A Cold Treachery

by Charles Todd

  “Did your brother tell you that?”

  “He didn't have to. Grace was so disappointed you could see it in her expression when I carried the letter to her. Why else would Janet stay away, when her sister needed her to help put the best face on what had happened?”

  “Did you stand up with your brother?”

  “Of course I did! In my view, it was a God-given excuse to change his mind, dropped into his lap. But he loved Grace, the twins were his flesh and blood, and there was an end to it. I wasn't about to shame him in public.” He turned aside, pulled back into his own misery. “I'd give anything to turn back the clock and find out it was nothing but a bad dream. That I could make it right again.” His voice was so low Rutledge could barely make out the words. “I wish I'd left it to someone else to find them!”

  Hamish said, “There's something on his conscience. It's no' giving him any peace.”

  Paul Elcott wouldn't be the first man to have killed in hot blood and regretted it when the passion of the moment had passed.

  As an excuse to linger, Rutledge made a pot of tea. When it had steeped, he left. Paul Elcott, whether hiding secrets or telling the truth, had said all he was going to say.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Hamish remarked as Rutledge made his way back to the inn, “Jealousy sees what it wants to see. . . .”

  It was true. Janet Ashton and Gerald . . . Hugh Robinson and Grace . . . Elcott and what? The family's land?

  If Gerald's twins were killed, Paul Elcott would have clear title to the farm. It would be worth his while, if murder was his intent, to wipe out the entire family.

  But what did Janet or Hugh have to gain? Why kill the object of one's love?

  And the answer to that was all too simple. Love spurned turned easily to hate.

  Had Inspector Greeley's supposition of events in the bloody shambles of the Elcott kitchen been wrong? Had he and Inspector Greeley seen it backwards from what actually happened? Had Gerald or Grace been the last to die, as a final punishment? But Gerald had done nothing to defend his family . . . Why?

  “There's no proof,” Hamish pointed out, “how it happened.”

  And small chance of finding answers until or unless they managed to find Josh Robinson.

  But Janet Ashton had had a revolver in her possession. . . .

  Rutledge tried to picture her murdering the Elcotts. The slim, pretty woman he'd rescued from the snow didn't seem to be strong enough physically or emotionally to fire shot after shot into children—however managing she'd appeared to Paul Elcott.

  “There's the sulky girl in the framed photograph,” Hamish reminded him. “And you didna' ask Elcott if he owned a handgun.”

  It was true. The murder weapon was missing. Unless Rutledge himself had taken charge of it in the barn at the Follet farm. But there was no way—yet—to prove it.

  Janet Ashton was waiting in the sitting room, where someone had got the fire going. Her ears must have been attuned to the sound of the front door opening and closing, for she was in the passage to meet Rutledge as he took off his coat.

  “Well?” she demanded. “What did he have to say for himself?”

  “He was hardly awake enough to defend himself,” Rutledge answered. “The doctor had filled him full of sedatives.”

  “Yes, well, he would tell you that, wouldn't he?”

  She turned to go back into the sitting room, and the pain seemed to come back again, as if held at bay by her hope that Rutledge would take Paul Elcott into custody. She sat in the chair by the hearth, and he could see how pale she'd become. “I wish I could do something besides sit here,” she said to the room at large, rather than to him. “I wish I could go out and talk to him myself!”

  “You'll stay away from him,” Rutledge ordered. “Do you understand that? It's my duty to find out who's behind these murders, not yours.”

  She looked up then and there were tears in her eyes. “You've never lost anyone, have you? I mean, other than parents—natural deaths. You can't imagine the frustration and the grief, and the anger. I keep seeing them dead, my only family—and it's worse because I don't know.” She was weeping, bereft and hurt.

  Hamish said, “To listen to the lassie, she's told the truth from the start.”

  But Paul Elcott had just said she was clever and managing.

  “I can't tell you they didn't suffer,” Rutledge answered, sitting down across from her. After the cold of the wind, the fire seemed almost too hot to bear. “But it must have been very quick. They didn't respond—they didn't try to defend themselves. There was no time.”

  Was that the truth? Or did the woman before him know better than he ever could what had taken place in that snug kitchen with the snow piling against the house and the wind whipping it down the chimneys and into drifts against the barn?

  “Did you love Gerald Elcott?” he asked after a moment.

  Her face, wet with tears, stared across at him. “Did Paul tell you that?”

  “He suggested it was possible.”

  “Gerald was my sister's husband. What good would it do me to shoot him? And if I murdered his family, how do you think he would have loved me, knowing what I'd done?”

  “Revenge?”

  She laughed shakily. “Revenge makes a cold bed partner, Inspector Rutledge. If I'd loved him, I'd have found a better way to rid myself of Grace and then come rushing to help Gerald cope. Josh and Hazel were fond of me. I'd have made a place for myself in that house in no time at all! And it's a short step, don't you see, from housekeeper to wife, when a man needs someone to right his world. Paul was the only one who had a reason to kill the twins. For me, those babies would have been a stepping-stone. . . .”

  But Hamish was pointing out that she hadn't directly answered Rutledge's question.

  Yet in a way, hadn't she? It would be easier to lay her sister's death at Janet Ashton's door, than all five murders. And a good barrister could make that part of her defense. But twice Gerald had chosen Grace instead of her sister. Was that why Grace had been the last in that kitchen to die? To see what she had brought down on her family by not stepping aside and doing her duty to Robinson?

  Young Hazel and Josh had kept their proper father's name. If Grace hadn't remarried Gerald and instead had returned to Robinson, the twins would not have borne Elcott's name. By law they would have been Robinson's. Or been branded illegitimate, if he'd refused to accept them. Had that been in her mind when she stayed with Gerald? To give him heirs to High Fell, and the children she was carrying a rightful place in their proper world?

  What had motivated Grace Robinson Elcott? But there was no way of guessing what had passed through her mind. Or how much she'd known about her sister and Gerald Elcott. . . .

  All the same, as Hamish was saying in the reaches of his mind, whatever happened at the farm, Grace Elcott was the pivotal factor.

  She had taken the man her sister loved. By bearing the twins, she'd deprived Paul Elcott of his hopes of inheriting High Fell. And she had been given the chance of returning to the father of her older children, and refused it.

  Which brought Rutledge back to motive. Greed. Jealousy. Revenge. The land—the lover—the wife . . .

  Given the savagery of the attack, he would have added one other motive: Fear.

  Yet who had been afraid of the Elcotts? What did they know that could have threatened anyone?

  Rutledge roused Greeley from a sound sleep, much to the annoyance of his wife. “But he's hardly closed his eyes! Can't you let him have a little peace?”

  She was a tall woman, her face angular and her features well defined. Dressed in black, with a white collar at the throat, she reminded Rutledge of a strict schoolmistress.

  “Then you'd better come this way,” she said with a sigh when he insisted. “I won't have him up and dressing again.” She led her unwanted guest up a flight of stairs to the third door along a carpeted passage.

  “I'm sorry to intrude on your sleep,” he told the haggard man in the
rumpled bed. “I need to find someone who can take me out on the fells. If I can't manage on my own, I'm capable of following a man who knows what he's doing. Give me a name, or send me someone.”

  “Good God, man, you must be mad. All right then, give me an hour—”

  Sooner than that, a rough-looking, bearded man appeared at the kitchen door of the hotel and asked for Rutledge.

  Elizabeth Fraser said, “Hallo, Drew. What brings you out at this hour?”

  “I'm to take the policeman walking.” His voice was gruff.

  “Indeed?” she replied, surprised. “I think he's in his room. Come in!” She smiled and maneuvered her chair out of Drew's way. “Can I get you something?”

  He stepped into the kitchen and looked around him, ill at ease. His fleece-lined leather coat was buckled around him by a stout belt, and his heavy-soled boots were crusted with snow. “I'll have some of that tea, if you don't mind!”

  She was pouring his cup when Rutledge came through the door. “Ah,” Elizabeth said, looking up at him. “I expect this man is the guide you've been waiting for. Drew, Inspector Rutledge, from Scotland Yard.”

  Drew nodded and drank his tea noisily. Rutledge said, “I'm used to the fells—but not in winter. I've got warm clothes with me, and boots. Gloves. A torch. A flask for tea. Is there anything else I need?”

  “A better hat,” Drew answered without looking up. “Your ears will be dam—be cold.”

  “You can borrow one of Harry's,” Elizabeth put in quickly. “I'll just go and fetch it!”

  She wheeled herself out of the door Rutledge held open for her. Behind her, Drew was saying, “Mind, I'll know best when it's time to turn back.”

  “Yes, that's fair enough.” Rutledge nodded. “I've got that map,” he said, gesturing to where it lay folded and to hand on the sideboard. “And I've learned what it can tell me. But there's more to land than flat markings on paper. I need to see the valley from a vantage point where I can understand all the difficulties faced by the search parties. And the boy.”

  Drew grunted in acknowledgment. “There's one place best for that.”

  Hamish commented, “The hills here breed silence into a man. It was the same in the glen. Words counted.”

  Rutledge nearly answered him aloud, and caught himself in time. If he can take me where I want to go, that's all that matters.

  They set out without another word. Drew walked with long, tireless strides, neither hurrying nor wasting time. The sun's rays angled over the mountains, sending stray fingers down to illuminate the far end of the lake, but it was not a strong light, this close to the solstice. It gave the dale an almost ethereal air, as if it might disappear before anyone could really grasp it. The snow, where it was undisturbed, looked as smooth as glass, and the deeper end of Urskwater was a blue-black. Here and there outcroppings had begun to poke their heads up through the crust of white.

  “A sheep man, are you?” Rutledge asked, after a quarter of an hour.

  “All my life.”

  “Why weren't you out with the searchers?”

  “I've been and come.”

  They were well outside the village now, climbing the shoulder of the fell, angling a little west. Hamish, his mind on Scotland, began a long soliloquy comparing the fells with the Highlands, the difference in the colors of the soil, the shape of the rocks, the sense of isolation. It was a background accompaniment to the crunch of boots on snow and rock, and the breathing of the silent men.

  After another hour or more, they had reached a point where they could see much of Urskdale. Above them, on the skyline, a rounded topknot perched almost nonchalantly, a stone afterthought. The Knob, which Mrs. Cummins had pointed out to Rutledge from the kitchen of the hotel. Below, Urskwater wound between the fells in a stretched S, and the valley seemed to widen at both ends, narrowing only a little at the middle. The village was nearer the top end of the lake, and The Claws projected in a great broken ledge far above where the road began to bend to reach the other side of the water. It was from there, that ledge, Rutledge found himself thinking, that the best view could be had. But the approach was rough, more of a climb than a walk.

  At the far end, where the valley was closed, another peak rose, swelling gently and then showing a precipitous wall of scree where no snow clung.

  It was easier to breathe here, on the slopes, where he could look down as well as above his head. As if he'd reached an unexpected equality with the land. His claustrophobia began, a little, to recede.

  Drew was pointing. “There's the Elcott farm—the barn's just visible. No, to the left of that boulder shaped like a chimney . . .”

  “Yes, I see it now.”

  “Look how it's situated. If you were the boy, which way would you go?”

  Rutledge considered the setting. “It's impossible to say. There's nothing to stop him until he's well up the shoulder in any direction.”

  “Look at the sheep pens, high up on the slopes. You can see some of them. There— Over there— And there— To the left of the last one, some three hundred yards lower, is the ruin of the old Satterthwaite farm. And over to your right, near the top of that saddle, is a small stone hut built for walkers to take shelter in bad weather.” Drew looked around him. “In the spring, there are wildflowers everywhere. Tiny things, that cling to the rock like the sheep.”

  He went on, identifying the landmarks, laconically naming the farms one by one. Specks of civilization in a wilderness of rock. Lanes, their snow cover already broken and dirty, wound with the land, sometimes disappearing into the distance without a sign of life.

  It was a vast area, this valley and its mountains. Most of it impossible to cover well on foot. Rutledge, whose sight was very good, peered into the hazy sunlight, trying to identify what Drew could pick out so easily. Sometimes only a sharp-edged shadow betrayed a man-made structure. The dirty-white bodies of sheep, now finding grazing where they could break through the snow, were all but invisible, although Drew recognized them without trouble. Only when the animals moved could Rutledge see them. A needle in a haystack, indeed. . . .

  “There're tracks and footpaths everywhere. If the Robinson lad found one, he could go some distance, depending on the depth of the snow. They twist and branch. Some of them have names, some don't. Some of them lead to the pens, some go nowhere in particular. He'd have to be lucky.”

  “We must assume,” Rutledge replied, “that the killer came up the lane. Blocking the way back to Urskdale. And so the boy would have gone in another direction. The question is, did Josh try to circle around in the hope of reaching the village? If he chose the high peaks instead, why did he believe he was safer there? Because he couldn't be followed there? Or was he not thinking at all, just fleeing blindly?”

  Surely Janet Ashton couldn't have followed him out into the snow, if she had murdered her sister and the children. She was more likely to find herself lost than the boy, and even his rudimentary knowledge of the slopes would put him at an advantage.

  On the other hand, Paul Elcott had lived here all his life. It wouldn't matter which direction Josh Robinson took; the older man would be able to outwit him.

  It always came back to one central problem. They'd have to find the boy before they could know the whole story.

  Rutledge scanned the land again, thinking about the boy. That night it was stormy, the air filled with snow, the ground possibly already invisible—

  “That farm there—what did you call it?” he asked Drew.

  “Apple Tree Farm. We'd asked there, and looked at all the pens.”

  “And on the shoulder of the hill—which one is that?”

  “It's called South Farm. Nothing.”

  After a moment Drew went on. “Can you see the sheepfold well beyond the farm, on the rising land of what we call The Bones?”

  “Where?”

  “To the south, now, at an angle to the Elcott barn.”

  “Yes, now I see it.”

  “That's where Elcott kept his sheep
in winter storms. Just under Scoat Ledge. We went over that bit with care, walking an arm's length from each other. If the lad went south, we never found any sign of him.”

  “Where were Elcott's sheep?”

  “Either Elcott or the old bellwether took most of the flock to the safety of the pen. Some few are scattered about the ground, taking shelter where they could. But there might not have been time to find them all. That's not unusual. It'll take days to collect them again, but they know, the sheep, how to find the flock for themselves. They aren't stupid, whatever people say.”

  How easy it would be, Rutledge realized, for the boy to burrow into the snow next to a ewe. One more white lump among so many scattered across the landscape.

  But if that had saved Josh on that terrifying Sunday night, what had become of him when the danger had passed? Why hadn't he made his way the next morning to the police or to someone he trusted? What had made him so terrified of going for help?

  “Tell me about the sheep,” he said as he followed his guide higher, his breath coming hard as he climbed in the cold air. If the animals could survive, it might be a lesson well worth learning.

  “What's there to tell?” Drew was barely winded. “They lamb in late April or early May, when the grass in the low pastures is greener and someone can keep an eye on them. Shearing is in July. The cur-dog—that's a cross between collie and sheepdog—helps bring them in and take them out.”

  “The sheep runs—are they close by each farm, fell land connected by sight and footpaths to the yard? Where a boy, even a city child, could come to know them well?”

  The older man chuckled. “The fell that goes with a farm is where time and custom set it. I walk three miles to the start of mine. Elcott's runs behind the house and then skips to the saddle over there. A drift road runs between.”

  Had the boy found the drift road?