by Charles Todd
Ten days later, at the end of June, a letter came from the home where Dougal had been cared for as a child.
“He is a most unusual boy,” the letter said. “A busy and loving child. But there was something about him that frightened me then and still frightens me now. He was a firestarter, you see. He loved to watch things burn. We were quite concerned about that and were secretly glad when he ran away after the barn burned down with all of our horses inside. We tried to trace him, without any luck. Will you be sending him back to us? He’s only fourteen, you see, and shouldn’t be in the army at all. I’ve written to the colonel to ask if we could have him back again. But I wish there was somewhere else he could go. I’m so sorry to say that of a child. It means I’ve failed the boy. But the truth is, I’m more than a little afraid of him….”
After some thought, Rutledge showed the letter to Hamish. He read it through and then said, “Puir lad. He was a guid soldier. But he liked to kill more than was natural. She’ll be relieved, this matron, to know he’s no’ coming back after all.”
Case closed, Rutledge found himself thinking, his policeman’s mind persuading him that there was nothing more that he could do, or should do. He would let the dead sleep in peace.
But in his mind’s eye he could see Dougal’s wide grin and cheerful face even now. Odd, he thought, how his carefree spirit had so brightly concealed what lay inside—a gradually uncoiling darkness that was just beginning to find expression along the sights of a rifle barrel.
At some point between his birth and his death, Dougal Kerr seemed to have lost something he was unable to retrieve. Perhaps his soul…
About the Author
Charles Todd is a pen named used by the mother-and-son writing team, Caroline and Charles Todd. They are best known for a series of novels set in post–World War I England following the cases of Inspector Ian Rutledge of the Scotland Yard. They are also the authors of a series featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse serving in France during World War I. Caroline and Charles Todd live in North Carolina and Delaware, respectively.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
A Guid Soldier
About the Author
Mulholland Books and Strand Magazine e-shorts
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2006 by Charles Todd
Used by permission of the author
Cover design by Keith Hayes
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: September 2016
Originally published in The Strand Magazine, 2006
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ISBN 978-0-316-36124-8
E3-20160729-JV-NF