Search the Dark - Charles Todd [101]
“Aye, that’s the question. But look, if she has a part in this matter, she deserves justice even if there’s nae MP calling for answers!”
Tired to the bone, Rutledge said, “If we’ve cleared Mowbray of killing his children, and if we’ve shown that the dead woman is very likely Margaret Tarlton—if Miss Napier has told the truth about recognizing that dress—then we’re back to the people who knew her best. The Napiers. Shaw. The Wyatts.”
“Aye. Find that hat, forebye, and you’ll ha’ the answer.”
“You said that about the children,” Rutledge said wearily. “And it wasn’t enough.”
He had reached his room, but without any memory of walking into the inn or up the stairs or down the passage. Closing the door behind him, he took off his coat and threw himself face down across the bed.
Two minutes later, Hamish’s complaints notwithstanding, Rutledge was deeply asleep, where not even dreams could reach him. The dark head on the pillow stirred once as the church bell struck the hour, one arm moving to crook protectively around it and the other hand uncurling from the tight fist of tension.
You don’t, Rutledge told himself over a late dinner, lose your objectivity if you want to be a good policeman. You learn to shut out the pain of others, you learn to ask the questions that can break up a marriage, set brother against brother, or turn father against son. Willy-nilly, to get at the truth.
But what was truth? It had as many sides as there were people involved and was as changeable as human nature.
Take Margaret Tarlton, for one. If you believed the stories told, she was Elizabeth Napier’s friend and confidante, Thomas Napier’s lover, Daniel Shaw’s heartbreak, and a reminder of Simon Wyatt’s glorious past, when he was still destined for greatness. A reminder to Aurore Wyatt that her husband was vulnerable to the blandishments of the Napiers. Most murderers know their victims. It could be one of those closest to her—or it could be someone who had followed her from London.
It could be that by purest chance Mowbray had come upon her and killed her, just as they’d believed all along.
Or take the working-class woman who had died and been buried in a fallow field. On the surface of it, she’d nothing to do with Mowbray, and very likely little to do with Margaret Tarlton. Was she, then, a red herring? Or was she the first victim of the same killer? And how did you find the name and direction of a working-class woman who hadn’t been reported missing and who apparently had no connection with anyone in Charlbury? She could have come from London—Portsmouth—Liverpool. She could have come from the moon.
But he thought there might be one person who could tell him.
The next morning, while Hildebrand was busy interviewing Elizabeth Napier—tiptoeing on eggshells, as one of the constables put it—Rutledge drove back to Charlbury.
In every village, the one person who could be counted on to know every facet of the lives and failures of each parishioner was most often the rector’s wife. Whereas in a town of any size, it was usually the constable who could provide the smallest details about anyone on his patch.
Rutledge called on Mrs. Daulton. Henry answered the door and said, “She’s in the back. And rather too mucky, I think, to come inside. I’m not much of a gardener myself,” he added, and as if in explanation, “I always pull up the wrong things.”
“I’ll find her. Thank you, Mr. Daulton.”
She was in her garden, a shabby smock over her shirtwaist and skirt, a kerchief around her head, and what appeared to be her husband’s old boots on her feet. From the look of the boots she’d been wading in mud at some point. She was currently pruning the canes of a climbing rose that had grown too exuberantly that year. Her hair was pulled from its tidy bun by the thorns, and there were scratches on her face.