A Cold Treachery

by Charles Todd

  The storm had once covered every footprint. But even in this light he could squat on his heels and see fresh tracks. The hobnails of Drew Taylor's boots. The worn pattern of Cummins's Wellingtons. His own shoes. Miss Ashton's smaller soles. Beyond them the prints made by the search parties climbing the fell.

  If the snowfall had been lighter, Greeley might have caught his man simply by tracking him. Case closed.

  Rutledge turned to the house and his hand was already on the latch to the yard door.

  Hamish was saying something, and he stopped to listen, but under the voice was something else. A memory.

  He tried to bring it back. And lost it in Hamish's last words.

  “Ye've got til teatime tomorrow. Ye canna' afford to sleep.”

  Rutledge lay awake another hour, reviewing all he'd seen and done here in Urskdale, raking through his actions and his unconscious observations.

  By four in the morning he had drifted into an uneasy sleep, drained by his failure.

  And when dreams came, they were mixed and morbid, as if in punishment.

  He could see the boy running, dragging his feet, and the Elcotts lying dead in the snow, scattered like soldiers after an attack, limbs bent and bodies trampled by sheep. Overhead an artillery barrage lighted the sky, and he could hear Hamish calling the boy's name, pointing to the mud where Rutledge could see his footprints clearly in bloody snow.

  The artillery barrage was louder, the shells exploding in his face, and he came out of deep sleep with a start, his heart pounding in time with the pounding on his door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  When Rutledge opened his door, the thin, balding man standing there rocked back on his heels and said in a high, clear tenor, “It was the very devil of a journey, and I'm going to my bed. You've been relieved.”

  It was Mickelson. Behind his back his men called him Cassius, for his lean and hungry look. The name fit, for he was notorious for his ingratiating manner towards his superiors while behind their backs he ruthlessly promoted himself. A greengrocer's son, he had climbed high and expected to go higher.

  Rutledge was left standing there while Mickelson strode to the door of the room Harry Cummins had assigned him.

  Cummins cast an apologetic glance in Rutledge's direction as he asked his latest guest if all was to his liking.

  Rutledge shut his door again and stood there. He felt empty. He had fought for six months—seven—to rebuild his career. And it had come down to this.

  Hamish said, “You canna' be certain he'll do any better.”

  But that didn't take away the stigma of being relieved. Of being seen as failing in his duty. Bowles would take pleasure in seeing that word got around, and he would never let Rutledge live it down.

  “He's no' so clever. Only ambitious . . .” Hamish pointed out softly.

  Rutledge took a deep breath. For his own sake, he must somehow find the answer that had eluded him from the start—that had eluded all of them. For his own self-respect.

  Standing there, he remembered his dream. There had been something. He tried to recapture the swiftly fading memory of it. Artillery, and bloody snow. But the artillery had just been Mickelson pounding on his door, regardless of his sleeping neighbors.

  And then he had it. Not the blood, not the dead lying about. What he had seen were the boy's footprints in the snow.

  For he had seen them, those same dragging prints. In life. Not a child fleeing in terror, but a child shuffling in shoes too large. His heels leaving not a crisp mark like a man's but a blurred smudge.

  Rutledge went back to his bed and slept for two more hours. After packing his belongings, he made his way quietly to the kitchen, where Elizabeth Fraser had already put the kettle on to boil.

  “Will you help me?” he asked her. “Nothing quite as dangerous as putting your head into the lion's mouth, but all the same—”

  “Yes, of course. I heard that Inspector Mickelson is here. Is it a message for him?”

  “No. For Inspector Greeley. I asked him last night to let Paul Elcott go home. Would you tell him for me that I've left for London, and as you were cleaning my room, you found a shirt that I'd forgotten. That you'd like to send it on to me.”

  She stared at him. “But where will you be?”

  “Don't ask me to tell you. But, as a favor, let Inspector Mickelson sleep as long as he can.”

  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.

  Rutledge 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.

  Maggie 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.

&nbs
p; 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.

  When 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.

  Rutledge 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?

  By 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

  What 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.