A Cold Treachery ir-7

by Charles Todd

  A smile spread across her face. “Have you found the boy? I always believed that somehow you would!”

  His face betrayed nothing. “As far as anyone is concerned, I've left Urskdale.”

  Nodding at him, she turned to the kettle. “I understand now.” Her mind was busy, jumping ahead of his. “There's meat left from dinner last night. I can put up some sandwiches. Do you have a Thermos?”

  “That's thoughtful of you. I'll take my case out to the motorcar and fetch it.”

  When he had cranked the motorcar and come back into the kitchen, she handed him a packet of sandwiches and then filled his Thermos.

  “I'm sorry to see you go,” she said simply. “But Godspeed.” She held out her hand and he took it, held it for a moment, and then turned away.

  R utledge drove to the Elcott farm and beyond it, to the shearing pens where he had stopped once before with Drew Taylor. The shed was open on one side, and he drove the motorcar into it.

  He knew Mickelson. The site of the murders had been cleaned and painted over. The victims had been buried. If he came here at all, he would listen to Greeley explain where and how the bodies had been discovered. And then he would go back to Urskdale and begin to question the people closest to the crime.

  Paul Elcott was not likely to go far afield even if he found the courage to go on working at the house. And unless the weather came down again, the Elcott sheep would be left to their own resources.

  The motorcar wouldn't be found for a day or two at best.

  He took the packet of food with him, and the Thermos, and set out on foot.

  There would be a vantage point somewhere where he could watch the Ingerson farm. In his pocket were the field glasses he'd used before at the hotel. And in his mind was the map, with the comments that Drew Taylor had made when they surveyed the terrain together.

  It would be uncomfortable and cold where he was going, but in France he had suffered much worse conditions. What had driven him then was a desire to die. What was driving him now was the feeling that he must vindicate himself or lose all he'd achieved in the long, fearsome struggle to heal.

  He thought fleetingly of Elizabeth Fraser. But that was far, far down the road.

  Hamish demanded, “And if you find the lad, then what?”

  Rutledge couldn't answer him.

  M aggie walked into the kitchen and said to the boy, “I'm grateful for your willingness to defend me if you could. But that ax is sharp, and if you get hurt, who's to help me then?”

  He lowered the ax and sheepishly put it back where he'd found it, by the door.

  She went about her work in the kitchen and ignored him for a time. Then she sat down and began to talk to him about the animals he was caring for.

  “Sheep fall into different lots. Can you tell a ewe from a gimmer shearling? Or a tup from a hogg? A wedder from a wedder shearling?” She could read the scorn in his face. “Of course you can,” she answered her own question. “Still, it never hurts to learn the skills of the man you're taking on to work for you.” She asked him a question or two about the wool clip, and saw that he understood her.

  Finally, as if it were of no importance, Maggie said, “I don't think he'll be back. I've seen to it. The man from London who keeps coming here. But we'll give it a night or two before we take any chances with bad luck.”

  The relief in the drawn little face touched her heart.

  But later in the evening after the fire had burned low and she was sitting at ease in her chair, her leg for once comfortable, she remembered another expression on his face, as he held the heavy ax in both hands.

  And she found herself wondering what he would have done with it.

  “You're a fool, Maggie Ingerson!” she scolded herself. But a twinge of pain in her leg reminded her that beggars couldn't be choosers.

  W hen night fell, Rutledge moved again, taking up a position in a sheep pen. The grazing animals moved silently along the slopes, hooves scraping away the snow for whatever nourishment they could find. A ewe stared at him briefly and sneezed before moving on. Finally they settled for the night, lumps of dirty white were hardly different from the snow around them. One was near enough that he could hear it breathing, and he found the sound comforting.

  There were stars overhead, great sweeps of them, and he picked out the winter constellations one by one. His feet were nearly numb now, the icy crust under them offering no warmth. And the wind picked up an hour later, the soft whistle of it coming over the western fells promising a deeper cold by morning.

  It was nearly three, he thought, when the square of lamplight brightened the yard door of the Ingerson farm. He brought up his field glasses and thought he could just define Maggie's bulk in her old coat, standing against the light.

  She seemed to be sniffing the air, almost like a cornered animal searching for danger. And then she moved away from the door.

  The dog leaped out into the yard, and scrambled towards the pen by the shed where Rutledge had seen some dozen or so animals kept safely while they healed or regained their strength. Behind the dog, stepping out the door came an oddly shaped figure that seemed to be half gnome, half monster.

  A superstitious man, Rutledge thought, would have a wild tale to tell about what was living in Maggie Ingerson's house.

  The Norwegians had their share of small monsters, and the Irish, too.

  But Rutledge didn't need Hamish to tell him what was walking up to the pen, bundled in a man's coat that was as long as he was tall, Wellingtons that were too large scuffing through the snow, a pail of some sort in both hands.

  It was a boy, and unless Maggie had more secrets than he'd guessed already, the boy was Josh Robinson.

  R utledge spent a very uncomfortable night in the shearing shed, once he'd reached it again. He thought about the feather bed he'd left behind at the hotel, with a warm bottle at his feet and a dying fire in the kitchen that wrapped its heat around cold shoulders and frozen ears.

  But the elation he felt kept him from sleeping.

  Tomorrow he would brave the ogre in the farmhouse and ask Maggie Ingerson what she thought she was about.

  It was Hamish who kept bringing up the question of what would become of Josh Robinson once the fact that somehow he'd survived was known.

  What do you do, if a child has killed?

  And what could he tell the world about what had happened that Sunday evening when the snow was thick and the door had opened on Death?

  B y morning the house was hushed. Smoke coiled from the chimney, but there was nothing else to indicate whether the people inside were asleep or awake.

  Rutledge made his way down the slippery, icy rocks towards the farm. He was stiff with cold, and in no mood to brook obstruction. By the time he had reached the house, he was sweating under his heavy coat.

  But he knocked with firmness on the door, rather than pounding.

  After a time it opened and Maggie stepped out to confront him, almost close enough to him there in the little space between her and the shutting door to touch him.

  “I know the boy is here. I'm cold, tired, and I need to come in and warm up. It would be better if you didn't make a fuss.”

  She stared at him, her face hard, revealing nothing. “I don't know what you're talking about. And I know my rights. You can't come in without a warrant to search.”

  “I'm here as a private citizen. Not a policeman. Open the door, Miss Ingerson. You can conceal the boy, but not his tracks.” He pointed to the scuffed prints that crisscrossed the yard. Then he handed her the flat black cap. “You shouldn't have shown me this-”

  Before he could stop her, she'd caught his arm in a grip as strong as that of any man he knew. She pulled him after her away from the door, determined and menacing.

  “Step through that door, and you'll step into an ax,” she told him.

  He felt colder than he had on the hillside in the night. “Then it's true,” he replied, feeling depression sweep through him. It was the answer he'd
least wanted to hear. Josh Robinson was a killer.

  “I don't know what's true and what's not,” she said angrily. “But that lad is in no condition for a rough policeman to badger him. He'll do you an injury, and I'll be held to blame!”

  “If he's dangerous, why have you harbored him all this time? Miss Ingerson-his father is waiting for him in Urskdale village. His aunt is there. They will do all that's possible for him.”

  “You don't understand! He's not speaking, he lives in terror of being found, and he's come to trust me. Leave him alone!”

  “You know I can't do that. You have no right to him!”

  “He was half dead when the dog found him! He'd have been dead in another hour. By rights he's mine. And I won't let you touch him.”

  He remembered what he had once thought concerning Janet Ashton. That in many cultures when a man saved the life of another man, he was owed that life.

  “Miss Ingerson-”

  “No. Go away and leave us in peace. I won't let you have him!”

  She dropped her hand from his arm and turned towards the door, her mind on the ax, praying the boy hadn't moved it. She wasn't afraid of this man, and she could put an end to it. Even the hard, cold soil could be scratched away enough to leave his body where it would never be seen again. She was not going to be deterred, and if the boy had been her own flesh and blood she wouldn't have fought any more fiercely for him.

  But Rutledge had turned as swiftly as she had, his hand on her shoulder. “Let me talk to him. Otherwise, Paul Elcott will be blamed for what happened. Let me at least ask him-”

  She stopped so short that he bumped into her. “What's Paul Elcott to me? Where's he when the sheep need to be brought in or feed dragged up to the high pens? Where's he when the pasture grass isn't green in April for the lambing, and I have to take the cart and hunt for fodder to keep them alive? He'll outlive me, this boy, and see to what I can't. He's got no one else to care about him and neither do I!”

  “He has to go to school-he has to live with his father-he can't be enslaved to fetch and carry for you or anyone else! You can't keep him like a lost dog you found in the snow!”

  “I haven't enslaved him! I've given him a bed and food and Sybil to hold on to when the nights are dark and he cries out. I've given him work to take his mind off what he's seen. All you want him for is to hang him or lock him away in an asylum where he's got nothing. Tell me that's better! ”

  Rutledge dropped his hand. “It isn't. I grant you. But there are five dead, and we can't walk away from them!”

  “The dead feel no pain. They don't hurt when they drag their leg into bed at night, and they can't give him human comfort. We need each other, he and I, and there's an end to it.”

  “Let me talk to him. Let me see if I can find out what happened that night. Let me do the right thing.”

  “Bugger the right thing,” she retorted. But she was close to tears, and she used the rough sleeve of her coat to wipe brusquely across her eyes. “I wish you were dead! I wish you'd never come here. That's why I gave you that cap, so you'd go look south of here along the coast, and leave us to go on as we are!”

  “It was never in the cards,” he said wearily. “You know it and so do I.”

  They stood there, staring at each other, faces tense, eyes blazing.

  After a time she said, “If I don't let you see him, you'll bring more policemen here and scare the boy into fits.”

  And then she turned towards the house. “He's not going to take you away,” she called out. “I swear it. But I've got to bring him in.”

  There was no response. And then the door opened and Josh Robinson stood there with the double-bladed ax in his hand, defiant and ominously silent.

  Beside him Sybil stood guard, her ruff raised and stiff, and growls sounding deep in her throat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  W hat does a man say to a child who may be a killer? What could mitigate the nightmare that must be locked in his mind?

  “Ye willna' have a second chance,” Hamish warned quietly.

  “Josh? My name is Rutledge. You may call me Ian, if you like. I've come from London to find you-”

  Rutledge stayed where he was, and kept his voice level, as if there was no danger in the confrontation between them. Feeling his way.

  The defiant face drained of color and the boy began to shake. But the ax was still clenched in his hands.

  “'Ware!” Hamish cautioned.

  Rutledge quickly revised what he was about to say. “I was a soldier, like your father. I've been through some rough patches in the war,” he went on. “But nothing like you've been through. If you will let me come in and talk-”

  “He's mute,” Maggie said, just behind him.

  “Fair enough. I'll ask you a few questions, Josh, and you can nod your head or shake it, to let me know if I'm right or wrong. I'm not here to harm Maggie Ingerson. She's a very brave woman, and I have a high regard for her.”

  “Ask him if he'll go away again and leave us as we are,” she told Josh. “Then you'll know where he stands!”

  The boy's eyes switched anxiously from Rutledge's face to hers and back again.

  “She knows I can't go away,” the policeman answered honestly. “For days now we've been afraid that you were dead. We were worried, we searched everywhere, well into the night sometimes. Your aunt Janet is in Urskdale, at the hotel. More than anything she wants to know you're safe. She's grieved for you, fearful that you'd lost your way in the snow or were hurt, unable to call for help. And your father has come from Hampshire-”

  A shriek of anguish was ripped from the child, and he slammed the door so hard it seemed to bounce on its hinges.

  And Rutledge, moving swiftly towards it, heard the fever pitch of his anger from inside.

  “You're lying-you're lying!” he shrilled over and over again, and they could hear the ax striking the floor in rhythm with the words.

  T hey stood in the cold, side by side but without speaking until the thuds stopped and the screams became broken sobs. It seemed, Rutledge thought, like hours before silence fell, and he looked at Maggie.

  “Go in and comfort him.”

  “He doesn't like to be touched.”

  “All the same-and leave the door wide.”

  She finally did as he asked, opening the door with some trepidation, and a wave of warm air thick with the smell of cooked porridge washed over them. The boy lay on the floor, his arms around the dog, the ax forgotten. But in the floor were raw gouges where he had pounded the edge into the wood.

  “Sybil has done more than I ever could,” Maggie said, a forlorn note in her voice. She stooped to brush the tear-wet hair out of the child's face and he flinched.

  Rutledge stepped in behind her and managed to shut the door. The heat of the room was stiffling after his long night in the cold. He pulled off his coat and set it with his hat on a pail by the door.

  Maggie had gingerly retrieved the ax and held it now as if she was debating using it.

  Rutledge knelt on the floor. “I could do with a bowl of that porridge,” he said, “and a cup of tea. You won't need that.” He nodded to the ax.

  She looked down at the blade of the ax and then set it aside. But she didn't move.

  “I won't hurt him. Go on. Make his breakfast, and I'll share it. I need to reach him, and that may be the best way.”

  Reluctantly she went to the dresser and found three bowls. Rutledge looked at the curled-up figure of the boy, and then gently picked him up in his arms. It was as if Josh had burrowed so deep into himself that he wasn't aware of what was happening, for he put up no resistance. Rutledge carried the child to the chair where Maggie usually sat-where her father before her had sat, although Rutledge wasn't aware of that-and settled down, still holding the boy.

  By the time Maggie had the porridge on the table, Josh was asleep.

  It was two o'clock in the afternoon before the boy woke up. Maggie had spent most of that time trying to persuade
Rutledge to leave him where he was.

  He opened red-rimmed eyes, puffy from crying and sleep, and stared at Rutledge without emotion.

  For hours Rutledge talked to him. About Sybil, about the sheep, about Maggie, about Westmorland and London, what-ever he could think of that had nothing to do with murder or policemen.

  It was long after midnight before Rutledge, nearly hoarse by that time, got a response.

  Josh looked up at him and said: “Will you hang me now?”

  R utledge said, “You can't be hanged. You're too young. And I don't know what you've done to deserve such punishment. I wasn't there-”

  Maggie stirred, unwilling to force the child to relive what had happened that night in the snow.

  “I was,” Josh said, simply. “I killed them. All of them. Murderers always hang. It's what he told me. My father.”

  F or several seconds Rutledge sat without moving. And then he said, “Gerald was the last to die, then?”

  Maggie got to her feet and went to the sink, where she leaned on her hands and stared out the window.

  The boy shook his head. “No. He was the first. And then-then Hazel. After that, Mama. And the babies. He let me go then, told me they'd come and find all the bodies, and I'd be hunted down like a mad dog and hanged. I ran. He had the revolver against his head, by that time. And I heard the shot before I'd gone very far. But his voice came after me, over and over, no matter how hard I ran, telling me it was my fault, all my fault for not wanting to come and live with him. But Mama understood, and wouldn't make me do it. I was so scared she'd die when the babies came, and they would send me to London after all. Mr. Blackwell had told her that's where I belonged. And Paul, he said none of us belonged here, that we weren't Elcotts at all, even though Mama had married Gerald and Gerald called me his boy. And Greggie Haldnes told me I ought to go back to London and stop putting on airs at his school-”

  He went on, spilling out a litany of small indignities and mistreatment and insults that had made him tragically vulnerable.

  “Did you tell these things to your mother?”