Legacy of the Dead ir-4

by Charles Todd

  Rutledge drove into Jedburgh through another shower and found the turning that led to Duncarrick. It was a small town in the green, rolling country between Air Water and the Tweed. A tall hedge of houses, shops, and one hotel formed an irregularly shaped nineteenth-century square with a worn monument at the top, commemorating the burning of the town three times in thirty years during the early 1500s. The pillar stood at the high end of the square, a lonely sentinel of the past surrounded by the town’s newer image. Other houses, some much older, straggled west beyond the square, and there was a modest inn among them. The wooden sign over the door read THE REIVERS. Barely a dozen streets bracketed the heart of Duncarrick and gave it an isolated feeling, as if it had been stranded in the middle of nowhere, an agricultural community untouched by the woolen tweed industry that had crowded its neighbors.

  “It’s no’ a Highland town,” Hamish reflected, “but it’s no’ Sassenach either.” Not English. And he was right, there was indeed a different air here from the small English border towns no more than a hard ride away.

  Where Jedburgh had once boasted walls, towers, a castle, and an abbey, Duncarrick had been burned to the ground so often that little of its past remained. A pele tower, the tall half-house-half-defensive-fortress of the raiding years, stood in a field about a mile past the last dwelling. It was little more than a tall rubble of stone and shadow now, with perhaps two floors still intact and the door slanted ajar. He passed it and then turned around in the next farm lane.

  Rutledge got out to stretch his legs, leaving the motorcar parked on the grassy verge some one hundred yards from the pele tower and going the rest of the way on foot.

  Such towers were a part of Rutledge’s own heritage, and he found them of absorbing interest-an architectural as well as a military solution to what must have been wretched years of constant danger. The Routledges, his own ancestors, had once been Borderers on the English side, raiding with the best of them, until a widow with three young sons had moved south in search of a more peaceful climate in which to raise them. Shrewd and capable, she’d found prosperity there as well. The Borderer had proved to be a match for clever, sophisticated Tudor London. In more ways than one.

  There was a painting of her in the London house, with an impeccable ruff like a halo behind her head, a firm chin, and lively, intelligent eyes that the Elizabethan painter had captured so well that they seemed to follow the viewer about the room, staring directly, knowingly, at him wherever he stood. As a small child, Rutledge had understandably confused her with God.

  He tramped across the fallow field that surrounded the tower base and heard the clamor of sheep somewhere in the distance, even before he smelled them on the damp air. Standing at the foot of the massive stone walls, looking up at the broken top where birds had nested and wind whipped through the empty windows, he became aware of someone moving toward him. Turning, he saw a man in the rough clothes of a farmer, his face reddened by the sun, his hat jammed on his head like a fixture.

  “Good morning!” he called as he saw Rutledge turn. “Looking for something?”

  “No, just interested in the stonework.” Rutledge waited until the man was nearer and added, “It’s amazing, the craftsmanship of the people who built this. It’s stood here what-four or five hundred years?”

  “About that. Fine workmanship, I agree. Desperate times calling for desperate measures, if you like. It belonged to my wife’s family. She knows the history of it better than I do.” He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “God, everything smells of sheep. I’m a horse breeder by preference. Draft horses. But the Army took nearly every animal I had, and I’ve got to start again. Meanwhile, the sheep are tiding me over.” He grinned. “It’s a near thing whether I’ll kill them first or they’ll be the death of me. Stupid beasts, they are. Even the dogs find them irritating.”

  He spoke well for a farmer. An educated man.

  “I’d have as little to do with them as possible,” Rutledge agreed.

  “Here on holiday? There’s some good walking in the district if you know where to look. The rule is, close gates you find closed and leave open gates you find open. There’s a nasty-tempered ram here and there, but you’ll see him before he sees you.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”

  The man nodded and walked on, whistling to his dogs, who ran, tongues lolling, some distance ahead. Their ears pricked, and they obeyed his signals instantly. Rutledge watched them. Clever animals, he’d always admired their intelligence, their speed, and the way they could drop to the ground, nearly invisible, when the command came. Working dogs these, not pampered house pets, and very good at what they did. In the Highlands especially, sheep couldn’t be run without them. He had met a man once who trained these dogs, an old rough-edged rogue who had taken his skills and his eye for instinct to New Zealand, where sheep were still king.

  Rutledge went back to the motorcar and, starting the engine, headed into Duncarrick again.

  He drove slowly through the main square, studying it, before he came back to the hotel and asked directions to the police station. The clerk told him, “But I doubt there’s anyone there at this time of day. And Inspector Oliver is away to Jedburgh on business. Constable McKinstry’s to home. It’s his day off.”

  Rutledge left his motorcar at the hotel and walked the short distance, following the clerk’s careful instructions.

  McKinstry lived behind the square, a three-story house with a fresh coat of cream paint. The buckets and ladders stood to one side, in the narrow alley between it and its neighbor, waiting for the sun to reappear. Down the same street, some twelve or thirteen buildings to the left, was the police station, its sign affixed to the door, a neat black square with white letters. As the clerk had foretold, no one was there. Rutledge turned back to McKinstry’s house. There was a fair amount of activity in the street-soberly dressed men and women going about their business. Two carters carried on a loud conversation at the next corner, then moved on as a lorry came rolling slowly past, looking to make a delivery at the apothecary’s shop.

  Hamish, who had been observing the town with some interest, commented, “There’s enough money here to keep up appearances. But no’ enough to be grand. Plain people, with plain souls.”

  It was, Rutledge thought, a fair verdict. McKinstry had been right-the police here dealt with the ordinary. And even murder could fall into that category.

  Constable McKinstry, concealing his surprise at finding Rutledge on his doorstep, welcomed him into the parlor and waited for him to explain his visit, although there was a glint of hope in the blue-gray eyes. The paint-spattered coveralls he wore were loose-fitting, as if he’d been a stouter man before the war.

  “I understand that Inspector Oliver is in Jedburgh,” Rutledge began, taking the chair McKinstry had pointed out. “Let’s be clear about that from the start. I came to see him. You were right, the Yard has put me in charge of a part of this case, and I need to know the rest of the details as soon as possible. Can you tell me when he’s expected back?”

  McKinstry said, “Not until dinnertime, so I’m told, sir. The Inspector said he was attending to a private matter.” Or tactfully out of sight. “Would you like me to take you to the Chief Constable instead?” He looked down at his coveralls and grinned. “As soon as I change out of these.”

  “No, I’ll speak to Oliver first. In the meantime, I’d like to hear something about the town and the people here. You’ve given me a fairly comprehensive picture, but now I need more.”

  “I was just having my tea, and I’d be honored to have you join me.”

  Over tea and a lemon cream cake that had come from the baker’s, McKinstry chose his words with great care, trying to see Duncarrick through a stranger’s eyes.

  “You’d call it provincial, coming from London. We don’t have broad horizons. But most people have known each other all their lives, depended on each other in hard times, seen each other through the worst and the best tha
t happens to them. Weddings. Funerals.” He passed Rutledge a wedge of the cake on a delicate china plate. “If I fell ill tomorrow, I’d have the neighbors bringing me tea and soups and fresh bread. My washing would be done, clean sheets for the bed, someone would think to bring me a few flowers-a book to read. And not because I’m the constable. It’s our way.”

  He cut himself a slice of lemon cake, savored it, then said, “Sorry, I don’t have any sandwiches-”

  “No, this is enough,” Rutledge said. “Carry on.”

  Hamish had been listening, commenting on the examples McKinstry had given, agreeing with most of them. “In my experience, it would be the lassies, with the flowers! Hoping to be noticed.”

  “But there’s the other side of the coin too, sir. We’re a rigid lot when it comes to sin. It’s black and white, no gray in between. We can be small-minded. We know each other’s business. That’s a help to me, as I told you at Mr. Trevor’s house. I can guess who’s chasing the Youngs’ cat or borrowing Tim Croser’s horse when he’s drunk and not likely to notice. That would be Bruce Hall, who is courting a lass between here and Jedburgh, and hates walking when he can ride. But his pa won’t give him the loan of a horse because he doesn’t approve of the girl.”

  “And yet you can’t put your finger on the author of these letters.”

  McKinstry frowned and set down his cup.

  “And that’s what I find most disturbing,” he said, considering it. “Why can’t I go and knock on a door and see guilt written in the face answering it? I walk down the street on my rounds, and I look into the eyes of the people I meet. I stand and talk to them for a time. I watch them go about their daily business. And there’s nothing about them that I can put my finger on and say, ‘Now, that’s the action of a guilty woman.’ ”

  “Why are you so certain it’s a woman?”

  “Because why would a man think to warn a laundress that her soul was in danger, washing a whore’s sheets? Or warn a young mother that her small daughter had a bastard for a playmate and was likely to see goings-on at the inn that weren’t fit for an innocent child’s eyes?”

  Hamish was already there, but Rutledge set aside his plate and finished his tea before saying, “A man might write such things to throw you off the scent. Or he may recognize that it’s the women in Duncarrick who form public opinion-”

  McKinstry’s face darkened. “Then he’s a bloody coward. Begging your pardon, sir!”

  Rutledge asked for a chronology of the case, and McKinstry painstakingly gave it to him, this time leaving out nothing that he considered important. Rutledge paid close attention, noting facts as well as listening for nuances. When McKinstry had finished, he said, “Well done.” Hamish, silent in his head, stirred uneasily. Rutledge found his thoughts straying for an instant, then went on.

  “My guess is that whoever wrote such letters knew they’d be believed. And that’s the next point. Why would people so readily believe them? Why didn’t the first person to find one on his doorstep march straight to the police or to the accused and make it clear that this wasn’t going to continue?”

  McKinstry took a long breath. “You are asking me to answer you that she’s guilty. The accused. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, they say. But I’m not prepared to believe that. I’d rather believe that the letter-writer chose her- his-targets very carefully. Some people relish gossip if it’s shocking enough.”

  “Will you make a list of all the people who have admitted to receiving these letters? What they do for a living. What reason they might have had for disliking the accused. How well they might have known her.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do that today. But, begging your pardon, sir, I don’t see how that will help you find out the truth about the bones said to be Lady Maude Gray’s daughter’s.” He shook his head. “And that’s another whole kettle of fish.”

  “It is,” Rutledge agreed. “But in my experience, where coincidence dovetails so perfectly, it becomes suspect. First we have these letters, apparently accepted as truthful. And now you tell me there was another one, from here-or from Glasgow, depending on how reliable the postmark may be- only this anonymous writer stoutly defends the accused, and in so doing puts her in even greater jeopardy. A charge of murder, not mere wantonness. There’s a search of the inn-where a body turned up. Only it isn’t the boy’s mother. Now, who knew enough about the history of The Reivers that he or she sent Inspector Oliver on such a wild-goose chase? But it does whet Oliver’s appetite for the hunt, and he begins to search for missing persons. The upshot of that is a set of unidentified bones and a connection with a woman in England whose daughter has not been seen since 1916. Now we have larger questions to answer than who wrote the letters. I wonder, was someone counting on just that?”

  There was confusion in McKinstry’s eyes. “I don’t follow you, sir.”

  But Hamish did. He said, “Is the woman in yon cell a murderer-a victim-or a scapegoat?”

  As Rutledge took his leave, McKinstry said, “The worrisome thing in all of this-to my way of thinking-is that no one has lifted a hand for Fiona. No one has spoken up for her. Not Mr. Elliot, not Mr. Robson, not Mr. Burns-the fiscal. Not Inspector Oliver. It’s as if she’s been found guilty already, and the trial’s a travesty that’ll put a stamp on it for the world to see: We were right in what we did. A jury has said as much. And the truth will be buried with her. That keeps me awake at night.” He ticked the words off on his right hand. “Minister, Chief Constable, procurator-fiscal, policeman. And what if she’s innocent and they hang her?”

  Walking back to his motorcar at the hotel, Rutledge went over again the information McKinstry had laid out for him. What intrigued him was how skillfully balanced each scrap of the puzzle seemed to be.

  Like a game of chess, where the player knows in advance the moves of each piece on the board. In chess there were two players. Attack and counterattack. In life, there would be no certainties about the outcome…

  Before Rutledge left the house, the constable had taken out a copy he had made of the letter that had been addressed to Mr. Elliot, the minister. He read it aloud. As Rutledge listened, he found himself thinking that Elliot would have been better advised to go directly to the woman herself and ask for some explanation. Instead he’d chosen to involve the police, indicating that he had already half believed the malicious accusations brought to him by his parishioners. That would be worth exploring…

  Taking the copy from McKinstry, Rutledge had scanned it. It was untutored, apparently the work of a woman who earnestly tried to defend-and instead unwittingly pointed a finger of guilt. If it was a hoax, it was very cleverly devised. There was a ring of sincerity in the simple wording.

  I have heard horrid gossip about a young woman in Duncarrick… It is sad that no one has spoken a word in her defense… I will lose my place if I tell you how I met her… Her given name was Fiona… It was the late summer of 1916… She was traveling with a very young baby and had no milk for him… It struck me that she could not be the mother, and indeed, I learned that the mother had just died and she had been given the baby to raise as her own… I was distressed for her, because she was unwed and had no family except for an elderly spinster aunt… When I asked her if the mother had any family who could help, she began to cry, and wouldn’t tell me how the poor creature had died or even where she had been buried… She told me fiercely that she would be a good mother and would not allow anyone to take the boy from her… I could see that she was very agitated… She was always looking over her shoulder as if expecting to see someone there. But there was no one… I soon gave up trying to reason with her… What struck me was her unshakable belief that she could bring up this poor orphan as her son… I cannot be convinced that she would turn wanton and betray the trust that had been placed in her… Please, do what you can on her behalf… It isn’t right for her to be tormented in this way… I would as soon believe that Fiona was a murderer as believe she has become a whore…

  He had even read
it a second time, finding the wording and the sense of it more interesting than the content. “And you never discovered who’d written this?”

  “No, sir, though we made every effort. It came from Glasgow, but there’s no telling who had put it in the post box there. It doesn’t quite say that the mother of the boy was murdered, you see. But if the death was natural, surely there would have been a doctor in attendance-relatives notified? And Fiona should have been able to tell us where to find such witnesses! Instead there’s a mystery about where and how the child was born. She won’t say. She won’t tell us where the mother is buried, if it’s true that she’s dead.”

  “But that’s knowledge after the fact. What convinced the Chief Constable that there ought to be some investigation into the matter? Merely the letter? Or was there more?”

  “I’ve never been offered an answer to that.” McKinstry tugged at his earlobe, uncertain. He’d never considered the question himself. Orders were orders.

  Rutledge had said, “After all, it began as a moral issue. Whether or not the accused was what she claimed to be, a decent widow with a child to raise on her own. And Mr. Elliot chose to do nothing about it. An admission that he had reason to believe the first letters were telling the truth?”

  It would be damning.

  McKinstry shook his head. “I can’t say. The Chief Constable summoned Inspector Oliver, and then Inspector Oliver sent me to search the premises, and I did. There was nothing out-of-the-way in the living quarters or the inn. The stables were a public place, I couldn’t see a body being buried out there, even in the dead of night. Any work would have been noticed straightaway by the handyman. But Inspector Oliver prides himself on being thorough, and he had the place apart. That’s when he found the bones in the back of a cupboard that had been walled up. It dumbfounded the lot of us, I can tell you!”

  “And he believed he’d found the body of the child’s mother?”

  “Oh, yes. There was long hair on the skull. I was sent to summon Dr. Murchison, and he came at once, then told Inspector Oliver he’d been brought out of his surgery on a wild-goose chase. The bones were not a woman’s. They belonged to a man. And they were all of a hundred years old!”