on the threshold and asked, “Do you know Fiona MacDonald?”
She hesitated, casting an eye uneasily over her shoulder and down the passage before saying, “Yes, indeed. She and Miss MacCallum—her aunt—were very good to me when I was ill. It was—I nearly died. Fiona sat beside me and held my hand through the night, until I was out of danger the next morning.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what she had been ill of. But the pleading look in her eyes stopped him. She had taken her courage in both hands to put in a good word for the accused—a kindness for a kindness.
“Do you know her—um—child?”
“Oh, indeed. Such a pretty lad! And well-mannered. I worry what’s to become of Ian now. But no one will tell me.”
“He’ll be well cared for. I’ll see to that.” The words came out of their own volition. He hadn’t meant to say them.
Hamish growled something that Rutledge didn’t catch. He let it go.
“I’d like to think so. Such a shame that Miss MacCallum isn’t alive. She’d have set this all to rights. She was that sort of person. It was Miss MacCallum who found this position for me. Mr. Elliot’s housekeeper had died of pleurisy.”
Rutledge would have liked to ask Hamish about Ealasaid MacCallum. But there had been no mention of her the long night that he and the condemned man had spent talking in the guttering light of a candle.
“Is Mr. Elliot a good man to work for?” Rutledge asked instead, curious.
The young woman’s face flushed blotchily. “He does God’s work. I try to be as quiet as I can. But I’m sometimes clumsy and in the way.”
Which no doubt meant that Elliot was a demanding bastard on his own turf and made her life wretched. Rutledge found Hamish agreeing to that. Hamish, apparently, had seen very little to approve of in the minister.
“Do you live here?” Rutledge asked, concerned for her.
“That wouldn’t be fitting! Mr. Elliot is a widower. I have a room at the top of the road there, above the milliner’s shop. Miss Tait offered it to me.” She pointed with a small, thin finger.
“Were you surprised when the rumors began about Miss MacDonald?”
“I never was told them,” she said naively. “Not until much later. People don’t confide in me, not often.”
No, this writer of poisonous letters appeared to have chosen each recipient with an eye to inflicting the most damage on Fiona MacDonald’s reputation. The thin, frightened housekeeper to the minister was not likely