A matter of Justice ir-11

by Charles Todd

  The little girl wasn't on her hip today, and she glanced over her shoulder as she opened the door, as if to be sure there was no one about.

  "Do come in," she said softly, and as soon as they were shut into the little parlor, she went on. "How is she? I was that worried-she was in such a state when I opened the door. God alone knows she took an awful risk, all alone on those roads! I knew she was unhappy…"

  Her voice trailed off.

  "She's sleeping. It's what she needs. But she won't go back to Cardiff. You do see that, don't you? The next time she may not be as lucky."

  "Well, she won't have to now, will she-" And she broke off, her hand to her mouth, as if to stop the words, but it was too late.

  "With Quarles dead?"

  "He was an awful man. I can't wish him alive again. And I want my girl home to stay. Her gran's getting on. She wasn't always such a terror. But what choice was there, I ask you! "

  Her eyes were pleading with him to tell her that everything would be all right, that this nightmare would resolve itself without trouble for anyone she loved. But he couldn't, and after a moment, she looked away, sadness pulling her face down. "What are we to do about Gwyneth? She must come home. I want her here, not at a stranger's house."

  "Mrs. Jones, I must ask you again. Can you be absolutely certain that no one in the house told your husband about the letter from Wales?"

  "I don't see how anyone could have done. The post came when only the baby was here, and she wouldn't know. And I kept it safe in my apron pocket, where no one would look."

  But he could read the uncertainty in her face now. The fear that she hadn't done enough.

  "Would you have killed Harold Quarles to keep your daughter safe?" he asked bluntly. "I have to know."

  She looked at him then. "If it was to be Gwynnie or him, I'd choose Gwynnie. But what about the rest of them, what are they to do without me, if I'm gone? Besides, I've heard what was done to him. Much as I wanted him away from Gwynnie, I couldn't have brought myself to touch him…"

  On the whole, Rutledge thought that was true. She wasn't the sort of woman to take pleasure in her vengeance. It would be enough for the man to be dead, out of her daughter's troubled life.

  "I must go now and tell your husband. Will you do nothing until I've seen him?"

  "When he comes home tonight, what will he say? That's what frightens me. He'll know I kept secrets. As well, he'll be angry with me for keeping Gwynnie from him."

  "I can't promise you he won't be angry."

  "You think he's done this thing."

  "I don't know, Mrs. Jones. And that's the truth."

  "He could have pulled him up on that rig. He's done it before for the Christmas angel…"

  He was shocked that she would admit it. At first he wondered if she was trying to shield herself, the mother, the protector of her children. And then he realized that she was thinking aloud, that she had forgotten he was there in the agonizing drain of her own worry.

  He said good-bye, and she nodded absently, her mind so wrapped up in the question of whether the man she'd married and given six daughters to was capable of murder, that he wasn't sure she knew when he left.

  The walk to the bakery was silent. Hamish had finished what he wanted to say. But Rutledge's thoughts were heavy. If he took Jones into custody, who would keep the bakery open? Not his wife. And not the girl, despite her training up to fill his shoes. What would become of this family?

  It was the duty of a policeman to be objective. He'd told Padgett that. And yet sometimes it was impossible to ignore the different personal tragedies that murder brought in its wake. Few of those touched by violent death walked away unscathed.

  Hamish said, startling him, "There's yon widower, as well."

  "Brunswick. Yes, I know. If indeed he killed his wife, would that have satisfied his jealousy? Or did he bide his time and wait for the opportunity to stalk Quarles? Or-if he didn't kill his wife, if her death was a suicide-he might well kill Quarles and put him in that contraption, to have the final word. And Stephenson's case hinges on whether he scraped up the courage to act on behalf of his dead son."

  They were just passing Nemesis, the bookshop. Rutledge wondered if it would ever reopen. The CLOSED notice was still in the window. But then people were surprisingly resilient sometimes. The shop might be all the man knew to do, and the only haven from torment. Books were a great comfort, because they didn't stand in judgment. He would feel safe among them.

  The bakery was just ahead now, Jones bowing a well-dressed woman out, a white box in her hands and a smile on her face. Then he looked up the High Street and saw that Rutledge was coming his way. As the woman moved on, Jones stood there, and something in his posture told Rutledge that he knew-or guessed-what was coming. He straightened his apron, as if girding his loins for battle, and waited.

  When Rutledge reached him, Jones said, "Come inside, then."

  Rutledge followed him into the bakery. It was redolent with cinnamon and baked breads, swept clean, the shelves sparkling like diamonds in the sun coming in the windows. At present the shop was empty. It wasn't time for the tea trade to come.

  "Will you have something?" Jones said, to put off the inevitable. "Are you a man with a sweet tooth? "

  "Thank you, but it's important for us to talk before someone comes in."

  Jones nodded to two wrought-iron chairs, painted white and the seats covered with a rosebud-patterned fabric. It was where women could wait until their orders were ready. Incongruously now it served as a place of interrogation.

  As he sat down, Jones said, "I didn't kill the man. But you don't believe me." There was strength in his voice and certainty. "That's how it stands now."

  "But there are new extenuating circumstances to answer to, Mr. Jones."

  The Welshman was wary now, as if half afraid his wife had confessed. Or that Rutledge had discovered something Jones believed hidden too deep to be found.

  "Your daughter ran away from her grandmother's house-"

  "When?" His voice was taut with fear.

  "Several days ago."

  Jones surged from his chair and started for the door. "Close up behind me, I'm on my way to Wales. This business of Quarles can wait. There's my daughter to be thought of."

  "Wait-we know where she is."

  Jones stopped in his tracks. "What do you mean, you know?"

  "She's been found. She's safe."

  But the man was not satisfied. "I'll see her for myself. If that man talked her into anything rash, I'll go to the doctor's surgery and cut out his liver, dead or not, see if I don't!"

  There was such rough menace in his voice that Rutledge could believe he would do just that.

  "Sit down, man, and let me finish," he said curtly.

  Jones stood where he was by the door, grim and determined.

  "I said, sit down, Jones, or you'll learn nothing more." It was the voice of a man accustomed to being obeyed on a battlefield. Jones didn't move for an instant longer, then grudgingly came to sit down, his body so tense Rutledge could see the cords standing out in his neck.

  "She's safe. And she's had no dealings with Quarles. She's said as much, and I believe her. Homesickness made her run away, and a grandmother who berated her for being pretty."

  He growled, like an animal, deep in his throat. "She wrote she was unhappy, but I didn't want to believe her. I didn't want to see what the old woman was capable of. I wanted her safe, that's all."

  "Let go of your hate and think about your daughter. And what this means in terms of your own guilt."

  "My guilt?" There was something in his eyes that Rutledge couldn't read. But he could see that Jones's mind was moving swiftly and in a direction that was unexpected. Yet he said nothing, and sat where he was.

  "If you knew Gwyneth had run away, it would make the case for your killing Quarles strong enough to bring in a verdict against you. At least at the inquest. If you found out she'd left Wales and decided to make certain this time that
your daughter could remain in Somerset, the next logical step would be confronting Quarles. There would certainly be words between you, and if in his usual callous way he turned his back on you, it would surprise no one if you lost what was left of your temper and killed him. It's an explanation I'm bound to tell the inquest. But is it right-or wrong? I must make a decision, Jones, and you will have to give me the unvarnished truth in order to make it."

  Jones looked him in the eye. "How did you learn all this about my daughter running away? Who knew, to tell you?"

  "At the moment-"

  "It was my wife, wasn't it? It has to be. Did Gwynnie write her a letter? "

  Rutledge could answer that. "No."

  "Gwynnie's mother's been crying. I could see it when I came home at night. Redness that she said was from soap in her eyes or the baby's fist striking her while she was nursing. But it was a letter, wasn't it? From Gran, then, if not from Gwynnie."

  He had come to the truth in his own fashion. A man with a mind that was as sharp as the knives with which he cut the dough on his board, he had let himself be blinded by his love for his daughter. But now he was thinking clearly and about to protect his wife.

  Rutledge cut him short. "Your wife couldn't have put Quarles in that apparatus-"

  "Oh, yes, I heard about that. But I could have come along behind her and done it, couldn't I? To throw suspicion away from her. That's how it'll be seen. Well, I won't have it. I killed the accursed Harold Quarles, and I ran him up into the rafters like a rat on a string. And if you let me see my daughter one last time, I'll go with you to the station and sign my statement. I give you my word."

  "And what," Rutledge demanded, irritated, "will become of the bakery and your family? Had you forgotten?"

  Jones blinked, as if he'd been slapped in the face. "I've trained my girl, she can run it for us."

  "Damn it, man, she's still half a child. How is she going to manage? And at her age, what will this do to her, slaving the hours you do, even if your custom stays with you. Coming home at night tired and dispirited, with nothing to look forward to but another morning baking bread for people who stare at her and remember you were hanged."

  Jones took a deep breath.

  It was extraordinary, Rutledge thought, to watch two people trying to protect each other, out of sheer fright. And neither had the courage to ask the other for the truth.

  "No, don't tell me again that you're guilty. Go home and speak to your wife, man, and between the two of you, try to make sense. We don't need martyrs, we want to find a killer."

  Jones said staunchly, "I told you, I killed Harold Quarles."

  "And not a quarter of an hour ago, you were prepared to tell me you hadn't. Talk to your wife. Afterward I'll take you to Gwyneth. Your daughter shouldn't be there until you've come to grips with yourselves. In the interim, stay here and think about what you're asking of your wife and your daughter. Cambury has a long memory, Hugh Jones, and you'll find if you confess to murder, even the murder of someone as unpopular as Harold Quarles, there will be people who turn against you. It's how people are."

  He got up to leave. There was no fear of flight in this case, he thought, Jones wouldn't leave his family to face their nightmare alone.

  Jones called to him as Rutledge was reaching for the door. "She couldn't have done it. It's not in her nature to kill."

  But Rutledge thought he was trying to convince himself, not the man from London, as he spoke the words. Sometimes doubt was the deadliest of fears. It grew from nothing more than a niggling concern until it overwhelmed trust and shone a new light on small inconsistencies, white lies, honest mistakes, and human frailty. And as it distorted perspective, it could also distort the truth. Words taken out of context loomed terrifyingly large, and in the end, doubt could convince a loving husband or wife that their partner was capable of the unthinkable.

  Both Hugh Jones and his wife were in the throes of doubting, and they would never quite be the same again.

  Outside on the High Street, Rutledge swore. It hadn't gone well, this business with the baker. But it had been doomed from the start, because the girl had run away. Would Jones persist in his assertion that he'd killed Quarles? Or would his wife persuade him to let the police do their work unhindered.

  And in the meantime, what was he, Rutledge, to do if one of that family was a murderer?

  Padgett was just coming out of the station.

  "You look like a man who wished he hadn't seen a ghost," the inspector said in greeting.

  Rutledge was in no humor for the man's badgering. "I want to know what it is you held against Harold Quarles. And I want to hear it now. If not in the station, we can walk on the green."

  "I told you-"

  "I know what you told me, and I'm damned well running out of patience. What did Quarles do? Threaten to have you dismissed? It's the only reason I can think of, other than insulting your wife, for your refusal to give me the truth."

  "It's none of-"

  "-my business. But it is. This is your last chance. Talk to me, or I'll know the reason why."

  Padgett walked away, as if turning his back on Rutledge. Then he whirled around, his face twisted with fury. "I gave you my word I hadn't killed him."

  "Other people in Cambury are having to watch their most private affairs being aired in public. Why should you be different? Whether you killed him or not, I want to know what lay between the two of you. I want to make my own judgment call. I can tell you, if I'm recalled to London, you'll fare less well with the man who will take my place. At least you know you can rely on my discretion."

  "All right. Let's be done with it. You won't be satisfied until you know. There were two occasions when the bastard swore he was going to speak to the Chief Constable and have me dismissed. And he could do it. Rich and powerful as he was, he could do it. The Chief Constable doesn't like to be disturbed. That's why I called London myself, instead of going to him. Anything for peace, that's his belief."

  "What happened with Quarles?"

  "One such occasion was when Hunter was having trouble with him at the hotel. It was while Quarles was rusticating here. I stepped in and Quarles told me flat out that he would see the Chief Constable the next day. He did, and I was dragged on the carpet for upsetting an important man. Told to mind my manners and get along with my betters, and stop this nonsense."

  "That must have stung."

  "You have no idea," Padgett said trenchantly.

  "And the other occasion?"

  "It was shortly after Quarles moved into Hallowfields. I had to remind him that the two dogs he had at that time-not the spaniels, but two large brutes-couldn't be allowed to run free and attack the sheep of nearby farms. He told me they'd done no such thing. I replied that I had eyewitnesses and would pursue the matter. He told me he'd have the Chief Constable teach me my manners. And I was called to account. I referred the Chief Constable to the farmers who'd complained. And when he spoke to them, Quarles had paid them off without my knowledge. They denied losing a single sheep. But the dogs were penned at night after that, and I was left to look the fool."

  "Where are they now? The dogs?"

  "They were old, they died some time ago. They weren't eating the sheep, just chasing them and killing them, for sport. I never found out what price he'd paid the farmers, but they blandly lied on his behalf and left me hanging out to dry. Lazy he may be, but the Chief Constable has a long memory, you'll find. And that's why I couldn't have you going to him. It would be the last straw. I'd lose everything."

  It could, Hamish told Rutledge, explain the bark of the dog outside the tithe barn that attracted Padgett to investigate: a well-honed lie that had about it the sweet taste of vengeance.

  "You heard a dog the night Quarles was murdered."

  "So I did. You can't disprove it."

  "Nor do you seem to be able to prove it."

  Padgett said, "I've told you. Now the matter is closed. Do you hear me?"

  "You still haven't grasped th
e fact that by your own admission you're a suspect. Don't you see? Whether you like it or not, whether I wish to pursue it or not, you had a very good reason to kill that man. Don't expect favors from me. I will treat you as fairly as I do everyone else."

  "Is that why you've held information back from me? Do you really think I've killed Harold Quarles?" There was something in his eyes, a measuring look, that made Rutledge want to step back, away from Padgett.

  "It doesn't matter what I feel. I'll want to find your statement ready for me tomorrow morning. About finding the body. Whether I use it or not, I must ask for it. And whether you want to give it or not, personally and professionally, you have no choice."

  "Damn you." Padgett turned and went back into the police station, slamming the door behind him.

  Rutledge let out a long breath.

  But the question now was, how had Brunswick learned of Quarles's two attempts to have Padgett sacked? Had he been present, that night in the hotel dining room? And had someone-his wife?-told him about the earlier event? There must even have been talk in the village at the time, forgotten though it might be now.

  Hamish said, "Ye must ask yon clerk why he didna' tell ye that the inspector was present when there was trouble."

  That was easily dealt with. Rutledge crossed the street to the hotel and went in search of Hunter.

  The manager was working in his office behind Reception. He rose when Rutledge came through the door, wariness in every line.

  Rutledge greeted him and got to the point. "You didn't tell me, when you described the problem you had with Harold Quarles here in the hotel dining room, that you had called the police in."

  "Inspector Padgett was here that night, a diner. He and his wife were celebrating her birthday. He came to my assistance when Quarles turned nasty, and intervened."

  "Did you know that Quarles had spoken of this to the Chief Constable, in an effort to have Padgett dismissed from his post in the police?"

  Hunter's eyes slid away. "Yes. I heard later. It was talked about. I didn't wish to bring it up. It wasn't my place. If you want to know more, you should speak to Inspector Padgett."