by Charles Todd
“From what? What is there that could harm him?”
“The people who might take him if they knew he existed. Who would want to punish him for what his mother did. Who would make him suffer because of what she had done.”
“What had she done?”
“She loved someone. Terribly. Deeply. It was wrong, but she-There were reasons why she did. And there was a child of that love. A woman in her position couldn’t go home with an infant in her arms and say ‘Forgive me, I couldn’t help myself. Let me pick up the pieces of my life and go on as if nothing has happened!’ ”
“Why haven’t you told the police this? The fiscal?”
“They’d demand her name to prove that I was telling the truth! And I was given Ian to guard and love and protect. Not to betray!” The tears spilled, running like quicksilver down her cheeks. “I am lost,” she said, “whatever I do. And it is better to hang than it is to fail. At least I would die knowing- knowing I had kept my promise to the end.”
He fumbled for his handkerchief and handed it to her. “Surely she would come forward if she’s alive. And spare you. For the boy’s sake-”
“No, I tell you, she’s dead. It’s her family I fear, not her!” Choking back a sob, she repeated, “I am not afraid of the dead.”
While Hamish argued fiercely in his mind, Rutledge said quietly, “I can see that you might have taken the child and given promises. But what would you have told Hamish MacLeod if he’d come home from the war and found you with a child you claimed to be your own?”
She stared at him, wretched. “He would have loved us both. He would have trusted me and loved us both!”
And for once, to Rutledge’s shame, the truth rang clearly in the little cell.
He went to see the procurator-fiscal late in the afternoon. Jedburgh was busy. The heart of the town was crowded, the shops doing a bustling trade along with the pubs and the hotel, people spilling out into the street in the path of carts and wagons jammed with goods. There had been a cattle market in the morning, and farmers in for the day seemed to be making the most of it. To Rutledge’s eye, the population of Jedburgh had nearly doubled, and no one seemed to be in any haste to go home again. Finding a place to leave his vehicle took nearly twenty minutes, and even then he had to pay a grinning, gap-toothed man for the privilege.
The procurator-fiscal’s office, overlooking the center of the town, was dark-paneled and furnished with mahogany and leather. The books lining the shelves above the handsome old desk were a blend of law and science and literature.
Burns was tall, stooped, and thin. A handsome head of white hair was brushed back from his forehead, and gold pince-nez concealed sharp blue eyes. A man used to command and discipline.
“Inspector Rutledge. It’s good of you to come. May I offer you tea? A sherry?”
Rutledge, judging him rightly, accepted the sherry, and lifting the golden liquid in its slim glass, he saw that the pattern etched around the base of the cup was of thistles.
“Have you made any progress in the matter of Eleanor Gray?”
“I know more about her now. She was a wealthy young woman with a taste for rebellion and an intense desire to study medicine. She worked with the wounded during the war, providing entertainment for them where possible and taking an interest in their care. She was invited to a house party near Winchester early in 1916 and accepted. But the officer she was bringing with her discovered he had more leave than he’d expected. She came north with him instead, apparently intending to spend a few days at his house. Whether she got there or not no one seems to know. Where she may have gone after that week no one seems to know. But the information I have is reliable, and puts Miss Gray in Scotland in the spring before the child was born. If she had just learned that she was pregnant, she could have arranged to wait for the birth of the child here, where she wasn’t as well known.”
“Yes, yes, that makes sense to me. Who was the officer, do you know?”
There was nothing in the procurator’s face to show that he was in any way prepared for the shock that was to come. Interest and a natural curiosity were there. Nothing more.
“We have reason to believe that the officer she had been friends with for some time was a Scot,” Rutledge said carefully. “I’ve been told by a reliable witness that his name was Robert Burns.”
The procurator was startled enough to tip his glass of sherry. He swore under his breath as a golden river trickled onto the papers in front of him, and he took out his handkerchief to stanch the flow. The room smelled heavily of the richness of the wine, and Rutledge set his own glass down, untouched.
“That is, as you may know, my late son’s name.”
“Yes. But there are, I should think, many men called Robert Burns to choose from,” Rutledge replied.
“Where was this house you spoke of?”
“I’m told it was in the Trossachs.”
Burns dropped the wet handkerchief into the paperfilled wastebasket at the side of his desk.
“My son had a house in the Trossachs. Not far from Callander. But I have never heard that he was acquainted with Eleanor Gray. If I had, I should have said something to Inspector Oliver and the Chief Constable. Furthermore, my son was to be married. If-if he survived the fighting. He was not likely to be in the company of other women in London. Nor was he likely to bring them to his house!”
Rutledge said soothingly, “If she was a friend, and in need, he might. Whether he was the father of the child or not.”
It offered a way out. The fiscal seized it. “He would indeed have given what help he could. But I cannot believe he would allow her to use his house. It was his mother’s house before we were married. She had left it to him. Robert was close to his mother. He would not have dishonored her memory.” He looked distastefully at the remainder of the sherry in his glass, as if he blamed it for spilling. “Besides which,” he said, rather spoiling the lofty effect of his earlier words, “if there had been anyone living in the house, I would have heard. There is a neighbor who looks in on it from time to time, has a key and all that. I would most certainly have heard! Mrs. Raeburn is very particular.”
Hamish said, “Aye, if the neighbor is an auld biddy who would ha’ relished telling his father tales, I canna’ think Robert was sae foolish.”
“Indeed,” Rutledge said aloud, answering both of them. “Then he could have found another place for her to live until she was able to return to London. If it was your son. Did he have an interest in piping?”
“He studied the pipes as a child. But he didn’t continue. What has that to do with Eleanor Gray?”
“I recall someone telling me that this same officer was helpful in finding pipers to play for the wounded.”
“You needn’t play the pipes to like them. Or to know pipers.”
Rutledge said nothing.
After a moment, Procurator-Fiscal Burns said, “What, pray, has any of this to do with the young woman in Duncarrick? If the Gray woman came north in the spring, she might have gone anywhere in Scotland in the weeks following!”
“That’s true, of course. But it is a beginning, and I’m hopeful that we’ll eventually trace Miss Gray to Glencoe, if that’s where she died.” Rutledge paused, then said almost as an afterthought, “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the name of the father of the child Fiona MacDonald has had in her keeping. It’s a pity, really. He’s a fine lad, and if he had been mine and I’d died, I’d have hoped my family would claim him in my place.”
Burns regarded him coldly and said nothing.
Rutledge rose and then asked, “Would you have any objections, sir, if I took the prisoner to the place where the bones in question were found?”
“There’s no provision in the law for that!”
“No, sir, I’m well aware that there isn’t. All the same, I need to find the truth about Eleanor Gray, and what the link is between the two women. In a prison cell, it’s very easy for the accused to remain silent and stubborn. Faced with her vic
tim’s grave, she might well break down and confess. It would save a good deal of trouble if she did. I think the case as it stands would be difficult to prove in court.”
“Nonsense! It’s a very sound case indeed.”
“Is it? If I were her lawyer, and clever, I would make it very clear to the jury that while there is living proof of a child, there has been no proof of murder. And the jury might well agree with me.”
There was a startled look in the blue eyes, as if Burns had never considered anything but a guilty verdict.
Leaving, Rutledge was reminded that Drummond’s sister had insisted that the fiscal had been angry with Fiona for refusing to cooperate with Inspector Oliver.
Hamish said, “He didna’ want to hear his son was involved.”
“Yes, I know. Well, that may be true, he may not be involved. Or the fiscal may have been very good at concealing his own suspicions. Still, I don’t think the fiscal was protecting his son when he ordered Fiona held for trial. It would have been the wrong move-if I hadn’t come across Robert Burns’s name, someone else might have. No, there was more behind the decision.”
“Then turn it another way. What’s the use of a trial? No’ to discover the child’s name or parentage but to punish Fiona for killing the mother. To put the blame on someone for a woman’s death. So that when the body is found, it won’t point a finger at the true killer. The likes of the fiscal and the Chief Constable and their friends would protect their own!”
Making his way back to his motorcar, Rutledge shook his head. “No. It can’t be that. But the fiscal’s an intelligent man, and he should have said ‘If someone is claiming my son’s involved in this business, I want you to look into it.’ And then given me a list of people who knew the son well enough to tell me the truth. But he didn’t. And that’s what’s odd.”
As he bent to turn the crank, Rutledge added, “Don’t you see? McKinstry is absolutely right. The verdict on Fiona MacDonald is already in.”
18
The next morning Rutledge received by private messenger permission to take Fiona MacDonald to Glencoe, as long as they were accompanied by a matron and a constable.
It was not how he had wanted to go there. He had thought of it as an expiation, sitting in the fiscal’s office. He had seen it, too, as an excuse for getting Fiona out of that small, dark cell and into the light. A muddle of reasons, none of them wise.
But the sooner he went, the better, before someone changed his mind.
He arranged for sandwiches in a basket to be packed for the journey, and then went out to his motorcar to drive around to the police station.
Oliver wasn’t there. Pringle thought he had gone out the Jedburgh road to look into a theft of a lorry’s contents. “It seems,” Pringle ended wryly, “that the driver fell asleep and ran off the road. When he went to find help dragging the lorry out of the ditch, someone helped himself to the contents instead.” Pringle shrugged. “The driver’s in a rage, but Inspector Oliver isn’t likely to be swayed by that. We had an incident once before where a driver sold off part of the contents and then claimed he’d been robbed. Inspector Oliver has a long memory. You don’t make a fool of him twice!”
Rutledge found himself thinking of the skeleton discovered in the stables at The Reivers. Oliver had gone on from that embarrassment to find the bones in Glencoe Rutledge thanked Pringle and decided to drive out the Jedburgh road himself. But he had hardly reached the outskirts of Duncarrick when his engine spluttered, caught, and then died.
Swearing, he got out to crank it again, but nothing happened. Taking a look at the engine-and attracting two young farm lads who came to peer over his shoulder at the mysteries under the bonnet-he could see nothing wrong. He asked one of the young men to hold the wire while he turned the crank and checked the spark. It was clearly not that. There was fresh petrol in the tank, filled in Jedburgh just the day before. And he could see no indication that anyone had meddled with the car.
In the end, Rutledge commandeered a horse and cart to tow the vehicle (with accompanying humor from the old farmer who didn’t hold with infernal combustion) back into Duncarrick, where it was left to the mercy of the mechanic at the smithy.
He wouldn’t be traveling anywhere with Fiona MacDonald this day. Or tomorrow “And who will be pleased to hear that?” Hamish asked, irony heavy in his voice. “The fiscal?”
“Burns gave permission. But grudgingly.”
Rutledge went back to the hotel and searched the space by the shed where he usually parked the motorcar. A precaution.
He walked around the space, examining the ground. The dust had been scuffed, but no clear footprints were visible except for his own. The rear of the car had been in the shadows cast by the shed standing no more than ten feet away. Easy to crouch unseen there in the darkness late at night and take an ax to a tire, if someone wanted to disable the car. But the tires hadn’t been touched. And as far as Rutledge could tell, the engine hadn’t been damaged either.
He’d just driven the car hard for four days Everyone in Duncarrick knew whose car sat in the hotel yard day after day. No one in his right mind would touch it.
“Unless,” Hamish pointed out, “you’ve tread on toes.”
Rutledge walked to the police station and from Constable Pringle borrowed the key to The Reivers again. The inn wasn’t likely to yield more information than it had, but he wanted to go there on his own and be sure.
Clarence, the cat, followed Rutledge soft-footed from room to room, a silent white ghost at his heels as he took his time in each. He couldn’t have said when he started what it was he wanted here.
Such a place as The Reivers, he thought, was not made for the morning. The echoes of the night would linger still in the air-laughter and voices-someone singing off-key-and the smell of spilled beer and ale, the reek of smoke would drift down the passages. There would be an emptiness, a loneliness, as if the inn stood waiting for the doors to swing open again and new patrons to stride through them, thirsty for a pint and the companionship that went with it.
Now there weren’t even the echoes of the previous night. The inn had stood empty long enough that the only smells stirred by his passage were of dust and old wood, and in the kitchen, the ashes of fires in the great stove.
Hamish, at his back, noted the smoke-darkened beams and the polished wood of the bar; the windows with their starched curtains and the small pewter pots on each table that must often have held flowers; the pretty handmade coverlets on the beds of each upstairs guest room-hardly a temptation to whoring; the tidy row of hooks that held gardening tools in the small stone-flagged room off the kitchen. The cupboard that held linens smelled faintly of lavender and rose petals. The pantry was empty, only a few tins of food standing like sentinels on the long shelves. In the kitchen, dishes were stored neatly in a huge wooden dresser, great iron pots hanging within reach, the sink dry where vegetables ought to be lying, waiting to be scrubbed and cooked.
“I could hae’ lived here,” Hamish said wistfully, “and been at peace. With her. I wouldna’ ache for the Highlands if she was here wi’ me… I could rest easy.”
Rutledge tried to shut out the soft voice at his shoulder and listen for other ghosts that should dwell here. Ealasaid MacCallum for one. Or the sounds of a small boy as he played with his cat or ran shouting from room to room with his three-legged stuffed horse. Or Fiona’s presence as she went about her daily tasks. But he couldn’t find them. Especially he could not find Fiona’s.
It was as if even the floors had been scrubbed clean of the imprint of her shoe, to remove the last sign of her. Fiona had lived here-and put down no roots that he could see. She had done her duty by her aunt, had kept the inn alive and busy, had nurtured a child there. And let no one inside her heart, not even the building that she called her home.
After a time, to break the heavy silence that seemed to pervade the very walls, he turned to the cat and knelt to pet her. She reared her head under his hand, her eyes mere slits, and beg
an to purr. “What would you have to tell me if you could speak?” he asked softly. “Hmmm?”
A voice said, “She’s naught but a dumb animal, man!”
Drummond, Fiona’s neighbor and guardian now of the child, stepped into the room, his presence startling the cat. Rutledge got to his feet as she disappeared behind the bar.
Even Hamish had not heard Drummond coming.
“But she has eyes, doesn’t she? And no reason to lie. I think it’s time that someone told me the truth,” Rutledge invited.
“There’s no truth to tell. What brings you here again?”
“I’m looking into the past, to see what’s hidden there that frightens so many people.” And yet he realized now that he’d spent his time at The Reivers trying to find a measure of Fiona MacDonald. Looking not for evidence but for the character of a woman who was as elusive as a wraith with no substance…
Why, then, hadn’t she sold up and left? If she had not been happy.
Eleanor Gray’s words came back to him. “ I could die-”
“Hummph.” Drummond was regarding him with dislike. “You’re a stupid man, then. It’s not in the fiber of this building. The past. It never was.”
“Why are you so certain of that?”
“Do I have to tell the police their business, then? Because the child wasn’t born here, was he! That’s where a sensible man would look, wouldn’t he? Where the child was born. If he can discover it.” There was a glint of challenge in his eye. As if he’d offered Rutledge an enigma.
“I’ve already been there. Where he was born. It’s a very ordinary clinic with a doctor too busy with his patients to care who they are. I’m told it was a normal birth, but the mother was very ill afterward.”
Appalled, Drummond stared at him. “And how, by God, did you discover any such thing? It’s more than Oliver ever did-or wanted to do!”
“I’m a policeman. It’s my job.”
Digesting the news, Drummond asked suspiciously, “Where might this clinic be found?”
