A Fatal Lie

by Charles Todd

  Steve Fuller shook his head. “Just an odd bit of white cloth over Joseph’s pillow. No idea where that came from. Half a circle, just lying there.”

  Afterward, Walsh showed Rutledge the scrap.

  He fingered it, looking at the half-moon. A white scallop. And he’d swear that it would have matched the scalloped hem of Betty Turnbull’s handmade coverlet.

  “I’d like to keep this, if I could,” he told Walsh.

  The Inspector said, “It doesn’t match anything in the shambles he called home. Still. To do this properly, you’ll give me a receipt.”

  Rutledge dashed off one on the pad lying on Walsh’s desk. “I don’t think he killed his brother,” he said as he handed the sheet to the man in front of him.

  “I doubt he did it myself. Still, he told me he was always half-afraid his brother would do for him. And that’s motive too. To have it over and done with, and Burton the one dead. Doctor found bruising on the back of his neck, where his head had been held underwater. Even if Fuller had tried to kill Burton, I don’t see him finishing it, once the victim began to struggle. But that’s for the inquest to decide.”

  “Any strangers about? Someone unaccounted for?”

  Walsh shook his head. “No strangers about that I’ve been able to discover. There was a woman here the night before Burton was killed. Or so one of the women living close by the basin claimed. Glimpsed her in a window on one of the narrowboats, she said. But the boatmen swear there was only cargo aboard, headed south.”

  “Any truth to that?”

  Walsh said, “Who knows? I wondered if she was trying to protect Steve Fuller, muddying the waters, so to speak. Mary Jones is a cousin on Fuller’s mother’s side.” He frowned. “People come and go all the time, there at the Aqueduct. Mostly on the narrowboats, but on foot as well. And it’s damned dark up there at night. Nobody saw anything when Burton was killed. That could be true—or not. Still, no one has come forward.”

  “At the inquest, will you ask that Fuller be bound over for trial?”

  “There’s not much choice in the matter, is there?”

  Rutledge went back to the Aqueduct, and with the help of the very reluctant shopkeeper, he found Mary Jones.

  She was more respectable than he’d thought, from Walsh’s description. She was tall and slender, on the edge of pretty, with dark hair and a look in her dark gray eyes that he’d seen many times before, the speculative look of a woman who sees any man as a chance to better herself. But she held herself well, and faced him squarely, once he’d identified himself as a policeman.

  When he asked about the woman she claimed to have glimpsed, she lifted her chin. “I’m no liar,” she told him flatly. “I saw her face at that window. She lifted the lace curtain, like, and looked out. But there were people about, and she was gone in a flash. That’s what I saw. Like it or leave it.”

  “Which boat?”

  “That I can’t tell you. I wasn’t paying attention until I saw her face. One of the black ones, maybe.”

  “Did you see this woman again?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone see your cousin kill his half brother?”

  “Steve was afraid of Joseph. But I can’t see him trying to kill him. He’s not got the nerve.”

  “Do you think Joseph ever killed anyone?”

  She considered her answer for a moment. “If he ever did, he’d make certain not to be caught.”

  Thanking her, Rutledge spent another hour finding the owners of the narrowboats. But to a man they swore they hadn’t brought a woman with them on board.

  Rutledge had a feeling that the man in one of the red boats was lying, boldly facing his wife down as she listened to the question. “Whoever said she was on my boat,” he declared, “is either drunk or malicious.”

  “It was another woman who saw her,” Rutledge informed him. “Why would she lie?”

  “Stirring up trouble, at a guess.” He grinned down at his wife. “She’d have my head—or worse—if she caught me bringing another woman here.”

  “You’re chasing a wraith,” Hamish told him as Rutledge walked away. “If she was here at all, she’s no’ here now. D’ye truly think she’s the murderer?”

  He had no answer to that.

  In the end, he drove back to Oswestry in the dark, and in his hotel room looked again at the small white half circle he’d brought with him.

  Before going to bed, he went back to the Turnbull house in the night, and with his torch shielded, matched the small bit of cloth to the coverlet.

  Except for the edges, which would have been sewn under with tiny, almost invisible stitches to hold it in place, like all the others in the pretty little pattern, the half circle was a perfect fit. Type of cloth, quality and thickness, shade. It was all there.

  Looking around, Rutledge found a scrap box in the front room, next to what must have been Betty Turnbull’s favorite chair. It was wood, well used, and had her initials carved into the dark top. When he knelt beside it and opened it, he found half a dozen more such bits of cloth inside. And purple and lavender as well as other colors.

  He hadn’t seen it earlier—he’d left the downstairs to the local police. But the killer, searching for something, had discovered it, and on a whim, taken at least one bit from it. And then, on another whim—or on purpose—he or she had left it on a dead man’s pillow up at the Aqueduct.

  Rutledge emptied the box, then returned the contents as tidy as they had been when he’d lifted the top.

  The killer, he thought, knew he was being hunted.

  Betty would surely have told him about the policeman from London . . .

  And now he, Rutledge, was being played with.

  9

  Rutledge was tired, late as it was, but he sat at the small table in his room that served as a desk and added what he’d learned at the Aqueduct to his notebook. Staring at what he’d written, he was all too aware of what he was facing now.

  Milford’s killer had dealt with the two people he had been forced to use to bring the former Bantam to him. He’d left them alive as long as no one found or questioned them.

  Once Rutledge had spoken to Betty Turnbull, her fate had been sealed, and Burton’s as well. They had to die, because they had somehow communicated with the killer. And knew enough about him—or her—to be a danger.

  He took out the scrap of cloth again and moved it about in his fingers, thinking how much easier policework would be if bits of evidence could speak.

  What could this one tell him? He lifted it and smelled it. No scent on it. Just the dry odor of clean cloth. Nothing that might have been Macassar oil or French perfume to point to a man or a woman. No cigarette smoke lingering in the tiny pattern of squares that had been produced by a weaving machine as the cotton was made into a running bolt of cloth.

  Nothing at all, in fact.

  He put it away again, left his notebook on the table beside his fountain pen, and undressed for bed.

  Tomorrow was another day—but he had no new leads to follow.

  Only what a canny woman had hidden in her precious sewing machine.

  The morning dawned gray, heavy clouds rolling in from the west, sweeping over the Welsh mountains and sliding down into Oswestry and other border towns.

  These Marches, the towns that kept guard on the border between England and Wales, had seen a great deal of fighting over the centuries. The Welsh had been hard to tame, and Welshmen like Llewellyn and Glendower had kept the English on their toes.

  He remembered tales he’d been told once in South Wales, how the Welsh had watched their English invaders build an impregnable ring of castles to contain their warring neighbor. And when a castle was finished, the Welshmen had swarmed down out of the mountains and taken it over, turning the tables on their invaders.

  He was thinking about that at breakfast when Inspector Preston came to the door of the dining room, hesitated a moment, and then crossed to his table.

  “Good morning,” he said bri
skly, helping himself to a chair. “Rumor whispered that you were back in Oswestry.”

  “So I am,” Rutledge said, and waited.

  “What are you after?”

  “Information, mostly. Any news to pass on about the late Mrs. Turnbull?”

  Preston stretched his legs and sighed. “To be honest? No. Nothing. As one of my Constables told me this morning, it was as if she had tidily killed herself, leaving nothing to disturb my inquiry. Even replacing that pillow over her face, once it was done, to prevent my men from being unsettled when they came into her room.”

  “Your Constable might well be right,” Rutledge agreed.

  “And you, in your wanderings. What did you find out?”

  “I went to Trefor. And the Aqueduct. It appears that the person who might well have pushed Sam Milford over the edge of the horse walk was himself found dead just before I got there. Apparent drowning, until the doctor found bruising on the back of the victim’s neck, where he’d been held down. No proof, you understand, that Burton was the killer. Still, he was one of the last people seen with Milford, and he’s a known troublemaker, always in need of money. If offered enough, he could well have turned to murder. Inspector Walsh had taken the dead man’s half brother into custody. But I can almost promise you he had nothing to do with it. A motive, yes—he admitted to that. It’s my view that Joseph Burton was killed by the same person who smothered Betty Turnbull in her bed. It’s likely that both victims could have identified him—or at least pointed us in the right direction, if we’d known what to ask them.”

  “And so you’ve left me and this Inspector Walsh a body each, and nowhere to turn for answers. Not very kind of you, is it?”

  “I’d like very much to have those answers for my own inquiry.”

  Preston studied him. “You’re an odd bird.”

  “How so?” He finished his tea and pushed the cup away.

  “There’s something you haven’t told me. About this business.”

  “What makes you think that?” Rutledge parried.

  “I don’t know. There was Mrs. Turnbull lying on her bed, and you went haring off to Wales, pursuing Milford while you had a warmer body to hand. What took you there?”

  “The way Milford died.”

  “And what was he doing there?”

  “Ah, now that’s the mystery, my friend. I don’t know. I wish I did.” He looked around the room, but there was no one close enough to overhear. “A year ago, the Milfords lost a child.”

  “That’s a sad business.” Preston nodded. “Turned his mind, did it?”

  “It’s still possible she’s not dead,” Rutledge replied. “You assumed she was, as I had done. But no, she was taken by a stranger. As far as we know. Neither she nor her body has been found. I’m convinced that Milford was searching for her. Or her captor. Both, I should think. He talked to people, and either he was led to the Aqueduct on purpose, to put him where he could more easily be killed—or he discovered something that took him there.”

  “You’re saying that he might never have traced his daughter after all. That he was killed to stop him from getting too close with his search.”

  “Sadly, that could be the case.” He rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept well the previous night.

  “Poor sod.” Preston moved the place settings about in front of him. “You think the child is dead. That she served her purpose, and was dispatched.”

  “Or she’s out there somewhere, and if Milford can’t find her, I must. Either way, dead or alive. Because if I find her, it’s possible I will also find her father’s killer.”

  But Sam Milford hadn’t been her father . . .

  Preston rose. “I don’t envy you. But I have nothing to give you. Not a shred of evidence that would lead me to my victim’s killer.”

  “There’s the old hill fort on the edge of the city. Any recent bodies found out there that might have a bearing on what I’m doing?” It was an outside chance. He’d had his fill of prehistoric ruins on the Marlborough plain in Wiltshire, he didn’t relish searching another one. Still, he couldn’t ignore it.

  Preston shook his head. “Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a warning. Popular in summer with lads stealing cigarettes and giving them a try.”

  He was about to turn away.

  Rutledge stopped him. “By the way. Do you know anyone called Alyssa?”

  “Alyssa? That’s an old name, I think? Something my grandmother might have been called instead of Alice. You might ask a Rector or sexton about that. Or search the churchyards yourself.” His gaze sharpened speculatively at Rutledge. “Is that the child’s name?”

  “She was—is—called Matilda. No, Alyssa is a name I recently came across. I don’t know that it has any significance at all.”

  “I’ve spoken to Mrs. Turnbull’s family, hoping to find something I could use. Not an Alyssa among them. But our agreement stands, I think. We share what we find. However tentative it might be.”

  “Yes.” But Rutledge said nothing about the scallop in his notebook as Preston nodded curtly and walked away.

  He was climbing the stairs to his room when something Preston had said stopped him halfway.

  Search the old churchyards . . .

  It had been more a taunt than a suggestion. But it was worth considering. If nothing else, one of the old stones might yield a surname. And the gravestones wouldn’t hurry back to Preston bearing tales of what the London man was searching for . . .

  He took the remaining steps two at a time and fetched his coat, hat, and gloves from his room.

  Rutledge began with St. Oswald’s. A handsome church surrounded by its churchyard, down a street of shops and houses. While the grass under his feet was wet, the day had brightened and warmed considerably, toying with spring. As he quartered the ground, trying to read the headstones and the table tomb inscriptions, many of them dark with age and lichen invasions, he began to think he was wasting his time. There were nearly as many Welsh names here, he realized, as English, a reflection of the town’s troubled past—invaded and conquered, borders shifting with each newcomer, half destroyed by war and fire and finally, Cromwell’s depredations. Oswestry seemed to have lost its sense of self and was still trying to make the best of it. So unlike Shrewsbury, with its great Abbey and castle, or Ludlow, with its half-timbered houses settled below the castle’s ridge.

  In some of the grave rectangles, daffodil tips were beginning to push up through the wet earth. Tiny, green, and fragile. He walked carefully, making a point not to step on any of them.

  He’d nearly given up when he saw a smaller headstone half-hidden behind two large table tombs to a Davies, père et fils.

  Too small to matter, he told himself, but he squatted on the damp ground, careful of the edges of his coat, and looked at what was written there. But it was nearly undecipherable. He took off his gloves and with his fingernail, scraped at the shallow letters until some semblance of shape began to appear.

  beloved

  He kept working.

  wife and mother

  departed this life 2 april, 1861

  He had to pull a handful of grass away to see what followed.

  And there it was.

  alyssa bed—

  The rest of the name—just as on the square of paper he’d found in Betty Turnbull’s sewing machine—was impossible to read.

  He felt a sense of elation, standing up, his cramped legs complaining, and dusting his hands before pulling his gloves over his cold fingers once more.

  But what did this grave mean? What had it to do with the murder of three people, and the disappearance of Tildy Milford?

  Hamish didn’t speak. And he himself was at a loss.

  He squatted once more, giving the sunken headstone and grave all his attention. And then, finally, he saw it, a darker line that wasn’t grass or earth.

  Taking a deep breath, he pulled off his gloves again, but he had to dig his nails in to bring any force to bear on whatever it was. And then, up
it popped, as if he’d stumbled on the right way to wriggle it out.

  It was a packet made of oiled cloth.

  He opened it to find a slim leather case of the kind that would fit in a man’s pocket, in which he might carry four cigars for later use. Brown, supple, of good quality leather properly dressed.

  Why would anyone leave a relatively new cigar case in the grave of a woman dead for sixty years?

  He lifted the top, but the leather case was empty.

  Was this how Betty Turnbull and whoever was hunting Sam Milford communicated? He could leave money in here—or instructions. She could leave answers and information. It was safe enough, surely.

  Whoever had put the case here had had to improvise. There had been no time to set up a better system. One could buy such a case and the oiled cloth anywhere.

  Rising to his feet again, he could see that he was now visible from the street beyond the churchyard wall. Had Betty stood in a shop window across the way, her curiosity getting the better of her, and watched to see who came to Alyssa’s grave?

  Was that why she had to die?

  But how had this person contacted her in the beginning? A sheet of paper slipped under the door in the middle of the night? Aware that she had just taken in a lodger and therefore might be interested in other ways to make money? It was not a very efficient method, but then finding a trustworthy collaborator was never easy, and there would still be uncertainty, suspicion. It was the nature of conspiracy.

  He was still holding the cigar case. Turning it over, he looked for initials. But there were none. Whoever had left this hidden wouldn’t have been so careless as to have left a case with a crest or initials or a firm’s symbol embossed on it.

  Looking down at it, he frowned.

  Was this the first personal clue to the identity of a killer? The brand of cigar he sometimes smoked? The case he carried them in? Or a woman’s father might have smoked . . .

  It was not a cheap brand. Edwardian. Grenadiers, he thought, judging the case.

  Still frowning, he sniffed the interior. He’d been right. Good tobacco scent still lingered in the leather. Cuban, possibly. He had friends who smoked them.