Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [95]
In short, tread carefully.
“I’m glad to meet you finally,” Rutledge said, holding out his hand. Harvey looked pointedly at it and walked on into the room, refusing to take it.
“Finally is the key word here, isn’t it?” he asked, keeping his voice flat.
“You were in Plymouth when I came. And you’ve only just returned, I think. Dawlish told me you were somewhere on the moors, talking to a farmer about wild dogs attacking his domestic animals.”
“So I was. It doesn’t mean I’m blind to what’s happening. I don’t like strangers meddling on my patch. Not without my keeping an eye on them or having regular reports from them to keep me in the picture. Looks bad when I know less than my constable, and less than London. I don’t see what’s wrong with our initial investigation into the three deaths in question, and I don’t see why you haven’t long since come and gone with a clean bill of health on my desk to clear the air in Borcombe.”
“As a matter of fact, nothing appears to be wrong with your initial inquiries. I believe that Stephen FitzHugh died as you said he did. In a fall. It’s the other deaths that interest me. And I accept them as suicides.”
“Just because Miss Marlowe turned out to be famous? Is that’s what this is in aid of? Sending a detective inspector all this way? Playing merry hell with my reputation and her family’s reputation, all to suit the wigs in London who realized too late they’d missed the opportunity of seeing their names in the Times in connection with her death? Or are you in fact looking for a wee success to set off the Yard’s regrettable failure to stop this knife-wielding idiot on the loose in London? Oh, yes, I’ve seen the papers—nobody has a clue! Now the local people tell me you’re trying to find a link down here with Master Richard Cheney, the boy lost on the moors. Ridiculous doesn’t cover it!”
“That’s because what you hear from your own people is not in any way the point of my investigation. But if that’s what they’d prefer to think, then I’d prefer to let them.”
Harvey all but snorted. “What I’m asking you, man, is to tell me what you’re after, not what you want the villagers to believe!” Harvey was feeding on his own sense of betrayal, letting it fuel his anger. It was a technique used sometimes by men wanting their own way—make life unpleasant enough for the other party, and he’d be too busy defending himself to attack.
Rutledge considered his own tactics, then said, “Nicholas Cheney had a brother who’s been missing since he was five. We presently have no way of knowing if the boy is dead or alive. If alive, he may be an heir. If dead, there’s a possibility it wasn’t accidental. That he was deliberately murdered.”
“By whom, pray? And if the family was concerned about him still being alive after the search was called off and the posters brought in no responses, or later was wanting to know something more about his death, why didn’t they come to my predecessor? Or to me?”
“Would you have listened? Or would you have assured them they could safely believe what they’d rather believe, that the boy died of simple exposure? Any new search was bound to lead to the same conclusion.”
Harvey bristled. “I don’t tell comfortable lies, whatever you’re used to in London. And I know how to conduct a search.”
“I’m sure you don’t tell comfortable lies,” Rutledge agreed. “And given the facts at your disposal, where would you start searching? From what I can see, there was very little evidence of foul play, unless some passing gypsies carried the boy off, or someone wandering on the moors stumbled on him and killed him for reasons of his own. And the officer in charge examined those possibilities very thoroughly at the